the play’s the thing (12. 988)

As our faithful chronicler reminds on this day in 1966, the Star Trek:TOS episode “The Conscience of the King” (S1:E13) was originally aired with the USS Enterprise diverted three light years off course to ostensibly investigate a synthetic food source developed by Captain Kirk’s childhood friend Dr Thomas Leighton on Planet Q as a novel way to remedy dire shortages on Cygnia Minor. Both among the survivors of Kodos the Executioner, former governor of the Earth colony of Tarsus IV—who ordered the execution of half the settlers during a famine to prevent more starvation with the ensuing resistance precipitating an all out massacre, just days before a relief ship arrived—it is revealed that Leighton’s deception was a coded ruse to lure Kirk to confirm or deny his suspicions that an actor of a touring Shakespearian troupe might actually be the revolutionary provincial leader, Kirk and Leighton among the handful of survivors ever to see Kodos in person. Though convinced that Kodos was killed during the uprising, Kirk’s curiosity is piqued and returns to the surface to attend a cocktail hour held at the Leighton estate, hoping to encounter the supposed fugitive and in the meantime courts the actor’s daughter, the suspect not in attendance, excused as her father does not socialise. Strolling the desert grounds, they come across the murdered body of Leighton and Kirk contrives to strand the company on the planet. Spock conducts independent research and learns that the other eyewitnesses of the elusive governor have died in mysterious circumstances when in proximity to the acting company. More evidence is gathered and the Enterprise offers to ferry the players to their next venue, whilst the ship’s theatre club is rehearsing Hamlet, which the guest stars join, performing the play-within-the-play. Despite the non-fatal poisoning of another crew member who also survived the killings, tampering with Kirk’s phaser and the actor’s apologies in defence of the actions of the colony’s leader, Kirk remains hesitant to forward his accusations until his daughter reveals that she has been executing witnesses, unbidden, to help her father escape his past and whilst attempting to shoot Kirk, phasers her father, having jumped in the beam’s path, and like Ophelia with the accidental death of Laertes, descends into madness, attended by Dr McCoy. The episode also marked the last appearance of Grace Lee Whitney as yeoman Rand until brought back for the movies in that role, giving a resigned dirty look to Kodos’ daughter knowing it was her last scene, a fellow blonde and herself released so Kirk could pursue other love interests, and this show plus “Day of the Dove” (S3:E11), responding to another distress call that pits the Enterprise a in pitched battle with a Klington Bird of Prey gave Simpson’s producer Matt Groening the characters of Kodos and Kang.

i never lie when i’ve got sand in my shoes (12. 849)

Exactly as it says on the tin, every episode in chronological order of Star Trek: TNG encapsulated in a three-second clip (keeping with the numbering convention for two parters, like the pilot or season finale cliffhangers that list them as a single show). Inspired by one-second clips of the whole of TOS, like Captain Picard said (S6:E25, Timescape, “He just kept talking in one long incredibly unbroken sentence moving from topic to topic so that no one had a chance to interrupt—it was really quite hypnotic.” What’s your favourite out of context sound bite or scene? We are partial to “Star Base 12—your mother?” and Troi saying, “So you like horses for romance?”

9x9 (12. 824)

project mind control: Sopranos creator’s next project is about spymaster and chemist Sidney Gottlieb and MKUltra  

perwich letter: a coded seventeen century diplomatic missive deciphered after three hundred and fifty years 

daisy, daisy—give me your answer do: AI models creating their own survival drive to avoid being switched off 

meanwhile back at the academy: new Star Trek series featuring Holly Hunter is to have a coming-of-age teen theme 

critical ponerology theory: a fascinating look at the othering nature of evil 

space mom: veteran actor June Lockhart passes away, aged 100  

anti-deficiency act: anonymous donation meant to defray a fraction of the salaries of the US armed forces revealed as a reclusive billionaire 

bletchley park: a virtual Enigma machine to reverse-engineer in the style of an early 2000s computer game—see previously, see also—via Web Curios 

channelvue: capturing the experience of early 1990s cable channel surfing, a network CEO becomes flummoxed to find her station guide broadcast hijacked—see also 

synchronoptica

one year ago: The Terminator (with synchronopticæ) plus half-baked ideas

thirteen years ago: the cognitive dissonance of political campaigning 

fourteen years ago: the EU experiment, a mysterious manuscript decoded by computer plus the anniversary of the German invention of the telephone

fifteen years ago: printable Halloween costume ideas

sixteen years ago: fall back with the clocks 

seventeen years ago: the McCain-Palin ticket for the US presidency 

ebs terranews (12. 666)

