Different situations, different considerations. And yes, when blowing up someone needlessly has happened it usually has been called out over and over.
Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 3x13 - "That Hope Is You, Part 2"
- Thread starter Commander Richard
- Start date
the lady doth protest too much
Given the preponderance of evidence we've seen, it's very likely that the Regulators were debt slaves at worst or pre-warp rubes at best.
I don't have a big issue with it, I just find it funny that this show in particular is all about taking the high road in morality, but seems to forget all that during big action scenes.
Also, let's remember how it all started: Jim Kirk fought hot, declared wars with his phaser on stun ("Errand of Mercy").
So Burnham isn't just murdering characters left and right, she's butchering Gene's VIshun!!! on the side...
I personally have no problem with this. Burnham is the Killing Gal. She also cries and whispers more than certain other characters in Trek history. But that's just how it is: that's how her character differs from others, which is a good thing because it would be pretty dull to watch just one and the same character for fifty years straight.
Timo Saloniemi
So Burnham isn't just murdering characters left and right, she's butchering Gene's VIshun!!! on the side...
I personally have no problem with this. Burnham is the Killing Gal. She also cries and whispers more than certain other characters in Trek history. But that's just how it is: that's how her character differs from others, which is a good thing because it would be pretty dull to watch just one and the same character for fifty years straight.
Timo Saloniemi
I could be wrong, but I'm guessing the Kurtzman Trek showrunners believe the relatively low body count of earlier Trek is kinda like the eschewing of swearing. That is to say they believe that it was a result of production codes at the time and the desire to make "family friendly TV" rather than a compelling story need.
I think this is the wrong take, TBH. There was a fair amount of death even in TOS, but it was almost never instigated by Kirk.
I don't mind the protagonists killing, but I really, really hate big action scenes which treat "mooks" as disposable cannon fodder we shouldn't be the slightest bit concerned with. First, it's dehumanizing. Second, its ridiculous from a characterization standpoint. There simply aren't that many people looking to run into certain death.
Basically, all death should have weight/emotional consequence. If Michael Burnham was a real person (and not a psychopath), the question of whether those regulators had mothers, spouses, or children would likely eat her up all through the remainder of her days.
I think this is the wrong take, TBH. There was a fair amount of death even in TOS, but it was almost never instigated by Kirk.
I don't mind the protagonists killing, but I really, really hate big action scenes which treat "mooks" as disposable cannon fodder we shouldn't be the slightest bit concerned with. First, it's dehumanizing. Second, its ridiculous from a characterization standpoint. There simply aren't that many people looking to run into certain death.
Basically, all death should have weight/emotional consequence. If Michael Burnham was a real person (and not a psychopath), the question of whether those regulators had mothers, spouses, or children would likely eat her up all through the remainder of her days.
As for nuances, I guess it's possible to argue that the Regulators are a special bunch of exceptionally hardened criminals who flock under the command of the likes of Zareh, and thus are particularly deserving of a grim fate - even if they display even less fighting competence than the average Stormtrooper, and even though they seem to be the only sort of Emerald Chain employee involved in the takeover of the hero ship, both factors making the "elite villain" interpretation less desirable.
It's rather amusing that the computer even understands what Burnham means when she tells it to beam "every regulator" off the ship. Has Zora already managed to re-establish herself into the computer? The default computer would probably feel inclined to either discuss the command with Burnham at length, or then to send a cloud of crucial valves and other doodads with "regulator" to their name to outer space, crippling the vessel...
Timo Saloniemi
It's rather amusing that the computer even understands what Burnham means when she tells it to beam "every regulator" off the ship. Has Zora already managed to re-establish herself into the computer? The default computer would probably feel inclined to either discuss the command with Burnham at length, or then to send a cloud of crucial valves and other doodads with "regulator" to their name to outer space, crippling the vessel...
Timo Saloniemi
Beaming the bad guys (aside from scientist - clever computer) away made perfect sense -- she was possibly the only crewmember alive at that point.
She beamed them onto the other ship, not into space. They then started shooting, easily self defence.
Kirk blew up Chang. And kicked Doc Brown off a mountain. Picard machine gunned the borg, left undercover Tuvok for dead (and the others), Sisko killed many ships, and what happened to the Dominion fleet in the wormhole, Janeway hid inside a Borg Sphere and blew it up from the inside and nobody cared about mass murder then. Her alt-self wiped out a unimatrix too, and another alt-self blew up her ship to destroy the vidian ship.
