Spoilers Discovery and the Novelverse - TV show discussion thread

[Damian]

I have a hard time believing that about plenty of other technologies, as I've said. I have a hard time believing they don't use transporters as weapons (just turn off the rematerialization part and it's a disintegrator ray that can shoot through walls without line of sight, basically the Tantalus Device) or as a replacement for surgery. I have a hard time believing they didn't keep the Kelvan drive modifications and make their ships a hundred times faster. I have a hard time believing they haven't combined the quick-cloning from "A Man Alone" with the mind-transfer tech from "The Passenger" to make everyone immortal. Things that are hard to believe about Trek tech are hardly exclusive to the newest incarnation.

Yes, but my point is most of those were one episode devices that appeared and then were never seen again. The spore drive is not something that made a single appearance and was forgotten about. It's a major plot device of the entire series. When I think of Discovery, spore drive is one thing that immediately comes to mind, like warp drive for the original series. It's a critical part of the show that if you removed it, the show would be changed substantially (just like if you removed warp drive from the original series). If you removed the Kelvan drive you might lose a single episode, but it's not a crux for the entire series (and therefore easier to explain....maybe the Kelvan's simply removed and destroyed the tech claiming it as proprietary, just for instance).

I'm not sure how you'd effectively use transporters as a weapon though. All a ship has to do is raise its shields and that effectively stops its use against other ships. I suppose if you knock their shields out you could use it to transport weapons but then, if you knock their shields out you can just use your ship's weapons to do the same thing (that would seem to be the simplest). And against planets it still seems to me it would simply be easier to use your ships weapons. It could make for a good stealth type weapon I suppose against a specific target. I suppose you could argue its usefulness in surgery, but it's not something I thought of much. It seemed at the end of the day the way they did surgery was very non-invasive and effective already. Perhaps they already use some form of transporter technology in medicine (like we're told it forms the basis of replicator technology and holographic technology).

 

[Christopher]

Yes, but my point is most of those were one episode devices that appeared and then were never seen again.

And my point is that that's an irrelevant distinction to me. In-universe, there's no difference, and it's the in-universe logic that matters here, because from a real-world standpoint, with an understanding of how series fiction works, it's obvious why they weren't developed further.

And my deeper point is that Star Trek has always had implausibilities and plot holes that fans have complained about, so it's frankly disingenuous and tiresome to hear people say "Waaaaah, the new Trek show has this plot hole or that implausibility" as if it were some uniquely damning thing that invalidated the series's entire existence. I've been listening to the exact same kneejerk crap about every new Trek series for decades, and so it has zero credibility to me.

Trek has always been imperfect. It's always tried new things, some of which worked and some of which didn't. The fact that some new ideas don't work doesn't mean it was wrong to try them.

I'm not sure how you'd effectively use transporters as a weapon though. All a ship has to do is raise its shields and that effectively stops its use against other ships. I suppose if you knock their shields out you could use it to transport weapons but then, if you knock their shields out you can just use your ship's weapons to do the same thing (that would seem to be the simplest).

Yes, that's exactly the point. We've seen many cases of battles where one ship has knocked out another's shields but just gone on shooting at it, rather than, say, beaming the whole crew into space or into the brig and capturing the intact ship as a prize. More to the point, we've seen that transporters can effortlessly beam up whole shuttlecraft, meaning their disintegration ability is far more effective against a ship's hull materials than shooting them with phasers.

Not to mention that phasers are line-of-sight. With transporters, you can target someone kilometers underground or deep inside a building. It's an inconsistency of the worldbuilding that they let transporter beams do that but don't apply the same magical sensing and targeting technology to the weapons.

(It just occurred to me that it would've helped a lot if they'd established from the start in TOS that transporters could only work with a line of sight to the ship. There are so many episodes where they had to contrive excuses to keep the landing party from being rescued by transporter -- they lost their communicators, the ship came under attack and had to raise shields, there was some kind of interference on the planet, etc. It would've made it easier if they'd just said transporters can't work indoors unless there's a platform present.)

