S2E13 - Prototype

This week we’re talking about Season 2 episode 13: Prototype! We answer the question “what happens when B’Llanna pulls an all nighter, she gets kidnapped by the creepy, slightly less intellegent, much more angry step brother of C3PO, and forced into robot building labor and Janeway pulls the federation into a Robot turf war. All this and more in Prototype. Oh and one more thing…”Prototype unit 0001 is ready to accept programming.”

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Hey listeners, I'm your co-host Audrey, and I'm your co-host Terry. Welcome to the Voicast, your home in the Delta Quadrant for all things Star Trek Voyager. Today we're talking season 2, episode 13, Prototype. In this episode, we answer the question: what happens when Balana pulls an all-nighter, gets kidnapped by the creepy, slightly less intelligent but definitely more angry stepbrother of C3PO, and is forced into robot labor camp while Janeway pulls the Federation into a robot turf war. You know, I wrote all of that and it's still way too long. But, you know, that is that episode. Yep. All this and more in prototype. Oh, and one more thing, Terry. Prototype unit 0001 is ready to accept programming.

SPEAKER_02 1:06

Continuously ready.

SPEAKER_00 1:08

Yeah, so this episode was not bad. It it felt fast to me. Honestly, it felt super fast. Maybe that's just the state of mind I was in after work today. Basically, this episode, a sentient robot, enlists Balana's help to make it possible for it to construct new members of its race. I think, I think it was a power unit, right? That made that possible. Yep. It was written by Nicholas Correa and directed by Jonathan Freaks.

SPEAKER_02 1:45

Okay. I wondered. There were some unique and fun camera angles that were kind of signature there.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Yeah. Number one loves his camera angles. How did you feel about this episode?

SPEAKER_02 1:56

Well, I don't want to anger our future robot overlords. But I don't love robots. Is this a fear of robots or like fear of planes? No, similar. It is a deep-seated fear of robots. Um mostly in the way that they move. It really freaks me out. These didn't like, we didn't watch these move all that much, except that when they were speaking, the like mask that they were wearing, it obviously the actor inside of this robot was actually speaking because you could see like the neck and the face shift a little bit while it was speaking. And I was like, there's no reason for that to actually happen in this robot. Which was also weird. I was also like, why'd they do that? Why didn't they just put the voice in later so that it was disembodied? Anyway, they made me uncomfortable. And then they proved me right at the end. So I feel vindicated, I suppose, in my fear of robots.

SPEAKER_00 2:58

They were creepy as fuck. Yeah. Thank you. It's not just me. No, there's no, it's definitely a stylistic choice, but it's also like a low budget option. There's there's just a mask on the front sealed with a mask on the back, and then they're all encased in, you know, very stiff parts, right? Very stiff. No, like think of like a bronze kind of neo-modernist sculpture where there's like very low detail and like very, very like conceptual statuistic features, not high detail at all. But it's sexless, it's there's no eyeballs, there's just little in the vaguely human.

SPEAKER_02 3:48

It's like an old C3PO cake pan was put on their face.

SPEAKER_00 3:53

Yeah, it's hard to think of a robot mask that's like this. Maybe like envision a 1920s robot movie, right? Yeah, very, very stiff and simple. The voice acting was super creepy. And yeah, they definitely hit that point across. These robots are creepy. The creep factor was high. So yeah, basically, this episode opens with Balana already working on this robot they found and trying to understand what's wrong. Something's wrong with it. It's not basically it's not alive, it's not on. Right. It's not charging. Right. Something about power unit is failing, and she uses it, it's powered by plasma, and she uses the warp core plasma as a substitute, right?

SPEAKER_02 4:52

Yeah, she does basically a a plasma transfusion using the warp core plasma, um, which she has to add some extra doodads on there because it's a different type of plasma. And this was all really important to her for some reason that this robot not power off. She was super invested from the beginning, which was a little strange to me.

SPEAKER_00 5:15

I can see her in her engineering mind being very like intrigued by this. And really, if you give it the background of like, there's only like there's data, right? In Starfleet. And she's like, what if there's a way to learn from this and you know, make this discovery, basically?

