Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2 (214)

[P-90_177]

Indeed.

To a degree I do think Burnham is overused. I did roll my eyes a little throughout the season at how she is developed. But I think she’s interesting and a certainly don’t dislike her. To me, she’s like Kirk, always seemingly saving the day at the last second. In fact the whole show is the most like TOS as any of the others. It’s a fun filled adventure series with lovable characters.

Saru, Stamets, Tilly, Culber, Owo, Detmer and in this season Reno, Pike and Spock are incredibly well rounded characters and the whole set up of the last few episodes makes it clear that Burnham cannot do what she does without their help. An just to put this into perspective for a moment, we have had 29 episodes of Discovery so far. That is just a little more than one season of any of the other shows. Go back and tell me how well rounded and crafted the crew seems in TNG or DS9 after 29 episodes and you will see that they hav done a phenomenal job to showcase the rest of the ensemble.

[GodAtum]

10 The plan to hide Discovery in the future

- Why couldn't Discovery just jump to another galaxy for a little while why everyone else destroyed Leland and then "purged" Control (since starfleet was able to eliminate the threat without Discovery around anyways).

- If Discovery just showed back up at the end of the episode, would Control just pop back up too and say "gotcha!"?



2) Useless deaths

- How does a door get jammed electronically but the manual switch works and they didn't spend at least some of that time trying to find a way to get the switch pulled from the other side. Just a few quick ideas:

- those robots going around doing **** like scanning spock's brain or moving around the hull of the Enterprise? One of those could have pulled the level instead of admiral cornwell, right? Those robots don't do anything else useful.

- Or, she could have used some rope?

- or, they could have transported her, right? They transported Spock!

- Same with Ariam! Couldn't they have transported her after she was shot into space? If starfleet was able to purge Control from everything, they could have purged Control from her implants, right?



3) The time crystal!

- I thought the time crystal would only let them go through time once. Not 5 times into the past, and once more for the final signal?



4) The signals!

- How is burnham making the signals anyways? Like what are they? Bursts of light? Gamma radiation? I think I missed something.

- How did they know there would be 7 signals anyways? In the first episode 7 signals all showed up at once, then disappeared, and then over the season they each showed up one by one? How does that work with what Burnham did in the finale?



5) The spore drive!

- Why isn't starfleet just continuing to work on the spore drive? How does not talking about it actually do anything to prevent "interfering with historical events"?



6) OMFG Control as a villain.

- Were they actually able to purge Control that easily? I mean, if so, why not just get 100 ships, destroy Leland, and then purge Control!

- After Leland was destroyed, all the ~wights~ Control controlled ships were dead in the water. Why was Control still a threat then? (I see people saying that other forms of Control would still exist and Discovery is too big of a target by holding the sphere data)



7) The sphere data

- Or does Discovery only hold 48% of the sphere data now? Since some of it was uploaded to either the mom's suit or to Control? (The point of uploading it was to remove it from discovery, so that data can't still be complete on Discovery, right?`)

- Seriously, what was it about the sphere data that would make Control (or any other AI we're afraid Starfleet might make at this point) able to destroy all sentient life? Like what new stuff did it actually need to do that? it seemed pretty f'n dangerous as it is, and like, 'more data about other artificial intelligence' was going to make it extra bad? This feels so hand-wavey I can't even.

I don't think this is nitpicking. I understand a couple of plot holes, but this is waaaaay too many. They're so concerned with fixing the big picture issues with cannon. But aren't thinking critically enough about their own narrative to ensure it actually makes enough sense.

[BruTak]

Jings, as we say here in Scotland, that was some season finale. I'm gonna have to take a wee while to process things...

[P-90_177]

10 The plan to hide Discovery in the future

- Why couldn't Discovery just jump to another galaxy for a little while why everyone else destroyed Leland and then "purged" Control (since starfleet was able to eliminate the threat without Discovery around anyways).

- If Discovery just showed back up at the end of the episode, would Control just pop back up too and say "gotcha!"?

THey were using a lot of ship’s power to power the time crystal. I can’t remember if they mention it specifically but we can assume that would have knocked the spore drive off-line which also uses a ton of power.

