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Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 3x05 - "Die Trying"

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I love how the floor magically forms for Vance, Saru, and Burnham as they walk forward. Reminds me of TOS when the doors would automatically open for the crew, even allowing for dramatic pauses. Holography is the new plastics to invest in.

"But my murderer and I are good now."
"It was raining Starfleet officers."
"Have you been talking to Detmer? Because I can't seem to get away from this question?"
"All this is after I got my hair blown out and I became a Terran Captain/Dominatrix."

Interesting take on these events. Entertaining interlude. Just stopped short of hysteria for the crew.
 
Holographic Rights Alert:

Eli the E.M.H. can be shut off at will. He seems to lack the self-awareness of the Doctor. Is he considered a lower-level hologram, no more useful than a tricorder, and thus not worthy of commanding respect beyond his function as a database?

Georgiou has no qualms about shutting down the holograms questioning her. She even recommends their software be upgraded, implying she'd respect them more.

So far we've seen a lot of dependence of holograms. In the aftermath of the Burn, were holographic people dumbed down deliberately to rescind their rights and press gang them into service to fill critical gaps in manpower?
 
Hadn't seen BSG, so I wouldn't know the reference.
However, when Michael mentioned the music, I was reminded of the old Voyager pocket books trilogy called 'String Theory'.
In one of those books, the Doctor (EMH) was pulled into a dimension/space normally occupied by the Nacene (the species that Caretaker belonged to)... there he encountered strings, and because he was a hologram/photonic, he was able to influence them with singing... that is of course when one of the Nacene stopped him and told him his carelessness could have caused chaos in the universe by disturbing the strings.

I don't know why, but the Burn and the music could potentially be connected this way (and it definitely seems that both are connected).

Also, Georgiou getting her head turned inside out was interesting to see.
I think she's coping upon learning that the Terran Empire collapsed long ago... sort of like her own version of PTSD.
Thinking about it... this would be her weakness of sorts because the Empire was basically everything to her.
In a way she may think that nothing would be able to bring down Terran Empire, and yet it collapsed in the 100 years since she left her universe... also to learn that the distance between her universe and prime has been increasing (this may have been one consequence of using the Spore Drive to get to that universe and get back).
Still, it may not prevent travel from prime universe to the Terran one with artificial means such as a transporter modification or Spore drive... just that 'accidental crossovers' might not be occurring anymore.

Something definitely seemed off about Georgiou's debriefing. I think the man who debriefed her was a Terran or from Section 31 or both. I'm beginning to suspect the Terrans are somehow responsible for The Burn, perhaps unintentionally. Perhaps there was an attempt to cross between the universes and this somehow caused an instability in dilithium which in turn caused The Burn. Perhaps the music is meant as a message, a code. It's something that seems totally innocent and is seemingly everywhere, but is saying something to people in the know. I also point out there are two upcoming episodes called Terra Firma which may confirm a mirror universe connection.
 
"Discovery hit a pocket of abnormal gravity waves." upon exiting the wormhole. Ooh. Could there be some time-travel/dimensional crossover involved after all, far removed from their initial trip to the future, and that we will soon see a new layer of reality?
 
After being away for a long time, homecoming may not be the triumphal return that one anticipates on the flight back home. It takes a while for your relatives to reacquaint with you. And in the case of Starflederation, it takes time to reestablish trust. The contrast between the Discovery crew’s elation and their lukewarm treatment by their future counterparts might be disappointing to watch, but is a more realistic reunion.

Starfleet noted that Detmer’s "baselines are unsteady, to put it mildly", but Burnham doesn’t heed the warning, willing to put the crew’s lives in Detmer’s hands again. Is it wise to ignore a bridge coworker’s precarious mental health? A sick leave for Detmer, at least.

I like how the seed vault’s organic architecture resembles a plant leaf’s vein network or a lotus head. The ship is named after Tikhov, a Soviet astrobotanist. Before you get too excited, the real-life discipline of astrobotany isn’t xenobotany, as the former concerns itself with growing plants inside space stations, not on other planets (at least for now).

