Star Trek: Discovery

[U.P. Cinnabar]

That's the USS Vengance on drugs.

[tezunegari]

That's the USS Vengance on drugs.

Rewatched the trailer for Episode 13 again... and I think I have to correct my scale of the Charon to "a lot bigger than Discovery".

It looks like the forwards spike part from ring section to triple-pronged tip is roughly the length of Discovery.

Those red marked parts are the shuttle bays... which are apparently the same size and layout.

So the Charon seems to be more in the ball park of 4-6+ times the length of Discovery... talk about compensating.

[NecronLord]

Well, all the questions about the Charon are answered.

[tezunegari]

And Burnham once again betrays a Georgiou...

A nice point was that we as audience get the explanation of how Mirror-Lorca got to the DSC-verse but none of the Discovery crew find out.
(Transporter accident during an ion storm, same as Kirk in "Mirror, Mirror")

Mirror-Lorca was also pretty much a human version of T'Kuvma with his "Remain human!" speech.

Sadly we never got to see the Defiant...

I wonder how they are going to shoehorn the situation from the end of the episode (and the preview of 14) into compliance with canon.
Most likely by using the spore drive to jump back in time.

[NecronLord]

Twenty percent of the Federation being occupied by Klingons isn't so difficult to rationalize? At some point we should hopefully get Garth of Izar to make things right.

[Imperial Overlord]

It's even easier to rationalize if the Klingons just control space and have the planets under siege, but haven't done any full scale invasions or occupations.

[Simon_Jester]

Or if the planets in question are a bunch of minor flyspeck colonies and low-industry member worlds that lack meaningful 'muscle' to contribute to the struggle, so that the Klingons can occupy a spatially large region easily.

Or if the Federation has claimed territory much larger than it can really control directly, which frankly is a theme in keeping with the TNG era too. The Federation is big compared to the speed of its ships, and that's a situation that lends itself to enemy incursions getting pretty far into your territory before being stopped.

The status of relations with the Klingons circa TOS is at least broadly consistent with the idea that there was a fairly sharp war or two in the living memory of many active-duty Starfleet personnel.

[tezunegari]

I'll have to rewatch the TOS episodes with klingons... but I thought it was more of a long standing cold war between Federation and Klingons during TOS.
As if Kirk and his peers are the generation either born into this cold war or the war was so early in their childhood they barely remember it instead of being in a war with them personally or in their lifetime.

[Mange]

That's the charming thing about trying to do firepower calcs about an ongoing franchise; the writers can overturn an arbitrary number of precedents in one scene, as soon as they decide the scene would look cool, because they don't care. Questions like "well, if they could do this ten years before Kirk, why did Picard have trouble blowing up an asteroid in this one episode of The Next Generation?" are simply not in their minds.

Well keep in mind these are Terran Empire torpedoes, fired from the Emperor's flagship (which appears to be a few km in size) in an alternate reality. And they were red/orange, not the normal blue like we get in DSC / TOS.

Whatever those torpedoes / missiles / plasma balls were, they were not standard Starfleet Prime Universe photon torpedoes.

They weren't. The yield was apparently enhanced by the spore drive as per the dialogue between Saru and Tilly in the latest episode.

[Imperial Overlord]

The situation goes like this: it's not canon that Garth fought Klingons at Axanar, but he fought somebody and the battle was important for the survival of the Federation so Klingons have always been the leading contender. If Garth fought Klingons then there was hot war between the Federation and the Klingon Empire in the past and there's nothing in the canon that contradicts that. Now we have Discovery and now we have a hot war so ...

[tezunegari]

Wasn't the Battle of Axanar required reading at Starfleet Academy for Kirk?
And IIRC Kirk should be in the Academy during Discovery timeframe or a recent graduate.

So I think the Battle of Axanar would have to have happened before the Battle of the Binary Star in 2256.
And because Discovery states that there has been no contact with klingons (besides terror attacks) in the last 100 years it was most likely not the klingons Garth of Izar fought.

[Imperial Overlord]

Wasn't the Battle of Axanar required reading at Starfleet Academy for Kirk?
And IIRC Kirk should be in the Academy during Discovery timeframe or a recent graduate.

So I think the Battle of Axanar would have to have happened before the Battle of the Binary Star in 2256.
And because Discovery states that there has been no contact with klingons (besides terror attacks) in the last 100 years it was most likely not the klingons Garth of Izar fought.

