The Greatest Generation - The Best Ass in Starfleet (DS9 S6E11)

Episode Date: April 27, 2020

When Captain Sisko and Gul Dukat re-enact Enemy Mine, they have some real disagreements about who should play which part. But when the mission to save them repeatedly beams up a bunch of nobodies, hope may be lost before Sisko’s life. When do you get over a bad salt experience? What is the worst-designed piece of Starfleet equipment? Is Captain DeSoto a leg man? It’s the episode that is a trillion percent trustworthy!

Priority 1 message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. Hey friends of Disodo. Before today's episode, we just wanted to take a moment to talk about the historic labor actions being taken by writers and actors in the American Film and Television industry. If you're a fan of the work done by the people who make Star Trek, we hope you'll join us in standing in solidarity with the folks who actually bring these adventures to life. Over the past several years, the AMPTP, the organization that represents the American Film and Television Production Studios, have reduced the profit from movies and TV going to workers. And in so doing,

they've attempted to weaken the labor unions that represent those workers. They wouldn't even engage the unions on many issues in their negotiations. And so a strike was the only course of action to take. Adam, Wendy and I have been having a lot of internal discussions about how best to stand with the unions and we are continuing those conversations in a dynamic situation. We're doing our best to understand where the picket lines are in these digital spaces,

and we would never intentionally cross one. With the information we have, we feel like we can do more good talking about and supporting the strike and continuing our show as planned. We'll keep you informed about what all this means for greatest trek specifically. Today we're making a contribution to the Entertainment Community Fund. This fund exists to help all the people whose livelihoods have been put on hold because the AMPTP refuses to negotiate

in good faith with the unions. It provides financial support for writers, actors, and all the thousands of laborers who make the shows that we talk about here and without whom we wouldn't have Star Trek to cast pot about. Those folks are all out of work because billionaires, company shareholders, and the executives of these companies don't want to compromise on the length of their yachts. We hope you'll join us in supporting entertainment workers in a challenging time, especially after they've already endured several years of challenges brought on by the pandemic

and season two of Star Trek Picard. We've set up a page where you can also contribute. It's at friendsofdecotoforlabor.com. That's friendsofdecotoforlabor.com. That's friendsofdisotoforlabor.com. Link in the episode description. Okay, now let's get on with the show. Welcome to the greatest generation, Deep Space Nine. It's a Star Trek podcast from a couple of guys who are a little bit embarrassed to have a Star Trek podcast. I'm Ben Harrison.

I'm Adam Pryanaka. How you doing, Adam? I had one of those great walks that I was promised when I moved to LA where everybody loves walking in LA. The air was walking city. 75 degrees and sunny. Yeah. Felt really good. I feel as good as I've felt in a long time

getting one of those in. That's good. Yeah, I mean, it's a cliche at this point to talk about it, but the air being as clean as like the Sierra's in LA is a really special once in a lifetime feeling experience. Yeah, I'm looking forward to this being that way all the time. Clean as a whistle is this air. I say let's never go back. Yeah.

I just took a walk of my own atom over to the post office where we keep our post box. A vital resource to everyone. Yeah, a resource that I hope the clowns in Washington are persuaded to preserve and expand even. I bought some very fun stamps this week thinking that that might help, thinking that my small purchase will keep them afloat. That's good.

You know, I had not been in a long time because I'm trying to limit the number of trips to places I am taking. Walking around the neighborhood, I'm doing plenty, but, uh, yeah, I've got quite a haul of mail from the X-Bride Shim. Do you want to uh, do a little mail call? I do. Captain, I'm sorry to disturb you. I'm receiving a code 47. Verify? It is code 47, sir. Stockly emergency frequency. Captions eyes only. And this one's gonna be more visual than it usually is because we're both looking at each other on FaceTime That's true. This first thing is from a Bowser. I think I know who that is. Oh, yeah next fun con Frequenter a Bowser and it's a oh this looks like it's a Valentine card. And it says, life is like a box of tribbles,

and I'm glad I got you. Oh, that's great. And it says this, dear Ben and Adam, happy I'm going to add belated Valentine's Day. I'm a little bit embarrassed to be sending a Valentine to my favorite podcasters instead of a boyfriend or imzadi or whatever. But your podcasts are a big part of my week. Thank you.

Congrats on four years of the greatest generation. Please keep making it forever. Live long and prosper. Alexander Bowser. Wow. She's one of the best. That's awesome. Thank you, Alexandra.

She's a frequent friend at Max von Kahn. It made me think about what might happen to that great event this year. Yeah, who knows, at this point, everything's up in there. Okay, this next one is from Be Tilly of Zainsville, Ohio. Bill, Bill, Bill, Bill, Bill, Bill, Bill, Bill. Oh, I think I know who that is. Yeah, that sounds mighty familiar to me.

Always carefully packed when B-Tilly sends something to us. Okay, does it right? No half measures on the packing. What I like about opening a Bill Tilly package is that I also get to read a Zane'sville Ohio newspaper. Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Oh boy! Uh, okay, so here's the letter. Hey guys, here are the two missing issues and the TOS annual that is tied into the last annual from the TREXMIS-TNG comic drop.

Consider this package the dot dot dot. And now the conclusion to that one. Looking forward to downing some hoofs with you and screaming to the heavens because a vagus is coming. Yeah. All my hopes, Bill Tilly. He signed it, card daddy.

That's great. That is great. He sent us some bagged and boarded comic books. We've got Star Trek, TNG, Convergence, Star Trek Convergence, and the Star Trek, the next generation annual. This looks like it is set in Dr. Watson type of environment. There's an expression that Bill Shadner has sometimes that is on that TOS version of the comic that is very much a, do I smell a fart expression? That's great. Thanks Bill.

