Fridge / Star Trek: Strange New Worlds S2E08 "Under the Cloak of War"

• Fridge Brilliance:
  • A bit of Fridge Humor. As longtime Trek novelist Christopher L Bennett's observed on the Tor.com episode talk-back, we have a Klingon diplomat named Dak'Rah. So, that means his diplomatic aides are thus arguably the "Staff of Rah".
  • Later in the Tor.com thread, Bennett also argues that Ortegas' Fantastic Racism against Dak'Rah and the Klingons here re-contextualizes last Season's "A Quality of Mercy".
    Bennett: It strikes me that Ortegas’s mistrust of the Klingons here contextualizes “A Quality of Mercy” and helps account for why her alternate-future self takes on Lt. Stiles’s “Balance of Terror” role as the anti-Romulan xenophobe. I guess she was projecting her Klingon War traumas onto the Romulans. It’s still contrived to plug her into Stiles’s role, but at least now we see it’s not out of the blue for her to act that way.
  • While Dak'Rah's death continued the cold war between the UFP and Klingons, it also helped avoid a bad peace; even the Federation was alienated and willing to cover up the real events of Dak'Rah's death upon realizing he was a war criminal who forged his entire history to hide in the Federation. The Klingons, if anything, would be even more pissed off if it turned out the reason the traitor didn't even turn on the Empire out of misguided idealism, but to steal the glory of the actual Butcher of J'Gal, who was actually someone worthy of respect as someone who took down three warriors pursuing his true target. Discovering any peace was fostered by such a liar would result in a very unstable political situation as the Klingons wonder why they're honoring such a coward, but discovering his murder was M'Benga finishing the job and derailing said peace is more likely to earn their thanks for taking out the cowardly rubbish.
• Fridge Horror:
  • M'Benga took the dagger out of its hiding place and had it on hand deliberately, knowing that Dak'Rah would seek him out again.
  • Whether premeditated or not, the killing of Dak'Rah is likely what ensures another 30 years of the UFP-Klingon Cold War and all the death and damage that will ensue: Kor's invasion of Organia, Koloth and Arne Darvin's subterfuge at K-7 and Sherman's Planet, Kang and Mara's attempted takeover of the NCC-1701, the arms race on Neural, Kruge's quest to obtain the Genesis technology and the murder of David Marcus, etc. Worse, this incident may also explain why so much senior leadership of Starfleet (a leadership that's old enough to have fought in the war and was left scarred by it) will mistrust the Gorkon Initiative; to their minds, Dak'Rah concealing his past crimes proves peace with the Klingons is an oxymoron and a sick joke.
  • In the flashback, M'Benga gives Chapel a vial of Protocol 12, and tells her to use it to help her in the evacuation if she needs to. With her reaction to it in an earlier episode, and the fact she still uses it to take down Klingons, with obvious experience, looks like she did have to use it to escape.
  • Protocol 12 is a stimulant full of adrenaline and painkillers that let humans fight toe-to-toe against Klingon's, but M'Benga does mention it does have drastic side effects to your health. Chapel has used it at least twice, M'Benga has the record in confirmed kills in Starfleet. Just how badly have they harmed themselves in order to fight and survive against Klingons?

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