I suspect that the events of this latest episode of Discovery are going to prompt a lot of discussion amongst Trek fans. There are two plots going on here. There’s an A-plot that picks up threads from season two of Discovery and season one of Picard, along with the title-implied references to the arc Spock went on starting in TNG‘s “Unification” two-parter through to the 2009 movie. And then a B-plot about the new acting first officer on Discovery.
Let’s start with the B-plot, ’cause that’s the bit that’ll be more contentious. With Burnham’s demotion last week, Saru needs a new acting first officer to run the day-to-day of the ship until a more permanent Number One can be assigned.
Saru’s surprising choice is Tilly.
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This choice will, I’m sure, blow up the Internet, so let me start lighting the match here. In the abstract, this is a terrible choice, for reasons Tilly herself lays out to Saru: She’s only an ensign. She had just barely started her training on the command track last season, and will now never really finish it. There are several higher ranking, better qualified people to be second-in-command of the ship, and on the fact of it, this makes about as much sense as Cadet Kirk being suddenly made first officer in the 2009 Star Trek.
But I’m actually okay with this choice for two reasons, one in-universe, one out-of-universe.
If Discovery weren’t timelost, this would be insane. But if that were the case, new officers would be a dime a dozen and ready to jump in. However, Discovery isn’t in the 23rd century anymore, and they’re still strangers in a strange land. On top of that, Tilly has been the heart and soul of this crew, the moral center, the geekiest geek in a ship full of geeks. In a lot of ways, she’s the perfect person to run the day-to-day of this particular ship and this particular crew.
On top of that, I watched this episode while sitting on the couch with my wife, who, when Tilly was offered the position, and especially when the entire senior staff told her to say yes to it, was bouncing up and down on the couch and squeeing.
I’ve been with Wrenn for eleven years. This is the first time I’ve seen a TV show make her both bounce and squee.
And the reason why is because Tilly is her favorite character. Wrenn loves Tilly because she sees herself in the ensign: a plus-sized redhead who tends to talk to much, who doesn’t hide how smart she is, and who has often been slapped down by family for being too talkative and too smart. It is vanishingly rare for dramatic fiction to even acknowledge that plus-sized awkward smart women exist, and on those oh-so-few occasions, the character in question is almost always comic relief. And if you think this is an esoteric or tiny percentage of the population, then I question whether or not you’ve actually paid attention to the world, because trust me, such women are everywhere, and they’re often told to keep their mouths shut, told that their body type is not acceptable, and they shouldn’t act so publicly smart.
Tilly is a hero to my wife and a hero to these women, and I have absolutely no problem, none, with seeing her rewarded for it.
As for the A-plot, I suspect there will fewer issues there, because writer Kirsten Beyer (who, full disclosure, is a friend of your humble reviewer) beautifully weaves together threads from Trek‘s 23rd- and 24th-century past into a compelling 32nd-century storyline.
Burnham has been afraid to read up on Spock’s past since gaining access to Starfleet records, but now she learns that he spent the last decade or so of his life on a long-term mission to reunite the Vulcan and Romulan people. (In a nice touch, Saru and Burnham—who are from a time before it was commonly known that Romulans are a Vulcan offshoot, as that didn’t become public until the original series’ “Balance of Terror,” which took place eight years after Discovery popped into the future—are completely gobsmacked by this.)
And, as Spock himself predicted in “Unification II” to Picard—a declaration that Burnham encounters in the logs of Admiral Jean-Luc Picard, to whom Spock said those words—it would probably take decades, if not centuries, for his efforts to bear fruit. But by the 32nd century, they have done so. The planet Vulcan has been renamed Ni’Var, and Vulcans and Romulans share the world.
Things are not in perfect harmony, though, as the peace between the Vulcans and Romulans is tenuous. On top of that is another revelation that stuns Saru and Burnham: Ni’Var is no longer part of the Federation. At least part of why they aren’t relates to SB-19, a project that has data regarding the Burn, but which also—so Ni’Var claims—establishes that SB-19 caused the Burn.
The problem is that Burnham and Tilly have triangulated the three black boxes they do have. It’s not enough to pinpoint the Burn’s center precisely, but they are quite certain that it’s nowhere near The Planet Formerly Known As Vulcan. And so Discovery travels to Ni’Var because they have the one thing that might get the Vulcans and Romulans to talk to the Federation again: Ambassador Spock’s long-lost sister.
There are so many fantastic moments in this episode, but my absolute favorite is when Burnham watches the footage of Spock talking to Picard from “Unification II” and seeing the huge grin of sibling pride on her face. Knowing that her brother lived a long and fruitful life, culminating in a batshit crazy long-term mission that he knew he wouldn’t live to see fulfilled fills her with a nearly incandescent joy, and it’s so delightful to see.
Burnham is also able to use her knowledge of Vulcan traditions, having been raised with them, to invoke the T’Kal-in-ket. This is so perfectly Vulcan, a ritual from Surak’s time that has the same trappings as the other ancient Vulcan rituals we’ve seen, but one specifically designed to air scientific arguments before a council of three.
Best of all is that the 32nd-century version has adapted to the new Vulcan-Romulan unification by having the speaker to the council have an advocate who comes from the Qowat Milat. One of many nifty aspects of Romulan culture that was established in the first season of Picard (which was co-created by Beyer), the Qowat Milat is an order of women who are dedicated to absolute candor and who pledge themselves to lost causes.
That isn’t even the best part, because Burnham’s relationship with Spock isn’t the only callback to season two of Discovery: The Qowat Milat sent to be Burnham’s advocate is none other than Gabrielle Burnham. Yes, we finally find out what happened to Burnham’s Mom when she went back to the future in “Perpetual Infinity.”
It’s never a bad thing to see Sonja Sohn in anything, and she once again is superb as Gabrielle. She magnificently fulfills her role as advocate, as Qowat Milat, and as Michael’s mother, primarily by getting Burnham to admit that she’s flawed and conflicted and having trouble adjusting to life in the future. This has two benefits: It gets Burnham to realize that Discovery is where she belongs despite the issues she’s had readjusting to life aboard ship over the past several episodes, and it impresses President T’Rina enough that she provides the SB-19 data after initially refusing.
Not that T’Rina’s initial refusal wasn’t warranted. As seen in the squabbling among the three members of the council (played perfectly by Oliver Becker with passion, Stephanie Belding with caution, and Emmanuel Kabongo with spectacularly snotty arrogance), Ni’Var’s peace and harmony is tenuous at best. As T’Rina herself says, Burnham’s inquiry risks tearing open old wounds that have barely healed.
I really hope we see more of Ni’Var, mostly because I want to see more of T’Rina, played with amazing gravitas by Tara Rosling. Her conversations with Saru stand out as brilliant in an episode that’s already full of great conversations, as captain and president make a connection that bespeaks future mending of fences between the Federation and Ni’Var. More than the spore drive, more than a crew that was willing to sacrifice everything to save the galaxy, more than the brilliance of Tilly, Reno, Stamets, and the rest, more than Detmer’s superlative piloting skills, Discovery‘s greatest asset is Saru. He embodies everything that is best about the Federation in a two-meter-tall, really skinny form. His superlative work here with T’Rina is the heart and soul of an episode that is already overstuffed with both those things.
This may be the best episode of Discovery yet, a brilliant extrapolation of the future built on a foundation of what was established in the past.
