Isn’t it maddening when things end on a cliffhanger? At least you have some burnt bird meat to tide you over until next Tuesday. Or just get drunk and space out like Bev up there. Happy Thanksgiving!

The Next Generation and it’s progeny had a number of annoying narrative crutches they relied on, such as the incessant “Captain’s Log” that started nearly every single episode. The other major one was the conference room. Both of these were used rarely in The Original Series, which usually started in media res, often not even on board the ship. The original Enterprise did have a briefing room, but it was used sparingly and certainly not in the midst of a crisis. Those discussions were left on the bridge.

The Next Generation, on the other hand, made it a point to take every important person off the bridge at any moment to sit around a table and leisurely confab. One of the most egregious examples is in “Q Who” where, after the ship has had a chunk of it removed by a still looming Borg vessel, the Enterprise just sits there while Picard calls a meeting. Could you imagine Kirk taking everyone down to the briefing room in “Corbomite Maneuver” with three minutes left on the counter to come up with his Big Balok Bluff?

This is not an appeal to tradition, though. The Enterprise D doesn’t have the same psuedo-military hierarchy as it’s parent show, and I respect TNG as its own kinder, gentler ensemble animal. Picard is a listener, not a dictator. People talk more and react less. The A.V. Club’s Zack Handlen once described The Next Generation bridge as a space for Picard to walk about and explore his options, as opposed to a place where he can just swing his chair one way or another and bark. There’s even more than one center seat so that everyone can sit down next to the captain and have their say.

That’s why, when looking at the many old Probert concept bridge samples Ryan sent me for the Vikrant I immediately seized on the ones that had replaced the captain chair completely with a conference table and also increased the size of the resources available to explore. I wanted to double down on the Next Generationness of The Next Generation while also keeping the action where it belongs – in the command center with the problem on screen in front of all involved. And, yeah, it looks even more like the lobby of a Hilton. So much the better.

The question I get asked most about each of the comic’s storylines is “when does this take place?” Most of the time this can be gleaned from dialogue in the comic that references other incidents from The Original Series. Often people wonder whether a uniform is appropriate to the era depicted or whether someone should be here when they thought they were there. Sometimes I get lazy and just add a chyron, even though I hate them. But when a story takes a year to tell, a few sentences at a time, details can get fuzzy even for the most attentive reader. So here is the official timeline of the comic with notable and relevant incidents from TOS and TNG included as reference points and background. The timeline will be a permanent page that will be updated as the comic lore continues to grow.

Check out the timeline here, or at the “Timeline” button up top.

Introducing the crew of the Ambassador Class USS Vikrant. As promised, the next comic will be set right before The Next Generation. The story is a kind of reimagining of TNG – a sort of “what could have been” – with similar characters and dynamics. Yet, it fits fine within established canon. The script is about 80% complete with some polishing most likely needed before it can start being published. What is complete and ready to go is the quick prologue, which sets up some of the characters and takes place a year before the story starts. That may show up as soon as Friday and should keep you all satisfied while the main script is finished up.

As most of you have probably noticed the comic hasn’t been published for a while. I’ve decided to take my first break from it in nearly five years. Have no fear, though. It should be returning in late July. I have a really cool outline for a story from writer extraordinaire, Ryan Riddle, whom some of you may know from TrekBBS. It’s going to be a early Next Generation era story, riffing on a lot of what we thought Gene’s vision for the show got right and adding back in great concepts he let slip away. There’s going to be skants, spandex, and lots of Eighties hairdos. It’s a can’t miss.

In the meantime I’ll be posting some designs and teasers for the next story. Many of those will show up on my Patreon page first. Donations to the comic have hit nearly $50 a month and I do think that’s enough to keep it going for a bit longer. However, if you’re realizing now how much you miss the comic during this hiatus then please consider tossing a few shekels my way. at $2 a month – $24 a year – you’re paying the price of a single graphic novel. Isn’t this comic worth that?

In other news, I’ve sold my model of the Enterprise and am now working on a replacement. I’ll let everyone know when I’ve started it.

That’s all for now. Keep us on your RSS feed to make sure you get the most up to the minute news.

A really unfortunate snippet of footage was put out a few weeks ago that purports to be a deleted scene from Star Trek: Discovery. In it the disgraced Emperor Phillipa is followed into her newly acquired strip club by an agent of Section 31 who proceeds to induct her into the secret society. Section 31, for those fortunate enough not to know, is a paradox of bad conspiracy theories in which a powerful, malevolent agency is simultaneously run by the government and yet above it. It does everything in total secrecy and exists in the shadows for several hundred years between Enterprise and Deep Space Nine almost completely unnoticed.

