Strange New Worlds: Una's trial

[CharlesPhipps]

"Ad Astra Per Aspera" is getting a lot of praise and some mild push back from Star Trek fans because the trial speaks to a lot of allegorical persecution for people. The premise is the age old "Augment ban" that has only been a thing since Deep Space Nine but due to, "holy shit, really?" that means that it is actually a part of Star Trek history that has been here for 24 years.

It's an impressive episode well-acted by an incredible cast. The big thing that Strange New Worlds has gotten going for it has been that it is aspirational Star Trek whereas Discovery has struggled with doom and gloom for its seasons (whatever you may think of it) and Picard has had a bit of a heart monitor for its premises. Lower Decks, ironically has moved to my favorite of NuTrek alongside SNW (and SNW ranks above Enterprise and VOY for me so its squarely part of my canon) because it does mostly keep that canon.

However, I have issues with this particular episode because in a desire to depict a socially relevant and excellent issue, it actually depicts the Federation as monstrous. It depicts a colony persecuting people, race hatred, and establishing Illyrians as getting out into a giant fucking ghetto. It leaves a massive stain on any claim they are anything but hypocrites and we know that the Augment ban will remain in place for centuries later.

Oddly, it does make Julian Bashir's anger a lot more rationale as he's now someone who has to been living with fear of discovery and internalized hatred this entire time too.

Weirdly, no one has ever touched on the fact the Vulcan Paradox. I think INTO DARKNESS may be the only one that even hinted at. Which is that Spock is a superior physical, mental, and frigging PSYCHIC being but is happy to serve under James T. Kirk/Pike. Because it turns out superior abilities do NOT translate to superior ambition or callousness.

We never got the conversation between Khan and Spock we needed.

[clearspira]

"Ad Astra Per Aspera" is getting a lot of praise and some mild push back from Star Trek fans because the trial speaks to a lot of allegorical persecution for people. The premise is the age old "Augment ban" that has only been a thing since Deep Space Nine but due to, "holy shit, really?" that means that it is actually a part of Star Trek history that has been here for 24 years.

It's an impressive episode well-acted by an incredible cast. The big thing that Strange New Worlds has gotten going for it has been that it is aspirational Star Trek whereas Discovery has struggled with doom and gloom for its seasons (whatever you may think of it) and Picard has had a bit of a heart monitor for its premises. Lower Decks, ironically has moved to my favorite of NuTrek alongside SNW (and SNW ranks above Enterprise and VOY for me so its squarely part of my canon) because it does mostly keep that canon.

However, I have issues with this particular episode because in a desire to depict a socially relevant and excellent issue, it actually depicts the Federation as monstrous. It depicts a colony persecuting people, race hatred, and establishing Illyrians as getting out into a giant fucking ghetto. It leaves a massive stain on any claim they are anything but hypocrites and we know that the Augment ban will remain in place for centuries later.

Oddly, it does make Julian Bashir's anger a lot more rationale as he's now someone who has to been living with fear of discovery and internalized hatred this entire time too.

Weirdly, no one has ever touched on the fact the Vulcan Paradox. I think INTO DARKNESS may be the only one that even hinted at. Which is that Spock is a superior physical, mental, and frigging PSYCHIC being but is happy to serve under James T. Kirk/Pike. Because it turns out superior abilities do NOT translate to superior ambition or callousness.

We never got the conversation between Khan and Spock we needed.

But... it does though. Vulcans have insanely violent emotions. They don't just suppress them for the fun of it - its because they are the friggin' Hulk if they don't.

Let's look at those Vulcans who DON'T suppress their emotions, shall we?

Sybok. The conqueror of Paradise City. A mind rapist. A kidnapper. A thief.
The Vulcan from TNG ''Gambit'' who wanted to conquer the galaxy using the Stone of Gol.
The emotional Vulcan rapist from ENT: ''Fusion''.
Spock himself from TOS: ''All Our Yesterdays''. A jealous thug. Violent. Paranoid.
Spock himself every time he loses control is guaranteed to put his hand through a wall or a monitor.
T'Pol when high on Trellium-D also smashes up shit and becomes incredibly unbalanced.
Sarek when dying in TNG who becomes violent and irrational.
Trip and T'Pol's son in ENT: ''E2'' who was perfectly willing to kill everyone on board the NX-01.
The Vulcan serial killer in DS9.
Every Vulcan we see who enters Pon Farr.

