Su'Kal (311)

[GateWorld]

STAR TREK: DISCOVERY - SEASON THREE
SU'KAL
EPISODE NUMBER - 311

When Discovery attempts to rescue a solitary survivor inside the deadly Verubin Nebula, Saru, Burnham, and Colber transport into a holographic simulation left behind by the Kelpian survivor's mother.

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[Gollumpus]

May as well get the ball rolling with a few quick thoughts.

1.) I see that the writers are still having Adira feeling as though they are not really part of the crew, and outside of Stamets and Culber, the crew doesn't really feel all that warm and fuzzy towards Adira. This sense of alienation would be due to Adira choosing to socially insulate themselves. I see this as being a good bit of character development on the part of the writers, rather than have Adira suddenly being everybody's best pal.

Adira mentions that they don't care that Gray hasn't been around. Newsflash - neither do I. If the writers are going to pursue this "Harvey" storyline, I wouldn't mind seeing some of the other personalities in the trill symbiote coming to the surface and helping Adira with their situation. ("Harvey" reference https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042546/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_8)

2.) Saru has gotten closer to losing his captaincy. I was thinking that there was going to be a cliff-hanger for the last episode of this season, where Saru has lost Discovery and has to get it back with the help of somebody else...

3.) Tilly being in the big chair wasn't impressive. Sure, she's young(ish, the actor is 35) and inexperienced, but in previous examples of young and inexperienced officers taking a turn in the big chair (eg. La Forge, perhaps Sulu), her time was lacking. The writers did the character no favours with the schoolyard level repartee, but I suppose it's all part of her story arc.

After this situation has been resolved there will be moments of Tilly doing some soul searching, and questioning whether she wants to be a captain. Saru will want to take on the blame by saying he placed her in a position for which she was not prepared (which he did), and is another example which may be used as proof that Saru himself isn't ready to be captain (part of his story arc). MB will finally resolve everything.

4.) Stamets giving orders in engineering was a WTF? moment for me, particularly with Reno being present. The writers should have placed her more front and center, not just getting a "Already done it" line in response to Stamets.

5.) It was certainly a good thing that MB was with Saru so that somebody else could talk to Su'Kal.

6.) How did the Emerald Chain get to the nebula so quickly? And by "quickly" I mean showing up within the day of Discovery getting there? Sure, they have discovered a means of tracking Discovery so they knew where to go, but there is still the mode of transportation to be considered (ie. Discovery is using a spore drive while the Cain are still on warp speed).

7.) Again with Booker's super ship. Perhaps the writers will just put a spore drive on his ship and then they can do without all the rest of the cast...

8.) It would appear that the cat is (probably) out of the bag with regard to the spore drive. If the Chain have Discovery in their control for more than a few days, the drive will be/should be fully mapped out so that they may be able to start building one of their own (eventually). Part of any recovery mission should have to include a destruction of a computer core which holds all of this data.

Additions:

9.) And what about the Chain troops transporting through Discovery's shields? The shields may have been at a lower per centage of power (around 50%, give or take) but they were up, weren't they?

regards,
G.

[Teddybrown]

Did Bookers ship leaving cause them to be able to teleport aboard?

[Xaeden]

How did the Emerald Chain get to the nebula so quickly? And by "quickly" I mean showing up within the day of Discovery getting there? Sure, they have discovered a means of tracking Discovery so they knew where to go, but there is still the mode of transportation to be considered (ie. Discovery is using a spore drive while the Cain are still on warp speed).

After the ship showed up one of the crew asked how the hell she even got there, and Book offered this explanation: "There's a transwarp tunnel in the courier maps, but no one in their right mind would actually use it."

[Gollumpus]

After the ship showed up one of the crew asked how the hell she even got there, and Book offered this explanation: "There's a transwarp tunnel in the courier maps, but no one in their right mind would actually use it."

Ah yes, I recall this now. Thanks for this.

So, the Chain took a 50/50 chance that they would be destroyed to get to the nebula. Desperate times on their part.

You folks have any thoughts on any of the other points I have raised?

regards,
G.