Keith R.A. DeCandido‘s next novel is Animal, a thriller he wrote with Dr. Munish K. Batra, about a serial killer who targets people who harm animals. It’s now available for preorder, and if you preorder it directly from WordFire Press, you get a free urban fantasy short story by Keith.
And it occurred to me while watching that the source of that recording of Spock from Unification probably literally came from Picard’s memories as they were downloaded and transferred and probably copied in the last season of Picard.
With thanks to Allyn Gibson on Twitter: Ni’Var is a callback both to the short story “The Thousandth Man” by Claire Gabriel in the 1976 anthology Star Trek: The New Voyages, where the term is said to refer to the duality of things; and to the Enterprise episode “Shadows of P’Jem,” where a ship was named Ni’Var, which episode writer Mike Sussman said was a tribute to that story. Given the definition in the Gabriel story, it’s likely that the choice was informed by that story, which is just delightful.
—-Keith R.A. DeCandido
“Ni’Var” is quite a deep cut into fan lore. “Ni Var” (no apostrophe) was the title of a story by Claire Gabriel in the 1976 Bantam anthology Star Trek: The New Voyages, a story in which Spock was split into his human and Vulcan halves in a process based on Kirk’s “The Enemy Within” transporter accident. The story defined the term as meaning “the two who are one,” so it’s fitting here.
This was a good one that shows the advantage of jumping the show so far into the future, allowing the payoff of long-term arcs like Vulcan/Romulan reunification, as well as allowing real transformation in the universe. The idea of Vulcans and Romulans coming together on one planet is full of potential that I’d love to see explored in the novels. It’s also a nice payoff to the movie/Picard arc of the Romulans losing their homeworld, which might have helped nudge them toward returning to their ancestral homeworld.
I have my quibbles with the debate ritual, though. In principle, I love the idea of a Vulcan ritual that’s about rigorous scientific debate; it makes so much more sense for their culture than a ritual fight to the death with pointy sticks. But the problem is that in the execution, there wasn’t a shred of actual science discussed. It was all about politics and personal motives and so on. Sure, I get that a deep dive into math and physics wouldn’t have been that dramatic for most viewers, but it would’ve been nice if the ritual had at least slightly resembled what it was described to be.
It was also a lovely touch to show footage of Leonard Nimoy from “Unification II” and tie the series firmly in with both TOS and TNG. Hopefully it will quell some of the noise from viewers who still delude themselves into thinking that DSC is set in the Kelvin timeline or some alternate timeline of its own. I do wonder where they got the footage, though, since the scene took place in a cavern on Romulus. The only logical possibility is that Data recorded it with his own eyes and ears and downloaded his memory at some point before his death.
So how many series did this tie together? Discovery. TOS with “Balance of Terror.” TNG with “Unification.” Picard with the Qowat Milat. Something from every era, just about.
That final shot of Book’s ship in the shuttlebay… how the heck do the shuttles get past it? It’s blocking the whole exit!
There are so many fantastic moments in this episode, but my absolute favorite is when Burnham watches the footage of Spock talking to Picard from “Unification II” and seeing the huge grin of sibling pride on her face. Knowing that her brother lived a long and fruitful life, culminating in a batshit crazy long-term mission that he knew he wouldn’t live to see fulfilled fills her with a nearly incandescent joy, and it’s so delightful to see.
Yeah, with the time travel setup of Season Three, I’d been wondering if that aspect of Spock’s legacy was gonna get touched on. It’s one of the biggest unresolved storylines of the TNG era (though, as you pointed out, the very nature of it meant it would never be fulfilled in that time period).
So I’m just as delighted as you that the “Unification” long game did pan out. It’s quintessential Trek: The enemies of today can become the friends of tomorrow.
Kudos to Beyer for seamlessly weaving together all those threads from the 23rd and 24th centuries. It was a really clever way for DSC to ‘sneak in’ Nimoy’s Spock, too.
Ni’var is a Vulcan word, btw, that comes originally from the fanon. It was coined by Dorothy Jones Heydt as part of the Vulcan conlang she created for a Star Trek fanzine, and means something like two contrasting things that are part of a bigger whole, which makes it perfect for the name of the reunited Vulcan/Romulan planet. It was also used in Enterprise as the name of a Vulcan ship. (Nivar is also the name of a cyclone that just hit India today, making the airing of this episode bad timing, but that’s obviously not Discovery’s fault).
For some reason, there’s a moderation delay in posting comments on this thread, so I’m having fun reading all these comments that were written with no knowledge of anyone else’s comments, so we keep saying the same things over and over. :D
Or almost the same things. I’ve never seen Claire Gabriel’s “Ni Var” referred to as “The Thousandth Man” before. It’s certainly not called that in my copy.
@1/Steven: I’d forgotten about Picard’s transformation, but I don’t buy that as the source of the memory. At the time of “Unification II,” Picard still had a merely human brain, so Spock’s speech would not have been recorded in his memory with such exact fidelity. Data is the more likely witness.
To add to the chorus, the word ni var goes all the way back to the very first Star Trek fanzine in 1967. It was originally an art motif, e.g. a poem. A definition and some examples can be found here.
@6/Christopher: “The Thousandth Man” is a different version of the same story. You can find it and an explanation of the different versions here.
Christopher: the original fanfic novella that Gabriel cut down to short story size for the anthology had that title. My mistake. Blame Thanksgiving prep…..
As for Picard, keep in mind that he also mind melded with Spock…..
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
This was a nice episode, I liked that Star Trek can allow itself to have an entire episode that is people talking in rooms, with scientific and political stakes. Yes, I would have rather it didn’t revolve around Michael’s emotional turmoil, but I liked that it finally resolved her quandary about staying in Starfleet or not.
And when Michael invoked T’Kal-in-ket, I knew it was to be an epic science rap battle… well, it was more emotional than that, but still. Saru’s rapport with President T’Rina was very welcome, and I want more (I find it funny that I was comparing her in my head to President Roslin from BSG, and the actress’s last name is Rosling).
Of course, seeing the Vulcans and Romulans united was nice, even more since it’s not a perfect, happy union, but a credible one. At least it brought hairstyle diversity to the planet. It was also lovely to see and hear Nimoy, and to see elements from Picard.
As for Tilly as first officer, I absolutely adore the character, but I don’t think she’s the right choice, and it’s being done because she’s the only main character that can take the spot for plot reasons. From an in-universe point of view, I can at least understand Saru’s decision to have a compliant XO (and he sidestepped that question nicely), but at the same time, someone who the whole crew loves.
Just another wonderful, lovely episode of Discovery in a season that keeps on giving. One could say that “it had everything”: Vulcans, Romulans, Spock, Book, Grudge, Michael’s mom, a mention of Picard, Leonard Nimoy, Tilly getting promoted and celebrated by her friends, tie-ins to TOS, TNG, Picard, and the previous season of DSC, and Michael deciding to stay on Discovery.
Regarding the latter point, I’m kinda glad I had come across comments on this forum alluding to hearing that Michael was going to leave Starfleet and myself believing that to the extent that I was pleasantly surprised that it was revealed that she would end up staying. From the sneak preview scenes of this episode and in particular of Tilly and Michael hugging, I really had thought we would be seeing Michael leaving the ship and going off on adventures with Book. So if Sonequa was intentionally misdirecting fans in interviews she was giving then congratulations to her on the deception!
