It is terribly crowded. And there isn’t enough shade, or places to sit. Still, at least some of the rides are really well done, have air-conditioned lines, and are of decent length. I went to Knott’s berry farm a month or two ago, and I’d say that was worse. Terrible food options with insane markups—like, at a cafeteria-style bbq place, a single beer costs $16.50. And we waited for over an hour in the sun for what felt like a 30-second ride (This site lists it at 1:02, but I’m skeptical).

Yeah, it didn’t really make any sense that they turned into Vulcans and somehow also acquired a Vulcan education.

I’ve yet to shell out for any trek merch, excepting games (ok, one time I bought a bootleg darmok and jalad shirt online, but they’d misspelled tanagra on it, which was a bummer). I did thoroughly enjoy Resurgence on PC, though. You’re basically playing through an episode of Trek, post-Dominion War.

You shift perspectives from scene to scene, alternately playing as the newly arrived XO of a science vessel, or an enlisted engineer. It’s well-written, with believable characters, and lots of weighty choices. It’s mostly talking and doing science and diplomacy, with some action and the odd stealth section. I, a random internet denizen, recommend it.

Interesting! Never got a snes growing up; my parents thought we played the nes too much, so it eventually went into the closet, and I transitioned to pc games. Looking at the screenshots, it seems to be a completely different game.

I think the pc version is still worth playing, for Tolkien fans that are willing to put up with a bit of jank.

I recently started replaying the 1990 Interplay LotR game, which I have fond memories of playing as a kid. I also discovered they made a sequel which I never played, but intend to!

It’s a top-down, party-based rpg with turn-based combat, and a fairly robust keyword-based dialogue system. Pretty clunky by today’s standard, but it’s chock full of loving detail. There are a number of deviations from the books for the sake of gameplay, but it’s quite faithful to the spirit of the text.

You can find it on various abandonware sites, and apparently someone’s also rewritten the engine!

I enjoyed the episode, but I agree that the documentary framing device seemed to preclude any serious discussion of the ethical problem, like you’d get in the 1701-D’s conference (briefing?) room. Instead, we got a lot of Pike saying “Orders is orders!”

We’re not privy to Pike’s communications with Starfleet, there’s little nuance to any discussion of the issue we do see, and the Lutani get so little screen time, they’re practically 2d.

I liked the novelty of the format, and I generally enjoy the way SNW mixes things up. I do think it often leans too far into style, to the detriment of substance.

I enjoyed Elite Force, but it’s more actiony than I want my Trek games to be. My favorites have always been the ones that try to put you into an episode—Judgment Rites, ST: 25th Anniversary, A Final Unity, and Resurgence. I think the adventure genre is a much better match with the franchise than strategy or action.

Sadly(for me), that doesn’t seem to be the direction they’re going with this Voyager game. Hopefully it turns out well, though.

Thanks for doing the legwork on that! I’m not familiar with the manga, and I immediately thought of the song.

I feel like it’d be canon for him to be Naomi Wildman’s first officer.

This is hilariously plausible.

As a native english speaker, I fully agree. Exile is something that happens to the rich and powerful, when they fall out of favor. It does not at all connote what’s going on here. Deportation is far more apt.

It’s from the early days of Greatest Gen, and references Captain DeSoto of the USS Hood (NCC-1703). DeSoto and the Hood made several appearances in TNG, and Ben and Adam leaned into his chill vibes, theorizing that the Hood would be a great place to work.

It’s also an allusion to the phrase Friend of Dorothy, an older euphemism for LGBT people.

I think it was originally jokingly conceived as a sort of passphrase or shibboleth for fans of the pod to identify each other without revealing their embarrassing enthusiasm to outsiders, e.g.

Q: “Are you a friend of DeSoto?”

A: “Best boss I ever had!”