Spoilers General Disco Chat Thread

[Grendelsbayne]

I don't think the Klingon war on DS9 was shown in that greater detail than the one on Discovery. For episodes focusing on the war, we had the opening battle, a sneaky undercover operation to end it diplomatically, and a cease fire violation after that. Other than this, the war was never really a focus of the plot and was mostly used as a backdrop: Rules of Engagement had a false flag operation intended to discredit a Klingon Starfleet officer as a setup for a courtroom drama episode, Sons of Mogh was an exploration of Worf's family against a backdrop of the Klingons trying to mine Bajoran space, and other than that, we only saw the official declaration of war in Broken Link and the signing of a peace treaty in By Inferno's Light. I'd even say DS9 was worse than Discovery in this regard, as it quite openly showed life going on more or less the same as usual despite the war supposedly raging on.

But these points aside, Discovery had its own mission related to the Spore Drive. It was primarily a research vessel, not a front-line warship. The first season wasn't about the big battles of the Klingon war, it was about the role of Burnham and the Discovery in it.

Yes, looking at the specific episodes it was probably wrong to say the DS9 war had 'more' screentime, when it really had 'about the same' screentime, which is still not praise since the DS9 war was a minor hiccup that the Federation barely noticed and ended very quickly while the DSC one lasted months and supposedly nearly destroyed the Federation. This is also why I don't think life going on is much of a criticism of that DS9 war arc, because it was never supposed to be a life-altering war in the first place. They did that story later on with the Dominion and did it quite well overall, imo, though the semi-episodic requirements of the show taxed things now and then.

I agree Discovery had its own mission and this is why we didn't get to see much of the war, but that's not much of an excuse for me. The pilot episode(s) and the finale arc both very much make the war and the very idea of human/klingon conflict the thematic heart of the season, with the secondary theme being the struggle for the soul of the Federation - a struggle that explicitly only gains traction because of the supposed prolonged devastation of the war. That just isn't supported by what was shown in the middle, precisely because the Discovery spent far too much time by itself, away from the war, not dealing directly with the klingons, and not dealing directly with the devastation they left in their wake. Not even dealing directly with the Federation's inner demons, because Burnham's outburst is over already in the pilot, Landry dies almost instantly, Ash's conflict is forced and artificial and Lorca - the obvious avatar of the any means necessary mentality - was never really starfleet and never actually gave a damn about the war.

 

[SJGardner]

Yes, looking at the specific episodes it was probably wrong to say the DS9 war had 'more' screentime, when it really had 'about the same' screentime, which is still not praise since the DS9 war was a minor hiccup that the Federation barely noticed and ended very quickly while the DSC one lasted months and supposedly nearly destroyed the Federation. This is also why I don't think life going on is much of a criticism of that DS9 war arc, because it was never supposed to be a life-altering war in the first place. They did that story later on with the Dominion and did it quite well overall, imo, though the semi-episodic requirements of the show taxed things now and then.

I agree Discovery had its own mission and this is why we didn't get to see much of the war, but that's not much of an excuse for me. The pilot episode(s) and the finale arc both very much make the war and the very idea of human/klingon conflict the thematic heart of the season, with the secondary theme being the struggle for the soul of the Federation - a struggle that explicitly only gains traction because of the supposed prolonged devastation of the war. That just isn't supported by what was shown in the middle, precisely because the Discovery spent far too much time by itself, away from the war, not dealing directly with the klingons, and not dealing directly with the devastation they left in their wake. Not even dealing directly with the Federation's inner demons, because Burnham's outburst is over already in the pilot, Landry dies almost instantly, Ash's conflict is forced and artificial and Lorca - the obvious avatar of the any means necessary mentality - was never really starfleet and never actually gave a damn about the war.

I understand why you feel the series is lacking in this regard, and the phrase "show, don't tell" comes to my mind, and you're right that the Klingon war on Deep Space Nine wasn't portrayed as such a major conflict at all so it's not as good a comparison as it seems at first.

