Spoilers Star Trek: Starfleet Academy 1x03 – “Vitus Reflux”

[fireproof78]

Is there an actual adult in this environment for the kids to look up to

Yes.

For a lot of fans, the Burn doesn't make sense because in their canon, the Federation would just rebuild whatever is destroyed no matter how bad it is

They could once they have people and can trust technology again.

I really, really, really hate the tendency for head canon to exclude the human components and reactions of fear, withdrawal and isolation in the face of catastrophe that might impact people's willingness to risk more. There's this insensitive notion I see that's like, "millions died? Sucks to be them. Rebuild the giant space infrastructure and make sure it has blackjack and hookers." It's the late stage capitalism idea of profit before people, except in this case it's even worse and goes towards Roddenberry's vision of "Whelp, they ain't getting any deader. Back to work." style of no mourning. It breaks my brain.

 

[Charles Phipps]

In the story, none. But hell, they're all supposed to be different technologies so I roll with it.

I love how Polarized Hulls are somehow reduced to 20% and regenerate.

 

[1001001]

I liked this one a lot.

Good fun, some heart.

Lura Thok is magnificent.

8

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

"Whelp, they ain't getting any deader. Back to work."

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[Fateor]

In practical terms, what was the difference? Replicators and synthesizers both created food and clothing on command.

Replicators work via matter energy conversion.

Synthesizers work via altering a neutral base into something approximating what you want.

 

[Arpy]

Fascinating the array of scores for this one. I know one friend is considering quitting the series if the much touted ep 5 doesn’t entertain.

Honestly, if we weren’t discussing it week to week in the General Trek forum weekly Trek Zoom, I don’t know that I wouldn’t have waited to binge the season myself after this one. The final years of DSC were a real chore to get through for me, and I’ve got a lot of other things I’d like to watch.

The folks at TrekMovie think this was the weakest of the season, and that it did a lot of groundwork for the rest of it that they’ve seen (up to ep 6), so, here’s hoping’.

 

[Tosk]

The folks at TrekMovie think this was the weakest of the season

Boy do I hope that to be true.

 

[Agony_Boothb]

That's because I believe that every single Star Trek fan has their own headcanon as to how technology and culture work in the Star Trek universe. We don't comment on it but a lot of our buy in is because we fill in the mental blanks. For a lot of fans, the Burn doesn't make sense because in their canon, the Federation would just rebuild whatever is destroyed no matter how bad it is. Whereas the showrunners went with, "and they couldn't rebuild and everything collapsed like Rome."

Because we haven't ever had an intergalactic disaster followed by a widespread social collapse, we can't really say whether that would work or not.

The buy in just demands we say, "the technology failed even with replicators" the same way we have to ask why with replicators the Enterprise keeps having to transport food and medicine like a cargo ship.

Yes.




They could once they have people and can trust technology again.

I really, really, really hate the tendency for head canon to exclude the human components and reactions of fear, withdrawal and isolation in the face of catastrophe that might impact people's willingness to risk more. There's this insensitive notion I see that's like, "millions died? Sucks to be them. Rebuild the giant space infrastructure and make sure it has blackjack and hookers." It's the late stage capitalism idea of profit before people, except in this case it's even worse and goes towards Roddenberry's vision of "Whelp, they ain't getting any deader. Back to work." style of no mourning. It breaks my brain.

I think a lot of people forget that the 31st century was a horrific time for the Federation. The Temporal War had raged for the majority of the century, which no doubt caused horrific amounts of destruction. Then the Burn hits causing billions more to die, scientists, inventors, innovators all gone in the blink of an eye. The Federation would spend the next decade or two just dealing with the humanitarian repercussions. They barely have a fleet left and can't trust dilithium to not explode again. Then worlds start seceding. Earth, Nivar, Andor, Betazed leave and take all of their knowledge and resources with them. World like Tellar and Kaminar stick around but are barely contactable or reachable. There is absolutely no way given those circumstances that The Federation would just start replicating again and everything would be good as new.

It would be like if in the real world there was a massive world war and then something like an EMP happened. Like how long would it take for humanity to be able to remake a mobile phone if the people with the knowledge to do so all died. We'd have to rebuild the ability to send electronic signals over long distances, rebuild ways to access the rare metals required to build computer chips and other parts and so on. That's just one tiny part of civilisation to rebuild, but we would be unable to do so.

 

[GothicPudding]

No Doctor and no Oded Fehr was a shame but as long as the show doesn't make a habit of it

I don't think it makes sense for Fehr's character to appear in every episode based on Starfleet Academy's current premise.

