Sub-Grappler Technology (ENT S2E21)

Here's to the finest crew in starving.

When it comes to my crew, you won't get any argument from me.

This is a parody.

Paramount owns the song.

Welcome to The Greatest Generation.

It's a Star Trek podcast by a couple of guys just a little bit embarrassed about having a Star Trek podcast.

I'm Adam Pranica.

I'm Ben Harrison.

I'm sleeping in the studio right now, Ben.

Oh boy, that bad, huh?

Can you guess why?

Uh

man.

Let me see.

I don't think you're the type who would step out.

Though I do often give that kind of energy.

Do you got sick, special lady?

Yeah, I mean, another back from a business trip, another great big illness.

God damn.

It's kind of like clockwork, man.

Yeah.

It's really too bad.

I have always marveled at the fact that our tours have never caught one of those for either of us.

Like, it seems like it should, given that I'm on the team.

Yeah, ain't that the truth.

What's wrong with Ben this time?

We should be canceling dates left and right.

Yeah, that's really a miracle.

Hey, is this our first episode back after the drive?

It is.

Imagine that.

Wow.

Hey, thanks to all 100% of you out there listening for becoming a member during the Max Fun Drive.

Big success.

100% of listeners became supporters.

That was the whole idea.

All we had to do was

make a vision board.

That's the key, right?

Isn't that what the book The Key is about?

You just think about it being a thing that's going to happen, and then all of a sudden you have 100% of your supporters supporting.

It's the key.

It's the secret.

It's the modus operandi.

You make a vision board.

You make a very stupid music video.

Step three, to be filled in later.

Step four, profit.

Sure.

Thanks to all the friends of DeSoto who stepped up this year, who step up every year, and making sure the show continues.

It's never a sure thing.

It really isn't.

Hey, I'm sorry your lady is not feeling good.

Do you like a little bit like the

sleeping in the studio, though?

Do you feel like you're on a camping trip or anything?

Well, fortunately, my wife doesn't listen to this show, so I'm free to say

my sleep tracking app would confirm that I sleep better in the studio for whatever reason.

And what's weird about that is like Ripley comes and sleeps out here with me so that it gives my wife the best possible chance of getting a good night's sleep in her own right.

Right.

As folks on the network are fond of saying, my wife also sleeps on her own in her own right or whatever.

Yeah, I sleep fine with Ripley.

And I would never tell my wife that because I cannot tell her that anything is better without her.

And I think that's not an unusual way of being when you're in a committed relationship.

I mean, you're also like taking on a huge amount of risk with Ripley, given all the tummy troubles she's been having lately.

So oh, she's, she's firmed it right up now, man.

Oh, that's great.

We're back in business.

Hey, yeah, we're we're dropping logs.

Easy to pick up logs, the best.

I'm really happy to hear that.

Uh, yeah, the other day, uh, speaking of dogs with tummy trouble, I uh I was out here working.

I think we just recorded two episodes together, and I was in uh here in my studio in a pair of slippers, which I don't like leaving the.

I don't love this foreshadowing.

Well, yeah, and I don't love leaving my house in slippers, but like I feel like, ah, I'm just like walking, I'll be outside for 10 feet and then I'm back inside.

I'm not like going to the grocery store in them or whatever.

Are these slippers with

a rubber sole or is this just like felt?

They have a rubber sole, fortunately, for what happened because I walked back through the theater building that my studio is in and almost ate shit, like almost did like ass over tea kettle head cracks on concrete floor, and nobody ever hears from me again, slip on

just a big slick of dog barf.

It was in the middle of the floor that I did not clock when I was walking back to go back to my house.

You know, a lot of folks who are dog owners will shop for floor treatments that obscure a previous mess or whatever.

I see you've gone with the dog vomit pattern to the rug

or the flooring.

Yeah, yeah, it was uh, it was brutal.

This was so much that I have one of those like janitor at a elementary school-size dustpans that you buy at the home center, probably a good like 18 inches on the front blade of that thing.

And I filled it up.

I am going to presume that the reason you own that is because you have a reason to own that, which is to say that this has happened before.

I got it for raking, because I always like, when I rake up like dried leaves and stuff, I never feel like I get enough to feel satisfied by just like holding a hand against the rake and like putting it in the green bin.

You get a choad dustpan, don't you, Ben?

I have a thick daddy dustpan.

You know, some would call it a choad.

I think that's,

you know, pejorative in a way that is unfortunate.

Size 54 waist, 10 inch legs, fucking junk.

Yeah, I think most people don't like the word choad

hurled at them as an epithet.

It's a thick king, let's just say.

And

yeah, this dog vomit that nearly claimed me, nearly ended the life of this Star Trek podcaster, went out in the dustpan.

Would you want that story out there if that's how you go out?

Let's figure this out right now.

Like, were you to go in an embarrassing way?

Yeah.

I'm happy to cover for you, but I want to know if you want me to cover for you.

Right.

Or if you just want me to say plainly what happened.

Because friends at DeSoto deserve that, especially the ones that support.

I think that there might be a behind the paywall explanation and a front-of-the-paywall explanation, you know.

Do you think the show pivots to a true possible crime show?

Like what really happened to Benjamin R.

Harrison?

It's sort of like the stairwell except for dog vomit.

But could it have been dog vomit or was it an owl?

Yeah.

I feel like that would be the way that you finally get this thing profitable.

Because on a scale of like, like, this isn't a David Carradine embarrassing way of going out, but it's...

in that direction on the number line.

Oh, I mean, I would definitely say that you slipped in dog vomit while masturbating.

I shouldn't shouldn't have said that up top that like that was going to be a part of the story.

That was kind of the only way he could get there.

Yeah, yeah.

If I didn't say it, people would assume it.

Right, right.

It's

not as funny as a banana peel,

but it's pretty funny.

Pretty funny.

Yeah,

go ahead and let people know.

It's a lot of funny and a lot of sad in just the right way you want them as the cause of your death.

I think for a Star Trek podcaster, that's the balance that you need to strike.

you know yeah yeah

i hope i go out funny

or boring but definitely not sad

you know yeah if i could choose is that the golden triangle of death

funny boring sad choose to

is that the triangle of sadness of death

you know it is slipping on vomits a big part of that you know it really is what a delight that film was

Well, you know, so some people confronted by the demons of their past in today's episode of Star Trek Enterprise, as well, Adam.

Yeah, some people making choices about their manner of death in this episode for sure.

Let's get into it, Ben.

It's a B-Dunks directed episode of Star Trek Enterprise Season 2, episode 21.

It's called The Breach.

Flox is introducing Hoshi to some of his critters, one of whom is a tribble, which is like, you know, having like a special, like a big cat as a pet in the state of California.

Very illegal in the Federation and many other places.

Yes, but...

