For those who don’t know, in Latin, “Veritas” means “truth.” That’s it — nothing else fancy. In a sense, this episode is all about the truth… from a certain point of view. Each of our four main characters had a story to tell, which differed somewhat from each other. Who is telling the truth?
Sometime after STARDATE: 57791.1
The show began with a look at the U.S.S. Cerritos in orbit around a purple and black planet named K’Tuevon Prime. Mariner, Boimler, Rutherford, and Tendi were thrown into a dungeon-type of room with no explanation. The floor suddenly moved and pushed up to a different level, where they were under both a spotlight and the peering eyes of what looked like alien judges and jurors.
NOTE: This scene is very reminiscent of when Kirk and McCoy stood trial in Star Trek IV.
As the Cerritos’ leadership was suspended above them in a beam, a green alien said that these four were there to “tell the truth about the senior officers of the Federation starship — the Cerritos.”
The four were told to speak only into the “Horn of Candor,” a metallic-looking horn with spikes on end.
NOTE: I wonder how the Romulan warrior nun refugees, who practice Absolute Candor, would appreciate the “Horn of Candor?” It would be interesting to find out.
They started asking Mariner first, beginning with the situation between the Cerritos and the Clicket ship Tweerk. She said that the day (Stardate 57818.4) started out as ordinary as any…
The Lower Decks four worked in the repair bay. At the same time, Mariner and Boimler debated who was the bigger “badass,” Roga Danar, or Khan.
NOTE: Roga Danar is a TNG character who appeared in the Season 3 episode, “The Hunted.” Khan Noonien Singh is (of course) the greatest villain in Star Trek franchise history. First introduced in the TOS episode “Space Seed,” he returned in the film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. He was so good that the Kelvin reboot series of films brought him back for Star Trek Into Darkness.
When they brought up Khan, Tendi got very interested.
“Ooh! Pause for a second! I wanna talk about Khan and that thick, thick chest, but I’ve got to pee,” she said.
NOTE: This is super-hilarious because it has long been speculated that actor Ricardo Montalbán (who played Khan on TOS and Star Trek II) wore some kind of prosthetic chest plate. This has been hotly debated for years, but both Khan director Nicholas Meyer and others who worked on the film say that the chest was not plastic, but his real chest.
It turned out that the Cerritos was on Red Alert and that the Lower Decks four was unaware (Rutherford had been fiddling with the audio system in their repair bay).
Mariner and Boimler ran to the turbolift, as they had bridge duty. They argued over what to do when they got to the bridge. Mariner finally said that Boimler would take her lead. They would fake it, so they don’t get fired and sent back to Earth where there’s nothing to do except drink wine (a Picard reference) or hang out at soul food restaurants (DS9 reference).
Captain Freeman materialized on the bridge, holding a map that said ‘Neutral Zone’ on it. She told Ransom that she had been attacked for thanking the Clicket. Then, a sizeable insect-like alien appeared on the viewscreen.
“Ahhhh! This injustice will not stand! We gave you the map, and now you turn on us?” said the Clicket captain (who was voiced by Star Trek: Discovery alumnus Kenneth Mitchell).
As Freeman tried to calm down the Clicket, Mariner and Boimler crawled to their stations. No one noticed. The Clicket demanded that Freeman give back the map. Freeman tossed the map to Ransom and asked Boimler for options.
Boimler’s voice cracked, and he attempted first to kiss Freeman’s butt but finally threw out a maneuver (88), which infuriated everyone. Freeman then asked Mariner to “send our friends a message.”
Mariner fired phasers at the Clicket ship. Freeman, Shaxs, T’Ana, and Ransom stood and yelled at her. Freeman said that she meant, invite the Clicket for dinner, not fire on them. The Clicket then returned fire!
In the courtroom, the prosecutor (voiced by Kurtwood Smith) interrupted Mariner as she told her story, saying that he didn’t believe that a Starfleet officer would not know what was going on with their ship at all times. He then asked her to explain the map, which she said she didn’t know anything about.
“Dude, look, I work on a spaceship, alright!” said Mariner. “We don’t have maps! We have stellar cartography.”
NOTE: The stellar cartography concept has been a part of Star Trek lore for some time, but was a broad point of emphasis in the film Star Trek: First Contact.
