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Spoilers Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 2x01 - "The Broken Circle"

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I guess the Romulans abandoned using singularities to power their ships and/or everyone else dropped or forgot that technology.
Romulans must have used dilithium as well, they mined it on Remus and nothing in canon says Romulan ships don't use dilithium either.

While not canon, Rich Sternbach drew a diagram a while ago, before Discovery, showing a romulan singularity engine using Dilithium to focus the energy generated by the singularity.

(it uses the spore network, not subspace)
The Spore network is a layer of subspace according to Discovery.
 
It's pretty apparent that a lot of fans are in a cognitive struggle with the fact that if you analyze the specifics of Star Trek in any sophisticated contemporary way huge parts of it are simply unsalvageable.

But it's not really a big deal - just about any fantasy that endures in popularity beyond the context of the time in which it was created faces the same thing.

And some of the most powerfully appealing fantasies that are popular in modern times were never plausible, often because they were conceived for children or, at the least, naive youngsters who have become adults. All superhero stories fall into the latter category.
 
Yeah, weather they call the technology "warp drive" or something else, they all seem to be functionally equivalent. Using dilithium to moderate a matter/antimatter reaction to provide power to drive the ship.I guess what I should have said is that the federation and its allies have never been able to develop an alternative power source for their transportation system than a dilithium enabled M/AM reaction. The point is the same.

We have no idea if the 32nd Century non-warp FTL systems are powered through a matter/anti-matter reaction like the warp coils are. All we know is that dilithium is used in their systems, too.

I guess the Romulans abandoned using singularities to power their ships and/or everyone else dropped or forgot that technology.

It was already long-established that Romulans still used dilithium in their singularity drives, or else they wouldn't have turned all of Remus into a giant dilithium mine.

This is why I always thought the whole "dilithium being the cause of The Burn" was an utterly stupid idea. Trek had a ready made cause, Omega particles, that was already established and would immediately stop most FTL technologies shown

Ah, yes, the Omega Particle, famously used in... *checks notes* a single episode of VOY a quarter-century ago and never seen since then. Oh, and it doesn't lend itself to the sci-fi allegory of a scarce resource needed for modern energy production.

Yeah, no, it was a better idea to use dilithium. The audience actually remembers what dilithium is, and it lends itself well to a sci-fi allegory about the use of scare fossil fuels.

(or could be retconned to do so: they all use subspace), but that would also enable a unique technology like the sporedrive to work fine (it uses the spore network, not subspace) and circumvent the problem enabling Discovery to be the hero ship they needed. Instead, they went with an awkward "dilithium stopped working on a galactic scale because some kid was 'tied' into it, somehow; and somehow all dilithium, at least in this galaxy, is somehow tied together". Not only was it boneheaded in its inception, but required that the galaxy ignore all other already developed power sources and all other potential propulsion/transport technologies (soloton wave, graviton catapult, long range transporter, spacial trajector, iconian gateway). Arg.

Amazing how you spend all this time whittering on yet completely ignore the dramatic heart of the story -- which was, of course, the idea of grief so profound it makes the world burn.

2) That daft woman who turned up on the bridge, i just kept saying "What's going on?" I still don't know what's going on.

If you are referring to Pelia -- what is so daft about her? :vulcan:

2) The nurse and doctor scenes were just absurd. I mean.. what the actual fuck? It's Discovery-land. A small blonde nurse can beat up Klingons, of course of course she's amazzzing. Explain some sort of drug never before seen again to make the absurdity somehow logical. Can short circuit space ship circuirty with two wires like she's in the Dukes of Hazzard. Then throw themselves through the depths of space. All in a day's work!

Funny how no one complained when Kira was beating up Klingons and Jem'Hadar three times her size on DS9.

3) Spock crying over Chapel heart pumping feels very soap.

Jesus fucking Christ dude. When you lose or think you're about to lose someone you love, it is extremely normal to cry. This is not "soap." That's just emotional reality. Christ.

4) Contrived scenes. I thought it was absurd that Spock would admit a hangover to the admiral.

On the contrary -- Spock is usually extremely honest. It's completely consistent with his character that he would admit to suffering a hangover to a superior officer.
 
^not to mention the Gorn approaching...and April probably wasn't too crazy about kicking out the son of a highly respected diplomat, who pretty much averted a war under the circumstances.
 
