Star Trek: Strange new worlds

[Mabus]

Episode 3:

The episode is dip in quality compared to the previous ones: they crammed like 5 mini-stories in the episode, mostly squeezed in the second half the episode; some annoying continuity errors that are quite silly; more cringey and dumb dialogue;
A couple of issues that downgrade the episode:
-The illness is transmitted via light apparently, but for some reason the entire ship is brightly lit, and yet they don't bother to turn off all the lights inside after learning this fact, just on the outside. When they first realize it's a contagion, the ship is put in lockdown, yet everyone still walks around the ship without a problem, like the grumpy Aenar. I'm not even gonna bring up the lack of biohazard suits because previous Trek series also forgot about those, although since NuTrek also brought back seatbelts, maybe I should.
-"I'm an Illyrian"; the doctor and the nurse: "We're just gonna be mildly surprised". "We're not even gonna react like a normal person, with say... 'You're joking, right? This is a joke, right?' or just "what". It's not like you just admitted you were genetically altered, which is very illegal in the Federation, moreso since you're in Starfleet, and you're the second highest ranking officer on the ship, who just happens to be immune to the mysterious illness that could kill us all." 'Tis but a scratch, says the doctor and the nurse.
-"Warp core breach imminent" ...ship should have exploded? How was Una able to stop the core breach when the computer clearly stated it was imminent because the field was down. The computer even states that the radiation in the room is lethal to all life. She's now immune to radiation?
-Those plasma ghosts served no purpose to the story, other than "saving" Pike and Spock from an issue that shouldn't have been in the first place. At least make them responsible for the illness or something, give them a more significant role than just pointless CGI.
-So... according to this episode, no species can join the Federation (or serve in Starfleet) if they were genetically altered in any way. Because of the genetic engineering ban you see. OK. So then what the hell was Phlox doing on the Enterprise as the ship's doctor? The GE ban was already in effect in the 22nd century and Phlox revealed in "Borderland" that his species used genetic engineering on their own species in the past without a problem. Maybe he didn't use GE on himself, possibly though unlikely, but surely his parents or grandparents might have used it at some point. They're on a planet where everyone marries another, they'd need genetic engineering so they don't interbreed themselves to death. Meaning he should at least be screen by Starfleet for any genetic alterations. But according to this episode, the Federation just blanket bans anyone with any genetic alterations. Odd. And what about Klingons? A good portion of their population got infected with literal Augment DNA, and while they stopped the process before they became superhumans, nothing stops them from trying again. I mean, many Klingons appealed to cranial reconstruction to hide their alterations, and unless you do a genetic testing, you can't tell them apart from non-altered Klingons. Chang looked like someone descendant from those half-Augment Klingons, why didn't the Federation had a problem with that? Maybe it was the war, maybe not, still in retrospect this was a stupid decision. And what about the Darwin kids, I always assumed the reason why they weren't a problem is because the research station was somehow outside the Federation's space (kind of like how some national laws don't apply in international waters, like gambling laws), I've seen other people having similar theories. But nope, now the genetic ban is absolute. No grandfather clause or some other loophole. Shame.
-So the ENT doctor's dark secret is that his daughter is dying and to keep her alive, he's just keeping her inside the transporter pattern buffer, where she won't age, giving him time to find a cure for her illness. And to avoid the issue of pattern degradation, he rematerializes her daily for a few hours then back to the pattern buffer. One small problem: it shouldn't work. In "Counterpoint", which takes 100 years later, they do pretty much the same thing (almost, the people there are only kept inside the buffer for a few hours maybe, daily, for several weeks, unlike the doctor's daughter who is kept at least 15-20 hours inside), and after several weeks of doing the same thing they begin to suffer from cumulative cellular degradation, and they can't do that anymore as they could kill them all. And this was after a few weeks. M'Benga has been doing this for at least a month, meaning that his daughter should be almost dead if not dead from the same issue. And he's using a 23rd century transporter tech, which is less advanced. Why not just use suspended animation? Earth already has the tech, what he can't just rent one such unit to keep his daughter in it? Or did Khan stole them all?

I can't give the episode more than 5/10, it's got too much dumb stuff in it. Maybe the next one will be better and this one was just a fluke, but I'm starting to doubt it.

