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Spoilers Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 2x02 - "Ad Astra Per Aspera"

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Number One sure goes for charged solutions to problems at hand. Turning herself in is right up there with setting a laser on self-destruct!

What will she do when the Gorn take over the ship at the end of the season? And you know that's coming! :lol:
 
Mr. Laser Beam said:
(side note: I wonder if the mother of Khan's kid(s) was Marla McGivers?)
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The Marla McGivers who, at this point in history, is probably doodling “Marla Bonaparte” in hearts in her history-class notebook, while Khan is frozen peacefully somewhere in the Mutara sector?

No, whatever wife, wives, or concubines resulted in him having a direct male-line descendent 250 years after he became missing, presumed dead, is someone we never heard of who is now long dead.
 
Whoopsies. I made a mental furball. My bad. :alienblush:

I guess I was just thinking of Khan's line in TWOK that McGivers was his "beloved wife". I didn't even think about the timing. :(

So if it WASN'T her, then I doubt it was his wife. Khan probably had his way with whatever women he wanted and they didn't even have a choice in the matter. Hell, Khan was probably LYING when he said he loved McGivers.
 
ToddCam said:
That was a pretty swell episode. Nice drama.

I have one issue. When Number One said that nonsense about how can she trust her counsel when he worked for her. I get her thinking, but it's kind of dismissive of the idea of public defenders, as if being part of a system makes one automatically corrupt. It's sovereign citizen stuff. I'm back in school at 45 to try and begin a career as such, and I hope I don't have to face that too often when trying to defend people.
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In a lot of cases, at least in the US, public defenders are often overwhelmed with case loads, and the fact that the public defender and prosecutor often work together and come to deals together, which is totally legal. Yeah, the future it may be far better, but this is an allegory for our current system.
 
I'm a little more lukewarm on this episode than most (8/10 was my rating). Courtroom ST doesn't excite me as it does others, but IDIC.

My main issues were the role of Captain Batel who went from arresting Una to prosecuting her. I think of a recent Steve Shives series of videos where he plays a Starfleet JAG officer complaining that captains always take the job of lawyers, despite not being fit for it. I apologize if I missed something, but I'm not sure why it had to be her, aside from the conflict it created between her and Pike (exacerbated, really, given her role in arresting Una). I think it would have been more interesting if Vulcan guy was the lead prosecutor.

My other issue was with the very nature of a prequel. While the writers have said they're not going to let canon chain them down, we knew from the offset that Una would be back (the trailers for season 2 made sure of that) and we knew Starfleet wouldn't overturn their views on eugenics and augments. While I did like the connections to today's social issues, it does sour me for two reasons: one that in the 23rd century we have not overcome this, just found new ways to justify it and two, the effects of this episode were meaningless in terms of societal change, given that we know 100 years into the future from this episode this law is still in effect. Makes me wish we could follow up with Bashir and see that his case was being used to argue for the lifting of this, if not outright abolishing it.

I definitely agree it was well acted. I do wonder if the conversation with Erica and M'Benga was meant to follow up on Erica's racist views from "A Quality of Mercy." I don't love that, but she seemed especially harsh and it felt like an attempt to justify her views in the alternate future where she was the ersatz Stiles. I do love that the scene subtly showed how M'Benga is an expert in Vulcans, given his role on TOS, specializing in Vulcan medicine.

The ending was cute, from Una's admonishing the crew for not being at their stations to Pike's hug/awkward slap on the back.

Anyone else really want a Stranger New Worlds show where we get to see Robert April as Captain of the Enterprise, because this episode made a hell of a case for it!

Tuskin38 said:
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I haven't seen her review yet, but Jessie did say on her Babylon 5 podcast this episode was the best of the lot and perhaps her vote for best of all time episodes.

Yistaan said:
How comes these lie detectors are never seen anywhere else again in Trek?

Gul Madred: What are the defense plans of Minas Korva?

Picard: I don't know!

Computer: Subject is telling the truth.

Gul Madred: :mad:
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What use would a Cardassian have for a lie detector test? Their legal system was based on guilty until proven innocent (though that part wasn't really important). I never viewed Madred as actually expecting to get answers out of Picard, I always thought it was about breaking Starfleet's preeminent captain. The details of the defense plans were irrelevant, really.

