Yep.
Spoilers The Klingons Make No (Strategic) Sense
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Yep.
It's funny, because I recently rewatched Prelude to Axanar. I understand it's a fake documentary, thus it's all infodump. But they did a much better job telling the story of the early period of a Federation-Klingon war in 1/20th of the run time of DSC.
Probably because It would be very inappropriate behavior for Starfleet to do that.
Telling story about the war? Sure. About characters? Not as much.
Of course. It's a mockumentary. But my point is if Prelude to Axanar could get that level of epic war exposition done in 20 minutes, Discovery could have found some time during the 1/20th of its length to drop similar nuggets into the mix for flavor.
No. Just no.
One time I read a novel synopsis. Amazingly, it managed to describe the whole plot in five paragraphs better than the prologue and first 5 chapters of the book combined.
I know you're being sarcastic, but still, the primary purpose of the first season Discovery is supposed to be to tell the story of Micheal Burnham, not the story of the Klingon War. Hence, I don't have any issue with adding a little bit more infodump to provide flavor to the series, because it would allow the show to spend more time on the important aspect of "show not tell" - that relating to character interaction and development.
Discovery DID if you were paying attention. Burnham drops quite a few of them during her log entries, and the discussions with the Admirals cover those as well.
Prelude to Axanar is a fake documentary, though, so it has no character development or plot elements and is purely exposition. But more importantly, the only thing Axanar actually has is a fictional history about a fictional Klingon war that was exposed in far more detail in RPG books; Discovery is NOT using those same books as source material and is, despite appearances, a completely different situation. So comparing Axanar to Discovery like comparing "Captain America: The First Avenger" to a documentary about D-Day and wondering why the movie doesn't provide as much information about the progress of the war.
It sounds like you don't like the Klingon war aspect, and you're trying to rationalize why it doesn't belong rather than simply saying you prefer something different. No, clearly, the first season of Discovery is supposed to be about both. Burnham is the wider overarching story, but the Klingon war is the main season arc here. Relegating the war to simple "infodump" exposition would not be a storytelling improvement. It would be lazy.
That's not it at all. I don't like how the Klingon war has been executed, as many other people have mentioned in this thread. But I don't mind it was there. As I said on the first page, the writers made it harder on themselves by deciding both to focus on Burnham's character arc as well as her place as in integral part of the war arc. This mean they had two heavy lifts to undertake in a short modern season. If they kept the characters and the emotional arcs largely the same, but didn't make everything so uber (T'Kumva is just some random baddie who killed Georgiou, for example, or just make the Discovery a random ship) the limited level of engagement we have seen on screen would make more sense.
What's worse, they haven't even just stuck to these two focuses. Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad was completely unneeded, as it didn't really involve the Klingon war arc, and the few season arc elements (Stamets acting weird, the establishment of feelings between Burnham/Tyler) could have been plopped into any episode. And I'm saying that despite it being my second-favorite episode of the series to date. The whole Pahvo arc was pretty much a waste as well in terms of the narrative as well. Saru development is nice in theory, but ancillary to the seasonal arc. And again, Burnham/Tyler could have hooked up in any episode. Hell, I'd argue the entirety of the spore drive was a complication that the writers didn't have to give themselves, considering it added a third serialized element which had to be balanced along with the Klingon War and Burnham's arc. This is just too much to expect to develop any sense of resolution over a 15-episode arc.
Okay, I know enough about history, to know that wars are not always conducted in a way that resembles the total wars of the 20th century, with the whole of society leveraged into the effort. I also know not every sci-fi explores the same themes, and may not want to create pornography out of military engineering, a mindset that could arguably cause worship of organized violence. It might not be the point of a character drama about winning peace to engage in technological thriller elements.