[Kilgharrah]

Nice!
I like it when they raise the stakes like this. All or nothing situations.
Here's the thing. Whenever one door closes, another opens.
Discovery was lost and that was a phenomenal loss, but I'm guessing an equal victory is coming from Su'Kal's ship to balance things. Something they can use to retrieve discovery.

If Su'Kal lives, will we have a Wesley Crusher situation on the ship?

I'm thinking about Saru's desicion to make Tilly his first officer and later on acting captain. It was because she brought the crew together after that fight at the dinner Saru invited the senior officers to.
But doesn't that mean she should be counselor not first officer? Don't get me wrong, she looks badass in the captain chair but the counselor is just as important as the first officer and with the 24th century and later history on their database, now they know about the position.

[lopo30]

Didn't they got some advance upgrade to there ship and everything ? How come shields are up people can teleport in ? Like whats the point of the shield if you can just teleport in ? Do it stagate atlantis style beam in a nuke and boom the ship be gone. Why even bother to shoot trough space to enemy ship when you can teleport a nuke on board and threat eliminated ?

And then these bandits will take over federation as easy like that too.
10th episode was so bad that i tried to watch it 5 times but still fall a sleep on each time. Even in the middle of a day.

And the radiation in there nebula. Like Voyager travel trough all types of nebulas one on one they needed to be in sleep to survive the radiation but that be like ancient history in that future they are now. Still shields not advanced enough.

At this point i would ask what are the shield used for there ? They seem to be totally useless if i only judge based on this episode alone.

Oh yeah and the bandits know everything about the discovery. The ship layout and where is the spore drive and everything for some unknown reason. Or this is like in the end it was Book who was the spy and did he's job well as Mikey fall in love with all these spies we have seen in the show

One more thing. If the teleportation is so good then why not take the child from the nebula ? There scanners got the info from light years away so they go to check it. There is only 1 life form so they need to find it to get a lock on it ? Like seriously whats with this bs ? When they can teleport in that means there is no shield to prevent teleporting out too. Past Trek shows if they got a lock on life form in a planet or in a ship they just teleported it out. Now they have so advanced teleport technology that can get on board of a ship trough shields and they just cant beam out one person from the nebula.

Yeah i know that they cant do it just cause that will leave out all the drama that will come with teleporting in there

[Xaeden]

Didn't they got some advance upgrade to there ship and everything ? How come shields are up people can teleport in ? Like whats the point of the shield if you can just teleport in ? Do it stagate atlantis style beam in a nuke and boom the ship be gone. Why even bother to shoot trough space to enemy ship when you can teleport a nuke on board and threat eliminated ?

...

Oh yeah and the bandits know everything about the discovery. The ship layout and where is the spore drive and everything for some unknown reason. Or this is like in the end it was Book who was the spy and did he's job well as Mikey fall in love with all these spies we have seen in the show

They also knew that it was called a Spore Drive, so clearly they have inside information. I assume that's because they had a spy onboard or somehow infected their computer system, and the answer will be revealed in the next episode. That may also be tied in to how they got past the shields. The Orion appeared to be stalling for time; maybe they analyzed the Discovery's shields and found a weakness that they were able to exploit or something was done from within Discovery.

One more thing. If the teleportation is so good then why not take the child from the nebula ? There scanners got the info from light years away so they go to check it. There is only 1 life form so they need to find it to get a lock on it ? Like seriously whats with this bs ? When they can teleport in that means there is no shield to prevent teleporting out too. Past Trek shows if they got a lock on life form in a planet or in a ship they just teleported it out. Now they have so advanced teleport technology that can get on board of a ship trough shields and they just cant beam out one person from the nebula.

Have there not been quite a few past episodes where radiation made it difficult for them to get a lock? I remember them needing those pattern enhancers a fair bit. They were those rods with a glowing light on top that they'd have to place around an object or person to secure a lock in plot specific situations. Usually they used three to create a triangle pattern. Needing to get close to the life form in this episode's situation with their upgraded combadges or tagging him seems reasonable to me.

