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PLEASANTLY SURPRISED BY THE NEW STAR TREK: DISCOVERY SERIES

Started by Jim_Campbell, 10 October, 2017, 06:53:24 PM

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Professor Bear

NERD FIGHT

Quote from: Theblazeuk on 25 January, 2019, 02:19:47 PMThey freed the sentient species when they realised it was sentient, didn't they?

Keeping wild animals in captivity isn't allowed by the Federation, presumably in case one of them ever turns out to be sentient.  Good call by whoever wrote that rule down.
Plus, they didn't actually release it because it was sentient, they only released it because it was going to die anyway - they were using it as a slave even after they knew it was sentient.

QuoteAnd the genetic experiments, I present exhibit Julian Bashir.

Despite happening over a century after Discovery, Bashir's father was literally sent to jail for engaging in genetic manipulation.  Julian, despite not being culpable for the process inflicted upon him and an outstanding service record, still barely kept his job, and people openly distrusted him after it came out.
I present counter-evidence: that stupid episode about Riker working on an (illegal) invisible starship that one time.  They used it as a bookend for the final Enterprise episode that everybody pretends never happened, but it established that the Federation has strict controls on what kind kind of technology programmes it can pursue even in wartime.

QuoteI forget which Federation citizens they kidnapped and executed...

The crew and passengers on the prison shuttle in the first/second episode.  The lead character of the show has essentially been press ganged.

Quoteand the covert weapons programmes, well. Beyond the Spore Drive I forget about that too,

The ship is a covert weapon full of covert weapons development programmes.  This is the actual setup of the show.

Quoteother than the blowing up the Klingon homeworld thing which I thought was an idea from Mirror Lady.

It doesn't matter who came up with the idea, it matters who actually carried it out - mainly the lead character's dad and that admiral, neither of whom are punished for it despite going to lengths to hide what they were up to specifically because they knew it was illegal and their subordinates might not go through with it.

QuoteThey're good people

Being less bad than others does not make them "good".  These people are criminals and at the very least they should be split up and assigned somewhere else.  The lead character's crime wasn't "we just didn't know her that well at the time", it was mutiny and assaulting an officer (plus she was - rightly or wrongly - personally blamed for starting the war), and her best case scenario at the end of STD was being released for time served, not elevation to one of the highest positions in the fleet just because she (checks notes) followed the rule of law.

Jim_Campbell

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Bolt-01

Yeah, Campbell- this is all your fault. :)

I've only seen the first episode of the first series and thought it was ...okay...

Jim_Campbell

Quote from: Bolt-01 on 25 January, 2019, 03:47:45 PM
I've only seen the first episode of the first series and thought it was ...okay...

I think it's worth persevering. Opinions on this clearly... vary.
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Theblazeuk

Keeping wild animals in captivity clearly happens multiple times in Trek. And hey, this is the Federation with some rough corners on it still.

The prejudices of the flatscans vs homo superior is not to be lauded :P And just because something's illegal, doesn't make it immoral.

They don't execute the other prisoners! Jeez. I think you've been watching the Mirror-Discovery :) And Burnham had the choice to return to prison.

They don't develop and weapons, beyond the guff that the average Trek episode comes up with whenever needed in the spur of the moment? Beyond the spore drive. And it's the Federation that started this all off, albeit co-opted by Lorca.

And in a similar theme, the leadership was signing off on terrible things. That the hero of the show stopped. "This is what makes us STARFLEET" etc, the usual reminder of hope and justice and heroism that's needed every now and again.

Every star trek crew beyond Captain Picard (who is a saint and I won't hear anything about him going ultraviolent in First Contact onwards) broke the law and got away with it.


NERD FIGHT (But you are clearly a bigger trekkie than me by far anywho, DS9 is the only one I've really watched watched, the rest were on after the Simpsons and I've dipped in and out of TNG.)

Robin Low

Quote from: Professor Bear on 25 January, 2019, 03:13:41 PM
NERD FIGHT

This man has the right of it.

Also, we have a series that is set before the original series and yet has technology way beyond anything Voyager had.

Discovery is an entertaining science fiction series (I quite like a number of the characters and there's a lot of fun aliens and whizzy SFX action), but it just doesn't feel like Star Trek to me.  I'll watch, enjoy it up to a point, and then be irritated by it.

