• The episode title refers to the previously unseen Starbase 80, first mentioned in season one’s “Terminal Provocations”. It has the reputation of being a place where Starfleet consigns it’s worst officers.

    • In the season premiere, “Dos Cerritos”, we learned that the Cap’n Freeman of the alternate universe featured in that episode was stationed at Starbase 80.

• This season’s ongoing plot, Boimler’s facial hair, has progressed to the point where he’s got a little chin beard situation. Good for him.

• It’s Matt and Kimolu! From Star Trek! The Cetacean Ops whales have technically not been seen since “Trusted Sources” in season three, though we were introduced to Swhale Swahlens, the gestalt being who was a combination of Matt and Steve Stevens in “Twovix”.

• The pleasure planet Casperia Prime was first mentioned in “Change of Heart”.

• ”I’m hosting their first annual scatting battle.” We learned that Cap’n Freeman performs vocal jazz in “Moist Vessel”.

• ”Nooooooooooooooooo!” Mariner was reassigned to Starbase 80 in “Trusted Sources”, and it resulted in her temporarily resigning her commision.

• The shuttlecraft that flies at the screen appears to be a Type 15 shuttlepod.

• ”Check me out, I’m a total T’Pol over here.” The USS Cerritos crew needs to slather themselves with a gel, in a scene inspired by ENT’s somewhat maligned decon chamber scenes.

• The corridors of Starbase 80 are modeled after those of the USS Enterprise as we saw them in TOS, down to the ascending Jeffries tubes, intercom units on the walls, and multi coloured caples across the ceiling supports. Everything is just somewhat more distressed. The most noticeable departure is the access hatch doors are octagonal as opposed to rectangular.

    • The turbolifts are also modeled after what we see aboard the Enterprise, requiring handles to be turned to operate.

• We are introduced to commander Kasia Nox, who appears to be wearing a pre-Federation, ENT style uniform, including the gold piping for command. Though she has gold circular rank pips, and not the rectangular ones used by the crew of the NX-01.

    • In “Trusted Sources”, the Starbase 80 crew who arrived on the Cerritos to transport Mariner were wearing yellow jumpsuits. We also see green, and blue jumpsuits in this episode.

• Chief engineer Gene Jakobowski is played by Stephen Root, who also played Klingon captain K’Vada in “Unification I” and “Unification II”.

    • Like Nox, Gene wears an ENT style uniform. Later, in the arcade, Gene is also wearing a vest similar to the one Scotty first wore in “Star Trek: The Voyage Home”.

• ”Yeah, this base is basically controlled by a knife gang.” The Acamarians were introduced in “The Vengeance Factor”, and we learned about the Gatherers, a group of Acamarians who refused to accept the peace of nearly 300 years of blood feuds between clans, and became roving marauders.

    • One of the vendors in the food court area aboard SB80 has a sign advertising Parthas, a dish the Acamarian assassin Yuta prepared for commander Riker.

    • Another vendor’s sign reads ”Lornak’s.” the Lornak clan was wiped out by the blood feuds.

• Among the…second hand items at the vintage clothing store are:

    • TOS style female red operations uniforms

    • TOS style male blue sciences uniform shirts

    • Command gold ”new” uniform jackets of the sort worn by the Enterprise crew in DIS season two

    • SNW style female gold command uniform skants

    • TNG season one and two, blue science uniform top

    • A mirror universe dagger

    • A TMP security officer helmet

    • A TMP style admiral’s uniform

    • The jacket worn by Ruk in “What Are Little Girls Made Of?”

    • The fedoras worn by Kirk and Spock in “A Piece of the Action”

    • A TOS style Klingon uniform with baldric

    • One of the harnesses worn by the Edo, including testical bulge

    • A Nazi officer’s cap, presumably from “Patterns of Force”

    • A type-3 phaser rifle of the sort introduced in “Star Trek: First Contact”

    • A movie era command division maroon uniform jacket

    • A movie era expedition jacket, as introduced in “Star Trek: The Search for Spock”

    • A hat seen worn by Vulcan technicians in “Star Trek: The Voyage Home” and Tendi when she attempts to help O’Connor ascend in “Moist Vessle”

    • TOS era tricorders

    • One of the Starfleet cylindrical shoulder bags occasionally seen on TNG

    • A giant pile of TOS era red shirts

• Doctor Harrison Horseberry was affected by the Tarchannen parasite that affected a Starfleet Outpost on Tarchannen III, as well as the away team of the USS Victory sent to investigate, including Geordi, as recounted in “Identity Crisis”.