I enjoy how we’ve been visiting important worlds of Star Trek in this far future setting: Earth, Trill, and now Vulcan (Ni’Var). It makes me wonder if in the next six episodes we’ll see the home worlds of other well-known races. Bajor perhaps? I would personally squee if we see a shot of the Bajoran Wormhole (Celestial Temple).
Looks like next episode we get more definitive information on what caused the Burn and if it was something naturally occurring or purposefully directed by someone or something or maybe even an accident; as well as more stuff going on with Georgiou.
Speaking of tying together different incarnations of STAR TREK, note the reference to the U.S.S. Yelchin, presumably a tribute to the late Anton Yelchin, who played Chekov in the Kelvin movies.
Over on Memory Alpha, the talk page on the “Vulcan (planet)” article already has a debate about whether to rename it “Ni’Var (planet).”
I really, really hope those fans who expect this season to get erased by time travel at the end are wrong — or rather, I hope I’m not wrong to assume they’re completely off base. We need more time to explore the aftermath of Vulcan/Romulan reunification. Not to mention that this episode shows the value of being able to use all of Trek continuity freely.
Hey, I just thought of something. This episode seems to prove that the second season’s ludicrous “the very existence of Discovery and everyone who served on it is classified now” ending didn’t stick. Michael Burnham’s name and her relationship to Spock are part of the historical record, well-known to the people of Ni’Var. That’s a relief.
Also, it’s interesting that DSC is using Michael Westmore’s ridged-forehead design for Romulans, even though Picard went back to making them indistinguishable from Vulcans. I guess it suited the narrative needs of this story, serving as an easy visual cue for the audience to distinguish between Vulcan, Romulan, and “Romulo-Vulcan” characters.
Does anyone have contact with Claire Gabriel to see what she thinks of Ni’Var being used in canon?
@12/CLB: That’s not accurate in regards to Picard not showing Romulans with the TNG forehead ridge design. We saw both kinds there. In fact, Picard’s Romulan housekeeper makes it a point to refer to the ridged-Romulans as stubborn Northerners, thus explaining their differing appearances due to geographical variation.
@14,
In fact, Picard’s Romulan housekeeper makes it a point to refer to the ridged-Romulans as stubborn Northerners, thus explaining their differing appearances due to geographical variation.
Yeah, that was a nice way of reconciling the TOS and TNG-era Romulan makeup. A quick, simple fix.
Actually, does anyone know why Michael Westmore changed the Romulan makeup for the TNG-era? I’ve always wondered.
@14/garreth: Oh, yes, that’s right. Still, IIRC, the “Northern” makeup on PIC looked subtler than on TNG or here.
THIS plus-sized awkward smart woman loves Tilly, but my favorite Discovery character is Saru, because Saru IS the Federation.
I liked the episode overall, but I found it totally reprehensible that Beyer tried to give Burnham credit for who Spock turned out to be. The writers have been having Michael ride Spock’s coattails since the beginning of this series, and now they’re trying to tell us that HE rode HER coattails?! That’s not just untrue; it’s flat-out insulting to Spock, to Kirk, and to the rest of the Enterprise’s crew.
@17/Corylea: I don’t see any insult. Obviously any person is going to be shaped by many influences throughout their life. Acknowledging that a sibling played an important role in shaping them in childhood does not in any way detract from the influence of their friends, teachers, and comrades in adult life. On the contrary, it’s just common sense.
@16/CLB: I just rewatched a scene from the third episode of Picard, the scene where Picard and his Romulan housekeeper interrogates the Romulan that tried to kill him and the latter Romulan has very prominent forehead ridges.
It’s good that Krad points out the other kind of diversity that Discovery has excelled in and hasn’t been discussed as much: body type. People are so used to slim and athletic figures being depicted on not just Star Trek, but film and TV and general so it’s nice to see a plus-size person on the cast in the form of Mary Wiseman. It’s especially rare to see that for women in media because there’s still a double standard and often men get a pass for being considered overweight but the same usually doesn’t go for women. Those catsuits on TNG and VOY and ENT would be very unforgiving!
@11/Greg Cox: Good catch about the U.S.S. Yelchin! That’s a pretty sweet call out to the late actor BUT did the writers have to make it a ship that got destroyed? :o(
I generally liked this. The carry through of threads from the past is well done, it’s a nice continuation of something you could never have seen without Discovery‘s near-millenial jump. I found it a particularly nice touch to be that it’s the Romulans, not the Vulcans, who are better disposed to the Federation. A couple of little touches I like too. Stamets’ wee smile as he uses Adira’s new interface for the drive, or that the Starfleeters at the ritual stood up in support as Burnham left. Vance is turning out to be a respectable authority figure.
On to quibbles. Saru’s faith in the Federation is nice, but I’d kind of like to see a bit more of what created that faith in this new time, to see Starfleet fighting the good fight. My issue with the Tilly thing is that they never did the work for it. I like the character, and this was the direction they’d pointed her since the beginning, but they didn’t really do the set it up to have it make sense for me. I guess I just wish they’d taken a bit more time on it.
I’d seen the Burnham quitting Starfleet theory around and the fact that it, like pretty much most such theories this season, was torpedoed by the next episode is sort of satisfying. It demonstrates a greater degree of cohesiveness than in seasons 1+2, the advantage of them not having all the behind the scenes drama this time.
@10:
I would personally squee if we see a shot of the Bajoran Wormhole (Celestial Temple).
Yeah, I’d love to see the Wormhole rendered with modern CGI, too.
Though, I doubt the venerable, old Terok Nor is still in operation, let alone intact…heh, but we can hope, can’t we?
I realize that this is a crazy bizarre thing to say, but did anyone else detect the office charts sexual chemistry between the fabulous Vulcan president T’Rina and Saru? They were having a coolly formal yet charming flirtation and I am here for it.
@17 No. That’s not what they’re saying at all.
I lost my sister last year, and the statement, or more accurately the question, you refer to hit me like a ton of bricks. For the first time in this series, I felt that establishing Michael as Spock’s sister was an important detail, rather than a contrived bit of fanservice.
Asking how much of the man Spock became was a product of who his sister was does not imply he was riding her coattails. Rather, it points out that his relationship to Michael helped to shape his values and ethics.
@22: Terek Nor could be maintained as a museum because why not?!?
@21 My issue with the Tilly thing is that they never did the work for it
Huh. I thought the team were laying pipe for it since episode 2. It was clear that Saru saw potential in Tilly in that episode and it was just as clear he was adopting her as a protege. There was greater need for it back then, with no Federation back up, but unearthing potential is clearly a charge a captain must take on, even in modern Earth organizations.
@3 Yes, there was little science involved in the debate, but the reason for withholding the data was never really scientific in the first place. And a complete and comprehensive challenge would, by necessity, tough upon those political matters and would have to cover them thoroughly, or the ritual would lose much of its bite. And the inclusion of the Qowat Milat seems natural and easy, which suggests to me that the way of absolute candor served a parallel purpose that they easily took over.
Besides…I’m not so sure that science can be that easily divested from political matters in the first place; it has a habit of becoming entangled in one big messy ball….
