Best Lines From Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4 Episode 1,”Valles Marineris”

“I have been, and always shall be, your friend.” “Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra.” “Hit it.” Star Trek fans love to quote their favorite lines.

Many have come to represent iconic moments of cooperation, communication, and conflict resolution.

Well-crafted phrases are not just philosophical nuggets; they add humor, convey emotion, and provide insight into characters.

For example, captains’ warp commands are particularly memorable, often symbolic of specific captains’ approach to command and their particular personality.

With only 16 episodes left in the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds mission — ten this season and six in the next and final season — let’s celebrate the gems and zingers this amazing writers’ room brings to our screens!

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds “Valles Marineris”

The Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4 premiere, “Valles Marineris,” sends the Pike and the Enterprise crew back in time 65 million years to Earth during the age of dinosaurs.

While trying to figure out a way back to their time, they encounter a Martian species led by Battle Commander Cassell and must navigate first contact without revealing they come from the future.

Meanwhile, Pike is still recovering from the loss of Marie Batel to her destiny as The Beholder, defending the universe from the Vezda.

Finally, the new elements introduced here are Vulcan Cadet A’Sha, Uhura’s mentee, and a sharp and surprising animosity between Ortegas and Scotty.

Talking Dinosaurs

Upon arriving in the past — but before realizing they’re in the past — Una leads an away team comprised of La’an and Ortegas to the surface of the nearest Class M planet.

La’an: I’m detecting life signs.

Ortegas: What kind of life signs?

La’an: Large.

Ortegas: Taller than us?

Una: Much taller.

Classic understatement does the heavy lifting of bringing humor to a dire situation. (Also, some great physical moments, but this is a listicle about quotes.)

Once they learn about the when of their situation, the primary concern is not causing any problems for the future. Tricky.

Una: Okay, so according to Enterprise, we can’t harm any native life because doing so could wreck the future.

La’an: Unfortunately, the dinosaurs do not share our temporal prohibitions when it comes to eating us.

Their first confrontation is with a T-Rex who stands in the way of them and an iridium source they need to get at.

Una’s plan is simple, if terrifying.

Una: I’ll stun. And then we run.

Ortegas: Crazy. Dangerous. Maybe even insane. But I’m kind of impressed. Is that weird?

When they succeed, the dinos aren’t done with them yet. A curious raptor leaps out of nowhere, and La’an does the only thing she can think of.

Ortegas: You just punched it!

La’an: Yeah, well, I didn’t have time to shoot it in the mouth, did I?

Understandably, the dinosaurs are all anyone’s going to want to talk about in the mission debrief. And when La’an goes to see M’Benga and Chapel about some physical health concerns, it’s clearly distracting.

Chapel: You punched a dinosaur?

M’Benga: Well, I’m sure it had it coming.

The Martians

A space-traveling Martian species existing 65 million years before Starfleet and the Federation is a revelation. It also poses some challenges to initiating relations and discourse.

Especially since the first contact is seemingly hostile, with the Martians latching power tendrils to the Enterprise, deeming it salvage and the spoils of war.

Pike: This is Captain Christopher Pike of the Starship Enterprise. You seem to have… You seem to have accidentally taken hold of our ship.

With the Enterprise badly damaged from its journey through time and an interstellar squall, their options are limited.

Pike: They’re literally towing us away. Do we have impulse? Anything!

Pelia: No, using impulse engines would be like trying to free ourselves from a boat using a pair of flippers! Small flippers! Flippers that could be lost at any time!

Pike’s improvisation is to invite Battle Commander Cassell aboard.

It’s not something he had time to discuss with his crew, but something they all feel comfortable voicing concerns about.

M’Benga: They have never heard of Starfleet or the Federation because neither will exist for millions of years. It may be challenging to form a shared frame of reference, Captain.

Pike: It shouldn’t be that different from any first contact with a pre-warp species.

Scotty: Except you invited her aboard your starship.

Pike: Yeah, there is that. Look, by the time our present comes around, Mars has been lifeless for eons. I’m going to wager that nothing we say here is going to change the future, so long as she doesn’t leave the ship with anything material.

Spock: Alternatively, any single one of our actions could result in our future never occurring.

Pike: Okay, so out of an abundance of caution, we’ll keep her from…

M’Benga: Everything?

Pike: It feels like you’re not helping.

What the Enterprise crew learns in their brief time with Cassell is that the Martians have been at war with an insectoid species called the Dol’drm for Cassell’s entire life and probably much longer.

As such, she finds the idea of interspecies cooperation as alien as the Enterprise’s crew.

Pike: Commander Cassell, I’m Captain Pike.

Cassell: You are… short.

Pike: Our planet’s a little heavier than yours.

Even Pike’s offer of hospitality conflicts with her perspective on their interaction.

Pike: You’re here as our guests.

Cassell: We’re here as your captors to see your weaponry, Captain Pike. 

Pike: Commander, you are not our enemy.

Cassell: That assessment is mine to make. You would do the same in my position, would you not?

Pike and the crew persist in trying to bridge the gap between them and the Martians, employing patience and looking for shared understanding.

The concept of a functional Federation of Planets seems as impossible for Cassell to envision as a world without war.

Pike: Those that don’t like us aren’t against just one of us; they’re against all of us. Our unity is our best deterrence. 

