Spoilers The game changing Voq theory

Discussion in 'Star Trek: Discovery' started by SJA, Sep 29, 2017.

  1. rahullak

    rahullak Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    With nary a glitch? To not even cause a little bit of suspicion among the senior crew+Michael?
    Even a spy change/mind-download trope has to be believable when the reveal happens. You can't have someone turning into someone else all of a sudden in a story. Too jarring. It's like a deus ex-machina working in reverse.
     
  2. Tuskin38

    Tuskin38 Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    It could still happen, its only been a few episodes.
     
  3. rahullak

    rahullak Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    With properly planted hints across a few episodes, sure.
     
  4. The Wormhole

    The Wormhole Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Voq has eidetic memory and has instant recall of everything he read in the Shnzhou's files he was reading while waiting for the dilithium processor, or later when he was seemingly "abandoned" on it.
     
  5. The Mighty Monkey of Mim

    The Mighty Monkey of Mim Commodore Commodore

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    From "Errand of Mercy" (TOS), the original Klingon story...

    KLINGON: He is what he claims to be, Commander, a Vulcanian merchant named Spock. His main concern seems to be how he will carry out his business under our occupation.
    KOR: Nothing else?
    KLINGON: The usual, a certain amount of apprehension regarding us. The mind is remarkably disciplined.
    KOR: You are sure?
    KLINGON: I used Force Four, which is sufficient to break down any pretense.
    KOR: Very well, Lieutenant. Would you like to try our little truth finder?
    KIRK: I don't understand.
    KOR: It's a mind-sifter, or mind-ripper, depending on how much force is used. We can record every thought, every bit of knowledge in a man's mind. Of course, when that much force is used, the mind is emptied. Permanently, I'm afraid. What's left is more vegetable than human.
    KIRK: And you're proud of it.
    KOR: It is a tool, a weapon. Somewhat drastic, but very efficient.
    KIRK: Are you sure you're all right?
    SPOCK: Perfectly, Baroner. But it was an interesting experience.

    [...]

    KIRK: That mind-sifter can't be all the terror they think it is.
    SPOCK: It should not be underestimated, Captain. It reaches directly into the mind. We Vulcans have certain mental...certain disciplines which enable me to maintain a shield. Without those disciplines, there would be no protection.

    [...]

    KOR: You'll have a drink with me, Captain?
    KIRK: No, thank you.
    KOR: I assure you, it isn't drugged. With our mind scanner, we have no need for such crude methods.
    KIRK: What do you want from me?
    KOR: Oh, a very great deal. But first, I want to talk. Just talk.
    KIRK: Do you think I'm going to sit here and "just talk" with the enemy?
    KOR: You'll talk, either here, now, voluntarily, or [...] I can get what I want through our mind-scanner, but there would be very little of your mind left, Captain. I have no desire to see you become a vegetable. This friend of yours, the Vulcan. He seems to have the ability to block our scanner. I think perhaps I will find out why. I will have him dissected. Your friend killed, you a mental vegetable...
     
  6. rahullak

    rahullak Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    1. The mind-sifter only talks about thoughts and knowledge. A person has more than that: consciousness, free will, personality etc.

    2. So Voq is now a vegetable and his thoughts and knowledge have been force-transferred into Tyler? The mind-sifter can force download onto a person without leaving the target a vegetable? Does Voq exist along side Tyler in the same body? Or is it only his thoughts and knowledge that got transferred?

    It seems too nebulous to me.
     
  7. Shawnster

    Shawnster Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Interesting how Tyler did not know what General Order 1, the Prime Directive, was. Michael had to correct him in this week's episode.

    Surely that's something every Starfleet officer would know by heart.
     
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  8. Tuskin38

    Tuskin38 Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Was she reminding him, or the audience?
     
  9. The Mighty Monkey of Mim

    The Mighty Monkey of Mim Commodore Commodore

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    Well, it certainly is rather nebulous. Obviously, the writer of "Errand" never had a story like this still-as-yet-hypothetical one in mind (no pun intended). I'm assuming that when DSC was being conceived and planned, they went back and looked over past Klingon stories—and they certainly wouldn't miss out the very first—to see what could be mined for inspiration, found this tidbit, and decided to run with the idea and put a new spin on it.

    We never hear any mention of this device again in subsequent stories on TV, so far as I recall. We only know what we can glean from this one. So with the caveat that I'm no surer than the next fellow about any of this, and have no insider knowledge of what they've planned—for all I know, maybe tomorrow's episode will completely invalidate any or all of these ideas—let's ruminate on it...

