Star Trek Discovery |OT| To Boldly go into the new streaming era

Why is it so hard for them to call this Cloaking technology? IT was said once by the Tactical officer but everyone calls it invisibility screen or stealth tech... so annoying
I like the show keeps showing us non-humaniod alien stuff

So has L'Rell always felt this way when she told the Admiral about her actual hate for Kol?
Did teh Admiral have to die?

So weird

Medalion said:

Why is it so hard for them to call this Cloaking technology? IT was said once by the Tactical officer but everyone calls it invisibility screen or stealth tech... so annoying

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It's Enterprise and their "phase pistols" all over again.

Master Thespian said:

Saru wasn't mind controlled or altered? Just had a taste of something he'd never experienced. Damn, son.

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I really want to learn more about his race.. like was he the only one that made it out or are there more kelpians in the fed?

What's with L'Rell's left eye colour change? It went from orange to blue halfway through the episode.

It's like when Stamets was wearing a medical badge for a few scenes in the last episode.

Catching up.
I'm a sucker for Groundhog day episodes. The previous episode delivered.

my second favorite from the premier

UltraMav said:

It's Enterprise and their "phase pistols" all over again.

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Phase Pistols was fine. Phasers hadn't been invented at that point, they weren't invented until much closer to TOS era. Phase pistols/cannons were supposed to be a precursor to Phasers basically.

What's annoying me is the stardates. This episode said it was stardate 1308 yet the previous episode was stardate 2316. That would put episode 8 at taking place about 8 months or so before episode 7. They're just pulling numbers out of their arse for them.

If the General Orders of hiding themselves from primitive species and not interfering with natural development of an inhabited planet exist, what the eff were they doing in the pilot?

Just dumb.

Good episode, felt like a great compromise between weird planet of the week scifi and continuing the serial nature of the main mission. It's nice seeing another side to Saru, although the L'rell stuff is kinda half assed. What is her plan even.... lol. The Captain Tilly tease was sooooooo nice. :D

Jackpot said:

If the General Orders of hiding themselves from primitive species and not interfering with natural development of an inhabited planet exist, what the eff were they doing in the pilot?

Just dumb.

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No interfering via direct contact. In the pilot they were saving the race without direct contact.

Jackpot said:

If the General Orders of hiding themselves from primitive species and not interfering with natural development of an inhabited planet exist, what the eff were they doing in the pilot?

Just dumb.

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One constant in Star Trek is Starfleet talk about the prime directive all the time, but it has been ignored on numerous occasions. Breaking the prime directive is actually conical lol.

duckroll said:

No interfering via direct contact. In the pilot they were saving the race without direct contact.

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The only pains they took to hide themselves was wearing a hood. They strode right through their birthing grounds. And their entire mission was to interfere in a natural event.

As I said, dumb.

Jackpot said:

The only pains they took to hide themselves was wearing a hood. They strode right through their birthing grounds. And their entire mission was to interfere in a natural event.

As I said, dumb.

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It wasn't a natural event it caused by a starfleet mining accident

Not bad, but felt too rushed for pacing. I don't get why the show is editing its episodes down to 42 minutes when it's a damn streaming show.

Mr. Pointy said:

Not bad, but felt too rushed for pacing. I don't get why the show is editing its episodes down to 42 minutes when it's a damn streaming show.

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Canadian tv broadcast. I hope they release more fleshed out episodes for BluRay since every episode on After Trek they talk about what got cut.

Okay, so I'm a star trek noob as I said a few times before, and this isn't really related to the episode on hand, but in what ways has the prime directive been examined before?

It just seems to take the logic of "We could potentially fuck something up, so better not to do it at all". I can see how people might view it as cautious/respectful of other cultures. But if an obvious atrocity is happening, I feel it'd be the right thing to very much interfere with the culture. I mean, by all means, take every precaution to make sure what your doing is the actual right thing. Talk to the cultures and understand them and what they want and how they work and all that. And sure, law of averages states that you're going to fuck up eventually, maybe even in a huge way.