SPEAKER_02 5:35

Sure. Yeah, I guess this is definitely more in her wheelhouse than other like aliens that we've met. Uh, she can understand this a little better. But the beginning is where we get those fun camera angles because you start out actually seeing from the robot's perspective, and it's like floating out in space, and you can tell it's dying because there's like static, like TV static happening, and it gets beamed aboard, and we're seeing Bellana and Captain Janeway and Tuvok like all looking into the camera, which is just is just really fun. And for a little while, you're just like, what did they what did they bring in? What's happening until we finally zoom out and look, we're looking at like one of the other view screens in engineering, and we see that it is this humanoid robot.

SPEAKER_00 6:21

Yeah, you you have the school, like you can tell it kind of wakes up, but it can't move, and it like its vision zooms in on one of the view screens, and you can see like a bird's eye view of the robot. I thought that was really interesting film work.

SPEAKER_02 6:38

Yeah, I the beginning definitely drew me in. It was fun.

SPEAKER_00 6:41

It doesn't really end on any like dun dun dun.

SPEAKER_02 6:43

It's basically because she figures out that she so she has tried a lot of things, basically stayed up all night trying to charge this robot, but finally figures out to do this plasma infusion while Jane Way is there also, and um Harry's helping. And it works. And this robot wakes up and it grabs Belana's arm, and its voice is kind of like friendly creepy. Very, it's like Mr. Rogers plus Brent Spiner. Yes. He's like, I am automated unit 3947. Thank you for activating me. And it's so funny to see the interaction between Belana and this unit because it she continues to spend time with it. She's trying to repair its systems and the way they're talking back and forth. I was like, are they flirting? Is she flirting with this robot? That's interesting. I didn't I didn't feel like they were flirting. Oh my gosh. He's she's like, You're such a unique and complicated machine. And he's like, Thank you, Balana. You're such an efficient builder. I was just like, What is happening?

SPEAKER_00 7:48

Honestly, Terry, that's just how I talked to my cat.

SPEAKER_02 7:51

Yeah, you flirt with Romeo.

SPEAKER_00 7:53

I would expect Romeo to talk to me in that, like, like, you're such a a beautiful, good caretaker, and you have so much movie trivia that you share with me. And let me sit in your lap, please. Thank you. Now do my bidding. Now do my bidding. Yeah, well, I I don't want to skip over the coffee part because she basically I I've done this so many times. She's like, All right, Kim, go to bed. And Harry's like, I don't want to. I can stay up as late as you. And she's like, I'm a big boy, go to go to bed or I'm gonna pull rank on you. And he's like, All right. And then she immediately goes to Neelix and gets like three kegs of coffee. And then he cuts her off from coffee, and she gets mad. She's like, Don't cut me off coffee, give me more coffee. And he's like, Go to bed, go to bed. And she doesn't go to bed. And um, well, things go awry.

SPEAKER_02 8:56

She does, she tries to go to bed. She lies down for literally a second and then bolts back up in bed and goes straight to the doctor and sick bay to ask him in her nightgown how to do this. Yeah, uh, in her like velvety longsleeve nightgown.

SPEAKER_00 9:11

And it's like the most tame 90s nightgown I think I've ever seen, though.

SPEAKER_02 9:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:16

Aside from the velvet.

SPEAKER_02 9:18

And that it is actually her conversation with the doctor that gives her the idea to do this plasma transfusion.

SPEAKER_00 9:24

Yeah. So that works. The robot, I forget his number designation, but he wakes up. How could you? It's 3947. 3947. Thank you. I should have known. We don't remember everyone's name. It's there. The doctor had this really fun quote that I wrote down. He said, I'm a doctor, not, and then she's like, not an engineer. I know. Making fun of bones. Bones is catchphrase.

SPEAKER_02 9:55

And I think the doctor has actually done that multiple times. Like when he was bartending, I'm a doctor, not a bartender. But it's also kind of like he is becoming all these things, also, which is fun.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

The robot uh kidnaps Belana and beams her and himself or themselves onto the robot like mother ship that Voyager had come across.

