Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 1x02 - "Battle at the Binary Stars"

[Ometiklan]

I'm sure. Thing is, she didn't need to die. That whole ending was cheap and weightless, without any real dramatic pang.

As I noted in the other thread, this whole episode (both parts) was just one overly indulgent contrivance to set-up Burnham as a pariah.

As some other posters have said, the point to this backstory is to set up Burnham's character. The whole thing is the point. You could do it cheaply via backstory flashbacks or references, but we have seen how well that worked out before (Paris). Also, this shows us Burnham before she was troubled, shows what her relationsihip was like with the Shenzhou crew, and with Saru and Georgiou. Next we will get to see how she feels about herself and what others feel about her and how things improve, if they do.

...Why was the disclipinary board at the end veiled by shadows? Up to now, all boards in Star Trek have been in the full light.

Yeah, I didn't like this much. I think they were trying to go dark and troubling for this sentencing, trying to add to the emotional impact, but they didn't really pull it off. They lighting came off weird. They could also just be trying to hide the identity of the tribunal members for future purposes, but I doubt it.

I'm curious if they'll address the fact that Michael seems to have some form of PTSD.

I think they will. They hinted at it a couple of times via dialogue from both Sarek and Georgiou about whether or not her past experiences were affecting her judgement. Burnham insisted it wasn't, but I think it was, and I think we will see more on this.

...Ramming another ship was awesome in Nemesis, so apparently they chose to use the same strategy here. It works, just as it did there, because clearly the commanders of those ships are morons who act far too slowly to move their faster than light capable vessel out of the way of this 100 mph ramming speed taking place in 3-Dimensional space...

As others have said, the ramming ship was cloaked until after the collision had already begun, at which time the Europa's systems were going haywire. This was no failing-to-dodge-the-steamroller bit from Austin Powers.

One thing did bother me: Starfleet fleeing the battle without any concern about those ships they left behind, including the Shenzhou...

I am not 100% on this, but I think it was some of the Klingon ships that were leaving the battle to go rally the rest of the empire to war. I think Starfleet was outnumbered and badly damaged. I don't think any of them ran away though.

...Do we know that 37 minutes is a set run time for them? I assumed they were doing the streaming/cable thing where it's 42-ish minutes but the precise length fluctuates depending on how long the creators feels it's need to be that week..

On of the producers stated that the runtime will vary from episode to episode depending on the story at hand. They said some of them would run longer than 50 minutes (I think).

Starfleet wanted to convict Kirk for the accidental death of his friend and shipmate Ben Finney, strip him of not only his command but also possibly his rank and entire career and put him in prison. For one accidental death through heat-of-the-moment negligence experienced during an ion storm. Considering the time Kirk would have pulled had Ben Finney's plot to frame his old friend been successful I'd say Burnham getting life in a penal facility for attempted mutiny and triggering an interstellar war makes more than perfect sense.

I don't remember the exact charges, but I don't think they included starting the war, because she didn't start the war. The Klingons fired first after Georgiou talked to them. Maybe they could charge her with attempting to start a conflict, but she didn't succeed. Personally, I am glad to see that she didn't. Going into the pilot I was wondering how they would allow both Georgiou and Burnham to both be right (or both be potentially right). It seemed like one of them would have to be wrong and that would make that character less heroic. But they managed to balance it. Burnham thought she knew the correct action that would save them all from conflict and she, wrongfully, tried to pursue it over the orders of her captain. She was clearly wrong for that, but she had the right idea. And it might have worked since the Klingons probably wouldn't have gone to full-scale war without T'Kuvma to rally them, and if Burnham had been successful, he would have been dead before the Klingon fleet assembled. But Georgiou was also right in that Starfleet didn't have cause to fire first, and that is part of the ideals of the Federation.

Personally, I feel vindicated because during the lead up to Discovery, another poster here claimed (without justification) that Burnham's crimes were worse than Paris' or Ro's because Burnham's crimes led to the start of war and thousands of deaths. It's good to see that her crimes didn't in fact start the war, but were intended on avoiding war, though she failed to implement them.

The issue with the end wasn't just that she was given life, but that, in an a supposed enlightened society, her rights of due process where thinly adhered to--even for a military. [Serious this time.]

She had no JAG representative when she offered her plea. And she gave it to a judicial bored of flag officers and not in front of a proper court and panel of members.

And let's not forget, saying her actions started a war is BS. The only thing she did was defend herself. Georgiou and Admiral Numbnuts where actually far more responsible than she was. The only thing Burnham was guilty of was attacking a senior officer. (Even mutiny is a hard sell.)

