Star Trek

spoilery thoughts about disco s5e6 in the folder.

Edited by dcutter2 on May 4th 2024 at 11:38:30 AM

I was bored on this one, but may have something to do with the fact that I generally dislike the "we go undercover into a pre-warp civilization, careful not to break the prime directive" episodes. Which ST have tons of them btw.

I am enjoying the episodic nature of this season however that's one of the disadvantages of episodism, not all of them are your grain of salt.

I was concerned that showing L'ak without his mask was going to ruin the mystique of the Breen, since now we know what they look like, but this episode made them important to the plot instead of just a background element, and what they did do to flesh them out was pretty decent, so I think I'll give them a pass.

I think there may have been a flaw with Mol(sp) and L'ak's cunning plan. But death tends to do that.

One Strip! One Strip!

spoilery thoughts for disco s5e7 in the folder

Edited by dcutter2 on May 10th 2024 at 11:24:51 AM

Caught up on the last two episodes.

I would say that the core Myth Arc is just not that compelling, which I think is partially by design so that the show can place more emphasis on the episodic story and the B plot of deciphering the most recent clue is at least a little bit of fun. That said, the show wants us to believe Moll and L'ak have the capacity to get ahead of them on the scavenger hunt but everything is so wrapped up in ancient Starfleet records, Federation members and peaceful exploration of the different planets I just doubt the Breen could replicate that. But I guess the stakes have to be high.

With "Whistlespeak" I think my main thought of the episode was how low-effort the Human Aliens looked, just some skin markings on their forehead which may have been a budget thing. That said, Star Trek historically has had a very cynical attitude towards religion and spirituality, usually writing it off as Sufficiently Advanced Aliens we can safely disregard as not God. So this season (and some comments Pike made in season two) has had a much more open view of the impact of having a spiritual experience and what it means for the individual. Culver trying to convey his feelings on the Trill event to Stamets was surprisingly nuanced and a little sad, as he realized he and Stamets are not on the same wavelength there. Michael was also very sympathetic to Ohvaz's crisis of faith.

"Erigah" I think is actually rather clever for being a Bottle Episode without feeling like a Bottle Episode, the weight of the Dreadnought really makes you think they are about to throw down at any moment and is probably the best "politics and negotiations" episode the show has done. They have done a fairly good job at keeping the right tone of the Breen. It would have been very easily to dilute their intimidation factor by revealing more about them, ie The Borg, but this is more in line with the Jem Ha'dar where the more you learn the nastier they become. I did find the whole Moll goes through three trained security officers in hand-to-hand combat to be typical superfluous action, and for being at Starfleet HQ there are shockingly few starships hanging around.

Do you not know that in the service one must always choose the lesser of two weevils!

I’m really enjoying season 5, and kind of validates my theory that most Trek get find their feet 40-50 episodes into their run. I’m enjoying more standalone-ish episodes with a larger arc. It’s giving more time for characterization of other cast but I’m less into L’ak and Moll as antagonists.

T’Rina was fantastic in this latest episode too.

Also, I just learned the reason why Saru isn’t around during this run of episodes, was because Doug Jones was promoting Hocus Pocus 2.

The show is desperately trying to portray Moll and L'ak as complex, nuanced characters but it's just really a hard sell that two independent agents are capable of staying one step ahead of multiple Starfleet teams working on the project. In similar scavenger hunt type stories the villains will at least have one piece of the puzzle to prevent the heroes from completing it, but at this point all they had was the journal while Discovery has 4 of the 5 artifacts in their entirety.

Do you not know that in the service one must always choose the lesser of two weevils!

I do think is kind of boring they make the Breen in basically just another Proud Warrior Race Guy with a Feudal Future and The Empire, you know, like the Klingons, Romulans, Terrans etc. I like when they make the antagonist at least somewhat original (like the Borg, the Dominion, Species 8472 and those delightful fascistic Cardassians).

However I did was mindblown by one adding to the Breen lore; that they're semi-fluidic inside their suits, now it makes sense why the ally with the Founders and why the Founders (or at least the Female Changeling) did treat them with respect and not like any other "solid".