SPEAKER_02 10:22

And this comes after a pretty tense conversation where the robot has designated Balana as a builder because she's so good at robot things. The builders are who originally made the robots. And he's like, Well, then you can make new power units for us. And if you do that, we will be able to basically procreate. He's like, There's only 300 of us left. The builders that made us are dead. Please help us. And she like really wants to help them, but I think mostly because it sounds like a fun engineering challenge to her. Uh, and Janeway is like, absolutely not. That is way against the prime direction. Seems like a bad idea. Terrible, terrible idea. We're giving a essentially a species that wasn't able to reproduce the ability to reproduce. We have no idea the repercussions of that. Yeah, that's never gone wrong in the past. Yeah, no, she has excellent points. And Balana does, she's like, okay, yep, you're right. She tells the robot, I can't help you. It goes against our rules. Sorry. And that's when he's like, okay.

SPEAKER_00 11:28

We're gonna have to force you then. At some point, Balana calls 3947 an extremely well-designed machine. I was like, bullshit.

SPEAKER_02 11:38

In what why bullshit?

SPEAKER_00 11:39

In no way is this machine well designed. Other than the giant gap between its front mask and its back mask. Aesthetically, it's poorly designed. Functionally, it's very clear it's poorly designed. They're all dying out. It's really dumb. So I'm questioning her. Basically, I'm just questioning her um her taste in robots, really.

SPEAKER_02 12:04

Yeah. At the very least, her experience with robots. Because you're right. This this thing does not do anything that's like awe-inspiring. It just looks like a human and can respond to her. Data is extremely well designed.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:19

This thing is a Yeah, especially in comparison.

SPEAKER_00 12:22

No offense to the prop builders. It's uh you did what you could. It's cool.

SPEAKER_02 12:29

We know you try your best. Um, they're a ship though. The robot ship is cool.

SPEAKER_00 12:37

Yeah. Okay, so if you've watched Stargate, imagine the gold ships. Like, take Ra, take his ship. It's kind of like that. It even has something that looks like instead of like a pyramid in the middle and these like leaf sections going out in four directions, it has like a just a more of like a rectangular block in the middle. But it it look look up a gold ship. It looks the same.

SPEAKER_02 13:07

I don't know. The ship of which you speak, they looked like lumpy starfish to me. Yeah, it's a lumpy starfish.

SPEAKER_00 13:14

Yeah. And I love it when they have ships that are obviously like you can build anything in space, there's no friction. And these ships are huge. Even if you landed them on the planet, they didn't need to be aerodynamic. So whenever I see ships like this, I'm like, yeah, obviously it would just look like that. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 13:33

Yeah, it's silly that we would think that they would be all aerodynamic and shit. There's no reason.

SPEAKER_00 13:38

Yeah. So they're in the transporter room. She's gonna give him this extra warp plasma and send him on his way. She reminds him of things. He's she's kind of rambling at this point. He's like, Yeah, Bellana Torres has already told unit 3947 that this and this and this, which I thought was funny.

SPEAKER_02 14:01

It's cute. It's like she's sending her child off to preschool or something.

SPEAKER_00 14:06

Yeah. She's like nervous about it. So as a reward, he knocks her out and kidnaps her. He shoots lightning at people. Yeah. I mean terrifying. That's common, right? No. No. No. This is a machine designed for war. So immediately we're in a shooting war with this spaceship, and Voyager is shooting, and it very quickly becomes clear that they're not doing any damage and that Voyager is outmatched by this ship's weapons. Very. And I'm like, okay, but like these robots look so dumb. Like, like they don't look advanced. The ship looks advanced. The robots don't look advanced.

SPEAKER_02 14:53

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 14:54

Very true. So I guess the builders were just super advanced and the robots didn't really need to be advanced. They just needed to be foot soldiers. That's what I assume also.

SPEAKER_02 15:04

When this robot teleports off with Balana, my first instinct as soon as Jane White finds out that this happened, because they see a signal go from the transporter room. I was like, oh no. Is Janeway gonna think that Balana purposely went with this robot to defy her orders and to help them procreate? And they just didn't even, they didn't go that direction at all. But I was like, oh, that would have been interesting.

SPEAKER_00 15:28

Yeah, basically, Jane was like, let's get out of here, come back. And Balana makes a deal with them to build this power unit for them, make sure the design is working so they can procreate and fix themselves in exchange for letting Voyager escape.

