That is half the problem with Michael. It is like the Klingon war is her personal story. All about her needs to fight her childhood demons. Meaning to or not she drew first blood. She sought advice (Sarek) from outside the chain of command when she didn't like what her Captain was going to do. Really it is not an etiquette thing. It is military law. When the Federation is expecting to lead by example it deserves to have its Starfleet officers do the same. Comes back to the point of the thread. Discovery has given us not an exploration theme but a war one. Not heroes or those who at least try to walk the walk, but these other types of characters.
The age of the antihero
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She had the skill set needed. They didn't. Why waste resources? Of course those other prisoner are probably safe behind the lines and not risking their lives. Maybe in one of the rehabilitation resorts run by Doctor Adams.
Nah, Burnham still feels guilty. Probably thinks she doesn't deserve to be there.
The war is background. Exploration is background. Star Trek is not about either. The only exploring the shows do is that of moral questions. The Planet of the week is about the moral quandary of the week, not taking samples and doing lab work.
Huh? Burnham and the rest are straight up walking the Starfleet walk. Doing Stafleet stuff in the Starfleet manner.
Between you and me, don't worry. Burnham will never get to risk her life, she's golden. Now those in her company better watch their backs.
Some of your posts come off as even more irrational than Burnham was when she mutinied.
That's not a "personal story", that's called having empathy... When you can imagine that folks may go through the same horrible things that you did and you wish deeply to change that. Empathy.
Well, no. She intended to. The Klingons fired the first shots. Even if she was the one to do so, she had a good reason. She was right about the Klingons not wanting to negotiate. T'Kuvma intended to have a War against the Federation regardless.
Because something is a written Law it doesn't mean that something is necessarily good. The Chain of Command is a highly idealistic thing. It looks flawless on theory but in reality it can get on the way of doing the right thing.
Example: Wasn't George Washington a member of the British Provincial Militia before the Revolution ? What if he followed the Chain of Command and refused to align himself with enemies of the Crown ? He broke (British) Law to do something he believed was right. That's a very Human thing to do. It's realistic too.
If you want to go into a more in-universe example, the Prime Directive is one. Highly idealistic. Is it a good thing to let Millions die because they aren't advanced enough to be aware of you ? A lot of folks would say no.
What do you mean by leading ? Leading what exactly, the galaxy ? Because that's not a very Federation thing. The Federation wants to explore, not to lead. They are hospitable for those interested in joining their little club but that's it. When they encounter a species that doesn't give a damn about their values, like the Klingons, they try to leave that species alone and not go on a holy crusade to convert them culturally.
That's what Klingons like T'Kuvma think the Federation is trying to do. They are wrong, obviously. There's no massive conspiracy to come after the Klingons "atom by atom".
We have to keep in mind that while the Federation is inspired by a lot of Modern Day Institutions, the UFP is not necessarily a mirror of them. I believe Starfleet officers have a lot more space to object things that go against their conscience than 21st Century Military officers do. We're talking about a Post-Scarcity Space Utopia. I wouldn't doubt Michael gets a full pardon by the end of the Series, so the writers can make a point that Future Humans are better than Modern Day Humans after all.
DS9 was about War and it was very Trek-ish, Star Trek doesn't need to be necessarily about exploration. Burnham may not be a hero yet. She could be if she manages to stop the war. We have to wait and see. And Lorca was never intended to be an anti-hero IMO. He's a straight out villain. There's no good in him.
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The accidental (power pack) death was the first blood Michael drew, and she really didn't mean to. She did mean to kill T'Kuvma. Her phaser was set to kill.
I agree with you. I expect Michael to get a full pardon too. The end justifies the means.
Oh, that doesn't count tbh. Not even Georgiou was mad over Michael because of that. The Klingons were mad about it because they wanted to be mad about something, they were the ones who lured the Shenzhou to that area by destroying the Federation buoy-thingy. I doubt that not killing that Klingon would've stopped T'Kuvma from opening fire against the Federation ships later on.
After everything went to hell when T'Kuvma fired first, knowing she had no place in Starfleet anymore because of a mistake and her mentor was killed in front of her... Yup. Pretty understandable.
If there's something that justifies the end, yes. In this case, avoiding a War that was going to happen with Burnham or without her.
The Federation values rationality above all and they will probably understand later on that the Klingons were planning for some time to give them hell. Michael is just someone that was caught randomly by the chaos created by T'Kuvma, someone that tried to do good but ran out of luck horribly and had some very bad information on her hands.
As the beginning of a character arc, I like it. I've lost count how many times in Star Trek the "heroes" did things out of emotion based on sketchy info. And events almost always worked out well for them. They were lucky. Discovery is about those days when you can't get it right.
