Episode Report Card Keckler: D+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Manura Penthe
By Keckler | Season 2 | Episode 19 | Aired on 04.08.2003
Quantum's cell. Quantum asks Whitey how long deliberation takes. "It usually doesn't take long at all -- I must've been more persuasive than I thought," Whitey chuckles. Quantum thanks his attorney for sticking his cranial ridge out. Whitey cautions him not to count his gagh eggs before they hatch, and passes him a flask. Quantum asks what it is. "Blood Wine -- it should help to make the wait more pleasant," Whitey opines. Quantum sniffs, takes a swig, and makes a face: "What's it the blood of?" Whitey grins, takes the flask back, and tells him not to worry if he can't stomach it. Quantum snatches the flask back and says, "I didn't say that." Manners? Quantum swigs deeper this time and looks the way I felt when I filleted some cod at school and found lots of brown worms in the tissue. They shoot the shit for awhile, and Quantum learns that Whitey has won around two hundred cases (in the tribunal, not "of Blood Wine" as Mathra originally thought) and that the Klingons have a caste system. Apparently, in this particular rewrite of history, they're not all warriors or something. Whitey tells his life story and talks about Pshaw, Klingon Youth Today!, which then incites some Anvils of Operation Enduring "Don't Call It A War" Iraqi Freedom to perform a Morris Dance and sing in close harmony in on my coffee table. I really liked that coffee table. To wit: "Now all young people want to do is take up weapons as soon as they can hold them. They're told there's honor in victory -- any victory. But what honor is there in victory over a weaker opponent?" Quoth the Whitey, evermore. Quantum sympathizes and relates his people's violent history of three world wars that nearly destroyed the human race. Whitey wants to know what changed. "Colonel Greene?" Mathra supplies. "A few courageous people realized they could make a difference," Quantum tells him. Whitey makes to ponder this fortune cookie insight and also learns how to say "there is no honor in leaving crumbs" in Chinese. The bailiff comes to retrieve Quantum and his attorney.
Tribunal. The judge finds Quantum guilty for violating some laws of the Empire -- even though he wasn't "fomenting rebellion" -- and rules that he must be held accountable. However, instead of getting the death penalty, the judge commutes his sentence and relegates him to the dilithium mines of the penal colony of Rura Penthe for the rest of his life.
Mathra: See? I told you so.
Keckler: You've never really understood me, have you?