Nerd heaven

In the latest episode of Star Trek Discovery, Michael Burnham must choose between loyalty to Starfleet, and her captain, and helping a friend. Cleaveland Booker has located a black box that could provide vital information into the source of the burn, but he has been captured. This was a solid action episode with some nice connections to the larger arc, in both plot and character.

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Welcome to Nerd Heaven

I’m Adam David Collings, the author of Jewel of The Stars.

And I am a Nerd

This is episode 43 of the podcast.

Today, we’re talking about Star Trek Discovery “Scavengers”

The description on Memory Alpha reads

After receiving a message from Book, Burnham and Georgiou embark on a rogue mission to find him, leaving Saru to pick up the pieces with Admiral Vance. Meanwhile, Stamets forms an unexpected bond with Adira.

This episode was written by Anne Cofell Saunders

It was directed by Douglas Aarniokoski

And it first aired on the 19th of November 2020.

Make it so.

We begin the episode with a zooming out shot of the USS Discovery, which has undergone an extensive refit to bring it in line with 32nd-century technology. As we pull back, we see the name and registry have been repainted. NCC 1031-A.

Okay. That’s kind of a big deal. So this is now the Discovery A.

But is that valid?

The letter is added to the registry when a brand new ship is constructed and given the name of an iconic ship. But this isn’t a new ship. It’s a refit to the same ship. It’s a very extensive refit, but then, so was the refit to Kirk’s original Enterprise in Star Trek The Motion Picture. But that ship was not the Enterprise A. It was just the Enterprise. The Enterprise A was a brand-new ship that first appeared at the end of Star Trek IV after the original was destroyed in Star Trek III.

So...technically, this shouldn’t be the Discovery A. However, it could be argued that this refit is even more extensive than the one from The Motion Picture. And maybe the rules for registry numbers have changed over the centuries. So ... I think we can just accept it.

I’ll admit that I do get a bit of a kick out of the A.

This refit has taken 3 weeks. They’ve installed programmable matter, which makes a lot of sense.

They’ve also detached the nacelles.

Saru says this is to make the engines more efficient and the ship more maneuverable.

The nacelles are floating next to the ship. I’ll admit, this whole detached nacelles thing is a bit weird to me. My first reaction is, that’s silly and doesn’t make any sense. My second reaction is, 930 years have passed. We SHOULD be seeing things that are so wacky and out there that they seem to make no sense. That’s actually logical. So the more unbelievable it is, the more believable it is.

I assume the nacelles are kept close to the ship by some kind of tractor beam or gravity field. How does the power get to them? Wireless power, I suppose. That’s already kind of a thing.

So ultimately, I approve, even though I think it’s weird.

In the briefing meeting, Saru gets some insight into the kinds of missions that Starfleet is now carrying out.

Helping with food shortages. Delivery supplies. Helping planets that are facing solar flares.It’s all very humanitarian aid, and the distances can cause significant difficulties.

Saru immediately sees where Discovery could help. The spore drive would save a lot of time in helping these people. I like how Vance agrees that he could use ten Discoveries, but since he only has one, he needs them to stay close, ready to serve as a rapid response unit.

When Vance says “Rapid Responder” one of the other captains acts like Vance has sprouted a second head. His reaction seems to be way overdone. I kinda get the feeling that maybe this guy was the previous rapid responder. Maybe he’s feeling outed.

But Vance tells them all about the spore drive. It’s classified information that is not to leave the briefing room.

We’ve never really seen a scene like this, with a bunch of captains getting their assignments from the admiralty. It probably happened a lot during the dominion war.

It’s nice to see that all the captains are wearing a similar uniform to the admiral, but with different rank insignias. It’s good. I really like this uniform. It’s my favourite of all the new uniforms.

Argeth is on Yellow. Alert. The Emerald chain, the Andorian and Orion Syndicate, might be making a move sometime in the next 12 hours. Nobody knows what they want on Argeth, but Vance is determined to make sure they don’t get it. When things come to a head, that’s when Saru needs to jump in and save the day.

So the crew of Discovery are receiving their new com badges. Just like the ones all the other Starfleet officers wear.

But for some reason, they don’t exchang...

