Yeah, it was reported she had issues with the makeup, i guess the production liked the actress so kept her around. I was trying to determine her rank, looked like three pips, so at least a Lt. Commander, perhaps she's the mysterious chief engineer?
The stock answer to that is that GO7 is not particularly recent. It just happens to pertain to a general subject matter that covers the Talos IV quarantine. Say, it could be a general order about quarantines. Between 2254 and 2266 or so, a death penalty clause in the GO7 is active for those who dare visit Talos IV (but not for those who defy the quarantines of other worlds). Between 2266 and 2273 or so, a death penalty clause in the GO4 is active instead, for those who dare defy the general order against experimenting with alien tech in the specific case of the Polaric Ions. And so forth. It's a pattern discernible from one case already: a starship stumbles onto a serious matter, a panicky reaction enforced with a death penalty is supposed to deal with the matter, and then another solution is found (or, as with the Talosians, no solution is found but the matter becomes moot for that very reason, even the death penalty being impotent there). There are lots of starships out there, and lots of serious matters, so each of the General Orders gets its brief turn as the gatekeeper against ultimate doom. While I see no reason to think the General Orders would not have been created either in nice chronological order or then all at once back in 2161, we know for certain this is not the case with starbase numbers. Perhaps SB11 was founded after 2254, as a direct (if utterly inappropriate) response to the Talosian Question? Timo Saloniemi
She's credited as "Lt. Nilsson" on IMDB et. al. - I haven't seen her badge up close, but it would suggest she's not the Chief as she'd be ordering Commander Reno around. Then again, Dr. Pollard seems to be the only medical officer on the ship aside from Culber, and she's "only" a Lt. j.g. to Culber's extra full pip; and Reno could just be slumming for some reason and accepting a lower position on the ship despite her superior rank... Mark
Seniority isn't just by rank though - Lt. j.g. La Forge could order around Lt. Commander T. Lynch because the Captain put him in command.
Agreed, but those were not under normal operating conditions. Geordi was placed in command, and the chain of command granted him authority for that situation; but regularly, someone in charge should have rank commensurate with their responsibility aboard ship. So, as of this episode there MAY indeed be a Lt. j.g. as the CMO and Lt. Nilsson as the Chief Engineer, by virtue of no one established as a higher rank in those positions. Reno may not be permanently assigned as an Engineer, and Culber has not resumed his duties, leaving Pollard and Nilsson as the department heads. Plus, I think we can all consistently agree that Leland T. Lynch was a douche. Mark
Culber wasn't the CMO last season though, which suggests there could be yet another unseen doctor! Unless they left the ship at the end of the first season, which is quite possible.
No doubt there have been changes. We don't know the crew count, say: the one-off mention of 130-ish from "Choose Your Pain" need not be representative of even the first season, let alone the current status. The ship did have plenty of officers in medical white in S1, but perhaps there have been cuts? We have seen one Commander in white, in "Magic"; his rank trumps all others, his absence isn't confirmed (even if Mudd killed him quite a few times), and we already learned the CMO isn't the sort to get his hands dirty with practical work involving our regular heroes. So he's still our best bet if the writers keep on doing this "nameless absent CMO" shtick. In comparison, we have seen no other Commanders who could be our Chief Engineer (be he or she wearing copper or silver), and we don't yet have much reason to think LCdr Airiam could be the CEO. Timo Saloniemi
Our ideal choice would be a Commander, so that there would be no complications in him or her bossing over Reno. But lower ranks are of course possible, as we don't see all that many Lieutenants down at Engineering or wearing copper or anything. There are bound to be some, though, so LCdr sounds desirable. But in general, we're short on high-ranking characters of unknown position: there just aren't many Lieutenant Commanders to go around (both Stamets and Airiam work on the spore drive), and the three Commanders, Burnham, Saru and Nhan, are already spoken for (de facto XO/SO, de facto SO/CO, de facto Security Chief). Funny how none of the Commanders have a solid position. Saru seems to share the center chair with Pike, but Burnham is still Pike's go-to officer and even the newly emboldened version of Saru just steps aside. And we haven't seen anything about Nhan's new status in writing or even heard direct dialogue yet, right? Timo Saloniemi
I don't see why Lt Nilsson couldn't be the chief engineer, in the sense of being the mechanic in charge of keeping the engines ticking over. Lt La Forge was chief engineer of a ship significantly larger, albeit just for one year before his promotion. Disco was introduced as a science ship, or perhaps a platform for experiments, not least the spore drive. Making the chief engineer subordinate to Lt.Cdr Stamets might make sense, given he was the sole purpose of the ship. Reno isn't very relevant to this discussion as she basically appears to have tagged along after being rescued. We've only seen her once since that, so she might not even be on the ship. I thought Nhan had been verbally referred to as Security Chief? She feels like a superfluous character at the moment, although she is pretty cool. Perhaps Pike thought he needed someone he could trust at his side, before realising he already had one in Burnham?