I assume that Picardo and Fehr were contracted for a specific number of episodes this season. I count eleven main cast members, not including the two computer voices (credited as main cast) and the two Special Guest Stars so far, which is more than Discovery or Strange New Worlds.

Yeoh was in exactly eight episodes for each of the first three seasons of Discovery and Wesley was in three episodes of each of Season 2 and 3. Later seasons of Discovery had multiple main cast members missed multiple episodes, and this seems to be becoming more common on many shows. I'm guessing they set the number of episodes for the older main cast/Special Guest Stars for Starfleet Academy based on budget and story requirements.

 

[Arpy]

I think it’s funny one of the things I liked about it was the length: an hour and two minutes…it was awful but there was so much of it!

Also keeping my fingers crossed that they’ll keep that up with much better episodes moving forward.

 

[Fateor]

I think a lot of people forget that the 31st century was a horrific time for the Federation. The Temporal War had raged for the majority of the century, which no doubt caused horrific amounts of destruction. Then the Burn hits causing billions more to die, scientists, inventors, innovators all gone in the blink of an eye. The Federation would spend the next decade or two just dealing with the humanitarian repercussions. They barely have a fleet left and can't trust dilithium to not explode again. Then worlds start seceding. Earth, Nivar, Andor, Betazed leave and take all of their knowledge and resources with them. World like Tellar and Kaminar stick around but are barely contactable or reachable. There is absolutely no way given those circumstances that The Federation would just start replicating again and everything would be good as new.

It would be like if in the real world there was a massive world war and then something like an EMP happened. Like how long would it take for humanity to be able to remake a mobile phone if the people with the knowledge to do so all died. We'd have to rebuild the ability to send electronic signals over long distances, rebuild ways to access the rare metals required to build computer chips and other parts and so on. That's just one tiny part of civilisation to rebuild, but we would be unable to do so.

That is a horrible analogy given the Burn effect wouldn't have hit planets or star bases.

And knowledge was shared via central databases, so planets leaving wouldn't have effected that.

 

[Arpy]

I think a lot of people forget that the 31st century was a horrific time for the Federation. The Temporal War had raged for the majority of the century, which no doubt caused horrific amounts of destruction. Then the Burn hits causing billions more to die, scientists, inventors, innovators all gone in the blink of an eye. The Federation would spend the next decade or two just dealing with the humanitarian repercussions. They barely have a fleet left and can't trust dilithium to not explode again. Then worlds start seceding. Earth, Nivar, Andor, Betazed leave and take all of their knowledge and resources with them. World like Tellar and Kaminar stick around but are barely contactable or reachable. There is absolutely no way given those circumstances that The Federation would just start replicating again and everything would be good as new.

It would be like if in the real world there was a massive world war and then something like an EMP happened. Like how long would it take for humanity to be able to remake a mobile phone if the people with the knowledge to do so all died. We'd have to rebuild the ability to send electronic signals over long distances, rebuild ways to access the rare metals required to build computer chips and other parts and so on. That's just one tiny part of civilisation to rebuild, but we would be unable to do so.

Okay, if we’re going to talk about that, I think a lot of the people who forgot that are the writers and fans themselves. This show should be faaar darker and more complex than it is given that’s the setting. It’s a CW show about the period after the end of the world, for Q’s sake. I mean trying not to shake my head but this is both like the Maquis on VOY and a 24th century ENT on the 22nd.

If you want to take it to the 32nd century, it should look like the 32nd century. If you’re going to say maybe trillions died in the last couple of hundred years, then show a world where maybe trillions died in the last couple of hundred years.

But this stuff is slop. Slop they chose to make. I’ll give it a go because I like Star Trek and I’m good company, but this is nowhere near as good as Trek has been, could be, or as other stuff out there competing with it for people’s attention.

 

[Turtletrekker]

The folks at TrekMovie think this was the weakest of the season, and that it did a lot of groundwork for the rest of it that they’ve seen (up to ep 6), so, here’s hoping’.

Jessie Gender and Sean Ferrick said the same thing.

 

[Agony_Boothb]

That is a horrible analogy given the Burn effect wouldn't have hit planets or star bases.

And knowledge was shared via central databases, so planets leaving wouldn't have effected that.

We literally saw a ruined starbase in 'That hope is you pt 1'. A bunch of antimatter explosions in orbit of a planet would have caused damaged. It's stated that there was also subspace effects which altered planetary and lunar orbits like on Kweijian, which went on to cause an ecological disaster.

It's stated that Ni'Var cut off all contact with the Federation. That included removing all of their scientific knowledge and data from Federation databases. Why would you let a power you are now hostile to, keep your contributions to it?

