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The Fandom Portals Podcast
"Welcome to Fandom Portals—the show that explores how your favourite fandoms can help you learn and grow!" 🎙️✨
Each episode, we explore TV, movies, comics, and games to reveal how these worlds and the characters in them help us learn about resilience, courage, friendship, and more.
The Fandom Portals Podcast is hosted by Aaron Davies and Adam Brasher, two friends who are obsessed with fandoms, storytelling, and building a community where passion and positivity come first. From Marvel to Middle-earth, Star Wars to indie comics, we dive deep into the stories you love — and how they help us learn and grow. ✨
The Fandom Portals Podcast
Exploring Star Trek: Diversity, Fandom & The Future of Humanity ft. Frank from The Geek Freaks Podcast
Episode Summary:
In this special episode of Fandom Portals, Aaron is joined by Frank from Geek Freaks Network to dive into Star Trek! Whether you’re a seasoned Trekkie or a newcomer, this episode is your guide to Star Trek’s vast fandom, its impact on diversity, and the hopeful future it envisions. They discuss the franchise’s origins, ethical dilemmas like the Prime Directive, and where to start watching.
Frank shares expert recommendations, breaks down iconic characters like Spock, Kirk, and Picard, and explains why Star Trek is one of the most influential sci-fi franchises of all time.
⏳ Timestamps & Topics:
- 0:00 – Welcome & Episode Overview
- 1:06 – Guest: Frank from Geek Freaks Podcast
- 2:58 – Gratitude & Growth: Personal reflections
- 5:02 – How we discovered Star Trek
- 8:38 – Where should newcomers start?
- 11:14 – The Prime Directive: Why is it always broken?
- 13:56 – Star Trek’s ground-breaking diversity
- 16:37 – The evolution of Klingons & other species
- 19:00 – Starfleet: The peak of human values
- 20:59 – No Money in the Future? The Federation’s economy
- 28:31 – The Discovery of Warp & its impact
- 31:05 – The Borg: Star Trek’s most terrifying villains
- 41:54 – Q: The trickster god of Star Trek
- 46:02 – Most Valuable Takeaway: What Star Trek teaches us
- 50:36 – Final thoughts
🎯 Key Takeaways:
✅ Star Trek envisions a future where humanity unites for progress
✅ The show pioneered diversity on TV, breaking racial barriers
✅ The Prime Directive raises thought-provoking ethical questions
✅ Strange New Worlds is a great starting point for new fans
✅ The Borg remains one of the most haunting villains in sci-fi
✅ Star Trek encourages us to strive for a better future
🎙️ Memorable Quotes:
🖖 "What if we figured it all out? What if humanity actually got it right?" – Frank
🖖 "Resistance is futile." – The Borg
🖖 "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few." – Star Trek’s core philosophy
🚀 Call to Action:
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📲 Share this episode using #FandomPortalsPodcast!
Apple Podcast Tags: Star Trek, Strange New Worlds, Star Trek fandom, science fiction TV, Starfleet, Prime Directive, Star Trek movies, Star Trek captains, sci-fi discussions, Fandom Porta
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Hello and welcome to the Fandom Portals podcast, where we explore the fandoms that help us learn and grow. Today we have a very special episode in store for you guys. We're talking about Star Trek and not just any of the movies. We're talking about the whole fandom in general, and we're not doing it alone. Brash is not joining me for this one, but we do have a very special guest whose name is Frank. It might sound familiar to you because he is the leader of our network here at the Geek Freaks Network, and he also has appeared on the show before. Back in episode 5 he talked to us all about Game of Thrones and House of the Dragons. So he has a wealth of knowledge on lots of different fandoms and in this week's episode you guys are going to learn everything you need to know to begin your Star Trek fandom journey. We're also going to talk about how Star Trek can pioneer, or has pioneered, the diversity in human society through its creation in 1966. And we're also actually going to talk about the aspirational human experience that we can learn from the future, that we may be able to apply for a better present.
Speaker 1:So I want to really thank and shout out Frank from the Geek Freaks. If you want to check him out, he is at the Geek Freaks everywhere. He is also the host of the Geek Freaks podcast and the Challenge Accepted podcast, so make sure you go and show them some love there from the Fandom Portals podcast. And we hope you enjoy this episode on Star Trek with our very special friend. All right, enjoy. I'm here with a very special guest. His name is Frank and he is the fearless leader of the Geek Freaks Network. You might say he was very kind to take me under his wing early in my podcast journey. So Frank is here to talk to us about one of his passion areas of Star Trek. So how are you going today, frank?
Speaker 2:I'm doing very well, so happy to be on the podcast and, of course, talking about last time I was on Game of Thrones, now it's Star Trek. We Last time I was on Game of Thrones, now it's Star Trek. We'll just keep going through all my fandoms.
Speaker 1:I'm cool with that. Yeah, that sounds good. Well, yeah, man, the Game of Thrones one was so good, I learned so much from you on that day. It was, yeah, and you always sort of mention Star Trek on your podcast, the Geek Freaks podcast. It's hard to avoid. Yeah, it just sort of watching Star Trek, strange New Worlds, and I've basically I told you before, but I've picked up my Star Trek knowledge from meme culture and just some late night episodes that I've caught here and there some movies, but I digress, we'll go through that a little bit later in the episode Every single time we start a Fandom Portals episode, from about episode 15 or so onwards, we've done a gratitudes and grosses to start off with. So that's why each week we begin by sharing like a personal gratitude for the week and something that we might need to grow on. You can share whatever you feel comfortable with. Uh, if you wanted to start, that'd be great, if not, all right, I'll kick us off.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, um, I'm I'm grateful for uh, my friends, because right now, like uh, with, with recording stuff, like that, a lot of people in their 30s and almost 40s don't don't get to celebrate like the normal geek stuff with their friends and luckily we all get to, so I'm pretty grateful for that. That's one of the big benefits to podcasting is that you talk like you're in high school still with your friends about Star Trek, star Wars and Marvel and DC.
Speaker 1:All the fun stuff. And you got to hold space for that, don't you? You've got to really make the time for chatting to friends. How about you? Yeah, so for me, my gratitude. I've got a lot to be grateful for, but I think I'm grateful for my body. I'm grateful for my body. So, yeah, as you know, I suffered an injury through sports recently and my body's still able to bounce back and recover pretty well. So I'm yeah, I'm, I'm really grateful for that. I'm grateful for, you know, just being able to move around like normal again.
