I think the Kelvin-universe cast is largely pretty good. Zoe Saldana has never struck me as a great fit for Uhura, but I like everyone else, and I think Karl Urban is great. I also like that all the characters get something to do in the movie. The interactions between Spock and Bones, and Scotty and Jaylah are definite highlights for me.

Speaking of, Sofia Boutella's Jaylah character is a lot of fun, and if they actually ever get a fourth one off the ground -- not holding my breath -- I do hope they're able to work the character in.

It's hard to go wrong with Idris Elba in anything, but I do think he was wasted as Krall, who is not particularly compelling, and that's probably the film's biggest failing. But then, I don't think many Trek movie villains are all the compelling. The most relatable threat in all thirteen movies was the giant space probe that just wanted to talk to some whales. 'Cause, y'know...same. After that it's probably General Chang, and then, despite my low regard for the movie overall, Nero.

The set pieces are great. Obviously it's silly, but the opening scene where Kirk gets attacked by the Teenaxi is a lot of fun. The scene where Krall's drones are tearing up the Enterprise is riveting. I love Kirk on the motorcycle during the rescue beam-out scene. And the final fight between Kirk and Krall is really well done, even if the actual threat is kinda lacklustre.

I love the design work. Yorktown station looks great. The Franklin might be my favourite starship design across the franchise. I really like the new uniforms that don't have the textured delta pattern of the previous two films, as well as the Franklin uniform that Spock ends up wearing. I don't love the phasers with their rotating emitter, but other than that aspect they look good.

I recognize that it's pretty much a dumb action movie, but it is, in my opinion, a very watchable dumb action movie. That's really all it's trying to be, which I respect. Am I going to argue that it's technically he best executed movie of the bunch? Of course not! But is it my personal favourite? Yeah. Except for when my mood changes and "The Voyage Home" is my favourite.

Because it’s the one I enjoy the most.

They absolutely have the rights to the likenesses, and uses them frequently.

It's just the artist for that particular book draws them as if he half remembers a description he heard once.

I think the both the current ongoing books, Star Trek and Star Trek: Defiant, are a lot of fun, in the way that grabbing up a handful of action figures and smashing them together is a lot of fun. They're ultimately silly fan service in a way that's completely uncynical.

On the subject of action figures, if you want to talk about completed series, I think Star Trek vs. Transformers was actually really good. I especially like that they leaned into the Saturday morning cartoon aspect by having the Enterprise crew from STA with Arex and M'Ress being part of the cast. Unfortunately, IDW no longer has the Transformers license, so finding a digital copy could be a pain.

I would be remiss if I didn't shout out the Star Trek: Lower Decks mini-series that came out a few months back. Everything you [I] love about LDecks, but in comics form. It was written by Ryan North, the author of Dinosaur Comics, and The Unbeatable Squirrel-Girl. He also said I was funny one time, and now nobody can tell me a damn thing.

Circling back to stories that are just dumping all the action figures out on the floor, my highest recommendation goes to Star Trek: The Q Conflict, in which Q and some other similarly powerful beings, gather up the crews of the Enterprise, Enterprise D, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager to act as their proxies in a cosmic dick measuring conflict.

All I know is this thing is lucky the overseers don’t let us be armed.

Personally I'm loving both the Star Trek ongoing, and Star Trek: Defiant. I haven't read the Dog of War series at all though.

If you're looking for DS9 content specifically, Star Trek: Defiant might not scratch that itch for you. It's got Worf, and it's got the Defiant, but that's it. The rest of the crew are characters from other series.

Star Trek is the book about Sisko returning from sojourning with the Prophets. There's definitely some interconnectedness between the to titles, though.

Yeah, absolutely. But that's not really what the term refit means.

And if that is a refit in Starfleet parlance -- as the instagram log claims it is -- than what prevents the Lamaar-class Voyager from also being a refit. Keep in mind that in "The Star Gazer", Picard claimed that the new Stargazer was also a refit, and, according to Matalas, it was a refit of the Constellation-class Stargazer:

"Like the TMP Enterprise, it’s a massively updated refit. I like to think of it as the story of the broom: If one day you replace the handle, and another day the brush, is it still the same broom? We thought of it as a vessel endlessly repaired and upgraded, brought in-line with current-future tech, so that somewhere underneath all the lights and polish are the bones of Picard’s original ship. Does it make sense? I don’t know. But I sure like the spirit of it."

