I think that was part of the "time has no meaning" gag, which on the surface I actually liked as a concept. I looked at it as Guinan sending Picard to Kirk's early moments in the Nexus, so as to best influence his exit before the addictive elements got a hold of him and he was lost in it forever. Maybe I'm just fanwanking it on that one, but that's how I interpreted that.
Well, you know what the Keeper says! Since you resist the present specimen, you now have a selection.
Its no wonder he was pissed off and ready to quit in "The Cage", he obviously knew what was coming his way.
I don't think it would be as unfulfilling as the nexus, since it's a shared experience between him and Vina. I think/hope that they can lead a meaningful existence together, since I thought that If Memory Serves added a feeling of true affection/longing between the two that I kinda didn't get when looking at The Cage alone.
I voted option one (staying the course) - but if I had my way, I’d prefer he was given another ending / alternative - simply due to Mount’s harrowing performance. As an actor, he’s owned this role, and part of me wants him not bound to his known fate, and to have a ‘happier’ ending, than the one he’s sacrificially chosen. I realise that this would undermine his choice to go through the Delta radiation ordeal, rescuing the cadets on the j-class starship, etc - however I have wondered if the writers might be using a misdirect, in other to rewrite Pike’s fate? Subvert audience expectations? Or stay the course and let Pike have his date with destiny / fate? Beep, Beep? Or Beep?
I want some kind of hocus-pocus, Super-Fanwank ending, where it ends up being Leland in the chair trapping Control for all eternity. (or at least till the next Trek Series comes along 10 years down the road where They want to bring IT back) And Pike gets to time jump to a future era where he can live out the rest of his natural life. Damn canon anyway!!
I really like what Mount said in an interview- that this scene makes' Pike's third act a heroic act rather than a tragedy. While I can get behind that and support it, I voted for jumping canon because I would like to stay in this period and explore other alternative outcomes.
As Tenavik said, "When the future became past, the present will be unlocked" or something like that? So training accident is unevitable, but after that not only Talos could be. If someone will find a possibility to restore Pike's health, it wouldn't make Pike less heroic.
With this being the disco-verse alternate timeline, and being a straight white male, he won’t die he will either come out as Gay or get castrated in the accident instead....
As a purely hypothetical scenario, now that we've seemingly retconned the Talos IV death penalty rule - and good riddance to it, it was completely stupid - I wonder if Pike might be able to actually continue to work with Starfleet in some way from his position on Talos IV. As long as he's on the planet, he can be projected as an able-bodied person, and that means he could easily communicate with Starfleet, if the Talosians would be willing to open up to the Federation a little. It would be really cool in some possible future show to have Pike appear on a ship's viewscreen and give a briefing or something from Talos IV. Maybe a bit too much of a perfect happy ending that damages the poignancy on The Menagerie, but honestly, Mount has made the character so likeable that I wouldn't object to a more upbeat ending.
But Pike wouldn't be in a position to refuse or accept anything. It's only with the chair that he can even go beep! We still don't know about the death penalty one way or another. Burnham accessed what sounded like the whole story, and not some cryptic top secret file written in riddles - but she probably skipped all sorts of safeguards doing so, being like her foster brother a Sarek-trained codebreaker and all, and there's no telling what else she skipped. She would certainly have ignored any sanctions. And it's not as if the incident became public record afterwards. Would the death penalty and Pike's no-contact recommendation come later, perhaps? "If Memory Serves" already proves the same point as "The Menagerie" - that resistance is futile, penalties or not. Perhaps Pike goes to Starfleet to withdraw his original recommendation, which is the very reason Starfleet slaps a death penalty on the thing, seeing that the fearsome Talosians already got Pike? Timo Saloniemi
There are 8 or 9 years before the end of Discovery Season 2, and the time when Pike will suffer the accident. So, time enough for a show focused in Pike, Spock and Number one. Five seasons at least. But his destiny must be kept and the canon preserved.