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

[Mudd]

If you have to resort to a lame device like "...And then the space alien erased or altered everyone's memories!"...

...You're making Star Trek.

 

[DaveyNY]

I don't think it was on kill; remember, kill mode turns a target into Vaporized Particle Cloud or Giant Human sized Chunky Salsa.
Most of us has seen the effect of a person being killed by a Phaser.

Go back and watch it, there were 3 shots fired, 2 visible shots landed and left small burn holes.

But given the previous leg infection, crappy diet of giant bugs, there's a high probability that multiple stun shots that landed (assuming all 3 shots landed, 1 shot landing might've been off frame) would've easily killed the Gorn Pilot.

IRL, Police who use "Less Lethal" options like 'Tasers' or 'Bean Bag Rounds' have on occaision been able to incur enough injuries that somebody with pre-existing medical conditions or injuries could die.

So it stands to logical reason that 3 successive Stun or Medium Phaser shots could do the same to the Gorn Pilot who had a long term leg infection, wasn't anywhere close to 100% dietary health, & not wearing any form of body armor or shields.


Incase their calculations were wrong and it came back down to the lower atmosphere.

Which they were correct to prepare for.

It's not like this action of igniting the atmosphere was done with scientific precision.

This is MythBusters level of Red Neck Science w/o advanced tools.

Guess the problem & solution.

Hide behind the "Blast Shield", hope for the best and that you don't die.

If it weren't for the Metrons, their blast shield wouldn't have saved them.
(watch for the bright bluish-white glow during the explosion)
The explosion did actually engulf the entire planetoid from top to bottom.

 

[Yistaan]

Every time there's a Gorn inconsistency (like Kelvin McCoy mentioning they can get pregnant unlike in SNW), the answer is "A Metron did it"

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

If it weren't for the Metrons, their blast shield wouldn't have saved them.
(watch for the bright bluish-white glow during the explosion)
The explosion did actually engulf the entire planetoid from top to bottom.

Not surprised by Metrons needing to provide "Divine Intervention" to save their experiment from going up in smoke.

It was a 'Very Dumb Idea', but better than nothing given that it was a "Helluva Hail Mary" plan.

You either suffocate via the Gas Giant's Toxic Fumes coming down to the surface of the Moon, or Hope that somebody notices you and that you manage to survive the blast.

Neither options were great, but at least one has a chance for rescue.

So they took the best route available given their situation.

 

[DaveyNY]

Again, that’s all supposition that’s not supported by what we’ve seen in the episode.

Heh ... Like that's not something we've been collectively doing since 1966.

 

[Noname Given]

The death of Gornette was one of those moments that made me frustrated by the dramatic limitations of prequels.

Like, if this were DS9, she was definitely going to come back to the station and join the roster of recurring species outcasts. There's so much interesting stuff to do with that character, don't cut it off too quick!..

Unless instead of a Gorn, it was a Borg Queen; and instead of La'an it was Ben Sisko. That man would have shot to kill too.

 

[ToddCam]

Fine. I was trying to make the list of recycled TOS elements as comprehensive as possible to head off any potential "You forgot about..." comments at the pass, but if it bugs you, ignore the sehlat.

The katra thing I'll stand by, though, since Vulcans are exceptionally secretive and no one on the Enterprise crew had previous familiarity with them in TSFS. Suddenly in SNW, it's common knowledge.

My bad. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Fair enough about katras. I don't know that I'd say it's treated as common knowledge, but I don't know that I would have ever categorized it as secretive. Given Vulcan is a founding member of the Federation, I can't really imagine major cultural aspects such as that being kept a secret. And IIRC, Sarek seemed to think Kirk was aware of his potentially having Spock's katra in TSFS. Kirk's ignorance of Vulcan culture is epic, it seems. But I could be misremembering.

 

[fireproof78]

My bad. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Fair enough about katras. I don't know that I'd say it's treated as common knowledge, but I don't know that I would have ever categorized it as secretive. Given Vulcan is a founding member of the Federation, I can't really imagine major cultural aspects such as that being kept a secret. And IIRC, Sarek seemed to think Kirk was aware of his potentially having Spock's katra in TSFS. Kirk's ignorance of Vulcan culture is epic, it seems. But I could be misremembering.

Sarek seemed convinced that Kirk should know and even with the admiral they both note they don't know if they believe it, not that they'd never heard of it.

 

[Yistaan]

Fine. I was trying to make the list of recycled TOS elements as comprehensive as possible to head off any potential "You forgot about..." comments at the pass, but if it bugs you, ignore the sehlat.

The katra thing I'll stand by, though, since Vulcans are exceptionally secretive and no one on the Enterprise crew had previous familiarity with them in TSFS. Suddenly in SNW, it's common knowledge.


If you have to resort to a lame device like "...And then the space alien erased or altered everyone's memories!" to make your continuity match with a previous show, it doesn't "track perfectly."

