Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 1x09 - "Into the Forest I Go"

Nope. Then I would have said "TOS Private Little War anyone?"

Exactly this.

 

I suspect his crew know he's a war monger and a nut job, just as Cornwell does but she is was his friend as well. Currently his crew has been swept along with his antics - right into the middle of nowhere.

 

How many of Captain Ransom's crew aboard the Equinox knew that his torture and killing of living creatures to help speed up the time it would take his ship to get back to the Alpha Quadrant were happening and that his actions were abhorrent? It's been a while since I've watched both parts but I think there were at least a couple of Equinox officers who opposed Ransom's behavior and just didn't know how to confront or stop him. He was trying to get his crew home and a lot of them were probably fine with whatever he was doing or at least pretended it wasn't happening so long as they got back to Federation space and alive.

Something similar could be happening on Discovery. Crewmembers can sense that Lorca has a very dark and potentially dangerous and illegal side to his command and personality but in the middle of a surprise outbreak of open warfare with the Klingon Empire they just want to win the war and get home in one piece. They know Lorca is skirting the law but they just don't speak up or don't care.

 

Oh, they definitely care. Remember this line:

"Captain Lorca doesn't care what you really are. The only thing he cares about is what you can do for him." And Stamets implies something similar: "Captain Lorca is a man who does not fear the things normal people fear." Saru's implying that Lorca's values and/or priorities are completely ass-backwards; he's not afraid of dying, he's not even afraid of going to prison, he seems mainly concerned with loosing command of Discovery and/or loosing to the Klingons.

And Stamets' line to Burnham is especially telling: "If Lorca wants you here, then your intentions are less than moot."

I think they all realize on some level that Lorca is a psychopath with a singular obsession with victory. But he's in command, and he seems to know what he's doing, so they follow orders all the same.

 

And it's the mid-23rd century and wartime. Starfleet in this era overlooks a lot more unethical behavior and violations of regulations than it will tolerate in the Picard era.

To paraphrase Kathryn Janeway: "the whole lot of them would be booted out of Starfleet" in her time. But in the era of Christopher Pike they're assets to be excused and tolerated so long as they don't step too far out of line and cost a lot of lives or trigger a major political or military disaster.

 

Well, Janeway was referring to the late 23rd century there. DSC is actually meant to show a darker period before TOS proper and the transition from that. Consider this comment from Akiva Goldsman:

"Ours is the origin of the feeling that is [Star Trek: The Original Series]," he said. "We don't start there. We get there. The name of the show is Discovery not by accident."
From: https://www.cnet.com/news/star-trek...w-york-comic-con-defend-darker-tone-patience/

 

Sounds like he is in line for becoming an Admiral:





And I'll end with Worf's quote which seems fitting, somehow, as a very Klingon perspective:

 

The Founders might have a different opinion.

 

That's why they sent in the Jem'Hadar

 

This was pointed out already (I haven't read this thread in a while), but the FX for Discovery's final jump was altered, the ship splits.

It doesn't do that on any other jump.

I think the final 'jump away' was altered as well, but I'm not sure.

 

Here's my take:

I think this may have been truer in episodes 4 and 5 perhaps, but his behavior after Admiral Cornwall visited him has been moving more and more toward re-discovering himself. That encounter with her really shook him to the core.

Look at his behavior in "Si Vis Pacem." He was desperate to save the USS Gagarin. He put the Discovery at risk to save her. It was a completely unselfish and heroic act that could have easily ended with the Discovery destroyed or severely wounded. He was gut-punched that they failed, and visibly saddened by the loss of his fellow shipmates, despite his "strong front" to his crew that it was not time to grieve.

In "Into the Forrest" he was willing to defend the Pahvans, even though the cost may have been his ship and his life.

Thes are not the actions of an evil psychopath. Not every military leader who is compelled to victory, even through somewhat "alternative means" is a psychopath. They are more commonly than not "war heroes" whose unique wiring and disposition make them ideal for leading forces in life-or-death situations. Just because he's not genial and fatherly with his crew doesn't make him evil and sociopathic.

Is / was he a broken man with some major issues? Yes, certainly. But that doesn't make him evil, villainous or sociopathic. It makes him a compelling and highly realistic character. Far better and more realistic than Picard returning to command shortly after BOBW or immediately after Chain of Command with virtually no lasting effects or questions about his fitness for duty.

 

When the Discovery is jumping around the Klingon ship, you can see the light from the drive reflected off the cloak. At least that is what it looks like to me.