Hell at the time of Kirk, Pike, and Burnham, Starfleet had a GENERAL ORDER to eradicate all life on a planet, not just blow up an attacking ship.
Rewatching the end of this episode
"They won't just let us go
I don't expect them too which is why we have to eject the warp core and blow our way out
We'll blow ourselves along with it"
It does suggest they couldn't jump while the veridan surrounded them (or maybe while the veridan's shields were up), presumably Book knew this and the split-second timing somehow managed to magic-mushroom away in time
Seems to me that blowing the ship up was fully justified. Had the veridian let them go after the stormtroopers were beamed back (or even just hailed), rather than attacking, the ship would not have been blown up, and the crew would have survived.
She beamed them onto the other ship, not into space. They then started shooting, easily self defence.
Kirk blew up Chang. And kicked Doc Brown off a mountain. Picard machine gunned the borg, left undercover Tuvok for dead (and the others), Sisko killed many ships, and what happened to the Dominion fleet in the wormhole, Janeway hid inside a Borg Sphere and blew it up from the inside and nobody cared about mass murder then. Her alt-self wiped out a unimatrix too, and another alt-self blew up her ship to destroy the vidian ship.
Hell at the time of Kirk, Pike, and Burnham, Starfleet had a GENERAL ORDER to eradicate all life on a planet, not just blow up an attacking ship.
Rewatching the end of this episode
"They won't just let us go
I don't expect them too which is why we have to eject the warp core and blow our way out
We'll blow ourselves along with it"
It does suggest they couldn't jump while the veridan surrounded them (or maybe while the veridan's shields were up), presumably Book knew this and the split-second timing somehow managed to magic-mushroom away in time
Seems to me that blowing the ship up was fully justified. Had the veridian let them go after the stormtroopers were beamed back (or even just hailed), rather than attacking, the ship would not have been blown up, and the crew would have survived.
I'd really hope that by the 23rd century we'll have better AI than Siri. And while the GUI was reinstalled, sensor data might not have been, and clearly there were enough systems left to cope with all the 31st century modifications like floating nacelles
The Viridian wasn't even a random civilian vessel that had done nothing wrong. It was the very starship that had attacked the Federation Headquarters mere hours before and was trying to escort a hijacked crucial Federation military asset into their own territory, after using said asset in a false flag operation against the Federation. Starfleet and the Ni'Varians were in active pursuit when Discovery forced them to drop out of warp. Of course, merely forcing them to surrender and give up Discovery would be the ideal outcome. But there are no ideals in a combat situation. In the context of warfare, the Viridian was a valid target and no one in Starfleet would've considered it a crime if it was destroyed instead of merely crippled. Real world navies don't open murder investigations every time a gunner sinks an enemy vessel.
No problem there. And it's a very Starfleet thing to do - the ah so villainy Orions would no doubt have beamed the heroes to space or to a trance worm pit with the situation reversed. Or simply used the classic "wide dispersion".
On whose part? Everybody was shooting at everybody anyway. But Burnham wasn't contemplating defense. She was contemplating suicide (if jumping were not an option) or needless mass murder (if jumping were an option - there was a whole Starfleet to take care of the Viridian in an appropriate manner once the Discovery was away).
Again in terms of nuances, those two were trying to kill Kirk, and very actively at that. Nobody was trying to kill Burnham or to destroy the Discovery: this was a question of controlling a prize already captured.
And this was supposed to be shocking. We get no shock reactions for Burnham's actions. Although it's all in the heat of the moment, and we don't get a contemplative breather like we did in ST:FC.
He hardly had the means to help them, though.
Well, soldiers at war are supposed to murder a lot. Except in Starfleet, of course, as per "Errand of Mercy". There was no war ongoing in this adventure that we know of (just normal UFP/EC affairs), and no self-defense situation, either, only the extended suicide/needless murder choice.
Might work - but then again, Burnham never goes for any sort of split-second timing when prompting Book to jump.
Timo Saloniemi
Not always. But see for example the General Belgrano. It's still very bad business to kill needlessly - otherwise it would make sense to replace all POW camps with execution pits and to nuke everybody from orbit just to be sure.
Timo Saloniemi
The problem was not with the in-universe actions. The problem was in the direction.