Speaker 2:So that's what I'm grateful for, that's my thing with age that recovery time gets longer and longer, so enjoy it while you can.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah even even after just like a training session or two, because I started to go, go back here and there just to keep my physical fitness up, like my legs man, just I wouldn't get a pulled muscle ever. And then now it's like every training session, I'm like, oh, is that calf twinging? It's just you got to. Yeah, that's probably something I'm grateful for as well, you know, and probably a growth for me too is sometimes the age for me is something that sort of gets me down, just like, oh, I'm this age now I can't do this or that. So changing that mentality is probably something I need to work on as a bit of a growth for me. Yeah, all right, so we always start as well when we jump out of our gratitudes and growths.
Speaker 1:As I said, today we're talking about star trek space, the final frontier these are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise, Its continuing mission to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations to boldly go where no one has gone before.
Speaker 1:Now we're not talking about any particular movie or TV show, like we usually do on the Fandom Puddles podcast. This time we're just talking about the fandom in general, just because you are such a big fan, and our goal in this podcast is obviously to learn something new or to grow. And in this episode I'm definitely going to be learning something new from you because you've been around the Star Trek pool for a little bit a while. So this is our first takes segment and this is where we sort of introduce and discuss how we first encountered the media, uh, what your initial impressions were, how it impacted you when you first saw it, that kind of thing. So if you want to start frank, how did you first come about star trek? Who introduced you to it? What makes it so enjoyable to you?
Speaker 2:well, in the 90s everybody's watching wrestling, all right, like I'm not into wrestling anymore, but back in the 90s it was the rock and whatever. And after that star trek voyager would air and so, um, we didn't have dvr kids, we didn't have streaming or anything like that. So you just like I had it on my little 13 inch tv in the room watching wrestling, and then I'd watch what was next and I wasn't going to get up out of bed and change it. So I was Star Trek and it doesn't take long for it to hook you. And then suddenly you're starting to explore things and learn things and then go to conventions and it starts to snowball.
Speaker 1:That's it. That's it. And I think I was very much a similar sort of situation to you in the way I discovered Star Trek, because I remember it being a time when I was sick, and you know, when you're sick as a kid, you fall asleep on the couch and, like, your parents, are there watching late night tv and my dad was notorious for staying up late and just watching what was on a quality I inherited, by the way, um, and just one time I woke up and he was watching this, this strange sci-fi movie it was, and um, and you know it ended up being Star Trek. And then from there, from that little piece of of nostalgia for me, you just see it placed in a lot of the different sort of fandoms in other areas.
Speaker 1:It's obviously been spoofed a few times and there's meme culture that happens, and that's literally how I kind of picked up the different iterations of Star Trek. I started watching a couple of episodes here and there, but then also for me, the newer movies was a really big pickup point for me. I think I messaged you a while ago when I started watching those movies and I said, just from like a trekkies point of view, do people kind of accept those movies, as I know they're a different sort of timeline and different sort of canon, but are they generally accepted as like a good film in the star trek sort of community?
Speaker 2:one thing that's great about the star trek community is it's not as toxic as like the star wars community, which is vile, uh, as much as I love it, but they are seen as a good entry point. The starification they always call it oh, it's a starification of star trek, where it's a lot more about cool fight scenes than it is techno babble and uh. So they're seen as like yeah, it's, it's cool for like a break. It's not real star trek. That classic term is not real star Trek. We hear it all the time too.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But it's still liked. I actually really like it a lot because I think it is a really good break. It's familiar tones and, again, I agree, it's not real Star Trek.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think it's a good jumping on point for people that might be intimidated by the backlog of Star Trek, because that's definitely something for me and something I might ask you when we jump into the Q&A segment of this podcast is you know where's the point, because it is like such a large library to go into. But, yeah, we might jump into our Q&A portal now. So thanks for walking me through Star Trek today, frank, and we might just jump in right now.
Speaker 2:Let's do it.
Speaker 1:All right. So my first question let's jump straight off the bat with that one. If you are a new person going into the Trekkie universe, where would you recommend starting for them in terms of TV shows, movies or any online reading that they might need to take up?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're in a really good spot right now with Strange New Worlds. It's actually a prequel to the original series which aired in the 60s, and it's following Captain Pike, who is the first scene on. He's actually a prequel to the original series which aired in the 60s and, um, it's following captain pike, who is the first scene on. He's actually the pilot captain, like the very first episode, captain um. So you're in a really good spot and it's a return to form for a lot of trekkies. The reason we like it especially is because it's returned to like next generation and voyager and whatnot. Um, that's a really good starting point. If you don't mind the I will say bad graphics, bad cgi cheesiness, next generation is the gold standard of star trek. It's always been and always will be. Um, and then if you like the, if you like the old stuff, the old school sci-fi, the original series, it, there's something about it. It still holds up so well. These stories they tell in the original series are as valid today, as it were. Then it's amazing that's really good.
Speaker 1:and, um, yeah, I think the next generation was the crew of the movie that I kind of saw in that late night. I just get glimpses of it every now and then. I can't fully recall a plot or anything, but I just remember it had Kirk and it had Picard in there Two very famous captains.
Speaker 2:Literally called generations. That's actually the combination of the two of them. Yeah, that's a really good one, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So that one kind of intrigues me because I like the handing over of the torch kind of thing and I don't fully know how it happened. So obviously we're going to get into spoilers here, guys, minor spoilers. So if you are a person that wants to experience the Star Trek universe, all on your own, go and watch all of that and then come back and listen to this podcast.
Speaker 2:And then there's a few things for decks. For it too, we'll see in a few years. Yeah, exactly so.
Speaker 1:I'll be a little bit older and we'll see how we go, but but yeah, so. So with that, that sort of transition, I'll ask you about the, the enterprise obviously being it's a flagship, am I correct?
Speaker 2:Is that? Yeah, so in the um there's even a prequel series called enterprise and that's like the first ship that we send out to do federation stuff. Um, in the original series it's kind of the ship that we have exploring new territories, because it is the kind of the introduction to federation for new, new cultures, and in next generation they literally make it the most gorgeous, beautiful flag ship possible. So it's always been kind of like the first ship we put out to kind of represent the rest of the Federation.
