[+] Star Trek Discovery (Fan) Thread

[MarkB]

Regardin the Burn and Romulan Singularity Drives: We have no idea what state the Romulan people or their technology is in, centuries after the Dominion War and the Romulan Supernova. maybe singularity drives went out of style.
Maybe the Romulans were the only ones that didn't face severe repercussions.
But turning all civilizations from dilithium-based warp drives to an alternate technology is going to take time. While all that cargo you expected to resupply your world with goods is either dead in space or burned up in space.

All very true. It was just something that hit me the moment it was described - "hey, guess who doesn't use dilithium in their ships." And they're pretty much unique in that among the major races, so I don't think anyone else would have an easy time of retrofitting to that technology if they tried. It's like someone with decent engineering skills but no knowledge of internal combustion engines trying to build one from scratch - you know the principles, but you're missing more than a century's worth of innovations and refinements in design.

A catastrophe like that would probably lead to a lot of worlds turning their focus inward, trying to find ways to be self-sufficient so that the next time space travel becomes practically impossible they aren't screwed up.

It's like if on Earth all oil would suddenly burn up. Even assuming no one dies from plane engines falling or their cars exploding, that is a completely break down of supply lines and logistics. A few nuclear powered ice breakers, air craft carriers, submarines and electric cars aren't going to keep the economy going, they probably won't even be enough to get the injured or sick into hospitals...

Yeah, they've managed an interesting set-up to the season. It should be fun to see how it comes together.

 

[Vael]

I teared up at the end. An interesting opening, though I hope we get the rest of the crew next episode.

 

[Kaodi]

I did really like the ending with the new commission.

I did like the episode more or less. But it does not really do much to allay the concern that this is really Star Trek: Michael Burnham rather than Star Trek: Discovery. I am also not entirely sure what to make of a whole lot of people being vapourized in the first episode of this season. I thought we were hoping this season would be a bit less grim and gritty?

 

[MarkB]

I did really like the ending with the new commission.

I did like the episode more or less. But it does not really do much to allay the concern that this is really Star Trek: Michael Burnham rather than Star Trek: Discovery. I am also not entirely sure what to make of a whole lot of people being vapourized in the first episode of this season. I thought we were hoping this season would be a bit less grim and gritty?

I'm guessing that episode 1 is "Michael separated from the crew", and episode 2 will focus almost entirely on what happened to the crew. And the narrow focus of the episode was very helpful in allowing them to push through a lot of exposition without it feeling forced.

And vapourisation isn't particularly gritty. It's why they tended to use it back in the original series - it's a relatively bloodless way of having characters die without leaving messy corpses around. Even if these vapourisations were a bit more literal than the old ones.

I certainly wouldn't call it "grim" either. Everything from the moment Burnham got taken for interrogation up until she got spat out of a giant spaceworm was one long action-packed, humour-infused romp.

 

[Hussar]

THAT WAS AWESOME!!!

I just finished watching the season 3 opening and that was just so freaking cool. I love the set up. Very Andromeda vibe with much better acting. That was some seriously good TV.

As far as the Romulans go, it will also depend a lot on STicard. After all, the Romulan empire collapsed centuries before the current year for Disco. Who's to say they didn't adopt dilithium based engines as well.

 

[Morrus]

Interesting. I might have to watch again as I must have missed some details.

That guy lives alone in a space office and gets up every morning and sits at a desk and waits all day in an empty room at a desk for a comissioned officer from a long-dead civilization to show up, and then goes to bed, and then does the same thing the next day, every day, until suddenly Michael Burnham appears and goes "oh, I'm a Starfleet officer and now you are too!"

I feel like I missed something.

 

[MarkB]

Interesting. I might have to watch again as I must have missed some details.

That guy lives alone in a space office and gets up every morning and sits at a desk and waits all day in an empty room at a desk for a comissioned officer from a long-dead civilization to show up, and then goes to bed, and then does the same thing the next day, every day, until suddenly Michael Burnham appears and goes "oh, I'm a Starfleet officer and now you are too!"

I feel like I missed something.

He may not get much company, but he wasn't completely isolated. When he scanned for Discovery there were three active Starfleet vessels within the station's sensor range, so they do have some presence in the area.

One thing I meant to mention: Is anyone else concerned about that little snippet in the opening titles of hundreds of Starfleet droids being produced? That's one way to make up for lack of numbers, I guess - but I wonder how smart they are, and how that follows on from the whole artificial-life controversy in Picard.

 

[Dire Bare]

Michael on drugs is hilarious!

Also, "He has a thyroid problem".

 

[bloodtide]

Well, going by this episode it sure is Star Trek crossing over to copy Star Wars, and specifically copy The Maldlorian. It feels like a bad sign, but maybe it's just for one episode. Book is a rogue environmentalist hero with a heart of gold? Er, ok, but that does not sound so great.

I did love seeing the Orions and Andorians again, and it's a nice twist that the two races went to 'hard life' after the fall of the Federation. Really going back to what they were before each race joined the Federation, like we saw in Star Trek Enterprise. And I liked the small touch of adding in the Lurian thug (that was Morn from DS9's race).

I could have done without the lame Star Wars TFW copy of the 'monster cargo eats the bad guys'.

And Book has.....magic? I see the tribal markings glow on his face and wonder if he might be connected to any 'alien god like beings'. Star Trek, going all the way back to the OS has used the idea that many of the 'gods' of myth, were in fact aliens. The Greek Gods and native American Sky Spirits are two good examples. I was hopping for Book to turn and say something like "I'm from Afrontis, where the beings once known as gods to the ancient Africans of Earth lived for a time and they taught us some things."

The Burn. Well, sounds a bit odd, plot wise. I'd guess Q or any of the other more then a dozen all powerful beings might have done it......but I'd guess it's going to be a global warming analogy and the Federation did it to it's self. I does leave the big hole of "what about other ways of space travel?" We know for sure the Romulans don't use dlilithim, and I'd guess at least some others don't. I think Book says his ship has a quantum slipstreem drive (so somebody watched Voyager). I wonder why the Federation did not switch to say Soloton Waves and have ships 'surf' the galaxy. What about sub space conduits?(the Borg ones) Or the sub space tunnels of the Vad'Warr? For that matter the Borg don't use dilithium, right? And there was alien tech that could teleport ships, you'd think that might of been invented by someone by the 32nd century.

 

[Kaodi]

If the Burn were to be tied into prior Discovery seasons somehow I wonder whether it might have something to do with the mycelial network, one of the few non-Q-type explanations available for something that could affect everywhere in the galaxy at once.

In any case I guess we will find out in time. I wonder how this season will pan out. If it does really well does this become the new baseline era for Star Trek? Or does everything else continue to focus around more known eras where the Federation is still fully intact?