Priority One: A Roddenberry Star Trek Podcast

480 – UberEats, Tribbles, and Star Trek Online | Priority One: A Roddenberry Star Trek Podcast

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Episode notes

This week on Episode 480 of Priority One --- We ‘Trek Out’ UberEats newest ad campaign - trust us, it belongs here - Jonathan Frakes spoilers, Discovery’s second go at a first impression, and what H. Jon Benjamin thinks of tribbles! In Star Trek gaming, Star Trek Online teams with Gameheads - providing actionable support for people of color, and Modiphius releases a helpful “Star Trek Adventures” Dev blog tutorial!

Of course, as always, before we wrap up the show, we’ll open hailing frequencies for your incoming messages

Let us know on social media like Facebook, Twitter, or by visiting our website!

This Weeks Community Question Is:

CQ: Are YOU concerned about “The Vulcan Hello”s low viewership numbers?

TREK IT OUT

by Jake Morgan

The Captain and the Master Talk Tomato

This week, SIR Patrick Stewart and Star Wars’ Luke Skywalker - Mark Hamill - sat down with Charles Thorp of Men’s Health to discuss their new advertisement campaign for the food delivery service - “Uber Eats”. In the three ad series, Captain Picard portrayer Sir Patrick faces off against Luke Skywalker Stager Mark Hamill in Connect Four, Air Hockey, and some - well - let’s call them deep-rooted family issues.

Besides talking about the similarities and differences between the two franchises, the pair recalled their time on-set. Sir Patrick discussed his first day of shooting, saying ”I was doing my first scene where I appeared on camera as Jean-Luc Picard. I was walking down one of the Enterprise corridors, and one of the sliding automated doors opened on my left and there was Commander Riker played by Jonathan Frakes. The script had him saying something to me, and I was just supposed to nod and then walk away. The director called, “Cut!” Then Jonathan yelled out, “That’s what they call British face-acting!” The whole crew laughed, and I remember gratefully thinking that I was going to be spending all of this time with funny people. This is going to be alright.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jtkuAVLdtA

But Wait, There's More!

Stewart had some interesting comments regarding his unknowing inspiration for Captain Picard, telling Men’s Journal in part ”I trained and worked out for years before I ever got in front of the camera playing Picard. My father was a military man, and he ended his military career at the end of the second World War in 1945, as a regimental sergeant major of The Parachute Regiment. For every gentleman from the outside looking in, he was a superstar. It took me decades to come to the realization of how much he influenced me not only as a man but also as an actor, especially when taking up Picard.[...] through him I had an incredible role model for the character, even if I wasn’t consciously pursuing it.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkzLXZtu_Xw

Finally, if you ever feel guilty about loving Star Wars or fantasizing about a crossover - DON’T! You’re in good company, according to Sir Patrick ”I will admit that, at least for us on Star Trek, we have fantasied about a combined universe between Star Wars and Trek movie. There have been a lot of ideas thrown about on putting together two iconic universes, and having all of these great characters coming into contact. I would personally get such a kick out of that.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2cSBtSdcE0

The article has a ton of interesting tidbits - and the ads are fun - so we encourage you to head to our website and trek out all of it!

Jonathan Frakes Talks Disco Season 3

Sir Patrick’s “The Next Generation” co-star - and prolific television director - Jonathan Frakes Rikered a chair to talk with friends of the network, Trekmovie.com. Hot off his Galaxycon Event, Frakes chatted with Anthony Pascale about the characters, events, and shooting of Star Trek: Discovery, season three - and in true Frakes fashion, probably told us more than he should have.

When asked to confirm his directing of three episodes this season, Frakes gave away some plot beats, saying ”Yes, I did. I actually just rewatched 303 a couple of days ago. Season three is really wonderful on Discovery, by the way. So the first episode is Michael Burnham alone in Iceland [for location shoot], which is a foreign land. And she meets “Book” [David Ajala]. The second episode is the entire crew on Discovery. And the third episode, which is the one I was fortunate enough to get, is their reunion. And it is very heavy on the emo.”

