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

[Guy Gardener]

Voq, the torchbearer did not leave T'Kuvma's ship to light the beacon.

Unless any ship could have an "on" button installed, then T'Kuvma's ship was part of the beacon, even if it wasn't physically connected.

 

[Timo]

Surely the beacon would be lit by remote control in all circumstances? I mean, sacrificing the bearer wasn't explicated to be part of the igniting ritual...

One wonders - is "Light of Kahless" a common trick in the Empire, pulled off every few centuries, with varying levels of success? Is there a manufacturer for these things who makes a big sale every twenty years or so, with most buyers failing before igniting?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[F. King Daniel]

One thing that bothered me a little was, Burnham was on the brand-new USS Discovery for a day or two prior to the away mission to her identical sister ship USS Glenn, yet somehow knew the engineering crawlways well enough to get above the shuttlebay and know exactly where she was gonna drop down.

 

[Ensign_Rowan_McGrath]

Voq, the torchbearer did not leave T'Kuvma's ship to light the beacon.

Unless any ship could have an "on" button installed, then T'Kuvma's ship was part of the beacon, even if it wasn't physically connected.

Voq went to set the beacon off off-screen!

 

[Guy Gardener]

And he was still on the ship, at the beginning of the next episode.

Did he suit up, transport over, light the beacon, and transport back, and suit down in a matter of minutes, so that he could conference with the Klingon leadership, who are asking why T'Kumva set the beacon, when it was him, Voq?

 

[Guy Gardener]

One thing that bothered me a little was, Burnham was on the brand-new USS Discovery for a day or two prior to the away mission to her identical sister ship USS Glenn, yet somehow knew the engineering crawlways well enough to get above the shuttlebay and know exactly where she was gonna drop down.

She said something like "I hope all star ships are the same" which would infer that all starships operate on similar principles of efficiency to carry out tasks, rather than creating an unnecessary complex labyrinth, so that maybe enemy boarding parties get lost, so Michael would be able to work out where things are, after studying the vents from other starships which she had "memorized".

Which is far fetched, but less far fetched than letting a prisoner have the schematics to the Discovery, even though the schematics to the Discovery were probably in plain view all over engineering where she had almost free reign.

Also, the shuttle had biometric scanners and should have been monitoring her approach.

 

[Michael]

Huh...guess you're right. For some reason I thought there were more there.

Yeah, I could also swear we saw Troy Januzzi (awesome name, by the way) in the mess hall scene, but he's not listed for the episode.

Although I'm kind of curious what happened to it after the escape pods left. Does the "no body, not dead" trope also apply to starships? "No 'splosion, not destroyed"?

I still think we will revisit the Shenzhou and/or Georgiou's fate at some point. How else would Michael get ahold of Georgiou's badge?

 

[CorporalClegg]

Like I mentioned in the pilot thread, leaving her body behind was an oddly specific plot point.

 

[cooleddie74]

It does scream "either she goes back to retrieve her corpse" or "the Klingons dispose of it and the Discovery happens to locate her remains." Hence part or even all of the reason why her uniform insignia is retrieved.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Georgou may have had more than one pair of socks, but if Phillipa was leaving clothing and keepsakes in Michael's room, it does lend credence to my "they were lobsters" theory.

 

[USS Fardell]

Context is for Kings review
The third episode of the series, introducing the main setting of the series, the USS Discovery NCC 1031. It certainly was an interesting episode. The introduction on the prison shuttle was quite good, effectively re-introducing Burnham as someone who has reached rock bottom and resigned to her fate. But that isn't the entire story. The introduction of the Discovery with the shuttle in the tractor beams was done rather well, but that is an aside. Burnham's reactions to the various scenarios that confront her aboard the ship, are also done well.
The various officers she meets aboard the ship, are also done well (some more than others), including her roomate, Cadet Sylvia Tilly. She wasn't as annoying as Neelix, Reg Barclay or Wesley Crusher (all of whom I didn't find all that annoying, most of the time). Her anxiety isn't overplayed. It will be interesting to see how she develops. But Captain Lorca is more interesting, he clearly wants to get things done, regardless of whether it's right or wrong. He certainly isn't like any other Starfleet Captain we have seen.
I'm not sure what to make of his menagerie (certainly the fact that he grabs the 'kitty' from the Glenn...), but I liked the Tribble. It is certainly leading somewhere, and this is a good start. Then there is Staments (named after a real mycologist), there isn't much to say, except that his grief when the news about the Glenn's accident came in was done rather well. But so far I have been ignoring the elephant in the room. Or rather the Mycelium in the room. The Spore Drive. It is certainly an interesting concept.
A link with panspermia. (life throughout the universe linked together, sounds like another franchise). It probably fails in some way, given what happened on the Glenn, but the story along the way will be interesting. The scenes on the Glenn were also quite well done (including Burnham quoting Carroll). The re-introduction of Saru as Discovery's Number One was also good, and the way he describes Burnham is quite apt. 9/10.

 

[Longinus]

This is also why I am not a fan of setting a series after nemesis. Too much tech makes these kinds of dilemmas more challenging to write for.

