That was exactly what set Lower Decks on the path to greatness, a few seasons ago: the willingness to demonstrate Gravitas and up the stakes on the story.
Frankly I'm amazed there was anything left for the Packleds to salvage beyond the Nacelle they had in tow, if even that much. I'd expect the ship to be scattered shrapnel across dozens of lightyears.
@@johnwang9914 The ISS was built to be modular. The Pakleds are sticking salvage together that wasn't designed that way and by some miracle making it work.
@@Brasswatchman I was referring to the comment of Lego sets which are also designed to be modular. If you are going to be pedantic about the ISS being designed to be modular than you also can't compare the Paklids to Lego sets on that logic.
I'm still actually very sad that the entire crew was wiped out just like that; and she just got that ship too... and we only acknowledged the loss of probably hundreds if not thousands of lives on that ship for a mere millisecond. 😢
It's a sad trope in fiction but necessary to really nail home just how "big evil bad guy" the antagonist is. All the better for the protagonist(s) to overcome; though, something acknowledging the loss more would have been nice. Even some semi-cheesy action one-liner at the end, "This is for the Solvang!"
Actually that ship by Star Trek lore would have needed about 400 crew members; then account for civilians on board about a thousand at max. Still sad though
@@thedev.student1424By that point I think Civilians where not really allowed on starship unless they where long distance ships and even then there had to be a low risk. A lot of these lessons where learned after Worf 359 and the Doninian War. After that I think starfleet tried to discourage bringing family abord ships. The last time you see civilians on a Starship is in Star Trek Generations. Really its not a good idea to mix service personnel and civilains and Star Fleet learned this lesson hard with the deaths of 100s of thousands of non active personal.
The fact that the star trek comedy chose bad guys who've always been seen as a joke and made them into an honest threat is just poetry. The Pakleds, not taken seriously for their idiocy, are now an imposing force for that very same reason. They are an enemy that cannot be negotiated with because theyre simply too stupid and it nearly gets the Cerritos crew wiped out. Again and again this show is able to make you laugh at star trek events and characters that were taken seriously in they're original shows while turning around and creating these tense moments with the characters that have never been taken seriously once. We couldn't have gotten a better star trek comedy.
Lower Decks with its references and comedy, in my opinion, often feels like they're remembering Star Trek for what it is, and then building upon it, which is what makes it so magical. Its an innovative Star Trek show that tries new things, and uses the old stories as a springboard for new ones, which is a smart move when theres decades of stories that came before. The Pakleds in the series are indeed a good embodiment of that. Some might even say that Lower Decks is boldly going where no one has gone before.
I saw on person suggest it was a borg tractor beam, as it penetrated shields. Borg tech would be a very good explanation in verse as to how they got all that to work together. Find a destroyed borg vessel(thanks janeway), grab some tech, find someone who can "make it go", and you have a recipe for disaster.
Microsofts code was also weak but still Microsoft dominated the software industry. Sometimes good enough is enough, any extra would just be wasted effort. You get paid the same for code that barely works as you do for a masterpiece.
@@FurryEskimo Really, how do you not understand the relevance, weak code but still a threat, Microsoft's code is weak but Microsoft still dominated it's industry... How is that not relevant... The code only has to be good enough, any more effort is wasted effort and that's how the software industry works, you get paid the same if your code is a piece of crap but works well enough as you do if it's a masterpiece. Even in a programming course, your program might be only a hundred lines of code but the guy who wrote code covering five pages will still get the same grade if theirs also worked. The starter "Hello World" program used to be less than fifty bytes long but students today are using 5 megabytes to write the same program. The relevance is as the topic said, code is weak but still dangerous as in effective. You're using a computer that's over 100,000 times more powerful than a computer if the late 70's early 80's but it's taking just as long for it to crunch your taxes.
@@johnwang9914 Ok, that wasn’t clear because you’re depending on me having intricate knowledge about the code of these companies, which hadn’t yet been mentioned and which seemed like a huge draw on irl events compared to storytelling techniques, that it threw me off.
hahah. I still love this episode. 'But who could whip up that kind of code! They'd have to be some sort of morally bankrupt genius!' *Cut to Rutherford* Rutherford: Hah hah!
