Star Trek: Discovery Catch-All [Spoilers]

And Nhan on DSC is from the previously established Barzan species on TNG.

Enjoy your sh*tty wormhole, Chrysalians!

I have to say, Discovery has re-ignited my love for all things Trek. I LOVED the original series as a kid and later Next Generation when I was in my teens, and Voyager in my early 20s. Sadly I completely missed the boat on Deep Space Nine (I know, I know, it's everyone's favourite Trek...) and Enterprise. Thanks to Netflix, I'm not remedying that!

And why did NO ONE tell me that Enterprise was the sexiest of Treks?! I've seen Trip in his underwear so much I find myself wanting old school Donna Karen blue boxer briefs and tank tops!

If you've also missed the boat on Babylon 5, make sure you rectify that.

liquid wrote:

If you've also missed the boat on Babylon 5, make sure you rectify that.

Star Trek first, then Babylon 5

Baron Of Hell wrote:

I wouldn't say they used time travel sparingly in the other series. Compared to enterprise time war sure but did time travel a lot in the other series. The best episodes were the time travel episodes on DS9.

Well, "best" episodes is, of course, a subjective call, but like, three of the four best episodes of DS9 in my view had nothing to do with time travel. In the Pale Moonlight, The Siege of AR-558, and Far Beyond The Stars. The fourth of that "best of" grouping, which I have placed in no particular order, would be The Visitor.

Baron Of Hell wrote:

Voyager had the evil time guy, Kes went back in time, they had a battle with the aliens using time missiles, the borg stuff, the back to earth but wrong time episode, seven of nine gets recruited to the time police, man it is like all they did were time episodes. TNG probably have double the time episodes of voyager. TOS would go back in time every tuesday. They called it time travel Tuesday.

I had to fact check the claim that TNG had double the time episodes of Voyager, because quite simply, I felt like Voyager had way more. I'm including alternate timelines that parallel existing timelines, as well. So, here's what I found.

TNG Season 1: One time travel episode, We'll Always Have Paris

Voyager Season 1: Two time travel episodes:
- Time and Again
- Eye of the Needle

TNG Season 2: One time travel episode, Time Squared

Voyager Season 2: One time travel episode, Non Sequitur

TNG Season 3: Two time travel episodes:
- Yesterday's Enterprise (also, widely considered not just the best time travel episode made, but one of the best TNG episodes)
- Captain's Holiday - while no actual apparent time travel happens in the episode, the entire plot revolves around a device from the future, and the future aliens attempting to steal it, so I'm counting it.

Voyager Season 3: Three time travel episodes:
- Future's End, Parts one and two.
- Before and After
Honorable Mention: Coda - This one starts out similar to a TNG episode that I will list later, by playing on the time loop trope. It is later revealed that this isn't actually time travel. I'm not including it in the main list strictly because it isn't time travel, but it plays with the idea and audience expectations.

TNG Season 4: No actual time travel episodes.
Technicality: Future Imperfect - I feel like someone might ding the accuracy of my assessment based on this episode, but the future presented to Riker is never represented as time travel, and it is eventually revealed as deception anyway. So I'm addressing it to say, yes, I see this episode and I am not counting it.

Voyager Season 4: Two time travel episodes, Year of Hell, parts 1 and 2.
Technicality: Living Witness - Once again, this takes place in the future, but is never actually presented as time travel. This is also probably one of Voyager's best episodes.

TNG Season 5: Three time travel episodes:
- A Matter of Time
- Cause and Effect The rare, good Brannon Braga episode.
- Time's Arrow Part 1

Voyager Season 5: Three time travel episodes:
- Timeless
- Gravity - This is borderline Honorable Mention territory, but I feel like it is justified being here, since some people age two months in the span of regular-timeline two days.
- Relativity
Technicality: Drone - While no actual time travel is in this episode, there is a direct correlation to earlier episodes where 29th century technology was employed.

TNG Season 6: Two time travel episodes:
- Time's Arrow Part 2
- Timescape
Technicalities:
- Relics - Scotty doesn't technically travel through time, he's just in what is functionally suspended animation. The rest of the episode has nothing to do with time.
- Tapestry - Although this episode deals with events in Picard's past, we see Picard as he is in the present. Additionally, there is no reason to think that Q actually manipulated time, as opposed to creating a reality for Picard to experiment in, or even that Picard wasn't just having a near-death vision of some kind.

