Star Trek Discovery

I made a terrible mistake yesterday and watched the first three episodes of Discovery season 3.

It started with burnham wearing a plot-armor allowing her to survive literally everything... frontal hitting a full speed spaceship in her spacesuit followed by an uncontrolled atmospheric entry which most certainly would have burned her to a tiny fragment of coal before hitting the ground... and ah yeah... hitting the ground at full speed.

This was followed by an eternity of bad acting till almost the end.

The plot for the new season was set: all dilithium in the galaxy all of a sudden exploded and the federation is no more. Hmmk... all of the dilithium... except the dilithium that still is traded by various factions. For whatever reasons not all went poof. Plot hole in the very first episode?

2nd episode introduced the concept of ... i have to quote that... "parasitic ice". You know... cold H2O became parasitic now. I am not sure what the writers are smoking.

Phasers are deadly to side characters (one shot, one kill) but only mildly shocking to the discovery crew (+5 hits) without any changes to their settings. hmmk

Main crew members treat low rank crew (which clean up the ship) like shit. Never before in Star Trek you would have seen such disrespectful crap.

Oh and a tiny ship which fits into the Discovery shuttlebay has enough power to pull the Discovery out of the "parasitic ice" with its tractor bream because the Discovery cant get out of its own.

3rd episode was a confusing mess.

Earth no longer is home to the federation and became isolationist because all their warp ships exploded once. Apparently the option to use the shipyards to build new ships (with the dilithium they still have -> for whatever reason) or to use sub-warp ships to at least be able to visit the other solar planets was no option to them? hmmm

No, its earth and earth only... other colonies like mars, etc.... were abandoned or even turned into enemies and nobody ever wondered where these new enemies came from. Apparently not important enough to figure out such details.

And then there once again was a Burnham stunt to save the situation by totally going against the rules and orders once more. To be honest I did not understand what happened. The whole plot did not make any sense. Essentially 2 people tricked the invading force that was so dangerous for Earth and took its leader prisoner and ... i still dont get it.... I somehow have the feeling that somewhere in between a whole episode must have been gone missing.

It was such a "tada, we instantly solved the mystery that you could not solve in a thousand years" moment.

And then there was this newly introduced crew member from Earth. A young human that for some strange reason became host of a Trill symbiont. I am wondering if they even bother to explain how that is possible. Everytime before in Star Trek the host was slowly killed by the symbiont. The crews reaction to learning about the Trill symbiont was... strange. Just as if this was nothing unusual. I think that would conflict a bit with the timeline of trek in which the trill kept their symbionts a secret even decades after joining the federation. Only in TNG the true nature of the Trills were revealed and that must be ... dunno... +100 years after Discovery (season 1+2).

I guess nobody gives a crap.

Worth to mention is that in every of these 3 episodes people easily figure out that the crew of the discovery are time travelers.

"you came out of a wormhole that created a gravity wave (a desperate try to include real time science) so you must be a time traveler"

"you have an old tricoder, you must be a time traveler"

"your ship has a titanium bla bla blubb alloy, you must be time travelers"

?

Still my favorite actor is Tilly. The perfect crew women, funny, intelligent, social, hard working...

What I did ask myself, what did all the Dilithium make explode? Could it be synchronized through the spore network? From time travellers.

Hmm ... obviously I'm not alone who for some reasons think that this 3rd season is not as much appealing (is weird) like 1 and 2 which I was unable cease watching till they ended. To be honest I stopped watch 3rd part in middle and Im not sure when (or if) will continue watching.

Episode 4 was... ok... i guess.

The new crew member which effectively isnt a member of star fleet tells the crew where to fly. ok

Burnham does what Burnham does... happy trigger firing on allies and with that risking the friendly relationship with the Trills.

As usual it has no negative consequences.

Trills claim that not many able to be host are left and that never before a symbiont took a host from a species other than trill.... which is strange since in a ds9 episode it was said that more than 50% of the trills would be compatible hosts and I believe there were two incidents where other species at least for a limited time were host to a symbiont.

