Spoilers Mid-Season: The Pieces Put Together So Far

[Timo]

Hmm. In which sense does the dying sphere count as a Red Thing?

I mean, yeah, it was red. Perhaps a bit like Burnham or Pike would be red if freshly disemboweled, considering the circumstances. The Ba'ul also had lots of red light activity going on. But beyond that...

The three Red Signals were pretty clear-cut: they appear at a specific moment and launch a specific adventure. Although in "Thunder", the Red Signal didn't launch anything by itself, but merely lured our heroes to a place where Saru was bound to ignite an incident; the threat in the other cases was more explicitly imminent. But the sphere encounter came only as the result of our heroes chasing Spock's shuttle.

Perhaps the Angels are not limited to seven wonders of the galaxy, but in fact whisk thousands of groups of people to safety every day, and Terralysium was picked at random as a neat demonstration of their great abilities and benevolent methods. But the Angels tend to be rather visually prominent; the seven Red Signals would seem to be unique, then. Can the Angel or Angels do good without this sort of advertising? A well-established interstellar Red Cross, or just a short-lived Red Ad campaign to a nefarious end?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[saddestmoon]

I might be mis-remembering: was there a red burst in the episode ‘An Obal for Charon’ - or was it just an encounter in space?

 

[Timo]

No burst was mentioned. The sphere was red, but that was all: there was no mention of a "signal" as in the other episodes, and the heroes didn't appear to mistake the sphere for a Red Thing for even the shortest moment.

(Which is sorta odd because they don't really know what a Red Thing ought to look like, because those always disappear before they get to those. Deciding that the sphere was a Thing ought to have been natural, if not for Burnham or Saru at Science consoles, then to, say, Detmer.)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Manchester]

The Terralysium bit is in all likelihood something the writer didn't quite understand he had just written.

The heroes arrive at this planet where nothing is amiss, but where intricate interweaving rings astound our team. Then there's this sudden instability, and we get the following:

1) "Sensors detecting a massive spike of ionizing radiation in the upper atmosphere."
2) "..a disruption in the gravitational stability of the planet's outermost ring."
3) "In 64 minutes, the radiation will reach the upper atmosphere, causing an extinction level event."
4) "62 minutes before nuclear winter becomes irreversible."

So this planet that has seen at least 200 years of perfect stability is suddenly facing "irreversible" nuclear winter, and a rain of "radioactive" and thus easily detectable debris. It's thus firmly established that this is a unique event, one that has not happened for thousands of years at the very least, and probably not for hundreds of thousands or the radioactive signs on the surface would be easily detected.

What can disrupt "gravitational stability"? The heroes think it might be the Red Menace. But they themselves have this weirdly behaving rock inside their shuttlebay, the one with the defining quality of gravitational instability.

So it is their fault. Or, rather, the fault of the Red Angel for inviting them in, before first prompting them to pack a ring disruptor.

If the writer didn't intend this, he's screwed anyway. After all, the only other interpretation of the events is that the Red Angel invited the heroes in during an astronomically rare natural event - directly meaning the Angel is letting countless others suffer and die because their disasters aren't astronomically compatible with the Angel's schedule of coupling exactly seven things in a nice package.

The timing with Reno was relatively lax: she could have held the patients together for another few months if need be, or conversely, she probably lost quite a few before the Red Angel deigned to call for help. The timing with Kaminar was laxer still: things could have continued the way they were for centuries at the very least. But the Hiawatha quest appears to have been part of the greater quest, directly influencing the Terralysium quest. These two don't appear to have directly influenced the Kaminar quest, which was the doing of the sphere alien - and what drew our heroes to that alien was Spock's shuttle, not the Red Angel. Or are Spock and the Angel working in cahoots? (Was the shuttle already under S31 control and it's S31 and the Angel that work together?)

All the seven quests no doubt are intended to be interrelated. What the writers are probably overlooking is the fact that every quest location gets two visitations. First, there's the simultaneous appearance of the seven Red Signals. And then there's the re-ignition of the signals one by one, to mark the onset of a specific quest. Now, Lucas only mentions one red flash on his skies in "New Eden", and of course Reno would not have seen anything in "Brother" anyway. How many flashes were there over Kaminar? And shouldn't our heroes just put out a call to everybody, asking them to tell if they have seen a red flash recently? After all, their problem is one of pinpointing the signals; they might have been off by as much as 20,000 ly in the "New Eden" case initially, considering Pike spoke of a spread of the seven across 30,000 ly but Terralysium was 50,000+ ly away.

Then again, Spock's/Starfleet's map of the initial seven flashes is dubious to begin with. No two Red Signs are right next to each other on the map - yet the Hiawatha and Kaminar necessarily must have been, as they both are within easy warp reach for conventional Federation vessels. Does this mean there were in fact eight signals, with these two degenerated into each other, and all the others at Spore Jump distances?

Timo Saloniemi

That's the whole thing that has bugged me about the Red Angel and is becoming more clear to me now. Would there even be stories to tell in Season 2 if it wasn't for the Red Angel? I know this is what the writers chose to go with but it just doesn't sit right with me. Could you remove the Red Angel and still have the episodes we have now (with minor tweaking)?

What would Season 2 be like without the Red Angel? I feel like you could remove the whole premise and still tell interesting stories.

 

[Timo]

I trust not: the fact that our people are being led across the galaxy as part of an apparent greater plan is the plot here.

Why tell interesting stories without the season-long overplot? DSC has established itself as the show that does season-long adventures. It doesn't markedly diminish from the individual stories as such, but those stories would be 30 rather than 45 minutes long without the Red Angel...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Manchester]

I trust not: the fact that our people are being led across the galaxy as part of an apparent greater plan is the plot here.