Voyager Season 6: Two time travel episodes:
- Blink of an Eye
- Fury

TNG Season 7: Three time travel episodes:
- Parallels
- Firstborn
- All Good Things...
Note: I know I counted Tapestry above as a technicality, and I think we can say that 'All Good Things...' is a similarly Q-driven reality that ends up not being real, especially when we see events after the end of the series, and how far off they are. But Tapestry remains a technicality, and this one doesn't, because Tapestry is never really fully confirmed to have been an actual Q encounter.

Voyager Season 7: Two time travel episodes:
- Shattered
- Endgame

Final Tally:
TNG:
- 12 Time Travel Episodes
- 0 Honorable Mentions
- 3 Technicalities

VOY:
- 15 Time Travel Episodes
- 1 Honorable Mention
- 2 Technicalities

TLDR: Voyager and TNG have nearly the exact same amount of time travel episodes. Voyager leaned on it just a touch heavier.

I haven't watched Season 2 yet, but one thing I'm tired of (in series shows in general), is that in the great vast universe, nothing is random, and everything is tied back to one or two people (or one in two races).

If we find that Humans create the Borg.... just ugh. This has been done in side-canon several times. A couple books, V-Ger connection in video games.... ugh.

I'm totally planning to watch DSC once I pay for CBS for the eventual Picard Show. I'm not carrying an anti-DSC avatar on my twitter page. I just really hope we don't make the humans/starfleet the central figures in something else again. It was strange enough to me that we had to connect Michael to Sarek and Spock in season 1. It's an infinite universe, with infinite combinations and diversity, and everything leads back to the Enterprise.

Yeah definitely Control is NOT the Borg. What this is setting up is another cool thing that we have in Discovery which ends up getting resolved in a way that explains why they don't have it in future shows like the spore drive.

karmajay wrote:

Yeah definitely Control is NOT the Borg. What this is setting up is another cool thing that we have in Discovery which ends up getting resolved in a way that explains why they don't have it in future shows like the spore drive.

that's is the ultimate peril of the prequel show. everything is by necessity ephemeral. You can still do a lot of interesting things in that space though.

Zoso1701 wrote:

I haven't watched Season 2 yet, but one thing I'm tired of (in series shows in general), is that in the great vast universe, nothing is random, and everything is tied back to one or two people (or one in two races).

If we find that Humans create the Borg.... just ugh. This has been done in side-canon several times. A couple books, V-Ger connection in video games.... ugh.

I'd heard the theory that the Borg created V'ger, but I had no idea there was videogame that suggested the reverse.

Quintin_Stone wrote:
Zoso1701 wrote:

I haven't watched Season 2 yet, but one thing I'm tired of (in series shows in general), is that in the great vast universe, nothing is random, and everything is tied back to one or two people (or one in two races).

If we find that Humans create the Borg.... just ugh. This has been done in side-canon several times. A couple books, V-Ger connection in video games.... ugh.

I'd heard the theory that the Borg created V'ger, but I had no idea there was videogame that suggested the reverse.

The initial concept began from some idle speculation by Gene Roddenberry himself after the Borg first appeared on TNG, then William Shatner and his co-authors cribbed the idea for a novel, and then the Legacy video game did it as well.

thrawn82 wrote:
karmajay wrote:

Yeah definitely Control is NOT the Borg. What this is setting up is another cool thing that we have in Discovery which ends up getting resolved in a way that explains why they don't have it in future shows like the spore drive.

that's is the ultimate peril of the prequel show. everything is by necessity ephemeral. You can still do a lot of interesting things in that space though.

I see I kind of worded it as a bad thing but I'm fine with this. There is a tough spot with Star Trek creators where they tried to set Discovery before all the other shows so they weren't held up by the canon of the other shows but still have to have a lot of the fun stuff they create disappear because of that same canon. For me, is the adventure/path fun is a big part of my enjoyment with a show and I like the adventure/path in Discovery.

thrawn82 wrote:

that's is the ultimate peril of the prequel show. everything is by necessity ephemeral. You can still do a lot of interesting things in that space though.

There are a lot of things that Discovery does well as a prequel. The obvious, best part of the series in this space is Captain Pike. His character goes from bar trivia fodder ("Who captained the Enterprise before Kirk?" "Oh that dude stuck in the future wheelchair") to a much more developed person in this universe, especially after this most recent episode and his interaction with the time crystal.

