(TV) Star Trek: Discovery

[Ivanstone]

I enjoyed that TNG episode as well. The thing is, it was about people you’d never heard of, and never hear of again. It’s episodic storytelling where there are rarely if ever consequences, not connected universe and ongoing storytelling. If he had, say, wiped out the Klingons or Romulans, then we’d have a comparable scenario. It’s why the supernova that wiped out Romulus gets flack, because it’s a big issue that is poorly thought out. You want to destroy Romulus as a plot point? Fine, just do it well. You want to disable warp drive so that a ship centuries out of date is relevant? Fine, just do it well. I don’t think that is too much to ask for.

I liken this to golden age comic storytelling, like when Superman sneezes and destroys a solar system. We can look back and have a laugh at it, even enjoy the simpler times, but we just should expect better in the storytelling now.

Keep in mind that I generally like discovery. I can roll with a lot of things, but I personally just feel I have to roll a bit too much with Discovery.

I just accept certain things in Star Trek. Sometimes it gets extra big and super cosmic and how does a mere sentient being grapple with that?

Sometimes you bridge that cosmic divide by teaching them about baseball. Sometimes a naked dude appears out of nowhere and you give him ice cream. Sometimes you help an immensely immature scared dodecagenarian come out of his shell with a home cooked meal.

- - - Updated - - -

His empathic abilities seem to be different than theirs. The only time I remember Betazoids being able to effect other beings was when something went wrong. Book's species, on the other hand, was able to influence others seemingly at will.

I don't think he's influencing anyone. I think's he asking them and they're agreeing to help.

[Maruka]

This season was pretty horrible i legit thought the last ep was a mid season finale wtf.

[Ivanstone]

I am, personally. There's a bunch of ST episodes from the past where people did horrible things that make no sense when you think about it for two seconds. One would think they should have learned from that, rather than repeating the same mistakes in a new series. But apparently not everyone cares about it to the same extent. Fair enough, I suppose.

I think the big mistake they made was not learning from ENT's opening season. ENT started off being more lurid than previous Treks. Didn't help that the characters were mostly not too interesting. It did get better though. ENT S3 and DSC S3 both tried to tell a serialized story working with what they already had.

[Ringthane]

You could have at least mentioned the cavernous turbolift system inside of a ship that's only a few decks thick. You know...the one thing that doesn't have some precedent in previous entries in the franchise. Well, I guess that's not true. The JJ-prise had that massive brewery for an engineering section, and a shuttlebay that would have been more suitable for a starbase.

Star Trek V's Enterprise had a turbolift with 78 decks (numbered from the bottom up) - even the Enterprise-D only had 42 decks. And I believe the Enterprise-E went between 11 and 14 decks in First Contact. They're always playing fast and loose with how big these ships actually are.

[Shedaar]

I actually loved this season
Especially the Captain Saru and the Asian Lady parts.

[Ihavewaffles]

Wait, is this the new picard show? That one didn't feel star trek to me n i was bored

[Beloren]

I prefer things that have some plausibility to them, some grain of scientific truth to them - at least somewhat based on science. Take the energy source used for the warp engines, for example. It is, distilled down, a matter/anti-matter reaction which is something based on science. The only purpose dilithium crystals serve in warp engines is a way to focus the reaction. Now suddenly, somehow, they are rooted in subspace? Where the hell did that come from?

Fair enough, I heard the old shows use to actually employ real physicists and scientists and had a lot of actual theorycrafting even if it was superstretched. It doesn't really bother me either way though, but I can understand why it would annoy others, you may have wanted Discovery to be closer to the science we know. This would have made sense for the first 2 seasons based closer to our time than TNG, but it would have had to be way out there for 31st century

Anyway, I like that the series went into the future.. Star Wars and Star Trek have made too many series in their lore's past rather than going forward.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

Fair enough, I heard the old shows use to actually employ real physicists and scientists and had a lot of actual theorycrafting even if it was superstretched. It doesn't really bother me either way though, but I can understand why it would annoy others, you may have wanted Discovery to be closer to the science we know. This would have made sense for the first 2 seasons based closer to our time than TNG, but it would have had to be way out there for 31st century

Anyway, I like that the series went into the future.. Star Wars and Star Trek have made too many series in their lore's past rather than going forward.