@23: Lady: are you saying diplomatic meetings can be charged with sexual tension? :p
No, it’s not a crazy idea. Commenters elsewhere have latched onto the notion. I think Saru, in his calm and measured way, had as much, if not more, to do with getting the sensor data than the histrionics in Michael’s inquiry.
Mama Burnham popping up was once again an example of “this is a small world after all.” I like the characters involved, as well as the actors portraying them, but the storytelling sometimes boils down to “Michael has to handle this because she’s the protagonist.”
It also accounts for something like Tilly being made XO. Both character and actress are immensely likeable, but the choice comes down to “who’s the next most familiar character to the audience.” The crew telling her to say “yes” was a pure rom com moment. Nothing in what we’ve seen so far, aside from her Mirror Captain Killy version, suggests she has executive potential. Much will depend with how this plot element will be developed.
Mary Wiseman kills it as Killy in STO. She gets more dialogue in the game than on the show, it seems. There are two missions where the mirror Discovery crosses over near Pahvo and she attempts to use the Spire there as as a telepathic WMD by corrupting it with agonizer tech. There’s a Vulcan advisor on your crew that is almost hilariously deadpan. He out-Spock’s Spock in his reserve. His homicidal rage once he picks up the corruption to the crystals is shocking.
Good episode, good worldbuilding. I want more. It was a missed opportunity not asking about Romulan singularity drives.
Last quibble: The Federation was supposedly overextended and running low on dilithium supplies before the Burn. The scaling of that is still way off. A galactic power that straddles the Alpha and Beta Quadrants, yet has only 350 members at its peak. Vance has a line or two about them looking into alternative means of travel, such as the Vulcan wormhole project. This is over a span of centuries when such alternatives should’ve been developed. With billions of stars and worlds within the Federation Expanse :)), the story is too often small scale.
The moment the line was delivered that Michael had influenced Spocks development I could hear the sound of a million keyboards being hammered.
But I’m curious there has been zero discussion so far that this episode basically said that every one (thinks) they know the cause of the Burn already. The big mystery was never a mystery at all according to this episode. Obviously we know it’s going to turn out to be something different, but this was a complete 180 on what’s been established previously this season.
It bugs me that Discovery has diplomatic episodes but the crew never seem to wear dress uniform!
@29: I’m not so sure there’s been a contradiction. It was previously been stated by Vance that there were a number of different theories as to the cause of the Burn. And then in this episode it’s revealed that the people of Ni’Var think their pursuit of a new way of starship travel caused the Burn. That doesn’t mean the rest of the Federation agrees with Ni’Var’s theory. So it’s only Ni’Var acting like they know for sure.
I was charmed by the DS9 reference to self-sealing stem bolts.
Moving Tilly out of engineering makes room for Adira, and the developing friendship between Adira and Stamets.
I like Tilly. But she isn’t first officer material and no serious organization would shove her into that role even if other officers on the ship said it was ok. Its straight up fan service.
@33/ragnar: DS9 did the same, and then some — like having Odo, Kira, and Garak on the Defiant bridge crew and having Rom and Nog do the bulk of the engineering stuff, ignoring the fact that there were theoretically dozens of qualified Starfleet officers on the station who should’ve been filling those roles. At least Tilly is actually within the Starfleet chain of command, which is more than any of those characters could say.
At least Tilly is an actual Starfleet officer and not the teenage son of the captain’s love interest.
@33 Hm. That sounds like “Actor A is obviously so not. correct for this particular role and no serious production would consider casting them there”
Sometimes this is correct. Other times, it isn’t. That’s because someone saw hidden potential in a person and took steps to develop that. Sometimes that involves forcing them out of their comfort zone to develop that potential.
If that happens in real life, I see no reason why that can’t happen in a scripted show.
I’m female, smart, highly verbal, neuro-atypical and used to be plus sized but Tilly annoys be unbearably. To febrile, she jangles my nerves. Apparently she doesn’t have that affect on the crew so fine.
In any case, it’s not fan service at all. Fans of Tilly are happy to have her as a science/engineering nerd, and I’d say (as a fan of her), I would rather have her being a techie.
This is “production / writing staff service”. They have the actress as part of the main cast, they shunt her into the first officer role even if the in-universe justification is flimsy.
First on a macro level- this season of Discovery has been a masterpiece start to finish. While this episode doesn’t have the same emotional impact as a “Forget Me Not” (which was a beautiful hour of television) this was a masterpiece of storytelling- a 32nd century Sci-Fi West Wing. It tied in our two major plots of the season (rebuilding the Federation and the identity of Michael Burnham) while tying in cannon from multiple series and fan service brilliantly and seamlessly. It also did a nifty trick of world building. We know who the Vulcans are and what their home planet is- now we’ve recreated them in such a way that I want to go back and learn about them.
As far as Tilly goes- I don’t hate it. The show acknowledged the cons argument and there’s certainly a point about there are more senior officers available, BUT it’s also consistent with what we know of Starfleet- rank and position are separate. We saw LaForge be put in command during “Arsenal of Freedom”, Worf be second in command during “Gambit” and Chief O’Brien be the head of operations despite not being officers. So while I expect there is going to be the inevitable plot point of Tilly messing up (and long term I expect we’ll get a 32nd century officer to join the cast) it works right now
@38/MaGnUs: I see it more as building on the Saru/Tilly rapport that was on display so beautifully in the “walking to town” scene in episode 2 of the season. If two actors have good chemistry, the writers want to put them together more often.
@34 / CLB:
DS9 did the same, and then some — like having Odo, Kira, and Garak on the Defiant bridge crew and having Rom and Nog do the bulk of the engineering stuff, ignoring the fact that there were theoretically dozens of qualified Starfleet officers on the station who should’ve been filling those roles.
Right. I know you have to take dramatic license into account and the need to utilize the Main Cast.
That said, I do remember the instances of Kira commanding the Defiant irked me. Kira commanding the Station in Sisko’s absence was one of thing. That at least was completely justified by DS9 being under the jurisdiction of the Bajoran military, but also being co-administered with Starfleet.
The Defiant on the other hand was under Starfleet’s jurisdiction and so Kira, a Bajoran Milita office, commanding that is a much different matter than her piloting a Runabout.
Having the Defiant being under Worf’s command in Sisko’s absence from Season Four onward (or Dax’s) at least solved this in-story.
@40 – Chris: Yes, agreed, they have good chemistry. That is still part of what I’m saying, the writers and producers working to their own advantage, not necessarily as fan service.
As someone with a doctorate in English Literature, I was so excited that we were going to get a Space Viva episode!
Alright, it was a bit more like a courtroom drama, with the advocate and the audience. But still pretty cool that I went through that ‘verbal examination of your hypothesis’ ritual just like Burnham.
Everyone’s thinking “thesis defense/courtroom drama” and all I could think when Michael issued the challenge was “Vulcan Nerd Fight.” ;)
A great episode of this brand new genre of cry-fi but a horrible episode otherwise: a lot of teary emotion; a vulcan ritual, T’Kal-in-ket, that was made up one the spot. Instead of logic and reasoning that was supposed to the crux of that very ritual we get one sulking Vulcan teenager throwing a temper tantrum definitely without any logic or reason. Romulans and Vulcans still don’t manage to get along very well even after hundreds of years after unification. More emotion, clearly between these two supposedly logical people. Oh, really!
