Star Trek Discovery Season 4 (Spoilers)

[bilateralrope]

We get some more exposition on what species 10 c are doing and that Burnham is definitely right and Book wrong though.

I'm not so sure about that. It's now looking likely that 10c know the devastation and genocide the DMA could cause and don't care. Starfleet may have trouble changing their mind.

Unless they have some bargaining chip, like promising to use the bomb and kill 10c's shield should the DMA get too close to an inhabited world. Some plan for if negotiations fail.

And on a call back note we get a changeling. The effects were very different but his final face looked Odo-ish so maybe a ds9 changeling rather than TUC one?

That's what I was thinking. But there are two unanswered questions about that changeling:
- What was a changeling doing personally cheating at cards in some middle of nowhere casino like this ?
- What happened to whoever the changeling was communicating with ?

[Crazedwraith]

Well that was interesting. A lot of it made sense, it's nice to see more bridge crew moments and Nhan back but in-universe, it's a really iffy decision to send Burnham after Book and then assign as her back-up someone she's already close to and has loyalty to them. Stereotype of Nhan's species or not. I think truly neutral overseer would have had Book blasted long before Nhan insisted.

Michael's idea of compromise reminds me of Odo's speech on the matter. (You want silence. They want music. You compromise and listen to music) in that the compromise is you let her do what she wants and maybe she'll do your plan as a last resort. And the compromise is basically what we thought should have been the plan from the start.

Tarka rejecting the compromise made sense. (what he wants out of it is not what Book wants so the reasoning doesn't apply) What doesn't make sense is Book letting him anywhere near the controls after Tarka a) added lethal booby traps to the ship and b) had grabbed the controls to try and kill Discovery minutes before hand.

Also I got the impression that Book's ship and Discovery were even matched combat wise. The idea that the massive starship need to target to a weak spot for massive damage to destroy a glorified runabout is and odd decision.

The end fields like something everyone should have been coming. If it's a mining tool and not a superweapon it's likely they don't just have one. And them replacing it immediately, well it's interesting because you may be right Bilateralrope, it heavily implies they know there are people around that are objecting to the dredge and being harmed by it and they just don't care. They may not be a species you can talk down (but then how else are they going to defeat them?)

[Crazedwraith]

Going into the episode called ‘Galactic Barrier’ and remembering how much season 2 leaned on TOS Lore, I was kind of expecting Silver eyes and Gary Mitchell psychic powers to come up at some point. (Nothing like this happened but there was a lot of mention of dangerous radiation and negative energies)

I keep forgetting to comment; Disco has some hellaciously long ‘teaser’ sections. This one was 15 minutes long before the opening credits.

This episode was… fine? It was comparatively low stakes even though they were going through the galactic barrier. The President and Burnham related a lot better. There was a tiny amount of progress between Saru and T’Rina which remains charming. And Gray is back. Hopefully this doesn’t herald the end of the nice Culber and Stamets scenes for the sake of gay dads scenes.

And seeking Turka’s backstory was pretty interesting even if we’d already heard it, it confirms a lot of it was true at least.

The new DMA threatening Earth and Ni’Var seems a little on the nose and cliché. Hopefully we’ll see the Disco crew remain true to their principles even in the case of this extreme provocation.

I can’t see how they’re going to introduce and solve the 10-C issue in the remaining (2?3?) episodes. It feels like they should be someone or something we know to speed up that process. It would be interesting if it was a post-TOS, famous TNG threat so Burnham and the President could have very different reactions to.

Still interested in what’s coming.

[bilateralrope]

The galactic barrier looked like something they could just fly over or under. A very poor choice for the visuals. They should have gone with something that only became visible as Discovery got close.

And seeking Turka’s backstory was pretty interesting even if we’d already heard it, it confirms a lot of it was true at least.

Was it just me, or were the actors blinking a lot during those scenes ?

Also, their antimatter storage is pretty reliable if it can go years without power and not leak.

I can’t see how they’re going to introduce and solve the 10-C issue in the remaining (2?3?) episodes.

I see three options:
- Someone deploys something that wipes out the 10-C
- Discovery handling negotiations between 10-C and whoever they are afraid of. End that threat, they end the need for the mining.
- 10-C agree to only mine uninhabited parts of the galaxy. But first they need a map.

[Crazedwraith]

The galactic barrier looked like something they could just fly over or under. A very poor choice for the visuals. They should have gone with something that only became visible as Discovery got close.

I wonder how it was presented in TOS? The 2d barrier thing may be from there?

And seeking Turka’s backstory was pretty interesting even if we’d already heard it, it confirms a lot of it was true at least.

Was it just me, or were the actors blinking a lot during those scenes ?

Also, their antimatter storage is pretty reliable if it can go years without power and not leak.

I think what we've seen is true but there may be more context Tarka hasn't revealed yet.

What got me was programmable antimatter was something they just managed to sneak in a slaves somehow with no explanation beyond 'they smart people'.

I can’t see how they’re going to introduce and solve the 10-C issue in the remaining (2?3?) episodes.

I see three options:
- Someone deploys something that wipes out the 10-C
- Discovery handling negotiations between 10-C and whoever they are afraid of. End that threat, they end the need for the mining.
- 10-C agree to only mine uninhabited parts of the galaxy. But first they need a map.