Okay, the next one we have here is a small packet or petite packet. This looks like it maybe came in from Canada from J. Zarnett in Waterloo, Ontario. So, let me get into this. Okay, there's the letter. Dear Ben and Adam, I'm prepping to move sometime soon and I came across these 30th anniversary cards and I thought you might like them. Maybe they can even be useful in a game segment of the pod. This is the second of three card sets and I unfortunately

do not have the others, but perhaps other friends of DeSoto do. All the best, thanks for the many great hours of quality pod. I don't know if we've seen this particular type of trading card before, these are like a different breed, a lot of foil in play. And it looks like some holograms too, right? Yeah, some holograms. It's like higher quality cards than the stuck together cards. Yeah, then the...

Have them used to. The Cummy DS9 cards. There's a Nexus ribbon card. About that. Do you get a piece of the Nexus ribbon in that card? Yeah, it's stapled to the back. Uh-huh. There's one of there's one of Morn. Oh, that's great. So these seem to span quite a large era. And I guess these are Phase 2 cards, focusing on the inhabitants of this Star Trek universe. Wow, that is a pretty wide net for a series of cards. It's great.

Thank you so much for sending these, Jeff. Thanks, Jeff. Okay, a couple more packages. Here's one from Metby of Bridgeportport West Virginia. Matt B has definitely sent us some stuff in the past. I think he is a officer in the ATF. If memory serves? Whoa. All right, here we go.

Hey guys, it is your friendly federal friend of DeSoto. Matt, your podcast, Keep Me Company on long drives through rural territory and the FOD community helps me feel a little less isolated while working an area very far away from my hometown of Boston. I'm sending a collection of ATF patches and coins. They include our Hurricane Relief Mission Patches from 2017 and 2018 my West Virginia Field Office, a local drug task force where I work, ATF super troopers, a.k.a. Vermont, and two special operations patches that I can tell you about over a beer sometime. I guess they're secretive special operations. The coins include the Irish Emeral Society, Up the Long Ladder Society, and our

arson science explosives response team. Thank you for making great pod and great parasocial relationships. And Adam, when I saw O'Brien try to solo clear that long hallway with his weapon light blazing, I shouted, no, you're gonna get killed at the TV. Your tactical instincts were right on. Hope you guys make it to Pittsburgh again soon. Matt, PS, the guy behind the Weird DC live show P1,

with all the references to SF86s and EQIP. That was me making two percent of jokes for the other government dorks in the audience. That joke really killed. Yeah, that's like a, that's a very powerful memory because we were reading that P1 not understanding any of it and it was destroying the audience. It's like a person who brings a date to one of our shows. That's the exact same effect they're hearing something being said they don't understand and it's killing. Why are people laughing at this? So he sent us like all of these Velcro-backed shoulder patches and stuff.

They're probably over a dozen of these in here. That's great. I just finished the construction of the new studio in the new place and half of the wall behind my computer is all felt. So I feel like I could use the Velcro side to Oh, yeah, yeah, and put them right on there You're gonna have some cool stuff on there very cool, and then some really cool challenge coins. Wow Whoa that challenge coin is thick. Yeah, these are excellent quality I mean similar quality to the ones we do I would say but wow we've got a real

Growing collection of those that's always really cool. Yeah, thank you so much Matt. Thanks, Matt. Really neat stuff. Okay, Adam, I think this is the last of the packages that I brought home with me. Right. It is also from Bill T. I've seen him fill out.

You do not deserve him. This is a big one. This is like the priority male, larger size, standard rate shipping box. Yeah. Which means he spent like a thousand dollars to send it. Yeah, indeed. All right. I'm going to pretend it. Yeah, indeed. Alright, we've got a piece of college-ruled loose-leaf paper here for his letter. Hey, fellas, hope all continues to be well and safe for you in these crazy times.

Now, seems like the perfect time for a fun mail call. So here is the latest additions to the Greatest Gen Trading Card Series and the first sets for greatest discovery. Wow! I couldn't figure out how to make Husha bubble gum for them. Maybe next time. Have fun finding storage space for another one of the ridiculously large boxes I send. Thanks for me and all the FOTs for everything you do.

Hopefully we'll get back one or two or ten together soon. As always, I ride for greatest gen. Be safe, your car daddy, Bill. Bill Taylor. Best in the business. I'll hold this up to the camera. A huge cache of cards. Wow. His work on the Star Trek Discovery series's been really great to relive. You can see all of his work on Twitter

at Bill Tilly in 1973. Wow, those are really great. Yeah, at some point, he figured out how to make these inequality that is better than the company's like Skybox and written house that produce actual licensed Star Trek cards. Those guys need to put Bill on the payroll. Really they really do. We should put Bill on the payroll too.

It's true. This is amazing Bill. Thank you so much. There's boxes and boxes of cards in here and I can't wait to lie on the carpet in the rumpest room and just look at them for hours and hours. Thanks a town bill for all you do. The hoof saranas when we see you next. Indeed.

Adam, I'm gonna pause the pod for a second and run and wash my hands. And then we can come back for our discussion of season six, episode 11, Waltz. Do you realize how many... What about this series? No, of course you don't. Ben we open on the backside of a Del Sol class starship and I gotta ask you, did you check out that ass on the haunchoo? The haunchoo's butt is very, uh, it's like the most star-worsy part of a, of a

federation ship I feel like I've ever seen. We've talked a lot about how much we like the Del Sol class, and yet I think it's got the best ass in Starfleet. I didn't know that until this episode. You think it's the best booty? Yeah, really do. You very rarely get a nice long Luxuriant look at the booty of Adele Soul like this. I know you I feel like you've seen the backside of most other classes Of ships. I feel like if you're a leg man most starfleet ships will do it for you

Yeah, but if you're an ass man, the haunchu is for you. If you want a ship with a donkey booty, you're going to have to let no further than the Hanchu. Yeah, this is a prisoner transport mission that the Hanchu is on. And Cisco is along for the ride. And he's kind of a captain's logging about this in a way that is a little bit circumspect about who and what he is talking about, so that the maximum impact can be had when he walks through the hallway and comes around the corner and it is revealed

that the crazy, dot, dot, dot, broken man that he's referring to is none other than Golducot. I heard you were aboard. I really liked this log out of Ben Sisko because he admits some things about himself that he's uncomfortable with. He kind of admonishes his thoughts about, you know, we really shouldn't care if this guy lives or dies.