If a big cat were also a feeder fish

that the owner then feeds to reptiles, which is what Dr.

Flox does in this scene.

I love the sequence of, Hoshi, check it out.

It's something you've never seen before, a triple.

And she's like, oh, a tribble?

And then he dumps it into the cage with the lizard to get eaten alive.

Yeah.

And Dr.

Flox is like, yes, that was a triple.

I was struck by a number of things in this scene.

One, no mention of Edward Larkin.

And the fact that the fecundity of the tribbles is something that was genetically engineered into them by a member of Starfleet.

But is that a timeline breaker?

Because

that takes place after Enterprise, right?

Or does it take place before?

It's got to take place after, right?

It takes place after.

Yeah.

Fuck.

Yeah.

So they were already very fecund and he made them fecunder?

Yeah, that's what he did.

And if you take all the fur off underneath, it's all meat.

Like a scallop.

Okay, the other thing I was struck by was

the beautiful homage to Jurassic Park that this scene was, because the way the plants in the cage rustle is exactly like the plants in the raptor pen when they lower that cow in there.

Yeah.

This is like the ship's chef.

We're never going to see what's in those greens in the cage.

Alejandro has prepared swordfish.

Chili and sea bass, I believe.

Yeah.

Shall we?

Is there a great big pile of these triples somewhere having already reproduced?

Like, self-replicating feeder fish sound like a great concept if you're someone who needs to feed a lizard.

It's a great concept.

And once you've got enough, do you put each one in a condom, just like whole tribble into condom to keep them from

getting out of control?

You know,

if you're in a prison, I bet a sock full of tribbles would make a great improvised weapon, right?

You get an inmate to hold down the head part and the foot part, and then you just whip that sock full of triples around at the midsection.

Right, yeah.

It's an unexplainable internal bleeding situation.

Yeah, and then you dump all the triples out of the sock.

They go off and go do their fucking, and

you're scat-free.

Right.

It's like stabbing someone with an icicle, you know?

Yeah.

Phlox is feeding the reptiles, and Hoshi is feeding him some information from the Denobulin Science Academy.

This is a classic soap opera look-to-theme right here, because whatever news this is that Dr.

Flox gets, we push in on his face, and it has turned.

It looks like a face we might not have ever seen Dr.

Flox make on this show.

Yeah.

Troubled.

Yeah.

Tribbles and trouble.

And they didn't even do the like the reverse of the denobulent smile is something I want to say, you know?

Yeah, you turn a denobulent smile upside down.

That's that's what I thought we'd get here.

Yeah.

No.

Instead, we just get a classic Diane Warden bop.

And when we come back, the ship is at warp.

Yeah, there you go.

Rob, see what you can do with that.

I can't make it deeper.

I'm doing it for the, for the the folks watching the stream.

Yeah.

Still pretty deep.

Yeah.

I look like,

is it Bunsen or Beaker?

It's Beaker.

Beaker, yeah.

Yeah.

He's got the mouth that flaps open from underneath.

Beaker's got permanent denobulin frown.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, if you were lab partners with Bunsen Honeydew, you would too.

Me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me.

Hey, here's a serious question.

Okay.

And I want you to take this as seriously as possible.

That's what I'm here for.

Is Beaker Bunsen's slave?

You think that they have chattel slavery in the Muppets universe?

Because

he's miserable.

He's screaming all the time.

He's getting lit on fire and covered in acid and all this.

Like, Bunsen Honeydew is a terrible scientist.

I think we can all agree on that.

If he could leave, wouldn't he?

Beaker doesn't.

Okay, this is gonna.

This will be the thing.

This is what I want, Ben.

This is the thing that will get me canceled ultimately.

Okay.

All right.

And I don't know.

Wendy might have to just edit it out because I think it's maybe too prejudicial to you being here in the room when I say this.

Beaker does not seem smart enough to be a scientist.

Oh my God, Ben.

You think slavery is okay as long as you're a Muppet?

Wow.

Wow.

That is not what I said.

I mean,

I just said the bleeped part out loud.

Nope, you mischaracterized what I said.

That's incredible.

In a couple of key ways.

So the ship is at warp, and we come in.

to a McLaughlin group

where we learn about some caverns on the surface of a planet.

and we learn that some denobulin scientists have been down in those caverns for six months and the science academy the folks that were trying to get in touch with phlox earlier lost contact with these scientists three weeks ago

normally losing three denobulins in the field would only be a problem for the other three denobulins that they are in a polyamorous relationship with but uh this is also

the sexual nature of this working arrangement a mystery throughout the episode yeah yeah but there's also kind of a xenophobic political uprising taking place on this planet and they are expelling all off-worlders

off-world

correct so the dadobulins gotta go and

maybe being dead deep underground doesn't matter.

The Enterprise needs to go get them.

Ben, when you were a video professional, I'm going to presume that you would occasionally write scripts for folks to read.

Yeah, time to time.

Was that ever?

Okay.

It wasn't like a central part of my work.

When I worked in corporate communications, I did that a lot.

And one of the things that would occasionally pop up that I'd have to be like very vigilant about

is the appearance of, especially when we're talking about products or methods or processes, the same word popping up a bunch is something that happens quite easily, but something you want to avoid if you're creating a video product that's trying to convey something.

Like if you hear that one word over and over and over again, you're like, nope, we got to open up the thesaurus or

like write in a different way or whatever.

I actually encountered that in an essay I wrote for Wholesome this morning.

But yeah, I know what you're talking about.

In this scene, there is a three that appears, I want to say three times.

We have three lost denobulin geologists.

We have lost them for three weeks, and we have a three-day deadline on this planet for getting all the off-worlders off of it.

And in my mind, I kind of cracked a little bit.

Like,

you got to change the number, man.

Yeah.

Am I weird for thinking that?

I just locked onto it.

A rule of threes is like a key thing in writing but it's also a rule that's made to be broken especially when this many numbers are flying around yeah yeah it's like the number 47 in star trek except across all of star trek we're talking about one scene in six bay

So this place is super sketchy for a variety of reasons, but it is also a call to adventure because these denobulin geologists are in a cave system.

And who do we have on board that happens to be an accomplished rock climber or spelunker?

There's some pretty steep inclines here, but I think I can handle it.

Who's got the best abs in all of Starfleet?

Only one answer to that.

It's Enzen Mayweather.

Yeah.

It's just like being back in the wood.

Who are you?

Ensign Travis Mayweather.

Parents must be very proud.

When I was a kid, we called it Sweet Spot.

Who are you?

I'm the helmsman.

I guess growing up a boomer has its advantages.

And your mom very proud.

That's true.

Takes practice.

Other than keeping Inson Mayweather up at night, I'm not sure what we expect to accomplish here.

He's going to be sort of leading the caving team.

