One might suppose that pushing through the storm takes power, and the infestation was causing the shuttle to decelerate by reducing engine power. The pilot wouldn't be likewise affected unless she stayed within the shuttle's IDF (or warp field if they stayed at warp). So she'd continue forward at a steady pace (or a pace reduced slightly less by the storm) while the shuttle slowed down. Timo Saloniemi
Would she not be affected by the same forces at play on the shuttle? Unless you mean that the shuttle decelerated immediately after she was disconnected? And even then, wouldn't the shuttle have to actually apply a reverse force to slow down in relation to her? If there's no forward force applied, wouldn't they move at the same speed?
I am postulating an "air resistance" type force that resists forward movement and is opposed by like force from the shuttle - if the shuttle loses power to create that force, it slows down and thus falls behind. It's just that I also think the pilot would have a higher "terminal velocity" going through the storm than the shuttle, perhaps due to a smaller surface area, so she would experience less deceleration and thus fall forth. But if the trip is at sublight, we could just as well assume that the shuttle has already reached its halfway mark and is in fact decelerating all the time. In such a case, losing the tether (and magnetic boot grip and the benefit of the IDF and whatnot) would make the pilot speed ahead at her non-decelerating pace. Timo Saloniemi
...On second watching, I'm still not sure whether the shuttle is at warp or not while in the storm. Visually, I mean; dramatically, she probably ought to be. I'm still entertaining the idea that warp visuals never change. It's just that the environment sometimes makes them look funny (ST Beyond would also involve this) - and that sometimes the pilot gets fed up with the eye-watering nonsense and slams some filters on, as, say, in all of TOS... Where the camera is located vs. the warp field may also be a factor. But blur and wobble = acceleration, steady starstreaks = steady speed. Oh, well. My second look at the hero ship reveals the clear gap between the spine and the inner ring, which then could indeed rotate, for whatever reason. Separation of any part would still be iffy, although the central sphere would probably fare the best. What else? Burnham refers to general knowledge of starships, not to specific knowledge of Crossfields, when navigating the Jeffries tubes. But that really shouldn't work unless she had the latter, or something very close to it (say, familiarity with a vessel that looks more or less the same from the outside, and no, that's not the Discovery, the specs of which she wouldn't yet have access to). Timo Saloniemi
Well, what the warp field looks is probably influenced by things like cochrane/chi factor/warplanes, local subspace properties, the shape of the warp field, the tuning of the warp "pulses", and all sorts of technical details like that. There was a map of the Jefferies tubes right next to the ladder though, and perhaps the layout is generic enough for it to make sense to her, or layout of Jefferies tubes is dictacted by some common rules. Or you know, there could just have been markers along the way. There's certainly a lot of little labels and numbers all over the place. The shuttle ride was weird. Did we see any sort of (black?) badge on the pilot? Maybe the pilot was part of the setup, and was retreived later.
https://imgur.com/a/q33MV Some screencaps from episode 3. - The map in Lorca's ready room seems to show planets and possibly fleet movements along the border. Reminds me of those DS9 maps. - The control panel for the chamber. Looks like the innter ring of the saucer actually *is* (or at least houses) the spore drive. - The mess hall features pictures of different ships, among them Shenzhou. Makes me wonder whether this is some kind of memorial for the ships from the battle of the binary star system. Maybe Discovery's crew is comprised of survivors of those ships? - Discovery's shuttle bay. Looks like the large round emblems could be lifts. Reboot Enterprise had its shuttles stacked on different levels, maybe it's the same for Discovery. Question is: where are the shuttles? - The gallery above the bay is just a really cool TOS hommage. After Trek did have a short feature about Lorca's menagerie, including some nice closeups of the Gorn skeleton.
