You're telling me that Lorca wouldn't, or couldn't hand pick his first officer after he clearly got Stamets and Landry, not to mention Burnham, on his ship?
Discovery was actually built with the spore drive in mind for Stamets' research you might recall him complaining to Lorca that he and the war were messing up their plans for scientific innovation. I don't think Lorca got Stamets on his ship so much as he got the ship and Stamets was an non-negotiable tag along.
Saru being a Science Officer with commander rank, one who made himself a hero at the Battle of the Binary Stars and in need of a new ship and captain, was likely one of the only appropriate candidates. Again, what objection can he make to Starfleet regarding Saru to preserve his Terran racist cover?
Burnham he had to basically kidnap, under what in retrospect looks like a staged attack by Lorca.
Also in regards to your second point, the only times I can remember Saru takes command of the Discovery are:
1) When Lorca is kidnapped by the Klingons. Obviously not a scenario Lorca would chose.
2) When they're in the Mirror Universe, when Lorca has obviously exhausted his use for Discovery and no longer cares what happens to it.
Maybe he didn't say it but it's all mind games with him anyways I wouldn't put it past him to use that as leverage against Michael. He knew she was guilt tripping hard and might refuse to be absolved of any punishment.
time Travel is inevitable to reset the clock. If the Klingons have won the war and there are no federation signals, that means the Klingons will have killed millions. The writers won't be able to leave that unchecked so they'll have to go back.
And surely Vock will have to be involved somehow - maybe un-vockked ash will go back to real Voq or t'kuvma (?) and somehow persuade them to not fight.
Shadow Giorgiu will die saving PU Georgiou and Hugh won't be dead somehow. Standard time wimey reset button stuff.
The preview clarifies this as the Federation having lost 20% of its territory and a third of its fleet - again, the Klingons are winning, but despite Saru's dramatic summation, they haven't actually won yet. Think the Nazis overrunning France, but the war isn't over yet (and the Federation doesn't have a US to provide external support as far as we know, but eh).
The preview clarifies this as the Federation having lost 20% of its territory and a third of its fleet - again, the Klingons are winning, but despite Saru's dramatic summation, they haven't actually won yet. Think the Nazis overrunning France, but the war isn't over yet (and the Federation doesn't have a US to provide external support as far as we know, but eh).
time Travel is inevitable to reset the clock. If the Klingons have won the war and there are no federation signals, that means the Klingons will have killed millions. The writers won't be able to leave that unchecked so they'll have to go back.
A line in the trailer for next weeks episode says that 20% of Federation space has been occupied, which if true is a recoverable position without needing time travel.
You know I have to point out how much I appreciate other crew members actually getting words to say and even a stated name or two. The duct tape had been over their mouths so long it became frustrating to watch their silent faces.
If that was conscious decision to contrast the difference between Lorca's Discovery and Saru's Discovery then I can deal with it, but I really look forward to more words in the future. I think Detmer could even get promoted from "bewildered face in background" to legitimate character next season. That'd be pretty nice.
You know I have to point out how much I appreciate other crew members actually getting words to say and even a stated name or two. The duct tape had been over their mouths so long it became frustrating to watch their silent faces.
If that was conscious decision to contrast the difference between Lorca's Discovery and Saru's Discovery then I can deal with it, but I really look forward to more words in the future. I think Detmer could even get promoted from "bewildered face in background" to legitimate character next season. That'd be pretty nice.
Amen. Detmer in particular is underutilised since her visual update is obviously meant to be that she was scarred by the war, providing a permanent visual reminder of what Burnham (arguably) did. Yet I don't know if they've actually exchanged words at all on Discovery.
Also in regards to your second point, the only times I can remember Saru takes command of the Discovery are:
1) When Lorca is kidnapped by the Klingons. Obviously not a scenario Lorca would chose.
2) When they're in the Mirror Universe, when Lorca has obviously exhausted his use for Discovery and no longer cares what happens to it.
The first one, IIRC, he leaves him in charge prior to the scenario that leads to him getting kidnapped.
With number 2, there's no way that Lorca could have known that he wouldn't have further needed Discovery when he left Saru in charge. I mean it turned out that he didn't, but unless he was reading the scripts for the next episodes, how could he possibly predict the Emperor showing up and demanding Burnham to come aboard beforehand? Furthermore how did he know Burnham would give him a numbing thing to reduce his pain? Furthermore how did he know some guy would get him out of the agonizer cell and beat him up, allowing him to escape and free his conspirators? It was all a bit haphazard and convoluted just to get him onto that ship and have the events of this past episode play out. I don't get any sense of what Lorca's plan actually was and it all just seemed to happen.
I just dont see what this season has accomplished. Either do a limited series where you can really have consequences or build up the world and characters before you go into mirror universes and shocking deaths
The Federation-Klingon War is established in previous canon as being devastating for both sides, but yes, I don't know if that devastating for the Federation. This is a Yesterday's Enterprise level of doom.
Although winning that much territory doesn't necessarily mean they killed millions, as thousands of systems and planets could have surrendered before being attacked, but nevertheless, you wouldn't imagine the Klingons not spilling plenty of blood.
