Rode the 300


 * This article is for the episode. For the similarly named  episode, see Rode the 600.

Rode the 300 is the sixth episode of.

Act 1
While the Stoneship is still undergoing refits, Mijanou explains Brianna Reiss' next mission, which is to raid Du'Qot, a lightly defended border planet of the Klingon Empire, by turning as much of its population into zombies. To perform the raid, the Sable Order is to use the Pterodactyl-of-Prey, a dreadnought, outfitted with 16  attack fighters. As the zombification micro-torpedoes are outfitted with U'lanna bioweapons, the Pterodactyl-of-Prey approaches the planet, only encountering a bird-of-prey, quickly dispatched.

Act 2
Later, after encountering a communications relay and sending an away team to capture it, the Pterodactyl-of-Prey launches its fighters, each of which going for two attack runs, each with six microtorpedoes, putting itself into orbit for that purpose. The away team returned to the ship with one measly crate, containing a PADD as well as a four-century-old copy of the Gros Photon, captured by the House of Korgath and later auctioned off to the owners of the newly-completed Grand Mall of Qo'noS. Atenza later activates the holographic program contained in the PADD, with everyone onboard jumping in.

Act 3
With the entire bridge crew inside the sole holodeck of that ship, Atenza activated an holodeck program that put the holodeck occupants into the Planck, the student café of the University of Montreal physics department, in 2012, with Bouteina Majd requesting the aid of Yvan Ung to picket an illegal lecture being given at Nickel's, a restaurant, with Joanie Martineau staying behind and later taking a walk towards the mathematics/computer science student café, where Urie finds that the holographic Joanie resembles her down to her nails.

Act 4
Mrazek enters the holodeck rather late, after everyone else realizing that the tuition is to rise $325 yearly for five years, from a baseline amount of $2,168, hurting accessibility to higher education and, with it, social mobility. With the pilots involved in the raid later entering the holodeck, the debate continued and it was later revealed that the holodeck program was Klingon-made, more specifically by an Osric University doctoral history student on Ter'jas Mor. They catch wind of a plot that require 300 brave physicists to hold the picket line on March 22nd while they wait for reinforcements. Brianna Reiss finally realizes that military service was a form of public service as well.

Quotes
"Succès garanti, seulement 14 379$!"

- Urie, reading the schematics of a diploma vending machine

"1 625$, ça ne passe pas!"

- The holographic picketers, protesting a tuition hike

"But this Klingon holodeck program made me realize that, even in times of war, the purpose of the military is to serve its country, and that includes its people. If we must do something to help ensure free access to public utilities, then so be it."

- Brianna Reiss, after holding the picket line against strike-breakers

Background
This episode was written with the Quebec tuition crisis of 2012 as an inspiration source and as a way to keep a record of a debate about tuition hikes, hence the infamous picketing quote "1 625$, ça ne passe pas!" ($1,625 does not pass!). Also, the real-world crisis that was the basis of this episode also involved Edouard Montpetit College, Laval University, and a large number of Quebec tertiary institutions, with more than 260,000 students involved at the height of the tuition crisis.

External link

 * Rode the 300 on the Star Trek: The Stoneship Files boards
 * (French) 1 625$, ça ne passe pas! A website covering the tuition crisis in question