Or this guy's the worst of the worst. Why, what do we even trucking him around for? Like, yeah, you don't really hear like that kind of thing come into a rant like this. Like you never hear like, perhaps we should treat our prisoners with dignity and respect even though, God you can't, there's a war criminal. Yeah, I mean, and if he's that twisted up about it,

why go on the mission, Ben Sisko? I'm trying to be fair. Yeah, there's a lot of humanity in the way Sisko is treating Goldu-Cott in this open even, like thinking about what Goldu-Cott has been through from his, you know, putting himself in Goldu-C you got shoes and thinking about losing your daughter, losing your, your big chair at the apex of your empire, like that's devastating.

No wonder he lost his mind. Was it just me or does do cut just look different in this episode? Hmm. I didn't pick up on that. I wonder if it's a lighting or angle or maybe even the prosthetic, but something about him looked different than he's ever looked before.

And I think in saying that, I think that's concurrent with how different he is as a character. I think whether or not that's true, I think it's effective in showing us that he's a changed person. The lighting in this episode seems darker and moodier than... You know, it's a moodier, darker show than TNG ever was, but...

Right. This lighting seemed darker and moodier than your average deep-faced 9 episode. A couple of things we learn about this scene between Cisco and DuCa and the Brig is that DuCa isn't going to be going to trial until the war is over, but there is gonna be some pre-trial working happening here. There's gonna be some testifying. Cisco's gonna be one of the testifiers, but he's not gonna tell DuCa any more than that.

DuCa's kind of grilling him about what he's going to say. And Cisco says he's just going to tell the truth. And that is extremely unsatisfying to a person for whom your testimony is going to determine the course of their life. Right, the leverage here is really unfair and it's very unusual for DuKat to have no leverage in a scene. Yeah.

And like DuKat's also the kind of guy that would never trust what somebody is saying if they're being nice to him? Yeah. Do cats are real Adam Prandtica in that way, right? Yeah, that's exactly where I was kind of trying to take that. One of the many qualities that me and GolduCat share. Maybe that's what you're picking up on is that he's making a lot of Adam face in this episode.

Yeah. So they're kind of having this conversation, but they are headed to Starbase 6-Publava and they sustain some bangers when Cisco tries to walk out of the room. Yeah, we get bangers to theme. Battle stations, damage control teams report to level 5, James. One of our favorite transitions to theme song. I love banging right into that theme.

We cut directly to DS9 and Ops after the theme and it's Kira telling Odo Dax Bashirin Warf that the Hanshu has been destroyed by Cardassians. A wing of Cardassian attack ships took this thing out. Those Cardassian torpedoes went so deep that the Hunches asked to sleep. I mean, I thought a lot about this, right? Because the Dell Soul Class starship

with the big weapons platform up over the saucer is like the kind of ship that Captain Maddox had, right? Yeah. Like they're basically purpose built for killing curdies. Yeah, the Hunchoo is not one you want to fuck with. But they got taken out. There's some evidence that there were some escape pods and shuttles that made it out of there.

So they're going to be survivors, but they have no idea whether or not Commander Cisco is going to be among them. That's the whole reason that there's not sobbing it up. Is that there's the hope of these aship pods? There's a sliver of hope, but as with many stories like this, Starfleet magically has almost no ships. So there are only going gonna be two ships on the search party detail. Right. And I guess they have like a fairly large amount of space to search, right?

Yeah, they're saying like this isn't enough ships to search the amount of space that we have to. There's some schedule pressure happening here with Worf's assignment of the little D. Like the little D needs to go out to convoy duty and it's going to be able to conduct the search after its 12 hour transit to get out to the search area. So it's got 12 hours to get out there and then 12 hours to get to the Badlands. And they only have 52 hours total in order to get the little D to the convoy protection

mission. So very little time and Wurf is not pleased. And the orders still stand. The very specific number of hours that I kind of thought that they were going to do something with. Yeah, in a, we know Cisco and Ducada are going to run out of air in a certain amount of hours kind of thing. There is no timeline on the other side of this. I feel like that could have been a way to take this story, right? Like, they're in a shuttle that got disabled and it's like just tumbling in in space. And there's like, like, it's getting cold or something like that. I don't know. Well, what they went with was, it's like administrative stress, right?

What was the employee that was given more job than he has hours in the day. Yeah, yeah. What they went with was camping in the Star Trek caves. And Cisco wakes up not knowing where he is or what's going on and they kind of talk through what happened. We were attacked by a wing of Kardashian ships, ironically.

To cats like your breath fucking stinks. You've been puke and all night, bud. Oh man, poor guy. Cisco's got morning breath and puke breath. That's bad. A real morning and college situation for Captain Cisco. Yeah, yeah. I had the other day, I've been sleeping with a,

with a mouth guard last couple of weeks for, for reasons. Oh, this is a new technology for you. It's not, I've had this mouth guard for a while, but I, I'm not always as stressed out as I am right now. Mm-hmm. And I, I almost never do this, but I forgot to brush my teeth before going to bed one night and did the mouth guard.

And when I took it out, it released a scent cloud that was one of the worst things I've ever experienced that early in the morning. Yeah, dude. You get, that is bad news. I'm pretty fastidious with that thing. I'm on my second mouth guard, because of course I broke the first one in the night.

You chewed through the first one? Yeah, that's... Did you get one made professionally or did you just get the one at the drug store? No, I got a pro model, like made at the dentist and it's a very traumatic experience if you've ever gotten one done that way. No, I think I need to

because the one I got at the drug store that I did myself is not well aligned. So my jaw is a little bit wonky when I wake up. I can't imagine is a good thing. That's going to give you headaches. You don't want to be. Is it going to take like 10 months to get an appointment in a dentist's office when

this thing is over? That's a good question. I haven't tried. There's going to be a lot of pent up demand. Yeah, there's gonna be a lot of teeth scraping and hair cutting at the end of this. Imagine the dumpsters full of cut hair in the spots, just overflowing. It's gonna be awful.