That assumes they won't bend the timeline. Consider what they've already done.

[FaxModem1]

Okay, I caught up with the show today, due to my inability to watch it until now.

This cannot be the Prime timeline, due to a couple of small factors. One, the Vulcan admiral giving Lorca orders all the time. If Spock was supposed to be the first Vulcan in Starfleet, then either this admiral was so hated that he was erased from history and removed, or this is a separate universe. (T'pol was never in Starfleet, she just served on Enterprise and had a field commission, same as Wesley did before he went to Starfleet Academy)

The Terran Empire from TOS and even Enterprise seemed to tolerate non-humans to an extent, as noted, Spock was able to become second in command of the Enterprise, so there should have been somewhat favorable conditions for him. And even with that, him being the direct son of a traitor (Voq's prophet would probably keep Spock from serving. After all, they do love their petty bigotries.

So, in my head, to justify this wackiness, Discovery and MU-Discovery are alternate universes from Prime. I'm fine with that, I just wish the producers would acknowledge it.

All that out of the way, I'm enjoying the show, and seeing where they're going with it. It's a bit of a shame that they reduced the Terran Empire, which was more of a "Roman Empire.....IN SPACE" to "This is Star Trek if the racists won." Although, as others have stated, the Terran way of reacting to things makes sense in that's it is all a front so that you can survive in such a harsh system. I have enjoyed Discovery's characters, and am interested to see where they go with this.

And, I believe this is the first time a main character from a Trek show has eaten a sentient being.

[Imperial Overlord]

All that out of the way, I'm enjoying the show, and seeing where they're going with it. It's a bit of a shame that they reduced the Terran Empire, which was more of a "Roman Empire.....IN SPACE" to "This is Star Trek if the racists won." Although, as others have stated, the Terran way of reacting to things makes sense in that's it is all a front so that you can survive in such a harsh system. I have enjoyed Discovery's characters, and am interested to see where they go with this.

And, I believe this is the first time a main character from a Trek show has eaten a sentient being.

The Terran Empire was never "Roman Empire . . . IN SPACE." It was almost cartoon evil since the get go. The doctors in sickbay were betting on who could endure the most pain before passing out. Assassination to gain rank was normal. Everyone was carrying around agonizers. It was evil flavored evil with a chewy evil center.

[FaxModem1]

All that out of the way, I'm enjoying the show, and seeing where they're going with it. It's a bit of a shame that they reduced the Terran Empire, which was more of a "Roman Empire.....IN SPACE" to "This is Star Trek if the racists won." Although, as others have stated, the Terran way of reacting to things makes sense in that's it is all a front so that you can survive in such a harsh system. I have enjoyed Discovery's characters, and am interested to see where they go with this.

And, I believe this is the first time a main character from a Trek show has eaten a sentient being.

The Terran Empire was never "Roman Empire . . . IN SPACE." It was almost cartoon evil since the get go. The doctors in sickbay were betting on who could endure the most pain before passing out. Assassination to gain rank was normal. Everyone was carrying around agonizers. It was evil flavored evil with a chewy evil center.

Yes, but it was, almost always, an Equal Opportunity Evil, with Tellarites, Vulcans, Orion's, etc, all serving the same Empire and happily torturing their fellow crew members. And while there was definitely racism in the Empire, "Tellarites are always guilty of something". This version seems to have added a new level of bias against those under subjugation.

[Imperial Overlord]

All that out of the way, I'm enjoying the show, and seeing where they're going with it. It's a bit of a shame that they reduced the Terran Empire, which was more of a "Roman Empire.....IN SPACE" to "This is Star Trek if the racists won." Although, as others have stated, the Terran way of reacting to things makes sense in that's it is all a front so that you can survive in such a harsh system. I have enjoyed Discovery's characters, and am interested to see where they go with this.

And, I believe this is the first time a main character from a Trek show has eaten a sentient being.

The Terran Empire was never "Roman Empire . . . IN SPACE." It was almost cartoon evil since the get go. The doctors in sickbay were betting on who could endure the most pain before passing out. Assassination to gain rank was normal. Everyone was carrying around agonizers. It was evil flavored evil with a chewy evil center.

Yes, but it was, almost always, an Equal Opportunity Evil, with Tellarites, Vulcans, Orion's, etc, all serving the same Empire and happily torturing their fellow crew members. And while there was definitely racism in the Empire, "Tellarites are always guilty of something". This version seems to have added a new level of bias against those under subjugation.

