It’s always been both, just with our current problems offloaded to aliens for scrutinization. That they’re no longer using aliens for commentary is the problem.

I’m still impressed McNeill was able to say, “Yes, ma’am, his army of evil,” with a straight face.

M’Benga still wears blue. Chapel wears white, but she’s also a civilian contractor in SNW and hasn’t joined Starfleet yet, so how her uniform color interacts with everyone else is unclear.

It’s also not even remotely how DNA or evolution work.

Seems bland as hell on the surface, but hiding a spicy side.

Just a reminder that she didn’t actually explain why she was tearing up a picture of the Pope, she just pulled out a picture of him and tore it up without context. Nobody understood wtf was happening.

He’s technically calling his opponent’s attack there.

That is definitely a TOS Romulan BoP.

The way his conviction wavers as he says it also shows that he’s trying to convince himself and justify his actions to himself more than anything else. It’s not that he can live with it, it’s that he has to live with it.

Lucky could be Paris, but that would make Luanne B’Elanna and I don’t think that part works.

I still think each Combs in the picture should be a different character. Unless each one is a different Weyoun, in which case they already are.

Tough little model.

I’m honestly impressed they successfully modeled it at that scale at all. That it actually looks pretty accurate is a bonus.

Nah, too vertical.

Add in Sokel for the next round. He was T’Lyn’s former captain.

For their internal politics, yes the PD applies. For general interaction, no, the PD no longer applies. You can also land on a pre-warp world if they’re already buying Romulan Ale from the Ferengi. It’s not like you can make it any worse once the cat’s out of the bag. Consider that Kirk was sent to negotiate with the Organians back when they were thought to be a pre-industrial species; that was fine since they had already been contacted by some other people, including the Klingons.

The Prime Directive shouldn’t have even applied with that. They can’t stop a foreign government from executing their own citizens for stupid things, but trying to execute another nation’s citizens is an international incident and falls under standard international politics. The Federation seems to give Starfleet ship captains ambassadorial powers, so Picard should have started threatening sanctions and making comments about how executing Wes could be considered an act of war.

I mostly chalk that kind of thing up to writers not having any idea what the Prime Directive actually is.

Just double checked. Looks like beta-canon from the novels. Interestingly, according to Memory Alpha, the first episode or two with Bajorans in TNG had all the male Bajorans wear the earring on the right and all the female Bajorans wear it on the left, but right ears for both sexes became standard pretty early on. The only other named character that wears it on the left is Lt Mura in PIC.

Ro was basically on probation in her first appearance or two, IIRC. Uniform modifications are allowed at the discretion of the officer’s CO, and Ro was already in something of a disciplinary thing, so forbidding modifications makes some sense.

While the earring is typically religious and she may have been able to argue for reasonable accomodation on those grounds, Ro specifically wears it on the left ear, which is considered a secular way to show familial heritage while also indicating you don’t follow the Bajoran faith.