Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 1x09 - "Into the Forest I Go"

[Feron]

We have had reason to suspect and question Lorca's nature and motives long before now. He was introduced as a morally-ambiguous character from the get-go.

I haven't found him to be very morally ambiguous at all. He wants to save lives and end the war, and understands that to win a war you usually have to do lots of unpleasant things.

And what about all that stuff with Cornwell, and destroying his own ship, killing his own crew to "save" them from the Klingons, yet obviously sparing himself? We don't know the whole truth of what happened yet, of course. But we are definitely not meant to think he's any sort of innocent or mere unfortunate, by any stretch.

What about it? You yourself admit that we do not know all of the facts concerning the Burnan, so pre-judging him guilty of some sort of crime without knowing the facts would in itself be reprehensible, IMHO.

And Cornwell's assessment of his fitness for duty was clearly incorrect, as evidenced by the awesome job that he did in defending Pahvo, discovering a way to detect the cloaked ships, and defeating Kol. He has repeatedly shown himself to be an excellent wartime Captain.

 

[MarsWeeps]

Boy have I bridge to sell you!

It was masterful but subtle manipulation by Lorca. He knew that Stamets wouldn't make the tired crewed take the slow way! After 133 consecutive jumps, what's one more?

Doesn't the screenshot show Lorca overriding jump 133? I thought Stamets made the 133 jumps ok and "one last jump" should've been 134. So, shouldn't Lorca's override been for jump 134 and not 133?

 

[Yanks]

Doesn't the screenshot show Lorca overriding jump 133? I thought Stamets made the 133 jumps ok and "one last jump" should've been 134. So, shouldn't Lorca's override been for jump 134 and not 133?

I noticed that as well!! I think the screenshot says "133 unknown"

 

[SJA]

Have to say on 2nd re-watch...Props to Shazad! He acted the bones out that scene in the cell with Cornwall...It could have been hokey but it was shocking, moving, and uncomfortable to watch....As such a scene should be...Brave to have the male character so immobilised - so traumatised - during an 'action' scene..Whatever has 'happened' to Tyler...The trauma is 'real' to him...and Shazad sold it to the audience I thought!

 

[MarsWeeps]

I noticed that as well!! I think the screenshot says "133 unknown"

Yes, it makes no sense. Looks like the special effects department messed up.

 

[Yanks]

Have to say on 2nd re-watch...Props to Shazad! He acted the bones out that scene in the cell with Cornwall...It could have been hokey but it was shocking, moving, and uncomfortable to watch....As such a scene should be...Brave to have the male character so immobilised - so traumatised - during an 'action' scene..Whatever has 'happened' to Tyler...The trauma is 'real' to him...and Shazad sold it to the audience I thought!

He nailed it, as he did with the scene with Michael at the end. Well done!

I also have to give props to Jane Brook as well. I didn't really care for her acting up to this point, but she was awesome in this episode.

 

[Yanks]

Yes, it makes no sense. Looks like the special effects department messed up.

I haven't verified this, but I believe that the initial 133 jumps were 0-132... meaning 133 was the next one. Obviously changed from Starbase 46.

 

[Dilvish]

I haven't found him to be very morally ambiguous at all. He wants to save lives and end the war, and understands that to win a war you usually have to do lots of unpleasant things.

That's pretty much the very definition of "morally ambiguous".

 

[Dilvish]

I also have to give props to Jane Brook as well. I didn't really care for her acting up to this point, but she was awesome in this episode.

She is my favorite character so far, though I din't think there's need for her to become a regular cast member.

 

[Feron]

That's pretty much the very definition of "morally ".

LOL, and what should they do? Unilaterally disarm and surrender to the Klingons to show how progressive and socially advanced they are?

Peace requires both sides to be willing to stop hostilities. History has shown that decisive military victory is how wars are ended. It would be immoral, IMHO, to not actively work toward a victory, especially against a barbaric opponent who literally desires to eat the corpses of your fallen comrades.

 

[Capt_Usagi]

My spoiler-ish review/recap of "Into the Forest I Go" Enjoy!

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[MarsWeeps]

I haven't verified this, but I believe that the initial 133 jumps were 0-132... meaning 133 was the next one. Obviously changed from Starbase 46.

That doesn't make much sense. Why would the first jump be labeled as zero? If I take 10 steps, it's steps 1 thru 10, not 0 thru 9.

