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Spoilers Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1x03 - "Ghosts of Illyria"

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Kirk's exact words in the episode were "a product of controlled genetics," which can easily mean either. Selective breeding or gene manipulation. So it still covers all the bases.
Why couldn't it have been both?

Select the specific "desirable" candidates for procreation, then further modify the fetus genetically.

Hell, Khan and his ilk might have all possibly been test-tube babies.
 
This was good stuff. I especially liked the way both Pike and Number One found out about other people's secrets, and stood up for them. And, the fate of the Illyrian colonists was very poignant. And the Doctor's little girl had no right being so adorable.
 
Well, mediocre episode. Not searingly horrid like Picard but mediocre. Disease of the week meets Julian Bashir. Number One is now Wonder Woman. Hope they will be taking fan scripts like TNG because that REALLY improved things.
What on earth was Uhura wearing to bed?
Liked that Chapel uses those degrees and PhD finally to solve the problem. I assume she has a PhD. Why else would Korby employ her?
The bridge sets and all the sets are stunning. I watch those Chinese Emperor mini series that go on for 3,000 episodes in subtitles just to see the costumes and sets.


stsnw103.jpg


58 years from pilot to series, and the wait was worth it. Strange New Worlds is doing well with the audience and even better with critics. It's old and familiar with a lot that's fresh and new. A new look, a fresh new take on familiar characters and a popular lead. And what about Captain Pike anyway? He's a man who knows that he'll end up without the use of his body and in a chair. And it's all being done with a good dose of sci fi. Trek has always been socially relevant and this is another big issue that we'll get to see play out, so this show goes out to all those in a similar situation.

For now though, we'll be moving on to another character that's taken on a mysterious quality. The infamous Number One. Who is she? She now has a name, but what's the deal with her? If sightings are to be believed, she's been on 20th-century earth with Gary Seven and she's Robin Lefler's mother. Or maybe that's all hearsay and we'll get something closer to the truth with this episode.

Light it up!

"The U.S.S. Enterprise encounters a contagion that ravages the ship. One by one, the entire crew is incapacitated except for Number One, Una Chin-Riley, who must now confront a secret she’s been hiding as she races to find a cure." - TrekMovie.com



stsnw103.jpg


58 years from pilot to series, and the wait was worth it. Strange New Worlds is doing well with the audience and even better with critics. It's old and familiar with a lot that's fresh and new. A new look, a fresh new take on familiar characters and a popular lead. And what about Captain Pike anyway? He's a man who knows that he'll end up without the use of his body and in a chair. And it's all being done with a good dose of sci fi. Trek has always been socially relevant and this is another big issue that we'll get to see play out, so this show goes out to all those in a similar situation.

For now though, we'll be moving on to another character that's taken on a mysterious quality. The infamous Number One. Who is she? She now has a name, but what's the deal with her? If sightings are to be believed, she's been on 20th-century earth with Gary Seven and she's Robin Lefler's mother. Or maybe that's all hearsay and we'll get something closer to the truth with this episode.

Light it up!

"The U.S.S. Enterprise encounters a contagion that ravages the ship. One by one, the entire crew is incapacitated except for Number One, Una Chin-Riley, who must now confront a secret she’s been hiding as she races to find a cure." - TrekMovie.com

 
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 dunno. I'm not entirely convinced that the Illyrians from ENT...

52087021978_cd1f41760b_z.jpg


... have similar-enough cranial ridges to the Illyrian kid seen in the Starfleet database image in SNW...

52087244539_d4f7f709f6_c.jpg


... to assume that they must be the same species.

They could be the same species. I think that's a valid interpretation. But I think the evidence is inconclusive and it's just as legitimate to interpret them as separate species with similar names.

So, I guess that communicates Una is intended to be an alien, not from a human colony that goes by the name Illyrian.

Personally, I think the ENT Illyrians are a separate species with a similar name, and that the SNW Illyrians are a nation of Human Augments who emigrated from Earth some time between First Contact and the launch of the NX-01.

I speculate this for a couple of reasons:

1) It makes it easier to believe that Una could pass a genetic scan as Human if Illyrians are just modified Humans.

2) It's more interesting to me if Illyrians are Humans with a profoundly different culture than Humans in the UFP/U.E.