It also was said that never before symbiont was forcefully removed from a host which also is not true. I am not really sure why such specific details are mentioned when they are definitely not true.

In the meantime half of the crew has mental problems which are result of the stress and new environment. Actually I think this was best and most realistic part in this seasons so far.

However, after the events of Season 2 I would be slightly worried if an AI on my ship all of a sudden starts making its own decisions and starts using ship systems. You know... I would be at least a bit more careful about that kind of stuff.

Episode 5 once again was a total mess.

Discovery arrives at the location of the new star fleet hq.... which is hidden/shielded by a force field.

They dont even bother to scan it and simply fly through. It could have been potentially dangerous to do that but nobody cared.

Starfleet let them fly to the starbase in the middle without enabling any defenses. I would have expected a bit more careful acting from an organization that easily could be destroyed at that time.

Many new ships hide inside that force field which makes no sense at all. You would assume that every ship able to fly (not exploded) would be in service out there and help member planets etc.

The Starbase.... the starfleet hq... looks incredibly small compared to the size of the discovery. I definitely would have expected something more impressive. Afterall they left Earth behind for this thing. And on Earth they most certainly had this giant starbase from the movies and the TV show... and the shipyards... and all the other stations at Mars and Jupiter.

The other ships around are introduced in a totally absurd way. Every tech that ever was mentioned in Star Trek apparently was used to create a wild mix of ship types. Organic ships. Holographic ships, Neutronium alloy ships and something that is identified as a new version of a constitution class... a +1000 year old design which makes no sense to still use. Oh and there is a Voyager which fits perfectly well into the fucked up fan service that is forced upon the viewers.

I have the strange feeling that the writers of the show have a list of a thousand of ideas from old Star Trek shows that they are forcefully trying to include into Discovery and the Picard series no matter if it fits or not. You get bombarded with stuff from old shows every 10 minutes and it feels like the writers have no own ideas.

The plot of this episode is pretty stupid.

Starfleet wants to reassign the crew and retrofit the discovery (which makes no sense). The discovery crew tries to prove their worth by solving a problem the starfleet can not solve. Cure a few aliens from prions.

Burnham instantly finds out where the aliens got infected... a mystery the entire starfleet was not able to solve. And then she remembers that this planet was polluted and must have caused the illness. And the next incredible thing she pulls out of her ass is that there was a seed vault ship a 1000 years ago which contains not contaminated food from that planet which can be used to cure the prions.

Surprisingly this seed vault ships after 1000 years still exists... it is in close range... it did not go boom during the burn and such an important ship is commanded by a random family which can do whatever it wants with it.... such as flying into an ion storm.

The stupidity behind this plot is insane.

Having a ship containing seeds from all the federation worlds certainly is done to protect these worlds from any kinds of disasters. That means this ship has an importance to the federation/starfleet... which means you would not let such an important ship fly around unprotected.

That being put aside is the concept of a seed ship total non-sense in Star Trek. In every show before there were genetic databases. Whatever they needed to cure the illness would have been in one of such databases. In TNG they even kept the genetic profiles of crew members stored in databases.

In DS9 they solved crimes using such databases.

It is much easier to store genetic data in digital form in case of need than to have a seed vault ship you have to find first.

Even today we store genetic information of many species in databases and that show is a 1000 years in the future. You cant tell me that a physical copy on a 1000 year old ship that easily could be attacked by raiders is a better alternative to a digital copy.

Then there is the illness... Prions... with other words wrongly folded proteins. What in gods name speaks against scanning the bodies (apparent they must have done that to know that prions are the cause) and then beaming the damaged proteins out of the bodies? Or even better beaming it out... folding the proteins into a non-lethal shape and beaming that cured stuff back in. Apparently the scanners are good enough to identify the problem. In a DS9 episode damaged nerve cells were beamed from a person to cure the body of that person. So apparently beaming can have medical applications... especially many centuries after it was done in DS9.

The illness in terms of available tech makes no sense.

Starfleet appears highly incompetent.

They dont even look in their own databases for the information about where the people could have been infected. They are too stupid to use their highly adv. tech.

