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Spoilers General Disco Chat Thread

Discovery and it's Short Trek spin-offs are really disgrace for Star Trek franchise and philosophy

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It's become an unfortunate habit of certain members to do these drive-by posts of vapid Major Grin videos whose half-baked premises can consistently be dismantled in moments. and without adding any worthwhile commentary of their own.

Since you have a history of doing these kinds of drive-by negative posts and have been warned for it before, I'm giving you a warning for trolling. Please make an effort to have some substantive contributions to discussion here in the future. Comments to PM.
 
Discovery and it's Short Trek spin-offs are really disgrace for Star Trek franchise and philosophy

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Now, as far as disassembling the shallow clickbait content of this latest stupid Major Grin video.

There is no inconsistency in different decisions being carried out by different captains on different ships from more than a century apart with completely different mission profiles, crew complements and available space. The Enterprise-D is like a community in space out traveling the far reaches of the Federation. They have the luxury to work to fix a repeated problematic officer or enlisted person and can devote counselors and multiple crew to supervise their every move.

The other ship was a small science vessel with a tiny crew on short hops to conduct planetary experiments and the like. They don't have the time, resources, or available space for some mad scientist to be doing his tribble experiments (and would the Federation consider experimenting on live animals ethical?) at the cost of his other duties and valuable lab space and crew quarters. Plus, he was insubordinate, disrespectful and sexist towards the captain, didn't work well with others, and was conducting illegal and unethical experiments in violation of safety protocols. Transferring him to another ship, station, or ground facility where he could do his own thing is perfectly reasonable under the circumstances on that vessel.

The captain did try and convince him to evacuate the ship with them, and he just froze in place and refused to move because he was convinced of his righteousness to the bitter end. Is she just supposed to die with him in the tsunami of tribbles that she just barely escaped in time? The captain being the last one to leave the ship doesn't mean they have to sacrifice their lives needlessly when someone refuses to evacuate.

The Short Treks are not Discovery, and Discovery is not the Short Treks, so one does not make the other "disgraceful". They're Discovery adjacent, but kind of off in their own little world where you can do tardigrade cartoons, comedic commercials about Tribble Cereals, future dramatic vignettes that test out certain concepts for upcoming seasons like the AI on the ship achieving sentience, but probably don't represent the actual outcome of the ship and have already been contradicted. They were never meant to be taken so seriously, but of course fans take everything too seriously.

I don't get why these Major Grin videos are so popular. None of the stuff holds up to any kind of simple scrutiny. They're lazy and idiotic. At least they're not two hour long dissections of 42 minute episodes though, I'll give them that. Those are the only thing that's more obnoxious.
 
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I'd guess they only work for those self-described trufans™ who are so deep in their outrage that they've even stopped hate-watching years ago, only getting their information on what's happening in Trek from their echo chambers, including the youtube videos and their comment sections themselves so that they could keep being outraged.
 
Man, I want to watch this Trek that follows procedure and nothing bad happens.
I’ve lost track of the number of times someone has gotten a gun into the courthouse and the police station on Law and Order SVU or how many times someone breached security at CTU on 24. That kind of stuff rarely happens in real life but it happens a lot on tv or in movies. For the drama. Fiction would be boring if no one screwed up.
 
I’ve lost track of the number of times someone has gotten a gun into the courthouse and the police station on Law and Order SVU or how many times someone breached security at CTU on 24. That kind of stuff rarely happens in real life but it happens a lot on tv or in movies. For the drama. Fiction would be boring if no one screwed up.
Yup. It's not a matter of competence or incompetence but the drama in the story. And that will always trump all possible fail safes.
 
I remember someone brought that Major Grin video up in the thread for The Trouble With Edward when it first aired. I'll repost my thoughts on the video from that thread.
It really is apples and oranges to compare this situation with that in Hollow Pursuits. In Hollow Pursuits, Barclay is a shy loner having trouble fitting in among the engineering team to an extent that it impacts his job performance, and the backlash he faces from Geordi and Riker as a result of this lead to his reclusive tendencies escape into holodeck fantasies. Picard recognizes this and rather than transfer Barclay off to another ship like so many others have done, decides to try and fix the situation and help Barclay become a productive member of the crew. Though Barclay was socially awkward and not 100% focused on his work, he was generally inoffensive did not cause any trouble.

Edward on the other hand was absorbed in his own research to the extent he didn't contribute to the other tasks the rest of the crew were required to, argued with his captain after she had made her decisions, and then filed reports with Starfleet Command accusing his captain of being stupid just because she disagreed with him. Edward was a legitimate problem for Captain Lucero, as further evidenced when he sets into motion events which lead to the ship's loss. She was within her rights to have him removed from her crew.

