The age of the antihero

[O_Kav]

Yeah those other prisoners that got sent on looked thrilled to be going to prison 'paradise'.

No one gets thrilled by going to prison, even if it's a nice place. Still, it's way better going to a Humane prison than risk dying on a terrible accident with the Spore Drive or being butchered by Klingons.

Besides, that scene implied the other prisoners were attempting to make Burnham afraid, since that was probably the first time she went to prison. Their dialogue implied they had more experience with the criminal system and they were just trying to poke fun at her since she was the "new girl".

To be fair, the one Burnham had been at didn't sound like one of those. This is sort of mid-transition where those reforms have begun but seem not to have reached all of them yet. And even then, it turned out Adams was subjecting at least "incorrigible" prisoners to experimental mind tortures!

Yeah, we haven't actually seen a Federation prison in Discovery yet. I think the TOS line about "prison resorts" may apply to Discovery's Era too. The concept of Humane prisons fits the spirit that the Federation is this Progressive Space Utopia. Lorca himself said they extinguished hunger and war. So it's believable that the Federation already is this Utopia in Discovery's Era, despite the gritty aesthetics and some anti-ethical characters.

Lorca himself implied Michael would've been way more comfortable in some Federation Prison than on the frontline of the War anyway. We will probably see the Federation Prison system in more detail if Lorca gets arrested by the end of the Season. All we have for now are those TOS lines...

 

[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

I don't feel the response to 'hate' on Kirk. I like Kirk. Much like I said about Spock, Kirk has a core of doing the right thing. His mistakes are not outweighing that. Whereas Burnham has been show far less she has been shown to have made mainly bad decisions. (I won't list them but I could).

How about just the ones since she's been aboard Discovery?

 

[Nerys Myk]

How about just the ones since she's been aboard Discovery?

Those don't count.

 

[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

Besides, that scene implied the other prisoners were attempting to make Burnham afraid, since that was probably the first time she went to prison. Their dialogue implied they had more experience with the criminal system and they were just trying to poke fun at her since she was the "new girl".

Yeah, we haven't actually seen a Federation prison in Discovery yet. I think the TOS line about "prison resorts" may apply to Discovery's Era too. The concept of Humane prisons fits the spirit that the Federation is this Progressive Space Utopia. Lorca himself said they extinguished hunger and war. So it's believable that the Federation already is this Utopia in Discovery's Era, despite the gritty aesthetics and some anti-ethical characters.

Lorca himself implied Michael would've been way more comfortable in some Federation Prison than on the frontline of the War anyway. We will probably see the Federation Prison system in more detail if Lorca gets arrested by the end of the Season. All we have for now are those TOS lines...

Not to be overly argumentative, but Burnham had already been in prison for six months by that point. IIRC, we didn't hear anything about the one she had been in up until then, but she was (ostensibly) being transferred to another, a mining facility on Tellun where prisoners worked as laborers. The other prisoners teased her about being Starfleet, until they realized who she was, but I didn't really find any suggestion in the scene that they were making all that up. (I suppose anything's possible, though.)

The "Dagger Of The Mind" line states that Adams' reforms had taken place over the course of the preceding twenty years. As DSC is roughly ten years before that episode, there is plenty of room for there to presently be both some penal colonies that have already been so reformed and others that still haven't been. And that's good, because it leaves leeway for DSC to show either and not have anyone cry "continuity foul!" (Of course, they probably will anyway.)

-MMoM

 

[ralfy]

Lorca is definitely damaged and unfit. He gets results though and those have disguised his falsified pysch readings. He is a war monger though so there is something apt about him being so useful, well, in a war. Burnham is indeed dysfunctional. The moment she confronted her first Klingon she all but unravelled. Her smarts seem to be over stated. Tyler? Another messed up member of the crew. Tilly's a dill. Really if these guys are not at least in part antihero they are definitely a motely crew. I think of them like a ship of fools.

Indeed, and even Saru! And all of that depicted in less than one season (and the first season at that), for a ship that's supposed to be elite.

Or maybe there's method to Star Fleet's madness.

 

[Refuge]

Michael really wasn't being transferred to a paradise to serve out her sentence. Serving on Discovery would hardly be worse.