DoCot was able to save Cisco, but not Lieutenant McConnell, who was the other starfleet that was helping him carry Cisco to the shuttle. Right. So, they have a distress beacon going, and Ducat made the magnanimous choice to program this to a neutral distress signal. It's not a Cardassian, it's not a Federation coding. It's just a neutral coding. So whoever shows up first can have both of them. One of them will be a POW and

the other will be back to his old tricks. You love games of chance. Yeah, this is my favorite. I love bedding with my entire future. So, you know, I think we've seen this type of device before, right? The rug doctor, transmitters that they have. I was gonna say the kegurator. Yeah, transmitter. It really has a specific shape.

Yeah, I think rug doctor is in fact more apt. It looks like it's there to steam clean the Star Trek cave. Right, right. It's just a box with a bunch of lights on it. Cisco's fucked up. He's kind of stuck on the yoga mat that DuCott put down for him. His arm is broken.

It's in a space cast. There's very limited resources on this planet. The DuCott refers to the surface as being incredibly harsh and inhospitable, but hopefully they can find something to eat out there because he found firewood. This is the scene where we get an introduction to just how mentally fragile Golducat is. Hard to know whether this was going on while he was in the brig or not,

but at least in the Star Trek caves, we start to see the six degrees of Golducat's inner life as played by the characters in his life. And the first person that we see as Ducat goes away to forage is Wei-Yun. And Wei-Yun is we see as Ducat goes away to forage is wayun. And wayun is especially cruel describing Ducat's time in the hospitals. And in saying that, I'm wondering if maybe none of these hallucinations accompanied him there because they seem to be talking about that in a past tense kind of way.

Well, yeah, and I don't think it's obvious that these are hallucinations right off the bat because we've known the Dominion to have secret, Manchurian candidate projects going on and Star Trek caves before. That's fair. So, like the first time I saw it, well, you know, I was like, oh, he's like, has DuCott like gotten back to the Dominion with Cisco and is like, fucking with him somehow.

He's like, we see this kind of TNG episode all the time. This was like, future and perfect. That you're suspicion here, right? Right. No way. But then DuCott flips out and tries to shoot wayune and wayune vanishes. So I like it. And I like that Gold DuCott is kind of aware that he's nuts.

Yeah. As the episode progresses, he's aware that these characters are not real enough for other people to be Like they're very real to him in the sense that he like argues with them and tries to kill them and shit but like when he's around Cisco and one or two of his fantasy people are there also I don't need your fantasy women. He's pretty good at staying chill for the early part of the episode and not revealing to Cisco that he's like hearing voices. Yeah, there's a togetherness about DuCott's specific insanity that is useful for the purposes

of the storytelling of this episode, right? Like, you can keep it bottled up for the most part from Captain Cisco until toward the end. He's kind of Sarah Connering, like, that the doctors believed him when he said, I'm feeling much better, doctor, you know? I guess a better actor than Sarah Conner, because he's actually persuaded them that he's like sane enough to stand trial, I guess. Captain Cisco, like one of the most respected characters in all of Star Trek, really loses a lot of stop for me here because, you know, Gull DeCocco is the effort of foraging and making a meal for him, and all he's doing is complaining about it.

How is it? Needs salt. I do like that at least Cisco tastes his food before seasoning it. That's a thing that a lot of impolite dinner guests do is they'll just salt and season their food before even trying it first. That's very rude.

When you have a dinner party at your house, do you, are you watching to make sure people don't season their food first? I'll say I'm not watching, but I've noticed. Wow. Does that make sense? Do you have a reputation for under-sulting your food? That is a great question.

I think I've gotten better and better over the years about that. I think the one time you do that mistake of salting and then reducing a thing. Yeah. And making a meal that's super salty, It makes you a little salt shy for a while after that. And I think that might have been my experience until I brought it back to equilibrium. I think I'm pretty good with the seasoning of my food over the last few years. I also think like all of the food messaging we got all through the 80s and 90s made

us very scared of salt in a way that like- Yeah, which is stupid. Yeah. I mean, now I'm hitting basically every plate of food with malden salt before eating it. Like, as it should be. Wow, la dida. That's where your max fund donation dollars are going, folks.

Buying Adam fancy, fancy malden salt. You know what, you hate. I'm gonna get you some for your birthday, Ben. I have too much right now, actually. So, DeKat asks about Odo and Kira and Quark in a, how are my buds doing kind of way? Like totally missing the mark on what their relationship could be. There's a assumed familiarity between DeCott and Cisco.

That Cisco doesn't rush to discourage. He's sort of playing the part of a good listener throughout this scene and throughout this episode and sort of lets DeCott spool himself out in front of him. Is that game? Is that Cisco doing the math on like I'm very badly physically incapacitated right now and I need to keep DuCott on my side?

That's how I saw it. It's very much a James Con in misery situation. Yeah, because like it takes a while for Cisco to figure out that DuCott is hearing voices like even that interaction Is kind of an indication that DuCott doesn't really have a great grasp on reality Right right because it's extremely common sense to figure that Odo and Kira and Clark Fucking hate him and always will But Ducat's theory presupposes that maybe he was just undermined and actually genuinely cared about everyone on the station the entire time. Yeah, I mean like the Ducat victim complex shit is super strong.

Like I really like this episode not to skip to the end but the thing about two powerful leaders coming together even though Ducat is insane and foolish about what his reputation might have been. I feel like it's that sort of quality that we like about some podcasts. Like two people really good at a thing talking about their experience doing that thing. Feels like it's an undercurrent in this episode. Like Dukai is very wrong, but it's also two titans of their people coming together to compare notes about a circumstance.