Everyone got an AI interrogator, except Georgiou, who had to deal with two, plus bespectacled Cronenberg. She took "batting one’s eyelashes" to a whole new level. The AI rudely insisted on eye contact, so she pulled a Kirk on those machines. Cronenberg’s fetching Buddy Holly-esque eyewear probably isn’t just decorative.
I wonder if at the end, Georgiou too was hearing "the lullaby", and if that’s an audible form of the music of the spheres or just a form of universal tinnitus.
 
nice episode, sad to see Nhan go, but she'll be back later this season as rules of storytelling demand, possibly holding a major key in unlocking this season's mystery.
intrigued by whow they progressed Georgious arc, I like the way this is developing.
also, extremely appreciate the USS Nog, named after one of Starfleet's finest and most heroic Captains, couldn't care less about the Voyager-J, though
 
Here are some bullet points I'm going to make for the episode. Or die trying. [ba dum tish]
  • Before the episode starts, let me give it the requisite score of 10 out of 10. The highest score possible for the show farthest in the future.
  • "Distortion field?" It's a cloak. A cloak, guys. Although, I guess it's good for 2258 guys not to know that word.
  • So far so good. Lots of nerdgasms, as expected at the starships. Did she say "Neo-Constitution"? Doesn't look like Deep Space 9, but I wouldn't expect DS9 to look like that after 930 years (shouldn't it be 931?).
  • USS Voyager NCC-74656-J! Looks like an Intrepid too (Neo-Intrepid?). Off to write 10 new Memory Alpha pages. Also, this kind of confirms that Tilly would be familiar with Legacy registration, and that it predates the Enterprise-A by at least thirty years. Also, a very rare Voyager reference in a show that strictly sticks to TOS and TNG refs.
  • They kinda just glossed over whatever their first message to Starfleet contained, which should've been emotional and crazy as all heck, but oh well. Maybe in a future Short Trek.
  • Charles Vance. Nothing crazy about that name, canonically. Good.
  • An AI/EMH named Eli.
  • 38 members of the Federation. Count them off: 1. Kaminar. 2. Barzan. 3. ....
  • Confirmation that Starfleet didn't remove Discovery entirely from their database. It was just destroyed in 2258 (and all those poor, Medal of Honor winners went down with the ship).
  • Quick legal update, Admiral: The Discovery predates the Temporal Accords, so they can time travel all the want (until landing in an area governed by the Accords). Temporal Ex Post Facto.
  • And there we have it. Retrofit the Discovery, reassign the crew. Show's been cancelled, guys. No way out of this. Time for Star Trek Insurrection II.
  • And, of course, Michael immediately goes into Mutiny Mode. The Kili is this episode's McGuffin.
  • Tilly: Terran =/= Mirror. That goes for you too, EMHs.
  • Nhan, D. following the Geneva Accords
  • Cronenberg's wearing a tie. Noticed that before the glasses. Also, good use of 23rd century induced self-destruction. Kirk would be proud.
  • Vance isn't a bad guy. He just sees through Michael's mutinous BS.
  • You guys aren't going to like the fact that they still use a 23rd century ship for seed collection.
  • Detmer is having PTSD flashbacks. Also, Michael, Don't just stand dangerously in the middle of those consoles. There's a chair for a reason.
  • The Tikhov doesn't look 23rd. Creepy ship, though.
  • Back to Cronenberg v. Georgiou. Creepy Admiral is fascinated with the *mirror* universe. Wait, "distance between universes expanding"? What? Not a single crossing in 500 years, so 2689 is the last chance for a Mirror, Mirror sequel. Way to blow the news of the Terran Empire's demise.
  • Diagetic humming.
  • Is that plant from Venus? Terraformed Venus? It- it still wouldn't have their own plants.
  • "When was the last time?" "Now." That's not how the question works, Nhan, D. He's asking for the *last time*. It's implied that you're hearing it now.
  • I get it. Dr. Attis is a ghost. That answers the paranormal question from last week. Ghost are real, per Star Trek: Discovery.
  • The 32nd century guys are the audience avatars? The guys who could not possibly know what a CME is?
  • Wow on the interiors. I think the Tikhov may have gotten some upgrades. Also, maybe some of that TARDIS, "bigger on the inside" stuff.
  • Oh God, a moral dilemma injected into the episode. Just patch him up and bring his family along. Maybe the spore drive can resurrect them. Right, Culber? Oh, I guess this was just to offload Rachel Ancheril. I thought she was a main cast member now, but she must've picked up another job.
  • Michael, she gave up her career to follow you into the future. And what the hell happened between Nhan and Airiam that we didn't see?
  • Saru, are you aware that the "Dark Ages" is a deprecated term that completely ignores the Islamic Golden Age and Far Eastern cultures? Just saying.
  • Vance, here, warning about Detmer becoming this season's secondary antagonist. Maybe assign the 50 or so personnel onto the Discovery to fill out their roster.
  • I'm calling it. Georgiou is being controlled by Cronenberg. AKA Section 31-89.
  • After watching the trailer, I realized that Book wasn't in this episode at all. Was he debriefed? Did he just chill out in his cloaked ship? How is it again that Earth and possibly Starfleet can't detect cloaked ships? Wouldn't cloak ships do the old "Klingon ramming" technique all the time, then?
  • Is Cronenberg an actor that can sustain a major role, if need be? I expect mostly cameo appearances looking at his filmography. Although, yeah, he's a Torontoite, so easy to get on set.
 
