Spoilers Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1x10 - "A Quality of Mercy"

[cooleddie74]

The Franklin jumpsuits may be the first Federation Starfleet duty uniforms. Those date from 2164 so the new Starfleet definitely reorganized how crews dress within the first three years after the Charter signing.

 

[Sci]

The Franklin jumpsuits may be the first Federation Starfleet duty uniforms. Those date from 2164 so the new Starfleet definitely reorganized how crews dress within the first three years after the Charter signing.

Yeah, the Franklin duds are definitely the earliest uniform we ever see for the Federation Starfleet. (Author Christopher L. Bennett put together a conjectural design for the earliest Federation Starfleet uniforms on his annotations page for his 2013 Rise of the Federation novel A Choice of Futures, and it's surprisingly close to what the production crew of Star Trek Beyond came up with three years later.)

 

[Norsehound]

Yeah...the BoP went from praetor's finest to one of the fleet pipsqueaks. BTW, that flagship is butt fugly IMHO. I'd prefer it to be a big decoy drone while the Praetor hides safely on one of those wabirds(?) with the big vertical beak - now THOSE look like rommy ships appropriate to the era.
Wish list scenario: ram that flagship with one of those funky Farragut types, preferably while in close proximity to the JJprise and all those canon kitbashes on my hit list (+ maybe the Bonaventure from TAS) A simultaneous warp core breach and quantum singularity collapse could do a lot of house cleaning.

Yeah something's been lost about the uniqueness of the BoP ever since BoT aired. I just understood that these BoPs were the only ships in the Romulan fleet that could cloak.

Trek makes enemy ships cloak at the drop of a hat, but i sincerely hope this Romulan fleet cannot cloak. It's nicer to presume each of these honking battlecruisers are lesser than a BoP because they lack the heavy plasma and the ability to cloak

 

[fireproof78]

Yeah, the Franklin duds are definitely the earliest uniform we ever see for the Federation Starfleet. (Author Christopher L. Bennett put together a conjectural design for the earliest Federation Starfleet uniforms on his annotations page for his 2013 Rise of the Federation novel A Choice of Futures, and it's surprisingly close to what the production crew of Star Trek Beyond came up with three years later.)

Still one of my favorite designs from the novel universe.

 

[Nyotarules]

I am rewatching this episode, and on rewatching Pike's approach was wrong from the beginning. The Romulan actions had started a war, Pike was reluctant to admit this. The writing made him too soft for the plot. Ortegas, Kirk and Spock was right, voting against war made no sense, the war had already begun.

 

[blssdwlf]

I am rewatching this episode, and on rewatching Pike's approach was wrong from the beginning. The Romulan actions had started a war, Pike was reluctant to admit this. The writing made him too soft for the plot. Ortegas, Kirk and Spock was right, voting against war made no sense, the war had already begun.

Let's say Ortegas, Kirk and Spock were correct in wanting to blast the Romulans... Kirk got the Farragut destroyed and Pike's Enterprise's weapons damaged in the comet battle. The Enterprise had no way to attack the Romulan afterwards and even with a 2 hour cease-fire, their weapons were not repaired. The Bird-of-Prey was going to make it across the neutral zone before the Enterprise could repair her weapons.

What options did Pike actually have after comet battle?

And if it really came down to it, should the Enterprise tried to ram the Bird of Prey? Or should Kirk have sent all the automated freighters as suicide ships into the Romulan fleet instead of just using them to block shots?

 

[TimeIsAPredator]

I am rewatching this episode, and on rewatching Pike's approach was wrong from the beginning. The Romulan actions had started a war, Pike was reluctant to admit this. The writing made him too soft for the plot. Ortegas, Kirk and Spock was right, voting against war made no sense, the war had already begun.

But in Balance of Terror the war had also begun to the same degree but Kirk stopped it with his actions. History is full of such skirmishes that get resolved diplomatically.

 

[IMC Headquarters]

CAPTAIN J.T. ESTEBAN: Advise Starfleet we've detected a cloaked Klingon Bird of Prey about to incinerate us. Initiate full tactical defenses!





CAPTAIN PIKE: J.T.? Before you send that transmission to Starfleet, maybe you ought to think about the consequences.



CAPTAIN J.T. ESTEBAN: Now hold your horses Chris! If you think I'm going to let my crew get blown to smithereens by some Klingon Fu Manchu, you've got another think coming. And what are you doing on my ship? Thanks to you we don't have holographic comms anymore.



PIKE: Well, let's just say I'm here to right a wrong. If you do collect Spock's remains from the Genesis Planet before you get blown to smithereens, then all of us are going to suffer the worst future imaginable.



CAPTAIN J.T. ESTEBAN: What horseshit do you mean by that?



PIKE: Spock's importance in the survival of the Federation is a story rich in the details. It would take too long to go into it here. But he's invaluable in saving Earth from a destructive alien probe, a war with the Klingons, a malevolently powerful alien entity, and a host of other things I can't begin to describe.



