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Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 1x12 - "Vaulting Ambition"

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mSarrrrrruuuuuuu! :wah::wah::barf:
I'm sorry if this is somewhere in the 22 pages of thread I didn't read yet, but I really think they didn't eat Saru. MU Saru was on the Shenzhou and the only ones that left that ship for the Palace were Burnham and Lorca. It was one of the three of Saru's race standing in the great hall that likely ended up being dinner (one that Burnham unknowingly picked).
 
I must say that since this is a serialized show, "trusting the writers" doesn't mean you have to wait 1-2 episodes to see the full truth of the matter. You have to give them at least till the end of the first season to get the story to where there is some finality to it. That is just how it is. That said, even the end of season 1 won't be the end of everything because the writers have already said there will be fallout explored in season 2. But I think it would be reasonable to conclude that the end of season 1 will at least come to a stable point in the Stamets/Culber/death/couple storyline (i.e., at that point they probably will be done with whether or not Culber is dead or can come back, etc.).

I agree with that, I'm definitely not bailing before the end of the season. But I do think it's valid for my trust in the writers to be fading. I'm still hoping it will all come together, but they've fumbled enough basic storytelling that I know I will never view the writing as one of the strong points of STD season 1.
 
I'm sorry if this is somewhere in the 22 pages of thread I didn't read yet, but I really think they didn't eat Saru. MU Saru was on the Shenzhou and the only ones that left that ship for the Palace were Burnham and Lorca. It was one of the three of Saru's race standing in the great hall that likely ended up being dinner (one that Burnham unknowingly picked).

Yes - the one she picked looked a lot like him but he wouldn't have been at the palace. He is back on the Shenzhou alive and well.
 
The Stamets in the lab clearly said "He did it" not "I did it." If you disagree, just go back and listen again.

You're right, he did say that.

I'll offer one more point in support of body-swapping – because I still think that's likely the intent even though it's unclear what happened – and then shut up. If the Stametses (Stamaii?) did indeed switch bodies, that's setup for stuffing Prime!Culber's disembodied mind into MU!Culber's body, as people have been predicting would happen from the moment Tyler snapped Culber's neck.

It's the sort of heavy handed foreshadowing for a twist fans already predicted that this show loves to do.
 
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That's because it's a character-driven plot. Character developments are actual plot points in this story that have lasting consequences for future episodes. This is why Burnham is so horrified with herself for killing Cooper: because she's still carrying the guilt for having "killed him" at the Binary Stars by failing to prevent the war. That's the whole reason why Cooper is even THERE, and it's the whole reason why he tries to kill her in the turbolift. It's not "character development related to plot," the story was written the way it was to drive a development in Burnham's character.

What I see is a lot of character inconsistency.

Let's use Burnham as an example. The early episodes show her in a very stoic, pseudo-Vulcan light - despite having spent seven years already on a mainly human-crewed Shenzhou. Then, within a few months of time on the Discovery, her emoting goes from stilted to normal human. Similarly, the prologue paints her as having PTSD related to Klingons due to the childhood raid that killed her parents, and even a little bit racist towards them. But by Ep. 9, when she's back on the Ship of the Dead and fighting Kol, she shows no fear, hesitation, or close-mindedness (instead Tyler is the one who melts down). It reminds me of how Janeway in the later years of Voyager vacillated from den mother to ruthless depending upon who was writing the episode that week.

Other characters have similar issues. Tilly was adorkable at the start of the show, but in the last two episodes, she hasn't shown growth really. Instead she's belted out technobabble lines which someone needed to say, and happened to be scripted for her in order for her character to have something to do. Similarly, while Doug Jones is putting nuance into Saru's role, as scripted it's not much other than XO. All we know about him is he likes salt in his tea, he initially resented Burnham (although he's better now) and if his natural fear instincts are suppressed he can act like a psychopath.

Edit: I'm watching the BSG reboot for the first time right now, and the contrast between the two series is stark, because I really do care about the characters and their development there - right from the beginning. Discovery leaves me feeling nothing for any of the characters. I watch from week to week only to find out how they're going to end this whole thing.
 
Thinking more this morning, I have some end-of-season predictions.

First, it's clear that this was the setup for the entire season from episode 3 onward. Maybe initially Bryan Fuller stayed on it wouldn't have been the case. But everything since was set in place by Mirror Lorca as a long con. He somehow came to the Prime Universe. He had knowledge of the mycelial network - probably from Mirror Stamets (the two had to be working together). He then managed to get Prime Stamets onto a ship with a working spore drive, and drafted Prime Burnham out of prison.

Due to this, it would be anticlimactic to get back to Prime next week. There's basically no story left in this season, save for stalling tactics. There's absolutely nothing left for them to do but return to the prime universe, give the Federation the cloaking technology, and work out some sort of armistice - all of which can be dealt with in a few scenes. Thus, I expect that they'll continue to flounder around in the Mirrorverse now until the last episode.

