Star Trek: Discovery - spoilery thoughts?

[Yerushalmi]

Burnham has been written as bipolar and/or with ADHD and/or PTSD and/or too loose with the chain of command. An unsympathetic protaganist.

That may be 100% true, but I'm not disputing that Burnham was an idiot and a terrible officer. I'm only disputing that she's to blame for the war.

1. Captain explicitly said "just a fly by" to investigate that artifact. Burham replies, "just a fly by." If Burnham followed orders and gave the artifact a wide berth she would not have killed the Torchbearer. (arguably)

T'Kuvma came there with the explicit intention of starting a war with the humans. He sent the Torchbearer out to intercept Burnham. Had she done a flyby, he would've sent him to intercept her during the flyby instead. Had the Shenzhou flown in closer itself of sending in a single individual, T'Kuvma would've decloaked and/or opened fire immediately and/or sent the Torchbearer to be martyred by getting smeared across the Shenzhou's windshield. There was literally nothing the Shenzhou could've done to prevent war except for turning around and going home. And since they had no idea T'Kuvma was even there, you can't blame them for that.

2. Admiral says in his conference call to the Captain and Burnham, "do nothing" until Europa and the fleet arrives.

Burnham mutinies orders "target phasers." so the Klingon vessel knows it's lit up while Michelle Yeoh is knocked out w/the nerve pinch. (arguably the order might not have been carried out---but there was no dialogue to be definitive)

Even if this were true, the Klingons didn't respond to it in any way, so it clearly didn't start the war. And it isn't true - they already put a weapons lock on the Klingon vessel far earlier in the episode, to get them to answer their hail. This action was worthy of a court martial but was not responsible for starting the war.

3. Burnham: Captain we can't kill Tkuvma, it would make him a martyr. Let's board to kidnap him to make Tkuvma look weak. Away team boards the ship, but instead of stunning Tkuvma, Burnham shoots him in the back and kills him out of rage. What about the plan?

The war started long before this, so it couldn't possibly have caused the war. You can argue that Burnham failed to end the war, but that's not quite the same thing as blaming her for starting it. Plus, she was just guessing about what the different outcomes would be of the kidnap/kill/leave alone decision, and she might have been wrong; this sort of might-have-been-ing is impossible to prove or disprove.

Finally, when she's alone on the Klingon ship it's not really fair to second-guess choices she made in the heat of the moment, especially since it's likely she would no longer have succeeded in kidnapping him without a second person to provide cover. We can say she made the decision emotionally and that's unacceptable, but that doesn't mean that if she sat there and reasoned logically she wouldn't have come to the same conclusion: that kidnapping him was no longer possible (because she doesn't know how many other Klingons might show up while she's trying to hail the Discovery and beam out without somebody else to fire on them and keep them at bay) and that, once that option is eliminated, on balance it's better to kill him than leave him alive and in command.

We can blame the Shenzhou for not sending over sixteen trained security officers instead of the Captain and First Officer, but then that's been a Starfleet tradition since time immemorial.

[Yaku]

I've been told that the Orville seems to scratch that old-school itch, feeling very much like a Trek show where they're not following the elite flagship of the Federation but the average joes in the rest of starfleet.

Not that I can comment personally. In the UK we have Discovery on Netflix but no way I know of to see the Orville.

Thanks for the recommendation. I have heard about the Series, but wrote it off because of MacFarlane - I thought it would be just some silly comedy. I have been wrong with that judgement, many old Trekies are praising it, and truly enjoyed it.

But I also can't watch it. Not on Netflix, not on Amazon Video, Hulu is not available in Europe. The joys of digital content and regional restrictions I guess . Seems anachronistic and out of place. Seems like they don't want our money, guess I'll have to wait for the time being to curb that Trek Itch.

[Fixer]

Thanks for the recommendation. I have heard about the Series, but wrote it off because of MacFarlane - I thought it would be just some silly comedy. I have been wrong with that judgement, many old Trekies are praising it, and truly enjoyed it.

But I also can't watch it. Not on Netflix, not on Amazon Video, Hulu is not available in Europe. The joys of digital content and regional restrictions I guess . Seems anachronistic and out of place. Seems like they don't want our money, guess I'll have to wait for the time being to curb that Trek Itch.

Same to a similar degree with The Expanse. Season 2 showed up in the UK half a year after it debuted in the US which means all the online discussion is done by the time you get to watch it. I was hoping that the delayed international releases for TVs and movies had been made a thing of the past.

The US being forced to subscribe to another streaming service to watch the new series though puts them in a worse position though. There doesn't appear to be anything else worth watching there. I definitely wouldn't pay $10 a month just to watch Discovery on its own and I get the feeling that's going to be the case with nearly everyone.

Wait till the entire series is out perhaps, then binge it in one sitting only paying a month's sub.

[Paul Walker]

To the people who are complaining that we have a prequel on our hands: this is Star Trek. The Federation isn't going to lose. It's never about the destination, but the journey.

