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Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 1x13 - "What's Past Is Prologue"

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Yeah, I was thinking it might be something purposeful like that too, rather than simply a comms failure due to losing vast amounts of territory in the war. Maybe Starfleet deliberately didn't answer their hails because the ISS Discovery has been running around wreaking havoc on the Prime Starfleet for the past nine months and now Starfleet isn't sure what to make of this Discovery's hail just yet.
That's a very good point, I forgot about the ISS Discovery. I wonder if that swapped back too?
 
My overall point though is that Game of Thrones is designed to be - well - epic in scope. Discovery just isn't, even if they use things like the Klingon War as a plot device. It's the story of Micheal Burnham's character. Either they didn't aim to make an epic story to begin with, or they failed in this execution (likely due to budgetary reasons).

I totally agree...the intent is to tell a more intimate story under the backdrop of a "big" event. Quite different from GoT.
 
Since they had no communications with Starfleet, what data exactly was being used to update the battle lines/occupied planets? Are we to believe that every single Klingon station gives out some sort of beacon which is trackable?

It just reeked of lazy storytelling IMHO. They should have just said they were deep in Federation space but could only detect Klingon comm traffic.
 
Something I don't get, why did Saru and the Discovery Crew just take Burnham at her word about Lorca?

Burnham has a known history of turning on her captain after all.
But she doesn't have a history of lying about it.
 
So now that Lorca's gone, what will happen to Burnham? He was the reason she was not in jail, so there has to be some consequences there.

I wonder if Saru's danger noodles will make an appearance around MU Georgiou? And how will she feel about her soup being captain? And while we're on that subject, will SF Command let Saru stay as captain?
 
But she doesn't have a history of lying about it.
And all Saru would have had to do was check the console log for where the final jump location was entered. He has the center-seat now. That along with his own suspicions (ganglia raising when that shuttle left) probably allowed a quick judgement call.
 
Since they had no communications with Starfleet, what data exactly was being used to update the battle lines/occupied planets? Are we to believe that every single Klingon station gives out some sort of beacon which is trackable?

It just reeked of lazy storytelling IMHO. They should have just said they were deep in Federation space but could only detect Klingon comm traffic.
I have rooms in my home where I don't have a good reception on my phone if at all. The apps on my phone will still update in those rooms even if I can not call somebody
 
Joann.jpg

And next week. That Tellarite!
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Since there's nothing in Trek lore anywhere that REFUTES the idea that a minor war with the Klingons (which is really what this has been when you compare with, for example, the Dominion War) resulted in a months-long occupation of certain territories that, by time of TOS are now Federation territories again...I think I'll wait and see what happened.

After all, we had the Cardassian War sprung on us out of absolutely nowhere in episodes like "Ensign Ro" and "The Wounded" (which was mid S4 of TNG) with absolutely no backstory or context other than it was a prolonged conflict that caused many deaths.

If TNG could spring this concept on us in the middle of its 4th year without any prior indication, mention or discussion whatsoever, it's very easy for me to accept that a brief (less than 1 year at this point) conflict took place between the Federation and Klingon Empire that resulted in some loss (and subsequent re-taking) of UFP planets and territories.
 
I have been lurking since the first episode of STD, resisting the urge to join and comment, but I feel now, as we near the end of S1, is an appropriate time to do so. Please excuse the great extent of this observation, but I have a lot to say.

I literally go back as far as you can go with ST: I go back to “day I” and its debut in September 1966. Not surprisingly, I was quite disappointed with it. I was, and in many ways still am, a sci-fi “snob;” I want my sci-fi to be intelligently written and to explore intellectual themes. In my mind, once Hollywood gets its hands on an idea, it was as good as finished. It wasn’t until later in season 1, with “Devil in the Dark,” that I became a fan. Here was, for me, “real” sci-fi;” a story based on the possibility of life based on silicon and not carbon. Even so, I was in my first year of college, ST aired on Friday nights, and, as it was the last half of the 1960s. there were many other more important things to do that took priority over staying home to watch ST. But, I was one of those people who wrote letters asking that ST not be cancelled after season 2.

