It did get some cosmetic work done about a decade ago.
New Short Trek: The Trouble With Edward
- Thread starter eschaton
- Start date
Star Trek spends way too much time taking itself too seriously. While I don't care for this short (Edward annoys me) I'm not going to be down on this one just because it didn't due some sort of social commentary or messes with canon or something.
It just is.
It seems you are trying way too hard to avoid noticing what is obvious.
It's not really messing with canon; this is the 23rd century - a century before humans evolved to Picard's era. I took that as a given when sitting through this episode and it's a real saving grace, proving that this show is in some ways very well written and mindful of canon, contrary to certain youtube channels.
Edward is proto-Barclay in some aspects... whether or not that's intentional, I'm not sure anyone cares. I'd hope he was, actually...
Both Edward and that captain were both cardboard cutout idiots in their own ways and to save time I'm not going to go into one particularly idiotic scene, but she as captain has the responsibilities and ended up looking even worse thanks to that "script". Had she worked with him then there would have been a more positive outcome. And, yes, being military he's supposed to accept orders because a captain's rank means a captain has more of that responsibility stuff. "He's an idiot" only makes her look like the bigger one, with or without the context of the remainder of the episode preceding that award-winning wooden bobber of dialogue.
On the plus side, the whole episode is (and successfully so) trying to fit into 23rd century canon pre-Kirk. This I can buy into, the Federation at this point is still stone age unevolved, even compared to ShatnerKirk's time. It's as simple as that and in that context it passes.
Going back to rank, being pre-ShatnerKirk, rank doesn't have as much prestige as it had during ShatnerKirk's era (as numerous episodes hyped up, so this does fit in perfectly) and this fits right into the short's narrative. I doubt they're trolling the audience. And if we look at allegory or metaphor beyond what's spoonfed, any number of people could perceive and have a massive field day with this and in unexpected ways. Depends on a number of factors, which I won't go into here.
But back to two paragraphs ago - it's just trying to be both serious and funny, which is hard with the best of shows and until 2009 Trek took itself (and its audiences) differently.
Or they're being clever as well as using homage, except that can be hit or miss with a prequel and there's nothing in the dialogue that comes across as being remotely clever. I say it works only because it shows how unevolved this era of Starfleet in this alternate-timeline has shown to be. Which means it's by far the best post-2005 DSC episode so far because it's done the impossible: It's put its universe and Starfleet into perspective and in a perfectly and immutably canonical way. That's what the "fandom menace" people don't understand; this show helps formulate the more robust nature of 60s, 80s, and 90s Trek as a result. Better than ENT had in terms of human development or lack thereof. Even if DSC is a decade before Kirk, lots of positive change can happen.
But if this is just light entertainment, there's still a huge difference between this sub-campy fanwank episode (that doesn't realize it's not outdoing Batman66 at the same game) and pre-2009 Trek's take on issues and its audiences (with a few exceptions, mostly involving comedy and jokes, and even for those comedic instances, prior to 1986, were handled differently and more with the plot instead of at the audience in any exaggerated Family Guy way (e.g. referring to one particularly idiotic scene... of many.))
Too late. He's Quadrosoylentcale
And, yes, Edward didn't need to go above and beyond the captain. There were still better resolutions and given how fast she became captain, she's still inexperienced. But if she gets a free pass then I know a hundred times ten or more situations, that don't involve the cost of life, where everyone deserves a free pardon.
Maybe in terms of the command structure of a Starfleet ship, but I'm really confused about how this is supposed to exist in the same continuity as "The Trouble with Tribbles," where it seemed like the Federation was discovering the peril of the overactive Tribble population for the very first time. Why would no one have recognized these things if "tribbles breeding so fast that they take over a whole starship" was something that had already happened before? Not to mention that Phlox said in an episode of Enterprise that tribbles were already outlawed on most worlds because "they breed quite prodigiously," long before Discovery is set. Memory Alpha tries to explain it by saying it could've been just a specific type of tribble that was a slow breeder, but that wouldn't make sense, because then Edward could just get one of the other kinds instead of doing genetic engineering on this kind, and they would already know how dangerous tribbles in general were.
So, how does this fit into canon? It seemed like the type of reboot storyline that would be at home in the Abramsverse, not something that was meant to be in line with established canon. I half expected Lucero to wake up at the end and find out that it was all a dream borne of nervousness about her upcoming command.