And

that is an interesting vibe given his like

substantially lower rank than either Reed or Trip, who are the other two people going on the adventure.

But like in the shuttle bay, it is Mayweather like running the checklist as they go through their equipment and talk about how they're going to be pooping in bags and bringing everything back out with them, etc., etc.

Do you feel like Mayweather is a redshirter

in the context as we know redshirters?

Like because Mayweather's a main character, that would be a check against this theory.

But because we know him so little, I feel like anytime he goes on a mission like this, I think there's a non-zero chance that he dies.

Well, by that logic, was Tasha Yar a red shirt?

Like,

I feel like we barely got to know her aside from her interest in Mecha Boom Boom.

Is death on Star Trek confirmation of redshirt status?

Makes you think.

So like Prime Universe Philippa Giorgio, total red shirt.

Yeah.

She was the captain of the ship and she was a red shirt.

Yeah,

so Archer comes in and he's like, hey guys, I'm going to do the math for you.

Because of this three-day deadline, once you get a day and a half down into the cave, if you haven't found these denobulans, and I understand a day and a half to be exactly the halfway point in three days,

I would like you to turn back around because were you to go further than a day and a half's distance, that would be greater than half of three.

Therefore,

you won't have enough time to get out before the deadline happens reed takes out like a little pocket calculator that he got for setting up a new account at a local bank and he's like yeah that checks out so mayweather like counts his abs down his abdomen he's like okay so i'm gonna go down one and then a half of one and then we're gonna cut over i'm just gonna bring a pen with me uh to keep track and archer's like no no i think this hold on what if each of those little raviolis you consider half a day?

So, like, one, two, three.

So that's a day and a half, right?

And then you come back up the other side, and that's another day and a half.

Perfect.

The math just checks out.

And then Mayweather's like, oh, sorry.

And he pulls his underpants down a little bit more to reveal that it is actually an eight-pack.

And it completely throws all the math off.

The fun part of this scene is that there was a pre-Dustbuster Club meeting where the plan was put together and they're packing for the plan.

And Archer, in all of his stupidity, is somewhere else on the ship.

And he's like, I forgot to tell them about half of three days.

I better get down there before they leave.

They're never going to know.

And then he leaves, he leaves self-satisfied, like,

that's why I'm here.

That's why I get the big bucks.

That's that's that fourth pip shit.

Yeah, yeah.

We also see a lot of ships leaving the surface of this planet because this, I guess, was a planet with a good deal of multiculturalism going.

I like this sequence, right?

Yeah.

Like, so often you see ships going down in the atmosphere.

I like seeing them come up.

Yeah, it's cool.

One of these ships, though, is reporting a radiation emergency and radios up to the tower at the spaceport that they launched from complaining about this and the tower's like sorry like can't help you you guys got to go

and so the enterprise uh comes in and help and very quickly this ship is docked up alongside them and we're in six bay and phlox is triaging people for like radiation burns I like how dynamic this sequence is.

This is like a big long pan across Six Bay where Dr.

Flox is triaging one person and then doing some beeps and boops on a panel and then another person's being brought in on a stretcher and oh no,

what's the deal with that guy on the stretcher?

It kind of takes Dr.

Flox off of his game.

He does another denobulin frown and this time it's even deeper.

What I love about this moment is how it foreshadows the culture that would follow.

I don't know how many years ago this episode was made.

40 years ago,

whatever.

Like

they wheel in the stretcher and they accidentally dump the guy out and as he rolls, it cuts into

Dr.

Flox talking directly to camera about all the things he can do for sick people in six bed.

I would say that his reaction to this dude's presence is even worse than his reaction to the iPad Hoshi handed him at the beginning of the episode.

Well put.

Yeah.

So on the surface, the shuttle pod has landed, and Triptucker Reed and Mayweather are dressed like janitor's keys as they make their way inside the cave.

They are covered in chains.

They really are.

I do not know how they can walk around in all these carabiners.

The mast with the flashlight on it on the top of their pack also seems like it would be such a pain in the ass in a cave environment.

Like it would all catch on the stalactites and stuff.

On their backs, each each of them are wearing, you know, how there's like a version of a thing you could put on the roof rack of your car that's a soft bag or a hard sort of plastic torpedo.

Yeah.

All of them are wearing the plastic torpedo.

Yeah, they all went down to the Yakima store before they

departed on this trip.

It's very dark in the cave spin, which is why they've got blue lights.

Yeah.

What does it do?

Turns blue.

And there's both stalagmites and tights in this cave.

It seems like a fairly sophisticated set design.

It's not just Star Trek Cave.

It looks a little different.

It's a very different vibe from the Star Trek caves we grew up with.

And I thought it was so cool how much the beginning of this cave exploration stuff was done with the flashlights being the only lighting in the scenes.

Like they switched to some lighting later on, which I think makes sense given like you need to see what they're doing and stuff.

But it really like drives home like how dark and scary it would be to be in a cave and your only light sources are the ones that you're carrying.

This is a choice.

It's a choice by production,

but it's supposed to be a choice by the characters.

And my question for you is: why the blue light?

Why not white light?

Hmm.

Why not any other kind of light?

Do you know?

Do you have any headcanon for this?

The only thing I could come up with was maybe this was like an early use of like LEDs as flashlight.

And so they just really spiked in the in the blue part of the spectrum and it just looked cool.

That's why I think it was just a production decision for looks versus any other reason.

But

I'm sure there are people in the military who have a reason for why they use red or blue or whatever color lights for spec ops like this seems to be.

But it seems as though like these are folks who don't want to be caught doing their mission, which is why they're using a different colored light than

searchlight.

Interesting.

Man.

Yeah, maybe so.

Yeah, like you have to imagine that like an individual unit of the military on this planet would not be necessarily clear on the we have three days thing.

Yeah.

And would just be like, you got to get the fuck out of here.

Right.

So, yeah.

Back up on the ship.

Flox talks to Archer about this dude that got dumped off the gurney.

He got irradiated because he was working right next to the reactor when the reactor overloaded on the ship that they are rescuing.

And he fucking freaks out when he wakes up and sees Flox.

What's he doing here?

And expresses that he would rather die than be treated by that monster.

He'd rather die than take his syrups and vitamins and compounding pharmaceuticals or what have you.

What a place to be in, personally.

Like, you got to think he's in pain.

Yeah.

And yet, like,

no way I would rather punch out than accept help from this person.

Yeah.

There is a...

squishy kind of hate to the patient's face that reads as very

from Dr.

Flox's discomfort, wouldn't you say?

Yeah.

Like, I feel as though they are both deeply uncomfortable with the other person, but that is

seen very differently between the two characters.

Yeah, I was thinking about how it's got to be a little bit of a tricky challenge to get the things across on your face that you want to get across when you're acting.

lying down like this guy is for most of the episode.