Anyway, they will either reset the timeline once more and simply go back in time and forget the alternate universe they created (Wooops!) or...what? are they going to retake Federation space one by one with Discovery now, in just two episodes? Are they going to attack Qo'noS?
They've managed to clumsily get out the corners they've written themselves into so far, so let's see how they finish this.
Who knows, maybe this handwaves Spock on the ISS Enterprise a bit. Perhaps in order to secure their position, the new Emperor promised new (if still exceedingly minimal) rights for aliens in the Empire. Think like the conclusion of the Social War for ancient Rome.
I just dont see what this season has accomplished. Either do a limited series where you can really have consequences or build up the world and characters before you go into mirror universes and shocking deaths
It's a thematic mess meant to explore like, four or five ways a Star Trek show can be. It's almost like the proposal for an anthology series survived in some form and we got this.
The problem with Discovery isn't that it wants to be Star Wars, I don't particularly think it does, other than acknowledging that fight scenes can be cool and going all 40K with the design of the Terran command vessel.
The problem is that there are clear throughlines from other modern serialized TV and how it handles characters and what it thinks constitutes meaningful drama and its become very concerning very fast. This isn't even an argument against serialization in general, this is very specifically about the state of genre TV in the last...decade or so. Its the school of thought that says that fun characters having fun interactions means that you can pretty flatly ignore major ethical problems and gloss through emotional beats or just deploy them without proper dramatic construction because people like the characters damnit and that's enough
I'm reminded, worryingly, of why I fell so hard off of The Flash
It makes sense to me, Lorca likely believes that all Kelpians are scared, inferior little things that seek to please their masters and not question actions. Thus, who better to get as an XO than someone who will acquiesce under pressure to all of your crazy demands?
It makes sense to me, Lorca likely believes that all Kelpians are scared, inferior little things that seek to please their masters and not question actions. Thus, who better to get as an XO than someone who will acquiesce under pressure to all of your crazy demands?
Huh, that actually does work. Makes me hope Lorca was mentally losing his shit at the idea that a 'scared, inferior little thing' just ordered 'FIRE!' on him.
Maybe the first Chancellor of the 'modern' era, meaning there's actually a singular leader with whom to potentially discuss terms for peace?
I do think that having yet another opponent to defeat in straight up combat wouldn't work though. It's happened twice, and clearly just does not stop the Klingons - they'll find someone new. So, give us a diplomatic solution, even if it's gunboat diplomacy.
Right when he's attending his conference. Which he plans to return from shortly, and is then kidnapped, he doesn't plan to give him command in any meaningful sense.
With number 2, there's no way that Lorca could have known that he wouldn't have further needed Discovery when he left Saru in charge. I mean it turned out that he didn't, but unless he was reading the scripts for the next episodes, how could he possibly predict the Emperor showing up and demanding Burnham to come aboard beforehand?
Once Michael Burnham resurfaced in the Empire (with him in tow as bait no less), it was only a matter of time until the Emperor came to get both of them, giving him his chance for a coup. Among the crew members of the Discovery, only he knew this would attract the Emperor, since only he knew the mutual history of the Terran counterparts, so everybody but Burnham is irrelevant at that point. He no longer needs the Discovery.
Burnham would assist him along the way because again, she doesn't know the mutual history of the Terrans involved, and would assume it was just Lorca trying to get everyone home.
Furthermore how did he know some guy would get him out of the agonizer cell and beat him up, allowing him to escape and free his conspirators? It was all a bit haphazard and convoluted just to get him onto that ship and have the events of this past episode play out. I don't get any sense of what Lorca's plan actually was and it all just seemed to happen.
Yes, there were definitely risky elements where it could have gone off the rails, but unless he's content to stay in the Federation forever (which he didn't seem to be, it was the best plan he had). You can see the broad outlines; use Burnham as bait to bring the Emperor along, then break his people out and stage his coup whilst the Emperor is distracted with Burnham.
Et tu, Discovery? Well, I was amused when they did it anyway... because poetry.
Also: I don't recall the network ever being established as being connected to LIFE everywhere, but rather 'just a spore' so that whole "life ending everywhere" was like "wut" to me. That kinda came out of nowhere, especially when the episode just before it didn't even establish that with Hugh, as far as I am aware. Maybe I completely missed it in that conversation, but the initial episodes never set this up.
Which raises another big problem: if it is part of life everywhere, how does using it not affect said life, and the obvious one: how come it ain't there in the fuuuutuuuuure #CanonSucks
Interesting goof ... or maybe not. The Buran's registry number is NCC-1422. If the ship the Emperor was firing on was Mirror Lorca's ship, it should have an "ISS" designation.
This was after the ion storm though, so the "transporter malfunction" may have been the entire ship. It would also explain how Lorca's backstory about blowing up his own ship didn't trigger some type of detection: if the above isn't an art fuck-up, he likely DID blow up his own ISS ship while on the prime side, to avoid being detected by the Federation and so on.
Which continued the trend of "Lorca suffers / dies in this episode". Kinda sad that's over now.
I think that's called "Janeway syndrome" in Star Trek though, so obviously he'll be back. Though hopefully not in TNG: The Child manner. Nobody needs another round of that.