[CharlesPhipps]

He only said you had to re-materialize them regularly. I'm guessing a few minutes every few days since no one in Sick Bay saw him with a little girl so far.

But they're probably keeping it vague for a reason.

[Frustration]

Previously, humans (to choose an example totally at random) must have genetically altered themselves, if only to eliminate certain well-defined genetic diseases. It was engineering the human genome to 'improve' humanity that was illegal.

[Frustration]

-So the ENT doctor's dark secret is that his daughter is dying and to keep her alive, he's just keeping her inside the transporter pattern buffer, where she won't age, giving him time to find a cure for her illness. And to avoid the issue of pattern degradation, he rematerializes her daily for a few hours then back to the pattern buffer. One small problem: it shouldn't work. In "Counterpoint", which takes 100 years later, they do pretty much the same thing (almost, the people there are only kept inside the buffer for a few hours maybe, daily, for several weeks, unlike the doctor's daughter who is kept at least 15-20 hours inside), and after several weeks of doing the same thing they begin to suffer from cumulative cellular degradation, and they can't do that anymore as they could kill them all. And this was after a few weeks. M'Benga has been doing this for at least a month, meaning that his daughter should be almost dead if not dead from the same issue. And he's using a 23rd century transporter tech, which is less advanced. Why not just use suspended animation? Earth already has the tech, what he can't just rent one such unit to keep his daughter in it? Or did Khan stole them all?

The "few weeks" limit must have been a function of the alien species they were applying the strategy to. Scotty was in a pattern buffer for seventy-five years, and he was fine; his companion wasn't killed by the length of time they were cycled through the buffer, but by the attempt to bring him out. Frequently bringing someone out of pattern storage, and putting them back in, would be rolling the dice each and every time - it'd be the worst way to manage it.

The unexplained absence of suspended animation is an absolutely devastating critique. Even if mere suspension somehow wouldn't stop or slow the progression of the illness, cryopreservation ought to be possible in the ST universe - they can do far more impressive feats than freezing and thawing a person.

[CharlesPhipps]

The unexplained absence of suspended animation is an absolutely devastating critique. Even if mere suspension somehow wouldn't stop or slow the progression of the illness, cryopreservation ought to be possible in the ST universe - they can do far more impressive feats than freezing and thawing a person.

I mean, we had it since Khan's time. However, I imagine he's doing it to keep her "on hand" and allow him to do research while searching for a cure. You can't hide a suspended animation booth on a starship.

[McAvoy]

He only said you had to re-materialize them regularly. I'm guessing a few minutes every few days since no one in Sick Bay saw him with a little girl so far.

But they're probably keeping it vague for a reason.

It's your standard issue Star Trek cannon issue.

Though I am going to have to rewatch Counterpoint now.

[Mabus]

The "few weeks" limit must have been a function of the alien species they were applying the strategy to. Scotty was in a pattern buffer for seventy-five years, and he was fine; his companion wasn't killed by the length of time they were cycled through the buffer, but by the attempt to bring him out. Frequently bringing someone out of pattern storage, and putting them back in, would be rolling the dice each and every time - it'd be the worst way to manage it.

The unexplained absence of suspended animation is an absolutely devastating critique. Even if mere suspension somehow wouldn't stop or slow the progression of the illness, cryopreservation ought to be possible in the ST universe - they can do far more impressive feats than freezing and thawing a person.

As was stated in the Voyager episode, it was mostly the repeated uses of the beaming-in-beaming-out of the pattern buffer that caused the pattern degradation (like say, making repeated photocopies of an already photocopied document). In case of Scotty, he and Franklin were kept inside the buffer without being rematerialized, so maybe whatever he did to the transporter doesn't cause significant degradation as long as you don't get rematerialized, basically a photocopied document doesn't degrade if you don't actually copy it and replace it with its copies. And let's not forget that Scotty was able to pull this off, because he knows a lot more about transporters than the doctor (not to mention the USS Jenolan is a few decades in the future compared to the Enterprise, so the transporters should be a bit more advanced). Likewise the Voyager crew had to conceal what they were doing so they don't get find out, meaning they probably had to sacrifice pattern stability for better concealment, something which Scotty didn't have to worry, quite the opposite. And dr. M'Benga also has to worry about finding out, so there's that.