My guess is that control would have done exactly that, yes. But more on that later.

2) Useless deaths

- How does a door get jammed electronically but the manual switch works and they didn't spend at least some of that time trying to find a way to get the switch pulled from the other side. Just a few quick ideas:

- those robots going around doing **** like scanning spock's brain or moving around the hull of the Enterprise? One of those could have pulled the level instead of admiral cornwell, right? Those robots don't do anything else useful.

- Or, she could have used some rope?

- or, they could have transported her, right? They transported Spock!

- Same with Ariam! Couldn't they have transported her after she was shot into space? If starfleet was able to purge Control from everything, they could have purged Control from her implants, right?

We’ve seen in Star Trek many times before that the doors get jammed and it requires a manual release to open or close them. It’s just simply a case that if the doors run on power and that power is suddenly cut then the door might just stop. That might not be all that logical but it’s still tv.

I admit I hated those robots on the hull of Enterprise but we don’t know what their capabilities are. At a guess I’d say that while they might be programmed to repair stuff they might not be any good at disarming a warhead which would have still required someone to physically go to the torpedo to try to disarm it and in order to do the best to save the ship you would want to try to work on it right up until the last moment in case something could be done. By the time they needed the manual release to be pulled there may not have been any time to get them there. OR:

If I was designing a torpedo the first thing I would do is make it so that things like transporters don’t work. Set up a dampening field or radiation around it so that transporters don’t function. Likewise things like those robots might not finction around it either.

Airiam is a different case because they probably could beam her aboard but couldn’t take the risk. If you beam her aboard then you are putting Control in a position where it still might go bezerk and gain computer access and this was at a time when they had no idea what it was capable of. Simply case of not taking the risk. Alternatively we do not know Ariam’s specs. It could quite possibly be that given how she was a careful and sophisticated melding of biology and technology that sudden changes in environment like exposure to vacuum or extreme temp changes would be enough to outright kill her immidiately.

Not sure what you’re getting at with the rope. I don’t see how that would help.

3) The time crystal!

- I thought the time crystal would only let them go through time once. Not 5 times into the past, and once more for the final signal?

There is a big difference in time jumps. One is jumping a few weeks in the past while the other is jumping nearly a thousand years into the future. That’s a pretty big power difference. Additionally, it’s not just taking the suit, it’s dragging the Discovery along with it which requires not just the formation of a micro-wormhole small enough for an individual to slip through but a full on quantum singularity.

4) The signals!

- How is burnham making the signals anyways? Like what are they? Bursts of light? Gamma radiation? I think I missed something.

- How did they know there would be 7 signals anyways? In the first episode 7 signals all showed up at once, then disappeared, and then over the season they each showed up one by one? How does that work with what Burnham did in the finale?

They never break down specifically what the bursts are. On close inspection they detected tachyon radiation which is how they concluded time travel (although they mentioned it could be caused by other things including transporter tech as I recall.) Otherwise we can assume that it was a mix of stuff Gamma rays probably. Red shifted light rays. Subspace distortions etc. Insert technobable here really... Otherwise they are seemingly created when the suit generates a microwormhole and they are powerful enough to disrupt tech that isn’t prepared for it. Hence why Enterprise was disabled in the first episode and why it knocked all of the Ba’ul’s power out when Burnham assisted Saru and the Kelpians.

The signals all showed up at once over a 24 hour period. They could get a general idea of where in the galaxy they came from but they couldn’t trinagulate their exact positions. Therefore as the bursts reappeared they were in the same general location as the initial burst and they were able to pinpoint exactly where the burst was coming from. SO it became a worthy assumption that there were seven. Think of it like looking at a lighthouse through a badly focussed telescope at night. You’ll see a light blinking and at first that’s probably all you’ll see, and the only time when you have a chance to readjust your focus is when you can see the light, but when your focus is just right you’ll probably be able to see the light illuminate the light house as it comes around... That’s a bad analogy. I was trying to go for a Star Trek style simile and it didn’t really work.

5) The spore drive!

