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

[shapeshifter]

Discovery is rated TV-MA. If anyone can't stand the heat then they should get out of the kitchen. Knowing that rating means you might be offended but watching anyway then griping about it is pretty dumb.

Speaking of the kitchen this one really stirred the pot of Kelpian soup. Personally I hate calamarin soups, the slimy mouth feel is disgusting. Fried is better, imo.

So the big shocker this week is Lorca being from the MU. Oh wait, we suspected that all along by way of clues being dropped nearly every episode so all this gasping and being pissed about it makes no sense to me.

And neither did the return of Culber. The writers made their bed with their decision to kill him so no backsies for a gratuitous goodbye scene with Stamets. With points off for that my rating this week lands on 9.

 

[seigezunt]

I've never seen GoT, but that just didn't strike me as that gory, along the spectrum of what's been in past Trek.

Frankly, the most disturbing thing for me still was the inside-out crew people of the Glenn. And that was shown super-fast.

 

[137th Gebirg]

Not quite Trek, but close, pretty gory and fucking funny!

 

[cultcross]

So the big shocker this week is Lorca being from the MU. Oh wait, we suspected that all along by way of clues being dropped nearly every episode so all this gasping and being pissed about it makes no sense to me.

Actually we all pretty much just made it up after Frakes accidentally revealed the mirror universe was coming up. What the actual fan theory was, well, look back at earlier threads - He's definitely section 31! Look at his scars! A triangle and a single line! People swore by that idea.

Hindsight is 20/20.

 

[137th Gebirg]

There's also this, with the 3 and 1 grooves under Lorca's lab window that everyone thought was a clue:

Honestly, I think S31 was a thing until Fuller left. There is a preponderance of evidence to indicate that was the case at the beginning.

It also kind of occurs to me that, with all the weathering and patina on the hull, this doesn't look like a very new ship to me like some have speculated.

 

[XCV330]

Actually we all pretty much just made it up after Frakes accidentally revealed the mirror universe was coming up. What the actual fan theory was, well, look back at earlier threads - He's definitely section 31! Look at his scars! A triangle and a single line! People swore by that idea.

Hindsight is 20/20.

he's from the mirror universe section 31.... which is... section 13! Deep 13..

Which would explain why Joel Robinson was once wearing a DSC uniform prototype:

It's all clear to me now. It's wonderful.

 

[Gepard]

No one on Trek "did it" for me till Ezri Dax. I think the age gap between the actors and myself was just way too wide at the time.

I was mid-teens when Voyager was on the air and I had a pretty solid crush on Captain Janeway (well, Kate Mulgrew, but I was unfamiliar with her prior work so same difference.)

 

[Helder of Romulus]

Stamets' kind personality was actually Evil Stamets

 

[Gepard]

What the actual fan theory was, well, look back at earlier threads - He's definitely section 31! Look at his scars! A triangle and a single line! People swore by that idea.

Hindsight is 20/20.

I still think that that was the original plan. As @137th Gebirg said, there's plenty of details from the early production that still hint that direction.

Aside from the already mentioned, there was Fuller's statement that the 1031 registry number would have some sort of meaning (not so far), the general "black ops" vibe of the Discovery in episode 3 (immediately dropped), and the black badges that scream Deputy Director Sloan (not literally, obviously, he wouldn't be alive in the 2250s. But it's a style.) And of course there's the split Starfleet Delta everyone wears, that was also supposed to be thematically significant but so far is not, that would have fit fine with a show about an internal struggle within Starfleet, a struggle over something like, say....Section 31.

 

[Longinus]

I still think that that was the original plan. As @137th Gebirg said, there's plenty of details from the early production that still hint that direction.

Aside from the already mentioned, there was Fuller's statement that the 1031 registry number would have some sort of meaning (not so far), the general "black ops" vibe of the Discovery in episode 3 (immediately dropped), and the black badges that scream Deputy Director Sloan (not literally, obviously, he wouldn't be alive in the 2250s. But it's a style.) And of course there's the split Starfleet Delta everyone wears, that was also supposed to be thematically significant but so far is not, that would have fit fine with a show about an internal struggle within Starfleet, a struggle over something like, say....Section 31.