I remember watching The Next Generation in the 90s and being confused by situations where they couldn't get locks on people in normal situations because that person didn't have a combadge on. Like there was that episode where Picard and company were turned into small children, and they had to tag the Ferangi who took over the ship with their combadges before beaming them behind a force field. I don't know why they couldn't just lock on to their life signs, but it's been forever since I've seen the episode, so maybe it was explained, and I'm not remembering. Still, this latest instance in Discovery seems fairly consistent to me compared to how transporters have been handled in the past.

[P-90_177]

So I had to think about this one a while.

I loved the vast majority. THe concept of it being Discovery's first Holodeck episode was awesome and the concept behind it felt very cool. It possibly had some of the best character moments of the season with Saru and Tilly, and there was plenty of tension once Osyrra turned up.

Seeing Tilly in the Captain's chair was awesome and it really works as she faces of with Osyrra. Because let's face it, Osyrra may be built as the big bad this season but she is a fairly small person. She's no Dukat. No Duras. No Khan. She's a gangster and little more so having her big threatening moment being with Tilly and not with Saru, Burnham or Admiral Vance really demonstrates how small she is while still making her a big threat. That's not to say Tilly didn't come across well, she came across brilliantly and she made all the right calls for an XO.

I'm fascinated by how Osyrra knew so much about Discovery though. It seems to be setting up the prospect of a leak in Starfleet and I don't think it's Vance.

Saru had some beautiful moments throughout and it was so nice seeing Doug Jones without the prosthetics this week If only because that had to be a real nice change of pace for him.

On the whole, all great but there were two big things I needed to mull over.

First of all, the angle that they seem to be edging toward seems to be putting Burnham into the Captain's chair for the first time... I'm a bit concerned about that because I don't feel like we've had a full enough arc for her yet to make her Captain material. I would accept it more if in the end she and Saru realise she is ready to be XO again and they take their original roles... Buuuut... I don't really feel like she's had enough time away from being First officer to have re-earned that either.

Second. The way in which Su'Kal is responsible for the burn... I'm not sure how I feel about it. On the one hand, it seems a bit silly and it requires a little more explanation (Which we by all means may get) and it wasn't what I was expecting. No big bad, no conspiracy in Starfleet (was hoping it wasn't that one anyway), no technological mystery. But with a bit of thinking, I am kind of ok with this. It's different. And different in Star Trek is good. It once again feels like a very TOS concept which has often been something Discovery does. Not to mention that Discovery often seems to lean towards the more metaphysical... So, yeah. I'm open to it but it needed a readjustment.

I will say that I have loved how this episode really highlights that Discovery is no a capital ship of any kind. In past series, apart from Enterprise, the hero ship has always been among the best and most powerful ships in the fleet, but Discovery has always come across as a mere, underpowered science vessel and that has continued even after their retrofit. It's good to see.

[lopo30]

They also knew that it was called a Spore Drive, so clearly they have inside information. I assume that's because they had a spy onboard or somehow infected their computer system, and the answer will be revealed in the next episode. That may also be tied in to how they got past the shields. The Orion appeared to be stalling for time; maybe they analyzed the Discovery's shields and found a weakness that they were able to exploit or something was done from within Discovery.



Have there not been quite a few past episodes where radiation made it difficult for them to get a lock? I remember them needing those pattern enhancers a fair bit. They were those rods with a glowing light on top that they'd have to place around an object or person to secure a lock in plot specific situations. Usually they used three to create a triangle pattern. Needing to get close to the life form in this episode's situation with their upgraded combadges or tagging him seems reasonable to me.

I remember watching The Next Generation in the 90s and being confused by situations where they couldn't get locks on people in normal situations because that person didn't have a combadge on. Like there was that episode where Picard and company were turned into small children, and they had to tag the Ferangi who took over the ship with their combadges before beaming them behind a force field. I don't know why they couldn't just lock on to their life signs, but it's been forever since I've seen the episode, so maybe it was explained, and I'm not remembering. Still, this latest instance in Discovery seems fairly consistent to me compared to how transporters have been handled in the past.

How transporters are handled in the past is all in the past. They are in the future even 700 plus years in the future from TNG/DS9/Voy era. So basically all technology have stood still not advancing to anywhere. Like we see this dilithium as fuel sorce and they are not able to advance to have anything different, even tough they have other alien races that have better sources of fuel or technology how to travel way faster.