They can detect a symbiont in a body on a ship many miles away, they can create holographic ships and neutronium alloys but they can not get their shit done right under their nose on their sickbay.

Oh and it apparently requires a Discovery crew member to explain to a future Starfleet officer what a coronal mass ejection is... you know something that every member of a space-faring species should actually know. Makes me wonder what they teach Starfleet officers in that timeline. Is there no discovery channel in that future?

The side plot with the terran emperor and that mysterious new guy which most definitely reminds me of the G-man (dunno why) also is a bit strange but I think it is much more important for the future story than anything else that happened in that episode.

A bit ridiculous how emperor Georgiou managed to crash the highly advanced starfleet holo AI by blinking with her eyes. That AI definitely needs some bug-fixing.

I wonder why Georgiou did not do this blinking trick in season 2 to stop Control.

To finish with something positive. The new admiral, at least for now, seems to be an interesting addition. He seems to be very controlled and calculating, tries to be friendly and objective but seems to be hiding something. He is not an asshole like many other Star Trek admirals, at least not openly. I just dont think that this will remains this way in the following episodes.

Also worth to mention is that I really like the style of the new uniforms. Both Starfleet aswell as the Earth Forces uniforms look pretty cool.

The new combadges are a different story, they almost look bajoran. The admirals uniform also has bajoran elements.

errr

what a non-sense

One power outage and these nancelles float away into deep space.

What happens when they activate the spore drive and the entire ship starts spinning? Will the nancelles lag behind?

The profile of the ship gets wider which makes maneuvering in asteroid fields even harder to do.

That also means the ship requires a larger warp bubble aswell as a larger shield bubble and therefore more energy to maintain these.

The energy needed to keep the nancelles in place + the larger shield bubble could be a deciding factor in a battle.

That is the equivalent of a lot of bling bling on the screen of your mobile phone while your battery won't last half a day.

Of course you could claim "this is the far future in Star Trek and energy does not matter". Yeah, well the energy on a ships is generated a its warp core... which requires dilithium to operate. And what went boom galaxy wide because of the burn? Right, dilithium. Its a rare resource meanwhile limiting the energy capacities of ships.

And why did the ship get a new registry number (A) just because of a refit? That makes no sense.

It also implies that after the Discovery disappeared (officially got destroyed) there never was another ship in the following 1000 years with the name Discovery. really? That is a bit hard to believe considering how often starfleet "recylces" names of lost ships.

bad day today... so i am in rant mode

Episode 6 was... not as terrible as others.

Probably because there was not much story to tell in it.

The Discovery got a refit... and looks better now.... not good... but better.

It is the most beautiful ship in 3189 now (or whatever year that is) which mainly is due to the fact that all other starfleet ships in that future timeline look awful.

But yes, the design of the Discovery got improved. I have to admit that.

And... that leads me to the first WTF moment.

The saucer section was structurally changed and the outer ring now is free floating. The bridge dome looks different. The neck is lower but wider. The secondary hull now has some triangular holes in it. The nancelles have a different shape. The lower bulge of the secondary hull is completely missing now. New impulse engines. The complete hull plates were replaced. This refit is so radical that it would be easier just to build a new ship.

If you replace the entire hull and also change the shape of a ship... there should not be much left of the original.

This whole refit was done within days... or 1-2 weeks maybe. This is witchcraft at its best. Especially since nothing shown so far indicated that there are any shipyards or drydocks.

The refit of the original enterprise took almost 2 years.

Even if you assume that future tech is so advanced that "print/replicate" all the stuff needed to do the refit you should also keep in mind that old parts have to be removed... and most certainly these old parts are very much welded together to a solid structure.

And before all that could happen somebody needs to figure out how this old ship is build together... and make plans how to fit new tech into it and how to make new tech compatible with a thousand years old design.

Witchcraft

The 2nd wtf moment was when the admiral gathered all the federation captains for a briefing and told them that the Discovery has a very special job because it has a new innovative engine and all these captains were totally surprised about this news.