In Star Trek Discovery Season 3 Episode 3, Michael Burnham is reunited with the crew of the USS Discovery. Saru takes his place as the official captain, and they jump to Earth to see what has become of the Federation in this new century. But they don't receive the warm welcome they were hoping for. Time for some good old Starfleet diplomacy. And what's the deal with the mysterious Adira, a United Earth Defence Force inspector who is trying to sabotage the ship?

At the beginning of this episode, I acknowledge the passing of the great Sir Thomas Sean Connery, or Sean Connery as he was known to us.

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Welcome to Nerd Heaven

I’m Adam David Collings, the author of Jewel of The Stars

And I am a Nerd.

This is episode 40 of the podcast.

Today, we’re talking about Star Trek Discovery season 3 episode 3. People of Earth.

But first, I want to acknowledge the passing of Sir Thomas Sean Connery, or as we more commonly know him, Sean Connery. I learned just last night that he had died at the age of 90. He brought a lot of joy into my life through his acting work, and I’ll always remember him as James Bond, Henry Jones Snr, and King Arthur from First Knight.

He remained married to his second wife, Michelin Roquebrune right up until the end, 45 years in total, which is an achievement worthy of respect among famous actors.

He is also survived by his son Jason Connery.

But, you know, Sean Connery has a Star Trek connection. While he never appeared in Star Trek, he was originally cast as Sybok, Spock’s brother, in Star Trek V The Final Frontier. But he was unable to do it because he was busy with Indianna Jones and The Last Crusade, which honestly, was a much better movie in my opinion. But the mythical planet Sha-Ka Ree was named in Connery’s honour. Which I think is really nice.

So, I’d like to express my condolences to all of his loved ones, especially his wife and son.

So, back to Star Trek Discovery.

The description on Memory Alpha reads

“Reunited with Burnham, Discovery heads to Earth to find out what has happened to the Federation in the last thousand years.”

This episode was written by Bo Yeon Kim and Erika Lippoldt

It was Directed by Jonathan Frakes

And it first aired on the 29th of October 2020.

Make it so

The episode opens with a quick recap of what Michael has been up to during the last year, while she’s been searching for Discovery, indirectly waiting for them to show up. It’s a shame we didn’t really get to see any of her adventures with Book, but I’m sure there’ll be plenty of tie-in media that will be more than happy to fill this gap. She worked as a courier, travelling from world to world making deliveries for a tiny handful of Dilithium.

But the interesting thing is, it does this in the form of a log entry, aimed at Discovery. The voiceover makes it clear that even before the burn, Dilithium was becoming rare. And we get to see a glimpse of some 321st century Starfleet ships. They don’t look all that different to those we’ve seen from other centuries. We don’t see any of them up close, but the basic shape is present in both of them. Saucer section, secondary hull, warp nacelles.

Burnham didn’t give up everything for this version of the future and she’s determined to set things back to how they should be. She’s also searching for answers on what caused the burn.

And we see her hair change over time, visually confirming the passage of time.

She seems to have built a very meaningful relationship with Book, although it seems it’s not romantic as such. And while I think they’d make a great couple, I’m cool with that. I like their friendship the way it is portrayed in this episode. Although It does feel like there’s some romantic tension between them.

But what would a log entry be without a stardate?

In the first two seasons, they just kinda made up random stardates. None of it made any sense because to be true pre-TOS stardates, they’d have to be 3-digit numbers.

The stardate Michael quotes in this episode is 865211.3. This is a six digit stardate. Those in the 24th century, starting with TNG, were 5 digits. Now, I haven’t done the maths, but I imagine this stardate is correct, that they’ve calculated from the TNG system onwards the right number of years. I mean, it looks about right. So that’s pretty cool.

And then we cut to Michael’s arrival on Discovery in the transporter room. And we get a very emotional reunion between her and all of her family. It was wonderful to see. Once again, Sonequa Martin Green’s facial acting really gets across so much emotion. Anyway, I loved this. It was very well done, and it certainly made me feel.

And there’s this look between Burhnham and Georgiou, who stands at the back of the room, unlike the others who crowd around Burnham for hugs. That’s not G...