It would make sense that they cant teleport out a life form when they are 22-24th century to be in cannon as the only thing they be in cannon with the old Trek but they are too far in the future and they got there ship upgraded too, so why only upgrade the controls how to control the flight or what ever ? What is the use to have this magic matter when they cant make the ship stronger and shields stronger. How does it even make sense to travel in there universe with 900 plus old technology of everything. They be destroyed by even the weakest enemies with just a small ship that be like 1/100 of the size of the Book ship that is already other story as that ship is way too op for some reason again that isnt explained

[lopo30]

Second. The way in which Su'Kal is responsible for the burn... I'm not sure how I feel about it. On the one hand, it seems a bit silly and it requires a little more explanation (Which we by all means may get) and it wasn't what I was expecting. No big bad, no conspiracy in Starfleet (was hoping it wasn't that one anyway), no technological mystery. But with a bit of thinking,

The explanation again was weird. At first when they discover the planet they say it's made out of dilithium but why didnt that dilithium blow up when all other dilithium blow up in the universe. Especially makes it 0 sense cause it was tantrum from a child emotions and not technologically made a system that be powered up by the planet dilithium to blow up every dilithium in universe while have the dilithium planet as source of power for it and be shielded to be saved or something.

And how come all the radiation in 120 years didnt do any damage. Even if the child was immune to it, it makes no sense that technology be immune to it and be lasting 120 years or more in these conditions.
And the hologram technology that should be crazy advanced over TNG era then why the hologram flicker ? We didnt see it even in any of the hologram episodes of the past series. Even when hologram character is broken we didnt se the flickering with them.
They either repaired them selves or just stop working. That actually would make sense. Especially when we have seen Voyager that had more of the hologram identities explained and explored.

There isnt pretty much anything futuristic in the 900 plus years in the future what we didnt see in season 1-2 with discovery as they already made it too much technologically advanced so all we have seen in the future would be nothing special for the time era of season 1-2

[Xaeden]

How transporters are handled in the past is all in the past. They are in the future even 700 plus years in the future from TNG/DS9/Voy era. So basically all technology have stood still not advancing to anywhere. Like we see this dilithium as fuel sorce and they are not able to advance to have anything different, even tough they have other alien races that have better sources of fuel or technology how to travel way faster.

It would make sense that they cant teleport out a life form when they are 22-24th century to be in cannon as the only thing they be in cannon with the old Trek but they are too far in the future and they got there ship upgraded too, so why only upgrade the controls how to control the flight or what ever ?

You brought up how transporters were used in past Star Trek shows, not me. You went from, "Past Trek shows if they got a lock on life form in a planet or in a ship they just teleported it out," to "the past is all in the past" when I pointed out that your initial statement was misleading. You were using the past to bolster your argument, and then completely dismissed your own point as irrelevant, but I would argue that you were right to look to the past in the first place as just because it's 700 years in the future does not mean technology is going to be able to solve every problem.

Radiation is a reasonable obstacle to getting a signal lock, and since the technology is fictional, they could certainly write that obstacle away if they wanted to, but if they want to suggest that it's not possible to do so in 700 years or ever, that works as well. It's been 700 years and they still can't achieve faster than light speeds by upgrading the engines they use to achieve sublight speeds, and that's never going to change (if the franchise follows real world science, which is far from a given) because the faster an object travels, the heavier it becomes, thus making acceleration increasingly more difficult. Light does not have this problem because it has no mass, so there's no way to achieve faster than light travel by simply designing a more powerful/advanced means of thrust. Similarly, if the writers want to say certain radiation makes it impossible to get a lock without a signal booster of some sort, no matter how advanced the transporter tech used is, I don't have a problem with that.

I agree that there appear to be missed opportunities to show technological advancement, though. One of the things that always bugged me about Star Trek was the lack of personal force fields. Worf can build one that lasts a few seconds using his combadge and spare parts found in a Western holo program, but the Federation couldn't create something marginally better that would have worked in the field to provide officers with some level of protection. And despite the Borg having reliable personal force fields, Starfleet having plenty of opportunity to study that technology, and it now being hundreds of years later, everyone can still be killed by a single phaser/blaster shot.