Though we didn't see it, I think its likely that she had already reached a plea agreement with the assistance of council and we only saw the actual final step of that process. Though I agree that any council should have argued against the mutiny charge as it was tenuous at best.

Yup. I had a real problem as well with the idea that her example from Vulcan history was a viable reason to disobey orders. It was 100 years since the Klingons were last encountered. What makes her think they still act the same way as then?

I think this is all part of a larger story about Burnham and her past and her experiences with the Klingons when her family was killed. Though she thought she was being totally logical, and even though she did have some logical reasons for her conclusions, I think they were thoroughly influenced by her emotions. She isn't a Vulcan, so her emotional suppression/compartmentalization is probably not anything near as good as a Vulcan's, plus she just spent the last 7 years with Georgiou learning how to access and reintegrate human emotions and behavior. Burnham even says that she was acting with emotion when she was trying to save her crew from death, but I don't think she realizes that her underlying decision making was affected by her Klingon experience.

..."Part of my katra is with you allowing us this form of communication" - OK, no. Bullshit. Instantaneous FTL communication because you linked minds years ago? This is some physics defying action at a distance BS. And completely unnecessary for the plot, too. I hope this turned out to be a delusion or a dream or something and we don't see it again.
...Wow, Burnham recovered from near fatal vacuum exposure remarkably quickly.
...I very much hope we revisit this relationship in future flashbacks...

- FTL mindmeld: Yeah, my headcanon would prefer that this was just her mental projection of what Sarek would say and supported/provided by their previous mindmeld, and not actual communication. Though there is some president with other Vulcans feeling the affects of distant events.
- Vacuum exposure: I was worried about this when the computer started to describe symptoms starting after 15 seconds. Star Trek and other shows are always getting space/vacuum exposure incorrect and I thought this was surely going to be one of those times. But the computer doesn't say that near fatal symptoms will start occurring immediately or even immediately after 15 seconds, just that serious symptoms will start after 15 seconds. As far as I understand it, this is totally in line with actual vacuum exposure. So I don't have any problem with the science/medical issues with this scene.

And contrary to what at least one other poster complained about in the opening episode's radiation exposure sequence, the 20 minute time limit was just that beyond that point it was more likely that radiation exposure would be fatal despite all that the medical tech could do. Contrary to how radiation exposure was sometimes depicted in TNG, it wasn't shown here to be a binary thing: nonlethal, nonlethal, nonlethal, boom, lethal exposure.

I think Michael’s plan would have worked, the rest of the Klingons didn’t care about T’Kumva and his gang of misfits until after he made the long speech

Agreed. Burnham might have succeeded, and the Battle at the Binary Stars could have turned out to be just another skirmish in the 70 years of unremitting hostility, instead of the start of a year-long war with a united Klingon empire.

 

[Mr Awe]

The first two episodes just upended canon.

CHEKOV: Has there ever been a mutiny on a starship before?
SPOCK: Absolutely no record of such an occurrence, Ensign.
-"The Tholian Web"

I would love to see how the TPTB reconcile what happened in Discovery with what was stated in canon. And, I learned from an interview, that the third episode can be seen as a second pilot for the series, with us being introduced to the Discovery. Couldn't we have started with this episode, with us getting a summary of what transpired in the first two episodes?

Mutiny generally refers to cases where multiple crewmembers are in rebellion and are trying to take over the ship. Here it was just one person who wasn't trying to take over but to change the Captains orders. It's probably better to call in insubordination, but in the context of starting a war is still a serious matter even though it's not mutiny.

 

[Rahul]

No, that's not correct. Being a prologue is not sufficient to mark it as a failure by itself. If a prologue hooks viewers so they come back for more, it's a success. End of story.

However, I do agree that this specific prologue wasn't executed perfectly. Splitting it into two episodes and make only the first part free was a mistake. The first episode was not a great way to draw in new viewers because it was more talky, clunky, and slow. Too many flashbacks and slow talking Klingons. Etc.

Agree that it didn't work as planned, but not because it was a prologue but because it was not executed perfectly.

That's always the problem of doing a prequel:
You don't just have to tell your story. You have to tell it perfectly. Because we already know where the story is headed. That means the way the story unfolds has our full attention and scrutiny so much more.

 

[Rahul]

I gave both parts an 8, but in reality, part two is a bit better. I didn't buy Burham's betrayal. [\emphasize mine] That felt pretty forced. They seemed to bend over backward to make a good person look bad and not all steps of that process were believable.

Having the tribunal in shadows was a bit hokey. I mean really?

Outside of that, this episode is pretty solid. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens next.