An antagonist species I wish we get to see more: The Voth from Voyager. They’re legit terrifying IMO. They’re different and not a Noble Warrior Species but a more (for me) terrifying antagonist: Doctrine Fanatics.

me too. And Discovery was perfect for bringing them back as enough time have pass to see if they change already they believes. Maybe already accepting their Earth/Alpha Quadrant origin seeing themselves as the true owners of the quadrant, or maybe split in a civil war with a group of fundamentalists trying to destroy humans because are the proove that the Doctrine is wrong while other faction wants to warn/help the Federation.

I doubt she knew what they looked like? Like, even Weyoun didn't know what the Breen looked like and he's her right hand, and she notes that their meeting when Worf and Ezri are captured is the first time they see each other face to face.

She also notes to Weyoun that she didn't care or know what the Breen wanted and merely cared they kept winning. So I don't think her relative niceness came from a sense of fellowship and more from a "These guys are more effective than most of our dudes and we literally are out of options"

Edited by Ghilz on May 14th 2024 at 9:15:09 AM

It's not hard to believe that the Changelings and the Breen didn't think it was worth mentioning to Weyoun. Especially if there was a chance of it messing with the brainwashing, given that it would mean the Breen might be seen as gods too and even if the Breen and Dominion were allied, the Dominion probably wouldn't want the Breen to be able to take control like that.

Edited by Zendervai on May 14th 2024 at 9:15:57 AM

Not Three Laws compliant.

Sure, though at the same time it's not hard to believe the Breen might also have never told her what they looked like, being infamously secretive. And thats without mentioning the obvious caveat that keeping their true apperance secret also acts as a safety against Changeling infiltration, since it's harder for a changeling to infiltrate a people about whom nothing is known.

Of course the implication at least is Kira knew what a Breen looks like since since she jacked one of their uniform.

Edited by Ghilz on May 14th 2024 at 9:20:27 AM

Alright is fair that the Breen may have hidden their true look to the Changelings (although the Changelings also are known to have very good intel about all the major powers of the galaxy) but still would explain why the Breen choose to ally with the Dominion; "Hey, this guys who are similar to us are kicking our rivals asses lets help". In the past it was just seen of them as to be oportunistic but at the same time treacherous as allying with the Dominion that is lead by xenophobic racial supremacists who want to enslave or control everyone (including you) is not precisely the most -pardon my Vulcan- logic. With the Cardassians was because they place a puppet dictator in place but why would a full independent sovereign power to ally with people who despise them no matter how hostile it is to the other powers?

Edited by TVGuy on May 14th 2024 at 12:42:28 PM

Species 10C was their attempt at doing a true Starfish Alien for the franchise. As a passing glance to better develop the Breen I think they've done fairly well in taking the broad details of what's already known, adding a few new revelations but trying to maintain their innate intensity. The talk of royalty and bloodlines as important to their Imperium makes them a little different from all the other superpowers, and the dreadnought sets a certain tone for the climax of the season.

Though I imagine the season might end similar to "The Chase," where a Romulan privately offers a glimpse of friendship. So maybe not peace with the Breen but will be opening the door.

Do you not know that in the service one must always choose the lesser of two weevils!

Does anyone else feel disconnected from the new era? Like, we skipped head, something like 900 years and now we have to learn everything from scratch; what the status of all the major galactic players is, etc. Like, has anything happened that couldn't have been done with a smaller timeskip? We could have done 200 or 300 years and gotten similar results.

Honestly for me it's almost the other way around, how little has changed in 900 years.

Like, several time travel wars and a giant societal collapse but otherwise shit's not that different.

Biggest development it feels we got was the Vulcan/Romulan reunion which is nice but also paying off a plot point from like 800 years ago.

Like things have changed so little that our characters from 900 years ago all but immediately fit seamlessly in after what feels like a week of adjusting.

Also, I have to say it, man all the 32nd century ships look awful? The detached nacelles look stupid.

Edited by Ghilz on May 14th 2024 at 9:30:08 AM

I think it depends on the reasoning.

Like, one of the problems with any era from the 30th century and earlier, you have time travel up the wazoo and we know the biggest battle of the Temporal Cold War takes place in the 29th century, and the Enterprise of the 29th century has already been designed and it's ugly as hell and ridiculously huge. It's not surprising the writers were like "nope, not touching that".

Time travel shows are infamously hard to write and going "one big time jump and then done" is easier than trying to figure out how not to use time travel in a period where we know pretty much everyone had it.

Making a show about the future era of the Temporal Cold War would be interesting, but slotting Discovery into that would be a huge mistake.

