Michael Burnham and the Klingon War

[lawman]

People sometimes don’t make sense. We do things for stupid illogical reasons. The show might be trying to reflect that. They behave like actual human beings. Are you familiar with actual humans? Not the ones on Star Trek, the ones outside your house.

Why yes, I am. Are you familiar with the meaning of the word "condescending"?

But seriously — I do agree that the characters in DSC frequently acted in stupid and illogical ways. It does not follow that they behaved like actual human beings, however, because they manifestly didn't. Lots of characters in lots of fiction are written to behave in stupid and illogical ways, but that doesn't get a free pass for being realistic if the behavior is also psychologically implausible and plainly motivated by the needs of the plot.

I actually care more about the drama of the story, losing myself in it rather than obsessiving over shit that isn’t real. Yeah, if you want to think you’re an expert on the psychology of fictional aliens, more power to you. But I’m just going to laugh and ignore it because your opinion on how aliens should think carry absolutely no weight in my opinion. If you don’t like how they behaved, that’s fine. That’s your opinion about the quality of it. But there is no standard for how Klingons should act because it has changed with every series to some degree. You aren’t an expert of it, you just remember how they acted in one series versus another. Because Klingons in TOS act drastically different than they do in TNG and they act different than the ones in ENT. How do you explain that Mr. Expert? Oh yeah, it’s just a show and Klingons don’t exist.

Psst... the "drama" isn't real either! It's all made up.

Beyond that, I wonder who you're replying to here, because I didn't hold myself out as an expert on Klingons, nor am I talking only about the behavior of Klingon characters, by any means.

Beyond that, suffice it to say that any aspect of a show that forces me to step back and think "oh yeah, it's just a show" is a red flag indicative of bad writing. (Or bad acting, or directing, or production values. Any way you slice it, it's a problem.)

 

[Refuge]

That's why I say Burnham didn't have a valid character arc, and didn't learn any meaningful lessons.

What amuses me about Michael is even in the last episode she threatened mutiny again!

 

[Groppler Zorn]

I watched the show; I remember the sequence of events. What I'm saying is that it not a thematically, ethically, or psychologically coherent sequence of events. In particular, this part...


...just doesn't work for me.

First, it requires us to accept that her initial "mutiny" at the beginning did in fact involve abandoning Federation "principles and ethics," even though as you note she was following the advice of Sarek, who supposedly "had more knowledge and experience" of the Klingons than anyone in Starfleet. (Which is an odd notion on at least two counts: first, that he would have relevant knowledge about an antagonistic major power that he would not have shared with other Federation officials in his role as an Ambassador, and second, that he would give Burnham or anyone else advice that conflicted with the very Federation principles and ethics he himself values highly and works to uphold.) It's worth noting that her own captain basically forgave her for that "mutinous" lapse almost immediately, to the point of enlisting her support on a mission to the Klingon ship (although the fact that only the two of them went still stands out as egregiously stupid). Meanwhile, the other Starfleet officers in the pilot (such as the ambassador who played right into T'Kuvma's hands and let his flagship get rammed) who were supposedly upholding the "principles and ethics" involved came across like naive dolts. IOW, the wrongness of Burnham's initial actions is murky at best; the war itself appears to have been inevitable, and the only reason she got convicted (in that weirdly impressionistic courtroom scene) was that she completely declined to defend herself because she felt guilty over Georgiou's death.

Second, at the other end of the season, it requires us to accept that Sarek (again), as well as Cornwell (who previously was not depicted as stupid or unethical), and (by implication in dialogue) the rest of the Starfleet admiralty and even the Federation Council, were all ready and willing to abandon the Federation's "principles and ethics" in the face of a crisis... and not only that, but abandon them in a patently stupid and futile way, adopting a risky and likely counter-productive "secret plan" on the advice of a psychopath from the Mirror Universe who had neither any loyalty to the Federation, nor any experience with this universe's Klingons.

Long story short, if it takes a scenario in which the rest of Starfleet and the Federation would consider committing genocide to give Burnham a chance to look good by comparison, that's taking things way too far, because it's not remotely comparable to her (supposed) misjudgment at the start of the war, and it frankly indicates that the Federation's ideals are "just empty slogans" that the powers-that-be are willing to cast aside when the going gets tough. That is not a morally satisfying ending in any way, shape, or form.

(And it didn't help that the way Burnham actually did end the war was an insult to both the intelligence and the moral sensibilities of everyone watching, as it involved trusting not only the MU psychopath (again), but also a Klingon religious zealot who in the same episode had talked about how her side would fight to the end.

Frankly, it was all just incoherent, both logically and morally. That's why I say Burnham didn't have a valid character arc, and didn't learn any meaningful lessons.

Totally agree with your interpretation here.

