Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 4x12 - "Species 10-C"
- Thread starter Commander Richard
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I think its neither irresponsibility or monstrous, given the fact that the immediate response from 10-c to being told the dma was causing terror was 'great sadness'. 10-c seemed completely unsure as to what discovery was which suggest a unfamiliarity with milky way technology and had clearly never encountered carbon based life forms before. They may have scanned our galaxy for life forms like them, but found all the gas giants 'lifeless' and considered all the other planets hostile and uninhabitable.
As has been stated ad nauseum in the series, you cannot and should not assign humanistic intent to the behaviour of utterly alien beings.
I would say this might one of the continuing weaknesses in Discovery. Writers want to convey brainy concepts of hard sci-fi but they load a lot of silliness in the actual dialogue.
I think that's the best part. These are not creatures you can just understand willy nilly. There needs to be a willingness to meet where they are at. Plus, the crew has their own fear and anxieties to work through in terms of this contact.
It's an interesting juxtaposition.
It was nice to see Star Trek reference the Kardashev Civilization Scale. And they actually got it right, as opposed to when Michio Kaku refered to the Federation as Type II.
My only issue with 10-C is that they're trying to make them both extremely alien and extremely advanced. I mean they can be, but doesn't really need to be a correlation there. They could have been a humanoid race that just happens to be about 10,000 years ahead of everyone else.
I guess there's some consistency with "The Chase", since an extragalactic race would be less likely to be humanoid. Though there would still be non-humanoids in the Milky Way as well, just outnumbered (maybe).
I guess there's some consistency with "The Chase", since an extragalactic race would be less likely to be humanoid. Though there would still be non-humanoids in the Milky Way as well, just outnumbered (maybe).
Dr. Michio Kaku is not wrong. Federation is early Type II since they are a vast interstellar civilization. And Dr. Michio Kaku is a world famous physicist. He is an expert on this topic. I would certainly trust him over the Discovery writers.
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I gave it a 6. I wanted to love it because the idea is so very Star Trek. Instead, this whole season serves as a lesson for how not to write. This episode was fairly yawn inducing. The idea behind learning to communicate with 10C was interesting. But it was too little too late to save the story line. And then that was jettisoned thanks to Tarka.
We still haven't really seen 10C. Lots of standing around talking. The Reno thing was ridiculous. As others have pointed out, her com badge hadn't moved in hours and was inside a bulkhead. And no one saw her.
So, it's all going to be wrapped up next week?
I wanted to really like this one but unfortunately it was a dud.
We still haven't really seen 10C. Lots of standing around talking. The Reno thing was ridiculous. As others have pointed out, her com badge hadn't moved in hours and was inside a bulkhead. And no one saw her.
So, it's all going to be wrapped up next week?
I wanted to really like this one but unfortunately it was a dud.
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Agreed. They had a great Star Trek tale to tell. But the execution fell apart. I don't think the writers are up to the task of writing a season long arc. If they had made this story 3 parts or maybe 4, it could've been nice. Then tell stories about other things.
Stupid writers and their stupid stupidness.
Other P+ shows are doing ok with 10 seasons so yeah, cutting a little fat, like 3 episodes from DISC would be helpful.
The UFP SHOULD have been Type II on its way of becoming Type III in the late 24th century and pretty much full or nearly Type III before the Burn happened.
But then Disco writers happened.
We’ll be getting that next season. In the 5th season renewal announcement Paramount specified that it would be 10 episodes, lining up with the other live action series and Lower Decks.
A lower episode count means they'll get to a conclusion in fewer episodes, but it doesn't necessarily mean those episodes will be faster paced. Picard's first season was 10 episodes long and that moved so slowly I assumed the story was getting resolved in season 2. I've seen an 8 episode season that really dragged as well.
OMG so painful, right?
Couldn't believe it! It was the most unbelievable stupidness I've seen since...last season!
Why? In the Universe of Star Trek, there are plenty of Cosmozoan lifeforms that can travel at FTL speeds (See TOS S2 "Obsession", TOS S2 "Metamorphosis" (Hell, in that one they were utterly surprised that "The Companion" was sentient); TOS S3 "Day Of The Dove"...
So, yes, they may be aware of the life forms in the Milky Way Galaxy; but as others have said, we're on the same level as insects, or lower; and not important enough for them to jeopardize their own needs/survival over. Yes, once the Federation made contact - they did a more in depth study of them and discovered we were a higher level of intelligence then they first assumed.
(As for a possible counter argument of "Well, they had to develop their own technology too and evolve...they may not have access to their own history back to a point where they as a race recall being that primitive. Hell, even on Earth archeologists are finding that the start of what we would consider Human civilization is A LOT earlier then previously assumed. so, yeah, they may not know their entire history of technological or even evolutionary progression. They know where they are now and are doing what they need to sustain their culture and civilization.)
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But why would the capacity for interstellar travel be considered the defining characteristic of sentience? Seriously why?
Beavers have had the capacity to conduct geoengineering before human kind even had the language to spell out the word. We are just starting to achieve the material efficiency of a spiders silk, or the structures built by bees. Elephants display complex rituals surrounding death, they seem to display the emotional response to feel sadness at the death of a member of the family structure. Yet, we can not even completely stop ourselves to trophy hunt them. Dolphins are capable of much more complex mathematical calculations then we are without a calculator. We are so proud at our ability to have achieved fight. Congratulations we are 250 Million years late to the party.
And in the time it took me to write this several football fields of rain forest have been torn down. We really are the compassionate ones.
Again, why is interstellar flight a definitive sign of sentience? It is all a matter of perspective. Perhaps with the 10C, their toddlers build warp engines. For other humans at the time, the first human to create fire was essentially a God, now the ability to create fire is meh. Perhaps the 10C are like those space whales from Star Wars and can naturally travel at FTL speeds. Born, and 10 minutes later they are at warp 8.
Are the 10C arrogant, and naive? Perhaps, but so are we.
Or as Babylon 5 put it:
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V
Vale
Guest
"Before your ancestors turned the first wheel, the people of my world had reduced movement through the farthest reaches of space to a game for children."
– The Doctor, Doctor Who
– The Doctor, Doctor Who
I am distrustful of Tarka. I have only his side of the story of what happen at the work camp. If I was Booker, I would have done some background research on him before agreeing to anything he said.
And, there is a timeline issue here to contend with. Admiral Vance said that he first meet Tarka in 3180 when he gave a lecture. How could Tarka be giving a lecture when he was a prisoner of the Emerald Chain in that year, especially as, according to Tarka, he was working on a dilithium-alternative engine?
And, there is a timeline issue here to contend with. Admiral Vance said that he first meet Tarka in 3180 when he gave a lecture. How could Tarka be giving a lecture when he was a prisoner of the Emerald Chain in that year, especially as, according to Tarka, he was working on a dilithium-alternative engine?
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