Like, like we're seeing his face from like an angle that kind of obscures his eyes a little bit.

And yeah, he did a really good job making it clear that he is like revolted by the presence of Flox.

He just fills up his bedpan, just like he's going to be a problem patient from here on out.

Like, oops, I missed the little plastic urinal pitcher with the little flip-top lid.

I missed.

I missed.

Oh, I spilled it.

Oh,

man.

A lot of red shirts in this room.

They're going to get stuck cleaning that up.

Flox isn't going to do it.

Come on.

Now, he delegates like any good manager.

Out in the corridor, Flox lays it out for Archer.

That sick guy, that guy right there, they're Antarin.

And Antarans are the traditional enemies of folks like me, the Donobulans.

They're Antonobs, and they have been for 300 years.

There's that three again.

The thing of it is, it goes both ways for people.

I'm a professional about things.

I'm not going to let it get to me.

I'm still a healer.

I still want to heal this guy.

But this patient, Captain Archer, he would rather die.

And Archer is like, well, I don't want that to happen, especially because these are my values.

I would like to impress upon you.

I am going to go so far as to order you.

to get over your discomfort, the bothias,

and get this guy well.

And he won't do it.

Did you think when Archer said the thing about these are my values, it was funny when Flox said, oh, are they?

Because they're in an operating room?

Really strange Archer episode starting here, I thought.

Because he's like

not down with the denobulin construction of medical ethics, which are that the consent of the patient is paramount.

Yeah.

And like this guy saying, like, keep Flox away from me is a bright red line for Flox

that Flox doesn't agree with but is forced to respect.

I mean, the other thing I was going through in my head was like, there were a bunch of ships leaving the planet.

Like,

surely some other ship out there has a fucking non-denobulan doctor that could help this guy, right?

Don't write yourself out of this story, Ben.

This is where we belong.

But yeah, they come to medical ethical loggerheads.

Yeah.

I'm giving you an order.

I'm sorry, Captain,

but I'm afraid I can't follow it.

I found it bracing to see a Starfleet captain's order just denied.

Like, like so quickly, too.

There was not a moment of consideration Dr.

Flox has.

He's like, no.

He's not like,

and there's always been a sort of air of invincibility on starships where it relates to captains and doctors, right?

Like doctors do kind of exist outside that power structure in a way to where maybe it shouldn't have been so surprising that this happened, but you so rarely see it on screen.

Yeah, yeah.

So in the caves, Mayweather.

does a little bit of extra descending while Reed and Trip take a break.

They're exhausted, but they find some denobulent Tupperware And thinking about the fact that they are shitting in bags and packing it out, they're forced to ask themselves, do denobulins shit rocks?

Because why would you fill a Tupperware with rocks if not?

It is such a great question, Ben.

And a question that does not really get answered by the end of the episode.

I kept wondering why you would just fill a Tupperware up with rocks and stick it in a hole as you go?

As if they're breadcrumbs or something along your path?

Oh, maybe that's it.

Maybe they were leaving them so that they would like know how they came in.

I don't know, man.

They've been down there for months, you know.

You might forget the layout of these caves.

I guess.

Or maybe they're just very forgetful denobulans.

Could be.

I mean, what it does for the story is tells you that our characters are on the right track and you need that.

And absent the box of rocks, how do you know you're going in the right direction?

No evidence that they are anywhere close to finding these dudes.

So

back up on the ship, Archer kicks it to this Antaran guy and tries to talk some sense into him.

And the guy's like, I don't think you get it, man.

Like, 20 million of my people were slaughtered by the Denobulans.

Just get to know him is not a persuasive argument for me.

Pretty wild that he's the first Antaran to even see a Denobulin in six generations.

Yeah.

I was kind of surprised it wasn't three generations.

Sure.

It's a multiple of three.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And Archer,

Archer's like the guy who read one article about a subject and styles himself as an expert in the field.

And he's like, you know, kind of a lot can change in six generations.

How do you know it hasn't?

I'm just asking questions.

That's all.

Maybe they're nice now.

Yeah.

But But yeah, like Antarans are raised to hate denobulins and vice versa.

But Archer, in doing this, like, I think we can agree that Archer's kind of being a know-it-all when he knows nothing.

I understand there's a troubled history between your peoples.

But he kind of becomes like the patient in that way.

In a, we don't really know, do we?

And when you look at the patient and you look at Archer, you can kind of consider them in the same way.

Like, yeah, six generations.

What does this patient really know about anything outside of generational trauma?

Yeah.

I mean, the patient also expressing some things with certainty that he couldn't possibly know.

Like, like, oh, the denobulans put it behind them and,

you know, oh, how easy it must have been for them to get over this.

Like, he doesn't know what kind of truth and reconciliation has gone on on Flox's home world, like, whether they've had a cultural reckoning with what they've done or not.

Yeah.

And we we also never hear like whether there were any atrocities in the other direction.

Like was this entirely denobulent on Antauran crime or was it like a civilizational conflict that took place over the course of hundreds of years and had there were times when the Antarans were the aggressors doing the horrible shit and vice versa, you know?

Right.

Right.

Anyways, back in the caves, Reed spots some particularly sparkly rocks and determines that this must mean they're on the right tracks because geologists love that shit.

So they keep going and they're kind of sidling down a crag in the rock and it's like reed trip and then Mayweather bringing up the rear and reed and trip slip and go down this like rock slide and they're all roped together so it brings Mayweather along.

This was a very exciting scene I thought.

Really like, they really sold that they were in this huge cave sliding down a huge long face of rock.

Mayweather saves them by, you know, like getting a foothold right at the last moment, but it very badly injures his ankle.

Yeah.

I mean, Mayweather tries to stop their descent using one leg, and that leg basically explodes from

the impact.

I thought this was so dynamic, like you're saying, ben uh the sequence so exciting especially when you consider how little room they have to shoot it yeah like you're setting the camera up at different angles and lighting things in different ways to make it look like the the length that you're you're traveling on this slide is much greater than it actually is and like

B-Dunk's really at the height of his powers in a moment like this.

Really, really, really well done.

I thought it was great.

And then there's this whole secondary moment of tension where now Mayweather is like holding onto the rope and it's like slipping through his hands.

And Trip has to get a piton into the rock just at the right moment to save Reed.

Like, so exciting, so well done.

Then they scan Mayweather's foot and they're like, yeah, you're not going to be doing any more spelunking this episode.

Is it broken?

Yep.

He tore a couple ligaments, too.

Mayweather's, hey, my leg is down there, Reed.

Why don't you keep that thing away from my abs?

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If you're enjoying Greatest Generation and Greatest Trek, but you haven't dipped into our other hit program, Wholesome, you're only getting part of what we do.