Especially this bit:

Frankly, it was all just incoherent, both logically and morally. That's why I say Burnham didn't have a valid character arc, and didn't learn any meaningful lessons.

I suspect that we have seen the full development of Michael Burnham in season 1 and that’s how she’ll be for the next six seasons (or whatever). Lorca sums her up in “context” when he says she loves being right. Michael is *convinced* she’s right and even officers with more experience (Georgiou and Anderson) or people who are cleverer than her or who have done more work in a particular area (Stamets) are not as smart as she is. And she’ll prove it even when ordered not to take a course of action or simply ordered to be quiet.

Going forward we’re going to see Star Trek through the eyes of a contrarian (Michael) who will not be silenced even when silence is the most prudent course of action.

That’s what her “arc” in season 1 showed her as a character - keep bashing away at everything and everyone and eventually you will be vindicated. Stick to your convictions and never change your attitude even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

It’s like she took the worst characteristics of humans and Vulcans and merged them into her personality.

I hope that the tiny slither of growth she showed when she realised that Ash was a Klingon and that Klingons were people too or whatever can eventually make her into a more likeable and productive character. Based on season 1 I’m not holding out much hope for that - I think Michael has developed as far as she possibly ever could.

 

[Mudd]

Second principle of fiction: "It really happened" or "This happens in real life" never excuses bad storytelling.

 

[lawman]

Thanks for the kind words! However...

I suspect that we have seen the full development of Michael Burnham in season 1 and that’s how she’ll be for the next six seasons (or whatever).
...
I hope that the tiny slither of growth she showed when she realised that Ash was a Klingon and that Klingons were people too or whatever can eventually make her into a more likeable and productive character. Based on season 1 I’m not holding out much hope for that - I think Michael has developed as far as she possibly ever could.

...I have to disagree with you here. I think Michael has some developing yet to do. At least, she clearly has the need for it, and perhaps I'm just being a crazy optimist, but I hope the writers aren't oblivious to that. Personally I found her relationship with Ash utterly unconvincing, for one thing, and her categorical rejection of him after Voq's (brief) re-emergence too judgmental by half. And even at the tail end of the season, her bizarre trust in Mirror Georgiou demonstrates a lingering emotional blind spot. As for opposing genocide, that's hardly a great accomplishment; it's what any decent human being would do (unless they're specifically written to be foils for plot purposes), and presumably what Michael herself would have done even at the start of the season.

(Plus, if nothing else, we have her unresolved sibling conflict with Spock, and you can be sure the writers will find a way to milk that when they think the moment is right.)

 

[BillJ]

Beyond that, suffice it to say that any aspect of a show that forces me to step back and think "oh yeah, it's just a show" is a red flag indicative of bad writing.

There is so much of it in Discovery, the only way to enjoy it is to step back and laugh at it.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

it's now interpreted by everyone (including the later showrunners) as either indicating Lester was crazy, or she was just saying there was no room in Kirk's personal mental space for female captains.

That's patently false. Retcons, even sorely needed retcons to fix problem episodes like this one, don't alter what the original intent was, and the original intent seems crystal clear that it be literally true of Starfleet. It wasn't just what Lester said, it was Kirk's agreement with her, and the premise of the episode as an unofficial adaptation/ripoff of the film Turnabout (1940) and/or the book on which it was based.

 

[eschaton]

Burnham has one of the clearest character arcs of any main character in Trek.

In a nutshell:

--Decorated XO accidentally starts a conflict with Klingons

--Disobeys CO because after discussing the Klingons with someone who had more knowledge and experience than anyone in Strarfleet, commits mutiny

--Gets convicted of Mutiny, sentenced to life in prison, loses sense of self worth

--After suffering much humiliation, including having no rank, has a series of professional triumphs including finding a way to get the spore drive working, which begins to restore self worth

--Further explores her humanity and falls in love -- develops friendships among Disco crew

--I think she gets reacquainted with Starfleet ideals after getting an up close and personal dose of the completely unprincipled inhabitants of the MU

--In the end, when once again faced with a choice in dealing with the Klingons, this time she doesn't abandon Starfleet principles and ethics, she takes a chance that the "nuclear option" just might not be the right one. Her crew, having watched, worked, and fought with her over the months, backs her up and sure enough, they come up with a solution that ends the war that some think she started, without Starfleet committing genocide.

--What she learns is that Starfleet principles, ethics and ideals aren't just empty slogans, they are the reasons the Federation works and what makes it great. It's all in her final speech in the finale.

Full circle.

Further, it was the producer's way of connecting the show to what so many of us already knew from Trek lore and bringing Starfleet back into line with the other shows.

Full circle.

Now, you may not like Burnham's arc, but to say she didn't have one is objectively incorrect.

