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

[Nerys Myk]

Just my interpretation. But do you really think she's not meant to be a fan proxy character?

There's too much nerd stereotype built into her for me. Not only is she smart and painfully socially awkward, but of course she has to be the only human character who doesn't comply with Hollywood beauty standards. That bums me out. It's progress that any of the characters don't, I suppose, but I hope we get to the day when someone who is fuller figure can be introduced without having to be the nerd or comedy relief. (Or, in Tilly's case, both,)

Painfully socially awkward? I think that was a misimpression from when she was first introduced. Same as the she's autistic/Asperger's thing.

 

[137th Gebirg]

Yeah. You want "painfully" socially awkward, watch Trekkies and its insipid sequel. Neither of which, IMO, needed to be made. The faceless fandom as a whole is needlessly vilified enough IRL, already.

 

[Jadeb]

And even if we were to look at Tilly as a plot device, she's probably more of "pupil who can teach a few things to their mentor as well" type of character than anything else. Burnham takes her under her wings and gets a few lessons about emotions in return. And now with the MU episodes, we have seen her convincingly play a ruthless captain, take the initiative and stand her ground against her own commanding officer to get Stamets the help he needs. If that's not character growth, I don't know what is.

For me, that's part of the problem: She has to go on the nerd journey of triumph, in which the fan proxy character comes out of her shell and shows she can do important things and fit in. And, of course, she's done just that.

Spock, to me, is a much more effective take on the outsider character. He was competent from the get-go, was liked even though he was unlike, and his struggles were not so easily resolved.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I was painfully socially awkward for years. Nothing like Tilly. I wish I was a little more Tilly-like back then.

 

[Nerys Myk]

For me, that's part of the problem: She has to go on the nerd journey of triumph, in which the fan proxy character comes out of her shell and shows she can do important things and fit in. And, of course, she's done just that.

Spock, to me, is a much more effective take on the outsider character. He was competent from the get-go, was liked even though he was unlike, and his struggles were not so easily resolved.

"Nerd Journey of triumph"? Really? That's your read? I don't recall her being in shell. Or being an outcast. If anything she's bringing Burnham out a shell. Forcing her to become part of the crew and even giving her a purpose. (Mentoring Tilly)

 

[SJGardner]

For me, that's part of the problem: She has to go on the nerd journey of triumph, in which the fan proxy character comes out of her shell and shows she can do important things and fit in. And, of course, she's done just that.

Spock, to me, is a much more effective take on the outsider character. He was competent from the get-go, was liked even though he was unlike, and his struggles were not so easily resolved.

Nerd Journeys of Triumph usually end up with the realization that a 'normal', 'useful', 'lovable' person was inside the nerd all along, it held them back and they needed to figuratively kill the nerd to let the 'normal person' out, which is and has always been a terrible lesson to tell to anyone in my opinion. Tilly's growth, on the other hand, I've seen as nothing other than her being more confident in her own skin. When she assessed Stamets' state for Saru, she declared he was improving because his skin looked dewey. A tiny bit, perhaps, but a reminder that she hasn't lost who she is just because she's become more confident. And, as said by others before, there was no shell for her to come out of. She always speaks her mind and wears her heart on her sleeve, and I haven't seen any changes about that.

 

[Jadeb]

Nerd Journeys of Triumph usually end up with the realization that a 'normal', 'useful', 'lovable' person was inside the nerd all along, it held them back and they needed to figuratively kill the nerd to let the 'normal person' out, which is and has always been a terrible lesson to tell to anyone in my opinion. Tilly's growth, on the other hand, I've seen as nothing other than her being more confident in her own skin. When she assessed Stamets' state for Saru, she declared he was improving because his skin looked dewey. A tiny bit, perhaps, but a reminder that she hasn't lost who she is just because she's become more confident. And, as said by others before, there was no shell for her to come out of. She always speaks her mind and wears her heart on her sleeve, and I haven't seen any changes about that.

Your take on the "dewey" scene is interesting. I hadn't thought about it like that. I was focused more on the fact that she was fuflfilling the journey of triumph by doing things the character has no business doing -- in this case, she's a *cadet* who's also an expert on the super important, top-secret spore drive (apparently the only expert other than Stamets?) who is also playing physician in the absence of, you know, actual physicians.

I don't know that I share your reading of the "dewey" comment, but I'll mull it over. I know I sound critical, but I'm trying to keep an open mind, and we still have to see how she ends up. I hope her story proves more nuanced than what it seems to me so far.

 

[SJGardner]

Your take on the "dewey" scene is interesting. I hadn't thought about it like that. I was focused more on the fact that she was fuflfilling the journey of triumph by doing things the character has no business doing -- in this case, she's a *cadet* who's also an expert on the super important, top-secret spore drive (apparently the only expert other than Stamets?) who is also playing physician in the absence of, you know, actual physicians.

I don't know that I share your reading of the "dewey" comment, but I'll mull it over. I know I sound critical, but I'm trying to keep an open mind, and we still have to see how she ends up. I hope her story proves more nuanced than what it seems to me so far.

To be fair, other than her, Stamets and Burnham, no one that has worked on the spore drive in the series has even been given a name. In that regard, it's the classic Trek staple of the main characters having to do everything again. On the other hand, she was assigned to the spore drive from the start and probably knows more about it than everyone else other than Stamets and perhaps Burnham.