[STONE] You hear why we're getting transferred to Tellun? Dilithium pocket went piezoelectric.
Ripped apart the bottom of the mine.
Bam, 50 cons [WHISTLES] vaporized.
So, lucky us.
We get to be miners for the war effort now.
I hear half the screws on Tellun are scumbag Andorians.

Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield....-show=star-trek-discovery-2017&episode=s01e03

 

[starsuperion]

And yet...

"Where No Man Has Gone Before" (TOS):

SPOCK: It is the only possible way to get Mitchell off this ship.
KIRK: If you mean strand Mitchell there, I won't do it. That station is fully automated. There's not a soul on the whole planet. Even the ore ships call only once every twenty years.
SPOCK: Then you have one other choice. Kill Mitchell while you still can.
KIRK: Get out of here.
SPOCK: It is your only other choice, assuming you make it while you still have time.
KIRK: Will you try for one moment to feel? At least act like you've got a heart. We're talking about Gary.
SPOCK: The captain of the Valiant probably felt the same way, and he waited too long to make his decision. I think we've both guessed that.
KIRK: Set course for Delta Vega.

[...]

KIRK: Are you reading all our thoughts, Gary?
MITCHELL: I can sense mainly worry in you, Jim. Safety of your ship.
KIRK: What would you do in my place?
MITCHELL: Probably just what Mister Spock is thinking now. Kill me while you can.


"The Man Trap" (TOS):

CRATER: We don't want you here! We're happy alone! I'll kill to stay alone! You hear that, Kirk? Or you'll have to kill me! I don't care either way!
SPOCK: Obviously, taking him alive is going to be difficult.
KIRK: Set your phaser on one quarter. I'll leave mine on stun.
SPOCK: Why risk your life for his?
KIRK: He's not trying to kill us, he's trying to frighten us...

[...]

CREATURE-AS-MCCOY: Well, we could offer it salt without tricks. There's no reason for it to attack us.
SPOCK: Your attitude is laudable, Doctor, but your reasoning is reckless.
CRATER: The creature is not dangerous when fed.

[...]

SPOCK: It's killing the Captain! Shoot it, Doctor, quickly!


"The Menagerie" (TOS):

SPOCK: You know why I've come, Captain. It's only six days away at maximum warp and I have it well-planned.
PIKE: [flashes twice for "no"]
SPOCK: I have never disobeyed your orders before, Captain, but this time I must.
PIKE: [flashes twice for "no"]
SPOCK: I know. I know it is treachery and it's mutiny. But I must do this.
PIKE: [flashes twice for "no"]
SPOCK: I have no choice.
PIKE: [flashes twice for "no"]

[...]

KIRK: Once more, Jose. Spock stated he received a message for us to come here. He entered same in his log. That's all the proof I require.
MENDEZ: And what do those record tapes show? No message sent from here. No message received by your vessel.
KIRK: Then I suggest the record tapes have been deliberately changed. A computer expert can change record tapes, duplicate voices, say anything, say nothing.
MENDEZ: The fact remains that your first officer's former captain is hospitalized, horribly injured, at this base, and that same first officer seems to be the only one who heard that message.
KIRK: If he had wanted to see Captain Pike he could have requested a leave. I would have granted it.

[...]

MENDEZ: How do you plead to the charge of unlawfully taking command?
SPOCK: Guilty.
MENDEZ: Of sabotaging the computers of this vessel and locking it on a course for planet Talos IV?
SPOCK: Guilty.
MENDEZ: And of forcibly attempting to transport Captain Pike to that planet?
SPOCK: Guilty.


Are we sure Spock isn't actually an anti-hero who's getting off way too easy not rotting in prison for the rest of his life?

-MMoM

I don't think you can call Spock an antihero, even his conversation with Kirk in the sick bay as the powers of Gary were apparent and becoming a growing threat. What you are confusing is a logical 1st officer who has a primary role of safety and security in advising the captain. In all those instances except the one with Pike, which one could say spock was under undo influence, he's actually being a very good 1st officer. His actions were always about protecting the ship, and the head strong captain. Caution to danger isn't anti hero. Its part of his job. Spock perceives a threat, and proceeds to deal with it in a logical way. Gary is exponentially growing in power. Couple that with Gary's psych profile and human nature, plus another ship that was intentionally destroyed, you bet he was gonna say that to the captain. Logic..