    • The victims of the Tarchannen parasites turn invisible to the human eye, but apparently being cured prevented the half of Doctor Horseberry that was genetically rewritten from displaying that trait.

• ”I’m El-Aurian, I think I know how to fight.” Though we did see Soren fight both Kirk and Picard in “Star Trek Generations”, it has never been established that fighting is something El-Aurians are well known for.

• ”We don’t have combadges, we use old wall comms.” The SB80 officers who came to pick up Mariner in “Trusted Sources” did have combadges.

• In the arcade we see:

    • A “Space Invaders” style game where the player controls a Valdore-class Romulan ship defending against descending Starfleet Constitution-class ships

    • A game called “Cardboard Chinos” which has a sign that appears to be a Caitian in a box, much like we saw Doctor T’Ana playing with a box in “We’ll Always Have Tom Paris”

    • A game featuring the Koala. Why is he smiling? What does he know?

    • A game called “Ferengi’s Fortune” that looks to play like “Joust”

    • A game called “The Captain’s Chair”; there is a real world video game titled “Star Trek: Captain’s Chair” though this does not appear similar

• Jet is riding a Toby the Targ children’s ride. Toby the Targ. B’Elanna had a Toby the Targ plush with her aboard the USS Voyager according to Tom Paris in “Tsunkatse”.

• Doctor Horseberry discovers there is an anaphasic consciousness named Clem controlling Matt. Doctor Crusher’s deceased grandmother’s body was controlled by the anaphasic being Ronin in “Sub Rosa” and he used her to attack Data and Geordi with tendrils of green energy.

• Doctor Horseberry is able to exorcise Clem by hitting Matt with a pool net. Violence also disrupted Ronin’s influence in “Sub Rosa” when Doctor Crusher attacked him with a phaser.

• The SB80 crew is able to provide Clem with a stable vessel for them to inhabit. In “Sub Rosa”, Ronin’s being was tethered to an ancient candle holder.

    • Clem’s vessel looks a lot like a microwave, which is kind of a modern candle when you think about it.

Mariner’s voice actor, “Starfleet Academy” writer, and unnamed Trek series co-developer Tawny Newsome joins regular hosts Ben and Adam to discuss LDS episode, “Starbase 80?!”

https://maximumfun.org/episodes/greatest-trek/ep-300-fantasy-junk-league-lower-decks-s5e5-with-tawny-newsome/

Not my OC

• The episode title is a play on the title of the 1590 George Peele poem, “A Farewell to Arms”, which Ernest Hemmingway also referenced with his 1929 novel of the same name.

• It’s Ma’ah! From Star Trek. Ma’ah first appeared in season three’s “wej’Duj”, and is voiced by Jon Curry.

• Ma’ah’s brother, Malor, is voiced by Sam Witwer, as is the character of Sig Legnog. Witwer previously played an unnamed Xindi-Arboreal in “The Shipment”, and voiced the character of Tenavik in STO, after Kenneth Mitchell personally choose Witwer to replace him.

• In this episode we learn that bloodwine is made from worms that have been stomped similar to grapes. Bloodwine was first mentioned in TNG’s “A Matter of Honor”.

    • The sequence of Ma’ah going through the process of producing bloodwine may have been intended as a callback to the scene in “The Star Gazer” where we see Château Picard being prepared. As opposed to Picard’s longing glances at Laris though, we see Ma’ah annoyed with Mariner attempting to call him.

• This is the second episode to not use the standard LDS title sequence featuring the USS Cerritos’s misadventures, the first being “A Mathematically Perfect Redemption”

• Bahgol is a Klingon beverage previously seen in “Blood Oath”.