That's because on Wholesome, me and Ben and Adam Ragusia talk about all kinds of things that make us happy.

With each episode being hosted by one of us, where we share what we're enjoying at the moment and have a conversation about all the little ways it makes our lives better.

With topics about movies, neighbors, ice cream, mid-TV.

It's a weekly dose of good vibes every Wednesday and you can get it at patreon.com slash wholesome underscore pod.

So listen to wholesome.

Maybe it'll inspire you to share something that you think is wholesome with your friends.

Every Wednesday at patreon.com slash wholesome underscore pod.

You know, we've been doing My Brother, My Brother Me for 15 years.

And

maybe you stopped listening for a while.

Maybe you never listened.

And you're probably assuming three white guys talking for 15 years, I know where this has ended up.

But no.

No, you would be wrong.

We're as shocked as you are that we have not fallen into some sort of horrific scandal or just turned into a big crypto thing.

Yeah, you don't even really know how crypto works.

the only nfts i'm into are naughty funny things which is what we talk about on my brother my brother and me

we serve it up every monday for you if you're listening and if not we just leave it out back and goes rotten so check it out on maximum fun or wherever you get your podcasts

all right we're over 70 episodes into our show let's learn everything so let's do a quick progress check Have we learned about quantum physics?

Yes, episode 59.

We haven't learned about the history of gossip yet, have we?

Yes, we have.

Same episode, actually.

Have we talked to Tom Scott about his love of roller coasters?

Episode 64.

So, how close are we to learning everything?

Bad news.

We still haven't learned everything yet.

Oh, we're ruined!

No, no, no, it's good news as well.

There is still a lot to learn.

Woo!

I'm Dr.

Ella Hubber.

I'm regular Tom Law.

I'm Caroline Roper, and on Let's Learn Everything, we learn about science and a bit of everything else too.

And although we haven't learned everything yet, I've got a pretty good feeling about this next episode.

Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.

And you will never take the greatest gym alive.

Ben would rather die.

Ben, I got a question for you.

I think very rarely we like to do the whole, here's what I would have preferred or here's what I would have liked better as a story criticism.

Never happens.

But like, this sequence made me think of that movie, Touching the Void.

Do you remember that movie that's about those rock climbers?

I don't think I saw that one.

This was an early 2000s movie like really great movie in my mind where the main thrust of the conflict is like you're in a snowstorm on a mountain and you're roped to your partner and if you and your partner tumble down the mountain and one of them goes into a hole

And it's so loud and crazy outside the hole that you aren't sure if the person on the other end of the rope is alive or not.

At what point do you cut the rope in order to survive yourself?

Right.

And as soon as they started sliding, I was like, oh, I bet you I know what the breach is.

Like, like what the story is actually, because there's no fucking way we're actually going to go on the search for denobulin geologists

or whatever.

I thought it would be like the awful decision you got to make about whether or not you save Mayweather or Mayweather chooses to save Reed or Trip or whatever.

That's not this story.

No.

But

how interesting would it have been if you get another Mayweather story and you learn about him in that way?

Yeah.

Yeah.

The Sophie's choice of

an impossible challenge in a life and death situation.

That's a new spin on that episode where you go through command training and decide whether or not Jordy dies in the Jeffries tube.

Right.

Yeah.

Congratulations.

You badass.

which was surprisingly hard for Troy.

Usually, typically, women going through command training have no problem sending him to his death.

Total bullshit, man.

It's just bullshit.

Yeah, he goes into the Jeffries tube, and it's just

like the death is slow.

Like, I thought we were talking about like plasma fire shit.

This is like slowly turning up the thermostat.

Flox goes to this Antaran dude, and you know, at the captain's urging, tries to persuade him, like, it will actually be good for you to, like,

not die from this treatable radiation exposure.

But the guy is, like, you know, like, they're kind of throwing shade at each other a little bit.

Like, they're both being pretty shady with each other.

And like, the ultimate accusation from the Antarin is that, like, Flox is here to assuage his own guilt as a denobulin for all of the horrible things he has done.

And it's like one of those things, like, do we bear responsibility for the crimes of our ancestors?

And Flox is like, no fucking way.

But there's an interesting twist in this, which is that this guy suggests that maybe Phox's medical knowledge was derived by doing like horrible, unethical testing on Antauran subjects.

And

man, that's like a, that's such a fucked up angle.

And then the Antauran guy brings kids into it and is, is like talking about like, you probably taught your, your kids to hate me too.

Just gets real ugly.

Yeah, it's actually the patient that's needling the doctor here.

What do you think about the weight of the cold open

at work here?

When you see how casually...

Dr.

Flox would feed something like a triple to another animal.

Did you think about that at this moment as being a kind of a squish on the sanctity of life for a denobulin or dr.

flox as the representation of denobulins yeah dr.

flox is like you should imagine the size of a lizard i've fed folks like you

when i was growing up as a teen yeah yeah

in effigy Flox goes and has a bum out in the lunchroom late at night, it seems like.

How honest is this scene, man?

I fucking love this.

Yeah.

She's like, hey, mind if I sit?

He's like, yes,

actually.

Yeah, this is something I fantasize about.

I mean, I don't think I would say it to TePaul specifically, but yeah, she.

But that's just it.

TePaul's kind of perfect to be totally honest with because she's not going to...

take it in the same way as a sensitive person.

She's like, okay, cool.

And then it's on Dr.

Flox to be like, no, actually.

Yeah.

All right.

They have an interesting relationship as the two aliens aboard.

And yeah, he tells her about

all of the beef between the Antarans and the Nobulans.

He's not an especially delightful dinner hang at this time.

And yet, he is the one doing all of the talking.

He tells her about his grandma, who had some pretty strong anti-Antarin sentiments.

Yeah.

And those were feelings that he was able to nurture out of his own children.

And then, like, it just through the talking that Dr.

Flox has kind of puzzled out the conflict he's having with the patient.

And he's like, oh,

I got to get over to Six Bay.

I think I have this thing figured.

And Japal's like, Do you have a really big lizard or something?

Topal's like, so you want me to pay, I guess?

You always do this.

Yeah.

I can we'll put it on my tab, you know, it'll come out in the wash eventually.

I'll pick up a couple and you pick up a couple.

So, back in the caves, Reed and Trip are on their own and they're on their bellies and things have gotten tight because they're crawling through these tight spaces.

And my question for you has been, like, we know they're relying on the tricorder and these boxes of rocks to tell them that they're on the right track.

Why haven't haven't they called out for these people?

Not even once.

Because when you yell in a cave, it goes everywhere.

That shit gets loud and it gets echoey and whatever.

They don't do it at all.

But they wouldn't be able to

locate where a sound is coming from.

But it's proof of life.

Proof of life.

It's the cave equivalent of holding up today's newspaper in a picture.

