Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 2x14 - "Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2"

[T'Bonz]

I would have thought McCoy would be the person farthest from Spock.

That was my first thought.

* *

EnderAKH:

You don't think they are going to pull the trigger on the fan-fictiony "Fallen Federation" storyline, do you? The one, like Andromeda, where our heroes have to put the Federation back together after it has fallen due to corruption, war or what have you.

God no. I've seen/heard that idea kicked around for years. I don't need any more "dark" shows. What first attracted me to Trek was the hope and the positive future. I watched a season of Andromeda and man, it was depressing.

* *
Lord Garth:

@T'Bonz knows about the situation. But Disco's not coming back until 2020, so I think we're good at least for a little bit.

Hey, no one clued ME in about this. We'll see if it's a permanent change or not. It started early though, so it can stay early as far as I'm concerned.

* *

ClintDagger:

As I was typing that this AM I had a friend text me, theorizing that DSC is done and the series will pick up with Pike & Co. I let him know what Kurtzman said so he’s set straight now but I guess that’s proof positive that some are taking it how I suspected they might.

I knew better, but it sure seemed like the end of Disco and the beginning of the Pike-Spock show.

 

[SolarisOne]

I watched a season of Andromeda and man, it was depressing.

They did manage to rebuild the Systems Commonwealth, though. Of course, then Sorbo basically took over and everything went to shit, but they did manage to bring the Commonwealth back to life.

 

[eschaton]

People keep mentioning the Borg and I'm glad they never got a mention or appearance but I will say and have said before I thought the tech Control was using might have been Borg in origin since Section 31 must have samples from the time Archer encountered them. If they're not directly Borg they were reverse engineered from those samples. That's always been my take on that.

A much simpler explanation IMHO is the following.

1. The instance of Control which took over Leland was FutureControl - from a period in the future after which Control had wiped out "all sentient life in the galaxy."
2. The Borg are sentient life in the galaxy.
3. Therefore, Control must have, in the following 1,000 years, have contacted and eliminated the Borg. Presumably this gave them access to samples of Borg technology - like nanoprobes - to work with.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

I know, but it still felt dramatically odd to me.

They may have gotten rid of Leland on Discovery, but who knows about the rest of the 23rd Century and anywhere within it.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

A much simpler explanation IMHO is the following.

1. The instance of Control which took over Leland was FutureControl - from a period in the future after which Control had wiped out "all sentient life in the galaxy."
2. The Borg are sentient life in the galaxy.
3. Therefore, Control must have, in the following 1,000 years, have contacted and eliminated the Borg. Presumably this gave them access to samples of Borg technology - like nanoprobes - to work with.

All the more reason to eliminate them.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Internal blast doors won't be any tougher that the main hull, certainly not enough to stop a blast that close. That's not dumber than only having an emergency lever on one side of the door though. A line confirming that the lever on the other side was damaged would have made more sense.

I remember in a ep of TNG when the ship was down for whatever reason, they had to use the levers to bypass the doors. There happened to be levers on both sides.

 

[DaveyNY]

That was my first thought.

* *

EnderAKH:

God no. I've seen/heard that idea kicked around for years. I don't need any more "dark" shows. What first attracted me to Trek was the hope and the positive future. I watched a season of Andromeda and man, it was depressing.

* *
Lord Garth:



Hey, no one clued ME in about this. We'll see if it's a permanent change or not. It started early though, so it can stay early as far as I'm concerned.

* *

ClintDagger:



I knew better, but it sure seemed like the end of Disco and the beginning of the Pike-Spock show.

DISCOVERY is the first Trek which will be mainlined in two different century's.

My suggestion is to just retitle this Forum, STAR TREK: DISCOVERY - 23rd CENTURY (Season's 1 & 2)
then add a second below it, titled STAR TREK: DISCOVERY - 32nd CENTURY (Season 3+).

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

If Control is vulnerable to electro-magnetism, they could have just tasered him.

A hand held taser is designed to create electro shock to stun the nervous system. Not a concentrated EMP field which would mess with the Solid State Data stored Magnetically. or fry the circuitry in the Nanites.

Leland was alone more than once on board Discovery. They'd have to be crazy to just assume there wasn't more of him hidden away somewhere.

They can do there best to clean the ship of Leland once they time travel. But as for the rest of the 23rd century, there's just too much out of their reach for them to do to make sure CONTROL isn't gone.

 

[DaveyNY]

A hand held taser is designed to create electro shock to stun the nervous system. Not a concentrated EMP field which would mess with the Solid State Data stored Magnetically. or fry the circuitry in the Nanites.

They can do there best to clean the ship of Leland once they time travel. But as for the rest of the 23rd century, there's just too much out of their reach for them to do to make sure CONTROL isn't gone.

