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Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 1x03 - "Context is for Kings"

Rate the episode...


  • Total voters
    373
Wow, that was an awesome episode! Intense, mysterious, interesting. I'm loving the new setting of the Discovery. Great story with great SFx. I'm getting a pretty sense of the other characters too. Burnham is certainly going to have to earn the crew's respect in order to be accepted by them.

Anyone else get the impression [speculation only] that Lorca is only a one season character? I sure do.
 
I wouldn't be surprised if he were conceived as a one-season character, and I wouldn't be surprised if CBS told the producers that this is unacceptable.
 
33 minutes into the show
7. Folks we have Star Trek - Aliens without Sigourney Weaver

41 minutes into the show
8. Well at least we can explain speed by plot , its the spores that did it! Earth to Vulcan in five minutes flat...take that Nero...er he already did.
 
I give this a 7, only because I am not sure if I like it yet but I am intrigued to watch the next episode. Its the type of show that can be called anything, it fits into any scifi mystery drama, including the dark side of Star Trek which it seems to be. Its a dystopian Star Trek to me, the type that is run by Control (David Mack novel).

P.S Love Tilly's hair, good to see in the future we won't be worshipping at the Terran altar of dead straight locks!
 
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41 minutes into the show
8. Well at least we can explain speed by plot , its the spores that did it! Earth to Vulcan in five minutes flat...take that Nero...er he already did.
Damn midichlorians are everywhere, getting into the engines, into the clothes. Check out how many Stammets brushed off his shoulders.
 
When it takes it self too seriously? For me, yes.
According to the After Trek, Herbarts said that only the first season will be centered on the Kligon war and he wouldn't want the entire series to be so dark. So, it's looking like it will lighten up later on. Although, so far the tone has been fine for me. Third episode was fantastic!
 
black insignia, secret experiments, restricted areas and cross the line for the sake of federation! it is evident that the discovery is a ship of the section 31 !!

Captain Lorca is awesome !!!
I will watch it a little bit later, what I have hard so far sounds great.

I will be happy to see more of a cutting edge to Starfleet even if that cutting edge happens to be Section 31 I will be ok with that.

Too many snowflake Admirals and even Captains in some cases, more bureaucrats and desk jockeys than true explorers like Kirk.
 
Y'know the more I think about the lone tribble on Lorca's desk and how several people thought it was a stupid thing to have on a ship (because where there's one tribble, there's a million), something hit me this morning as I was driving into work.

What if tribbles were not always like we know them? What if they had a reasonably long development and gestation period and, somehow, Section 31 (whose involvement here is pretty much a foregone conclusion at this point) had a hand in genetically re-engineering these things to turn them into ecology-destroying eating/breeding machines? Think about it - they're probably pretty simple organisms compared to humanoid life, with a relatively simple genetic structure. We can already manipulate such things in plant and animal life forms now. In the Trek universe, with a mastery of genetic manipulation at the human level creating Khan and the other Augments in the late 20th century, imagine what a group like S31 with unlimited black-source resources and a flexible moral compass could accomplish 2-300 years from now? Lorca and his crew are clearly doing bio-genetic experimentation on a vast number of life-forms, looking for new and innovative ways to win the war against the Klingons by any means necessary (a known S31 mantra). Saru said they could do, what, over 200 individual science experiments on Discovery? Yup...

I am now convinced that the tribbles were a genetically-modified S31 bio-weapon specifically designed to attack Klingon worlds, which they effectively did, per Worf's screed about them in DS9. They're cute and fuzzy, so most humans and likely many other Federation beings who encounter them wouldn't really think to consider them dangerous in any way. McCoy was, at heart, a good guy with a strong moral foundation and likely didn't have much of a grasp of the conspirator's mind. He probably didn't even think to dig too deep into their genetic structure to find artificial tampering when he did his analysis on them.

It really, feels like it makes an immense amount of sense - I joked earlier in the thread that Lorca had the tribble "fixed" to prevent it from breeding and uncontrollably overrunning the ship.

What if his "pet" was actually patient zero?
 
I admit I might be judging this episode wrong and plan to watch it again. Still, everyone seemed like douchebags to me and it felt like a cross between BSG and Alien. Also another reason to see it again is because Lorca seemed to mumble the whole reason for the spores, even though it looked like they were developing the same tech as the Iconian gateway.

That was my take at first about them being douche bags and I started out being a bit worried. However, the cool thing was as they got to know each other during the episode, the facades were dropped and the real feelings and motivations were known and they were not douche bags. Just people with real grievances, concerns, etc during tough times. I like that characterization.
 