We know Burnham is not going to get the burn data via the ritual (so poorly executed) but was also know she gets it in the end. But only in the very end and not before. Proper analysis and action (hey, one can dream) waits for another episode where nothing really happens.
So, no, there was stuff for maybe half the episode. It is as if this season is elongated and spread thin in order to fill as much time as possible. I would like to think that we are still living in a peak television period, where show runners and writers can weave an interesting and complex story and not waste their and our time.
@@@@@ 26: I would have preferred if they’d shown Tilly succeeding in a leadership position before they dropped her in as the XO. They haven’t shown why she should have that job other than she’s Saru’s protégé and she has the ambition to be a captain someday. Being an excellent science-techie and loved by all doesn’t make you automatically suited for being the boss, so I’d have liked them to show the growth Tilly’s experienced.
But this was a quibble, not a major complaint.
Starfleet officers are apparently totally interchangeable.
McCoy knows enough about weapons to help Spock modify a torpedo.
Uhura and Rand both manned navigation.
LaForge went from Conn to chief engineer
O’Brien went from tactical to conn to transporter chief to chief of operations.
Kelvin Kirk became a captain while a cadet (the Lt. rank was just for the mission)
After Kelvin Scotty quit, Kelvin Chekov became chief engineer.
Reno managed to keep a bunch of people alive with no medical training.
And let’s not forget that most science officers don’t have a specialty but know everything about all sciences.
It’s not about story logic, it’s about who your stars are.
I’m sure there’s some that I’ve missed.
@41/Mr. Magic: “Having the Defiant being under Worf’s command in Sisko’s absence from Season Four onward (or Dax’s) at least solved this in-story.”
Not really, since they still had the same crew on both the station and the Defiant. What they ideally should’ve done was to establish a distinct supporting cast as the Defiant bridge crew. Given what a large supporting ensemble the show had anyway, it’s surprising they never bothered.
@48:
What they ideally should’ve done was to establish a distinct supporting cast as the Defiant bridge crew. Given what a large supporting ensemble the show had anyway, it’s surprising they never bothered.
Huh.
You know, that’s actually a good point. I think the closest they ever came to recurring crew aboard the Defiant was Muniz — and even that only last 3 episodes before his death during “The Ship”.
First things first – YES, YES, THRICE YES Cap’n Saru and the President of Ni’Var have so much chemistry bubbling up between them that I all but giggled at his last “Madame President” (“You Kelpian rascal you!” were my actual thoughts); the Ni’vari did seem a trifle more emotive (or at least more comfortable with open displays of emotion) than one would expect from the Heirs of Surak, but given the ongoing Romulan influence (and the shining example of Mr Spock) that’s perhaps unsurprising.
Honestly, this episode makes me hope that STAR TREK PICARD will have time to take a trip to Vulcan; while one would love to see Season 2 of the show give us a more in-depth look at Romulan space (Remans are viable protagonists too!), hopefully allowing us a look at the diversity to be found there, it would be interesting to see how the first generation of Romulan immigrants to Vulcan (post-Hobus) began to influence and be influenced by their new home.
Oh, and I’m not going to lie to you, dear reader: My first thought on hearing Commander Burnham invoke some previously unknown Vulcan ceremony was to wonder how much axe-murder might be involved (and since one was hoping the answer would be “Little to none”) I’m quite relieved that none was necessary – although seeing a forum for scientific debate hijacked by politics & dogma is saddening, but horribly credible.
By the way, Mr Bennett, it’s not unfair to note that Death-duels make little sense under the Philosophy of Vulcan Logic, but given that Logic is not a quality expressed during the Pon-farr, it’s perhaps unsurprising that a duel to the death with pointy sticks would be preferred to an actual violent rampage: it’s a concession of culture to anatomy (should that be physiology?), as it were.
As for Ensign Tilly becoming XO Tilly (or rather acting-XO Tilly), I’m not unhappy with this development on the understanding that it’s work experience rather than a permanent assignment: as Captain Saru notes, he’s still looking for a full-time replacement (and I like the idea that the Good Captain is artful enough to take this opportunity to give his protege a taste for command by giving her command experience).
Assuming the eventual candidate will be an outsider – or, as I prefer, just another Starfleet officer we haven’t met yet – it’s not actually a bad idea for the acting XO to be someone whom Saru can slide out without having to worry about any “This is OUR ship and MY time!” Bad Energy; an outsider is also easier to swallow if they’re a replacement for a promising rookie rather than someone taking the place of an insider who can provably hold the role AND the rank.
Finally, in terms of revisiting Old Acquaintances in the 32nd Century, what I’d really love to see in Season 4 is a mission to the Klingon Homeworld; there’s been a communications blackout for the past fifty years or so, almost nobody in that neighbourhood wants anything to do with the Federation anymore, there’s some Bad Stuff going down (not just a single-episode threat, a season-spanning plot) and Starfleet is having kittens contemplating the possibility of the Empire being hauled back up out of the shadows of History once more, NCC-1031-A is (as one would expect) painfully on edge as it drops out of Cosmic Fungus Space, their first hails are greeted by silence broken by the chattering of teeth as the biggest, meanest looking Klingon warbird one can imagine drops its cloak and issues it’s challenge …
“This is Captain Mogh, son of Martok of the Federation Starship K’Ehleyr; identify yourself!”
If nothing else, it would be a nice subversion of expectations for the Klingons to be numbered amongst the Federation die-hards.
Two observations:
First, I’m astonished about all the fuss regarding Tilly’s field promotion being unjustified. Was no one watching the discussion between Saru and Tilly in “Scavengers” in which it’s Tilly who demonstrates extraordinary maturity and judgment in explaining why Saru must play by the new 32nd-century rulebook in his discipline of Michael? That scene right there is clearly laying groundwork for the promotion here; it demonstrates that Tilly, more than anyone else in the nominal command crew (and even as an ensign, she has been an effective part of that command crew for quite some time now), has perhaps a better sense than anyone else aboard of the balance Discovery must maintain between its status as a ship out of time and its new role as Starfleet’s most wide-ranging interstellar agent.
Yes, there are also several (very good) out-of-universe reasons to put Mary Wiseman into that position. But from my viewpoint, it’s absolutely not a surprise after the scene from “Scavengers”.
Second, as regards Vulcan and Romulan rituals and the T’Kal-in-ket; the specific form may be new, but we’ve seen one of its antecedents onscreen before, in the Romulan Right of Statement as invoked by Spock in “The Enterprise Incident”. And I strongly suspect that the present script’s writers were also taking cues for that sequence from two of Diane Duane’s Rihannsu novels: The Romulan Way, in which we see McCoy invoke the Right of Statement itself to excellent effect on the floor of the Romulan Senate, and Spock’s World, in which a series of formal debates ensues when a movement arises advocating Vulcan’s secession from the Federation. We see Kirk, McCoy, and Sarek take the floor in the latter story, again to excellent effect (although it’s again McCoy who gets to spring the most dramatic twist). The point here is that Vulcans and Romulans alike have been settling disputes for millennia via essentially talking them to death; the T’Kal-in-ket is merely another instance of the broader principle.
@50: …or the Klingons of the 32nd century have long been a member of the Federation by then. A nice through line harkening all the way back to Worf being the first Klingon to join Starfleet.
Very often in science, and frequently in the military, someone will be given great organizational responsibility at a junior level because the rest of the staff is simply too valuable in their specialized roles.
