Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 4x13 - "Coming Home"

Discussion in 'Star Trek: Discovery' started by Commander Richard, Mar 16, 2022.

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Rate the episode...

  1. 10 - Excellent!

    29.5%
  2. 9

    25.3%
  3. 8

    14.5%
  4. 7

    7.2%
  5. 6

    6.0%
  6. 5

    5.4%
  7. 4

    3.6%
  8. 3

    0.6%
  9. 2

    2.4%
  10. 1 - Terrible!

    5.4%
  1. fireproof78

    fireproof78 Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I disappointed more Trek fans are not interested in mental health and building healthy relationships.
     
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  2. Deks

    Deks Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Who says they aren't?
    But if you're referring to Discovery's attempt, it seemed like a mushy attempt at coddling and too much emphasis on emotional screen time that managed to drown out everything else (including their ability to perform as SF officers).

    There is a balance that needs to be maintained and Disco went into way extreme region with this, while literally allowing emotions and bias to overrule their ability to THINK most of the time.
    It was extremely irritating and ruined Disco for me from S3 onward (not to mention this was just compounded by writers complete inability to advance technology in any sensible capacity that would seem like actually 800 years have passed... instead, they just handwaved it all away - that's just INCREDIBLY lazy and dare I say it puts Trek into similar category as Star Wars at this point... stagnation, bias and morons running around).

    I have nothing against Trek portraying mental health issues along with building healthy relationshisps... but when this overtakes the show to the 9th degree and takes away the crew's ability to think in a critical capacity or implementing logic and reason, it kills the enjoyment for me. Its like seeing Twitter, Instagram and TikTok feeds being played out in live action Trek (I can't stand those in real life... so why on Earth would have a tolerance for something like that in Trek most of the time?).

    There are non scifi DRAMA shows that implement this balance far better than Disco does.

    The crew became a bunch of sensitive idiots who get triggered at the slightest of things.
    These are supposed to be trained Starfleet officers in the field of science who are capable at solving problems using science... not regular day people whose basic understanding of science and how the natural world works was non-existent.
     
  3. fireproof78

    fireproof78 Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I do. People would rather individuals logic their way through problems rather than have any regard for emotions in any capacity. They would prefer Spock to McCoy. It's disappointing to see Trek fans state a value in something and then disregard other fans emotions and building relationships. Very disappointing.

    Guess we can't all have what we want.
    Well, we at least agree that there needs to be a balance. Beyond that, though, enjoyment is subjective, just like knowledge of different fields of science.
     
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  4. Deks

    Deks Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Funny you should say that because, when people use 'feelings' to solve problems... even MORE problems ensue.
    In case you didn't notice, this is one of the reasons why things are falling apart in the real world.
    Too little emphasis on science, logic and reason... and too much on protecting fleeting emotions and thoughts whilst ignoring serious emotional problems that bog people down on a long term basis. Its one of the reasons people are easily 'triggered' these days and also, if you even 'try' to use science an logic on them, they just resort to yelling and behaving like idiots... and of course... whom do you think people will protect of course?
    The people who behave like idiots whilst ignoring science, logic and reason... that's what seems to be happening in the real world.

    I would have hoped Trek would steer away at stooping to such nonsense because its originally been based on the idea that humanity GREW OUT of its infancy... not descending back into it.

    And its also my right to criticise Disco and its writers from S3 onward for their (idiotic) choices.
    For crying out loud, the animated series made for kids does Trek better than live action Disco S3 and 4 did.
    Isn't that kinda pathetic?
    That a series oriented towards adults gets so many things wrong (well, according to 'you' thats not the case because you liked Disco S3 and 4 and emphasis on emotional bias and lack of science, logic and reason apparently).
     