It's interesting when a morally and ethically charged character falters. When a heavily flawed character does good, like Lorca apparently caring about Phavo, it doesn't provide the same intensity of caring. It's almost hard to believe he might actually be genuine.
That's fairy tale stuff imho. Pre-reflective stories with white hats and black hats. I much prefer stories about how people actually are - shades of grey, nice bits and not so nice bits, agendas and goals of their own and differing standards on how those can be achieved. Lorca, without a second thought, flew his ship into the path of Klingon weapons to try to save the Gagarin. He's clearly not just selfish and evil. But he also clearly has an agenda of his own and is willing to take steps to achieve it. That's an interesting character.
Failing that, I'd choose a story like DS9 where although the 'black hat' character of Dukat is pretty obvious, he at least sees himself as the antihero of his own story, something the show played with in season 4. And on the flip side we see that Sisko is the villain of Eddington's story, and certainly dabbles in shades of grey to win the war. Sounds familiar.
On the contrary, a character who is universally good and flawless is obviously going to do the self sacrificial thing. There's little drama there, and no real mystery. It's not even a real question whether they'll do the right thing in the end. With a character like Lorca, you genuinely don't know what choice he'll make. That's much more interesting, and adds layers to the story in that you can't always elucidate his motives for acting as he does.
Nonsense, there are many examples of good characters making mistakes, often the subject of much debate. It is what creates the drama. With Lorca you do know he will try and save his arse first.
Yup, that's the thing about Lorca. He's shady as hell. I don't buy for one minute he cared about Pahvo too. Who knows ? Serialized stuff is nerve wrecking because of this. We'll have to wait at least for the end of the Season to know.
A lot of people do buy his story, though, and I understand why. Murdering his entire crew was a horrible unredeemable thing imo. In his distorted perspective he was right, though. Klingons are cruel as hell, I wouldn't put past them doing distasteful things with the Buran crew.
However, that's why I personally think Lorca is more of a necessary expendable character for Burnham own arc. She could've been him. Lorca in her place would've simply killed Georgiou and the Bridge Crew to do something he thought would've avoided the War. She retained her humanity and simply tries to con people into doing what she wanted. Lorca's the reason why a flawed character like Burnham is believable when she tries to redeem herself.
He's what Garak was in relation to Sisko, in a way.
Obviously Lorca doesn't look expendable because of the top notch performance given by Jason and because they've written him a little better than just a simple character necessary for other character to reach a better place.
But he hasn't always done that. There are several examples already on the show where he didn't just act to save his arse first but actively put himself and the crew in danger for the safety of civilians/the Federation. In fact, he's taken some risky moves which speak to a man who does care about others, while also being pragmatic and driven to succeed. He pushed his crew and risked a jump just to save Corvan II. The most selfless action being when he ordered the ship to directly take the brunt of the attack on the USS Gagarin, to buy them some time to escape. That failed, but it undeniably was a noble action. He also defied orders to retreat to safety to save Pahvo from a Klingon attack. This earned him the crew's admiration, despite it being insubordination.
Didn't Sisko contaminate an entire Maquis planet because he was mad at Michael Eddington? And trick the Romulans into joining a war?
And he was the hero of his show.
Burnham, BTW, is supposed to go back to prison once the Klingon war is over.
And he was the hero of his show.
Burnham, BTW, is supposed to go back to prison once the Klingon war is over.
Sorry, but this is nonsense. Burnham has risked her life repeatedly for her crew. When she wanted to do the suicide run instead of Georgiou. When she beamed aboard T'Kuvma's Ship of the Dead not once, but twice, on a potentially suicidal mission. When she distracted the Tardigrade in episode 3 to allow the crew to escape. When she underwent a risky mind meld procedure to save Sarek. When she literally killed herself for one more iteration to save everyone when Mudd took over the ship. When she pushed to be part of the landing party on Pahvo and then fought an enraged Saru to get the signal through to Discovery.
She's acted to protect good people/her crewmates so many times by risking her own life that it's laughable to claim otherwise. Are you just being obtuse or have you not actually watched the past 9 episodes?
No I haven't watched a thing.
I don't think he cared about Phavo either. He just needed a reason to get Stamets to complete all those jumps to complete the map.
Do you think she is going to go back to prison - ever?
How on earth would those jumps complete the sporedrive map? The jumps were designed to triangulate the ship in their immediate vicinity, to find a way to pin its location while it was still in cloak. Discovery was dealing with a very limited amount of space, barely 2kms in circumference.
