Paramount+ Star Trek: Discovery - Official Thread (1 Viewer)

[Philip Verdieck]

My understanding, such as it is, has been that the warp drive creates a field inside which a bubble of subspace is preserved in which normal matter/gravity/time/etc. continue to exist. Outside the bubble, space distorts/warps as it interacts with the field, with the space ahead contracting and the space behind expanding so that the bubble is perceived to be traveling many multitudes of the speed of light.

By contrast, impulse drives are basically fusion-powered rockets and provide actual propulsion rather than apparent propulsion. I think I read somewhere that full impulse power is roughly a quarter of the speed of light, or around 46,500 miles per second. At that speed, roughly 1.03 seconds would be perceived to have gone by for every 1 second aboard the starship -- roughly two extra seconds every minute. If a starship was traveling at full impulse for a full 24 hours, that would still only result in a roughly 48 minute discrepancy between the starship's time and the observed time. Starships on Trek shows tend to be traveling at full impulse for far less time than 24 hours, so the relativistic effects are so small as to be negligible. Presumably every time a starship comes out of warp in Federation space, it can contact a data source and recalibrate its internal clock with the objective accounting of time.

Well said. I forgot that TNG introduced (or showed use of) a starship synchronizing with a Federation Time Beacon (Cause and Effect).

I think Spock just did calculations against start charts or something in TOS (The Naked Time).

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

The fourth season has begun production:


In what has been a trying week for me, and I suspect many across the country, it's nice to have a new episode of "Discovery" to look forward to when I get home from work tomorrow.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

The big debate for me is always, 2am or so when it first appears, or wait until the following evening? I haven’t been consistent this year. Sometimes I wanna see it right away and other times I know I’ll enjoy it more if I’m not fighting sleep.

 

[Nelson Au]

I make it a regular time slot so I’m looking forward to it. At about 9:00pm Thursday night. . That’s also the day TNG or Voyager used to air IIRC.

 

[jayembee]

I'm usually up in the wee hours, and able to catch it when it becomes available at 3am (ET), but I typically use the time to watch movies or streaming series that my wife is unlikely to want to watch. She hasn't watched Discovery since the pilot (for lack of time rather than lack of interest), though she did watch the second episode of this season with me the other week. So I make it a point to watch each episode in the evening so that if she's not otherwise occupied (or goes to bed before I get around to queuing it up) she can watch it along with me.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

DISCUSSION AHEAD (AND POSSIBLE SPOILERS FOR):
3x04 - "Forget Me Not"​

One thing this season is doing incredibly well so far is telling compelling episodic plots that resolve by the end of the hour while also furthering the larger ongoing plot of the season. Adira integrating with the Tal symbiont is a really interesting one-and-done story, but the resolution of it points Discovery toward what's left of Starfleet.

I'm still in the middle of watching "Deep Space Nine" for the first time, and it's fascinating hopping between two such vastly different series that both have a prominent character who is joined to a Trill symbiont. And while this show has visited planets seen in the previous series, like Talos IV, the Caves of Mak'ala were the first time than I can recall that "Discovery" has gone to more or less the exact same location as one of the previous series. This episode did a good job maintaining continuity with those previous appearances while stepping up the production values from those previous appearances.

And the scene where Adira finally, properly joined with the Tal symbiont was thrilling to watch; much like the use of the Shining in Doctor Sleep, it was a really creative way to externalize and visualize an inherently internal and psychological process. And when Adira became acquainted with Tal's previous hosts, it was fun seeing a few different Starfleet uniforms from different centuries, including one host in a uniform from the "Picard" era:

Was it ever definitively established whether Trill was a member world of the Federation in the 24th century? It certainly had an improbably large number of Starfleet officers and Federation ambassadors for a non-member planet. Either way, the Burn has had a tremendous detrimental impact on the Trill as well: many of the joined Trill died in the burn, wiping out all of the combined knowledge from their symbionts in the process. At the same time, something has occurred which has dramatically depleted the population of humanoid Trill who would make viable hosts; whereas in the 24th century that are far more host candidates than available symbionts, in the 32nd century there aren't enough viable hosts for all of the remaining symbionts.

