Spoilers Star Trek Beyond - Krall

[Jaro Stun]

Obviously, a very significant spoiler in this post

Spoiler: Something important about Krall

I have just rewatched an episode of ENT (3x20 Forgotten), and in the very opening scene I noticed this guy:

http://imgur.com/a/ZZR2G

Is that Balthazar Edison?

Now I kow its not Idris Elba, but real world aside for a moment, speaking in-universe, could this be him? Could this indeed be Krall, or has there been another name in-canon given to this person already?

Quite an exciting find

 

[Cyrus]

is he a MACO? Either way it is close enough. good find.

 

[M'Sharak]

Obviously, a very significant spoiler in this post

Spoiler: Something important about Krall

I have just rewatched an episode of ENT (3x20 Forgotten), and in the very opening scene I noticed this guy:

http://imgur.com/a/ZZR2G

Is that Balthazar Edison?

Now I kow its not Idris Elba, but real world aside for a moment, speaking in-universe, could this be him? Could this indeed be Krall, or has there been another name in-canon given to this person already?

Quite an exciting find

Spoiler: I believe the man in the picture may be

MACO Private W. Woods , who is identified in his Memory Alpha entry as being one of those present for Archer's speech during that scene.

 

[The Wormhole]

Obviously, a very significant spoiler in this post

Spoiler: Something important about Krall

I have just rewatched an episode of ENT (3x20 Forgotten), and in the very opening scene I noticed this guy:

http://imgur.com/a/ZZR2G

Is that Balthazar Edison?

Now I kow its not Idris Elba, but real world aside for a moment, speaking in-universe, could this be him? Could this indeed be Krall, or has there been another name in-canon given to this person already?

Quite an exciting find

That guy almost certainly would have had a name, all the MACOs on Enterprise wore nametags, on their left sleeve, just below the shark patch. And as I doubt his says "B Edison," that kind of rules that out.

 

[mattman8907]

I keep wondering if Edison and the Franklin hadn't crashed on altamid what Edison's life would've been like. Did he really hate the federation pre turning into Krall or was it born because he was stranded on atlamid for 100 years and couldn't call for help.

 

[dswynne1]

To be fair, it is not unheard of for there to be discrepancies between the films and the television medium. One example is the episode "Flashback" (VOY, S3E4) and TUC. Tuvok was not aboard the USS Excelsior and Lt. Valtane was alive in TUC, but Tuvok was aboard the USS Excelsior, and Valtane died in the VOY episode. So, in regards to "Krall", you could justify a "soft reboot" scenario in this case.

 

[The Wormhole]

One example is the episode "Flashback" (VOY, S3E4)

Episode 2 actually.

Tuvok was not aboard the USS Excelsior and Lt. Valtane was alive in TUC, but Tuvok was aboard the USS Excelsior, and Valtane died in the VOY episode.

Inserting Tuvok into the events of TUC doesn't contradict anything, it just suggest he was there but we didn't see him. Valtane is one of the episode's more infamous errors though.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Valtane gets a pass, because it's easily explained away due to the fact that Tuvok's memory wasn't quite perfect. Especially since the "virus" could have damaged his brain enough that he forgot what really happened.

(Or perhaps Valtane was simply revived, off-screen.)

I keep wondering if Edison and the Franklin hadn't crashed on altamid what Edison's life would've been like. Did he really hate the federation pre turning into Krall or was it born because he was stranded on atlamid for 100 years and couldn't call for help.

I find it very likely that, even prior to the crash, Edison was part of the "Terra Prime" movement, and thus was predisposed to hate all aliens anyway.

I mean, if Edison was really as dedicated a soldier as he claimed to be, he would have recognized the importance of following orders. He doesn't get to be pissed off just because the Federation was formed and thus he has to make peace with enemies; the simple fact is, if he's ordered to make peace, he has no choice but to comply. You'd think that a soldier like him would recognize that you simply don't question your orders.

 

[dswynne1]

Yeah, I think, at the very least Edison would be sympathetic to Terra Prime, if not xenophobic outright.

 

[Saul]

Episode 2 actually.

Inserting Tuvok into the events of TUC doesn't contradict anything, it just suggest he was there but we didn't see him. Valtane is one of the episode's more infamous errors though.

We can get around that one because that Flashback happened in Tuvok's head and he may have remembered things wrongly due to what was going on with him physically.

 

[Timo]

Not only "may" he have misremembered, but the very point of the Weird Space Disease of the Week is that it makes people imagine unreal fatalities. Valtane dying in Tuvok's dream is just about the best possible proof that he didn't die in reality!

"Reinterpreting" background characters is standard Trek fare. Sometimes it takes "remastering" magic, sometimes it just requires a bit of imagination. If we don't see a person's nametag, we can give him whatever name we want. If we don't see his eartips, we can retroactively declare him Vulcan. If we don't see his genitals, we can make him a her. Etc.