SPEAKER_02 15:48

Yes. And they very quickly, the robots estimate that it'll take Voyager about 140 hours to repair the damage they've done to them, which was so specific. But in this point, they're showing that they're kind of smart because they're like, we think that your people will probably attempt a rescue by the time they are repaired. So we need you to be done within this time frame.

SPEAKER_00 16:10

Yeah. Or or before, like before they're fully repaired. They're gonna try to not a rescue, which is true. And they put her in a room of like robot parts and prototype robot, just an MG shell. And it reminded me so much of like the cave that Iron Man is in, where he has to like build Iron Man in the first thing from a box of scraps. She built this from a box of scraps. It had that vibe for sure. Yeah. But instead, the robot, the the other, the Ironmans are the evil terrorists and Belana has Belana is Iron Man, or she's Tony Stark in this case. She's Tony Stark. Yes. And it is it's not the perfect analogy. But it's not that flawed considering.

SPEAKER_02 17:02

But she so she does. She gets to work and she starts asking them, like, why haven't like, have you attempted this before? And they say, Yes, we have duplicated a power unit, exactly, two specifications, and it doesn't work. And I'm like, well, okay, then what is she doing here? This doesn't make sense.

SPEAKER_00 17:23

Yeah. I and I still, I'm still not sure what it was that I she she has to problem solve something. It's beyond just, okay, we recreated it to specifications.

SPEAKER_02 17:37

She finds out that each one is unique. And I think that they were trying to imply this is this is kind of like the robot's soul. Each of them have their own unique energy signature. And so if you replicate one, it just isn't, it just isn't gonna work. It's gotta have its own soul. I don't know how she figures out how the fuck to do that.

SPEAKER_00 17:57

But she does. Well, the biggest, yeah, she does. The biggest takeaway for me was that all of the units are very single task minded. They were built for certain tasks and they can't deviate. They're not smart enough to deviate from that and to problem solve and to think outside the box, so to speak. They don't have that ability. So they were never able to find a way to fix this issue like Balana is able to.

SPEAKER_02 18:29

But this this one robot does specifically say, like, I don't have your creative abilities or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 18:37

Yeah. Which I've heard often, like, we just don't have your creative abilities, Audrey. Yeah. Because you're just so creative. So you're a creative. I'm a builder. Well, actually, yeah. Builder.

unknown 18:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:52

Why not?

SPEAKER_00 18:53

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 18:53

I'll go with it. So Balana has some conversations with um this robot about he's talking to her about does your species or your culture have robots like us? And she's like, yes, they do. And he's like, Are they your servants? And she's like, no. No, there's one data, and he is treated just like all the other sentient people. And this robot is very confused and blown away by that, which just shows you what's happening here a little bit. This robot has been scarred, probably.

SPEAKER_00 19:34

Emotionally. This is so random. At some point, Voyager is under attack again. And yeah, well, another alien ship shows up. Right. And they're under attack, stuff is failing, whole breach happens, there's like environmental control systems are failing. And then randomly, deck eight loses artificial gravity. And I noted that because I was like, so individual decks can lose gravity, not like the whole ship.

SPEAKER_02 20:09

Excellent point. Why would that gravity be controlled per deck? However, we do know from Tuvox space camp episode that he he increases the training day. No. I'm gonna continue to veer further and further away. Is it even called training day?

SPEAKER_00 20:31

No, that's the one we thought it was called. Well now it's called learning curve. The actual episode's called learning curve.

SPEAKER_02 20:37

Great. Um in that episode, he increases the gravity on just a couple decks. So I guess they are controlled individually, which yeah, I guess you're right. Doesn't seem to make sense mechanically and as a whole for the ship. But uh, I guess you can also lose it on one deck.

SPEAKER_00 20:57

Is that was that a whole pun? Was that a ship hole pun? Maybe. I don't think it was intentional.

SPEAKER_02 21:05

The whole ship. No, that's just me not being able to speak good.

SPEAKER_00 21:09

No speak good. No, speaking hard. Okay, so she completes a prototype unit. And basically she's problem solving some of the issues, and this other unit who's like a total asshole, 6263 is putting a lot of pressure on 3947 about, you know, Voyager's whole like rescue effort and time is running down. So the pressure's on.

