Spoilers Strange New Worlds 1x01 - "Strange New Worlds"

He said ABOUT 10 years. That means give or take a few. "The Menagerie" took place in 2267, 8 years after the first episode here, could easily be ABOUT ten years, which is if you rounded to the nearest ten. He was giving a rough estimate of the time until the accident that left him...you know.

 

I may be wrong, but back in First Contact I always interpreted the scene where Picard says, "Mid-21st century civilian clothing" and then they beam down in those clothes as it happening during transportation.

 

As a kid I thought that the lift replicated it for them and they changed on their way to the transporter room.

The new explanation makes much more sense.

 

Sure. I'm just not convinced that the sudden loss of 2 billion people in a nuclear holocaust is survivable for everyone else. That's why I speculated that the 2 billion might be a cumulative figure across several decades both before and after the actual nuclear attacks.

Every single season so far, frankly.

DIS S1 was about putting the crew through the wringer but making them realize that they're stronger and better when they're united in their diversity, and that they and the Federation are better when they act according to their principles rather than bloodlust. They defeat the Terran Empire by rejecting its xenophobia and racism, and they thwart Cornwall's plan to genocide Qo'noS and thereby violate Federation values -- in much, I might add, the same way the crew of DS9 thwarted Section 31's plan to genocide the Founders. So the Trek philosophy of diversity defeats fascism, and the Trek philosophy of diplomacy ends the Klingon War.

DIS S2 was all about depicting the black ops unit Section 31's actions as having devastating unforeseen consequences. Section 31's secretive, lawless nature gets its leadership killed and nearly kills everyone else. But in the end, the selflessness and self-sacrifice of the crew of the Discovery stops Control and saves the galaxy -- thus, the Trek philosophy triumphs by depicting an authoritarian institution as incompetent and evil, and the Trek philosophy triumphs by depicting self-sacrifice as essential.

DIS S3 and S4 are all about how the Trek philosophies of unity in diversity and diplomacy over aggression are better ways to solve the crises they face. DIS S3 features the Trek philosophy of rejecting greed win out over the exploitation of the antagonist state called the Emerald Chain. DIS S3-4 were both about the rebirth of the Federation -- the triumph of the Trek philosophy of IDIC winning out over the major-but-ultimately-solvable problem of the Burn.

Spoiler: DIS S4

DIS S4 is all about how diplomacy was the better way to handle the DMA crisis, since it turned out that Species 10-C did not know they were hurting other sentient beings and immediately took action to stop the harms they were causing.

PIC S1 is all about Jean-Luc and the Federation coming to terms with the ways in which their own hubris led them to violate their principles in ways they didn't realize they had... and then taking action to redeem themselves. PIC S1 culminates in Picard convincing Sojii that there's a better way to protect herself and the Coppellian Androids than through violence and militarism by showing her love and compassion. The Zhat Vash fleet are defeated without the need for war, and the Federation, realizing how profoundly it had erred, ends its ban on synthetic lifeforms and starts helping Romulan refugees again. The Trek values of diversity, diplomacy, compassion winning out over a xenphobic state in which the UFP had temporarily fallen.

Spoiler: PIC S2

PIC S2 is all about looking at the ways in which the problems of the 21st Century can lead to an authoritarian nightmare in contrast to the peaceful, democratic Federation. It is also a story about the ways in which holding onto our own pain and trauma can cause us, ourselves, to embrace our inner authoritarians and thereby lead us to make choices that, en masse, produce a darker society. I haven't seen the season finale yet, but already we see in "Hide and Seek" how the Trek philosophy of diplomacy over violence or vengeance leads to peace with the new form of Borg, how the Trek philosophy of rejecting xenophobia and greed lead to the Federation rather than the brutal Confederation, and how learning to see others as people with needs who are in pain rather than as monsters will make us better people and a better society.

Seriously. These themes are all over DIS and PIC. They're no different from DS9 in that regard. Like Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Picard challenge and batter the Trek philosophy but ultimately depict it as triumphant.

Sisko spent large portions of S1-3 in gloom mode. Worf spent most of S7 angsting over Jadzia. Bashir spent years pining over her. Odo spent years in gloom mode over Kira. Garak spent most of the series in a state of depression over Cardassia. They did "Torture O'Brien" episodes once or twice a year!

 

At what point does a nuclear war go into nuclear holocaust/ winter?
There have been dozens if not low hundreds of nuclear above ground tests.
At what point, how many nukes set off before a tipping point is reached? 5 large ones? 100 tactical ones?? ( I did look, no one really knows .. Just guesses) if they use thousands.. Then yeah we're screwed.

