After they remove his hood, they literally toss Cadet Sidhu a phaser (great weapons handling there) and bolt. The prisoner is revealed to be none other than Captain pike. The next five minutes is a back and forth between the Sidhu and Pike...he gives some background about how they got to his point, the base is under attack, I need to get out of here and help, etc. He even pushes her buttons re: the USS Bouman, the other ship he mentioned during the brief info-dump.
Cadet Sidhu sounds hesitant at first, stuttering a little in the beginning. As the tension escalates with explosions rocking the Starbase, they start quoting regulations at one another like space-lawyers, which feels like it goes on for longer than it should have. Pike is about to walk out, regulations be damned (even while still bound in handcuffs) but Sidhu holds firm; we can hear the whine of the phaser as she's ready to shoot him. But then suddenly, Pike removes his own handcuffs, talks to someone off-screen and the red alert lights change back to normal...it was all a simulation.
Yay, she did great, so Pike gives Cadet Sidhu a position in Enterprise's engine room (she had mentioned during the encounter that she was an engineer and applied for Enterprise and failed, instead ending up at the starbase) after a brief welcome from Spock and Number One. Then he accompanies her to Engineering. Before Pike leaves, Sidhu asks him if the phaser she had during the test was operational. He remains cryptically silent as he walks away. In any sane universe, we all know the answer would be a resounding "NO."
This is my least favorite Short Trek just because during the scenario, Sidhu could have been physically overpowered by Pike at any point; he came within arms length of Sidhu multiple times during the sim. Also, every instruction she gave him he ignored...he didn't sit down, stay quiet, hell he was about to just walk out of the damn room which she didn't even bother to secure, let alone put herself between him and the door. No wonder she's an engineer because she's fucking shit as a security guard.
Which brings me to my next point; the whole scenario just felt contrived and fake...I knew it was going to be a simulation as soon as I saw the hooded prisoner because the first thing I noticed were Captain's stripes on his the sleeves of his gold uniform. What, there's no available security people on a big fucking starbase, so let's just stick a prisoner in with a cadet of all people. Buh.
"Ask Not" should be renamed "Ask Why." Like why in the hell did they even film this garbage except as fluff and filler? It adds nothing to anyone's character arcs or advance any plotlines. We may see Cadet Sidhu in a future installment of Discovery, but I think there are better ways to introduce new characters, let alone better stories they could have told instead of wasting time and money on this letdown of a minisode.
The only two things I liked about this Short Trek was that they showed the engineering section of Enterprise and unlike JJ Trek, it does not look like the inside of a beer brewery. The other is a small easter egg from Number One, a facial expression we would normally see from Mr. Spock in TOS. Spoilerized images below (as not to shred the page formatting).
Spoiler