Yeah.

It is.

So they continue to crawl.

And Ben, much like that sequence where they slid off of that slope,

this is all about coverage.

What do you have here?

Like 20 meters?

I'm going to like question.

I don't know how long of a

cave section you have here, but you're shooting so much coverage

of one shot, two shot, like different angles, up and around.

You got to believe that they're not crawling very far at all.

And yet you feel the distance from something like this.

Yeah.

And they're getting ready to give up.

They're like, man, like, let's give it another half hour if we don't find these guys.

And that is right when the tricorder picks up the denobulum life signs.

And they come into a much bigger cavern where the denobulins have a bunch of geology equipment set up.

And they're like pretty nonchalant about the arrival of two people.

Just like,

we saw how far into the cave this is.

You know what I like about what this accomplishes visually?

It is like

absolute contrast.

Reed and Tripp have been crawling through dust for a day and a half.

They show up looking it.

They are bedraggled and shitty and sweaty and whatever.

And they've been crawling through darkness specifically, blue darkness, if it's lit at all.

And when they get into this opening, it is bright and clean and the denobulins are casual.

Like, you couldn't be more different as two types of people in the same place.

Maybe that's why the blue light, like, maybe it feels close and spooky, and then when you're in this, in this room, suddenly it's like, oh man, like, this is a relief.

We found them, and they, like, aren't even surprised to see us.

Were you like me, where you just couldn't take your eyes off of the female denobulin and how fucking cool she sounded?

If the Academy knew the progress we were making, they'd never have sent you.

She gets a few lines in this episode, and I'm like, I'd like to know a little more about her.

Oh, man.

Do you have yet a little bit of an Ensign Row react to

her?

I think I was putting myself in the position of Trip Tucker, which is to say, like, oh,

I'm going to stand behind Reed

while we do this negotiation because things can get pretty slippery when I'm around a denobulan lady.

I need something to do on this shit, come on.

Fair enough.

They are unwilling to leave.

They feel like this is the discovery of a lifetime,

the rocks that they found, and these are going to be key discoveries for them to understand their own planet better and specifically like seismic activity.

So they're like, yeah, we just need like a couple of weeks and then we can come.

And Tripp and Reed are like, you don't understand.

You don't have a couple of weeks.

If you stay that long and then come back out onto the surface, you will just be killed.

so eventually they are persuaded to come but they want to bring all their samples with them i mean the way it works is like the denobulans could explain their reasons until they're out of breath but like trip tucker's got orders tie you up and drag you out by your ankles if that's how you want and this is a scene you get in a lot of military films or like disaster films where a military presence comes in and is like you got to get out of here or like dante's peak where they're like grandma you got to get off the mountain.

Like, there's just no negotiation to happen here.

Yeah.

You want your legs to dissolve off in a lake?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, we're underground.

There's probably acid lakes all over the place.

We're lucky we didn't fall in one.

Lucky we didn't meet those guys from the descent in here.

Come on.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's fucked up.

Finally, they agree to leave as long as

I love that.

I love that it's like, yeah, as long as you help us move.

Did you guys bring a pickup or what do you got?

Yeah, so schlepping the rocks is what Reed and Tripp will have to do in order to get these guys out of there.

And that's the deal.

Back in Six Bay, Flox pronounces to this Antarin guy that he's just going to go ahead and do the procedure whether or not there is agreement, which is a pretty remarkable turnabout turnabout for Flox.

This scene needed gas, I thought.

Like a little mask.

And the guy's like, no, no, no, no, no.

Like the patient wakes up.

He's like, oh, why are my wrists and restraints?

It's like extreme measures, isn't it, Ben?

It's a lot like extreme measures, the hobo killing movie that you and I and nobody else have seen.

You know what?

In order to honor the life of Gene Hackman,

we should watch that movie as a bonus episode.

We should.

Yeah.

That's the one he wants to be remembered for, right?

Yeah.

If we could find it, I don't know if it exists.

Do you think we sort of like joint imagined that that movie exists?

Yeah, it's the Mandela effect for two people.

We come from a different universe where there's a movie.

about Gene

doing horrific medical experiments on bows.

You can cure cancer by killing one person.

Wouldn't you have to do that?

And also, they're called the Berenstein Bears in that universe.

Yeah.

So we had heard in a previous episode about this child of Phlox's that he is not on speaking terms with anymore.

And I thought it was really interesting that they call this back and flesh it out with the idea that this is a rift based on a hateful attitude his son has toward Antaurans.

Like Phlox and his son have parted ways over bigoted attitudes that his son has adopted.

And he tells this to this Antaran guy as a way of saying, like,

there are still denobulans that are as horrible about your people as they used to be.

My son is one of them.

They're in my fucking family.

Like, Thanksgiving is whack for me, but I'm not like that.

I mean, Thanksgiving doesn't bug me for the last 10 years because

that guy hasn't shown up.

You know, 10 years is how long it's been since we've spoken.

That's three times three

plus one.

And the guy's like, oh, I get it.

Oh, that's what we're doing this episode.

Okay.

Well, when it comes to whether or not I want to accept your medical interventions,

three is my answer

to that question.

Yeah.

For the folks just listening at home,

Adam had three fingers up, but then he made a swastika out of them?

What the hell, Adam?

So the tone that this scene ends with is like, yeah, the one kid I've got would fucking love it if you turned down my medical care because he thinks all Antarins should die.

But, you know, there is another path you could take, patient.

You could be stubborn and and get the medical care you need in spite of that guy, even

at that guy.

And what do you think about that?

Living is the best revenge, I guess.

Yeah, I found this very compelling.

Yeah, that's

he really Adam Jiu-Jitsu's

argument.

So back in the caves, the group now with denobulins crawls and crawls and crawls.

And as they go, a denobulin scientist finds more rock samples in that plastic drill bit box.

What is the deal with these boxes?

Everywhere.

You're just about to learn the deal, but nope, bangers get dropped.

And now the group has got to hustle out of there now because they're speculating that what's causing the bangers is weapons fire.

Yeah.

We thought the weapons fire was going to be in the cave when Trip threatened to shoot that guy in the butt.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm going to take my face pistol and shoot you in the ass.

Instead, it's outside the cave, and it's explosives.

And so rocks are falling.

They get to like the bottom of the pit where they need to start, you know, hooking up ropes and climbing up.

And the Denobulans don't have any climbing gear.

They're just free climbing this, which seems insane to Trip and Reed.

A huge rock almost crushes the entire group, but they manage to...

make it out unscathed.

How great of it is the choice not to show the great free climbers immediately?

Like, I love the pregnancy of like, what, you don't have any gear?

Hell no, we don't need it.

And then like the rock falls and you're like, huh, I wonder what that's going to look like instead of just immediately answering the question or satisfying the curiosity.

