DIS - Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2

[FaxModem1]

Could someone explain to me the Elon Musk comment?

[Taurian Patriot]

The bit with Michael flying between ships while the grand chorus tries to inject some majesty to the scene didn't sit right with me either, but mostly because of the fact she was being escorted by things that were either constantly spinning or circling her, like some carnival ride.* When I first saw it, I actually laughed out loud because I imagined circus music playing instead.

And now that I think on it, we have a shot in which everything is literally revolving around her being presented as something we're supposed to cheer for. So yeah, that's not helping her bad rep any.

As for the overall plot, I'd given up hope of any sensible resolution as soon as it turned out to be a time-travel story. By their very nature, you either need to keep the changes few and simple, to minimize the complications, or else meticulously plot out not only the rules for time travel and how causality works when you're actively breaking it, but also think through the greater implications and potential abuses of said rules in order to head off anyone in the audience who's halfway imaginative. You absolutely cannot half-ass this kind of plot... but by now it's apparent that half an ass is all Discovery's writing staff can manage when it comes to seasonal arcs.

*Seriously, why is there so much spinning on this show? Ordinarily I'd agree with Puppet General Hammond that "spinning is so much cooler than not spinning," but the audience isn't a bunch of cats fascinated by car keys and laser pointers - there needs to be some kind of reason for it.

[clearspira]

I didn't notice the window on the blast door, which is indeed stupid, because I couldn't get past both the manual override being on only one side of the door, AND that they couldn't just freaking beam her out after she shut it. ...

(And I'm not sure the shields are even up anyway if that that torpedo can get lodged in the hull.) I can't stand such stilted, manufactured "tragedy."

The shields were down when the same thing happened on DS9. That is what distracted me from the scene, the fact that I'd already seen that scene done before in Deep Space Nine, where Quark and a guest star had to disarm a torpedo lodged in the hull of the Ben Sisko's MfPH. Deep Space Nine did it better. You should never have your show remind the audience of the same thing that was done in a better show.
--
I have no problem with Starfleet taking the Armin Tamzarian option with regard to Discovery's antics across the first two seasons. If I was them, I wouldn't want to admit those idiots existed either. They make the Lower Decks crew seem intelligent by comparison. The problem I have is that CBS won't take the same approach.

Tilly I found just grated on me, like she had all of Season one DS9's Rom and Bashir's irritating quirks combined with Neelix's desperate need for validation. She fulfils one purpose in the show, to me anyway, and that is to make me go "maybe we should check in on Michael again" just to get away from her. I want the character to grow the fuck up, and quiet the fuck down.

Saru, I just found his character so stupid because of S1 that nothing can save him except a noble self sacrifice on the other side of an airlock, one that sticks.

Michael, well, thanks to her Travis on Enterprise is no longer the most boring black character in Star Trek.

And the other drones... are there, I guess. That is the problem with the show, the only series regulars characters' names which I can recall are memorable only because of how irritating they are. That is not a good thing.

Pike was interesting, so was Lorca though, and even Evil Georgiou had something going on. I had zero interest in watching the third season even before they announced they were going to be using it as a reboot of Andromeda. I wasn't that riveted by Andromeda the first time around, so it has no residue of nostalgic goodwill to draw upon to bring me back to see how this bunch of assholes handle it. Not only am I not interested in their hapless blundering around the galaxy, but the very premise of finding a Fallen Federation repulses me so that even if it was Picard, Sisko, Garak, Nemoy-Spock, and Tom Paris doing that show, I still would not want to watch it; so why do they think that seeing this shambles doing so will make it palatable.

It is not hard to put together a watchable show, set it in the Picard timeframe, keep it upbeat and adventurous, ditch the pizza cutter ship design, reduce Michael et al's role [in fact, just bring them back for the season opener to pass the torch], and bring in a new and more interesting as well as functional crew, have them go out and explore somewhere new every week. There, that is a Star Trek show I'd watch.

I liked Saru... for those two or three episodes when the theory about him was that he was from a herd species. That is fascinating to me and I cannot think of it done elsewhere. A prey species surviving long enough to reach the level of its planet's apex (because remember, up until now only warp capable species were allowed to know the Federation exists) is a chance for some really unique stories. And then we learn that he is part of just another plaything species and any interest I had dried up.

The Discovery looks like something from Deviantart. People defend it by pointing out indignantly that ''its a design from the failed Star Trek Planet of the Titans that Gene Roddenberry tried to make before TMP'' and therefore its ''a great homage.''
...
So let me get this straight: the defence for the 1701 redesign is that special effects have moved on from the 1960s. And simultaneously, your defence for the design of the Discovery is that its a rejected design from the 1970s. Uh-huh. Someone doth protests too much methinks.

[Link8909]

Could someone explain to me the Elon Musk comment?

