Spoilers Plot holes in the final s2 episode

[Discofan]

...the final battle is completely pointless! Once they got everything they need, time crystal, queen of Xahea, etc... Just (spore) jump far enough and you have all the time you need to charge the crystal, build the time suit, throw a party, take a month's vacation on Risa. The whole running around is just stupid.

Also since the suit is the exact copy of that of Gabrielle Burnham then they could download the sphere data into THAT suit, with Control far away, trying to reach them. Put the suit on autopilot and send it, say.. one billion years into the future. Problem solved.

Now if they absolutely want a battle then jump away get disco completely ready while in another part of the quadrant you assemble your Armada and when it's done jump Disco in the middle of it. So if Control wants to get to Disco he'll have to go through the Armada first!!

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

The whole point is to get Control to believe that the sphere data has been wiped out. The only way to do that is to get Control to assume that Discovery is destroyed.

If the ship simply jumps away to parts unknown, Control will assume that the data still exists. Thus, the time jump. Control doesn't know that Discovery is in the future, it thinks the ship was destroyed. Thus any remnants of Control (if there are any) will not try to look for the sphere data again.

 

[Discofan]

The whole point is to get Control to believe that the sphere data has been wiped out. The only way to do that is to get Control to assume that Discovery is destroyed.

If the ship simply jumps away to parts unknown, Control will assume that the data still exists. Thus, the time jump. Control doesn't know that Discovery is in the future, it thinks the ship was destroyed. Thus any remnants of Control (if there are any) will not try to look for the sphere data again.

No, you didn't get my point. By jumping away once they got all the elements, they would have enough time to assemble the time suit without having to hurry and as I said if they wanted a battle they could have assembled their armada in some point of the quadrant while in another place Disco would get ready or simply wait, since Control's ships would automatically converge toward Disco. Once Disco and the armada are ready they simply jump in the middle of a ginormous armada made of everything the Federation had available at the time. The battle could then start with far better odds than how it happened in the episode.

If you will, Disco would be used as bait on an enormous hook.

 

[The Wormhole]

Well, yeah. Considering Spore Drive has no clear limit, they could easily have just gone to the distant portions of the Gamma or Delta Quadrant or even to another galaxy altogether and been safe from Control. But then, they were so intent on their go into the future to Preserve Canon, and there was already Calypso that they felt they had to build up to, that basically decided everything. And I guess BIG EPIC BATTLE is more exciting than "we got everything we need, let's jump out of Section 31's range and assemble it in peace and quiet." Plus they wouldn't be able to feature the Enterprise, and they had to have the Enterprise.

 

[Lord Garth]

Devil's Advocate. By the 29th Century, Starfleet can travel between quadrants as if it's nothing. Ergo, if Control were still around or revived, it too could expand across the entire galaxy, given enough time. And it's a good thing the information of when Discovery jumped to is a secret. A 29th Century Control with access to time travel technology, ala Braxton, could've known exactly when to meet up with Discovery. Which made Tyler's having to make sure Control never sprung up again even more important.

Not that I like the "We must preserve the Canon to keep Canonistas quiet!" motivation.

 

[Kor]

But then it turned out that Control stowed away aboard DISCO, so they had to have one last epic showdown on board. Then they get to the far future and the threat no longer exists. So they should be able to go back to the 23rd century without any further worry about Control.

Kor

 

[serabine]

But then it turned out that Control stowed away aboard DISCO, so they had to have one last epic showdown on board. Then they get to the far future and the threat no longer exists. So they should be able to go back to the 23rd century without any further worry about Control.

Kor

Ash asks in the debriefing in the final episode if Control has been eliminated. They are still not completely sure if there isn't another instance of it hidden away somewhere. They are doing the ultimate "better safe than sorry" by hiding in the future.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

 

[Tosk]

I always wonder what the point of having a completely nondescript thread title is for a thread marked as spoilers. How is anyone supposed to know what they're getting into?

 

[Tenacity]

I always wonder what the point of having a completely nondescript thread title is for a thread marked as spoilers. How is anyone supposed to know what they're getting into?

The thread is in the Discovery section, it's labeled spoiler, therefor spoilers about Discovery.

If you haven't seen the whole thing stay away.

 

[Tosk]

Allow me to re-word it then. "What is the point of a thread title that tells you nothing?"

 

[cultcross]

I changed the title to something more meaningful. This has already been discussed to death in the episode thread, but that doesn't mean there isn't something else to be said.

 

[Tenacity]

If the original title had mentioned a final battle, a time crystal, or a queen, would that constitute a spoiler to someone who hasn't seen season two?

