One of the issues with the setup of Discovery in its third season, which I haven’t really addressed in any of my reviews to date, is what, exactly, Philippa Georgiou, deposed emperor of the Terran Empire and erstwhile Section 31 operative, is doing on the ship. Or, more to the point, why Saru is letting her wander around the bridge and make snarky comments and such.
That issue is brought into sharp relief here, though it does provide “Scavengers” with a lot of what’s cool about it.
This episode has a plotline we’ve seen several times before in Trek, to wit, one or more of our heroes disobey orders in order to engage in a mission that matters to them personally. It was at least part of the plot of “Amok Time,” The Search for Spock, “Reunion,” “The Die is Cast,” “Blood Oath,” “Maneuvers,” and several others.
I will give credit to Discovery for one variation on this theme that is welcome: having gone off on an unauthorized mission to rescue Book from being slave labor in a junkyard, Burnham is demoted. No longer first officer on Discovery, she’s now the science officer, removed from the chain of command. And even there, it’s a light sentence, which Admiral Vance explicitly states is only because she saved lives.
Buy the Book
Remote Control
The mission itself is pretty standard caper stuff. Burnham brings Georgiou along because she’s evil, and having someone evil along is useful when you’re performing a prison break. Their mission is to a junkyard planet owned by an Orion woman named Osira and run by her snotty nephew, whom Georgiou wastes no time intimidating.
The junkyard itself is fun, and I must confess to nerding out over the Easter eggs—commerce takes place in the Bajoran Exchange, and Burnham while pretending to be a salvager asks to look at the self-sealing stembolts (one of the sillier running gags on DS9). Georgiou and Burnham’s mission is to free Osira’s slave labor force, which includes Book. They even save the Andorian who has tried to rally the troops and got his antennae sliced off for his trouble—which, by the way, is another inversion of the cliché. The Andorian threw himself in the path of a shot meant for Book, and The Television Cliché Handbook states that the character then dies, but no, they actually get him back to Starfleet HQ and he’s saved by Discovery’s doctors.
That saving of a life (not to mention freeing all of Osira’s slave labor) is, unfortunately, not enough to make up for the fact that Burnham and Georgiou rather calmly blast the bad guys to smithereens. Yes, these are criminals and slavers, but that doesn’t mean they should just be blown up. Hell, given Osira’s business practices, it’s as likely as not that they weren’t working for Osira willingly, or were just hired muscle. Mind you, it makes sense that Georgiou wouldn’t care about killing them, but I have serious concerns with the fact that Burnham stood next to her and helped.
Burnham’s year in the 32nd century seems to have had an effect. At least, I hope that’s where they’re going with this, rather than just having our heroes casually killing people ’cause the FX are cool…
And certainly her time in the future is a factor in her behavior. She’s been either on her own or with Book the entire time in a place without much of Starfleet beyond a lonely guy in a space station, but with lots of places like this junkyard. It’s a brutal world that Discovery has found themselves in, and Burnham’s been in the middle of it for a year. It’s no surprise that she’s having trouble readjusting to being a Starfleet officer, and we’d already seen how much trouble she was having reintegrating into the team in “People of Earth.” What she does here, though, is several orders of magnitude worse, because she undermines all of Discovery—as Georgiou herself tells Burnham from the start, and as Saru and Tilly so eloquently discuss later on. Saru’s effectiveness as captain, the crew’s trustworthiness, they’re cast into doubt by Burnham haring off on a crazy-ass mission while the ship is supposed to be on standby for an emergency run.
Discovery’s role in the remnants of Starfleet is a good one. Something Saru learns to his horror in his first briefing with the other captains is that Starfleet is holding things together with both hands, and they’re having a hard time of it. Vance commented last time that they don’t do five-year missions anymore, and that’s mainly because set missions are a luxury they can’t afford—everything they’re doing is an emergency of some sort. Because they have the spore drive (which Vance is keeping classified), Discovery itself is being held in reserve for emergencies among the emergencies when they need someone to be somewhere immediately.
I do like the fact that Discovery has been given a thorough refit to bring it more in line with 32nd-century technology, and watching the bridge crew nerd out over the cool new tech is an absolute delight. (One of my favorite things about this show all along has been that the ship is populated by science nerds, which is one reason why Spock fit in so well last season.) And yes, it’s an old, tired joke, but I must confess to giggling every time Linus used his personal transporter and wound up in the wrong spot, especially the last one: when he interrupted Book and Burnham smooching in the turbolift. I’m actually a little disappointed in the smooching, as I liked the idea of the two of them just being friends and occasional adventure partners without the romantic element, as it just strikes me as lazy. Though I did love how Georgiou was teasing Burnham about it all along.
Speaking of Georgiou, her presence on Discovery is now, as I said at the start, extremely problematic. I actually had no issue with her being on board, and even being allowed to roam freely, when they first arrived in the future. There’s no use in antagonizing her, as it will just pit her against everyone on board, and she’s not someone you want on the opposite side of a fight. By giving her a certain amount of free rein, Saru is able to make use of her (e.g., to get rescued from being held at gunpoint) without pissing her off and setting her against him.
But it’s not clear why Vance is seemingly okay with the deposed fascist running around freely on a Starfleet ship. Saru not throwing her in the brig when they were timelost and alone made sense—a brig is a holding cell for when you bring someone to a proper authority, and they had no proper authority. Now that they’ve found Starfleet HQ, though, why is she still there?
The answer, I suspect, has something to do with David Cronenberg’s interrogator from last week, especially since we now know why Georgiou has been going into fugue states—she’s reliving bloody moments from her Terran Empire reign.
Another unanswered question: how did the Burn happen? Burnham has found a couple of black boxes of ships that went boom when the dilithium exploded, and she assumed that the timestamps of the destruction would be the same. But they’re not, which means it was something that radiated outward from a point of origin. So now we have a quest to find more black boxes so they can start triangulating to go with the rest of the stuff going on…
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the best parts of this episode, which were back on Discovery. The first is Grudge. It’s awesome enough that the plot kicks off with Discovery being hailed by a cat. Book sent his ship on autopilot to find Burnham, with Grudge on board. Burnham then leaves Grudge on Discovery, where Tilly finds her, which leads to a hilarious scene of Grudge walking all over poor not-a-cat-person Tilly.
Then there’s Adira. She’s still seeing, and interacting with an image of Gray. Stamets sees her in the mess hall talking seemingly to herself, and the two of them bond over their semi-shared experiences. After all, Stamets also lost the love of his life and then unexpectedly got him back. The bonding between him and Adira is lovely, and Stamets’s determination to be a friend to Adira without judging her weird-ass behavior is so very Star Trek, and I love it.