 

[Damian]

And my deeper point is that Star Trek has always had implausibilities and plot holes that fans have complained about, so it's frankly disingenuous and tiresome to hear people say "Waaaaah, the new Trek show has this plot hole or that implausibility" as if it were some uniquely damning thing that invalidated the series's entire existence. I've been listening to the exact same kneejerk crap about every new Trek series for decades, and so it has zero credibility to me

Well, we're just coming at it from a different perspective. I'm more willing to gloss over a one time episode contrivance than an entire series contrivance. Perhaps you being an author gives you a different perspective, or maybe just simply the fact that we all look for different things. There are other things that have bothered people that I'm on the other side, 'nope, not a big deal for me'.

And all that being said, at the end of Season 2 Discovery did provide an explanation as to why the spore drive was never heard from again. I'll admit it's not the best, it can even be said to be a bit clumsy. But it's part of the continuity now. Spore drive is forever classified, all involved are sworn to secrecy and the Discovery itself is in the 32nd century, apparently to stay. So the show runners have provided an in universe explanation.

So I guess that sort of means I'm complaining about something that's not even really an issue anymore, whether it bothers someone or not.

But, getting back to the books, one of the things I do like about books is they sometimes address some of these very issues. Sometimes someone will write a book explaining why a technology was disappeared (i.e. the life support belts seen in the animated series disappeared, which I think was addressed in "Ex Machina" if I'm not mistaken).

And I always say, continuity fixes aren't the primary reason I like novels--they have to be a good story first. But I consider them a nice bonus when they address things like that.

 

[Paul Weaver]

And all that being said, at the end of Season 2 Discovery did provide an explanation as to why the spore drive was never heard from again

Even setting aside the "never talk of it again" part, with the Glenn destroyed, Straal dead, Stamets and Discovery gone, secrecy from the war, and secrecy from Lorca, there would be no real information other than "somehow some really clever people managed to transport the ship very quickly while on mushroom powered drives".

 

[Christopher]

Well, we're just coming at it from a different perspective. I'm more willing to gloss over a one time episode contrivance than an entire series contrivance. Perhaps you being an author gives you a different perspective, or maybe just simply the fact that we all look for different things. There are other things that have bothered people that I'm on the other side, 'nope, not a big deal for me'.

I'm not saying spore drive wasn't a bad idea. Frankly I think it's one of the worst ideas in the franchise. My point is simply that new Trek does not have a monopoly on bad ideas. There's been plenty of crap all along. I just find it frustrating that people choose to forgive the bad and focus on the good where the old shows are concerned, but obsess over the bad where the new shows are concerned. It's inconsistent and unfair to judge the newer stuff by a harsher standard than the older stuff, and I detest unfairness.

 

[Enterprise1701]

Well, I suppose given the transition in Discovery's setting, I will now forgive the series's early sins if Strange New Worlds concludes with the Quch'Ha marching into the Great Hall and executing a coup d'état against the Hem'Quch to set the stage for TOS season 1.

 

[Christopher]

Well, I suppose given the transition in Discovery's setting, I will now forgive the series's early sins if Strange New Worlds concludes with the Quch'Ha marching into the Great Hall and executing a coup d'état against the Hem'Quch to set the stage for TOS season 1.

I prefer the idea that the HemQuch are still in charge and the QuchHa' are their cannon fodder, relegated to ships on the border where they can die in battles against the Klingons' enemies and be kept away from proper Klingon society. Generally the group in charge of the seats of power is not the same group fighting and dying on the front lines.

 

[Damian]

Even setting aside the "never talk of it again" part, with the Glenn destroyed, Straal dead, Stamets and Discovery gone, secrecy from the war, and secrecy from Lorca, there would be no real information other than "somehow some really clever people managed to transport the ship very quickly while on mushroom powered drives".

There were quite a few people aware of it though that are still sworn to secrecy. The reason I think the confidentiality angle is clumsy is because there were so many people aware of it, it's hard to believe word of it never gets out. But, I'll give them points for at least trying to address it in story so that we know why it was never worked on again (or its issues not addressed to make it a safe technology).

I just find it frustrating that people choose to forgive the bad and focus on the good where the old shows are concerned, but obsess over the bad where the new shows are concerned. It's inconsistent and unfair to judge the newer stuff by a harsher standard than the older stuff, and I detest unfairness.

Well, at least in my case, I'm more willing to overlook something that was used once and doesn't otherwise affect the show overall, than something that's a key part of the entire series. That brings the spore drive to the next level for me.

Looking at forgotten Trek tech from the other side, while there are some technologies that have shown up in Star Trek that are probably best left in the dust bin, there have been some forgotten tech ideas that it was a shame were forgotten.

