Good point. I think I was thinking more dramaturgically. When the folks intimately involved don't really care about the mystery box, we're supposed to care through MB's caring. And unfortunately I can't stand her. I actually keep wanting her to fail at something. Same thing with Picard, a whole season about finding some chick I just didn't care if he found or not. And I'm not that callous. Been crying at Christmas music, sitting in my living room lately, it's so nice. Many episodes and characters in the past, I have cared about. Recently it was frickin Moriarty in Frankly, Dear Data. I had NEVER seen it before. (My TNG viewing, of all the shows, is spotty, go figure.) I keep wanting this show to be better. Nor do I hate all things. LOVE Mando, and look forward to it every week. A. It's cool; B. I care about the child and what happens to him. So it's possible to do a mystery box I like, though if Mando were episodic with the same vibe and cast, I'd dig it the same or maybe more. Signing off -
They will figure out what caused the Burn, enough to establish it won't happen again. But there won't be anything to "fix" with techobabble. The communication difficulty is just lack of maintenance. Instead, their interactions with various world's over the season while investigating will act as a catalyst to get people talking again and start the first steps to rebuilding the Federation.
My theory is that they are too busy trying to keep the pieces of the empire from being picked at by circling buzzards. It happened a hundred years plus before present, so it isn't high on their priority list to solve. I don't understand how Burnham thinks solving that is going to bring the Federation back either. After that hundred plus years, planets have undoubtedly changed and perhaps what brought them to the Federation then, won't now. Although I know the current show the direction is taking is that Burnham must find the cause and win the day, I really wish someone would turn to her and tell her how its ancient history and they have problems they need to solve that are a little more pressing.
It has to be that either a.) there is no cause, as a deconstruction of these sorts of season-long mystery boxes b.) the cause is deliberately underwhelming, for the same reason, or c.) the Federation did this to themselves by mistake. There's no other satisfying resolution at this point, because they haven't planted anything else that could pay the mystery off. There's no plausible candidate for a supervillain reveal, no indication of natural origin, nothing. It's just some future scavengers, a scaled back Starfleet, and the Discovery crew. And Book, I guess, but I don't see him as a twist reveal villain.
That's why she needs to solve it, figure out preventative and counter measures, then travel back in time to stop it from ever happening again. We can't have our time traveling multi-Apocalypse preventing Messianic figure Michael Burnham fail from saving the UFP / Universe.
Discovery really needs to stop going for all the old Trek cliches that have been done to death (time travel, mirror universe, Section 31 etc.)
There’s also Sinister Dude Who May Be Section 31 and that conspicuously mentioned Evil Orion Auntie (who seems to be profiting off the Burn). And, yeah, Book, whose reveal as a bad guy would give us big Burnham tears, which Discovery loves. He’s already been rather cavalier with the killing and shown to be of questionable trustworthiness, so you could say they’ve placed the clues for his turn to the dark side. But they did that with Burnham’s love interest in season one, so I’d hope they wouldn’t go back to that well. Or .... maybe he’s just Queen Grudge’s lackey? Bum bum bumm!
It's easier to prevent the UFP from shattering than to rebuild the UFP planet by planet. Time travel is such a great tool once you know what the problem is and how to solve it. I have no qualms with using Time Travel, Mirror Universe, or Section 31 as long as the actions make logical sense.
Maybe but why 150 years before discover and Burnham came through. I think it’s that song she mentioned.
Yes, but damn do they feel the need to over-bloody-compensate. Just how much uber-critical unique stuff is on the DIS by now? The sphere stuff, control stuff, a frigging Evil Empress, the Red Suit, the Spore Drive? What else? Maybe this series wouldn't be so grating if the Discovery wasn't this super-key ship of everything....
I still have this sneaking feeling that it is related to the Hobus hypernova. The Red Matter decalithium whatsit ate a good deal of that power, and my guess is that subspace, being an energy sink for so long, burped. This could point to a crossover with PICARD and the Kelvin timeline both.
I am only afrait that this Burn mystery would again include time travel, that somehow Michael is responsible for Burn, and in the end also only person who is capable to stop it. Wit help of his reverend mother, of course
I'm 50% certain that Burnham/Discovery will somehow be directly responsible for the Burn. I'm 100% certain that whatever resolution they go for will be unsatisfying and contrived.
totally agree, but we know that burnham will turn out to be right because she always is. Not going to happen. it will be underwhelming, but not deliberately. Possibly. But probably not. Wven in Picard they don’t seem to remember that there *was* a Hobus supernova. It’s the “Romulan Star” now. really hope they don’t go the burn-ham route. But yes, 100% agree with your 100%.