Oh, and Adira also got rid of Stamets’s arm ports to operate the spore drive and made the interface for the drive much easier and less invasive. So yay that.
And hey, look, Vance is officially a recurring character now! Yay more Oded Fehr! Now he just needs a personality beyond “authority figure.” Though I did like the firm-but-fair way he dressed Burnham down. (“Commander Burnham, why don’t you tell me what I’m about to say?”)
I like the fact that each episode this season has stood on its own while moving the overall story forward in bits and pieces. Just in general, this season feels less chaotic than the first two, a reflection of the equivalent lack of chaos behind the scenes. May it continue…
Keith R.A. DeCandido will be one of the author guests at the virtual Philcon this weekend. He’ll be doing a reading, a panel, and a tribute to a friend. Read the full schedule on his blog.
“we now know why Georgiou has been going into fugue states—she’s reliving bloody moments from her Terran Empire reign.”
Uhh, no. That’s not a Terran Empire memory. It’s Prime Georgiou’s memory of being stabbed to death by T’Kuvma’s dagger. Somehow, being in the Prime Universe this long means that Emperor Georgiou is starting to merge with her Prime counterpart. And if Emperor gets completely taken over by Captain, I’m fine with that. I’m sick of being asked to root for a mass-murdering dictator.
Seeing the ship get upgraded to future (or, um, future-er) tech is cool, it makes sense, and it’s the first time Star Trek has actually used the “-A” extension to a registry number in something close to the way it’s actually supposed to be used, for a refit of an existing ship rather than a completely separate ship which just happens to share the same name. (The whole point of a registry number is to identify the class and series position of a unique vessel regardless of its name, so the Trek trope of reusing the same number for every ship that uses the same name is crashingly idiotic.) But what in the world is the point of detached nacelles? How does that even work? How does the warp plasma get to them?
Also, how do the transporter badges work? I’ve complained before about the absurdity of a transporter that beams itself — how does it work when it’s disassembled? — but let’s stipulate that fourth-millennium technology has cracked that problem. Okay. So how do they know where you want to go? We don’t see the users call out their destination; they just hit the badge and magically get where they’re going (or not, in Linus’s case). So do the badges read their minds?
I’m glad the Andorian guy didn’t die. With all the magic programmable matter around, it would’ve been silly if it couldn’t be applied to medical purposes as well. They didn’t actually say it was, but presumably Book’s ship had enough medical capabilities to stabilize him, at least.
How can the spore drive be classified knowledge — Discovery engaged within viewing distance of dozens of ships and the Federation Headquarter in the previous episode (timestamp 24:05). By now, really everyone should know about it.
Oh, incidentally, one thing I noticed was how similar the 32nd-century Starfleet uniforms are to Bajoran Militia uniforms. Does that mean Bajor eventually joined the Federation after all?
@2/Luthien: Maybe the captains of those ships were previously briefed, and these are different captains who were out on missions at the time.
@CLB: ” It’s Prime Georgiou’s memory of being stabbed to death by T’Kuvma’s dagger.”
Nope. And wrong. Pause the quick cut images and you’ll see the body on the floor is a male wearing a helmet. You also see the Terran Empire symbol in a flash. That’s about 10 minutes in. We also see a flash of the Mirror Burnham from behind walking in Phillipa’s throne room. That’s Phillipa’s bloody hand on the body’s chest. Georgiou calls out the name San; she does so again at 30 minutes in.
What set you off on a wild space goose chase? That is the Mirror U and will likely lead to backstory. Maybe it’s her son lying dead and MBurnham was responsible.
@1 – Starfleet had mind reading tech as far back as TOS. Kirk explained how the universal translator worked in Metamorphosis:
“There are certain universal ideas and concepts common to all intelligent life. This device instantaneously compares the frequency of brainwave patterns, selects those ideas and concepts it recognises, and then provides the necessary grammar.”
So the personal transporters are simply the combination of two prior technologies.
@4/Sunspear: The shot of the stab wound on the chest seemed to be first-person, from the POV of the victim looking down at their own bloody torso. And I saw what looked like a Klingon dagger on the floor.
It doesn’t make any sense to me that Georgiou would be having blackouts and fugue states just because of traumatic memories from the Mirror Universe. I mean, she’s had years to deal with those memories back home — why would they only hit her now? And she’d never have made it this far if they were so traumatic as to literally paralyze her or cause her to collapse in the middle of fighting for her life. It just doesn’t fit. There has to be something more neurologically drastic going on than just painful memories. I don’t know if my explanation is the right one, but I don’t find yours plausible.
@CLB: mine is not an explanation. It’s what’s on screen. Hence why I gave timestamps. Go back and watch it. The insignia on the dagger is Terran.
Weird persistence… I may have to bow out early this week… argument for argument’s sake… grumble… grumble…
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@7/Sunspear: “mine is not an explanation. It’s what’s on screen.”
Okay, so the insignia is Terran. I’ll stipulate to that. In that case, my presumption was wrong. But that only answers where the memories come from. It does not answer what’s causing her to react the way she is. I stand by my statement that traumatic memories alone are insufficient to explain why she would enter a fugue state in the corridor and collapse in the middle of fighting for her life. There has to be something more to it than that. It’s not what I hoped it was, apparently, but it must be something. Nobody almost gets herself killed by freezing up in a firefight just because they’re struggling with a sad memory. Certainly not an experienced warrior and sociopath like the Emperor.
Perhaps she’s incompatible with the Discovery universe. Maybe people from one reality can’t stay in another beyond a certain point or their “quantum signature” starts to reset. Maybe evil is encoded in that signature and she’s now experiencing regret and perhaps even horror at what she did in the other universe.
It doesn’t make any real world sense but this is not the real world we’re watching.
Is it possible the flashes are of the future not the past? I suspect that the Terran world is behind the Burn anyway.
Burnham is an awful character. She is literally the worst part of the show that the writers insist on focusing around her. Her “punishment” is unrealistic in the future as portrayed. She would certainly not be involved with Starfleet as a minimum and back in jail again if we are being at all realistic.
To be honest, I think she can no longer really be the protagonist of this show. Almost all of the other crew members are better people, and far more interesting. I would like to see her become the villain to be honest. Let’s face it if she decides the Federation is not what she wants she will do whatever she feels to make it conform to her personal vision. She is almost more Terran in a way than Georgiou. It would not be a stretch for her to go rogue against discovery and the federation, but with lots of angsty crying.
I am not 100% comfortable with a Star Trek that just casually kills people like she has been doing.
It seems pretty clear to me that something happened to Georgiou while she was being interrogated by the director of Crash. :)
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I really enjoyed this episode. I got a big DS9 vibe from the planet-bound parts of this episode, which is never a bad thing.