My notes, part one! There's just so much to comment on here... I never anticipated breaking them down as much as this. - I am admittedly ignorant about hair types that aren't mine, but I'm guessing that Burnham's hairstyle isn't a "set it and forget it" sort of deal? Or did she purposefully change it while in prison? We know that Worf can grow at least an extra twelve inches of hair between episodes, did Michael decide to change it in the intervening months or just let it go? - Canadian casting note: all three of Burnham's fellow prisoners had prominent roles on "The Expanse". Conrad Pla ("Stone", according to the credits) was Colonel Janus, commanding officer of the ship sent to Venus in the second season; Elias Toufexis ("Cold") was Kenzo the spy in the first season (and motion capture performed the hybrids in the second); and Grace Lynn Kung ("Psycho") was Prax's fellow Ganymede survivor. Stone Cold Psycho? Did the writers have a particular message with these three? - So Burnham and company are being transferred to the dilithium mines on planet Tellun to join a work force after a piezoelectric accident (i.e. something bumped something causing a spark in the dilithium, and a chain reaction after that) killed 50 of the extant convict population. - This is now arguably the earliest mention of dilithium in history. A decade from they'd be talking about regular ol' lithium for a short while. - The prisoners comment on the cold nature (physical and emotional) of Andorians, who apparently make up a big fraction of the prison guard detail on Tellun. - Typically in a prison people are meant to wear uniforms as part of an effort to strip the individuality from them. So why does Michael get to wear a yellow version of the uniform with a badge on? Aside from letting the other prisoner identify her as Starfleet? - And if Stone hasn't seen a black badge before, what color is the badge on Burnham's prison scrubs? - Whatever her fate, the shuttle's pilot was oddly already WEARING an EV suit when Starbase 18 told her to put one on, arguably the ONLY time we've ever seen anyone wear one during normal shuttle flight, including later in the same episode... The conspiracy deepens.. - Aha! I was wrong, and the first shot of the shuttle entering the Discovery's shuttlebay was NOT played in reverse. The way the shuttle's tail dipped down as it landed was more because it wasn't under it's own power. - The prison shuttle's number is SPT 21. Starfleet Prison Transport, perhaps? The darker gray DSC-01 is otherwise identical down to the weird red racing stripe pattern. Them shuttles is POINTY! The pilots must have a heckuva reflection bouncing up at them, today's airliners often have black paint below their forward windows to avoid just that. - The shuttles land on a big Starfleet emblem. It may or may not be an elevator (there does appear to be a black spearation line in the floor plating), as the shuttles are too long to descend upo the size of that circle; perhaps at least it's a turntable then, as we see in TOS? - It's already been noted, and I'm sure we'll be arguing for YEARS, about the ship's registry number versus her actual age. There's probably going to be a lot of theories before the producers ever address this (apparent and not necessarily real) violation of continuity. Personally, I'm just going to chalk it up to Discovery (and Glenn) being recent keel-up refits, or that they implement the latest "the ship cleans itself" technology that will be commonplace later on. Either way, whatever experience Stone, Cold and Psycho have on Starfleet ships, I'm not sure they can conclude it just by looking at one shuttlebay, though in practice it's one place that SHOULDN'T be spotless except when it's brand new. - The corridors are shared with the Shenzou, as are most of the non-bridge sets. The most notable shared feature is the windows, which are identical feature on the walls (and often ceilings) of the Discovery mess hall and the quarters sets of both ships. I thought the corridors would have been more changed, but aside from the lighting, door coloring (silver/grey on Discovery, red on Shenzhou) and a few different "plugs" in some wall segments they're pretty much identical in shape. Discovery has a lot more screens at the midpoint of the walls, which foreshadow the LCARS walls seen on the Enterprise-D. THOSE screens were always a problem for the show-runners of the time as their placement made it tough to shoot at eye level and avoid getting cameras in the reflection, which is why all other TNG-era shows don't have them. Here, the screens are located down and out of the way, making them pretty to see but awkward to interact with. - The mess hall has images of several starhips (and other ships?) on the inner wall, one of which is the Shenzhou or some Walker-class starship. Another looks like the "X-wing" we saw last week. Tribute to those we've lost in the war so far? The mess hall also features "standing" tables/shelves along the outer wall, arranged high enough so people can munch without sitting (or if they don't sit like other humanoids). - There are a lot of new aliens in this show... But even though they're mentioned a lot, we have yet to see any interpretations of the "classic" Federation races, like the Andorians or Tellarites. Saving them