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  5. fireproof78

    fireproof78 Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Well, this shows a fundamental understanding of how to use emotions or what I even mean. And by doing so perfectly demonstrates how logic destroys people's desire to solve problems. It's the basic lack of empathy that makes people" triggered" to use the common parlance. The lack of any sort of emotional recognition is sad.
    No, it's not.
    Disco Season 3 and 4 did things wrong. I still like them. I also don't appreciate the assumption that an emphasis on emotions means a lack of science, logic and reason. I don't think it is an all or nothing thing. More, if given the choice of "no emotion" over "too much emotion" I will lean towards "too much emotion" because suppressing emotions always is not healthy. But, I believe strongly in balance in logic and emotion. I would advise reading a little bit on Dialectical Behavioral Therapy for an understanding of my approach to logic and emotions.
     
    Last edited: Apr 11, 2022
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  6. Sci

    Sci Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    There are thousands of posters on the TrekBBS. You cannot reasonably expect people to have read everything you've posted before.

    You can answer a question without being rude and condescending.
     
  7. cooleddie74

    cooleddie74 Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    As someone with more than 250,000 posts TRUST me. Nobody is either going to nor has the willpower to read everything you've ever posted. ;)
     
  8. F. King Daniel

    F. King Daniel Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    No, we only know of in-universe technology not real life.
     
  9. cooleddie74

    cooleddie74 Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Hell, most of my knowledge of Dyson-level construction technology comes from one episode of the Trek franchise and the Halo games.
     
  10. shapeshifter

    shapeshifter Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I thought the points being made in DISC seasons 1 and 2 were about what an emotionally unstable home Burnham came from. An emotional human child being raised in a logical Vulcan environment would mess anyone of us up.

    She was only starting to become more emotionally stable by the ending of S4.
     
  11. fireproof78

    fireproof78 Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Yes, that was the point. In my opinion a good point in a franchise that often espouses as it's model figure of an emotionless robot (Data) or a logical alien (Spock) without recognizing that neither of those things are beneficial for humans in the long run. The reason why I believe so strongly in the value of expressing emotions is that I watch people being taught the opposite! That emotions are to be run away from, hidden way and not for public expression. Or, only the most appropriate emotions (i.e. positivity, compliance, or happiness) are allowed. Which is unfortunately a holdover of "suck it up and deal with it" that is presented without any opportunity to deal with the actual emotions in a healthy way.

    Discovery may not be the perfectly right way to express emotions, but the supportive environment the crew created is one that I wish I had had for the longest time in my work environment.
     
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  12. Sci

    Sci Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    This is absolutely not the source of most serious social problems. In my experience most people who think this way do so because (ironically) embracing this idea meets an emotional need of theirs and frees them from thinking critically about the social structures that produce conflicts.

    People are not "easily triggered." They are just less tolerant of bigotries.

    Setting aside the question of whether DIS S3-4 "did Trek" better than PRO, I think this question is based on an unquestioned a priori assumption that works of art created for children ought to be of inferior quality to works of art created for adults. I think that assumption is unfair. Works of art can be of high quality for both adults and children, and it's not more "pathetic" for a work of art created for adults to fail than it is for one created for children to fail, because children are not inferior beings and adults are not superior beings.

    I for one have always been more invested in Star Trek's characters and politics than in real-world materials science.
     
  13. The Wormhole

    The Wormhole Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Word. To me a Dyson Sphere is only that thing from TNG Relics, which later got a TNG novel devoted to it, though I didn't read it.
     
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  14. CorporalCaptain

    CorporalCaptain Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Bullshit.
     
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  15. Deks

    Deks Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I never said it's the source of most serious social problems.
    Social problems are caused by our outdated socio-economic system. What I said was that one of the reasons we are in so much trouble is too much emphasis on emotions and trying to solve problems by pandering to fleeting emotions and biases as opposed to arriving at decisions using the scientific method.

    For a show which keeps claiming that it will focus on the 'positives', it keeps introducing 'end of the world' scenarios and pushing UFP to the brink of annihilation. Strange way to make a point... and at its an outdated trope that I hoped would have ended with S3... but no.


    I provided evidence for my claims and all you have done is written a derogatory word that should be taken at face value?
    I think not.