I agree. The "prequel" story telling got very tiresome for me and a lot of franchises did it almost all at the sametime. Just always easier to move forward. Not only does it not bottle you into cannon things you may not want to go in but it ALSO stops the whole messing up cannon thing that WILL happen. While this isn't insanely important to me (mostly because I am not deeply versed in Star Trek cannon) but I can see why it does mess with some people that are super fans. But even I can see things like... holo communications.. spore drives that can jump anywhere in the universe.. and all this over massively superior technology being a little off from stuff Kirk and Spock were dealing with like 5-10 years in the future from Disco season 1 and 2. I am not just talking about 1960s special effects and budgets against 2020 special effects and budgets here. Like actual ideas behind this stuff was beyond the scope they used in TOS. Like if you were making a 10 commandments movie and the Egyptians were rolling in tanks instead of chariots to chase down the Jews as they crossed though the parting of the red sea. It's like the same thing kind of but.. it is just off.. and just because it can be done on the green screen dope af doesn't make it very justifiable. Even people that could care less about history or the bible would be looking at each other like "wait.. tanks.. wtf" and that is how I was as a pocket Trek fan with a lot of Disco stuff at first. ALTHOUGH I WILL SAY THE CORRECTED NICELY.

They could have pretty much told the same stories, with all the bells and whistles they wanted to show off, and set it a few decades after the TNG era and it wouldn't have made a difference minus it not cutting the throat of cannon. Even they see it because eventually they said fuck it and just threw the show 900 years in the future to give it a good safe buffer.

[Koriani]

You could have at least mentioned the cavernous turbolift system inside of a ship that's only a few decks thick. You know...the one thing that doesn't have some precedent in previous entries in the franchise. Well, I guess that's not true. The JJ-prise had that massive brewery for an engineering section, and a shuttlebay that would have been more suitable for a starbase.

Yeaaa.. I was watching that going. 'WTH are they?" And my next thought was, 'I had no idea the turbolift worked like Willy Wonka-aVator!" (backways and sideways and frontways and longways and any other way you can think of...) =D

Seriously - I've only ever just watched the tv shows and never read any of the books or other Star Trek lore. Was it always understood that turbolifts operate in this vast, almost para-dimensional, area inside the ships that are hollowed out? Or they just wanted it to look crazy fancy?

And honestly that Season Finale felt like a Series Finale. I hadn't heard the series was done, but wow - that would definitely have worked as a "series Finale" just fine. (The ending speech she gave over the final scenes.) I'm expecting CBS is riding this pony into the ground with all the spinoffs, but still - was not expecting that sort of 'wrap up' speech.

Still looking forward to Season 4. Accepting the show and all its faults, its entertaining enough so far.

Just had no idea turbolifts were Wonka-Vators. (lol)

[s_bushido]

Yeaaa.. I was watching that going. 'WTH are they?" And my next thought was, 'I had no idea the turbolift worked like Willy Wonka-aVator!" (backways and sideways and frontways and longways and any other way you can think of...) =D

There was an episode of TNG where someone (I think it was Geordi) was getting thrown all over the place inside of a turbolift. Indicating that they do travel more than just vertically. Plenty of the MSDs show that too. Just nothing as silly as what was depicted in Discovery.

[qwerty123456]

You failed to understand how things worked and complained about it. I showed you how you can look up something. Now go do your homework.

- - - Updated - - -



Multiple people have complained how Su'Kal blew up everything.

Kevin Uxbridge wiped out an entire alien species in his grief.

I consider both to be pretty good episodes of ST. So why is one "bad" and the other "good"? Even if you consider the latter to be a "bad" episode, why aren't you complaining about it with the same vigour?

Well Kevin was basically a god like alien who wiped out a single species. And wasn't really heard of again. Su'Kal was a mutant baby who grew up and destroyed not only millions of lives but the way the entire galaxy operated even though there were many species who didn't use warp drives or Dilithium. Discovery has the same problem Picard has. They have to treat Federation problems as the entire universes problems and alter the history/future/lore/etc of star trek. What did lasting repercussions did Uxbridge have on Star Trek? That you can't judge a god like being morals on your own?

[Ivanstone]

Well Kevin was basically a god like alien who wiped out a single species. And wasn't really heard of again. Su'Kal was a mutant baby who grew up and destroyed not only millions of lives but the way the entire galaxy operated even though there were many species who didn't use warp drives or Dilithium. Discovery has the same problem Picard has. They have to treat Federation problems as the entire universes problems and alter the history/future/lore/etc of star trek. What did lasting repercussions did Uxbridge have on Star Trek? That you can't judge a god like being morals on your own?