We have no idea if the 32nd Century non-warp FTL systems are powered through a matter/anti-matter reaction like the warp coils are. All we know is that dilithium is used in their systems, too..
If you’re talking about the method of travel Michael and Booker use that’s dangerous and seems to be littered with debris, I always wondered whether that was remnants of the Borg transwarp conduit system?

And the reason why it couldn’t be an adequate replacement for warp drive on a large scale was either Janeway’s inflicted damage on the system made it unstable and could never really be repaired, or it at some point was used on a large scale by other species but became too dangerous after The Burn where it’s littered with debris from destroyed starships.
 
If you are referring to Pelia -- what is so daft about her? :vulcan:
Her personality and cadence are daft but in a good way. I was thrown off at first but warmed up to her and can't wait to see what Pelia brings. This coming from a guy who hasn't seen much of her work

When you lose or think you're about to lose someone you love, it is extremely normal to cry. This is not "soap." That's just emotional reality. Christ.
Putting aside how someone feels about Chapel/Spock, that was phenomenal dramatic acting IMO. When Spock gives the order to shoot, I could feel the pain of that choice
 
^not to mention the Gorn approaching...and April probably wasn't too crazy about kicking out the son of a highly respected diplomat, who pretty much averted a war under the circumstances.

Eh. I mean, I think the trope of "Our Heroes must disobey orders to Do the Right Thing and risk being court-martialed for it because Starfleet won't let them do the thing they obviously need to do" is overdone, and I don't think it needed to happen in this episode. But if DS9 got away with it in "The Die is Cast," then SNW can get away with it here.

If you’re talking about the method of travel Michael and Booker use that’s dangerous and seems to be littered with debris, I always wondered whether that was remnants of the Borg transwarp conduit system?

I always figured it was related to quantum slipstream, or to the protostar drive from PRO. But that's possible too.

And the reason why it couldn’t be an adequate replacement for warp drive on a large scale was either Janeway’s inflicted damage on the system made it unstable and could never really be repaired, or it at some point was used on a large scale by other species but became too dangerous after The Burn where it’s littered with debris from destroyed starships.

Quite possible!

Also, something to bear in mind is that it's not that warp drive could never be used again after the Burn. It's just that when every starship in the galaxy exploded, the damage to the galactic infrastructure and economy was so profound that it was extremely difficult to re-establish FTL travel again on a large-scale, leading to systems being cut off from one-another, the collapse of major trade and transportation networks, the collapse of large-scale governance, and the rise of widespread poverty. It wasn't a matter of information loss, it was a matter of organization loss.
 
he nurse and doctor scenes were just absurd. I mean.. what the actual fuck? It's Discovery-land. A small blonde nurse can beat up Klingons, of course of course she's amazzzing. Explain some sort of drug never before seen again to make the absurdity somehow logical. Can short circuit space ship circuirty with two wires like she's in the Dukes of Hazzard. Then throw themselves through the depths of space. All in a day's work!
Have you never seen a single minute of Star Trek/action adventure entertainment? Small nurses/first officers/science officers/security officers/spies/cops have been beating up bigger stronger meaner opponents for decades. DISCO sure as hell didn't invent it.
Why would we have needed to see the drug before? Again, is this you first go round? All you need to know is explained in the dialog between Chapel and M'Benga. You never heard of "performance enhancement drugs"? Trek's been playing with them for decades as well. Move at near invisible speed? Drink this. Need psychic powers? Take this pill.
It's the first time the drug has appeared. How do you know it won't be mentioned again? Do you have access to future installments of Star Trek? Please no spoilers.
Yeah Star Trek uses tropes like short circuits and "space walks." This is not news.
 
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Christine being able to beat up a Klingon after taking a performance-enhancing drug is no worse than Kira being able to beat up Klingons and Jem'Hadar three times her size on the regular on Deep Space Nine.
 
It's also physiologically impossible to beam someone someplace ... but Trek does
Warp Drive is physically impossible .... but Trek does
SNW S01E01, Chapel injects the Landing Party with a DNA recombinant to make them look and read as aliens to fit in. What's the difference here? The Popeye Juice is a variation of that.
What does physiology have to do with the transporter?
Warp drive is theoretically possible, we just don't have the energy and tech for it.
 
Warp drive is theoretically possible, we just don't have the energy and tech for it.

