Spoilers Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1x03 - "Ghosts of Illyria"

Also, makeup tests for The Cage back in the mid 60s had her look pretty alien.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/birdofthegalaxy/4235980676

 

Why couldn't it have been both?

Select the specific "desirable" candidates for procreation, then further modify the fetus genetically.

Hell, Khan and his ilk might have all possibly been test-tube babies.

 

This was good stuff. I especially liked the way both Pike and Number One found out about other people's secrets, and stood up for them. And, the fate of the Illyrian colonists was very poignant. And the Doctor's little girl had no right being so adorable.

 

Well, mediocre episode. Not searingly horrid like Picard but mediocre. Disease of the week meets Julian Bashir. Number One is now Wonder Woman. Hope they will be taking fan scripts like TNG because that REALLY improved things.
What on earth was Uhura wearing to bed?
Liked that Chapel uses those degrees and PhD finally to solve the problem. I assume she has a PhD. Why else would Korby employ her?
The bridge sets and all the sets are stunning. I watch those Chinese Emperor mini series that go on for 3,000 episodes in subtitles just to see the costumes and sets.

 

I dunno. I'm not entirely convinced that the Illyrians from ENT...



... have similar-enough cranial ridges to the Illyrian kid seen in the Starfleet database image in SNW...



... to assume that they must be the same species.

They could be the same species. I think that's a valid interpretation. But I think the evidence is inconclusive and it's just as legitimate to interpret them as separate species with similar names.

Personally, I think the ENT Illyrians are a separate species with a similar name, and that the SNW Illyrians are a nation of Human Augments who emigrated from Earth some time between First Contact and the launch of the NX-01.

I speculate this for a couple of reasons:

1) It makes it easier to believe that Una could pass a genetic scan as Human if Illyrians are just modified Humans.

2) It's more interesting to me if Illyrians are Humans with a profoundly different culture than Humans in the UFP/U.E.

3) La'an calls Una an "Augment," which doesn't make any sense outside of the context of Human history with genetic engineering.

4) There is a potential inconsistency if the SNW Illyrians are aliens. We know from ENT S4 that Denobulans routinely use genetic engineering, yet there is no indication whatsoever that Earthers, Vulcans, Andorians, or Tellarites have any prejudices against Denobulans for that. So why would those same cultures have such a profound prejudice against Illyrians but not Denobulans? It makes more sense that there would be a sense of anger and betrayal and resentment if the Illyrians were Humans who rejected Earth's anti-genetic engineering values.

Edited to add: Admittedly the weakness in my interpretation that they're separate species is the presence of what looks like fictitious alien script on the okudagram, but I weigh the reasons I listed higher than that. End edit.

I mean, if SNW is using the Doctor Who-style season structure, what will probably happen is that semi-serialized recurring background elements/B-plots will come together and comprise the A-plot of the season finale. So for instance, Doctor Who season 2 had a bunch of episodic, standalone stories where a mysterious organization called "Torchwood" operated in the background until suddenly we saw Torchwood driving the A-plot of the last two episodes of the season. Whedon and co. used a similar structure on Buffy the Vampire Slayer -- for example, the Mayor is a recurring B-plot antagonist in a bunch of episodic stories at the start of S3, but he gradually takes over and then becomes the A-plot antagonist by the last two episodes of the season.

If SNW follows that pattern, then its episodes will stay episodic, but a recurring background element will take over in 1x09/1x10.

 

I've got this. Normally when we see time travel, the characters go to great lengths to minimize/fix their impact. Sometimes they are even part of a predestination paradox. In this case however, the impact of the time travel was immediate and large, no smoothing it over. But there is another key bit to understand. We didn't watch the "first time" Nero came through. The first time, he would have encountered proper TOS style ships. Then as the changed timeline unfolds into the future different time travel events to the past take place. So when the new timeline makes it to the 24th century, and Nero-A goes back he encounters different ships than Nero-Prime. This happens over and over until the timeline stabilizes, which in this case would happen when Nero in the Future either doesn't go back in time or his presence doesn't change any later time travel events. What we are watching in the movie is Nero-J (or something) coming out of the rift into Universe-K.

Khan would have already been born when the Episode aired, the project would have been started back in the 1800s at the latest, most likely, when those ideas were mainstream.

 

Also, another potential problem with the idea that Una is an alien is that it's inconsistent with the plot of "The Cage." The Talosians wanted Pike to sire children with a Human woman and identify Una, Colt, and Vina as Human women. If Una were an alien, 1) they would have known about it from scanning her mind and probably remarked upon it, and 2) they would not have sought to have Pike sire children with her.

Obviously there's some level of suspension of disbelief here, but I find it easier to buy that the Talosians did not consider Una's status as a Human Augment important enough to remark upon than I would the idea that the Talosians would not have found her status as a non-Human important enough to remark upon.

 

Graduate student? Doctoral candidate? Research fellow? Just because?

 

She's human. Being Illyrian is no more an ironclad species classification than "humanoid" based on what we've seen so far.

 

They began as the same species, but they engineered themselves to survive on different planets. Not sure where cranial ridges fit into all that. Maybe an after effect of changes to internal systems like sinuses?

 

That is a perfectly legitimate interpretation of ambiguous canonical evidence, but I don't share it for the reasons I outlined above.

 

I apologize to @Belz...

Timothy Peel says in a later episode that glass picture of the Daedalus is switched out with a different ship
https://twitter.com/timothypeel1/status/1527712385049436160
That's why he was saying it isn't a Daedalus, he was confused with later production.

He also posted the transporter diagnostics animation
https://twitter.com/timothypeel1/status/1527421457889906688

 

No need, but I appreciate it.

Serves to show that even people directly involved with a production can be wrong when pitted against the evidence. Happens to the best of us.

 

Shouldn't happen. "The Cage" (with Doctor/Bartender Boyce) happened three years previous to SNW. Boyce was either transferred off of Enterprise, KIA, or retired. After M"Benga leaves, Dr Piper should come on then McCoy.

 

Was that Number One test makeup or Orion Girl test makeup?

 

Not a retcon.

 

The former. Maybe before they settled on Spock's own makeup, since there are similarities.

 

I think that test was for the Orions. The source in the infamous color correction incident.

 

He wanted to get into her pants?

 

That's not what the description there says. birdofthegalaxy says there:

I believe this clip shows Majel Barrett in a makeup test wearing the green that would be applied to Susan Oliver for her role in the Orion dancer illusion sequence. Sadly, this shot in black and white does not give us the full impression, but the underground Cage walls and texture along with some references I have seen in books and miscellanesous sites leads me to believe that this shot would show us a green Majel in color! A piece of first pilot history and by the looks of it some fun at the time as well.​

For decades, it's been an oft recounted story that Majel was photographed multiple times wearing green makeup intended for the Orion slave girl in order to camera test it, and that the film kept getting "fixed" by the film processor, who wasn't told she was supposed to be green, so that she wouldn't look so green. How true that tale is I don't know, but given what the description says, how do we know that what's shown is not an early version of the Orion makeup that it's just Majel screen testing?

You always manage to use fewer words.