• K’Elarra is voiced by Mary Chiefo who played L’Rell in seasons one and two of DIS.

• K’Elarra is…physically aggressive with Ma’ah as an act of courtship. In “The Dauphin” Worf described Klingon women mating behaviour to Wesley as, “Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects. And claw at you.”

• ”Don’t count on that. Ma’ah killed Bargh’s brother,” Malor tattles by relating the events of “wej’Duj”.

• Boimler’s facial hair has grown in enough to see that his moustache is purple as well. According to his own log in “Grounded”, Boimler dyes his hair, and no one knows what his real hair colour is.

• ”Doctor Migleemo, I’ve never seen you this nervous before, not even when I made you fight that giant Orion,” Tendi relates the events of “Old Friends, New Planets”.

• ”We Klowahkans invented warp travel in the hopes of discovering strange new meals.” Migleemo reveals that his preoccupation with food is something of a species trait, as opposed to unique to himself.

    • This is the first time we’ve heard the name of Migleemo’s species. Coincidentally, the name for this species of birdlike people sounds very similar to the excretory vent birds, as well as reptiles and amphibians, have.

• The Ketha Lowlands are part of the Ketha province, where Martok’s family is from, as per “Once More Unto the Breach”.

• ”Hey, look, you really helped me back on Serbal V, all right?” Mariner and Ma’ah fought in “The Inner Fight” until she experienced a breakthrough coping with Sito Jaxa’s death.

• ”Weren’t you just afraid of skiing?” Boimler attempted to go down the Coward’s Gulch path aboard the Cosmic Duchess, before having to follow a person he was tailing down the Expert’s Demise slope.

• Madame Gonald is voiced by Gillian Vigman, who regularly portrays Doctor T’Ana.

• ”Experience bij!” A Klingon hover biker hollers a line from the 1993 interactive VCR board game, “Star Trek: The Next Generation - A Klingon Challenge”.

• It’s K’orin! From Star Trek. General K’orin was introduced in the episode “Envoys”. He’s voiced by Jess Harnell.

    • ”Yeah, we violated some treaties back in the day.” In “Envoys” Mariner told Boimler that she and K’orin were involved in ”off the books, grey ops stuff.”

• The Oversight Council chambers feature sets of Klingon honour guard uniforms from STO.

• Bargh is voiced by Colton Dunn, who previously portrayed Dorg, Bargh’s brother, in “wej’Duj”.

• We learn that Doctor Migleemo’s first name is Gabers.

• The Rite of Unending Pain appears to be superficially similar to the Rite of Ascension seen in “The Icarus Factor”. Those undergoing the rite walk through a path lined by raised platforms with warriors wielding painstiks to either side.

• ”Once Kahless made it across the field, he tore the thorns from his legs and he used them to kill Fek’lhr.” As per “Devil’s Advocate”, Fek’lhr is a demonic figure, and the Guardian of Grethor.

• Darsek’s a Klingon currency first mentioned in “Fristborn”.

• Migleemo claims the hogfish galantine is ”as plorpful as the ones served on Enara Prime.” Enara Prime was featured in the third season VOY episode “Remember”, and is in the Delta Quadrant. This raises the question of how Migleemo would know about their cuisine.

• ”Look, a while back, I was transferred to one of the coolest ships in Starfleet.” Boimler was transferred to the USS Titan at the end of “No Small Parts”, and transferred back to the Cerritos in “Kayshon, His Eyes Open”. Though he didn’t so much choose to return to the Cerritos as he wasn’t able to serve on the same ship as his transporter duplicate.

• We learn that Mariner was in on Qo’noS for more than just returning an artifact and to help Ma’ah regain his rank; another quantum fissure has appeared in Klingon space, making this the third episode of the season where the fissures have been a factor.

    • The scanning indicates that the dimensional rifts are not a natural occurrence.

• Cap’n Freeman, Rutherford, and Tendi swapped out the Klowahakan’s amuse bouche with replicated manure. In “There Is A Tide” Admiral Vance informs Osyraa the replicators use recycled waste to create food. ”It tastes pretty good for shit.”