Captain Robau said:
I will admit that the one part of the episode that I had to suspend disbelief was that the Starfleet Uniform Code Of Justice was a book and not on a Padd. That took it from a 10 to a 9 :biggrin:
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Agreed! Especially with how books were treated in "Court Martial" as outdated and something only an eccentric like Samuel T. Cogley would use.
 
shivkala said:
My main issues were the role of Captain Batel who went from arresting Una to prosecuting her. I think of a recent Steve Shives series of videos where he plays a Starfleet JAG officer complaining that captains always take the job of lawyers, despite not being fit for it. I apologize if I missed something, but I'm not sure why it had to be her, aside from the conflict it created between her and Pike (exacerbated, really, given her role in arresting Una).
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No reason Batel couldn't be both a starship captain and a qualified attorney. :shrug:

As for why Batel was also the arresting officer, probably just dramatic lcense.

Edit: I would TOTALLY be up for a prequel episode with April in command.

(I wonder if they would rebuild the DSC version of the bridge...I liked it better anyway!)
 
Serveaux said:
Because it makes it possible for Star Trek writers to create drama and make cogent observations based in real human experience and emotion, instead of generating reassuring pablum that serves no better purpose than making viewers feel smart for watching and nodding along.

This business of "commenting by creating some other world where it's happening" and representing important problems through symbolism and analogy has become trite because our culture has moved on to deal more frankly with human nature in our popular entertainment - if the creators so choose. Two generations of Trek producers have used it as an excuse not to really engage problems directly. It's led to a lot of weak tea and storytelling misfires, things like "The Outcast" on TNG or the episode in Enterprise where they pretended to be standing up for human rights by having the Vulcans forbid mind-melding.

When TOS went to a place like the warring planets in "A Taste of Armageddon," Kirk at least had to come to grips with our own tendency to violence. "We're killers...with the blood of a thousand years of savagery on our hands..." or words to that effect when the Chancellor of Eminiar threw our shortcomings and failures back in his face.

Picard got to wag his finger at less-evolved civilizations because Earth, Starfleet and the Federation had become a Utopian fantasy. He got to tell people that if they worked real hard they could pull themselves up to his level.

Well, Starfleet and the Federation are our POV. They're "our people." And what Trek has successfully done is to other our weaknesses and mistakes. It's those benighted people over there who are the problem. Always.

SNW put a stop to that in its first episode, when instead of holding the Federation up as fundamentally better than the locals (which, TBH, he could have if the writers chose, since it is a pretty nifty place), Pike appealed to them by saying in essence, "Look, we fucked up big time and this can happen to you, too."

They reinforced that when Pike cannot defend the perfection of the Federation when put on the spot in the episode "Lift Us Up Where Suffering Cannot Reach."

And again, this week, in "Ad Astra Per Astera."

The 23rd century isn't better because people and institutions are perfect. It's better because it shows us still making an effort and making progress in the future, and our POV characters are idealists with integrity. You know, like many people now.

This is what Star Trek was like, once. Back when it energized and excited so many fans that it endured and its popularity actually grew even when it was in the entertainment industry's rear-view mirror and any revival was a long way from likely, much less an inevitability. And it's a quality that the franchise had largely lost in its Utopian wallow.

Ultimately, SNW is still way more conventional and middle-of-the-road and supportive of the status quo than it could be. But it's a lot better than what we've been getting, so it feels like a big deal.
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I certainly appreciate your well-reasoned response. I understand it and can see your points and do agree with a lot of them. I think it is a fine line though...if the Federation mirrors modern our modern late-capitalist neoliberal hellscape too closely it will be a bit jarring because it will take people out of the show, so to speak. Given our current structures, a UFP/Starfleet would be impossible. I have always enjoyed Trek for its imperfect but markedly better institutions. I don't want the crew of the ship to constantly be the rogues on the run from the man because only they know they right thing to do/have the courage to do it. Once in a while is fine! But if it's all the time I start to wonder, "if this culture and society are so dysfunctional and sclerotic, how can they manage to build and maintain a multi-species interstellar civilization?" I also don't want it to be too utopian, either, hence the fine line. A lot of this is definitional, of course...there's a big difference between imperfect but "making an effort and making progress," and nakedly corrupt/evil. It's the latter that is less interesting to me.
 
I'm a bit unclear on the findings of the court. The legal argument against Una included her submitting false information to Starfleet (lying on her application to Starfleet) and being a prohibited person in Starfleet (owing to her permanent DNA modification) plus two counts of sedition (I don't believe the two counts of sedition were ever identified). I think it's questionable that just because she sought and was granted asylum in accordance with Starfleet Code 8514 that she would be exonorated from Codes 614-617 plus the false submission charge (and possibly the two sedition charges although I don't know what they are). In what way does 8514 nullify the charges against her? She is undoubtedly guilty of submitting false information to Starfleet and breaching Codes 614-617 and should have been found guilty. The court ruled that an asylum seeker is exempt from the law. Have I interpreted this correctly because it doesn't seem right?

