Spoilers Episode 11 onwards spoilers - How did that work again?

[GilmourD]

L'rell spit out a quick explanation to Saru about how Voq became Tyler but I feel like I missed something. Has somebody processed the details? Is it Voq in a Tyler skin? Voq made to look like Tyler? Voq's brain in Tyler's body? Usually I'm good with the technobabble but I lost something here.

 

[Myko]

This is my understanding, correct if wrong:

Voq's body surgically changed to human
Tyler's organs
Voq's brain
Voq's and Tyler's memories/consciousness

 

[Hythlodeus]

This is my understanding, correct if wrong:

Voq's body surgically changed to human
Tyler's organs
Voq's brain
Voq's and Tyler's memories/consciousness

yes, that's about it. not that complicated

 

[Michael]

This is my understanding, correct if wrong:

Voq's body surgically changed to human
Tyler's organs
Voq's brain
Voq's and Tyler's memories/consciousness

I didn't get the part about original Tyler's organs being inside Voq-Tyler, but the rest is exactly how I understood it. It's a ridiculous concept, but nothing more outlandish than what Trek has given us in the past in terms of medical hocus-pocus.

 

[Donker]

Voq's body surgically changed to human
Tyler's organs
Voq's brain
Voq's and Tyler's memories/consciousness

Wait this is it? Why didn't they just put Voq's brain in Tylers body?
I was very confused by all of this. It seems a lot more confusing than it needed to be.

 

[BillJ]

This is my understanding, correct if wrong:

Voq's body surgically changed to human
Tyler's organs
Voq's brain
Voq's and Tyler's memories/consciousness

Seems like it would have been simpler to plug Voq's brain into Tyler's body. But, why didn't Starfleet scans pick up the Klingon brain?

 

[Longinus]

It really doesn't make any sense.

 

[Captain pl1ngpl0ng]

I feel like I missed something. .

I must have missed something too...

This is my understanding, correct if wrong:

Voq's body surgically changed to human
Tyler's organs
Voq's brain
Voq's and Tyler's memories/consciousness

A klingon brain would look very different from a human brain (based on the shape of a klingon head)

So the whole operation/surgery seem strange to me as the only thing really inserted into Tyler's body is Voq's consciousness... (?)

 

[Michael]

So the whole operation/surgery seem strange to me as the only thing really inserted into Tyler's body is Voq's consciousness... (?)

No. Nothing was inserted into Tyler's body. It's all Voq's body that was transformed into looking like Tyler. Plus Tyler's memories and personality on top of Voq's.

 

[BillJ]

No. Nothing was inserted into Tyler's body. It's all Voq's body that was transformed into looking like Tyler. Plus Tyler's memories and personality on top of Voq's.

Seems like blood type and DNA would've given away what was going on almost right away.

 

[Michael]

Seems like blood type and DNA would've given away what was going on almost right away.

Yeah, you'd think that to be the case. But I guess in a universe where people can be transformed into spiders or salamanders and transformed back again everything is possible.

 

[BillJ]

Klingons must be wielding some pretty sophisticated body shaping technology to fool Federation sensors into thinking that a subject is human. Brain and all.

They'd probably be a lot happier, and wealthier if they opened "Klingon Body Shaping" boutiques throughout the Alpha Quadrant.

 

[Jadeb]

Yeah, you'd think that to be the case. But I guess in a universe where people can be transformed into spiders or salamanders and transformed back again everything is possible.

I could buy the premise if they'd used transporter technology or somesuch, but to suggest he's an undetectable human replica created with chainsaws and wood chippers blows my suspension of disbelief out of the water.

The galling thing is that there's no reason for it other than to add gore. Trek is filled with any number of ways to handwave away the transformation, but they went with something nonsensical for cheap shocks. A very juvenile approach to "mature" storytelling.

That said, this individual incident is a relatively venal sin. I would find it easier to overlook if it weren't symptomatic of a greater willingness to compromise the integrity of the narrative when convenient.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Seems like it would have been simpler to plug Voq's brain into Tyler's body.

A child could do it!

But, why didn't Starfleet scans pick up the Klingon brain?

They didn't examine him at that level of detail. They could tell his brain was THERE, but Culber didn't take a full inventory of his cerebral anatomy to make sure all the components were where they were supposed to be. Had he looked really closer he probably would have seen a second hypothalamus and a redundant brainstem latched on top of the first and said "What the fuck is THAT? Is that a tumor? What IS that? Need more tests!"

The point wasn't to turn Voq into a human, just something that could PASS for human if nobody looked too closely. If he got killed, an autopsy would give it away pretty quickly, and if they had to perform surgery the surgeon would probably recognize the incision scars for what they were.

Klingons must be wielding some pretty sophisticated body shaping technology to fool Federation sensors into thinking that a subject is human. Brain and all.

They'd probably be a lot happier, and wealthier if they opened "Klingon Body Shaping" boutiques throughout the Alpha Quadrant.

One hundred years earlier, they had a technique for encoding intelligence information into the cells of their couriers. I kind of think that in the years before the Warrior Revolution (mid 21st century, maybe?) they were one of the most technologically advanced races in the galaxy and only recently overtaken by the Vulcans and Andorians.

 

[Kpnuts]

This is my understanding, correct if wrong:

Voq's body surgically changed to human
Tyler's organs
Voq's brain
Voq's and Tyler's memories/consciousness

Writers, congratulations on coming up with the most idiotic concept in all of Trek... and then have it go precisely nowhere.

No. Nothing was inserted into Tyler's body. It's all Voq's body that was transformed into looking like Tyler. Plus Tyler's memories and personality on top of Voq's.

Great to know medical sensors in three hundred years can't tell the difference between human organs and Klingon organs masquerading as them.

 

[Mudd]

Yeah, you'd think that to be the case. But I guess in a universe where people can be transformed into spiders or salamanders and transformed back again everything is possible.

Well, yeah. It's complete bullshit, but it's Star Trek bullshit.

Which is one aspect of how directly - and yet confusingly - this series has come to be pitched at "Legacy Fans:" the credibility of so much hinges on the assumption that viewers will swallow implausible and nonsensical plot turns because they've accepted them in the past. The show is full of WTF? moments that can only be defended on the basis of "Yeah, but they've done it before."

To give them their due, the folks that originally conceived Discovery may have been reaching for something more sophisticated and modern. That's been utterly pissed away in favor of fanwank painted in a somewhat more contemporary style.

 

[Sir Stewart Wallace]

Very well, thank you.

 

[eschaton]

Again, I just don't know why they bothered with this crap when the augment virus was already a part of canon (stupid or not) thanks to Enterprise. Obviously a Klingon with the augment virus wouldn't pass for human totally (and an augmented Voq would still be albino) so further surgery would be needed, but it would save a lot of time and effort.

 

[XCV330]

The Bene Tleilax made a Voq ghola inside a bacta tank filled with midichlorians. Neuromancer and Wintermute then handled the job of transferring Ash Tyler's katra into the body before the Greys could grok what was going down.

 

[Mudd]

Again, I just don't know why they bothered with this crap when the augment virus was already a part of canon (stupid or not) thanks to Enterprise. Obviously a Klingon with the augment virus wouldn't pass for human totally (and an augmented Voq would still be albino) so further surgery would be needed, but it would save a lot of time and effort.

Well, clearly the hope was that Ash as a conflicted individual with human memories and loyalties and longings would be more engaging for the audience than Arne Darvin II. Could have been.

The ridiculous Frankensteinian poohbah about how the trick was accomplished is what's wrong here, not the character premise - "Manchurian Candidate" may be an oldie, but it still works.