Yeah, like talking shop at a very high level. Right. He's having a familiar conspiratorial conversation with Cisco in this way. Yeah, it's the Jackie and Laurie show of Star Trek conversations. There's a limit, though, because Cisco towards the end of the scene, like, disabuses him of the idea that they're friendly enough to have a friendly conversation about work. Yeah.

They're not friends and are not going to be, they're just in a situation that stuck him together. And also, like, Cisco doesn't even believe that DuCott gives a shit about what he thinks. Yeah. Like, he basically drops the poker face at the end of this scene. Yeah. DeCott keep seeing imaginary people. These scenes with DeCott and Cisco are very long. They

constitute maybe 90% of the episode. We're cutting back to DS9 and the rescue mission so little. There's probably five minutes of that in this whole episode. This is a Renee Obershonwa directed episode and I feel like it's a Star Trek tradition at this point to give the very actorly episodes to one of the cast members to direct and this is no exception. Really agree. DeKat's experience talking to imaginary Dimar gives us the goal of the entire thing. Demar wants to cut to kill him, but to cut wants to hear Cisco say he respects him first. That's gonna be his goal. Oh yeah, Demar wants to do cut to kill Cisco.

Yeah, that should, that Demar isn't like alien for like kill me. Ha ha ha ha ha. Demar wants to cut to kill Cisco, but before to cut is willing to do that. He wants to hear Cisco say he respects him first. Yeah. This is like Crosscut with the reveal that the system that is theoretically transmitting

the rescue beacon is actually offline. Yeah, it's a real leaky, rugdoctor situation here. Cisco barely touches it and the panels are coming off. Yeah. He's got to try and fix it and surreptitiously, because the front of it says system online. It's the back that says offline. Ben, if you're a consuming syrup in a way

that you don't want other people to know about it, is that syrupriptitious? your display to this thing. It seems like the exterior system online should not be working if the back one that's under the panel says offline. This is a catastrophic engineering failure on the Federation's part that that would be possible. What if we made a life-saving piece of equipment and we put them on all of these escape pods, but we made the redundancy capable of lying. This is like my recent airplane emergency where I had the oxygen mask put on me and the

bag inflated. I'm never going to trust the oxygen mask ever again if the bag doesn't inflate, you know I need visual confirmation that that oxygen is flowing to the mask You want whoopee cushion size inflation. Yeah on that oxygen mask Right, and I want the system online Panel to be a trillion percent trustworthy. There are a couple of scenes where Cisco sort of covers up that he knows, the secret of the rug doctor, and those are pretty satisfying. We cut back to the little D and Warf's log says that they've picked up some survivors,

but none of those survivors are Captain Cisco. Can you imagine being rescued and then seeing... Unbored and everybody looks disappointed when you materialize on the pan. I just know how that would go for me. Like, yeah, go ahead and find your quarters or whatever. Yeah, there's probably something available on deck six. Fuck. Here's a towel. I am not totally confident that that's been laundered,

so you might want to wash it first. I'm not be covered, I'm not be covered. Exactly. Cisco has taken it upon himself to create some life-saving inventions made of household materials. Because he's ripped a tie-knoff of a fork and he's like working the inside of the rug doctor trying to get this transmitter working properly. And so he reboots the box. Yeah.

And like we immediately cut to the bridge of the little D where O'Brien like catches something booping on his panel. Commander, I'm picking up a distress signal. And they're like okay another distress signal leading us to believe that the rug doctor has been repaired and then immediately back to the Star Trek cave where Cisco here's GolduCot coming and has to like put everything back in place and Turn the rug doctor back around and get back down on his yoga mat like nothing was going on This was really elegantly done this bit of cross cutting for the next several minutes like building up our hope and then dashing it It was just expertly done to the extent that I almost felt like it was cheating,

like I almost got mad at the episode for it. I was wondering like, I was like, wow, like the rescue is coming much earlier in the episode than I expected and I wonder what they're gonna do with the rest of the time because this seems like the, like it seems like the arc is prematurely coming to a close. So, now Cisco's a little smug, right? He's feeling really good that he knows something that Newkat doesn't.

He has leveraged for the first time since that first scene. He starts to kind of blow sunshine up Newkat's ass, which is, I love that DuCott is like so thirsty for respect and approval from Cisco, but also like, can't see when he's being told what he wants to hear, you know, when Cisco's shining him on, he's like, this is working, I'm finally getting somewhere. Yeah, you can see him change. This is a really fun part of the episode because it gives us major kira as the hallucination. Yeah.

And when she goes 11 out of 10 laughing, it's like she provides her own light source for the Star Trek cave. Yeah, it's the brightest part of this very darkly lit episode. Yeah, and the counterpoint to that is that she is absolutely vicious when she tears into to cut in these scenes, too. Like, it is definitely Kira laughing at and not with him. Yeah.

And it's very fun to see her get the apex status in an interaction with him. Yeah. Because usually he has something to threaten her with or some power over her, or just the rules of propriety forbid her from telling him actually what the way she feels, and in this scene she can like really fucking rip into him. Cisco at this point really sees the outbursts for what they are, and he finally, like, as far as he's willing to go with Tukat, is like, look. I've judged you unfairly, but I think you probably had good reasons for everything you did on

Pajor. But he does it in that tone that is overly patronizing, that even, it's unsuddle in his tone. But Tukat doesn't take it as patronizing. He's willing to buy what he's selling, and this just makes hallucination, Kira, like piss her pants laughing. Yeah. It's like a great, yeah. I mean, like, what Ducat wants is essentially for judge Cisco to deem the way Ducat behave during the occupation to have been fair and, in fact, better the bejorans than what would have been otherwise. He wants to feel like he has a clean record when it comes to his military occupation of Bejor. And he actually

has some evidence to cite, like that that like the death rate went down and like he was making changes to a system that he, that like the death rate went down and like like he was making changes to a system that he inherited that was much more brutal than it needed to be. Right, like people expected deaths at a certain extremely high level and then when for some reason they were less than that, he saw that as a great victory even though many, many, many people died under his watch. Right. This just totally unravels to Cod's mind and he just starts shooting. But we've cut back and forth during the last few minutes because we go little D surface, little D surface and and on the little

D they found the signals of two people and then they beam up those people and it's Adam and Ben. Yeah and everybody is crestfallen. We didn't even bring Ensign hospitality. It's met a disappointment because we get the disappointment of Adam and Ben on the transporter pad and then when we're back in the Star Trek cave, DeCot has shot the transmitter. Yeah because he found the, he found the time, right? Yeah. He found that that Cisco had had broken a tie-in off of fork and he's like, what could you have been doing with this? Trying to reset an electronics device, putting it in that little reset hole? Yeah, you never have a ballpoint pen when you need one.