After a long wait, Star Trek Discovery is back. Michael Burnham has succeeded in saving the universe, but she now has to face the fact that the lift she knew is gone forever, and her friends aboard Discovery are nowhere to be found. Worse than that, she learns that the Federation is all but gone in this distant future. What's a Starfleet officer to do? It turns out, this new century might need Michael just as much as the previous one did.

This is a good solid episode that opens the new season and promises an interesting and satisfying story.

So let's geek out about it.

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Find my books at

• books2read.com/jewel
• books2read.com/jewel2

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Welcome to Nerd Heaven.

I’m Adam David Collings, the author of Jewel of The Stars.

And I am a nerd.

This is episode 38 of the podcast.

Today, we launch into something new and exciting. We’re covering the first episode of Star Trek Discovery season 3, and we’ll be doing weekly review analysis on each episode until the season is done.

And welcome to my new timeslot. Back when I was covering Star Trek Picard season 1, I’d watch the episode Friday night, then watch it again Saturday morning, taking notes and scripting the podcast. Then I’d record, edit and publish by Saturday afternoon. It got pretty intense. This time, I plan to pace myself a little. I’ll be posted on Mondays, Australian time zone. Probably Monday morning. That just allows me a bit more time to get the episode together and get some other things done on the weekend.

Today’’s episode is called That Hope is You. Part 1.

The description on Memory Alpha reads

Burnham navigates a strange, new galaxy, 930 years in her future, looking for the rest of the Discovery crew. (Season premiere)

The episode was Written by Michelle Paradise, Jenny Lumet, & Alex Kurtzman

It was Directed by Olatunde Osunsanmi

And it first aired on the 15th of October 2020

Make it so.

The end of season 2 was a big game changer, liquifying the status quo of the series. Michael Burnhan and the USS Discovery flew into a wormhole taking them into the distant future. Further into Star Trek’s future than we’ve ever seen before.

And that was an exciting prospect.

So now, finally, we get to see what kind of world they emerge into.

This gives the writers of the show the opportunity they’ve wanted all along, to create something brand new. To establish a completely unexplored era in the Star Trek universe. They must have had so much fun brainstorming ideas.

Honestly, Star Trek Discovery should never have been set in the pre-Kirk 23rd century, given the kind of creative freedom they wanted. The writers finally realised this and used the second half of season 2 to set up this change.

So ... the very first scene shows us a bird, with a digital clock projected on its side. Okay. That’s different. Evidently, this is some kind of futuristic alarm clock projecting a hologram. I kinda like it. I’d wake up to that.

We see a man wake up and leave his bed, which dissolves into a liquid state and disappear. The whole structure seems to be constructed from nanites. It’s very cool on screen.

He cleans his teeth, and a desk and chair are created by the same nanite technology as his bed. The process repeats, giving us a sense that this man’s life is very very routine and predictable.

He’s searching for signals, and he carries a case that bears a Starfleet logo (Oddly, it’s the early 23rd century logo with the split delta.)

When The Next Generation first came out, they designed a whole new aesthetic for the technology. We got the beloved Okudagrams, often referred to as LCARS, although technically, LCARS is the library computer access retrieval system. Anyway, we all love that look.

But for the 32nd century, they needed to similarly re-define the visual look of the Star Trek Universe. This nanite-based technology is both visually interesting and logical. It’s a believable extension from the replication and hologram technologies.We’ve heard the term “Particle Synthesis” from time to time in Star Trek. Arturis used it to fool the crew of Voyager into thinking his ship was Starfleet. Species 8472 also used it to re-created Starfleet Academy in the Delta Quadrant. I can’t help but wonder, is this an advanced form of particle synthesis? The name seems to fit what we see on screen. Later, we’ll see a control panel on a ship. Instead of okudagrams on a touch screen, we’ll see this same nanite technology creating displays and controls. So for the most part, it seems this has replaced the holographic controls we saw in Star Trek Picard. This technology actually reminds me of the Kryptronian technology in Man of Steel. That was kinda simila...

Star Trek Discovery Season 3 is about to launch, and I'll be covering it from the next episode, but before we get there, I wanted to look back quickly on the first two seasons and share some thoughts. I talk about what worked for me, and what I perceived as flaws. Overall, I enjoyed both seasons quite a bit, and am looking forward to starting season 3.

