Spoilers Star Trek: Lower Decks 1x01 - "Second Contact"

[BillJ]

Still, the technology is very dangerous no matter how old it is. I doubt Starfleet would want that info out, especially if they use the side canon revealing that it actually works and the only reason it didn’t before was because it was used on a nebula

Technological leaps are tough to keep secret. It also discounts the idea that there is other people working on parallel research across the Alpha Quadrant. So I dismiss the idea it could be kept secret for a century.

All the major powers were working on the Atom bomb in the 1940’s.

 

[137th Gebirg]

Same here. But I thought Lower Decks would be a train wreck, yet here we are.

Very good point. I will maintain my personal policy of reserving judgment until several episodes into the season. Although at this juncture, no telling when that will actually be.

 

[Trekker4747]

...but no, the characters are believable as officers who genuinely want to be in Starfleet doing good things.

Ensign "Everything up here is super lame" Mariner strikes you as someone who wants to be in Starfleet doing good things?

 

[BillJ]

Ensign "Everything up here is super lame" Mariner strikes you as someone who wants to be in Starfleet doing good things?

She made sure her and Boimler’s mission was a success. So she obviously cares to some degree.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Ensign "Everything up here is super lame" Mariner strikes you as someone who wants to be in Starfleet doing good things?

She gave people some high tech shovels to help them out. Sounds like she likes doing good things.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Still, the technology is very dangerous no matter how old it is. I doubt Starfleet would want that info out, especially if they use the side canon revealing that it actually works and the only reason it didn’t before was because it was used on a nebula

Side canon. Is that a thing now? Who really gives a fuck about side canon??

Mariner has a conspiracy board. She obviously has heard or seen things. Things that would turn your hair white.

 

[137th Gebirg]

Mariner's been referred to by some as an anarchist. I disagree. She's generally insubordinate, certainly, and a scofflaw to a certain degree. But I have to say that I, too, have personally experienced many instances in my life in general and career in particular where alleged "superiors" who claimed to know better about things, for "reasons", imposed their will upon me and other "inferiors", only to have it blow up in everyone's faces but refused to take responsibility for it.

I eventually found that listening to my own gut instincts and personal experiences and intuition to be a far more successful strategy and, if successful (yet happened to contravene a "superior's" directives), I would take the slap on the wrist, knowing I was right all along. That doesn't make me an anarchist. An arrogant blowhard sometimes, yes, who "doesn't play well with others" but never an anarchist. My motto: "There may be no 'I' in team, but there's no 'U' in team, either".

I find that I'm REALLY identifying strongly with Mariner in this show. I don't know if I find that amusing or disturbing. LDS is shaping itself up to be one of my favorite all-time Treks - something I honestly never thought would happen.

Really looking forward to the next one. "Let's send them a message!"

 

[fireproof78]

Ensign "Everything up here is super lame" Mariner strikes you as someone who wants to be in Starfleet doing good things?

Yes.

 

[Michael]

Ensign "Everything up here is super lame" Mariner strikes you as someone who wants to be in Starfleet doing good things?

She does, yeah. She has no respect for protocol, bends some of the rules and has no regard for rank, but she's in it to do altruistic, heroic stuff. She's what Kirk or Picard were in their youth.

 

[thribs]

Side canon. Is that a thing now? Who really gives a fuck about side canon??

Mariner has a conspiracy board. She obviously has heard or seen things. Things that would turn your hair white.

Well with this being a cartoon they could take things from all sources.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Well with this being a cartoon they could take things from all sources.

They can do that in any format.

 

[fireproof78]

She does, yeah. She has no respect for protocol, bends some of the rules and has no regard for rank, but she's in it to do altruistic, heroic stuff. She's what Kirk or Picard were in their youth.

Exactly. She sees the upper deck officers as being consumed with prestige and medals and protocols. Mariner sees those as barriers to actually doing good things for the people they are visiting. I think her view and Freeman's view will come to a head, with Boimler in the middle.

 

[Kelso]

Ensign "Everything up here is super lame" Mariner

The episode revealed that she doesn't feel that way at all- her "too cool for school" act was a put on.

 

[fireproof78]

The episode revealed that she doesn't feel that way at all- her "too school for school" act was a put on.

Yup.

 

[137th Gebirg]

Subtext is a fickle bitch.

 

[BillJ]

Subtext is a fickle bitch.

This is SPARTA!!! Err... Star Trek. There is no room for subtext.

 

[Cake]

But both are realistic ways that humans act.

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That video just wow! Especially the guy at 3:26 who nearly shot himself in the head because he looked into the barrel of his gun.

 

[NCC-73515]

originally made for DS9, but then retconned into the canon by Enterprise and then Discovery (also NuTrek)

They say they exist since before the Federation in the first DS9 appearance, so it's not a retcon to have them show up in ENT and Disco and STID.

I still don't think that the black badges automatically mean S-31. Even in the real world operators have a "day job" that allows them to operate within an organization.