Bobby
@11 – Burnham becoming a villain would be a cool twist. At least, it would be better storytelling than what she’s been given. But that would be really bad optics. Making the first black female Star Trek lead a villain? Or pivoting away from her as the main protagonist? Not going to happen.
It seems to me Georgiou is the Dr Smith of the Discovery, only violent instead of cowardly.
@11 – “She would certainly not be involved with Starfleet as a minimum and back in jail again if we are being at all realistic.”
Don’t forget that this is the same Starfleet and Federation that turned a blind eye to Section 31 for centuries. The same Federation that either didn’t know or didn’t care that one of their most esteemed historians, John Gill, was a closet Nazi. They’re not really good a judging character.
Also, another bit about Georgiou. We’re told by a famous film director guest star that the mirror universe has been drifting further form the current reality for centuries. Perhaps that’s tying into my previous idea that she’s becoming accustomed to this universe.
Are they setting up a Freejack scenario? Otherwise known as a Dragonriders of Pern gambit? Otherwise known as going back in time and grabbing all of Starfleet and bringing them to the future right before they explode (presumably leaving a bomb in its place to maintain the timeline)?
One thing is for sure, the Federation is really committed to their ban of time travel, because otherwise they could just go back in time and yell “Everyone drop out of warp for 30 minutes!”
Six good episodes in a row! Keep it up Discovery! Yes, it may be predictable writing, but I find it quite satisfying as a viewer to see Book and Burnham get together. It seemed inevitable from jump. The characters have a chemistry that smolders. In the turbolift scene I was actively rooting for them to kiss. And when Linus interrupted them I thought it was going to be that cliche where the kiss is going to be delayed until a later episode but alas, they went through with it.
Nice to see Grudge again and Tilly questioning her if she ate Michael.
The demotion in rank for Burnham was a very dramatic moment but quite deserved for her. Pretty emotional and powerful scene. So who is first officer now? The blonde lady who used to play Airiam who I can’t quite remember her new character’s name?
A lot of killing by Burnham again like in the first episode of the season. Doesn’t really seem in line with what we expect of our Star Trek heroes.
And I still believe Georgiou’s fugue state has to do with the divergence of the MU and the mainline universe. But maybe David Cronenburg did do something to her.
@17/BrianDolan: “One thing is for sure, the Federation is really committed to their ban of time travel, because otherwise they could just go back in time and yell “Everyone drop out of warp for 30 minutes!””
Book said that all known methods of time travel were destroyed well before the Burn, so they didn’t have the option to go back even if they wanted to. Of course, the problem there is that any warp engine is potentially a time machine due to the slingshot effect, at least in theory. (Novelist David McIntee proposed that few starships can actually survive a slingshot effect, because he realized that otherwise people would be slingshotting through time constantly and the timeline would be in shambles. I followed his lead in my own novel Forgotten History and explained why the Enterprise was exceptional in its ability to survive a slingshot, although I also established that Spock knew how to make it work for a different ship, to explain The Voyage Home.)
@19 Didn’t the Admiral say that Starfleet was actively engaged in upholding a time travel ban? That would seem to say that methods still exist
@20/Brian: No, he said that as time travelers, the Discovery crew’s presence was illegal. The laws from over a century before could easily still be on the books even if there have been no active violations.
A lot of people seem to want to read the two passing references to time travel as evidence that there’s going to be a time-travel fix to the Burn, but I think that’s profoundly missing the point. The whole reason the writers established a time travel ban was specifically to let us know they wouldn’t be falling back on that obvious, predictable crutch, that the 32nd century is here to stay.
Besides, they don’t need a time-travel reset. That’s something fiction only resorts to when the status quo is too cataclysmic to fix any other way, e.g. the entire crew being killed as in “Cause and Effect” or the whole Federation ceasing to exist as in “City on the Edge” or First Contact. Here, the Federation still exists, it’s just fragmented. Presumably the limited use of warp travel isn’t just because dilithium is scarce, but because people are afraid the Burn might happen again. That’s the only reason I can think of for Burnham’s rather strange insistence that the Federation can’t re-form until the cause is known — because that’s the only way to be sure it won’t happen again. They’re driving home the idea pretty hard here that explaining the Burn is the season’s goal, not undoing it.
@21 I hope you are right! But like I said, I’m predicting a move forward in time of the immediately pre-Burn Starfleet, Freejack, Pern, and Un-snapture style. I just don’t believe Star Trek can kick the time travel habit cold turkey
#21: The thing is, we “know” that Emperor Georgiou needs to be back in the original DSC/TOS era sooner or later for the prospective Section 31 series (however much some parts of the fan community may disapprove). So the series needs some way to get her back to that time period…
…unless, just maybe, we’re at least partially wrong about this character being “Emperor Georgiou” in the first place.
I’m beginning to think that rather than being pulled wholly forward through time like everyone else, mirror!Georgiou was somehow split/copied/duplicated in transit, such that there’s one of her with Our Heroes in their new ‘now’, and another back in the Prime universe that didn’t time-jump at all. And the one that jumped forward is now turning out to be a somewhat defective copy, very possibly because she’s now sharply displaced from her original universe along two entirely different space-time axes.
The interesting part of this theory is that if accurate, it presents a relatively rare storytelling situation: whereas we viewers “know” that Georgiou is going to show up back in the original timeline down the road, there’s almost no way for anyone aboard Discovery to be aware that an “original” of her is still alive 900 years back. It gives the writers a way to kill off this Georgiou for good – as far as the in-story characters are concerned – while keeping the original in reserve for that other prospective series.
Oh, wow, great catch, Mr. Bennett! I didn’t recognize those flashbacks, but if you’re right — and you’re usually a very keen observer of Star Trek — it would be amazing if Prime Georgiou’s personality were starting to supplant that of Mirror Georgiou.
The Terran Emperor is a fun character in some ways, but I really prefer to root for characters who adhere to Starfleet/Federation values, and Mirror Georgiou is so very, very far from that.
I really hope you’re right about what’s going on!
I think Georgiou got her empathy gene turned on by David Cronenburg who seems like he is section 31. They made a point to mention some sort of Terran genetic trait. The Burn seems like a definite Federation mistake. They mentioned that the temporal wars had already weakened the Federation, dilithium was already scarce and that then the Burn hit.
I have to admit that I’m a little befuddled with this idea that Burnham (and, to a lesser extent, Saru) seem to have that finding out what caused the Burn is necessary to restore the Federation.
Even if they do find out the cause, all of the dilithium is still gone, isn’t it? Knowing why all the dilithium blew up isn’t going to make it any less all-blown-up. Maybe there’s an off chance that discovering the cause could lead to some kind of technology to restore dilithium, but the odds are pretty strong that even once you figure out why it happened you’ll still be exactly where you started — warp travel is still insanely expensive due to its consumption of one of the rarest substances in the galaxy.