The one other possibility is if the two episodes added late in production were tacked onto the end of the season. If this is true, the season arc essentially ends next week, and we're in for some sort of more self-contained adventure for the last two weeks.
For all we know MU Lorca ALSO knows how the Fed/Klingon War of 2257 plays out as he had to have access to the U.S.S. Defiant's files to help ;plan all this (as it has records through 2267 of the PU.) There's so many reasons why the Terran Empire would see any/all info from the Defiant as catastrophically dangerous to them.
 
It appears to me that actually the Terran Empire keeps the existence of the Discovery and the Mirror Universe a tightly held secret - thus Georgiou immediately killing of all those that witnessed evidence of its existence.

It actually doesn't make any sense that the Shenzhou or Rebels even had files at all on the Discovery.
 
You expect realism from a tv show where a mutineer:lol: will probably end up as captain? lol
So, yeah, a rehash of ST:VOY (Chatokay - who resigned his commission to join the Maquis and who was priomarily the reason VOY was in the Badlands in the first place - was OFTEN commanding the shipm from what I've been told - I stopped watching after the crap that was "The 37's".) ;)
 
What I see is a lot of character inconsistency.

Let's use Burnham as an example. The early episodes show her in a very stoic, pseudo-Vulcan light - despite having spent seven years already on a mainly human-crewed Shenzhou...
... and then having a borderline emotional breakdown when her mutiny attempt backfires. The stoic, pseudo-Vulcan facade from the flashback scene is ALOT thinner in the live scenes and falls apart completely when she beams back without Georgiou's body (am I the only one here who remembers her basically implode from grief on the transporter pad?)

Similarly, the prologue paints her as having PTSD related to Klingons due to the childhood raid that killed her parents, and even a little bit racist towards them.
No, the prologue paints her as being a CHILD who was still working through the VERY RECENT memories of her family being massacred, with the help of a Vulcan named Sarek. She does harbor a certain suspicion towards the Klingons in general, but her every interaction with them doesn't reflect racism or bigotry, just suspicion. Take this in context when you see her reaction to finding out that the leader of the MU Resistance is a Klingon. Her reaction is: "How the fuck did that happen? I've got to know!" And that comes out in the questions she asks Mirror Voq too. She genuinely wants to know HOW peace with the Klingons could be established.

She's not afraid of the Klingons. She mistrusts them, sure, but that's mainly because she understands what gigantic assholes they can be. There' no logic in hating people for being who and what they are, and that's something she learned from Sarek.

Other characters have similar issues. Tilly was adorkable at the start of the show, but in the last two episodes, she hasn't shown growth really...
Playing the Evil Version of herself was hella interesting to see... and it has a payoff later on. The Tilly in the beginning of the series would never have spoken up to Saru with "This is a spore problem, and I'm the only expert you've got." Even Saru seems a little surprised; Tilly grew some balls.

Similarly, while Doug Jones is putting nuance into Saru's role, as scripted it's not much other than XO.
Aside from the scenes on Pahvo (which were pretty interesting to say the least) Saru is a walking lightning rod of foreshadowing. His threat ganglia popping up just moments before Tyler come onto the bridge, as one example. More importantly, his apparent lack of fear in dealing with Voq and L'Rell are revealing in how much control he has over the situation. Saru is a coward from a RACE of cowards, but he somehow manages to boss around two Klingon assholes who have otherwise outsmarted him at every turn.


Aaaaaaand I just realized absolutely NONE of that means anything to you
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We can be sure that the season will end to some big cliffhanger, will it be in the Mirror or the normal Universe remains to be seen.

This episode felt like a prolonged teaser to the next episode somewhat, some good stuff but not as good as the previous two MU episodes. Poor Mirror Saru..that moment made me gasp a bit..and poor Michael, she certainly has has to endure a lot during the show so far.
I am wondering how Mirror Lorca managed to cross between the universes? He must have read some intel about the real Lorca from the USS Defiant's computer before embarking to his journey of escape and revenge( like others here pointed out). Maybe we learn more in the next episode..from Lorca himself.
 
The motto is universal. Just change one word and it could work for Discovery too:
Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Discovery. Its continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before.



Not really. I said I enjoy Discovery and I do. At the same time, I can still wish that parts of the show were different. There was a lot of good about Old Trek too. Not all of it needs to be rejected.
I'am with you regarding old trek beeing inspiring thats why i look to new arrivals as SD. But current knoledge about quantumechanics, stringtheory (read Mycellial network, spors) the current finding of gravitational waves etc pushes the boundry's of the trek story line much further than previous trek series. So you could also say:
Space: One of the frontiers. These are the voyages of the starship Discovery. Its continuing mission: to explore muliple universes & parralel possibiities, to seek out new realities and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before.
 
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I mean, lets be honest, the Mirror Universe makes absolutely zero sense and is honestly just fanfiction.net tier fanwank. If the Roman Empire never fell, how did the same characters appear? How do the same ships appear? Why are the ships named "Enterprise", "Discovery" etc?

