Star Trek Discovery: Season Three

[Mabus]

What's with the weird dialogue? The interaction between Burnham and Book felt unnatural. I didn't felt that Burnham landed in a new place where she has to learn who and what, I mean on screen and story wise all the story elements for this to happen are there, but... it just doesn't feel natural. I get that they were trying to set up a conflict with the new guy, but it just doesn't work, there's no chemistry between them. We barely learnt anything, and while it's necessarily to spill too much in the pilot/season opener, it's a good idea to at least start an interesting premise and not just some dumb mystery box. I mean really, "dilithium suddenly exploded"?

If you will recall, even in VOY and TNG, dilithium is volatile, as it has exploded and torn apart planets, and it's hinted it even did so in STII.

Wasn't that due to that particular geology of said planets? That it caused the dilithium to crystallize in a specific pattern that was destroying the planet? Cause the solution in the TNG episode was to just shatter the crystals with photon torpedoes, which apparently was enough.

[Madner Kami]

If you will recall, even in VOY and TNG, dilithium is volatile, as it has exploded and torn apart planets, and it's hinted it even did so in STII.

That's mostly why I'm thinking that the Burn was a natural occurrence, although I'm willing to bet that it was scientists playing around with dilithium and going horribly wrong.

And somehow, all the Dilithium all across the galaxy (at least) exploded in unison, because Dave happened to sneeze onto a thumb-sized piece of Dilithium in Bumfucknowhereville on Spaceplanet1500-X54. Yup. Plausible and definitly not bringing in yet another galaxy-wide threat that the heroes have to deal with. No sir, it's all new talented story-writing of the most successful Star Trek series in the world ever.

[Captain Crimson]

If you will recall, even in VOY and TNG, dilithium is volatile, as it has exploded and torn apart planets, and it's hinted it even did so in STII.

That's mostly why I'm thinking that the Burn was a natural occurrence, although I'm willing to bet that it was scientists playing around with dilithium and going horribly wrong.

And somehow, all the Dilithium all across the galaxy (at least) exploded in unison, because Dave happened to sneeze onto a thumb-sized piece of Dilithium in Bumfucknowhereville on Spaceplanet1500-X54. Yup. Plausible and definitly not bringing in yet another galaxy-wide threat that the heroes have to deal with. No sir, it's all new talented story-writing of the most successful Star Trek series in the world ever.

Compared to reaching infinite speed and evolving into salamanders? Or molecular fission? Or the breakdown of corpses creating new elements? How about all the various types of [insert an arbitrary name] radiation over the years? Also, what's a chroniton? That's from DS9.

Point being ST has always had an often silly and flirtatious relationship with real science, but never makes it to second base. I'm not saying modern ST is up to the standards of old, mind you. TNG, DS9, TOS. But I am saying ST was never "hard science." Even at the best of times.

[Madner Kami]

It's not about science, it's about plausability and scale. How often did TOS, TNG, DS9, Voyager and even Enterprise have to deal with galaxy or even universe shattering events beyond imagination? Once in a while, sure bit it wasn't the bread and butter of the franchise.

[Link8909]

Compared to reaching infinite speed and evolving into salamanders? Or molecular fission? Or the breakdown of corpses creating new elements? How about all the various types of [insert an arbitrary name] radiation over the years? Also, what's a chroniton? That's from DS9.

Point being ST has always had an often silly and flirtatious relationship with real science, but never makes it to second base. I'm not saying modern ST is up to the standards of old, mind you. TNG, DS9, TOS. But I am saying ST was never "hard science." Even at the best of times.

Indeed, and is something I love about Star Trek, I want the franchise to play around with ideas and theories both real world and fictional, and showing a fantastic universe of infinite possibilities, it's why I love the Spore Drive and the Mycelium Network, it's not hard science and is pretty out there, but they explore this idea of an organic propulsion system and show the applications and repercussions of it, same goes with the many other things that we accept like the Warp Drive, the Transporter, and the Holodeck.

