Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 2x12 - "Through the Valley of Shadows"

That 2010 volcanic eruption in Iceland caused chaos throughout Europe for air travel. Doesn't take sci-fi.

 

THAT WAS 2010?! I'm starting to feel old.

 

What episode did you watch?

 

I believe it to be intentional. With the dismissal of Berg and Harberts, the new leadership steered the show into a new heading. I have heard it expressed that it would be great if a season of this show could begin and end with the same showrunners in charge. I concur.

 

The CGI people really seem to make a lot of mistakes...

 

Control spacing everyone on those S31 ships is one way to almost wipe out the organization, and Control might be the reason why they're underground in the 24th century.

Maybe the Georgiou show will be about her trying to rebuild it.

 

There were also several questions about fate (beyond inevitability). I had a feeling they would loop back around to these issues, not needing them to be linked to the RA per se. It made sense for it to fade to the background for awhile, but I'm glad it's come back in the way that it has, with Pike making some hard choices that relate to the core of who he is as a person, besides others' personal journeys of their own. Each story is unique and also tied together.

 

Let me guess. They have 31 ships.

 

More Time Klingons!

 

Or they took inspiration from a real world location called Iceland which has both active volcanoes and ice and snow.

 

Think that's something? I remember pogs.

 

And James May was the reason it happened.

 

And then in "Yesteryear" (TAS) there are Federation historians using it to view the pasts of various worlds for research purposes! Of course, we all know how well that one worked out, first for young Spock and then poor I-Chaya...not to mention hapless Thelin, who found himself suddenly elevated to Spock's vaunted position as Kirk's XO on his five-year mission, only to have it yanked back out from under him, never to be seen or heard of again. (For all we know, he might have even been written out of existence entirely!)

Incidentally, "historical research" is also what we are initially led to believe is the Enterprise's nonchalant agenda in "Assignment: Earth" (TOS). However, at the conclusion, it is made a point of emphasis by Spock that the Enterprise was always "supposed" to be there on that very specific day in 1968, rather than her participation being a case of "accidental interference" averted or corrected. Kirk then reveals that, in direct contrast to his ostensible orders at the outset—"to find out how our planet survived desperate problems in the year 1968"—they have in fact been in possession of detailed records documenting precisely the exact circumstances of both the trouble and its resolution (and moreover of Seven and Roberta's future escapades) all along. These had simply not been "generally revealed" thereto.

SEVEN: [dictating report] "...and in spite of the accidental interference with history by the Earth ship from the future, the mission was completed."
SPOCK: Correction, Mister Seven. It appears we did not interfere. Rather, the Enterprise was simply part of what was supposed to happen on this day in 1968.
KIRK: Yes, our record tapes show—although never generally revealed—that on this date, a malfunctioning suborbital warhead was exploded exactly 104 miles above the Earth.
SEVEN: Oh, so everything happened exactly the way it was supposed to?
SPOCK: And you'll be pleased our records show that it resulted in a new and stronger international agreement against the use of such weapons.
[...]
SEVEN: What else do your record tapes show?
KIRK: I'm afraid we can't reveal...everything we know, Mister Seven.
SPOCK: Captain, we could say that Mister Seven and Miss Lincoln have some...interesting experiences in store for them.​

So it seems very much as if "historical research" was, in this case, merely a cover story Fleet Command fed Kirk, so as to place him exactly where—and when—they knew fully well he needed to be in order to intercept Gary Seven's transporter beam to begin with! (Quite probably such foreknowledge arises from Seven's own reports of the incident, and subsequent ones.) And they evidently included a second set of orders, which Kirk was instructed not to open until the mission's conclusion, to fill him in once he'd completed his unwitting task.

-MMoM

 

That Icelandic special effects team is something, isn't it?
https://www.wired.com/2016/06/icelands-hekla-volcano-really-blow/

 

Going through this thread, I feel reminded of the red matter complaints some people had ten years back. The time crystals are, like the red matter, phlebotinum. They're there to help the plot move forward. Their designation is completely irrelevant to their storytelling function. Why get hung up on something this inconsequential?

I gave the episode an eight. It was neat. Dark Elf Klingon was great. The nanobot fight was great.

 

Hekla is such a Klingon name for a volcano as well

 

Perhaps sticking the time crystal into the pedestal? It gave me Sword of Time flashbacks.

 

I think the use of phlebotinum embarrasses some people. They appear think Star Trek is supposed to be above that sort of thing.

 

As I continue to think upon the parallels between the poH qut and the Orbs of the Prophets in DS9, I am reminded of Kira's conversation with Mirror-Bareil in "Resurrection" (DS9) about how Orb experiences are difficult to explain and meant to be kept to oneself alone...

MIRROR-BAREIL: When you had your first Orb experience, did you understand it?
KIRA: I don't know that anyone fully understands an Orb experience. Not at first, anyway. You have to live with it for a while, absorb it.
MIRROR-BAREIL: And then?
KIRA: And then, one day, it...becomes a part of you, part of who you are.
MIRROR-BAREIL: I thought I would get a glimpse of the future. It was more than that. It changes you. There were so many images I couldn't keep track of them all... He was there, Vedek Bareil. We were together, talking, but it was all mixed up... I was him, he was me... It's all very confusing.
KIRA: I don't think we should be talking about this.
MIRROR-BAREIL: If I can't tell you about it, who can I tell?
KIRA: No one. An Orb experience isn't meant to be shared.​

In some aspects, it echoes (or rather, is echoed by) Tenavik and Pike's comments here.

-MMoM