- Why isn't starfleet just continuing to work on the spore drive? How does not talking about it actually do anything to prevent "interfering with historical events"?

Two reasons. First of all even though the specs of Discovery’s spore drive were kept by starfleet, Stamets was really the only expert they had left on it. Plus it required a living being to be genetically altererd to make it work which is a big starfleet no-no.

Secondly, it was a hugely dangerous piece of technology. The Klingons devoted a lot of resources to tracking down and learning Discovery’s secrets and it gives whoever holds that power to simply blink a fleet in over an enemy’s territory. That would be hugely dangerous in the wrong hands and the more you use that tech the more likely it is to fall into the wrong hands. Plus as they learned at the end of season one the Spore Drive does seemingly have limited time travel capabilities given that they accidentally travelled six months into the future when they jumped out of the Terran Universe.

6) OMFG Control as a villain.

- Were they actually able to purge Control that easily? I mean, if so, why not just get 100 ships, destroy Leland, and then purge Control!

- After Leland was destroyed, all the ~wights~ Control controlled ships were dead in the water. Why was Control still a threat then? (I see people saying that other forms of Control would still exist and Discovery is too big of a target by holding the sphere data)

There was an advantage in the final battle in that Control revealed all of its forces. But the ships it had under its control were just Section 31 vessels since they were the once that primarily used the Control interface as a tactical aid. The rest of the fleet sort of sent and received data to control but that was about it. We don’t actually know that it was that easy to purge control. Starfleet simply says it had been done.

I am of the belief that the drones were still fully controlled by Control. Control was a computer programme it wasn’t JUST Leland. But Leland was its last shot to obtain the sphere data from discovery. Once he had been neutralised it had no hope of catching up and disabling discovery at that point in the battle. It’s still a computer programme that calculates probability and tactical assesments so there was no point in wasting resources chasing Disco. It could however shut down and play possum in the hope that Discovery would turn back. A computer programme doesn’t have malice or desperation, so it just stopped. Check mate. No point continuing. If Disco had swung back then it probably would have reactivated and continued the attempt.

7) The sphere data

- Or does Discovery only hold 48% of the sphere data now? Since some of it was uploaded to either the mom's suit or to Control? (The point of uploading it was to remove it from discovery, so that data can't still be complete on Discovery, right?`)

- Seriously, what was it about the sphere data that would make Control (or any other AI we're afraid Starfleet might make at this point) able to destroy all sentient life? Like what new stuff did it actually need to do that? it seemed pretty f'n dangerous as it is, and like, 'more data about other artificial intelligence' was going to make it extra bad? This feels so hand-wavey I can't even.

Unclear. Since it was largely unclear exaclty what it was in the Sphere data that was so dangerous. But keep in mind that we don’t have the full picture yet. Remember the temporal rift that first infected Airiam and attacked Tyler and Pike’s shuttle? We still don’t know how that occurred. We know that the modified probe seemed as though it had come back from the 28th Century and some time after that was when the attack occurs. To a lrage degree they seemed to assume that this was because Control was behind it all but it might not be. It could simply be the first step in the puzzle.

What we can potentially assume is that there is a big difference from where the Control AI is in the 23rd Century to what it would become with the sphere data. And when Airiam began to give it the Sphere data it became even more desperate to get hole of it. My theory is that Control saw two things. First of all it saw in the sphere data that the cycle of the galaxy kept happening over and over again. Civilisations rose, and then fell,very often via warfare. Since its primary goal was to create peace it figured no organic life = peace. But there was an additional component in the sphere data that would allow an AI to evolve and be able to change and effect its own programming. To allow it to become self aware and change itself. Possibly even allow it to emulate a real living mind.

I don't think this is nitpicking. I understand a couple of plot holes, but this is waaaaay too many. They're so concerned with fixing the big picture issues with cannon. But aren't thinking critically enough about their own narrative to ensure it actually makes enough sense.