Well it also makes sense for the time period. The Dominion War left a lot of casualties and destroyed Ships from all Alpha powers. The opportunities for Pakleds to salvage pieces to accumulate power were extraordinary. Only impressive that the Dominion didn't destroy their planet.
I would like to point out once again that Voyager couldn't get parts of its OWN ship to work together properly. These idiots are literally bolting on piece of random stuff and building dreadnaughts out of them. I blame Archer and Phlox for this.
I mean, the Pakled ship is way more powerful, so the outcome is not that surprising, especially when you take into account it's a California class ship, not exactly designed for fighting
Pakleds may be partly a joke, but damn are they deadly joke. In just one moment, from one call that would be the reasonable response to an engagement they couldn't handle, One can only assume possibly hundreds of souls were lost to in an instant. We see even the bridge of the Cerritos was about to make that same call. Freeman probably would have made that same mistake if they didn't see the destruction that occured to the Solvang. Honestly, I have no clue if any other crew could reasonably survive as long as the Cerritos did. The bridge crew probably got the upper hand in combat because of Marines' contraband, the reason they could deal with the Pakleds ship was because of badgey being a morally bankrupt creation that Rutherford accidentally made that way, and even Shax's attempt to board with Rutherford was because the Lower Decks crew were making their own modified shuttle.
They are also an example of direct thinking unencumbered by any sort morality. They see a thing, they take it and it doesn’t matter who it belonged to. Add on the fact that they are extremely imposing physically the combination of both make them a kind of Klingons without *any* redeeming features..
It also depends on the ship class. The California class isn't exactly known for her combat prowess. If a Defiant (or patrol wing of Defiants) had responded to the distress call, the Pakleds would been in world of hurt. They might even be able to dodge those grappling hooks. A Galaxy, Intrepid, Nebula, Saber, or Steamrunner would questionable, but a Galaxy or Nebula might last longer than a California if dragged into a combat sitation. But a Sovereign, Achilles, or Akira CO's first response probably wouldn't have been "let's get the hell out of here", but "okay, the first hit was yours, now let's go! An eye for an eye, a bulkhead for a weapon's array, let's bring it on!". These are ship classes that are designed for combat. The former two are even more powerful than a Luna, while the latter has a far more terrifying torpedo loadout! The scenario only becomes only more fun if a Prometheus gets involved, especially if the Pakleds still have backup.
Captain Freeman's immediate, "No, that's what the Solvang would have done" is impressive captain-ing. Combat protocol for Cali class is "Assess threat and retreat immediately if overmatched" and she knew that the Solvang had done that, so she ordered another way to buy time.
Plus Lt. Shaxs immediately called out that the port nacelle was being held by a binding arm; the tactical officer aboard the Solvang likely didn’t have enough time or didn’t know that the Pakleds deployed a binding arm to immobilize the Solvang.
@@ematuskeyMakes sense, in the next moments she showed faster and more accurate planning than many of the flagship Federation captains with how quickly she realised warping out was the wrong move
Since the Cerritos has at least one Caitian doctor, T'ana, I would guess the Solvang would have one or more Caitians as well... so it probably wasn't a "cat" per se....
Solvang is a Danish-themed tourist trap city about 30 miles northwest of Santa Barbara. If you're in the area, its a nice place to visit for a couple of hours.
Considering the crew will typically not leave the ship at all for months at a time, the concern of shoes tracking in dirt is even more absurd. Not saying Dayton wouldn’t ask this though 😅😂
I think this was the most shocking, most viscerally gut wrenching depiction of high stakes destruction in any Star trek show that I've seen. The set-up was masterful, and caught -at least- me, completely off guard. This was the episode that shifted Lower Decks from "comedy cartoon, pseudo-parody" to a Solid, cannon, active participant in the Startrek timeline. At least that's what it did for me. Bravo.
I like the constitution III, but arguably it should've been the stargazer not the titan. As the stargazsr was more important to picard than the titan which was riker's ship.