Later in the interview, Frakes discussed Trek’s newest stars. He showered praise on Book actor David Ajala before moving on to the newly announced Blu del Barrio (Adira)). ”Blu is so well cast that as the character reveals themself, I think they’ll be a new favorite. Much like Tilly—do you remember how offbeat and non-Star Trek Tilly felt in the beginning? Blu brings a different dynamic and a different color totally, but a brand new color to the palette of the group. Much in the way Tig [Notaro] did.”

Star Trek: Discovery’s Pilot Doesn’t Soar on CBS

In episode 476 of Priority One - released on September 4th - we told you about Star Trek: Discovery’s re-airing of its pilot - “The Vulcan Hello”. Want to know how that went? Are you sure?

“The Vulcan Hello”, which originally aired on September 24, 2017, was repeated for terrestrial television audiences exactly three years later - September 24, 2020. Back in 2017, the series premiere - which aired at 8:30pm EST - pulled in a solid 9.5 million same-day-viewers, according to USA Today. Three years later, Variety reported  that viewership had dropped to a disappointing 1.7 million viewers, losing out to ABC’s season 5 premiere of “The Match Game” (2.9 million viewers). So what does that mean? Well, right now, it only means that “The Vulcan Hello” had 1.7 million viewers. 

The three year old episode was, as mentioned previously, a repeat - even to Network television viewers. There’s no need to panic.

Right?

H. Jon Benjamin Talks Tribbles

One of Star Trek’s most divisive episodes seems to be the Season 2 episode of “Short Treks” titled “The Trouble With Edward”. From the IMDB summary “Newly minted Captain Lynne Lucero is excited to take command of the U.S.S. Cabot. That is, until she meets Edward Larkin, an ornery scientist who believes he has found a revolutionary new use for tribbles.” You remember Larkin, right? The guy who wanted to breed Tribbles for food. That Edward Larkin. This week, Edward Larkin himself - H. Jon Benjamin - did absolutely nothing to ingratiate himself with the episode detractors.

Benjamin sat down with telegram.com to talk about Bob’s Burgers, Archer, and “The Trouble With Edward”. Benjamin admitted to report Craig S. Semon ”I never thought I would make it in the ‘Star Trek’ universe but I did.  I was a ‘Star Trek’ fan when I was a kid. It was really cool. I was thrilled to be asked.”

On playing the - unique - character, Benjamin said ”It wasn’t particularly hard to play that guy, because he was oblivious. I’m not sure he knew how despicable he was. So that was the fun of it. From what I gathered, there are some ‘Star Trek’ fans that took issue with that the way tribbles were discovered. People get very deep into everything working perfectly or logically based on the ‘Star Trek’ universe. Maybe that was a problem, but that’s not my problem.”

Finally, Benjamin addressed the fact that he may have been the first person to eat a Tribble, saying ”That’s true. But you never know. You never know if Scotty drunk ate one.”

Star Trek Gaming News

by Shane Hoover and Thomas Reynolds

Cryptic Studios Announces Collaboration with Gameheads

This week, it was announced that Cryptic Studios - the game development studio that designs Neverwinter, Champions Online, the upcoming Magic: Legends, and -- of course -- Star Trek Online --- has teamed up with a local organization called Gameheads. What’s important about this particular nonprofit organization, is that it welcomes low-income youth and youth of color between the ages of 15 to 24 in the Bay Area into a program that trains them in video game design, development, and DevOps.  Together, these young adults will work with experienced game developers at Cryptic to  “provide discipline-specific discussions, panels, and presentations and mentor students in their desired fields, such as Environment Art, Level Design, or Narrative Design.” Additionally, Cryptic has made a financial donation to Gameheads as well as the NAACP

Personally, I believe this is an excellent partnership. You see, there is substantial evidence that points to a systemically racial barrier that makes it incredibly difficult for low-income youth of color to move up and out of poverty. Additionally, there’s evidence establishing inherent racism in technology… and no, I’m not saying your toaster burns your toast cuz you’re Carribean. But, what I am saying is that current algorithms -- those that drive facial recognition technology for example -- have time and again misidentified individuals of color. You see, to the ghost in the machine, anyone who’s not white pretty much looks the same…. But, the thing is… that ghost is programmed by an industry led -- predominantly - by white people. So, helping students break into the tech industry is one positive way of ensuring that the tech industry remains inclusive and equitable… for the consumer and for developers..

