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Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 4x05 - "The Examples"

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Man, remember back in the day when Phil Farrand released all of those Nitpicker's Guide books? Each one had pages of errors and inconsistencies of every single episode of TOS, TNG, and DS9. And they were able to call them "nitpicker's guides" because dumb little physics and continuity issues were viewed as quibbles, not show-breaking criticisms. Those were the days...
I prefer the term used by fans of TOS when it was the only Star Trek series available;

YATI = "Yet Another Trek Inconsistency"
:)
 
The Akaali were previously depicted in Enterprise, so Discovery was just showing them how they first appeared.

Seriously, this show just can't win. When they change the alien makeup, people get upset and ask why they didn't keep it the same as 20 years ago. When they don't change the makeup, people ask why they haven't changed the makeup from 20 years ago.
Yup. It's an impossible standard.
Man, remember back in the day when Phil Farrand released all of those Nitpicker's Guide books? Each one had pages of errors and inconsistencies of every single episode of TOS, TNG, and DS9. And they were able to call them "nitpicker's guides" because dumb little physics and continuity issues were viewed as quibbles, not show-breaking criticisms. Those were the days...
Here's the differences: those minor quibbles and continuity issues were not used to demonstrate that the show was a failure, that it wasn't Star Trek or that it disrespected the original material.
 
You're watching a show where there is sound in space and completely unrelated alien species can breed and have viable offspring. Scientific inaccuracies is par for the course. Deal with it.
There's a difference between a minor inconsistency that is almost completely meaningless and a major inconsistency that the entire plot revolves around.
 
Much better than last week, perhaps an 8, but the heavy exposition from the actor of the week reminded me of this scene from Wayne's World 2:

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Well, this is the second episode in a row that Discovery seemingly introduces a plot hole and then resolves it at the very end (or, at least, it hints to a likely resolution). Nicely done! This yields a point alone.


In this case, how can you build a engine for the DMZ if you know nothing about it? But if, as hinted, Tarka actually knows more than he’s letting us know that makes perfect sense.


That said, the rest of the plot is long, complex, full of action and ultimately quite messy…Why do this kind of dangerous and power-hungry experiment on a ship in the middle of an evacuation? Why both the captain and Saru can’t delegate respectively the mission of rescuing the prisoners (violating the sovereignty of what’s still a separate political entity!) and supervising a science experiment but leave the complex evacuation procedure to relatively minor officers? Great that they are showing Culber having issues with his resurrection (and some culber-stamets scenes are very welcome), but why go to Kovich for therapy? I’m sure that the federation can spare a proper psychiatrist, or at least someone who isn’t involved in running half of the organization.


Also, there are only 6 very minor criminals in this society? It’s a small colony, but still...and the prison system seems really overkill.


So the DMZ is artificial and moves faster than light. Yawn, who would have guessed?


So the iconians are still around, the metrons still more advanced and a separate political entity and the Q have kept to themselves for 600 years. Interesting.


All in all, I’m giving the episode a 8, but it’s more in between 7 and 8.


Some have mentioned the lack of Detmer and Owo feeling they are eliminating the characters, personally I think it’s a nice touch of realism: they can’t be at their station all the time and since the story didn’t involve them it’s good to show others at their post, something that happened all the time on TOS and TNG but less and less as the years went by.
 
I'm not too worried about the frequent cast changes on this show. I'm just used to them now. The bridge crew hasn't been a focus on the show ever except for when they trying to take the ship back from the Emerald Chain. The focus of this show is Burnham, Saru, Stamets, and whoever comes into their path. They've leaned heavily into Adira this season and also have given Culber a huge boost this season again. There's just not enough time or episodes to service the million characters they've introduced.
 
What's more troubling though is the DMA should be invisible when it jumps from place to place. The way light speed works, presuming the light is coming from the point source at the center of the anomaly, it should take five years of being in one place to actually become visible to people outside of the envelope of destruction.

It can be assumed that this is a visual representation of what they see in real time with FTL sensors. Keep in mind this kind of thing happens all the time in ST, like the visually STL (+2D lol) praxis shockwave which covers interstellar distances or, similar, the timeline changing wave travelling 20 light-years in Voy: "Year of Hell".