However, as Tilly has said on the show, “Everyone is smart here.” I don’t think what people like about Tilly is that she’s smart, it’s that she’s unfiltered and maintains a sense of childlike wonder about the world. That’s culturally very unusual for trained scientists and engineers. Tilly is an “everyman,” she’s a stand in for the audience. To see her succeeding amidst all these more typical science type personalities implies that you don’t need to have that same world-weary view we’re used to, and maybe all that training really isn’t necessary either.
I would definitely put Tilly in the “XO” role here. Tilly is a decent choice for an XO because she is expendable. Take her out of Engineering, and things will still move on. She will take direction and suggestion from experienced tacticians such as Burnham and Georgiou. She’s popular with the bridge crew, and the core function of the ship (the scientific staff) will trust her more than putting one of the more military bridge crew over them.
Tilly becoming the XO reminded me of CJ becoming the Chief of Staff. They’re both done because of casting issues, and they’re about equally implausible.
@50. ED: maybe Ni’Var needs a Vulcan Freud to come along and tell them about what happens when you suppress emotion for too long. What’s Vulcan for “Return of the Repressed”? Or maybe they already know because of Pon farr rituals. Then they’d need a Vulcan Jung to teach them about integration. Too bad Betazed is so far away.
Klingons, New Romulans, and the Federation are in a formal Alliance in the 25th century of STO. Although there are still tensions and relapses into conflicts, especially with the current storyline of a corrupt Klingon Chancellor, they recognize the need for unity to confront bigger threats, like the Iconians or the Hur’q. So I like your scenario quite a bit.
@50/ED: “(post-Hobus)”
“Hobus” was an invention of the IDW comics, adopted by Star Trek Online. Thanks to Picard, we now know that it was actually the Romulans’ own sun that went supernova. I suppose it’s conceivable that its name could be Hobus (ugh), but that’s not how the comic depicted it.
And yes, I know the in-story rationale behind pon farr, of course. But my point is that it’s not very representative of modern Vulcan culture. We’ve seen so many ancient Vulcan rituals from the Time of the Beginning, steeped in savagery and mysticism, that it’s a refreshing change of pace to see a modern Vulcan ritual that represents who they are now rather than what they were in ancient times. Or at least, it would’ve been if it had actually been the scholarly exercise it was advertised as rather than a group therapy session for Burnham.
As for the Klingons, someone on another board suggested they should be pacifists now. I think that’s a wonderful idea, or at least something along those lines. A culture can change enormously in 900 years, yet so far we’ve only seen minor changes to the cultures we’ve encountered. Vulcan-Romulan reunification is the biggest one, yet there are only subtle changes to the Vulcan character. (Andorians are bad guys now too, but they were always prickly.) It would be nice to see a culture that’s gone through a profound awakening and transformation since we saw them last.
Just phenomenal. I went into this season without any idea what to expect. Never would I have predicted that they would actually do a sequel to a two-parter TNG story that was done 29 years ago! Seeing Romulans, Vulcans and a new generation of cross-breeding hybrids is a culmination of everything Spock dreamed of back in 2368. It’s canon, and it’s real. And it represents some of the best Trekkian ideals in the process. It’s a conflicting, tenous, ongoing process, but one where the participants are willing to endure for the greater good.
And talk about weaving in threads from Picard as well. I did not have a good impression of the Qowat Millat back then, considering them too extremist and violent. This episode redeems that.
This episode also continues the welcome new trend to push back against Burnham and actually challenge her standing in the current universe. The minute Gabrielle showed up as a Qowat Millat, I figured this is where they were going. Someone who intimately knows our protagonist and knows just what buttons to push to get her where the story needs. It’s a nice reversal from the Saint Michael effect from season 2. It’s good to be reminded that she’s as flawed as anyone on this universe, and Gabrielle finally brings it all out during that superb session.
As for the B plot, I don’t see Tilly’s choice of promotion necessarily as an endorsement of plus-size women. It’s a welcome side effect, certainly, but choosing was likely because of her main cast status. She’s the only really developed character on the crew. People like Owusekun and Detmer might be more qualified, but they’re not really main characters, and we don’t really know them all that well (plus, Detmer’s PTSD makes it all the more unlikely). And Stamets, despite his rank, was never going to be a choice. He’s as far from qualified as he can be, in terms of commanding officers. That really only leaves Tilly (which kind of reminds me of Chloe O’Brian on 24; she was the CTU geek who was finally given command halfway through the final season. exactly 10 years ago).
@57: Is the Qowat Millat all that “extremist and violent” though? Absolute candor seems like a pretty noble way to live as does binding themselves to lost causes. Plus, we never actually saw any of them in combat except for Elnor and that was pretty much in defense of Picard or himself.
I admit that I prefer “Eisn” to “Hobus” as a name for the Romulan homestar of old. We can work around that by listing “Hobus” as some other star-nation’s name for the same star, if desired and/or needed. As precedent for this, we can look to several Wikipedia profiles of stars known to humans of multiple nations across the centuries by differing names from our many languages.
I also very much appreciate the concept of t’kal-in-ket. Peer review, indeed!
There are implications of Reunification, however young it may be as of 3189: I would expect there to be a Ni’Vari (?) zone of influence in the spaces once governed by either the Federation, Romulus and its successors, or independent neighbour-nations. I hope we see that reflected in the graphic design artistry of Timothy Peel and Andy Tsang (and whoever else is currently working on those processes. It’s Peel’s mind that’s given us that 3-D galactic map in the Starfleet HQ lobby we’ve been seeing irregularly, building upon the works of Geoffrey Mandel, Larry Nemecek and others.
@56 / CLB:
As for the Klingons, someone on another board suggested they should be pacifists now. I think that’s a wonderful idea, or at least something along those lines. A culture can change enormously in 900 years, yet so far we’ve only seen minor changes to the cultures we’ve encountered. Vulcan-Romulan reunification is the biggest one, yet there are only subtle changes to the Vulcan character. (Andorians are bad guys now too, but they were always prickly.) It would be nice to see a culture that’s gone through a profound awakening and transformation since we saw them last.
Huh.
Yeah. Yeah, that would definitely be an interesting route to take the Klingons. It’s one that we wouldn’t expect to see because we’ve become so accustomed to the standard Klingon Warrior archetype since the TNG days.
And there are already the long-term seeds for such a development planted throughout TNG/DS9 (Worf, Martok, their effect on Klingon politics and the corruption) and even ENT (Kolos in “Judgment” lamenting the ascendancy of the Warrior caste and their erosion of Klingon society and values).
@59. Dwight: I’d love to see such a map, perhaps interactable, put up online by the show.
Vulcan and Andoria are quite close to each other adjacent to the P’Jem system. STO calls that entire area, including Earth, the Vulcan Sector. The 25th century version of the galactic map has the old Romulan Empire north by northeastwards in the direction of the Delta Q and the New Republic eastwards (if we imagine the map as a flat disc). Using flat coordinates, the Klingon Empire is southeast of the Vulcan sector. Other than Earth’s isolationism, it’s strange that Ni’Var wouldn’t have contact with a system in their immediate neighborhood. All of it is contained in the Beta Quadrant.
