Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 1x04 - "The Butcher's Knife Cares Not for the Lamb's Cry"

Discussion in 'Star Trek: Discovery' started by Commander Richard, Oct 8, 2017.

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Rate the episode...

  1. 10 - Pure Win!

    9.1%
  2. 9

    22.4%
  3. 8

    22.4%
  4. 7

    20.5%
  5. 6

    9.7%
  6. 5

    5.1%
  7. 4

    3.9%
  8. 3

    3.3%
  9. 2

    2.1%
  10. 1 - Boy did that suck!

    1.5%
  1. Captain of the USS Averof

    Captain of the USS Averof Commodore Commodore

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    I don’t remember war crimes and cruelty/torture to animals and detainees being the standard of Kirk’s Starfleet.
     
  2. oberth

    oberth Commodore Commodore

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    of course - i'm looking forward to starfleet issuing new instructions after lorca is done with them klingons ;)
     
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  3. Biggs

    Biggs Cadet Newbie

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    The claim that he deliberately misrepresents himself with exaggerated professional pride in order to maintain a deception calculated to impress unspecified pacifists seems a bit extreme. I admit I don't see the benefit in attempting to characterize an individual so specifically based solely on such stereotypes, no matter the number of people I encounter who may seem to legitimize my own biases.

    Is there any particular difference in how you might expect him to have expressed himself if he actually did care that much about the science?
     
  4. Noname Given

    Noname Given Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Jellico (like Lorca) has HIS OWN rules that he plays by and his own priorities (which is exactly like Lorca). Jellico does what's best to get the best outcome; come out on top.

    For example: Jellico did tell Troi about his 'level of formality' on the Bridge because he cared about "the rules'; she came in and challenged the way he was running the ship (and he knew Picard let her get away with stuff like that); but he wasn't going to have it, and his response to her in that situation was more of a: "Hey lady, this in MY Command; don't cross me on that again! Know your place."
     
  5. The Librarian

    The Librarian Commodore Commodore

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    People keep saying "torture of an animal" as if it shouldn't have been done, but has anyone in-character other than Burnham actually realized that the tardigrade is being harmed? Even she didn't know until after the drive had been used.
     
  6. Longinus

    Longinus Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Probably not and this will be dealt with in the next episode so we have to see how it goes.
     
    Last edited: Oct 15, 2017
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  7. TheCrankyCardassian

    TheCrankyCardassian Lieutenant Red Shirt

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    THANK YOU. I also found it odd that she seemed to be in no real hurry to share this information (at least Stammets might listen, at least). Perhaps we’ll see that tonight though.
     
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  8. Longinus

    Longinus Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Yeah, the reason she was not in hurry was that the episode was ending and there was no time to address this.
     
  9. Crazy Eddie

    Crazy Eddie Vice Admiral Admiral

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    She WAS serious, and he's not. That's literally the whole point of that character. He's the "asshole boss" in a story about a rank-and-file worker who doesn't want to be here but has nowhere else to go.

    No shit!
     
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  10. cultcross

    cultcross Postponed for the snooker Moderator

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    The asshole boss who gets you off a life sentence and gets your job back because they admire your skills and attitude. Don't you just hate that??
     
  11. Nerys Myk

    Nerys Myk A Spock and a smile Premium Member

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    If I had a dollar for every time that happened...
     
  12. gblews

    gblews Vice Admiral Admiral

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    By portraying Lorca as a hard ass and "war monger", it might be, and I do say MIGHT be, that we are being set up. If Lorca does eventually show a different side of himself it will likely carry that much more weight because of the way the character has been constructed. I sure wouldn't put something like this past the writers.
     
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  13. Feron

    Feron Commander Red Shirt

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    Indeed. And they have already set up that theme within the show with Burnham having to overcome her reputation as a mutineer and of course her line about people judging the Tartigrade because of how it looks.

    Time will tell, but it is entirely possible that Lorca will not turn out to be a mustache-twirling bad guy like some seem to expect.
     
  14. Crazy Eddie

    Crazy Eddie Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I'm not a TV character, so I wouldn't know.

    But this particular trope usually shows up in spy/action movies (La Femme Nikita, Rambo II, The Bourne series, Suicide Squad, the Dirty Dozen, The Rock, etc) where the clear implication is that the guy who is getting The Hero out of jail is doing so for purely exploitative purposes, with the obligatory "If you don't like it, you can go back to jail" thrown in there in some form or another. The whole point of creating that dynamic in the first place is to justify the fact that the Asshole Boss doesn't really have his priorities in the right place and the only reason the protagonist agrees to work for him is because it is preferable to the alternative (prison, in this case).

    It's a common narrative device used in situations where only the protagonist can be considered to be a "good guy" but his/her immediate superiors are ambiguous at best. In other words, setting up Burnham as a convicted mutineer is only necessary because for narrative purposes she needs to be in a position of not actually wanting to be here.

    For this and other reasons, the Asshole Boss trope opens up narrative options that simply wouldn't exist in situations where the boss was a GOOD guy. Burnham quietly subverting Lorca's authority in order to save a shipmate, for example, or having to execute an order that is clearly immoral (or trying to talk another officer out of doing this). And of course, INEVITABLY, there's going to be another mutiny episode, and Burnham is going to have to weigh her past actions on the Shenzhou against the need to participate in YET ANOTHER mutiny and risk forever destroying any credibility she has left as an officer. None of these are things that make sense if the Captain is an all around decent guy... unless of course the PROTAGONIST is an asshole, but it's way harder to make a character both likeable AND an asshole. Lorca can be an asshole because he doesn't have to be likeable; Burnham, not so much.
     
  15. Captain of the USS Averof

    Captain of the USS Averof Commodore Commodore

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    Lorca’s idea of motivation is the screams and cries of dying people over the speakers... Can’t really say that he’s evil but he’s certainly an asshole.
     
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  16. Longinus

    Longinus Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Yeah. I really hope they're going for something like that. 'Obviously evil captain turns out to be evil' is not really very interesting plot.
     
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  17. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Three of his crew may be genetically augmented superman, passing for regular baseline, 1/15th assing it to keep their cover.

    How many "adventures" on DS9 "The Early Years" could have been solved in 5 minutes instead of 60, if Bashir would have just admitted to all, that he was not exactly human.
     
  18. Longinus

    Longinus Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    None, probably. He was pretty damn smart, but not really superhumanly intelligent and he was really good at darts. He wasn't exactly a second coming of Khan Noonien Singh.
     
  19. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    What about Past Tense?

    To survive and thrive in the past, Bashir would have known EVERYTHING, hells, he could have even bet on sports in 2024, but here's the other problem, there still would have been police dedicated to actively hunting down Supermen for possible war crimes against humanity.
     
  20. cultcross

    cultcross Postponed for the snooker Moderator

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    So... not the CMO after all ;)