So what your saying is that a cosmic accident shouldn’t happen on Star Trek? Sounds pretty confining.

[Beloren]

I agree. The "prequel" story telling got very tiresome for me and a lot of franchises did it almost all at the sametime. Just always easier to move forward. Not only does it not bottle you into cannon things you may not want to go in but it ALSO stops the whole messing up cannon thing that WILL happen. While this isn't insanely important to me (mostly because I am not deeply versed in Star Trek cannon) but I can see why it does mess with some people that are super fans. But even I can see things like... holo communications.. spore drives that can jump anywhere in the universe.. and all this over massively superior technology being a little off from stuff Kirk and Spock were dealing with like 5-10 years in the future from Disco season 1 and 2. I am not just talking about 1960s special effects and budgets against 2020 special effects and budgets here. Like actual ideas behind this stuff was beyond the scope they used in TOS. Like if you were making a 10 commandments movie and the Egyptians were rolling in tanks instead of chariots to chase down the Jews as they crossed though the parting of the red sea. It's like the same thing kind of but.. it is just off.. and just because it can be done on the green screen dope af doesn't make it very justifiable. Even people that could care less about history or the bible would be looking at each other like "wait.. tanks.. wtf" and that is how I was as a pocket Trek fan with a lot of Disco stuff at first. ALTHOUGH I WILL SAY THE CORRECTED NICELY.

They could have pretty much told the same stories, with all the bells and whistles they wanted to show off, and set it a few decades after the TNG era and it wouldn't have made a difference minus it not cutting the throat of cannon. Even they see it because eventually they said fuck it and just threw the show 900 years in the future to give it a good safe buffer.

They could have set Discovery's first 2 seasons a few decades after TNG and then launch it 900 years into the future, it would have felt better being tied in with Picard series, then tied Burnham to Tuvok instead of Spock, or another Vulcan they could make up and be highly esteemed or even made her adopted off spring of Spock and a wife before he died, and given her a famous brother that could have had more story dealt with later.

Then stranger worlds could have been an episodic Star trek set in the Picard series timeline while discovery continued, it would have explained a lot of things appearance and technology wise.


I also agree that they end up messing up their own canon inevitably when they go into detail by setting series in the past , Star wars prequels were easier to do because there was almost no info written up on pre New Hope, and off course New hope started with episode IV, showing that there was an intention to do a 1-3, rather than just starting a story at point x in a galaxy's history.


I also always wondered why they didn't use these newer shows set in earlier times to explain why the original enterprise looked so dated, they could have gone the Warcraft way and let fans know that the actual ship was far more futuristic and the reason it looks that way is because of the limitations of cinema at the time (and don't try to explain away) or they could try to explain away, like they did why we don't have super humans with all this advanced technology, using explanations that each starship could have had a style of choice, and they chose to go 20th century style for the enterprise, because that was the fad of the day - technology had fad periods, and sometimes antique looking but with day of the age tech was all the rave just like people today love living in 16th-19th century homes - and the more antique looking the outer appearance of things, the more prestigious and top class it is. But it is just the appearance that is that way.

I never understood why they didn't try to do things that way.

However do you also feel that even 30th century tech in discovery is kinda limited? I always feel they don't think innovatively enough and wonder if Discovery will look super outdated 20 years down the line - they have to better anticipate the development of technology.. for example why don't humans have telepathic implants that allow them to control objects, communicate telepathically using technology (seeing as how the borg could) or explain the lack of such things because of ethical reasons like they did for super humanity.

Sometimes they don't think out off the box enough, with the only advances shown being in ship technology, what about human development? Abilities? evolution? Booker shows at least some unique development, but i don't remember if he is human or not.. you would think humanity would have had biological upgrades, mind tech in addition to all the cool matter generation stuff which is like the only real meaningful development in the 31st century.

I'm also disappointed in the new star trek series' ways of doing cities. now the star trek JJ Abrams movies did a much better job, that space station city looked super futuristic, almost Star Wars level degree of badass future sci-fi stuff, a far cry improvement from those corny images of alien worlds and planets you would see in TNG to Voyager shows.. it's one thing I always thought Star trek could do more of in their earlier series, do better visualisations of truly alien worlds and also futuristic cities. While i can understand people in the 24th century still valuing living in 17th century homes or 20th century style, they 100% too show anything impressive about 24th century architecture or cityscape, and it never really looked futuristic save for the flying shuttle craft.

Star wars did better diverse worlds especially in the prequels and the Cartoon Network clone wars (remember Munilist?)

