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35 years later, One Wild Star Trek technology just made a surprising return
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35 years later, One Wild Star Trek technology just made a surprising return

What’s scarier than dangerous robot swarms in the future? The answer is: small swarms of robots. In the last episode of Star Trek: Lower Decksa tiny AI threat has returned to the fold, although these particular little robots may not be top of mind for all Trek fans. Continuing its tradition of five seasons of super deep cuts from the Trek Universe, “The Best Exotic Nanite Hotel” brings back the nanites in a big (small?) form. But this reappearance of nanites is actually a major return to a time when Star Trek: The Next Generation changed gears forever.

Here’s why the nanocyte Easter egg Lower covers is significant, and why the episode they come from is wilder than you remember.

Small, microscopic spoilers ahead.

In his captain’s log, Captain Freeman says that USS Cerritos has been sent to assist a huge cruise ship in space known as “The Duchess.” Apparently, this cruise ship has been invaded by a “cluster of nanites” that has “infested the complex, consuming metal to self-replicate.” While Tendi jokingly calls this “pest control” a few moments later, Freeman points out that “Starfleet has ordered us here to humanely capture and study microscopic robots.”

Left: Jennifer (Lauren Lapkus) sets up a nanite trap in 2382. Right: Dr. Crusher (Gates McFadden) explains how nanites are spreading in 2366.

CBS/Paramount

While microscopic robots are a medical possibility In the real world, Star Trek canon, these specific types of nanocytes originate in the 1989 episode “Evolution.” Although that episode begins as something ordinary,Company-History is broken, in half, we learn that Wesley Crusher (Wil Wheaton) Accidentally caused a colony of microscopic nanites to leave the ship and evolve, hence the name of the episode. Because of this, nanocytes are consuming mechanical resources in order to propagate and survive. This basic setup is identical in the new episode of Lower coverswhich is the first time CNG-The era nanites have appeared since “Evolution”. (Although, Discovery Season 2 had some slightly different nanites than season 2 in 2017).

In Lower coversIt seems pretty well established that Starfleet knows what to do when a nanite infestation breaks out, but it also seems to suggest that the “Evolution” nanites have migrated away from their new home planet, Kavis Alpha IV, which is where Company He relocated them in 2366. Lower covers Season 5 takes place in approximately 2382, which means that Wesley’s nanites have had 16 years to migrate to strange new worlds and search for other sources of metal to consume.

Curiously, although the Borg had been introduced in CNG Season 2, the nanites in “Evolution” appear to predict the Borg’s behaviors later in CNG Season 3. In 1989, “Evolution” began season 3 of CNG September 1989, a season that would conclude in June 1990, with a cliffhanger in which Jean-Luc Picard is assimilated into a hive mind. But interestingly, the “Evolution” nanites also have a combined intelligence similar to that of a hive, although less overtly threatening. So with the introduction of nanocytes, CNG Season 3, strangely, revealed its own ending.

The moment when CNG It started to look like that in 1989, with “Evolution,” a story about little robots.

CBS/Paramount

At the time, “Evolution” was also a subtle reboot episode: it was the first CNG episode to introduce redesigned uniforms for the crew with higher collars, Dr. Crusher returned after a year-long absence, and the overall vibe of the series began to resemble what we now consider when the show got good. Although it was broadcast in 1989, “Evolucion” is emerging as one of the CNG episodes from the 1990s because it seems more polished and self-assured than the previous two seasons. Interestingly, it’s also an episode that focuses doubly on undervalued or misunderstood characters. Wesley Crusher is not technically a Starfleet officer and fights in his mother’s shadow. The nanites, meanwhile, are, in retrospect, like a smaller version of other AI hive minds in the Trek canon, but taken a little less seriously due to their size.

And yet, true to Trek’s tendencies toward open-mindedness, Data and Wesley discover a way to communicate with the nanites, allowing them to become a fully recognized alien species within the galaxy, even if they were created artificially. The legacy of nanocytes beyond the 24th century is currently unknown, but what Lower covers What I just suggested is that perhaps the evolution we saw in “Evolution” was just the beginning.

Star Trek: Lower Decks and Star Trek: The Next Generation stream on Paramount+.