3) La'an calls Una an "Augment," which doesn't make any sense outside of the context of Human history with genetic engineering.

4) There is a potential inconsistency if the SNW Illyrians are aliens. We know from ENT S4 that Denobulans routinely use genetic engineering, yet there is no indication whatsoever that Earthers, Vulcans, Andorians, or Tellarites have any prejudices against Denobulans for that. So why would those same cultures have such a profound prejudice against Illyrians but not Denobulans? It makes more sense that there would be a sense of anger and betrayal and resentment if the Illyrians were Humans who rejected Earth's anti-genetic engineering values.

Edited to add: Admittedly the weakness in my interpretation that they're separate species is the presence of what looks like fictitious alien script on the okudagram, but I weigh the reasons I listed higher than that. End edit.

Did anyone else tense up at M'Benga's bedtime story at the end, where he's talking about a dark object that has the power to conquer the whole storybook land, or whatever?

Felt like foreshadowing for a Discovery-style "all sentient life in the universe" threat! I swear I have PTSD from the relentlessly absurd stakes on the other live action shows. Don't start alluding to big looming galaxy-ending threats in your third episode, SNW! I had such a strong "YOU PROMISED ME EPISODIC! EPISODIC!!!!!" reaction. :bolian::biggrin:

I mean, if SNW is using the Doctor Who-style season structure, what will probably happen is that semi-serialized recurring background elements/B-plots will come together and comprise the A-plot of the season finale. So for instance, Doctor Who season 2 had a bunch of episodic, standalone stories where a mysterious organization called "Torchwood" operated in the background until suddenly we saw Torchwood driving the A-plot of the last two episodes of the season. Whedon and co. used a similar structure on Buffy the Vampire Slayer -- for example, the Mayor is a recurring B-plot antagonist in a bunch of episodic stories at the start of S3, but he gradually takes over and then becomes the A-plot antagonist by the last two episodes of the season.

If SNW follows that pattern, then its episodes will stay episodic, but a recurring background element will take over in 1x09/1x10.
 
Well of course, other time travel events in Trek, such as in First Contact, have also made their mark, but Nero's change, specifically, didn't affect the past of where he ended up in the timeline. I don't see how it could be retroactive, so I'd like you to explain. I mean, the changes made in the past stay there. Otherwise ANY change would create a time loop or paradox. Avengers Endgame kind of made a lot of sense in that respect.

I've got this. Normally when we see time travel, the characters go to great lengths to minimize/fix their impact. Sometimes they are even part of a predestination paradox. In this case however, the impact of the time travel was immediate and large, no smoothing it over. But there is another key bit to understand. We didn't watch the "first time" Nero came through. The first time, he would have encountered proper TOS style ships. Then as the changed timeline unfolds into the future different time travel events to the past take place. So when the new timeline makes it to the 24th century, and Nero-A goes back he encounters different ships than Nero-Prime. This happens over and over until the timeline stabilizes, which in this case would happen when Nero in the Future either doesn't go back in time or his presence doesn't change any later time travel events. What we are watching in the movie is Nero-J (or something) coming out of the rift into Universe-K.

The idea that selective breeding would result in superhuman abilities by less than 30 years after the show began was ludicrous. I also note that in that TOS episode the Eugenics War and WW3 were one and the same.

Khan would have already been born when the Episode aired, the project would have been started back in the 1800s at the latest, most likely, when those ideas were mainstream.
 
Also, another potential problem with the idea that Una is an alien is that it's inconsistent with the plot of "The Cage." The Talosians wanted Pike to sire children with a Human woman and identify Una, Colt, and Vina as Human women. If Una were an alien, 1) they would have known about it from scanning her mind and probably remarked upon it, and 2) they would not have sought to have Pike sire children with her.

Obviously there's some level of suspension of disbelief here, but I find it easier to buy that the Talosians did not consider Una's status as a Human Augment important enough to remark upon than I would the idea that the Talosians would not have found her status as a non-Human important enough to remark upon.
 
She's human. Being Illyrian is no more an ironclad species classification than "humanoid" based on what we've seen so far.
 
I dunno. I'm not entirely convinced that the Illyrians from ENT...