Vulcans have every bit the potential to be Khan but they spend their WHOLE LIVES trying to prevent it. And every time they lose it, they are just as dangerous as the most enraged Klingon, only often more so because they aren't as dumb as a bag of bricks.

Again, let me repeat this: Surek had to lead a worldwide revolution to restrict emotions among his people because they were about to wipe themselves out as a race. Y'know, like the Augment Wars on Earth only 100X worse.

[clearspira]

"Ad Astra Per Aspera" is getting a lot of praise and some mild push back from Star Trek fans because the trial speaks to a lot of allegorical persecution for people. The premise is the age old "Augment ban" that has only been a thing since Deep Space Nine but due to, "holy shit, really?" that means that it is actually a part of Star Trek history that has been here for 24 years.

It's an impressive episode well-acted by an incredible cast. The big thing that Strange New Worlds has gotten going for it has been that it is aspirational Star Trek whereas Discovery has struggled with doom and gloom for its seasons (whatever you may think of it) and Picard has had a bit of a heart monitor for its premises. Lower Decks, ironically has moved to my favorite of NuTrek alongside SNW (and SNW ranks above Enterprise and VOY for me so its squarely part of my canon) because it does mostly keep that canon.

However, I have issues with this particular episode because in a desire to depict a socially relevant and excellent issue, it actually depicts the Federation as monstrous. It depicts a colony persecuting people, race hatred, and establishing Illyrians as getting out into a giant fucking ghetto. It leaves a massive stain on any claim they are anything but hypocrites and we know that the Augment ban will remain in place for centuries later.

Oddly, it does make Julian Bashir's anger a lot more rationale as he's now someone who has to been living with fear of discovery and internalized hatred this entire time too.

Weirdly, no one has ever touched on the fact the Vulcan Paradox. I think INTO DARKNESS may be the only one that even hinted at. Which is that Spock is a superior physical, mental, and frigging PSYCHIC being but is happy to serve under James T. Kirk/Pike. Because it turns out superior abilities do NOT translate to superior ambition or callousness.

We never got the conversation between Khan and Spock we needed.

As Chuck has demonstrated again and again and again, the Federation's claim to be a beautiful liberal utopia where everyone is equal is actually BS. As i've said before, I have really gone off this show now that my eyes have been opened to a lot of its hypocrisy, its fascism, its intolerance, the murderous Prime Directive, and a lot of its inequality and shady dealings that are bubbling just below its surface. And its a police state operated by an undemocratic world government. Lets not forget that.

Remember this?

Quark: I think I figured out why humans don't like Ferengi.
Benjamin Sisko: Not now, Quark.
Quark: The way I see it, humans used to be a lot like Ferengi: greedy, acquisitive, interested only in profit. We're a constant reminder of a part of your past you'd like to forget.
Benjamin Sisko: Quark, we don't have time for this.
Quark: You're overlooking something. Humans used to be a lot worse than Ferengi: slavery, concentration camps, interstellar war. We have nothing in our past that approaches that kind of barbarism. You see? We're nothing like you: we're better.

And whilst Quark - man from planet where women are third class citizens is overblowing things slightly - this was a response to the judgemental Sisko who was behaving every bit the prick that season 1 and 2 Picard used to be.

And that is the Federation is in a nutshell. Its a lovely place to be if you toe the line. Step out of it? Well... you can't vote for someone else. There's a world government.
You can't move somewhere else, the Federation will hand your planet over to the Cardassians. Or let you die a pointless death in the name of the PD. Or let you die in one of its many wars.

[Mabus]

The episode has so much heavy-handiness I bet the writers just copy-pasted quotes from Wikipedia and ChatGPT.

That trial was a joke. Like, really? Starfleet accepts people that are in danger... it's like the US Navy enrolling you because you were fleeing persecution, while not having a clear citizenship status... Not United States, the US Navy. And her winning argument is that because that section of the code is law, it should be treated as a law above all else? That's some Sovreign citizen logic there.

But then again, the prosecution was anemic as hell, the only reason I can think of why Una even won her case, is because no one in Stafleet wanted to punish her, and they only held that charade of a trial to appear like they did something to the higher ups. Explains why the judge did not held the Illyrian lawyer in contempt after repeatedly ignored the objections and defied the judge at every turn. Any real judge would have held her in contempt of the court and asked for more serious penalties.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

On a different topic, did anyone else get the vibe that Una and her lawyer used to bone?

