This ties into the theory that Ash is Voq. Especially in light of Ash having PTSD and flashbacks to what L'Rel did to him, whether it was rape, something more, or both, but mainly the "something more". How Voq would've been surgically altered to become Ash and how something besides just rape would give him such PTSD. L'Rel said Voq would have to give up everything and hasn't been seen since. It would be interesting if he were a Frankenstein type of creation with human parts but also ghastly. Victor Frankenstein would be L'Rel and The Matriarchs Voq was sent to. He'd have someone else's skin from top-to-bottom. Ridges sanded down. Before the new skin is applied. Redundant organs (Klingons have a lot of them) would have to be removed. Even typing all of this is gruesome. Could Ash be made up of humans who were mutilated as they were being killed? i.e. Skinned alive and poached for organs more specific to human anatomy. Also bear in mind the title of the episode where we last see Voq. "The Butcher's Knife Cares Not for the Lambs Cry". Is this what it could be referring to?
Or Voq's brain, or just his consciousness, could have been moved into the real Ash's body. Ash was a pre-existing person, with a history. Voq being "piggy-back" into Ash's mind, with Voq in the dominate position, would give Voq the knowledge and language skills to more easily pass as a Human.
Blood chemistry would have to be radically altered too. And is Klingon medicine at this point sophisticated enough to hide all the scarring that would result from something so extensive? Kor
L'Rell's sister has one of those mind swapping machines from Camus II. The rape and torture was just for fun.
I have no idea. All we really have to go on is Darvin. Internally he was a Klingon and externally he probably started off as a Smooth-Headed Klingon anyway, so all they really might've done is change his skin pigmentation.
I like this idea. Because I like the idea of someone having a literal split-personality where two people are battling inside or somehow exist in a strange way. But, on the other hand... ... They went out of their way in "Lethe" to say that Ash's mother died and he never knew his father. If he didn't really have much family and he avoided anyone he knew in the past, no one would be able to tell if this is the real Ash or not. Or, if they don't know him that well Voq/Ash could chalk it up to the PTSD he's having. "War changes you. You haven't seen the things I've seen," and most people would take that at face value and accept it.
Klingons may not be able to surgically alter a person all that much, but they might well implant a sensor jammer that makes Starfleet instruments given an a-okay in a medical check... On the other hand, given how Lorca keeps his ship rather isolated from the universe and lies to his superiors a lot, it wouldn't be difficult to just elude the resulting lighter-than-normal checks by "conventional" means - bribing or blackmailing the single doctor, say. Or having the doctor be a fellow Klingon to begin with. My guess is they will simply say the surgery fooled everybody, though, in contradiction with the Darvin case. Although of course Darvin was an agent of lesser strategic importance, and probably the work of a less well endowed House, too. Timo Saloniemi
If Ash is Voq, any explanation other than "it's Voq's mind in Ash Tyler's body" is unutterably stupid and implausible at this point. And that explanation only works because it's reductive, the equivalent of saying "a wizard did it."
How many time have we seen mind swapping devices? Not really sure, but at least a few. I've noticed that many fans seem to discount Klingon technological abilities.
That would definitely be crazy creepy if that's the way they "constructed" Ash/put Voq in a human body. Would they have the technology to transplant Voq's consciousness into Ash's body? Isn't it more likely extreme plastic/reconstructive surgery? Or is it even possible to make a Klingon as "small" (relatively speaking) as a human? I'm curious to see how it all gets revealed. It seems very apparent that Ash doesn't remember that he's Voq so I wonder how he's going to react when Voq's memories come back. I do wonder if L'Rell really raped Ash after he was Ash to give him PTSD/make his memories more authentic, or if he's remembering consensual sex with L'Rell when he was Voq, but misinterpreting it as rape.
"A wizard did it." Every so often - too often - Star Trek trots out a supposed piece of technology that functions in an unexplained way to do something that under no other circumstances can the characters do with technology. Quite often it's justified as a gadget belonging to an ancient, lost, or extremely advanced alien species. The device performs its function for the sake of the plot, is put away and has no ongoing ramifications for the world in which the show takes place. It's never better understood; the discovery of it is never put to work to change the Trek universe in any way. It's never integrated into the world. That's not science, of course. It's magic presented as science. A wizard did it.
I think DSC will go for something chilling. Or at least I hope they do. Here's something worse. What if one side Ash's brain was Ash's and the other side was Voq's? Or otherwise, some part of Ash's brain was now inside Voq. Grafted on. It might be both. If L'Rel was having sex with Voq, and it was consensual and she didn't want to give it up, she might've continued even after he became Ash. It would be a way -- or an excuse -- to "test" if Ash still remembers being Voq or not. So it would've started consensual then turned into something that wasn't even remotely.
The new Outer Limits did a couple of war stories that utilized the premise of aliens transforming themselves into human beings that were very creepily effective. The premise there, of course, was that this was part of their technological "toolkit" for espionage; they presumably did such stuff all the time. If Trek does it, it will be a one-off: something the Klingons can do when its plot-convenient, but never brought up when it's a nuisance.
Thanks for the recommendation. I'll have to check those out. I've never seen any version of The Outer Limits. That's possible... but I think Discovery is very much its own thing and wants to do things its own way, regardless of how Star Trek might've done things before. And I like the way it's doing things. DSC hasn't been around long enough for us to really know how it will treat its story developments down the line. I prefer to judge DSC on its own terms. Of course, if the storyline doesn't spill over into the next season, then it's a moot point. If Ash is Voq and that's how it plays out, I doubt they'd do that type of an espionage story again.
I guess he could blame the scarring on all the torture he supposedly received from the Klingons when he was a POW. Kor
...But why is Lorca scarred, too, and what will Burnham think when they finally do a threesome? Timo Saloniemi
And then it turns out that Burnham also has significant scarring, and this brings us back to the "Everybody is a Klingon" hypothesis. Kor