Spoilers Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 3x09 - "Terrarium"

[Starflight]

The Gorn looked like a Gorn.

It was a large reptilian creature wearing hooded rags. There's several known reptilian races in Star Trek already, but aside from that, the wormhole could have led anywhere - the Delta Quadrant, the Andromeda Galaxy, further afield. There are, you'd assume, plenty of races that look like Gorn, in the same way there's plenty that look like humans.

Spock also mentioned the possibility of the wormhole leading to another universe entirely, meaning that for all La'an knew, it could have been an alternate Gorn with little cultural resemblance to prime Gorn. However you slice it, there's no way to rationalise firing on sight; the script just has La'an go psycho (with her phaser set to kill by default) to give us a Sad Ending.

 

[fireproof78]

You'd think the phaser would have been on stun, not kill.

This is rarely the case in dramatic scenes.

 

[FredH]

Nah, it’s not psycho. La’an gets a split-second of seeing “oh shit, a Gorn right behind Erica”, and from her perspective there’s no time to consider possibilities: if she does, the attacking Gorn will surely have killed Erica in the next second. It’s unfortunate— and could have been avoided by Erica coming out first by herself and saying “Look, there’s a Gorn in there, but she’s proven non-hostile. Don’t shoot her. Ok, bringing her out now” — but in the moment, given no other information, La’an acted properly.

What I actually don’t quite buy is Erica immediately blowing up not at La’an, which would be understandable, but at the sparkly lights she still knows nothing about but just presumes have been watching. (Correctly, but she can’t know that until the Metron reveals itself.)

 

[gweeps]

Yeah, in TOS S1 A Taste of Armageddon the Organians stopped an entire Intergalactic war between the Klingons and the Federation.

In ENT S4 Observer Effect, we have two Organians who have observed many a corporeal life form die to a silicon based virus just to see how they another crew members react.

In TNG we have the Q, which all seem to enjoy doing things to lesser beings,; and even though gynon has stated some of the Q are even respectable, TNG had never really shown us such a Q.

TNG S3 The Survivors, also gave us yet another Godlike race that referred to itself as a Douwd, who in a fit of blind rage instantly wiped out an entire space fairing corporeal species (the Husnak) wherever they in the galaxy; and also was willing to torture and drive Deanna Troi insane lest she discover that fact from his mind; and the only comment Jean-Luc Picard ultimately had on that situation was that, ".. He should be left alone."

So yeah, now with SNW, we discover that the Metrons are yet another Godlike race who enjoy toying with and experimenting on corporeal species. The sad thing is, showing them to be like this allows TOS S1 Arena to actually make more sense, as it didn't really track that the Gorn themselves could create such a perfect illusion of a Starfleet Commodore, that not only spoke with Kirk live just before Kirk being down to Cestus III, and also managed to keep the destruction of the entire base hidden until Kirk actually beamed down.

(IE - are we supposed to believe that Kirk & Co never scanned the planet on approach, or that in setting up to beam down, the transporter officer didn't notice the burned-out buildings that probably should have shown up as he's preparing to beam them down?)

There's also Nagilum. I want to see "him" again.

 

[Yistaan]

La'an killed the Gorn because canon demanded it. Can't have a friendly Gorn lady on the ship for a few episodes steamrolling TOS Arena canon after all.

 

[Starflight]

Nah, it’s not psycho. La’an gets a split-second of seeing “oh shit, a Gorn right behind Erica”, and from her perspective there’s no time to consider possibilities: if she does, the attacking Gorn will surely have killed Erica in the next second. It’s unfortunate— and could have been avoided by Erica coming out first by herself and saying “Look, there’s a Gorn in there, but she’s proven non-hostile. Don’t shoot her. Ok, bringing her out now” — but in the moment, given no other information, La’an acted properly.

Surely that's why the phasers have a stun setting! Even moreso because it's a rescue mission and they knew they were approaching Ortegas' position; setting them to kill opened up the risk of fatally hitting her in the crossfire (especially as all three officers fired at once).

I could maybe buy it a little bit easier if they'd scanned the area before going down and there was a line that gave La'an the foreknowledge that a Gorn was on the planet - I'd still be wondering why she didn't use stun, but at least it wouldn't be a case of her going to a completely unknown planet in a totally mysterious part of space and fatally shooting the first non-human thing she sees, firing a volley of lethal shots over her friend's head in the process.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

La'an killed the Gorn because canon demanded it. Can't have a friendly Gorn lady on the ship for a few episodes steamrolling TOS Arena canon after all.

No, because plot demanded it (and no one on the writing staff read the Scorpion and the Frog).

 

[FreezeC77]

La'an killed the Gorn because canon demanded it. Can't have a friendly Gorn lady on the ship for a few episodes steamrolling TOS Arena canon after all.

There's only room for one Gorn lady on the ship and that's in the Captain's quarters...

 

[UssGlenn]

haven't seen anyone mention yet that the Metrons saved Ortega's and the Gorn's life during the explosion. The heat shield wasn't enough, but a blue glow suddenly appears to protect them.

 

[FredH]

La'an killed the Gorn because canon demanded it. Can't have a friendly Gorn lady on the ship for a few episodes steamrolling TOS Arena canon after all.

Sure, they could bring her home and have Internet fandom up in arms again about BREAKING CANON!!!

 

[fireproof78]

Sure, they could bring her home and have Internet fandom up in arms again about BREAKING CANON!!!

They are trying to avoid that mud slinging.

 

[aquova]

The story needed a few weeks in universe to breathe properly.

I agree. I think they shouldn't have had her lose her rations so immediately. The fact she was wandering around a completely barren rock looking for food felt a bit silly. I think it might have been better if she had a steadily dwindling amount of food, some occasional encounters with the Gorn, then eventually she loses the shuttle and meets up with him. As it stands, she was only trapped on the planet for a few days at most.

 

[Tuskin38]

However you slice it, there's no way to rationalise firing on sight

No there is. She saw a Gorn.

 

[Dar70]

Read between the lines. Ortegas is queer-presenting, the Gorn is a giant lizard woman. They bond together in a desperate situation and Ortegas overcomes her misconceptions. That screams queer episode.

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[Markonian]

I liked this episode!
Now that this Gorn species is shown to have culture, it would be cool to see them alongside the other Gorn species in STO sometime.

We should put the Gorn Pride flag to Reddit and see what they do with it.

I assume La'An's phaser was set to stun but the number of shots and Sigorney's (thanks, Jessie G!) injuries were too much. Like how Lieutenant Talas died from a single phaser stun shot in 2154.

 

[thribs]

La’an forgot to shout, “it’s coming right for us!” Before shooting.

 

[thribs]

La'an killed the Gorn because canon demanded it. Can't have a friendly Gorn lady on the ship for a few episodes steamrolling TOS Arena canon after all.

Since when does SNW care about canon?

 

[Dar70]

La'an killed the Gorn because canon demanded it. Can't have a friendly Gorn lady on the ship for a few episodes steamrolling TOS Arena canon after all.

Umm Canon has already been steamrolled so it would have been fine.

 

[Dar70]

Well this was an ok episode. Like many others I don't think the metron was necessary. Yeah I didn't like that Gorna was killed. She was growing on me.

I shall give it 7/10.