That's really not how I saw the arc at all. Basically, what I saw was this:

• Burnham made a series of big mistakes that destroyed her Starfleet career, caused her commanding officer to die, and were (wrongly) considered to be the spark that caused all-out war with the Klingons to ensue.
  
  
• Burnham was immediately remorseful and accepted full responsibility for her actions. She already made the major shift from defiance to guilt by the end of the second episode.
  
  
• When she is re-introduced after her imprisonment in Episode 3, we see a character who is totally committed to the principles of Starfleet, even if Starfleet rejected her. We see this in her initial rejection of Lorca's offer, how she's dead-set opposed to helping when she thinks it's an experimental weapon, and her concern for the welfare of the tardigrade and the gormagander. She is presented as The One Who is Right, the one who stands up for Starfleet principles, with Lorca as her foil.
  
  
• Of course, while all this is going on, there is some growth in at least the impression that others have. She builds a friendship with Tilly, builds a rapport with Stamets, and mends the fence with Saru. She gains a formal role on the ship as well. And her relationship with Ash begins to flower. None of this changes who she is however - just other people discover how Very Special she is.
  
  
• To the extent that these episodes do show growth on the part of Burnham, it seems to be growth away from her buttoned-down, fake Vulcan front into someone more comfortable with her humanity. However, this doesn't make much sense, because why wouldn't she have loosened up a bit when she was on the Shenzhou all those years? It's also a bit inconsistent, with her depicted as a normal woman in one script, then inexpressive again in the next episode.
  
  
• I felt like the end of the 9th episode actually would have been a good closure to her initial arc. Burnham returns to the Ship of the Dead, facing down Kol, helping in the destruction of it, and winning back her former commanding officer's badge. It was a little odd that she was terrified of Klingons in the opening arc, but now seems to show no problems, but I suppose it could have shown character growth on her part. If they ended the Klingon War arc then and there, I would have been happy.
  
  
• Unfortunately, they went to the MU. Whatever else it was, it was not a good decision in terms of Burnham's character arc, effectively sidelining any growth she showed at the end of Act 1. If there was any theme, it was "let's torture Micheal Burnham." They had her lover become a sleeper agent who tried to strangle her, her commanding officer turn out to be a MU shitheel, and the body double of her former commanding officer/stand in mom turn out to be Space Hitler. We got to see her cry a lot, but we didn't see any real growth in her as a person, and I'm not sure what lessons this was supposed to teach her.
  
  
• Then they get back to the PU. Lorca isn't brought up again, but she continues to deal with the aftermath of the Ash and Georgiou reveals. Twenty minutes before the end of the season, a "conclusion" to her arc comes out of nowhere. You can easily imagine the writer's team sitting down trying to break the story, finding some way out of the tangled mess, and pulling this out of a hat.

Honestly, at the end of the last episode, I decided Ash Tyler had a much better arc over the course of the season than Burnham. He started the series as an emotionally crippled mess, and ended it with accepting both "sides" of his history and a desire to move on. And he decided to run off with his rapist and wasn't even the main character of the show.

 

[Jadeb]

I think this debate goes on and on because it's easy to grasp what they were going for, and it's very traditional Star Trek. If anything, it's a bit paint-by-numbers. But the way they handled it was clumsy and undermined the "Federation values triumphant" theme they were trying to employ.

 

[eschaton]

As I've said before, Burnham's real arc - judging by what the beginning of the show showed us - should have been resolving the conflict between her human nature and her Vulcan upbringing. The early portions of the show indicated clearly that Burnham thought she was a logical person, but was just an inexpressive one. Her decisions in the prologue were many guided by her absolute terror of the Klingons, although she attempted to paint a patina of logic over it when arguing with Georgiou. Suppression of emotions might work for Vulcans, but it doesn't for humans - or at least her. Early episodes which had numerous flashbacks to her life on Vulcan really seemed to indicate they were going that way, which could have been quite interesting. That is why the decisions made later in the series were so terrible, IMHO. Saving MU Georgiou - Space Hitler) because she had the same face as her former commanding officer showed that she learned nothing, and kept making impulsive emotional decisions. Indeed, she was impulsive and emotional right up to the last - absolutely sure that MU Georgiou wouldn't kill her (and unfortunately, the show proved her right).

 

[eschaton]

I think this debate goes on and on because it's easy to grasp what they were going for, and it's very traditional Star Trek. If anything, it's a bit paint-by-numbers. But the way they handled it was clumsy and undermined the "Federation values triumphant" theme they were trying to employ.

I seriously wonder if the last 20 minutes or so were a last-minute rewrite, because they seem so hastily and sloppily done. Maybe they didn't want to actually conclude the war arc until the second season, and the networks told them to finish it up because it wasn't working? The first half of the episode was not perfect, but it had lots of great moments within.