Speaker 1:And in terms of the Star Trek world, if you are given the position of the captain of the Enterprise, that means you're pretty dope at your job, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that is like the quarterback of the Cowboys. That's kind of the most prestigious one you could be.
Speaker 1:Yep, yep, cool. And you talked about going out and exploring the universe. That's a federation, the United Federation of Planets. That's like their mission. I know they talk about their prime directive in some things. Can you explain a little bit about that?
Speaker 2:Oh, prime directive is delightful. It's a rule that's meant to be broken. So, first off, to explore new worlds is kind of like a through line for a lot of them, and they'll specifically have missions to do that, and Enterprise typically is the one that goes on those missions. There are others going on those as well. Other than that, it is to keep the Federation strong and protected from outside, things like Romulans or whatever. The Prime Directive is a fun little thing where you are not allowed to interact with cultures that have not experienced warp yet, and Earth was visited by Vulcans when they discovered Warp, and one of the movies is that too, and so that's the idea. But of course, every rule is meant to be broken and, infamously, the Prime Directive is constantly broken where there are things where we have to like, hey, you guys got to dress up like cavemen so you can go deal with this problem on this planet because we need a certain vegetable or whatever.
Speaker 1:So Prime Directive is a very important rule that's like super prime and also immediately broken yeah, yeah, and I, yeah, I think that that, um, that was something that I noticed when I was watching strange new worlds as well was that they would encounter these, these uh, let's say inferior races as they're going through, technologically speaking anyway, but they'd always sort of come to some sort of understanding where they would. They would come to try and help this race, but then from that they would learn, perhaps, that their intention may have been misguided by their own ideals for one Right and for two, they might have learned something that they didn't know from a culture that to them seemed technologically inferior. So I kind of like that about Star Trek trek because, yeah, it's, it allows them and the viewer to look at things from a different perspective constantly the best thing about sci-fi, and star trek's one of the best examples of this?
Speaker 2:uh is, with sci-fi, you should go away asking questions like what if they didn't interfere with this culture, how would they have developed? Um, what is the impact now? Uh, there are episodes uh, orville is kind of like a, it's a Voyager or it's a Star Trek spin-off. That is actually very true to Star Trek, but that one's got a great episode where they accidentally encounter with one of these cultures. They go back a few years later on, I found out they become gods now, and so you know what would that world be like? How would they develop? Now they're pushing for technology because they just saw it and so they want to push for technology when before they were going for survival like we did. And suddenly, when you push for technology, do you go more towards war? All kinds of things happen just because you stopped on that planet and mess things up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think I'll touch on a little bit more to do with the like the diversity thing and the culture thing here, and then I'll move to that technological question because I got one that I want to keep. So, with that like the diversity thing, I remember you saying that the Star Trek original series aired in the 60s, mid 60s Very different time to how it is now and I think just from looking at the original cast the is it called the holodeck crew? Is that what it's?
Speaker 2:No, the holodeck is like a place where you could do like graphic, like you know, holograms of stories. So yeah, it's not the holodeck crew, it's just the deck.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, yeah. So the crew on the deck you can see, obviously there's George Takei, who was the American Japanese, there's Uhura, who's the African American, and then there's also Chekhov, who is obviously the Russian, and then during the 1960s and going through a lot of sort of adversarial relationships, a lot of sort of adversarial relationships happening between America and a lot of these countries, but then on the TV you're also seeing these people working together in the United Federation. So I think in that sense it's very ahead of its time in sort of diversity speaking.
Speaker 2:Right, gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, way ahead of his time, very socially progressive, and he wanted to create a utopia. What if we all figured it out? And so it was an allegory for the Korean War a lot of times, and the Vietnam War. When, like things like the Romulans come up, or like these, like Klingons, they're always like, oh, the bad guys that we pretend to not know anything about, but actually you know, they're just humans and so, yeah, so the crew is like an ideal future, like once we get past all the stupid bigotry that we have towards the people that we're fighting. This is what it could look like. We could all be united and look how much checkoff is adding to us. And he's not this adversary, the spooky boogeyman that we don't actually see. We actually get to see him on screen. And uh, ahura was such a wonderful a little actually, we just passed up martin luther king day, so a little fun fact that I absolutely love ahura, played by nico.
Speaker 2:She was going to Nicole. No, nichelle was going to retire, she was going to quit the show, thought it was silly. And she goes to a convention and there she meets Martin Luther King and Martin Luther King talks to her and she's like, ah, I'm thinking about quitting. And she's like, no, I am a Trekkie. Me and my family watch Star Trek every time it's on. It's the only time we can see a black person at the equal position as the white people. That has, um, a commanding role. You have to, and that's the reason. Nichelle nichols, that's it. Okay, get the name wrong. Nichelle nichols stayed with star trek and is now. I've gone to conventions where people she's worshipped as an icon and somebody who brought in like what it could be, martin luther king inspired her to do that and it's so cool.
Speaker 1:We just passed up his birthday, so shout out to that yeah, it's so good how a cultural phenomenon like star trek can influence culture in in our own world, um, and I think that's really really awesome, just the way that people sort of connect with different people on the show. But then star trek also takes it a step further, because obviously they're exploring new worlds and then you start to see, uh, other alien races or or androids and things as part of the crew as well in commanding positions, like two to come to mind, obviously, data and, um, mr wharf, who's a ball? No wait is a klingon, klingon.
Speaker 1:Yes, he's no, that's okay so klingons are notoriously a um like they're they big villain of the Star Trek sort of universe, correct?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so Klingons are very warlike and if you want to like fantasy terms to kind of help people, Klingons are basically dwarves and Vulcans are basically elves.
Speaker 1:A Klingon warrior does not need the praise of his teacher.
Speaker 2:We Klingons are not concerned with matters of fact and circumstance.
Speaker 1:We Klingons are not as luxury minded as you Earthers. Klingons are not supposed to mind hardship. Klingons don't like the cold Klingons do not give up easily. Klingons do not give in to illness. A warrior does not complain about physical discomfort.
Speaker 2:Klingons don't call for help. Klingons don't faint.
Speaker 1:Klingons do not laugh. Klingons don't call for help.
Speaker 2:Klingons don't faint, klingons do not laugh, klingons do not express feeling, and so the Klingons are very warlike and Vulcans are very. All about logic, and humans are this fun little middle ground that can pull one side to the other, depending on what the story needs. So yeah, they were villains in the first one. They they become allies later on, but they're always on the verge of starting shit. And in strange new worlds they should still be villains, because that's that's right after big klingon war, which we would love to see on screen.