CAPTAIN J.T. ESTEBAN: Well whoopdeedoo! Go Spock! Half-Vulcan savior of the future! Yeah. I don't give a shit. I'm saving my crew.




PIKE: J.T.? That's a really bad idea. I knew you were going to say that. So while we've been chatting, I've had Hemmer's ghost deactivate your shields. I'm sorry, Captain Esteban. Where I come from, everyone thinks you're an idiot. It's better this way, believe me.




CAPTAIN J.T. ESTEBAN: I was just following the playbook!







SPOCK: Fascinating.

 

[Mr Awe]

But in Balance of Terror the war had also begun to the same degree but Kirk stopped it with his actions. History is full of such skirmishes that get resolved diplomatically.

The Romulans only listen to strength. Kirk showed it. Pike didn't. There was no diplomacy in Balance of Terror.

 

[Mr Awe]

I am rewatching this episode, and on rewatching Pike's approach was wrong from the beginning. The Romulan actions had started a war, Pike was reluctant to admit this. The writing made him too soft for the plot. Ortegas, Kirk and Spock was right, voting against war made no sense, the war had already begun.

When I rewatched it, it really stood out how he was scoffing at the idea of a Romulan threat from the beginning, during his breakfast with Batel. That lack of an appropriate level of distrust really carries through the entire episode.

 

[blssdwlf]

The Romulans only listen to strength. Kirk showed it. Pike didn't. There was no diplomacy in Balance of Terror.

It helps when your ship has working phasers to show that strength

 

[UssGlenn]

Honestly the current situation works much better for me, though. In my headcanon Starfleet has a number of active designs and commanding officers can decide which ones approve for their command. This explains pike switching to the blue ones while on the discovery, sisko reverting to the TNG ones while on earth, the Titan still having the grey-shouldered ones and so on.
Of course at a certain point a design *is* retired, explaining why we never see early tng jumpsuit in late 24th century and even what was going on in Generations (the TNG uniforms were being retired and they went for the DS9 ones).

Continuing the multiple uniforms discussion, we do of course already have the example of TNG using their S3-7 uniforms at the same time DS9 was using their S1-5 uniforms -- and GEN featured the Enterprise crew using both interchangeably. DS9 "Homefront"/"Paradise Lost" later made it clear that the TNG S3-7 uniforms were still being used alongside DS9/VOY-style uniforms years after TNG ended. And it was either DS9 "Tears of the Prophets" or "What You Leave Behind, Part II" that featured TNG S3-7 uniforms being used alongside the FC-style uniforms during DS9 S6-7. So there's a lot of canonical precedent for multiple uniform designs being in service simultaneously (much as I might prefer it if it was just one design at a time).

Starfleet having Class A and Class B uniforms, and Captains having some latitude with which one they use, fits nearly perfectly with what we see onscreen. Often the Class A will become the Class B when the next Class A is introduced (but not always). I've been toying with the idea of making a chart for a while.

 

[BigJake]

This could have been a great character piece contrasting Kirk and Pike, but I think the rest of the episode and what they wanted to do here got in the way.

The biggest problem, I feel, is that the character contrast they were trying to set up simply does not ring true. We've seen Pike out-think and out-maneuver tactically superior foes and unleash hell without hesitation against the enemy in space battles on two different shows, now. The "mistake" the episode forces him into feels... well, forced. And the resulting lecture from Kirk would've felt unearned even coming from an actor who could remotely match Mount's charisma (and I'm sorry he's getting so much flak, but let's face it, Paul Wesley is just not that guy).

I can't think of a way to fix this episode, really. I would have loved to love it, a "Balance of Terror" what-if looks on paper like it would be right up my alley, but there are just too many pieces here that don't fit, too many elements that don't land. As regards everything from story and heart to character studies and thrilling space battle tactics, "Memento Mori" has this outing beat by a mile for my money. (Admittedly this is also partly because I am not wild about SNW dwelling repeatedly on Pike's Impending Doom, much less about a storyline that's totally driven by it.)

I gave it a 7/10, the lowest I've given a SNW episode.

Yeah, it was a 5/10 for me.

 

[blssdwlf]

The biggest problem, I feel, is that the character contrast they were trying to set up simply does not ring true. We've seen Pike out-think and out-maneuver tactically superior foes and unleash hell without hesitation against the enemy in space battles on two different shows, now. The "mistake" the episode forces him into feels... well, forced. And the resulting lecture from Kirk would've felt unearned even coming from an actor who could remotely match Mount's charisma (and I'm sorry he's getting so much flak, but let's face it, Paul Wesley is just not that guy).