As much as I dislike the Mirror Universe, I'm still glad they went into that direction instead. There is probably nothing in Star Trek I despise as much as the concept of the Section 31.

 

[Jarvisimo]

But they rewrote episode 3 - that was mentioned in an Isaacs interview with TVline, because he took the part after reading 3's script, then it was rewritten completely.

TVLINE | It was so good. On Discovery, even though you don’t show up until the third episode, had you seen the scripts for the first two? To get a sense of where Burnham was coming from, the world that your characters live in?
[ISAACS] Oh God, yes. Back when I was first offered the job there were only three scripts written and they sent those to me. They said, “Just a few things: one, the show is not about the captain. Two, you’re not in the first two scripts. And three, ignore the third script, they’re going to rewrite it.” I went, “OK…. That’s really not a lot to go by,” but then I met them and chatted a couple of times, and decided to go for it.

 

[Gepard]

Another point when considering if the Mirror Universe was a later addition: remember how we all knew that Captain Gorgeau was going to come back when they never recovered her body from the Klingons? And how bizarre it seemed when they closed off that particular possibility with a couple lines of dialog a few episodes later about how the Klingons ate her?

I wonder if they originally were going to bring her back, had to scrap that storyline, and then had to come up with some other way to use Michelle Yeoh's contracted episodes.

Well never know for sure unless somebody comes forward about what happened. But I wonder.

 

[seigezunt]

Yes, it being about Section 31 always made so much more sense. So much more recognizable to the casual viewer than the place with that obscure Evil Goatee Spock. /s

 

[gblews]

Absolutely. They destroyed the Lorca character for shock value, the only thing the writers seem capable of writing: plot twists.

Lorca is actually from the mirror universe? Hell, who cares about the past twelve episodes of development,

Lorca was destroyed for shock value? The staff dropped hints that there was something not quite right about Lorca from the moment he made his first appearance in the show. Those hints, which probably also included Lorca's rather caustic personality, led some to believe he was from the MU. Others just thought of him as an asshole, but most of us picked up on some part of what the writers were trying to tell us about the character, except apparently, you.

The "development" you speak of was the writers' presentation of a MU inhabitant disguising himself as a prime universe inhabitant. What you say might make sense if Lorca had been a PU inhabitant that for whatever reason, began acting like an MU dweller, but that isn't the case.

How did you miss this?

Let's have Georgiou murder her aides in a pointless, gruesome scene. Shock value.

I assume you at least picked up on the fact that the Emperor was getting rid of those witnesses she could not fully trust.

 

[Pindar]

Lol. I hope you don't actually believe that

I believe all kinds of stuff.
But in this case just doing a simple comparison of the 2 shows is enough.

 

[Prax]

I've been saying(here) that Lorca was a mirror man since the episode in which he slept with his boss and psychiatrist

Prior to that, I thought he was involved in starting the war somehow(that he was present at the binary stars).

 

[seigezunt]

I kind of hated the whole "he must be from the MU because a *real* Starfleet captain wouldn't act like that" argument, because it seemed awful gatekeeper-y and not allowing for a nuanced, damaged character. But here we are.

 

[Prax]

He was not the real Lorca because he didn't remember things the real Lorca should have. Not merely because he's shady. He also has scars he shouldn't have.

 

[eschaton]

I kind of hated the whole "he must be from the MU because a *real* Starfleet captain wouldn't act like that" argument, because it seemed awful gatekeeper-y and not allowing for a nuanced, damaged character. But here we are.

Yeah. Obviously people from the Mirror Universe can be complicated too, but given what established canon (and this show) shows us about the MU, it cheapens the reasons he acts the way he does.

 

[seigezunt]

I was really hoping from the "painted rust" speech that the MU was going to be more complicated than just the original idea of "it's like our universe but they're all a-holes," but it seems not. Still enjoying it, though.