Yeah, that was my biggest problem with it, too.
She needed to do it, to become a pariah for the story later on. But it really wasn't necessary or believable. And it didn't change anything at all - the conflict with the klingons would have ended exactly the same if she would have just shut up. She didn't start the war. Which makes it even more implausible that she is treated as if she did.

 

[cultcross]

it wasn't shown here to be a binary thing: nonlethal, nonlethal, nonlethal, boom, lethal exposure.

That's pretty much exactly how I interpreted it here. They had a countdown in seconds to lethal dose. Radiation just doesn't work that way. Now Star Trek even comes with a built in get-out clause if you absolutely must have a ticking clock - a shield which can only take x before failure, and upon failure, lethal exposure is near immediate. But I'd argue the ticking clock added nothing to this scene. You could have just done it as 'generally risky because of the cosmic rays' or 'risk of getting hit by an asteroid' or what have you, and the dynamic would still have been the same. All you needed was a setup to get Burnham out there in a suit by herself.

 

[Tuskin38]

The Europa's texture changed a bit between the trailer and the aired episode, they changed the name/registry font and added some TMP style pennants

 

[dahj]

You don't just have to tell your story. You have to tell it perfectly. Because we already know where the story is headed

We know the war ends, but pretty much everything else is fair game...

 

[seigezunt]

They definitely should have aired these two episodes together for free broadcast. This WTF cliffhanger is much better subscription bait.

I loved it. Star Trek hasn't made my jaw drop since probably 1982, so that's got to be a good thing. Bully for them for throwing curveballs. It's about time.

 

[Ometiklan]

Yeah, that was my biggest problem with it, too.
She needed to do it, to become a pariah for the story later on. But it really wasn't necessary or believable. And it didn't change anything at all - the conflict with the klingons would have ended exactly the same if she would have just shut up. She didn't start the war. Which makes it even more implausible that she is treated as if she did.

I can see how different people can view this differently. For me, I think it was necessary. She thought she had the one course of action that would save the ship and the Federation from war and she knew it was diametrically opposed to Georgiou's position. That plus that she clearly seems to still be affected/traumatized by her history with the Klingons, made it very believable and apparently "necessary", again, to me. And I think that had she been successful with her "first strike", it would have prevented the all out war.

That's pretty much exactly how I interpreted it here. They had a countdown in seconds to lethal dose. Radiation just doesn't work that way. Now Star Trek even comes with a built in get-out clause if you absolutely must have a ticking clock - a shield which can only take x before failure, and upon failure, lethal exposure is near immediate. But I'd argue the ticking clock added nothing to this scene. You could have just done it as 'generally risky because of the cosmic rays' or 'risk of getting hit by an asteroid' or what have you, and the dynamic would still have been the same. All you needed was a setup to get Burnham out there in a suit by herself.

I can see how it could go either way. I have been annoyed in the past with how the TNG-era depicted it, but I feel like this time they presented it as less than cut and dried. It "seems" like the 20 minute time limit was for safety, but wasn't hard and fast. In fact, based on her drifting and having to be rescued, it seemed like she would have been out there for more than 20 minutes, yet they were able to save her without any apparently miraculous, last second medical-technobabble inventions.

In fact, the lack of any last minute technobabble solutions was a highlight I didn't really think about before.

 

[137th Gebirg]

1. It is reclassified as never having actually happened once Burnham is exonerated and the official record is wiped clean.
2. Even TOS retconned itself when it mentioned just a handful of episodes later that Garth's crew mutinied and the incident contributed to his decaying mental state and physical injuries.

Never mind TOS season 1 continuously referring to Vulcans as "Vulcanians".

 

[Rahul]

That's pretty much exactly how I interpreted it here. They had a countdown in seconds to lethal dose. Radiation just doesn't work that way. Now Star Trek even comes with a built in get-out clause if you absolutely must have a ticking clock - a shield which can only take x before failure, and upon failure, lethal exposure is near immediate. But I'd argue the ticking clock added nothing to this scene. You could have just done it as 'generally risky because of the cosmic rays' or 'risk of getting hit by an asteroid' or what have you, and the dynamic would still have been the same. All you needed was a setup to get Burnham out there in a suit by herself.

I thought that was actually quite realistic: If you go into a reactor for example, you have a specific time window, until a point you have accumulated more radiation that is allowed for, say, a year. You should pull out before that.

That's how I understood they showed it: When the clock runs out, she's above her "medically allowed" radiation dose. So if she stayed longer (which she did), she wouldn't die immediately. But the risk of her dying would rise exponentially with time. So it wasn't a clear "clock until death". More like a "mission operation timeframe" window to avoid illness.

