Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 4x02 - "Anomaly"

[Locutus of Bored]

Fire shoots out because it's visual storytelling and they need to show the ship got hit and it's it bad. There would be no sense of danger if they just all leaned to side suddenly and kept saying how low the shields were. It's a tv show, not a physics demonstration.

Leaning / falling to one side while chunks of styrofoam ceiling and plastic crossbars fell on you was good enough visual storytelling for our originators, and the next generations after that. No need to go over-the-top and turn the bridge into the fire-swamp with randomly generated flame bursts unless you're going to have the crew attacked by R.O.U.S's too.

 

[BigJake]

Leaning / falling to one side while chunks of styrofoam ceiling and plastic crossbars fell on you was good enough visual storytelling for our originators, and the next generations after that. No need to go over-the-top and turn the bridge into the fire-swamp with randomly generated flame bursts unless you're going to have the crew attacked by R.O.U.S's too.

Now I know what's missing. The popping sounds. It seems so obvious in retrospect.

 

[Simba]

David Ajala’s acting in this episode was phenomenal

 

[Simba]

David Ajala’s acting in this episode was phenomenal

To add to this comment, I’m not a fan of anomaly plots but for me this episode was difficult to watch without almost tearing up especially with David’s acting as book.

 

[jackoverfull]

A terrible idea that employed without restriction directly produces chaos and abuse. That's the point of "Dagger of the Mind." It is something they do not play with any longer by the 24th century because they learned that lesson. Also a core theme of the TNG episode "Frame of Mind," where hostile memory manipulation by aliens is the main feature of the story.

but they do play with it. Deleting a chunk of memory in case of accidental first contact is pretty standard procedure. And the whole enterprise-d crew got mind-wiped at some point.

And yeah they can keep a clear Holo-Transmission going but CASN'T transmit the data back? (again

yeah, that was pretty odd.

Saru's suggestion was far worse. He recommended that sensor packages be added to the maintenance droids and then have them sent into the anomaly. These are the droids. smh

ugh, I missed this suggestion. Ugh.

 

[Deks]

Dot robots look barely large enough to carry a handheld tricorder much less a sophisticated sensor package.

Data had superhuman strenght despite having the size and characteristics of humans.
Obviously, the DOT's are likely made of superior synthetic materials allowing them to lift heavy things (or at least, you'd WANT them to be able to do this).

Oh and, DOT's would already have sensors (they need them to find, analyse and conduct repairs after all - clump 100 of them together and network them to increase their overall scanning capabilities, and you're done)... which is why I figured they could have instead clumped/networked/tied together 50 - 100 probes using programmable matter instead.
Since probes already have sophisticated sensor packages on board... along with a propulsion system... it would have been simpler.

 

[1001001]

I liked this episode too. The fact that the anomaly changed direction unexpectedly...what that meant to convey it's conscious, or that someone is in control of it?

BTW: If the anomaly turns out to be a Angry Kelpian Sneeze, I swear to God....





8

 

[fireproof78]

Oh and, DOT's would already have sensors (they need them to find, analyse and conduct repairs after all - clump 100 of them together and network them to increase their overall scanning capabilities

Exactly.

 

[Vale]

Leaning / falling to one side while chunks of styrofoam ceiling and plastic crossbars fell on you was good enough visual storytelling for our originators, and the next generations after that. No need to go over-the-top and turn the bridge into the fire-swamp with randomly generated flame bursts unless you're going to have the crew attacked by R.O.U.S's too.

On Discovery they're T.O.U.Ses (Tardigrades Of Unusual Size).

 

[Deks]

I liked this episode too. The fact that the anomaly changed direction unexpectedly...what that meant to convey it's conscious, or that someone is in control of it?

Neither (or at least not necessarily).
The anomaly could have simply changed direction because it was reacting to specific subspace disturbance (which Starships emit).

BTW: If the anomaly turns out to be a Angry Kelpian Sneeze, I swear to God....





8

Wouldn't put it past the Disco writers to do something like that.
Or it could be Q putting UFP to the 'ultimate test' - but its unlikely considering Q will be seen in Picard S2.

 

[TimeIsAPredator]

What would you have them do?