In fact, the part of that sequence that irks me is not that she requests and gets permission to help Stamets but rather that after Culber dies, there aren't any medical personnel monitoring Paul anymore other than the two extras who only appear when there's a medical emergency.

 

[Jadeb]

I struggled to get past the notion a cadet was even aware of Starfleet's most important black ops project in the first place. So you can see there's a lot of stuff here that pressed my buttons.

 

[cooleddie74]

On the other hand Saavik was still a cadet in TWOK (despite already having the rank of full lieutenant, but that's another thread topic) and serving aboard the Enterprise during the encounter with the Genesis Project, one of the most advanced and terrifying pieces of tech ever created by Federation science. She was subsequently placed aboard the Grissom to study the Genesis Planet in spite of just recently attending the Academy.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Saavik had tech skills very few others had (I assume) so she needed to boss around a large staff of underlings in her "projects", thus the immediate high rank, similar to Doctor Bashir, who would have been outranked by his nurses maybe, in Season one DS9, if he hadn't been pushed up the chain swiftly and nonmeritoriously.

Or... The Romulans (through third parties) were trying to make her an admiral quickly, before they reminded Saavik of her ancestry and true loyalty.

 

[SJGardner]

Lorca probably specifically requested that Tilly take her middie cruise on the Discovery because he knew she'll be needed to play the ISS Discovery's captain when he got home. He also employed Burnham because of personal reasons and still put her to work with the spore drive. Even if Tilly shouldn't have clearance as a cadet to access a top secret military operation, Lorca probably just shrugged and gave her clearance just because he knew that's where he'd have the most use for her as a theoretical engineer for the time being.

 

[Tuskin38]

I struggled to get past the notion a cadet was even aware of Starfleet's most important black ops project in the first place.

That isn't very far fetched.

Also no one has said it is black ops.

 

[T'Bonz]

Oh come now. Tilly is the Wesley Crusher of Discover.

 

[gblews]

My $0.02, apologies if others said the same downthread:

1) MU Lorca was obsessed with gleaning the secret of the Klingon cloak (winning the war). He had to want to use it vs the Empress. If that is just forgotten, then they dropped the ball a bit. Though Burnham was also a big piece.

I don't recall any indication that Lorca had a personal obsession with locating the secret of the klingon cloak other than his orders from Starfleet.

It's going to interesting finding out how MU Lorca found his way into the PU.

Data. O'Brien. Bashir. Picard. Spock, Kirk (before the movies). Dukat. Quark. Odo. Seven. Torres. T'Pol. Archer. Saru.

All different characters in their earliest appearances, but gradually changed throughout a number of episodes into their latest iterations.

Your list is about right. Except Saru.

There has been NO character trajectory in DSC other than for furthering plot points.

NONE.

Most, if not all (excluding Saru) of the characters mentioned in Tim Thomasson's post required more than 3/4 of the first season of their respective shows in order to show development.

Gotta give the DSC characters a bit more time before declaring that no development has taken place.

BTW, I think 7 of 9 was one of the most well developed characters in the franchise. She started out as a (practically) born Borg and through her capture by Janeway and a myriad of events, finishes the series nearly complete as a human.

 

[Tim Thomason]

I don't recall any indication that Lorca had a personal obsession with locating the secret of the klingon cloak other than his orders from Starfleet.

It's going to interesting finding out how MU Lorca found his way into the PU.



Most, if not all (excluding Saru) of the characters mentioned in Tim Thomasson's post required more than 3/4 of the first season of their respective shows in order to show development.

Gotta give the DSC characters a bit more time before declaring that no development has taken place.

BTW, I think 7 of 9 was one of the most well developed characters in the franchise. She started out as a (practically) born Borg and through her capture by Janeway and a myriad of events, finishes the series nearly complete as a human.

There's also the fact that DIS is highly serialized to the point of (almost) being a singular story. It's not as episodic, so, of course every character development is furthering the overall story. They don't have the luxury of a Data's Day or an Infinite Regress or an Amok Time.

Now you can mention DS9, which is the best at characterisation, but they had the best of both worlds, sprinkling their serial story over time between baseball games and holodeck pathos.

I will grant that Burnham herself doesn't seem to have grown much. She's a little less depressed than in Episode 3 (well, maybe not after the Tyler fiasco and the MU getting her down... #BurnhamMustSuffer), but I'm not sure she's less likely to pull a mutiny if things don't go her way in a life-or-death scenario. That whole tardigrade situation, while noble, was pretty much her still disobeying orders and going rogue again.

But, anyway, the goalposts here are written against DIS's favor, but it's still managing to step up to the plate and offer (some) juicy characters.

 

[Tuskin38]

The Mirror Shenzhou's shuttle craft had a label of SHN-03

I'd assume the Prime Shenzhou's shuttle craft was the same.

I wonder how they choose the names. Guessing by sound/pronunciation? 'SHN' probably sounds like 'Shen', DSC sounds like 'Disc'.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Oh come now. Tilly is the Wesley Crusher of Discover.

Not even close. Chekov, maybe.

 

[T'Bonz]

She's a problem solver all over (engineering, medical, Captain's chair); she's young and overly earnest to the point of being annoying.

Yeah, Wesley. Like Wesley, she's calming down.

 

[Nerys Myk]

She's a problem solver all over (engineering, medical, Captain's chair); she's young and overly earnest to the point of being annoying.

Yeah, Wesley. Like Wesley, she's calming down.

Nah. She just does Spore stuff. Saru's doing the actual Captaining.