• “A Klowahakan without a sense of taste is no Klowahakan at all.” Doctor Migleemo’s adage echoes Rule of Acquisition 18: “A Ferengi without profit is no Ferengi at all.” And, according to Kor in “The Sword of Kahless”, ”A Klingon who denies himself the Rite of Vengeance is no Klingon at all.”

• ”Martok started on a ship like this.” Martok claimed in “Once More Unto the Breach” that he started as a labourer cleaning the officer’s mess aboard General ShiVang’s flagship.

• ”I can see Kahless! The first one, the original one!” Kahless’s clone was discovered by Worf on Boreth in “Rightful Heir”.

    • ”The one that did impressions!” It was revealed in “The Savage Curtain” that Kahless was skilled at mimicking the cries of his foes to lure their allies into traps. Honourably. He also would do a tight five minutes at open mic nights.

• The episode title is a reference to a British comedy drama, “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”, starring Dame Judy Dench, who voices the character Krog.

• Captain Freeman records the stardate as 59393.7.

    • Judging by the amount of facial hair growth Boimler’s exhibited over the course of the three episodes this season, we can assume that so far the entire season has taken place over about 17 hours.

• The cruise ship, the Cosmic Duchess has a number of habitat domes attached to it, very similar to the habitat domes we see attached to Starbase One in various episodes of SNW.

    • Freeman claims the Cosmic Duchess is the size of a moon. Though moons can vary fairly wildly in size, even if we’re talking about Pluto’s smallest moon, Styx, that still indicates the cruise ship is one of the largest structures we’ve seen in Trek, and perhaps the largest structure built by the Federation.

• Rogue nanites were also the problem in the TNG episode “Evolution”.

• ”One of the space casinos has a bunch of Dixon Hill slot machines.” Dixon Hill is the fictional hard boiled detective, whose adventures Captain Picard enjoys playing out on the holodeck, as first seen in “The Big Goodbye”.

    • In space, they just call them casinos.

• It’s Jennifer! From Star Trek! Jennifer is played by Lauren Lapkus.

    • Jennifer has not had a speaking role in the show since season three’s “Trusted Sources”, where she and Mariner seemingly broke up over the erroneous belief that Mariner betrayed the trust of the USS Cerritos crew by bad mouthing them to a FNN reporter; yet in the first scene this episode with her, Jennifer is acting as though they’re still an item.

• Ransom recruits Boimler to locate the AWOL Admiral Milius. Milius is named for the screenwriter John Milius, who wrote such films as “Conan the Barbarian”, “Red Dawn”, and perhaps most relevant to this episode, “Apocalypse Now”.

• It’s Jet! From Star Trek! Jet is voiced by Marcus Henderson, and has not had a speaking role since season two’s “We’ll Always Have Tom Paris”.

    • Jet’s hands were devoured by piranha bats, but Doctor T’Ana is going to grow him a new pair. Characters were artificial body parts include: Captain Picard [heart], Worf [spine], Geordi [eyes], Nog [leg], Ishka [heart], and Jack Crusher [personality]

• ”She gave me back a candle!” Mariner did not accept the return of the candle, telling Jennifer to give it to Castro.

• Jennifer is being prompted and transferred to the USS Manitoba. Usually the Manitoba is only ever mentioned alongside the USS Saskatchewan, and both are overshadowed by the other Prairie-class starship, the “USS Alberta”.

    • ”There’s a bunch of Andorians on the ‘Toba*.”* As a species native to a moon covered in ice, Andorians are well suited to cold temperatures aboard the Manitoba.

• This is the first episode in which we see a Gallamite depicted on screen. Jadzia Dax dated a Gallamite named captain Boday, who was notable for his transparent skull and “toothy smile.”

• The Kreetassan vacationers are offended when Boilmer drinks a cocktail and eats in front of them, causing one to attack him before Ransom intervenes. It was established in “Vox Sola” that Kreetassans view eating the same way they do sex, an intimate and private act.

• ”Apparently one of Milius’ acolytes spends a lot of time at the top of the huge, dangerous mountain.” The mountain is very familiar, but I can’t quite place it.