 

[Jadeb]

I seriously wonder if the last 20 minutes or so were a last-minute rewrite, because they seem so hastily and sloppily done. Maybe they didn't want to actually conclude the war arc until the second season, and the networks told them to finish it up because it wasn't working? The first half of the episode was not perfect, but it had lots of great moments within.

It did seem like the second half of a TNG two-parter, didn't it? But the rest of the season makes me think they were adrift pretty early on. Look at the freeing of the Tardigrade -- that happened because that's what happens in Star Trek, rather than because it made sense in the story. Finale was the same -- this is what happens in Star Trek. By the end, Lorca is evil because he's from the MU, there's a nice speech about Federation values and all the Trek toys go back in the box unblemished.

People accuse the writers of faking their fandom, but, if anything, the writing strikes me as very fannish. The ending was basically pre-ordained by their unwavering commitment to Star Trek Values, and the bomb was just a convenient means of getting there.

 

[BillJ]

People accuse the writers of faking their fandom, but, if anything, the writing strikes me as very fannish.

From the very beginning I had issues with having "superfans" in the writing room. I would've rather had people who had no prior association with Star Trek.

 

[Groppler Zorn]

Thanks for the kind words! However...

...I have to disagree with you here. I think Michael has some developing yet to do. At least, she clearly has the need for it, and perhaps I'm just being a crazy optimist, but I hope the writers aren't oblivious to that. Personally I found her relationship with Ash utterly unconvincing, for one thing, and her categorical rejection of him after Voq's (brief) re-emergence too judgmental by half. And even at the tail end of the season, her bizarre trust in Mirror Georgiou demonstrates a lingering emotional blind spot. As for opposing genocide, that's hardly a great accomplishment; it's what any decent human being would do (unless they're specifically written to be foils for plot purposes), and presumably what Michael herself would have done even at the start of the season.

(Plus, if nothing else, we have her unresolved sibling conflict with Spock, and you can be sure the writers will find a way to milk that when they think the moment is right.)

You’re welcome

I hope you’re right and that Michael does go through some actual development. I’d love to be wrong about her going forward!

Oh my goodness the Spock thing! If they’re really smart they’ll stay well away from that. So with that in mind it’ll be about 3 minutes in to the season 2 opener that lil Spock appears in a flashback haha!

 

[BillJ]

So with that in mind it’ll be about 3 minutes in to the season 2 opener that lil Spock appears in a flashback haha!

Of course, because the writers can't stay away from the fanwank and tell a coherent story about the Discovery characters.

 

[Kor]

From the very beginning I had issues with having "superfans" in the writing room. I would've rather had people who had no prior association with Star Trek.

I agree. It makes for better objectivity in coming up with stories that are good on their own merit, rather than heavily relying on a bunch of call-backs.

Kor

 

[eschaton]

People accuse the writers of faking their fandom, but, if anything, the writing strikes me as very fannish. The ending was basically pre-ordained by their unwavering commitment to Star Trek Values, and the bomb was just a convenient means of getting there.

My understanding is they were still filming the final episode at the time the opening episode was premiered. I have to wonder if some of the mixed reaction it got (both critically and from fans) caused CBS to freak out and come down on the writers like a ton of bricks.

 

[Tenacity]

Of course, because the writers can't stay away from the fanwank and tell a coherent story about the Discovery characters.

Is it a show about the Discovery characters, or a show about the Star Trek universe?

The second sounds far more appealing to me, given that the majority of the Discovery character aren't all that interesting. Burnham and Saru are at best marginal. Only Tilly's character shows promise as someone whose arc I'd like to follow.

Watch her rise through the ranks, gaining experience, in time becoming a starship captain.

 

[Groppler Zorn]

Of course, because the writers can't stay away from the fanwank and tell a coherent story about the Discovery characters.

Is it more Trek referential than Enterprise was? I haven’t sat and watched ENT for a while but I don’t remember the same kind of random references in ENT as what disco throws out. Mintaka iii being the worst offender. I mean, let’s ignore the fact that the tng episode featuring Mintaka iii is one of the best ones, there was no reason for them to bring it up on DSC. Why would the empire need to subdue/murder all the Mintakans? Were they a threat to the empire? The planet didn’t seem to have any strategic value or natural resources. So why did Georgiou and Killy need to kill a planet of Proto Vulcans? Or have I missed the point of a pointless name drop that was only on DSC to fool me into thinking the people what wrote it knows what Star Trek is?

 

[Jadeb]

Personally, I don't think being a Trek fan should preclude you from writing for the show. But neither should being a fan facilitate it. The bar should be whether you're a good writer. If so, you should be able to set aside your fannishness.