Explain the theory.

If you can't do that, cite credible sources for it.

"Warp drive" is a made-up phrase. It means nothing. It has been identified over the decades with more than one hypothetical means of traveling faster than light, not one of which has a jot of engineering behind it after sixty years.

Fans repeating "theoretically possible" don't feed the bulldog.

I know, now we're gonna get a lot of links about Albucierre "drives," the latest flavor of FTL vaporware.

My point was the magic juice is bad writing.

Nope.

It's a shame that we can't actually talk about the interesting things in these episodes in their topics without a lot of meaningless obsessing about boring trivia.
 
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yeah, I agree completely. the setup and acting was all good. but the from-left-field super soldier serum was cartoonish. didn't damper my enjoyment of the episode, tho.
Agreed. I still enjoyed the episode. Just that scene stood out like a sore thumb. But enjoyed the rest of it. :techman:
 
I had no problems with M'Benga and Chapel beating up Klingons after being juiced up. My problem was that I just thought the fight scenes dragged and were boring.

And someone brought up Kira and others fighting Klingons and Jem 'Hadar in DS9...I thought that was silly at times..as are many things in all Star Trek shows..but sometimes you just go with it and accepts its a TV show / entertainment.
 
Tell me again how Chapel and M'Benga punching the crap out of some Klingons defies logic and common sense and within the larger framework of this franchise?
Answering just for myself (obviously, but posters tend to get lumped together), the possibility of the magic juice existing in the Trek universe is plausible. My issue with it is that it lessened the drama. It's a writing choice issue in my mind.

Here they were, M'Benga and Chapel in tough spot. How are they going to get out?! Drama! But oh, just an injection will do it. Personally, that's my only objection to the injection. My injection objection if you will.

I would have preferred a more creative solution of some sort. But I still enjoyed the episode.

It's not a point I'm going to belabor. Enjoyed the episode. Love the new backstories for M'Benga and Chapel. I hope to see more developments there. I don't think the magic juice is necessary for that storyline. There are surely plenty of war horrors without it.
So that's my take. Like I wrote to another poster, we'll need to agree to disagree. :beer:

But I'm not considering the magic juice to be some canon breaking travesty. I'd just have preferred something a bit more creative in its place. As always, YMMV.
 
Magical juice is economical writing. Not lazy. You have 50 minutes to tell a story and sometimes you have to get characters from A-B quickly. The expository dialogue surrounding the serum was just enough to clue the audience in and give them some history of it.

That short scene of exposition also added layers to the relationship between Chapel/M'Benga and a shared history strengthened for each character.

That 'bad writing' both presaged the solution to the problem and performed acts of world building.

The Chapel/M'Benga scenes are intercut with Spock struggling to pull the trigger in the Captain's chair.

And yet, the false Crossfield draws closer to the D7.

Climactically when Chapel falls my heart was in my mouth and even though I knew she wouldn't die, I still felt all of Spock's pain. The summation of about ten tense, thrilling minutes of television in total brought me to tears. I was waiting for Uhura to get the signal. I was relieved when Chapel and M'Benga were beamed aboard. I cried like a baby when Chapel came around.

It is not lazy writing.

It is not bad writing.

Anyone who's chewing off their own foot worrying about bone-density or scientific accuracy have no idea what writing even is.

Writing is not about explaining everything. Writing is about taking the audience on a journey. The Broken Circle was an excellent episode of television.

I was lukewarm to much of Season 1. I found I scored things between 7-9. Never a 6, but never a 10. A broken Circle is my first SNW 10. Perfect Star Trek.
 
Better a vial of Kick Ass Juice developed during the Federation-Klingon War than finding an access hatch to trip a power surge to kill all the lights or electrocute the Klingons in their way. Or finding an oh-so-convenient phaser rifle inside a random weapons locker and firing their way off the ship.
 
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Christine being able to beat up a Klingon after taking a performance-enhancing drug is no worse than Kira being able to beat up Klingons and Jem'Hadar three times her size on the regular on Deep Space Nine.
I've said it before, and I'LL say it again:
There are a few fallacy about Klingons.
1. They are as strong as 20 humans. They are NOT. Human(oid)s have beaten Klingons in fights. Worf was thrown around like a rag doll in many episodes.
2. Klingons are honorable. They are NOT.
 
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