There are echoes of “Apocalypse Now” within the third episode of “Decrease Decks” season 5, as Lt Bradward Boimler is recruited to trace down a flag officer who’s gone AWOL in a luxurious area resort — the admiral’s title, Milius, is presumably a nod to John Milius, screenwriter of Francis Ford Coppola’s Vietnam basic.
However the extra clear and current hazard in “The Finest Unique Nanite Lodge” is the swarm of nanites infesting the resort, prompting the administration to name within the Cerritos crew for a spot of outer area pest management.
It is a job that — in true “Star Trek” custom — proves rather more difficult than it initially appears. And that is even if microscopic robots of comparable nature have made quite a few earlier appearances within the franchise, whether or not they have been evolving in the direction of sentience or serving to dodgy computer systems of their quest for world domination.
Right here we offer a short historical past of nanites in “Star Trek”, and clarify why this explicit hospitality-tormenting sub-species follows a distinct program. Spoiler warning! Warning suggested in the event you’re but to observe this week’s episode.
What are nanites in “Star Trek”?
Nanites are microscopic robots which, when deployed in giant numbers, can be utilized each in drugs and to restore/keep computer systems and different know-how. They’re able to replicating themselves to kind larger and greater swarms, however are typically inclined to gamma radiation — helpful in the event that they ever get out of hand.
Whereas nanotechnology is but to achieve “Star Trek” ranges of sophistication in the true world, nanites have appeared in lots of different science fiction franchises together with “Stargate”, “Purple Dwarf,” “The Outer Limits” and “The Terminator.”
The place have we seen nanites earlier than?
Nanites have been common visitor stars throughout the “Star Trek” franchise however their first vital look got here in “The Subsequent Era” season 3 episode “Evolution” (1989).
Within the 2360s, the USS Enterprise-D’s resident teen prodigy, Performing Ensign Wesley Crusher, was finishing up nanite-based experiments when a couple of inadvertently discovered their approach into the ship’s laptop. Replicating to kind an enormous colony, his micro machines managed to take management of the ship, and retaliated in opposition to varied makes an attempt to take away them by pumping toxic gasoline onto the bridge.
Android officer Lt Cmdr Knowledge stepped in as an middleman, nevertheless, and discovered that the nanites had developed into a brand new sentient lifeform that simply needed to dwell in peace. Captain Picard gifted them a planet to name their very own, Kavis Alpha IV.
Nanites have been briefly mooted as a method to struggle again in opposition to the Borg in basic two-parter “The Better of Each Worlds” (1990), till it was identified that — with the way forward for the Federation at stake — time was of the essence they usually actually did not have a couple of weeks they’d want to change them. Dr Julian Bashir and the Physician additionally used nanites for medical functions in “Deep House 9” and “Voyager,” respectively.
However nanites’ most important “Star Trek” function to this point got here within the second season of “Star Trek: Discovery,” set a number of years earlier than the Authentic Collection. Rogue, power-hungry AI Management used nanites to “possess” Part 31 operative Leland in its efforts to grab management of Starfleet. The menace was so grave that the USS Discovery took the drastic step of departing for the thirty second century to make sure that the troublesome working system would by no means be a menace once more.
If nanites have the capability to go so spectacularly mistaken, why do Starfleet hold utilizing them?
That is a kind of unanswerable mysteries of “Star Trek.” It is one to file alongside, “If holodecks glitch so recurrently, can they actually be thought-about protected?” and — feeding neatly into this week’s plot — “Is each vacation resort within the twenty fourth century a possible dying entice?”
Do not the Borg use nanites, too?
Sure, the Borg use microscopic nanoprobes to provoke the assimilation course of. As soon as injected into a brand new inductee’s bloodstream, nanoprobes take over cells on a microscopic stage. As soon as the goal has been absolutely Borgified (if it is not a phrase it needs to be), the nanoprobes assist keep bodily capabilities, whereas additionally constructing cybernetic attachments for the brand new drone.
Borg nanoprobes have been by no means talked about in “The Subsequent Era” however the Borg could possibly be seen injecting victims with one thing nasty within the 1996 film “First Contact.” The invasive tech was subsequently defined in “Voyager”, and Captain Janeway and co step by step re-engineered nanoprobes to work for them as they handed by Borg area.
Does “The Finest Unique Nanite Lodge” mark the primary look of nanites in “Decrease Decks”?
Season 2 episode “The Spy Humongous” featured a minor incident when Bradward Boimler knocked over a jar of nanobots, permitting a load to flee captivity as a result of chief engineer Andy Billups hadn’t screwed the lid on correctly. Whereas completely enthusiastic Orion D’Vana Tendi welcomed the chance to “come head to head with these tiny terrors,” Beckett Mariner was much less enamored, lamenting the truth that they have been consuming her fingerprints.
What is the take care of the nanites in “The Finest Unique Nanite Lodge”?
They’re primarily pests infesting an enormous cruise ship the scale of the moon — what the Dying Star did for planetary destruction the Cosmic Duchess does for luxurious holidays. The Cerritos crew are beamed in to take away the sentient blob of nanites that Sam Rutherford has nicknamed “Glumpus.” Candy…
Sadly, the officers’ efforts to entice the nanite swarm merely trigger it to develop, till it kinds a large rolling icosahedron able to consuming all the things it touches — together with Rutherford, Tendi and visiting vibe tubes legend Krog (coincidentally, T’Lyn’s favorite recording artist). After a well-timed intervention from Mariner and her ex, Jennifer Sh’reyan, the Decrease Deckers use Krog’s vibe tubes to disrupt a mysterious sign controlling the nanites, inflicting the icosahedron of doom to break down.
It seems that the nanite collective was truly pulled collectively by the microscopic USS Endeavor, a Starfleet vessel from a parallel universe that exists on a a lot smaller scale. Glumpus was created by the crew’s efforts to collect the facility and supplies required to create their very own dimensional gate, hopefully permitting them to return to a universe the place they weren’t susceptible to being crushed by an amoeba.
New episodes of “Star Trek: Decrease Decks” season 5 debut on Paramount Plus on Thursdays.