But whenever I see a conflict like this where there are two superpowers fighting, I expect to see at least some logistics flavor - even if Star Trek isn't Stargate SG-1, where practical methods of leveraging technology are a major plot point, it has featured episodes along those lines - if the Klingons don't have huge manufacturing facilities everywhere churning out warships, probably secret fortified bases hardened against photon torpedoes, with drydocks for a dozen ships carved into the side of a planetoid, then fighting a Union of Planets with like maybe 40 members, and a population of hundreds of billions can seem less naturalistic than it could be. DSC has thrown a few things out there about dilithium supply, etc, but it could also show more than DSC just jumping in to fight a couple of bird-of-prey ships. The challenge is to write it and keep Star Trek's message.
That is my only criticism. It's been a criticism I've had for a lot of genre fiction depicting technological war. It was also a big criticism of ENT at the time of airing, where Starfleet was going to have to be fighting the Romulan Wars within a few years, and yet seemingly only had capacity to construct two Warp 5 ships. It's true that big wars aren't always like this, it could be that neither side has that kind of infrastructure or the desire to escalate it that far, but it would be nice to see at least some engineering porn in sci-fi, we are all partly kids wanting to see engineering of the future - it isn't the only part of science fiction, but future engineering on an audacious scale is a big draw nevertheless. DSC actually has the budget and technology to depict this stuff too, unlike DS9.
Space warfare is physics as much as anything else - and physics presents some horrible possibilities. The opening of the 1979 anime Mobile Suit Gundam famously featured a 20-mile long O'Neill cylinder space habitat being used as a mass driver, being dropped from a Lagrange point orbit onto Sydney, Australia. Star Trek does not have to feature the grim darkness of biological weapons, genocide, and endless materiel - but it could occasionally show, say, a Klingon world where everyone is organized into work gangs, or a fortified dock.
This is why I was so wary of them making the Klingons clannish and religious, because a feudal empire with no central organization (hopefully not what they intend), fighting a technological superpower with a standing military, is problematic. Time will tell, I mean this as someone who has enjoyed the show, as a constructive criticism.
But whenever I see a conflict like this where there are two superpowers fighting, I expect to see at least some logistics flavor - even if Star Trek isn't Stargate SG-1, where practical methods of leveraging technology are a major plot point, it has featured episodes along those lines - if the Klingons don't have huge manufacturing facilities everywhere churning out warships, probably secret fortified bases hardened against photon torpedoes, with drydocks for a dozen ships carved into the side of a planetoid, then fighting a Union of Planets with like maybe 40 members, and a population of hundreds of billions can seem less naturalistic than it could be. DSC has thrown a few things out there about dilithium supply, etc, but it could also show more than DSC just jumping in to fight a couple of bird-of-prey ships. The challenge is to write it and keep Star Trek's message.
That is my only criticism. It's been a criticism I've had for a lot of genre fiction depicting technological war. It was also a big criticism of ENT at the time of airing, where Starfleet was going to have to be fighting the Romulan Wars within a few years, and yet seemingly only had capacity to construct two Warp 5 ships. It's true that big wars aren't always like this, it could be that neither side has that kind of infrastructure or the desire to escalate it that far, but it would be nice to see at least some engineering porn in sci-fi, we are all partly kids wanting to see engineering of the future - it isn't the only part of science fiction, but future engineering on an audacious scale is a big draw nevertheless. DSC actually has the budget and technology to depict this stuff too, unlike DS9.
Space warfare is physics as much as anything else - and physics presents some horrible possibilities. The opening of the 1979 anime Mobile Suit Gundam famously featured a 20-mile long O'Neill cylinder space habitat being used as a mass driver, being dropped from a Lagrange point orbit onto Sydney, Australia. Star Trek does not have to feature the grim darkness of biological weapons, genocide, and endless materiel - but it could occasionally show, say, a Klingon world where everyone is organized into work gangs, or a fortified dock.
This is why I was so wary of them making the Klingons clannish and religious, because a feudal empire with no central organization (hopefully not what they intend), fighting a technological superpower with a standing military, is problematic. Time will tell, I mean this as someone who has enjoyed the show, as a constructive criticism.
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But, the Klingons have always been portrayed in this way.
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