Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 2x11 - "Perpetual Infinity"

[eschaton]

How did Control get Lealand into the chair after eye poking him without anyone noticing?

Did I miss something?

By the time he woke up there were little bots and the like which were working for Control. I get the idea that Control had either built the bots or co-opted them already.

Was there anyone else actually on the Section 31 ship other than Leland, Tyler, and Georgiou? If so, I guess they're all dead now. Maybe that's what the frozen/spaced bodies in the trailer from next episode are.

 

[SG-17]

And why don't phasers work vs Airiam or Lealand?

Same reason they don't work on the Borg.

 

[Romulan_spy]

I want joyful star trek episodes. Someone please fan edit out the dumb "humor" from Orville, and let me know when they're ready.

You should watch The Orville. The show has really fixed the dumb humor. It's not nearly as dumb as before. The humor is more low key and much better this season. Plus, a lot of episode this season are serious episodes.

 

[Seven of Five]

That's an 8 for me. Some good moments throughout, though I was getting fed up of the drawn out countdown scenes. We've had enough of that with bloody shields/hull plating over the years.

I really, truly hope that Leland is not a Borg.

I liked seeing the little flashbacks. Burnham's mother was an interesting character, and I can see why she was resisting connecting to her again being as she'd lost her once already.

 

[Gilora]

I can advice anyone to -before judging these kind of episodes- to watch it at least a second time. Second time I watched this, it was so much better for me.

Agreed. The technobabble was less confusing on re-watch.

 

[SG-17]

Control being the origin of the Borg could explain why the Borg have consistently failed to assimilate the Federation. There might be a tiny nugget of Control's original directives still present at the core of the Borg code/consciousness that hampers their efforts to assimilate Earth.

 

[DaveyNY]

Because that makes sense.


But I think the opposite is also possible - if you're too forgiving, the plot has no boundaries in which to work and it is boundaries which create dramatic tension. It invites ass-pull Deus ex machina twists, inconsistencies which undermine tension (does Discovery's bloody transporter work or not?!), logic holes like last week, and tech the tech episodes like this one.

It made sense to the character.
(which is the more important consideration)
She became infuriated with the fact that no matter what she tried, she was unable to complete her goal.
Blaming the one thing that she thought she had some control over but actually had very little, became almost an obsession by the time of the episode.

 

[SolarisOne]

But Control itself is Section 31's threat assessment AI program, right? It is not from the future.

The version of Control that "assimilated" Leland IS from the future. It used the wormhole from Mama Burnham's latest incursion to infiltrate the S31 ship computer. The "present" version of Control was destroyed earlier in the season.

Same reason they don't work on the Borg.

Incorrect. Leland has no shielding. He healed like an advanced Terminator after each blast. Each "wound" was metallic-colored.

I really, truly hope that Leland is not a Borg.

HE IS NOT BORG. The Borg can't "heal" the way Leland did. They've never been able to do that. If the Borg were able to do that, it would be nigh impossible to kill a drone. Picard's holographic bullets in First Contact would have done jack shit to those drones.

 

[DaveyNY]

Yeah, the whole dyslexia makes Spock able to communicate with Gabrielle, was pretty dumb IMO.

Not really communicate, but hopefully have some understanding of the message.
As I said above though, he was too messed up at that point to get it beyond knowing where Michael went.

 

[Rhodan]

The version of Control that "assimilated" Leland IS from the future. It used the wormhole from Mama Burnham's latest incursion to infiltrate the S31 ship computer. The "present" version of Control was destroyed earlier in the season.

Incorrect. Leland has no shielding. He healed like an advanced Terminator after each blast. Each "wound" was metallic-colored.

HE IS NOT BORG. The Borg can't "heal" the way Leland did. They've never been able to do that. If the Borg were able to do that, it would be nigh impossible to kill a drone. Picard's holographic bullets in First Contact would have done jack shit to those drones.

And Discovery respected technological and visual continuity when exactly?

 

[SG-17]

Incorrect. Leland has no shielding. He healed like an advanced Terminator after each blast. Each "wound" was metallic-colored.

He adapted to the phaser fire.

There is a lot of wiggle room to explain why the 24th century Borg don't have Leland's kind of healing. Maybe its inefficient compared to shields?

 

[DaveyNY]

And Discovery respected technological and visual continuity when exactly?

When They started making the show in 2015 and not in 1965.
Some things just need to be overlooked if one wishes to enjoy what one is watching in the current century.

 

[Rhodan]

When They started making the show in 2015 and not in 1965.
Some things just need to be overlooked if one wishes to enjoy what one is watching in the current century.

I´m not complaining. I am just stating his arguments why Lelan is not going to be Borg do not compute.