Section 31 is one of the worst concepts to come out of Rick Berman’s Star Trek. Worse than warp 10 salamanders and transporter matter stream worms. Section 31, which is an obvious ripoff of Babylon 5‘s Bureau 13, brings the X-Files style paranoia that gained popularity in the 90’s into a franchise that has absolutely no room for it. For all our faults as a society we have no analogy to Section 31 in our government. The CIA is evil, but it’s hardly secret and it does the direct bidding of whoever is in office. It’s actions may be secretive, but they rarely stay that way for long, let alone centuries. Our secret military technology is handled by the Department of Defense which works with private industry and who’s projects are often outed eventually if not immediately. Even in authoritarian societies secret police answer to the guy at the top, making Section 31 less of a government agency and more like an Illuminati.

Government conspiracies and secret organizations are not compatible with free societies. Whether it’s anarchists and “chemtrails” or authoritarians like Alex Jones and “Pizzagate”, claiming that forces out of our control are coming to get us only helps to erode our democracy. The utopian world of Star Trek has no room for that kind of crap. This isn’t gritty realism. It’s just unhinged fears made real. It’s the stuff of dystopias, not Roddenberry idealism.

Ira Behr once said of his creation, “Why is Earth a paradise in the twenty-fourth century? Well, maybe it’s because there’s someone watching over it and doing the nasty stuff that no one wants to think about.” That may seem like a truism, but it’s really just the neoconservative mentality of someone who can’t see the good in humanity. It assumes that nasty stuff needs to be done to make things good and nice for the rest of us. That in order for us to prosper, someone has to suffer. It’s simply not historically true. One only has to spend five minutes researching the nasty stuff done in the name of Western security to see it backfire over and over again. Star Trek is the place where we’re too smart to keep doing the nasty stuff hoping for a positive outcome. We’ve become smarter than that. Introducing an evil backend that makes the Federation possible is like Zach Snyder making Superman an objectivist. Superman can’t exist unless you believe in unbridled, selfless altruism. Star Trek can’t exist without it either.

It’s not like the Federation never gets things wrong. They can stumble into war (“Errand of Mercy”), breed rogue elements (The Undiscovered Country), play silly spy-vs-spy games (“The Enterprise Incident”), and trip over their own bureaucracy (every commissioner or diplomat that ever breathed down Kirk’s neck). But, under it all, it is a free and fair society that plays by its own rules. If you can’t believe that then the entire concept of Star Trek falls apart. What do Kirk and Picard’s famous monologues on humanity and peace mean if Section 31 is out there undermining everything they do? What have they been working for if, in the end, their world is a false one? Section 31 literally destroys the the idea of a better tomorrow, which is the very backbone of Star Trek. Because, if Section 31 is real then tomorrow is way worse than today. I refuse to believe that.

Hey folks, the modeling bug has hit me again and I only have room for one giant spaceship in my life. So the Enterprise I built in 2014 is going on sale. In her place I’ll be building another one with brighter internal lighting for filming. The current lighting is great for display, but just doesn’t hold up at f/8 at 30fps. I’ll be doing a few other modifications and experiments as well. My lose, though, is your gain. The model’s features include:

• Quiet running motors for the nacelle fans. Motors speed is controlled with an attached knob in the base. Stop them altogether or run them at warp 10.
• Fully detailed interiors of the bridge and hangar including a scaled shuttle Galileo.
• Hangar door can be closed or left open.
• Super detailed paint job shows off various panels based on the Greg Jein model created for “Troubles and Tribblations”.
• Metal parts painted using Alclad II.
• Hand painted weathering.
• Several sets of photoetch parts were used for the most accurate details.
• All signage and pennants were hand painted with masks. No decals.
• On/off switch on base.
• Sturdy, hand made base with mirror for enjoying the ship from all angles.
• Laser-engraved aluminum dedication plaque.

Thanks to a number of amazing readers we are 25% of the way to the donation goal needed to keep this comic going for another story line and beyond. And we did it in less than two weeks. $100 a month is all it’s going to take. That pays for my web hosting and the hours I spend away from work and family drawing eight strips a month. At this rate I’m pretty sure it can be done before Mudd Slide wraps up. But it can’t happen without you. Spread out over the year, the cost of funding this comic per person would equal that of a fancy graphic novel, which is exactly what you get here week after week.