I can't think of a way to fix this episode, really. I would have loved to love it, a "Balance of Terror" what-if looks on paper like it would be right up my alley, but there are just too many pieces here that don't fit, too many elements that don't land. As regards everything from story and heart to character studies and thrilling space battle tactics, "Memento Mori" has this outing beat by a mile for my money. (Admittedly this is also partly because I am not wild about SNW dwelling repeatedly on Pike's Impending Doom, much less about a storyline that's totally driven by it.)

I'm firmly in the "Pike made no tactical mistake" camp and that many are taking Kirk's dialogue blaming Pike for the fail without questioning it. Kirk is the one that goofed it was not cool for him to divert the blame onto Pike. IMHO. I agree that "Memento Mori" is a better space battle episode than "A Quality of Mercy".

 

[Noname Given]

The biggest problem, I feel, is that the character contrast they were trying to set up simply does not ring true. We've seen Pike out-think and out-maneuver tactically superior foes and unleash hell without hesitation against the enemy in space battles on two different shows, now. The "mistake" the episode forces him into feels... well, forced. And the resulting lecture from Kirk would've felt unearned even coming from an actor who could remotely match Mount's charisma (and I'm sorry he's getting so much flak, but let's face it, Paul Wesley is just not that guy).

I can't think of a way to fix this episode, really. I would have loved to love it, a "Balance of Terror" what-if looks on paper like it would be right up my alley, but there are just too many pieces here that don't fit, too many elements that don't land. As regards everything from story and heart to character studies and thrilling space battle tactics, "Memento Mori" has this outing beat by a mile for my money. (Admittedly this is also partly because I am not wild about SNW dwelling repeatedly on Pike's Impending Doom, much less about a storyline that's totally driven by it.)



Yeah, it was a 5/10 for me.

Pike always seems to favor diplomacy first. In the episodes with the Gorn where he went full out into combat was because his tactical officer La'an have first-hand knowledge of Gorn tactics, and was able to quickly convince Pike that diplomacy would not work with the Gorn. They just saw us as prey, food, breeding receptacles.

Pike had no such first-hand knowledge of the current Romulan Empire. Me figured that since the war was ended 100 years previously by a negotiated treaty, diplomacy would be a viable option with the Romulans, and if that failed he could always fall back on an armed response as again, 100 years previously, the Federation fought the romulans to a standstill and they may have even brought the Romulans to defeat, but the actual situations that brought the Romulans to the negotiation table and ended the war has never been articulated on-screen in Star Trek.

Pike has never been one to use weapons first unless he sees absolutely no other option.

 

[Tuskin38]

Kirk's service record in 4k
https://twitter.com/gaghyogi49/status/1547311149292539905
https://twitter.com/gaghyogi49/status/1547306116094181376

Also the Pike and April picture. They have badges that look like TOS deltas

https://twitter.com/gaghyogi49/status/1547294800545779714

 

[Mudd]

I'm firmly in the "Pike made no tactical mistake" camp and that many are taking Kirk's dialogue blaming Pike for the fail without questioning it. Kirk is the one that goofed it was not cool for him to divert the blame onto Pike.

Yeah, Kirk didn't acquit himself terribly well, here, and the writers put him in the weird position of being a dick for no reason during his final scene with Pike. If you hadn't seen, or didn't know that Kirk wins the day in "Balance of Terror," you really couldn't infer it from his performance in "A Quality of Mercy."

 

[Ometiklan]

I'd presume it's a "special treatment" they give "Augments." But even how Burnham's prison experience looked in Ep2 of DSC looked out of place/tone for this future Earth/The Federation. You'd think for even theist severe cases even in the case of crimes in Starfleet imprisonment would be very sociable, livable and not something with aspects of cruelty.

Everything about how Discovery treated prisoners is wrong. It's basically one step away from the Mirror Universe. I think a lot of Discovery season 1 is a "gas leak" season in terms of Trek continuity (to borrow a phrase from "Community"). Also, the whole plot line involving Section 31 and Control in season 2.

...Deeper episodes with deeper thought provoking meaning. Season 1 played it too safe with simplistic story and usually the last 20 minutes of every episodes felt very rushed. Strange new worlds is no Expense or Stranger Things. It is comfort food for now.

While I disagree with much of your other comments, this part I agree with. I think that though this first season was very good, the writers were still getting their space legs. I hope and expect they will go deeper and more original with their stories in season 2 (and beyond).

 

[USS Belmont]

Sorry to be late to party (as always), just to nitpick here, Kirk says,”…pushed to Warp 9…” on the Farragut? Shouldn’t it be “pushed to Warp 7”?

 

[Noname Given]

Sorry to be late to party (as always), just to nitpick here, Kirk says,”…pushed to Warp 9…” on the Farragut? Shouldn’t it be “pushed to Warp 7”?

Possibly because the USS Farragut is a smaller ship, they can maintain a higher speed. But Warp 8 was the top emergency speed that the 1701 could Attain in season 1 of TOS (Kirk pushed it to that point in TOS S1 Arena.)