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It's neutered. Other people have neutered Tribbles as pets in the movies.

TAS, Star Trek 3, Into Darkness all show non-breeding ones being kept by people who made a better effort to make them safer.
 
So less than two weeks after a new Star Trek series comes out and where should I find myself but the Trekbbs, more than 6 years since my last post (apparently). Can't say the place has changed much except for the colour scheme..... Shockingly, a new Star Trek series is out and fans are divided!

Anyhow, don't want to make posting here a habit or anything but my 2 cents on Discovery. I like it. I don't care if its in the old timeline or a reboot although I will think slightly less of the show if its in the same stupid timeline as the movies.

Is it Star Trek? Hmmm.... Klingons look different. But that happens from time to time. Main character though, mutinies in a (maybe?) misguided attempt to save her Captain and crew. Sentenced to life in prison and is beating herself up over it.

And is apparently is the first mutineer in Starfleet's history. Yup, its Star Trek. No other space opera would claim that a quasi-military organization that's been around for 150 years has never had a mutiny before!

Anyhow, a bunch of random thoughts: the holographic communications is slightly throwing me off but otherwise, I largely like the look of the show. I do not like the theme music, although I do like the visuals of the opening credits. I really like the cast so far and I'm enjoying the slow rollout. I'm finding both Lorca and Saru to be fascinating after not expecting to find either terribly interesting going by the previews.

Its Star Trek but its also different and I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes. Prediction: when the show ends there will still be major divisions between factions of the fanbase.

By the way is the Neutral Zone still a thing around here? — On second thought, never mind, I don't want to know.....
 
I wouldn't be surprised if he were conceived as a one-season character, and I wouldn't be surprised if CBS told the producers that this is unacceptable.
It depends on how will Burnham is received by the fans, having Lorca there as the Captain will provide alternatives if they are ever needed.
 
Y'know the more I think about the lone tribble on Lorca's desk and how several people thought it was a stupid thing to have on a ship (because where there's one tribble, there's a million), something hit me this morning as I was driving into work.

What if tribbles were not always like we know them? What if they had a reasonably long development and gestation period and, somehow, Section 31 (whose involvement here is pretty much a foregone conclusion at this point) had a hand in genetically re-engineering these things to turn them into ecology-destroying eating/breeding machines? Think about it - they're probably pretty simple organisms compared to humanoid life, with a relatively simple genetic structure. We can already manipulate such things in plant and animal life forms now. In the Trek universe, with a mastery of genetic manipulation at the human level creating Khan and the other Augments in the late 20th century, imagine what a group like S31 with unlimited black-source resources and a flexible moral compass could accomplish 2-300 years from now? Lorca and his crew are clearly doing bio-genetic experimentation on a vast number of life-forms, looking for new and innovative ways to win the war against the Klingons by any means necessary (a known S31 mantra). Saru said they could do, what, over 200 individual science experiments on Discovery? Yup...

I am now convinced that the tribbles were a genetically-modified S31 bio-weapon specifically designed to attack Klingon worlds, which they effectively did, per Worf's screed about them in DS9. They're cute and fuzzy, so most humans and likely many other Federation beings who encounter them wouldn't really think to consider them dangerous in any way. McCoy was, at heart, a good guy with a strong moral foundation and likely didn't have much of a grasp of the conspirator's mind. He probably didn't even think to dig too deep into their genetic structure to find artificial tampering when he did his analysis on them.

It really, feels like it makes an immense amount of sense - I joked earlier in the thread that Lorca had the tribble "fixed" to prevent it from breeding and uncontrollably overrunning the ship.

What if his "pet" was actually patient zero?

^ Wow, just wow. I know Trek fans can rationalize anything but this one takes that cake. If this is the convoluted rationalizations we face with Discovery, I think we're doomed.

That's not to say your rationalization wasnt creative. It certainly was. But it seems an awful lot of hoops to jump through just to justify a fuzzball on a desk in a show 50 years after the original. It seems imminently more practical just to disregard the new show.
 
^ Wow, just wow. I know Trek fans can rationalize anything but this one takes that cake. If this is the convoluted rationalizations we face with Discovery, I think we're doomed.

That's not to say your rationalization wasnt creative. It certainly was. But it seems an awful lot of hoops to jump through just to justify a fuzzball on a desk in a show 50 years after the original. It seems imminently more practical just to disregard the new show.

Your posts are always a delight to read.
 
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