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I’ve made a bizarre observation: commemorative plates tend to be associated more with Star Trek or Star Wars more than other franchise (Stargate seems to have some, too.), and I kind of wonder why.

Obviously, they’re not actually that popular anymore and have faded into kitsch, as the only plate that seems to have come out since DS9/VOY era is the Lower Decks Tom Paris plate - there are no DSC, PIC, Kelvin, or even ENT plates, while newer Star Wars plates don’t seem all that common as well unless you want paper plates.

I’m wondering if it has to do with 2 factors, still somewhat true today but especially in the 1990s:

• Both Star Wars and Star Trek are decently large fan bases with large proportions of very passionate fans that are more likely to make purchases based on their fandom.
• Both tended to attract (and still do) an upper middle class to upper class demographic (Somehow, Bezos can call himself Trekkie 🤦‍♂️) with more disposable income to spend on collecting.

These would have made the plates commercially viable, meaning to both inside and outside observers, plates became a stereotype of the fandoms.

Anyhow, what are your thoughts?

P.S. Wow, this is starting to feel like a meta version of Daystrom.

Okay, the title may be a bit of comedic overstatement. What I really mean is I love the Lower Decks soundtrack and think Westlake may have been meant for Star Trek. I don't know what it is, but it truly evokes TNG era background music but on steroids.

I can't wait for the second volume. RIP Lower Decks - may the next few years prove to be the "Search for Lower Decks" (minus the butchering of a good Vulcan character, the pointless death... okay, maybe that wasn't the most apt comparison).

What’s your eulogy for Lower Decks?

Here’s mine: I wasn’t sure about Lower Decks for a well - I’d never been into the adult animation genre, and when I first heard of it, I had initially seen it as the wrong direction for Star Trek.

Finally, in late 2023, I watched it for the first time and was surprised to enjoy it.

Then came the crazy month of March 2024. I got rejected from all my dream schools, putting me in a sullen mood. I returned to the show and suddenly started resonating with Boimler as someone who had ambitions - some naive, some not - that weren’t always fulfilled, while I found the Cerritos to be kind of an analogue to the state school I would end up at.

Then, at the end of that month, a close family member shared their advanced pancreatic cancer diagnosis, and they passed a month after. That was when my attachment to Lower Decks solidified - I turned to it as a comfort show and really started to appreciate it. I think I’ve rewatched it twice since then - one randomly in the summer, and one to refresh my memory for the final season that began while I was doing the (mediocre) paint job for a 3D-printed combadge for a costume:

Overall, it’s probably my second favorite show in the franchise at this point, only behind DS9. I’m sure I’ll rewatch it plenty times more, though maybe a bit more sparingly - just one more this year to cope with the emptiness of no more new episodes. 🤭

Lower Decks! Lower Decks!

I made Cathode - don’t vote for it (or at least, don’t give it a high rank, since Debian uses ranked choice). It kind of sucks, honestly; I was just having fun.

I have a feeling Juliette Taka’s going to keep being the de facto face of Debian for a long time - I ranked hers first in the voting.

I guess for the thrill, same reason that I’m attempting LFS?

In Trek fandom, we often think about the badmirals. However, we never consider radmirals. With that in mind, who do you think is the best admiral? This includes commodores, vice admirals, rear admirals, etcetera.

I’m not counting main characters who got promoted after their main series e.g Picard, Kirk, Janeway, La Forge, etcetera.

Personally, to keep my documents like Inkscape files or LibreOffice documents separate from my code, I add a directory under my home directory called Development. There, I can do git clones to my heart's content

What do you all do?

TLDR; Is PRO TNG or PIC era? Do Trek eras as we know them even matter anymore?

Edit: Fixed TOK to be TWOK era. My 2 brain cells had failed me there.

Before I give my problem, here's what I find the conventional Star Trek eras to be (including some common sub-eras that some might consider distinct):

• ENT era: 2150s-2160s
• TOS era: 2250s-early 2290s
  • TWOK era: 2270s-early 2290s
• Lost era: 2290s-roughly 2330s
• TNG era: 2340s-early 2380s (I count Enterprise C as roughly the start of the TNG era. At the very least, the shuttle for the Hansen's ill-fated trip in the 2350s has the trappings of the TNG era).
  • DS9/VOY/TNG film era: 2370s, maybe early 2380s
• PIC era: mid 2380s-early 25th century (I think the Utopia Planetia in 2385 is my cutoff)
• DIS era: 32nd century

I think most newer series have obvious placements, e.g:

• DIS starts in the TOS era, then starts its own era.
• SNW is in the TOS era (I'd argue it's straight up canon, based on LD).
• LD is TNG era, based on LCARS designs and the story conventions it parodies/pastiches.

However, the main thing that is ruffling my feathers is that PRO's placement in my framework is very confusing. It exists on an awkward border between TNG and PIC.

On one hand, some of its storytelling conventions fit better with PIC, not to mention the fact that the Utopia Planetia attack occurs at the end of PRO.

On the other hand, PRO continues some TNG era characters that aren't yet elderly versions of themselves.

This goes back to the initial question: Do we place the vast majority of PRO in the TNG era (and have like the last five minutes of season 2 [hopefully not the show] in PIC era), or do we extend the Picard era backwards to 2383 to include PRO in its entirety?

The 2383 solution might work, as that leaves 2382 in the TNG era for the 5th season of Lower Decks.

I have a random guess about the problem with the alternate, bearded Boimler: he’s actually William Boimler, who killed (or imprisoned) Bradward and took his place on that Cerritos for mysterious Section 31 reasons.

That Boimler even says, “nobody deserves to be replaced by their own double.”

EDIT: I forgot to add a screenshot. Here it is.

While re-watching DS9 S1:E19 "Duet", I noticed this okudagram around 6:21 and got a bit curious.

Some of these images just look like aliens they would have already had pictures of. However, two stand out as potential easter eggs - the picture on the middle left looks unmistakably like Spock, and the human on the bottom left looks like they could be a production worker or a favorite musical artist.

However, Memory Alpha and a simple Google Search don't seem to turn up anything. I'm intrigued to know what history, if any, is behind this graphic.

I pick it up again every once in a while. I just had a slate of particularly miserable emeritus short losses, including one where 9 of the 13 Klingons left were in one sector. I was docked in a Starbase adjacent to that sector, and I could have sent an armed probe. Instead, to not get any more planet loss points, I decided, "I'm just gonna take em with phasers." I got killed immediately.