Apparently none of these captains looked out of the windows of their ships when the Discovery used that spore drive right infront of them in Episode 5.

You would assume that a ship that wildly starts spinning and disappears right next to these other ships would be noticed somehow.

meh... dont assume logic in this TV show.

Like mentioned the main story of this episode was mainly forgetable.

Burnham did what Burnham always does... ignoring direct orders with relative little consequences for her.

Ok, she was demoted this time... no longer commander but still first sci officer.

Will she learn the lesson? No, of course not.

Surprisingly I can even understand why the Admiral did not issue a harder punishment. In his position I most likely would have done the same. Despite ignoring direct orders Burnham helped people out there. The judgement was based on method vs result. Starfleet needs results more than anything else. You also would not want to punish people for helping others... result could be that people fear to help next time.

The admiral so far can not be criticized for anything. Its been some time since a Starfleet admiral was no complete asshole.

Stuff not related to any episodes:

The burn made all dilithium explode... except the dilithium that did not explore for some reason.

hmm k

So all starships with warpcore went boom.

hmm k

So where are the romulans then? Romulan ships do not have a warpcore. They have a singularity core (an enclosed micro blackhole) which delivers the energy for the warp engines. Romulans have dilithium mines but they dont use it to keep their engines running. Most likely they need it to create the singularity but once created all it takes to keep it running is feeding it with matter. This in return means that not a single romulan warbird exploded during the burn... which raises the question "where are the romulans". There was a vacuum of power and in 100-120 years the romulans did not bother to use it?

That would be very strange.... or a stupid plot hole.

What about the Borg? Their transwarp potentially also is based on tech that does not require a warpcore.

The quantum slipstream drive from the delta quadrant definitely does not require dilithium but works on a different type of crystal instead.

plot holes?

What caused the burn?

Maybe a red-angel suit burnham sent back into the wormhole that was connecting the future with the past? That red angel suit she set to self destruct.... maybe at a point in the wormhole equivalent to 100-120 years back in time? It would be hilarious if Burnham really fucked up the entire galaxy this way.

But the burn did already happen when Burnham arrived. So it must have been an alternative time line.

The explosion somewhere must have its origin, I think it might be related with the spore network. Even there traveling requires time and it could have spread across this network like a wave - a kind of terror attack. No one seems to detect when suddenly a ship appears out of the spore network. So even no one could detect a signal out of it. Still questionable does the spore network has connections to active dilithium warp cores?

a paradox, yes

but not impossible to happen in Star Trek.

I dont think that the spore drive requires dilithium at all. It requires energy (in case of the discovery coming from its warp core btw) but it does not seem to matter how that energy is generated. Based on literally every explanation given in Star Trek dilitihium is nothing but a moderator inside the warp core which regulates the matter-antimatter reaction to produce the energy needed to create a warp field by the warp coils.

By this explanation it does not even matter where the energy for the warp engines comes from. A fusion reactor big enough could do the same job as a warp core. In theory they could even charge capacitors to do short warp jumps or use more exotic stuff like red matter or a tech that utilizes the energy from an uncontrolled matter-antimatter reaction.

The only reason why warp tech would not work correctly is that subspace was damaged/destroyed (an explanation that also was given in the first episode). The problem with that explanation is that pirates and syndicates and these delivery guys do not seem to have any problem using warp. The only logical explanation given why warp does not work for the federation, klingons etc. is totally ruined by the fact that they show how other minor factions still use warp.

wow i thought they were all good it's tv sit back and chill grab a beer and don't think lol

Quote from ice cold

wow i thought they were all good it's tv sit back and chill grab a beer and don't think lol

its star trek and not star wars

Quote from SWAT_OP-R8R

its star trek and not star wars

lol what they all have limited warp it's tv go with it or don't watch it what star wars got to do with it lol

well star trek used to be based on science and logic

while star wars was a space fairy tale

the problem with the new trek stuff is that does treat old stuff in a pretty awful way

explaining stuff contrary to what was known before

trying to fit in real science without even understanding real science

and literally everything is just drama instead of the old "lets fly out there, explore stuff and have a small adventure"

Episode 7 is a great example

This was nothing but a terribly written soap opera. Non-sense talk throughout the entire episode interrupted by bad actors crying.

