STD - The War Without, The War Within

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Getting close to season 2. Will Chuck finish the reviews on time? Find out next week. Same bat time, same bat channel.

[PerrySimm]

What's the rush? 14 out of 15 is pretty good no matter how you slice it. Plus, it's too early to score these episodes, so really they're more like extended "first look" shows so far.

Speaking of this review in particular, really enjoyed the "imposter" sequence!

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Why all the effort to get this close though?

[Hero_Of_Shadows]

This has been bugging for the whole war, the show would have us believe that the Klingons being split between 24 houses is somehow an advantage and that coupled with the Klingons just being "better warriors" (like this was Civilization and races have +2 -2 bonuses to make them focus on war or economy or diplomacy) is why they are kicking the Federation's ass.

DISCO has touched on this before as Cornell was captured attempting to negotiate with some houses individually.

That just gives me a headache, having your empire actually be just 24 smaller empires is a huge disadvantage especially when facing a huge, united state like the Federation.

I don't care how pacifistic the Federation is, let's be nice and assume the Feds and Klingons have roughly equal resources/populations etc (despite T'kuvma's whole ideology makes sense only if the Klingons were in decline and the Federation ascendant) a pacifistic giant will crush an warlike midget that is 1/24 of his size.

And he will crush another midget and another until when the angry Klingon midgets realize they're better off working together half of them are already taken out by the Federation.

Plus there's this very simplistic representation that societies stay the same during war, what we should have seen is the Klingon houses joining together and the Federation losing some of it's distaste for war.

As the Klingons work on the aspect that is holding them back in the war (factionalism) so would the Federation be working on it's own faults.

Thus the overall balance of power remains, letting the hero ship be the one that actually breaks the stalemate.

Plus DISCO having the Klingons go though this process of unification would help explain why in TOS you have Kirk dealing with a united Empire as opposed to feudal houses (ENT also tried to explain part of that)

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Klingons in this show remind me of the Kazon.

[Jonathan101]

This has been bugging for the whole war, the show would have us believe that the Klingons being split between 24 houses is somehow an advantage and that coupled with the Klingons just being "better warriors" (like this was Civilization and races have +2 -2 bonuses to make them focus on war or economy or diplomacy) is why they are kicking the Federation's ass.

DISCO has touched on this before as Cornell was captured attempting to negotiate with some houses individually.

That just gives me a headache, having your empire actually be just 24 smaller empires is a huge disadvantage especially when facing a huge, united state like the Federation.

I don't care how pacifistic the Federation is, let's be nice and assume the Feds and Klingons have roughly equal resources/populations etc (despite T'kuvma's whole ideology makes sense only if the Klingons were in decline and the Federation ascendant) a pacifistic giant will crush an warlike midget that is 1/24 of his size.

And he will crush another midget and another until when the angry Klingon midgets realize they're better off working together half of them are already taken out by the Federation.

Plus there's this very simplistic representation that societies stay the same during war, what we should have seen is the Klingon houses joining together and the Federation losing some of it's distaste for war.

As the Klingons work on the aspect that is holding them back in the war (factionalism) so would the Federation be working on it's own faults.

Thus the overall balance of power remains, letting the hero ship be the one that actually breaks the stalemate.

Plus DISCO having the Klingons go though this process of unification would help explain why in TOS you have Kirk dealing with a united Empire as opposed to feudal houses (ENT also tried to explain part of that)

I think you are overstating things a bit. The Klingon Empire are roughly the size of the Federation, and it's military capacity is both comparable in power AND almost certainly larger given the entire society revolves around a warrior culture.

But you also need to bare in mind that they are actually neighbours and share a very very large border, so this is basically if the United States collapsed into 24 hostile mini-states that each conducted terrorist attacks and raids against (a somewhat better armed) Canada. Yes, Canada could probably crush any of these states on their own, but it's a little hard to do that when you need to worry about the other 23.