As I said, deaths should have weight, because in real life, deaths have weight.
My grandfather served in World War II. He was a radio operator in the Navy, so he was never involved in hand-to-hand combat. He did on occasion have to man the torpedoes when he was close to them. Till the end of his days, it ate away at him that one of the torpedoes he put in a tube may have hit a ship - even though they were up against literal Nazis.
Lily taking Picard to task over Ensign Lynch is one of my favourite scenes in any Trek
Agree with much of this. Yeah the whole plot of the burn, burned out.....This show has been mostly misses for me than hits. I wish the production team would have the love that the team of Cobra Kai has for what came before. Nutrek has been mostly a bust since 2009 imo. They dont even try. 900 years in the future and the show looks like the 23rd and 24th centuries........but the 23rd and 24th centuries dont look like the 23rd and 24th centuries. Figure that one out. Plus the use of extensive LED lighting went out came back went out and came back and lasted from ST:Picard all the way to the 31th century..weird...
Discovery wasn't shooting, it was trapped inside. As soon as the crew reached the bridge the veridian started firing at them.
But they were.
Burnham says "You made it, we're using the old OS", Detmer goes "yipee, I like command lines"
Then
*Crewe take stations. Bang bang explosion, red dots on viewscreen*
Bryce: What the hell is that
Burnham: It's antiproton canons
Book knew when he could leave because there would be a subspace disturbance in the mycenial network (or whatever, the traffic light would be green)
Burnham saying "Jump, Jump, Please Jump!" is like someone shouting "pull up, pull up"
Discovery was being shot at, they responded with pretty much the only weapon they had left.
We don't see them, I'll agree with that. How about a contemplative breather in way of the warrior when Bashir shoots a man in the back, despite there being no danger to Odo (he was a Klingon with a Bat'leth fighting someone made of liquid goo. It was literally stabbing water)
Well, if not gunned down, the Klingon would next shoot at somebody who isn't immortal. (And shooting at the back is always wise and preferable!)
So the ethical question there goes, why fire at kill rather than stun? The fight would be decided one way or another before anybody woke up from stun, so there should be no advantage to killing.
And indeed we don't know the setting Bashir and the rest used. We get bodies falling down, not bodies disappearing. The disappearing happens afterwards; do the heroes space the villains, or do the villains just walk away?
...Clearly with an intent to NOT kill, or they would have. The question remained one of controlling the ship. And there was no change in the situation from the Emerands starting to fire their guns: they had been doing that all day long anyway, and Burnham's side had been firing back.
Vance's command decision there had apparently been to hold back, since his mighty fleet had not hurt the Discovery any. Should Burnham now decide otherwise? Suicide might be a fine option; extended suicide would carry implications.
That doesn't jibe very well with Burnham having concocted the plan in the first place. She should know when to panic and when to just wait.
Timo Saloniemi
So the ethical question there goes, why fire at kill rather than stun? The fight would be decided one way or another before anybody woke up from stun, so there should be no advantage to killing.
And indeed we don't know the setting Bashir and the rest used. We get bodies falling down, not bodies disappearing. The disappearing happens afterwards; do the heroes space the villains, or do the villains just walk away?
...Clearly with an intent to NOT kill, or they would have. The question remained one of controlling the ship. And there was no change in the situation from the Emerands starting to fire their guns: they had been doing that all day long anyway, and Burnham's side had been firing back.
Vance's command decision there had apparently been to hold back, since his mighty fleet had not hurt the Discovery any. Should Burnham now decide otherwise? Suicide might be a fine option; extended suicide would carry implications.
That doesn't jibe very well with Burnham having concocted the plan in the first place. She should know when to panic and when to just wait.
Timo Saloniemi
After the chain were beamed back from Discovery, the veridian started attacking. Maybe this time they wouldn't try to suffocate the crew and instead just take over the ship.
Was the Veridian shooting Discovery while the inquisitors were still in charge?
PICARD: Picard to Arkaria base. Deactivate the baryon sweep. Arkaria Base, this is Captain Picard on board the Enterprise. Deactivate the baryon sweep!
PICARD: Arkaria Base, this is Captain Picard. Deactivate the baryon sweep immediately!
You've been watching Clerks.
I can't wait to see why Burnham is so horrible in the fourth season. It'll be good. She's a Captain now. The trashing Burnham gets will make the trashing Janeway got look so tame.