• We learn that T’Lyn’s favourite musician is an individual named Krog, who plays an instrument called the vibe tubes. Though this is the first we’ve heard their name, the vibe tubes appeared in the TNG episode, “We’ll Always Have Paris”.

• ”You’re grabbing my genitals!” As Captain Kirk discovered in “Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country”, ”Not everybody keeps their genitals in the same place.”

• Boimler refers to various space whales, mentioning the gormagander, introduced in “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad”, and ”those galaxy’s child things,” from “Galaxy’s Child”. Previously Mariner was the only character to break the fourth wall in that fashion.

• When the nanite icosahedron strikes a palm tree and briefly stops, you can see a millinery in the background that has on displays hats similar to several that Guinan wore over the season of TNG, and some Bajoran vedic mitres.

• ”I can’t believe we’re going to get killed by a goddamn icosahedron.” Yet Mariner has been seen playing Bat’leths and BiHnuchs in “The Least Dangerous Game”.

• Rutherford locates a miniature Intrepid-class USS Endeavour. There have four other USS Endeavours, NCC-1895, NCC-25530, NCC-39222, and NCC-71805. Only the NCC-71805 was mentioned in dialogue, with the other three only appearing on charts and displays.

    • We’ve previously seen a tiny ship when Jadzia Dax, Bashir, and O’Brien get shrank down along with their runabout in “One Little Ship”.

• ”We’ve been through a month of hell!” That is the longest length of time any Starfleet ship has gone through hell.

• Boimler appears to be drinking bloodwine out of the traditional mug, the sort of which were first seen in “Apocalypse Rising”.

• The episode title is a call back to the TNG season two finale, “Shades of Grey”, in which commander Riker is attacked by a poisonous vine, and the only way to save him is to make him watch other episodes from TNG’s first two seasons in his head. Truly, the cure is sometimes worse than the disease.

• Captain Freeman records the stardate as 59376.9 in her log.

• We’re informed that the people of Targalus IX have recently joined the Federation, acquired post scarcity technology, and are dismantling their capitalist systems. They’re literally burning their currency in the streets. However, we know that in the 24th century some Federation worlds, such as the Bolian homeworld of Bolarus IX maintain their financial institutions.

• In addition to what we can assume to be the Targalan’s language, much of the signage on Targalus IX is in Federation Standard -- i.e. English -- as are the anti-capitalist shirts they’re wearing.

• Boimler’s got a wispy bit of moustache growth happening. Apparently in addition to the PADD he took, he’s also attempting to steal Beardler’s look from the previous episode.

• Boimler is inundating the ensigns he’s been assigned with ”Bointers.” The first time he substituted his name for a real word was when he told Rutherford to ”Boim me up,” in “Cupid’s Errant Arrow”.

• We learn that the Orions have a ”pirate queen” who is the head of the Orion Syndicate. It’s unclear if this positon is the official Orion head of state, or simply the leader of the criminal organization.

    • Pirate queen Sabor is voiced by Debra Wilson, who has voiced several unnamed characters on PRO, the Orion pirate Z’oto on LDS, and even Lisa Cusak in the DS9 episode, “The Sound of Her Voice”.

• Orions used to use solar sailships. Other cultures who are confirmed to have used such technology include the Bajorans, as seen in “Explorers” and R’ongovians introduced in “Spock Amok”.

• ”Damn, now this is buffer time. Respect” The term buffer time was first used in “Temporal Edict”, and was coined to describe the policy of padding out work time estimates, first explicitly articulated by Scotty in “Star Trek: The Search for Spock”.

• The House Tendi sailship has a ship’s wheel for steering the vessel. The pirate ship, The Serene Squall in the episode “The Serene Squall” was also a starship with a wheel.

• Sarium krellide was first noted on a display screen in TNG’s “Night Terrors”, and a combadge in PRO’s “Observer Effect” was seen to have the words written on a power cell. The is the first episode where the term is spoken aloud by a character.

