Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 3x13 - "That Hope Is You, Part 2"

A very empty and disappointing finale.

 

Did you watch the same episode as me?

It seems quite obvious to me that Aurellio, Booker and Burnham had already discussed the plan, and Burnham was pulling in Aurellio's theories about Booker. Clearly it's not guarenteed (risky long shots aren't exactly unknown in Trek), but it's better than being taken over by the Viridian again.

Thank you. I thought I was going completely mad. Either that or the Netflix version is different to the CBS version.

 

No idea. You could have been watching an episode of Friends for all I know.

Did they ask Chandler his opinion in the episode you watched too?

 

Yeah, the computer's watching the same episode we are, with perhaps a similar level of bemused detachment, and figured out which type of "Regulator" Burnham meant via context clues. Star Trek computers have been doing that since Day 1.

 

Here, let me fill in the blanks.

I'm sure that there's been a briefing room scene along the lines of

This is a computer that knows to open the door or not for someone walking towards it, depending if they pause momentarily to issue a final remark. It knows that when the captain says "Bridge to Engineering", that the message should be piped to Engineering before the word is even uttered.

It probably uses some local quantum FTL fields combined with remote neuron sensing to perform the actions.

 

Yes, I think this is true. It’s following a sad, dumb formula in modern mainstream entertainment. It’s fine to kill all those stormtroopers because they’re faceless baddies. But I’d like Trek to stop and think if that’s really the message it wants to send. And, message aside, I wish the show didn’t spend its time trading in cardboard “baddies” in the first place.

 

It wasn't as over the top as Season 2's finale and it didn't feel like the show was pulling the carpet out beneath you.

 

Like when the Klingons boarding DS9 in Way of the Warrior?

 

Well, Klingons make great faces when they drop.

But do they die? As said, those guns left bodies, not vapor. And DSC showed how stun always works but kill seldom does on Klingons, unless it's of the vaporize sort. For all we know, the stationboard death toll in "WotW" was on the order of two, both from falls from the balcony after stunning.

Those two are fallacies of sorts, though.

Doors that open when somebody steps on a sensor in front of them are 1950s-60s tech. Doors that open when somebody enters the field of view of a sensor are 1970s-1980s tech. Doors that open through analyzing the movement patterns of people in the field of view of a sensor could have been done in the 1990s easily enough. There just was no demand for those. It doesn't take a "computer" to achieve this, unless by "computer" one means a chip of the caliber used in plug-in keyboards.

Having a computer of the 2010s-2020s sort gives the door opener suave tact. But only if there's demand for such. And there really isn't. But it's quite possible that Starfleet of the 23rd century would go for it, perhaps after grudgingly accepting the use of standard creature comforts from the alternate 21st.

As for piping the calls, for all we care they are broadcast for the whole ship before the response turns them private. After all, we don't get split screens in Trek: we either hear Picard say "Picard to Riker", so we can't tell if LaForge and Barclay also heard it, or see Riker hear "Picard to Riker", which again establishes only that Riker heard it, not that LaForge next door would not have.

Timo Saloniemi

 

I’ve never seen that episode, don’t really care about DS9 and choose to judge this show on its own merits.

 

You're very defensive aren't you Paul? Everything okay?

 

What message? That people die? I wasn't aware that was some sort of sociological message that I needed deep pondering on.

 

You really should be. If people die of you killing them, it's a moral decision, and an important sociological consideration that might warrant getting rid of you for good...

Timo Saloniemi

 

I will say that in some ways I prefer when mooks are mowed down with gore, because at least then the deaths have some sort of impact.

I mean, I really didn't like the later seasons of Game of Thrones. But they actually let the number of casualties (even on the "bad" side) weigh heavily on us as viewers. IMHO showing violent conflict as mindless entertainment rather than (at absolute best) horrible sacrifice may play a small role in why our society is so fucked up right now.

 

That it's fine to kill without remorse or hesitation as long as we make sure we treat our opponents as dehumanized, faceless enemies. It’s kind of a timely topic.

 

A total aside, but it would be great to see a series where the seeming hero mows down a group of mooks...completely cut normal. Except one of them survived. Turns out that this was just his day job being a guard, he's actually a nice guy who delivers groceries to his elderly relatives...and he got to watch his best friend die before his eyes at the hands of the "heroes."

 

Yeah, that "message" if I could call it that has been presented for decades. And I have seen pushback against it for just as long. There's nothing new here.

 

Star Trek, in its better forms, is one of those pushing back.

 

Look there are certain times when people are just begging to be shot with a phaser.

Boarding your ship is one of those times.

 

Yes, but there's a reason Star Trek invented the whole stun setting on a phaser thing. It allows for enemies to be defeated without being killed.