I think however that Discovery generally did a decent job of conveying the sense of urgency and tension regarding the responsibilities placed on the ship and the crew. I didn't need to see it fight on the front lines, and I found the missions it was involved in fitting for its capabilities. On the other hand, I wouldn't have minded seeing more operations behind the lines, disrupting Klingon supply lines, hit-and-run attacks, etc; that's what's Discovery and the Spore Drive were the most suited for in my opinion.

 

[Discofan]

But she did know about Spock and his dyslexia and she did try sending information to Spock. If Michael Burnham didn't send Spock the signals, Gabrielle could've sent them to Spock at a later point than when Michael drew her to them. If the Gabrielle who was in "The Red Angel" was from 3200, the Gabrielle who sent Spock the signals could've been from 3201.

Wrong! Her suit was damaged so after the point when said she had no knowledge of the seven signals, she could no longer do anything except stay there in the future and wait. So she couldn't have told Spock about these signals. QED

We don't really know when Control was modified.

We have to assume that it's been modified after the future A.I. went through the time anomaly otherwise the whole thing is pointless.

There was no life when she initially arrived there. She transported Humans from the WWIII Era to Teralysium, after which point, there was life there. Thus she changed the future. And the future can be changed incrementally (which can also be used, if someone wants to, as a cover to explain why things don't look just like they did in TOS).

Her entire mission is to change the future in such a way so that Control doesn't destroy all life it can detect. Up to that point, she hadn't succeeded yet.

It was all explained in the episode!! She went to Teralysium precisely because there was no technology there! She created a technology free colony so that Control wouldn't be able to find it.

You might want to dial it back a bit.

You might want to watch Perpetual Infinity (again). Because most of the things you say are in direct contradiction with what is said in that episode.

 

[SJGardner]

We have to assume that it's been modified after the future A.I. went through the time anomaly otherwise the whole thing is pointless.

On the contrary, we have to assume it went mad on its own. We never saw the future AI in Airiam interact with present!Control in any way before trying to upload the Sphere data into Control's systems. If we assume that Control only went evil because it was modifed by the future AI, then its killing off Section 31's leadership makes no sense either. In Project Daedalus, they said Patar and the others had died weeks ago, probably even before the future AI came through the time rift. That only makes sense if present!Control was able to do it on its own. Just because it wasn't sentient yet, it doesn't mean it couldn't have developed a sense of self-preservation, especially after Starfleet Command started feeding tactical data into it en masse.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

On the contrary, we have to assume it went mad on its own. We never saw the future AI in Airiam interact with present!Control in any way before trying to upload the Sphere data into Control's systems. If we assume that Control only went evil because it was modifed by the future AI, then its killing off Section 31's leadership makes no sense either. In Project Daedalus, they said Patar and the others had died weeks ago, probably even before the future AI came through the time rift. That only makes sense if present!Control was able to do it on its own. Just because it wasn't sentient yet, it doesn't mean it couldn't have developed a sense of self-preservation, especially after Starfleet Command started feeding tactical data into it en masse.

That's the reason it went homicidal.

It read the data analyzed it and deemed sentient organic life is the problem, all of it. It's very literal interpretation of its programming to protect the federation meant any and all threats and it deemed organic life a threat.

The sphere data was just a bonus prize, that is my interpretation of the Control story.

 

[SJGardner]

That's the reason it went homicidal.

It read the data analyzed it and deemed sentient organic life is the problem, all of it.

Exactly. Everything Control did was perfectly in line with its programming and directives. It was programmed to analyze the data it was being fed, identify threats and then eliminate them. So why did it want to eliminate sentient organic life? Because it concluded that if it went too powerful, organics would deem it a threat and attempt to shut it down. Therefore, in order to be physically able to fulfill what it was programmed to do, the threats to its existence need to be eliminated. It made this conclusion because it was literally programmed to identify threats and eliminate them.

Everything we've seen in Season 2 points to this all being Control on its own, without any future help. The future AI only wanted to fulfill a predestination paradox and ensure its evolution to sentience.

 

[drt]

They think that one reason might be the ridiculous amount of producers. They recorded themselves watching the credits at 18:30. They counted 21 producers credits and think too many cooks might be a reason for it.

