7 Ups & 1 Down From Star Trek: Lower Decks 5.1 — Dos Cerritos
6. UP — No Conflict, One Riding Crop
"What in the Kzinti f**k is going on in here?" is a line I might just start entering every room with from now on. "There's no interpersonal conflict allowed on my ship," Captain Becky Freeman added as she walked into the shuttlebay to find more than plenty of it between the Cerritos doubles. I suppose if you travel far enough, you'll eventually get to kick your own arse!
As with Orion (mis)pronunciations, Lower Decks is never better than with the in-joke. "NO CONFLICT" is so infamously Star Trek, you'd think it was tattooed on Gene Roddenberry's forehead. The 'Great Bird's' rule reportedly hamstrung the writers of especially The Next Generation onwards. Valid or no, or merely an attempt to avoid 'melodrama,' like any myth, the important thing is that people believe(d) it.
In characteristic absurdist fashion, Dos Cerritos takes the idea and amplifies it to (literal) breaking point. If no interpersonal conflict means being whipped with a riding crop by the captain, it’s probably best to let people argue a bit and take the rest up with HR. In the end, unless we're one "sexy bastard" / "steamy hunk," aren't we all just fighting ourselves?