Use programmable matter to build a replica of Discovery and transfer the crew to a ship that is not naming itself and making independent decisions.
Ya it's been fine so far but this is a huge issue that requires massive study. A bloody ship is alive

 

[Vale]

Use programmable matter to build a replica of Discovery and transfer the crew to a ship that is not naming itself and making independent decisions.
Ya it's been fine so far but this is a huge issue that requires massive study. A bloody ship is alive

Is it that Discovery itself is alive or that it just happens to house a virtual intelligence that can control the ship but is a separate entity? And in either case how can Starfleet rely on Discovery now for critical missions when the ship itself might randomly decide to disobey orders, regardless of the crew's intentions?

 

[TimeIsAPredator]

Is it that Discovery itself is alive or that it just happens to house a virtual intelligence that can control the ship but is a separate entity? And in either case how can Starfleet rely on Discovery now for critical missions when the ship itself might randomly decide to disobey orders, regardless of the crew's intentions?

Thats exactly my issue. Just move the crew or the A.I. and problem solved

 

[fireproof78]

They can't but will try to anyway. Fascinating.

 

[Tim Thomason]

I liked this episode too. The fact that the anomaly changed direction unexpectedly...what that meant to convey it's conscious, or that someone is in control of it?

I think the anomaly changes behavior based on observation. Their predictions were based on previous data, but when they were prodding it and poking it, it became unpredictable and shifted activities.

It sounds like it might be a lifeform/intelligence in the most general sense, or at least maintains enough of a consciousness to attempt self-preservation.

 

[TimeIsAPredator]

They can't but will try to anyway. Fascinating.

If that's a reply to something why not use the reply function ?

 

[fireproof78]

If that's a reply to something why not use the reply function ?

Because reply wasn't working for me.

 

[eschaton]

Why would it be different? You're just changing the hormones and changing your genes wouldn't radically re-sculpt your body, it wouldn't really do what hormones don't already do. The human body (and likely any other humanoid species in Trek) is already pretty good at dealing with different hormones. Once the hormone balance shifts in a person, genes just express themselves based on that hormone. A trans person on hormones goes through the puberty of their gender. The only advances that would make sense would be some way to fully change the reproductive organs, you could do showing a pregnant trans female character.

There are clearly further limitations though to what modern day HRT and surgery can do. Like if you're mtf, it can't undo the bone structure you've built up (or make you smaller), and your voice won't raise without training. It's much easier for ftm, but you're not going to have a growth spurt if you were 5'2" before and transition at 25 or something. I expect that Trek-level medical tech could deal with all of these quickly and easily, since it's no biggie to get surgery to pass as a Klingon (as one example) for a simple mission.

 

[nic3636]

This was a decent episode. I like having Saru as the first officer, and all the scenes with him and Burnham were excellent. I continue to like Burnham as captain, it allows the show to center around her in a much more natural way where she doesn't have to have her own sub-plot where she's going rogue on her own. She also fits the part, she listens to her first officer's counsel, contemplates her decisions, and gets her crew involved which then gives those crew members more screen time as they naturally interact with her since they all take orders from her. It's a much better dynamic than previous seasons.

David Ajala is a phenomenal actor and did a great job and pairing him with Sammets was a good move. I also like how Burnham and Sammets moved past that nonsensical manufactured drama from that ridiculous S3 finale. Giving Gray a body and making it a story about transitioning is the best use of his character since Forget Me Not.

My only complaint is that I continue to be completely uninterested in the anomaly. They tried this mystery box style of storytelling in S2 and S3 and neither was executed very well, why keep going back to that well? Try something different.

 

[Tim Thomason]

My only complaint is that I continue to be completely uninterested in the anomaly. They tried this mystery box style of storytelling in S2 and S3 and neither was executed very well, why keep going back to that well? Try something different.

I hope it's not a mystery box. Just a spatial anomaly that will be explained (enough) in the next couple episodes, and then the deal is to try to figure out how to stop it or circumvent it.

Climate change or COVID are not mystery boxes, they're just disasters that require loads more teamwork than we seem to be capable of. That's, I think, where they're going with this story.