for later perhaps. - More about wearable technology... Perhaps some of it is because of the war but it certainly seems more commonplace in this era. Keyla's new Seven of Nine tribute aside, we see someone wearing the same Lobot headpiece as the comms guy on Shenzhou (I actually thought it WAS that guy for a second, but he was most certainly space debris after last week). There's also a dark-skinned crew member with "scales" on his head that look a LOT like those on the blue guy at Saru's old science station. Maybe those "scales" are other implants? - The Discovery's turbolifts are different! They're slightly larger and the screens depicting the car's location is smaller and lower mounted. However, they also have two doorways! I'm wondering if the designers of this era simply figured it would be less of a hassle for the cars to turn less. Or perhaps this is a structural thing, and some turbolift stops are effectively two-door locations and double as corridors of a sort? In any case, the lighting of the lift cars visually echo the weird lights in the TOS lift windows, in at least one of their incarnations. - Frustratingly, we spend next to no screen time on the new hero bridge! I really, REALLY want to gush about it, but we don't even have a real "beauty shot" of the set to salivate over. I see this as a deliberate choice so they can reveal it in an episode where the Discovery actually GOES somewhere. I think we'll just have to save the big nerd-out session of the bridge until we see it in true action. Still, while we can't really tell, it seems that Keyla snuck out of the mess hall and immediately went to her station on the bridge, just in time to ignore Burnham when she got there a minute later. - Still, we do see that the aft doors aren't quite what I thought they'd be. Based on the Shenzhou's arrangement, I was thinking that the portside door would be the lift, the starboard side a "corridor to nowhere", and the center to be a variation of the ready room / conference room set we'd seen before. Instead, the center door is the lift, the starboard seems to be a cubby hole for access to some computer stuff, and the portside door grants access to a smaller ready room only. - This ready room... Neat. Jason Isaacs mentioned previously that his captain wouldn't be sitting all that much, and this room shows it, with an elevated desk and no chairs. There IS a second door on the portside bulkhead, though. - I know Lorca wasn't being exact, but his family business was making fortune cookies a hundred years ago, before "hunger, need and want disappeared". It's 2255/56 now, though in 2151 ("Broken Bow") Commander Tucker said that Earth had eliminated war, disease and hunger in less than two generations, between that time and First Contact back in 2063. Perhaps it was closer to 2151, then? Either way, would you be served a Lorca-brand fortune cookie after having egg drop soup at Madame Chang's Mandarin Cafe in the 2150s, or was the practice passe by that point? - Michael's new quarters are the same set as her room on the Shenzhou, with small changes to the wall plugs and of course the furniture; otherwise it's the same size. The odd shelf for two totes is the same as her old one though, suggesting that everyone gets two and they're made to open up in those two different orientations. The far side of the room is where a workstation and matter synthesis thingie apparently are, which leaves a certain amount of unknown space between there and the bunks. In Burnham's Shenzhou quarters, her bed was arranged centrally in this part of the set and presumably up against the wall, so that wall plug would not have been the same, I'm guessing (it wasn't seen in the other episode). - Next morning at 7:59 Michael synthesizes herself a new uniform - she chooses "Long Sleeve, Standard (uniform type), Female, N/A (rank), Federation Blue". The screen briefly shows the list of options. This and the short sleeve variant are displayed, while category buttons for Combat, [Something]/Containment (?), Desk and Office, Misc., and Restricted can be seen. However, there doesn't seem to be a slot or platform for the uniform to appear upon, and she's already zipping up when the computer declares it's done... - Also, ZIPPERS! They still haven't licked that particular part of the future yet. - Saru mentions the opening battle of the war as "The Battle of the Binary Stars" (as if that narrows it down - MOST stars are part of at least a binary system). However, the previous episode WAS called "Battle At the Binary Stars", so I wonder if there was a disconnect here or someone flubbed a line. That's just the first third of the episode... More to come. Mark
If we go by what was said in the first pilot, and that was a memorial to the lost ships at the Battle at the Binary Stars, then the other two ships would be the Clarke and the Yeager. It seems that the pictures provide info on each ship's name and registry. As a ship geek nerd, I would love to see both ship's pictures.
The binary stars... they really make a mystery out of that. Why not give the name of the star system? Or do you think it'll be revealed later? Maybe it's a place we already know from canon.
I'd say Sherman's Planet, but that would have been mentioned in Spock's history lesion if is was close to this battle area.