Visit my Patreon site add to the growing support. And thanks again!

Hello, dear readers. This comic has been serving you for five years now. I’ve amassed a pretty loyal following of nearly one thousand readers over that time. I love making the comic and I love the community of commenters I get to read every week. But, it’s getting harder to keep up with each week. I’ve never wanted to make a living from this as Star Trek is not mine, but some support for materials and work are allowed by Paramount/CBS’s fan production rules. So, I’m asking for donations to keep this – and a lot of my other side work – going. If I reach at least $100 a month the continuation of the comic beyond Mudd Slide will be assured. Donations get you access to each strip a day early as well as it’s underlying as well as perks like scripts and model sheets.

What other side projects am I up to? Some of you know I’m an avid modeler. What most of you don’t know is I’ve been working for the last year on a computerized motion control system that allows shooting of models with multiple, identical exposure passes. It doesn’t just make for great looking videos, but could be a boon to amateur film makers. Check out the results I’ve had so far:

I’d like to keep refining this project, but it too needs funding to keep going. I’m looking to get proper lights, make more models, and continue to tweak the controller software. In the process I’ll be posting my results as well as tutorials. Interested? Start your monthly donation today!

Soap operas and serious dramas seem worlds apart, but they actual have a very simple difference: themes and character development. Soaps don’t have them. They move from one plot point to another without caring about character growth or moral lessons. They focus only on what will be the most shocking happenstance the writer can inflict to make you go “Oh, geez! That’s awful!”

Shocking happenstances aren’t bad. For instance, in the Battlestar Galactica reboot when Adama is shot by Boomer at the end of season one it’s shocking as hell, but it’s also part of a long nature-over-nurture debate involving Boomer’s hidden programming vs her self awareness as a human being. Adama, if he lives, will also have to deal with the fact that his most trusted pilot is his sworn enemy and should he react to the programming or the woman?

Discovery desperately wants to be a drama. It has good characters with good relationships. They have very well defined outlooks that clash in very specific ways. No one on Discovery is a cipher. But, somehow, again and again, the show simply screwed the pooch on its conflict resolution blowing any chance at a unifying theme and character growth out the door in favor of shocking the audience.

Let’s take Lorca. He’s a bad dude from beginning to end. He’s got a wake of dead bodies behind him. He manipulates people through very precisely observed weaknesses. He’s got his hands in several different character’s heads including Burnham, Tyler, Stamets, and Admiral Cornwell. He’s got plans that are beyond the government’s intentions and knowledge. As a Star Fleet captain he’s a pretty decent villain.

His resolution as an evil twin from another dimension, handled before the ending of the season, is a complete waste of the character and premise and seems done just to defy viewer expectations. Not only does Lorca immediately lose any of his power as a reflection of our own society, he loses his power over the crew itself so that opposing him is a no-brainer. He might as well have randomly morphed into a giant spider. Of course we had to shoot him! Look at those fangs! That’s soapy.

Lorca was also dispatched before he could really do anything to negatively influence our crew. What position has the Discovery really been put in this season that was an overt ethical challenge that they failed? None that I can really think of. The Tardigade’s treatment was a good first step, but they properly solved that dilemma almost immediately. The water bear lived. No real harm done. Stamets certainly broke the law by making himself a chimera, but it’s not truly unethical as he did it to spare the tardigrade and never used his powers to hurt anyone else. It’s more of a self sacrifice. Other than being tricked into eating a Kelpian, Michael hasn’t done anything particularly bad. Neither has Tilly, who’s still an innocent toothy grin by season’s end. There’s no lasting mark here. When the next season starts these guys won’t be dealing with fighting the new outlook Lorca poison them with. There will be no taint of war and compromise when they visit their strange new worlds. They’ll just be your average, squeaky-clean crew.

The last problem with Lorca’s spiderfication is that no one really got to face off with him in a philosophical way. Burnham beats him in combat. The crew learns he’s a spider off-site and just goes along with it because, again, fangs. No one challenges his ethics directly or gets their’s challenged in return. There’s no thematic struggle and no real resolution. The spider gets stomped, end of story.