But they weren't. Tribbles were known as Cyrano Jones was carrying them and the Bartender KNEW what they were:
http://www.chakoteya.net/StarTrek/42.htm
It's crazy to assume Kirk and Co. automatically know EVERTHING, or that they encountered everything first. The first two lines of the exchange show both Cyrano Jones AND the Bartender recognize what Jones is offering.
Not sure that it does. The bartender seems to have a history with Jones, that whatever Jones had was going to be far more expensive than the bartender was willing to pay.
As far as Kirk and Company knowing, I would imagine word about Tribbles would get around pretty quickly after they destroyed a starship and forced an entire civilization to move.
Really? An event 10 years past - and probably something the Star Fleet brass DOESN'T really want made common knowledge?
An entire civilization being forced to move over a Starfleet fuckup would be a story that would be told for decades. Starfleet wasn't the only folks involved here, I imagine lots of folks were involved in the move, which would be tough to keep quiet.
We simply have differing interpretations. No harm, no foul.
What "The Trouble with Edward" does do, is point to a frustrating inability of the Discovery folks to write smaller stories that don't have world changing impact. The type of stories that would work better within the framework of a prequel. There was no need to even bring the planet into it.
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Are you kidding - OF COURSE they had to bring the Planet into it to show just how big and monumental a screw up this all was.
And hell, not everything is automatically know/broadcast across the Galaxy. Take the situation in STY:GEN where there are transports with El Alurian refugees. <--- The Federation NEVER found out that The Borg were responsible in the 23rd century (or hell, recognized them for what they were after the 1701-D blew a Sphere up that left Borg remains in the 21st century, discovered a century later, etc.)
To say the Federation couldn't come up with a plausible cover story and bury the facts is just naive.
This isn't just about the Federation, this is about the millions of citizens on the planet that had to be moved, and as fast as the Tribbles were multiplying, there was no way Starfleet alone was going to be able to move them themselves. This would've been an interstellar incident that even people on backwater planets would've been laughing at for years.
One of those things, that if it had happened in the real world, would've damaged an organizations reputation for decades.
And why would the Federation even try to hide it? They already had one planet-wide ecological disaster due to Tribbles, it seems like everyone in Starfleet would know what they were and what to look for to prevent another situation from getting out of hand, even ten years later.
Yes, because nobody was aware of 3 Mile Island when Chernobyl blew up.
(only Seven years later)
Everybody certainly should have known better than to let something like that happen a second time in less than a decade.
You couldn't keep Three Mile Island a secret in an open society, and even the Soviets failed at keeping Chernobyl secret in a repressive society. So how was the Federation (an open society) going to keep the movement of an entire civilization and the reason secret from the press and public? Did they muzzle every man, woman and child? Make death threats?
Your analysis of the writers abilities in this story appeared to be that Kirk's run in with the Tribbles should have been preventable due to what you are calling the "well known" incident with the Cabot and thus it was poor in execution.
I was giving you an example of real, similar disasters happening twice in less than a decade even though the first, was very well known.
Obviously, it has been seen many times throughout history, that people royally screw things up even with extensive prior knowledge of similar incidents.
That very much indicates to me that the Trek writers were doing more than an adequate job of taking into account 'future' events while creating this story.
I was giving you an example of real, similar disasters happening twice in less than a decade even though the first, was very well known.
Obviously, it has been seen many times throughout history, that people royally screw things up even with extensive prior knowledge of similar incidents.
That very much indicates to me that the Trek writers were doing more than an adequate job of taking into account 'future' events while creating this story.
I don't think it's crazy to assume that starship captains or bridge officers would know about existing threats that could very quickly infest and disable an entire starship. It would be like not telling TSA agents about the shoe bomber (except if the shoe bomber had already successfully taken down an airplane).
Why wouldn't Starfleet Brass want Starfleet officers to not know about that? That sounds like a good way to lose another starship (and maybe a planet too).
But that still doesn't address why, by all indications, the Starfleet officers in The Trouble with Tribbles didn't even know about it at all. (Whatever you might read between the lines about what they did or didn't know, it's clearly shown that McCoy checks out the tribbles and reports back to Kirk that they're born pregnant, so we can safely say that's something they didn't know.)
Not so sure; ENT made it clear tribbles bread fast long before the timeframe that Edward ostensibly changed them to be so.
Fast breeding and Being Born Pregnant are in no way the same thing.
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