Keep in mind the story isn’t done yet. They’ve already said that while Control might be defeated in the 23rd Century and won’t be seen again they will find bigger challenges on the other side of the wormhole. To me though I’m glad they don’t answer every single detail. Silly things like Cornwell’s death asside and niggles like what was left of control for starfleet to purge etc, are easy to overlook. The big questions like exactly how Burnham created the red bursts and exactly how the sphere data operated though and so on, I like those to be vague. Star Trek needs to feel huge, and sometimes there are questions in the universe that don’t get answers. Sometimes the good guys don’t get to know exactly what the bad guys are thinking. And I like that. Some of the best episodes of Star Trek leave a strong sense of mystery at the end and I count the end of this season among them. We’ll get some answers in season 3 I’m sure.

[DigiFluid]

I thought it was implicit that the "red burst" was just the wormhole itself appearing (it's red every time we see it).

[lopo30]

Why does Enterprise have robots that repair the ship ? Why do they have drones that can be used in battle ?
Why dont they have them in 100 years in the future with TNG or in DS9 in dominion war these things would of been very helpful.

It's ok to say "get off my A**" to a commanding officer and then say it multiple times more by correcting sir behind it. As it coming from female it's ok ? A lot of this show has hate over man.
Why did we even need cap. Pike in it ? Was he ever useful other then fallowing orders of Burnham ?

If they would of made it as a reboot then maybe all this will be ok. Like they had hologram communication taken away from enterprise and never be used again.

Whats the 3rd season be about when Discovery and all the crew is highly classified ? They cant never return and in the future they are like caveman. Or we get Enterprise as the third season ?

They have just too much problems to be in the cannon and on that mostly on technical part of it.

Most funny part of it was the 2-3 inch thick blast door that stopped all the explosion for Spike to watch trough the glass. While the bomb took out half the ship and didnt do anything.

How did Kalpins get ships ? While getting ships is one thing the other is how they learn to fly them and even fight with them in that really short time period after there home war.

That princess knew how to charge time crystal with supernova power but had hard time to make correct ice cream ? Like for real ? Dont they have these simple replicator technology common thing to make food and everything ? Why cant Tilly just give the recipe for the ice cream or just scan it and replicate it ?

This show would of been good if not star trek prequel and as just new and reboot of the cannon. Then all of that would of been different. Can use more advance technology and past it on to enterprise and so on for future other tv shows like sector 31 or even the Picard series that i have a big fair that they screw it up as they mentioned it to be a lot different. We have seen what means a lot different with Stargate already and that failed a lot with universe.

[P-90_177]

Why does Enterprise have robots that repair the ship ? Why do they have drones that can be used in battle ?
Why dont they have them in 100 years in the future with TNG or in DS9 in dominion war these things would of been very helpful.

Who is to say they didn’t? Certainly it would better help to explain how Voyager finished every episode intact after taking heavy damage from Borg Cubes and Hirogen hunting parties.

It's ok to say "get off my A**" to a commanding officer and then say it multiple times more by correcting sir behind it. As it coming from female it's ok ? A lot of this show has hate over man.
Why did we even need cap. Pike in it ? Was he ever useful other then fallowing orders of Burnham ?

None of this show has hate for men. THat is just... I can’t even describe how blatantly stupid that sounds. Reno is eccentric. We know that from the start when we meet her character. She corrects herself because she realised she was being disrespetful to a senior officer, she’s shown throughout the season of being below decks and mostly keeping away from others after being on her own on her medical frigate for better part of a year. The fact that she is clearly a genius level engineer but was serving aboard a medical frigate probably demonstrates a long way that she is not a squeaky clean starfleet officer that plays well with others very well.
Additionally. At no point did Burnham ever give an order to Pike. She did make her points strongly, but that is shown to be part of her character. Spock and Georgiou even point out that this is part of a deep seated character flaw that she has, and frankly I think it’s a matter of time before it bites her in the ass. If it was Spock making suggestions to Pike or Kirk in that manner, no one would bat an eyelid. And it may have escaped your notice but men in this season have been shown in a highly positive light. Whether it be Pike being downright heroic knowing what is in his future but choosing to do his duty anyway, Stamets risking himself for Tilly, Culber facing down issues with his mental health and Saru... well basically being as awesome as he usually is. The show DOES NOT HATE ON MEN. Just because the show has more female cast members than any other Trek show (Hurrah by the way) it does not mean it is anti-men.