But DAX had a pickup of the signal just a second before it went away. And so for the viewer, there's a little bit of hope here. That hope seems to be dwindling for Ben Sisko, because DuCat has set down the phaser and in a very good will hunting kind of way has chosen the wrench. It's fucking impossible. And it starts going to work on Ben Sisko. Well, Sisko's going to learn pretty quickly that if you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball.

Yeah, I mean, I think that this is a great twist in the storytelling because it, like, we had this sense of safety when we thought the little D was heading that like straight here and now it's gone and we have no idea whether or not the rest you can happen in the remaining amount of time. And it feels very scary for Cisco at this point. Like how scared do you have to be to hold your cast up to protect yourself from a guy that's

wailing on you. Great sound design for this scene too, because you hear that wrench hit the cast and it just makes your wints to hear it. Yeah. More. More. More. More. More.

More. More. You need to hear everybody. More. Back on the little D, they are getting the bad news FaceTime from Major Kira who needs to probably reset her Wi-Fi router because the signal is not coming through super strong. She's like basically saying like you got to call the search off, this is it, you got to go rendezvous with the wagon train that you're supposed to be running security for. There's a really interesting conflict on the bridge here because Bashir and O'Brien feign that they couldn't tell what Kira was saying and Dax and Wurf aren't even trying to hear that.

Well, it doesn't really matter, but we think Commander Wurf is Captain here. They're gonna follow the orders that they know to be true and even though Bashir and O'Brien think and say almost exactly the same thing, Bashir is excused from the bridge. It's such a classic junior high school, like two students punching each other, and then only the one that the teacher sees gets kicked out.

Yeah, yeah, the one that gets caught with the note. Right. Yeah, I mean, I kind of read into this that it was like a, Dr. Bashir, you have a giant brain, a genetically engineered brain. You should know better. I read it like what is Bashir doing on the bridge? Yeah.

Like he doesn't need to be there. There's, there are all these people that have been rescued from an attack on their starship that are probably bleeding out in 6 Bay. Why don't you go down there? A bunch of people we rescued are feeling pretty bad about themselves right now and their relative value compared to Captain Cisco. Maybe you could go council them. Use your planet-sized mind to help them feel better about the fact that we're all obviously disappointed that they're all obviously disappointed

that they're the ones we rescued. When we come back to the Star Trek cave, Cisco is not dead, but he is bleeding and he's defiant. He's like the little D. Yeah. He will never give DuCat the absolution he's after and instead proposes a game of true or false and they conversationally played this game having to do with the responsibility of command.

Yeah, Cisco wants the evidence for what DuCott is claiming, the evidence that he was actually a good leader of the Cardassian Occupation. Don't be like that, good life. What? Don't be like a good man. Cisco needs evidence like I need raw materials. Yeah, I mean, it's very interesting to hear the perspective of Gold to Coy here

because his argument is all proportional, right? Like he started out at this level and I'm putting a hand in front of my face to show you this is the problem with the looking at each other during podcast But the resistance always met him on the same level and so his punishment Was levied the resistance attacks became more frequent right and over and over and over and so he blames the Bejorans for their reaction right his policy. That the resistance was reacting to the previous policies and weren't dealing in good faith with the reforms he was trying to make.

But he also slips into the like, we were the superior race. Like part of their complaint with us was that they were ashamed that we had better technology than them. And that's an ugly look. It is, but that's what I wanted to hear. Like I wanna hear that kind of ugliness from him as a reason for all of the cruelty that he brought down on the bejorans.

I think it's very easy to forget just how in the past bejor is, how agrarian they are, and how overmatched they were during the occupation, and he really lays it out there as like they were a century behind us, like they should have worshipped us as gods. Right, this conversation like the cast of characters gets bigger and bigger because Dhammar and Wayun

and Kira are adding their two cents. And at a certain point, DuKot can't really keep up the pretense that he's just having a conversation with Cisco anymore. There are some great camera tricks in the scene too, Ben. A lot of like long sequences where you're panning with DuKot walking over to Cisco and go back to two. Like the first hallucination has been replaced with a different one. Right. I love that stuff.

Yeah, really good. And it plays with your sense of like the camera is giving you DuCott's perspective. When you see one of his hallucinations, but then when you don't, you're getting more Cisco's perspective. And it's very like a droidly designed how we cut between those two perspectives. Dr. Cisco unlicensed therapist finally draws him out. Like the crescendo to the whole thing comes to a point with DuCat saying, I should have killed them all Yeah, it's the witness booth confession that

You want to extract right before Baseball batting the witness Yeah, yeah, which is which is what Cisco finally does he lays the pipe on Dukat and then makes for the entrance of the cave and The storm out there looks pretty rough. It looks like they got a case of Furengi lightning out there. One thing Ducat did not lie about was that the surface is in fact very inhospitable. Yeah, there's that moment where Cisco drops the pipe, and he's like, you know, Ducat was right about one thing.

He's not great out here. Respect to him on that subject anyways. So he finds the shuttle and as he closes the door to it behind him, T'Cat hits the mini trampoline and makes it inside. Yeah, that was so great. My favorite moment in the episode, you got flying through the door and like like close lining Cisco.

