Spoilers Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1x06 - "Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach"

[JLBTucker]

I wonder if the inspiration for this episode was Bioshock Infinite.

Its like if bioshock infante took place in Victorian empire era India

 

[IMC Headquarters]

Ascension??? More like descent into Hell. "The Cloud Winders".

An interesting contrast presented here. Paradise above and Hades below, with lava and corrosive acid to fall into.

I suspect no amount of whisky will wash away the slime poor Captain Pike is feeling right now.

I wonder if the Child will find a way to communicate across the stars with M'Benga's daughter? Something tells me this story isn't over.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Ascension??? More like descent into Hell. "The Cloud Winders".

An interesting contrast presented here. Paradise above and Hades below, with lava and corrosive acid to fall into.

I suspect no amount of whisky will wash away the slime poor Captain Pike is feeling right now.

I wonder if the Child will find a way to communicate across the stars with M'Benga's daughter? Something tells me this story isn't over.

It would be a nice callback, if not any kind of arc per se.


This was another 10 for me. Powerful story, 100% Star Trek, but also you don't always get a happy ending with everyone laughing on the bridge. A shame there's only 4 more episodes. This show is really making me miss 24 episode seasons.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

It was nice to see Indian Retro Future Architecture displayed in their culture.

 

[JLBTucker]

It was nice to see Indian Retro Future Architecture displayed in their culture.

yeah it kind of reminds me of Victorian era india with its mix of clothing styles

 

[Belz...]

The ones who don't want to live on Majalis live on Prospect VII. This civilization has warp travel, just not any weapon capable of causing damage to a Federation starship.

As stated in the episode that colony is barely liveable. Having warp drive doesn't mean you have the capacity to evacuate potentially billions of people at a moment's notice.

 

[1987SpaceGuy]

First SNW epsiode where I didn't like the story at all, even aside the horrific fate for the kid. Grim.
(the kid actor btw. was in the Expanse Season 6, which was also filmed in Toronto btw.)
Felt for the both doctor Dads.
Liked the Laan/Uhura story

I wonder if the Child will find a way to communicate across the stars with M'Benga's daughter? Something tells me this story isn't over.

Hope both Doctor Dad's can help save/rescue their kids.

 

[eschaton]

My least favorite episode of the season so far, though it's still fine. If you know about the Ursula K. LeGuin short story The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, most of the enjoyment vanishes, because you realize it's not an original sci-fi concept at all, but just a well-executed derivative.

We're now six episodes in, and this is the first episode which is constructed around plot, rather than character. I guess you could call it a Pike episode since he gets a (somewhat tepid) "romance of the week" and all. But he doesn't really end the episode in a particularly different place than he began it. It's hard to see how the ramifications of this episode really will impact his character arc, and I don't think who he is (versus say Kirk, or Picard, or Sisko, etc.) really impacted how things played out. The only member of the cast that may have their trajectory impacted by this is M'Benga, who has a hint of a cure for his daughter.

Since this is a plot-focused episode, and not a character-focused episode, it feels more like an episode of "generic Trek" than the five that came before, which had more of their own unique SNW spin on things. It's well done, but the basic structure could just as easily been an episode of TOS or any Berman Trek series, with only minor differences in dialogue since different characters were uncovering the central mystery.

This sounds overly negative, but it's only because the bar was set so high by the first half of the season, and this just comes across as a filler episode, when I was hoping they would continue to build depth to the main cast, providing focus to someone who has yet to have their own episode like Ortegas. Better luck next week I suppose.

 

[farbeyondthestars]

the kid actor btw. was in the Expanse Season 6

He'll be fine, the dogs will fix him.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

I was hoping they would continue to build depth to the main cast, providing focus to someone who has yet to have their own episode like Ortegas. Better luck next week I suppose.

I saw a clip for next week. And without spoiling too much (you can go seek it out yourself if you like), it looks like we'll get some decent spaceship action. So chances for featuring Ortegas more heavily are not too bad?

 

[Yistaan]

C'mon Pike you're so 23rd century. The Federation would totally go for this in a hundred years. Admiral Dougherty probably was setting up a bunch of torture machine powering healing worlds and an army of children to be forced into them before Ru'afo killed him.

Alora goes into detail how Pike can only be cured from his future by joining them and becoming one of them or something. Maybe DNA alteration is involved. It's presumably why M'Benga doesn't just go "You know what, I don't like kid suffering but what's done is done so I'll beam down for a few days to cure Rukiya and then be on our way"

 

[David cgc]

It was OK. The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas with a twist.

I certainly hope Ursula K. LeGuin's estate got a fruit basket or something. It's a pretty stunningly direct adaptation.

 

[137th Gebirg]

What kind of sick person does the calculation and say, we'll sacrifice the mind, and eventual body of a child by using their brain matter as a special Neural Computer to run calculations to keep your Society floating above Lava?