It wasn’t until ST entered syndication in the early 1970 when I was newly married and began watching ST at dinner with my wife (it was on a 6 PM every night) that I became a devoted fan, a “Treker.” When ST:TMP was released in late 1979, I was overjoyed. Seeing it was like meeting old friends that I had not seen for years. And, I must admit that, when Scotty took Kirk up to see the Enterprise in the shuttle, and circled the ship (as the music for what would become ST:TNG played), I cried. It is still one of my favorite ST movies (perhaps ranking after only “The Voyage Home), because for me, it was “real” sci-fi.

There is no more magic work in the English language than “starship.”

I loved TNG. It is, without a doubt, my favorite iteration of ST. I loved it from the very first second of “Encounter at Farpoint.” To me, it took everything good about TOS and amplified it. It was de rigueur, when my kids were little, to gather around the TV on Saturday night and watch TNG. On Sunday, we could watch the same episode again on a different channel. My “favorite” ST character is, without doubt, Picard. When Tasha Yar says to him in “Skin of Evil” that he had “the heart of an explorer and the soul of a poet,” well for me, that encapsulates what I felt not only about him, but about ST in general. There is another line from an early NG novel (I don’t remember which one) where Picard says, “once you have fired your phasers, you have failed in your mission” that also summarizes, for me, the meaning of ST. Yes, I know, there was plenty of violence and warfare in TOS, TNG, and the first movies, but it was always something to be resorted to only when all else had failed. I loved everything about TNG: yes, includes Wesley.

DS9 had perhaps the best ensemble cast of any version of ST. But, I gave up on watching it after a few seasons: too much violence, too much fighting. Serious themes, yes, great characters, absolutely, but I felt that it had lost its way.

I was thrilled when Voyager came out. Here was a chance for “real sci-fi.” Having to find your way home from another quadrant, dealing with all the problems it would represent physically, emotionally, and “mechanically” was an idea that had real potential. I was thrilled with the idea of a female captain (I am a straight male), thought of it as another restatement of core ST values. Unfortunately, finding your way home quickly came to mean “fighting your way home,” and the show quickly deteriorated. If DS9 had the best cast, Voyager probably had the worst. About the time 7 of 9 came aboard, I quit. Yes, she was stunning to look at, but if Janeway represented a core value, 7, for me, represented a repudiation of those values (yes, I know about the mini-skirts in TOS, but that was the 1960s, Voyager was the 1990s).

Enterprise, to me, was brought down by too many internal, structural problems inherent in a show taking place well before TOS I didn’t make it through the whole series (though it plays much better on re-watching it now). I felt the franchise had become stale, that they were repeating the same stories from TOS, TNG, DS9, and Voyager, again and again: that perhaps ST was a franchise simply out of ideas.

The reboot movies have been good at best, poor at worst. The best part has been the cast: all great. The stories have been, again, more of the same. How many times can you make the same movie?

The point being: I hold ST to a very high standard. Much higher say, than Star Wars. I love SW (yes, even the prequels): I saw The Last Jedi 3X in the first two weeks that it was out. But, for me. SW is about great characters and a great ongoing plot. But, it is not really sci-fi, not about ideas, not about science, not about ideas, not about vision. The story could be told anywhere and in any era (hey, but I love it anyway).

ST, for me, has always been about intelligent, thought-provoking, mentally stimulating sci-fi (yes, I know, each version has had more than its share of inane episodes). It is, at its heart, about exploration, about “new life and new civilizations,” it is about starships, alien civilizations different than our own (even if it’s the Klingons: one of the best things about TNG was how it explored and developed Klingon culture), about “outer space,” about vision, about future technology and science and its ramifications, about an optimistic view of our future.

Yes, I come to it as an unrequited progressive who believes in a gender, racial, ethnic, and sexual neutral society: call me a SJW if you like. I’m proud of that fact. I don’t have to mention what I think of our current president. I think much of the criticism of Burnham, of Tilly, of “Mary Sues,” is just a cover for misogynistic thinking.

So that brings me to STD. Honestly, I am greatly conflicted. It is great to have ST back, no matter what form it takes. I am totally “in” with the idea of having a woman as the main character, totally “in” with the idea of having a gay couple on the show. The characters are interesting, the arc of the plot fascinating, the settings absorbing, the need for a new take on an old story evident. ST, as it has come across in the last TV versions and the movies, had become repetitive. Something new was needed. So, no matter what my opinion of it, I will keep watching.