Speaker 1:But they haven't done that one yet so yeah, I think that just including that, that sort of you know um, diversity in the in the main crew of the Star Trek sort of deck is really inspirational for that. And another thing that really inspires me about Star Trek is when they're like they always talk about the fact that it's not about, like, the needs of you, it's always about the needs of the many. So anything that they do, they sort of frame it with that sort of capacity. So if they're talking about how they're going to solve a problem, the personal aspect of it really kind of comes into play.
Speaker 1:And I've found in A Strange New Worlds a lot where these individuals are quite willing to go and do the mission, go out into exploration, life-threatening situations, and they're quite happy to go and do that. And it's almost like Starfleet is the peak of human characteristic, you might say. So they're searching for and looking for these people In terms of Starfleet. Can you tell us a little bit about the people that join the process, the kind of mentality and some of the mantras that they sort of hold as part of Starfleet?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so Starfleet is a federation that has many planets together, but kind of at the peak essentially are those three Earth, klingon and Vulcans. Klingon are a newer member but they're very prominent and at the forefront is exploring and stuff like that. It also gives people a chance, so it could be seen as, like our Navy, it's a place to go. When you're a young kid wanting to do something, explore the galaxy, you could go to Starfleet. It's a great place for it and if you're engineering, there's a place for you there. If you're a scientist, you go there. Matter of fact, the shirts all have different meanings, so like, if you are, yes.
Speaker 1:I've seen this before.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so there's. In Next Generation. They changed a couple of shirt colors and now that's kind of the standard one, but because you're watching the prequel, it goes back to the old one, but yellow let's see, I've got them over here. Yellow is command, so that's like your captains, that's Pike and Kirk in those days. This is all for original stuff.
Speaker 2:Blue is science and medical, so anytime Spock is wearing blue because he's the science officer on deck and Bones is wearing blue because he's the doctor of the ship, and then you've got, uh, red, which is engineering, and then later on red and yellow switch. So red is command. Now yellow is operations, which is engineering, somebody who's running all the tactical stuff for shielding, and then you have blue, still being science and medical, and sometimes you'll see something weird like a green one, which means it's a hologram of the medical office. But yeah, generally those are the three ones. So really, anything you want to do, somebody in starfleet has a role for you and there's no money. So, uh, the only thing that is of value is your knowledge, your experience and your prestige, and so things like you know, captaining enterprise isn't going to get get you more pay, because that's not a thing, but you're the captain of enterprise, like you get a little bit more in the room, so yeah no pay man, that is that's.
Speaker 1:That's probably one of the concepts that I have picked up and it's one of the most interesting ones to me, because so many societies these days obviously run on currency and I'm like Starfleet doesn't run on currency. Is that something that's adopted by the planet Earth as a whole in the future, or is it just Starfleet that does that?
Speaker 2:Well, earth as a whole, because there are people in Starfleet that do have money, so the Ferengi, for example. I believe they're officially part of Starfleet but the Ferengi are overly capitalistic and have, like, the rules of acquisitions. It's so much fun but they're, like you know, to a fault. But what happened in the Starfleet lore is we had a big war with genetically enhanced people and then we had a big war. We had World War III and that was a nuclear war and in that one we bombed the heck out of each other and I think we lost 3 million people in that war in Star Trek lore. And then after that they decided to unify under like, yeah, you're France and yeah, we're America and yeah, that one's Australia, but we're also a united government as well, and that's when they go into the Federation mode. So yeah, earth B is now a united thing that doesn't need money anymore because everybody's working together. After the events of world war iii they lost too many people.
Speaker 1:It was too devastating to go back to that yeah, I think, yeah, when you're looking to the stars and you know your, your allies become greater, it also means that your, your enemies may become greater as well. So it's a big perspective shift and for for gene roddenberry and the creators of star trek to sort of notice that and see that and be aspirational in terms of what Earth will do in an encounter like that. Yeah, in Strange New Worlds at the moment I've just sort of encountered the Illyrians. Are those the genetically modified?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's the term they're giving it to him. Really it's Khan. So her dad, I think is her dad, is Khan and he's like the genetically engineered guy and he has his guys that are the same way as people, and Star Trek two the movie is all about him and he's from the original series as well, but he's like just as charismatic, all around, better than you and everything, because he genetically perfect that way and because we were making them in in the lower in the mid 21st century, uh, they, uh. They ended up becoming a problem and started a war and there was a big war.
Speaker 2:Now it's outlawed to genetically engineer anything, but the problem is sometimes that's medically advanced, like medically needed, and so what do you do? You know it's a tough thing. It's everything in Star Trek like sci-fi, but Star Trek's the best of it is it's a lens from what we do today onto the future. So you kind of like you know, analyze without hurting anybody's feelings, and obviously this is all about alienating people for no reason and stuff like that. Like the genetically enhanced people would be equivalent to somebody who has some sort of uh, disability or more, whatever malformity that we would, we would just talk bad about or we would automatically alienate. We don't need to. That doesn't make them lesser or more than us.
Speaker 1:We could be all united, you know yeah, yeah, no, I feel that as well, because, um, speaking of khan as well, obviously, played by played by Benedict Cumberbatch in the movies that's, that's how.
Speaker 2:I know him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and yeah, he's definitely sort of this superior being. Star Trek 2 was the movie that he sort of was introduced in let's. Let's move on to the movies now. If we're talking about that, that handover between the original series and the next generation, I was always curious about how Kirk left his position. Well, firstly, how he gained his position as captain, because it's explained in the Star Trek movies with Christopher Pine or Chris Pine, but I'm not sure if that's the true Star Trek logic sort of way. And then he obviously relinquishes command and Picard sort of comes in as well. Who's like? That's almost like going from one really great quarterback to another really great quarterback, exactly Back to back, like the Green Bay Packers do.
Speaker 2:I was going to say Packers, honestly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're my boys. So, yeah, if you're talking about how those captains sort of transition, that was the scene that I remember. It was almost like a flashing white sort of scene on the screen and picard and kirk have their hands up in the air. That's just like the flash that comes back from childhood, yeah, so how does that occur? How does kirk relinquish command of picard?
