Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 2x09 - "Project Daedalus"

[USS Fardell]

Project Daedalus
The ninth episode of Season 2. Section 31, Admiral Cornwall and Airiam. Only one of those is actually not in the episode. (Tyler doesn't show up.) Cornwall may be involved, but this is mainly Airiam's show. But there is also a confrontation between Spock and Burnham. However, the main focus is on Airiam, and Discovery confronting Section 31 at their headquarters. But other stuff happens in the background, like Spock giving Stamets advice. However it is the Headquarters/Airiam story that is the main focus.
Airiam. Not much was known about her before this episode, other than that she was augmented cybernetically. Even so, I was curious about her. Her backstory, it turns out, is sad. Involved in a shuttle accident in which her husband died and she seriously injured. (Enough for extensive augmentation.) The scenes of her with Tilly and Detmer (and not just her memories) were done very well. (I can see that her asking Tilly to stay with her was one way of asking for help, but Tilly didn't insist on staying when she was sent away.)
Spock. The sequence where Spock and his adopted sister play chess was rather well done. Spock confronting Burnham on her selfishness (and assumptions that it's all about her) was very well done. Their discussion about emotion vs. logic and Sarek's effectiveness as a parent was also well written. This pays off later, on the Station, see below. Spock giving advice to Stamets and helping to restore power to the Spore Room, was also a very good scene. Certainly there is something to build on there.
Cornwell. Not much here. But the real surprise is CONTROL, the Section 31 AI. It is certainly believable that it could go rogue, kill all the agents and impersonate them. There a plenty of other examples of that in science fiction. However, the hints in the past two episodes regarding Airiam pay off. Nhar was suspicious, but I'm not sure why she didn't follow through on those suspicions until it was too late. Still the final sequence where Burnham was trying to get through to stop Airiam uploading the Sphere's data on AI to control was very good.
Spock urging her to open the airlock was done well. Certainly, it was a rather poignant ending. If only more was done with Airiam earlier. 8.8/10.

 

[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

No fucking way was Wesley like G.R. Else he would've been all over the young ladies on that one episode (the one where he broke the law by stepping on the grass) instead of shying away from it. No way would G.R. have turned them down.

He put that aspect of himself into Riker instead!

Roddenberry indeed confirmed that "Wesley was built a little bit on myself at fourteen," but admitted that he "was never the genius he is," so maybe the particular wish he was fulfilling in the character was that he'd hit those books a little harder than...whatever else.

(But did he, even then? Perhaps he was initially shy as a teenager, too? I say that without knowing much about his early life, though.)

-MMoM

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Well sure, but why call THIS specific episode Project Daedelus, if it has nothing to do with it? Call it..... Infiltration for all I care, but name the next episode Project Daedelus, since it seems to actually deal with said Project.

I think it has a double meaning in that Section 31 HQ is much like the tower King Minos locked Daedalus in to keep his secrets, and the maze of corridors they were searching through is like the labyrinth Daedalus constructed to house the Minotaur. The Red Angel has artificial wings like Daedalus constructed for himself and his son Icarus to escape the labyrinth, but Icarus flew too close to the Sun and the wings melted and he fell to his death in the sea.

 

[CommanderRaytas]

I don't know what role Airiam's memories might or might not have played in Zora's emergence, but she was ultimately her own creation, and had spent a millennium actively "evolving herself" into what she was by the point of the "Calypso" short. That could explain almost anything, if they wanted to write it that way.

-MMoM

Oh, I'm sure that if they go down that path, it'll make sense. Even if not, it won't throw me off. After all, I love Mad Max: Fury Road, and half the people's accents in there are completely inexplicable. Trek isn't the only franchise that doesn't know how to handle language. I'm not bothered by inconsistencies, but I do think about this kind of detail.

 

[Photoman15]

There's two parts to the Mary Sue definition, and that's one of them, and probably the more important and more commonly mentioned part, so, yeah, that's not Burnham. Just for giggles, though, I'll mention the other part, which is a female character written as a way for the author to put themselves into the story. I'm not sure if *that* would apply to whomever came up with her character. Possibly, and if that was Bryan Fuller or Alex Kurtzman, it might be slightly funny to think about.

