They do when they're writing the show and get approval.
Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 1x06 - "Lethe"
- Thread starter Commander Richard
- Start date
They do when they're writing the show and get approval.
At that point they aren't just fans.
But we got Spock name dropped!!!
If you're going to use Sarek it's unavoidable.
I can't disagree.I just don't see the need for it to be Sarek.
You know, the thought had occurred to me that perhaps there's something else going on here. There are two other potential hypotheses that I can think of which could cover all the behavior we've seen thus far, plus the shenanigans with the actor's name.
First, what if they're just screwing with us? No, really. On the face of it, asking us to believe that a completely different species--with multiple, redundant organs--can somehow pass as a human is...well, it stretches plausibility. Yes, it's been done, in TOS. But we're a much more sophisticated audience now. Asking us to believe that seems to be a bridge too far. Sure, they can still do it, but we'll all have to admit to ourselves it's a bit implausible, even taking into account all the unplausible elements that are already taken for granted about Treknology (like transporting, for example). So, maybe the producers don't think we're suckers to fall for that trope and, instead, want us to think Ash is Voq, just to play with our heads. After all, it's too obvious. So if it's too obvious...what if it's a head-fake?
Second, what if it's something worse than an implausibly surgically altered alien? What if Ash is a Manchurian Candidate? Not the original, Frank Sinatra version, which used "brainwashing." No, I'm talking about the remake, which used medical nanotechnology to operationalize their control over the patsy, Sgt. Shaw. That would account for the ease with which Ash seems to get human idiom and non-verbal communication. Voq, being a Klingon fundamentalist, would likely as not have no idea how a human thinks. But if Ash is just a puppet--with Voq behind the wheel, as 'twere--then we solve a lot of problems.
Imagine the reveal, late in the season. Everyone is expecting Ash to either dissolve into Voq or be exposed through some kind of medical scan but, instead, Voq shows up, stage left, and reveals some box that he uses to control Ash (and see through his, control his movements, etc.). It saves Ash for use in Season 2 rather than have the producers come up with an implausible "That wasn't Ash but here's the real Ash...who acts like the old Ash who was really Voq" type situation.
Just a thought. Also explains the shenanigans with the name. The actor couldn't stand the makeup, they didn't want to recast, so they came up with a way to make do with what they had, with only one more use of the makeup needed to complete the character arc, at the end.
Having had about twenty-four hours to think about “Lethe” for me, I think this was the weakest one since the pilot.
At the risk of copying what others have said, Lorca continues to be the most compelling character by a wide margin. He’s clearly deeply troubled, but is he at the point where he’d send a lover into a situation where she would be disposed of, to achieve his ends? Maybe. Lorca clearly needs help, but is also incredibly manipulative, so you can’t get a clear reading on him.
After a half-dozen episodes, I still don’t care much about Burnham, when I know the producers want very much for the audience to be caught up in her story. I don’t know if it’s SMG’s performance or the writing (or both), but I find myself thinking that Burnham is more of a walking plot device than a character. She never really acts, she reacts.
This episode is the one that most feels like an episode of one of the previous series, and I know some people loved this. I didn’t, personally. I like the more modern storytelling, whereas this episode feels like a step backward.
At the risk of copying what others have said, Lorca continues to be the most compelling character by a wide margin. He’s clearly deeply troubled, but is he at the point where he’d send a lover into a situation where she would be disposed of, to achieve his ends? Maybe. Lorca clearly needs help, but is also incredibly manipulative, so you can’t get a clear reading on him.
After a half-dozen episodes, I still don’t care much about Burnham, when I know the producers want very much for the audience to be caught up in her story. I don’t know if it’s SMG’s performance or the writing (or both), but I find myself thinking that Burnham is more of a walking plot device than a character. She never really acts, she reacts.
This episode is the one that most feels like an episode of one of the previous series, and I know some people loved this. I didn’t, personally. I like the more modern storytelling, whereas this episode feels like a step backward.
Every commander has favourites for various and sundry reasons. Some they want to mentor because they can see potential. Others...well, because they have an agenda. Who knows about Lorca and Burnham? Lorca and Ash...that's an interesting case. It could be that Lorca sees Ash as someone like him, someone he has empathy for. That naturally brings people closer. Or, on the other hand, Lorca may be suspicious and he's putting him under close observation. He doesn't want to involve Starfleet counter-intel--yet--but he wants Ash near. It's a risk, but... Lorca, it occurs to me, is one of those uncanny folks who can pull high-risk/high-gain gambits over and over again and come out smelling like a rose.
