Yeah, it comes from a very different and darker register of SF than Trek does. So there's that.
Spoilers Star Trek: Starfleet Academy 1x08 – “The Life of the Stars”
I think that I'd have liked it more if it was about the machinations and slide towards war between Earth and Mars, with the belt metaphorically caught in between. The magic alien molecule just doesn't fit what I want from a setting like that.
Love the Expanse.
Oh, I love the protomolecule and all that it leads to: it's the X-factor that sets everything else in motion. It's like the kind of Wacky Hyper-Advanced "Any Sufficiently Advanced Technology is Indistinguishable From Magic" Alien Shit that would turn up in a stand-alone Trek episode only to be dropped and forgotten for the next sixty years... except actually followed through and developed consistently as an element of the setting and a factor in all the factional conflicts.
It is also awesomely spooky in the novels in a way the show doesn't... quite capture? But the show comes admirably close.
Yeah, not in the original STAR TREK (TOS).
Even the fact the series took place in the 23rd century wasn't made 100% on screen canon until STII:TWoK's "In the 23rd Century" 'slug' card displayed as the film opens.
There was even a TAS episode with a stardate lower than the second TOS Pilot's. The only thing about the TOS stardates was they generally progressed and ended around 6000, but in between they could bounce all over the place.
Then weird that you like Star Trek.
This franchise bends the rules like every episode since the very beginning.
I blame Discovery season 4, as I explained in an earlier post. Everything has been off by couple years since then.
The writers on some of the new shows seem to use that calculator or one of the many copies.
Except lower decks, they had their own way of doing stardates. 1000 dates did not equal 1 year like in the TNG system apparently did.
The science advisor for all the shows, Dr. Erin MacDonald created a new formula, but hasn’t publicly released it.
Unlike TOS, the TNG star dates were not entirely random they had a IRL, meaning the second digit represented the TV season, and most (not all) consistently advanced the numbers. Now obviously that’s not the case for DS9, VOY and the TNG movies.
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Everyone seems to have their own approach. I wouldn't be surprised if there were a bunch of different fan calculators -- fancalcs? fanulators? -- working in the background depending on the specific production. I actually wouldn't be entirely surprised if it turned out to be Lower Decks who made the most exacting attempt at this (it's the show that, underneath the comedic chassis, is powered by being the most earnest attempt at being a Love Letter To The Fans).
Which is all fine, really. That there isn't any One Way of Doing It doesn't matter much. Within any show, they only need to provide a rough ballpark sense of when things are happening relative to one another, and if you're a more detailed nerd than this then it's nice if they provide a rough ballpark sense of the period (the lengthy stardates of SFA provide a ready rough comparison to those of TNG if you care about that). One should expect it to get wacky if you try to go more granular than that.
The variations might even be an in-universe feature. Different periods could have totally different Stardate systems with different starting points and metrics. That's true of calendars throughout human history already.
I want everything my way and if I can't then I just pretend it was and I still win ha. My brain is a very strange place.
SFA is still using the TNG stardate system, as did Discovery S3-5. The one Stardate we got in S3 was during a Burnham flashback to 3188, and if you slap it into the Stardate converter, it does show 3188.
But then in Season 4 they continued on from that flashback stardate instead of calculating for it being 2 years after the flashback. Season 5’s stardates are 1 year ahead from season 4, and SFA’s start 2 years ahead of 5’s.
The Prologue of SFA Episode one we know is et in the 3170s, and the stardate given during the flashback does convert to 3176.
So they're still doing 1000 years equals a year, they're just off by a few years because of a mistake made in DSC Season 4.
But then in Season 4 they continued on from that flashback stardate instead of calculating for it being 2 years after the flashback. Season 5’s stardates are 1 year ahead from season 4, and SFA’s start 2 years ahead of 5’s.
The Prologue of SFA Episode one we know is et in the 3170s, and the stardate given during the flashback does convert to 3176.
So they're still doing 1000 years equals a year, they're just off by a few years because of a mistake made in DSC Season 4.
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Hard rules make the story better because it means the writer needs to get creative instead of just going "this happens because I say so".
Star Trek has never had them or needed them before.
Nah. This star trek. The rules get made up as it goes along.
The first season of TOS was the best, and they hadn't even invented the Federation yet.
And sometimes reboot those rules within the same series.
Again, it isn't explicityly stated that she teaches Theatre to 3rd years in the Beta, just that she is on rotation in the Beta with them.
But even if it IS Theatre, I suspect the statecraft/leadership angle for command types is probably the point. As well as understanding people.
But in either case, the Theatre isn't the point. Here, she using it as a front to get them to talk about how they are feeling and get some healing done. Her goal, from Ale, is to bring them into port. Theatre is just the medium.
I fully get that we have a wide variety of viewpoints of what we like and don't in Trek. But some of the criticisms here are a bit misplaced. As mine often are when I am critical of an ep.
1) The caders DID get normal trauma counseling. It wasn't working. So Ale decided to try something different.
2) Their pads told them to report to that location at that time.
3) Kasq isn't Gotana. They don't say where it is, but presumably it isn't the Delta Quadrant.
4) As for the Doc, it isn't that he has been some sort of emotional wreck who could not/would not connect since Belle died. As many have pointed out, he did so in VOY/PRO. Yeah, he has decided to be detached to not get hurt anymore from loss. And that likely happened after VOY/PRO.
The issue here is that when he saw SAM, it reminded him of Belle & he got triggered. He didn't want to be reminded, so avouded her and acted like a jerk.
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Not saying you gotta like it, but those particular criticisms don't hold water. In my view, at least.
And for the record, I am decidedly NOT of big fan of this show so far. I'd rate it at the bottom of all Trek shows thru the first 7, even TAS.
But it has its moments. The A plot in E5. But this was the first REALLY good episode in my book. Where I have the feeling, for the first time, that the show coukd really be good. Duet in DS9 (Emissary was a bit too weird the first time). Or "M
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They might have even changed the rules within an episode.
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