Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 1x05 - "Choose Your Pain"

[Gonzo]

Spying for Klingons, possibly under a threat of torture!


Yes.

What about Picard for shooting his crewman who was being assimilated? Same logic as Lorca, a fate worse than death. [/QUOTE]
It was pretty damn questionable for sure. But it was in a combat situation and besides it was pretty much the point of the film that Picard was in the wrong.

[/QUOTE]What about Janeway for leaving the Equinox crewmember to be killed by the alien bug things and having to be saved by Chakotay? That was far worse as she knew exactly what the resulting fate would be.[/QUOTE]
I don't really remember that.[/QUOTE]
Sometimes Captains have to choose between the lesser of two evils, a quick death is sometimes better than the alternative, Lorca is probably suffering from survivors guilt.

 

[XCV330]

Archer... one of the most decorated Starfleet captains ever?

It must have happened well after the events of ENT!

Kor

Becoming president of the UFP probably counts a bit.
Lets see.. probably had more first contacts than anyone until Kirk.
Resolved the Xindi war.
Kept the Andorian-Vulcan war from occuring.
Probably had a lot to do in the Romulan war.
Had the Vulcan prophet in his head.

yeah.. I could see him being decorated

Pike though, I'm not sure about. In "Desperate Hours" one year before this, he's still a relatively young captain with no where near the experience or record of Georgiou.

 

[Longinus]

By your standards, at least half the main Starfleet captains we've seen have been irredeemably evil. Possibly all of them, although Archer may scrape under the bar through sheer boringness. That's fine if that's your view, but it doesn't make Discovery stand out particularly.

No, Archer was at least as bad as Sisko.

But people are totally fine with a Starfleet captain leaving a civilian to be tortured by Klingons out of spite? People are cheering for this guy, really? Compared to all those other things mentioned, I find this most reprehensible, becuase this is not really even about the usual 'hard men making hard choices' bullshit like the morally questionable acts by our captains usually. This is not doing something evil for some greater cause, this is just pure act of maliciousness.

 

[Rahul]

The showrunners said from the start Discovery is a fully serialised show. Each episode builds on the previous one like the chapters in a book. Your criticism is akin to reading "The Lord of the Rings" then complaining about Frodo and the One Ring being mentioned in every chapter. It's not wrong, it's simply a different way of telling a Trek story. They may yet toss in a standalone episode for fun. We'll have to wait and see.

That's a wrong analogy if I ever heard one. I'm not complaining about the war being mentioned or simply there. I'm worried because it has become their bread-and-butter storytelling device. The fallback plot generator. Every episode has some action, some space battles, some gore, and a ticking clock, with currently every conflict being with the klingons. This is (for now) the DNA of this show. But they're not going to be able to continue that level of conflict once that war is over. What then? I doubt DIS is going to become a "boring" peace-time show like TNG (or TOS, or VOY, or ENT) was after that. They simply grew the wrong audience for that by focusing so much on battles. It feels a bit like DS9, where the writers also clearly didn't knew what to do with the characters once there wasn't a war going on. And such, decided to always be at war. Whether it be against the Dominion, or the klingons, or the Romulans and Cardassians agains the Dominion, or else. I don't want DIS to just start the next war once the one with the klingons is over.

 

[XCV330]

No, Archer was at least as bad as Sisko.

But people are totally fine with a Starfleet captain leaving a civilian to be tortured by Klingons out of spite? People are cheering for this guy, really? Compared to all those other things mentioned, I find this most reprehensible, becuase this is not really even about the usual 'hard men making hard choices' bullshit like the morally questionable acts by our captains usually. This is not doing something evil for some greater cause, this is just pure act of maliciousness.

Mudd had not been tortured. He was a willing collaborator working for the Klingons. It was not like the three of them were about to walk quietly out of their cell into an empty ship and take their time getting into a stolen shuttle. The only reason to bring him back would have been to see him tried in a UFP court, but it would have been too risky betting him out of that cell.

 

[Saul]

Good episode and I was proud of Star Trek by the end of the episode. The show is improving weekly for me but it still doesn't "feel" like it's set pre-TOS.
Loved the mention of Robert April.

 

[XCV330]

It feels a bit like DS9, where the writers also clearly didn't knew what to do with the characters once there wasn't a war going on. And such, decided to always be at war. Whether it be against the Dominion, or the klingons, or the Romulans and Cardassians agains the Dominion, or else. I don't want DIS to just start the next war once the one with the klingons is over.

Yeah, too many of those doggone Vic Fontaine episodes where he wastes platoon after platoon of Jem Hadar with his trusty Thompson.

