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It isn't. Given the crew complement, it was ridiculously small on TOS. In 1966, they worked within the budget they had well enough, creating a memorable set, among many other memorable sets, but that's what it was: working with their budget.
In addition to all the great visual cues the show is taking from TOS, I'm loving all the little audio cues. Every time they're on the bridge and we get a bunch of those TOS sounds I just grin from ear to ear.
I admit I am coming into this discussion without having read all of the prior 14 pages, but if the point of contention is that Una doesn't look like the Illyrians from Enterprise, we actually see an Enterprise-style, forehead-ridged Illyrian in the "Override, override!" scene where Una looks at a roster of genetic modifications. Seems clear they're the same species.
I just went back and looked at this, and this really is a great catch, it's subtle as hell. I can only pick up the ridges on one of the Illyrian images we see, and it looks much less pronounced than in "Damage", but it does match up. Good eye!
So, I guess that communicates Una is intended to be an alien, not from a human colony that goes by the name Illyrian.
Okay, thanks. So we're a few years farther ahead than I thought- my impression was the S1 of SNW started about 2254 or 2255. I'm not familiar enough with DSC to be up to speed on its dates.
Since this is the thread where everyone is currently yakking, I have a side question:
I've read a couple references indicating that the Talos mission we saw in "The Cage" happens 5 years before this series starts, which itself is 10 years before TOS. Spock is said to have served under Captain Pike for 11 years (there could possibly be a break there at the forward end where he is assigned somewhere other than Enterprise, I guess.)
Is this how it's supposed to be? I was under the impression that maybe the Talos mission was ahead of us, not behind us.
Although the Franklin being in service in 2164 when it's clearly a smaller and more primitive starship begs the question of why the NX-01 was turned into a museum ship when older, less powerful vessels still hung around. I get why the series had to do it for continuity's sake but things like the Franklin do make it seem a little odd a choice in-universe.
Okay, thanks. So we're a few years farther ahead than I thought- my impression was the S1 of SNW started about 2254 or 2255. I'm not familiar enough with DSC to be up to speed on its dates.
I am a massive timeline nerd, I love piecing it all together, but I have to look DSC up on MA all the time because my mind just does not want to accept that the first two seasons of Disco span three calendar years, 2256 through 2258. (So we started that series 2 years post-"Cage" and 10 years pre-"Man Trap")
Berman Trek really beat it into me that one season is one calendar year. ONE!
Pretty sure the Franklin was a prototype as well -- for the warp 4 engine on the way to warp 5. But Beyond indicates that it was pressed for service after the war.
Pretty sure the Franklin was a prototype as well -- for the warp 4 engine on the way to warp 5. But Beyond indicates that it was pressed for service after the war.
I like timeline stuff as well, but with all the new shows and two of them being in TOS prequel territory (until DSC jumped to the far future) I've not been that great at keeping it all pieced together.
The one era where I thought they messed up a bit was Enterprise: a Warp 5 ship is so slow (125c is slow by interstellar standards) that I figured we'd be looking at 2-3 years per season, but they stuck to the one-per with that show as well. Speed of plot rules, I guess.
Without giving too much away too early, this episode is what I would consider to be the first ‘sub par’ episode of Stange New World’s, my first disappointment of the season. I will reserve my final score (it will be rated out of ten, with ten being good, not bad) for this episode until the end of my post so that I can continue to consider whether I am making the right decision on the standardised denary based decimal rating system that we humans use to rate things, I will be contemplating my judgments during the process of my reflection on the new Star Trek that I have just beheld!! Mwahahahhaa!
The first thing that put me off about this episode was the ‘last time on Star Trek STW’ sting, I thought that this was a series of standalone episodes so how could pointless recaps such as this stand up on network television if the episodes are to be shown out of order in syndication one day?
Once again, the special effects department have done wonders and put on a good representation of a ‘space storm’, but I don’t think that they know what an ion storm actually is or looks like. With all due respect I do not agree that what they produced is a true representation of an ion storm. Ion storms are caused by electromagnetic fluctuations, but this one looks like an actual every day storm with clouds and lightning etc. But I do consider the possibility that an ion storm when entering a planetary atmosphere can encourage such weather conditions… it definitely should have been visualised more like this though:
The special effects department did get a few things right this episode, at least in my opinion if not in that of more die hard fans… the transporter set was stunning, very well designed and represented through love of the original series set designs. The Engineering section was also well envisioned even if it kind of still looked like a big empty Amazon warehouse with an approximation of a warp core/deuterium vents etc plonked in to make it look functional. Maybe something can float in the middle? Engineering could potentially be used as a big hangar bay for shuttle craft and runabouts?
The main antagonist in this episode is actually an indirectly evolved yet still possibly man made ‘super virus’. I think that the virus was made by accident and the virus’s evolution was enhanced and epediated as a result of human augmentation against such viruses. This virus makes people unnaturally attracted to sources of light a bit like nocturnal insects are sometimes known to be. In some cases, this attraction was depicted in very graphic ways. I will type my next sentence in a spoiler bracket as it could be considered to be offensive to people sensitive to extreme content of various natures.
several people were shown to be harming themselves to get to the light, others were girating and ‘humping’ the light as if it was giving them some form of pleasure in return. Ensign Vanice was trying to get up and close, as was the light ‘party’ later on in the episode. Perhaps this episode is SNW’s equivalent/reboot of The Naked Now?