Another idea I've seen elsewhere is that the 10-C is linked somehow to the parallel universe Tarka wants to get to. (or maybe the teleporter was designed to get past the galactic barrier and not to another universe?) so they are not 'new' characters so to speak.

Those do seem like the possible solutions.

[bilateralrope]

What got me was programmable antimatter was something they just managed to sneak in a slaves somehow with no explanation beyond 'they smart people'.

There were a few lines about them building a warp core and working on an alternative to dilithium, plus the implication that they weren't allowed to leave that room. So I don't think they snuck it in. I think they asked for more than they needed for testing and were given it.

[bilateralrope]

Spacesuits that, when they detect an unknown substance, they let it in until they are told to block it. Then they filter it out so quickly that the effects the substance has on the person in the suit ends almost instantly. That's an interesting design choice.

Also, I have an alternative interpretation of the data they uncovered on the 10-C. Yes, they care about their offspring. But they are a technological civilization. That means teaching scientific discoveries to later generations, which requires caring about them at least enough to provide education.

But that doesn't fully explain the nursery being to sturdy. Consider two real world countries:
- One has active shooter drills in schools, bulletproof backbacks and other things to protect children from a shooter who is targeting children.
- The other doesn't.
I can guess which country you'll pick for the first one, but there is a longer list to choose from for the second. The difference in how they protect children does not come from the first country caring more about the welfare of its children. It comes from the first country having threats to them that the second country doesn't.

So when I see that the 10-C nursery is so durable, I think that it's because there was a threat to their children. Something serious enough that they are worried about people shelling the building. That blue dust can also fit with a defensive strategy. Dose the children inside with something that makes them feel safe. Outside, the fear substance scares attackers away and the children back inside. That leads to a few more questions:
- Was the threat real or imagined ?
- Was the threat from members of another race or a warring faction of 10-C ?
- If it was a war between factions of 10-C, did all the factions get off the planet ?
- Was the asteroid bombardment intentional ?

Though I'm not going to complain if things are so good in the Federation that this is a cultural blindspot.

[Crazedwraith]

Tarka screws their plans by hijacking Book's ship is being repeated way too often. Book did seem wise to it at first. Then still lost his ship.

I think this is most main plot relevant Reno's ever been and it's actually a really good episode for her. Calm, very resourceful, moral, pragmatic in that talks to Book directly and only after luring him into arms reach to have her chat very privately. After seasons of just being their to snark and fix Stamet's relationship, it's good stuff. Though tbf her previous focus on character makes her more fleshed out and consistent than the bridge crew that gets interests and hobbies doled out at random.

I actually enjoy the real struggles communicating with 10-C stuff so much it's sad there's the ticking doomsday clock and tarka plots interfering with it.

[bilateralrope]

Tarka screws their plans by hijacking Book's ship is being repeated way too often. Book did seem wise to it at first. Then still lost his ship.

Book's mistake is thinking that Tarka cares about saving lives because that's what he keeps claiming. When Tarka is consistently screwing over diplomatic options because they wouldn't get him that power supply.

[Crazedwraith]

Tarka screws their plans by hijacking Book's ship is being repeated way too often. Book did seem wise to it at first. Then still lost his ship.

Book's mistake is thinking that Tarka cares about saving lives because that's what he keeps claiming. When Tarka is consistently screwing over diplomatic options because they wouldn't get him that power supply.

Tarka doesn't claim to care about saving lives though. He uses that line to motivate Booker because that's Booker's goal but he's been upfront about his own goal from the state and previously screwed up their efforts for the exact reason that he cares more about the power source than anything.

Book's not got any excuse because this exact scenario played out once already a few episodes ago. Plus he's a scoundrel type, he should always be ready for the double cross.

[bilateralrope]

Three thoughts come to mind:
- Tarka is assuming that he can just grab the power supply and that it will work for him. Despite him disconnecting it from its fuel supply.
- The 10-C surprised him once by being able to deploy an upgraded DMA controller after he blew up the first one. Considering how dangerous the bubble collapsing looks*, I'm expecting the 10-C to have a spare power supply.

*We still don't know why the 10-C are hiding behind it. So they probably have additional reasons why they fear it failing.

[Crazedwraith]

I think this season peaked with the communications episode that was the penultimate episode. This one does have the finale with them stopping Tarka (even talking him around) and then establishing a peaceful rapport with the 10-C that involves both them shutting down the DMA and providing repairs and recompense, specifically just promising not to do it any more is not enough.

Tilly is back and has some scenes with Vance but the episode is very long on speeches and sappy sentiment and montages and kind of short on substance? What it has is nice but... eh. I am underwhelmed.

[Grand Moff Yenchin]

Kind of curious here. After leaving warp the SFHQ took about 10 seconds from Moon to Earth (384,400 Km). Does that imply that the HQ decelerated at some insane (about 40M) G?

[bilateralrope]

Remember the mess of Discovery being pulled off Netflix shortly before this season began ?

Today I got an email announcing on how they fixed it for New Zealand. So two oddities here. The first is that they only managed to implement out a solution today. Which just shows that the international audience was an afterthought.

The second is that they got Discovery onto TVNZ On Demand. It's always odd when they get hold of a show produced overseas because this is a streaming platform that's free, without ads. I'm assuming that TVNZ paid something to license the shows, but they have no way to make a profit. Sure, a state owned enterprise can have motivations other than profit, but I've got no clue what would apply here. So they confuse me. Still, it's all legal and free, so I won't complain.