Given the esteem in which the profession of journalism is held and the state of space exploration—at least in some sectors—presently, we enjoyed this brief survey of reporters and anchors featured in various series of the Star Trek franchise. While some serve a purely expository role—especially in instances of time-travel and alternate dimensions, it’s comforting to know, from aspiring correspondents like Neelix and Jake Sisko and veterans like Marci Collins of 3 Action News (not affiliated with Channel 90 and Chris Brenner of Brenner Information Systems), that there are still investigative media outlets to cover politics in a post-scarcity, ostensibly utopian society.

synchronoptica

one year ago: cinematic pathways (with synchronopticæ), a 1954 royal yacht party plus fun with LinkedIn profiles

thirteen years ago: fostering an honest advertising ecosystem 

fourteen years ago: the enigma of supercentenarians plus minimalist business cards 

fifteen years ago: the social safety net and service fees 

sixteen years ago: zoonotic virus vectors 

8x8 (12. 614)

ieepa: class action lawsuit from small businesses affected by Trump’s tariffs could prove to be a significant challenge to his economic model 

lambretta boogaloo: a new single from Big Boss Man Los Res and the Bongo Fuzz label   

geodesy: astronomers triangulate Earth’s location in the Universe using black holes but WiFi is interrupting the signal  

at most ten-percent syncopation: Nazi era rules for jazz musicians—via Nag on the Lake  

aldeh: Greater Manchester chain keeping temporary name in honour of Oasis reunion tour after attaining status as cultural landmark  

sing what happens: a sedately risqué Japanese karaoke televised game show—via Memo of the Air 

tas: Strange New Worlds to have a fully Muppetised episode courtesy of Jim Henson’s Creature Workshop—still, cancel Paramount 

church and state: US to allow federal workers to evangelise in the work place

turnabout intruder (12. 506)

Courtesy of our faithful chronicler we are reminded that on this day in 1969, the originally scheduled broadcast preempted more than two months due to special network coverage following the death of former president Dwight Eisenhower (see also here and here), the original run of Star Trek came to a rather ignominious end with its final episode (previously), two years short of its five year mission. Responding to a cry for help from an archaeological team on an Alpha Quadrant planet, (Captain’s log, Stardate 5928.5: The Enterprise has received a distress call from a group of scientists on Camus II, who are exploring the ruins of a dead civilisation. Their situation is desperate. Two of the survivors are the expedition’s surgeon, Dr Coleman and the leader of the expedition Dr Janice Lester) Kirk is reunited with a former romantic interest from his Academy days, the latter being attended by the former who claims that she is suffering from acute radiation poisoning which killed the others. Lester and Kirk reminisce about their shared time in training, Lester blaming Starfleet’s patriarchal culture and sexism for halting her career progression and activating an alien technology to Freaky Friday their life-entities and switch bodies, with Lester as Kirk taking command of the ship and remanding Kirk as Lester to sick bay. In a course of events that are a carefully constructed indictment against Lester’s ambitious takeover and a tribunal ensues to declare Lester unfit for command with the imposter Kirk pushing back against this mutiny. Eventually the crew realises that the captain is not himself and the two personalities are once again swapped with the alien artefact. Dismissive of Lester’s hysteria, the final lines of dialogue, spoken by Kirk restored in his own body are “Her life could have been as rich as any woman’s—if only… if only…” Poorly received by audiences and considered one of the worst episodes of the original series—though in fairness, the the show was cancelled prematurely and did not have the chance to complete its story arc as planned, critics found it to be misogynistic and playing into the prejudices and sexism that Dr Lester had sought to overcome.

memory alpha (12. 504)

Courtesy of Kottke, we are introduced to a wonderfully obsessive superfan whose meticulous interest and encyclopaedic knowledge of Star Trek: The Next Generation has translated to him becoming a stagehand and consultant for later incarnations of the franchise named Jörg Hillebrand, a mild-mannered German elementary school teacher by day, who has taken easter eggs from TNG and other series and worked in several callbacks for Star Trek: Picard. The book on display in the captain’s ready room is an edition of The Annotated Shakespeare, Volume One and is open to various pages during each episode, one time, with some close examination, revealing proof that not only does classical thespian Patrick Stewart existed in the show’s universe (see also) but that Jean Luc is aware of him, the spread in question featuring a still from a 1968 production of As You Like It with Stewart in the role of Touchstone. Much more trivia, hidden messages and recycled costumes and set-dressing at the links above.

first contact (12. 367)

