Star Trek: Discovery Season 2 Review Thread *spoilers*

[Vendetta]

An unknown thing is causing a crewmember to experience specific hallucinations that are having conversations with her. Do you:
a: Talk with it to see what it wants.
b: Go to sickbay to see what the doctors suggest.
c: Hook the crewmember up to the brainscanner and try to suck it out of her chest without giving any of the ships doctors a chance to prepare for it going wrong.

Are there any other Trek crews who would have thought that c was a good idea ?

depending on the characters involved pretty much every single one of them.

And it would only have gone horribly wrong if they were doing it to Harry Kim.

Also but by god the Klingons look better with their hair back on. The combination of baldies plus big elaborate armour with shoulderpads borrowed from warcraft last season made their heads look tiny.

[tezunegari]

An Obol for Charon...

So the Spore drive is now the new clean way of space travel because Dilithium mining destroys worlds?! Instead of being, you know, bloody faster than anything seen before allowing more exploration?

The reason why the Spore drive cannot be used in the future is some alien claims that Discovery damaged their ecology? And Stamets just goes "We have to seal of the Spore Network!" immediately? Even in TNG it took time and evidence before Starfleet reacted to the claim that Warp drive damages subspace.

And Saru lost his threat ganglia... what are the odds that the Kelpians are actually young Ba'ul instead of food?

I really liked the alien mystery in this one.

[AniThyng]

An Obol for Charon...

So the Spore drive is now the new clean way of space travel because Dilithium mining destroys worlds?! Instead of being, you know, bloody faster than anything seen before allowing more exploration?

The reason why the Spore drive cannot be used in the future is some alien claims that Discovery damaged their ecology? And Stamets just goes "We have to seal of the Spore Network!" immediately? Even in TNG it took time and evidence before Starfleet reacted to the claim that Warp drive damages subspace.

And Saru lost his threat ganglia... what are the odds that the Kelpians are actually young Ba'ul instead of food?

I really liked the alien mystery in this one.

Gotta admit that Jet Reno's comebacks to Stamets were so on point I'd say the writers were well aware of just how silly the extremist green position can be...

[bilateralrope]

Has there been any behind the scenes changes to the people working on Discovery ?

Because those few lines about the holographic communication system being how the Enterprise remains disabled and Starfleet responding by ripping it out feels like someone who wants to fix that continuity problem suddenly having the power to do so. It's a good fix.

The reason why the Spore drive cannot be used in the future is some alien claims that Discovery damaged their ecology? And Stamets just goes "We have to seal of the Spore Network!" immediately? Even in TNG it took time and evidence before Starfleet reacted to the claim that Warp drive damages subspace.

Stamets made the decision to seal it off while drugged. He wasn't thinking straight.

Gotta admit that Jet Reno's comebacks to Stamets were so on point I'd say the writers were well aware of just how silly the extremist green position can be...

I see a comparison to organic farming. There are a lot of people claiming that organic farming is better for the environment than industrialized farming. While ignoring that organic farming is going to need a lot more land converted to farms to feed everyone.

[tezunegari]

Has there been any behind the scenes changes to the people working on Discovery ?

Because those few lines about the holographic communication system being how the Enterprise remains disabled and Starfleet responding by ripping it out feels like someone who wants to fix that continuity problem suddenly having the power to do so. It's a good fix.

IIRC they removed most of the writers and had to rewrite most of the first 5 episodes because of creative disagreement.

The reason why the Spore drive cannot be used in the future is some alien claims that Discovery damaged their ecology? And Stamets just goes "We have to seal of the Spore Network!" immediately? Even in TNG it took time and evidence before Starfleet reacted to the claim that Warp drive damages subspace.

Stamets made the decision to seal it off while drugged. He wasn't thinking straight.

IIRC Stamets injected the counteragent prior talking to "May" and being informed about the "ecological damage".

Gotta admit that Jet Reno's comebacks to Stamets were so on point I'd say the writers were well aware of just how silly the extremist green position can be...