I always assumed the Tribble plague happened because Scotty beamed then all over to the Klingon ship. You don't call the Enterprise a garbage scow and get away with it
For those new to Star Trek and having no idea what this is all about, you can watch a single episode of the original series (TOS) called 'The Trouble With Tribbles' and be all caught up.
----
I did think this episode was basically a previously likely two-parter compressed into a single episode.
I always assumed the Tribble plague happened because Scotty beamed then all over to the Klingon ship. You don't call the Enterprise a garbage scow and get away with it
The "ISS" is a Mirror version of the "USS" on starships, not of "NCC". NCC is the same in both universes, they are the ships registry number.
And did anybody else catch the Tellarite in the background in the preview for the next episode, being (I presume) a part of Cornwell's boarding team. Cool detail. Hope we see a Starfleet that looks more like the Federation it represents.
The opposite. Her Prime Universe appearance was crueler than Lorca's so I was hoping she had come with him from the Mirror Universe. But nope, Starfleet really does employ people that stupid and callous.
I've always felt whatever Lorca did mentally to prime Landary was serious. After the last few episodes it's clearer to me that he did indeed fuck with her head something fierce because he desperately needed someone he could indeed count on. She was with him in the Mirror universe so stands to reason they might be similar and used that to his advantage to twist her. Even in the beginning episodes it was like she was enthralled by him and as a result going overboard (and she was. That's why her actions stood out so much.) Going by what Lorca said to Maddox he likely had no problem preying on women. I think Issac and Rekha Sharma have both said something about how that was in the original script but was removed for time and would have made it clearer that they were physically together. We just get hints of that that we can now add to what Lorca is really like after these last few episodes. I have no problem thinking that pre-Mirror Lorca that Prime-Landary was a very different person. Hell she might have had feelings for Prime-Lorca which only allowed Mirror Lorca an easier time to twist her.
We might not see this in the show but I think this is prime material for a future book or comic.
Hell, maybe that's why the war turned. Not because the Klingons even did anything, but the ISS Discovery was just running rogue through Federation space - weakening the frontline as Starfleet tried to chase it down.
Hell, maybe that's why the war turned. Not because the Klingons even did anything, but the ISS Discovery was just running rogue through Federation space - weakening the frontline as Starfleet tried to chase it down.
Yeah I have to say I quite fancied her dressed as Captain Killy ha!
And god damn it... I swear they make these episodes 10 minutes shorter each week. No sooner was I into it, the credits came up and I was shouting at the tv...
Shame to see Isaacs go. He's a great actor :( But glad we are home again, even if things are going to be a bit different for a while. We know things will return to normal, because the Klingons never end up winning the war :)
It'd be great to see the real badass deal. I totally want an ISS/USS Discovery showdown. Killy v Acting Captain Crabmeat.
I presume she's still stirring shit up in the Prime universe but it's hard to say since they've been suspiciously quiet about the ISS-DSC. Probably going to show up as a surprise very soon.
I feel the current situation in the war exists so the Federation doesn't immediately jail Michael. She was only there due to Lorca, since he's gone she needed a safety net.
Honestly, all of these ships would fit right in if this all happened 20 years after Voyager. I didn't expect (or want) the lo-fi cylinders from the 60s, and maybe it will be rationalized by the Klingons destroying everything and setting the Feds back 100 years, but its like the design department wasn't given the premise of the show and no one looked at anything until a couple of weeks before they went live and the showrunners just said "well, we can't do shit about this now".
If it doesn't turn out the ISS-DSC was running amok in those nine months, that would honestly be a great and hilarious way to make an otherwise mundane episode suddenly turn dramatic.
"This is the USS Discovery, how may we be of assistance?"
"...Didn't you just attack us?"
"What?"
I don't give a shit about continuity when it comes to the aesthetics of the ships, uniforms and tech. Did you expect them to make it look like TOS with the now tacky uniforms and computer consoles? They shouldn't explain it as it needs no explaining. Trying to explain why Klingons looked different was a mistake.
The preview clarifies this as the Federation having lost 20% of its territory and a third of its fleet - again, the Klingons are winning, but despite Saru's dramatic summation, they haven't actually won yet. Think the Nazis overrunning France, but the war isn't over yet (and the Federation doesn't have a US to provide external support as far as we know, but eh).
I don't give a shit about continuity when it comes to the aesthetics of the ships, uniforms and tech. Did you expect them to make it look like TOS with the now tacky uniforms and computer consoles? They shouldn't explain it as it needs no explaining. Trying to explain why Klingons looked different was a mistake.
I don't really mind the show looking different than TOS, obviously they're not going to make a show with the same aesthetics as TOS. It does kind bother me that the tech level seems to be a lot higher in Discovery than TOS, for example in DS9 using holograms for long range communications was new technology but they do it in Discovery.
I've always wondered what an updated TOS bridge would look like, that would keep the aesthetic as close to the TOS era as possible while giving it a more modern look and I haven't really found anything.
This was the only one that really stood out:
And it's not that different from what is on discovery now or what is used in the new movies. (not that this is the only way they could look of course)