Observed on this day to celebrate both the flight of the Phoenix (repurposed from a nuclear warhead at a US Air Force missile complex outside of Bozeman, Montana) that broke the light-speed barrier and attracted the attention of a passing Vulcan survey ship, the T’Plana-Hath, with its warp-signature—and immediately following the test-launch humanity’s first encounter with an alien race. The 2063 event was introduced as a holiday in 2021 during the COVID pandemic a virtual pick-me-up during lockdown and social-distancing but was established in franchise canon outside of the feature film with the crew of the Next Generation thwarting sabotage by the Borg and preserving the timeline—Geordi and Riker need to go further back in the past to fix our timeline—and Voyager marking the occasion from the Delta Quadrant with Naomi Wildman and Neelix hosting a gathering (see also) for the three hundred fifteenth anniversary with a party and rock-and-roll music (pilot Zefram Cochrane’s favourites) from Tom Paris’ antique jukebox. Science officer Tuvok delivered the salutation, reluctantly not seeing the point, of “Live long and prosper,” to the applause of the guests. A decade after First Contact, during the dedication of Earth’s first Warp 5 complex, Cochrane—who was initially motivated to create the warp drive for ‘women and money’—addressed the crowd: “Don’t try tp be a great man, just be a man, and let history make its own judgments,” it never being clear it the later retcon whether the test-flight was successful due to the intervention of the Enterprise and the Borg attempt to prevent it, and “This engine will let us go boldly where no man has gone before.” Ooby dooby.

synchronoptica

one year ago: Carrie at fifty-plus (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: another hit from Melanie, Lustron steel homes plus the Pillars of Creation

eight years ago: optical character recognition, amending the US constitution plus the news is fake but the leaks are real

nine years ago: the Panama Papers, Star Trek inspired cosmetics, manhole apartments, a gallery of Mid-Century Modern homes plus David Bowie as Abraham Lincoln

ten years ago: Easter greetings

where is everybody? (12. 342)

Being obsessed with the philosophical and cosmological question of Fermi’s Paradox and having considered the Great Filter beforehand, we enjoyed revisiting the proposal that no one makes it—that is succeeds as a spacefaring civilisation with a constellation of lesser filters setting up intractable hurdles to the accomplishment, progress sabotaged by biological limitations, superstition, self-destructive tendencies of a society, pollution or a misguided Singularity. In that unlikely loneliness, however, there also lies an equally improbable (though less so than intelligent life evolving no where else in the Universe) of a grand conspiracy of those that have made it exercising and enforcing a sort of Prime Directive to cloak their evidence and activities. While that might seem patriarchal (but who knows what challenges and dangers could await) and demotivating in terms of reaching for the stars, humans—on any others on the cusp—might have never had the ambition to invent and explore with gods in the sky.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a Euro Pop playlist (with synchronoptica) 

seven years ago: a yōkai primer, assorted links to revisit, transhumance plus an AI suggests April Fools’ pranks

eight years ago: more links to enjoy plus Mr Roger’s Conflict Series

nine years ago: Easter origins, a venerable guesthouse plus a sinister lullaby

ten years ago: night-vision eye-drops plus even more links

10x10 (12. 283)

subwoof: opening of Star Trek: The Next Generation but with the theme coming from the ship  

sudoku: unsolvable sliding fourteen-fifteen wooden puzzles 

frame-by-frame: experimenting with 3D printing to achieve a stop-motion animation effect  

anglish: English without the influence of Romance languages  

dead letter office: Denmark’s postal service to end delivery of letters, citing a ninety percent decline in volume  

oddly compelling: underground comics and Kitchen Sink Press 

rebel with a clause: the self-styled den mother of grammarians sets up a table for language advice  

edelweißpiraten: a look at the loosely organised youth group that opposed Nazi Germany—via Strange Company 

🏃‍➡️: revisiting an appreciation of how Flash influenced gaming history—via Boing Boing  

cue ro laren drop: a library of audio sweeps, intros, outros and transitions for podcasters—via Web Curios

happy bell’s riot day—to all who celebrate (11. 805)

Though quickly degenerating into internment camps run by gangs—in their particular argot: gimmies, dims and ghosts—the US government’s attempts to redress endemic problems with homeless and unemployment in major urban areas by creating closed Sanctuary Districts began in the early 2020s and was regarded as a way to shield the general public realising the extent of societal collapse (the re-settlement zones were also cut off from the planetary computer network) and curbing the risk for political upheaval. In accordance with Starfleet’s temporal displacement policy, crew from outpost Deep Space 9 travelled back in time to the end of August 2024 to try to rescue an abducted colleague without impacting the history, however, one of the revolutionary leaders is killed while saving the life of Dr Bashir and Commander Sisko, prompting the latter to take on Gabriel Bell’s identity (clips from the 1995 episode at the link) and repair their timeline. The riot occurring on this day, the inmates took over the district’s processing centre and with the help of Chris Brynner, owner and proprietor of Brynner Information Systems (Channel 90 on the Net), reconnected the Sanctuary with the outside world with many imprisoned inside able give testimony, sparking wider rebellions and eventual justice reform.