But as for being a dick to Stamets...well, he deserved it. I actually observed a scene like that not once, not twice, but three times during my military career. It's always the same set-up, too. The guy or, as in the third incident, the gal, gets into the service for the "education benefits" but really didn't expect to do hard-core military work. A day job, in other words. Then comes 9/11 and Iraq. All hands on deck. The Air Force and the Navy are sending Airmen and sailors to do some of the Army's job because the Army is in the middle of a service-wide reorg to the Stryker brigades and is short-handed, and...well, you can imagine the situation next. Although the young servicemen and women have a small point--"I got in to the Air Force or the Navy, not the Army or the Marines"--the more cogent point is...that's irrelevant. They are there to do the job they raised their right hands for, whether or not it was in their original AFSC or rating. I saw commanders tear into each one of them--all three incidents--because, frankly, those folks should have known better. The CO was simply reminding them of their responsibility. Stamets got, what?, a mild verbal reprimand that lasted a sentence or two. The dressings-down I saw lasted many, many long minutes. Stamets should consider himself lucky. If anyone had talked like he did to pretty much all the commanders I'd known, he or she would've been strung up. Letter of Counselling, at least; maybe, if the CO was particularly incensed, a Letter of Reprimand. In other words, the kiss of death for an officer and, under some circumstances, even an enlistedman/woman.
Actually, you know who Stamets reminded me of, early-on? He talked as if he was David Marcus, not someone who willingly got into the military arm of the UFP knowing that something like this could have happened.
Now, granted, Stamets has grown on me. He's loosened up, got his head screwed on straight, and has become one of the more interesting characters on the show. But, originally, he sounded like he was from Berkley, this was the Late Sixties, and he was protesting conscription and Vietnam, not someone who was in an all-volunteer force.
I thought he was easy on Stamets, actually! But, yes, given that Stamets was needed as a subject-matter expert on the drive, I think Lorca handled the situation with a lot more finesse than most people realise.
Star Trek III had bald Vulcans.
Did Stamets volunteer, though? Lorca keeps throwing that special regulation around that allows him, in war time, to conscript whomever he wants. I got the impression that Stamets did not willingly join Starfleet and hasn't gone through Starfleet Academy. But I could be way off base here.
Probably both. And plus, it sounded like she was the one defending him the most with the rest of Starfleet Command. So he no longer has her to back him up.
Patton screwed up in '43, with the slapping incident. After a term in purgatory, he got command again and was instrumental towards ending the war. Eisenhower, himself, said that although he disapproved of what Patton had done and knew the press would crucify him, he would never relieve Patton of command for good. He was needed too much.
So, it can happen. You can screw up in a major-way and still get a command.
But...did Lorca actually "fuck up," as you call it? We don't know all the details. All we know is that the USS BURAN was under attack, Lorca was not on the ship at the time, but he ordered her destroyed to prevent the crew from being captured, tortured, and potentially setting back the war effort. We also know that Lorca deliberately stared into the destruction of the ship, which is why his eyes are damaged; damage from which he refuses permanent treatment, as a reminder.
Right now, given what we know, I don't see a screw up. I see a horrible tactical situation that went pear-shaped really quick and a commander who had to make a swift, final, and fatal decision. And he's still coping with it.
A little high in rank to be a conscript, methinks. Lieutenant is an O-3. The war's only been going on for, what?, six, seven months? Too short to move the ranks, by far. No, I think a more parsimonious explanation is that he was already in Starfleet but, like some folks do, "forgot" he was in the military and needed to be reminded of it by a CO who was a tad tired of the act.
Don't Doctors, Lawyer and other professionals get higher ranks when joining the military? In MASH Hawkeye, Trapper John and BJ entered as Captains. (O-3).
Well, they would be. Constitution-class are heavy cruisers; literally the pinnacle of the ships of the line, since Starfleet does not appear to have carriers. It's the equivalent, in the U.S. or Royal Navy, of being assigned to a guided missile destroyer which, aside from our carriers, are the best things we've got.
So, yeah, the Connies are where you want to be in the 'fleet. Not on some cutter or scout. :-)
Right. Medical professionals normally get the Straight-to-O-3 express. Not general scientists, though. In fact, I've never seen a direct accession scientist get anything but an O-1. And Stamets was an astromycologist. He studied space shrooms. Cannot imagine Starfleet wanting too many of those... ;-)
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