52087021978_cd1f41760b_z.jpg


... have similar-enough cranial ridges to the Illyrian kid seen in the Starfleet database image in SNW...

52087244539_d4f7f709f6_c.jpg


... to assume that they must be the same species.

They could be the same species. I think that's a valid interpretation. But I think the evidence is inconclusive and it's just as legitimate to interpret them as separate species with similar names.



Personally, I think the ENT Illyrians are a separate species with a similar name, and that the SNW Illyrians are a nation of Human Augments who emigrated from Earth some time between First Contact and the launch of the NX-01.

I speculate this for a couple of reasons:

1) It makes it easier to believe that Una could pass a genetic scan as Human if Illyrians are just modified Humans.

2) It's more interesting to me if Illyrians are Humans with a profoundly different culture than Humans in the UFP/U.E.

3) La'an calls Una an "Augment," which doesn't make any sense outside of the context of Human history with genetic engineering.

4) There is a potential inconsistency if the SNW Illyrians are aliens. We know from ENT S4 that Denobulans routinely use genetic engineering, yet there is no indication whatsoever that Earthers, Vulcans, Andorians, or Tellarites have any prejudices against Denobulans for that. So why would those same cultures have such a profound prejudice against Illyrians but not Denobulans? It makes more sense that there would be a sense of anger and betrayal and resentment if the Illyrians were Humans who rejected Earth's anti-genetic engineering values.

Edited to add: Admittedly the weakness in my interpretation that they're separate species is the presence of what looks like fictitious alien script on the okudagram, but I weigh the reasons I listed higher than that. End edit.



I mean, if SNW is using the Doctor Who-style season structure, what will probably happen is that semi-serialized recurring background elements/B-plots will come together and comprise the A-plot of the season finale. So for instance, Doctor Who season 2 had a bunch of episodic, standalone stories where a mysterious organization called "Torchwood" operated in the background until suddenly we saw Torchwood driving the A-plot of the last two episodes of the season. Whedon and co. used a similar structure on Buffy the Vampire Slayer -- for example, the Mayor is a recurring B-plot antagonist in a bunch of episodic stories at the start of S3, but he gradually takes over and then becomes the A-plot antagonist by the last two episodes of the season.

If SNW follows that pattern, then its episodes will stay episodic, but a recurring background element will take over in 1x09/1x10.

They began as the same species, but they engineered themselves to survive on different planets. Not sure where cranial ridges fit into all that. Maybe an after effect of changes to internal systems like sinuses?
 
They began as the same species, but they engineered themselves to survive on different planets. Not sure where cranial ridges fit into all that. Maybe an after effect of changes to internal systems like sinuses?

That is a perfectly legitimate interpretation of ambiguous canonical evidence, but I don't share it for the reasons I outlined above.
 
Excited to see M'Benga's arc continue. Perhaps he leaves Enterprise briefly to save his daughter and we see a glimpse of Boyce, who knows.

Shouldn't happen. "The Cage" (with Doctor/Bartender Boyce) happened three years previous to SNW. Boyce was either transferred off of Enterprise, KIA, or retired. After M"Benga leaves, Dr Piper should come on then McCoy.
 
The former. Maybe before they settled on Spock's own makeup, since there are similarities.
That's not what the description there says. birdofthegalaxy says there:

I believe this clip shows Majel Barrett in a makeup test wearing the green that would be applied to Susan Oliver for her role in the Orion dancer illusion sequence. Sadly, this shot in black and white does not give us the full impression, but the underground Cage walls and texture along with some references I have seen in books and miscellanesous sites leads me to believe that this shot would show us a green Majel in color! A piece of first pilot history and by the looks of it some fun at the time as well.​

For decades, it's been an oft recounted story that Majel was photographed multiple times wearing green makeup intended for the Orion slave girl in order to camera test it, and that the film kept getting "fixed" by the film processor, who wasn't told she was supposed to be green, so that she wouldn't look so green. How true that tale is I don't know, but given what the description says, how do we know that what's shown is not an early version of the Orion makeup that it's just Majel screen testing?

I think that test was for the Orions. The source in the infamous color correction incident.
You always manage to use fewer words. :techman:
 
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