And then they get down to like a they live style brawl outside this thing. The cat is trying to put sunglasses on Cisco, Cisco refuses. It's kind of a miracle that Cisco is able to hold his own at all in this fight given how fucked up he is. Yeah. A harmoniousing Cisco, very formidable. Yeah, and like samurai hair Ducat, who's fully flying around in this scene. You think Cisco has a beat when Cisco kicks Ducat in the knee genitals? But then Ducat makes it back to the shuttle and closes the door, like with him and his

hallucinations inside. Yeah, he gets away. Bad guy Ducat is back on the menu, boys. If this were a show made 10 years later, you know Ducat would have taken the shuttle up into the air, circled around, then looked down like out of the window, like a bad guy in a helicopter. Yeah, with the chorus of hallucinations behind him. Yeah.

That would have been cool. This is the low point of the episode. You think it's over for him. So we get back to the level two. The episode that Cisco dies in. Yeah. Yeah, time has run out on the little D too. Warf has to take the ship to the rendezvous

and then just in the nick of time. O'Brien, we're so glad O'Brien's on the bridge, right? What if they kicked him out? Oh boy. It's O'Brien's station that gets the signal from Gold to Cut. And we get warfies and then it's post pickup, right? Yeah. The, the, the, they cut the pickup out right? Yeah. The, the-

They cut the pickup out of it completely. You don't get to compare triumphant transport or a remulment of getting him back. Yeah, they just bring all the other people that got rescued down to the transport or room to show them what they were really going for. Wait, there were party poppers and- There were no mixed drinks when I was

being dubbed. Yeah, nobody put a lay around my neck and give me a kiss on the cheek. What gives? So we understand that they got Cisco but not to cut. Yeah, we get Cisco in 6 Bay with computer chips adhesive to his head. And he just kind of downloads about what he just experienced with DAX. And the thing that really hit me was like, you go through life thinking that there are good and bad actions, but everything is a shade of gray. And you meet somebody like DuCat and you realize that there's true evil in the world. DuCat's a bad dude.

I mean, this could have meant nothing before this episode. You really need the episode to make that statement true, I think, because it's just conjecture about him. We saw him do bad things, but until we hear Ducat describe himself and his feelings the way he does this episode, I'm not sure if I would have believed what Sisko was saying. Well, increasingly, Ducat is nuts in this episode, but in a way that's irredeemable. Like, his core beliefs are not the thing about him that is off balance You wouldn't even forgive him. No, that's how Fargani is. Yeah, my liberal guilt has limits Wow, did you like the episode then I? Really liked the episode yeah, I thought it was a really tense episode and like you know on liked the episode. Yeah, I thought it was a really tense episode.

And on paper, the episode where Gilducat and Cisco are stuck in a cave yelling at each other for 40 minutes. Like, I don't necessarily buy that in the room, but based on script and performance and direction, I think it is an excellent episode. Yeah, I think so too. Really solid. I mean, it feels like theater to me. To you, it's it's number of setups. It's just a great episode. Look, I mean, we alluded to it earlier, but I think it merits a specific comment.

Mark Alamos, working this episode, is maybe the best it's ever been. He is really great this episode, really scary, really unhinged, really chewing the scenery. I really loved his work. True that. And we've said it a lot. It's not easy to carry the weight of a scene with Avery Brooks. The guys, the guys, the master. So I think a surprising amount of game, recognizing game in this episode. Yeah, like the sparring partner you want is somebody

that's like roughly in your weight class. And I don't think it's an insult to Mark Alamo to say that like Avery Brooks is like a giant when it comes to being a scene partner. But also like that's the thing everyone says about Avery Brooks is that he's like a really giving actor. He's there to make you look good as well. He's going to make sure you get off first. You know how I like to get off at him is by reading our priority one messages. Do you

want to see if we have any in the inbox? That is a very strange kink, but I'm not gonna judge you for it. Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. Need a supplement on. A supplement on? A supplement. A supplement. Yes, extra. For the interest alone could be enough to buy this ship! Ben, our first priority one message is from David, and it is to Maureen and Robert. Message goes like this.

Hi Maureen. Sorry, I spent $100 on this. I love you. Hi Robert. That is all. Ooh boy. What I'm seeing here is that David stole $100 from Robert. Right.

And he's apologizing to Maureen for some reason. Right. Maureen was counting on that stolen money to... She was going to buy some hot merchandise. It's just a whole crime syndicate over there i think that is all isn't it david yeah i don't think so actually there's a lot more to this story very suspicious stuff going on over here

look while we both appreciate the support that a priority one provides us, of course. I'm not suggesting that people steal money from their friends, especially, in order to buy one. Yeah, steal it from somebody you don't know that well. You know what, though? On the other hand, what do I care where the money comes from? Yeah, we've got this actually dirty money.

This is a great way to launder $100. We have another priority on message here and is with love from Kerry, probably in the living room, and it is to Tim Langen in Somerville, Massachusetts. It goes like this, Tim, I love you so much, and with all of my heart, you big, big nerd. There's no one in the world I would rather shelter in place with. Happy anniversary, honey. Love you forever.

Dang! That's pretty sweet. That's a secret message coming from the other room. For Carrie. That's ultra sweet. We missed their anniversary. It looks like by 21 days. It's hard to keep secrets from someone that you're sheltering in place with.

Yeah, I mean, I think buying a P1 is probably one of the few things that you could keep a secret, right? Because you could just like, you know, sneak off and do it on your phone. You just sneak off and open up the other person's wallet or purse. Yeah, cool. Take out a hundred bucks. And they say, yeah, why is your browser in privacy mode? Uh, I definitely didn't buy a P1 on maximum fund.org slash Jembo Tron. I swear I was watching porn.

Or it's a hundred bucks for a personal message and 200 for a commercial message. That wasn't me. That's not what I would do. I would never do something like that. But if that is you and that is what you did, we appreciate the support. Thanks. We share do. Hey, Ben.