 

synchronoptica

 

one year ago: factoids about every number (with synchronoptica), warning signs, a walk along an ancient footpath plus assorted links worth revisiting

seven years ago: resorts in the Catskills then and now, more Trump merchandising, Victorian era cabinet cards plus North Korea challenges US to a dance-off

 

eight years ago: exquisite glass sea creatures plus 7-Up psychedelic advertising 

 

nine years ago: more links to enjoy plus free will and microscopic chaos

 

ten years ago: a visit to a Roman outpost in Germany 

your good and your evil use the same methods, achieve the same results (11. 674)

Bob Canada presents a highlight reel of some of the more bizarre images that the crew of the Enterprise saw on the ship’s viewscreen during the course of the original run of Star Trek: TOS, with their encounter with Space Lincoln in “The Savage Curtain” (S3:E22) with the super-intelligent rock-like Excliaban having created the presidential look-alike (along with a facsimile of the renowned Vulcan philosopher Surak) to better explore the concepts of good and evil, pitting these two upstanding figures against a cast of villains, including Genghis Khan and Klingon warlord Kahless with Kirk and Spock as seconds in the duel. Despite knowing that the great statesman is an artifice of matter-energy conversion, the Captain accords his personal hero with full honours upon boarding the ship.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: neutral facial posture plus the fall of Constantinople

eight years ago: Stephen Hawking’s stalker plus a short hiatus

nine years ago: absquatulate, cartoon tropes plus Freedomland, USA

ten years ago: peace vigils in Germany

7x7 (11. 618)

bernhard modern: pre- and proscriptions in font choice in legal briefs  

mind the gap: a huge collection of historic London Underground maps and posters—see previously 

in search of…: the Dogon culture and ancient astronomy

homebrewed: following his felony conviction, Trump’s licenses to sell liquor under scrutiny 

pay wall: you’ve read your last fee article, such is the nature of mortality

and peace and justice for all: Tweet of the Day re-litigates and exonerates all of Trump’s misdeeds  

poster child: the auction expertise of Nicho Lowry  

show bible: a reprinting of the DC Comics Style Guide from 1982

40 eridani a β (11. 600)

From an astrological point of view, the downgrading of Pluto (see previously here and here) was traumatic to many but the Vulcan home world, canonically placed in the above triple star-system of the constellation Eridanus of the southern skies, has now twice suffered the indignity of possibly not existing. Astronomers believed that they had detected the signature of an exoplanet back in 2018, informally designated as Vulcan but subsequent observations revealed that the superearth, originally found by a gravitational wobble, is probably a calibration mirage—or perhaps the cloaking is intentional. More at the links above.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth the revisit plus discovering local, cinematic connections

two years ago: a 1978 conspiracy thriller, Elizabeth II, the manicule plus more links to enjoy

three years ago: St Elmo, more shadowcasting plus pedantry and pronuncication

four years ago: 1988 in pop songs

five years ago: Steve Bannon’s planned gladiator school falls through plus googie architecture 

memory alpha (11. 515)

Courtesy of fellow internet-caretaker Everlasting Blört (a site that sadly we don’t get to frequent nearly often enough these days but always serendipitous and worth the visit), we are referred to a massive Pinterest-type gallery of Star Trek images, character profiles, peeks behind the scenes, ship schematics, chronologies, ephemera, merchandise and other appearances and publications and cast photos from every series and films of the franchise—see previously. It was a lot of fun to browse through and like the drop-down effects as one scrolls about. The title is taken from TOS S3:18, The Lights of Zetar, where a storm-like phenomenon is approaching at warp speed to the planetoid in the Teneebia sector that hosts the Federation’s central archives and inspired the eponymous, definitive database of lore and fandom.