Not to mention using fictional ideas to mirror and talk about real life, the dilithium now gone and in turn other means of light speed propulsion needed to replace to common Warp Drive seems to be an allegory to the depletion of fossil fuels.

[Link8909]

It's not about science, it's about plausability and scale. How often did TOS, TNG, DS9, Voyager and even Enterprise have to deal with galaxy or even universe shattering events beyond imagination? Once in a while, sure bit it wasn't the bread and butter of the franchise.

Bare in mind that the damage is done, and no Warp Drive has been a status quo for over a century, and there is no way to unto the Burn with time travel, or a villain has been introduced that wants the status quo to remain or that benefited from the Burn, the story of season three is that of rebuilding and personally I hope that while they to fine out how the Burn happened, that they can't unto the damage and have to find a new way to reconnect the Federation, which could be how the Spore Drive could play into this.

Personally I'm not bothered by the scale of the threats in Star Trek, but how compelling the villain is, for example the Borg threaten the entire galaxy by their existence, and in First Contact threatened the entire future of the Federation, but what makes them interesting is what they are and how they are presented, and I personally liked most of the villains so far, T'kuvma and the Klingons, Mirror Gabriel Lorca, and the Zhat Vash were all very interesting, the only one I didn't care about was Control.

[Madner Kami]

Bare in mind that the damage is done, and no Warp Drive has been a status quo for over a century, and there is no way to unto the Burn with time travel, or a villain has been introduced that wants the status quo to remain or that benefited from the Burn, the story of season three is that of rebuilding and personally I hope that while they to fine out how the Burn happened, that they can't unto the damage and have to find a new way to reconnect the Federation, which could be how the Spore Drive could play into this.

Even ignoring the obvious, "The Burn" is bullshit, as the Federation knows of several ways to travel faster than light, other than a warp engine and in the end, Dilithium isn't needed for FTL in the first place, it's only the catalyst in the warp reactor, aka power generation and we have at least one species that is entirely independent from Dilithium in order to power their machinery: The Romulans learned how to create and stabilize micro black holes and routinely use that as a power generator in their starships and to power their version of the warp engine, for example.

[Captain Crimson]

I think, however, the same way I harped on continuity, they should at least try to approach some rational grounding of science. You could forgive science slips if you felt they were just creative license, not people botching what they don't know. Refer to polarizing opinions on Mr. Braga to see what I mean.

[Captain Crimson]

It's not about science, it's about plausability and scale. How often did TOS, TNG, DS9, Voyager and even Enterprise have to deal with galaxy or even universe shattering events beyond imagination? Once in a while, sure bit it wasn't the bread and butter of the franchise.

I personally have no qualms if they wanna create a whole new paradigm of the universe being threatened. Really! Is it like the ST of old? Perhaps not, but as you noted, they had those every so often. And Mr. Chuck's reviews aside, I rather like The Alternative Factor and Playing God.

[Link8909]

I think, however, the same way I harped on continuity, they should at least try to approach some rational grounding of science. You could forgive science slips if you felt they were just creative license, not people botching what they don't know. Refer to polarizing opinions on Mr. Braga to see what I mean.

Very true, for me personally even if they play fast and loose with the science, I'm more than ready to accept things if they explore the applications and repercussions of something, I don't like it when something is bogged down with technobabble trying to justify it only to never see it ever again like with so many bits of technology over the years, or that it's real science that is ignored and not addressed and only done to serve the story, like the Super Nova threatening the whole galaxy in Star Trek (2009), that idea is fascinating as it's essentially the most destructive natural disaster and has so many repercussions, but until Star Trek Online and Star Trek Picard this wasn't really explored, and was only done to motivate the villain in that film.

Also speaking of villains, I'm just happy that so far none of the series have been about revenge, I've personally had my fill of revenge themed stories.