Speaker 2:takes. So yeah, uh, they kind of use the movie to kind of patch the two together because it's not explained at the end of the end of, uh, the original series. I don't even think Picard's the next one in Enterprise, because it's a different ship. Enterprise D and Enterprise B, they're just upgraded ships. There's different ones with names. So I don't think there's ever actually an official passing of the torch between the two of them. They don't have any. But that movie they put them back and that was a timey-wimey thing where they kind of like with time travel, made it work because they're like a hundred years art, something like that. So, um, but generally, yeah, so the better example would be like pike and kirk, because you're currently watching that right now, strange new worlds and in the in the newer movies or whatever it was kind of seen, where like pike saw something in kirk that other he didn't see in other people. That's kind of what happens in the show as well you're gonna be my first officer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Marcus took some convincing.
Speaker 2:But every now and then I can make a good case. What did you tell him?
Speaker 1:The truth that I believe in you, that if anybody deserves a second chance. It's jim kirk. I don't know what to say.
Speaker 2:That is the first it's gonna be, okay, so where pike sees that kirk has that leadership. Um, uh, what's that intangible?
Speaker 2:that others don't have. Like, spock is close, but he's missing the humanity that sometimes you need, that compassion that you need to lead a ship, and we see later on there's a lot of hulkins that run ships that do fantastic, but you know, um, it's something that's kind of just missing. And yeah, so it's. It's all about picking that right person that you feel is going to be a great commander, and Kirk has this. Every captain is so unique. It's so fun to delve into the different captains. One of the constant little debates we do is like oh, which is the best captain? Blah, blah, blah. And Kirk is very good in a lot of ways and he's forceful. He's also very compassionate and I think he's one of the more human of the captains. Like he, he is very much seeing the um, maybe not what the rules will say, but what you actually deserve He'll. He'll get that.
Speaker 1:And speaking of the captains, I really like the way that they've sort of represented Pike in strange new worlds. I don't know if he's had a previous sort of iteration, but in this one here, the actor that plays him, I don't have his answer now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, he's. He's brilliant in terms of his demeanor as a captain Like he's he's so calm but also the way he interacts with his crew. I know he's acting, but I really feel like he cares for these, these people, like he's just got that sort of it's just like a nuance in the way that he acts and he doesn't overplay it. He, he speaks. He speaks to them personally and he asks them personal questions, that kind of thing. So for my very biased point of view, having only seen a little bit of Star Trek, captain Pike's probably my favorite right now. Who's yours and why?
Speaker 2:Janeway, for it's always everybody's first Star Trek captain, really Mine's Janeway from Voyager. But with Pike the thing I noticed, as somebody who knows all the captains, is he's the most personable no-transcript.
Speaker 1:Poignant technology in human advancements took us to the stars. It seems to be the changing point, as you spoke about, for many sort of civilizations along the way. Right, how was it introduced to Earth and humans? And obviously the impact of that we can see through through star trek. So the trajectory from there is explosive um.
Speaker 2:So, uh, cochran is the name of the guy who developed warp for humans. And as soon as you develop warp, then the federation welcomes you in, because once you have warp you're gonna find us. So we have to like, let's, let's introduce you before you find us. And then there's a problem, um, and so, uh, cochran, cochran invented it, vulcans came in the board. Go back in time to try to mess that up and um for every, every everybody who discovers warp after that, of course, is introduced as well.
Speaker 2:Um, the idea is that you could now travel between the stars at a reasonable rate, and warp has a range of one to ten for the most part. A lot of ships will go nowadays like around 5, because there's actually like pollution damage beyond 5. Some of the newer ships they say that they have a way of making that to where it's not a problem. Voyager, usually, because it's trying to get back home, is going around 8 or 9. And then, if you go beyond 10, voyager's gone beyond 10 one time and it actually made it to where they were technically everywhere all at once and it's actually one of the worst episodes. Jokingly bad, everybody talks about how bad it is. Um, and then I think next generation has gone beyond 10 but like canon changed a little bit and they were going like 10.5 and it's like, oh, new warp engine. But voyager's done that as well and it actually messed things up. So it's depends on which canon you want to go with on that one so yeah, you said it was created by a man called cochran.
Speaker 1:Yeah, is he in a movie or is it just an episode, because I remember seeing him up, just got him up here. Yeah, he's played by James Cromwell, yeah, who famously played Farmer Hoggart in Babe Great movie. And yeah, from that episode or that movie that I remember he was kind of a backyard scientist. Is that correct? Yep, yeah, yeah, yeah scientist.
Speaker 2:Is that correct? Yep, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Kind of crazy guy. Kind of kind of crazy guy building his own little thing and then suddenly it's like oh, you're making first contact by accident, um, and then so the borg, who is my favorite, literally like my computer's, designed around the board, uh, one of the best villains. They are having a hard time with humans. There's just such a thorn in their side so they go back in time, time travels. Uh, often, uh, mcguffin and star trek, I go back in time to try to stop him from discovering warp, because then humans won't be part of the federation and they have a lot easier time taking over. They won't have that pesky kirk in their way or that pesky card in their way.
Speaker 1:Usually picard picard's the one that's really introduced the board yeah, yeah, actually that's another one that I remember it was a, I think it was is it genesis, where picard sort of gets taken? That was probably one of the scariest movies that I saw growing up was when the Borg was introduced as a villain and they started to take the crew and then obviously ingrain them into their ship, technologically speaking. And then from there and from a few of the episodes that I've seen of Next Generation or some things that happened afterwards, it was almost like he was traumatized by that, or there's a lingering yeah, it's so good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's one of the cliffhangers, like season two or whatever the cliffhanger is. You see him get taken into the board. Your captain is now in the board. He's look, cutest is his new name, and he's telling him, like resistance is futile, I'm going to go ahead and kill Enterprise. And then there's a cliffhanger and Reich's in charge and he moves over to the next season. It's fine, but that is an allegory for post-traumatic stress disorder. From then on out, picard has to deal with PTSD, and even in his own series that he had recently, the Picard series has three seasons. That's the thing that kind of keeps coming up is this PTSD he has from when he was a locutus and seeing, because you share a hive mind with millions upon millions of these drones and it can really mess you up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think I'm drawing parallels to the replicators from Star Trek in that sort of regard, from Stargate in that regard. But yeah, I think that sort of just gave depth to his character, because from what I saw in the first couple episodes of Next Generation that I watched, he was kind of he seems to be very much a stickler for the rules kind of thing, as the captain, to me at least. And then, yeah, combining him with, with other sort of characters on that deck, they're more like the uh, uh, the oh, what's the word I'm looking for? More like the, the golden childs of the, of the starfleet, where they, they don't break so many rules, as opposed to k, who was obviously Pike, saw in him a nature of roguishness, you might say.