Of course, the very first episode of Discovery screwed up light speed as well, with Sarek talking about a "new star in the sky" as soon as the Torchbearer did his job - so everyone on the show seems to believe the speed of light is instantaneous.

Again, probably not vsible with the naked eye light-years away but on sensors, subspace telescopes, or whatever. Alternatively, that thing might emit FTL particles like verterons or tachyons. In DS9 they scan multiple cubic light-years with freaking antiprotons and get instant results.

"Things don't just disappear then reappear elsewhere"

"Natural anomalies don't do that!"

"Doesn't that violate the laws of physics!"

I literally couldn't take this episode seriously after that start given it's exactly what the Graviton ellipse did...

First of all, you have to realise what "just disappear" means. The graviton ellipse does not just disappear, it goes into subspace, something which even 24th-century sensors can detect.

Is it possible to have one of these threads without that fanfic nonsense?

These writers have a very shallow knowledge of Star Trek. Have they ever heard of unstable wormholes?

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Barzan_wormhole

The Barzan wormhole leaves behind neutrino residuals and subspace instabilities so the protagonists could probably deduce what happened to it.
 
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Man, remember back in the day when Phil Farrand released all of those Nitpicker's Guide books? Each one had pages of errors and inconsistencies of every single episode of TOS, TNG, and DS9. And they were able to call them "nitpicker's guides" because dumb little physics and continuity issues were viewed as quibbles, not show-breaking criticisms. Those were the days...
Which proves there has always been criticism of these things on Trek and loads of it.
But when it's pointed out on a Disco thread it's all "but TNG did it too :wah::wah:"

I think it's perfectly fair to criticize Discos crappy science as long as it's not being used to explain how it's worse than other Trek
 
Which proves there has always been criticism of these things on Trek and loads of it.
But when it's pointed out on a Disco thread it's all "but TNG did it too :wah::wah:"

I think it's perfectly fair to criticize Discos crappy science as long as it's not being used to explain how it's worse than other Trek

I’m a defender of Disco, and when ‪‪I compare it to previous series it’s in response to just that, people claiming its scientific inaccuracies and/or internal inconsistencies are unique to Disco. And most of the time they’ve already brought up the other series, erroneously presenting them as free from such errors, or hand waving their many similar instances because it doesn’t support the “Disco is the worst in every way” narrative.

‪‪I agree, criticism of Discovery is absolutely fair, but it’s very often presented as a way to undermine it in relation to its detractors’ preferred Trek series.
 
That aside, the new guy creates a miniature version of the anomaly, despite just saying that the technology is far beyond what they are capable, and uses the simulation to build more data on how much power it requires to maintain its presence. The reveal? It's being powered by a hypergiant. I'm just going to come right out and say that the fusion power of even a hypergiant isn't going to be enough to power a 5 light year wide black hole. The largest hypergiant we currently know of, that is classed as a hypergiant, is UY-Scuti, which is 7 AU across.
1) Why the eff are they doing the lab experiment inside the Spore Drive room?
If something goes wrong, Stamet's Life work goes up in smoke.

2) Why are they doing this experiment during a evacuation crisis? Was there not another lab aboard ANOTHER StarFleet StarShip or Space Station or floating experiment room that they (Stamets & crew) couldn't borrow?

Why do they need to do it on Discovery specifically? Especially in the middle of a humanitarian evacuation crisis.
Stamets could stand to get off discovery and visit another vessel's lab.

3) Why are they always doing the experiment "ON the ship"? Dangerous Experiments needs to be done in a isolated part of space, far away from everybody and everything. They can make containment rooms, reel out many km's worth of energy feed extension cords to a floating test room with remote Holographic Avatars of themselves. We have High Voltage DC lines that can span thousands of km's away from the Power Source. There's no reason to do risky experiments on board the vessel anymore.

They don't need to physically be in the same room as the experiment when you can project yourself via Holographic Projection and be in the safety of your own vessel.