People used information they should actually never have. e.g. Burnhams mother knew her demotion without anybody ever telling her about it. I really doubt that the federation would officially spread messages "oh just so you know we demoted burnham".

The stuff just does not make any sense.

I have no problem with here and there are some minor overlooked issues with the story... but in the new trek shows you get bombarded with obvious errors and stuff that simply does not make any sense.

The biggest problem I have with such stuff is that it does not only ruin the new trek... it also tries to ruin the old star trek.

In Episode 7 once more was claimed that Spock only became the man he was because of Burnham (a woman he actually barely knew and never ever mentioned).

Based on Discovery Spock would be a loser without her. It is totally impossible that he became the man he was because of his own experiences throughout his life (without Burnham).

And then there was this holo of Spock which was taken from an TNG episode and was claimed to be in Picards personal files. I assume accessing personal files of a starfleet admiral is possible to everyone. The word personal does somehow lose its meaning.

Worse than that is that the holo was edited to fit into the context of that episode... which you could interprete as Picard faking his logs and using spy drones to record high ranked federation diplomats. Not that there is much to destroy about Picards legacy since "Star Trek Picard".

What else was reveiled in Episode 7... oh yeah... already before the burn the federation almost ran out of dilithium.

+100 billion stars in the galaxy, most of them with planets, asteroids etc. and the ~300 federation worlds ran out of dilithium? Makes no sense.

It also makes no sense that the Vulcans think they are reason for the burn. Looks like they are complete idiots meanwhile.

Because... Burnham said no the vulcans are not the reason and Burnham always is right in that show. Dont the Vulcans know that?

Romulans and Vulcans united again on the Vulcan homeworld... cool.

But the romulan empire was very wide spread with many colony worlds. I doubt that that would be possible.

Star Trek online (also owned by CBS) has a problem now... since the Romulan Republic is doomed to die again.

Oh an something I once again cant understand is how burnham knows (and asks the admiral if he knows about it) about a vulcan project which did not even exist during her past time. Once more she pulled information out of her ass which she could not have known.

Hihoo ..... SWAT i read your Reviews about Discovery very interested , and yes you are right they make a lot of Mistakes at the series in look to the old Star trek, but so thats the way to make this today and reanimate old classic series , the Problem is they explain all what now happend in Session 3 with 920 Years Time Jump into Future all have changed all is new and have a lot of errors . for myself i give up to make thinking about it only look smile and chill about it .

So i read in future your Reviews they are very detailed and on Point. Thx a lot

Have a nice Sunday

I wonder how they explain that vulcan in the last episode had a moon.

You know... it never had before.

Maybe the romulans brought one when they moved to vulcan?

or its a death star

or they might have planet construction tec lol from master of orion

and i do like the snow effect you got going on op

didnt they moved to a new vulcan planet? as far as i remember vulcan has been destroyed from the romulans as spok missed to rescue the romulan main planet from a super novae. so does the new vulcan has a moon?

Thats from the 2009 movie. That would be the Kelvin timeline.

While I can not tell for sure I doubt that Discovery is in the Kelvin timeline it was stated to be the Vulcan homeworld that existed back when Burnham and Spock lived there. So it must be the original planet.

If it was the Kelvin timeline Burnham certainly would have noticed a difference between the planets. I would notice a difference if Earth all of a sudden is replaced.

I am giving the benefit of the doubt. In the 2009 movie Spock had to watch the destruction of Vulcan from a nearby planet... which apparently was close enough to display vulcan in the skies. I just dont think that another planet as close/big as displayed in Discovery is even possible. A moon on the other side... yes... that would be possible. The size of the shadow on Vulcans atmosphere is almost as big as the moon/planet itself so it must be ultra close.

Writers say Discovery is set in the prime timeline, not Kelvin.

I wish it was set in the Kelvin timeline though, seeing how they are treating canon.

not sure if they talk about the apple or the show itself