If they had said they're with SI or with Internal Affairs, or even just Starfleet Security, it would've been perfectly fine. Then reveal to the viewer or a limited number of characters (and for a good reason) that some of them are actually part of 31, which is a secret group within SI.

 

[137th Gebirg]

They say they exist since before the Federation in the first DS9 appearance, so it's not a retcon to have them show up in ENT and Disco and STID.

Well... yes... poor choice of wording on my part. Not sure what words to use in this case, TBH.

What I was referring to was the fact that we first saw S-31 in DS9, never TNG and certainly not TOS (or TAS), shows that came chronologically before, both in-universe and IRL. It was believable that the DS9 crew had never heard of them because nobody had. They were invented for that show (despite their long pre-Fed history). Then (skipping VOY), along comes Enterprise, and they're used to recruit Reed (and still, nobody's heard of them). And then they're used in Disco - by this time, they're flashing the black badges around and yadda, yadda, see my last on that - I'm not really all that happy with how they've been used in Disco, if I'm honest. Did not like that Control business at all, but I digress...

And now, just last night, Ensign Boimler of Lower Decks was commenting how S-31 uses fast walking in their exercise routine! It has become, retroactively (hence my semi-incorrect use of the word "retcon" in this context), more of whispered worst-kept-secret in Starfleet that everyone knows about. Very much the antithesis of what it was intended to be during it's original DS9 inception as an ultra-secret shadow organization that literally nobody knew about. Its intrigue and mystery have been severely curtailed - much like the Borg since their initial introduction as "a force of nature" in "Q Who?" and subsequent overuse through the decades.

I guess, in the end, that's how it always goes - the writers make a new adversary way too powerful to build artificial drama and jeopardy and eventually need to be throttled back slowly over the course of the arc, in order for the heroes to legitimately overcome them. Same thing happened with the Jem'Hadar, too, come to think of it. One of their little bug ships did a suicide run on the Odyssey in their first encounter and cut it in half, just to show how bad-ass they were. After that, they basically went pretty conventional. IIRC, Stargate did it too. I guess it's a pretty common trope.

So, that's a really super long-winded reason why I used the word "retcon". It may not quite be retroactive continuity, but it's definitely a retroactive something. DIScontinuity, maybe?

 

[Sci]

The Naked Now is not so bad. Of course back then before streaming and dvd's and having access to all of the episodes even Code of Honor would be a treat. Anything to feed your Star Trek fix.

I feel very confident in asserting that there are no circumstances under which the disgusting piece of racist, white supremacist bullshit entitled "Code of Honor" would be "a treat."

Still, the technology is very dangerous no matter how old it is. I doubt Starfleet would want that info out, especially if they use the side canon revealing that it actually works and the only reason it didn’t before was because it was used on a nebula

I mean, atomic bombs are very dangerous no matter how old the technology is, but that doesn't mean there was a realistic possibility of keeping the existence of atomic bombs a secret once they were, y'know, used.

The Genesis Device turned an entire nebula into a planet and then that planet blew up. You can't hide that. Anyone with a telescope could see it. Just like the U.S. in 1945 could not have hidden the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki if they had tried.

Ensign "Everything up here is super lame" Mariner strikes you as someone who wants to be in Starfleet doing good things?

You've really never met people who use that kind of behavior as a defense mechanism?

They say they exist since before the Federation in the first DS9 appearance, so it's not a retcon to have them show up in ENT and Disco and STID.

Well, to be specific, "Inquisition" established that Section 31 "was part of the original Starfleet Charter." It wasn't until ENT premiered three years later that the audience learned there had been an organization called Starfleet before the Federation was founded, and not until ENT Season Four aired seven years after "Inquisition" that we learned Section 31 originated from the United Earth Starfleet.

But yeah, it's not a retcon to have Section 31 appear in DIS per se.

If they had said they're with SI or with Internal Affairs, or even just Starfleet Security, it would've been perfectly fine. Then reveal to the viewer or a limited number of characters (and for a good reason) that some of them are actually part of 31, which is a secret group within SI.

Well, that's the thing -- DIS S2 seems to have retconned Section 31 into a division of Starfleet that's commonly known. That's in contradiction to "Inquisition," "Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges," and "Extreme Measures." Really it wouldn't have affected DIS S2's story if the antagonistic division of Starfleet that Our Heroes had run up against had been Starfleet Intelligence rather than Section 31, so the way the basic idea of S31 has been contradicted in DIS S2 is frustrating.

The good news, though, is that DIS S2 is all about how a rogue artificial intelligence tries to manipulate everyone, so we can rationalize this as Control revealing Section 31's existence to Starfleet without them realizing S31 had been a secret, and then the mid-level S31 agents stepping up after the Control fiasco is over to push their organization back into the shadows.

Of course, "Envoys" had that little reference to Boimler knowing who Section 31 are, but I'm okay with just ignoring that as a cartoonish exaggeration that's not binding on canon.