He grew tired of her sass and put her in the Tank of Contempt, a giant water-filled tank, complete with giant eels. Boimler stepped up, saying that they saw no map, and the alien stopped Mariner from falling into the waters.
He then turned to Rutherford, who he asked to recall what he knew of Stardate 57791.1. Rutherford said that he was working on when Shaxs and Billups ran up and asked him if his implant had Romulan manuals and repair information.
Rutherford said that it didn’t, and he’d have to download and update, which he liked to do with sleep. The updating process had some kinks. As he passed out, Shaxs and Billups began to tell him the plan and asked him if he’d had all of his shots.
He woke up to Shaxs congratulating him for nerve pinching Vulcans (who were now naked and lying on the floor of a ship). Both he, Shaxs, and Billups were wearing ceremonial Vulcan robes.
“Dude, look, I work on a spaceship, alright!” said Mariner. “We don’t have maps! We have stellar cartography.”
Shaxs then threw Rutherford out of a door of the craft, high above a “museum.” Rutherford begged him not to, but as he fell, he passed out again.
When he woke again, Shaxs was climbing a girder to an old-fashioned Romulan Bird of Prey, which looked like was one exhibit. A Starfleet security officer walked over to see what they were up to, and Shaxs told Rutherford to “distract him with your fan dance!”
NOTE: This was the first Bird of Prey, as seen in the TOS episode, “Balance of Terror.”
Rutherford suddenly had large, feathery fans — just like the cringe-worthy scene where Uhura used them in Star Trek V. Funny!
The guard was not happy with Rutherford’s fan dance and went to phaser Rutherford, who passed out. He woke up (in a spacesuit) and appeared to be standing on the emptiness of space. He banged on the surface he was standing on, which turned out to be that same Bird of Prey, in cloak mode.
He realized that Billips was close by, and his suit was almost out of oxygen. Shaxs called to them from the Vulcan long-range shuttle (which they must have stolen from the Vulcans earlier). Rutherford got Billips onboard, then “updated” again, which caused him to pass out on a control panel. The ship went to warp.
NOTE: The Vulcan long-range shuttle was designed by Andrew Probert for Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Read more about the ship and Probert’s other designs.
Rutherford woke and appeared to be at a Gorn wedding. He screamed, and they attacked him. He tapped on his implant, thinking that he’d pass out and wake up somewhere else. But when he awoke, the Gorn were still attacking him, and he was in the same place.
“UHGH! How are you so excited?” asked Mariner. “You know you’re just going to be wiping cat fur off chairs!”
Back on K’Tuevon Prime, the prosecutor stopped Rutherford and demanded details on how they stole the Bird of Prey. Rutherford could not answer and was put over the eels.
Tendi then stepped up and began telling him about her “classified mission” with Commander Ransom.
The flashback story stared with Tendi telling Mariner that she was assigned to clean up in the conference room.
“UHGH! How are you so excited?” asked Mariner. “You know you’re just going to be wiping cat fur off chairs!”
FUNNY!
Tendi disagreed and pushed her cleaning cart away. While she was cleaning, Ransom walked in with two humans and one Andorian, who were dressed in military-style black uniforms. They also had black rectangles covering their eyes (which is how spy organizations release people’s images and keep their identities secret).
Ransom asked Tendi if she was “the Cleaner.” Tendi said that she was. He then went over the plan, holding up the map of the Neutral Zone. He said they were to retrieve a particular package, which was in Romulan territory.
“If we run into trouble, the Cleaner will extract us,” Ransom said. They gave her a phaser rifle and cheered. They boarded the Bird of Prey (from Rutherford’s story) and went into the Neutral Zone. Before too long, their ancient ship was being scanned by the advanced Romulan D’Deridex class ships — four of them!
They were able to escape, and they arrived at Romulus (the capital planet of the Romulan Star Empire). The team beamed to the surface and snuck into a building. This was very interesting, and it looked like a view of Romulus that we’ve never seen before. It reminded me of the Minas Morgul castle in Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.
Inside, two Romulans were chatting as they walked down a hallway, saying they hated the Remans. HA HA!! So funny. This is a reference to Star Trek: Nemesis.
Anyhow, the team took out the Romulans, and they retrieved the package. As Ransom and his guys ran, he asked Tendi to clean. She beat up the Romulans who were in pursuit. Ransom said that she was just supposed to beam them away, not beat up everyone.