I see a comparison to organic farming. There are a lot of people claiming that organic farming is better for the environment than industrialized farming. While ignoring that organic farming is going to need a lot more land converted to farms to feed everyone.

Or that you'll need planets worth of Spores to fuel an interstellar empire full of Spore drive ships.
A better solution to the Dilithium problem would be better refinement (if quality of crystals is a thing) and recrystalisation to extent the lifecycle of crystals.
They essentially only shift the problem to a different ressource by developing the Spore Drive.

[Iroscato]

Well, after the dismembered baby heads and sexual abuse overtones of the previous episode, I'm glad this week felt like another properly reimagined classic Trek yarn. Apart from the bollocks with Spock and the overarching plot (I never thought I'd say this but fuck I miss when things didn't have to be so serialised and interconnected) I really enjoyed it.

[Grand Moff Yenchin]

Has Section 31 been at this level of clearance? I can understand a captain of an advanced ship, and a security officer (despite being Klingon spy) knowing it, but how about someone like Michael, who by just looking at a black badge know?

To be fair, it seems that they only know the organization and have no idea of anything beyond.

[Imperial Overlord]

They had some guys with black badges on Discovery in Season 1 so it makes sense that Discovery's crew knows what they mean.

[bilateralrope]

We are talking about an organization who decided to recruit Ash Tyler despite his previous mental instability. Right after permanently separating him from his lover and child. They don't seem to be the most competent of secret agencies and have probably screwed up their attempts to stay unknown.

I wonder what happens between Discovery and DS9 to turn them into a rogue agency.

[Vendetta]

We are talking about an organization who decided to recruit Ash Tyler despite his previous mental instability. Right after permanently separating him from his lover and child. They don't seem to be the most competent of secret agencies and have probably screwed up their attempts to stay unknown.

I wonder what happens between Discovery and DS9 to turn them into a rogue agency.

Most secret intelligence services aren’t unknown though. They might hide in an alphabet soup of other TLAs but everyone can find out that they exist and roughly what their area of competence is.

It’s knowing specifically what they’re doing right now that’s the secret bit.

[Iroscato]

I'm strongly against them involving Section 31 in any capacity. My main problem basically is as follows: it feels like another way they can force "Star Trek but dark" into the show in a similar fashion to the bizarre decision to have half of season 1 take place in the Mirror Universe, directly after having a wartime arc. Feels like they want to have their cake and eat it too, and I believe it's a mistake to introduce S31 this early into the show's life, just as it was a mistake to have "evil" versions of characters we'd only just started to get to know parading around on the screen cackling and rubbing their hands with wicked glee.

[bilateralrope]

For me, that depends on how Section 31 is portrayed by the end of this plot arc.

If they are portrayed as the good guys, then it's a problem.

If they are portrayed as a problem for our heroes to deal with, that's fine.

[Grand Moff Yenchin]

Well Michelle Yeoh has been recruited to further her adventures on a Section 31 based series so after this storyline concludes I guess the hate/love will be directed to that series with probably some occasional Michael-Emperor or Ash drama in DISCO, which, to be frank, so far kind of feels cliched to me. The Pike vs Leland was kind of refreshing since Leland seemed to be kind of decent as opposed to some spymaster evil guy or something like that, the same goes with Cornwell (being "Control"?).

[Grand Moff Yenchin]

It seems kinda like a stretch to make a history like this believable, as well as not committing genocide when you have the vast technological advance. Maybe because Kelpians are too delicious?

[Imperial Overlord]

Reducing the population of the people you're in conflict to a tiny fraction of its original value and confining the survivors to reservations you control while culling the ones you find dangerous is believable to me. Its not that far off from what happened in North America.

[bilateralrope]

It seems kinda like a stretch to make a history like this believable, as well as not committing genocide when you have the vast technological advance. Maybe because Kelpians are too delicious?

I don't think the Ba'ul were eating Keplians. I think they were just unwilling to completely exterminate them. The Ba'ul were trying to claim that their solution was moral in the episode.

I don't think the Ba'ul had warp travel when they nearly went extinct. Which means they might have picked the most moral solution they had available to them.