Edited by Zendervai on May 14th 2024 at 9:45:06 AM

Not Three Laws compliant.

I think the "This is too similar to 24th century trek" and "they dont tell us much about this new era" are frankly related

It's the writers not wanting to pigeonhole temselves. I call it the Power Rangers SPD problem.

Power Rangers SPD is a 2005 show taking place in the future of 2025. It's in continuity with the others. and its vision of 2025 is an earth that's become full of aliens. Visitors, refugees, etc... They've been here for about a generation. Because of this each time a new Power Rangers show gets announced, some fans ask "So when are they gonna show the aliens moving in" coz SPD is in continuity so clearly this has to happen soonish right? Right?

I think Discovery's writers sort of aware of this kind of issue. That talking about big events sort of beholds anyone making a show set between Picard and DIS season 3 to fill those events. So can't have a bit about how say for 300 years a Ferengi hegemony using reverse engineer Jem'Hadar they bought off a garage sale ruled the galaxy or some other weird shit. So instead any event are just follow up to events from earlier show "Yeah the Romulans and Vulcans reunited. Like in that classic Spock TNG episode set up".

So Discovery sorta banks on safe values. Yeah the Federation's around coz they can feel pretty safe no one is gonna make a show about how the Federation collapsed (Well no one except Gene and he died before anyone bought that pitch) and leaves the details as to what happened in those intervening 900 years so the writers can make whatever future Trek show they want.

To be fair considering how fugly the 31st century ships tend to be I dont think the Enterprise J is too ugly for the Discovery showmakers to use.

Edited by Ghilz on May 14th 2024 at 10:23:32 AM

A good number of episodes in the 22-24th century shows indicated that Starfleet was more than open to exploring esoteric and alternative forms of FTL travel, Voyager especially basically paved the way for a cross-galaxy expansion. Lore surrounding 27-30th century Starfleet/Federation also indicated that exploring other galaxies via space folding was a possibility. All the changes to Earth, Vulcan and Starfleet can feel more like an Alternate Universe or 100 years later rather than truly 1,000 years in the future. TNG made a lot of similar changes to the TOS status quo, and ENT showed a similar disparity as a prequel to TOS.

That's part of why the Burn never really landed right, making the Orion Syndicate the main villains was retreading old territory in a small pocket of the galaxy. I feel much the same way with having the Breen as the enemy, which is also not helped by referencing the Dominion War as though it wasn't 800 years ago (imagine a Brazilian President being snide with the Spanish President because of the Conquistadors).

Do you not know that in the service one must always choose the lesser of two weevils!

Well people in the Star Trek universe seem to hold grudges after centuries. They bullied La'an Noonien-Singh because she carried the last name of her ancestor who was an evil dictator 300 years before. That's like bullying the current descendant of Napoleon: [punches his face] Take this you bastard! think twice next time you want to conquest Europe!

I wonder if general knowledge that all humanoids were created by the same species would somehow united them, as to consider each other like different races of the same "species" (like the different "races" humanity have^note which contrary to what some people would tell you is completely a cultural construct with no scientific validity behind, homo sapiens has no "races"/subspecies). Maybe this would cause a divide among the non-humanoids and the humanoids, like the Tholians, Changelings, Sheliak, Species 8472, Medusans, etc. would join together against them or would start to be discriminate. Maybe the reason why it was kept secret.

Though unlikely we'll see it as this is Discovery's last season.

That was the 26th century Enterprise, not the 29th.

The only 29th century ships we have seen are the time ships Aeon and Verne.

Edited by Memers on May 15th 2024 at 8:06:29 AM

It's funny coz Kirk and Crew had to have a briefing to explain who Khan is, and Kirk and Scotty were comfortable enough to express admiration about the man, who was otherwise a historical footnote in a troubled time. So it's very funny that La'an got bullied for her last name. Her classmates must've all been history nerds.

Also

A) Napoleon didnt have any descendant

B) That said his brother did, and his descendant absolutely deserves to be bullied as he's a weirdo that styles himself a prince despite France being several republics removed from his family. He's also an equity banker and general rich dude so equally punchable.

(Also France has a bunch of living descendants of Royalty who believe that this whole Democracy thing is a fad and its just a question of time before they return to one of them Royals)

Edited by Ghilz on May 15th 2024 at 11:48:24 AM

Pretty sure you mean Khan, not Kang.