Star Trek Discovery: Season Three

[TGLS]

It's been fixed, except on all the old posts because that's too much effort.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

I'm giving her all she's got captain

[Mabus]

maniacal laugh
Oh wow, so the Burn was caused by... a Kelpian baby? embryo? that grew in subspace radiation environment and somehow is still alive ans healthy after 125 years on a dilithium planet because subspace radiation mutation can do anything apparently, which, as a toddler screamed too loud, which send a near instantaneous subspace shockwave thingy across the entire galaxy and rendered all the dilithium from starships inert whose warp cores then went boom-boom?
There's my Dsicovery! Making the dumbest OldTrek episodes seem like genius! Now we're talking!

But wait, who cares about all that, it's not like solving the mystery of the Burn was the most important plot of this season. Nope, we have Grinch conveniently finding them, who now has upgraded to the rank of Karen, and has taken Discovery with convenient tentacles, because I suppose trying to use the same tech that allows ships to be separated and united would be too intelligent. And now she'll invade the Starfleet... sorry, "Federation" headquarters because I guess she wants to talk to the manager.

[Al-1701]

My concept of how this works is he's a fly trapped in the web. He is entangled with subspace and dilithium, and his thrashing (emotional outbursts) causes vibration through them. Too great of a vibration can cause breaks in the web, rendering dilithium inert which is bad news if you're using it to channel a matter-antimatter reaction at the moment. Yeah, it a dumb solution to the mystery, but oddly very Trek.

The grappling tentacles are an interesting way to capture a ship. I guess it's more substantial than a tractor beam with more targets needing to be destroyed to escape. Mean and Green might also have a thing for cephalopds. Her ship seems to be more about image than practicality, and holding you in her literal coils suits that approach.

[Zatman]

*sigh* I was afraid they were going to go down a road like this. Star Trek has always had a strong scientific component. That sure, we have super-powered beings like Trelane, Q, The Douwd, but they've always had a measure credibility behind them. But now, this radioactive child throws a temper-tantrum and the dilithium is destroyed everywhere? Ugh... "The Burn" should have been a truly rare and one-off event requiring extraordinary circumstances to trigger. It seems like any idiot that fell into this nebula and lived long enough would be able to set it off. Instead of that, if you still want to keep the basic premise, say that the ship was carrying a unique new piece of technology that reacted with the unique environment of the nebula and sent out some kind of technobabble-wave for a radius of 100,000 light years, but like the eye of a storm, the ship itself is mostly fine.

[Al-1701]

We also had two who could destroy two universes if they came in contact with each other outside of that pocket dimension. Chuck created a new category for how easily it is to bring galactic (if not universal) calamity in Trek. As I said, as dumb as this is, it's par for the course in Trek, sadly.

Also, they needed it to be something they could fix. Get this guy out of the nebula and the threat of another Burn is gone. I'm actually more interested in how there's a whole planet made of dilithium in there. I know they say it's a nursery for the stuff, but a whole planet of it? We're hung up on the fly, but maybe we should be talking more about the web.

[Zatman]

We also had two who could destroy two universes if they came in contact with each other outside of that pocket dimension. Chuck created a new category for how easily it is to bring galactic (if not universal) calamity in Trek. As I said, as dumb as this is, it's par for the course in Trek, sadly.

A one-off episode with a stupid premise is one thing and can be easily forgotten. Look how "Threshold" has been largely ignored by everyone moving forward to the point of being effectively de-canonized. But when you're writing something that must by its nature form the foundation of numerous future stories (episodes or entire season) that's different. Though admittedly that's how Discovery got started with the stupid premise of bouncing through the universe using mushrooms. Though even the details of that have been largely ignored with Discovery just having a "jump drive" that happens to still be called a "spore drive." However, while its nature drove several early plot lines, none of that is foundational to now. But the premise of the cause of the collapse of galactic society, has permanent effect.

