Spoilers Discovery and the Novelverse - TV show discussion thread

There are a lot less joined and symbionts after The Burn, so I can't really the joined being able to hold onto the power they had with so few of them left.

 

And for that matter, I would hope that by the 32nd Century, the Joined wouldn't want to hold onto that kind of power.

 

Spoilers for DSC episode 3x09 ("Terra Firma"):

After catching the preview-segment for next week's DSC episode during The Ready Room after-show, it appears that

Spoiler: DSC: Terra Firma

we're going to be getting a ton of tie-ins to ENT and the Temporal Cold War in the storyline. Plus more 32nd century Cronenberg!

 

^^^

Spoiler

And even a connection to the Kelvin Timeline.

 

As a related thing,

Spoiler: DSC: Terra Firma

Cronenberg mentions in the clip that that alien Temporal Wars-soldier was (up until Mirror Georgiou) the only known example of someone traveling both through time and across dimensions. And of course there's Spock Prime, whom they obviously don't know about. I'm now wondering (and my brain's currently tapioca at the end of today) if there are any non-canonical examples of dual time/dimensional-travelers in prior offscreen/Litverse tales?

 

So...for the first time since late in the first season of DSC, I was actually sweating bullets watching this week's episode ("Terra Firma, Part 1"), worried that the show would contradict an offscreen DSC source like a novel or comic book, but suddenly it hit me that

Spoiler: DSC: Terra Firma, Part 1

Emperor Georgiou was in effect creating an alternate timeline by her actions in this episode, as evidenced by her knife-killing of Mirror Stamets during the stage show (he originally gets disintegrated by phaser in season one's "What's Past is Prologue").

This therefore would include stories such as IDW's Discovery: Succession comic book series, where Mirror Burnham survives well past Emperor Georgiou's crossover into the Prime universe and briefly usurps the throne from her "brother" Alexander. Georgiou's actions in these two episodes now create a scenario where the comics can still coexist with onscreen canon despite whatever changes may occur in the next episode -- such changes can now be written off as the results of Georgiou's temporal/dimensional incursion here.

 

I can think of David Mack's

Spoiler

Cold Equations - Silent Weapons and Section 31 - Disavowed. In 2386, Thot Trom of the Breen Militia leads a Spetzkar team to the mirror universe to steal the Commonwealth Starfleet jaunt ship ShiKahr. While attempting a return crossover, they lose control of their loot and crash to their deaths on Tirana III in 2384, realising too late that the wreckage of their failure inspired (would inspire?) the operation all along.

 

Succession was contradicted on release - It was explicitly set after Discovery returned to the Prime Universe, but Mirror Owo is part of the Shenzhou crew in it, while she was part of the Emperor’s honor guard and killed in “What’s Past Is Prologue.”

Succession also treated Airiam as an alien, which last season showed was not the case, and she’s in Terra Firma, part of the Discovery crew, alive and not cyborgified.

 

There actually was one external shot, though it zoomed in on a window Georgiou was standing by, so interpret that how you will.

 

There's actually a canonical precedent for a character seemingly-vaporized onscreen later suddenly returning with no explanation whatsoever -- Lt. Galloway, who appeared in quite a few TOS episodes, but was phaser-disintegrated by Captain Tracey in "The Omega Glory," but who then abruptly returned in "Turnabout Intruder" (with his onscreen-credit being spelled "Lt. Galoway").

So I simply chalk the whole "Mirror Owosekun"-situation up to maybe an identical twin sister or something else...if onscreen canon can get away with it, heck, I'm cool with it here too.

Not quite, re: the comics -- last night I re-read the IDW series after watching the episode, and Mirror Airiam is indeed part-human just like in the Prime Universe, but she waxes rhapsodic at a couple of points about feeling "not fully Human" and accepted by her Terran Universe crewmates (it's also mentioned that she has Human DNA):



There's the implication that Mirror Airiam has been a cyborg for much longer than her Prime-counterpart, although this can certainly be accounted for as differences between quantum-timelines, in terms of events.

Also, it seems that there's still some question as to whether that was actually a human Mirror Airiam in the new episode or not -- on Memory Alpha, the actress isn't credited in the role as playing the "mirror" counterpart of her character (unlike her other bridge-crew colleagues), and it might have been a different character entirely (or else next week we'll finally get confirmation that it was indeed fully-human Mirror Airiam).