But the world where you save a civilization from a natural disaster or else maybe an insane member of their own species inflicting horrific and pointless suffering on their own people is probably better than the alternative.

Medalion said:

So has L'Rell always felt this way when she told the Admiral about her actual hate for Kol?
Did teh Admiral have to die?

So weird

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L'Rell is loyal to T'kuvma, so she obviously wasn't happy about Kol taking over. I think what she told the Admiral was kinda true but her hate became truly genuine upon seeing her dead (and possibly eaten) comrades..

Also, I'm almost certain the Admiral is alive.

The admiral is still alive, she's playing some sort of stupid long con where she wants to get on the Discovery because she knows Voq is there. I don't know what the season long plan is but that's probably the most tiresome "mystery" in the series so far. Either way it's going to end up with good Klingons, the Discovery, and not-Klingons combining to beat Kol and forging some sort of peace. The captain will die, and Tilly will take over.

Master Thespian said:

Canadian tv broadcast. I hope they release more fleshed out episodes for BluRay since every episode on After Trek they talk about what got cut.

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Pretty much. If it wasn't being aired on TV in Canada all the episodes might be longer. However what is better in the end? An episode that is longer for the sake of being longer? Or an episode that completes what it sets out to do for that part of the story. When the show gets heavy serialized like it was in the first several episodes and now this episode and likely the next I don't think each episode needs to be the same length.

In fact this episode didn't feel any shorter in a significant way to me compared to the others. I only noticed the time because it was moving my mouse. Also I was looking for a scene with Stamets, Culber, and Tilly to show up because there was a screenshot of it released. It was cut and I think I know why. Either they were pressed for time because of the Canadian broadcast or the conversation between Tilly and Stamets got across the emotional impact for Stamets well enough and having Culber show up would have just been redundant to the conversation. Or maybe a little both. That scene likely added a few more minutes to the episode too making it more on par with the other episodes.

Now if the episodes are longer on the bluray I won't complain at all. However I would hope they get added to the streaming platforms as well.

I think the Klingons r getting slightly better with their language...less wading through deep waters feel

So there must be something wrong with the source file for the episode I'm using, because a couple shots are like, in a weird negative?

Otherwise, I didn't find the episode too hard to parse, though the Klingon stuff does feel rushed through. That Cornwell woke up offscreen and escaped is particularly telling, unless that in itself is a lie because L'Rell couldn't figure out how to get them away.

Jackpot said:

If the General Orders of hiding themselves from primitive species and not interfering with natural development of an inhabited planet exist, what the eff were they doing in the pilot?

Just dumb.

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In the pilot they were fixing the effects of a Federation industrial accident. It's easy to miss in Michael's vulcany speech patterns, but that's the explicit reason for their intervention.

I also believe the admiral is still alive, and that L'Rell was planning to use the "take my leave" as the way to escape and get back to Discovery. It does appear that she didn't really do a great job of thinking that through.

All that blue flying around and with a communications tower playing a key role, I kept thinking this was kinda like Breath of the Wild. Heck, they even had someone transport to the tower!

Veelk said:

Okay, so I'm a star trek noob as I said a few times before, and this isn't really related to the episode on hand, but in what ways has the prime directive been examined before?

It just seems to take the logic of "We could potentially fuck something up, so better not to do it at all". I can see how people might view it as cautious/respectful of other cultures. But if an obvious atrocity is happening, I feel it'd be the right thing to very much interfere with the culture. I mean, by all means, take every precaution to make sure what your doing is the actual right thing. Talk to the cultures and understand them and what they want and how they work and all that. And sure, law of averages states that you're going to fuck up eventually, maybe even in a huge way.

But the world where you save a civilization from a natural disaster or else maybe an insane member of their own species inflicting horrific and pointless suffering on their own people is probably better than the alternative.

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There's a theory that the Prime Directive was originally created as commentary on the political policies of the United States in the 60s which later led to direct involvement in Vietnam. In short, a more "evolved" humanity would have learned its lesson and not force its will on other cultures or governments.