Note though that my complaint is based on seeing a Federation officer create a makeshift personal force field in the past and seeing the technology "fully" realized by an alien foe. If there are legitimately past instances where it's been shown that transporter technology has the potential to get through all forms of radiation without restrictions that I'm not aware of then I think you would have a fair point. However, if your issue is simply that you feel it should be able to do so based on the time that has gone by, that doesn't make for a meaningful argument. You may have a better case regarding your point about dilithium. I've heard others also mention that we've seen aliens achieve warp without them. I'm not familiar with any of that, but if true it would appear that they retconned those away to make their core problem possible.

The explanation again was weird. At first when they discover the planet they say it's made out of dilithium but why didnt that dilithium blow up when all other dilithium blow up in the universe. Especially makes it 0 sense cause it was tantrum from a child emotions and not technologically made a system that be powered up by the planet dilithium to blow up every dilithium in universe while have the dilithium planet as source of power for it and be shielded to be saved or something.

I would assume the idea is that the kid caused the dilithium on the planet to emit whatever magical wave affected dilithium elsewhere in the galaxy, and since it's an outward expanding wave, it didn't pass through the source dilithium.

And the hologram technology that should be crazy advanced over TNG era then why the hologram flicker ? We didnt see it even in any of the hologram episodes of the past series. Even when hologram character is broken we didnt se the flickering with them.

That was for budgetary/technological reasons in The Next Generation. I don't know when they started to show holographic distortions, but they'd create problems with holographic emitters to do it on Voyager from time-to-time. Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZMFE0V7D1M

That seems to be what's happening in this Discovery episode; the emitters are not functioning properly either because of the radiation or because they've been operating for so long without being serviced or both, so sometimes holograms flicker. Designing more advanced emitters could make them less likely to fail, but it would not change that holograms would show distortions of some sort when they did start to fail.

[P-90_177]

How transporters are handled in the past is all in the past. They are in the future even 700 plus years in the future from TNG/DS9/Voy era. So basically all technology have stood still not advancing to anywhere. Like we see this dilithium as fuel sorce and they are not able to advance to have anything different, even tough they have other alien races that have better sources of fuel or technology how to travel way faster.

It would make sense that they cant teleport out a life form when they are 22-24th century to be in cannon as the only thing they be in cannon with the old Trek but they are too far in the future and they got there ship upgraded too, so why only upgrade the controls how to control the flight or what ever ? What is the use to have this magic matter when they cant make the ship stronger and shields stronger. How does it even make sense to travel in there universe with 900 plus old technology of everything. They be destroyed by even the weakest enemies with just a small ship that be like 1/100 of the size of the Book ship that is already other story as that ship is way too op for some reason again that isnt explained

In the words of the great Captain Scott "You can't break the laws of physics"... Granted that's a loose quantity in Sci-Fi, especially Star Trek but it holds that a piece of technology will only be able to push so far in terms of capabilities before it simply hits a break wall in the form of what the universe will allow you to do.

We view technological advancement with the same eye that we view the modern world, having gone from horse and cart and steam ships to Computers, electric cars and jet airlines in a century. But that is not how technology develops throughout most of history.

Consider that the radiation itself is not actually a problem to transport through at the distances where they are close to the planet. It is only radiation + distance which is the real stumbling block.

As for Book's ship, it's made clear in the episode that the advantage he has is that it is small, maneuverable and able to pilot through the debris field more easily that Discovery. That is not unusual in Trek. When shuttles of any time are used it's often for similar reasons.

The explanation again was weird. At first when they discover the planet they say it's made out of dilithium but why didnt that dilithium blow up when all other dilithium blow up in the universe. Especially makes it 0 sense cause it was tantrum from a child emotions and not technologically made a system that be powered up by the planet dilithium to blow up every dilithium in universe while have the dilithium planet as source of power for it and be shielded to be saved or something.