I absolutely agree, so it kinda annoys me that the first thing they do with this 23rd century setting is to introduce all sorts of advanced tech that shouldn't yet exist.

 

[Longinus]

Transwarp fell out of style for generations after it failed on the Excelsior.

We don't know it failed and more importantly we were never even told what exactly it was supposed to do. Perhaps it is just the standard TNG warp and that's why the warp scale was rearranged.

 

[cooleddie74]

Mind. Blown.

Along with half the power circuits and relays in engineering.

 

[Anders]

I absolutely agree, so it kinda annoys me that the first thing they do with this 23rd century setting is to introduce all sorts of advanced tech that shouldn't yet exist.

Best episode yet, I really enjoyed the show taking place on the Discovery. The super advanced tech made me wonder though.

 

[cultcross]

I absolutely agree, so it kinda annoys me that the first thing they do with this 23rd century setting is to introduce all sorts of advanced tech that shouldn't yet exist.

Site to site transport is the only honest-to-God 'too advanced tech' violation I've seen so far (introduced to save the Captain a short walk, love it ). Holograms must realistically have been available in TOS given our current level of tech, so we can safely retcon that without too much trouble. Shroom drive is going to have a Fatal Flaw (tm) we probably got hints of on the Glenn.

 

[Guy Gardener]

There were "as-bad" holograms used in The Last Outpost.

Seems like an aesthetics thing.

If they are opening spore doors to other parts of the galaxy... And random poop falls out... Maybe that's what Lorca's office collection is all about?

So soon, they're going to be in a tussle and only have one weapon left.

Trained species GS54.

Why did Tilly have two beds?

A normal person would have pushed the beds together, or put the spare bed in the hall for collection.

Why did only one of the two beds they gave her have the good sheets she needs, when really if she had two beds, why leave one of them as poison, that she can't even change the sheets herself without being poisoned?

Is Tilly supposed to keep her room clean, and wash her own sheets herself?

Is there a maid/s or super science?

I'm thinking that there is a camera or medical scanner in/near Michael's bed, which is why Tilly told her to move-over.

 

[Timo]

Site to site transport is the only honest-to-God 'too advanced tech' violation I've seen so far (introduced to save the Captain a short walk, love it ).

Technically, the only thing wrong with site-to-site in this era is that it ought to be site-to-pad-to-site as in "The Cloud Minders". The bit about moving from one part of the ship to another being dangerous or demanding was always bunk - transporting necessarily involves pinpoint accuracy even outdoors. But the "The Day of the Dove" criteria of this being "rarely done" can still be met here.

Perhaps they just cut the bit where the two briefly materialize on the pad and then continue their trip, like Plasus in "The Cloud Minders"? I mean, nothing wrong there with the spores giving Lorca supertransporters, but Burnham refuses to be impressed by the intraship transport in any fashion.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[zar]

Another problem with doing a prequel and saying it is set in the Prime Timeline, is you know somethings need to be set in motion for the events of the later series to happen. There is no Shroom Drive in TOS and on wards, so you know it has to be a failure or something happens that it is never seen/spoken of again.

The drive is currently classified, so that covers part of the possible reasoning it never brought up again.

It's not really a prequel problem. The spore drive just needs to have limitations, or it will kill drama, no matter what time period it exists in. Just like the transporter.

No, I posted my response to your posts and Guy's in order to alert the two of you that you were both dealing in a racial stereotype. I'm giving you the benefit of he doubt that you were posting out of ignorance rather than malice.

Thank you for alerting us to the fact that fortune cookies are a racial stereotype. We had no idea.[/sarcasm]
I'll say it again - Stop trying to create controversy out of nothing.

What is the doodad anyway? Was Kahless already starfaring, rather than Early Iron Age, and factually traveled to a specific star and set up a powerful beacon there, to lay in wait, for whatever (but potentially dynastic) purpose? Or did some later Klingon hoping to benefit from legends construct the beacon, for the very purpose seen here - and if so, why did he or she not immediately make use of it, but left it dormant for "centuries"? (Did somebody's blade intervene?)

TNG Rightful Heir:

WORF: When Kahless had united our people and gave them the laws of honour, he saw that his work was done. So one night he gathered his belongings and departed for the edge of the city to say goodbye.
...Then Kahless said, 'You are Klingons. You need no one but yourselves. I will go now to Sto-Vo-Kor. But I promise one day I will return.' Then Kahless pointed to a star in the sky and said, 'Look for me there, on that point of light.'

I suspect the binary stars are the point of light, which the Iron Age Klingons noted and logged for centuries until they were spacefaring, and one of their first missions was to go there and build the beacon. Waiting until the return of Kahless to activate it.

We don't know [transwarp] failed and more importantly we were never even told what exactly it was supposed to do. Perhaps it is just the standard TNG warp and that's why the warp scale was rearranged.

That's always what I assumed too. Though the movie novelizations state it was a failed experiment.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Cuban Missile Crisis.

The beacon was inside Federation Space, and only minutes away from a communications relay, hours away From a federation space station and days away from a Federation colony world.

If the beacon had been sitting there in the Binary Star's accretion disk for centuries, the Federation would have been pushed back years and years ago, as soon as they got too close.

Consider however.. What if the beacon is mobile?