I love that.

It was great pacing by B.

Dunks here.

Archer has an argument with the governor of the planet.

Captain Archer, I thought I made myself clear.

Man, that voice sounded so familiar on the radio.

I was like, is that J.G.

Hertzler?

And I'm like, I don't think it was, but

maybe it was no stockade guy from Star Trek VI.

Work well,

and you will be treated well.

Maybe, yeah.

That voice just sounded so familiar, but I couldn't figure out who that was.

How mad is Archer here?

You rarely see this gear out of Captain Archer.

He is very, we had an agreement

angry.

And I guess that's the way to piss him off the worst, is to Renee got an agreement.

Yeah.

And it pushes Archer all the way toward targeting weapons and getting ready to open fire.

And I love, I love the math that he's done in this moment.

He's like, these Xantorans are a frothy mix of xenophobia and

weapons.

And it seems like they have their hands full.

Getting these aliens off off-world and stuff, if we involve ourselves, that is just going to be too much for them.

But the threat is there.

And by threatening to involve themselves, it finally gives the leverage to the situation that's necessary to get the ships called off from firing on the caves.

But not really all the way.

Yeah.

It's still dangerous.

So back down in the cave, we finally get to see why these Denobulans didn't bring any safety equipment for their spelunk this is actually my ground

and the gang starts ascending out of there i love how the denobulins don't help

they don't have backpacks or anything they're not carrying any of the shit

drip and reed are such punks for accepting this deal

It's really breathtaking.

There's a quality to Star Trek Prodigy that we've noticed lately on our hit streaming Star Trek show, Greatest Trek, where it's sort of like the quality of not saying bye before hanging up a phone.

Like characters are just leaving each other without offering rides where it would be very convenient to offer that ride.

Sure.

And this is like that.

It's just like that.

Catch our coverage of Star Trek Prodigy season two on Greatest Trek right here on maximumfun.org.

Flox got to this guy and he's going to accept treatment.

So

that proceeds on the ship, and back in the caves, we're struggling to get to the surface.

Hoshi is trying to get them on the radio, and they're not picking up.

And Archer is getting ready to take a shuttle down when Trip finally answers the phone.

And they get all of the denobulans into the shuttle and leave orbit, and are even...

harassed by an attacking fighter jet a little bit as they're leaving for the entrepreneur Do you always get a little chuckle out of any species that doesn't have better weapons than Enterprise?

I love the

vibe here.

Like, when this ship opens fire with weak-ass particle weapons, it's like, get out of here, nerd.

I ain't got time to be distracted by your worthless chime in.

Go on.

This is fucking sub-grappler technology.

You guys took over an entire planet with webs like that?

It's almost like an around the horn on the bridge.

Everyone looks at each other like, oh, that's cute.

They're safe.

Flox and Archer kind of rebuild their mutual esteem after their fracture and after this Antaurin dude got treated for his radiation thing.

And then Archer goes to talk to.

the patient who is going to be getting back aboard his now de-irradiated ship.

He seems pretty happy to not have to check out with Flox at the counter

in front of Six Bay.

Yeah.

That's one nice thing about Six Bay.

There's no waiting room part of it, you know.

You just walk right in and get treatment.

I mean, you can avoid Dr.

Flox, but what Archer tells this guy is like, hey, you're going to have a ship with three denobulin geologists in there.

You're going to be cool with that?

And the patient's like, I could be cool with that.

I think I learned a lot today about being cool with.

And off they go and that's it.

Except that's not it.

We get this really interesting scene at the very end that I feel like could have been cut for time.

Yeah.

But I think actually punches way above its weight.

It's dark in Six Bay and Dr.

Flox is writing to his estranged son about the episode that we just watched.

A reach out to a red hat about like, hey, I'd like to talk to you about a thing I just went through, and maybe this will soften your heart a little bit.

Well, when you put it like that, it sounds like it's a very special episode, Ben.

But was it a good episode

to you?

I thought it was a really good episode, yeah.

Like, I think that Star Trek has spent a lot of time in caves, but has done very little, like,

the mechanics of actually traversing caves stuff.

With the gear.

With the gear.

And if you would have said, hey, there's a Star Trek Enterprise episode where they do a lot of the gear of spelunking stuff.

I would have been like, I bet that's corny as hell and badly done.

And I have to say, this was not that corny, and it seemed very well done.

I mean, I don't know shit about like pitons and cave rock climbing, but whether or not it was actually like a credible representation of what that's like, it was very interesting and well executed from just a like teaching you the rules of it for the sake of watching this episode standpoint.

Yeah.

The Flox storyline was also like

really interestingly done.

And like, like, I think that those moments can be easier to write without as much heart as these ones had.

Like, I feel like the episode had a ton of empathy, both for this guy and for Flox, when the challenge that they were confronting was kind of a vacuum of empathy by both of them.

And I thought it was really nicely done in that respect.

How about you?

I really appreciate how this wasn't that sort of episode where

two characters changed their mind completely

because that seems to be like now like forever.

the hardest thing to do is to change someone's mind about something that they feel very passionately about.

And at the conclusion of this episode, it was

not all the way.

Like it was partial.

It was for even convenience, if you want to say it.

This guy needs a lift home.

He's going to tolerate the denobulins.

But there's like a crack in the sensibility that I found so much more satisfying than just like a, I learned something today.

And me and Dr.

Flox are going to be writing letters.

And the final scene of the episode is Dr.

Flox writing a letter to me,

his patient that he just healed.

Like, I'm so glad it wasn't that.

Like, the restraint to keep it messy is what makes it feel real and realistic.

And

it made for a better episode in making that decision, for sure.

Well, do you want to see if anybody made any good decisions in the Priority One inbox, Adam?

Always a good decision to support the show with a Priority One message, Ben.

Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on on secured channel.

Need a supplemental income.

Supplemental income.

Supplemental.

Supplemental income.

Yeah, it's extra.

But the interest alone could be enough to buy this ship.

And we got a promotional message right off the top.

Here's how that goes.

Hi, BA.

I'm back with another P1 to toss some scarves at the pod and to let all FODs everywhere know that I have a new sci-fi book coming out.

Oh boy.

A Greater Puzzle, Part 1 of the Retrograde Cycle by Robert C.

Murray.

My friends call me Rob.

Is a new adventure in the Titan Run Universe.

Amazing.

For those who haven't read my OG books, the Titan Run Universe has track vibes and the expanse level tech.

As an FOD myself since 2016, I know you'll all enjoy the read.

Get the pre-order link at Titanrun Trilogy.space.

So this is a message from Robert C.

Murray, who's the author, and he's telling you, me, and everyone else, go to TitanrunTrilogy.space.

You know what he's going for, Ben.

The greatest gen bump.

