Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 3x07 - "Unification III"

I agree with everything you said, but that ship sailed 11 years ago in Trek 2009 turning Kirk from Cadet to Captain. Kurtzman is the common factor in both. I assume he figured he got away with that unrealistic plot element before, so he can get away with it again.

 

Seasons 2 & 3 are a vast improvement over the very experimental, disjointed feeling S1 (with the Terran episodes being alright and S1's high point, but Mirror Lorca was ruined by the lack of nuance that they're now trying with Mirror Georgiou).

Season 2's "The Sound Of Thunder" was one of my personal favourites, with DSCO coming up with a genuine Trek story that felt more self-contained, even though S2's finale had a silly space battle (but it still beats S1's finale snorefest).

 

To be fair, DS9 pulled that trick before JJ. No, Nog did not jump from cadet to captain, but declaring he could skip the rest of the academy and be declared an officer is outside of the practices of services academies, at least in the US.

 

Promotions happen faster in war time. Nog probably gained more field experience than the Academy ever could've taught him. And even then, it was only to Ensign. And then he was made a Lieutenant over a year-and-a-half later. That sounds reasonable.

Likewise, Saavik in TWOK was a Lieutenant and wearing an Officer's uniform. So I'm going to guess that while she was taking the Kobiyashi Maru, she was like the equivalent of a graduate student.

 

Kuuuuuuurtzmaaaaaaaan!

 

Promotions do happen fast. However, cadets don't get pushed out into the field. When WWII started in the US, cadets were fast tracked to graduation; they were not deployed beforehand. Nowadays, cadets who do field service are not (wittingly) put into combat situations. It's just not very real world to say, "what could you learn that you haven't already?"

 

Nog being promoted to Ensign with an abbreviated Academy education was a dastardly plot by Section 31 who resented Ferengi entering Starfleet. They arranged for Nog to be "rewarded" with an officership so that he would quickly be killed in the front lines of the Dominion War. Needless to say, this plan failed.

Julian Bashir and Miles O'Brien discovered the truth when they were in Luther Sloan's mind searching for a cure for Odo. They didn't have the heart to reveal what they learned to Nog.

 

The JJ movies happened in another universe where everything is a fanwank version of the real time line. Everything happened at super fast speed. Kirk and Spock's lifelong friendship was reduced down to a teenage puppy dog crush. Chekov was chief engineer at 18 just because he happened to be where Kirk's finger ended up pointing, and Kirk fixed the warp core by kicking it. It's the "Everyone gets a medal" universe. That's where all the lens flaring comes from, it's the 15 medals hanging round everyone's neck.

 

Great episode.

Ni’Var is probably just the “Capital” of Romulan-Vulcan space. I am sure Romulans did not give up their colonies and subject species that easily - although that might have happened in time. Still, I am sure Romulans numbered in the Billions, and so there is no way they would have fit into Vulcan all. Picard also shows the Empire being still quite strong.

 

Another home-run for me for this season.

I know, I know..... I'm 38 years old, I grew up with Star Trek. I'm supposed to not enjoy this newfangled bullshit they even DARE to label Star Trek.
But f*** me right? Because I do. I'm loving the everloving everything out of Discovery, and sofar every moment of season 3 has been a highlight for me. So sue me. Or, as the Burnham haters would say, Mary-sue me. :P

 

I absolutely agree, I view Discovery as being the Star Trek Roddenberry wanted to make but couldn't because of the restrictions of the time. I love Star Trek enough to take the piss out of it sometimes and it can take it, broad shoulders.

 

I think that’s what I was saying...

 

Anyone else wishes Burnham would stop whispering all the time or am I'm going Deaf?

 

I would also think Wesley is another example.

 

It's because she spent all those years encouraging young Spock not to SHOUT!

 

Mostly expediency for the purposes of allowing mainstream contemporary audiences not otherwise steeped in deep SciFi to be able more readily to identify with the characters and events.

Or, put another way, six-armed twelve-eyed blue and green-skinned aliens breathing a different atmosphere aren’t available via Central Casting...

Nevertheless, it does mean that there has always been a disproportionate tendency for Starfleet and the Federation to be overly human- and/or Earth-centric.

 

We also learnt that our galaxy was seeded eons ago by an advanced race. We all look like variations on their basic template. Actually, I imagine that when we do get out there and find other advanced life, we may well see "human" versions of familiar animal families, just as we see on sci fi. Out there, somewhere, there's a world of bipedal human form dogs. I want to go there

 

No, but in the real world US Navy a captain can put an officer in a position of leadership at their discretion and that person becomes eligible to move up the chain at that point.

 

Everyone will get a chance at the second chair. Just don’t tell Tilly .

 

I'm sure they can, but I'm also sure they'd have an interesting conversation with their superiors if they put the last person they should have picked in a position they had nowhere near the right amount of experience to even properly understand, never mind carry out. Tilly making on the spot life or death decisions? Geordi, climb into that Jeffreys tube and sacrifice yourself for the rest of the ship. Captain's discretion is itself supposed to be steeped in experience and years of learning, it's not a carte blanche to do things however you fancy.