Finally aliens: Also very disappointed with most aliens in star trek, it's like they could only imagine minor superficial differences to humanity (especially only doing head/cranial additions, while failing to give the vast majority of those features any real meaning (except for the Ferengi ears), further they did seem to make them strange enough or alien enough, never showing a half naked or fully naked alien that would have different visible anatomical features and attributes that did other things. They could do so much more but were limited. Still I guess it's easier for me to say after taking in all the improvements they made, which wow'd me when i was younger, so it's easier to scoff at them now and say they are not enough.

[qwerty123456]

So what your saying is that a cosmic accident shouldn’t happen on Star Trek? Sounds pretty confining.

A cosmic accident that completely alters the entire universe? And ignores the lore that already exists? And its not just a cosmic accident its a cosmic accident after a cosmic accident of a cosmic accident. And whats more confining? Keeping to the lore and not drastically altering it or forcing everyone use the magical engines you stole from a videogame or trog along at a snails pace even though many species didn't use Dilithium but somehow didn't take over the universe and just dicked around?

[Ivanstone]

A cosmic accident that completely alters the entire universe? And ignores the lore that already exists? And its not just a cosmic accident its a cosmic accident after a cosmic accident of a cosmic accident. And whats more confining? Keeping to the lore and not drastically altering it or forcing everyone use the magical engines you stole from a videogame or trog along at a snails pace even though many species didn't use Dilithium but somehow didn't take over the universe and just dicked around?

There’s no evidence that it extends beyond the Milky Way.
What lore is being ignored?
No, it was a singular event that might’ve repeated itself. I guess a bored Q might try it as well.
What magical engine?
Not everyone wants to rule the galaxy.

[qwerty123456]

There’s no evidence that it extends beyond the Milky Way.
What lore is being ignored?
No, it was a singular event that might’ve repeated itself. I guess a bored Q might try it as well.
What magical engine?
Not everyone wants to rule the galaxy.

Why would it stop at the milky way?

https://www.google.com/search?q=lore...hrome&ie=UTF-8

The spore drive.

Even if they didn't want to rule the galaxy. They would make a killing just transferring shit for people.

[Ivanstone]

Why would it stop at the milky way?

https://www.google.com/search?q=lore...hrome&ie=UTF-8

The spore drive.

Even if they didn't want to rule the galaxy. They would make a killing just transferring shit for people.

Extra galactic astrophysics is funky. Trek almost never touches upon extragalactic stuff.

You forgot to put in Season 3. All I see are rants from 2019. Not that I have the time to go through all of them.

It’s not magic. It’s a device that allows them to utilize a discrete section of subspace for travel.

They’re called the Emerald Chain. There are other drives but none of them are of widespread use.

[Beloren]

They’re called the Emerald Chain. There are other drives but none of them are of widespread use.

Remind me, were the Orion syndicate the predecessors of the Emerald Chain

[qwerty123456]

Extra galactic astrophysics is funky. Trek almost never touches upon extragalactic stuff.

You forgot to put in Season 3. All I see are rants from 2019. Not that I have the time to go through all of them.

It’s not magic. It’s a device that allows them to utilize a discrete section of subspace for travel.

They’re called the Emerald Chain. There are other drives but none of them are of widespread use.

There are no other drives in widespread use? Not every species uses a warpdrive or dilithium. The Romulans use singularity cores and atleast one other race did as well. You really think a sneaky race who had a quadruple secret sect wouldn't have attempted to take over the galaxy?

You do realize that Daniels is from the same century and was working just a few years before or after the burn don't you? Time travel is common place in this era and yet their technology is so shit they need the Discovery to save them???

[Ivanstone]

Remind me, were the Orion syndicate the predecessors of the Emerald Chain

The Orion’s are part of it.

- - - Updated - - -

There are no other drives in widespread use? Not every species uses a warpdrive or dilithium. The Romulans use singularity cores. You really think a sneaky race who had a quadruple secret sect wouldn't have attempted to take over the galaxy?

You do realize that Daniels is from the same century and was working just a few years before or after the burn don't you? Time travel is common place in this era and yet their technology is so shit they need the Discovery to save them???

They’re not in widespread use. Maybe you should watch the show instead of whining about it. The singularity drive is a good example of an alternative drive that has downsides such that it’s use maybe discontinued. The Romulans are much nicer in the 31st century.

The Temporal War finished before the burn. Time travel is not used because all of its technology is outlawed. Technology is vastly improved with the exception of travel.