Elsewhere in the episode, the crew of Discovery is starting to grapple with the consequences of their impulsive decision to follow Burnham into the temporal anomaly. It was a great opportunity for Doctor Culber to make his presence felt as part of the ship's leadership team. McCoy, Crusher, Bashir, and Voyager's EMH were all major driving forces on the various earlier series. But Hugh Culber's journey in the first two seasons was so plot-driven that we didn't get much of a chance to see him operating as Chief Medical Officer. Wilson Cruz has such a warm, empathetic screen presence that it makes sense that he'd be the one playing the mother hen role when it comes to advocating for the crew's mental health. Culber has a wonderful way of being kind but also pointed.

I'm glad that the Sphere, rather than being a one-off MacGuffin to get Discovery into the distant future, appears to be an ongoing story element. When it chooses to interject itself into Discovery's computer it takes on a role more analogous to another member of the crew than a piece of the ship's hardware. Or perhaps Q is a better point of comparison: a vastly more powerful being with enigmatic but largely benevolent intentions.

 

[Johnny Angell]

Is the Sphere a “friendly” entity?

 

[joshEH]

^ Also, the starship's new female AI is the same one we saw aboard the abandoned Discovery (played by the same voice-actress, Annabelle Wallis) in the Short Treks episode "Calypso." So it looks like we're finally going to get some answers regarding how that episode connects with the current situation in this new season, and perhaps as to why the crew abandoned ship like they did.

 

[Nelson Au]

Forget Me Not was a pretty different episode. It had elements that are new and old. But was a much more inward episode.

Like Adam, I am in the midst of revisiting DS9. So having revisited the episode where Dax returns to the Homeward was good homework. I agree that the production value and overall design language of this series has been consistently high. It was cool to see the caves of Mak ‘ala updated but the same.

We learned a lot about Adira and her past and how she became a host. A pretty tragic story but she now has the love of her life back. I did wonder, as she did, now that Burnham got what she and the Discovery crew needed, the location of Starfleet command, what is Adria’s role now. I guess we will see as her past host is knowledgeable of what happened at the time of the Burn.

When the Discovery’s computer flickered and the voice changed, my first thoughts was, is it the Sphere. And then later in the hanger bay I was thinking, ok, they are really linking with Calypso. So at some point, the Discovery will be abandoned.

I really liked the B story and Detmer’s breakdown has finally come to the surface with force as Saru is trying to find a way to get the crew‘s morale up. It has been a shocking transition as all they knew is gone now. And it’s great to see Culber finally have a more inclusive role on the ship to help the crew. The dinner scene and the aftermath was great stuff.

There is one thing that is increasingly concerning. The way Georgiou is being written, seems less dimensional. She is just a bad-ass. And her skills proved helpful. The only good thing we’ve seen of her is her concern for Burnham. And I enjoyed the interrogation scene in the transporter room when she first meets Book and asks if he is her boyfriend. It was fun. I’m sure they have something cooked up for her. So we’ll see how she will fit in.

 

[jayembee]

I had felt (and thought I had mentioned it, but that might've been over at the Other Site) that Detmer's "issue" being getting infected by Control seemed too obvious, though I was perfectly happy to believe that the Powers That Be were intending us to infer that.

"Forget Me Not" seems to toss that idea away, though again, the Powers That Be might be intending us to infer that.

 

[Sean Bryan]

I’m watching on Friday nights. Makes a great double feature with The Mandalorian.

After how much I loved season 2 I didn’t think season 3 could measure up. But I’ve been loving what they are doing and how they are doing it. I’m really loving season 3.