It would be awesome if they created a map that gave a better sense of the scaling involved. Voyager as a series was centered on the immensity of the distance they had to traverse. Yet on DS9, both the Klingons and Romulans traveled a roughly equivalent galactic distance from the Beta Quadrant, crossing all of Federation space, to reach Bajoran space with relative ease.
Maybe the novels or other ancillary materials address such matters (one of the things I’m liking about John Jackson Miller’s work is that he says events happening in the Klingon or Romulan realms are in the Beta Q, rather than falling on the crutch of calling it all Alpha), but the onscreen material is often presented as if it’s all happening in a small neighborhood. I don’t think the words “spiral arm” or “spinward” or “anti-spinward” have ever been uttered. We may as well be dealing with a “flat earth” conception of the galaxy.
Tilly as XO is proof positive that the writer’s room has no concept of how military organizations operate. The XO’s role is to ensure the Captain’s orders are executed- which includes ensuring the ship’s and crew’s readiness to fulfill the Captain’s orders.
The corollary is the XO needs to be the bad cop by pushing the crew when necessary and delivering bad news so the Captain can focus on the mission without worrying about details that would bog her down.
In what universe would the ship’s lowest ranked officer who is notoriously conflict-averse and prone to thinking out loud have any credibility as an XO?
@57/Eduardo: “As for the B plot, I don’t see Tilly’s choice of promotion necessarily as an endorsement of plus-size women. It’s a welcome side effect, certainly, but choosing was likely because of her main cast status.”
Well, yes, that’s the whole point — just including people in traditionally marginalized categories, finally treating them as just normal people eligible for the same roles as everyone else.
@62/KirksTailor: Starfleet has never functioned like a strictly military organization, and has often played fast and loose with rank. Roddenberry once said he saw Starfleet ranks as more akin to job titles than a strict, inviolable hierarchy.
One thing I’ll give them is that Tilly herself asks if she’s being selected for competence or compliance. I thought we’d find out the Kelpien equivalent of “Por que no los dos?”
@@@@@ 62: Ignoring the whole ‘is Starfleet a military?’ debate, at what point is Starfleet ever shown operate like a contemporary military organisation?
Lets see, just off the top of my head… shortage of enlisted personnel, no division between line and staff officers, eternal assignments with no rotation, too many senior officers on one ship, limited advancement, commander of a ship of any size holds the rank of Captain (not just the post), command personnel going into dangerous situations first, senior personnel carrying out routine duties, unclear chain of command…
I don’t love the Tilly as XO thing, but it’s pretty consistent with the Starfleet we’ve been shown in every previous series.
@58: I made a mistake, actually. I mixed them up with the Zhat Vash, whom I definitely classify as extremist and dangerous (which is par on course for the Tal Shiar). It’s been months since I’ve seen Picard, and the whole serialized structure in which the season is essentially a 10 hour film hasn’t done any favors in terms of me as a viewer keeping track of important details such as the group’s name. I had similar troubles recalling Discovery’s previous season.
You’re right, though. The Qowat Millat are a lot more sensible as a group, and one that would endure far longer than any Tal Shiar offshoots in this Romulan/Vulcan shared society. I’d actually forgotten about the Elnor character.
It’s times like this that I miss the more episodic structure. I can even recall most Voyager elements without much trouble thanks to that design. DS9 and later Enterprise seasons had struck a good balance between that and the more serialized aspects. Current Trek is a little bit too set on the other end.
Once Kirk went from cadet to captain in a matter of months, any other sort of promotion was totally allowable. And then, two years later, Kirk is encouraged to apply to be an admiral? Really? Yes, apparently that how Starfleet works. So Timmy from newly minted ensign to XO makes perfect sense in universe.
..Let me just say about the Vulcan and/or Romulan at Burnham’s forum with the Afro: Yes, Yes, and Yes!
Dr. Burnham finally returns! It’s good to know she survived and is permanently anchored in the 32nd century. And Dr. Burnham is just in time to kick Michael in the ass to get her to be honest with herself. As CLB points out, it was supposed to be a scientific forum, but became a group therapy session for Burnham; still, it works insofar as proving Burnham’s motivations.
Beyond that, we have yet another episode that pays off decades of Trek fandom. I watched “Unification” I and II when I was 11 years old, and seeing Spock’s work come to fruition 800 years after his death: there are no words. I truly loved seeing Michael’s reaction to seeing her brother in the final two decades of his life, dedicated to a cause Spock knew he wouldn’t live to see bear fruit. Again, no words.
I’m not going to knock Tilly becoming acting Executive Officer, although it’s certainly an unorthodox choice. I am curious as to how Tilly will perform in the role. Tilly is certainly very different now, perhaps even the same degree of different as Michael, so this could work.
@52. garreth: That the Klingons of the fourth millennium (Gregorian) were heart & soul for the United Federation of Planets even after the Disaster of the 31st Century, hence my mention of the Klingon warbird as a Federation Starship; I really like the idea that Earth & Kronos have flipped their positions relative to the Federation (with Earth the stand-offish, sometimes violently xenophobic outsiders and the Klingons busy trying to hold the whole thing together), but that the Klingon’s status as Ultra-Federation comes as a plot twist rather than a casual mention.
@55. Sunspear: If serious, serious repression gave me psychic superpowers (and kept those superpowers from driving me homicidally insane), Vulco-Romulan Freud could take his excessively heavy-handed metaphors and blow smoke elsewhere! (-;
@56. ChristopherLBennett: Thank You very kindly for the clarification, though in all honesty ‘Hobus’ strikes me as a reasonably acceptable shorthand for ‘Supernova that gobbled up Romulus & Remus’ (on a Doyleist, rather than a Watsonian level), if only as a result of general usage.
On a less shamelessly lazy note, I do agree that it’s rather a relief to see a Vulcan ritual that doesn’t end in some sort of death-duel (but does apparently require Mood Lighting – honestly, in their own calculatedly stoic fashion the Vulcans are nearly as obsessed with The Look as KLINGONS); I’m not going to complain about getting something other than a calm discussion of the facts at hand, even if my youthful upbringing did rather whisper “They couldn’t have worked through all this in a nice, private confessional and not in front of the whole congregation? You’d think a nun would know better!”
Oh, and of course any changes to Ni’Var are going to be subtle (or at least understated); that’s just how the Children & Grandchildren of Minshara play the game, poker face et al! (-;
On a more serious note, I’d suggest Pacifist Cardassians makes a more logical sea-change than Pacifist Klingons – or at least makes a more logical change going by the Status Quo of those civilisations as we las saw them in DEEP SPACE NINE; The Klingons appear to be doing pretty well from their usual ‘Today is a Good Day to Die’ bravado (at least by Klingon standards, which are rather more gung-ho about casualties than most), especially with the Romulan Empire circling the ash-heap of history, whereas the Cardassians have a stronger reason to rethink everything they believe in.
If nothing else, seeing the 32nd Cardassians as pacifist isolationists with a theocratic bent (should we refer to them as ‘Hebetians’, I wonder?) might allow us to show a culture that has never been a member of the Federation – after all, the entire point of the United Federation of Planets is that it doesn’t force itself on other civilisations – but which has refrained from being recruited for Good, rather than Horrible reasons (“We’re better as friends, neighbour”).
