Spoilers Star Trek: Picard 3x08 - "Surrender"

[Cox of Seagulls]

The more I think about this episode the more I like it.

"I feel.... I *feel*"

Absolutely beautiful. What a gift from the writers, to Data and to the audience. And it feels earned and not arbitrary.

 

[Lord Garth]

Also, was it ever explained who built this colossally powerful warship, or is everyone weirdly uninterested in that, like they were about the Scimitar?

I don't think so. But I'd prefer not to have an explanation. All I can think of is that scene from Clerks where they're talking about who built the Death Star.

And a little mystery is good sometimes.

 

[BBC 2 6pm]

I don't think so. But I'd prefer not to have an explanation. All I can think of is that scene from Clerks where they're talking about who built the Death Star.

And a little mystery is good sometimes.

Yeah fair enough! I just wish someone would at least mention it though. "Do we know anything about that ship, any vulnerabilities? Sorry sir the design specs don't match any known shipyards..."

It was more egregious in Nemesis, of course.

 

[Mike Doyle]

Right but those are always the exceptions not the rules. Normally a ship like the Titan (far smaller than the Shrike?) has hundreds of crew. Also, the Shrike gets into combat a lot so you presumably want a lot of bird-redshirts!

One weakness in the worldbuilding this year is... how many Changelings are there in the alpha quadrant? To take over Starfleet to the level shown you're presumably looking at hundreds or thousands. If it's just a few, then it's just a colossal coincidence that Tuvok was one of them. On a similar note, why has nobody mentioned the possibility of talking to the Great Link about all this?

I don’t think we’ve ever seen a ship that needs lots of people to make it work.
The bulk of people on any given federation ship that we’ve seen are scientists etc to do the stuff that is the mission not to fly it.

 

[Kirby]

I really liked it, but the whole Jack/scary door thing seems unnecessary. Maybe it'll pay off in the last two episodes, but that was what I didn't like about season 2 with Picard going through something similar.

 

[Vger23]

This is the most consistently good season of Star Trek in the franchise. That may not be entirely fair, because obviously 26 episodes vs. 10 is a much different game...but still, the raw fact remains. 2 episodes to go, and this is Star Trek's best season so far (with apologies to all the LD and SNW fans...).

The other thing is that, despite some of the TNG actors having been out of the game for so long, the performances in this show are really good. Jonathan Frakes has actually been rock-frigging-solid since day one. LeVar Burton was fire last week and great again this week. Brent Spiner can still turn personalities on a dime. And, the new cast has been great as well.

7.5/10

 

[Citiprime]

Ok seriously, kind of disappointed with the episode, mostly because of the way changeling Vadic died. I mean we know from DS9 that changelings can exist in the vacuum of space. Doesn't anyone remember episode called Chimera when Odo encountered the other changeling flying through space? Also I remember Odo speaking about his origins and he himself being adrift in open space.

So why didn't she just gelatinize herself and survive being ejected into space? There's no explanation as to why she couldn't unless I missed something in this or an earlier episode.

It's specifically shown and stated that these Changelings had their physiology changed at Daystrom to where they have internal organs and are specifically different than Odo and the OG Changelings.

 

[BBC 2 6pm]

This is the most consistently good season of Star Trek in the franchise. That may not be entirely fair, because obviously 26 episodes vs. 10 is a much different game...but still, the raw fact remains. 2 episodes to go, and this is Star Trek's best season so far (with apologies to all the LD and SNW fans...).

Sorry I have to disagree there. I am enjoying it a lot, but I'm on TNG season 5 at the moment and that's just hit after hit.

 

[BBC 2 6pm]

I don’t think we’ve ever seen a ship that needs lots of people to make it work.
The bulk of people on any given federation ship that we’ve seen are scientists etc to do the stuff that is the mission not to fly it.

Mayyybe. But on the D, for example, there are a lot of random ensigns in gold manning consoles (and getting blown up during battles). They seem to have jobs that involve keeping the ship running. And just the fact that you need a couple of shifts (Changelings do need to regenerate) also bumps the numbers up a lot.

The Defiant is a small warship and wouldn't have any of those scientists you are talking about, and Sisko says (during its battle with the Lakota) that it has a crew of 50.

 

[KamenRiderBlade]

Personal shield emitters were also portrayed in the form of wrist bands in both TNG and VOY.
In TNG they were used to stop the wearer from being pulled into the time frame onboard the ENT-D (when those subpsace entities put their young into a Romulan artificial quantum singularity).
On VOY, it was used to push the temporal disruptions (through one of which Janeway and Pairs fell through), and displace subspace radiation and access the forcefield around a blown up replicator console.