 

[Museum Pieces]

When the computer on DSC glitched out and was clearly different, and the commander of the ship didn't stop and check what was up, or tell anyone, I kinda had a big problem with that. Command job one: safety of all hands. It put a pall over the dinner scene for me, which would have been ten times more powerful if I hadn't been questioning whether a malevolent force had taken over DSC. The writing on this show has been good this season but it's sometimes still so uneven for me.

My opinion of the Trill hit the crapper. Kinda a ho-hum episode.

 

[TJPC]

For the first time I really did not enjoy the show that much.
It wasn’t rotten, but not exciting. It really seemed just like an old re-run of TNG, DS9, or Voyager.

 

[Johnny Angell]

We learned a lot about Adira and her past and how she became a host. A pretty tragic story but she now has the love of her life back.

If I understand right she only has the symbiont part back. The Host is dead.

 

[Nelson Au]

Yes, the host died. But she now has access to her lover’s memories and thoughts that live in the symbiont. And Adria has his knowledge and skills to play the cello.

 

[Johnny Angell]

Yes, the host died. But she now has access to her lover’s memories and thoughts that live in the symbiont. And Adria has his knowledge and skills to play the cello.

If I were a Host, I died, the symbiont goes to another Host. The current host has MY memories. Am I alive? I’m thinking not. You’ve got a symbiont with the memories of the Hosts, but they are dead. IMHO.

Another example: my brain is uploaded to a computer and is “living” there. I die, my brain is dead. Who is alive? I think my twin is, but not me.

 

[Harry-N]

If I were a Host, I died, the symbiont goes to another Host. The current host has MY memories. Am I alive? I’m thinking not. You’ve got a symbiont with the memories of the Hosts, but they are dead. IMHO.

Another example: my brain is uploaded to a computer and is “living” there. I die, my brain is dead. Who is alive? I think my twin is, but not me.

Watch the DEEP SPACE NINE series for all of the ins and outs of Trills, hosts, symbionts.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

If I were a Host, I died, the symbiont goes to another Host. The current host has MY memories. Am I alive? I’m thinking not. You’ve got a symbiont with the memories of the Hosts, but they are dead. IMHO.

Another example: my brain is uploaded to a computer and is “living” there. I die, my brain is dead. Who is alive? I think my twin is, but not me.

It's complicated. The consciousness of each previous host is still "alive", but it's sort of on ice. Thee was an episode of DS9 where Jadzia Dax went through a ceremony where she got to interact with all of her symbiont's previous hosts. Not only did they remember everything from when they were physically alive, they also remembered everything from the previous times earlier hosts had summoned them during their turns having the same ceremony.

So that moment, in the mindspace, Adira and Michael were speaking with the previous hosts. But once they came out of the pool in the caves, all of the previous hosts, except apparently for Gray, went back into hibernation.

 

[Johnny Angell]

It's complicated. The consciousness of each previous host is still "alive", but it's sort of on ice. Thee was an episode of DS9 where Jadzia Dax went through a ceremony where she got to interact with all of her symbiont's previous hosts. Not only did they remember everything from when they were physically alive, they also remembered everything from the previous times earlier hosts had summoned them during their turns having the same ceremony.

So that moment, in the mindspace, Adira and Michael were speaking with the previous hosts. But once they came out of the pool in the caves, all of the previous hosts, except apparently for Gray, went back into hibernation.

That is probably the idea they have, however, I think my example of the computer is what happens. The Host is a separate entity and it’s consciousness is copied into the symbiotic. They can’t be taken from the Host, it is still living. So when the symbiont dies it’s memories are in the symbiont, but the Host, the original is dead. I believe the Host experiences death and the consciousness of the Host in the symbiont is like a later-born twin. It’s a different person.

All in a big IMHO.

 

[Johnny Angell]

Watch the DEEP SPACE NINE series for all of the ins and outs of Trills, hosts, symbionts.

We have just stated watching that from episode 1.