Now, I'm willing to give the show some credit if later on this does happen (it's only episode 3, many things can happen until the end of season), that his repeated uses of the transporter buffer does eventually lead to his daughter nearly dying. But they'd have to retcon the time frame he's been doing this to about a week, maybe two, since he didn't said exactly when he put his daughter in the pattern buffer, the only thing he said in the episode was that in the previous year the doctors only gave her about 3 months left to live, so he's be doing this anywhere from 9 to 12 months.

[Madner Kami]

J: "Hey Mike, there's this 950 Gigaquad file occupying an entire transporter buffer. Do you know what it's for?"
M: "No idea, Jay. It cyclically appears every 23 hours, is removed for 1h and than reappears. It may be a bug of the OS and I considered just deleting it, to see what happens, as no system seems to use the file actively and there's not even a log of it being written or read. And the transporter buffer shouldn't be used by any other relevant system than the transporter anyways, in case we need that storage space for some wierd space-shit."
J: "Alright, let's try that and see if any other system reacts in wierd ways or if this file appears again in 23h. Computer? Delete buffer file DocDaug.bmp!"
C: "File deleted."

*23 hours later*

J: "Hey Mike. How's that file doing?"
M: "Hideho. Simply deleting it seems to have fixed the problem. The buffer wasn't accessed or used again in that way since deletion and I checked back with Rich from engineering, whether anything unusual has happened."
J: "And did anything happen?"
M: "Nope. Nothing at all, all smooth sailing. In fact, the ship used minimally less energy overall than usual. I made a log-entry and marked it to be sent to the tech-support in the next feedback-package we transmit."
J: "Hm, wierd. We probably should make a report to security, just in case this is some wierd romulan attempt of getting at us."
M: "Yeah, I thought we should do that and already contacted lieutenant Noonien-Singh, but she asked me to get back to her later. Apparently the Doctor had a mental breakdown of some sorts and was demolishing the medical bay and shouting crazy obsceneties about something having removed his daughter."
J: "His daughter? Didn't she die like a year ago? When I talked to him about that a few weeks ago. He was kinda reserved, but he seemed to have taken it well enough. Seems it has finally gotten to him... Poor fellow."

[clearspira]

Previously, humans (to choose an example totally at random) must have genetically altered themselves, if only to eliminate certain well-defined genetic diseases. It was engineering the human genome to 'improve' humanity that was illegal.

I can't wait for Chuck to reach that season 2 TNG episode where Pulaski turns into an old woman after helping some genetically engineered children. It flies in the face of everything we ever see in the rest of the series ever again. The augments in ENT, Bashir, this episode. Everything.

[clearspira]

-So the ENT doctor's dark secret is that his daughter is dying and to keep her alive, he's just keeping her inside the transporter pattern buffer, where she won't age, giving him time to find a cure for her illness. And to avoid the issue of pattern degradation, he rematerializes her daily for a few hours then back to the pattern buffer. One small problem: it shouldn't work. In "Counterpoint", which takes 100 years later, they do pretty much the same thing (almost, the people there are only kept inside the buffer for a few hours maybe, daily, for several weeks, unlike the doctor's daughter who is kept at least 15-20 hours inside), and after several weeks of doing the same thing they begin to suffer from cumulative cellular degradation, and they can't do that anymore as they could kill them all. And this was after a few weeks. M'Benga has been doing this for at least a month, meaning that his daughter should be almost dead if not dead from the same issue. And he's using a 23rd century transporter tech, which is less advanced. Why not just use suspended animation? Earth already has the tech, what he can't just rent one such unit to keep his daughter in it? Or did Khan stole them all?

The unexplained absence of suspended animation is an absolutely devastating critique. Even if mere suspension somehow wouldn't stop or slow the progression of the illness, cryopreservation ought to be possible in the ST universe - they can do far more impressive feats than freezing and thawing a person.

TNG: ''The Neutral Zone''. Three 20th century humans who froze themselves for 400 years, all three of them dying of incurable conditions.
Score another one for shitty continuity.