• Tendi attempts to give her sister a cup of pyrithian bat milk. Doctor Phlox kept a pyrithian bat in the sickbay aboard the NX-01.

• ”Snakes don’t eat snakes!” Apparently snakes on Orion are less inclined to cannibalism than Earth snakes.

• The disruptor that the Targalan cleaning robot is attempting to sweep with looks very similar to the phaser rifle first seen in “Stardust City Rag”

• ”It is possible to do everything right, and still get your away team kidnapped by the corporate elite,” Boimler quotes Picad’s line from “Peak Performance”.

• Billups’ mother sent him a dragon. Human ”ren faire types” colonized Hysperia because of its dragons, as per “Where Pleasant Fountains Lie” but we have yet to see one on screen.

• In addition to finishing repairs on the Sequoia, T’Lyn added a stick figure drawing of herself to those of Boimler, Mariner, Tendi, and Rutherford. The doodles of the Lower Deckers were first seen in “No Small Parts”

• Rutherford claims he and Tendi used to work on the Sequoia every day: ”It was our project.” Previously they worked together on a model of the USS Cerritos, and a model of Deep Space 9, as seen in “An Embarrassment of Dooplers”.

• ”I was trying to deceive you into socializing.” T’Lyn is really giving away the game on that whole, ”Vulcans are incapable of lying,” lie that they spout all the time.

• ”Come back Mackler, turn away from the mountain!” Boimler is referring to the Black Mountain where Starfleet officers go to fight three faceless representations of their father on their journey back to life, as outlined by Shaxs in “We’ll Always Have Tom Paris”

• It’s Goodgey! From Star Trek! Goodgey previously appeared in “A Few Badgeys More”.

• Captain Freeman contracted out the disposal of Targalus IX’s wealth to the Tendi family, which is implied will offset the loss of their fortune due to Tendi’s insistence on trying to find a peaceful compromise. It would seem that the gold bars and jewels must have some value to the Orions. We’ve seen gemstones as having value in episodes such as “Haven” and “Move Along Home”, but in “Who Mourns for Morn”, Quark describes gold as ”worthless.” Twice.

    • The Orion ship D’Erika is using for wealth disposal is presumably the same one she sent to retrieve Tendi in “Old Friends, New Planets”.

• The episode opens on a freighter ”Somewhere in the Beta Quadrant”; the ship is modelled off Kivas Fajo’s ship, the Jovis, from the TNG episode “The Most Toys”. The Jovis was itself a kit bash of the studio model for the Husnok warship from “The Survivors”.

• Tendi [Noël Wells] is seen using a holographic disguise to infiltrate this collector’s ship. Mirror Georgiou used a similar holographic disguise while infiltrating Klingon high society as an agent of Section 31 in “Point of Light”.

• The collector, Yorif, is voiced by Eric Bauza, who has portrayed a number of characters in LDS, PRO, and the non-canon Very Short Treks.

    • Yorif is of the same species as fellow collector, Palor Toff, who was seen in “The Most Toys”. They even wear a similar golden ribbon piece of headgear, which is established this episode to be prescription.

• Among Yorif’s collection is:

    • A Risian horga’hn

    • What appears to be the Bajoran tablet that Captain Sisko broke in “The Reckoning”

    • A Veltan lust idol - Palor Toff and Kivas Fajo both claimed to own Veltan sex idols in “The Most Toys”

    • A gold Ferengi mask that may have been modelled off similar masks made in Ancient China.

    • A type-2 phaser of the sort used in “Star Trek: The Motion Picture”

• Unlike the Orion interceptor previously seen in “Something Borrowed, Something Green” the one that arrives to pirate Yorif’s vessel does not have a number of spikes on it, or a grapple claw; it does appear to have some extra cannons.

• Yorif’s ship is crewed by Hupyrians. This is the first time we hear a Hupyrian speak, as the ones we’ve seen previously have taken vows of silence as part of their service to the various Ferengi Grand Nagi.

• L’Kar was previously seen in “Something Borrowed, Something Green” and is voiced by Kari Wahlgreen, who has voiced a number of characters in LDS and PRO.