A New Event! A New Event Prize Concept!

By Shane Hoover

In a blog posted Tuesday September 29th, Ambassador Kael announced an upcoming event to accompany the next Year of Klingon content release. This “Widening Gyre” event runs from October 6th through November 5th on PC. No details are provided yet about the Event itself, but the Grand Prize is breaking new ground for STO events. By completing 20 daily progress cycles in the Widening Gyre, Captains can obtain an entire 4 piece space equipment set, the Imperial Rift Space Set. So far details are scant on the set pieces, but the descriptions provided in the blog point toward a Science-based set that is trying to synergize control abilities with energy weapons. It’s too soon to give you a verdict on how we think it’ll perform, but stay tuned, Captains. Once the stats are released, you can bet we’ll be sharing our evaluations on the next show!

It is said that reputation is everything.

Ah, the daily grind. It’s just part of the MMO experience, right? You run the same missions over and over to gain a reward that takes days, months or years to complete. However, if you’re tired of grinding marks for another reputation system in STO, then you will be pleased with the latest news. You can now skip the grind. Well, you can skip some of the grind. Well, you can now skip some of the grind in one section of one part of the systems available to grind in STO.  Now available for purchase -  a Tier V Reputation buyout from the Zen store. 

Starting at 3,000 Zen, you can pass go and proceed immediately to Tier V for a single reputation on a single character. Although, the price is reduced proportionately, depending on how much progress in that reputation you’ve already made. For example, if you’ve made it to Tier 3 and just are not able or willing to continue earning those marks and running the daily project, then the price of 3,000 zen is reduced proportionately. Keep in mind, if you thought you were getting around the grind - ha - nope. You will still have to spend at least 60 days getting to Tier 6. But, this is manageable with the Tier V mark reward amount, since you get at least 600 marks when you achieve Tier V - but you still have to run those daily projects

What does this mean for you, the player - what type of player are you?

New: Players new to the game should avoid this purchase as the process of leveling the reputation is something you will need to do anyway, unless you plan on buying it for all reputations, and even then, because this only goes up to tier 5 which isn’t even half the progress to tier 6. 

Casual: Casual players may feel like this is a decent deal, skipping what seems like a significant in-game time sink. But if you consider yourself a casual player, 3000 Zen is probably not a small investment for you, and that can get you things you’ll use to play the game. Like an account-wide T6 ship, for instance. And if you’re paying to avoid playing the game, then...is this really the hobby for you?

Experienced: Experienced players will have a better understanding of exactly what they are getting out of the purchase and be better placed to evaluate if it’s worth the price to skip ahead a little. But in general? No. No player should purchase this. 

Elite: Honestly, this seems like it’d be heresy to an elite player. Who already has all their reps finished anyway.

Rainbow Tribbles, Because We’re Better Together

By Thomas Reynolds

Well, captains, the 2020 Summer Event has come and gone like a beautiful Risian sunset. You know, back when Risa had sunsets. And while we’ve all enjoyed our fast ships and fabulous costumes, there’s one event item that’s snuck in under the tachyon grid and into our hearts. The Rainbow Tribble grants you a 2.5% critical chance in ground combat when you pet it. That in itself is pretty good--but it stacks with each active Rainbow Tribble on your team. Hand one out to everyone on your away team, and you’ll be looking at a 12.5% crit chance buff to every team member. Rainbow Tribbles go for 50 Lohlunat Favors from the event store, or 1 million EC on the exchange at the time of writing--a pittance for this kind of power.

OTHER GAMING NEWS

Star Trek Adventures: The Blog of Dev

So you backed the Humble Bundle. You have hundreds of dollars’ worth of prime Star Trek roleplaying material at your fingertips. Great. Now what? Well don’t worry, Modiphius has you covered. Posted on September 23rd, the first post of 2d20 developer Nathan Dowdell’s blog series will walk you through the basic concepts of Star Trek Adventures character creation. Much of it will look familiar to anyone who’s played RPGs in the past (you say “proficiencies,” I say “disciplines”). But it’s definitely encouraged reading, whether this is your first time on the Final Frontier or you’re back for more glorious battles.