As for Menagerie..yea, undo influence given the Talosian powers of mental influences and illusion. We have no idea what spock was witnessing in his head. But if it was loyalty pure and simple, that's not an anti hero, that's an emotion one of the few admitted to by Spock, and some would say given Pike's retirement on Talos with his love again, he probably got to live out his days feeling like a fully functional man, and not a paraplegic.

Not Anti heroic..but heroic by itself. Either way, it wasn't mutiny, it was forceably taking the ship. A Hijack isn't a mutiny. Either under influence, or not. He wasn't trying to take command, start a war, or kill anyone. Michael could have taken a page from his book on that. Or maybe Spock learned from her how NOT to end up in Federation penal colonies.

 

[O_Kav]

but she was (ostensibly) being transferred to another, a mining facility on Tellun where prisoners worked as laborers.

Well, Federation mining facilities (except Ardana, perhaps) never had the appearance of dystopic hellholes like Rura Penthe. Maybe prisoners are transferred out but not coerced into working in the mines. It's just a way of making them not get utterly bored or a way of giving opportunities like learning the technical details of mining operations instead of just being used as manpower. I really doubt any Trek writer would go as far as implying there's Federation Gulags out there, Trek always finds a silver lining in everything. Obviously, that's all conjecture on my part since we never saw those things in detail in ST anyway.

The "Dagger Of The Mind" line states that Adams' reforms had taken place over the course of the preceding twenty years. As DSC is roughly ten years before that, there is plenty of room for there to presently be both some penal colonies that have already been so reformed and others that still haven't been.

Yup. That's most probably it. Maybe Discovery writers wanted to have artistic freedom and at the same time, respect some of the canonicity about Federation Prisons.

Still, even if during DISCO those Fed. Penal Colonies are not as good as they were during TOS, Burnham's sentence was so long she would've experienced those "Paradise Prisons" anyway. Instead, she's risking her life for the Feds and I wouldn't doubt DSC ends up killing her in the end, tbh. Her whole character arc looks like is going in the direction of Michael becoming a martyr just like T'Kuvma.

[STONE] You hear why we're getting transferred to Tellun? Dilithium pocket went piezoelectric.
Ripped apart the bottom of the mine.
Bam, 50 cons [WHISTLES] vaporized.
So, lucky us.
We get to be miners for the war effort now.
I hear half the screws on Tellun are scumbag Andorians.

The part of being transferred to Tellun seems true but the rest sounds like hogwash just to scare Michael, honestly. The fact that later on they physically attacked her seems to indicate they were trying to bait her since the beginning.

It's a very common Trope, actually. Good guy gets arrested, bad guys inside the prison start having a beef with him and begin to tease the good guy. It doesn't talk directly to the quality of the penal environment itself. It's just a narrative tool.

 

[Refuge]

The part of being transferred to Tellun seems true but the rest sounds like hogwash just to scare Michael, honestly. The fact that later on they physically attacked her seems to indicate they were trying to bait her since the beginning.

It's a very common Trope, actually. Good guy gets arrested, bad guys inside the prison start having a beef with him and begin to tease the good guy. It doesn't talk directly to the quality of the penal environment itself. It's just a narrative tool.

So you're still going with the prison paradise resort thingy, huh?

 

[O_Kav]

So you're still going with the prison paradise resort thingy, huh?

I mean, yeah, it's what's most consistent with Star Trek's history. If we were talking about shows like The Expanse or Dark Matter, okeydokey, I would've agreed with you and claim Michael was going to some sort of Mining Gulag. However, it's not generally in ST's spirit to show institutional cruelty against prisoners and the people behind DSC so far showed us they do understand what Star Trek is about, despite the constant complaints by some fans because of dark aesthetics and some evil characters.

Even then, like I said, what difference does it make prisons being good or bad during DISCO ? In ten years prisons like the Tantalus Penal Colony will be everywhere. Wasn't she sentenced for life ? She is getting a worse fate than prison one way or the other.

 

[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

I don't think you can call Spock an antihero

Of course not. You can't in fairness call Michael Burnham one either. Way to miss the point.

-MMoM

 

[fireproof78]

I mean, yeah, it's what's most consistent with Star Trek's history. If we were talking about shows like The Expanse or Dark Matter, okeydokey, I would've agreed with you and claim Michael was going to some sort of Mining Gulag. However, it's not generally in ST's spirit to show institutional cruelty against prisoners and the people behind DSC so far showed us they do understand what Star Trek is about, despite the constant complaints by some fans because of dark aesthetics and some evil characters.

