Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 3x01 - "That Hope Is You, Part 1"

There's a Discovery shuttle in this episode flying over the Mercantile during that establishing shot that first shows it.

 

Wow... Those things are resilient!

 

Cosmo the Betelgeusian.

 

Clearly the Betelguesian in TMP was in the middle of a nose-job. He's like Michael Jackson.

 

I can see they were going for a nasal hole/beak combo with the TMP makeup and DSC preserved the beak while going for a more traditional humanoid pair of nostrils.

 

The galaxy looks a lot like the many warring kingdoms and fiefdoms of western Europe after the Romans were gone.

 

He looks more Yiridian than Betelguesian.

 

The guy spent 40 years waiting for some kind of validation; the way I read the scene, it wasn't that whoever showed up would be The Hope for the Federation so much as The Hope That I Can Live Out My Lifelong Fantasy; he just needed somebody to show up and let him know he wasn't alone. Tilly could have walked through that door to the same effect.

I liked it. It felt relatable.

 

that’s what I thought.

 

The after show discussion of the episode revealed he's a Betelgeusian. For which I'm glad because the TNG/DS9/ENT makeup for the Yridians holds up very well and doesn't need to be redesigned.

 

Looks like a Yridian to me.

 

The Andorian-Orion Alliance (which might rule over the Lurians, Cardassians, and Betelgeusians) probably enforces it. The Gorn Hegemony (mentioned) is still around. Other races involved in the Temporal Wars, such as the Tholian Assembly and the Klingon Empire, are a big question, but I don't see why they wouldn't, especially since they all control smaller territories now because of the drastic reduction in space travel. That's in addition to the old balkanized Federation races (some of which are in the AOA, and we'll find out the status soon of the Trill and humanity).

We also have a group of time travelers showing up, so if there's an oversight agency, it will likely rear its head soon. Book didn't act too surprised or shocked when he found out that Michael was a Van Winkle. He just shrugged in understanding.

 

He said he could detect two ships in the 600-light-year radius that his sensors could scan. They might have been just passing through at the very far end of that range and never attempted to contact him.

 

Someone on Facebook brought up that all the male Orions in this episode are tall and large in stature which is a continuation of Orion design from ENT. Wrestler Big Show played the Orion slave market master in the Augment Arc and the male Orion in "Bound(ENT)" was also large in stature and the lead Orion in this is also beefy and tall with a domineering personality.

 

Yeah, and it's the one aspect of that last scene that doesn't work. Everything else about the two scenes set at the last listening post point to the guy being completely alone, but then that one bit of dialog muddies the waters. It's a weakness with the whole premise, that they seem to be hedging their bets on if the Federation is really gone or not.

 

Direct from Mike McMahon:
"I did not know that at the very end of Picard, Riker swoops in to save the day with a fleet. I do have to admit, when I did find that out, we were so deep into production, because animation has such a different cycle than live-action, that it was far too late to do anything to make to soften the kind of similarities. To be totally honest, while it feels for a fan like it has an echoing similarity to it, it’s a different era, a different ship.”

We didnt' learn where she is. The Federation likely expanded greatly in the intervening time, so she could be anywhere. There is nothing in the text of the epsiode that says she is devoted to rebuilding or "forcing" the Federation on anyone. That is just the understanding the fans have of where the show is going. There is going to be a time jump before Burnham gets reunited with Discovery (see her long braided hair in the Discovery shots). So it is perfectly possible that Burnham gets a thorough understanding of the status and politics of the future before she does any Federation rebuilding.

No, they didn't. Book explicitly mentions 2 or three other methods that aren't viable. Massive, galaxywide destruction of the majority of ships, space stations, ship yards, etc. killing some significant fraction of space power and Starfleet crews/leadership. Not so easy to rebuilt that fast. Plus since we don't know exactly where they are or what the rest of the Federation is like, there could be a core set of worlds (centered on Earth, naturally) where they have new ships and new rebuilding - we just didn't see it in the first hour of the season.

Yeah, the writers did want to keep Burnham here. But it is the gaping plot holes in the season 2 finale that are the problem. The Time Cops of the 31st century who outlawed and destroyed the tech have the ability to travel through time to enforce the destruction. It is obvious, if not explicitly stated by Book.

I think it is clear that the Federation as we know it is gone. But there are still ships and elements of the Federation and Starfleet out there. There is likely also some functional parts out there too - like the core worlds or something - that can be built on. The Discovery crew get 32nd century badges from somewhere. They aren't hedging, they just aren't being totally clear in the first episode to leave some exploration and mystery to the season.

 

From what can be made out, up until "the burn" there was nothing substantially different with the Federation and Starfleet to what what it had been several hundred years previously. Technology levels don't seem substantially different to that shown in Picard and ships propulsion still relies on dilithium to achieve warp speed and nothing seems to have been developed in the intervening thousand years to achieve faster than light travel.

And although time travel technology is supposed to banned, it presumably wouldn't stop someone attempting a sling shot manoeuvre around the Sun to go backwards or forwards in time.

 

Yeah, it's weird that not every question was answered in the first episode. I, for one, am shocked, shocked I tell you, that they didn't.

 

Inertial dampers.

I mean, if the inertial dampers can prevent people inside a starship from being squashed against the backs of their seats when they go to warp, or become red spots on the inside of the forward view screen when they go from warp to full stop, then I suppose those inertial dampers can do the same thing with a person in a suit.

If you concede that inertial dampers work (and all of Star Trek tells us they do), and instead you're concerned about actual impact damage, then maybe there is a shield/force shield around the suit that prevents those impacts.