 

[Greg Cox]

The big difference there is the time we had with that version of the Klingons. Before TMP there had only been 3 live action seasons and one animated season with, with only a few appearances. But with the TNG-Ent Klingons, we had 25 seasons, with dozens of appearances, and 3 movies. So having them suddenly change after they had only had a few minute changes, it is a lot more jarring..

I'm not sure about that. Sure, there had only been three seasons, but those three seasons had been rerun over and over for our entire lives and were the only STAR TREK most of us had ever seen at the time. So we shouldn't underestimate the degree to which those old-school Klingons were burned into the brains of every STAR TREK fan by the time 1979 came around. It's not just about the numbers.

Yes, I raised my eyebrow when the new-and-improved Klingons first appeared at the beginning of TMP, but then I shrugged, chalked it up to a bigger make-up budget, and got on with watching the movie.

It was no big deal. Not sure why it should be a big deal now.

 

[Christopher]

There were quite a few people aware of it though that are still sworn to secrecy. The reason I think the confidentiality angle is clumsy is because there were so many people aware of it, it's hard to believe word of it never gets out. But, I'll give them points for at least trying to address it in story so that we know why it was never worked on again (or its issues not addressed to make it a safe technology).

It's far worse than that, because they didn't just classify spore drive -- the claim in the final episode was that the entire existence of the starship Discovery and its crew was classified, to "explain" why we never heard them mentioned anywhere else. Which is ridiculous on many levels. First off, we don't need that explained, any more than we need it explained why nobody mentioned Archer or NX-01 or the Xindi. Just because something doesn't happen to come up in conversation in the episodes we see doesn't mean it didn't get mentioned some other time when the camera wasn't on. And second, it's completely nonsensical. You can't get everyone who ever encountered these people at any time in their entire lives to agree to hide their existence, and trying to do so would create such a huge hole in the records that it would draw attention to the cover-up rather than away from it.

I can grudgingly shrug off the spore drive thing, but that is the part I just can't take seriously.

 

[Tim Thomason]

People with green makeup all over their body. So an Orion. What makes the DSC ones different?

I'm growing more accepting of the Discovery redesign lately. At first, I was a bit confused about the changes in physique and coloration, and it seemed so unnatural at the end of Season 1 when we were told those were Orions.

In Season 3, they at least fixed the height issue, but kept all the other features. Yet, it fits the world and seems a logical variation of Orion that might've existed with the other shows. I still would like to see some classic Orions show up, but understand that's unlikely. Outside of Lower Decks, of course.

 

[Damian]

It's far worse than that, because they didn't just classify spore drive -- the claim in the final episode was that the entire existence of the starship Discovery and its crew was classified, to "explain" why we never heard them mentioned anywhere else. Which is ridiculous on many levels. First off, we don't need that explained, any more than we need it explained why nobody mentioned Archer or NX-01 or the Xindi. Just because something doesn't happen to come up in conversation in the episodes we see doesn't mean it didn't get mentioned some other time when the camera wasn't on. And second, it's completely nonsensical. You can't get everyone who ever encountered these people at any time in their entire lives to agree to hide their existence, and trying to do so would create such a huge hole in the records that it would draw attention to the cover-up rather than away from it.

I can grudgingly shrug off the spore drive thing, but that is the part I just can't take seriously.

Well, I can't disagree there. To classify everything was over the top.

It probably would have been sufficient just to classify the spore drive technology. That'd still be a stretch, but it's a more manageable secret. Then they could just say Discovery was lost with all hands if they wanted to leave their fate a secret (which is sort of true since they are never coming back). But I don't think they needed to classify the ship and crew.

 

[JD]

But that wasn't one version of the Klingons. It was multiple versions. There was the Fred Phillips TMP version with a single central spine running down an otherwise smooth bald head. There was the Burman Studios TSFS version with individualized bony skull plates, itself a radical redesign of the Phillips version. There was the Michael Westmore TV version that combined the bony plates of the Burman version with the ridged noses of the Phillips, but differed from Burman in giving females full ridges instead of subtle ones like Valkris had. There was the Richard Snell version in ST IV-VI that went for rounder foreheads and subtler ridge designs, and went back to giving females almost vestigial ridges. And then, of course, there's the Neville Page redesign from Into Darkness, which was almost as radical as Page's second Klingon design for Discovery.

