A definite step up from last week, I think, but still nothing spectacular.
We get some clarification on the Burn. First, sources of dilithium were already starting to run low even before the Burn. Second, it technically wasn't that dilithium exploded, it's that it was rendered inert for an instant, which caused any warp cores using it to explode. Dilithium that was not in use was unaffected. Third, the Federation did try to switch to alternate FTL methods, but it just wasn't feasible.
Discovery jumps to Earth hoping to meet with a Starfleet admiral that sent out a message a decade prior. After the Burn, Starfleet and the Federation government moved off-world fearing it was a prelude to an attack, and now nobody knows where they went. The admiral that was on Earth died.
However, it turns out the admiral was a Trill, and the symbiont was passed on to Adira, a human. They actually maintain continuity really well with this. Burnham notes Trills were known in the 23rd Century, but their nature as a joined species was unknown, which jives with "The Host". Also, I'm guessing advances in medicine (along with the Trill's true nature now being well-known) allow Adira to keep the symbiont indefinitely, unlike Riker. And looks like we're going to the Trill homeworld next week. Possibility of Dax?
Saru finally gets the chair, but I have the distinct feeling that puts a target on his back. I suspect this series is going to end with Burnham taking the captain's chair.
And speaking of Burnham, she and Book save the day again, although this time its nowhere near as much of a deus ex machina. Still, can the other crew members please get a chance to shine?
And Detmer's still pretty shell-shocked. I hope this goes somewhere. Y'know, other than Burnham giving her a pep talk and suddenly she's all okay.
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
Math checks out on the stardate as per the 1000/year system.
Lots of character development & exposition here. Georgiou starting to find a balance between old ways & new, as is Burnham. I like Booker a lot & hope he shows up again. I think Detmer's going through some sort of temporal-induced depression, akin to post-partum issues. I hope she sticks around because I like her & hoe she & Owosekun evoke a nodern Sulu/Chekov. The looks they gave each other when Book stepped onto the bridge were great.
Agreed on Saru's captaincy. He deaeves it, & its nice to see a hero vessel finally getting a non-human commander.
This "fall of the Federation" shit still depreses & annoys me, as similar ideas always have. The "inerting" of dilithium makes no sense (unless they're gonna say that for an instant it was rendered nonporous to antimatter, which..no?) Also, warp cores are primary power, so they're almost always "active". As for supplies already running low, what happened to dilithium recrystalization? That was already used standard in the 2360s. By 3189, there should be synthetic dilithium, even replicatable dilithium. It's just poor fucking writing & failure to grasp how things really work.
Regardless, even if the ships went boom, I don't see how that would cause a contraction & UFP dissolution. To say there were no alternate methods of travel or no contingencies for mass emergency response is to deny the true nature of Federation. Since the first Abramsverse movie & its description of the Federation as "a peacekeeping armada", there's been this heavy misunderstanding of its constriction, making it a loose aggregation in the style of the post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States when in fact it's much more like the EU in a more structured form.
Whatever. The episode was good, the acting was enjoyable, but the direction continues to annoy & disappoint.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
We get a stardate! At first I thought they got the stardates off by one, until I went back and realized that Burnham’s recording was made soon after she arrived (in 3188), while she was waiting for Discovery to show up. So now that we’re in 3189, we should get a stardate 866xxx.
I definitely feel a bit better about the tech explanation behind The Burn. It actually makes a lot of sense, if it’s regulating the antimatter reaction then you suddenly get an unregulated reaction, with a near-instant wrap core breach.
The thing that doesn’t make sense is why Starfleet’s never developed a single newer power source in the centuries since TNG. The Romulans already had artificial quantum singularities, and with all the crazy tech that we’ve seen in TNG and VOY, I find it hard to believe that they couldn’t develop a viable alternative power system.
And while we’re nitpicking... Earth doesn’t even bother keeping tabs on the other settlements in the same star system? Earth’s “scanning range” is less than the 10 au or so from Earth to Saturn? Before the spore jump, I assumed that Discovery would arrive further out and then warp in conventionally.
I really hope they keep Saru as captain. Burnham may be the lead protagonist, but Saru is the better leader. He’s inspiring and compassionate, very much a Picard-style leader who gets everyone to do their best work. Burnham focuses so much on action first and people second. I think she has some self-awareness about that, even not counting for her year away from the ship.
Finally, I think that Discovery might need to make a stop at Crazy Khan’s House of Shields, if he’s still in business. Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
(I see Shik posted while I was commenting... great minds think alike!)
I agree about the issues about “fall of the Federation” being so heavy-handed, but I can also easily see how things could go very poorly. Any society involving long distances (for relative values of “long”) is going to develop connections that rely on long-range travel, trade, and communication. When the means of that travel and trade is reduced, then the connections can dissolve over time.
Certainly the episode is overly focused on Starfleet’s perspective, but one would assume that all civilian ships would’ve been affected in the exact same way. So if, say, 80% of all ships— Starfleet, transport, passenger, personal— all went boom, then there would be plenty of planets that wouldn’t be able to trade in the same volumes as before. People can’t get from planet to planet easily, colonies can’t import supplies and resources that they assumed would always be easy to import. Then some groups would start turning on their neighbors to get the stuff they need, and Starfleet wouldn’t have the numbers to defend everyone. Even a less-anarchic scenario would involve a fracturing of the Federation, because if you can’t travel great distances easily, why stay beholden to a massive central government that can’t be as effective as it was? Then different systems and sectors would start splintering off and forming their own smaller groups.
What we’re seeing in Discovery is the end result of a process that started more than a century before. I’m sure that the Federation didn’t disappear overnight, but the inability to have enough ships to travel long distances would mean the ties that held the Federation together would be a lot weaker.
The Federation and Starfleet abandoning Earth seems... odd. In trying to prevent an attack on Earth by moving the capital elsewhere, they also probably ended up hastening the dissolution of the Federation by removing the symbolism and planetary resources of one of its founding members.
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
I honestly feel that the writing team has dropped the ball on worldbuilding & is making it up as they go along.
Posted by Spike (Member # 322) on :
So a 14 year old human was the only suitable host available? M'kay. I'm sure we'll get some (hokey) explanations next week. And Starfleet HQ moved without leaving a follow up address? This feels all so fabricated.
How could they ever think that the Burn was an accident?
Altogether I find the writing rather corny. Like the scene where Burnham handed Saru the captaincy. Or that it took the crew of Discovery (or rather Georgiou) to settle the (improbable) dispute between Earth and Titan.
Also, the thought that Messiah Burnham will solve the 100 year old mystery of the Burn is cringeworthy.
[ October 30, 2020, 10:01 AM: Message edited by: Spike ]
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
I’ve decided I hate that sequence with the field of starships exploding. It’s silly. It’s comical, verging on comedic. And I say that as somebody who loved the comedy spacing scene from s1 with Lorca wriggling away outside the bridge.
It’s... cheap. They could have had an Order 66-style montage of ships and stations and planetary facilities exploding one by one.
And proper warp core breach explosions ffs, not little puffs of flame like cars exploding in an 80s action movie.
And definitely not a packed screen of starships clumped together milling around aimlessly like you’d never see them in, er, real life (you know what I mean).
It looked like an option in that old After Dark screensaver collection. With the “SHIPS GO BOOM” setting slider moved right over to maximum.
Posted by StarCruiser (Member # 979) on :
You sound like you were expecting some intelligence or logic from the idiots in charge...
Silly person!
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
I have no expectations at all.
Posted by Spike (Member # 322) on :
Just another loveless copy & paste job. Not as bad as the ones in PIC, but not by much.
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)