Even then, like I said, what difference does it make prisons being good or bad during DISCO ? In ten years prisons like the Tantalus Penal Colony will be everywhere. Wasn't she sentenced for life ? She is getting a worse fate than prison one way or the other.

The point is she must be in prison!

 

[Refuge]

The point is she must be in prison!

What prison? It's a resort with mining facilities

 

[O_Kav]

What prison? It's a resort with mining facilities

Alternatively, it will be a resort with mining facilities. Don't blame me, blame TOS.

 

[Satron]

You may consider it bad writing, but it was obviously intentional. The point was that it was a "damned if they do, damned if they don't" situation. A "no-win scenario"!

Rememeber this?

SAAVIK: I failed to resolve the situation.
KIRK: There is no correct resolution. It's a test of character.

The same person who wrote that contributed to DSC as well.

That is grasping for straws. That this is all intentional does not make the writing any better.

The Feds lost the battle, and the other ships had already withdrawn. It's not hard to believe they were then too busy and spread too thin fighting the Klingons elsewhere to return and conduct salvage operations in an area where the enemy still had a presence.

In Federation space. That presence was comprised of one badly damaged ship. And the ship that started this conflict. It is incredibly stupid of the writers to have Starfleet just ignore that situation for six month.

Someone must have taken the telescope with them when the incapacitated Shenzhou was initially abandoned, in accordance with Georgiou's will—probably Saru, who likely later himself anonymously sent it down to Burnham after she came aboard Discovery; the package did say "internal mail" and he didn't seem particularly surprised to see it, just that Burnham would give it to him.

Burnham never would have noticed that Saru had the telescope with him when they got in the escape pods or when they were picked up?

Covered that before. The Klingons they stunned earlier and later were not directly and obviously attempting to kill them. Stun has a long history of being inconsistently effective. She could have taken the chance, but from her perspective she would have been gambling with Georgiou's life, which we had already seen earlier was worth more to her than Federation principles (despite those being indeed dear to her as we see later). She faced an impossible choice and made a call. It might have been the wrong one in hindsight, but it was a reasonable and justifiable (and emotionally understandable) one in the moment.

The phaser works differently when the target's motives are different?

 

[fireproof78]

Burnham never would have noticed that Saru had the telescope with him when they got in the escape pods or when they were picked up?

Yeah, probably. Human beings, as a whole, are not very attentive to details under not life threatening situations. Add in the stress of survival and that decreases even more so.

The phaser works differently when the target's motives are different?

Or plot requires differently.

 

[Satron]

Yeah, probably. Human beings, as a whole, are not very attentive to details under not life threatening situations. Add in the stress of survival and that decreases even more so.

Or plot requires differently.

These Disco Starfleeters have time enough to take personal items with them to escape a battle zone but no one can be bothered to check the ship that started it all for possible prisoners. "No it's fine. We know from Michael Burnham's report, that there are still Klingons on that ship. We'll just let it drift in our space close to our disabled ships. There is still tech on these ships that's useful, btw. We'll see how this turns out."

 

[fireproof78]

These Disco Starfleeters have time enough to take personal items with them to escape a battle zone but no one can be bothered to check the ship that started it all for possible prisoners. "No it's fine. We know from Michael Burnham's report, that there are still Klingons on that ship. We'll just let it drift in our space close to our disabled ships. There is still tech on these ships that's useful, btw. We'll see how this turns out."

History is replete with examples of humans doing this. It doesn't strain credulity as much as often cited, mostly because the audience is in an observer role, and not in the stressful situation dealing with a war.

 

[Satron]

History is replete with examples of humans doing this. It doesn't strain credulity as much as often cited, mostly because the audience is in an observer role, and not in the stressful situation dealing with a war.

This is fiction, not history.
It is science fiction no less. All these escape pods and surviving personnel on the ships had to be picked up by other ships. But they left the enemy ship untouched in their space.

 

[fireproof78]

This is fiction, not history.
It is science fiction no less. All these escape pods and surviving personnel on the ships had to be picked up by other ships. But they left the enemy ship untouched in their space.

Still believable.