Trailer:
Season Four premieres on November 18! What am I looking for:
- More, so much more on 32nd century Starfleet. We've seen the starbase and one ship of the era in any real detail; but the fleet as a whole remains undefined. Will we see another starship bridge? What will it look like, how will anyone interact with it? I suspect we may get the equivalent of Zheng He sort of virtual set if we do - these things are expensive.
- Still, Discovery on the inside is still largely unchanged from its initial appearance, despite the external overhaul. How else will the ship have been visibly tweaked since last year? They've got the new uniforms, but what else could have been added in the intervening months to bring her up to spec in the current era? Will there be even MORE cavernous interior spaces to fight in?
- Likewise, how does Starfleet itself work now that dilithium isn't the biggest issue they have anymore? Will we see patrol, logistics, exploration missions back? How much of the galaxy still NEEDS exploring at this point? I suspect that getting communications and trade going again are priorities over Strange New Worlds (TM), but it's not like any previous Trek was afraid of running into a new anomaly even in established territories.
- New, non-warp travel methods in widespread use. Interstellar beaming was one non-dilithium way to get around the galaxy that was conveniently ignored (among several, I know) but it'd be nice to see alternate ways of getting around now that the main one is supposedly back. It'd be nice if they would put some thought into avoiding another Burn the next time one lonely Kelpien gets into a pickle.
- Non-phaser weaponry. Torpedoes haven't been much of a focus in Discovery overall, and even less so in in the current time frame - did she even fire a torpedo since (or in?) the battle against Section 31? But it'd be nice to see if there has been any advancement in projectile / missile technology in the intervening centuries. Or if the whole thing has been abandoned, since after all the majority of species we run into in Trek don't have anything but beam weapons, let alone the VFX budget for torpedoes.
- How stuff like replicators, holodecks, and stuff we took for granted in the TNG era are now routinely applied. We saw an EMH last year and he was even referred to as such, and I know people have suspicions on David Cronenburg's character. Discovery probably didn't get a holodeck as part of their refit (despite having something like it to train in), but it'd be nice to have one now. Unless, like hologrammatic communications, it's a thing that comes and goes.
- An actual 32nd century Federation starship design. Mileages may vary, but presumably all the new ship designs we saw last year are pre-Burn, whether or not the ships themselves were built after the incident. We therefore have a significant gap in starship design theory where a bunch of designers were effectively sitting on their hands. What kinds of innovations could they have come up with and never built, for lack of resources to do so?
Mark
Season Four premieres on November 18! What am I looking for:
- More, so much more on 32nd century Starfleet. We've seen the starbase and one ship of the era in any real detail; but the fleet as a whole remains undefined. Will we see another starship bridge? What will it look like, how will anyone interact with it? I suspect we may get the equivalent of Zheng He sort of virtual set if we do - these things are expensive.
- Still, Discovery on the inside is still largely unchanged from its initial appearance, despite the external overhaul. How else will the ship have been visibly tweaked since last year? They've got the new uniforms, but what else could have been added in the intervening months to bring her up to spec in the current era? Will there be even MORE cavernous interior spaces to fight in?
- Likewise, how does Starfleet itself work now that dilithium isn't the biggest issue they have anymore? Will we see patrol, logistics, exploration missions back? How much of the galaxy still NEEDS exploring at this point? I suspect that getting communications and trade going again are priorities over Strange New Worlds (TM), but it's not like any previous Trek was afraid of running into a new anomaly even in established territories.
- New, non-warp travel methods in widespread use. Interstellar beaming was one non-dilithium way to get around the galaxy that was conveniently ignored (among several, I know) but it'd be nice to see alternate ways of getting around now that the main one is supposedly back. It'd be nice if they would put some thought into avoiding another Burn the next time one lonely Kelpien gets into a pickle.
- Non-phaser weaponry. Torpedoes haven't been much of a focus in Discovery overall, and even less so in in the current time frame - did she even fire a torpedo since (or in?) the battle against Section 31? But it'd be nice to see if there has been any advancement in projectile / missile technology in the intervening centuries. Or if the whole thing has been abandoned, since after all the majority of species we run into in Trek don't have anything but beam weapons, let alone the VFX budget for torpedoes.
- How stuff like replicators, holodecks, and stuff we took for granted in the TNG era are now routinely applied. We saw an EMH last year and he was even referred to as such, and I know people have suspicions on David Cronenburg's character. Discovery probably didn't get a holodeck as part of their refit (despite having something like it to train in), but it'd be nice to have one now. Unless, like hologrammatic communications, it's a thing that comes and goes.
- An actual 32nd century Federation starship design. Mileages may vary, but presumably all the new ship designs we saw last year are pre-Burn, whether or not the ships themselves were built after the incident. We therefore have a significant gap in starship design theory where a bunch of designers were effectively sitting on their hands. What kinds of innovations could they have come up with and never built, for lack of resources to do so?
Mark
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