So, no, I don't view this as proof of differing cultures. Indeed, were their positions reversed, I think Picard would have dealt with Edward the same way Lucero did and Lucero would deal with Barclay the same way Picard did.
 
I’ve lost track of the number of times someone has gotten a gun into the courthouse and the police station on Law and Order SVU or how many times someone breached security at CTU on 24. That kind of stuff rarely happens in real life but it happens a lot on tv or in movies. For the drama. Fiction would be boring if no one screwed up.
Also how it takes criminal investigators days and not years to catch and convict criminals. DNA testing alone can cost thousands of dollars and take weeks to months.
 
I remember someone brought that Major Grin video up in the thread for The Trouble With Edward when it first aired. I'll repost my thoughts on the video from that thread.
Tilly and Adira are much better analogues for barclay. Both are treated with respect and supported from day by the crew and didn't have to deal with bullying from superior officers like barclay did.
 
Tilly and Adira are much better analogues for barclay. Both are treated with respect and supported from day by the crew and didn't have to deal with bullying from superior officers like barclay did.

Yeah, Edward’s issue wasn’t being awkward, like Barclay, Tilly and Adira. His problem lied in refusing to follow orders, undermining and attempting to discredit his Captain, and putting the crew in danger with an ill advised idea that had been previously, and correctly, rejected.

Edward wasn’t a Barclay, and Captain Lucero was in the right.
 
Yeah, Edward issue wasn’t being awkward, like Barclay, Tilly and Adira. His problem lied in refusing to follow orders, undermining and attempting to discredit his Captain, and putting the crew in danger with an ill advised idea that had been previously, and correctly, rejected.

Edward wasn’t a Barclay, and Captain Lucero was in the right.
I get the feeling the people who took issue with Lucero's opinion also are pig-headed know it alls who would be too weak to challenge a male authority figure and detest being told what do by women and especially being told what by black women.
 
I've heard some very convincing arguments by good reviewers that explain how Lucero's behaviour wasn't ideal, and that the episode was unusually mean for Trek. But hey it was her first day of the job and Barclay, Tilly and Adira would've all been agreeing with her decisions if they were stuck on that ship with Edward.
 
Nothing is going to convince me Lucero’s conduct was out of line/improper/mean, at all.

She wasn’t mean, unkind, or unprofressional, and didn’t behave in any way that wasn’t directly and reasonably appropriate in response to Edward, who was defiant, insubordinate and rude, from the beginning.

I wholeheartedly disagree with the idea that she was in any way behaving antithetical to anything about Trek. Edward was a childish, petulant officer who ended up dying because of his own ineptitude.
 
Nothing is going to convince me Lucero’s conduct was out of line/improper/mean, at all.

She wasn’t mean, unkind, or unprofressional, and didn’t behave in any way that wasn’t directly and reasonably appropriate in response to Edward, who was defiant, insubordinate and rude, from the beginning.

I wholeheartedly disagree with the idea that she was in any way behaving antithetical to anything about Trek. Edward was a childish, petulant officer who ended up dying because of his own ineptitude.
Yup. Lucero did just fine and did her best given the circumstances.
 
Edward was an “outlier” of a character, said Benjamin. “Just like this one weird twist of what would not normally be… It is clear that his character in the science community would be classified as a loner. A lone wolf.”

The character made The Next Generation‘s Reginald Barclay look normal in comparison. “[You wonder] whether early on [Edward] was given the job by like a family member, you know,” said Benjamin. “That’s one way to look at it. But I think he’s perfectly competent as a scientist, just with no moral compass, no perspective, and no social skills. So I think that’s where he separates himself from everybody else. That was the big, I assume, comedy conceit of the thing. I think he probably considers himself very good at what he does and that there are no consequences to his research. So he’s sort of like a sociopath, I would imagine, but somewhat pathological about his work.”


https://www.trektoday.com/content/2019/10/h-jon-benjamin-edward-the-sociopath/

Barclay had social anxiety and some boundary issues about using real coworkers likenesses in his holodeck fantasies, but Edward was on a completely different level. He was dangerous, unethical, manipulative, sexist, and insubordinate. Maybe if he were reassigned to a nice cushy starbase with a lot of resources they could have worked with him to interact with and at least give the appearance of respecting others, but on a small, cramped, overworked science vessel with limited resources he was a toxic presence and a liability to the crew that almost proved fatal to them all.
 
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