 

I thought the best line in the episode was “not believing you can die is what gets you killed.”

Both in the context of the scene and Noonien-Singh’s character, and more importantly, in the context of Pike’s character.

Having a character like Pike that basically should feel nearly invincible because he knows nothing will happen to him until his actual accident a decade down the line is interesting, but they needed to make sure he’s at least aware of his mortality.

And they did a reasonably good job of it without completely resolving the dramatic irony. It’s a good irony; a character that knows he will eventually be crippled, but in the meantime, is almost assured that he won’t be seriously hurt or killed.

And it’s a good question to pose: would you trade a decade of assured health and safety for a certain doom at the end of it?

 

Even the horrific violence we saw in "Strange New Worlds" must have been limited, because in real life the U.S. and the Russian Federation both possess more than enough thermonuclear missiles to end all life on this planet.

 

It depends on how precise Pike was being in his estimate. If you round up 7 to the nearest decennial numeric denotation, then "about ten years" would be correct.

It's like rounding up (or down) to the nearest dollar when doing your taxes for the IRS.

 

Poor O'Brien.

 

Plus, 600 million deaths in a nuclear war is pretty limited. That would be just a fraction of the total world population in 2053 and nowhere near a global decimation.

 

I love the little bumper that precedes the show!

Pike loves his TV! He's got a vintage picture tube one in his quarters on the Enterprise as well.

Why it's The Day the Earth Stood Still! One of my favorites, too. Directed by Robert Wise, who later went on to direct a film called Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Eh??? My brain hurts from this disintegration of the Fourth Wall. Or maybe Seven just beamed mercenaries into it...

 

I figure it was enough to scare the shit out of everyone and we finally, as a species, said "okay, now we've gone too far."

 

Yep. Imagine if just ten percent of the American population or even our armed forces were killed in a war. 35 million Americans or, say, 200,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines perishing almost overnight would be a watershed event in our history. The U.S. lost barely 2 or 3 percent of its population in the Civil War over the course of four years and the repercussions were felt in states that saw combat for generations.

 

Sadly it's just 10-15 % of humanity that is screwing it up for the rest of us. And that % are the idiots in charge! Be it governments or ceos or the so called elites.
Most people just want to wake up live there day and come home. Sad really..

I think we won't get to a Ww3 but hey, im wrong alot..

 

you have a screen cap or time stamp? It’s probably a call back to his TV in ‘The Cage’

 

You like 480 minutes one story seasons? Ugh. I can't stand them. I have to invest so much time watching them then and by episode 2 we are in filler territory all the way to the last episode when everything is finally solved. Picard was terrible with the boring filler. It's why movies edit so much out. Too.much filler slows the story down
Also Discovery has become predictable. Every season uses a saving the universe from total chaos and Burnham is always the one that is back patted for it. Nope episodic episodes with multiple missions or two partners. That's when star trek is best.

 

Yes.

Especially recently. If I am going to invest time I don't want episodes.

 

I normally would, but the original comment was about loss of population, so I addressed that. Then it was destruction, so I addressed that. About fallout, however, it depends on a number of factors which, honestly, and thankfully, we have no experience from which to extrapolate.

 

.I prefer to invest time in one ep at a time. The problem with serialized story is the great amount of filler and the ending.if you get you get bad ending you've wasted 10 hours. For a 1 ep story if its bad you only wasted 1 hour. So logically a 1 ep format is superior. Yup I said logically. Lol

 

I'm with you on the latter, and the Klingon genocide at the end is what I was refering to in my previous post, but I don't remember the "strength through diversity" being an explicit theme of that season.

I'm not sure that this in any way correlates to "challenging the Trek philosophy". The threat was physical, not ideological.

It's certainly a theme running through that season, though -- and this is my personal opinion -- I didn't find that the resolution showed a particular lesson learned by the Federation. But then I only saw it once so far.

This is where I have to more strongly disagree, however. I've very recently rewatched DS9 and I don't find that Sisko was in gloom mode post-pilot. Bashir pining over Jadzia was played more for laughs and cute rather than gloom or moody, and Garak... is complicated. I'll certainly grant you Worf. As for the poor chief, well those are episode-specific events.

I guess my point is this: the angst wasn't the focus of the plot, with some mystery anomaly in the background. It felt like the larger events dominated the show, with character moments cementing them together. Don't know if that makes sense or not.