Nhan was introduced as an Engineer (but not the Chief Engineer of Enterprise) in "Brother", but on her re-assignment to Discovery she seems to have fallen into a generic redshirt capacity since then, mostly having to do with Security. She was there to greet Georgiou with a phaser when she came aboard later, and removing Tyler from the bridge last week. We get to see her in a more significant role this week, so maybe we'll see a bit more of her function now. Mark
I just think it's awesome she's a Barzan. Picking a completely obscure alien who (as far as I can recall) has never been seen since The Price, is just a nice touch.
Agreed. I do wonder if the original writer would be due residuals if they mention her name? I recall this to be an occasional problem in the TNG era because of legal stuff. Edit: well, she was confirmed as a Barzan tonight. How ‘bout that! Mark
When she first appeared as part of Discovery's crew (presumably having hitched a ride with Number One), she said she was the new security chief. I guess the old new chief got tired of sitting around the spaceport lounge on Vulcan with Captain Whomever and requested a different assignment.
Unsure of this, I reviewed Nhan's appearances to this point. She was re-introduced in "Obol" but didn't do much security-ing there; it's in the following episode that she was established as being in charge of "security team alpha" when Georgiou came aboard, and then formally identified as Discovery's new chief of security by Burnham later on when she's catching up with Tyler. As she didn't do much engineering-ing in "Brother", I'm left to wonder if Bryce got the job description wrong in the first episode. Mark
Cross-training, baby! She's a full commander, maybe she's cycling around departments in preparation for a first officer gig.
It's possible, I suppose, that the DSC crew, not being familiar with the "new uniforms", though Nahn's redshirt was Engineering when it's actually joint Engineering/Security...
Hmm. "Project Daedalus" highlights: - The heroes are on the run, and Admiral Cornwell meets them in a seedy location by arriving in the red DSC 06 shuttle, all alone. How did she access that shuttle? - And when I say seedy, I do mean it. The shuttle shines a searchlight at the heroes, and we see the cone of light in space, scattering intensely in every direction. Not a Trek first, but a very blatant example - DSC last did this with the workbee laser Tyler used for cutting into the rebel raider. - The ramp is again of the long type, which is consistent for this much-abused craft (there's heavy weathering on her now, plus prominent plumes from the nacelle aft ends). - Cornwell brings with her an Exposition Package: she's not S31, the four admirals we saw last week are directly in contact with/charge of S31 (and SF Intel?), and everybody at Starfleet Command relies on the expert program Control for decisionmaking. And now Cornwell is shut out of the process, so she immediately chooses to go rogue and use the hero ship to force Control to speak to her again. Never mind S31 or Control, Cornwell is turning out to be a regular Napoleon and probably the gravest danger to Federation so far! - Control resides in an abandoned space jail, a cool concept well executed (K-7 or SB6 betwixt Uhura's earpiece). Jails would be going out of fashion as Dr. Adams is in full swing at the time - but they would indeed have been built far away from civilization because treknology makes jailbreaks too easy otherwise. - The jail is surrounded by an assortment of mines, including "soft kill" ones for proximity action: blade mines for physically cutting into enemy ships, and jammers that deceive the enemy navigation computers (but allow a determined helmswoman to fly manually, if she can overcome the shock of being "upside down!"...). Shields attract these mines, which are all mobile (but not particularly fast). Cool concepts all. - But the UFP has outlawed mine warfare altogether, and S31 has had to contract abroad for these babies! A hypocritical choice from an organization that engages heavily in booby-trapping (of corpses, even), but a realistic and plausible one. - Cornwell knows a secret route through the mines, but she's undermined by a mole in their midst. So let's discuss the mole for a while. Airiam is another Exposition Dump this week. She's the victim of a shuttle crash, a patch-up job who has to prune her memories every night with the help of a terminal in her (single) cabin. She's best buddies with Tilly, an interaction we never saw the slightest hint of in any of the previous episodes of DSC. Both are supersmart, although we never learn whether Airiam was that already before the crash in which her recent husband got killed. And yes, Airiam is explicitly behind at least one act of sedition: sending (under Tyler's signature) certain findings from the Red Sphere to Control, to wit, those describing artificial intelligence and the like. We don't know if she also sabotaged the spore drive, which Stamets is only slowly debugging. - Airiam also appears to save the heroes from the mines, either by directly telling them to cease and desist, or then pleasing Control enough to make it stop killing