Seems more logical to take it as a given that they’re now more or less irrevocably post-dilithium, and use Discovery (and all of that sphere data, which we haven’t even touched on — like, does that have any information about Burn-like phenomena over the past 100,000 years?) as a way to make that post-dilithium period better.
And yet we’re pretty much where we were last week — with Discovery, the only ship apparently in the known parts of the galaxy with this experimental drive system that could completely replace warp drive and restore the Federation, being ready to go back out into harm’s way instead of bringing in every scientist and engineer the Federation can spare to try to figure out how to put spore drives on every ship in the fleet (or build a new spore-ready fleet). I remain unclear as to why Admiral Vance is even considering allowing Discovery to leave the bubble, ever, for any reason, until they’ve done that.
@8. Mod: it was an attempt at humor which apparently fell flat.
I was going to talk about the dangers of apophenia, as contrasted with an epiphany, and defined by psychiatrist Klaus Conrad in a 1958 publication as “unmotivated seeing of connections [accompanied by] a specific feeling of abnormal meaningfulness”. Wikipedia If you wish for it to be true, you see it as proof that it’s true.
It’s a normal pattern seeking behavior, especially for storytellers, but can be a cause for concern if it runs wild. We’re seeing instances of that in the real world. But the point is moot, so (shrug)…
@19/ChristopherLBennett I LOVED what you did in Forgotten History!! The moment when Dulmer and Lucksly realized that Kirk had become a temporal menace because they had personally just caused a predestination paradox had me cackling!!
CLB and @24/Corylea If prime-Georgiou is starting to overwrite mirror-Georgiou, this wouldn’t be the first time that happened. Recall that mirror-Archer had prime-Archer in his head just from spending time on a prime timeline ship.
Perhaps time travel isn’t just illegal, but impossible, because someone (forgotten in the future because no one figured they were important) led a secret team of bureaucrats who developed a barrier that prevents time travel into certain regions of time.
;-)
Paging John Jackson Miller. Looks like Georgiou’s flashbacks may tie in to the novel Die Standing, which I haven’t read.
Die Standing
A story featuring Emony Dax and Finnegan, Kirk’s Academy nemesis, sounds like fun. According to a Youtube comment, it also features Georgiou’s Mirror universe friend, San, who died. Don’t know the circumstances of that story, but memories of the loss seem to be triggering Phillipa’s PTSD.
@28/DonRudolphII: Mirror Archer wasn’t actually in contact with Prime Archer’s consciousness; that was just his own insecurity and paranoia manifesting as his mental image of Prime Archer, a hallucination or a symbolic representation of his fear of not measuring up to his counterpart.
Neat future-tech-is-different idea: Badges that combine communicator, padd, tricorder, and personal transporter. (Plus rank pips, which IMHO was a dumb idea in season one and still is — there’s “de-emphasize differences in rank” and then “require a microscope to perceive the difference.”)
The Discovery crew gets an upgraded ship, new omnibadges, but stick to their old uniforms. Starfleet HQ seems to have a multiplicity of uniforms (unless some are UFP rather than Starfleet? or member-planet militia?) so what’s one more?
I don’t care for the design of Admiral Vance’s office — it’s stark for the sake of stark. (Maybe holos and programmable matter render the idea of “decoration” irrelevant?) At the end of the ep there’s a low-angle shot in which the walls can be seen as not flush-blended with the deck, but have a lip — no doubt an artifact of set design using mundane 21cen materials and the necessity for “wild” walls. (See also: Babylon 5, with close-ups of door frames with visible woodgrain.)
23cen and 32cen GUIs seem to be identical, or at least, both use blue as the main color. That’s a place the two eras could’ve been visually differentiated.
Aboard Book’s ship, we see that his bed is made of programmable matter, like Sahil’s in his UFP outpost. Given three options for temporary fixtures (“solid” hologram fields, replicated matter, p-matter), I wonder what the trade-offs are? Does p-matter use less energy? Is it fail-safe?
@1/CLB:
Consider a two-phase process. The badge contains two elements. Element A push-transports Element B to the destination, then Element B pull-transports the wearer, container, and Element A. Element B would need to hover at chest-height (but miniature antigrav is evidently possible) and assemble the much greater mass and volume of the wearer-plus-badge around itself (so evidently the tech is no longer constrained by “transporter scanners enclose the cargo” and “hardware is much much larger than the cargo”). The 32cen process happens so rapidly that we don’t see Element B materialize first.
“Improved maneuverability,” according to Saru’s voiceover. I’ll believe it when I see it.
Miniature artificial wormholes? If you could obviate the need for long warp plasma conduits between warp core and nacelles, that would remove one structural vulnerability. Or the entire warp core has been duplicated and relocated to each nacelle? Since we’ve never seen Discovery’s Main Engineering, that’s not a dramatic change. (Warp core, plus at least short-term supplies of M/AM.)
The interesting part is that they’re temporarily detached, since we see a stream of p-matter coalescing between Discovery’s fuselage and the nacelle. That means p-matter isn’t just for low-demand applications like furniture and miniature drones; it (or at least one grade of it) is durable enough for a starship hull.
@32/phillip: “Neat future-tech-is-different idea: Badges that combine communicator, padd, tricorder, and personal transporter.”
I guess it’s a logical evolution. First they combined the badge with the communicator, so why not combine it with the other stuff too? All that’s missing is a phaser, but I guess that’s hard to aim.
“Miniature artificial wormholes?”
If you can casually create wormholes, you don’t need warp drive anymore.
“That means p-matter isn’t just for low-demand applications like furniture and miniature drones; it (or at least one grade of it) is durable enough for a starship hull.”
In theory, programmable matter can adopt the physical, chemical, and optical traits of any known material and even exotic materials not found in nature. That’s pretty much the point. See Wil McCarthy’s The Queendom of Sol series for a depiction of all the things programmable matter could do. The version in DSC, though, is called “programmable matter” but is more like a nanotech utility fog.
@33. Add a forcefield generator, an anti-grav generator, a life-support system, and a dedicated-use replicator (pre-loaded with a default uniform) to those omnibadges, and you basically have a Green Lantern ring…
And plasma is basically just energy, it might not be hard to wirelessly transmit energy from the warp core to the nacelles, as long as they’re close enough.
I loved Linus-out-of-nowhere, and I kinda hope the running gag sticks around. I also liked the sight gag of Grudge (seemingly) flying Book’s ship and hailing them.
@34/Cybersnark: “And plasma is basically just energy”
No, it really isn’t. Plasma is ionized gas, the fourth state of matter (after solid, liquid, and gas). Starships use it as a working fluid to transmit energy, much like nuclear reactors use steam to transmit energy.
