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Spoilers Star Trek: Starfleet Academy 1x08 – “The Life of the Stars”

Rate the episode...

  • 10 - Excellent!

    Votes: 28 22.6%
  • 9

    Votes: 35 28.2%
  • 8

    Votes: 17 13.7%
  • 7

    Votes: 11 8.9%
  • 6

    Votes: 5 4.0%
  • 5

    Votes: 8 6.5%
  • 4

    Votes: 3 2.4%
  • 3

    Votes: 2 1.6%
  • 2

    Votes: 6 4.8%
  • 1 - Terrible.

    Votes: 9 7.3%

  • Total voters
    124
The idea is that it doesn't have to be enforced because the Temporal Wars were so horrible everyone has become so scared of time travel to even contemplate using it again.

You're forgetting about the younger races that just invented time travel, and the older races who died out before the temporal war.

Time Agents wait outside of time, or they are inside time but temporally shielded prepared to redirect abnormal flow.

There are many temporally shielded planets, or space stations out of time, or time stations out of space, who have a determined preference about the shape of time, and arguments where time came from, and where time is going is essentially a temporal war as each side goes back further and further to kill important babies before they make history.
 
You're forgetting about the younger races that just invented time travel, and the older races who died out before the temporal war.

Time Agents wait outside of time, or they are inside time but temporally shielded prepared redirect abnormal flow.

There are many temporally shielded planets, or space stations out of time, or time stations out of space, who have a determined preference about the shape of time, and arguments where time came from, and where time is going is essentially a temporal war as each side goes back further and further to kill important babies before they make history.
A small problem with that.

Temporal shielding requires temporal technology, which is banned.
 
A small problem with that.

Temporal shielding requires temporal technology, which is banned.
Inside the Federation, which is much much smaller than it used to be, and besides, at trans warp speed, Andromeda is only 4 minutes from Andoria.
 
It's the kind of thing that's going to vary wildly on school, and this argument about how much it is or isn't part of the cultural gestalt of America is getting absurd. I never heard of it before this show; clearly, others did.
Definitely this. I hadn't heard of it before. Apparently, others have. Hit or miss. I do think it's less commonly taught these days.
 
This was a heart-wrenching episode and I cried several times.

I think many people have overlooked Nus' monologue to Ake about how lanthanite memories work. The Doctor isn't a humanoid with evolutionary coping mechanisms for traumatic memories. The Doctor's memory is binary - he either has a memory or he doesn't although after 900 years, presumably he would need to silo older memories to avoid lengthy buffering.

Many artificial life forms in Trek history have struggled to incorporate programming that replicate emotions, often leading to catastrophic failure, but the Doctor was programmed to simulate a level of empathy in order to do his job, and this has been refined over centuries of interaction.

So if the only way to access memories is to switch them on, if he allows himself to interact with SAM, his logical brain might access comparable memories, leading him to re-live those memories as if it was that same day.

He gets around that in the episode by creating new childhood memories for reference so that he no longer needs the earlier memories for reference.

I actually thought the less realistic aspect of the episode was all the teachers' unified approach that all the students must be tricked into acknowledging their emotions because they all act like Americans and the only emotion they now how to express is anger.

I thought they fell into the trap of treating Betazoids, with their famous brutal honesty, like humans, repressing their feelings. Troi was uncharacteristically repressed for a Betazoid because she was half human. I thought Picard did a better job of her cutting through the crap.

Now that they aren't even bothering with conact lenses, I do want them to remember that Betazoids are not human.

It was great fun to see Tilly but even she was using a brutal form of coaching sometimes. I think too many of the writers didn't get hugged as children.

I had never heard of the play but it worked for me. I especially loved Holly Hunter teasing the fourth wall in the final scene.
 
8
So, second SAM episode, so to speak and I would say this one was actually better. I gess the writers are watching a lot of doctor material on Voyager which is only good thing. I'm eager how much SAM will be different since she has a childhood now.
As for the Tilly and the gang doing theater... I guess it might have been annoiying but I liked, particularly for the playful presence of Wiseman and also thanks to Steiner.
 
...

I actually thought the less realistic aspect of the episode was all the teachers' unified approach that all the students must be tricked into acknowledging their emotions because they all act like Americans and the only emotion they now how to express is anger.

....

My mental work around regarding this is that it isn't that they teacher believe all the students must be tricked, just this group. They're all kind of damaged going in. Sam with a literally stunted "youth", Caleb having to grow up on the run, Jay'Den feeling rejected from other Klingons, Darem and his parents oppressive expectations, Genysis putting that pressure on herself, etc. It just so happened that the group of most damaged and in need of stealth therapy is the same group we watch week after week.
 
Just got caught up. My hot take is that "The Life of the Stars" was excellent, overall.

I'm glad "Real Life" got referenced. When I pick a best episode of VOY, it's my usual pick.

The Doctor had his trauma to process, just as the cadets did.

"Real Life" resonates well with the theme of the play within the play (of course).
 
Still processing, but "The only thing which allows me to bear my infinity is not having to love anyone" is definitely on my short list for my favorite Trek lines ever.

And what followed was great too.
 
Are they ignoring it, though? They’ve actually shown us (or just mentioned) a number of classes the cadets are taking. I’m sure I’ve missed a couple, but here’s the ones I’ve written down …

“Beta Test”
Xenobiology (with the Doctor)
Xenoarcheology (with Tinn Valaak)
Combat Training (with Lura Thok)
Quantum Physics (with Jett Reno)
Stellar Cartography (mentioned by SAM)
Military Strategies (mentioned by Caleb)

“Vitus Reflux”
Gym class / Cardio and sprints (with Lura Thok)
Temporal Mechanics (with Jett Reno)
Botany (here with Nahla Ake)
Xenolinguistics (mentionied in dialog)

“Series Acclimation Mil”
Some sort of music class (with an unnamed instructor)
Advanced seminar “Confronting the Unexplainable” (with Illa Dax)

“The Life of the Stars”
Combat simulations (with Jett Reno)
Sure, basically in that first episode where they're at the academy they montage it away. But it's not really clear how long classes last, the curriculum, and so on. It's a school where they barely show them being students unless it's for special classes that specifically just for them. In episode 9 they also basically do a time skip too.

The Lazer tag only has to "pay off" in the episodes it's in. In fact, I don't think the episode was about phaser prowess.
If you're writing a show about kids going to school and learn, I'd think it'd be more interesting for the characters to learn things that they use throughout the show. Even TNG and Voyager made some callbacks to previous episodes despite being episodic.
 
Star Trek fans before Academy aired: "Why the $*##! are they setting it at a school? How boring. They won't ever go anywhere and how can there be any Star Trek action!"

Star Trek fans after Academy has aired: "Why the absolute f*&**!!!!!!! are they not studying? They're students and should be in school!"
Both statements are true.
 
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