This is the Daystrom Institute Episode Analysis thread for Lower Decks 4x10 Old Friends, New Planets.
Now that we’ve had a few days to digest the content of the latest episode, this thread is a place to dig a little deeper.
Boothby sang the praises of Lorcano, fulfilling the roles of leader, parent, study manager etc… so I could be lead to believe that Lorcano managed to earn the undying loyalty of a few key members of each ship that he managed to place as heads of the respective ships.
But I have a hard time believing he’s got the loyalty of the entire crew, sans the commanders left on the glass rain planet. That’s not the sort of thing you can keep under wraps… and certainly not the sort of thing intelligence would manage to overlook.
There’s also some evidence that the crews weren’t in on it. The male Romulan admitted that Nova 1 wasn’t his scheme, suggesting it was the female’s. The Orion crew all seemed oblivious aside from the plagerist, who was focused on his console. And in the Ferengi ship it seemed to be one saboteur in particular.
That aside… it’s pretty amazing how he’s gotten all those species to cooperate. We have the opening credits battle to remind us how little they all get along-something the Federation itself has failed to accomplish.