 

[Rahul]

I can see how different people can view this differently. For me, I think it was necessary. She thought she had the one course of action that would save the ship and the Federation from war and she knew it was diametrically opposed to Georgiou's position. That plus that she clearly seems to still be affected/traumatized by her history with the Klingons, made it very believable and apparently "necessary", again, to me. And I think that had she been successful with her "first strike", it would have prevented the all out war.

Different people, different viewpoints, discussing them, that's why we're here
I thought her intentions were absolutely clear! And I even think she might have been right in this situation. But I think she wasn't at the point where she would attack her superiour officer and try to do it on her own. IMO it would have been more realistic if she would have stayed and argued and disagreed, up until she was relieved of command. But her little "one person mutiny" didn't actually change the outcome of the klingon contact. That's why I think it was only there to have her as a pariah later on.

 

[Mr Awe]

That's always the problem of doing a prequel:
You don't just have to tell your story. You have to tell it perfectly. Because we already know where the story is headed. That means the way the story unfolds has our full attention and scrutiny so much more.

We know the general outline of where things are heading, but we don't know the paths of these specific characters. Trek novelists have done a great job writing entire novels that fit within the timeline and yet are very entertaining. I have no doubt that it can be done. I'll agree that it does add an extra consideration though.

Yeah, that was my biggest problem with it, too.
She needed to do it, to become a pariah for the story later on. But it really wasn't necessary or believable. And it didn't change anything at all - the conflict with the klingons would have ended exactly the same if she would have just shut up. She didn't start the war. Which makes it even more implausible that she is treated as if she did.

I think the part that makes me think she did start the war was when she killed T'Kumva (sp) rather than captured him. As she described, he'll now become a martyr rather than a disgraced captured warrior. A quick stun and beam out might've changed things. A moments indiscretion can have a lasting impact.

But, I think her actions don't entirely ring true. Even that after she had described it. Maybe the shock of Girgiou (sp?) dying can explain it, but I don't know. And the insubordination on the bridge really didn't ring true.

 

[ISS Enterprise]

Especially when you're a military.

*Runs*

Agree, always thought of Starfleet as military, a peaceful one. For defense. But they have a lot of Federation planets to protect while exploring

Also while exploring you'd figure experience would teach them there are hostile species out there so

 

[Campe]

I actually prefer episode 2 much more than the pilot. I still question the decision to do a prologue as your “free” episode to the masses. You need to be able to hook your crowd. “Vulcan Hello,” for me at least didn’t do that. “Battle at the Binary Stars” sure did!

 

[137th Gebirg]

"Part of my katra is with you allowing us this form of communication" - OK, no. Bullshit. Instantaneous FTL communication because you linked minds years ago? This is some physics defying action at a distance BS. And completely unnecessary for the plot, too. I hope this turned out to be a delusion or a dream or something and we don't see it again.

I was kind of taken aback by this as well, then it occurred to me what a mind meld might actually be - a biologically-induced quantum entanglement, which would necessarily allow for instant communication, among many other kinds of non-corporeal interaction, including the temporary storage of an entire Katra in times of emergency.

I mean, come on, the whole notion of the mind meld and neck pinch are steeped in nonsensical science fantasy. There's nothing to say that we haven't seen all the different features of Vulcan physiology as they apply to psionic abilities.

 

[Kemaiku]

Enterprise established that lovers, where at least one of them was Vulcan, once bonded can do this where both enter a meditative state and imagine they're in the same "place". But that only a bond of deeper love either romantic or physical could do it.

So...ick.

 

[cultcross]

I mean, come on, the whole notion of the mind meld and neck pinch are steeped in nonsensical science fantasy.

That's true, although touch telepathy at least could be pseudo-plausibly handwaved away through some ability to sense electrical and chemical impulses in the brain. At the very least there is something there to sense and a direct connection with which to sense it, even if the mechanism needs a hand wave. But this concept, communicating instantaneously in real time across light years, without any tech at all... I've got nothing. Quantum entanglement doesn't provide FTL communication. The only thing I can think of is Trek's old friend the tachyon, somehow generated organically.

Enterprise established that lovers, where at least one of them was Vulcan, once bonded can do this where both enter a meditative state and imagine they're in the same "place"

Did not know that. So it's bullshit, but not new bullshit.

 

[MvRojo]

I think that's kind of lame. Not only is it unfair to you guys, it's unfair to Netflix. They're paying for the damn thing. It's like buying your buddy a nice meal and then he makes you sit and watch him eat before you can.

That's how Netflix shows lots of US shows that it has international distribution rights to.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Spock once melded with a guard through a wall to his cell.