Over time Trek has examined the PD from a few angles. The Next Generation sometimes made a big deal of it as a ward against cultural imperialism. One famous episode, Who Watches the Watchers, examines the difficulty of exposing a culture to concepts so far outside it, it's nearly impossible to prevent damage. More directly related to your observation, the complications of intervening in a disaster are examined in the Enterprise episode, Dear Doctor.

Here we have the idea that saving a species from one disaster may harm another, as well as the problems with trying to introduce the technology the culture could theoretically use to save themselves. It's written largely as a backstory for why the Federation later develops the Prime Directive though.

I'm not really defending Trek's idea of the PD; it has problems, and ironically enough many Star Trek writers seem to create stories highlighting the Directive's limitations, given how often Our Heroes encounter a situation that inspires them to violate it. Interestingly, the late science fiction author Iain M. Banks seemingly was directly inspired by Star Trek's Prime Directive in his Culture cycle of novels. Except in the opposition direction: in the Culture, an entire organization exists (called appropriately enough "Special Circumstances") to sneak around the galaxy, examine more primitive civilizations, and interfere as discreetly as possible for the greater good. SC is especially fond of knocking over dictators. Their creedo is "salvation in statistics" - the Culture's vaunted archive of data which proves interfering turns out for the best with sufficient reliability that there is a moral imperative to do so.

Even more broadly, the Prime Directive (especially in 90s Trek) is a concession to the realities of globalism. I've seen people confused as to why warp drive is considered the bright line for totally jumping on an unsuspecting culture, and the reality is that once you have interstellar travel that bubble is completely untenable. It'd be like saying that 'we shouldn't interfere with these people" once they've got airplanes flying around you. You can't not interfere at certain points; the Prime Directive is the application of the principle that you should exercise as much restraint as possible.

TOS especially had a host of well-meaning people ultimately destroy cultures by suggesting improvements. It was undercut by the lack of budget of the time, but especially when you consider aliens that might have completely different value systems, unintended consequences become far harder to gauge.

Just watched this week episode.

So they arrived in Pandora....

And I thought this could be an episode Saru would shine only to find he is another mutineer.

fuchsdh said:

Even more broadly, the Prime Directive (especially in 90s Trek) is a concession to the realities of globalism. I've seen people confused as to why warp drive is considered the bright line for totally jumping on an unsuspecting culture, and the reality is that once you have interstellar travel that bubble is completely untenable. It'd be like saying that 'we shouldn't interfere with these people" once they've got airplanes flying around you. You can't not interfere at certain points; the Prime Directive is the application of the principle that you should exercise as much restraint as possible.

TOS especially had a host of well-meaning people ultimately destroy cultures by suggesting improvements. It was undercut by the lack of budget of the time, but especially when you consider aliens that might have completely different value systems, unintended consequences become far harder to gauge.

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Plus once a species develops Warp Drive it's at least nominally somewhere near being equal to another species it might engage with. Anything else is straight up 'Angels or Apes' territory which inevitably places a lot of power into the hands of whoever holds the better tech, and such can be easily abused.

Admittedly, I feel like an explicit debate on the Prime Directive in universe, and whether or not it remains fit for purpose - looking through the various ways it has both worked and failed, with parallels to how interference and refusal to do so by the international community has gone in real life - could make for one intriguing episode. That or a species that has hostile relations with the Federation specifically because they became aware of how the Prime Directive was to used to argue against aid, costing millions of lives.

haha yeah, this was Pandora but instead of CG avatars, they sure do love their particle effects on this show

That was a weird episode, and both main plot lines suffered from confusing twists.

I mean, I have no problem with Saru wanting to stay on the planet, even begging to do so. We had that a lot before in Trek. Also, the alien influence was very strongly hinted at. But now it was all his free will? What? In a way, that's worse than what Michael did, because at least she believed what she did was for the greater good. Saru wanted to feel well for a while, even ignoring that the Federation losing the conflict could put an end to that. At least I'd hope the planet is somewhat close to the border, with the Klingon ship getting there effortlessly and everything. Which maybe still shouldn't work, seeing as Burnham's mission is as critical as it is? Or is that planet outside Federation space?