What's that, Adam? Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda? Drunk Shimoda? I'm a drunk Shimoda! I did. I'm gonna give it to Bashir for being the guy that gets in trouble for, and kicked off the bridge. I don't know if we've ever seen Worf pull rank on Bashir like this before,

but I thought it was a very funny dynamic that they had, and I really liked, I really liked seeing Worf shame Bashir this moment. Yeah, I think the thing that makes Bashir my Shemota also is that he doesn't fight it at all. Yeah. And it's weird that Worf chooses an enlisted band to stay over the doctor, but I also know like O'Brien's more useful on the bridge than Bashir will ever be.

So like, it makes perfect sense why Bashir has to go of the two of them. Yeah, Warf really needs to just break up that dynamic. Like them separated as good as them both gone, I think. Boy, that's a thing you saw all the time in junior high too. You gotta split up the best friends. Yeah. They're just gonna ruin the class

Greatest gen live show is something you don't want to miss. Why? Well, it's a great opportunity to see me and Ben in person, but that's not all. FODs from all over gather at these shows to cosplay, to do pre and post-show hangs, to make friends, and share their embarrassment. Hey, let's make a pretty great name for a tour. Let's do it! The Sherry Reembarishment Tour is coming in August 2023, and we've got a bunch of dates in a lot of great places. Go to GreatestGenTour.com to get more info. That's GreatestGenTour.com for dates and ticketing information

for the Sherry Reembarishment Tour. I'm Jordan Morris. And I'm Jesse Thorne. On Jordan Jesse Go, we make pure, delightful nonsense. We were open awesome guests and bring them down to our level. We get stupid with Judy Greer. My friend Molly and I call it having the spaceweirds. Pat Noswald.

Could I get a ball-rock burger and some air-gorn fries? Thank you. And Kumail Nanjiani. I've come back with cat toothbrushes, which is impossible to use. Come get stupider with us at MaximumFun.org. Look, your podcast apps are already open. Just pull it out. Give Jordan Jesse Goat try. Being smart is hard. Be dumb instead. Oh, rats. Hey, hey, hey, oh, I'm about to count you in line.

These clouds are really freaking me out. I hate having to stand in line. And boy, what do I? These giraffes do not smell good. No, they do not, and they've such short neck. But I'm hearing we need to get on this. We've got to get on the art. It is about terrain, about a spout to destroy humanity. Hey, oh, sorry, sorry, sorry.

Are you Noah? Yeah, I know we look like humans, but we're actually, we're podcasters. We are podcasters, so it's different. Have you heard of Ono Ross and Kerry? We investigate spirituality, claims of the paranormal, stuff like that. And you have a boat and say the world's gonna end, so seem like something for us to check out.

We would love to be on the boats. We came two by two. What do you think? Ona Ross and Kerry, available on MaximumFun.org. We need to figure out what episode we're watching next. And to do that, we go to gach.biz-game and consult the game of Butthole's... Will of the Prophet. We sure do, Adam. The next episode is Season 6, Episode 12. Who mourns for mourn?

And the description is as follows. Quirk inherits a fortune, and a group of thieves lay claim to the estate. All right. One of the rare mourn-centric episodes. Yeah. Can't remember getting one of these. Yeah, indeed. You're required to learn as you play role. Where are we at in the game of buttholes? That looks like we are currently on square 47. Just two squares ahead is a space butthole. And then seven squares beyond where we are is a quarks bar. So that one's not in range. Only the space butthole is. Okay. You wanna roll that sucker?

What do you think I rolled, Ben? I'm guessing a one based on the question. Hula! Did I win? All of it. That is exactly what I rolled. We are inching along currently on square 48 and a regular old episode. Okay, looking forward to a regular old episode next week on the greatest generation.

A regular great episode. Yeah. Is what they are, right? Indeed, indeed. Each one greater than the one that comes next. Yeah. I mean, compared to like season one episode one of TNG, this is incredibly cool. than the one that comes next. Yeah. I mean, compared to like season one episode one of TNG, this is incredibly great.

We've got the greatest viewers in the business. Many of them support the show in their own special way, don't they? Yeah, there's a lot of ways you can do that. You can recommend the show to a friend, colleague, or loved one. You have all the time in the world for that, right? Yeah. Like, nothing but time. You're having awkward face times with family members.

Yeah. And you're asking what they've been up to that last week. It's nothing new. Nothing new is happening. Nothing new. But here's something you can tell them. Yeah. You could also use your free time to write us a nice review on Apple Podcasts. Five Star reviews really help us rise in the ranks over there and get the show in front

of other potential new listeners and growing the show would be great for us. Really would. You might be surprised to know, Ben, that I recently talked to Adam Ragusia. No kidding. Adam Ragusia of the famous YouTube cooking channel. He is a big, big star and is very, very busy. Too big to take our calls, apparently.

He wanted us to know that he is definitely not upset with us in any way. Yay! He just has to know that he is definitely not upset with us in any way. Yay! He just has a phone that he shares with his children and most of the messages that get sent there are deleted or fucked with somehow. Hi to everyone from the great Adam Ragusia. He of course is the one who made our great interstitial music for this show based on the inspiration of Dark Materia who created the OG theme music for the greatest generation.

We also got to thank our buddy Bill Tilly who makes digital trading cards of every episode of this show and of greatest discovery now as well. He posts those on Twitter using the hashtag greatestgen and he's at Bill Tilly 1973. We also get physical versions of those trading cards sent to us because we are the host of the podcast and we are very lucky boys. Very lucky to have our card daddy. It's true. You may consider yourself lucky if you make an online friend out of the many online communities that have formed up around this show. Indeed.

If you're on Facebook or Twitter, be sure to seek those out, and with that, we'll be back at you next time with another great episode of Star Trek Deep Space 9, and an episode of the greatest generation Deep Space 9, which is sure to be the longest episode ever. Longest and girthiest. Yeah. And... Steeeliest. And...

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