But, for me, it is not reaching the high standard I personally set for ST. It is missing, thus far, the core values of ST. Yes, times have changed, and it is easy to disparage those values, easy to poke fun at as “old-timers” who came of age with Roddenberry Trek. But, I, personally, pride myself in being open to change: that is the definition of being a progressive. But, even with the recognition of the importance of change, that things must change and evolve, there are things I don’t like about the show. There is too much plot and not enough character development, a common problem on TV today and honestly why I don’t watch much TV. Too much violence. The season long arc of the show sends plots off in multiple directions with not enough time spent on individual plot threads or characters. It often seems as if the show is going in multiple directions at the same time and is “out of control.” There is not enough exploration of thought-provoking themes. I know that it is, is some ways, “early days,” and that now that they are back from the MU things may change. I know we have heard occasional references to the values of the Federation. But not nearly enough. And, I was most disappointed with the end of the most recent episode (an episode that for all it gratuitous violence, kept me riveted): back to the Klingon war? Really? Again? Too much mimicry of Game of Thrones (admittedly, I gave up on GOT when it diverged from the books which I thought were excellent). Yes, I know this is 2018 and not 1968, 1987, or 1992. But there was always that tangible “something” that separated ST from other sci-fi shows, that made it special and different, that made it unique, that satisfied my “higher standard.” What that was, was its core values of exploration, intelligence, vision, and a view of the future where we overcame many of the problems we face today. Without those values, we don’t really have ST: we have something different. Something that may be of value in and of itself but is not ST. Something that may be interesting and exciting but is not ST. Being on a starship is not enough to call it ST. Having warp drive, the Federation, transporters, tricorders, communicators, etc., is not enough to call it ST. I didn’t expect a reboot of TNG (I can enjoy parts of the Orville for that). Times have changed. But even with changing times, core values can still be kept. I desperately hope that S2 is better. I know that there is a contradiction here: on one hand I said that ST had gotten old and stale and on the other, I am grousing about its latest, different iteration. This is something I will continue to gnaw at. In the meanwhile, I will keep watching, keep thinking about it, keep appreciating STD for what it is no matter what, but hoping for so much more.
 
I enjoyed this episode, as I have the show, in general. Like others, I am disappointed by Isaacs' apparent departure from the show, not the least of which because I really enjoyed the idea of multidimensional MU character. Too bad they had him take such a drastic turn to his mirror ideals after the reveal, though.

The way the character was portrayed up until that point made him seem to fall into much more of a gray area than straight black-hat villain. He was a manipulative dick, sure, but the other three people we've seen command either Discovery or Shenzhou were a mutineer and two war criminals (Georgiou and Saru booby trapped the body of a dead enemy soldier).

You can turn slightly but not to the extent that you can circle something.
I don’t know why people think you can turn dramatically at warp. It’s never been shown in the other shows ships doing drastic turns at warp.

Was it ever stated that Discovery was circling? I think it just as plausible that they simply slowed down.

Yeah, I was thinking it might be something purposeful like that too, rather than simply a comms failure due to losing vast amounts of territory in the war. Maybe Starfleet deliberately didn't answer their hails because the ISS Discovery has been running around wreaking havoc on the Prime Starfleet for the past nine months and now Starfleet isn't sure what to make of this Discovery's hail just yet.

I get the impression that the apparent overt hostility towards Discovery might be a fairly measured reaction to the presence and actions of the MU Discovery over the past nine months. It's not hard to imagine that Starfleet would know about Killy's Discovery and assume that the newly returned PU Disco is the mirror ship.
 
It's easy to have big sets on a sound stage. My issue with Discovery's sets is they seem fake and "stagey." You don't really see people moving through the ships frequently (and when you do, it's the same corridors redressed) and we really only keep seeing the same five or so rooms on the Discovery. Arguably this isn't very different from past Trek series of course (other than maybe DS9, which had a lot of sets due to the static location) but certainly compared to GoT, where on-location shooting gives a sense of real geometry of space, it doesn't feel that realistic.

Wait. You're complaining that the ship sets look "fake and stagey"...on Star Trek?

star-trek-tng-enterprise-d-bridge-restoration.jpg


And

bridge.jpg


Compared to...

startrek-dsc-upfrontrail-21.jpg


and

dsc-bridge.jpg


Really?
 
Ent-D had that rich Corinthian leather..it doesn't get more real than that. If I have to spend 5 years on a ship, give me a Galaxy class recliner.

The ent-D bridge was shit. What it needed was some tuck and roll and some shag carpet.
 
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