It ought to be Boreth, but line-of-sight should also suffice... No, this isn't the first time dilithium crops up - the sucker in ENT described the NX-01 warp engine in the exact TNG terms to the Orion gal who was pumping him for information. And there was a mention of dilithium back in "Cold Front" already (although back then we could have pretended the ship had no dilithium and Tucker was just going along with the alien, trying not to show his ignorance). If the black badge is for convicts, perhaps Lorca drafted a few? Having a brutal mass murderer as a random security goon at the door of the Engine Room Cum Mushroom Conservatory would seem fitting. (Interesting how Engineering seems to be back-to-back to the shuttlebay. Perhaps the bay used to be bigger, but the new power systems ate into that volume, resulting in the current hangar-less setup?) Wasn't there a Tiburonian on the background table when Saru witnessed the departure of the prison shuttle (and had his spines come out, suggesting elimination of witnesses may have been underway)? Is the bridge center door the lift, or a door to a foyer featuring the lift among other things? We see two sets of doors, but the faraway one could be the front set of the lift cab... Timo Saloniemi
But black, which I guess is the point here. I wonder how much more we are going to see of the hero starship. Which regular sets remain unvisited in "Context"? Sickbay? Cargo hold / Generic Big Space? Airlock? Timo Saloniemi
We haven't seen Discovery's "real" Engineering yet (or have we? Read below), sickbay, conference room, or transporter room yet on the traditional list of Trek sets. We know at least one of these exists from promo pics... OTOH, we have seen Lorca's ready room and menagerie / zoo / lab, so we have been exposed to some new stuff beyond the usual. A couple sets are partially CG as well, which is to be expected. Continuing on... - Sorry, Burnham selected the short-sleeve variant of the uniform. From the wall graphic earlier, there are indeed two notifications below the uniform she picked, saying "selected" and "replicate". Funny actually how many of the graphics show three-quarter views of things, actually. - "Engineering Test Bay Alpha", where Burnham finds herself crunching code, may as well be the actual Engineering of the ship, given its size (comparable to the NX-01 engine room) and apparent access to the TOS-esque engine "stuff" as the Enterprise has off its Engineering set. Saru mentions that Burnham is assigend to Engineering, and Stamets later leads everyone to Engineering aboard the Glenn. So the lab is probably an annex of the ship's overall Engineering section, much like the antiproton treatment room aboard the Shenzhou must be an annext to that ship's medical wing. - Will we have a look at the ship's ACTUAL Engineering? I'm guessing not at the outset, with this set available as a stand-in. Also there doesn't seem to be an actual Chief Engineer character on the show, and oddly few/no people in Bronze in the Test Bay. - The door to the test bay has some imperfections in it, as if the foil that makes up part of the door prop isn't properly attached. Guess this ship isn't necessarily so brand spanking new, eh? - I get that this a science lab where at least one of the ship's 300 science missions are being done, but I wonder if future episodes where the traditional engineering "stuff" is done will be done here instead of actually IN Engineering. I actually like this notion, as Trek frequently does stuff in Engineering that has little to do with the ship's engines. I could see an M5 computer being installed here, or people testing Exocomp drones, or the authenticity of suspected Starfleet phaser rifles. Leave the engine room for making the ship go, not doing everything ELSE the ship's Chief Engineer ends up doing on the side. - So the holocomms extend to the more reasonable portrait-style video communications, as Stamet's counterpart on the Glenn demonstrates. I'm guessing the computer compensates if the guy on the phone moves to the left or right, which Stamets himself does on the call, so the caller's face doesn't slide off the screen. But why would he face even be confined to the glass of the screen? Does the lab not have a full holographic system, or is it just confined to above consoles and within otherwise-nondescript pieces of glass attached to a metal armature? - We didn't really see these in action on the Shenzhou, but Discovery pays tribute to the TOS "computer tapes" with tinted transparent blocks about the same size. Burnham hands Stamets a yellow one, and as he plugs it into his console a red light activates, shading it a deep orange - a neat understated effect. There are similar slots in the mess hall under the very clearly TOS-influenced food slots, another nice nod. - I get that the breath scan is a cute sci-fi thing, but how practical IS that anyway? The last time we saw something