the heroes. (Interestingly, the mine action only results in five injuries at Engineering, a location not hit by the blade mines, and no losses in the outer saucer that is gutted rather deeply.) - Airiam then joins a raiding party also comprising Burnham (who's had an inconclusive row with Spock, involving a 3D chess game - anybody know the rules to be able to tell how the game went?) and Nhan (who has already seen Airiam handle the interfaces in a suspicious manner). The party uses gravity boots and spacesuits inside the jail where life support is only on at the Control level. - Predictably, it turns out Control has killed everybody (including the four admirals, one of whom it impersonated with holo-trickery) and makes Airiam try to kill Burnham, too. She's extremely inefficient at it, though: while the prison structures are phaserproof, Burnham is not, yet Airiam engages in fisticuffs only. - Not before ripping out Nhan's breathing-related cheek doodads, though, leading to slow suffocation and black bleeding. And yes, Nhan is explicitly Barzan, but no, we don't get an exact description of her breathing problems. - Burnham manages to lock Airiam into an airlock, where she proceeds to do evil things - but (thanks to Tilly tickling her with those downloaded memories, which Airiam left aboard because she needed the headroom for the contraband she was delivering to Control) at the same time pleads Burnham to space her, tells her to look for Project Daedalus, and claims that Control specifically wants Burnham dead. - Burnham can't bring herself to kill Airiam, but instead tries to cut through doors with Nhan's Type 3 to directly attack Control. She uses short pulses instead of a cutting beam, unlike Landry in "Context" - perhaps those work better against prison-standard doors? - Instead, Nhan drags herself to the door and spaces Airiam, who has managed to deactivate her Inspector Gadget helmet and thus asphyxiates and shuts down Terminator style; there's no attempt at a transporter rescue, but OTOH the heroes would be motivated not to try. So, solid, straightforward action this week, save for the bits where Spock and Burnham bicker and get nowhere. Two dubious bits about Control, which as such is a cool concept and a rather plausible Trek phenomenon: 1) If Control wants Burnham dead, why isn't she? Airiam could have gunned her down at will. And if it's that important, Control could have blown up the Discovery by all sorts of means. And of course still could, I guess. 2) The heroes argue Control wants the Red Sphere data in order to become truly self-aware. A rather stupid idea, as it would require self-awareness for Control to engage in said quest. Is an external intellect driving Airiam into boosting Control, which for its part acts rather passively here, merely blustering at Cornwell in the shape of the Admiral Patar hologram? Airiam got infected by the probe from the time rift - perhaps this is attacking the benign Control, first through long range communications from Airiam to the S31 lair, then through more direct data dumps? Might of course be the attacker is Control itself, looping back from the future. Who made the mines attack the Discovery and then adapt their attacks? Control? Or Airiam, who was constantly doing shady things at her console? Apart from the by-the-numbers action plot, we get a polygraph scene where Cornwell determines Spock is telling the truth (as he perceives it, at any rate), involving five glowing spheres orbiting Spock's head to create the baseline readings but then retreating to the machinery mainframe for the actual interrogation. We also see Saru determine that Patar is a hologram by observing that she has no physical stress reactions, and then discover that the proof against Spock is similarly a holographic fake as Spock, too, retains his cool through the "slaughter" scene. Curiously, Saru sees the lack of physiological response in ultraviolet light, rather than, say, in the more likely infrared. Also, these are extremely high quality holograms - the first-ever in DSC to actually fool our heroes for any length of time. Although in both cases, these are merely recordings or transmissions of holograms. Which calls to question why Saru considers them holograms at all, rather than mere generic cybernetic illusions, that is, false imagery of the witnessed 2D type. Is the underlying tech of the 2D fakes still "holographic" in the Trek sense? Yup, the Ready Room now has three windows on the outside, too, rather than just inside. A plausible in-universe retrofit. Set highlights include a rare shot where our heroes walk from the shuttlebay to the adjoining corridor; the polygraph lab which is a cool rearranging of Sickbay; and an effective redress of corridor elements into the jail, with grime sprayed on and signage such as "east workshop" added. Must have been a pain to wash off! The briefly glimpsed Control level at the S31 lair / "forward base" is merely the S31 ship bridge, which isn't a problem as such. Timo Saloniemi
Well that sort of sets up the TOS era "lower tech" approach to things, and I suppose the Kirk era "let's illogic the computer to death" and need to disable most AI they come across.