Similar thing with Spock, Sarek, and Michael.

Spoiler:

In TOS and TNG, we never really learn why Spock and Sarek have such a strained relationship. Discovery explains in season one that Sarek had to choose which child should be allowed into the Vulcan Science Academy. Sarek chooses Spock over Michael, which ultimately upsets everyone, especially after Spock chooses Starfleet over the VSA. I admit it's a bit of shoehorning but I think it's very good shoehorning.

But yeah, as a prequel Discovery definitely falters with having tech and storylines that do not fit in with established canon. I feel that the writers have a lot of work to do in explaining why the spore drive doesn't exist in the future. And every time Spock or Sarek are in danger, my wife and I turn to each other thinking "not very worried about these guys."

As for Control and the Borg, I think it's red herrings all the way down.

I feel that the writers have a lot of work to do in explaining why the spore drive doesn't exist in the future

I feel like that has been pretty well explained. It takes a specialized device to actually successfully pilot the network. We also see that the only working version gets hidden then forgotten in a nebula for a 1000 years. I can easily see how all the data left behind gets erased since very few people know how it all works. Basically Disco's few technicians since on the sister ship everyone got turned inside out.

karmajay wrote:
I feel that the writers have a lot of work to do in explaining why the spore drive doesn't exist in the future

I feel like that has been pretty well explained.

Yeah... no. A magic propulsion system allowing for instantaneous BAMFing across the galaxy? I'm pretty sure there would be copies on copies on copies about how that tech worked. I'm still hopeful that there's a discovery that the use of the spore drive has potentially universe-ending consequences, so it's shelved and all records destroyed.

Kinda like how in TNG they discovered that travelling at high warp was actually dangerous? But more extreme? I can see that working. This may be what Karmajay was getting at, but I can see how very few people would know about the drive, with a lot of them being higher-ups. So all it would take would be for the current generation of Admirals to decide it's not worth the risk and that info would just be buried. The Omega Partical from Voyager springs to mind. Imagine if Disco was powered by Omega Particles, and so far they've just been lucky enough not to see the downside. I mean...Stamets is part of the drive. That's not really what Starfleet's about. Plus isn't the drive completely dependent on his memory/experience right now cause the map (or whatever) is broken?

About the Borg, I'll keep an open mind...But like others here, I'd rather this wasn't a Borg origin story. I can see the similarities, but that just doesn't fit with everything we know about the Borg. Maybe Control gets assimilated, and has a profound impact on the Borg, but I don't see how we go from Control to Borg Cubes etc in such a short amount of time.

Overall I'm loving this series. I think season two is even better than one. I think Pike is great. I think bringing in Spock was a big risk, but they're handling it well imo. I'm happy to have new and good Trek to look forward to every week again. It's been a while.

In season one, before Discovery accidentally crosses over to the mirror universe and time travels, the admiral mentions that Starfleet is put on notice to seek out tardigrades for navigation, and that they're looking into ways of retrofitting spore drive tech into existing starships.

Starfleet knows about the spore drive. What needs to be explained is why no one else off Discovery is pursuing the tech -- the mycellial network collapses and can no longer be reached, prolonged use is found to destroy the universe, Stamets and Culber cross into the mycellial plane to go watch La Boheme for the rest of their existence and locks the door behind them, something.

T-Prime wrote:

In season one, before Discovery accidentally crosses over to the mirror universe and time travels, the admiral mentions that Starfleet is put on notice to seek out tardigrades for navigation, and that they're looking into ways of retrofitting spore drive tech into existing starships.

Starfleet knows about the spore drive. What needs to be explained is why no one else off Discovery is pursuing the tech -- the mycellial network collapses and can no longer be reached, prolonged use is found to destroy the universe, Stamets and Culber cross into the mycellial plane to go watch La Boheme for the rest of their existence and locks the door behind them, something.

I'm putting my dollar chip on "whoops we accidently destroyed the mycellial network, our bad."

trichy wrote:
karmajay wrote:
I feel that the writers have a lot of work to do in explaining why the spore drive doesn't exist in the future

I feel like that has been pretty well explained.

Yeah... no. A magic propulsion system allowing for instantaneous BAMFing across the galaxy? I'm pretty sure there would be copies on copies on copies about how that tech worked. I'm still hopeful that there's a discovery that the use of the spore drive has potentially universe-ending consequences, so it's shelved and all records destroyed.

