• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 4x09 - "Rubicon"

Rate the episode...


  • Total voters
    102
Billy Mitchell.

  • Frank Burns : Colonel, I insist you do something about these raids!

    Henry Blake : Aw, gimme a break Frank. Get off my back.

    Frank Burns : Well, history certainly repeats itself. Nobody listened to Billy Mitchell either.

    Henry Blake : Who's Billy Mitchell?

    Frank Burns : A General who advocated a strong air force. Gary Cooper played him.

    Henry Blake : Yeah? I thought he played Sgt. York.

    Frank Burns : He, he did but he also play Billy Mitchell, and Lou Gehrig, and he was for a strong air force.

    Henry Blake : Hey, that's pretty surprising for a 1st baseman.

I thought about posting that the last time the question was asked. :lol:

"an oh four WW nug"
 
So who is the "Mitchell" after whom the USS Mitchell was named?
In-universe maybe Edgar Mitchell, the 6th man on the moon? I dunno.

Out of universe, Gary Mitchell seems like an obvious choice, seeing as the next episode is called The Galactic Barrier and is all about the Galactic Barrier. But it could've been named after Kol / Kol-Sha / Tenavik / Aurellio actor Kenneth Mitchell.
 
Probably Gary Mitchell since they are going to the galactic barrier.
Clearly they named the ship after Billy Mitchell the Donkey Kong cheater.
kong_off_ii_1.jpg
:lol: That would be awesome.

Given John Eaves' (excessive) love of naming ships and classes after American aviation pioneers, I'm thinking it's probably named after the other other Billy Mitchell, namely this guy:

William Lendrum Mitchell (December 29, 1879 – February 19, 1936) was a United States Army general who is regarded as the father of the United States Air Force.

Mitchell served in France during World War I and, by the conflict's end, commanded all American air combat units in that country. After the war, he was appointed deputy director of the Air Service and began advocating increased investment in air power, believing that this would prove vital in future wars. He argued particularly for the ability of bombers to sink battleships and organized a series of bombing runs against stationary ships designed to test the idea.

He antagonized many administrative leaders of the Army with his arguments and criticism and, in 1925, was returned from appointment as a brigadier general to his permanent rank of colonel due to his insubordination. Later that year, he was court-martialed for insubordination after accusing Army and Navy leaders of an "almost treasonable administration of the national defense" for investing in battleships instead of aircraft carriers. He resigned from the service shortly afterwards.

Mitchell received many honors following his death, including a Congressional Gold Medal. He is also the first person for whom an American military aircraft design, the North American B-25 Mitchell, is named.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Mitchell

Plus, a flag officer who got busted down to the Army equivalent rank of Captain for doing the right thing according to his principles in opposition to stubborn stick-in-the-mud old school bureaucrat flag officers that outranked him, and he ended up being correct in the end, has a sort of James T. Kirk quality to it, no?

I'm open to any of the other suggestions mentioned above as long as it's left to just the last name and we can fill in the blanks, but if you're asking who Eaves would choose if he was involved with the naming, I'm pretty sure this is who he was referring to originally.
 
Last edited:
Or it could be nobody we know-- the Captain who made first contact with the Betazoids.... :shrug:
That would make the most sense from an in-universe standpoint, where there should be a ton of class and ship names of (mostly) aliens and some humans we don't recognize because they're fictional and haven't been referenced in Trek yet from our real world POV.

But that's not how the real world artists typically end up naming their ships and classes, and they frequently end up heavily biased toward their nation of birth/residence and to real people who existed before our present day. There are occasional outliers, but even those tend to refer back to aliens and humans who have been referenced in Trek before (Surak, T'Plana Hath, Shran, Archer et. al).

John Eaves has his own personal bias to USAF personnel (some rather obscure) and aviation pioneers. The Apollo astronaut Edgar Mitchell, mentioned above is a good possibility for him, though.
 
It never ceases to amaze me how different my take and tastes in the Star Trek franchise are from the majority of fans.

After a seemingly endless string of “good but not great” episodes in what I can only describe as a “competent season” (not high praise, but not dislike), this was finally a really exciting episode with the kind of action, tension and proceedings I like.

Two things I’m ALWAYS a sucker for in Star Trek:

1. A battle of wits between two ships with captains who are smart and know each other’s tactics.
2. Having that “antagonist” on the bridge who may or may not be in direct conflict with the captain’s orders and goals at any given moment.

9/10

One of the most enjoyable DSC episodes over the last two seasons.
 
It never ceases to amaze me how different my take and tastes in the Star Trek franchise are from the majority of fans.

After a seemingly endless string of “good but not great” episodes in what I can only describe as a “competent season” (not high praise, but not dislike), this was finally a really exciting episode with the kind of action, tension and proceedings I like.

Two things I’m ALWAYS a sucker for in Star Trek:

1. A battle of wits between two ships with captains who are smart and know each other’s tactics.
2. Having that “antagonist” on the bridge who may or may not be in direct conflict with the captain’s orders and goals at any given moment.