SPEAKER_02 21:40

And all through this, I'm wondering how long is this taking? We've had 140 hours, which is six days. Is Belani eating during this time? Is she going to the bathroom? Does this ship even have the things that she needs to biologically exist? We don't know. They don't address that.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

Well, I assume not because. I thought that that's why they opened the episode with her pounding coffee.

SPEAKER_02 22:05

Like, why would she need I have to take a so bad?

SPEAKER_00 22:10

It was just like, why would she need any kind of accommodation, food, water, anything? She's got so much coffee in her system. She's gonna run until she dies for days. Go and then die.

SPEAKER_02 22:24

It was just like the plasma infusion. You're right. She just replaced all of her bodily fluids with coffee and now she can go for days on end.

SPEAKER_00 22:32

Yeah, yeah. But it's not just normal coffee. It's Neelix's like weird nut sludge.

SPEAKER_02 22:49

Sorry, I can't handle the way you said nut.

SPEAKER_00 22:53

Balana's full of Nelix's nut sludge. Maybe I shouldn't have said it that way.

SPEAKER_02 23:02

I'm so happy that you did.

SPEAKER_00 23:04

I have regrets, but I'm also glad that we actually have something funny to put on a reel now.

SPEAKER_02 23:11

Yeah. Yeah, it was worth it. It was worth it.

SPEAKER_00 23:15

I'm gonna have really, really weird nightmares. Not great. So anyway, 3947's in there with 6263. And they're like really struggling. They're just like, Well, it seems you've hit a roadblock. So I guess uh we'll inform Voyager that we're gonna blow them up and you'll probably die too. And we're gonna kill everybody. She's like, Do you always just like quit when you can't figure something out? And essentially, yes.

SPEAKER_01 23:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:49

And there's this whole back and forth conversation. And then eventually she like explains, she's like, We've got this prototype, and I think I know what's wrong. It's like the energy signal needs to be unique. 6263 says, This has given reason for greater optimism. And Balana says, like, yes, he took the words right out of my mouth. Great job.

SPEAKER_02 24:13

That's exactly how I would say that. Meanwhile, Voyager is is trying to figure out a rescue attempt, as they knew they would, but they are trying to come up with a diversion, I guess. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 24:27

So Paris, go die. Yeah. They put Paris in a shuttle. And they're just like, all right, go um be the decoy.

SPEAKER_02 24:35

So they at some point the idea is let's shoot at the alien ship to open a hole in their shields so that we can slip this shuttle in close enough to get Bolana out. And I was like, again, this is this is the second time at least that we've heard this, where I was like, I didn't think shields worked that way. I assumed that they were a field that like circulated around the ship, that you couldn't blast a hole in like one part of it, but apparently you can.

SPEAKER_00 25:06

Yeah, I noticed that too. Like two episodes almost in a row where there's been, whoa, yeah, we just make a hole in the shield. I really don't think that's how it works. No, it's like energy. You can't just it's you guys are just making stuff up. You gotta go back to the Starfleet warp field physics book, which we've all had to read. Some of us more recently than others, apparently. Right. And I swear to God, there's nothing in there about magic war poles.

SPEAKER_01 25:37

Yeah, if that was how shields worked, why would you then shields don't work?

SPEAKER_00 25:42

They don't they don't work. Any force field doesn't work that way. Like I've seen Independence Day, I've seen literally any other Star Trek show. Literally. Lots of sci-fi. I've seen Star Wars. Like, this is not how shields work. Shield harmonics, that's one thing. Shield holes. That's not a thing. Not a thing, guys. Thank you. Give us your responses. Perceived correct answers only.

SPEAKER_02 26:14

Or perceived funny answers. I'll take those two.

SPEAKER_00 26:17

I assume that anyone else that thinks they're correct uh and that we're wrong, uh, their answer will be objectively funny. Because of how wrong they are? Correct.

SPEAKER_02 26:27

This is quite a high horse we are on.

SPEAKER_00 26:29

I'm grateful you followed my logic though. Thank you. I got you. I'm picking up what you're putting down. We're gonna have like Tom and Harry and Balana. They're all gonna just be writing us on Instagram, like, this is why you're wrong, guys.

SPEAKER_02 26:44

I hope they write us an essay. We love that.

SPEAKER_00 26:48

So God, please don't do that.