This is another middling one for me. Again, I may come to enjoy it more as part of the whole than as a stand alone. I’ll have to see.
The slave salvage centre bit was standard issue, but executed competently enough and I like that the episode was given space at the end for consequences of that. The geek out to the new tech was fun, Linus’ pop ups sold that more than anything because playing with a new tech toy and getting it wrong is part of the joy. The little bit with Tilly acting as an officer was a nice display of growth, as was Stamets’ connecting with Adira. Culber and Stamets’ relationship continues to be one of the most real in Star Trek, such great chemistry between Rapp and Cruz.
One thing that I’ve been enjoying this season is the way they’re efficiently dismantling the worst fan theories. No Control, no time travel, the Federation ain’t gone evil etc, etc. I quite like a wild fan theory but there were some that were, lets just say, not great routes for the show.
Kitty!!!
I just find it interesting that all the way in the 34th century, they’re using the same perimeter tech as “The Running Man” in the salvage yard / labor camp.
@38/navibc31:
And Tolor’s remote control has zero security: no password, no biometrics — convenient for our protagonists, that. What, was he required to build the perimeter himself, using salvage and hand-written code? (Another function the omnibadges might have: lockpick.)
Point of information: On Hunhau, Tolor’s aunt’s name is “Osyraa,” not the homophonous “Osira.” (KRAD has previously noted that he screens a review copy of each episode, sans closed captions.)
@6. ChristopherLBennett: CL, even a mass-murderer and callous tyrant can find the pillars of their psyche kicked out from under them when they learn that their every achievement meant NOTHING in the long run (in fact the Empress Emeritus’ character type might well be hit even harder than most by that sort of realisation, given the importance of her Ego to the proper care & maintenance of her sanity).
“Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!” as the poet put it.
Anyway, getting back the episode as whole, I too was glad to see Mr Oded Fehr become a recurring player – but I think that even Dahar Master krad would agree that the real Comeback Queen of this episode was Grudge the Galaxy Cat (“I knew that cat was the brain of this operation!” was my first, not entirely-serious thought on seeing her make a triumphant return).
I’m not going to lie, her little “Nice try Red, but this is my room now” moment with Lieutenant Tilly was my absolute favourite part of this episode – for I am a simple, plebeian fellow with shamelessly lowbrow taste in entertainments – though there was a great deal else to like in this particular story (I especially liked seeing Captain Saru and The Admiral be firm, but excruciatingly fair with Commande Burnham*) and not least seeing Lt. Commander Stamets all but begin the adoption process for young Adira.
*One can only wonder who shall inherit her place as XO on NCC-1031-A (It will be especially interesting to see if they promote from within or are assigned a fourth millennium native to help balance the ticket).
Also, I meant to mention this last week but forgot to – I find it deeply, deeply hilarious that of all the cultures persisting down to the 31st/32nd Century THE KAZON are the ones who get a shout out (Clearly the Borg didn’t know what they were missing when they failed to assimilate those wooly-headed cossacks of the Delta Quadrant).
So, basically a nice little mother/daughter bonding outing for Michael and her Imperialness. Cute.
It makes sense that there’s some sort of neural link between the wearer and the mini transporter- you figure there has to be sone sort of linkage for the universal translator as we saw in season 2 when suddenly everyone was hearing a different language. So presumably there is some method for transmitting to the communicator/transporter where you want to go
This was a solid one. They finally dare to have Michael Burnham actually break the rules and suffer actual consequences for it! It’s almost as if the Discovery writers somehow travelled into the future and read my comments for the past couple of episodes. Just last week, I pointed out the Saint Michael problem that plagued much of the second season, in which everyone idolized her and somehow forgot the Binary Stars debacle. They even have Saru phrase it in the best way possible: “I haven’t worried about her like this since we both served on the Shenzou“. Glad to see the writers haven’t forgotten Michael is capable of making severe mistakes. I particularly like that Tilly is the one who pushed Saru to make the right call in informing Vance.
The rest of the episode is a pure prison caper, one very well executed by Aarniokoski. I didn’t know these prisoners, but I was still rooting for their escape, and the whole sequence kept me on the edge of the seat. Any chance of seeing Georgiou in action is enough for me.
@10: I’m not sure I buy the notion that Mirror Georgiou would somehow be incompatible with the current universe, and these flashes would be the universe’s way of course-correcting an anomaly. If that were the case, Lorca wouldn’t have lasted as long as he did as captain of Discovery. We don’t have enough details for an answer yet. The flashes could be Mirror-Universe related, her violent past coming back to haunt her somehow, but it could just as easily be associated with original Georgiou’s murder by T’Kuvma. We’re just at the right narrative point where this could be a plausible callback. Although, I can only begin to wonder how would they justify this in a scientifically plausible way. Could a long dead person’s personality affect her mirror-self?
@44. Eduardo: “The flashes could be Mirror-Universe related, her violent past coming back to haunt her somehow, but it could just as easily be associated with original Georgiou’s murder by T’Kuvma.”
There is zero Klingon imagery in the flashbacks. It’s all Terran. Some is new, like Georgiou crying over her friend San’s body. The rest are images from the season one Mirror story. There’re even shots of Georgiou’s flagship, the ISS Charon. Might even be a blurry Lorca falling into the exposed core.
There was also a shot of a fortress on a hill or mountain. Five episodes from now there’s one titled “The Citadel.” It lines up. My guess is we’re headed to the Mirror universe again.
We are watching a science fantasy, but there’s been nothing at all suggesting this universe can’t house someone from another and needs to “correct” itself.
Remember Worf’s blackouts and dizzy spells in Parallels?
@45/Sunspear: “We are watching a science fantasy, but there’s been nothing at all suggesting this universe can’t house someone from another and needs to “correct” itself.”
Of course not, but that’s defining the question the wrong way around. As you say, it’s a fantasy, so the way things work in the universe is dictated by the storytellers’ narrative choices, not the other way around. My thinking was that the writers might want to bring Prime Georgiou back by having her original consciousness overwrite Mirror Georgiou’s. If that had been the case, they could’ve easily concocted some kind of handwave to justify it. I probably wouldn’t find that handwave remotely plausible, but in this particular case, I couldn’t care less. I do not like seeing a mass-murdering dictator portrayed as a sympathetic character, and I would be happy if the show dropped Emperor G and brought back the original, much better Georgiou. If they did that, I wouldn’t quibble about the science (well, I would, but not with any deep feeling); I’d just be glad they did it.