Even individual character arcs, like Tyler’s PTSD, are consistently dumped. He’s not damaged by what this war has done to him, he’s just got a spider inside him. Stomp it. All is forgiven. Stamets was a major character in the beginning of the show with the biggest moral qualms about everything that was going on. By the end he’s just a plot tool with a dead husband. And what of the hero of the show, Michael Burnham? What does she learn? Her fatal flaw was jumping the gun by mutinying for her own sense of right. At the end of the series she mutinies against Star Fleet for her own sense of right. She doesn’t even think twice before rejecting authority again, but this time she’s rewarded. I mean, how great would it have been if Michael was so damaged by her mistake and so wrapped up in not repeating it that she can’t see evil in the form of a captain who’s actually wrong coming?

And now we get to the finale. Lorca’s ethical testing of Star Fleet’s limits is replaced by someone we barely know and is an obvious spider from the beginning. Mirror Philippa shows no signs of reform, so opposing her is also a no-brainer. The crew is tricked into doing the awful duty of destroying Qo’nos, so refusing to do it when the reveal hits is also a no brainer. None of these people have once abandoned their moral compass over the course of the season, so of course when the time comes they’ll do the right thing. I mean, how great would it have been if Michael, still loyal to the image of Philippa and seeped in her own tragic history with the Klingons thought killing them all would be a good idea for just a moment? There’s no real tension in the end scene other than whether Philippa will go rogue and drop the bomb anyway, and why would she with no real stake in the war or even this universe? She literally goes “meh!”

And “meh” is the best reaction I can give to this finale. I avoided writing about last week’s episode because it was all setup and no story. And that really was a mistake. Not only was it dull to watch, but the finale itself definitely needed more time to percolate. The accusation of “rushed” I keep hearing from others who’ve reported on it is an understatement. Burnham says “no” to genocide without a second thought, places the mentally-challenged L’Rell in power, and ends the war in about five minutes of running time.

Fan-wank was off the charts in this one. Just off the top of my head there were Orion’s, fried Ceti Alpha brain slugs, Clint Howard, Trills getting tattoos, and mentions of Mintakens and Nausicaans. And, then, of course, the ultimate act of fan happy-endings, the Enterprise shows up.

And yet, in a lot of ways, this is one of the best Discovery episodes in a while. Our crew gets deposited on one of the most enjoyable sci-fi outlaw worlds since Mos Eisley. Tilly antics are off the charts. I laughed out loud a couple of times. Drugs, whale meat, bi-sexual orgies. What more can a sentient being ask for? And that’s the frustrating thing about this show. We’ve got these great characters who do great stuff in the right situations, but they’re constantly betrayed by screwing the landing.

So what is Discovery’s theme this season? Is it that mutiny is ok under the right circumstances? Is it that unifying your enemy makes them less powerful? That corruption is always external? That good people are always good? I don’t really know. And what about it’s main backdrop, war? What was said about that? Did this even need to be a war show, or could it have just been a mirror universe/bad technology arc? What did all its disparate parts add up to? Nothing is really dealt with in a way that makes sense, including the insidious problem of the Federation basically installing the Klingon’s new leader. What are the ethics in that?

Finally I’ll talk about the soap opera ending to end them all, the arrival of the Enterprise in the last minute to, I guess, set up season two. This was a mistake on a number of levels other than pure, wanton, service to the audience. The Discovery crew deserves a ride into the sunset and they didn’t get one because another problem eclipsed it. And the umbera doesn’t just cover their happy ending, but the cast themselves because no one watching was thinking about the current crew or what their next adventure will be when the Enterprise shows up. They’re thinking about if they’re going to see Spock and who’s going to play him and Pike, and Number One, and will Jose Tyler actually be Hispanic this time?

Remember how annoyed people were that The Next Generation’s second episode was a direct ripoff of an Original Series story? Well, this is that, but if the actual Original Series crew also showed up and did stuff. It’s not allowing this crew to stand on their own. The star power of the crew we already know is inevitably going to outshine them. That’s not really fair to them or us.

And it’s not even a good cliffhanger. Much like the midseason ender we’re left with zero tension. Ok, it’s the Enterprise. So? She’s not covered in tentacles or bleeding plasma. She’s just there. The shock of seeing her is presented as value enough like a long-thought-dead sibling walking through the door. That’s soapy.

Well, whatever. I promised myself if they ended the dumb Klingon war I’d watch the next season, and I will. Discovery is still a huge mixed bag with a lot of promise. As a jaded asshole I can’t say I’m expecting the next season to improve things. At the very least I can look forward to some dumb entertainment with characters I like, but shouldn’t 21st century Star Trek be more than that?