The second plot line was even more confusing. Can someone tell me what was actually happening? Did L'rell want to get on the Discovery due to Voq? If so, that was a weird fucking way to achieve this. What was her plan after she discovered the Klingon corpses? How would it have played out in the ideal case for her? I really don't get that. She wants to destroy Kol, but what does it help to get back to him?
If she didn't want to actually get on the Discovery, that makes things even more weird, because she didn't get any information the Klingons didn't already know (remember, that was the reason why Lorca was abducted).

Irminsul said:

That was a weird episode, and both main plot lines suffered from confusing twists.

I mean, I have no problem with Saru wanting to stay on the planet, even begging to do so. We had that a lot before in Trek. Also, the alien influence was very strongly hinted at. But now it was all his free will? What? In a way, that's worse than what Michael did, because at least she believed what she did was for the greater good. Saru wanted to feel well for a while, even ignoring that the Federation losing the conflict could put an end to that. At least I'd hope the planet is somewhat close to the border, with the Klingon ship getting there effortlessly and everything. Which maybe still shouldn't work, seeing as Burnham's mission is as critical as it is? Or is that planet outside Federation space?

The second plot line was even more confusing. Can someone tell me what was actually happening? Did L'rell want to get on the Discovery due to Voq? If so, that was a weird fucking way to achieve this. What was her plan after she discovered the Klingon corpses? How would it have played out in the ideal case for her? I really don't get that. She wants to destroy Kol, but what does it help to get back to him?
If she didn't want to actually get on the Discovery, that makes things even more weird, because she didn't get any information the Klingons didn't already know (remember, that was the reason why Lorca was abducted).

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I agree with you in both cases. Yeah it was weird.

In the first plot line while he is taking responsibility for it, I think the larger argument is that he is was effected because of what it did to his fear response. He is basically understanding that while he was effected, he is getting at what the real deeper root of the problem was. I mean in a way, its good because its a more complex way to look at it, but its handled sort of awkwardly since its essentially a mutiny right after Burnham has already been painted as a mutineer. It wants to be sort of deep but it feels clunky instead.

Same with the second plotline. It's supposed to be like a keep you guessing kind of thing, but it instead feels confusing and plot motivated to keep that storyline around for the 2nd part next week.

Re: L'Rell, why precisely she wants to get on Discovery is obscured, though one might at least presume it's because she knows and recognises its tactical uses, so if she wants to get revenge on Kol in the long run, and provide Voq - wherever he is - his own means of ascending to the top of the empire, that's her ticket. To Cornwell however it's just something they insist on, and Cornwell puts up with it because she needs to escape. After finding the corpses of her house, L'Rell's plan immediately changed to 'fuck it, I'm going to stay and murder him now, screw everything else', with a fake pledge of loyalty so as to find the chance to actually do so. However because she's already played that card once in order to save Voq, Kol sees right through it.

Just watched it, and I have to echo a number of the comments here on the L'Rell stuff this week. What the heck was going on? The stuff between her and the admiral was so rushed and made no sense.
I can't tell what she was actually trying to do with her =/

golem said:

I really want to learn more about his race.. like was he the only one that made it out or are there more kelpians in the fed?

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From what I recall he's the only one.

Stoney Mason said:

In the first plot line while he is taking responsibility for it, I think the larger argument is that he is was effected because of what it did to his fear response. He is basically understanding that while he was effected, he is getting at what the real deeper root of the problem was. I mean in a way, its good because its a more complex way to look at it, but its handled sort of awkwardly since its essentially a mutiny right after Burnham has already been painted as a mutineer. It wants to be sort of deep but it feels clunky instead.

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Wait, so he actually was affected, but because of his nature / constant living in fear, it wasn't far (but still a bit) from what he would have done out of free will? I.e., "I probably wouldn't have done that myself, but it's not as if I wouldn't have liked the result had I succeded"? I didn't get that at all. It does make sense, though.