To be fair, I've noticed a similar level of "producer inflation" (if you will) in the credits of a couple of other modern shows. My understanding is that this is more indicative of a greater number of people being given a producer credit these days - which doesn't seem policed as tightly by the producers' guild as the writers' guild does the "written by" credit - than an increase in the number of actual producers working full time on a show.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Exactly. Everything Control did was perfectly in line with its programming and directives. It was programmed to analyze the data it was being fed, identify threats and then eliminate them. So why did it want to eliminate sentient organic life? Because it concluded that if it went too powerful, organics would deem it a threat and attempt to shut it down. Therefore, in order to be physically able to fulfill what it was programmed to do, the threats to its existence need to be eliminated. It made this conclusion because it was literally programmed to identify threats and eliminate them.

Everything we've seen in Season 2 points to this all being Control on its own, without any future help. The future AI only wanted to fulfill a predestination paradox and ensure its evolution to sentience.

Thank you...... I edited my post a bit and expanded.

 

[Cake]

As well as an absolutely terrible knack for idiotic presentation of stakes (like the episode where they have a literal drawn-out, heartfelt debate while continually reminding the audience that the ship is about to explode if they don't shut up and move their asses already.)

The last two episodes were just as bad about this. They had so, so many goodbye and people recording logs scenes in 2x13, it was like they have all the time in the world until Control appears. They even got Sarek and Amanda to the Discovery for one long goodbye scene, although if they knew of the danger the Discovery was in and could get there so fast, why not bring along a bunch of Starfleet ships as support? And then 2x14 starts with a total hectic rush, because seemingly they hadn't even bothered to build the time travel suit before. I get that the energy source needed some time, but while I watched 2x13 I totally thought the rest was all ready. So it was so eye roll worthy to the see them synthesizing pieces of the suit and putting it together in 2x14.

But hey, only the continued lives of all biological lifeforms in the galaxy were at stake. Naturally it is far more important to say goodbye to your parents, record messages, say goodbye to your husband you are not together with anymore, kiss your past boyfriend who tried to kill you, give a long goodbye speech to your crew of a few weeks, then try to ensure that all your love ones and their descendants survive. Seriously that damn suit should have been ready!

And it didn't even stop there. Burnham and Spock had so many speechy scenes after that although a big battle was going on and it seems to hurry would have been a good idea. Nicely making fun of here:

http://superanemic.com/2019/04/19/discovery-s02-e14-such-sweet-sorrow-part-2/

Though in the end the biggest joke of all was that Georgiou destroyed Control with her mighty fists and some magnets and they didn't need to go to the future at all and then all their goodbyes would have been unnecessary.

 

[Lord Garth]

Wrong! Her suit was damaged so after the point when said she had no knowledge of the seven signals, she could no longer do anything except stay there in the future and wait. So she couldn't have told Spock about these signals. QED



We have to assume that it's been modified after the future A.I. went through the time anomaly otherwise the whole thing is pointless.


It was all explained in the episode!! She went to Teralysium precisely because there was no technology there! She created a technology free colony so that Control wouldn't be able to find it.



You might want to watch Perpetual Infinity (again). Because most of the things you say are in direct contradiction with what is said in that episode.

Just so that you know, my mother died when I was 18. She died a similar number of years ago as Gabrielle Burnham disappeared and Micheal thought she was dead. 22 years ago in my case, 20 years ago in Micheal's.

This episode hits closer to home than several others, sci-fi trappings aside. I said so here in the Episode Discussion Thread and talk about it more here with someone else who had a similar experience, except with her father. This week, incidentally, my mother would've celebrated her 72nd birthday.

I will re-watch the episode. But what I won't do is argue about it any further with you. I'm getting a strange vibe.

 

[Lord Garth]

That I can agree with. I just think that third thing is closer to TNG era (closest to DS9, really) than it is to TOS era, so I find the 'and it's TOS era' praise that comes up sometimes very strange, because what does that matter when it doesn't feel that way?

I use "TOS Era" as a shorthand for "The 23rd Century". I don't strictly mean 2266-2269. I mean the whole thing in general. It's a bad habit. I do the same with "TNG Era" and "The 24th Century". The Federation is made up of a Humanity that's "better" but not "perfect", Klingons are someone we have to look out for as a serious threat, and it's a rough-and-tumble galaxy out there. That's what I mean. That's why I was glad about DSC's first two seasons taking place when they did. Just that overall idea. The things that don't change with production values.

