Spoilers Seeming contradiction between S2 finale and Season 1 (spoilers for S2 finale)

Spoilers for Season 2 finale here.

In the end, Starfleet classifies Michael Burnham's very existence and forbids any discussion of her in a (to me) forced way to correlate with the rest of Star Trek canon.

However, even if Starfleet officers all vow never to speak of her, the fact is everyone knows her. Season 1 showed that most of Starfleet blamed her for the Klingon War. Even Kirk, McCoy ,Scotty, etc. (who would be junior officers at this time probably) would have heard of her. Yes, they all would vow not to speak of her, but honestly wouldn't this just cause uncomfortable silences around Spock instead of, you know, people genuinely forgetting her?

Even if all Starfleet personnel eventually adapt to not speaking of Burnham and learn to act normally about the massive coverup around one of the Federation's most infamous figures, nothing is stopping the Klingons from screaming about her every chance they get. Kor should be challenging Spock to a duel upon learning of his identity in Errand of Mercy to avenge the slayer of T'Kuvma, as should every Klingon Spock encounters across his life (and there are a lot).

Thoughts?

 

In TOS, Spock's own commanding officer didn't know who his family was. Why would Kor be privy to such details?

Kor

 

The season 2 finally synced up with canon.... if you don't think too deeply
Let it go, best I can offer you. 23rd century is closed, we ain't coming back to it any time soon, so none of it matters really.

 

It might just work with a bit of handwaving.

Burnham and the Discovery were officially "blow'ed up". The only time the spore drive was heavily used was in the first half of the Klingon war, meaning the Klingons thought they had dealt with that "fabled ship" (as Kol called it).

Everybody and their grandparents would know Burnham, but officially she'd still be just a mutineer, one that blow'ed up even. But the amount of people that actually know about her being Spock's sister would be comparatively small - lots of Vulcans, but only a handfull of Starfleet officers that served on the Shenzhou and the Discovery, but were shifted off ship before either ship's "end".

But yes - I don't think that's actually a good fix for any of the problems the show had, and actually only makes everything worse.


Sidenote:
Can a mod put the "Spoiler"-tag into the title? Then the first entry of this thread doesn't need to be hidden as a "Spoiler"...

 

Because otherwise Voyager would have come home earlier! Also, the Federation clearly is known as an organization that classifies ALL of their discoveries - from parallel universes to shroom multiverses - and never, ever lets scientists have a look at it!

Yeah.

It really ONLY works as a handwave for canon- and franchise-management. There is absolutely no in-universe reason for it.

 

Klingons care a lot less about privacy than Starfleet officers. They don't even care about their own norms when it suits them (Gowron happily stole the Kahless knife to try to disprove the clone in TNG, which makes me wonder why he didn't just steal some time crystals for his advantage).

Also, it's possible with Discovery actually gone, Starfleet found out "Blast! We have no blueprints on how it actually works!" and so the tech is genuinely lost...

 

Fastest way would be to hit notify on your opening post so one of the mods can fix it. Anyway, it's done.

 

Thanks!

 

It is a reboot.

 

Yes, it's ridiculous.

No, it's far from unprecedented in Star Trek. If it weren't for the collective amnesia of the Federation* at least half of Star Trek would never have happened.


*It's a side-effect of the shit the government puts in everyone's food to calm them down and convince them that they're "evolved."

 

The only way it works is if Control (from the book) is actually in control. Embedded in every bit of Federation and ally technology and offing any and every one that mentions any of the events. Essentially, Control would rewrite history.

 

Ummm... Section 31 is confirmed as set in the 23rd (I'm guessing Georgiou is taking the angel suit for a spin). Not sure about Lower Decks or the rest, but we're not finished with Pike/Kirk's era.

 

To the general public, the ship was listed as destroyed and all hands presumed dead.
The official records were all doctored to indicate this and nothing else.

While everyone involved in Star Fleet, either chooses to never discuss it again or are ordered too under penalty of law. (remember also that many of the StarFleet personnel involved died)

The Klingons are only ever going to tell the story in such a manner that indicates they were the victors, in order to maintain their 'supposed' Honor.
Never mentioning that a human female was in any way responsible.

Amanda and Sarek have no need to tell anybody and wouldn't anyway, knowing it might be detrimental to Spock's career, as well as emotionally painful.
Any other Vulcans in-the-know, could care less as it involves Earth Humans.

Po is exceptionally good at keeping secrets.
Siranna will never divulge anything she knows, in order to protect her brother and will most likely inform her fellow Kelpians to do the same.
(I rather doubt any of them know anything beyond the fact that Saru and his ship that freed them from Ba'ul enslavement, needs help anyway)

So, within a couple of decades the Discovery becomes just another ship that fought during the
Binary Stars Klingon Skirmish (no WAR here) and was lost in the aftermath.

In another few decades most of the people involved will be dead and gone, thus the whole chapter will be pretty much forgotten or have become conspiracy rumors for those interested.

 

Yes, Michael Burnham was somewhat infamous after the war, but I never got the impression that her relationship to the Vulcan Ambassador Sarek was all that well known outside of the corridors of power on Vulcan and a few close Starfleet personnel, or you would expect for there to be some blowback for him or mention of it after she got imprisoned. And Vulcans by nature keep things close to the chest, so I wouldn't expect them to talk about it much. Sarek would probably want to keep the relationship low key outside necessary exchanges like the Vulcan Science Academy, especially after the Logic Extremists targeted Michael and the family.

So in terms of people questioning Spock, since they didn't even know his father was the Vulcan ambassador or that he had a brother, there probably shouldn't be a reason for her to ever be brought up in his presence anyway, since regardless of whether people know of the infamous Michael Burnham, very few would associate her with Spock. Discovery is gone, there's no reason most of the Enterprise crew besides the bridge officers has to know they're brother and sister.

 

I think it should be set in the Picard show era. Georgiou can now just time jump to that era since she's already in the far future and has to do a time jump anyway, and Tyler's survival to that timeframe can be due to his internal Klingon biology (or even some kind of time jump via his son's time crystal connections).

 

When was it confirmed to take place in 23rd century?

 

Click!

I guess he doesn't specifically say 23rd century, but definitely pre-DS9.

It really seems the S31 show will be a post-Winter Soldier version of Agents of SHIELD.

 

Could be. Just because the "Control" we saw on screen wasn't the one from the novel, doesn't mean that one doesn't exist, knew what was going to happen with the imposter calling itself Control, and arranged events such that the time suit would be constructed and Michael Burnham would be born. There is precedent of the novel version planning things out decades in advance, including the birth of specific individuals. It would be poetic, actually.

New headcanon: DSC season two was the real Control's middle finger to an upstart imposter.