Speaker 2:Well, the Star Trek original series days with Kirk. It was much more the Wild West out there, so he had to really shoot from the hip a lot of times. The things he pioneered would lead to the ability to have a more structured system like what Picard has. So you had to have one kind of forge, the pathway, so that there's a path for the other ones to follow. That's kind of the benefit. With those two there's no real best captain. While that debate's always fun, they all had their own fate, like Janeway had to. She was thrown into another quadrant 70 years away from home. They had to fly 70 years to get back home.
Speaker 1:That's Deep Space Nine, is it no that?
Speaker 2:was Voyager, yeah, and then in Deep Space Nine situation, it's a station that's in the middle of a war, like on a break, like in between two warring factions, and so you had to have like diplomacy and sometimes you had to bring out the big weapons to fight off the enemies who were approaching too far, like it was much more of a wartime series. So each captain had very different scenarios that they had to deal with, and that was Cisco doing that one, and yeah, so it's. It's always fun to kind of see how they handle the situation and how they act with their crew.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's such an expansive world building experience as well you and I both being Dungeons and Dragons lovers obviously it takes a lot to sort of place things in your world and have them just sort of grow and expand, and then obviously you're creating this massive thing, massive thing. How much did Gene Roddenberry actually create in terms of that? And then obviously people sort of took it on afterwards in terms of that.
Speaker 2:Gene made the first one, he made the first movies and then he did a lot of the development for Next Generation before he passed. His son is still he's part of the Roddenberry Foundation and still a very active contributor to the Star Trek fandom. So a lot of Next Generation has this signature on it and I would say, like the Discovery, which is everybody's least favorite, Star Trek is definitely like the biggest departure from them, Although it still has the same goals in mind.
Speaker 1:But yeah, Yep, if we're talking about because we mentioned time travel before as a constant sort of theme, there are some, some shows and series and movies that really do that well and there's others that just really just sort of flop it. So, through star trek, what are some of the ways they've sort of approached time travel? Uh, through their series and and how is it sort of you know how they always say if you go back and you step on a butterfly, then a thousand people are going to die. Like, how does it sort of tackle that issue in terms of time travel in Star Trek?
Speaker 2:One of the best parts about Star Trek is they have a TVA and everybody knows about it, so they have. I think it's the 29th century. There's a version of Star Trek. They have their own like time, authority, whatever. And so while you're learning through Starfleet, when you're going to the actual academy, there are classes like if you run into a future person, this is what you do, you know, help them, but don't learn anything, and stuff like that. So it's, it's a well known thing that you're going to run into, you might run into some time traveling people.
Speaker 1:You just want to know the lotto numbers yeah, but that's always a fun.
Speaker 2:Of course, every rule that you say is a rule that's eventually broken, so, uh, that's. That's the really fun thing about it is, um, other sci-fi stuff starts, or time travel is always a surprise, but in this one it's like, uh, voyager. There's one episode where it's like, hey guys, everybody off the deck, we've got a time travel thing we got to deal with, and it's like people for the future gonna come in and do something real quick to save the future. It's fine. One of my favorite weapons, too, is a. There's a missile that's developed that can go through shielding, and what it is is it's constantly in a state of time flux, and so it's like both here and there at the same time.
Speaker 1:So the shielding doesn't know what to stop, and it can get to the shielding and it's like, ah then you have to do temporal shielding and yeah, oh my gosh, yeah, it's such a special kind of brain to come up with things like that, because, like the terminology and things that they're using in Strange New Worlds alone is like that's a very sci fi centric sort of brain and knowing the sort of systems and making it sound believable.
Speaker 1:I don't know if physicists or scientists watch this as well, whether they're watching and you know, giving their opinion on the show and liaising with the people, but man, it sounds so legit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the best ones have the most of it. So they all call it techno babble, right, and it's uh, you could rattle it off. Definitely next generation voyager were the best, best at it. And uh, they'll say something and it's just like temporal blah, blah blah or quantum gotcha. That's fine, as long as you got an excuse. You throw some fancy words on it and generally a lot of the scientists that would argue with it all grew up on star trek, so they're not going to talk smack. I don't think there's a person on nasa who hasn't seen some star trek, you know yep, no, I think that's.
Speaker 1:It's good that it's so universally liked in that way. Um, yeah, because I know for me some of the um, the thing like the walls, you might say, or the the things withholding me from from diving into Star Trek, is obviously the big catalog. What do you think some other elements are that stop people from diving headfirst into this obviously rich universe of Star Trek?
Speaker 2:I think right now I mean, you can go back to Flash Gordon and stuff like that, but right now the two backbones of sci-fi Star Trek and Star Wars, and Star Wars is so much more approachable Jedi's you know the rules on Jedi's really easy. Empire bad it's all within what? 20, 30 years really for the most part, and it's real simple. Just like blue lightsabers are good, red lightsabers are bad, so it's a lot easier to approach and it's a lot easier to make cool shit about. Some of the best things in Star Trek are discussions in a ready room, not the battle that happens afterwards, and so it's like the game of thrones thing where sometimes you just want them to sit at a table and talk. I, I and it's also just the catalog I think is very daunting. I feel like it's just too much to get into. Doctor who's one that I'd like to invest my time into at some point. Where do you start you?
Speaker 1:know, yeah, yeah, I'm a, I'm a doctor who person as well and yeah, I, it's kind of just I would. I didn't approach it myself. I went over a friend's house and Doctor who was just on, so then I watched a few and I was like, okay, I'm in. But yeah, I think it's very similar for Star Trek. Once people sort of indulge, if they've got a proclivity to science fiction, then it's hard to stop, which is where I'm at right now. I'm obviously looking at Strange New Worlds. I've seen a lot of the movies. I haven't seen the. We talked about the original series in 1966, if you can get past that sort of you know.
Speaker 2:Cheap looking, yeah, cheap sort of looking. It's like, hey, isn't that the same cave they were in? Like, yes, it is actually yeah exactly the same production design.
