Clearly, Pike wasn't counting the women when he mentioned the crew complement.
Spoilers Strange New Worlds General Discussion Thread
- Thread starter NewHeavensNewEarth
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Clearly, Pike wasn't counting the women when he mentioned the crew complement.
Except for Number One, she's different.
That Rigel VII incident must have killed way more Enterprise crew members than we thought. No wonder Pike wanted to run off to Orion.
It's easy to explain that something must've happened between The Cage and Discovery to over double the crew count (maybe they were just on a half-skeleton crew during the Rigel mission to begin with), but Burnham (not Pike, my bad) mentions the number 203 in "Brother", which is a callback to The Cage count. This is direct contradiction to the display seen later that lists the crew as 429. Maybe they added crew, like I said, and Burnham just assumed the complement was still 203. But it sounds like she scanned 203 lifesigns. Where were the other 226? Asleep? Was the display just something sent over before Pike dropped them all off for shore leave on Vulcan?
I'm more surprised they're still going with AD/BC in the 23rd century (2245 AD listed as launch year). Considering those are religious dating names and the Federation is filled with countless cultures, you would think in-universe would be BCE/CE.
Vulcans are traditionalists.
Again, it's copied right from the old tech manual which used AD which was common for the era it was written. I imagine if it was made today they'd use CE/BCE
...Which is still 100% religious, just like Tuesday is.
It would be easy to assume that the Discovery databanks hold information about a specific configuration of the vessel - say, the very first and original one, or perhaps the last known one. Pike got half his saucer blown off during his witnessed tenure; possibly his latest five-year mission involved a pylon-bender bad enough to warrant a major refit as well, not yet advertised in the databanks due to wartime secrecy and whatnot.
However, the cutesy bit about one person missing ruins that idea, making the data very up-to-date instead.
Timo Saloniemi
It would be easy to assume that the Discovery databanks hold information about a specific configuration of the vessel - say, the very first and original one, or perhaps the last known one. Pike got half his saucer blown off during his witnessed tenure; possibly his latest five-year mission involved a pylon-bender bad enough to warrant a major refit as well, not yet advertised in the databanks due to wartime secrecy and whatnot.
However, the cutesy bit about one person missing ruins that idea, making the data very up-to-date instead.
Timo Saloniemi
The discrepancy might be a secrecy thing. When you scan the ship, you get 203 lifesigns. When you download its stats (from a centralized, updated Starfleet database? Or just given from the ship itself), you get 429 complement.
Are they masking 226 crew members from detection somehow? Burnham seems to think 203 is a full complement (even though she's, apparently, wrong, as Spock is gone). Perhaps the 429-430 figure is to confuse and confound the enemy (in a time of war), and the crew is always actually around 203. Perhaps Kirk lied to himself (and others) on a consistent basis to keep up this legal fiction from people checking his logs or communications.
Are they masking 226 crew members from detection somehow? Burnham seems to think 203 is a full complement (even though she's, apparently, wrong, as Spock is gone). Perhaps the 429-430 figure is to confuse and confound the enemy (in a time of war), and the crew is always actually around 203. Perhaps Kirk lied to himself (and others) on a consistent basis to keep up this legal fiction from people checking his logs or communications.
Since the ship changes looks basically twice per decade, it seems like a good idea to believe in a flexible crew count, reflecting not just the assorted standards of refit, but possibly also the rapidly changing mission profiles. Pike when first seen was doing a seeming milk run to and from Rigel while wearing seeming Lieutenant braid, and curled up in fetal position for light losses; Kirk was braving the unknown for five years while wearing Commander and later Captain braid, and shrugged off constant redshirt casualties. Could be the same hull accommodates all sorts of missions through internal configuration changes that involve pushing a few buttons to alter power allocation and other settings; embarking or disembarking a few (hundred) specialists; and adjusting the competence level of the CO as required...
I just wonder where we will catch Captain Pike on that curve. He's clearly past the brief "The Cage" bout of brooding in DSC S2, but will he become an insufferable boor next, or regress to an overly cautious risk-dodger, or already gyrate towards a career of drafting promoter and cadet cruise steward? His ship should cater for all sorts of options there.
Timo Saloniemi
I just wonder where we will catch Captain Pike on that curve. He's clearly past the brief "The Cage" bout of brooding in DSC S2, but will he become an insufferable boor next, or regress to an overly cautious risk-dodger, or already gyrate towards a career of drafting promoter and cadet cruise steward? His ship should cater for all sorts of options there.
Timo Saloniemi
Holy shit, I love this answer.
If there are only 12 like it being adaptable to different mission profiles is probably one of the better design features.
Well, at the witnessed loss rate, Starfleet probably built about 150 originally...
TOS never gave much context for the hero ship within the hero organization, save for saying that starships were a big thing. There was no budget for showing anything else besides the hero ship, but written and spoken references could have expanded the universe back then already. And indeed they did, establishing that older vessels were called starships, too, thus basically setting in stone that at any given time there would be several distinct starship classes in service.
SNW is bound to have the budget for showing more of Starfleet than TOS ever did. But DSC never used its resources for doing that: after the pilot episode, the rest of Starfleet devolved to a bunch of shuttlecraft. Amusingly, only the shorts brought back the concept of "other ships". It's unclear how SNW would do there, even assuming it's a predictable TOS remake in general. Would studio reality again mean no fellow starship CGI is available in time? Would dramatic choices dictate that Pike be all alone out there? Or would there be emphasis on how everybody else sucks, so guest starships would be frequently shown blowing up? (Would those be identical to Pike's, for the TOS/LDS reason of can't-afford-to-build-anything-different-must-amortize-existing-asset? Or different from his, but all alike, so that there's that reassuring redshirt/Oberth certainty on who will die in the first act?)
Timo Saloniemi
TOS never gave much context for the hero ship within the hero organization, save for saying that starships were a big thing. There was no budget for showing anything else besides the hero ship, but written and spoken references could have expanded the universe back then already. And indeed they did, establishing that older vessels were called starships, too, thus basically setting in stone that at any given time there would be several distinct starship classes in service.
SNW is bound to have the budget for showing more of Starfleet than TOS ever did. But DSC never used its resources for doing that: after the pilot episode, the rest of Starfleet devolved to a bunch of shuttlecraft. Amusingly, only the shorts brought back the concept of "other ships". It's unclear how SNW would do there, even assuming it's a predictable TOS remake in general. Would studio reality again mean no fellow starship CGI is available in time? Would dramatic choices dictate that Pike be all alone out there? Or would there be emphasis on how everybody else sucks, so guest starships would be frequently shown blowing up? (Would those be identical to Pike's, for the TOS/LDS reason of can't-afford-to-build-anything-different-must-amortize-existing-asset? Or different from his, but all alike, so that there's that reassuring redshirt/Oberth certainty on who will die in the first act?)
Timo Saloniemi
Ethan Peck (Spock) is in Toronto according to Trekmovie: Strange New Worlds likely starts filming soon.
I hope we get cast announcements and maybe even some art concept or some set pictures soon as an appetizer.
afaik, in non pandemic times, the TV networks usually had "upfronts" in April/May where they announced cancellations / new show pick ups, sometimes cast announcements and/or teasers. (What are TV upfronts? | HowStuffWorks)
afaik, in non pandemic times, the TV networks usually had "upfronts" in April/May where they announced cancellations / new show pick ups, sometimes cast announcements and/or teasers. (What are TV upfronts? | HowStuffWorks)
Maybe it's just Spock and the ship.
