Not as dramatic of an ending as I’d expect. But still a pretty fun listen.

I wonder is Lear ever tried to meet up with her Noonien Singh relatives?

I actually feel like La’an really reduces some of the drama of the daughter of Khan trying to find her place and understand where and who she is. She’s not technically all alone because she has estranged family who already understands the prejudice of augments in Star Fleet.

I feel it is actually fitting for Khan to stay with his people to lead them. This is a noble trait, but it’s also a bit more of an ego thing that does fit his character more than being selfish enough to save himself.

Elborians dying seems like a cop out. But I guess we need a reason the augments never got rescued, and Delmonda would have definitely sent for help.

This is a bit of fiction I never thought needed expanding. But it wasn’t so bad. I hope they do some more interesting little side stories or expanded lore on something that might need more exploring. Say what happened to Prime Lorca, or how the events that led to Unification Part 3. You know, something a bit more meaty.

I actually didn’t expect Khan to just abandon his people…but he does seem a bit self serving, so I guess it’s not exactly out of character.

Also, we get some idea of when everything happens.

• 2267 - Space Seed. 6 months later Ceti Alpha VI blows up.
• 2272 - They complete the Venture, and it presumably takes off with Kali and Delmonda and maybe 2 others.
• 2285 - Wrath of Khan happens. Khan mentioned it was 15 years after being marooned on Ceti Alpha V, but this is clearly 18 year difference. Khan could just be bad at keeping time. (this is assuming that memory alpha is correct)
• 2293 - The Excellsior goes to Ceti Alpha V to investigate why Ceti Alpha VI blew up and what happened to Khan and company. Sulu also mentions Kirk’s death, so we know this takes place after the Enterprise-B’s maiden voyage from the opening of Generations.

Also, interesting reasoning for Ceti Alpha VI’s destruction being from the Elboreans’ nonstandard warp drive. I’m really happy they explained it. I don’t understand it though. What kind of FTL drive blows up planets? That sounds more like a horrible weapon putting the Deathstar to shame.

Sounds like rehabilitating Ivan didn’t go very well.

Well, one episode left. I have to say, this has been a pretty enjoyable listen to on my mondays.

What a twist. That’d make sense. I guess the age would be about right. Space Seed in about 2267, and this audio drama is set after Generations’ death of Kirk in 2293. Kali/Lear could be in their mid 20’s or 30’s which would fit.

I know this is consistent with the film, but part of me wishes she had met her demise more directly as a result of some choice that Khan made, if only to reinforce just how foolish she had been to join his little cult in the first place.

What I REALLY thought would happen is that Khan would be losing control of the situation and implant the Ceti Eel in McGiven’s as a way to control her. Super messed up and dark, not as dramatic and evil going with a hot spring being populated by Ceti Eels. But you know, sometimes the universe is just uncaring.

And clearly they want to make Khan more sympathetic. So it’s not a bad decision and is clearly offering interesting character growth for him. I imagine in the next few episodes we’ll start to see him swing back to the tyrant we know he is.

This was a pretty heavy episode. A lot of interesting emotional beats.

Rosalind Lear appears to be hiding some kind of alternative motivation for investigating into Khan and Ceti Alpha, that is assuming Tuvok’s suspicions are correct. I wonder if Lear might be a distant relative to an augment. We know that the Noonien-Singh line even survives to the 23rd century because of La’an from SNW. (Why did La’an’s ancestors not change their last name?)

The song the young augments were listening to was Your Touch released in 2021. The song is synthwave so sounds like something from the 80’s, which I thought was intentional, as we know from Space Seed that the Botany Bay was launched in the 90’s (thought because of time travel shinanigans this was shifted around a few times). But I was expecting this to still be true. I’m unsure if this song is meant to imply that we’re in a timeline where the Botany Bay is launched after 2021, or if this song is meant to be from the 80’s which is how the augments have a copy. I wouldn’t read too much into this, but…what’s the point if we don’t argue a bit over it?