[CharlesPhipps]

On a different topic, did anyone else get the vibe that Una and her lawyer used to bone?

I keep hearing this but I got more that they split up during the partition of their colony.

Like childhood friends.

Could be teenage girlfriends but they haven't seen each other in a LONG time.

[Deledrius]

This one had so much potential, and although it doesn't quite squander it, it certainly made a mess of things. The defense attorney was terrible, nearly sabotaging the entire trial for her own petty reasons (and this never comes up again or matters to the trial), and only wins because she sets up evidence for a nonsensical argument that somehow works anyway.

She has good reasons both socially and ideologically to want to make this case bigger than Una, but the dialogue and acting explicitly demonstrate that those are excuses for her acting out of personal spite, and it comes across as short-sighted and vindictive rather than cleverly playing the long game. Since we never get any sense of scope that this case does have any wider audience or effect, the only reasoning for her behavior we see is the personal. I was actually disappointed when it was revealed Una turned herself in, because it made so much more sense that the only other person who knew (her lawyer) had decided to use her old friend as a test case and tipped off the authorities.

In the end, because the case swings on a nonsensical loophole, the verdict doesn't feel like the vindication for Una that it should be and that I was hoping to get from it; it's just a restoration of the status quo after some well-meaning but pedestrian speechifying.

While it's very often contrived to use an existing crewmember in these courtroom episodes, it does make sense from a narrative arc standpoint. Here we had to introduce and develop a new "old friend" character and it eats up time the episode might have better spent on the conflict, and yet still not enough to make her feel like more than a plot device.

This episode also highlights one of the show's oddities in its premise: having two augmented characters (Una and La'an) in the main cast. While it is at least made some use of here, it still doesn't seem like there's a good reason for it dramatically. I like both characters well enough, but it's odd to not have them directly converse on the topic here. How are they different? How are they the same? What insights do they both have from their respective experiences? It's barely touched upon in the episode ostensibly focusing on this issue.

On a different topic, did anyone else get the vibe that Una and her lawyer used to bone?

No, the strong implication was that they were close friends as children, and were separated when Una's parents moved her away, and is the basis for her personal bitterness (along with the knowledge that Una can "pass" as normal).

She owed Una an apology in the end.

[clearspira]

I've never seen a more clumsy retcon than that of the Illyrians. Well... other than the Gorn being Magog but that's another story.

They went from a primitive people who couldn't stand up to a nearly destroyed NX-01 to these genetic supermen who put the world of Gattaca to shame. And some of them look like humans - conveniantly the one that was on-board the 1701 that we wanted to retcon. Those guys who were so easily shot up by Archer and the MACOs could really have done with some of those superpowers huh?

How about... follow along with me here... if we really wanted an ENT tie-in that we dropped this genetic engineering subplot onto a Suliban crewmember? Y'know, that species who are heavily genetically augmented? Maybe we could even have had Number One be a Suliban? They are shape shifters after all.

Nah. Too much sense for New Trek. We'll just bring back some forgotten one shot race that displayed none of these characteristics. Carry on.

[TGLS]

This episode also highlights one of the show's oddities in its premise: having two augmented characters (Una and La'an) in the main cast. While it is at least made some use of here, it still doesn't seem like there's a good reason for it dramatically. I like both characters well enough, but it's odd to not have them directly converse on the topic here. How are they different? How are they the same? What insights do they both have from their respective experiences? It's barely touched upon in the episode ostensibly focusing on this issue.

They sort of touched on that with the light madness episode.

They went from a primitive people who couldn't stand up to a nearly destroyed NX-01 to these genetic supermen who put the world of Gattaca to shame. And some of them look like humans - conveniantly the one that was on-board the 1701 that we wanted to retcon. Those guys who were so easily shot up by Archer and the MACOs could really have done with some of those superpowers huh?

Well they do establish that Una is exceptional relative to most Illyrians, who usually alter themselves to live in less hospitable places. And I don't recall the Illyrian ship being a warship either. The more technology you have, the more skill outweighs genetic factors.

[CharlesPhipps]

They went from a primitive people who couldn't stand up to a nearly destroyed NX-01 to these genetic supermen who put the world of Gattaca to shame.

1. I don't think primitive really describes anyone with warp travel.
2. Illyrians primarily just "biofrom" themselves to be able to do things like breathe carbon dioxide (like plants) versus oxygen or whatever.