like this was in 1998's "Alien Resurrection", and THAT was easily defeated as well. - Oh, it looks like the space between the beds and the replicator wall piece in Burnham / Tilly's quarters has a couple of understated desks in the corners, which makes sense. - It's great how everything - EVERYTHING - is Starfleet branded, even the napkin Burnham uses to collect a fluid sample. And just what was the device in the lap that she used to project said sample into the door scanner? A hypospray - in Engineering? Was that a med kit (with nothing in it but the two tools)? Whatever it is, IT'S STARFLEET-BRANDED!! - The ship's Fungus Room looks to be massive, at least three decks tall. Nothing wrong with this - most Trek ships downplay just how much volume there is for budget reasons - but what would this room normally be for, and why would it only be accessible via an Engineering lab? Are there other doors we haven't seen? - The doors to the Test Bay look like they can actually open one more step to accommodate bigger things, even if the stairs immediately adjoining the doors do not. - Stamets is given leave to take anyone he wants on his team (plus Burnham)... And he chooses ONLY Tilly, sarcastically saying he needs help to move the sciencey stuff. Is there not some sort of oversight to away team choices here? Or was Stamets' sarcasm extending all the way to his choices? - The shuttle they use to go to the Glenn is the DSC-01 we saw earlier ( and its callsign is "Disco 1" and not some specific name as the TOS Enterprise shuttles were known for), and it launches from the Discovery shuttlebay AND goes to warp at the fastest pace we've seen any shuttle leave any ship in any Trek series. The aft compartment door reads " use caution ahead - pressurized airlock", leaving little doubt of what it's for, prison shuttle pilot excursion aside. - I keep looking at Tilly, all adorkable and all that, and keep thinking that all she's missing is braces. So, random question - how often has dentistry EVER been brought up in Star Trek, or are we just to assume that humanity has evolved perfect Hollywood teeth in this universe? Whatever the state of cosmetics is in the future, it's got great makeup to cover up Tilly's actress's acne, which IMO is just as endearing a character trait for her. - Looking at the Glenn, I realize that the ship's "racing stripes" on the secondary hull are actual physical structures and not just paint - they're raised by a good 1-2 feet off the rest of the hull. - Thematically, it's weird that we're introduced to a new hero ship AND its ill-fated identical sister ship in the same episode. Traditionally, we're supposed to have time to get emotionally invested in the ship as a pseudo-character, but we're barely aboard Discovery before we're whisked off to the Glenn. They're obviously playing the long game here, but I'm looking to spend time with a new ship BEFORE blowing up her clone. I want a proper first date, dangit! To be concluded... Mark
Bonus musing: Aside from the two hero ships, we see that Starfleet currently gets off naming ships more after people, instead of places, concepts or things. Between the USS Glenn and the fleet present at The Battle of the Binary Stars (TBOTBS? It's awkward to type no matter how you look at it...), the majority are named for people of note (Clarke, Ride, Edison, T'Plana Hath, Shran...) instead of the other way around (Thomas Paine as a rare example, or the USS Archer). It *is* neat to see this, as it certainly follows current US Naval tradition, but IMO I'd prefer to have more cool names like the Brits have. And Discovery, of course. Mark
Not sure if it has been mentioned already, but there are some nice ship pictures or etchings in Discovery's mess hall. I could see four pictures, one was a Walker-class ship (presumably the Shenzhou), and one looked like a four-nacelled ship. Another must be the T'Plana-Hath, I read a set visit report mentioning this ship featured in the mess hall. All the pictures seem to include the ship name and registry spelled out.
...Basically our only source to registries, then? It's not as if our reasonably good close-ups of the T'Plana-Hath would have revealed anything resembling a registry or a name, or any other sort of pennant art for that matter. Speaking of that ship, are we seeing a pair of giant drive-through shuttlebays on the ventral side? It very much looks like the ship's very raison d'être. A planetary assault carrier (which Starfleet of course officially calls a planetary survey support vessel)? There may be degrees to quality of finish in the BotBS ships, with some given more attention for closeups. Are we destined to see the good ones again, perhaps? In preplanned roles, that is? Or were the two pilot episodes their own thing, to be finished to the shinest possible standard as time and money permitted while the actual series was being separately worked on? Timo Saloniemi