 

[DaveyNY]

I´m not complaining. I am just stating his arguments why Lelan is not going to be Borg do not compute.

There's no reason to believe that the BORG would end up exactly like the way Leland is portrayed now, since the ultimate goal of this story line is to eliminate CONTROL completely.
It's kinda-sorta looking like at this point that they will probably only succeed in stopping the AI from achieving Its ultimate goal, not destroy it completely.

So even though I'm not personally in favor of It becoming the origin of the BORG, it may well play out that way.
At which pint it will become c'est la vie for me.

 

[Rhodan]

There's no reason to believe that the BORG would end up exactly like the way Leland is portrayed now, since the ultimate goal of this story line is to eliminate CONTROL completely.
It's kinda-sorta looking like at this point that they will probably only succeed in stopping the AI from achieving Its ultimate goal, not destroy it completely.

So even though I'm not personally in favor of It becoming the origin of the BORG, it may well play out that way.
At which pint it will become c'est la vie for me.

Exactly! I agree...

 

[SG-17]

There's no reason to believe that the BORG would end up exactly like the way Leland is portrayed now, since the ultimate goal of this story line is to eliminate CONTROL completely.
It's kinda-sorta looking like at this point that they will probably only succeed in stopping the AI from achieving Its ultimate goal, not destroy it completely.

So even though I'm not personally in favor of It becoming the origin of the BORG, it may well play out that way.
At which pint it will become c'est la vie for me.

Plus if Control-Leland is shunted hundreds or thousands of years into the past into the Delta Quadrant that is a lot of time for change. We know from Seven that Borg records of their early history are largely fragmented and incomplete.

 

[Rhodan]

Plus if Control-Leland is shunted hundreds or thousands of years into the past into the Delta Quadrant that is a lot of time for change. We know from Seven that Borg records of their early history are largely fragmented and incomplete.

Granted that was just plot device, so she didn´t about Vaadwaur right away. But still....

 

[JD]

But Control itself is Section 31's threat assessment AI program, and is not from the future, right? It's just trying to get the sphere's data from the future, right?

None of what we are dealing with now is from the future, the future Control came back to try to help it's modern day self become fully sentient, but they stopped it when they spaced Ariam. The sphere data is also from the present, it is just all of the stuff that it experienced in the thousands or millions of years that it was around. Modern Control wants the data, because it can usually to finally become fully sentient.

Was there anyone else actually on the Section 31 ship other than Leland, Tyler, and Georgiou? If so, I guess they're all dead now. Maybe that's what the frozen/spaced bodies in the trailer from next episode are.

There were a few other extras that we saw wandering around on the ship.
This one gets an 8 from me, pretty solid, but not amazing.
The stuff with Burnham and her mom was good. I was really disappointed they didn't find a way to save Dr. Burnham, I was really hoping she would stick around.
I was really surprised they took care of Control/Leland so quickly, I expected him to pretty much be the big bad for the rest of the season.
It was nice to get the flashback to Burnham's parents' deaths, after hearing about it so much, I liked getting to see exactly what happened.

 

[SolarisOne]

And Discovery respected technological and visual continuity when exactly?

It's not a visual difference, in this case.

There is a lot of wiggle room to explain why the 24th century Borg don't have Leland's kind of healing. Maybe its inefficient compared to shields?

That kind of healing is vastly superior to shields. In every appearance of the Borg to date, when their shields didn't work, they had no defense whatsoever to phaser fire or being shot with bullets. Their exoplating was damn near useless on its own.

It's not just a visual difference--it's a functional one. Leland didn't block the phaser blasts with a forcefield, he tanked them. No adaptation required if you can just absorb the blast and keep going, like nothing happened.

As depicted, this guy could tear Borg drones to pieces--they wouldn't stand a chance in a fight.

Speaking of fighting: the Borg have never been fast or good at martial arts like Control!Leland is. They're cyber-zombies--nigh-inexorable, not quick.

If he's the genesis of the Borg, they should be more unbeatable by the 24th century, not less.

 

[DaveyNY]

It is interesting that the producers of DISCOVERY have chosen it to be the ultimate interconnecting web of almost everything Star Trek we know.

We've gotten references of Archer and hints of the NX-01 from ENTERPRISE

ALL the obvious connections to THE ORIGINAL SERIES

A lot of Technological Threads from THE NEXT GENERATION

I'm not sure yet what can be gleaned from DEEP SPACE NINE (but I am sure somebody can find something)
(EDIT: Very Senior Moment --- Section-31 of course, as @eschaton has pointed out)

Obviously, all the BORG inferences from VOYAGER (which relied heavily on them on many an episode)

And finally many tidbits from the assorted movies.