"PUT THEMSELVES INTO THE STORY". The Mary Sue character is injected into an already developed group of characters. Burnham would be a Mary Sue if she came on in one episode in TOS or TNG and saved the day single handedly. She IS in the original group of characters in Discovery, so she can't be a Mary Sue.

38 pages long....can't read every post, but did anyone ask why they couldn't beam Airiam aboard, either while in the airlock, or afterwards? I kept waiting for an attempt to have been made.

Edit-it has been asked. But, surely she's got an off switch! Can you turn her off and on again
Control can't puppet her tech if its switched off.

She's not a robot/android. She's 67% human (according to the writers who told the actress). Whether we know that or not, she has no off switch being (at least part) human.

 

[Lonemagpie]

Well one of the main traits of mary sues is that they are very important even when it makes no sense. clearly Michael has this trait seeing how spock called her a self important person.

A Mary-Sue is an author-identification character who outclasses the main regular characters. Since Michael *is* the main character of Discovery, by definition she can't be a Mary-Sue!

 

[Skipper]

If discussing if Michael is a Mary Sue is so important, why someone doesn't open a thread about that? Because I would like to read comments on the episodes on this one.

 

[CommanderRaytas]

YES. Can we PLEASE cut it out, already? It's become tiresome.

 

[Campe]

Yes. Think she’s a Mary Sue all you want. Start a thread to discuss in great detail if you so desire. Drop the subject in the episode discussions. Please. It’s really getting old.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

I had to share this funny recap of the episode

http://superanemic.com/2019/03/15/d...JYHo_XkrNhj-p-0QXsp-NHic7wgh-QPeazrOs0jaOOcQM

 

[BillJ]

Teasing it for two episodes, neither of which had much room to showcase her. If the season had 3-5 extra episodes, they could have fleshed out her background more thoroughly. Alas, it does not.

Just drop some of the Ash Tyler stuff and the inevitable rubbing of two pieces of wet cardboard together that are Burnham and Tyler, and they would have had plenty of time to explore Airiam.

 

[cultcross]

rubbing of two pieces of wet cardboard together that are Burnham and Tyler,

 

[dinzy]

Well at least we got to hear the stupidest line ever on Star Trek....
"DISCOVERY IS UPSIDE DOWN!".

Um to what?

Why couldn't Ariam just blow out into the airlock with her helmet on and they then beam her later into the brig? She even turned off her damn hemet! Someone had a death wish.

Also going back and watching her at the start of the season she was clearly playing the role as a full robot as her body language and movement was very stiff and almost comically robot.

That bugged me too, but I figured it must mean that the sensors thought it was in the opposite direction to where it was and that was relative to the orientation of the S31 base. The show already showed us it understands orientation in space with the first encounter of the Klingons in S1.

 

[Amasov]

A weakness of Discovery I've always thought the show had are its moments of exposition. I sometimes find them very difficult to follow and this episode was a prime example. They introduce this new thread, Control, and I now have to get up to speed on what Control is (along with the characters in the scene), then we have to get up to speed again on the sphere -- and I don't even think that was explained very well earlier -- and THEN up to speed with Airiam and what she was doing. We had all of these small threads that had to get put together when we didn't really know them all that well to begin with.

I'm starting to get real anxious with the show because there seems to be all of these smaller things that are getting introduced and I can't fully grasp how they all fit together with the larger arc of the season.

 

[DaveyNY]

That bugged me too, but I figured it must mean that the sensors thought it was in the opposite direction to where it was and that was relative to the orientation of the S31 base. The show already showed us it understands orientation in space with the first encounter of the Klingons in S1.

I think the point of that line was that her controls were all topsy-turvy and what she saw on her panel didn't match up to what she was seeing looking at the viewscreen.

Using Four Words to describe the situation was better than a lengthy diatribe like I typed above.

