Star Trek: Lower Decks, Season 5, Episode 3: Why are nanites wreaking havoc on a luxury space hotel?

Episode three has echoes of Apocalypse Now.Lower DecksIn season five, Lt. Bradward Boimler is hired to track down a flag officer who has gone AWOL in a luxury space hotel. The admiral’s name, Milius, is believed to be a reference to John Milius, screenwriter of Francis Ford Coppola’s classic Vietnam film.

But the more obvious and present danger at The Best Exotic Nanite Hotel is the swarm of nanites that have infested the resort, prompting management to call in the Cerritos crew to search for the location in outer space. space pest control.

This work – in the best tradition of Star Trek – turns out to be much more difficult than it seems at first glance. This is despite the fact that microscopic robots of a similar nature have appeared in the franchise several times before, whether they were evolving towards sentience or aiding cunning computers in their quest for world domination.

Here we present a brief history of nanites in Star Trek and explain why this particular subspecies, tormented by hospitality, follows a different agenda. Spoiler alert! If you haven’t watched this week’s episode yet, be warned.

What are nanites in Star Trek?

Nanites are microscopic robots that, when used on a large scale, can be used both in medicine and for repairing/maintaining computers and other equipment. They are capable of breeding into larger and larger swarms, but tend to be susceptible to gamma radiation, which comes in handy if they ever get out of control.

While nanotechnology has not yet reached Star Trek levels of sophistication in the real world, nanites have appeared in many other science fiction franchises, including Stargate.Red Dwarf“Beyond Borders” and “Terminator”.

Where have we seen nanites before?

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Still from Episode 3 of Season 5 of Star Trek: Lower Decks. (Image credit: Paramount+)

Nanites have been recurring guest stars throughout the world.Star Trek“, but their first significant appearance was in the episode “Evolution” of the third season of The Next Generation (1989).

In the 2360s, a teenage prodigy on the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise-D serves as an ensign. Wesley Crusherwas experimenting with nanites when some of them accidentally ended up in the ship’s computer. Multiplying to form a vast colony, his micromachines managed to take control of the ship and retaliate against various attempts to remove them by pumping poisonous gas onto the bridge.

Android officer Lieutenant Commander’s Details However, he intervened as a mediator and learned that the nanites had evolved into a new intelligent life form that simply wanted to live in peace. Captain Picard gave them a planet to call their own, Kavis Alpha IV.

Nanites were briefly discussed as a way to fight back against the Borg in the classic two-parter The Best of Both Worlds (1990), until it was pointed out that – with the future of the Federation at stake – time were very important and they really didn’t have a few weeks to change them. Dr. Julian Bashir and The Doctor also used nanites for medical purposes in Deep Space Nine and Voyager, respectively.

But the Nanites’ most significant role in Star Trek to date came in the second season of Star Trek: Discovery, which takes place several years before the original series. The rogue, power-hungry AI Control used nanites to “possess” Section 31 operative Leland in his attempts to seize control of Starfleet. The threat was so serious that the USS Discovery took the drastic step of traveling to the 32nd century to ensure that the problematic operating system would never become a threat again.

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Still from Episode 3 of Season 5 of Star Trek: Lower Decks. (Image credit: Paramount+)

If nanites are so fallible, why does Starfleet continue to use them?

This is one of the unsolvable mysteries of Star Trek. To this should be added: “If holodecks glitch so regularly, can they really be considered safe?” and – which fits neatly into this week’s plot – “Is every resort in the 24th century a potential death trap?”

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Still from Episode 3 of Season 5 of Star Trek: Lower Decks. (Image credit: Paramount+)

Don’t the Borg use nanites too?

Yes, the Borg use microscopic nanoprobes to initiate the assimilation process. Once injected into the new recruit’s bloodstream, the nanoprobes capture cells at a microscopic level. Once the target is fully borgified (if that’s not the right word, it should be), the nanoprobes help maintain bodily functions, as well as create cybernetic adaptations for the new drone.

Borg nanoprobes were never mentioned in The Next Generation, but the Borg were seen injecting victims with something nasty in the 1996 film First Contact. The invasive technology was subsequently explained in Voyager, and Captain Janeway and company gradually upgraded the nanoprobes to work for them as they passed through Borg space.

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Still from Episode 3 of Season 5 of Star Trek: Lower Decks. (Image credit: Paramount+)

Does “Best Exotic Nanite Hotel” mark the first appearance of nanites in Lower Decks?

The season 2 episode “Giant Spy” features a minor incident where Bradward Boimler knocked over a can of nanobots, allowing the cargo to escape its captivity because chief engineer Andy Billups did not tighten the lid properly. Constantly for now ecstatic Orion D’Vana Tendi welcomed the opportunity to “come face to face with these tiny horrors”, Beckett Mariner was less enchanted, lamenting the fact that they were eating her fingerprints.

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Still from Episode 3 of Season 5 of Star Trek: Lower Decks. (Image credit: Paramount+)

What’s going on with the nanites in The Best Exotic Nanite Hotel?

Essentially, these are pests that have infested a huge cruise ship the size of moon — what the Death Star did for the destruction of planets, the Space Duchess does for a luxurious vacation. The crew of the Cerritos teleport to remove the sentient blob of nanites that Sam Rutherford nicknamed “Glumpus”. Sweet…

Unfortunately, the officers’ attempts to capture the nanite swarm simply cause it to grow until it forms a giant spinning icosahedron capable of consuming anything it touches, including Rutherford, Tendi, and vibrator tube legend Krogh (coincidentally, T’Lin’s favorite recording artist). ). Following the timely intervention of Mariner and her ex Jennifer Shreyan, the inhabitants of the lower decks use Krogh’s vibration tubes to disrupt the mysterious signal controlling the nanites, causing the icosahedron of doom to collapse.

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Still from Episode 3 of Season 5 of Star Trek: Lower Decks. (Image credit: Paramount+)

It turns out that the nanite collective was actually assembled by the microscopic warship USS Endeavour, a Starfleet ship from a parallel universe that exists on a much smaller scale. Glumpus was created through the team’s efforts to gather the energy and materials needed to create their own dimensional gate, which would hopefully allow them to return to a universe where they would not be at risk of being crushed by the amoeba.

New episodes of the fifth season of Star Trek: Lower Decks debut on Paramount Plus on Thursdays.

Star Trek: Lower Decks, Season 5, Episode 3: Why are nanites wreaking havoc on a luxury space hotel?

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