STAR TREK: LOWER DECKS
SEASON 1, EPISODE 8
SEASON 1, EPISODE 8
Veritas
Series: Star Trek: Lower Decks - (2020 - 2024)Season: 1
Episode #: 8
Original Airdate: September 24th, 2020
Writer(s): Garrick Bernard
Director(s): Kim Arndt
Guest Stars
John de Lancie as Q
Kurtwood Smith as Clar
Paul Scheer as Lieutenant Commander Andarithio "Andy" Billups
Kenneth Mitchell as the Clicket Captain
Kenneth Mitchell as Black Ops Human Office #2
Kenneth Mitchell as Romulan Guard #1
Ben Rodgers Lieutenant Commander Steve Stevens
Brandon Johnson
Dawnn Lewis as the Captain of the U.S.S. Alhambra
Gillian Vigman as the Alhambra Medical Officer
Stardate: 57791.1 / 57818.4
Synopsis
With the Cerritos in orbit of K’Tuevon Prime, Ensigns Mariner, Boimler, Tendi, and Rutherford find themselves called as witnesses to “speak the truth” about the senior officers, who are being held aloft in a beam of light. Clar, the lead K’Tuevonian, presents them with “the Horn of Candor” where each must speak the truth.
Clar demands to know of the “wondrous events” of Captain Freeman on the bridge of the Cerritos during a confrontation with an aliend race known as the Clicket. As Mariner and Boimler were late to arrive at their posts, they don’t really know what’s going on except that the Clicket captain is very upset over how the captain thanked them for giving her a map. There is even more miscommunication when Mariner fires a warning shot after the captain asks her to send “a message,” which was supposed to be a dinner invitation and not phaser fire.
Clar is not satisfied with the recollection of events, demands to know more about the map, and threatens Mariner with the tank of contempt, which is full of giant wriggling eels.
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[ Screencap Index ]
Up next is Rutherford, whose flashbacks should have satisfied Clar due to the accuracy of his cybernetic implant, but on the stardate in question the implant was malfunctioning and causing blackouts, leaving some frightening gaps in his story about a mission he went on with Shaxs and Billups.
The disjointed story recalls a covert drop into a Vulcan museum to steal a Romulan Bird of Prey, a distracting fan dance, a perilous spacewalk with Billups having odd flashbacks due to a lack of oxygen, and then for some reason, a Gorn wedding. None of this satisfied Clar, so Rutherford is promptly sent to hover over the eel tank alongside Mariner.
When it’s Tendi’s turn to speak the truth—this time about Ransom—she’s hampered by the fact that her story is classified by Starfleet. It turns out though yet another failure to communicate, she fell into a covert mission aboard the Romulan Bird of Prey that Rutherford sort of remembered helping to steal. Using that map to the neutral zone from two flashbacks ago, the overly enthusiastic Orion ends up joining Ransom’s special ops force to extract “the package” from a facility on Romulus.
Needless to say, Clar was not happy about this and sends all three testifying ensigns into the vat of eels.
With his friends in peril, Brad finally puts his big boy pants on, laying on some truths which is that as lower deckers, the ensigns “never know anything!” They can’t satisfy this odd line of inquiry about the senior officers, whom Clar imagines are all “infallible heroes,” like all members of Starfleet. So Brad drops some more truth, that the bridge crew of the Cerritos put on their space suits one leg at a time just like everyone else… and they make mistakes.
He uses his flashbacks to recall examples, like when Ransom hit on a Salt Vampire and that time Dr. T’Ana thought she was in a parallel universe when she was just on the wrong ship. If punctuates his point by recalling the time that Q dropped by the Cerritos, bewildering the bridge crew with some crazy Q puzzle to prove humanity is worth saving.
Brad declares the whole trial a sham, which turns out to be sort of right: The final miscommunication twist was that this never was a trial. Clar isn’t an interrogating prosecutor, he’s a thankful kidnapped-by-Romulans magistrate, rescued by the crew of the Cerritos. He was “the package” that all those flashbacks led up to. The creepy courtroom? Actually, one of the “nicest event silos” on the planet, and it’s where Clar got married. The bridge crew isn’t being held in stasis for judgment but in the “beam of celebration” awaiting their story to be carved in stone.
After getting commendations for standing up for Starfleet ideals in the face of death (even though they were really facing a party venue full of balloons) everything returns to normal - before Q returns once again to challenge Mariner to another puzzle to test humanity. Unfortunately the brash ensign has no time for his Q bullsh*t.
Trailer
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