That will probably be Tyler's first assignment as the new Section-31 leader.
Hunt down any further instances of CONTROL.

 

[Bay17]

Culber went from I'm-going-to-the-Enterprise to you're-my-everything in the blink of an eye. Or so it seemed to me. What did I miss? Someone help me out here.

I think it was the conversation Culber had with Reno where she says “people like us fall for people like them” and basically tells him not throw it all away and miss his chance

I think!

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

My suspicion is that the L'Rell regime doesn't last all that long and by the time Kirk gets his captain's stripe, the new Klingon administration has gone full blown cold-war on the Fed, or at least L'Rell's moved in that direction to stay in power.

I bet the battle scene where the supposedly Dead "Ash Tyler" standing in a Federation Uniform leading the Klingon's into battle to help the Federation in a time of need and many Klingons bearing witness to that battle / Ash Tyler is what leads to L'Rell's administration either going down or forcing her hand politically into a cold war mentality for fear of another civil war.

The beheaded traitor openly on board the Klingon ship...I guess L'Rell swore all the other Klingons to secrecy about him.

Or somebody leaked that secret to a competing house that wants the Chancellorship and she loses that Chancellorship in the future.

Another FFS: I wonder how many people bit the dust while Burnham and Spock had a natter. Also nice that Burnham pointed Spock in the direction of Kirk.

Yeah, that doesn't help Burnham's case of not being a douche nozzle when people are literally being flying meat shields for her.

The battle reminded me of an EVE Online battle. A few capital ships trying to DPS each other's shield's down while small ships work as tacklers and skirmishers keeping each side from out manouvering. The battle becomes a matter of math. Once the allies show up, DPS advantage fell from Control side and their tank started to fail. I thought it was the best handled battle they've done. Far better than that napoleonic war stuff at Binary Stars. Light Years better than anything Star was has done besides Yavin, Endor, or Rogue One.

I agree, it felt very "Video-Gamey" and was FAR too close range to each other IMO compared to how far away battle could be. We've seen in TOS that battles can be BVR by a good bit.

 

[Tim Thomason]

A much simpler explanation IMHO is the following.

1. The instance of Control which took over Leland was FutureControl - from a period in the future after which Control had wiped out "all sentient life in the galaxy."
2. The Borg are sentient life in the galaxy.
3. Therefore, Control must have, in the following 1,000 years, have contacted and eliminated the Borg. Presumably this gave them access to samples of Borg technology - like nanoprobes - to work with.

The nanites are actually the same nanites that became sentient after Wesley Crusher experimented with them in Evolution. Their exile on Kavis Alpha IV at Picard's hand enraged them, and after coming into contact with an inferior Borg ship, they destroyed all macroforms they could find, then travelled to the past to take over Control, somehow.

 

[Tai]

Late to the party...

This is an episode and season review.

SSS Parts I & II

The Good

-The season arc made sense. The mystery of the 7 signals was explained. It wasn't the most satisfying of explanations but I'll take it.

-The Enterprise in combat. She is a fierce beauty. I enjoyed it. Compared to Into Darkness where she didn't fire a shot...

All of the Short Trek elements had a payoff. I thought Saru's sister was a little shoehorned, but I was not expecting the Klingons and Kelpiens. It was a nice surprise. The Klingon rank and file were probably thrilled to get to blow up Starfleet ships.

The Bad:

-If you're gonna go 95% Battlestar Galactica... just go 100% Battlestar Galactica. Shuttles are a poor man's Viper Mk II. Just have Starfleet fightercraft already. Those little spinny pods were lame.

I loved the aesthetic and appreciate the work put into bringing that battle to screen, but it's the little stuff that took me out of it.

-Admiral Cornwall. A trained psychiatrist. Her job: 60% administrative. 20% Making sound personnel decisions. 20% Fleet Command strategy and tactics. 0% EOD.

There should be several damage control and EOD teams on the Enterprise. This made zero sense. You couldn't order any dozen redshirts to take the place of the Admiral in pulling a manual hatch?! I get it, Captains doing the dangerous stuff they shouldn't be doing is a hallmark of Star Trek... but maybe it shouldn't be.

Best Part of the Season:

Pike, Spock and the Enterprise. All this season did was whet my appetite for an Enterprise spinoff. Pike was a little bit of a square jawed prototypical hero... but he was a good restoration of equilibrium as intended after Lorca.

As Spock Ethan Peck elevated every scene he was in. He did the most favors to Burnham, but also helped Sarek and Amanda's somewhat disjointed roles on the show. You really could see that there was a family here we didn't know about.
(Of course, I didn't like the "It's Classified" cop-out to explain Michael's absence from Star Trek lore). Spock was perfect this season.