At this point the Discovery seasons should perhaps be separate forums from each other and be in their entireties spoiler zones. It's difficult to discuss almost any aspect of the previous season in detail without it containing spoilers. And if someone hasn't seen season one the same.

 

[Discofan]

Sometimes you even give away spoilers when talking about the first season like if you say: "By turning his crew into fighters, Lorca helped preserve sentient life in the Galaxy."

 

[Timo]

Given the time constraints, the final battle isn't pointless from the POV of the characters. The events transpire within mere hours: nobody has time to think straight there.

I mean, after the Red Angel issue was defused for the time being, the simple plan was to blow up the ship, meaning there would be no hurry whatsoever: the universe is saved and Control can be dealt with at the heroes' leisure. When the Sphere Data refuses to cooperate, it's a very sudden and significant change of plans: from pushing a button to waging a battle against time on multiple fronts.

Now, that battle absolutely requires the physical element: the heroes cannot realistically assume another push-button solution to work, so they need their guns-hot Plan B no matter what. And indeed time runs out, meaning there's battle, and then they have to do Plan A Mod, which is the jump to the future. Which is again realistic, as dusting off old plans is what you do when you are short of time.

Except they don't have to go through with Plan A Mod after all, thanks to Georgiou's proactive approach to stopping Control. But this only happens at the very end of the fight, mere moments before Plan A Mod is put to action. So again the heroes cannot realistically be expected to react and abort.

The damning faults in the dramatic execution thus are:

- a season that takes months to unfold for the audience, when the heroes only have weeks and then hours to cope, thus making the audience "smarter" than the heroes
- insertion of filler to turn the final episode into a two-parter, now reversing the pacing so that suddenly there is time for the heroes to think, to consult level-minded experts such as Sarek, and to backpedal
- insertion of communications revealing Georgiou's "I negated the entire plot, you may stand down now" achievement to the heroes when they still have time to abort; the heroes might just as well have learned of this two seconds too late, for a more dramatic twist of the tale

And of course it's a bit much to expect the audiences to go with realism. ITRW, plans in motion aren't aborted even when it's clear they will be catastrophic failures. In Hollywood, heroes achieve such feats of brakesmanship all the time. Now, if the writers only take the time to reflect on that and dedicate much of Ep1S3 to the heroes sitting down and debating how idiotic it was of them to travel to the future... Why, they have a whole Janeway Arc handed them on a platter.

Tmo Saloniemi

 

[Discofan]

Given the time constraints, the final battle isn't pointless from the POV of the characters. The events transpire within mere hours: nobody has time to think straight there.
....

Yeah, it doesn't take a genius to think: "Maybe if we spore jump a few hundreds of light years away it will give us ample time to built the time suit and charge the crystal before the S31 ships catch up with Discovery."
To me, anything you can think of on the spot and doesn't come to mind to any of super-gifted heroes is a major plot hole. Plus that could have been solved by simply saying: "The spore drive is now kaput for such or such reason." but not even think about it is just bad.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Since it's all a self-fulfilling prophecy, none of it's pointless since it all had to happen in order for Michael to realise and then act out her part in it all.

 

[fireproof78]

To me, anything you can think of on the spot and doesn't come to mind to any of super-gifted heroes is a major plot hole.

Not necessarily, since neither you nor I are under the stress of this specific situation. It's wonderful to think that we could come up with all these ideas, but when emotions are running high a human's capacity to think logically is reduced, we get tunnel vision, and become less flexible in our thinking.

It's not a plot hole right off the bat just because the characters can't think of every possible solution in a stressful situation. That's not how humans work, even the best of the best.

 

[Discofan]

Not necessarily, since neither you nor I are under the stress of this specific situation. It's wonderful to think that we could come up with all these ideas, but when emotions are running high a human's capacity to think logically is reduced, we get tunnel vision, and become less flexible in our thinking.

It's not a plot hole right off the bat just because the characters can't think of every possible solution in a stressful situation. That's not how humans work, even the best of the best.

That may be true for one person but here we have many of them plus, the idea of: "Maybe we should jump away to buy us enough time to do everything we need quietly, instead of staying here and doing so while being shot at!" doesn't exactly require ultra smart people to being had.

 

[fireproof78]

That may be true for one person but here we have many of them plus, the idea of: "Maybe we should jump away to buy us enough time to do everything we need quietly, instead of staying here and doing so while being shot at!" doesn't exactly require ultra smart people to being had.

That's not always how humans work, even in groups.

This seems to expect super human abilities instead of allowing protagonists to make flawed choices.