Again, Better Call Saul has demonstrated that it's completely possible to make a great, dramatically compelling prequel show that doesn't contradict its parent show. (Occasionally recontextualize, yes. but not contradict.) So SNW has no excuse for getting things wrong or ignoring stuff willy-nilly.


Ah, someone else watched the episode with the subtitles on, I see!


That VOY scene STILL bugs the hell out of me. The "Of course, the whole bunch of them would be booted out of Starfleet today" line is SO condescending and smug, and a pretty disrespectful thing to put into an episode celebrating the 30th Anniversary of Trek.




I am 100% convinced that the finale of SNW will skip past or retcon the end of "The Menagerie" somehow to give Talos IV Pike a happier ending.

Lower Decks crossover doubled down on Pike going to Talos IV though unless his recovery somehow ends up being classified.

Morrow's the one guy who's shown to be disbelieving of katras. Also this idea of needing Spock's body to house the katra is unheard of in Trek. Enterprise had Surak's katra stored in a Vulcan elder. Why can't Spock's katra be the same?

The closest equivalent to the Morrow situation would be like if a priest says someone needs an exorcism and most people would say that's just mumbo-jumbo.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

...You're making Star Trek.

Not good Star Trek, mind you, but they are undeniably making Star Trek.

 

[Firebird]

Heh ... Like that's not something we've been collectively doing since 1966.

Everything old is new again!

 

[Mr Awe]

The Gorn are a nonstarter monster of the week from TOS.

A new alien would have saved a lot of headaches and added drama.

Unlike many here, I actually have no problem with what they've done with the Gorn in SNW as a whole. The idea of developing the Gorn as a truly alien species from our perspective was great, although sometimes the execution lacked.

However, I do agree with you that just creating a new alien would've saved some headaches. It seems needlessly difficult shoehorning a fuller, more complex Gorn development into the existing timeline.

 

[Mr Awe]

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.

Indeed. And that made the episode all the more predictable.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Fair enough about katras. I don't know that I'd say it's treated as common knowledge, but I don't know that I would have ever categorized it as secretive. Given Vulcan is a founding member of the Federation, I can't really imagine major cultural aspects such as that being kept a secret. And IIRC, Sarek seemed to think Kirk was aware of his potentially having Spock's katra in TSFS. Kirk's ignorance of Vulcan culture is epic, it seems. But I could be misremembering.

Well, that's the thing. In TOS, stuff like mind melds and Pon Farr were treated as surprising brand new discoveries about the Vulcan people. Now with them being commonplace on prequel shows like SNW, now it just seems like Kirk & McCoy were either unusually thick or spectacularly forgetful.

I get this, I really do, because you don't necessarily limit yourself based on a bits of dialogue on a 60-year-old TV show, but at the same time, it bugs me that it's been the default on Trek shows since at least the 90s to just write over & contradict TOS whenever they can. (And sure, there's some stuff like "Women can't be Starfleet Captains" and "Robert April was a white man" that I don't mind them changing in the least.)

But continuity stuff that they could easily adhere to if they wanted to, like "Spock has never performed a mind meld on a human," or "Humans don't know about Pon Farr," or "People on the Enterprise don't know about T'Pring," or even "Spock doesn't freely share his feelings with people, especially not a documentary crew"... All of that is thrown out for little to no reason (IMO).

I mean, at this point, we could have a flash forward scene of 2267 Spock going, "Oh shit, KHAN Noonien Singh! Just like my old hookup La'an Noonien Singh! Wow, I really should've made that connection before. Geez, even their names rhyme. ...Hey, Scotty, you remember the Enterprise's old security chief?"

 

[Rowdy Roddy McDowall]

Excellent points on the whole.

 

[Mr Awe]

"Hey, I'm on a barren rock that somehow has a breathable atmosphere... Oh look it gets so close to the gas giant that the gasses actually blanket the entire moon... but hey, I'm sure there's food here somewhere."

That drove me nuts too from a scientific perspective. But those are common mistakes in SF.

 

[Captain Jollydark]

A Gorn LGBTQ+ Pride flag? .... Sure... ?l!?




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

I was thinking the Gorn was already pretty sick from badly infested injuries. A stun might have been deadly. But that's me making it make sense when maybe it doesn't.

 

[Detached Nacelle]

Even The Doctor referred to mind melds as Vulcan mumbo-jumbo. The galaxy at large probably just had enough of the Vulcan superiority complex.

 

[Mr Awe]

Same way Spock gambled that it would be seen by Kirk's Enterprise when he ignited the remaining shuttle fuel at the end of The Galileo Seven.

I proposed earlier in this thread that this might be the incident that inspired his actions in The Galileo Seven.

 

[Romulan_spy]

I liked the episode but I do have a nitpick question. How come Uhura can just manually change results of a test so easily without needing supervisor approval or anything? It implies that anyone can just totally fake numbers anytime they want.