Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 2x04 - "An Obol for Charon"

Ride where, though?

Reno says "I hitched a ride off that asteroid". This was over and done with two episodes ago, though. At the start of both "New Eden" and "Point of Light", the ship is doing nothing specific, just floating in space while the heroes try to figure out how to proceed with either the Red Thing or the Spock Thing. But in the latter, she's back from the other side of the galaxy, meaning she has been doing more traveling than the rest of Starfleet put together, half of it homeward. Why hasn't the ship delivered Reno to wherever she's going? Is she aiming somewhere farther off than 51,450 ly away?

Reno is explaining to Stamets who she is. She isn't explaining to anybody where she is coming from or where she has been for the past two episodes. But the need to explain her identity to Stamets more or less spells out that she has been away. Sulking in her guest quarters? At Starbase 5 doing sanity checks? We don't learn why she would be back (aboard the ship, in active service, whatnot), either.

Ditto with Nhan. She has to explain to the heroes (to the audience, really) who the heck she is, because everybody has forgotten in the intervening two episodes (weeks, months?). So she hasn't been around, either.

So... What was the ship doing besides jumping to Terralysium and hosting Amanda and the Command Training Show? Where did they meet Number One exactly? Why did they go / why didn't they go to Starbase 5 (Spock) or Spacedock Earth (Enterprise)?

Both the two mystery ladies are out of starship - why does this lead to them being out of work? Why doesn't Starfleet reassign them / why does Starfleet reassign them to Pike, who supposedly already commands a ship with a full command crew and range of specialists?

Timo Saloniemi

 

as they haven't been at any starbase since that, she's still aboard - she can at least make herself useful

that's how i understood it

 

Number One took a shuttle from the Enterprise at Spacedock, but as far as I know, they never said the spacedock was at Earth. Nahn is staying with PIke to assist him on his Red Angel mission.

I don't think they've been anywhere else other than Terralysium and "space" since they picked Reno up. Who knows how far Starbase 5 is from their position, and they are now actively chasing Spock. I suppose Reno could have hitched a ride to that spacedock (wherever that spacedock is) with Number One, but that's about it.

 

Number One beamed aboard. Why wouldn’t Reno beam aboard with her if that was the case? Not to mention why would they beam aboard at all if they came via shuttle?

Right. Dramatic entrance.

Speaking of the beaming, I don’t recall if this was the case last season but the camerawork with the transporter in this episode and “Brother” was pretty cool.

 

I really like Reno, in fact I like pretty much all the characters apart from Burnham.

 

You're right about Number One beaming aboard. I might have been confusing that with all the talk of Spock's shuttle, plus Burnhams's line of, "I understand your first officer is on her way to Spacedock." The "on her way" part probably connoted in me that there was some sort of journey involved.

So it's possible DISCO was near the Enterprise's spacedock when they beamed her in. However, we still don't know where that spacedock is, I don't think. It's alsop possible she hicthed some sort of ride from spacedock, and beamed in from her ride.

Reno could have gone to that spacedock, I suppose, but she still necessarily wouldn't be anywhere she wants to be.

 

But

a) Number One has been to Spacedock, demonstrating this is perfectly doable, and
b) no, Reno can't. Or at least she hasn't. Otherwise Stamets would know.

Well,

c) she arrived via transporter, not shuttle. Does this mean she came from very far away in a vessel larger than a shuttle, or does it mean she came from within easy transporter range?
d) they refer to Spacedock as a specific single location, just as in the TOS movies, and yes, it's at Earth in those movies (and in the visuals of "Hand" at the end of the first season).

Except

e) she isn't doing any assisting in "New Eden", and
f) the entire bridge crew seems ignorant of her existence, Burnham and the poker-faced Linus perhaps excepted.

Why not? After all,

g) they can go literally everywhere in no time flat, and
h) they would be highly motivated to take Reno's patients somewhere.

Which would certainly prompt them to go to Starbase 5, because

i) that's where Spock was last seen, and
j) perhaps they did go exactly there, because they meet with Number One, and she now has all-new data on Spock.

Although to be sure, it's not the sort of data one would expect Starbase 5 to have. It tells them where Spock is, after all - and Starbase 5 thinks Spock is a hunted criminal. So why aren't they hunting Spock, if they, too, know where he is?

We don't know where Number One would need to go to get the sort of information that nobody in Starfleet has over-the-counter. Did she talk to a black badge?

Or with any random passerby. Amanda had no problem reaching the ship in that little yacht of hers. Reno could probably have built one of those in her spare time if that's what it took to get to Vulcan, and from there to wherever she wanted to go. (Or then tripped Amanda in the corridor and told her she's coming along; Reno is direct like that, plus rather well informed.)

Timo Saloniemi

 

Also v e r y, v e r y s l o w. Dramatic - but also retroactively fitting for the era?

The transporter operator has been using only one of the three sliders recently. Previously, including previously in DSC, the number of fingers required has not correlated to the number of people being beamed. What was the last time somebody didn't use all three sliders? Riker in "11001001"? Before that, Bele in "Let That Be"?

Timo Saloniemi

 

I imagine there was an Excelsior-Class ship out there that ferried Number One to the Discovery.

Oh wait! This isn't TNG!

 

It's pretty clear by now that Season 2 is - for the most part - a semi-serialized affair rather than truly serialized. There have been gaps of unclear length between all of the episodes to date. Though the arc which has involved May/Tilly suggests that everything past the first episode has happened in a relatively short period of time.

