Spoilers If you could change one thing about Discovery

[Lord Garth]

I don't have time for much today. Taking a break for a moment from the dreaded thing called Real Life, which I have a bad case of. But only for a moment.

This stood out to me the other day, and I want to ask about it before I forget, because I probably will.

3. The trip to the Mirror universe wouldn't have needed the subtext of "we have to classify it because it was new to Kirk and Spock in TOS when they found it" stuff. Its existence would already be known to any Starfleet crew, just like it was known to the DS9 crew when they crossed over.

Okay. You've got me listening on the rest of it. But this is the part I'm wondering about. If Spock was successful in getting the Terran Empire to change to the point where the Klingons, Cardassians, and Bajorans overtook them... then how can there still be a Terran Empire in, say, 2318?

You'd think the Terran Empire ~50 years after "Mirror, Mirror" (TOS) and ~50 years before "Crossover" (DS9), would have already fallen. Unless it broke up into different pieces first and Emperor Georgiou was just a leader of a particular faction.

 

[Discofan]

That's funny, given that Reliant couldn't tell how many planets were in a system!

Plus one would think they'd be able to detect the debris of a recently exploded planet!!

 

[Discofan]

I don't have time for much today. Taking a break for a moment from the dreaded thing called Real Life, which I have a bad case of today. But only for a moment.

This stood out to me the other day, and I want to ask about it before I forget, because I probably will.



Okay. You've got me listening on the rest of it. But this is the part I'm wondering about. If Spock was successful in getting the Terran Empire to change to the point where the Klingons, Cardassians, and Bajorans overtook them... then how can there still be a Terran Empire in, say, 2318?

You'd think the Terran Empire ~50 years after "Mirror, Mirror" (TOS) and ~50 years before "Crossover" (DS9), would have already fallen. Unless it broke up into difference pieces first and Emperor Georgiou was just a leader of a particular faction.

But Emperor Georgiou was deposed BEFORE "Mirror, Mirror"! So I don't get what you're saying. It seems you didn't put the events in the proper order.

 

[Lord Garth]

But Emperor Georgiou was deposed BEFORE "Mirror, Mirror"! So I don't get what you're saying. It seems you didn't put the events in the proper order.

I'm going to assume that in the version of DSC Dukhat has in mind, Emperor Georgiou was born later and her reign was later.

 

[Dukhat]

I'm going to assume that in the version of DSC Dukhat has in mind, Emperor Georgiou was born later and her reign was later.

Correct. As I mentioned before, in my version DSC would take place some time between TUC in 2293 and the Narendra III incident in 2344. The first time we see the MU again in DS9 is the year 2370. So if DSC took place in, say 2315, then there’s a 55 year span of time for the Terran Empire to fall and the Klingon/Cardassian alliance to take over. Even earlier than 2315 would just add more time for the transition, so the exact same DSC MU stories would not have changed at all, just the dates.

There is a 71 year span of time between the last time we saw the TOS era (the Kirk scenes in Generations in 2293) and Encounter at Farpoint in 2364, of which we barely know anything. DSC could have benefited from taking place somewhere in that period of time instead of shoehorned in ten years before TOS.

 

[Discofan]

I think they were unfair to Lorca. There were a lot of positives to his character, more than to Mirror Georgiou, who was just a murdering psychopath. I never understood why Michael who owes him, well, not being in prison for the rest of her life, seemed to think that he would have been so much worse than the former dictator. I would have definitely changed that part of the series. It doesn't quite add up.

 

[Amasov]

I still take issue with this whole, "We need to classify the mirror universe because it was new to Kirk and Spock." Or classifying Discovery because it was never mentioned on any of the other shows.

So, what?

Why is an assumption made behind the scenes that every character on TOS knows everything that happened on the shows that were set before it, beat by beat? There are other ships out there (7,000 active ones I believe?).

 

[Discofan]

...
Why is an assumption made behind the scenes that every character on TOS knows everything that happened on the shows that were set before it, beat by beat? There are other ships out there (7,000 active ones I believe?).

With 7,000 ships then how come a badly working Enterprise-A is the ONLY ship that can intervene in TFF? Seems very unlikely.

 

[Amasov]

With 7,000 ships then how come a badly working Enterprise-A is the ONLY ship that can intervene in TFF? Seems very unlikely.

Because the focus of that film is the TOS crew and their heroic acts would be undercut by the fact that there are other ships filled with no-name characters who "helped."

 

[Dukhat]

I still take issue with this whole, "We need to classify the mirror universe because it was new to Kirk and Spock." Or classifying Discovery because it was never mentioned on any of the other shows.

So, what?

Why is an assumption made behind the scenes that every character on TOS knows everything that happened on the shows that were set before it, beat by beat? There are other ships out there (7,000 active ones I believe?).

In the case of the MU, classifying DSC's encounter with it makes no sense to me. Other Starfleet captains need to be made aware that there is an evil parallel universe existing alongside their own, with exact duplicates of them and their crew, with possible means of crossing between them. That's not something that you just keep a secret from your military for no good reason, especially if there's the potential for someone to kill you and steal your identity.

With classifying DSC, I think I'm more annoyed that Kurtzman's answer to "how DSC will fit into the prime Star Trek canon" was to...classify everything about it and send the ship into the future, essentially swiping it under the rug. Sorry Alex, I like you and all and think it's a good thing you're now the showrunner, but boy did that seem like a huge cop-out to me. I think I would have been happier if he just said, "surprise! DSC actually takes place in yet another universe, and now we're going to do our own thing and not be beholden to 50+ years of Star Trek canon."

 

[F. King Daniel]

Season three hasn't happened yet. Section 31 hasn't happened yet. People fearing a big reset button are jumping the gun.

 

[Amasov]

In the case of the MU, classifying DSC's encounter with it makes no sense to me. Other Starfleet captains need to be made aware that there is an evil parallel universe existing alongside their own, with exact duplicates of them and their crew, with possible means of crossing between them. That's not something that you just keep a secret from your military for no good reason, especially if there's the potential for someone to kill you and steal your identity.

With classifying DSC, I think I'm more annoyed that Kurtzman's answer to "how DSC will fit into the prime Star Trek canon" was to...classify everything about it and send the ship into the future, essentially swiping it under the rug. Sorry Alex, I like you and all and think it's a good thing you're now the showrunner, but boy did that seem like a huge cop-out to me. I think I would have been happier if he just said, "surprise! DSC actually takes place in yet another universe, and now we're going to do our own thing and not be beholden to 50+ years of Star Trek canon."

Agreed. I can sort of get behind the classifying of the mirror universe at the time it was done. Sarek's reasoning made sense to me -- if you lost a loved one in the war, but knew they could be alive in another reality, some may try to go over there.

But,, yes, yes, yes -- classifying Discovery is not how you sync it up to canon. Has the USS Discovery (and by extension, the NX-01) ever been mentioned by Kirk, Spock, Picard, Riker, Sisko, Dax, or Janeway? No, because we all know what the real-world reason behind that is: Star Trek Discovery had not been created yet. And look, as far as I'm concerned, Discovery was synched up to canon already.

 

[Discofan]

Because the focus of that film is the TOS crew and their heroic acts would be undercut by the fact that there are other ships filled with no-name characters who "helped."

I am just saying that it lacked believability.

 

[Amasov]

I am just saying that it lacked believability.

And the rest of TFF doesn't?

 

[F. King Daniel]

And the rest of Star Trek doesn't?

Fixed that for you.