    Have a good day
     
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  16. cooleddie74

    cooleddie74 Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    The UFP could barely build planetbound colonies that didn't collapse from spore infestations or radiation by the mid-to-late 23rd century. Don't tell me they could build Dyson Swarms a century before that.

    Spacedock in Earth orbit may be one of the great construction achievements of the Federation during that period of its history.
     
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  17. fireproof78

    fireproof78 Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Here's the thing-there is no ground state for UFP production capabilities. Spacedock was huge and impressive and to the best of the audience's knowledge the biggest project they had built. We have no idea what the capabilities of Starfleet is outside of these space structures. The assumption that the UFP could build Dyson Swarms is just that-an assumption, based upon personal biases and projections of knowledge.

    In other words, head cannon.
     
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  18. cooleddie74

    cooleddie74 Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Yep. And unless we see it onscreen it's all it's going to be. Head canon.
     
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  19. Locutus of Bored

    Locutus of Bored Yo, Dawg! I Heard You Like Avatars... In Memoriam

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    I too would enjoy hearing how our real world that couldn't muster the budget, political will, and global unity to return to the Moon by 1990, much less advance onward to Mars, would have been capable of constructing a Dyson Swarm by disassembling Mercury or harvesting the asteroid belt for materials... in 1990.

    Even if you had:
    - Complete bi-partisan political backing in the US.
    - Complete global cooperation.
    - Willingness to devote at least 20% of your and every other nation's total yearly spending (the NASA budget at the peak of the Apollo Program in 1965 was 4.31% of total US spending, something it has never come close to reaching again) to the project at the sacrifice of other programs for decades.
    - Major new developments in radiation and heat shielding, long-term large-scale space habitation, space mining and manufacturing, SSTO vehicles, mass drivers, propulsion, microwave or laser power transmission, etc.
    - Much greater and more extended research into long term human health and habitation in space than had been provided by Skylab and equivalent Soviet projects up to that time.

    None of which you had.

    Even then your thirty year timescale is ridiculously short, unless we've completely adjusted the goalposts of what a Dyson Swarm consists of to just building a few solar panels in space that wouldn't remotely reimburse the investment in building them. This is a hundreds (or thousands) of years type project, and societies rarely remain dedicated to the same ideas for that length of time.

    Perhaps if there were a real world external threat that might motivate the world to act, because even the threat of man-made climate change hasn't been enough motivation to get every country onboard or to override their own short term material interests.
     
    Last edited: Apr 12, 2022
  20. Sci

    Sci Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    No, you just implied it.

    Saying that we need to place greater emphasis on using the scientific method is fair.

    Saying that our society places "too much emphasis on emotions" is reactionary nonsense. If anything, our society tries to get people to repress their emotions and it produces toxic behavior.

    Reactionary nonsense.

    If you really think that, I question how many real people you've ever actually been around.

    No, I'm pointing out that your logical syllogism falls apart without an a priori assumption you did nothing to support.

    1) PRO has a large budget and team of writers at their disposal too.

    2) If that were your point, the fact that PRO is aimed at children is not relevant, so why bring it up? The only reason to construct your syllogism as, "It is pathetic that [series for children] did X better than [series for adults]" is if you think a series for adults is inherently supposed to be better than a series for children. If you don't think that, then it wouldn't be any more pathetic for a series for adults to fail at X when a series for kids succeeds, than it would be for another series for adults to succeed at X.

    3) PRO still hasn't explained why it is that multiple teenagers from Federation species somehow know basic things about their home cultures (name of species, native language, etc.) yet somehow don't know what the Federation is. Strikes me as a pretty damn big plausibility issue.

    No they're not. They're just doing a better job hitting the nostalgia buttons.

    No, you've just pulled a lot of shit out of your ass, gotten upset no one considered you important enough to have read prior posts of yours in the past, and condescended to anyone who called you out. News flash: You're not Sheldon Cooper or Gregory House, and disrespecting people who have not disrespected you just means no one wants to listen to you.