But placing Edison aboard Archer's ship is not requireed, nor does it sound particularly interesting. Surely the Trek universe would be better served by giving Edison his own all-new adventures as regards the aliens he so hates? Not that he ever claimed he would have had the chance to fight the Xindi himself, mind you.

Would Edison need to be part of a civilian anti-alien movement when we have scant evidence of tolerance in the ranks of the military of the time? Starfleet and the Military no doubt had their own little clubs of alien haters, as well as cabals of Military haters in Starfleet and vice versa (as suggested by Forrest's concern regarding Military soliders taking the place of Starfleet soldiers in "The Expanse"). A "good solider" might consider his government his greatest enemy, especially when it wasn't his government yet when he joined the force...

But OTOH Edison going all Krall need not mean he was a bad soldier originally. It only tells us Krall was a bad soldier, in Starfleet terms. Edison ceased to be Edison when becoming Krall; his previous leanings need not have carried over, even if as Krall he would use some of them as an excuse.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[BillJ]

Yeah, I think, at the very least Edison would be sympathetic to Terra Prime, if not xenophobic outright.

We simply don't know enough about Edison to make any determinations about his character prior to crashing on Altamid.

 

[wayne39]

It cant be him. the film takes place in a different reality from the prime universe

 

[BillJ]

It cant be him. the film takes place in a different reality from the prime universe

The split in the timeline happens in 2233. About seventy years after the Xindi crisis.

 

[Kemaiku]

And the Xindi crises can't be changed by an event in the Prime or Kelvin timeline, as the Sphere Builders communicated with the Xindi from their universe in the 26th Century, external to any temporal affects.

The split in January 2233 did not change the events prior to that anyway, but Edison did not have to be present on the NX-01 for the story to work. He could have been on Earth waiting for the Xindi attack, been part of the cleanup effort in Florida, been on the NX-02, secretly supporting Terra Prime, anything.

 

[Timo]

...Been in love with an alien who betrayed him.

Not that he'd really need a background of any specific sort. Suffice that he wants to kill and destroy; excuses would present themselves easily enough. That he should target the UFP follows from the simple fact that he has no other targets: Yorktown is there right next to Altamid, Yorktown's secrets are the ones open to Krall via the eavesdropping, and Krall has to get Yorktown out of the way anyway before proceeding to other targets such as Klingons or Redheads or Those With Happiness or whatever.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Turd Ferguson]

So, I wonder what ever became of Krall/Captain Edison in the Prime Universe? Obviously, Altamid was never visited by Captain Kirk and the Enterprise, as the ship wasn't destroyed until Genesis. Assuming Yorktown Station was still built in the Prime Universe, it could be surmised that no ships passed through with efficient enough sensors, or any ships with the alien weapon aboard as a peace offering.

So, could Edison still be on Altamid in the 24th century? Makes you wonder!

 

[DonIago]

^I just asked this question in a different thread. No reason to believe the Franklin isn't on Altamid in the Primeline and just hasn't been discovered. Or he was discovered and dealt with at some point.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

My theory is that in the prime timeline, it was the Kelvin which took out Krall and his ilk.

Either that, or Krall's group eventually 'starved' due to the lack of crews coming through the nebula.

 

[Timo]

Would Krall's position be so "unstable" that it could change big time quite at random after 2233?

The starving scenario is quite possible - but the influx of ships Krall did get is never said to have been due to Federation interest in Altamid, and indeed nobody claims any Fed ships were caught before the hero one. Random folks would supposedly have been visiting the place in any case, keeping Krall fed and alive.

Would Krall bite more than he could chew even if Kirk did not arrive? Getting through the boulder nebula takes advanced technology and an adventurous spirit; any ship Krall captured could have been his last, her advanced masters too clever and resourceful by half for Krall to contain.

Was Krall's position as the master of the drone army precarious? We have no reason to think so, but I guess anything is possible when one deals with superior alien technology.

Would Krall have attempted an attack against the UFP if Kirk didn't deliver the Abronath component? "Sooner or later" sounds likely - but is there a chance he might have launched a "conventional" raid with his drone army at some point before the 2260s despite the fact that in the movie timeline he did not? Would that attempt have ended in his demise in obscurity (say, with him running into a powerful enemy between Altamid and the UFP, or the drone army rebelling during a longer-than-usual operation deviating from their programmed parameters, or whatever)?

Would a duel with somebody like Jaylah, just a tad nastier, have resulted in the deaths of the last Franklin crew? The distraction of Kirk's motorcycle raid helped Jaylah in her fight, but the fight was surprisingly even overall, and Krall might have been goaded into one in a number of different circumstances, suddenly and unexpectedly finding himself too dead to recover.

Basically, I think Krall qualifies for a Schroedinger's Cat here, much like Khan aboard the Botany Bay: the only way to know how he's faring would be to have an actual look.

Timo Saloniemi