SPEAKER_02 26:51

That we have more conversation between Belana and Yeah, it's just really boring though. No, but the one thing that is important is that they start talking at the same time that a new alien ship shows up and start shooting the other alien ship. Belana is talking to her robot about why the builders are dead and why these two aliens partway. Is that important? Yes, because like it has to be a lot of people. This all kind of happens at the same time. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 27:21

That's true. It's just immediately over and over again. Prototype unit 0001 is ready to accept programming. And they don't actually give it any programming.

SPEAKER_02 27:32

They don't even talk to the They don't acknowledge it. No. But it is a big moment. Like Bolana basically gave this thing life and she's like super excited about it, which I get. This is like her robot son now. Robot son, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 27:48

And she immediately kills uh her son. Stabs it in the chest with an energy knife.

SPEAKER_02 27:56

After they have this brief conversation while being attacked.

SPEAKER_00 28:00

They're being attacked, yeah. They're they're talking about uh race war, a robot race war. Yep, yep.

SPEAKER_02 28:06

And both of the original species that created these robots are dead because the robots killed them.

SPEAKER_00 28:13

There it is. Yeah. And they infer that the the makers are from two different nations, planets, whatever, who cares?

SPEAKER_02 28:22

And oh, that could be just nations or planets. I assumed species, but the robots are so similar. There was no different colors.

SPEAKER_00 28:30

Yeah, there was no like actual, they didn't actually tell us. Yeah. And the assumption is these were all made as like war units, and they were made to fight a battle. And at some point, both of these maker races died off, and these robots have just been fighting in perpetuity. This is their purpose now.

SPEAKER_02 28:53

And but that's the thing, guys. They weren't supposed to procreate, they were specifically designed so that they couldn't do this without the builders. And now Bellana very exuberantly yells, Oh no, what have I done?

SPEAKER_00 29:11

Yeah, she screams it really. It's it's a very kind of weird. What have I done? What have I done? And she grabs a energy knife and yeah, kills murders it, kills the prototype. And as the prototype is dying, it says Mother No! Prototype unit 0001 is ready to accept programming. So yeah. And I honestly kind of checked out at this point because I was like, Fair. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 29:50

Yeah, we resolved that. While the two ships are fighting each other, Paris does use that basically as a diversion. Gets close enough to beam Bellana out, which is good because her robot electrocuted her when she stabbed her son and is able to take a look at the room. Well, the robot didn't do anything really. It's just she I thought it shot lightning at her.

SPEAKER_00 30:12

The the prototype?

SPEAKER_02 30:14

No.

SPEAKER_00 30:15

Oh, the other robot.

SPEAKER_02 30:16

Nine three nine four seven.

SPEAKER_00 30:18

I thought it like came out of the knife she was holding. I was like, I just assumed poor weapon use.

SPEAKER_02 30:22

Well, no, I think he attacked her when she did that. Got it. Well, I'm not a hundred percent sure if that's the impression I was under. You're probably right. Uh and Janeway's like, yeah, okay, let's fucking leave while these guys are going at it. Let's get out of here.

SPEAKER_00 30:37

Yeah. And then they they escape, and it ends with her drinking more coffee. So, like, she gets on the shuttle with Paris. Paris rescues her, escapes. The robots are blowing each other up. They go to warp, they're in, they go straight, literally, like Paris lands in the shuttle bay. She walks to the turbo lift, goes up to the mess hall, walks in, says, Give me coffee. And Neelix comes in and says, compliments, you know, great job. And she's like, compliments to the chef. This is great coffee. Um, and then she dies. On his weird nutmil. She dies? Yeah, because she's had zero water, food, uh, bathroom breaks, and just killed her son. And she's also been electrocuted multiple times in a very short amount of time.

SPEAKER_02 31:31

Coffee's magic. You know that. There's water and poison too. A excellent point. Yeah, she seems to be doing fine despite all of these terrible physical and mental ailments that have been put on her. Janeway does talk to her a little bit and is just like, I know it must have been really difficult to destroy what you created.

SPEAKER_00 31:54

Literally, the one of the least memorable endings to an episode I think I could ever think of. This this particular scene. I don't know. I just, I was like, Yeah, you do have I I like some of Picards like ending. What is the lesson to be learned here? We're cheesy as hell. But the lesson here is don't trust robots. I was gonna say, just gotta kill sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 32:18

Like Yeah, yeah, okay. It's also drink a lot of coffee.