So far, the Discovery prologue has piqued my curiosity for the remainder of the series. Michael Burnham is an engaging character. Though I am currently thinking of her as a new "Tom Paris". Captain Phillipa Georgiou was expertly played by Michelle Yeoh, and I was sad to see her die. This being Star Trek, there is a chance that she might not be gone for good (as permanent death is the exception, not the rule, for senior officers). The science officer was a bit..."meh". I this pair of episodes was primarily to set up the driver for the remainder of the series, but I'd have liked a little more. I liked the Klingons. They were reasonably balanced in their portrayal, but I thought they sounded a little odd when speaking.

I like that Nick Meyer is still involved. I like that Joe Menosky and Kirsten Beyer are still involved. Between the hands of the people who brought the Wrath of Khan and the Undiscovered Country, who brought most of the better Voyager episodes, and the writer who is continuing the post-Nemesis Voyager timeline, I think we've got a good team. I'd have been very concerned had I seen the names Braga or Berman anywhere near Discovery.

To me, it was what was needed: a promising start.

[Dînadan]

To the people who are complaining that we have a prequel on our hands: this is Star Trek. The Federation isn't going to lose. It's never about the destination, but the journey.

I think you're misunderstanding the issues people are having with it. I don't think most are upset with it being a prequel in and of itself; there's nothing wrong with prequels for being prequels. The issues people have are one or both of
A ) stylistically it doesn't feel like a prequel to TOS that it's billed as (as a prequel to the Abraham's films though this issue goes away)
or
B ) disappointment that the post-Dominion War situation isn't being explored

There are other issues people have with the series, but those aren't related to it being a prequel so are another matter.

[Ordo]

Things I am onboard with on principal:

1. Klingon Houses having different styles. I like this idea, it allows for a variety of outfits, weapons and attitudes that have their foundation in Klingon ideals but show how being raised in different worlds and/or different houses with various reputations and history can impact how a warrior presents himself. It also gives me hope we'll see more of Chancellor Gorkon's style of Klingons since I liked that design.

2. A human raised by Vulcans. The idea has merit, I just wouldn't have made Sarek their parent...or made this a prequel but I digress. If this was to be the focal point character of the series I would've embraced the 'Not the Captain' aspect and made them a young Officer that distinguished them self and thus earned a spot on the bridge of their first ship. From this vantage point we see Star Fleet from the lower decks, but also get a slow rise through the ranks with all the related pitfalls and issues we can engineer.

3. Kicking off with a war. Starfleets mission is exploration, so thrusting them all into a war they really don't want, and seeing how that impacts the crew and Starfleet at large can be done very well.

[Redshrit Survivor]

Well We found out the reason why Star Fleet said no Women Captains until the whale probe showed up.

[Avatarian]

Just watched the second episode and liked it even better than the first. I am sad to see T'Kuvma die, I thought he was a pretty interesting villain, hopefully, whoever steps up next can outdo him. I really liked the fact that while what he was doing was clearly wrong, you could understand where he was coming from and like with Kruge in Star Trek III, their motivation is out of fear of losing their cultural identity through slow assimilation with the Federation. It actually challenges the idea of the Federation, questioning whether what they are doing is right. Burnham did certainly make a lot of mistakes but she did recognize what she did was wrong at the end instead of trying to justify herself. I don't think her ideas were necessarily wrong but she went overboard in trying to carry them out. Plus as viewers, there is no way that Burnham actually caused the war, as T'Kuvma was dead set on this from the start, though killing him definitely didn't help. But from the outside, it does create drama in how others will perceive her. I was pretty skeptical going into this but I am pretty interested now! Not enough to spend $10 a month but still... It was certainly a better start than Enterprise or TNG for that matter. I'm also curious about Jason Isaac's character, just by what the preview gave us, he looks like he might be something kind of new to Star Trek, an ambitious Captain who is willing to push the boundaries to get what he wants. We've had shades of that before, but I'm curious if they're going to make him a more morally grey kind of character which would be interesting. I'm also curious about what looked like a Human anti-Federation Terrorist, the closest we ever got to that was the Maquis which were underused and mostly just about defending their homes rather than specifically taking on the Federation. Finally, I really hope they explain why Burnham's first name is Michael. Not that there is anything wrong with having a female character have a male name, it just seems like an excellent opportunity for a story that I don't want to see wasted on just a line of exposition.

[Karha of Honor]

To the people who are complaining that we have a prequel on our hands: this is Star Trek. The Federation isn't going to lose. It's never about the destination, but the journey.

It's in an empty era, every main character could die, because it's space you can blow up planets even without conflicting canon. If it's a space show and it's not a prequel with already known characters people need to chill.

[Darth Wedgius]

To the people who are complaining that we have a prequel on our hands: this is Star Trek. The Federation isn't going to lose. It's never about the destination, but the journey.

For what it's worth (and more as a curiosity than an objection) there were a couple Star Trek projects about the aftermath to big shake-ups to the Federation, but they never made it out of the gate.

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Star ... Federation

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Star ... l_Frontier