Maybe on the copies Maybe if Control gets blasted then the info on the spore drive may get blasted with it? There is already proof that the network can be damaged if used irresponsibly and that could affect all life from when Stamitz and mirror Stamitz were stuck in the network.

I can't sleep because I have really bad flu, so y'all get to read my thoughts about the Time Crystals' stuff. Before I write them, I should be honest about my opinion of that whole part of the episode. I thought the idea of a Starfleet Captain going to visit a group of ancient magical Klingon Monks, and them being all "You are not worthy, PA'TAQ!", and the Captain being like "For the honour of Starfleet: YES. I. AM. Dammit!", was pretty cool. So there's my bias, I was into the scene before they even got to the Time Crystals.

I didn't read the warning as literally meaning "If you take the Crystal, you will trigger an unavoidable chain of events that will put you in a life-support-chair." I read it as being more subjective, like the action was a statement of Pike's character. So anyone who would choose to do the right thing, in spite of being told that they'll lose almost everything, is probably incapable of doing what it takes to avoid that fate.

So maybe some day Pike will know the accident is about to occur, but maybe he'll also know that countless people will die if he doesn't sacrifice himself and that cadet. Would a person who took the Time Crystal then go on to let countless people die, just to save themselves? I don't think so. Likewise, maybe Pike will one day have the option to let Kirk, or some other Captain, run that experiment. Would Pike let someone else suffer that fate to save themselves? Again, I don't think so.

Putting it another way: I think correlation is being confused with causation. Taking the Time Crystal doesn't cause Pike to be in the accident. Rather, being selfless causes Pike to take the Crystal, and will also later cause Pike to be in the accident.

Bear in mind that I'm currently rocking a temp of ~40°C (104°F), so take all of the above with a grain of salt.

thrawn82 wrote:
T-Prime wrote:

In season one, before Discovery accidentally crosses over to the mirror universe and time travels, the admiral mentions that Starfleet is put on notice to seek out tardigrades for navigation, and that they're looking into ways of retrofitting spore drive tech into existing starships.

Starfleet knows about the spore drive. What needs to be explained is why no one else off Discovery is pursuing the tech -- the mycellial network collapses and can no longer be reached, prolonged use is found to destroy the universe, Stamets and Culber cross into the mycellial plane to go watch La Boheme for the rest of their existence and locks the door behind them, something.

I'm putting my dollar chip on "whoops we accidently destroyed the mycellial network, our bad."

See, that would have been the easy out, until they established at the end of Season 1 that destroying the mycelial network would end all life.

I'm betting that there's going to be some major time f*ckery at the end of this season that essentially eliminates the spore drive from existence, as well as removes Burnham from Sarek's family.

Also, couldn't really find another Star Trek thread, so I figured this would be wanted here:

What We Left Behind trailer

In DS9, didn't Section 31 seem to magically appear out of thin air? Maybe in the future Section 31 has kept the mycelial network secret and only they know how to use it.

F*ck me, now I'm trying to fix my head cannon. I hate that Section 31 is so commonly known and spoken of in this series. They even have their own fleet!

PaladinTom wrote:

In DS9, didn't Section 31 seem to magically appear out of thin air? Maybe in the future Section 31 has kept the mycelial network secret and only they know how to use it.

F*ck me, now I'm trying to fix my head cannon. I hate that Section 31 is so commonly known and spoken of in this series. They even have their own fleet!

I'm pretty confident that season 2 will be concluded with Section 31 becoming persona non grata. At least officially. Which will make things fall in line with canon.

And personally I hope it will also be the last time we them in Discovery as a whole.

I didn't know this was a thing. Hyped.

HappyCrying.gif

That bullsh*t! The Enterprise bridge did NOT have any red in it during Pike's command! Everyone knows the bridge was upgraded to include red styling after Kirk took command on stardate 8413874216831839113845689871710381299183910338198938375418521448538899401000000000000.2!

That episode accomplished absolutely nothing. What a waste of time. I hated it.

Ha! I thought that episode was great. I can't wait for next week's ep!

I've been meaning to say, to anyone who likes Reno, if you haven't seen any of the actor's comedy stuff (Tig Notaro), I'd really recommend checking her out. She's great.

I loved the episode. I really like the tieback to the shorts. Mainly it was the princess short but this looks like start of the AI episode also.