Ivan’s betrayal, and Khan’s odd mercy towards him is interesting. Khan’s paranoia served him well to deduce Ivan’s betrayal as well. I’m very curious if the Elboreans will actually be able to rehabilitate Ivan, i suspect if they’re successful this will place a great deal more paranoia in to Khan as he’ll believe the Elboreans are capable of brainwashing. And make him even less trusting of them.

Lastly the inevitable loss of McGiven’s to the Ceti Eel. It hit much harder than I was expecting. Amazing performances from the actors. I feel there are 2 possible fates of Kali, either Delmonda will save her and escape on that small ship they’re building (Delmonda leaving the augments behind on Ceti Alpha V because Khan inevitably betrays them), or she dies which will send Khan of the deep end to go ape shit on the Elboreans.

This was a very interesting episode. I think we only have 2 eps left. Things should get moving pretty quick.

I also recommend checking out other works by Takeshi Koike. Sadly, Redline was such a financial failure it almost bankrupted Madhouse and ruined Koike’s reputation. Despite that he’s a god damn master of animation and movement.

He did the opening to a little film called Party 7 which is a weird film about Yakuza and a peeping tom motel owner. But the amazing animation of the opening is well worth it. The film itself is…kind of off putting, but still moderately interesting.

Trava: Fist Planet this is pretty classic Koike. In fact the two main characters also appear in Redline.

World Record in the Animatrix. Stylish and a simple (by Matrix standards) story.

He’s also done a lot of recent Lupin the Third films, which I haven’t gotten around to watching yet. I’ve heard they’re not well recieved, but I literally can’t imagine they’re bad, because he’s made like 3 of them.

Interesting factoid is that McGivens knows Zefram Cochrane’s true motivation for building the first warp ship. When we see people talk about Cochrane after the fact, like Archer in ENT or even with Kirk and co met Cochrane or even the TNG crew. They all idolize him. McGiven’s, being a historian, oddly does not. As a historian I think it makes sense that she’d have a much more intimate knowledge of actual historical facts. In retrospective, her characterization in this audio drama is extremely different (and much more interesting) then her depiction in Space Seed.

In Space Seed she seemed to idolize historical figures. But in this drama she seems to almost be more cynical about it. I do think this makes her character a lot more interesting, so I’m not knocking it. The naive book worm having a crush on the genocidal dictator is not exactly compelling Star Trek. Her being the voice of reason, and even trying to offer a modern counterpoint to Khan’s dogmatic caveman (relatively speaking) thinking is good Star Trek. It’s just a shame she doesn’t have much political power to enforce the Federation’s ideals on these warmongering primitives.

I also like that even after Ceti Alpha VI blew up, it will take months before it effects Ceti Alpha V, giving Khan and co time to prepare. Also, nice to know that some of his company is intelligent enough to know they need to start to prepare, while Khan is prioritizing the wrong things and even possibly could have saved his people if he’d listen to Mcgiven’s and stop being so xenophobic.

I wonder if they’ll ever explore his feeling guilty, if he just listened to McGiven, Wrath of Khan would never have happened. But instead he unwittingly doomed them all.

This isn’t exactly the Star Trek I wanted, but I am pretty happy we got something to hold us over until the next series.

How could the Enterprise crew have missed the fact that one of the planets in the system was about to go critical? How could the Reliant crew not have not noticed a missing planet upon their return?

I’m going to be so disappointed if they don’t answer those questions.

I was disappointed that the dub did not get the English voice actors to sing the finale. I know that it is extremely difficult to translate music lyrics and make it match the music. But even a terrible effort would have been appreciated, by me at least. I know many people would feel the opposite.

I think I can agree. I won’t go so far as to say that I didn’t like it, and I’m not sure what I wanted out of it, but I do feel like it was lacking that je ne sais quoi that would make it exceptional.

It did have a few standout episodes, but for some reason I didn’t feel as invested in all the many narratives that were going on. Maybe it really was just that too much was going on at once. Like so many times I didn’t understand the relationships between the characters.

The animation was top notch though. Kyoto Animation really knocked it out of the park there at least.