• The opening title now has a warp effect to it. In it’s fifth season, TNG’s title screen also gained a warp effect.

• In addition to Klingon, Romulan, Pakled, Borg ships, whale probe, and crystalline entity seen previous season’s opening sequence’s large battle, there is now:

    • A giant green space hand, as previously seen in “Who Mourns for Adonis”

    • Tholian ships forming a web, as seen in “The Tholian Web”

    • V’ger, from TMP

• Mariner [Tawny Newsome], and T’Lyn [Gabrielle Ruiz] are playing kal-toh, a Vulcan game introduced in “Alter Ego”.

• Boimler [Jack Quaid] believes he’s going to be featured in Starfleet’s “Fleet” periodical, but he’s not. However, Naomi Wildman, does get an honourable mention in their 30 under 30 list.

    • “She’s like ten years old.” Naomi was born in 2372 in “Deadlock”, and this episode takes place in 2382.

    • The cover of the magazine claims to feature the Top 10 Riker moments

    • The cover also teases an article on the Continuum, titled *”Q Who?” mirroring the title of the TNG season two episode.

• The USS Cerritos is pulled through a quantum fissure, and encounters an alternate universe version of themselves, which, in honour of the episode title, I will be calling the Cerridos. In addition to their uniforms being slightly darker, the Cerridos crew appear to exhibit only minor differences from the familiar crew of the Cerritos which resulted in their lives turning out different, such as:

    • Mariner’s counterpart goes by Becky Freeman, and is the captain of the Cerridos

    • T’Lyn’s counterpart says ”Remarkable” while she prefers ”Fascinating”. Fasmarkable.

    • Boimler’s counterpart grew a beard

    • Billups’ counterpart became King of Hysperia, which would imply that he is also not a virgin

    • Rutherford’s counterpart wiped Tendi from his memory banks after she left to become a full time pirate, and then cyborged himself up.

• D’Erika was introduced in “Something Borrowed, Something Green” and is voiced by Ariel Winter”

• Tendi has a model of the Cerritos in her ready room aboard the Orion Interceptor.

• ”You miss debating the ethics of goop with your Starfleet nerds.” Most spineless goop in Trek has questionable ethics, at best:

    • Armus is a Skin of Evil

    • Odo is willing to engage in illegal surveillance techniques, and hold suspects under false pretenses

    • Rick Berman treated several members of the cast very poorly, hired a known fraud as the consultant on Native American culture for VOY, and prevented TNG from having an episode depicting an openly gay couple back when that would still have been uncommon

• The Billups propose a plan where the Cerritos and Cerridos are linked together so they can create a pulse which will open the rift again, and allow the Cerritos to return to the prime universe. Spock devised a similar plan in “The Time Trap” to allow the USS Enterprise and a Klingon vessel to the Delta Triangle.

• We learn that Mariner is Mariner’s middle name.

• The crashed Orion vessel has orbs on rotating spokes, similar to we’ve seen on previous Orion vessels, beginning with the ship seen in the remastered TOS episode, “Journey to Babylon”.

• A group of blue skinned Orions appear, wearing the same uniforms as the Orions from “The Pirates of Orion”.

    • The blues pronounce the name of their species as ”Or-ee-ahn”, which is how it was pronounced in “The Pirates of Orion” and no where else in the franchise until now.

• Becky recounts the events of “Second Contact” when Boimler gets gummed on by a Galardon spider-cow, implying that she experienced that episode very similarly.

• ”There’s no interpersonal conflict allowed on my ship.” Becky has the same views on human interactions that Gene Roddenberry held.

• Becky’s ready room captain’s trinkets include:

    • A California flag - Captain Freeman [Dawnn Lewis] has the same one in her ready room

    • A jewelled dagger - This looks like one of the ones Mariner was stabbed in the shoulder with in “Something Borrowed, Something Green”

    • A bat’leth - Mariner accidentally cut Boimler with one she brought aboard the Cerritos while drunk in “Second Contact”

• *”Don't you give me that sarcastic Vulcan salute!” Captain Freeman yelled those same words to Mariner in “Moist Vessel”

• We learn that the alternate Captain Freeman was reassigned to Starbase 80, which was first mentioned in “Terminal Provocations” as the place where Starfleet ships off its screw-ups.