And, just like that, back to merely okay.

One of the major issues I had with this episode is there was just so much telling, and so little showing. Most of the first half of the episode was The Discovery crew explaining things to the uptime Starfleet officers that we, as viewers, knew already. The writers tried to make it a bit interesting by lampshading how ridiculous a lot of Discovery's previous adventures were, but it still dragged quite a bit.

Finally, around midway through, we get to the "real plot" of the episode on the seed ship. I thought this mostly worked better, but even here I had some concerns. If this was a 23rd century seed ship, why was there all this future tech? I guess it just kept being retrofitted? Why did Nhan have to stay back? I understand the dude wanted to die onboard, but couldn't they - like - tow it back to Starfleet HQ? Or just come back once he died a few days later with replacement crew? Nhan's farewell with Burnham didn't quite work right with me either. The two of them did not have a particularly close relationship - not to the point that I'd expect tears. Still, this was a "classic" Trek adventure with the crew working together cooperatively for a solution. I think it worked well overall, but it would have worked better hived into its own episode.

The stuff with Georgiou and Cronenberg's character was interesting, but it felt like it was an obvious vanity insert to have Cronenberg in the show. It didn't feel like it made much sense in the episode. And I'm really, really not liking what they're hinting about The Burn at all. I don't want "Michael solves The Burn" to be the season arc, and I particularly don't want it to be due to a "bad guy."
 
Hopefully Discovery will change their uniform finally. Get them up to date

Hopefully not. These Bajoran grays with the side-sash are not as well-designed as the Discovery Blues. I wonder if they'll be offered a chance to change uniforms, but Michael will give an impassioned plea about "retaining their identity" or some nonsense, followed by Admiral Vance rolling his eyes and sending them away.
 
It being the J must be a reference to the Enterprise J we see in Xinti Prime.

The Enterprise got to J (11 generations) in about 300 years (2245-~2553). Voyager got to J in about 700 years (2370-~3088). Voyagers doesn't get much respect. Or their ships last longer.
 
Anybody else noticed that the Barzan Family had a pet "Beauregard" plant.

ST%2B22.png


:biggrin:
 
That’s only in an alternate future.

The Sphere Builders may have started elsewhere in the Milky Way with an accelerated approach and ended up encompassing 50 000 Ly's as a result... though Daniels DID imply that it was the same Expanse (which we know collapsed when NX-01 destroyed the Spheres that were sustaining it, in which case, it couldn't be the same Expanse... unless the one from the Ent-J timeline was different).
 
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