The Federation was already in trouble before the burn hit. Member worlds were feeling alienated, dilithium sources were becoming exhausted and they fought a time war. Even a civilisation as advanced as the Federation can only put up with so much.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Lura Thok is magnificent.

"Release the drones!"

 

[Agony_Boothb]

Okay, if we’re going to talk about that, I think a lot of the people who forgot that are the writers and fans themselves. This show should be faaar darker and more complex than it is given that’s the setting. It’s a CW show about the period after the end of the world, for Q’s sake. I mean trying not to shake my head but this is both like the Maquis on VOY and a 24th century ENT on the 22nd.

If you want to take it to the 32nd century, it should look like the 32nd century. If you’re going to say maybe trillions died in the last couple of hundred years, then show a world where maybe trillions died in the last couple of hundred years.

But this stuff is slop. Slop they chose to make. I’ll give it a go because I like Star Trek and I’m good company, but this is nowhere near as good as Trek has been, could be, or as other stuff out there competing with it for people’s attention.

New trek is damned if it does and damned if it doesn't. If it showed a darker galaxy, it would be accused of not being star trek, but trying to be hopeful some how also makes it not star trek.

Maybe we will see worlds that have been destroyed by the Burn, the series is 3 episodes old for crying outloud.

Let's be real Classic Trek peaked with DS9. That's it. In my view it's the only pre-kurtzman series other than TOS to take Trek to new heights and challenge the audience. TNG played it too safe and while it produced episodes like 'Darmok' or 'The Inner Light' still had to resort to nonsense like holodeck episodes and Q turning Picard into Robin Hood. Both Voyager and Enterprise were diminishing returns and I'm old enough to remember how negatively the fanbase felt about both. Voyager needed a blonde in a skin tight catsuit to make it past season 3 and Enterprise didn't make it past season 4 and effectively killed the franchise on television for over a decade. So let's put aside the rose-tinted glasses shall we.

 

[Fateor]

We literally saw a ruined starbase in 'That hope is you pt 1'. A bunch of antimatter explosions in orbit of a planet would have caused damaged. It's stated that there was also subspace effects which altered planetary and lunar orbits like on Kweijian, which went on to cause an ecological disaster.

It's stated that Ni'Var cut off all contact with the Federation. That would have probably included removing all of their scientific knowledge and data from Federation databases. Why would you let a power you are now hostile to, keep your contributions to it?

The Federation was already in trouble before the burn hit. Member worlds were feeling alienated, dilithium sources were becoming exhausted and they fought a time war. Even a civilisation as advanced as the Federation can only put up with so much.

The damage at that manned communications relay wasnt from the Burn.

Planets have had shields since the Picard era

And its literally impossible to separate scientific knowledge like that.

 

[Charles Phipps]

And its literally impossible to separate scientific knowledge like that.

Knowing how to make a replicator doesn't help you if you need parts from Betazed and Betazed is behind a psionic wall. The whole point of the Burn wasn't that people forgot things, it's that the unity and "stronger together" of the galaxy was destroyed so everyone went to looking out for number one and ended up doing worse than if they'd worked together.

This is a show about rebuilding but we saw the hellhole that Caleb is from and we've seen many other planets that look like Pandora from Borderlands, Tatooine, or Nimbus 3. People stopped helping one another after the Burn.

But it still is all based on one thing: "Do you buy into the setting of the Fallen Galaxy that is rebuilding or don't you?"

 

[Charles Phipps]

But this stuff is slop. Slop they chose to make. I’ll give it a go because I like Star Trek and I’m good company, but this is nowhere near as good as Trek has been, could be, or as other stuff out there competing with it for people’s attention.

I feel like this is way overblown. Mostly because it's been:

1. A fairly serviceable space pirates episode

2. A really good episode about diplomacy and feelings with no action only brought down by a romance no one cared about at my house.

3. Police Academy 3 which just CONFUSED me.

 

[Agony_Boothb]

The damage at that manned communications relay wasnt from the Burn.

Planets have had shields since the Picard era

And its literally impossible to separate scientific knowledge like that.

I mean the fact it was surrounded by destroyed starships would seem to indicate that nearby antimatter explosions caused some damage to it.

Shields have to actually be on for them to protect a planet and a series of sudden explosions in orbit could have destroyed the emitters and damaged the surface of said planet.

Except it's not because the whole premise of 'Unification III' is that Discovery has to go to Ni'var to ask for the data related to the SB19 experiment, because the Federation no longer has access to it. It's the 32nd century, if the Federation should be able to magically snap it's fingers and recover, then it should also be possible for information to be restricted and removed from 'Central databases'