Looks like @SJGardner covered everything else for me, after I went to bed and saved me a lot of typing in the process. Thanks! I'm still kind of tired. Never stay up until almost 3:00 AM.

 

[Grendelsbayne]

The last two episodes were just as bad about this. They had so, so many goodbye and people recording logs scenes in 2x13, it was like they have all the time in the world until Control appears. They even got Sarek and Amanda to the Discovery for one long goodbye scene, although if they knew of the danger the Discovery was in and could get there so fast, why not bring along a bunch of Starfleet ships as support? And then 2x14 starts with a total hectic rush, because seemingly they hadn't even bothered to build the time travel suit before. I get that the energy source needed some time, but while I watched 2x13 I totally thought the rest was all ready. So it was so eye roll worthy to the see them synthesizing pieces of the suit and putting it together in 2x14.

But hey, only the continued lives of all biological lifeforms in the galaxy were at stake. Naturally it is far more important to say goodbye to your parents, record messages, say goodbye to your husband you are not together with anymore, kiss your past boyfriend who tried to kill you, give a long goodbye speech to your crew of a few weeks, then try to ensure that all your love ones and their descendants survive. Seriously that damn suit should have been ready!

And it didn't even stop there. Burnham and Spock had so many speechy scenes after that although a big battle was going on and it seems to hurry would have been a good idea. Nicely making fun of here:

http://superanemic.com/2019/04/19/discovery-s02-e14-such-sweet-sorrow-part-2/

Though in the end the biggest joke of all was that Georgiou destroyed Control with her mighty fists and some magnets and they didn't need to go to the future at all and then all their goodbyes would have been unnecessary.

The goodbye scenes didn't bother me as much since they explicitly said they had some time (I think an hour or so?) before Control would arrive, rather than the earlier scene which was measured in 'the ship is literally falling apart while we speak'.

Still, the pacing did undermine the final story, I agree.

I use "TOS Era" as a shorthand for "The 23rd Century". I don't strictly mean 2266-2269. I mean the whole thing in general. It's a bad habit. I do the same with "TNG Era" and "The 24th Century". The Federation is made up of a Humanity that's "better" but not "perfect", Klingons are someone we have to look out for as a serious threat, and it's a rough-and-tumble galaxy out there. That's what I mean. That's why I was glad about DSC's first two seasons taking place when they did. Just that overall idea. The things that don't change with production values.

Looks like @SJGardner covered everything else for me, after I went to bed and saved me a lot of typing in the process. Thanks! I'm still kind of tired. Never stay up until almost 3:00 AM.

Ah, that makes more sense. I personally just never put much stock in that 23rd century is better because I want people who aren't perfect yet idea since I never truly believed the TNG shtick that the 24th century is perfect. It just thinks it is, to a limited extent, and really its mostly Jean Luc Picard and friends who are really serious about it. Though something tells me we may see soon that Picard eventually changes his mind.

 

[fireproof78]

But hey, only the continued lives of all biological lifeforms in the galaxy were at stake. Naturally it is far more important to say goodbye to your parents, record messages, say goodbye to your husband you are not together with anymore, kiss your past boyfriend who tried to kill you, give a long goodbye speech to your crew of a few weeks, then try to ensure that all your love ones and their descendants survive.

Yes, yes it is. It is a very human need.

 

[Discofan]

Just so that you know, my mother died when I was 18. She died a similar number of years ago as Gabrielle Burnham disappeared and Micheal thought she was dead. 22 years ago in my case, 20 years ago in Micheal's.

This episode hits closer to home than several others, sci-fi trappings aside. I said so here in the Episode Discussion Thread and talk about it more here with someone else who had a similar experience, except with her father. This week, incidentally, my mother would've celebrated her 72nd birthday.

I will re-watch the episode. But what I won't do is argue about it any further with you. I'm getting a strange vibe.

I am sorry about your mother.