There has always been a lot of artistic variation in how different designers depict the idea of "Klingon," just as there's variation in how different comic book artists have drawn Superman or the Thing over the decades. But we accept the variations as individual license and focus on the commonalities.

But most of those weren't anywhere near as drastic as what we got in Discovery.

No, they couldn't, because they were written to be Klingons. The story needed them to be Klingons. The story is what matters. Visuals are not the story. They're just the interpretation of the story. You're mistaking the superficial trappings for the substance of the idea.

OK, that's a fair point.

Besides, part of creativity is letting different creators play with the same idea in different ways. That is a good thing, an important part of how creativity works. Just as every actor wants to create their own interpretation of Hamlet, say, or every comic book artist wants to try their hand at their own version of Spider-Man, I'm sure many prosthetic makeup artists would welcome the chance to reinvent "Klingon" yet again, to put their own stamp on the concept along with their predecessors.

I never said I have a problem with creativity, but there's a bit of a difference between getting creative when creating a new alien, and when redesigning a preexisting one.
Just to be clear again, I actually do like the new Klingon design now. Everything I'm talking about was just my initial reaction during the early episodes.

Haven't we had this same argument a dozen times by now? Again, what does this have to do with the "Discovery and the Novelverse" thread? It's just rehashing old complaints that have been voiced over and over again ad nauseam.

Yeah, sorry about that, I just started that first post without even really thinking about it.

I'm honestly not sure what they'd do with Worf, because he's an iconic character with a specific look. They faced a similar set of choices with Data, because there are a lot of different ways to portray an android today that they didn't have in 1987, but they went with a variation on the classic TNG look, so I suspect they'd do the same with Worf. But who knows?

For DIS S3, I'm sure that if there are Klingon characters they'll use the basic DIS design.

Probably, but from an in universe perspective, it would be easier to accept the Disco Klingons if we saw the TNG-ENT Klingons in the 32nd Century. Then we can just say that the Klingons looked like that in the Disco era for some reason.
Either way, I just hope we get some kind of consistency in their look follows some kind of consistent timeline. It's going to be really odd if we keep going back and forth with different designs in Picard and Discovery.

Or maybe they'll be satisfied with the season 2 version and stick with that. I doubt they'd be "TNG-style," because Michael Westmore is not the makeup designer anymore. They'd be some other artist's interpretation of the principle. You wouldn't expect John Byrne to draw Captain America the same way Jack Kirby did. And we've already seen that DSC Andorians and Tellarites look substantially different from the Westmore designs of those species in ENT. It's weird how people forget that Klingons aren't the only species that's gotten redesigned by every new makeup supervisor.

I always forget about how different the Tellerites looks.
The Andorians have been drastically different in almost every series, so that doesn't bother me as much.

 

[Christopher]

But most of those weren't anywhere near as drastic as what we got in Discovery.

The TMP redesign was. Star Trek survived.

I never said I have a problem with creativity, but there's a bit of a difference between getting creative when creating a new alien, and when redesigning a preexisting one.

Not a meaningful one. As I said, reinventing existing themes and concepts has always been an integral part of human creativity, just as much as inventing new things is. Art, literature, and culture are not about pulling totally new things out of the ether with no connection to what came before. They're a dialogue between past and future. Past ideas are not untouchable icons to be put up on a pedestal and worshipped or put on a shelf and allowed to gather dust. They're raw material to be picked up and played with and taken apart and rebuilt in totally new ways, because that's what keeps them alive and vital and part of the evolving narrative of culture.

There is certainly no difference in creators' right to redesign existing things or to create new things. They have every right in the world to do both. I'm not crazy about the DSC redesign of Klingons myself, but I'm not going to be so obnoxious and narcissistic as to pretend my personal dislike is an objective standard of morality. I will fiercely defend their right to make choices I hate.

Probably, but from an in universe perspective, it would be easier to accept the Disco Klingons if we saw the TNG-ENT Klingons in the 32nd Century. Then we can just say that the Klingons looked like that in the Disco era for some reason.