Regards,

Robin

Jim_Campbell

Dare I point out that I split this thread off from the "We think Discovery's shit" thread because I thought it would be nice to have a thread about enjoying the new series, separate from the "think it's shit" thread...?
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Professor Bear

Quote from: Theblazeuk on 25 January, 2019, 05:00:57 PM
Keeping wild animals in captivity clearly happens multiple times in Trek. And hey, this is the Federation with some rough corners on it still.

I think the Memory Alpha explanation for this discrepancy is that the Federation obviously allows domesticated animals to continue to exist, as something like a housecat or a chicken isn't built for living wild, and telling people they couldn't keep dogs or guinea pigs would essentially be signing the species' death warrant.


QuoteThey don't execute the other prisoners! Jeez. I think you've been watching the Mirror-Discovery :) And Burnham had the choice to return to prison.

As soon as the shuttle left at the end of the episode, Sadu's death tentacle thingies started wriggling, meaning the crew of the shuttle died immediately afterwards.  Captain whatsisface had Shanghaied the lead character on the QT and was covering his tracks, as evidenced by the admiralty later being unaware of what he'd done.  If Burnham left, she'd have been killed with the others.

QuoteEvery star trek crew beyond Captain Picard (who is a saint and I won't hear anything about him going ultraviolent in First Contact onwards) broke the law and got away with it.

And every time - from Kirk hijacking the Enterprise to Sisko murdering an innocent man - they'e paid for it one way or another (Kirk saved the world and still got demoted), or at least there's been an explanation why there's been no punishment (Sisko's crimes coming to light would have harmed the war effort).

The Legendary Shark

Quote from: Jim_Campbell on 25 January, 2019, 07:37:01 PMDare I point out that I split this thread off from the "We think Discovery's shit" thread because I thought it would be nice to have a thread about enjoying the new series, separate from the "think it's shit" thread...?
Well, I think the title sequence is excellent if that's any help...
[move]~~~^~~~~~~~[/move]




Jim_Campbell

Well, I really enjoyed episode 2 of the new series, too. So sod the lot of you.
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Professor Bear

Watching Star Trek and then shitting on it but still enjoying it and watching every episode is the default Trekkie online experience.  The other 1% are just weird nerds.

Mardroid

Quote from: Jim_Campbell on 25 January, 2019, 08:49:45 PM
Well, I really enjoyed episode 2 of the new series, too.

Me too. It was a proper old-school type Star-Treky episode as well, with Prime Directive* and salvation via science stuff too**, and questions concerning the mysteries of the universe, etc.

*Albeit under a different name.

**I'm not sure the [spoiler]asteroid ploy[/spoiler] would have worked mind you.

wedgeski

S2E2 is an episode of Trek that seems to have been done a dozen times, but good to see General Order 1 back in the frame.

Very interested to see where they're taking the series arc, and a quirk-of-the-eyebrow to Burnham calling religion "a lie".

Pike is a very likeable hero as well, obviously an alumnus of the same Academy that matriculated Kirk, and [spoiler]already taking the kind of damage that'll put him in that wheelchair, no doubt, by the end of the series.[/spoiler]

Robin Low

Quote from: Jim_Campbell on 25 January, 2019, 07:37:01 PM
Dare I point out that I split this thread off from the "We think Discovery's shit" thread because I thought it would be nice to have a thread about enjoying the new series, separate from the "think it's shit" thread...?

To be honest I'd forgotten there was another one.

The thing is, Discovery is not shit. It's just doesn't feel much like Star Trek and doesn't sit very well where they're placed it - if they'd made a couple of changes and stuck it 100 years after Nemesis, then I'd probably say fair enough.

There's a fair argument to be made that it's set in a parallel universe within a Star Trek multiverse... but I kinda miss the old one. Not Voyager though. Apart from the episode with the serial killer.

Regards,

Robin

broodblik

Watched season 2 episodes 2 and I enjoyed it and the overall story line to look interesting. Their is only one thing which in general I never liked or really understand in the Trek-verse: [spoiler]The humans living on the planet is actually some of our ancestors, why not reveal yourself and tell the truth. This is not an alien specie but our people. [/spoiler]
When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.

Old age is the Lord's way of telling us to step aside for something new. Death's in case we didn't take the hint.