So, they do exist in various forms... but they weren't exactly used often.

Weren't they more Bicep bands then wrist bands?

I don't remember them ever wearing those devices on their wrist.

 

[Ovation]

Mayyybe. But on the D, for example, there are a lot of random ensigns in gold manning consoles (and getting blown up during battles). They seem to have jobs that involve keeping the ship running. And just the fact that you need a couple of shifts (Changelings do need to regenerate) also bumps the numbers up a lot.

The Defiant is a small warship and wouldn't have any of those scientists you are talking about, and Sisko says (during its battle with the Lakota) that it has a crew of 50.

Crew numbers are arbitrarily chosen for plot purposes (whether for a single episode or a season or a series). The ships need precisely as many people to run them as the story requires.

The Cage—around 200.
TOS—around 400. Seems like a suitable number. We’re told it’s a big ship.
TNG— around 1000. Bigger ship.

And so on. Crew size (and ship size) is elastic. For the needs of the story. Did the story NEED hundreds of crew on the Shrike? Apparently not. And voilà.

 

[BBC 2 6pm]

Crew numbers are arbitrarily chosen for plot purposes (whether for a single episode or a season or a series). The ships need precisely as many people to run them as the story requires.

OK I can live with that. But in that case either Vadic either beamed over to the Titan with her entire crew, and left the shields down, or for some reason the crew remaining on the Shrike kept the shields down. I think the story did need to explain this.

(There seem to have been some deleted scenes... maybe Worf etc murdered the crew and left the shields down?)

 

[Racefuel]

Mayyybe. But on the D, for example, there are a lot of random ensigns in gold manning consoles (and getting blown up during battles). They seem to have jobs that involve keeping the ship running. And just the fact that you need a couple of shifts (Changelings do need to regenerate) also bumps the numbers up a lot.

The Defiant is a small warship and wouldn't have any of those scientists you are talking about, and Sisko says (during its battle with the Lakota) that it has a crew of 50.

The Shrike is also 30 years younger than even the Defiant.

We also have seen the Defiant reliably operate with only about 5 people on board.

 

[Racefuel]

Crew numbers are arbitrarily chosen for plot purposes (whether for a single episode or a season or a series). The ships need precisely as many people to run them as the story requires.

The Cage—around 200.
TOS—around 400. Seems like a suitable number. We’re told it’s a big ship.
TNG— around 1000. Bigger ship.

And so on. Crew size (and ship size) is elastic. For the needs of the story. Did the story NEED hundreds of crew on the Shrike? Apparently not. And voilà.

Yeah the TOS Enterprise had 400 and Dax said they "really packed them in" on the old ships.

 

[cooleddie74]

The Cage—around 200.

And not just "The Cage(TOS)." When the Enterprise shows up at the beginning of DSC Season 2 there's a clearly visible crew complement on the Discovery bridge display that says she has the same complement of 203 that she had five years earlier in the first TOS Pilot.

 

[BBC 2 6pm]

The Shrike is also 30 years younger than even the Defiant.

We also have seen the Defiant reliably operate with only about 5 people on board.

In that case the question becomes, why did Vadic take her tiny crew all over to the Titan and leave the shields down?

 

[Ovation]

OK I can live with that. But in that case either Vadic either beamed over to the Titan with her entire crew, and left the shields down, or for some reason the crew remaining on the Shrike kept the shields down. I think the story did need to explain this.

(There seem to have been some deleted scenes... maybe Worf etc murdered the crew and left the shields down?)

It didn’t need to explain it. Your own speculation works fine and mirrors my own (because I expect to have to connect a few dots along the way in my fiction reading and viewing—I find it somewhat infantilizing to be spoon fed every detail).

 

[Tuskin38]

And not just "The Cage(TOS)." When the Enterprise shows up at the beginning of DSC Season 2 there's a clearly visible crew complement on the Discovery bridge display that says she has the same complement of 203 that she had five years earlier in the first TOS Pilot.

IIRC in dialogue Burnham gives the TOS crew count.

 

[Ovation]

In that case the question becomes, why did Vadic take her tiny crew all over to the Titan and leave the shields down?

Your earlier speculation is a perfect answer to this question.

 

[BBC 2 6pm]

It didn’t need to explain it. Your own speculation works fine and mirrors my own (because I expect to have to connect a few dots along the way in my fiction reading and viewing—I find it somewhat infantilizing to be spoon fed every detail).

I don't think it's wanting to be spoon-fed every detail, because with the shields they wouldn't have been able to destroy the Shrike. Also if it is empty or just has a skeleton crew, why not try to capture it?

These are fairly important points to the non-Jack plot, and I'd have preferred to get answers to them.