For what it’s worth, though, I wasn’t imagining anything like the “correction” thing Eduardo proposed, as if the universe had some kind of immune system that was “rejecting” an outside contaminant. I thought that was ridiculous when Stargate SG-1 did it and I’d find it ridiculous here. I was thinking more along the lines that parallel timelines are alternate quantum states of the universe, so two versions of the same person existing in the same reality is like a superposition of states in a quantum particle. Thus, those states could collapse into a single state. That’s my handwave for how the “Tomorrow is Yesterday” trick of beaming people into their past selves could’ve worked, and for why the alternate future Picard from “Time Squared” disappeared after the time warp was resolved. So it seemed conceivable that Prime Georgiou’s quantum information could survive as some sort of palimpsest and might potentially merge with Emperor Georgiou’s information. Though it’s a good point that the same thing didn’t happen with Lorca. And the fact that it didn’t start until she arrived 930-odd years after Prime G’s death argues against it too.
@CLB: I agree with you about welcoming a return of original Captain Georgiou. Culber came back. Gray may be re-embodied at some point; at least the actor will be around next season. No reason why they can’t say “she was dead and got better” if they really wanted.
But it’s not the way it’s percolating for me. Reminds me somewhat of viewers trying to guess the Red Angel’s identity last season. All the guesses I saw were for male characters, including Picard, when it was obvious to me that the figure was feminine. Here, nothing jumps out saying this storyline is going toward a resurrection of OG Phillipa. Michelle Yeoh is having fun with her evil character and she was apparently a driving force behind setting up the S31 show. The rest of this season will build toward that, including a probable trip back to the Mirror Universe. Her story will then likely split off from the main Discovery one. So for both story reasons and outside production reasons, it seems we’re stuck with the mirror version, whether they humanize her a bit more or not.
A little bit OT:
In discussions about where this season is going, I don’t remember anyone commenting on the part of the opening credits that shows an uncountable number of those “cute” little robots being multiplied in ranks upon ranks? Will this be the benevolent Sphere turning into an evil AI?
@49/srEDIT: I don’t think the maintenance-robot shot in the titles is any more plot-relevant than the shot of the spacesuit gloves or the captain’s chair. They’re just showcasing the tech. Clearly the producers and FX team like those drones, since they built a whole animated Short Treks episode around one.
@46: Worf had dizzy spells only _during_ the actual transitions to a parallel universe. He seems perfectly fit in-between transitions.
I continue to be somewhat distressed by how the crew of Discovery treats Georgiou. She’s an unrepentant war criminal, whose crimes eclipse any others in the real universe’s history, not “that edgy friend you don’t quite approve of, but still hang out with.” If she’s too useful to keep in prison, then have her observed by guards at all times.
One thing I forgot to mention, a thought lost amidst my usual flood of whimsy, is that the Andorian character in this episode becomes even more impressive when one recalls that for an Andorian losing their antennae is an even nastier injury than it would be for a Human to have their ears cropped – it is, in fact, recognised as a disabling injury (to the point where this species’ duelling codes recognise a fight as over & done with when a participant loses only ONE of their antennae).
All of which makes our Cerulean Emancipationists’ achievements post-trim even MORE impressive.
Honestly, I’m looking forward to seeing more of this And/Orion Syndicate (partly because the Blues are one of the STAR TREK species that fascinates me the most and partly because the combination of Andorian Warrior-Poet tendencies with Orion Seductiveness & Intrigue is likely to be a combustible one): hopefully we’ll get at least some of that fine, slithery Jeffrey Combs action out of this particular combo (though one cannot decide if he ought to be an Andorian or an Orion … oh Good Grief, I just got a mental image of the Syndicate’s Pimp-master General!).
I enjoyed the episode, it was fun. Loved Ryn, the Andorian, and I hope he stays as a recurring character. On the other hand, I will keep complaining about the show wanting to paint Georgiou in a cool action anti-hero light, when she’s a genocidal, cannibal tyrant, no matter how many traumatic flashbacks they show us. I do hope these flashbacks and fugue states are some sort of “switching her mind with prime Georgiou’s”. Crazier things have happened.
Another problem I had is that I don’t like that the Emerald Chain is directly identified as an Andorian/Orion syndicate, linking it to two species, instead of just being a multi-species organization. I find it too simplistic, and frankly, pretty racist (particularly with Ryn being “the token good Andorian”).
Then there’s what’s being foreshadowed (and more so if you listen to Sonequa Martin-Green on The Ready Room) about Burnham leaving Starfleet. If she’s gonna do it, and stay on the show as some sort of ally, and we get to see them interact, then do it, cut the cord, and go for it. But I don’t want half a season of “will she, won’t she”. I don’t mind Michael having a central role, but I am watching this show to see the USS Discovery and her crew.
I also agree that disintegrating bad guys willy-nilly, something very common this season, is not cool.
Something good is that we keep getting cool moments with the rest of the crew, like Saru/Tilly discussing Michael, the bridge crew geeking out over the new tech, and Stamets bonding with Adira and Gray, then having a tender moment with Culber. And yes, Grudge.
Speaking of the tech, I like that Book’s ship doesn’t have to turn around, it can just re-arrange itself.
All in all, I think this is the worst episode of the season so far, but that only means it’s “the less good”, because the quality of the season so far has been great. I appreciate that each episode is more or less stand-alone, while still moving the plot forward.
@krad: Speaking of the lonely guy in the space station, I hope Discovery swings by and takes him to Starfleet/Federation HQ for a visit.
@1 – Chris: About the personal transporters, the lead prop designer showed on The Ready Room that they have designed all the hand gestures for the badges’ functions. All badges have a “home setting”, which you get to by double-tapping the badge. If you do have to “dial-in” a destination, there’s a gesture to bring up the holo-interface for that.
@23 – John: Whatever the S31 show was going to be, it doesn’t have to be that now. It has been moved forward in the production timeline in favor of Strange New Worlds, and perhaps for Picard S2 and S3. They might have even changed their plans for Georgiou as Discovery S3 was developed. I’m not saying it won’t get made, I’m just saying the plans have changed, and might have changed even more.
@26 – James: I kind of agree with you there, the only thing that might make sense is if finding out what was behind the Burn is the key to finding new, easier ways of warp travel.
@41 – ED: Lieutenant Nilsson (ex-Airiam) is the third in command, and the actress is already part of the cast, but your idea of having a future-Starfleet officer as the XO is good. Kinda like having Kira as DS9’s second in command.
@48 – Sunspear: sure I hope Gray gets re-embodied.
@51 – AndyLove: I sure hope most of the crew doesn’t actually know the worst details about Georgiou. It’s completely incongruous that they treat her like the edgy aunt…
@52 – ED: Speaking of Ryn, the Andorian, the actor is married to Mary Wiseman (Tilly), and he is a HUGE lifelong Trek fan. He posted a video on Twitter with photos of him as a kid in conventions in costume, the whole nine yards. He is also gamemastering a Dungeons & Dragons campaign for Wiseman, Anthony Rapp (Stamets), Emily Coutts (Detmer), and Ian Alexander (Gray). I would love to sit in on a session of that!