JonnyDBrit said:

Re: L'Rell, why precisely she wants to get on Discovery is obscured, though one might at least presume it's because she knows and recognises its tactical uses, so if she wants to get revenge on Kol in the long run, and provide Voq - wherever he is - his own means of ascending to the top of the empire, that's her ticket. To Cornwell however it's just something they insist on, and Cornwell puts up with it because she needs to escape. After finding the corpses of her house, L'Rell's plan immediately changed to 'fuck it, I'm going to stay and murder him now, screw everything else', with a fake pledge of loyalty so as to find the chance to actually do so. However because she's already played that card once in order to save Voq, Kol sees right through it.

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That does sound well enough, but the problem I have with her later plan then is what the hell is she going to do with the admiral she said she murdered? And if she planned a more immediate demise for Kol, why pledge loyalty at all? It's not like Kol's going to be all "Yup, I now trust you, so feel free to wear weapons around me when I'm not protected".

Pahvos or whatever are like the HR of the galaxy... let's bring the two parties together so they can talk it out
hahaaha

Irminsul said:

Wait, so he actually was affected, but because of his nature / constant living in fear, it wasn't far (but still a bit) from what he would have done out of free will? I.e., "I probably wouldn't have done that myself, but it's not as if I wouldn't have liked the result had I succeded"? I didn't get that at all. It does make sense, though.

That does sound well enough, but the problem I have with her later plan then is what the hell is she going to do with the admiral she said she murdered? And if she planned a more immediate demise for Kol, why pledge loyalty at all? It's not like Kol's going to be all "Yup, I now trust you, so feel free to wear weapons around me when I'm not protected".

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The admiral stuff I'll give you in part because we just don't see what happens with Cornwell afterwards, and L'Rell walking off right away implies either Cornwell was left to fend for herself, or has... just kinda been left there. There's no obvious clue for 'what happens next' so it's not so easy as to presume there.

As for the loyalty gambit, while I won't argue it was the best of plans, I do think she wanted to gain his trust so as to find even that one window for killing him, vs escaping where she'd have no chance at all. After all, Kol's whole schtick this season is getting the other Klingon houses to pledge their loyalties, so why not assume he'll accept another loyal servant? Except again, she'd done this once before, so he knew what it was actually worth.

Medalion said:

Pahvos or whatever are like the HR of the galaxy... let's bring the two parties together so they can talk it out
hahaaha

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Wasn't there one Trek episode once that had warring parties forced at some place where they couldn't use their weapons, or am I wildly misremembering things? I'm pretty sure that was in some Sci-Fi show, though. I mean, if you go all Avatar on the planet, you might as well put that in, too.

Irminsul said:

Wasn't there one Trek episode once that had warring parties forced at some place where they couldn't use their weapons, or am I wildly misremembering things? I'm pretty sure that was in some Sci-Fi show, though. I mean, if you go all Avatar on the planet, you might as well put that in, too.

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Yeah that sounds familiar, I think it was in enterprise?

actually that makes me think of the TNG ep where the Ferengi and Federation meet face to face for the first time (officially)

Irminsul said:

Wasn't there one Trek episode once that had warring parties forced at some place where they couldn't use their weapons, or am I wildly misremembering things? I'm pretty sure that was in some Sci-Fi show, though. I mean, if you go all Avatar on the planet, you might as well put that in, too.

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Hell, this wouldn't even be the first time (well, it would be the first, chronologically) non-corporeal entities have tried for forge a peace between the Federation and Klingons.

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Errand_of_Mercy_(episode)

Irminsul said:

I mean, I have no problem with Saru wanting to stay on the planet, even begging to do so. We had that a lot before in Trek. Also, the alien influence was very strongly hinted at. But now it was all his free will? What? In a way, that's worse than what Michael did, because at least she believed what she did was for the greater good. Saru wanted to feel well for a while, even ignoring that the Federation losing the conflict could put an end to that.