[Crazedwraith]

Slowly catch up. Watching New Eden now. Tilly has way more authority than I'd expect from the lowest ranking officer on the ship. Being a main character hath it's privileges

[tezunegari]

I don't think the Ba'ul had warp travel when they nearly went extinct. Which means they might have picked the most moral solution they had available to them.

The Ba'ul achieved Warp travel in 2237 - 20 years before the show, or 2 years before Saru was taken away by Georgiou in that Short Trek.

[FireNexus]

I’m watching the new episode and it’s really make it hard not to scream “BAJORAN WORMHOLE!!!” at about 4:24. Mostly because my theory is that the whole mushroom warp drive is related to the wormhole and they’re dealing with wonky time stuff all season.

[Crazedwraith]

Discovery's been renewed for a third season.

[Grand Moff Yenchin]

Once the Admiral started talking about Control being AI you'd know something like that would be coming.
And Commander Nham defies her red-shirt. Again. That's two strikes.

[bilateralrope]

I wonder who murdered the staff at the psychiatric facility. Control doesn't have drones, so it must be one of of the Section 31 organics who was "just following orders". I'm guessing Leland.

[tezunegari]

What's with the "Burnham started the war" thing still going on?
Because she shot T'Kuvma with a kill setting? He was still alive when Saru transported Burnham before she got to reach the still living bastard to get him to the Shenzhou sickbay. He aborted the mission after Georgious death and Burnhams info of "more are coming" instead of giving her a chance to either reach the dead Georgiou (which I think she would have done) or taking T'Kuvma.
To me Saru is culpable for that as well.

It'S kinda interesting that no one thought of holograms being used to fake the recording of Killer-Spock even though the video stream has an IR channel apparently.
Why they watched the feed on UV though... Writer's fail at science?

Airiam... well, Star Trek now has Robocop.
I just wish that the bridge bunnies had gotten more than a token background story since 2.01... more characterization in S1 with more interaction on screen would really have turned this episode in a gutwrencher - like the deaths of Cally and Gaeta in BSG 2003.

I don't really understand the logic of Airiams possession though.
She was possessed by the future threat.
Was it an attempted to gain access to the Brethren Moon thingy to learn everything about AI that thing knew to apparently jumpstart it's own sentience... then after the hidden transmission was foiled, deliver the knowledge to the S31 starbase where the Control AI supposedly is located.
Or rather a recon mission turned action of opportunity.

With Discovery being there and stopping Airiam, they now have the chance of destroying the AI... unless it has created a backup somewhere else, or is itself under the control (no pun intended) of the real threat.
If the Control AI is really on the station this plan backfired horribly - to the point of potentially stopping the bad future already.
Though somehow I think the threat is not the AI at this point but this mysterious Project Daedalus.

The one thing I would have changed in this episode was the end... instead of Nhan pulling the lever it should have been Burnham.

[AniThyng]

I couldn't have been the only person who was wondering why the hell they didn't even try to help Nhan or beam her back or something when she was suffocating... If she didn't manage to save herself I'd have been really pissed.

[tezunegari]

I couldn't have been the only person who was wondering why the hell they didn't even try to help Nhan or beam her back or something when she was suffocating... If she didn't manage to save herself I'd have been really pissed.

In episode 1.02 it was established that their transporters (for whatever reason) require a lifesign lock - Georgiou getting stabbed let to her lock being lost.
Directly after Nhan impacted on the wall they show the bridge window/viewscreen and her lifesign goes red and flatlines.
Implying that they lost her lifesign lock.
Why they haven't switched to a beacon inside the spacesuits I have no idea - for suspense I guess.

I'd have to watch it again but it also might be a transporter scrambler on the AI deck...

At least that were my two possible interpretations.

Also why Nhan's suit couldn't replicate her atmosphere was a doozy. She technically has to carry around a canister of the chemicals she needs to breath anyway (for her augments/implants) which could be hooked up to the suit with an emergency setting for her.
Actually, her suit could have been set up to create a Barzan friendly atmosphere to begin with, extending her augments stores or turning it into a backup.