Speaker 1:So, from that sort of perspective, do the movies and the TV show, do they couple along each other? Or can you watch the movies without watching the show, like the older sort of movies, not the newer ones?
Speaker 2:The movies you can totally watch separately. The only thing you're missing is character development, of course, but they do kind of always start off with a really good Like. My favorite movie is, like the least favorite. It's Nemesis. I love Nemesis and that's with Tom Hardy. That's Tom Hardy's first big major role. He's the bad guy, he's a clone of Picard and you can watch that and not know anything about it before you're like, oh yeah, romulan's a bad guy. I guess Cool, that's good enough.
Speaker 1:And you're going to go from there. So we spoke a little bit about a couple of the races that are here on Star Trek. Vulcans are some of the defining features of a vulcan, because you always spock's the first one that comes to mind and he's always so rigid logic based, um, but then they also say that he is half human yeah.
Speaker 2:So he's super rigid, base and the most lenient you'll meet because he is part human, um, and he's a really good introduction character. But there are many other and you'll start to see that there are. There's humor within the way they talk. They have this Ponfar that they have where, uh, it's always fun to have that in one of the episodes. But Ponfar is like their puberty or like they're in heat. Even more accurately, like they're in heat and they have. So all of a sudden you have like the most uh logical person's like I gotta get laid, like I gotta get laid and uh.
Speaker 2:But one of the awesome parts about their lore that does come up quite a bit is it's not that they don't have emotions, it's that they train all their life, throughout the entire culture, to suppress their more extreme emotions than anybody else. So they actually have more emotions than the humans. But they saw how detrimental that was to their society and the entire society turned face and was like we have to suppress our emotions to be able to move forward. So it's. You know, that's always a fun thing when, like the romulans are actually a sector off of them that decided like no, we're going to embrace more of our emotions and you start to see like, oh, they've become bad guys.
Speaker 2:And that's one of the things in um, the original series. When they first meet the romulans and they notice, wait, you look just like sp. It's a whole thing where it's like you can't for United States back. There's some dark history of ours fun, fun United States. During World War II we imprisoned a lot of Japanese Americans and that was a reflection on that. That story's about how, like, just because they look the same doesn't mean that they are the same, and so Star Trek the response to that is making Romulans. So you know, the Vulcans they're good people, they are the exact same as the Romulans. It's just the Romulans chose. Evil doesn't mean the Vulcans are evil.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that duality in Star Trek too, where you can see there's a point and there's a choice that's made and from that choice you can see two deviations, and that's a really great way to explore something in a safe kind of manner in terms of consequences to actions and things, things like that. So that's, that's awesome. Let's let's finish off by talking about villains, because obviously a story I love can be defined by a good or a bad villain. When I was watching the next generation, there was a character named q that kept popping up. Um, he, yeah, he was more like a he, he didn't seem like so threatening in terms of like big, tough and violent. He seemed more like mind bendingly threatening to me and I didn't see a full arc for him because obviously I only saw a few episodes.
Speaker 2:But very curious kind of villain, mr q yeah, so q is basically the answer to god. Uh, there are, there are money q, there's the q continuum. It's q related everything. Q has a son, that's right, and it's actually the same actor's son, um, and they are first introduced to kind of test picard, to like prove your humanity. That's a big part of Star Trek, is always showing humanity. It's the reason you have Spock Data, the doctor from Voyager.
Speaker 2:There's always a not human that doesn't understand emotions on the ship to use that character to explore what humanity, what it means to be human anyway. So Q is testing that all the time to see if they're worth even investing any interest in. And he's immortal, he's an omnipotent and he has many of his other people that are like him as well, called cues. They even have a war amongst the cues and the way he's played. Of course, when you're an omnipotent person who has no boundaries, they can literally shape anything. You're dr manhattan, you, you just have fun with, like, making somebody a mariachi band out of nowhere. Or hey, you're a butterfly because you know you're my way. Uh, there are some. I've actually put a cue in my dnd session that that's so good. Yeah, the guys have run into and I was like trying to show how powerful he was.
Speaker 2:Like he one of them was talking, smack, squeaks and talks like boom, you're a cat, it's just like so just keep messing with the oh yeah, and jonathan right away recognizes like nope, stop guys, stop, stop, stop. This is beyond us.
Speaker 1:Yeah that's cute. Yeah, so in terms of other villains that you you might think are iconic we sort of talked about khan uh previously as well. Who else should we look out for in the star trek universe as being one of the the big sort of villains?
Speaker 2:yeah, my favorite is the borg. Um, they are, there's the borg queen, and what it is is. They are, um, technologically, what would you say? It's like a disease. Basically, through technology, these nanobots that get through you, and they all have a hive mind led by a queen, and they're seeking perfection. And, of course, humans are not perfect, and that's again more of the morality that they always talk about is perfection isn't needed, but yeah, so they're constantly trying to spread and they'll always bring you in to enhance the overall thing. So if you were really good at woodworking, they would want to bring you in and assimilate you, make you one of the drones, but then everybody in the hive mind knows more about woodwork. So they're constantly expanding. They have spheres and squares, because those you don't need to be aerodynamic in space and those are perfect shapes, and so they are. They're really cool and one of the best characters is Seven of Nine.
Speaker 2:There was a time where Federation, specifically Voyager and the Borg needed to work together, for because there was this species called 8472 that they discovered that were actually very good at defeating the Borg, but they were also dangerous to the humans. So they teamed up to take these guys out and in doing that, they kind of had some of the Borg on Voyager to enhance some of the ship and vice versa, and Seven of Nine was severed from the borg and is now a former human. She was a child that was, uh, assimilated into the borg and then now trying to learn humanity again, again, one of the many times that happens in star trek. But, um, yeah, the borg are great great because they're unstoppable. Uh, resistance is futile. Literally it's on the top of my computer, says resistance is futile. Um, is they're saying like anytime you meet them and you hear resistance is futile and it's like an echo of a thousand voices saying it. You're like shit, it's all, it's bad.
Speaker 1:yeah oh man, that's haunting. Oh so yeah, I actually have seen um seven of nine before she.
Speaker 2:I've read that she sort of saved star trek at one point voyager was not really finding its footing, and so they got rid of a character named Kes very good character and they brought in someone who's hot, like to be honest with you. That's kind of the point, right, it was the 90s and so she wears skin-tight things and her name's actually the character's Jerry Ryan. She's wonderful. I got to meet her one time and, yeah, saved Star Trek because she was really cool to watch.