The end of the Barzan wormhole didn't so much disappear & reappear, but moved. Not sure what difference that really makes.
The Barzan Wormhole dived into Subspace or whatever realm it came from. Then it randomly emerged into our space / normal space.

The ellipse from Voyager did pop in and out of subspace, but that was orange, so IDK if the DMA could be the same ;)
It could be, or it could be something else.

Tarka's hypothesis was that the DMA controller was artificially making the anomaly.

The fact that it disappeared, moved 1,000 ly to another part of the Milky Way Galaxy, and Reappeared seconds later means that somebody is most likely controlling it.

As to what end, for what means, what end game. That's left to be discovered.

But the fact that somebody could make what effectively comes out to be a Hurricane in Space that can appear out of nowhere is very scary.
 
1) Why the eff are they doing the lab experiment inside the Spore Drive room?
If something goes wrong, Stamet's Life work goes up in smoke.

2) Why are they doing this experiment during a evacuation crisis? Was there not another lab aboard ANOTHER StarFleet StarShip or Space Station or floating experiment room that they (Stamets & crew) couldn't borrow?

Why do they need to do it on Discovery specifically? Especially in the middle of a humanitarian evacuation crisis.
Stamets could stand to get off discovery and visit another vessel's lab.

3) Why are they always doing the experiment "ON the ship"? Dangerous Experiments needs to be done in a isolated part of space, far away from everybody and everything. They can make containment rooms, reel out many km's worth of energy feed extension cords to a floating test room with remote Holographic Avatars of themselves. We have High Voltage DC lines that can span thousands of km's away from the Power Source. There's no reason to do risky experiments on board the vessel anymore.

They don't need to physically be in the same room as the experiment when you can project yourself via Holographic Projection and be in the safety of your own vessel.


The Barzan Wormhole dived into Subspace or whatever realm it came from. Then it randomly emerged into our space / normal space.


It could be, or it could be something else.

Tarka's hypothesis was that the DMA controller was artificially making the anomaly.

The fact that it disappeared, moved 1,000 ly to another part of the Milky Way Galaxy, and Reappeared seconds later means that somebody is most likely controlling it.

As to what end, for what means, what end game. That's left to be discovered.

But the fact that somebody could make what effectively comes out to be a Hurricane in Space that can appear out of nowhere is very scary.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NoOSHACompliance/LiveActionTV puts it best: Star Trek is the king of unsafe work environments.
 
Another winner of an episode for me and this season is on an upward trend with each of the last three episodes being the best of the season to date. Some notes:

- SMG has made an acting adjustment that makes her so much more watchable. She doesn't make ridiculous faces anymore. There's more to it but I can't quite put it into words.
- Happy to see Reno back
- This episode pivoted towards science fiction with the DMA and the automated prison which I appreciated.
- The story of the prisoners was well done, and Book didn't like leaving that one guy behind, ut oh.
- I actually enjoyed Stamets this episode (normally I can't stand him).
- The Kovich / Culber scene was the least interesting for me, but still a scene between two great actors so still enjoyable to watch.
- Good effort by the writers trying to tie current events to past events.
 
I'd have conducted the experiment in the main shuttlebay but that's just me. That way if things go haywire the spore drive isn't threatened, just shuttles and random equipment and storage containers.
 
That's not a good look for Star Trek.

They should be promoting OSHA Compliant Experiments and best practices.

Wasn't there an episode of TNG where Data and Geordi were testing firing a phaser next to the warpcore?
Yup, and I'm wondering who was the idiot that thought that was a good idea?

I'd have conducted the experiment in the main shuttlebay but that's just me. That way if things go haywire the spore drive isn't threatened, just shuttles and random equipment and storage containers.
I would've had a large Standardized R&D Lab Box, similar to Agents of Shields "Containment Module" and let out a VERY LONG (Many Kilometers) power wire to feed power to the Lab Box and have it float VERY FAR away from the power source.

We have Power lines that can span up to thousands of km's, there's no reason to endanger anybody, especially with remote holographic projection.

OSHA is important, people should follow their guidelines / regulations so people don't get hurt/killed in the name of science & experimentation.
 
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