Butterfly effects are a real thing, change one small thing, and the entire thing come crumbling down, yet the Mirror Universe is a radically different earth with a radically different history yet all the same characters exist with the same names at basically the same times and place?

The Mirror Universe only works if you don't think about it at all. Discovery it's worked better than before because honestly, Discovery is a miserable grim show and the Mirror Universe fits that perfectly. I hope they wrap up the MU next episode, but I don't know whats worse at this point, being stuck in a Fascist nightmare or returning to the Klingon War story line.

The Mirror Universe works just fine in one time frame, like TOS-era. With the concept of infinite universes their are literally an infinity of universes where things are very similar (people, ships) but also different (evil). It breaks down when you look to see the same universe over time with major changes (deaths, ship destruction) not having major impacts (like eliminating DS9 characters). To get it to work you have to have the Mirror Universe be that one of the infinity where through all the major changes things did work out to be exactly like in the Prime universe, but evil. It seems counterintuitive, but there has to be one out of the infinity that works and this is that one.

Honestly, SMG is barely the lead any longer.

If you look back at the first four episodes virtually everything was from her POV. The other main characters barely even talked to each other unless it was needed to move along a vital plot point. We only saw a handful of scenes (mostly Klingon related) where Burnham wasn't in the room.

This changed once the series shifted to a more normal Trek A/B structure. Now Burnham really only moves along one of the plotlines in each of the episodes. And Saru, Tilly, and Stamets in their own way are getting to 'save the day" just as much as she is.

I think this is a good change, and probably required when they went from Fuller's initial idea of an anthology to a non-anthology. You can't keep as tight a focus on one character over multiple seasons as you can with just one season.

They absolutely have to be working together. As I noted, somehow Lorca knew not only how to get into the prime universe, but to get a hold of not only Burnham but Stamets. He explicitly drafted him from a civilian role and got him on-board the Discovery....

Lorca didn't need to have known any of that. He could have found out after coming to the Prime universe, but it would have helped out if he know something of the spore drive before coming over, just to shorten the timing if nothing else.

That means nothing. He would say that about any member of the cast.

She's terrible on Discovery. I don't know if it's her fault or if it's the writing/directing, but she's embarrassing herself.

I know everyone has their own opinion, but this is rediculous. Yeah, you mgiht not personally like her performance, but many people do, and so I dont think anyone can say reasonably that she is in any way embarrassing herself.

The palace was about two minutes away at warp one, which is lightspeed. Two lightminutes from Earth would put you at the orbit of Venus, or halfway to Mars. That's a bit far to be firing weapons -- I believe torpedoes are supposed to travel at warp one, and we've never seen a torp go more than about thirty seconds.

However, the shuttle appeared to be remote controlled on its approach to the palace, and when Burnham contacted Saru he had no idea where the palace was despite being in the same system, so apparently the Empire has a way of masking a ship's location on long range sensors without cloaking it to the naked eye. If that's true, the palace would've moved after firing to keep its location secret, and likely again after picking up the shuttle.

Torpedoes travel at whatever warp the ship is when they are fired, plus whatever delta V the lauching mechanism provides - hense before DS9's "jacketed phaser beams" (technobable to cover screwups of firing phasers at warp in a forward direction), torpedoes were the only viable standard weapon for warp speed combat.

This reminds me of one niggling issue I have with Discovery: for all the money they supposedly have for this show, we haven't gotten enough ship shots. As another poster mentioned, there was no image of the Cooper, for no apparent reason; no image of the ship that fired on the Rebel base, etc. etc. Frustrating when they spend so much money on a 3D printed Klingon torchbearer suit seen on screen for 20 seconds. With all the producers on this show, they need one that understands how to get the money on the screen.
 
Lorca didn't need to have known any of that. He could have found out after coming to the Prime universe, but it would have helped out if he know something of the spore drive before coming over, just to shorten the timing if nothing else.

Lorca is not a scientist, he's a captain. It would be way, way easier if he had some sort of "briefing" by Stamets in how this all worked than if he had to figure it all out himself while also being busy impersonating his prime self. He certainly should have known MU Stamets as well - considering he used to be close to the emperor, and Stamets may have worked on her ship for quite awhile.
 
Question: Does the same 1 person vote episodes a 1 every week. If I ever voted an episode of a show a 1 I wouldn't return to watching it the next week or actually come talk about it.

I mean a 1 would be absolute trash want my hour back never watch again type material.
 
Discovery needs to remember Star Trek's original mission statement:
"Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before".
^^^
oh please, yes it SOUNDS good, which is why they had it (and took parts from three different distict versions to come up with the final version that was used). But if you're being honest - from 1966 on STAR TREK has RARELY actually done that in an episode. Yes, an episode often started out with:
"We're here to explore/star map, etc..." -- BUT, suddenly the REAL plot complication/situation appeared that would be the ACTUAL story focus of the episode. Star Trek at it's core was: "Horatio Honblower...IN SPACE!"
 
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