Speaker 1:Very nice. Let's go on now and talk about so. In our show, we always do our most valuable takeaway, which is basically where we discuss some of the most important things that we've learnt from the media that we watched. It could be something that extends your knowledge. It could be something that helps you grow. It could be a simple piece of dialogue that's stuck with you. So what is your most valuable takeaway from star trek frank? What do you think is the thing that people learn the most from watching this, this media?
Speaker 2:almost all other sci-fi is all about like a post-apocalyptic universe or dystopian. Star trek's the only one I could think of where we figured it out. There is hopeful ending and uh. To me the thing I learned from it is to always strive for a better society and eventually we'll get there. It might take a World War III, but eventually we will get there. As long as we keep striving for it, it's worth it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and I think that's really sort of it's a valuable takeaway and a very aspirational sort of view to have, and obviously it's been pictured for. It's almost like when the humans encountered warp they sort of saw the possibility and therefore they achieved it. So Star Trek kind of does that where it shows you a possibility and then as humans we can look to it and be like, okay, this is something that we could do. It's been shown to us, there's a model. We know what we could potentially achieve. So I really like that.
Speaker 1:I think that Star Trek is very universally accepted because of those kind of themes where it talks about the fact that humanity can be better and there is an actual organization known as Starfleet that is going and exploring and also pushing forward those great human values that we should all embrace. So I love that as a takeaway. That's good. So, yeah, my one's kind of a bit more personal in terms of the characters that we're looking at here.
Speaker 1:They talk about obviously, a lot of logic in terms of the way that they're going through different situations and there's obviously all these rules that they kind of have to follow.
Speaker 1:But it kind of tells me that no matter the hardship and, no matter the situation that they're in there, always seems to be a solution. The situation that they're in there always seems to be a solution and it always seems to be derived from either working as a unit, drawing on people's strengths, accepting failures and learning from mistakes, or taking a risk like a calculated risk, or otherwise as well. And that's probably my most valuable takeaway from the Star Trek universe is that a lot of these challenges that they face seem monumental and if you're facing it alone, zero experts in the room, it could be catastrophic and devastating. But you get 10 brilliant heads in Starfleet on a deck and you kind of try to hash it out and figure it out, and they can always come up with a solution by drawing on the science officer's strength, uhura's language, uh, profinity, captain pike's leadership, all through those kinds of lenses of just being able to to work as a unit.
Speaker 2:And that seems to be rife through the whole of star trek, whether you're watching a movie or a tv show yeah, one of the one of the best pieces of lore for kirk himself, and it's said in the newer movies too. Uh, the kobayashi maru is a test they do in starfleet and it's supposed to be a test that teaches you that there are no win scenarios, that you have to accept loss and try to save as many people as you can. And Kirk, famously, is the only one to beat the Kobayashi Maru, and it's because he cheated. What is this? What's going on? Hmm, what is this? What's going on? Armed photons prepare to fire on the Klingon warbirds. Yes, sir Jim, their shields are still up, are they? No, they're not. Fire on all enemy ships. One photon each should do. Let's not waste ammunition.
Speaker 1:Target locked and acquired, on all warbirds Firing, all ships destroyed.
Speaker 2:Captain Begin rescue of the strainer crew.
Speaker 1:So we've managed to eliminate all enemy ships.
Speaker 2:No one on board was injured and the successful rescue of the Kobay ashimura crew is underway. How the hell did that kid beat your test, I do not know. And um, so the idea is that, like you, will do whatever it takes to win, even if you have to cheat, and it's so, it's. You know, that's happened in Star Trek 2 again, time travel stuff, or whatever you know okay see, even that's a really good like philosophy kind of question.
Speaker 1:It's like it's an unbeatable test. Yeah, if you cheat and you beat it, is that cheating, or is the fact that they've given you an unbeatable test just unfair and therefore cheating is a lot like it, just like that sort of philosophy and thinking welcome to you.
Speaker 1:That's the way that it goes. It's so awesome, yeah. Well, look, you've drawn me in Star Trek's something I'm going to deep dive onto now. So thanks for that. It's going to be good. But yeah, thank you so much for being on the show, frank, I know you're a stalwart in the film and TV sort of space. Appreciate your time, appreciate you being on so amazing yeah, happy to be here awesome.
Speaker 1:All right, so when we uh sign off, um, I'll give you guys some, some links for for our show in places you can find us, but before we do, I just wanted to give a very special shout out to one of our threads. Uh, community members, this is peruna 2001, and they said that they just listened to an episode and they really enjoyed it. They hadn't listened to our podcast before, but they've enjoyed our threads, the Fandom Portals threads, and they're going to be sure to tune in more. So thank you, peruna 2001. Those kind of messages as a podcaster, it's like it lights me up, man.
Speaker 2:It's so good. Yeah, it fuels you, man. Yeah, I know.
Speaker 1:It's so good because you yourself know how much effort is put into, you know, making episodes like this, the behind the scenes stuff it really really is passion projects for a lot of us creators out out there, so so hearing that from a fan is just really awesome. So thank you very much to that threads person and if you want to connect to our threads everybody out there listening and you can find us at fandom portals and you can find frank at, uh, the geek freaks podcast on fred breads and also instagram as well. We're both on instagram, um, so, yeah, make sure you go on and check us out and we can be social on there, because you know that's what we do this for is to be social and find new people that love the things we do. Yeah, frank, is there anything coming up for the network that people should know about or anything excited you want to plug?
Speaker 2:yeah, actually, yeah, interviews are back in a session, so we have our first one coming out this week next week, I guess and yeah, so interviews are back and we're starting to get those all scheduled up and recorded and it's always fun to meet new people and revisit some old friends. And, yeah, we like to share comic books and movies and TV stuff through our interviews. So check those out. They have their own feed and then they're also at the end of Geek Freaks every week too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so either way, you want to do it. If you want to just listen to the interview, there's something for you there. But you can also go to the Geek Freaks Network and get your latest geek news as well. Frank's actually the place where I get all my geek news, so I can scroll social media for ages and ages. Or I can just listen to one podcast from Frank and he tells me everything I need to know, and you don't want to find it all yourself. Frank's your guy, so go and check him out at the Geekbricks guys. They do great work. All right, that's it Signing off. See you guys. See you guys.