 

[Refuge]

And Cornwell's assessment of his fitness for duty was clearly incorrect, as evidenced by the awesome job that he did in defending Pahvo, discovering a way to detect the cloaked ships, and defeating Kol. He has repeatedly shown himself to be an excellent wartime Captain.

Some Captain. Is that why they are now all in the middle of nowhere?

 

[The Memetic Susurrus]

I haven't found him to be very morally ambiguous at all. He wants to save lives and end the war, and understands that to win a war you usually have to do lots of unpleasant things. What about it? You yourself admit that we do not know all of the facts concerning the Burnan, so pre-judging him guilty of some sort of crime without knowing the facts would in itself be reprehensible, IMHO.

And Cornwell's assessment of his fitness for duty was clearly incorrect, as evidenced by the awesome job that he did in defending Pahvo, discovering a way to detect the cloaked ships, and defeating Kol. He has repeatedly shown himself to be an excellent wartime Captain.

Agreed. And Cornwell's assessment of fitness of duty was incorrect on so many levels, I can't even begin to enumerate. When she eval'd him, he hadn't even been back on duty a month since he'd been cleared, so it could not have been PTSD (which requires more than a month--Criterion F, according to DSM-5--of subjectively negative symptoms; anything less may--but not always--be Acute Stress Disorder but it isn't PTSD). In any case, even if it had been more than a month, he doesn't fit for Criterion D or E, so no dice there. Plus, she was clearly "involved" with him so any attempt at assessment on her behalf would have been so unethical it would've gotten her disciplined by her professional organisation, if not resulted in her licensure revoked. You don't fuck your patients and if you do, you are in no position whatsoever to pass any kind of objective assessments.

 

[The Memetic Susurrus]

That's pretty much the very definition of "morally ambiguous".

No, that's called "war."

 

[Guy Gardener]

%1 of Heroes overcome ridiculous odds to achieve a virtuous victory against evil, while the rest fuck up foolishly, and die horribly or end up in traction for months.

Captains manage resources prudently and pragmatically, protecting the well being of their empire, the innocent, the endangered and crew, in that order, while completing missions from their superior officers.

Lorca is a crminal for disobeying orders, and despite winning the war, would have got his ship taken from him as soon as he got back to federation space, because he can't follow orders.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I liked the episode. Better execution than the rest of the series so far.

Though I hated how they made it blatantly obvious that something really bad was going to happen to him after 'One last jump...then we will ride into the sunset together...yes, that is our wonderful future!'

Did you get the impression Lorca intentionally sabotaged the jump? It seemed like he was going to after his reaction to the guy wanting to retire and his reaction to being called out of duty. If so, I think this reveals Lorca as a sociopath. Even if he is arguably a 'Sociopath for good' because he's winning the war at all costs, it permanently rules out any possible positive interpretation of his personal motives. But it seemed more like he was intentionally doing something wrong before the jump than after.

Did they transmit the cloaking frequencies to the Federation before the jump?

 

[Annorax849]

Finally saw it. Good episode, probably he best so far. Two canon/logic issues:

-The population numbers are all over the place. A few episodes ago they said only 10,000 people had died in the war, which was already kind of odd. Now Lorca is saying that "Trillions" of lives are on the line. Even if he meant more than just UFP citizens, that goes to show the scale of casualties in this war is absolutely miniscule.

-The Klingon language and the Universal Translator. Star Trek has always been all over the place when it comes to the Klingon language and if the normal UT even works on it, but the Klingons REALLY should be aware of Universal Translators at this point, especially given they communicated with humans in ENT like it was no big deal.

Anyway, those weren't really enough to bring the episode down though, probably an 8 or 9, not sure yet.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Lorca is a crminal for disobeying orders, and despite winning the war, would have got his ship taken from him as soon as he got back to federation space, because he can't follow orders.

Right, cause every time a Starfleet Captain disobeys orders, they are immediately removed from their position.

I don't think the numbers were an issue. The 10,000 just means the Klingons never managed to assault any planets, just destroy vessels. This tracks with the dialog because according to Admiral Vulcan they never actually crossed Federation borders. The trillions are if the Klingons did start destroying planets, though I agree hundreds of billions makes more sense.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Also this shouldn't have to be said, but kudos to Discovery for identifying a rape as a bad thing. Scifi has been having trouble with that lately.