It is curious how a Vitamin D deficiency is linked to a lack of defense against the virus which is running rampant in this episode. It delivers undercurrents of contemporary viral advice that we have been given which says that we need plenty of Vitamin D if we are elderly or of an ethnic origin which prevents us from absorbing sunlight to an extent which allows us to naturally produce this vitamin in sufficient quantities, thus enabling us to support our immune system and functions at optimal levels. The ship also went in to a ‘lockdown’ as a result of the virus in a similar way as to how our planet went in to ‘lockdown’ as a result of COVID.
I think that future Starships should be equipped with UV tanning ‘sun beds’ as protection from this form of viral infection in the future. Maybe Decontamination chambers can have UV light anti viral functions until the transporter buffers are adapted to destroy pathogens?
My next question for scientists is if it is actually possible to reverse engineer eugenics? Surely when genetic changes have been made, Genetic structures and R/DNA have been irreversibly altered from a none interference perspective? Even ‘reverse’ eugenics would be considered as eugenics as unnatural changes are still being made with further unknown repercussions to genetics?
I thought that Spock’s approach to the situation that he and Pike faced was very typical for his character, he strived to resolve the situation by studying and reading journals.. as many journals as he could! Every Illyrian journal ever… hopefully he is not a spy for a new iteration of the Soong family haha! Spock armed himself with knowledge, not weapons, so that he could use what he learnt as a none violent (hopefully!) alternative to a weapon to protect or resolve the situation…
When the ginger/golden coloured light aliens first came on screen a shiver went down my spine, I thought of only one thing…
Pah Wraiths!!!!!!
Maybe this episode showed us the scientifically acceptable/unacceptable method that such beings can be produced?? ‘Human’ like souls/essence transforming in to energy beings as a result of random quantum physics resulting from such things as ion storms, coincidence and unnatural manipulation of life forces and nature?
Apparently number one is also an off world augment, it seems like augments are not banned anywhere else in the alpha and beta quadrants but on Earth and the Federation? The Klingon’s even had a go at it too (not in this episode). Could there be an actual moral reasoning for augmenting and genetically modifying a species? Is there a good example that shows that Eugenics can work out in a positive way? Maybe the Eugenics wars as depicted in Star Trek history have been moved from the 21st Century to the 23rd and this war’s continuation in now being depicted in Strange New World’s? It could have been a war that became a galactic affair? Surely eugenics would not stop on Earth? Hopefully it did though? Still too much of it going on from what I have seen though, even in the 24th century… maybe people just won’t stop until they turn themselves in to augmented Gary Mitchel type beings?
My favourite character so far on Strange New Worlds is definitely M’Benga, but tonight I found out something really unprofessional about him, yet understandable. He has a daughter with a terminal condition who he has secretly put in to a transporter buffer on the Enterprise, just like when Scotty put himself in to the transporter buffere on the Jenolan in that TNG episode with the Dysons Sphere. I’m not quite sure how this will resolve as the series progresses, but I hope that M’Benga finds a permanent solution which benefits his daughter. I do think that he needs to inform his superior officers about this though, he is betraying their trust. I believe that if Pike knew about Rukiya(sp) he would do his best to help out, so M’Benga needs to tell Pike so that his daughter gets the best help that she can get, not just what he himself thinks which gives him ulterior intentions for being in the position that he is in which could be detrimental to the rest of the ship and crew.
The strawberries in this episode were also quite suspicious, they seemed over sized and too perfect. The crew seemed to enjoy them too much… hmmmm.
I am a massive timeline nerd, I love piecing it all together, but I have to look DSC up on MA all the time because my mind just does not want to accept that the first two seasons of Disco span three calendar years, 2256 through 2258. (So we started that series 2 years post-"Cage" and 10 years pre-"Man Trap")
Berman Trek really beat it into me that one season is one calendar year. ONE!
Here, I'll go one step further: because stardates always went up by 1000 a season (even in DS9, despite the time-dilation explanation for TNG and the 1-stardate-per-day original plan), I decided that the standard UFP calendar has 333 days in a year, and 1 stardate per "shift" for starfleet officers (of 10 hours each, making the 0.1 stardate 1 hour). Hence 999 per year, with a leap day every 3 years to round it up. Makes it easy to calculate how many days and years between two stardates.
It's just the fact they use standard hours on the show that screws with my plan.
So if the Illyrians so badly wanted to join the Federation, I guess they forgave Archer for stealing the warp coils off of one of their ships.
I was waiting for the Enterprise to try to save those energy-based Illyrians and restore them to their humanoid form. But that's not really a hallmark of TOS Era stories is it? Enterprise shows up, gets in trouble, solves their current problem, and then they leave.
"I wanna know more about the comet."
"No."
Are they gonna try to save the colonists?"
"Too bad."
No I mean that she ended up in the transporter. That was the accident I thought I heard him say. Not the disease part. That somehow her ending up in the buffer was not intentional but ended up being fortuitous. I probably misheard but wondered if anyone else heard it too. Sorry should have been more clear.
Sure it does. They specifically made it so it fit in the timeline of ENT (the only part of the Prime timeline that it has in common with the Kelvin one). The Warp 5 development project took a LONG time. It stands to reason that they reached it in stages. We saw part of that in one episode set in the past. I have no issue with the Franklin being the Warp 4 ship (it's also very small).