SPEAKER_00 32:23

All nighters, pull all nighters.

SPEAKER_01 32:25

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 32:26

You don't need sleep. Be an alcoholic or not be an alcoholic, be a workaholic, a caffeine holic. And and lean in really, really close to your coworkers that have just killed uh their robot child and say it was necessary.

SPEAKER_02 32:44

Well, I kind of just want to cut and end the episode so quiet for that whisper, because I just we don't need anything beyond that. But we've complained a lot about them not trying to like wrap up the episode and and ground everything. And I feel like this was trying to bring attention back to the fact that this was super hard for Balana mentally and emotionally.

SPEAKER_00 33:08

Yeah, but they didn't like actually talk about it. She's like, Yeah, shit's hard. Yeah, sucks.

SPEAKER_02 33:14

Would you so it sounds like you would have preferred that they were just like, okay, let's get out of here, and that would have been the end of the episode.

SPEAKER_00 33:20

No, I I just thought like I I'm never satisfied, but I I wanted more like there was no time at all in the episode between her killing this creation, which honestly, like, if I'd been in her shoes, I'd be like, fuck it, I don't care. I was forced to do this, and these robots are just drones, and you know, I was literally just trying to survive. I don't owe them anything. And and then Janeway sits down, she's like, sometimes it's necessary to kill things. I'm like, hell yeah, sure it is. I don't know, it just it felt like one of the fast endings.

SPEAKER_02 33:59

Yes, they all feel rather fast, but this one at least I like they could have just not done that scene. And I don't know that it would have necessarily been worse without it, but I feel like they tried. They did. I'm giving you a lot of people.

SPEAKER_00 34:14

I'm being overly critical.

SPEAKER_02 34:17

You be as critical as you want. I'm all about it.

SPEAKER_00 34:22

Said only Terry ever.

SPEAKER_02 34:26

Uh, and hopefully anyone who continues to listen to our podcast. Unless they're just raging right now.

SPEAKER_00 34:33

Raging. How dare you!

SPEAKER_01 34:35

Raging like Roger, you're never happy.

SPEAKER_00 34:37

Oh my god, there was this one guy that was like just berating us for saying that Star Trek 2009 was a good movie. And I'm like, hell yeah, it's one of my favorites. I love it. It's like my top five movies ever, and I love all movies. And this guy was like losing his mind over it on Instagram. And I'm like, this is more fascinating to watch you crumble psychologically in front of my hey, I love this movie. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:09

Yeah, who hurt you so bad? What happened?

SPEAKER_00 35:12

You have to melt down over that. I've never seen someone use so many F bombs to describe JJ Abrams. Oh my god. Well, not even Disney executives, when his Star Wars movie flopped, used that many F-bombs.

SPEAKER_02 35:29

Some people in this sphere are very passionate. Um, and we need that passion and that fire to fuel our obsessions. But really, really, you should think about whether it's healthy or not. Yes. This goes to just all of our listeners. All examines.

SPEAKER_00 35:51

Is this healthy? Is blessing to us healthy behavior.

SPEAKER_02 35:57

Are we helping with your day-to-day life? And we can't possibly if we're hurting, then something's wrong with you.

SPEAKER_00 36:05

I started listening to this book series called Dungeon Crawler Carl. And I've never read something so bingeable and absurd in my life. Really? And it's essentially just like sugary sci-fi fantasy slop. Yeah. Just slop. And like my desire is to be the Star Trek slop for you this weekend. Or nut coffee. Yeah. Weird nut sludge. Nut nut sledge. Oh man. It gets worse every time. It's great. Anyway. Our next episode is called Alliances after continuous Kazon attacks. Oh boy. Against Voyager costs the lives of several crew members that will never meet. And the damage to the ship continues to mount, Janeway seeks an alliance to secure Voyage's passage through the Kaizon collective. Oh boy.

SPEAKER_02 37:06

Great. More of them.

SPEAKER_00 37:09

Not not excited. Well, maybe that'll be a fast episode too. Fingers crossed. Come hang out with us next week on the voices. Or just say bye.

SPEAKER_02 37:17

Bye. Bye. Sorry, I thought you wanted more from me.