The Worst of the Season:

Michael Burnham.

Sonequa Martin-Green is not the problem. Her acting is fine. The problem is that her character is the ultimate Mary Sue. Not in that she is without flaws and of limitless talents... but because everything that could possibly happen, has happened to her.

Michael Burnham... daughter of two murdered civilian scientists that turn out to be secret agents working for Section 31. Her mother is presumed dead, but actually traveling through time living the same moments countless times in order to save all sentient life in the galaxy. Michael Burnham, adopted by famed diplomat Sarek and his wife Amanda. Adoptive sister to Spock, the first Vulcan in Starfleet. Loyal XO to famed Captain Phillipa Georgiou... who sees her as her own daughter who she inexplicably mutinies against on the brink of an intersteller war. Whose Mirror Universe counterpart also sees her as a daughter despite being a murderous, fascist megalomaniacal Emperor. Michael Burnham who killed the Klingon torchbearer and killed the Klingon unifier T'Kuvma to begin the Federation-Klingon War... who returns to Starfleet by the grace of a covert mirror universe counterpart to a respected Starfleet Captain... who was in love with her mirror universe counterpart. Michael Burnham whose love interest is a Klingon outcast who was surgically grafted into the body of a Starfleet POW who is in the midst of a major identity crisis... she's got 6 mothers, three fathers, a brother and four people in love with her. We're only done with season 2!

I initially liked the notion that the protagonist need not be the Captain. It would mean that we could see the ramifications of the Captain's decision-making from a junior officer's perspective... it means perhaps this character isn't the decison-maker but is at the mercy of forces superior to her... this is a perspective that is extremely relatable to the typical viewer.

What they did with Michael was they made her the protagonist and said, "Everyone and everything revolves around her."

I think I'm past the point of being able to see Michael Burnham as a real person. I hope they can

 

[SolarisOne]

Their exile on Kavis Alpha IV at Picard's hand enraged them

I literally just watched that episode yesterday. They agreed to go there. It wasn't an "exile".

 

[Lord Garth]

DISCOVERY is the first Trek which will be mainlined in two different century's.

I'm getting a huge kick out of the idea that Discovery defies categorization. But, technically, it's still from the perspective of a crew from the 23rd Century.

 

[DaveyNY]

I literally just watched that episode yesterday. They agreed to go there. It wasn't an "exile".

Future CONTROL could have somehow managed to invade their planet and take them over I guess.

 

[eschaton]

Though there are many flaws with the whole "Cornwell's heroic sacrifice" moment - most notably, as I said, the idea that blast doors (with a window!) could protect Pike from a photon torpedo exploding less than 20 feet away - from a character sense it was clear what they were trying to do here. Cornwell died for one reason only - in order to reinforce why Pike has accepted his fate to become a wheelchair-confined invalid.

The key is in their final exchange. Pike is ready to die in Cornwell's stead, since it is his ship. He's also a bit incredulous that he can die, considering he knows his true fate, and perhaps is considering that such a heroic out is better than what otherwise awaits him. Cornwell notes that he may be wrong, and he needs to think of all the people he could yet save in the future. This convinces Pike to let her make the heroic sacrifice.

The point of the scene is basically to say the reason Pike is now fated to end up in the chair isn't because there's some sort of god of destiny pushing things to their improbable conclusion. It's because he's a man driven by his sense of duty and selflessness, and because of that, he will continue to make the right decisions, right up to saving the cadets. Making other choices simply is not who he is.

Honestly, it was probably the single best "character moment" in the entire episode. It's a shame the scenario they used to railroad this moment into being was so fucking contrived.

 

[oberth]

I remember in a ep of TNG when the ship was down for whatever reason, they had to use the levers to bypass the doors. There happened to be levers on both sides.

may be losing an admiral quite unnecessarily made them rethink their design in the years to come

 

[Mr Awe]

The point of the scene is basically to say the reason Pike is now fated to end up in the chair isn't because there's some sort of god of destiny pushing things to their improbable conclusion. It's because he's a man driven by his sense of duty and selflessness, and because of that, he will continue to make the right decisions, right up to saving the cadets. Making other choices simply is not who he is.

Honestly, it was probably the single best "character moment" in the entire episode.

That's awesomely said! I wrote something similar after the time crystal episode, but you wrote it better. In short, Pike is destined for that end because of the man he is. He'd have to be someone else other than Pike to avoid it.

 

[Tim Thomason]

I literally just watched that episode yesterday. They agreed to go there. It wasn't an "exile".

They were fine with it, sure. Until Kavis Alpha V exploded and life on Kavis Alpha IV became hell.