 

I mentioned above my error about how Number One arrived onboard.

However, (and as you mentioned) she still might have hitched a ride from spacedock to Disco, especially considering Burnahm later said "I understand your First Officer is on her way back to spacedock", as if there were some journey involved in that process.


As for Jumping anywhere they want, it seems they don't like to jump unless it is absolutely necessary. It was said of the spore drive in "New Eden":

"But until a nonhuman interface is found, Star Fleet has decommissioned it."​

although Pike countermanded that by saying in this case Star Fleet might give them special dispensation to use it. However, I think he wants to use that "special dispensation" excuse judiciously.

But yeah -- it would be nice if they gave us a more concrete reason for Reno still being there, rather than having us try to figure out sot-of-plausible reasons.


In the case of Nhan not appearing to assist Pike on his Red Angel mission in "New Eden", we don't know what she was doing for him. Maybe she was burning the midnight oil combing through sensor data or in Stellar Cartography (or someplace) under his orders, trying to get to the bottom of the signals.

There were whole episodes of TOS when we didn't see Scotty or Sulu or Chekov (even after Chekov first appeared in season 2), but that doesn't necessarily mean those people were off the ship during those episodes.

 

I hate when the characters on Star Trek use modern phrases like "old school". I don't really recall this being such an issue in other shows but Discovery is dating itself almost instantly.

Also, I can see Bowie being a lasting cultural influence into the 2250's and far beyond. Prince? Probably not. Do many people now dream about playing in an orchestra in the 1740's? Maybe. I don't know.

 

But since it is absolutely necessary to jump back from Terralysium, why not jump to somewhere useful?

Unless Pike wants to keep his use of the spore drive secret and therefore avoids apparating anywhere near Starfleet assets of any sort...

Might be. But her total segregation from the rest of Pike's team is the curious thing: when the other Red Angel Hunters gather in Pike's ready room, Nhan is the odd officer out, unfamiliar to the team.

Her being absent in order to visit the Enterprise at Spacedock would seem the likeliest scenario. It's her ship, after all, even if this all-new Louvier character has recently taken over the repairs (or else the ship had two engineers with full Commander rank or higher, or a Chief Engineer who was outranked by one of the underlings, take your pick on which is worse). And her traveling with Number One would make great sense, as these two characters do arrive basically simultaneously anyway.

If Pike went to Spacedock, instead of Number One and Nhan traveling from Spacedock to wherever Pike was doing nothing, then it would be more excusable for the two to board the hero ship at different times. Separating their beamings-in timewise would needlessly delay a putative courier ship, but if the Discovery was hovering near Spacedock, then both could beam aboard at their leisure.

So I'd like to believe Pike was to Spacedock a least once. He might have chosen to avoid going to Starbase 5 in hopes this would help rather than hinder the Search for Spock. But he absolutely would have needed to drop off the Hiawatha patients somewhere, and it's damn difficult to think of a rationale for why he wouldn't drop off Reno there as well. After all, Reno would be needed there - she's the only one who knows anything at all about the patients, all the other Hiawatha people being dead (or else the ship wouldn't have been reported missing the way it was) and the fantastic patch-up jobs being her doing.

It's not anachronistic dating, though, not in-universe. Anything between Creation and 2258 is allowed there.

What makes the show truly dated is the blue-lit tech, which will look sillier than the TOS plywood in a couple of years already. But that, too, is allowed and non-anachronistic dating in-universe, because, you know, the TOS plywood is the gold standard there: the future will look like the past on occasion.

Is it even the same Prince, though? Perhaps the Prince of Millions was a mean musician in addition to being a well-liked tyrant who never conducted any massacres.

Timo Saloniemi

 

They really are getting excellent mileage out of their transporter set. It has literally served with distinction, portraying three or four distinct transporter rooms with minimal redressing. It has seen creative use, such as when it is a Mirror Universe execution device that also allows Burnham to covertly relay a message to her friends. It has been used fairly consistently, and it has been the go-to solution just as often as in TOS; the one and only time it ran into a technobabble snag, the solution was the consistent applying of pattern enhancers, nicely bringing this technology to the 23rd century where it had previously been missing.

Their shuttles are less consistent, in being somewhat overused: why do guest stars so often seem to arrive on those, rather than beaming over from fellow starships? Of course, no shuttle arrival actually precludes arrival by fellow starship: beaming might be discouraged in wartime for the need to keep shields down, say, and Admirals would shuttle over from proximal cruisers instead. After all, DSC VFX all too often is missing or lacking, apparently due to there being so much of it overall, and the prominent loser there is the fellow starship VFX.

Showing the hero ship next to Spacedock in the early parts of "Obol" would really have helped clarify things. Not only for us continuity nerds, but for anybody trying to come to grips with these "new" characters popping up, with the fact that Pike's "true" ship really is down for the count, with the idea that Pike has other stuff to do besides angel hunting or Spock searching and can't exactly always be where he'd like to be.

Timo Saloniemi

 

My favourite beaming shot is still the one between the Discovery and Mirror Shenzhou

 

The Term 'Old School' has been in use since the 1700s, FYI. Its even less 'modern' than saying Okay, which itself has been in use well over a hundred years.

 

Yeah, I think they were overdoing the quippiness a bit.

 

Thanks. I did not know that.