10x10 (11. 496)

the cloud under the seas: the fleet of secret submarine cable repair ships 

sarbox: US Supreme Court appears skeptical about charging January Sixth rioters with obstruction of justice as defined by a law made in the aftermath of the Enron accounting scandal  

mix-and-match orthography: how Japanese writers navigate a choice between four writing systems (see also)—via Cardhouse  

walled gardens have deep roots: the imperative of rewilding (previously) the internet lest the duopolies take over—via Waxy 

bongo bash: Wild Stereo Drums (1961)  

embroidered surveillance: cross-stitch works of closed-circuit security camera footage  

the questor tapes: a 1974 television sci-fi drama about an android with incomplete programming by Star Trek alumni Gene L Coon, D C Fontana and Gene Roddenberry—via r/Obscure Media  

tegelwippen: Dutch towns compete to remove garden paving and embrace weeds—via Miss Cellania  

voir dire: jury selection continues for the criminal trial of Donald J Trump—with some potential jurors being unintentionally doxed by the media 

 atlas 2.0: Boston Dynamics’ new humanoid robot

synchronoptica

one year ago: Atelier Elvira, an unwoke chatbot plus assorted links worth revisiting

two years ago: more gachapons plus an introduction to risography

three years ago: the launch of the Disney Channel (1983), an experimental light house plus Wham in China (1985)

four years ago: more links to enjoy, the International Amateur Radio Union plus The Spirits Book (1897)

five years ago: concrete monoliths moved by hand plus Mueller Report redactions

7x7 (11. 421)

triple word score: the undisputed champion of competitive Scrabble  

boyard cigarettes: unused geisha footage for an Offworld advertising campaign

statutory interpretation: a forthcoming book on the ideology of originalism and its malleability 

the apprehension engine: custom suspenseful sounds for horror movie incidental music—via Things Magazine  

penmanship: the resurgence of cursive—see previously  

raktajino: a supercut of Klingon coffee in Star Trek: DS-9  

game theory: selfishness and enlightened self-interest through the lens of novelist and philosopher Iris Murdoch

a roll of the dice (11. 399)

Via Clive Thompson’s latest Linkfest (lots more to check out there), we not only learn of the crazy in the 1920s for mechanical dice cards that generated pseudorandom numbers for you—dominoes and playing cards developed from casting lots in ancient times in China and Japan—there is a project in the works to revive these steampunk clicker gadgets. More at the link above—be sure to read about Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures cover, contranyms and revisit our friend, the Michelin Man.
Whilst researching, we came across another variant of Roman die in the form of a spinning top called a teetotum—still used in gambling in Latin America and later adapted into a dreidel (to distance itself from the wages or wagers). In varying accounts, a four- or six-sided playing piece determined the player’s fate: T for totum when winning the whole pool, A for aufer to draw, D for depone signifying a discard or N for Nihil Dabis when nothing happens. Compare to the Ferengi roulette and certainly rigged game of skill and chance of Dabo and the card-sharks associated with it from Deep Space Nine.

infinite improbability drive (11.386)

Via Kottke, we are directed to an interesting observation, theory by Lisa Riemers (an example of l'esprit de l’escalier—a stair-step realisation, the perfect reply that came too late—shared after a podcast recording) that technology has graduated beyond Star Trek-inspired hardware with tricorders, comms-badges, tablet computers—though we are still lacking the transporters, replicators, warp-travel and post-scarcity society—and is entering the Douglas Adams’ phase, when absurd tech calls for correspondingly absurd inventions. The super computer Deep Thought, in The Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy, which devised the Ultimate Answer, forty-two, but made no sense as the Ultimate Question was outside the scope of its programming, Electric Monks that did the believing for you to alleviate some of the tedium of it, the exceeding wealthy building custom planets, depressed robots and lab rats (hyper-intelligences in disguise) subjected to experimentation conducting research on the scientists all seem to have their corollaries in chatbot and AI trials, virtual boyfriends, unhinged and hallucinating large language models, rogue driverless cars and luxury doomsday bunkers. Maybe we have attained the Babel Fish / Universal Translator, however, but the verdict is still out. More at the links above.

11x11 (11. 380)

sure, write stuff for free—but write it for yourself: maintaining one’s creativity in the bleak media sector brickwalling and the loss of journalistic records  

rage-baiting: viral Tik-Tok couple troll influencer culture with such precision most don’t realise it’s satire—via Super Punch  

the paint explainer: a primer on the twenty-seven amendments to the US Constitution—via Memo of the Air 

dark dimensions: there’s a new theory about where dark matter might be hiding  

the sony smartwig: a 2016 patent granted for a connected hairpiece one pairs with their phone for tactile feedback 

the navel on an orange is a mutation that created a conjoined twin: weird information to dispense on a first date—via Nag on the Lake’s Sunday Links 

the riker manoeuvre: small towns with monuments to Star Trek characters—via Marginal Revolution  

selectric funeral: the Boston Typewriter Orchestra hopes to appear in NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert with this submission  

awful yet lawful: US Supreme Court to entertain grievances on social media moderation for deplatforming hateful and dangerous content  

multi-level marketing: a supercut of huckster Donald Trump’s merchandising scams 

you can out-buzzfeed buzzfeed after all: media group in takeover talks with UK’s The Independent—see previously