That's one problem with moving from the self-contained episodes to the season-long arcs. Everyone is doing it now with only a few shows that aren't, and those that aren't are the ones that are lasting 10+ seasons, being saved from cancellation multiple times, and highly critically acclaimed. I'm talking specifically about Blue Bloods, Law and Order, Chicago PD/Med/Fire, and Last Man Standing (these just happens to be the ones I watch and follow). They might have some overarching plots that are focused and hit on periodically (usually at the beginning/end of a season) but they aren't taking every episode to build toward a single goal like Discovery is, like Stargate sort of did in Season 9 and 10, like Picard did, like The Mandalorian. Now that doesn't mean that it's inherently bad. Certainly the Mandalorian has received rave reviews, and Picard doesn't seem to be panned within the fandom as much as Discovery. But the Mandalorian didn't stray outside what Star Wars is, hasn't done anything yet to wreck canon (sequel trilogy canonicity questions aside) and isn't based on anything any more outlandish than already existed within Star Wars. I think even Chuck said something similar in one/some of his reviews, [paraphrased] "if you're going to make silly rules, stick to them" and I'd add, especially if it's a good franchise and those silly rules help make it work.

Also, they needed it to be something they could fix. Get this guy out of the nebula and the threat of another Burn is gone. I'm actually more interested in how there's a whole planet made of dilithium in there. I know they say it's a nursery for the stuff, but a whole planet of it? We're hung up on the fly, but maybe we should be talking more about the web.

Maybe the drama could be "destroy/inert the nebula without destroying the galaxy." Even better, tie it into the Romulan Supernova since that one supposedly threatened the whole galaxy. Make this nebula a similar phenomena. Perhaps the Romulan star wasn't a dilithium planet, but a dilithium star, and this nebula is what happens when a star doesn't form, or hasn't formed yet. So now the hunt begins to neutralize similar phenomena against Emerald chain who wants to take advantage of such things and turn the nebulae into weapons to selectively "burn" dilithium of anyone they want. A perfect example of Federation values. Sure, the Federation could own the monopoly on a dilithium-inerting weapon, but instead they choose cooperation to defeat the galaxy's common threat. Or even don't destroy the nebula since it's natural phenomena, but simply work toward containing it, or protecting the galaxy from them.

[Mabus]

As I said, as dumb as this is, it's par for the course in Trek, sadly.

If by "par for the course in Trek" you mean lazy writing (that some of the writers later ended up regretting), then yeah, I guess.
The problem is that NuTrek was sold on the idea of taking the series into a new, better direction and avoid the old problems, and instead the opposite happened.
Which is quite sad because it's not hard to create an OK conclusion or a satisfying answer to various subplots of season-long arcs (see DS9, Stargate SG1, Breaking Bad, even Enterprise), but since the 50+ writers and producers are too busy writing everything melodramatic on the level of South American telenovelas with muh feelings in every single fucking scene, they don't seem to care about creating a proper story from start to finish and just write like the OldTrek did, episode by episode, which, given how heavily serialized NuTrek, just doesn't work, because they're completely different media.
You can't use the reset button in a season or series-long arc, not even even a soft reset button, it's literally contrary to what the damn term means! Yet here we are, 3 seasons, 3 soft reboots.

[Link8909]

First off, Merry Christmas everyone, and I hope you are all doing well.

I really liked "Su'Kal" overall, the world inside the Holodeck looks incredible, it's fun to see Captain Saru as a human, Captain Tilly is fantastic, and I'm interested in how things are going to play out with Osyraa now she has Discovery.

As for the cause of the Burn, at first I tilted my head at the idea, but the more I thought about it I personally like were it's going, I like that it looks like the Burn was cause by an unforeseeable accident rather than anything malicious, and I like Al-1701's technical explanation for it as Su'Kal being entangled with subspace and the dilithium, and weird science has always been a thing in Star Trek from the very start (the franchise has never really been hard science.)

But what I really like about this is that it seems to be building up to Captain Saru, Doctor Culber, and Adira Tal preventing the Burn from happening again through helping Su'Kal with facing his demons and bring him back to the real world, connecting with him on an emotional level rather than spouting technobabble at the problem, that's what I personally don't like which was a major issue in Star Trek Voyager, if Star Trek is going to have crazy science, don't spend half an episode trying to justify it with equally made up science sounding words, and then not show us the crazy science in action.

[Link8909]

And thinking more about it, the reveal of Su'Ka and his plight continues to play into season threes overall theme of reconnecting with people that are separated and bringing them together.

I also like that Osyraa was more interested with Discovery, and is planing to take down what's left of the Federation rather than trying to weapons what causes the Burn and give her a "super weapon", as now the stakes are more personal now it's just the crew of Discovery and the people at Starfleet Headquarters that are endanger, and I'll bet credits to navy beans that all the people that the Discovery crew helped out along the way during this season are going to show up and help save the day.