They made it back safely aboard the Cerritos, where Ransom thanked Tendi for her help. He also said that they’d have to deny that the mission ever happened. She then went back to cleaning up the conference room.
The alien prosecutor stopped the story. He yelled at Tendi, saying that he did not believe that she did martial arts on the Romulans, and she too went into the eel tank.
While Rutherford, Tendi, and Mariner were in the eel tank, the alien prosecutor demanded to know what was in the package. Tendi said that she did not know. The alien turned to Boimler next, demanding that Boimler tell him what the bridge crew did.
“We can’t tell you,” said Boimler, “because we don’t know! We never know anything!”
He explained that Lower Decks don’t know what the bridge crew is up to, or what their plans are. He said the bridge crew sometimes didn’t even know what was going on.
“Impossible!” yelled the alien, “Human lies!”
He shook Boimler, saying that they were Starfleet and that they were “the best of the best!” Boimler said that the bridge crew screwed up all the time — especially when a Q showed up.
The scene changed to Q (voiced by Jon de Lancie), appearing on the Cerritos, in the same clothes he wore on “Encounter at Farpoint.” Q transported the bridge crew onto a chessboard with giant living playing cards (think Alice in Wonderland) and a goalpost from an American football field. The cards had hockey sticks, their own set of small cards, and a soccer ball too.
“Good luck solving my little puzzle!” said Q. “Tell me now, can you prove that humanity is worth saving? I think not!”
Boimler continued talking, this time about Ransom dating strange aliens, which he knew nothing about. Like the time he dated a salt vampire (who looked very much like the one from “The Man Trap.”)
Or the time at Spacedock, when Dr. T’Ana went on the wrong ship. Everyone looked almost exactly like they should have on the Cerritos, but not quite. Captain Freeman was a man, Boimler was some kind of bug alien, same for the rest of the crew.
The alien refused to believe this, but Boimler launched into a monologue:
“We all joined Starfleet to dive headfirst into the unknown. We’re explorers. Of course, we don’t always know what’s going on. Did Picard know about the Borg? Did Kirk know about that giant Spock on Philos? Did Dr. Crusher know about the ghost in the lamp thing from the Scottish planet that she hooked up with that one time? That whole thing? You clearly want us to say that the captain and her crew messed up. But we simply don’t have the full story, and that’s the truth! Whatever they did, I guarantee you it was all for good. You have shown no evidence that they are guilty of a crime. In fact, I find you guilty of trying to take them down with this sham of a trial!”
NOTE: The giant Spock refers to The Animated Series episode, “The Infinite Vulcan.”
The alien looked stunned. He asked Boimler if he thought, “this was a trial?” Then they brought up the lights to reveal balloons and streamers. The alien said it wasn’t a trial. Instead, it was a party for the crew who saved him from the Romulans.
“Oh Picard, he’s no fun,” said Q. “He’s always quoting Shakespeare … he’s always making wine…”
Turns out his name was Imperium Magistrate Clar, and he’d been kidnapped and held by the Romulans for over a year. He was the “package.”
He argued with Mariner over if it was a trial or a party, and Clar said it was. He said that the place where they all were was a “party silo,” and he got married there. Soon, an alien from the party silo came and kicked them all out, saying that Clar had rented the place only for 22 minutes. Funny!
Back on the Cerritos, Freeman said they’d do a better job of keeping the crew informed. The Lower Decks four started asking questions about the classified nature of the mission. Freeman grew angry and dismissed them.
As they walked out, Boimler said that he knew they were at a party, not a trial. Mariner asked him why he was crying, and Boimler said because it was so cold. BUT THEN — Q appeared and challenged them to a new test. Mariner told him they were not going to do any more random stuff. She told him to “go find Picard!”
“Oh Picard, he’s no fun,” said Q. “He’s always quoting Shakespeare … he’s always making wine…”
TREK REPORT SUPPLEMENTAL:
WOW! Did you catch that last part? It seemed like Q was talking about what Picard was up to … on Picard. Pretty nifty tie-in.
This was a fun episode. It almost seemed like they didn’t need to have all of the theatrics of the Prime alien race and the fake trial. The rescue story was good enough, and it did involve the Lower Decks team.
I enjoyed this, and think that long speech by Boimler ad about 10 classic Trek references embedded within it. Frankly, there were almost too many for me to keep track of!
RATING: 4 out of 5