If they would of made it as a reboot then maybe all this will be ok. Like they had hologram communication taken away from enterprise and never be used again.

If it really bothers you then consider it a sequel to Enterprise rather than a prequel to Star Trek. Enterprise already had all of the Temporal shenanigans. Personally I don’t go in for that. I have no problem reconciling DSC with TOS. I can understand why some people do, but again there is nothing in canon that states that holograms of the type seen in Discovery are not a thing in the 23rd Century.

Whats the 3rd season be about when Discovery and all the crew is highly classified ? They cant never return and in the future they are like caveman. Or we get Enterprise as the third season ?

It’s confirmed that for the time being they are going to be stuck in the future. How that will impact them in terms of technology, we shall see. Personally I’m looking forward to it. The ship will be on its own with a huge disadvantage with its only advantage being that it can Spore Jump. I like that. We might get something like what Voyager should be where they have to scavange for new tech. But we know from TNG and VOY that there are plenty of alien races with massively outdated tchnology compared to the Federation. Couple with that the possibility that the Galaxy might not even exist in a recognisable state to what we know it now (they’ve gone beyong the latest point we know of in Star Trek) then they could be in a much better state than you think. There is a big call for a separate Pike tv show though.

They have just too much problems to be in the cannon and on that mostly on technical part of it.

Again I don’t agree. To me there is no problem with imagining that TOS had the same design and level of technology and they still get to tell the same stories. Otherwise TOS is so massively outdated for most of its technology now that having something similar would be unrealistic. I mean, when Enterprise came out people were say THAT looked too advanced so...

Most funny part of it was the 2-3 inch thick blast door that stopped all the explosion for Spike to watch trough the glass. While the bomb took out half the ship and didnt do anything.

Yeah this was pretty stupid. I mean, I’m ok with the blast door. In my head it’s just protected with a powerful forcefield. Like a reinforced Structural Integrity Field, it was more the fact that the explosion happened and it didn’t even rock the ship. That was bad thinking on the director’s part.

How did Kalpins get ships ? While getting ships is one thing the other is how they learn to fly them and even fight with them in that really short time period after there home war.

Clear stolen from the Ba’ul. As for how they’d have the knowledge to use them, Saru figured out how to piece together Ba’ul tech and make a communication transmitter work in Short Treks so I’d say it’s demonstrated that Kelpians are hyper intelligent and could theoretically figure it out.

That princess knew how to charge time crystal with supernova power but had hard time to make correct ice cream ? Like for real ? Dont they have these simple replicator technology common thing to make food and everything ? Why cant Tilly just give the recipe for the ice cream or just scan it and replicate it ?

My brother is a computer programmer for a living but can’t figure out how to boil an egg (I’m not kidding, he really can’t) one does not necessarily follow the other. Maybe Tilly did give the recipe after that. As far as we know they had not spoken since the Short Treks episode she was in.

This show would of been good if not star trek prequel and as just new and reboot of the cannon. Then all of that would of been different. Can use more advance technology and past it on to enterprise and so on for future other tv shows like sector 31 or even the Picard series that i have a big fair that they screw it up as they mentioned it to be a lot different. We have seen what means a lot different with Stargate already and that failed a lot with universe.

Ok so here is why it’s a prequel and not a reboot...

My girlfriend watched Discovery with me. She knows bits and pieces about Star Trek but she’s never been a fan as such. She’s just seen odd episodes of TNG and Voyager really. Two really good friends of mine watched it and had much the same experience as well. All three of them loved it. And all the way through I have been fielding questions from the all like “Oh ok, so I know Pike from the movies but what’s his story in this?” and I’m like well wait and see but he’s only been in two episodes of TOS and so on. And then they will go on and go “So is Section 31 just a Discovery thing then?” And I say no it shows up later in DS9 but it’s like super secret. “So how does no one know about it?” and the questions go on. They get super seriously engaged with it and unlike “fans” who just seemingly poke holes in the show and can’t enjoy it I’ve found that they all theory craft. And they’ll come up with ideas and ask me what I think and I’ll say “Well that’s cool but it doesn’t fit with what we know from this episode of TNG...” or words to that effect and then they’ll go back and think around the problem some more. IT’s great to see and they want to check out other episodes of other series.