I think Discovery is perfectly OK Star Trek. However, because it had a few changes in show runners things progress very strangely.

Season 1 is a 10 hour movie. I liked it for doing something different, and thought the plot twist was interesting.

Season 2 starts off good, but then jumps the (metaphorical) shark at the end.

Season 3 thru 5 starts to feel more like traditional Star Trek, just with wacky doom’s day scenario in the background until it’s resolved at the end of the season. It honestly feels too formulaic, but I thought Season 4’s ending was fantastic, some of the middle stuff was a mixed bag.

Anyway, I still think you should watch it. It’s perfectly adequate. Didn’t make me throw up at all.

I didn’t see Akira mentioned, so I’ll name drop it. The amount of movement, even for the lip syncing which is honestly kind of unheard of for anime, and the dynamic flowing camera all without the use of CGI. It’s really bonkers how good it is.

So Khan and gang are on Ceti Alpha V. We see foreshadowing that Ceti Alpha VI is going to blow up. And we know it does in Wrath of Khan. What I don’t understand is how Chekov and company mistake Ceti Alpha V for VI. Khan says that the planet’s orbit shifted because of the explosion of VI.

But if VI is the outter most planet, how does it push V out further? Or like, how could they have mistaken V for VI when there is clearly a missing planet in the system. I guess because they were looking for a non-M class planet and didn’t even bother to count the planets in the Ceti Alpha system. I guess that makes sense…

It also doesn’t exactly make sense that a planet would just blow up, but I guess it could happen…

Anyway, I’m really enjoying this audio drama. This is honestly my first audio drama. I hope some animator with too much free time tries to make some cool visuals to go with this.

Yeah, I think this book/podcast is what named them Ceti Eel. I’m pretty sure they’re unnamed in Wrath of Khan.

The link to the stream is broken. It should point to Gigguk’s channel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-P3HWXGYm4

Interesting short film. It moved at a quick pace so that I didn’t get bored, and was slow enough to let scenes breath and let you think about what’s happening.

Also, I’ve never heard of Gigguk before this point. But apparently he’s a anime fan/influencer, and once upon a time worked for the BBC. I hope this ends up being profitable. I really enjoy indy anime. It can just do a lot more experimental stuff.

Yeah, I think hair splinters is plausible. I didn’t even know this was a thing until I started to grow out my beard and tugged on it like a wise old sage but ended up breaking the tip off and getting is stuck in my thumb…a few times…you think I’d learn to stop doing that…

What a wild ride. This show was so hilarious, charming, and beautiful. The artistry in the CGI work and I’m just blown away with the dubs. They dubbed it in so many languages and it’s really good!

I also really like Season 3, but I do feel it is the weakest of the 3 seasons we got so far.

What are the rifles they’re using? Maybe taken from the 90s Eugenic Wars? I guess Kirk would have left them with it, since they’re basically obsolete and they do need something to help defend themselves.

I don’t like destiny episodes. It makes it feel like nothing matters. Like in ENT’s Shockwave, the crew just follows Daniel’s plan it and it all works out.

I feel this was not a very strong season, but I did enjoy it and that they experimented with the shows formula a bit. But over all, I feel this is the weakest of the 3 seasons we have so far.

Also, what’s up with all the mind melds? I went back and watch Dagger of the Mind, the first time we see an onscreen mind meld, and Spock says that he never mind melded with a human before. I guess he could always be lying, as that is definitely within Spock’s ability, but it seems like a trivial thing to lie about. But I get it, don’t be a slave to canon when we got a story to tell.

But to be realistic, it’d have been easier to make a program that could fire the phasers at the same time rather then a mind meld. And at the same time, there are many times in Star Trek where literally basic cyber security or actual computer programming could have saved the day, and at the end of the day that’s just not good compelling story telling.

I’m also a bit disappointed that they did not find a contrived techno babel solution to save Gamble. But I get it, he’s not bridge crew, so is expendable.

It was nice that Pike and Batel got to experience a happy ending that we know will never come.

I don’t think I much like this episode though.