Spoilers Star Trek: Starfleet Academy 1x04 – “Vox in Excelso”

[Misuka]

I do think Qo'noS should've been in a different situation in the 32nd Century than, say, the 24th. They could only be the Federation's unstable ally for so long. But I would've preferred something besides this.

I agree, with centuries of cooperation, they should have become true allies. Maybe that actually happened and only changed after The Burn, but so far, there’s no way to know how it really was.
The biggest issue with the 10-episode format series is the small number of episodes per season, you can't really do any deep world-building with so few episodes.

 

[Stam22]

Do they?

How does Klingons using surnames now affect the episode's plot? Does that revelation forward the story at all? Does it make or break the action beats in the episode?

Short answer, "No, they don't". They can do whatever they want.

Consistency in canon in a universe can be complicated when canon is vast and spans 60 years of stuff. Inconsistency is also bound to happen when different folks are at the helm for different eras of that canon. That's one of the reasons I turned against Enterprise from jump... I saw it as trying to re-write established canon (and not doing a very good job, either). It wasn't until 10 years later that I went back and watched the show and thought, "Wow, that Season 3 story arc was really good! I like Phlox, too!"

Trek's changed so much that whether Klingons have ridges or Romulan officers wear shoulder pads or Borg drones' faces look mottled or pale white doesn't matter... we just roll with it. I think my larger point here is that they used this episode to dive into what happened to the Klingon species post-Burn in this episode, which I enjoyed. If they're going to make a change as to how Klingons refer to themselves, it would've been a nice throw in.

 

[Sakonna]

Most of the criticisms I've read directed at this episode are totally valid, and I was also aware of them while watching, but somehow they didn't bother me. The emotional story worked SO well for me that the flaws just flew right by.

Also, I was thinking how much I liked the vibe of the Athena while in space. Something else that bugged me about "Vitus Reflux" was how much they overdid the blinding sun directly out the windows at every moment. The lighting while in space is so much more atmospheric, especially in the night scenes.

This show reminds me of DS9 in how some of the characters will be seen only briefly, but those moments won't be generic (like it would often be on VOY). There will be a lot of specific character personality in those bits.

It is funny to me that in four episodes, this small group of cadets have orchestrated major social/political shifts for entire species twice. I'm impressed with how believable they made it feel both times. I wonder if it'll continue to be an every-other-episode thing!

 

[camdudetenger2018]

to me in my opinion this episode is gotta be so far the 1st or maybe the 2nd non pure comical star trek starfleet academy episode in star trek starfleet academy history

 

[Nerys Myk]

Short answer, "No, they don't". They can do whatever they want.

Consistency in canon in a universe can be complicated when canon is vast and spans 60 years of stuff. Inconsistency is also bound to happen when different folks are at the helm for different eras of that canon. That's one of the reasons I turned against Enterprise from jump... I saw it as trying to re-write established canon (and not doing a very good job, either). It wasn't until 10 years later that I went back and watched the show and thought, "Wow, that Season 3 story arc was really good! I like Phlox, too!"

Trek's changed so much that whether Klingons have ridges or Romulan officers wear shoulder pads or Borg drones' faces look mottled or pale white doesn't matter... we just roll with it. I think my larger point here is that they used this episode to dive into what happened to the Klingon species post-Burn in this episode, which I enjoyed. If they're going to make a change as to how Klingons refer to themselves, it would've been a nice throw in.

I think you're talking about continuity not canon

 

[Lord Garth]

There are two other people I know IRL who watch SFA. I told them what I thought about this episode. That despite my not liking what they did with Qo'noS, I thought it was an outstanding episode.

One of them agreed with me and thought it was even better than I did. The other person? Well, I'm just going to say they not only didn't like it but they really didn't like it. I had to listen to the rant and I was thinking to myself, "How do I even respond to this?" In general, the reaction to Starfleet Academy makes the reactions from the Discovery days look like nothing. Something I never thought would happen.

 

[Rahul]

What completely blindsided me this episode:

I was absolutely sure that the Klingons would be this season's "big arc". Like, we have a Klingon main character, a half-Klingon mentor character, and a half-Klingon main antagonist. And in the trailers we saw dozens of Klingon ships facing off Starfleet, and lots of space shooting.
I was sure this was going to be a big thing.
Instead it turned out to be a glorified TNG episode, and that 3x main characters are from a near extinct species completely accidental.

Reminded me of PIC season 1, where I was sure there was a plot reason all the ex-Borg characters (Picard, Seven, Hugh) meet up on a wrecked Borg cube.
And instead that was all purely by accident and didn't actually factor into the main plot, which was about a hippie android collective wanting to call some robot space tentacle monsters to eliminate all organics (which then also was completely unrelated to "Control", which aired just 6 months earlier, which also assimilated people...)

 

[Detached Nacelle]

Kind of a shame the Klingon ships didn't have floaty parts. A bird of prey with detached wings could have been cool.

I really like the floating parts of the 32nd century. Thus my username.

 

[CaptainWacky]

My favourite of the first four episodes for sure: a very good character episode for Jay-Den and the play fight with the Klingons was a nice solution to give them a planet. The debate aspect could have been better but definitely solid, good stuff: 7/10.

I was astonished the flubbed line from the Doctor at the start made it through the edit though: the quote makes no sense with the word "chains" left out. How did nobody notice?

 

[NCC-73515]

There are real word and in universe examples for shortened names:
Karl-Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jacob Philipp Franz Joseph Sylvester Buhl-Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg -> Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg
Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braun -> Wernher von Braun
Bernhard-Viktor Christoph-Carl von Bülow -> Vicco von Bülow
Me Hani Ika Hali Ka Po -> Po
Seven of Nine, tertiary adjunct of unimatix 01 -> Seven


A teacher once told me she had a student with such a long official name that it didn't fit into the single line of the school certificate, so she just put "etc." at the end

AAUGH the spoiler tags next time pleeeze!!1! I haven’t seen the episode where they reveal that! That’s a litrrally insane twist!

It wasn't even really revealed! Memory Alpha Alpha One hereby decrees: Not Canon.