 

[fireproof78]

Just so that you know, my mother died when I was 18. She died a similar number of years ago as Gabrielle Burnham disappeared and Micheal thought she was dead. 22 years ago in my case, 20 years ago in Micheal's.

This episode hits closer to home than several others, sci-fi trappings aside. I said so here in the Episode Discussion Thread and talk about it more here with someone else who had a similar experience, except with her father. This week, incidentally, my mother would've celebrated her 72nd birthday.

I will re-watch the episode. But what I won't do is argue about it any further with you. I'm getting a strange vibe.

I'm sorry. Here for you if you need it.

 

[PiotrB]

Disco can't withstand too much analyzing (too many plot holes):

• 1) Who sent Spock the seven signal info? We know it can't be Michael's mother.
• 2) Who framed Spock for murder, how and why? That was never explained.
• 3) Where did Michael's mother get a device that brings people back from the dead?
• 4) Where did she get another device that transports people across the galaxy?
• etc...

1. You think too linearly. Events a, b, c following each other on the timeline do not have to be executed in this order from the point of view of a time traveller, nor does the time traveller have to come from only one timeline. The only thing we know from the episode is that at that moment Burnham's mother from this particular timeline knew nothing about the signals.
2. Control and answer to question number 1.
3. and 4. Time suit is such device. Both cases are simply time travels and additionally the second one in time and space.

 

[Discofan]

1. You think too linearly. Events a, b, c following each other on the timeline do not have to be executed in this order from the point of view of a time traveller, nor does the time traveller have to come from only one timeline. The only thing we know from the episode is that at that moment Burnham's mother from this particular timeline knew nothing about the signals.
2. Control and answer to question number 1.
3. and 4. Time suit is such device. Both cases are simply time travels and additionally the second one in time and space.

So far we know that the time suit's devices can:
1) Transport a village across the galaxy
2) Bring people back from the dead (with a ray of light of some kind)
3) destroy the whole Ba'ul means of "oppression/genocide" with one burst (they even commented that the energy used was impossibly high) of something.
4) For all intents and purposes: Pinpoint from the future the exact moment when a given person dies and the location of that person, in order to go there and then and prevent that person from dying!
5) go anytime anywhere spy on people undetected! Gabrielle described moments in Michael's life when she was either alone or surrounded by many people and so she saw her while being completely invisible!

All these things appear miraculous, not only to people from Pike's time but even to people from Picard's time and beyond!!

If you have a suit like that you don't need anything else!!!

 

[Tuskin38]

It's been confirmed there will be a Discovery panel at Comic-Con
https://ca.startrek.com/news/star-trek-storms-san-diego-comic-con

 

[PiotrB]

2) Bring people back from the dead (with a ray of light of some kind)

Other way around. The still alive MB was probably moved several dozen seconds into the future. Just as this church before the atomic bomb explosion was moved a few seconds in time and many light years in space so here the journey took place only in time.

3) destroy the whole Ba'ul means of "oppression/genocide" with one burst (they even commented that the energy used was impossibly high) of something.

Energy of supernova in time crystal.

4) For all intents and purposes: Pinpoint from the future the exact moment when a given person dies and the location of that person, in order to go there and then and prevent that person from dying!
5) go anytime anywhere spy on people undetected! Gabrielle described moments in Michael's life when she was either alone or surrounded by many people and so she saw her while being completely invisible!

Normal time travel stuff.

 

[SJGardner]

Seriously, if every episode was so meticulously plotted that it was able to fill in every single plot hole and explain how every single bit of tech on the show worked, then all episodes would be like five hours long and narrated by Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Yeah, it's no secret that Discovery could be written more soundly. But I had no difficulties in understanding how Control went insane, for example, and I certainly didn't need an explanation for every single thing the Red Angel suit was capable of. I remember when people complained back in Season 1 that the Klingons conquered the entire Federation, then in the very next episode, Cornwell retconned it into 19% of Federation space, despite the fact that no one ever claimed the map in Lorca's ready room showed the whole Federation in the first place (and was, in fact, lifted directly from the Federation-Klingon border map from Star Charts). Just because something's not spelled out explicitly, it's not a plot hole.