Yes, but that's not the part of your post I quoted and responded to. I'm saying the Terran Empire was always comic book evil, not "Space Rome". You're quite right that the earlier representations of the Terran Empire were less racist with Spock having command authority and Vulcan enforcers with Starfleet.

On another matter, I don't think Spock was ever supposed to be the first Vulcan in Starfleet. The starship Intrepid in TOS was crewed entirely by Vulcans.

[houser2112]

Maybe I'm way off base, but I always considered the Terran Empire to be "Space Racists" and the Romulans to be "Space Rome".

[Prometheus Unbound]

That's the USS Vengance on drugs.

Rewatched the trailer for Episode 13 again... and I think I have to correct my scale of the Charon to "a lot bigger than Discovery".

It looks like the forwards spike part from ring section to triple-pronged tip is roughly the length of Discovery.

Those red marked parts are the shuttle bays... which are apparently the same size and layout.

So the Charon seems to be more in the ball park of 4-6+ times the length of Discovery... talk about compensating.

Discovery fits in the power generator in the middle, to give a sense of scale.

[Prometheus Unbound]

One, the Vulcan admiral giving Lorca orders all the time. If Spock was supposed to be the first Vulcan in Starfleet, then either this admiral was so hated that he was erased from history and removed, or this is a separate universe. (T'pol was never in Starfleet, she just served on Enterprise and had a field commission, same as Wesley did before he went to Starfleet Academy)

Who ever said Spock was the first Vulcan in Starfleet? The entire ship of 400 Vulcans, the USS Intrepid (That's a Federation Starfleet vessel, not a Vulcan one) would indicate there are at least 400 others, and given some of them will be Captain / Commander, then some were there before Spock.

It is never stated nor hinted at that Spock was the first Vulcan in Starfleet, ever.

[tezunegari]

One, the Vulcan admiral giving Lorca orders all the time. If Spock was supposed to be the first Vulcan in Starfleet, then either this admiral was so hated that he was erased from history and removed, or this is a separate universe. (T'pol was never in Starfleet, she just served on Enterprise and had a field commission, same as Wesley did before he went to Starfleet Academy)

Who ever said Spock was the first Vulcan in Starfleet? The entire ship of 400 Vulcans, the USS Intrepid (That's a Federation Starfleet vessel, not a Vulcan one) would indicate there are at least 400 others, and given some of them will be Captain / Commander, then some were there before Spock.

It is never stated nor hinted at that Spock was the first Vulcan in Starfleet, ever.

Urban myth, possibly based on behind-the-scenes information. never mentioned in TOS.
Possibly a misinterpretation of Sareks dislike for Spock joining Starfleet in "Journey to Babel" and the fact Spock was the only Vulcan (well, half-vulcan) seen on screen.

In my headcanon the first vulcan to join Starfleet is T'Pol.

[CetaMan]

Its pretty obvious they retconned the terran empire to be space racists/sentient eaters for what is argued by some friends as a political statement over the s[ace romans they were previously.

[AniThyng]

Its pretty obvious they retconned the terran empire to be space racists/sentient eaters for what is argued by some friends as a political statement over the s[ace romans they were previously.

Given that the TOS portrayal is the one that gave us the joke about mustaches marking your evil mirror double as well as agony booths I'm having trouble making sense of your assertion that the original portrayal was of a space Roman empire...

[CetaMan]

True, but enterprise went a bit more in that direction after DS9 established the spock peace movement as ending in slavery for most federation species

[Imperial Overlord]

Its pretty obvious they retconned the terran empire to be space racists/sentient eaters for what is argued by some friends as a political statement over the s[ace romans they were previously.

It was Enterprise that made them really racist. Sure they had aliens serving in Starfleet, but the Terrans were all racist as hell.

[bilateralrope]

Any guesses as to who you think will be the next captain of the Discovery ?

Possibilities include:
- Saru, the current first officer
- A character transferred from another ship
- Michael Burnham. A main character who has been taking charge a lot lately, with her low rank seemingly being treated as a technicality by the writers.
- Mirror Georgiou.

I'm hoping for one of the first two, but wouldn't be surprised if the writers pull one of the last two on us.


Now back to Ash Tyler for a moment. He is a Klingon infiltrator placed as head of security by an infiltrator from the mirror universe. Giving the writers an even harder time justifying how they keep him aboard the Discovery.