And how come all the radiation in 120 years didnt do any damage. Even if the child was immune to it, it makes no sense that technology be immune to it and be lasting 120 years or more in these conditions.
And the hologram technology that should be crazy advanced over TNG era then why the hologram flicker ? We didnt see it even in any of the hologram episodes of the past series. Even when hologram character is broken we didnt se the flickering with them.
They either repaired them selves or just stop working. That actually would make sense. Especially when we have seen Voyager that had more of the hologram identities explained and explored.

There isnt pretty much anything futuristic in the 900 plus years in the future what we didnt see in season 1-2 with discovery as they already made it too much technologically advanced so all we have seen in the future would be nothing special for the time era of season 1-2

The radiation did do damage. Hence why the holo program was so degraded including, why the holograms flickered.

[lopo30]

The radiation did do damage. Hence why the holo program was so degraded including, why the holograms flickered.

How much damage the radiation did for Discovery for the short time it was in the nebula. Now think of the child that was in that nebula with the radiation over 120 years. If the radiation is so intense then how can all the tech and everything last for over 120 years. Thats stupid long time especially when the radiation took out the shields for Discovery for so short time. Shields are based on technology that was failing thanks to the radiation so how it makes sense that anything was alive in that nebula and the tech for the outpost or what ever station or ship the child was onboard.

[VampyreWraith]

So I had to think about this one a while.

I loved the vast majority. THe concept of it being Discovery's first Holodeck episode was awesome and the concept behind it felt very cool. It possibly had some of the best character moments of the season with Saru and Tilly, and there was plenty of tension once Osyrra turned up.

Seeing Tilly in the Captain's chair was awesome and it really works as she faces of with Osyrra. Because let's face it, Osyrra may be built as the big bad this season but she is a fairly small person. She's no Dukat. No Duras. No Khan. She's a gangster and little more so having her big threatening moment being with Tilly and not with Saru, Burnham or Admiral Vance really demonstrates how small she is while still making her a big threat. That's not to say Tilly didn't come across well, she came across brilliantly and she made all the right calls for an XO.

I'm fascinated by how Osyrra knew so much about Discovery though. It seems to be setting up the prospect of a leak in Starfleet and I don't think it's Vance.

Saru had some beautiful moments throughout and it was so nice seeing Doug Jones without the prosthetics this week If only because that had to be a real nice change of pace for him.

On the whole, all great but there were two big things I needed to mull over.

First of all, the angle that they seem to be edging toward seems to be putting Burnham into the Captain's chair for the first time... I'm a bit concerned about that because I don't feel like we've had a full enough arc for her yet to make her Captain material. I would accept it more if in the end she and Saru realise she is ready to be XO again and they take their original roles... Buuuut... I don't really feel like she's had enough time away from being First officer to have re-earned that either.

Second. The way in which Su'Kal is responsible for the burn... I'm not sure how I feel about it. On the one hand, it seems a bit silly and it requires a little more explanation (Which we by all means may get) and it wasn't what I was expecting. No big bad, no conspiracy in Starfleet (was hoping it wasn't that one anyway), no technological mystery. But with a bit of thinking, I am kind of ok with this. It's different. And different in Star Trek is good. It once again feels like a very TOS concept which has often been something Discovery does. Not to mention that Discovery often seems to lean towards the more metaphysical... So, yeah. I'm open to it but it needed a readjustment.

I will say that I have loved how this episode really highlights that Discovery is no a capital ship of any kind. In past series, apart from Enterprise, the hero ship has always been among the best and most powerful ships in the fleet, but Discovery has always come across as a mere, underpowered science vessel and that has continued even after their retrofit. It's good to see.

I've been concerned about the show trying to make Burnham the new captain by the end of this season as well. First they started with Vance having issues with Saru's command decisions and then they had Phillipa tell Michael that she deserves to be Captain too. It would really bother me, because it really doesn't feel deserved, back to being first officer maybe, but definitely not captain.

Oh, and I really hope Stamets doesn't immediately forgive Michael for her actions. That would really bother me too. I mean I get why she did it, but Stamets should should take a while to forgive her. If he immediately forgives her and it's all hugs and "you did the right thing", it will really feed into that feeling I sometimes get that everyone loves Michael and she can do no wrong.