Personally I was incredulous at Tilly just picking Grudge up without any preliminaries. My present Feline Master very much dislikes being picked up and he’s not alone. It’s always wise to approach close physical contact with a dignified feline with caution and tacit asking of permission.
@54: Thank you for that! I had exactly the same first reaction…only momentarily, but still, most cat “servants” would know better.
@54 – I’m happy to report that, after 10 years of companionship, my Feline Master allows me to carry him for 30 seconds! Though once I got overzealous and went 35 seconds and got a well deserved claw to the forearm.
@47/Christopher: I never saw the Stargate TV shows (only the original film). I was actually thinking of LOST when using the term ‘course-correction’. That show built its entire time travel structure on the concept that deviating from the expected flow of time will be met with an immediate correction, using a man’s imminent death as something that could never be prevented.
@51/AndyLove: This notion that the crew’s accepted Mirror Georgiou sort of reflects my own issues with the way they treat Michael as a saint, overlooking her past mistakes (at least until this episode put a lens on that). The way I see it, the crew is too comfortable with each other, too happy, too tight, too easygoing. Too much like a family, and not nearly enough like a military group living in an extreme situation. Scenes like the way Detmer blew up at Stannis should be the norm, not the exception. Same with Georgiou. They should have at least some form of security keeping tabs on her.
@57/Eduardo: Wow, that LOST thing sounds far more ridiculous and mystical. The Stargate thing was more like the universe having an immune reaction and rejecting an alternate-timeline counterpart.
Stannis deserves to be berated, he sacrificed his daughter.
Stannis deserves to be berated, he sacrificed his daughter.
Crap! I actually wrote that, didn’t I?
I really meant Stamets. Autocorrect didn’t even play a part in this bizarre, cross-fictional universe typo.
@51 – Or was it the fact that he was having dizzy spells while adapting to that universe? Perhaps the dizzy spells are just a side effect of his form of travel between dimensions. After all, he didn’t spend nearly as much time in each of them as Georgiou has in just the one. It does show, however, that there can be an effect when dimension hopping. Worf’s was short term, Georgiou’s may be long term.
On a slightly related note, notice that the writers seem to have forgotten that people from the mirror universe are supposed to be more sensitive to light. Shouldn’t she be using drop or rocking some mirrored shades?
@54 PrincessRoxana
Yes, Tilly should have been more careful. But cats differ amongst themselves just like humans. My beloved Ramses (gone three years now) adored people and loved being picked up, even by total strangers. Given his druthers he could sit in my arms for hours.
I’ve had a few cats like that too.
@53. MaGnUS: You make a very fair point about Lieutenant Nilsson (if nothing else a struggle to fill Commander Turnham’s shoes would be an excellent way to develop this minor character), though on a Doyleist level my gut instinct is to suspect that a Lieutenant (even one bumped up to Lieutenant Commander) might be a little too junior for the role of XO as anything but a temporary gig – also that Starfleet Command would be wise to take this opportunity to make the crew of Discovery slightly less a crew apart and more an integral part of this century’s Starfleet (I’d expect the replacement security chief to be a Fourth Millennium native too).
Also, it’s decidedly amusing to hear of ‘Mister Wiseman’s’ little game table – clearly he’s looking for a cunning way to insinuate himself into the cast as a regular! (Next thing you know he’ll be trying to add Mr Will Wheaton or Mr Vin Diesel to the roster).
… it has just occurred to me to wonder if Ms. Mary Wiseman found the make-up at all attractive. The internet might just be starting to corrupt me after all!
Lieutenant Willa seems like a good candidate for a 32nd-century character joining the crew, as she’s the main new-Starfleet character we’ve gotten to know other than Admiral Vance (and the poor guy from episode 1, who I expected to be a recurring player but who’s totally vanished). Failing that, I would’ve said Nhan, if she hadn’t taken that seedy new job.
Seedy, lol. :) And Willa would be a good choice, but she’s Vance’s aide, he probably needs her too much.
@66/MaGnUs: In-story logic bows to narrative needs and choices. Willa, as I said, is the most prominent character introduced so far who could conceivably fill the role. They’ve already set her up as a foil for Saru and the crew, so it stands to reason that if they do intend to have a 32nd-century character join the crew, it would most likely be her.
Besides, Willa isn’t Vance’s aide, she’s the chief of security at HQ.
So I had a thought watching this episode. They seem to go out of the way to call it the Andorian-Orion Syndicate (interesting that Andorian comes first even though it was originally the Orion syndicate). Vance calls it The Emerald Chain, Saru asks “the Andorian-Orion Syndicate” and Vance says “in this part of the quadrant, yes.”
What if in other parts of the quadrant, or elsewhere, it’s known as “V’dryash?”. We know Andoria was part of the UFP. So far we’ve seen an Orion Starfleet member, maybe in the ensuing 700 years or so since then, Orion also joins UFP (voluntarily or not) and then after the Burn, part of the Federation is known as an evil V’dryash, akin to some theories about the UFP earlier in the season.
@53: I sure hope most of the crew doesn’t actually know the worst details about Georgiou. It’s completely incongruous that they treat her like the edgy aunt…
I’m curious about this – do any of the crew, beyond Michael and Saru, actually know who Georgiou is/was? Her true identity was a secret when she was re-introduced to the Discovery crew, with a “she wasn’t dead, just nearly dead” cover-story identifying her as the Prime universe Captain Georgiou. Some of her original crew must be terribly confused … but many on the Discovery now never knew the real Captain Georgiou.
That’s even worse. Having a mass murderer on an interplanetary scale as well as a cannibal, known for eating members of the captain’s species. Yeah, just the sort of person you want everyone to let their guard down around.
She should have never been allowed to go to the future. Leave her with Pike to spend the rest of her life in a penal colony.
Also, how did she know about the holograms weakness to her eye flutters and why wasn’t that corrected in 900 years?
Reading Die Standing. From chapter 9:
Georgiou’s fist stab at an undercover codename for S31 is Divinity Churchmouse.
She tells Leland five different versions of who he is in the mirror universe, including that he’s a prostitute on Mars and has a STD named after him. She says one of them is true and he’ll drive himself crazy wondering which one it is. She’s creative and even funny mocking him. Leland comes across as somewhat incompetent.
There’s this exchange with Admiral Cornwell (a psychiatrist by profession). The stages of grief become a model for coping with the loss of status:
“Defiance. Murder. Plundering. Destruction. And my favorite: Vengeance.”
@69: The real Georgiou never was aboard the Discovery. The only crew on Discovery who knew Captain Georgiou personally were Saru and Michael.