In-universe, Kirstie Alley's Saavik and Robin Curtis's Saavik look the same. In-universe, Spock Prime recognized Chris Pine's Kirk and Simon Pegg's Scotty on sight. Things in-universe don't have to look the same as they do in the artistic interpretation created by the makers of the work of fiction called Star Trek. A change in the depiction doesn't have to be taken literally as a real in-universe difference. Heck, the fact that L'Rell literally has a smaller skull in season 2 than in season 1 is proof of that. It doesn't mean her brain shrank, it means the artistic interpretation of the fictional character was revised. In-story, she's unchanged aside from growing hair.

 

[JD]

OK, on that second part, I realize saying "it was a mistake" was a bad move on my part, so I guess I should just say that I didn't like it. Obviously, the people in charge of the franchise have every right to do whatever they want to with it. I might not always like it, but that doesn't mean they should not be allowed to do it.
If we don't allow experimentation, things we'll end up getting boring and repetitive.

 

[Sci]

I never said I have a problem with creativity, but there's a bit of a difference between getting creative when creating a new alien, and when redesigning a preexisting one.

Here's something to ponder:

In the original 1966 production of the musical Cabaret, the Emcee of the Kit Kat Klub was played by Joel Gray. This is what he looked like:



The 1972 film adaptation is very, very different from the Broadway production -- there are no non-diegetic musical sequences, for instance -- but you can see Gray's version of the Emcee in that film, too.

In the 1993 London and 1998 Broady revival productions, the Emcee was drastically reimagined. Now played by ageless Scottish elf Alan Cumming, he looked like this:



The Kit Kat Klub was re-imagined as a much seedier, overtly sexual nightclub in accordance with later understandings of the late Weimar Republic's sexually liberated subcultures that were subsequently decimated by the Nazis.

So, tell me: Which version of the Emcee is the true, canonical Emcee?

 

[BillJ]

You're mistaking the superficial trappings for the substance of the idea.

I'm sure artists are delighted that their designs are just considered superficial trappings. TV is a visual medium, those "superficial trappings" are part of what helps sell the universe.

 

[JD]

Here's something to ponder:

In the original 1966 production of the musical Cabaret, the Emcee of the Kit Kat Klub was played by Joel Gray. This is what he looked like:



The 1972 film adaptation is very, very different from the Broadway production -- there are no non-diegetic musical sequences, for instance -- but you can see Gray's version of the Emcee in that film, too.

In the 1993 London and 1998 Broady revival productions, the Emcee was drastically reimagined. Now played by ageless Scottish elf Alan Cumming, he looked like this:



The Kit Kat Klub was re-imagined as a much seedier, overtly sexual nightclub in accordance with later understandings of the late Weimar Republic's sexually liberated subcultures that were subsequently decimated by the Nazis.

So, tell me: Which version of the Emcee is the true, canonical Emcee?

Both. But I'm not sure if I'd really say that's the same as the Klingons in Discovery since it sounds like it was a new version of the same play, rather than being a new story meant to take place alongside it in the same world.

 

[Christopher]

Both. But I'm not sure if I'd really say that's the same as the Klingons in Discovery since it sounds like it was a new version of the same play, rather than being a new story meant to take place alongside it in the same world.

So? You can say the same about any character who's been recast, like Saavik or Spock or Pike or Sarek. You can say the same about live-action Trek vs. animated Trek. It doesn't matter if the appearance changes; it's all just dramatic interpretations of stories, artistic representations of ideas. The only "reality" is in what happens in the stories, not what it looks like.

Other franchises have done the same thing. Modern Doctor Who Silurians, for instance, look practically nothing like the classic version. Yet it still pretends to be the same continuous universe.

Stop trying to build arbitrary walls. Creativity tears down barriers.

 

[Greg Cox]

One thing to consider. Sometimes it's more important to duplicate the theatrical effect of the original visuals than the literal details.

So you update the tech to get the same "futuristic" effect the original series was going for back in the 1960s.

So you ramp up the Klingon makeups to make them scarier and more alien again, like they did in 1979. Because, arguably, the 90s-era look had gotten so cozily familiar that it had no longer had the same effect it had back in the day.

Bottom line: we're talking theater here. The dramatic effect of the props and costumes and production design is more important than keeping the surface details the same. Maintaining consistency with previous productions over the course of fifty-plus years should not take priority over producing the same emotional effect as the earlier designs.

As I like to put it, it's important that Dracula's castle be spooky and forbidding. It's much less important that the drawbridge and turrets look the same in every sequel. Or that the staircase be located precisely where it was in the previous movie. That's not what the story is about.