Transhumanists would totally do that.

 

[Yistaan]

The timeline for Pike's career is mucked up a bit. Per this episode he was a lieutenant in 2249. It's already established he became captain of the Enterprise in 2250. Even if Alora was using shorthand for a rank of lieutenant commander, that still means Pike jumped 2 ranks in the course of 1 year. That must've been quite a year for his career.

The predecessors who built this setup might be the Borg or Borg related.

 

[Jedman67]

But what I'm curious about is WHY on earth would the machine need the brain of a child?

What's so special about the child's mind & their machine needing it.

That machine that runs their planet needs to use the Neural Network of a a chosen child that is super smart? Why would you design that kind of requirement into your computer system?

What kind of sick person does the calculation and say, we'll sacrifice the mind, and eventual body of a child by using their brain matter as a special Neural Computer to run calculations to keep your Society floating above Lava?

Shades of Enders Game. What they did to Ender is objectively child abuse; but they decided that it was necessary to sacrifice a few children in order to save the world.
It's also a very direct comparison to today, when we have a variety of problems with society that hurt children more (gun control, foster care, SNAP, etc) that society is unwilling to fix.

It was nice to see Indian Retro Future Architecture displayed in their culture.

I can't be sure but I thought it looked a little like the Trill homeworld in Discovery.

 

[DaveyNY]

This episode couldn't be more like a TOS one unless it had been aired in the 60's with all the accoutrements associated with that era.
10

Now-a-days, it's not very often that a TV episode makes one stop and seriously consider the times one lives in.

This episode does that in spades.

 

[eschaton]

Again guys, this is explicitly a ripoff of The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.

The only chronological element of the work is that it begins by describing the first day of summer in Omelas, a shimmering city of unbelievable happiness and delight. In Omelas, the summer solstice is celebrated with a glorious festival and a race featuring young people on horseback. The vibrant festival atmosphere, however, seems to be an everyday characteristic of the blissful community, whose citizens, though limited in their advanced technology and communal (rather than private) resources, are still intelligent, sophisticated, and cultured. Omelas has no kings, soldiers, priests, or slaves. The specific socio-politico-economic setup of the community is not mentioned; the narrator merely claims not to be sure of every particular.

The narrator reflects that "Omelas sounds in my words like a city in a fairy tale, long ago and far away, once upon a time. Perhaps it would be best if you imagined it as your own fancy bids, assuming it will rise to the occasion, for certainly I cannot suit you all." Everything about Omelas is so abundantly pleasing that the narrator decides the reader is not yet truly convinced of its existence and so elaborates upon the final element of the city: its one atrocity. The city's constant state of serenity and splendor requires that a single unfortunate child be kept in perpetual filth, darkness, and misery.

Once citizens are old enough to know the truth, most, though initially shocked and disgusted, ultimately acquiesce to this one injustice that secures the happiness of the rest of the city. However, some citizens, young and old, walk away from the city after seeing the child. Each is alone, and no one knows where they go, but none come back. The story ends with "The place they go towards is a place even less imaginable to most of us than the city of happiness. I cannot describe it at all. It is possible it does not exist. But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas."

This is the reason I cannot really enjoy the episode. I absolutely know that's where they got the idea of an idyllic, utopian society built entirely on the suffering of one child.

Discovery's third season was supposedly also based upon this short story, but the use of Su'Kal was much more oblique - not directly lifted.

 

[Yistaan]

Again guys, this is explicitly a ripoff of The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.


This is the reason I cannot really enjoy the episode. I absolutely know that's where they got the idea of an idyllic, utopian society built entirely on the suffering of one child.

Discovery's third season was supposedly also based upon this short story, but the use of Su'Kal was much more oblique - not directly lifted.

Trek does this. Enterprise's Marauders was also a rip off of Seven Samurai.

I wonder if Le Guin's estate would bother though at this point. They'll probably never win a complaint against CBS. She didn't do so well fighting with filmed productions even when she was alive, as the Earthsea live action miniseries literally shoved her aside and actively disregarded her input, and the anime also more or less did their own thing albeit on friendlier terms with her.

 

[Jedi Marso]

Also they should've just gone all the way with the horror vibe by adding one extra scene--

Alora: My night of passion with Chris will result in a child. Our new First Servant has arrived.

You are so wicked. That twist would have been awesome.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

Again guys, this is explicitly a ripoff of The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.


This is the reason I cannot really enjoy the episode. I absolutely know that's where they got the idea of an idyllic, utopian society built entirely on the suffering of one child.

Discovery's third season was supposedly also based upon this short story, but the use of Su'Kal was much more oblique - not directly lifted.

Doctor Who: The Beast Below also comes to mind with this specific plot. And Stargate SG1 did it once. The point is not, if someone has done this one way or the other, because it always has been done before. It's about how the characters deal with it and how it is presented.