 

I don't consider names from onscreen credits to be in-story canon (otherwise the pilot from "Tomorrow is Yesterday" would be Major Christopher instead of Captain Christopher). The security guard in "Turnabout" was never called Galloway in dialogue, just "Lieutenant." So it's safe to assume he's actually David L. Ross's other guard character, Lt. Johnson from "Day of the Dove." (Who was almost Galloway until someone remembered Galloway was dead and literally or figuratively pencilled in a new name for him.)

The actual example of a security guard returning from an unambiguous death is Lt. Leslie, who died in "Obsession" but was fine the following week.


As for the comics, they've never been claimed to be canonical. At best, they're as consistent with canon as feasible until and unless canon contradicts them -- much the same as any other tie-in.

 

And the Mugato would be the "Gumato."

 

I think that's a case where an actor's mispronunciation became canon.

And not the only one. "Bat'leth" was supposed to be batlh'etlh, "honor sword," but I figure the actors misread it. (And for years it was officially misspelled as "bat'telh"!) Deep Space 9's Cardassian name was originally scripted as Terek Nor, but Marc Alaimo insisted on pronouncing it "Terok Nor," so that became official. And I read once, though I've never seen any independent corroboration, that gold-pressed latinum was originally supposed to be "Gold Press latinum," some kind of brand name for the process of its manufacture or something.

 

Interesting. I recall once having a discussion/argument with you wherein you assigned canonical priority to the species designation "Edosian" despite the name only existing in TAS background materials and never being used onscreen, which I do believe is acknowledged in annotations for more than one of your Trek works.

 

Here is another example from the linked beginning and ending of IDW's ongoing Kelvin comics written by Mike Johnson. Evaluate the scientific storytelling value for yourself.

Spoiler

In the 2011 opening two-part story recreating "Where No Man Has Gone Before", Gary Mitchell is hijacked by a godlike entity from the galactic barrier and goes megalomaniacal, forcing Kirk to kill him by phaser.

This comes around again in the 2017-2018 six-part "I.D.I.C." arc concluding the Boldly Go continuation, which reveals that the Mitchell entity survived and rose from the grave using his nature surpassing that of the Q, going on to explore the multiverse and kill off all potential rival incarnations of himself. Mitchell eventually brings together various incarnations of the Enterprise crew in a multiversal game of no-win scenario to humiliate his Kirk.

In hopes of saving everyone, Kirk proposes a new phase of the game, to which Mitchell accedes by giving Kirk some of his godlike ability. Kirk proceeds to rewrite recent history against various realities' antagonists in favour of Enterprise crews, but this fails to gain any ground against Mitchell in the bigger picture. Finally, Kirk cheats and orders all the Enterprises to open fire on him, concluding the game with forfeiture. Incensed at being outsmarted, Mitchell nullifies everything and resets history back to a few days prior, leaving all Kirks to their normal lives.

 

The name in TOS background materials was "Edoan." The "Edosian" version was established in onscreen dialogue in DS9 (Edosian orchids) and ENT (Edosian slugs and suckerfish). So that name does canonically exist. Whether it's actually the name of Arex's species has not yet been explicitly established in canon, which is why Peter David was free to call them "Triexians" instead. I prefer to think of them as Edoans instead of Triexians, not because of "canonical priority," but because I grew up thinking of them as Edoans and because I think calling a tripedal race "Triexians" is corny. But in my work, I've gone back and forth on whether to conform to the "Edosian" convention or just go with my preference and call them Edoans. I've done both in different works. It's a matter of choice, not "priority."

But that isn't relevant here, because using any of those names doesn't contradict clear canonical information. Accepting the credits' claim that the guard in "Turnabout" is Galloway does contradict his canonical death in "The Omega Glory." If the story contradicts the credits, as with Captain Christopher vs. Major Christopher, then obviously we should choose the story. The story says that Galloway died in "Glory" and does not specify the name of the guard in "Turnabout." Therefore, we should choose the story over the credits.

 

The actress confirmed on Twitter that is who she was playing.

 

^ Yup. Just finished the episode now, and it was definitely Human Mirror Airiam. Guess that's gonna be a tough one to reconcile.