Cassell: Again, because of your weapons?

Spock: Federation members do bring weapons to the table, but that same unity means we often do not have to use them.

Cassell: I must admit I have difficulty imagining such an alliance as this. Many worlds working together. 

Chapel: Technically, we don’t just work together. We pick up a lot of stuff from each other.

Cassell: None of those others are concerned that you’ll turn their weapons against them? 

Chapel: Sometimes, it’s just recipes. Or music. Whatever we share, it tends to add up to more than the sum of its parts.

And then they get into idioms. Oh boy, denotative vocabulary acquisition is always fun.

K’sel: Alien to me means evil.

Pike: Humans have a way of saying when it comes to facing an enemy, “the carrot or the stick.”

K’sel: What is a carrot? Is it a weapon of some sort? I imagine it is more persuasive than a stick.

Pike: Yeah, it is, but not in the way you’re thinking. No, you eat a carrot. It’s a reward. It helps to form an alliance. The stick is the only weapon. 

K’sel: So you’re benevolent until that no longer works and only then are you hostile? It’s a strategy of sorts.

Words of Wisdom

Part of what makes Pike such a great leader is that he takes to heart the lessons the universe throws at him.

To be fair, he’s not so great at listening to the friends and advisors at his side (who is, really?).

Una: Six months, Chris. Non-stop. That’s a lot of missions in a row. I’m just worried the crew is starting to feel the strain, that’s all.

Pike: Look, they came to Enterprise to see things, to… DO things. 

Una: And the more you see and do in the moment, the less you have to think about the past, right?

But when a Martian Battle Commander comments directly on his grief, with the help of the Universal Translator, he takes notice.

Cassell: You used the term “alone.” Our people have ten individual words for such a state, differentiated by emotional inflection.

Pike: Sorry, I don’t follow.

Cassell: Your translating machine used the word “widower,” and so, my condolences.

And once his attention is primed, everything takes on a deeper meaning.

Cassell: I understand you were trying to save your people. As I am doing for mine. But we live now, not in the future.

So when things calm down and he can take stock again, he’s more receptive to what needs doing.

M’Benga: You, more than anyone that I know, have thought about the past and the future a great deal. But most of us live in the now. 

Pike: I guess never slowing down, never stopping, has been quieter than being in my head.

M’Benga: A bit of unsolicited advice: find a way to make peace with both.

Delightful Hints of Things To Come

Like all great season premieres, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4 Episode 1, “Valles Marineris,” seeds a few plot points for future exploration.

There’s La’an’s concern with her Augmented heritage and whether it will change her, making her more like her Vulcan/Romulan self seen in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3 Episode 8, “Four-and-a-Half Vulcans.”

La’an: I carry recessive augmented DNA, right? Now, is it possible that somehow all I’ve been through has activated those recessive genes?

M’Benga: Are you going to try and take over the galaxy now?

La’an: I don’t know.

Chapel: You may be carrying enhanced warrior genes, but it’s not who you are.

And then, what’s going on between the helm and engineering? Ortegas and Scotty are waging a feud?

Ortegas: You haven’t heard the constant noises? Scotty acts like every time I steer the ship, it makes his job harder, so he added endless beeping to literally make my job harder.

Let’s not forget that Uhura’s been tapped to mentor a Vulcan Starfleet cadet. A’Sha has not acclimated Federation and human niceties… yet?

Her response to Uhura’s attempt to greet her in her mother tongue is… awkward.

Cadet A’Sha: Please. Do not speak Vulcan. Your accent is… improper.

It’s going to be a FASCINATING season.

Oh, That Pelia

Star Trek: Lower Decks wasn’t the only series that dabbled in Easter Eggs.

Specifically, the writers have laid the groundwork for a television crossover with the Doctor Who-verse, a partnership that’s already been explored in comic book form.

On Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3 Episode 6, “The Sehlet That Ate Its Tail,” a TARDIS is clearly visible in the background when the Enterprise is captured by scavengers (again).

And on the Season 3 finale, Pelia nonchalantly mentions her tenure with a time-traveling doctor.

So, when she brings up the last time she saw an interstellar squall, of course it wasn’t from a starship.

Pike: This is an unusual mission. We are to face a Category 10 interstellar squall, something we rarely see in the Alpha Quadrant

Pelia: I’ve seen one once. A long time ago, but not from this close. I think I was in a phone box at the time.

In all honesty, Pelia might be my favorite (hypothetical) Doctor Who Companion ever. She’s got the right stuff.

Pelia: Oooh, it sounds like we are going to the theater! Minus the playbill.

Spock: A theater that would likely tear our ship into small particles of subspace should we get too close.

Pike: Come on, Mr. Spock. Where’s your sense of adventure?

Spock: Perhaps I did not clearly state the part about being torn into small particles of subspace?

Pelia: Interstellar storms are like space-time gone wild. Very stuff of the universe. Don’t you think a glimpse is worth a little risk?

Pike: See? Now, that’s the spirit.

What Did I Miss?

All right, Fanatics, I watched “Valles Marineris” multiple times, but I’m no Soong-type android. I must’ve missed something.

What was your favorite line on the season premiere? Who turned a phrase with perfect timing? Was there a moment of dialogue that really fired your photons?

Did I leave someone out who deserved kudos for their delivery? Hit the comments below with your top choices!

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