Stamets and Tilly certainly know who this Georgiou is, and that’s the kind of thing that gets around, I suspect. Even if not, Stamets and Tilly had dinner with Georgiou (along with Saru and Michael) which is not something I’d like to do – and at least Michael and Saru had memories of Captain Georgiou which might be clouding their emotions, but no one else who is in the know has known anyone other than the genocidal Georgiou
@72/AndyLove: “The only crew on Discovery who knew Captain Georgiou personally were Saru and Michael.”
And Keyla Detmer, who was also in Georgiou’s crew on the Shenzhou. That’s how she got her cyborg implants — she was wounded in the Battle of the Binary Stars.
@73: Thanks – I forgot that!
@72:Yes, I was thinking of Detmer, though to be honest I thought one or two others of the “I still don’t really know them, but we’re making progress” bridge crew might have been on the Shenzhou too. I guess not. Though apparently Captain Georgiou was famous by reputation.
I just didn’t think that anyone else actually met the Empress – Tilly pretended to be a dastardly Terran captain Killy, but she didn’t meet the Empress-as-Empress. Michael & Lorca went alone to deal with her. The two Stamets versions did get switched a bit, but I don’t remember if “our” Stamets actually saw the Empress.
I just don’t remember those last Mirror Universe episodes well, which is why I asked. I really had the impression that Starfleet fully believed that the Discovery crew would believe Georgiou was Captain Georgiou, with the rare senior officers who knew better sworn not to say anything. Obviously Starfleet itself knows, even in “current’ time, based on Georgiou’s mysterious debriefing-and-maybe-more.
At least we can all agree that the Burn was caused by Burnham’s mother returning to the future, right? right?
Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?
@76/Darth Meh: That’s occurred to me as a possibility.
@76: Thus the name, “Burn” – from “Burnham”?
@77: This show’s plot points and story arcs tend to be based on the crew working to fix the problems their own members started so this one seems to fit the pattern.
@78: *Drum-roll & cymbal crash*
After today’s episode, the “Gabrielle caused the Burn” explanation is thankfully looking less likely.
As repugnant as people might find the idea of her wandering loose (something else to blame Burnham for), I have to ask: Exactly what could they put Georgiou in prison for? Any crimes she committed as empress took place in another universe outside the Federation’s jurisdiction. They don’t really have any authority to charge her with anything and there’s seemingly no-one to extradite her to. As I recall, when she arrived in the Prime universe, Admiral Cornwell recognised her as an exiled monarch. Most of what she’s done since has at least some official sanction from either the mainstream Starfleet or Section 31. Maybe giving her the run of a Federation starship is a bit extreme, but so’s detaining her indefinitely without trial.
@cap: agree with your points. A lot will depend on the execution (…) of her character going forward. I’m not even sure she, the character not the actress, can sustain a whole series at this point. Can she be redeemed? Is it a matter of the environment determining moral character? How much blame can continue to stick to her for succeeding and surviving in an evil system if she starts acting for a greater good?
When Michael agreed to be Saru’s Number One, I couldn’t shake the feeling it would be somehow temporary. Now I know why. As amazing as Burnham looks in her Command gold XO uniform, it just somehow seemed incongruous to the Michael Burnham who returned to Discovery after a year on her own.
And I’m also glad that Burnham and Book got to smooch here. A platonic relationship would have been fine, and there was this moment of will-they-or-won’t-they before the smooch, and I too was rooting for the smooch! Then my new friend Linus pops in (they need a course on how to operate the personal transporters, or things could get, um, weird on Discovery. But then, would that really be different for the ship?) and I thought, oh I guess we’re not getting the smooch, but no they smooched! And I was happy!
Less happy that the former XO had to disobey orders, and that Captain Saru didn’t bring the intel to Vance, just to be sure. Still, orders are orders, and I could see the gears turning in Michael’s head, like, Yep, we’re going to rescue Book anyway, aren’t we?
I almost want Micheal to leave with Book and kick ass and take names some more. Maybe she could investigate independently, sending Discovery intel they could act on.
I soooooo love this ship full of science nerds geeking out over cool shit (ships, tech, etc.).
CLB, I hope you’re right about Georgiou. Every time I want to laugh or enjoy her company, my brains reminds me, oh yeah, she was the leader of a brutal, fascist empire (cue sad trombone sting). If the Captain somehow supplants the Emperor, then yay! The show will make up for killing off another intriguing character of color, and I can actually enjoy Georgiou.
My heart broke for Saru. He came to trust Michael implicitly, and she forced Saru to demote her. The moment was clearly heartbreaking for the Captain as well.
@83. Dante: “If the Captain somehow supplants the Emperor”
Sometimes I wonder how cynically the production company is weighing these issues. One of the ironies of playing STO is to find that there are other players who hate the ideals of the Federation and prefer playing villains. One of the most popular builders has a Youtube channel named “Augmented Dictator” and his intro starts with Montalban Khan dialogue.
This isn’t something new in gaming. I had fun playing City of Villains years ago, mostly because the archetypes were less rigid than the hero types. My favorite character was somewhere in the middle between a scrapper like Wolverine and a tank like the Hulk.
Listening to political chat in the main Fed social zone, Earth Space Dock, has been disheartening this year. Many players definitely do not respect or subscribe to IDIC ideology. Quite the opposite in fact.
So I wonder what the writers and producers are thinking in pushing a genocidal monster as the main character of a show. What audience are they hoping to reach? Who are they attempting to please?
There’s some apparent softening of her character going on to prepare the groundwork. She’s becoming more of a wicked witch type with a mordant sense of humor. Would it make her more palatable if they inject some tragedy in her past? Or if she suffers a debilitating condition like brain damage?
This whole direction can crash and burn big time, but they are clearly invested in the character.
@84/Sunspear: “So I wonder what the writers and producers are thinking in pushing a genocidal monster as the main character of a show. What audience are they hoping to reach? Who are they attempting to please?”
Michelle Yeoh fans, of course. Her presence and charisma were such that they recognized the value of bringing her back on a continuing basis. It’s just unfortunate that the only opportunity they had for doing so within the context of season 1’s storyline was as her Mirror duplicate.
Of course they could have made Captain Georgiou’s Mirror image less evil. But I guess the twist of having Michael’s mentor at the head of the Evil Empire was too good to pass up, and anyway it’s all about Michael so a character with less connection wouldn’t do at all.
@86/roxana: It’s possible they only intended Emperor Georgiou to be a guest role when they conceived of the character, and then decided later on to bring her back on a continuing basis. So they would’ve been stuck with what they (or their predecessor showrunners) originally established.
It’s easy to envisage how personal transporters work – they’re two transporters in one. The first transports the other into place, the other once in place beams the first to join it with the subject.