Star Trek: Discovery - spoilery thoughts?

[GandALF]

Discovery has the aesthetic of a current era gritty sci-fi with a Star Trek skin. Like putting logos and ship designs over The Expanse.

Is the aesthetic that different from say, the TOS films?

This really isn't a Star Trek TV show. It should have been marketed as Section 31 story, taking place within a dystopian Trek universe at best. Like one that the main characters of another show would have to go back in time to prevent ever happening.

Lorca came off as a Sisko-esque pragmatist between Burnham's instability and Stamets' Roddenberry smugness to me at least.

[LittleRaven]

The other issue I had with this episode is at the beginning why was the transport shuttle flying through the nebula thing? Open space was a couple dozen or so feet up, so why fly through the nebula?

I assumed that everything was basically arranged by Lorca. They were flying through the nebula so they could pick up the space bugs that would give the pilot the excuse to bail. (I also assumed she was picked up later.)

It was just a big stress test.

[Fixer]

Discovery has the aesthetic of a current era gritty sci-fi with a Star Trek skin. Like putting logos and ship designs over The Expanse.

Is the aesthetic that different from say, the TOS films?

I had to turn up the brightness on my laptop to see half the action today, but outside this comparing to The Expanse. Which of the two shows is the one where a shuttle filled with scrappy undesirables is drawn onto a military ship in the third episode, while a secret project involving blue spores and mutilated bodies is discovered on a derelict spacecraft.

Discovery's tone is just dark and gritty.

This really isn't a Star Trek TV show. It should have been marketed as Section 31 story, taking place within a dystopian Trek universe at best. Like one that the main characters of another show would have to go back in time to prevent ever happening.

Lorca came off as a Sisko-esque pragmatist between Burnham's instability and Stamets' Roddenberry smugness to me at least.

Sisko (apart from that one poisoning a planet thing) also had a strict moral code. When he had to break the rules or sacrifice his ideals for pragmatism he did not make the decision lightly or discard those ideals. Lorca has his own evil science lab and has an "ends justfy the means" philosophy. That's more Parody Janeway's field of expertise.

[LittleRaven]

Sisko (apart from that one poisoning a planet thing) also had a strict moral code.

That code being: Don't **** with the Sisko.

Lorca has his own evil science lab and has an "ends justfy the means" philosophy. That's more Parody Janeway's field of expertise.

And I'm fine with that, as long as he doesn't also share Parody Janeway's level of intellect.

[Fixer]

The one thing that did strike me as interesting was Lorca's statement and title drop.

Spoilers:
That universal law was for the peasantry, context was for kings.

In Trek storylines this is a staple of course. The prime directive being challenged whenever the outcome of non interference would be worse than the effects of revealing the presence of warp capable ships to a less developed civilisation. Lorca's statement holds sinister undertones. That those that have a superior point of view or can rationalise it have authority over when a law should apply.

[Karha of Honor]

Discovery has the aesthetic of a current era gritty sci-fi with a Star Trek skin. Like putting logos and ship designs over The Expanse.

Is the aesthetic that different from say, the TOS films?

This really isn't a Star Trek TV show. It should have been marketed as Section 31 story, taking place within a dystopian Trek universe at best. Like one that the main characters of another show would have to go back in time to prevent ever happening.

Lorca came off as a Sisko-esque pragmatist between Burnham's instability and Stamets' Roddenberry smugness to me at least.

Lorca is probably evil but that's fine with me.

Knights of the Old Republic had the advantage of being millennia in the past so that it wouldn't interfere with current canon.

Discovery has the aesthetic of a current era gritty sci-fi with a Star Trek skin. Like putting logos and ship designs over The Expanse.

This really isn't a Star Trek TV show. It should have been marketed as Section 31 story, taking place within a dystopian Trek universe at best. Like one that the main characters of another show would have to go back in time to prevent ever happening.

This "Dark Trek" reminds me more of the discussions of how Trek Vs. Wars debates went into how flawed Star Trek's universe was from late 90s internet forums where all the unfortunate implications of Federation philosophies were taken to their extreme. Not a thoughtful deconstruction or testing of idealism like DS9 but rather a Star Trek made by a group of people who watch the show but aren't really fans, and really wish that Star Trek was something else entirely.

TOS, TNG and DS 9 each fit the soimething else category. Lorca did say the classic line about hunger being over.

[technobabbler]

TOS, TNG and DS 9 each fit the soimething else category. Lorca did say the classic line about hunger being over.

To me, Lorca delivered that line about the hunger-free Roddenberry Earth in a sarcastic/flippant/Heinlein-ian manner---as in "all the folks back home are fat and happy because of sacrifices made by (maimed) people like me (and Sloan) (and Sisko)"

[Karha of Honor]

TOS, TNG and DS 9 each fit the soimething else category. Lorca did say the classic line about hunger being over.

To me, Lorca delivered that line about the hunger-free Roddenberry Earth in a sarcastic/flippant/Heinlein-ian manner---as in "all the folks back home are fat and happy because of sacrifices made by (maimed) people like me (and Sloan) (and Sisko)"

You like what you like, i like what i like. For me Starfleet made it Trek and never cared for the Prime Directive.

[LittleRaven]

To me, Lorca delivered that line about the hunger-free Roddenberry Earth in a sarcastic/flippant/Heinlein-ian manner---as in "all the folks back home are fat and happy because of sacrifices made by (maimed) people like me (and Sloan) (and Sisko)"

Well, yeah. Because they're clearly setting Lorca up to be a bad guy.

I'm pretty certain he's lying about...well, damn near everything. I halfway suspect we'll ultimately discover he's one of Kahn's long lost siblings.

[GandALF]

Well, yeah. Because they're clearly setting Lorca up to be a bad guy.

Are they though? If you think about context being king in terms of the Fed peace with the Cardassians, then the "peace" set off the Maquis guerrilla war. The Klingons are not the Pakleds, the Kumbaya approach isn't going to be universal, the only reason they hadn't attacked already was because they were too busy fighting each other. The only genuine peace seems to only to come about via the Vulcan hello, i.e. peace through strength, so Lorca seems to be suggesting that the Feds have to force them into a peace that ensures that any future attacks would not be worth the risk.