That's the bump you want when you're writing fine science fiction.

products as Robert C.

Murray does.

Yeah.

I'm going to pre-order.

I hope other people do too.

I don't know if authors do this intentionally.

I got to believe someone like Robert C.

Murray knows exactly what they're doing.

But like, when you put part one in the title of your book, like there's going to be more parts.

You can't just do the first part.

Right.

This is like Star Trek section 31.

Like this is clearly setting up a whole bunch of subsequent parts.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You hire Robert C.

Murray to write the first book.

You're going to have to do it for the sequel.

Yeah.

That's just math.

There's going to be three, Adam, specifically.

I mean, that's what I'm hoping.

There's three of everything.

All right.

Next P1 here is from Joshua, and it's to Caleb, he who is my husband.

And it goes like this.

You're the sacred chalice of Reeks.

The hidden phaser in the hilt of my curleth.

The deuterium to my antimatter.

You're like isolinear chips to my drunk Shimoda.

Or a real doll to my Kevin Hartford.

Thanks for 13 years, Imzadi.

Peace and long life.

Live long and prosper.

Aww.

Amazing.

Happy anniversary.

13.

Very sweet.

Yeah, lucky 13.

What's the 13?

I just made my 11th wedding anniversary, and that's steel.

That's steel.

Wow.

Yeah.

I have never known what the materials of the various various anniversaries are, but if steel is 11th, 13's gotta be like, like, bronze or something.

Lace!

Ben, it's lace.

It's lace?

Wow.

Traditionally, it's lace, but like, there's a version for like modern times.

Textiles or furs?

Wow.

Is what it would be.

How about if you just like lace a doobie with some, you know, like...

With some angel dust.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Or, you know, crush up a pharmaceutical.

I didn't know Caleb liked to get wet.

Joshua and Caleb, you decide what lace means for you, okay?

Ben, our final priority one message is from Tony, the 70 man, and it's to Ben and Adam.

Here's that message.

Since the November 6th return of the National Noisemaker, I've had to revise my attitude toward factory seconds.

It reminded me that we join unions or become max fun members not for ourselves but for others wow so you go you normal age cheesecake boys besides i'm about to send in a promotional p1 and i've pissed off adam quite enough already

wow

this is a really like the arc of tony the 70 man is long but it bends towards cheesecake factory being okay and it's incremental in the way we talked about when we were reviewing the episode.

Like, Tony's not changing all the way or all at once.

No.

Little by little,

Tony gets there with every priority one message.

What did we find out that Tony eats every day, like a tin of sardines or something like that?

Yeah, it's oatmeal and sardines.

Yeah.

Overnight sardines.

I mean, you know what else, Adam?

I think this is the third P1 that Tony has sent in.

So everything comes in threes.

Oh, my God.

I don't think the episode was wrong to do this.

If you'd like to bend towards justice, you can send a P1 in as well by going to maximumfund.org/slash jumbotron and ordering yours today.

Hey, Ben.

What's that, Adam?

Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda?

Incredible.

Drunk Shimoda!

Yeah, I got to give it to my boys, Tripp and Reed, for getting stuck, schlapping schlapping the rocks.

When clearly they were the least well cut out for doing that of anyone present in those caverns.

Yeah.

Including maybe the guy who broke his ankle, saving their lives on the way down.

I think that's what makes mine Mayweather.

Okay.

Oh, can't let him get too close to an A or a B story.

Got to get that guy out of

the episode as soon as possible.

Yeah, we already did that once this season.

It almost destroyed us.

Yeah, yeah.

Too much for you, Mayweather.

Yeah.

Faith of the fart.

Well, that was a lot of fun.

Why don't you head over to goch.biz/slash game, Adam, while I tell you a little bit about next week's episode, which, of course, is season two, episode 22 of Star Trek Enterprise, Cogenitor.

The Enterprise crew makes first contact with the Visians, a species with three genders.

Trip meets one of the species' third gender, knows as a cogenitor, and learns how badly Visians treat all cogenitors.

Trip attempts to help the cogenitor, even though it interferes with Visian culture.

Seems like we're going to learn a little bit more about their cogenitalia

this episode.

That's what Trip's going to do.

Ben, I'm going to learn a little bit about how we're going to experience next week's episode.

For that, I go to goch.biz slash game and the game of buttholes, the will of the Riker quantum leap.

Currently, strangely, our runabout is on square 100.

Yeah,

and at the end of this roll, we will be anywhere else but there.

Or there, if you roll a clean 100.

You're required to learn as you play.

Roll.

Ben, I have not done that.

I've I've rolled a 49, which means we are on square 49.

Okay.

Did I win?

Hardly.

And that also means it'll be a regular old episode for us.

Just two squares from the Breadstick Power Hour episode.

Near miss.

Oh, man.

I'm scared of that square.

If we ever get to Breadstick Power Hour, I'm getting Olive Garden breadsticks.

The best breadsticks in the game.

Are those a crunchy or a soft breadstick?

I think they're soft.

Yeah.

I feel like the soft is the way to go for that because...

I have no idea how long they are.

I feel like they're like 18 inches, right?

Or I don't know.

It's been a while since I've seen one.

They're at least 30 centimeters, if not

many more than that.

Yeah.

Or less.

Yeah.

Well, this has been a lot of fun, Adam.

We got a lot of gratitude over here for all of the members of the Greatest Generation and Greatest Trek, especially our new boosting and upgrading members from the Max Fun Drive, which is 100% of you.

Thank you so much to everyone who got involved, which is everyone.

We also want to thank Wendy Pretty, our producer who edits these episodes and keeps all the plates spinning at Uxbridge Remota HQ.

Got to thank Rob Adler, our social media director.

Follow at Greatest Trek all over the place.

And if you slide into the the DMs on one of our Greatest Trek accounts, you might just encounter the card daddy Bill Tilly.

Ask him if you got something you'd like to send in for a future Code 47 episode.

He'll tell you what the mailing address is.

Bill Tilley has spelunked to the bottom of the DMs, wearing the backpack.

Yeah.

The blue light.

I know he's on it.

Broken his ankle a couple of times, probably.

Both legs completely exploded.

And yet he works.

Yeah.

Nevertheless, he persists.

Gotta thank Adam Ragusia for making our beautiful theme song for this show based on Diane Warren's original.

And Dark Materia for the use of the card song which you hear under our voices right now.

She may not have ever won an Oscar, but she's won our hearts and inspires us every day.

Absolutely.

With that, we will be back at you next week.

Another great episode of Star Trek Enterprise and episode of the Greatest Generation Enterprise where we're like, man,

maybe we should do some more Babylon 5 stuff.

There's a guy from Babylon 5 in next week's episode.

Oh, looking forward to that.

Alright.

Weird hair and vampire teeth, is that going to be the character?

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