The Stargate franchise has tackled themes of religion and spirituality in the past, but today's episode might just be one of the best examples. Stargate Universe "Faith" presents us with a massive science fiction mystery. The episode delves into questions of faith and duty. Join me as I dig into this wonderful episode.

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Welcome to Nerd Heaven.
I’m Adam David Collings, the author of Jewel of The Stars
And I am a nerd.

This is episode 62 of the podcast.
Today, we’re talking about the Stargate Universe episode “Faith”

The description on gateworld reads
The crew finds an idyllic planet when Destiny stops without its countdown clock running, tempting some crew members to stay permanently.

It was written by Denis McGrath
Directed by William Waring
And first aired on the 16th of April 2010

Stargate has been examining questions of religion and faith since the very beginning. From the original movie and into SG1. Atlantis leaned on it less but it was definitely still there. But these shows rarely used subtlety and nuance on the subject, although they did some interesting stuff with the Ori inn seasons 9 and 10. Today’s episode has more of that subtlety and nuance than the Jaffa’s faith in the very obviously false gods, the Goa’huld.

When TJ wakes up, she’s got really long hair. And I’m thinking, didnn’t she have short hair up until now? That seems to be the military norm. But when we see her later, I realise that it’s all kind of tied up. So I guess she’s always had long hair. I’m not very observant about these kinds of things.
Rush can barely walk, but he turns up in the lab because, in his words, there’s too much work to be done. He’s a workaholic. It’s about the only thing he’s passionate about. No surprise he doesn’t want to take the necessary time to allow his body to recover from his surgery.

They’re all working to repair the ship, seal off the breaches in the hull from the alien’s boarding parties.

For all his faults, Young is trying, really trying, to get along with Rush and find a way to work with him. Young has always been the more gracious of the two. It’s really hard to know what’s going on in Rush’s head, because he doesn’t betray a lot. I don’t think he cares anything that Young is trying, again, to extend the hand of peace. I think, to Rush, Young is irrelevant. Beneath him.

It seems Chloe and Scott are not currently speaking to each other. Which is correct. If this was a 90s show, they would all be back to normal now, resuming their relationship, with no memory of the coup that happened last episode. I’m so glad that TV moved to a more serialised medium. Although, as we’ll see later, they’ll still resolved their relationship a lot quicker and easier than I think they should have.

Scott is trying to make an effort to follow Young’s orders regarding the civilians. Greer doesn’t like it, at all. TJ doesn’t seem keen either, but she may have bigger problems. Scott thinks she looks sick.

The ship drops out of FTL in empty space, and the gate isn’t dialing. That’s a first. Young says there are no planets, no stars. He says this based on the records in the computer, but those looking out the window can see there is clearly a star out there.

It would seem that Destiny’s records are out of date. The seed ships are supposed to relay information back to Destiny about the various star systems.
The star is a yellow dwarf, just like our sun. Destiny didn’t stop on purpose, it didn’t know the star was here. The gravity well interfered with the ship’s FTL flight and caused it to drop out prematurely.

Destiny has already plotted a parabolic course around the star so it can resume its course. It’ll take a few weeks, but here’s the exciting part. There’s a planet. Just one. Same size as earth and by all accounts a perfect paradise. They can’t gate to the planet but it’s within shuttle range. They usually only have about a day to investigate a planet, but in this case they have weeks.

This is a big mystery. According to scans, the planet is a few hundred millions of years old. So why didn’t the seed ship see it and drop a stargate on it? The seed ships aren’t that far ahead of Destiny. Even weirder, they think that given the age of the star, the planet should be a ball of molten rock.

The planet does look beautiful. Like Canada, in the truest tradition of SG1, but it still looks a little different, because of the way they shoot it.

Greer is an idiot. He finds a fruit that looks exactly like a kiwi. He takes a big bite rather than waiting for a scientific analysis to determine whether it’s poisonous. Anyway, this is the first alien food they’ve found that actually tastes good. And there’s fresh water down there too.

But Scott sounds a little word of caution. They haven’t detected any animals, especially dangerous ones, but who knows w...