9/10

One of the most enjoyable DSC episodes over the last two seasons.
I developed a translation system, so I can convert their ratings to mine. Here it goes... ;)

1 = Low 7
2 = Medium 7
3 = High 7
4 = Low 8
5 = Medium 8
6 = High 8
7 = Low 9
8 = Medium 9
9 = High 9
10 = 10

Got it all worked out. :devil:
 
It never ceases to amaze me how different my take and tastes in the Star Trek franchise are from the majority of fans.

After a seemingly endless string of “good but not great” episodes in what I can only describe as a “competent season” (not high praise, but not dislike), this was finally a really exciting episode with the kind of action, tension and proceedings I like.

Two things I’m ALWAYS a sucker for in Star Trek:

1. A battle of wits between two ships with captains who are smart and know each other’s tactics.
2. Having that “antagonist” on the bridge who may or may not be in direct conflict with the captain’s orders and goals at any given moment.

9/10

One of the most enjoyable DSC episodes over the last two seasons.
It was a series of ups and downs for me.

On the upside, I was delighted by the return of Nhan.

On the downside, they put her on the bridge in a situation that completely disrupts the chain of command and causes confusion and hesitation in a crisis situation. Either you trust Burnham to do the job or you don't. Maybe they shouldn't have and gave temporary command to Saru. But you don't put someone there to second guess her decisions in the middle of a crisis to the point where they're actually arguing with each other on the bridge.

Also on the downside, it completely undercut Saru's position as First Officer yet again. He is the one who should be bringing such concerns to his captain in an appropriate setting. I don't believe that he is so attached to Book that he can't make the right call when it's needed.

So the actual pretty cool cat and mouse game was always being undermined by this completely ridiculous and unbelievable (to me) situation of Nhan being assigned to second guess Burnham. It just felt like so much of the typical manufactured interpersonal conflict on Discovery that they do so poorly sometimes.

Data don't play that:
To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.
 
Billy Mitchell.

  • Frank Burns : Colonel, I insist you do something about these raids!

    Henry Blake : Aw, gimme a break Frank. Get off my back.

    Frank Burns : Well, history certainly repeats itself. Nobody listened to Billy Mitchell either.

    Henry Blake : Who's Billy Mitchell?

    Frank Burns : A General who advocated a strong air force. Gary Cooper played him.

    Henry Blake : Yeah? I thought he played Sgt. York.

    Frank Burns : He, he did but he also play Billy Mitchell, and Lou Gehrig, and he was for a strong air force.

    Henry Blake : Hey, that's pretty surprising for a 1st baseman.
Who's on first base.
 
It was a series of ups and downs for me.

On the upside, I was delighted by the return of Nhan.

On the downside, they put her on the bridge in a situation that completely disrupts the chain of command and causes confusion and hesitation in a crisis situation. Either you trust Burnham to do the job or you don't. Maybe they shouldn't have and gave temporary command to Saru. But you don't put someone there to second guess her decisions in the middle of a crisis to the point where they're actually arguing with each other on the bridge.

Also on the downside, it completely undercut Saru's position as First Officer yet again. He is the one who should be bringing such concerns to his captain in an appropriate setting. I don't believe that he is so attached to Book that he can't make the right call when it's needed.

So the actual pretty cool cat and mouse game was always being undermined by this completely ridiculous and unbelievable (to me) situation of Nhan being assigned to second guess Burnham. It just felt like so much of the typical manufactured interpersonal conflict on Discovery that they do so poorly sometimes.

Data don't play that:
To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

It felt very much like Starfleet and the Federation wanted to have their cake and eat it too. They knew Burnham had invaluable insight into the thinking and tactics that Mr. Booker would use, and they also knew Burnham had advanced the mission to find him (via the tracking device placed in the previous episode) sufficiently to get them in position for success. But, they also knew that she would potentially not take an extreme action that may be required to ultimately complete the mission, if it meant Mr. Booker's life.

So, yeah, it was a little hokey at times, but it played out ok from an enjoyment standpoint for me. But, I definitely paused the show a couple of times to make a "WTH would they do that for" comment to my wife!
 
Last Season they said Discovery can't jump while cloaked, and yet here we are. Maybe they had some upgrades done :P

Given John Eaves' (excessive) love of naming ships and classes after American aviation pioneers, I'm thinking it's probably named after the other other Billy Mitchell, namely this guy:
Eaves hasn't worked on Discovery since Season 1.
 
Poor Admiral Vance didn't have the luxurious option of replacing Captain Burnham with Captain Jellico for the singular mission of stopping Book. I wonder if he ever thinks "What Would Nechayev Do?"
 
Poor Admiral Vance didn't have the luxurious option of replacing Captain Burnham with Captain Jellico for the singular mission of stopping Book. I wonder if he ever thinks "What Would Nechayev Do?"

Vance could have gone along himself in the Nahn role. Given that this mission was fate-of-the-universe stuff, surely he's got a deputy back at base who can handle replenishing the food synthesizer stocks.
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top