@@keit99 It was a complete and stupid mess.. Titan-A is a new different ship yet they keep treating it like if it was the old Titan refitted (outright treating it like Rike's old ship including references to his music collection) and end up renaming Enteprise because aparently Titan wouldnt be distinguised enough (and Enteprise-F completelly fucked up being retired litereally before her comision date)
@@keit99Yes but thats still lazy writing.. same with the Enterprise refitt.. yes its very cool but the idea that the ship changed so much that even the inner corridors and rooms were totally different just makes it a new ship..its literally the ship of Theseus
There are two ways to interpret this: 1) the designers are idiots who have no idea what they’re doing and 2) oh god it’s surrounded by a HALO OF THE SHATTERED REMAINS OF ITS PAST VICTIMS And both are completely accurate
@@maddie4834there was an explanation video of the pakled species that indicate that pakled warp bubbles fail to filter out debris or other nearby material, that plus the very slow transporter was noted to be the characteristics that while the pakleds could perform miracles on kitbashing ships together, they can’t maintain them nor improve their properties without stripping apart other ships to just keep their own running.
It's interesting if you think about it that Riker jumps in and immediately attacks the Pakleds, where as Gowron was the only one to successfully negotiate with them.
How the hell does the Cerritos come back from the dead? :D All the fatal damages it takes through many dangerous missions are more than enough to scrap the ship, yet they come back kicking ass, lol.
@@wendyheatherwood Maybe she was a good schmoozer? Red-striped Cali class ships are supposedly geared towards being taxis for ambassadors and diplomats. Maybe that's why she's so focused on appearances when we see her.
Both of her ships were of the California class. These aren't frontline ships dealing with the oddities like we're used to seeing the Enterprise deal with. Instead, they're support ships mostly used for maintaining infrastructure, "Second Contacts," et al. She might've been a competent commander in those less stressful and more mundane situations, but having the ship possessed by an entity or a sudden Pakled attack were events outside her wheelhouse.
@@wendyheatherwoodInterestingly, the mistake she made that doomed the Solvang was exactly the same one Ransom was about to make, so this tracks pretty well
@@auriliagilneas Honestly that also shows how damn good a captain Freeman is. Yes she gripes at times at the position of the California Class and their role in the Fleet, but she still approaches the job as if she was commanding a Galaxy Class. She thinks quick, has a tactical mind, and doesn't get flustered. I mean she's issuing good orders as soon as things start going south here where as Dayton just completely froze up for several seconds. You could put Freeman in the Captain's Chair of any ship in the Fleet I think and she would absolutely shine.
There are plenty of people who think it was stupid to make the Pakleds this big of a threat, tho in the TNG Episode Samaritan Snare, the whole point about the Pakleds is about how dangerous it is to underestimate something no matter how harmless they may seem
Such situations is where it would be nice to have a Project Orion external nuclear pulse drive. The energies needed even for their in lore Star Trek subspace engines would be more destructive than any weapon we have today and should be able to destroy continents if misused.
Personally, I'd have gone to sequentially increasing impulse power, sacrifice the port warp nacelle, jettison a distress buoy... calling Riker and the Titan. Cali' class ships are good, but dealing with a Pakled junk dreadnaught is something different...
the Pakleds are cowered when they get attacked, they blowed up a bit of there own planet just to get help from starfleet to flit to a nicer planet with rice resources, it failed and now they are stuck on there damage rocky planet, lol.
And how where they to know that they would warp into a debris field before they got there? They went to the last known location of the solvang. It happened in the 2009 star trek movie and I'm sure it happened many times throughout star trek.
@@freddieb3537 Is this supposed to be a joke? They received a distress call. That means something went wrong for the other ship. What could that be? In most cases, that other ship ran into a hazardous situation. So OF COURSE you would no warp too close to the origin of the distress call. The only exception would be a complete distress call that says, "the danger is over, but our ship is damaged." Something like that. _
@@anthonyrodriguez8788 Is this supposed to be a joke? They received a distress call. That means something went wrong for the other ship. What could that be? In most cases, that other ship ran into a hazardous situation. So OF COURSE you would no warp too close to the origin of the distress call. The only exception would be a complete distress call that says, "the danger is over, but our ship is damaged." Something like that. _
@@ricksimon9867 are you a troll seems very much like it. You clearly haven't watched a lot of star trek it happens a lot that the ship warps into danger. They get a distress call and go to the last known location the debris field was massive from a ship that size. More like a lazy comment. Stop trying to argue over nothing.
It would be interesting to have Star Trek series that just focuses on normal people's lives. Not just ship based dramas. There are billions of people that do other things than work on ships.