    The thing clearly has adjustable settings over which the user has some control. It can "scan," it can "sift," it can "record," it can "rip," and it can "empty." The nuances of each, and what else it might be capable of, are unknown to us. Are consciousness and free will and personality really entirely separate things from thoughts and knowledge? Could a device that can "reach directly into the mind" against which humans can offer "no protection" affect only one without affecting the other? Does "a mental vegetable" still retain any consciousness or free will whatsoever, and if so, to what extent? We can't really say with any certainty.

    Kor says that when taken to its extreme, the emptying of the subject's mind is "permanent" and they are left a "vegetable." Not biologically dead, though. It seems implied that the body, at least, still lives. He also doesn't say what happens to the mind that is "ripped"—note the connotations that this term has taken on since the original story was written, which despite not being intended at the time surely cannot be ignored in reading it today. He does talk about "recording" the contents. Is it possible that a subject's emptied-out vegetable shell, despite the ostensible impossibility—or merely impracticality under the Klingons' standard operating procedures for interrogation?—of simply restoring its own original mind back to it, could nevertheless act as a receptacle for someone else's? Is it possible that the contents of two minds, separately extracted from two different subjects, could be "sifted" together? Is it possible that one could be only partly emptied of certain selected elements, and then having those replaced by sifting in aspects of another? We can't really say with any certainty.

    The more I've thought about it, the more I'm thinking this could play out somewhat like "Tuvix" (VGR), in that Tyler and Voq—or parts of each—have been "sifted" together and are now something new that retains some characteristics of both, but is in fact neither. Think of the original Ash Tyler as a bag of sugar and Voq as a bag of salt. The Klingons empty out some of one and sift in some of the other, ending up with a full bag that is neither pure salt nor sugar. It could be looked at as bag of salty sugar or sugary salt, depending on one's point of view. (Is there a difference?) Seems to me like there are a lot of fertile storytelling possibilities in this idea. But we can only speculate which ones DSC might choose to explore.

    I realize that these are not complete and definitive answers to the questions you have posed. They simply cannot be answered completely and definitively as yet, going only by the limited information we have. We'll have to wait and see!

    -MMoM:D
     
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  10. The Wormhole

    The Wormhole Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Probably isn't used to it being referred to as General Order 1, since everyone else in the other shows just calls it the Prime Directive.

    Why does this show insist on calling it General Order 1 instead?
     
  11. The Mighty Monkey of Mim

    The Mighty Monkey of Mim Commodore Commodore

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    It's to piss off @marsh8472. That's what it was called in "The Magicks Of Megas-Tu" (TAS)!

    ...and also in "The Drumhead" (TNG);)
     
  12. The Wormhole

    The Wormhole Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I knew about The Drumhead, but since that's a courtroom episode it makes sense they'd use the long-winded formal term. I forgot about Megas-Tu. Still, the term has only been used twice in the prior fifty years and now it's getting used repeatedly in one season.
     
  13. The Mighty Monkey of Mim

    The Mighty Monkey of Mim Commodore Commodore

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    Oh, and also in "Prime Factors" (VGR), I see after checking. So that's three times before DSC.
     
  14. marsh8472

    marsh8472 Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    it's called general order number one in VOY "Prime Factors" too
     
  15. The Wormhole

    The Wormhole Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    But is there a reason they don't want to say "Prime Directive" on Discovery?
     
  16. The Mighty Monkey of Mim

    The Mighty Monkey of Mim Commodore Commodore

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    Is there an echo in here? (BTW, no offense intended with the joking poke about TAS. Sorry if any were inferred.:))

    Probably just to give things a bit of a different flavor from TNG and beyond. (Even though it was in fact TOS that introduced the term "Prime Directive," they didn't always consistently call it that. They also called it "the non-interference Directive" several times.)
     
  17. Campe

    Campe Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Ya know, they didn’t always call Starfleet Starfleet either.
     
  18. rahullak

    rahullak Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    To quibble over a technicality, it's actually three times after DSC.
     
  19. Campe

    Campe Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Yeah, theory was definitely strengthened with tonight’s episode. While I admit the flashbacks could just be PTSD-related, it seems deeper than that. And L’Rell’s line about not letting them hurt Tyler? Yeah, there’s something about that as well.
     
  20. Tuskin38

    Tuskin38 Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    In some of the torture shots, Tyler is replaced with a Klingon
     
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