STD: What's Past is Prologue

[AlucardNoir]

No, no, no Chuck. You missed the whole point. Lorca was a white man, of course he was evil and had to be stopped and killed. Of course his fixation on Micheal was a bad thing. But Micheal's fixation on Georgiou? perfectly fine, she's a black woman, she can do no wrong. Georgiou committing mass genocide and endangering the whole multiverse? water under the proverbial bridge.

I mean, what did you expect? that Starfleet immediately detain the former ruler of a racist, xenophobic alternate universe Terran empire? that they maybe not hand her a rank and then let her leave as if nothing had happened? It's not like she was privy to all scientific discoveries of a parallel evil fascist empire and as such letting her go might be a very bad idea. I'ts not like she had previously been in command of a ship that could have exterminated all life in the multiverse.

[Sir Will]

These reviews make my brain hurt. What is with this show...?

[Darth Wedgius]

Is it paranoid to think this series might be revenge on Chuck for some particularly hard-hitting Voyager / Enterprise reviews?

[SabreMau]

Chuck did say last time we had a Christmas Trek that we had seen the last of the Christmas Trek reviews. I guess that he doesn't consider any of these bad enough to warrant a 0. We've only had one season (of one hopefully) so its understandable.

His exact wording in And The Children Shall Lead acknowledged that there could eventually be more.

"Well, it's been a long time coming, but it's time to close the book on our last Star Trek live action Christmas special, at least for some time."
"We've gone through all four of the other live-action Treks over the Christmases that have passed, and since this is the end, again, at least for a while,"

That was 2015, the existence of Discovery had been announced at the time although almost no details had, and three years is both some time and a while.

[Sir Will]

Unless the next episode is widely considered complete crap, even for Discovery, then probably not. I wonder which other show it could be this time.

[clearspira]

Unless the next episode is widely considered complete crap, even for Discovery, then probably not. I wonder which other show it could be this time.

Hopefully we'll finally see Star Trek 12. Its been a LONG time since we last had a Trek film review, and ''The Wrath of Khan Vol 3'' (with the second being Nemesis) is such a deeply flawed film. Not ''flawed for a Star Trek film'' flawed as in ''what the hell were you thinking handing me this unimaginative rip-off?''
Its the only Trek film I would give a zero too. At least Final Frontier had the campfire scene which I count as the perfect example of the Kirk-Spock-McCoy friendship. You have them shooting the shit over beans and singing like real mates, you have Kirk's midlife crisis, McCoy judging Kirk, Spock being Spock, and the loneliness of these men who are essentially married to their jobs, which leads nicely onto the Nexus (as butchered as it is). That is worth a a point in my mind.

[Darth Wedgius]

Hopefully we'll finally see Star Trek 12. Its been a LONG time since we last had a Trek film review, and ''The Wrath of Khan Vol 3'' (with the second being Nemesis) is such a deeply flawed film. Not ''flawed for a Star Trek film'' flawed as in ''what the hell were you thinking handing me this unimaginative rip-off?''
Its the only Trek film I would give a zero too.
...

Do we have to be 100% sure the Kelvinverse movies are done first? I don't disagree with either point, BTW. I'd rather watch ST V while having a root canal than sit through STID again. At least I'd get the scene with McCoy and his dad.

[slochmoeller]

when chuck listed things that made just as little sense to bind the universe together, one thing he listed was "whale song." And I thought, "That would actually be more in keeping with Trek continuity!"

Personally, I thought the "destructive to the mycelial network" thing was going to be their out, that it was destroyed and that's why starfleet didn't pursue the tech. I guess not.

[Kellos Pandorus]

The Reality Bomb Mushrooms are a huge obstacle for me, as well. Although if someone were to sell me something called "Reality Bomb Mushrooms" at a music festival...I digress, I could have swallowed it easier if it was JUST the destruction of the Network. Arguably, that would have been way better because you can then explain away why this tech no longer exists in the Prime universe, even if it's never shown on screen, you've just established that the spore drive is dependent on the even-handed temperament of the Terran Empire, and its later successor states. No one is losing money on how that race ends.