I mean sure. There’d be interest if it was a sequel too. But they wouldn’t necessarily want to see the entire depth and breadth of Trek. They might just want to check out the 24th Century shows or maybe just Voyager or DS9. If it were a reboot there possibly wouldn’t even be that, because where’s the point? They aren’t linked any more. But by putting the show in the very heart of the timeline it generates so much more interest. And this is a common thing I am experiencing. Prior Trek Fans either love it or are very critical of it, but the casual viewers, who are joining because it looked cool and haven’t watched Star Trek before are super engaged by it and honestly it’s the same attitude that I encountered back in 2005 when Doctor Who started up again. A lot of old school fans hated it because the TARDIS looked all wrong and the Doctor was too much of an action hero and wow he actually kissed a companion BUT it brought on board a whole new generation of fans. And that is what Discovery and hopefull the other shows are doing for Star Trek.

[DigiFluid]

I like you, P90, and would like to subscribe to your magazine.

[Gollumpus]

Most funny part of it was the 2-3 inch thick blast door that stopped all the explosion for Spike to watch through the glass. While the bomb took out half the ship and didnt do anything.

I found that having the admiral going along with Number One to deal with the torpedo was also rather odd. An admiral with limited to no technical knowledge (as far as we know or have seen) was a bit of a stretch.

Maybe this was a nod to the procedures in "Dark Star" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-d5RGx3IH8) where they have to argue philosophy with their smart bombs.

regards,
G.

[P-90_177]

I like you, P90, and would like to subscribe to your magazine.

Ha! Sorry. Have a lot of thoughts to get out. I do honestly have plans to get started on a YouTube channel though.

[P-90_177]

I found that having the admiral going along with Number One to deal with the torpedo was also rather odd. An admiral with limited to no technical knowledge (as far as we know or have seen) was a bit of a stretch.

Maybe this was a nod to the procedures in "Dark Star" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-d5RGx3IH8) where they have to argue philosophy with their smart bombs.

regards,
G.

I dunno about that. We know she was trained in psychiatry or psychology but to get to the point of Admiral then her career must have branched out from that substantially so there's no reason to believe she wouldn't have those skills.

[DigiFluid]

I've always taken it as read that the Captain of a starship needs to be able to do the job of pretty well anyone on his/her ship (within reason, of course -- I'd expect a Captain to be able to chart courses/fly the ship/make repairs/etc., but I wouldn't expect him/her to be able to do open heart surgery). And as one has to be a Captain before they make Admiral, it would naturally follow that Cornwell would have a pretty broad skill set to draw on, whatever her original specialization was.

[BruTak]

You've pretty much nailed it DigiFluid.

To be the commanding officer of a ship, you must have a wide knowledge of how your ship works and what your crew can do.

And as for Admiral Cornwall, well, even the highest Admiral was once a lowly Ensign.

[P-90_177]

It's also worth noting that since Captains are involved in First Contacts and other types of deep space diplomacy, having a captain who is highly qualified in psychology would be a huge asset.

I did like her sacrifice. The way she stepped up to deal with the Torpedo kinda reminded me of Kirk at the beginning of Generations. Plus I mean, she was really the only person without a job to do before that.

[Platschu]

Life is good. I have watched Avengers : Endgame, GoT 8x03 and now ST: D 2x14 within one day.

This episode was simply amazing. It deserves a few Emmy awards as the special effects are movie quality. The wormhole and the time travel effects! OMG.

This space battle was the best so far in tv history and it has faded away the crown of BSG. Discovery rules.

Still the best part was the shuttle fight in changing gravity. They were able to remake the famous corrifor fight scene from "Inception". I am pretty sure they have rotated the while shuttle set as you can follow the way of the debris around the actors. This very complicated scene was so great that I had to applause like a child.