data1701d (He/Him)

“Life forms. You precious little lifeforms. You tiny little lifeforms. Where are you?”

- Lt. Cmdr Data, Star Trek: Generations

  • 159 Posts
  • 876 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: March 7th, 2024

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  • Frankly, I lack an understanding of the disdain for “All I Want For Christmas Is You” - I have heard much more annoying Christmas songs. It may be a bit cloying and heavily pop, but I think it’s well executed, at least compared to almost any Christmas song put out by a major artist in the 21st century. Also, I think My Chemical Romance pulled off a rather good cover that perhaps beats the original.

    Maybe part of it is I have a 5 hour personal/family Christmas playlist that reduces the amount of repeated listens to a more manageable degree. In addition to more well-known ones and several covers, it is also filled to the brim with alternative and indie Christmas music - Jonathan Coulton especially is good at making atypical holiday songs that don’t get annoying.






  • TLDR; Daystrom did bad stuff but under mental collapse, and it’s very much in part Starfleet Command’s fault.

    I think also, as much as Daystrom had much responsibility for those deaths, it was not as intentional as something like slavery, genocide, or sexual assault. He was fundamentally in a state of psychological distress partially beyond his control. Depending on when Daystrom Institute was founded (touched on above), he may have had decades for rehabilitation and redemption.

    Additionally, Starfleet command probably had ample opportunity to avoid this very early on, like:

    • Looking over Daystrom’s reports to consider potential risks of using engram imprints in a manner similar to a university’s Institutional Review Board - (Though perhaps Daystrom was rather secretive about it and kept it from reviewers.)
    • Running the M-5 in simulations. We know the Kobiyashi Moru existed, so we could probably create a wide range.
    • Not running the test on the Federation flagship, literally one of Starfleet’s most powerful weapons.

    While it’s possible Starfleet took more precautions than we see onscreen, Commodore Wesley’s enthusiasm in “The Ultimate Computer” almost suggests an over-enthusiasm in Command, possibly one that caused them to skip necessary precautions. In fact, we had almost this exact scenario happen in Lower Decks “Trusted Sources”/“The Stars at Night” with the Texas class a century later. Ultimately, Starfleet Command likely bears a non-negligible amount of responsibility in the M-5 affair.

    Of course, the above does not reduce the wrongness of Daystrom’s actions and perhaps only serves to deflect from the OP’s question. However, I feel Starfleet’s potential role combined with Daystrom’s mental condition may be mitigating factors that would make Richard Daystrom less unworthy of having an institution bear his name.



  • It looks like this rulebook was released 2 months before the Discovery episode.

    Honestly, I think I’d personally consider the Disco naming a canon goof up - Daystrom was only 37 years old at that point. While he’d certainly done a lot in his career by then, it still feels weird to name such a major part of Starfleet Federation research (thanks OP) after him when he’s still relatively young.

    I think my headcannon, and a reasonable retcon in my opinion, is that there was a predecessor organization to Daystrom, somewhat like how there was NACA before there was NASA. When Discovery mentions Daystrom, they should actually be mentioning the predecessor organization.










  • I find Pegasus a decent episode. I think that while utopian aspiration is a fundamental tenet of Star Trek, I think it’s a bit reducto e to call it completely a show about perfect humans.

    Heck, from the get go we had Garry Mitchell doing pyscho god stuff and Charlie X groping people, and a captain who sacrificed his crew to the weird space Romans so he would survive.

    I think in truth, Star Trek is both about the best humanity can be and how the best in humanity can overcome the worst in humanity - you can’t exactly do that without episodes where the protagonists or the Federation makes mistakes, sometimes small and sometimes on the magnitude of Pegasus.

    In many ways, DS9, darker as it is, feels the most Trek - a team of very different people with different beliefs overcoming/respecting their differences and forming a beautiful community despite the folly and evil around and within them.