I believe the problem with the whole mycelial network is not only due to the fact of how silly it sounds, but the show did not put in enough effort to justify them.

We know this specific species is made of exotic material; we know they take root in a section of subspace; we know subspace is a place with "infinite domains", to the extent that life lives within those domains; we know the entire Q race also reside within an extra-dimensional plane.

Simply put, one way they could have further justified the mycelial network (rather than the explanations doubled down on before) is to make them something indigenous to a higher dimension. Make the spores the material appearance of matter from a higher space-time within which the Star Trek Multiverse is contained, quantumly entangled with each other (explaining how you can teleport anywhere along the network).

You could even throw in the idea the tardigrade is another creature indigenous to that dimension, explaining its natural ability to use the mycelial network (better).

The concept, in practice, is like the World Tree of various mythology (Yggdrasil among them), only substituting the tree for a network of mycelium (originating from a higher space-time as theorized above).

This idea will likely not be canon, but it is the best I've got when it comes to figuring out the spore drive on my own.

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As for the contrast between Lorca and the Emperor, it is a rather painful case of Protagonist-Centered Morality. It's everywhere in many stories regardless of medium and genre, and this case is no different, for all the reasons SF Debris pointed out. From Michael's point of view, Lorca's manipulation of the crew and betrayal made him the greater evil. After all, Lorca is the one who stranded everyone in the Mirror Universe without anyone knowing.

...On the other hand, that betrayal led to common ground with the Emperor, an even worse figure by every comparison to be made. Lorca betrayed the Emperor, turned her Michael Burnham against her, and just so happens to look like prime Michael's Captain Georgiou. That emotional attachment is what prompted Michael to work with her to stop Lorca's coup, and led to her acting out to save the Emperor rather than leave her to die on the ISS Charon.

Though admittedly, I presume it would rank Burnham up there with Janeway and Archer, depending on how big a screw-up Georgiou's presence in the main Universe turns out to be with her involvement in Section 31's machinations.

The only thing we can do is see how things pan out. And given how "Calypso" establishes that Discover and the Spore Drive tech will be abandoned at some point, I'm willing to predict that Section 31, with Georgiou's instruction, will try to get their hands on Discovery, which prompts it being abandoned because of how dangerous the Spore Drive would be in Section 31 + Georgiou's hands.

As to why the ship is still waiting a thousand years in the future...Well, we know the spores allow for temporal jumps. It'd be rather curious if the show lasts long enough for its setting to shift from the 23rd century to the 33rd century. According to one of the writers: https://www.instagram.com/p/Bp7usVAAlB7/

The V'draysh name is a distortion of Federation. While it is a rather disturbing implication, one reason for them being the people Craft was fighting is that Section 31 succeeded in taking control of the Federation at that point.

[FlynnTaggart]

I probably wouldn't have minded Georgiou being nabbed by Micheal if they had better explained it as a lesser of two evils in the current moment situation and for the data she might have. Georgiou is an evil monster but not one with a stake in the alleged Prime universe, she apparently didn't give a damn about the Federation beyond locking up all the data so it didn't cause any problems. Lorca is someone who has vast ambitions and intimate knowledge of the Federation, indeed the entire Discovery crew. He doesn't seem the type to stop at just taking the big chair, he'd probably set his sights on the Federation and would destroy or capture Discovery to help keep his secrets from the Federation so he might be able to take it over from within.

If he showed up with the Charon after the 6 months of the Federation getting the assed kicked, made some BS story of it being what he's been working on during that time, the war weary Starfleet would probably fall in line behind him. Desperation makes people do foolish things and a war that even the Minbari would be envious of would certainly make people desperate. Stopping Lorca before he can go all multiverse tyrant makes sense, as does destroying the Charon so nobody can play multiverse Emperor either makes sense too, far more then "its gonna splode the universe because spores".

Taking Georgiou into custody because of her knowledge of the seemingly more advanced Terran Empire and her defeat of the Klingons also makes far more sense then Micheal's mommy issues. If I recall thats pretty much what they tried to do later, use her knowledge as a weapon. I'm not sure because mostly all I recall is double Klingons dicks because apparently Discovery was written by Rule 34.