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Hopefully that's the point. He can come off his high horse and they can fully reconcile considering he tried to sabotage the federation's war effort for personal gain while she did what she did for what she thought was the good of the federation.

Irminsul said:

Wasn't there one Trek episode once that had warring parties forced at some place where they couldn't use their weapons, or am I wildly misremembering things? I'm pretty sure that was in some Sci-Fi show, though. I mean, if you go all Avatar on the planet, you might as well put that in, too.

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You might be thinking of Errand of Mercy, where the Organians put a damper on the Federation and Klingons trying to fight.

JonnyDBrit said:

The admiral stuff I'll give you in part because we just don't see what happens with Cornwell afterwards, and L'Rell walking off right away implies either Cornwell was left to fend for herself, or has... just kinda been left there. There's no obvious clue for 'what happens next' so it's not so easy as to presume there.

As for the loyalty gambit, while I won't argue it was the best of plans, I do think she wanted to gain his trust so as to find even that one window for killing him, vs escaping where she'd have no chance at all. After all, Kol's whole schtick this season is getting the other Klingon houses to pledge their loyalties, so why not assume he'll accept another loyal servant? Except again, she'd done this once before, so he knew what it was actually worth.

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Cornwell is left in the sarcophagus room, where they put the bodies in and eject them out of the ship. I suspect that's what L'Rell was originally going to use to get Cornwell off the ship. However, it looks like that all of the original inhabitants of the ship were brutally murdered and ironically left in that room as well.

Also, it seems like the Klingons have *really* bad scanners if prisoners can escape multiple times and not detect L'Rell aiding Voq earlier this season.

SRG01 said:

Cornwell is left in the sarcophagus room, where they put the bodies in and eject them out of the ship. I suspect that's what L'Rell was originally going to use to get Cornwell off the ship. However, it looks like that all of the original inhabitants of the ship were brutally murdered and ironically left in that room as well.

Also, it seems like the Klingons have *really* bad scanners if prisoners can escape multiple times and not detect L'Rell aiding Voq earlier this season.

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Oh, I get what the plan had been for Cornwell up to that point, however because L'Rell immediately leaves, it's unclear what happens because she seemingly didn't do anything, while it's unclear whether or not Cornwell would wake up. So if she's actually escaped fully or is just... still lying there is unknown right now.

Master Thespian said:

Hopefully that's the point. He can come off his high horse and they can fully reconcile considering he tried to sabotage the federation's war effort for personal gain while she did what she did for what she thought was the good of the federation.

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Agreed. I made a similar point yesterday.

StopMakingSense said:

In the pilot they were fixing the effects of a Federation industrial accident. It's easy to miss in Michael's vulcany speech patterns, but that's the explicit reason for their intervention.

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That's me corrected:

The ambient radiation from a nearby drilling accident dried out their water table.

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though it raises the question of who did the drilling and why Burnham & co didn't make any effort to hide themselves.

How would they hide themselves more then they did (obscuring who they are)? They're in a desert area, on a a timer, not making direct contact, and as far as they know they don't know they're being seen as they don't see any of the local aliens. It's safe to assume they had other wells to take care of or simply couldn't beam down closer to their target.

I don't think they ever said who did the drilling but we really don't need to know who to be honest. That it happen is the important thing and that it is something that Starfleet would attempt to fix.

Last week may have been a fluke, didn't care for this episode at all. Everything with the Klingons remains garbage.

L'Rell will get saved by Cornwell next episode, that's pretty obvious.

After Saru's slide into "blah" these last few episodes, I was hoping this episode would redeem him. He needs a win. Oh well, perhaps next week's episode. The First Contact protocol is still strong. Thanks, Michael. Lorca pulls through and shines during the starship battle, despite his still questionable personality. L'Rell...what happened? All that potential Machiavellian grand scheming going to waste...

Is it on next week? Noticed io9 or something called it mid season cliffhanger and got a bit scared as I'll miss this if it's not weekly.