• In the Cerritos’ bar, there’s a bottle of Kanar with a tag featuring the mural from Quark’s.

• ”I have fooled you.” T’Lyn deceived the Lower Deckers into believing she was her Minor Universe counterpart. Because Vulcans lie all the damn time.

This past week I received my pre-order copy of the new LDecks themed card game, so I made my friends play it as part of our regular game night, then I made a housemate play it, and here are my thoughts.

Gameplay
The game is a fairly straight forward push your luck style game.

You have four different decks of cards: Assignments, Side Projects, Shift, and Alpha Abilities. The Assignment cards have a target number and, frequently but not always, a leisure value on them. In turn, players can flip Shift cards, most of which have an effort value that needs to meet or exceed the target on the assignment, so the leisure points can be scored.

The Side Project cards also have the target number and a leisure value, and can be added to the in play Assignment, making the amount of effort required to score that much higher, but increasing the reward. There is a goal number of leisure points you need to score depending on the number of players, and it would not be possible to meet those goals without adding multiple Side Projects.

The group only has five assignments, and once you're out and the group hasn't met the leisure point goal, you lose. Further complicating things is that there are six officer cards in the Shift stack, each of whom has a rank 1-3, and if officers with a total rank of 4 are in your play area during the Assignment, the Assignment fails, as do any attached Side Projects, and you lose the highest value leisure from your already scored area.

Alpha Shift cards are a pretty rare resource that allow you to do a wide variety of special things, including removing officer cards from the play area, or even adding another Assignment to the available cards. Each player begins with two, and you only gain new ones by being the player to score an Assignment.

Learning the game is simple enough, though everyone whom I played with are fans of games. Even my buddy who hates learning new games got into it after a couple rounds. Games are relatively fast, and it can accommodate two to six players, which is nice. The games I've played have had four, five, and two players.

My biggest complaint would be that the difficulty does feel a bit punishing. Failing an Assignment is already bad enough, but having to lose the highest value card you've already scored does not feel great from a player perspective. Of the five games I've played, my game night group one once, and my housemate and I won the game we played.  

Production
The only components for the game are the cards, so there isn't much to talk about.

The cardstock is nice, and they don't feel flimsy, which is good, because there is going to be a lot of shuffling. That said, the individual decks are small enough that I'm probably going to sleeve my copy, just to make shuffling easier.

Most of the art is simply stills from the show which is a little disappointing, but understandable. The effort icons are Badgey pushing a boulder up a slope, like Sisyphus, so that's fun.

The card backs, which are all really good looking and easily distinguishable, even the Assignment and Side Project cards, which are made to look similar.

The game box is nice and sturdy, looks great, and has a magnetic closure, so that right there is an A++ in my opinion.  

Theme
Let's be honest, the only reason I bought this game is because of the 'Lower Decks' theme, so how does that fit?

Fine. I guess.

The "buffer time" concept comes from the first season episode, "Temporal Edict", which was itself inspired by Scotty's claims in TOS and TNG that he always pads out his estimates of how long it will take him to complete any given assignment. So, the push your luck aspect fits the theme: you're padding out your assignments, and trying not to get caught by the senior staff.

All the cards have titles that relate to things that have actually happened on the show, and the first time I played, I did get some chuckles remember scenes, but the game itself doesn't have any humour aspect beyond stills of Mariner kicking Ransom in the junk or whatever. Which is fine; writing humour is hard, and I do usually hate it when a game tries to cram a humour in.  

Conclusion
Even though I wouldn't have bought the game without the LDecks theme, I'm glad I did because it ended up being a relatively light, quick game, that the people whom I forced to play it with me all said they enjoyed and would be happy to play again.

It's probably not going to hit the table too often during our regular game nights, but sometimes someone's going to be late or you finish the big game of the evening a bit early, so you need some filler, which I do not mean pejoratively despite how it sounds, and I think that is going to be Buffer Time's sweet spot for myself and my group.