 

[SJGardner]

Just drop some of the Ash Tyler stuff and the inevitable rubbing of two pieces of wet cardboard together that are Burnham and Tyler, and they would have had plenty of time to explore Airiam.

As much as I like Burnham, Tilly and Airiam had more chemistry in the span of one episode than her and Tyler throughout their entire relationship. Saying this as someone who really liked their farewell scene in Season 1.

 

[GNDN18]

A weakness of Discovery I've always thought the show had are its moments of exposition. I sometimes find them very difficult to follow and this episode was a prime example. They introduce this new thread, Control, and I now have to get up to speed on what Control is (along with the characters in the scene), then we have to get up to speed again on the sphere -- and I don't even think that was explained very well earlier -- and THEN up to speed with Airiam and what she was doing. We had all of these small threads that had to get put together when we didn't really know them all that well to begin with.

I'm starting to get real anxious with the show because there seems to be all of these smaller things that are getting introduced and I can't fully grasp how they all fit together with the larger arc of the season.

I came to DSC quite late. What I read of the first season interested me not at all; the recap shown before the first episode of season two told me everything I needed to know, thank you very much.

I will say, though, that binge watching the second season as I have, the whole thing hangs together surprisingly well.

Of course, my knowledge is supplemented by these posts, but overall I think that watching the series in one sitting has worked better than seeing it from week to week.

 

[DaveyNY]

I came to DSC quite late. What I read of the first season interested me not at all; the recap shown before the first episode of season two told me everything I needed to know, thank you very much.

I will say, though, that binge watching the second season as I have, the whole thing hangs together surprisingly well.

Of course, my knowledge is supplemented by these posts, but overall I think that watching the series in one sitting has worked better than seeing it from week to week.

I'm sure it is, but then we'd have nothing to harangue and dither about around here in between shows for a week at a time.

 

[Doc Mugatu]

We really should ban the term "Mary Sue" for a simple reason: it's evident that (putting aside what its meaning should really be) it means something different for everyone. So, every time someone use it, the following pages in any given thread are monopolized by other people who explain to the OP why s/he wrong, and the latter who debate why s/he is really right. Ad libitum.

Mar·y Sue [Mary Sue] NOUN (originally in fan fiction) a type of female character who is depicted as unrealistically lacking in flaws or weaknesses.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue
"A Mary Sue is an idealized and seemingly perfect fictional character. Often, this character is recognized as an author insert or wish fulfillment.[1] They can usually perform better at tasks than should be possible given the amount of training or experience, and usually are able through some means to upstage the main protagonist of an established fictional setting, such as by saving the hero."

One the male side we have "Gary Stu". My favorite example of which is Doc Savage.

Anyway, neither is bad in and of themselves. So what if Burnham is a "Mary Sue"? Men have been and still are allowed their "wish fulfillment," why not provide women with an equal opportunity for release? Perhaps the term should be banned here as it seems to be code for a misogynistic POV. Burnham is no more or less a "Mary Sue" than Kirk is a "Gary Stu." If women and girls draw inspiration and strength and a confidence from the "Mary Sue" known as Michael Burnham then that's great!​

 

[DaveyNY]

Mar·y Sue [Mary Sue] NOUN (originally in fan fiction) a type of female character who is depicted as unrealistically lacking in flaws or weaknesses.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue
"A Mary Sue is an idealized and seemingly perfect fictional character. Often, this character is recognized as an author insert or wish fulfillment.[1] They can usually perform better at tasks than should be possible given the amount of training or experience, and usually are able through some means to upstage the main protagonist of an established fictional setting, such as by saving the hero."

One the male side we have "Gary Stu". My favorite example of which is Doc Savage.

Anyway, neither is bad in and of themselves. So what if Burnham is a "Mary Sue"? Men have been and still are allowed their "wish fulfillment," why not provide women with an equal opportunity for release? Perhaps the term should be banned here as it seems to be code for a misogynistic POV. Burnham is no more or less a "Mary Sue" than Kirk is a "Gary Stu." If women and girls draw inspiration and strength and a confidence from the "Mary Sue" known as Michael Burnham then that's great!​

Just can't let it go?

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