I would also question that Una actually sought asylum from Pike given that she had been in Starfleet for around 25 years at that point. What persecution was she fleeing at that time (season 1 episode 3)? I don't see how the legal argument of conspiracy made against Pike falls down. Even if Una was granted asylum by Pike (very questionable) he allowed her to continue to serve in Starfleet for several months and therefore most likely commited conspiracy.

Also, the lawyer referred to "Federation law" seemingly interchangably with the Starfleet Code. Are they the same? That seems odd.

Why would Una out herself when she must have known it would implicate Pike and possibly M'benga?

I gave this episode a 7 because I was desperate to like it after the abomination that was last week. More Pike and La'an acting like La'an again were definite plus points. But the more I think about this episode the weirder it seems. I could have done with more of the Vulcan prosecutor. I wonder if Pike was secretly hoping to be charged for conspiracy? In the season 1 ep 10 timeline, Una is in prison after around 7 years (indicating she never took the plea deal there too). Something different happened this time - Pike got the lawyer. Pike changed the future even though he was warned not to do that. Had Pike lost his command then he doesn't get his accident plus he's also not the captain during the Romulan incursion.
 
shivkala said:
Anyone else really want a Stranger New Worlds show where we get to see Robert April as Captain of the Enterprise, because this episode made a hell of a case for it!
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April is one of the best parts of SNW. I liked him in the first episode. I would welcome such a series. A prequel to the prequel, as it were.

Mr. Laser Beam said:
As for why Batel was also the arresting officer, probably just dramatic lcense.
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She was ordered, which officers can be, and had security personnel to back it up.

If you want a justification then Batel could have been a former security officer who moved in to command. Starfleet rarely employs attorneys all the time.
 
Good wrap up for that storyline and OK episode. Liked last week better and look forward to next weeks time travel. 7/10
 
Love the attention to detail the set designers brought to the two golden murals in the courtroom (which was a brilliant re-use of the Federation council set from Discovery). Anyone know if this references some original, perhaps historical, piece of art? Looks to me like a bunch of Trek aliens in togas, styled like ancient Romans.

yjo7Ccl.jpg


TpXCBDQ.jpg


gY8i0w5.jpg
 
I see humans, Vulcans, Tellarites Andorains, and Saurians plus some other species I don't recognize. Maybe a caitian on the left side of the right mural. Certianlly looks like a cat like head.
 
Michael said:
Love the attention to detail the set designers brought to the two golden murals in the courtroom (which was a brilliant re-use of the Federation council set from Discovery). Anyone know if this references some original, perhaps historical, piece of art? Looks to me like a bunch of Trek aliens in togas, styled like ancient Romans.





gY8i0w5.jpg
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I see Linus!

A Kanamit!

An Ovion!
 
MrShinzoff said:
I'm a bit unclear on the findings of the court. The legal argument against Una included her submitting false information to Starfleet (lying on her application to Starfleet) and being a prohibited person in Starfleet (owing to her permanent DNA modification) plus two counts of sedition (I don't believe the two counts of sedition were ever identified). I think it's questionable that just because she sought and was granted asylum in accordance with Starfleet Code 8514 that she would be exonorated from Codes 614-617 plus the false submission charge (and possibly the two sedition charges although I don't know what they are). In what way does 8514 nullify the charges against her? She is undoubtedly guilty of submitting false information to Starfleet and breaching Codes 614-617 and should have been found guilty. The court ruled that an asylum seeker is exempt from the law. Have I interpreted this correctly because it doesn't seem right?

I would also question that Una actually sought asylum from Pike given that she had been in Starfleet for around 25 years at that point. What persecution was she fleeing at that time (season 1 episode 3)? I don't see how the legal argument of conspiracy made against Pike falls down. Even if Una was granted asylum by Pike (very questionable) he allowed her to continue to serve in Starfleet for several months and therefore most likely commited conspiracy.

Also, the lawyer referred to "Federation law" seemingly interchangably with the Starfleet Code. Are they the same? That seems odd.

Why would Una out herself when she must have known it would implicate Pike and possibly M'benga?

I gave this episode a 7 because I was desperate to like it after the abomination that was last week. More Pike and La'an acting like La'an again were definite plus points. But the more I think about this episode the weirder it seems. I could have done with more of the Vulcan prosecutor. I wonder if Pike was secretly hoping to be charged for conspiracy? In the season 1 ep 10 timeline, Una is in prison after around 7 years (indicating she never took the plea deal there too). Something different happened this time - Pike got the lawyer. Pike changed the future even though he was warned not to do that. Had Pike lost his command then he doesn't get his accident plus he's also not the captain during the Romulan incursion.
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It's just space law in space court. It works in the same way the inertial dampeners do or warpdrives
 
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