Especially if you are a Lawful Good civilisation up against Chaotic Evil hordes that see anything short of genocide as weakness on your part- it's not enough to defeat one House; you have to convince them not to attack again in future while you are dealing with the other Houses, and unfortunately "don't attack again" isn't really in their vocabulary.

[FlynnTaggart]

Putting the Emperor in a Starfleet uniform is quite possibly the dumbest thing about STD. Taking Mega-Hitler as a prisoner could be a good idea, use her a bit like Admiral Robocop did in STID for her knowledge or a bargaining chip if the Empire manages to cross over. Stuffing her in actual Georgious's shoes is ridiculous even for a somehow desperate Federation.

She is a evil monster who ruled a ridiculously despotic Empire, she has her own agenda, has her own way of doing things even if she was willing to work with the Federation relatively straight, she certainly would not be willing to accept whatever the Federation is going to give her in compensation. You don't go from the all powerful ruler of a galactic superpower to a Starship Captain or barkeep and accept that.

The only way this should have ended would have been Mirror Georgiou attempting a Lorca style take over, convince the Starfleet Captains the weak leadership is the reason they are losing, even spin a tale with her assumed identity that she spent months in a Klingon prison probably learning about Klingon "dual anatomy" because the Federation was too spineless to rescue her. In a war desperate enough where the Federation leadership is willing to give a monster the reigns the people on the front line would definitely be willing to listen to her.

Also if there one thing positive I can say about the show is Tilly is awesome.

[clearspira]

Why is she called an emperor and not an empress anyhow? Y'know, people like to argue that giving Micheal a guys name was part of no agenda, and then you get nonsense like this that proves otherwise. Oh and BTW, Hoshi called herself an empress so it is something that exists here.

[Actarus]

This has been bugging for the whole war, the show would have us believe that the Klingons being split between 24 houses is somehow an advantage and that coupled with the Klingons just being "better warriors" (like this was Civilization and races have +2 -2 bonuses to make them focus on war or economy or diplomacy) is why they are kicking the Federation's ass.

DISCO has touched on this before as Cornell was captured attempting to negotiate with some houses individually.

That just gives me a headache, having your empire actually be just 24 smaller empires is a huge disadvantage especially when facing a huge, united state like the Federation.

I don't care how pacifistic the Federation is, let's be nice and assume the Feds and Klingons have roughly equal resources/populations etc (despite T'kuvma's whole ideology makes sense only if the Klingons were in decline and the Federation ascendant) a pacifistic giant will crush an warlike midget that is 1/24 of his size.

And he will crush another midget and another until when the angry Klingon midgets realize they're better off working together half of them are already taken out by the Federation.

Plus there's this very simplistic representation that societies stay the same during war, what we should have seen is the Klingon houses joining together and the Federation losing some of it's distaste for war.

As the Klingons work on the aspect that is holding them back in the war (factionalism) so would the Federation be working on it's own faults.

Thus the overall balance of power remains, letting the hero ship be the one that actually breaks the stalemate.

Plus DISCO having the Klingons go though this process of unification would help explain why in TOS you have Kirk dealing with a united Empire as opposed to feudal houses (ENT also tried to explain part of that)

It would be a problem for the Klingons if they were 24 houses fighting each other. In the state the war is during this episodes, the 24 houses are all fighting the UFP, in a kind of competition to know which one is doing the most damage. They are only aiming at massacre and destruction, with no real long term strategy. Which makes it hard for Starfleet to determine what will be the next target and prepare for defense or counterstrike. It is even more difficult when each of these houses can equip their ships with a cloaking device.

[Jonathan101]

Why is she called an emperor and not an empress anyhow? Y'know, people like to argue that giving Micheal a guys name was part of no agenda, and then you get nonsense like this that proves otherwise. Oh and BTW, Hoshi called herself an empress so it is something that exists here.

Because her being the Emperor was a big twist, so they made her sound like a man to further that twist.

As for Michael, to be fair that is actually a pattern with Bryan Fuller shows- he always puts female characters with male names in there.