Warning: SPOILERS for Star Trek: Lower Decks season 1, episode 4, "Moist Vessel".
Terraforming technology became a problem in Star Trek movie.
Along with the death of Spock (Leonard Nimoy) and the return of Ricardo Montalban as the villainous Khan Noonien Singh, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is memorable for its MacGuffin, the Genesis Device. Invented by Dr. Carol Marcus (Bibi Besch) and David Marcus (Merritt Butrick), who was the son of iral James T. Kirk (William Shatner), the Genesis Device was a technology that could terraform a dead planet into one with lush, Earth-like conditions. However, the Genesis Device was unstable and David's warning that "it could be perverted into a dreadful weapon" came true when Khan stole it as part of his revenge plot against Kirk. When his starship battle with the U.S.S. Enterprise left him defeated, Khan's last gasp of vengeance was to activate the Genesis Device to destroy Kirk's ship, but Spock saved the Enterprise, resulting in his death. The release of the Genesis Device's energy later formed the Genesis Planet, which resurrected Spock, but the world was unstable and exploded in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.
Star Trek: Lower Decks introduced its own version of the Genesis Device in Star Trek: The Next Generation's era and the animated comedy's 24th-century version was as problematic as Khan's weapon. In "Moist Vessel", the U.S.S. Cerritos and its sister ship, the U.S.S. Merced, were ordered to tow a Generation Ship to a Federation starbase. The Generation Ship belonged to an ancient alien civilization that was now mummified aboard in cryogenic tubes. However, the Generation Ship also possessed organic terraforming technology, which proved to be as dangerous as the Genesis Device was a century prior.
Unfortunately, the Captain of the Merced made a foolish blunder that caused the organic terraforming particles to be released and attack both starships. The Cerritos and the Merced were overwhelmed as natural rock and water formations broke through their hulls and ravaged their ships. The Merced was destroyed by the terraforming emulsion cloud, but thanks to Mariner and Captain Freeman's (Dawnn Lewis) quick thinking, the mother-daughter tandem was able to beam the Merced's entire crew safely aboard the Generation Ship, which the Cerritos delivered to the nearest starbase. Happily, Mariner and Freeman solved the problem without any tragic loss of life (although one of the Cerritos' Lower Deckers ascended into a higher lifeform in the episode's B-plot).
The Federation abandoned the Genesis Project after the disasters in the 23rd century and presumably developed safer terraforming means in the decades since, but Star Trek: Lower Decks showed how dangerous such technology can still be. "Moist Vessel" didn't overtly reference The Wrath of Khan, but the organic terraforming was a subtle nod Trekkers immediately caught onto. The Generation Ship's inhabitants in cryogenic stasis seem to be a wink at Khan, who spent 200 years in cryo sleep along with dozens of his genetically engineered followers before they were found by Kirk's Enterprise in the classic Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Space Seed".
The Generation Ship itself is also reminiscent of the Klingon Sarcophagus Ship from Enterprise, something Star Trek: Lower Decks may have also been referencing with the destruction of the U.S.S. Merced.