Now, personally, I would prefer to not take anything Terry Matalas says seriously, but a lot of people seem tot think he should be Trek's new torchbearer, so there's a good chance we'll see a lot more of this nonsense in the future.

Obviously people can say whatever they want, but I personally don't see any value in dragging something down when instead I could be lifting the thing I do like up. Like, imagine going in to the job at the end of the week and saying, "Hell yeah, I love Fridays!" and some sad sack co-worker is all, "Yeah, but don't you just hate Mondays?" Buddy, why? What would be the point in being so negative, when instead you could be positive?

Or, let's give another example: I personally think "Picard" was a bad television series, which started out kind of a mess, and got worse with every season. I know other people really enjoyed season three, but I think it is the single worse season of Trek, and it's not even a contest. Now, imagine if every time someone made a post praising, some other series or new episode, I jumped in with, "Yeah, at least this one was better than season three of PIC." What am I actually contributing to the conversation?

Furthermore, I don't consider, "This doesn't feel like [X]," to actually be criticism. Critique is detailed analysis. "I don't like this because it's not what I want it to be," is just whining. Critique is an important aspect of art, but too many people confuse their hot takes as valid criticism. You brought up Shives, and while he and I disagree on a lot of things -- and agree on others -- regarding Trek, I would never say that he is not detailed in his videos. Biased, sure, but we all are. I can't speak to the specific example you gave, but I know that at least in his scripted videos he generally isn't dropping hot takes like that. Sometimes they make their way into his more off the cuff unscripted videos, but I would be staggered if he's ever released something that was solely focused on saying one show is good because it isn't as bad as another show he dislikes.

One issue with the more-recent shows is that they don’t have a lot of continuity, to the extent that they would seem to implicitly contradict each-other (and themselves, between seasons)

Can you give some examples?

Day of Blood starts out pretty strong. By which I mean there is a rollcall page featuring the main characters of both "Star Trek" and "Star Trek: Defiant", and on it we learn that Shaxs once punched a Gorn so hard it exploded.

Hell yeah, he did.

Anyways! It's the big Summer crossover event. The crews of the USS Theseus and USS Defiant come together despite their (extremely flimsy) antipathy for the big showdown with clone Emperor Kahless. It's fun to see the two crews interact for the first time since Worf left the Theseus. We got Tom and B'Elanna reuniting. We got Data and Lore. We got Shaxs and Ro. We...got Lili Sato and the Orion drug-dealer/medic, I guess. We got Doctor Crusher telling everyone to put their collective bullshit to the side and get ready to save Qo'noS. One thing that stood out to me is that T'Lir tells Spock they only know him by reputation, but early in "Star Trek" T'Lir claimed they met Spock as a child. Of course, T'Lir would not want Spock to know they'd met before, because T'Lir is actually Trelene, and if they're not I will it a tricorder toy.

Also, these comics might as well be called "Star Trek: Fanservice", but there's a moment featuring

I feel like at this point, it's too early to trust Pelia as a reliable source of information.

I have no problem with this solution. See for example, the other Paris.

There are plenty of examples of cities in different countries, or even different territories in the same country having the same name. I feel like it's different when we're talking about a planet.

There’s a tendency to treat every alien race as a monoculture, but maybe Spock and T’Pol just came from different parts of Vulcan.

That tendency is built into Trek, for good or ill, and I would say it even applies to humans.

I actually kind of assumed that it might have been facon. While I can see the Enterprise growing real plants on its five year mission (hence Pike’s preference of real herbs), I can’t see it breeding real pigs.

In "Charlie X" Kirk does say to the galley chef, "On Earth today, it's Thanksgiving. If the crew has to eat synthetic meat loaf, I want it to look like turkey," which would seem to imply that in this era fake meat is not outside the norm. The question is though, is Pike such a foodie that he would throw his weight around be certain that there is a supply of real bacon on the ship for him to use vs. whatever's coming out of the food synthesizers.

And there's a whole other debate to be had about whether or not replicated meat would qualify as plant based which I don't feel like the body of the post is the appropriate place to get into it. My personal opinion is that replicated meats would still not be suitable for a vegan diet, because at some point there was an original source that the replicator pattern must have been based upon.