We all know Gul Dukat is an irredeemable monster, and that’s why we love to hate him, but somehow I never give enough thought to the fact that he straight-up murdered a Cardassian politician’s wife and kidnapped his son, just in the off chance that he might need political leverage at some point in the indeterminate future. And everyone on DS9 knows it, but he just hangs around all the time anyway and they’re all like, “ugh, this fucking guy,” and they just roll their eyes and fix his ship for him. This is why DS9 is the best Star Trek.
It’s only because they can’t pitch him out of an airlock due to the Political Ramifications. But you know they sit around talking about how they could maybe, possibly figure out how to make it look like an accident.
Not all of them at once, mind you. This is definitely a regular topic of conversation between Kira and Dax when they are having girl’s nights, especially after that episode where Garak called Dukat out for having a crush on Kira.
Julian and Miles talk about it while playing darts, and occasionally get drive-by advice on why their ideas suck by Quark.
Odo is much too Law & Order to have these conversations, though when he happens to overhear a particularly viable plan he casually mentions a convenient hole in the terrible, unfixable Cardassian-made security system to relevant persons.
Sisko pretends these discussions do not happen and makes his Space Dad face whenever Dax tries to engage him in this fun game (It’s just a thought experiment, Benjamin!). A few times, maybe two or three, Dax has been able to get him just tipsy enough to stop being Space Dad and instead be Mentee Benjamin again. That’s when she realizes that he has not only thought out a good half dozen deeply intricate and highly possible scenarios, but that there are encrypted holosuite programs involved and an isolinear chip hidden in his quarters that is mysteriously almost full, yet the only file on it is a jazz album from the late 2200s.
In the end, Dukat falling into the chasm of the Pagh Wraiths was him getting off light.
This is one of the greatest things ever. Walk around every single version of the U.S.S. Enterprise in photorealistic 3D in your browser, from the Roddenberry Archive. On a phone you just see wraparound 3D pics. On a PC or laptop you get the full 3D interactive experience. They NEED to make this VR compatible, it’ll be beyond words.
There are more Enterprises here than Tumblr will allow me photos of, and more will likely be added.
Here’s the TOS Enterprise, which appears in several incarnations (“The Cage”, “Where No Man Has Gone Before” and TOS proper as well as TAS with the second turbolift!), has the correct original graphics and is perfect.
This is the bridge from the unmade Star Trek: Phase II series (whose pilot episode “In Thy Image” was rewritten to become Star Trek: The Motion Picture), with it’s legendary big comfy command sofa seat and tactical display bubble!
The Motion Picture, such an accurate recreation that there’s even a very faint flicker on the rear-projection animated screens as seen in the movie.
Enterprise NX-01, looking exactly as it did in “Broken Bow”
Recognise this? It’s the briefing room of Discovery season 2’s version of the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701. Although at the front of the saucer on the “real” ship, here it’s off the second bridge door which may well be where the set was IRL.
I wasn’t expecting modern Trek to be represented equally as the originals in this project, but it is. This is the Enterprise from Strange New Worlds, with Pike’s Ready Room located just off the bridge.
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. My favourite version of the classic bridge, as a kid I drew all these control panels and stuck them on my bedroom walls. And now I can look around and look at them all close-up! They’ve even replicated the noticable TVs stuffed into the panels for the more complex animated screens.
The Enterprise-C bridge from “Yesterday’s Enterprise”. This one has always fascinated me, being a low-budget TV set (formerly the Enterprise-D battle bridge, originally built from the rain-damaged TMP set’s back wall and redressed endlessly though TNG) representing TNG’s immediate predecessor. In the episode they mostly shoot the back wall and imply the consoles make a huge circle, but here you can see the set’s real dimensions and the weirdness of the classic movie helm/nav console in front of the TNG con/ops panels. I love it.
You know how much I love the Kelvin movies, so seeing this was amazing. For some reason the consoles don’t have their screens lit (hopefully this’ll be fixed soon), but you can see the saucer under the window and it’s shiny and amazing.
The last thing I expected was the U.S.S. Titan-A/Enterprise-G bridge, but it’s here. And the lights are on.
Other bridges available to explore which I’m out of pictures to show: The Enterprise-D (of course), Enterprise XCV-330 (the ringship, based on concept art for the unmade non-Trek series “Starship”), the Planet of the Titans U.S.S. Enterprise (again, based on concept art for a cool multi-levelled set) and the “launch” U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701 (based on the very first piece of TOS bridge set concept art), the Enterprise-E, the Enterprise-F (seen on viewscreen for all of 2 minutes in Picard) and the U.S.S. Voyager NCC-74656!
Take a bow lads, you’ve done good. Now just add VR support!
There is good news and 2 bits of bad news. First bit of bad news: The site is down for now while they overhaul it and add new content.
The good news is…
THE DS9 PROMENADE IS COMING!!!! Along with the season 4 NX-01, the TNG battle bridge and lots more of the TMP Enterprise, as well as more concept art.
Now the second bit of bad news. The Roddenberry Archive will return “later in the year” with no fixed date, and no confirmation of VR support😣
But when it’s back, it will be awesome.
IT’S BACK EVERYONE STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING AND GO TO RODDENBERRY.X.IO
Now featuring explorable environments of…
DS9 (the promenade)
The Defiant
Voyager
Cerritos (cell shaded!)
Saratoga
Excelsior
Bozeman (which is a weird layout indeed!)
Grissom
Reliant
Enterprise from Star Trek Beyond (not the -A, though)
Variations of the Enterprise-D, as well as multiple decks including engineering, Ten Forward and the transporter room!
The Strange New Worlds Enterprise bridge, along with transporter room, Pike’s quarters, Spock’s quarters (they live next door!) and the transporter room
The TOS Enterprise has almost all the sets from the TV show too!
…available to see🥺
The bad news is that VR support isn’t coming. Apparently even on the highest-end systems they couldn’t get it to work with a decent framerate. But otherwise, this is amazing. Enjoy it before it vanishes again!!!
Thank you, Roddenberry Archive for making me feel like a kid again🖖
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