Why tell interesting stories without the season-long overplot? DSC has established itself as the show that does season-long adventures. It doesn't markedly diminish from the individual stories as such, but those stories would be 30 rather than 45 minutes long without the Red Angel...

Timo Saloniemi

Maybe it's just my personal taste. I never really found the Red Angel premise interesting to begin with. I don't really have a problem with season long plots (though I do miss episodes of the week). I'll still watch just to see how it all plays out and I hope I'm not disappointed.

 

[Fleet Admiral Tuvix]

What are the emotional and psychological arcs we've seen develop so far?

Saru is quite literally transforming into a bolder, more fearless version of himself and can now shoot teeth out of his head Jurassic Park style.

Michael is grappling with some mistake she made that alienated Spock and rended her family and hopes to redeem herself by helping him.

Tilly is learning to take care of herself, have more self-confidence, and be more assertive. And everyone keeps commenting on her loquaciousness.

Tyler is settling into a place where he finally feels like he belongs: the shady CIA of Starfleet.

Stamets is learning that he doesn't have to deal with loss because he xeroxed Culber into the spore realm.

Emperor Georgiou helped maintain L'Rell's supremacy of the Klingon Empire (she doesn't seem too keen on doing stuff she doesn't want to do so I presume she has several good reasons to take the assignment).

What lessons are they learning? What lessons are we learning?

 

[PiotrB]

What lessons are they learning? What lessons are we learning?

Where did the belief that ST is a parable to give lessons? Especially as the episodes giving lessons are among the worst in the history of the series.

 

[Lord Garth]

Since adults are the target audience of this show, any life lessons would be patronising.

And Culber seems to be psychologically in a different space. Stamets will figure it out too, once he gets over his euphoria.

 

[Fleet Admiral Tuvix]

Where did the belief that ST is a parable to give lessons? Especially as the episodes giving lessons are among the worst in the history of the series.

Since adults are the target audience of this show, any life lessons would be patronising.

And Culber seems to be psychologically in a different space. Stamets will figure it out too, once he gets over his euphoria.

With respect, it is very common place for characters in media produced for adults to have arcs in which they either do or don't grow / learn something and we the audience get to see how and why, as well as the broader impact their arc has on the story.

I don't expect the show to be Reading Rainbow by any stretch. However, since this thread started with a gathering of the facts and events we have thus far it seemed only logical to contemplate where the characters are, too, since their inner journeys will almost surely reflect their literal ones.

For example, season 1: Burnham's whole thing is being an outsider, often in the wrong place at the wrong time; no matter where she is, her circumstances lead her to ostracization and vilification. She's too human; she's too Vulcan; she is blamed for starting a war because she followed advice that, in context, made sense (and after all, context is for kings).

Saru's character was (partly) a foil for her: he is justifiably extremely sensitive to danger, to a fault. He refers to her repeatedly as a predator or someone whose very nature is both dangerous and immutable.

This comes to a head on planet Windchime when Saru finds himself on the other side of the table. He becomes the bully and resorts to violence to get what he wants.

In season 2 now he believes firmly that his species can overcome its nature to coexist peacefully with a species which considers his predatory. Early season 1 Saru might not have believed that.

That's the kind of thing I'm curious about. It's easier for the first season since it's over but we might find there are pieces to put together buried in the individual character arcs.

 

[Lord Garth]

With respect, it is very common place for characters in media produced for adults to have arcs in which they either do or don't grow / learn something and we the audience get to see how and why, as well as the broader impact their arc has on the story.

I don't expect the show to be Reading Rainbow by any stretch. However, since this thread started with a gathering of the facts and events we have thus far it seemed only logical to contemplate where the characters are, too, since their inner journeys will almost surely reflect their literal ones.

For example, season 1: Burnham's whole thing is being an outsider, often in the wrong place at the wrong time; no matter where she is, her circumstances lead her to ostracization and vilification. She's too human; she's too Vulcan; she is blamed for starting a war because she followed advice that, in context, made sense (and after all, context is for kings).

Saru's character was (partly) a foil for her: he is justifiably extremely sensitive to danger, to a fault. He refers to her repeatedly as a predator or someone whose very nature is both dangerous and immutable.

This comes to a head on planet Windchime when Saru finds himself on the other side of the table. He becomes the bully and resorts to violence to get what he wants.

In season 2 now he believes firmly that his species can overcome its nature to coexist peacefully with a species which considers his predatory. Early season 1 Saru might not have believed that.

That's the kind of thing I'm curious about. It's easier for the first season since it's over but we might find there are pieces to put together buried in the individual character arcs.

Okay, I see what you mean now. The Character Arcs. If we treat the season like a movie, we're still in the middle of Act II. Spock's appearance would be the tipping point. I think the take-aways will start to come more toward the end of the season, after they've reflected on what's happened or have had time to process it. Right now they're still in the thick of it and putting the pieces together.

 

[Lord Garth]

Updated the original post. "Light and Shadows" was a dense episode with two episodes' worth of plot for the price of one. "The Sound of Thunder" and "Point of Light" also could've been several episodes. What can I say? This season moves at a face pace and packs a lot into each episode.

It also looks like the plot is reaching a critical mass at the midpoint. Hopefully everything will be made clear once Spock arrives on Talos IV and that will be the end of all the set-up before getting into the real back-half of the season.

So, structurally, it looks more like the first eight episodes will be the first "half" and the last six will the second "half".