Going on that both Discovery and Picard deal with Artificial Intelligence (and like I said, I feel that Star Trek Picard handles the topic of A.I. far better and was more interesting than in Star Trek Discovery) I Googled elon musk fear of ai and got this:

Elon Musk fearing AI is like Bill Gates fearing a pandemic. They both profit greatly from pandemics that slow their competition and bring the singularity a step closer. One one hand Elon Musk tells us to fear AI supremacy, and on the other he offers us the red pill of a chip that can cure autism , schizophrenia and anything else undesirable.

[clearspira]

Could someone explain to me the Elon Musk comment?

Elon Musk has been very vocal about his fear that AI will end up destroying humanity. Which imo is a bit rich coming from a guy who owns a company at the forefront of cutting edge technology, but his opinions are actually very similar to what Stephen Hawking thought about AI: when the day comes that machines are can both think for themselves and have access to their own replication, they will not need us any more. That doesn't automatically mean they will wipe us out obviously, but I think you can agree that something that is smarter than us, doesn't need to eat, drink, sleep, breathe, take 9 months to reproduce and a further 18 years to be useful, is an enemy that we probably cannot defeat outside of a Hollywood film.

TL;DR, PIC is a series about a cycle of androids trying to wipe out humanity and STD isn't favourable to AI either.

[Link8909]

The Discovery looks like something from Deviantart. People defend it by pointing out indignantly that ''its a design from the failed Star Trek Planet of the Titans that Gene Roddenberry tried to make before TMP'' and therefore its ''a great homage.''
...
So let me get this straight: the defence for the 1701 redesign is that special effects have moved on from the 1960s. And simultaneously, your defence for the design of the Discovery is that its a rejected design from the 1970s. Uh-huh. Someone doth protests too much methinks.

I personally don't mind the USS Discovery design overall, it's not the worst design I've seen [glares at Yeager-Class] but it's not the best either, personally out of all the resent ships we've gotten, I love the USS Cerritos, that ship feels like a character in it's own right.

[Mabus]

I've noticed that Chuck didn't tackle an important element of the Control storyline, but then again it's very easy to understand why he would have missed.
What exactly was the reason why Control decided to go full Skynet?
Cause I've actually combed the episode transcript, I've checked on Memory-Alpha and I even went on TVTropes to see if they ever mentioned why Control decided one day to just go rogue. Well, to the surprise of no one, they never once give a proper explanation. The most we got is when holographic Control tells LeLand "protecting life is impossible so long as other life exists so it plans to become a superior lifeform to end all life" (?). I'm sorry, that's not machine logic, that's something I'd expect to hear from an alcoholic who has a drinking problem because he drinks to forget he has a drinking problem, kind of like in "The Little Prince" nowhere near as clever and funny.
I guess Kurtzman and his boy band must have realized a bit too late that they forgot to give the main villain of the story a proper motivation, so they decided to ignore this problem, hoping people won't notice it, after all, season 2 is just a gish gallop plot.

[Link8909]

Could someone explain to me the Elon Musk comment?

Elon Musk has been very vocal about his fear that AI will end up destroying humanity. Which imo is a bit rich coming from a guy who owns a company at the forefront of cutting edge technology, but his opinions are actually very similar to what Stephen Hawking thought about AI: when the day comes that machines are can both think for themselves and have access to their own replication, they will not need us any more. That doesn't automatically mean they will wipe us out obviously, but I think you can agree that something that is smarter than us, doesn't need to eat, drink, sleep, breathe, take 9 months to reproduce and a further 18 years to be useful, is an enemy that we probably cannot defeat outside of a Hollywood film.

TL;DR, PIC is a series about a cycle of androids trying to wipe out humanity and STD isn't favourable to AI either.

Star Trek Picard is more about the cycle of fear, artificial lifeforms are treated as monsters by the actual villains, the Zhat Vash, and the series depicts them as being just as alive and sentient as any other form of life, and Soji only going the wipe out organic life route because with either being hunted down by the Zhat Vash, or oppressed by Federation laws like genetically engineered people, and only knowing mistrust thanks to Narek, felt she had no choice, and the artificial lifeforms that she was going to summon (who are just as sentient as any other lifeforms) have the same mistrusted of organic life, thus in the end it was about breaking that cycle and not fulfilling the Zhat Vashs prophecy, to be better and show that artificial lifeforms are not just monsters.

Star Trek Discovery was more A.I. is evil, and you shouldn't automate things that can access destructive weaponry.

[Enterprising]

So not only do we have here the endless technobabble, the ripping off of Iron Man, why on Earth would Starfleet/Enterprise give up the awesome tactical advantage of 200+ combat shuttles and pods to downgrade to just 2 unarmed shuttles by the time TOS rolls around?

It's almost like this is a completely different timeline to actual Star Trek canon...

[HumanXeroxMachine]

It's almost like this is a completely different timeline to actual Star Trek canon...

You know with the existence of the Red Angel suit and Mama Burnham messing around with time one can pretty much confirm that it is a different timeline.