 

[Attentiveluke]

Yeah Ash Tyler is definitely an augmented Klingon spy

 

[TheArsenal]

Watching right now.
- Is Ash Tyler getting raped by a Klingon captain?

Most certainly.

L'Rell: "Did you really think you could leave me, after all we've been through?"
At which point Tyler launches at her with true pain and rage and looked as though he would have kept punching her until the end of time.

It is also a reason I'm not buying into the Voq theories.

 

[Borgminister]

Most certainly.

L'Rell: "Did you really think you could leave me, after all we've been through?"
At which point Tyler launches at her with true pain and rage and looked as though he would have kept punching her until the end of time.

It is also a reason I'm not buying into the Voq theories.

Maybe that was just a passionate goodbye for now, given how Klingons mate...

 

[Rahul]

Yeah, too many of those doggone Vic Fontaine episodes where he wastes platoon after platoon of Jem Hadar with his trusty Thompson.

DS9's action quota was way below DIS. But don't be fooled: The war was what kept DS9 alive. It was always there, lurking in the background, and everyone everytime having to deal with it's consequences. Even Vic Fontaine was mostly there for "contrast" his lush style with the grim "reality" of this series. Don't get me wrong, it worked great. But in retrospect, "war "clearly was at centerstage through all the watchable episodes of DS9, and many many of the filler plot-of-the-weeks.

 

[Longinus]

Mudd had not been tortured.

He was not tortured because he collaborated! He obviously didn't want to be there.

 

[Long Syntax]

No, Archer was at least as bad as Sisko.

Absolutely two great captains. I'm not sure how lumping them together is succeeding in characterizing them as bad.

 

[Mach5]

The whole tardigrade idea was incredibly stupid and convoluted

Welcome to Star Trek.

 

[Kor]

Since apparently this forum is moderated by heavy-handed trekkies who closed my thread, I'll restate here. The whole tardigrade idea was incredibly stupid and convoluted and I'm glad to see it ending in this episode, hopefully. It's trash and one that will, as many good ideas as there are in star trek, go down as yet another really idiotic one.

You know, there's a whole thread discussing the spore drive system, including the use of the giant tardigrade.

Kor

 

[cultcross]

No, Archer was at least as bad as Sisko.

But people are totally fine with a Starfleet captain leaving a civilian to be tortured by Klingons out of spite? People are cheering for this guy, really? Compared to all those other things mentioned, I find this most reprehensible, becuase this is not really even about the usual 'hard men making hard choices' bullshit like the morally questionable acts by our captains usually. This is not doing something evil for some greater cause, this is just pure act of maliciousness.

It's not malicious if you're trying to escape your captors, you don't know if you'll make it and if you do it's going to rely on trusting the people you're with, and the civilian in question has spied for the Klingons. Whether 'willingly' or under duress, he would be dangerous. He only has to hit an alarm or even shout, and you're buggered.

 

[rhllot]

DS9 also did beautiful Trek allegories like Far Beyond the Stars. The show was never defined by just war and battles.

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[MarsWeeps]

The whole tardigrade idea was incredibly stupid and convoluted and I'm glad to see it ending in this episode

What would you have done to change it? Was it any more stupid than magic crystals powering a ship?

I welcome new ideas and concepts, it's the only way Star Trek will survive today.

 

[MarsWeeps]

L'Rell: "Did you really think you could leave me, after all we've been through?"
At which point Tyler launches at her with true pain and rage and looked as though he would have kept punching her until the end of time.

It is also a reason I'm not buying into the Voq theories.

Maybe Voq/Tyler is truly pissed at her because they made him human. Or it could have just been an act. As previously mentioned, his pummeling her was probably the same as foreplay. A goodbye quickie.

I'm not necessarily convinced Tyler is Voq but I definitely think he's a Klingon spy. He might even be the real Tyler whose mind was wiped and reprogrammed with the mind sifter.

 

[Turd Ferguson]

I was paraphrasing. But I do think that whatever happened to Stamets will further explain why the spore drive will be abandoned before TOS. A propulsion system that requires you to plug in a sentient being and severely damage them in some way, is not a viable system for Starfleet.

I didn't have enough time to read through all 31 pages, but for some reason the two thoughts that immediately popped into my mind were "Tyler is a Klingon disguised as a human," and "Does Stamets eventually become The Traveller?" Obviously the spore drive peters out, but The Traveller IS able to throw the Enterprise past the known universe. And I don't see Stamets giving up on his propulsion work that easily...