On the other hand, while I’m a little reluctant to embrace “Pacifist Klingons!” as the ‘hat’ for that species in the 32nd Century, I do like the idea of Klingon civilisation having evolved to the point where a pacifist Klingon is an accepted and even admirable part of their daily life – as mentioned above I really like the idea of Klingons being an especially Stalwart member of the Federation, but my mental image tends to lean towards their being very much of the boldly-going, anti-Imperialist Starfleet type Federation (if only because the question of what Starfleet values filtered through mainstream Klingon society – as opposed to First Generation immigrant nostalgia, per Mr Worf – would look like).
Bonus points if the USS K’Ehleyr has a Romulan science officer (well surely not EVERY Romulan or ex-Romulan wound up on Ni’var? It was a BIG Empire, after all) and a Captain with a pronounced tendency to lose their shirt in the latest fight scene!
On a more serious note, one would be interested in seeing Discovery come into contact with far-flung branches of Starfleet that have adopted so much local flavour (and become so used to going their own way in the absence of easy communications with Starfleet command) that they’ve begun to think of themselves less as branches and more as the whole tree, allowing for the possibility of some interesting dramatic, personal & political tensions as these very different variations on Starfleet try to work out whether they’ll be colleagues or foreign allies …
A couple thoughts on Tilly. As to her promotion: When I was in the Army I was a newly promoted (as in, just that week) PFC (E3) , in a Brigade HQ, when both my squad leader and his backup were sidelined (long story) leaving me, PFC Wiredog, as a squad leader which usually at least a Sgt E5 and sometimes an SSg E6, (our Platoon Sergeant was an E8 MSg). But everyone else who had the rank already had a job, and I was there, and it was only for a few weeks anyway, so…
The only plus size redhead I know has a Masters in History and is definitely competent (and confident!) in her field.
The only thing that bothered me about this episode is the forced coincidence of bringing back Burnham’s mother as her advocate. There was no explanation of how or why an ancient Romulan sect would admit a thousand-year-old human into their ranks… Story for another time, maybe? But until we get that, the only explanation for her presence is because the plot called for Burnham’s mom to provide her with a pep talk…
@69/ED: I doubt that “Hobus” really is in general usage — only among the audience for the comics and Star Trek Online, which is a small fraction of the overall Star Trek viewing audience. Besides, it’s a dumb, ugly name and I want it to go away. It sounds like an Ancient Roman hobo.
@69. ED: Blowing smoke is right. Freud’s metaphors were based on steam tech. I guess in general it’s a bad idea to develop a theory of mind based on current tech that becomes outdated.
What’d really twist Vulcans into a knot is if they had someone with a mind theory using dilithium focusing, then the dilithium went boom…
@50 – ED: Having the Disco crew face Federation die-hard Klingons would be nice, but it needs to be a surprise that they’re facing Klingons, because if they’re sent by Command to Q’onoS, the 32nd century Federation knows the Klingons were a part of it, and would tell them.
@57 – Eduardo: How deeply does Gabrielle know Michael? She abandoned her when she was like, 8, and only reconnected with her as an adult recently, for all of five minutes.
@64 – garethwilson: I think Saru sidestepping the question was his way of saying that.
@68 – DanteHopkins: I loved the ‘Fromulan. :)
@69 – ED: But Cardassians would not have any emotional effect on the Disco crew. Or any at all, they have never met Cardassians.
@33 I agree entirely. Tilly is given the job pretty much because she is a title credits character and there’s no good reason she can’t do it, but that’s not the same as saying she should.
Stamets would be the obvious choice, but he has to operate the spore drive, no-one else can do that.
Detmer has to fly the ship, and besides has her own unresolved PTSD/broken Cybernetics plot.
Tilly is lovely, but too fluffy. The role of the first officer, at least as set out on TNG is to Keep The Ship Safe. Do what you have to, but keep the ship safe. Tilly hasn’t the steel to make the hard choices. You know who does? Jett Reno. She would make a kick ass first officer.
@69 – We heard of very few Romulan colonies. It’s likely that most of the Romulan Empire was made up of conquered planets with just a few Romulan overseers. The Romulans always seemed to have a bit of the “racial purity” bent about them. They don’t seem like the sorts that would want to get their hands dirty when there’s subject races to do it for them.
And let’s not forget Vulcan in the reboot lost everyone except for 10,000 out of a population of billions. If there had been Vulcan Collins, as opposed to outposts as P’Jem was, it would have made sense to settle the survivors there instead of on New Vulcan as Spock did. As Vulcans and Romulans are basically the same species, one who expresses emotions and one that doesn’t, there may be a reason that neither of them hang around much with other races.
We also saw two starships 100 years apart that had 100% Vulcan crews. Even the TOS Enterprise had a token alien.
@75/Nick: Stamets would be a terrible choice for first officer. He has no qualifications besides his rank, and even that’s little more than honorary; he never went to the Academy or rose through the ranks, but was a civilian scientist given a field commission so he could develop spore drive for the war effort. So when it comes to that, Tilly has more actual Starfleet qualifications and command-track training than Stamets does.
The role of the first officer is actually to arrange for the captain’s orders to be carried out — they’re the executive officer, which means the captain makes the decisions and the first officer executes them. Part of that is being the interface between the captain and the crew, the manager responsible for overseeing the crew, allocating their assignments, handling personnel and discipline issues, etc. Basically they do the everyday nitty-gritty work so the captain is free to focus on the big picture.
Tilly’s qualification is that she’s a people person and well-liked by the crew, which makes her effective as a liaison between the captain and crew. She’s also an advisor Saru trusts, which is not something he can say about Burnham anymore.
As for the claim that Tilly “hasn’t the steel to make the hard choices” — remember that Tilly was the one who convinced Saru to report Burnham’s rogue action to Admiral Vance. She advocated turning in her best friend rather than covering for her, because she put the good of the ship as a whole above that friendship. That proved she has the toughness to do the job, and was no doubt a key factor in why Saru chose her.
Stamets is a lousy choice. Not only has he no interested in command or actual qualifications, he’s also mostly an exasperating ass who mistreats everybody he works with.
@68. DanteHopkins: I most definitely agree that XO Tilly works as an expedient, but not necessarily as a permanent status quo going forward – though I’d be happy to see her get the job back after a bit of seasoning.
@72. ChristopherLBennett: I’m not going to lie, one got a mental image of you in morning coat, mortar board and sideburns (presumably wagging your finger at this inelegant nomenclature, in the style of a true Victorian academic) after reading that fierce attempt to burn it down with fiery criticism! (-:
@74. MaGnUs: I must admit that my idea probably works best as a complete surprise to the audience, rather than to the characters (although learning that the Klingons had agreed to join the Federation would likely STUN the crew of NCC-1031-A); mental image of the scene I outlined above acting as a cold open, with the first scene of the episode proper showing Captain Saru brief the crew (who react with astonishment) smash cutting to Captain Saru himself being briefed and reacting with even greater shock (a little comic bit or just a way to raise tension?).
This briefing would reveal that while the Klingons have been stalwart for the Federation even since The Burn (I actually really like the idea of Kronos acting as the Federation’s capital for a time), but that a worrying radio silence has fallen and there’s at least some chance that reactionaries have pulled Klingons into Bad Habits at the WORST time … or something like that (one must admit that a lot of this is stream-of-consciousness spitballing rather than a fully organised concept).
@75. NickPheas: Oh Good Glory, Reno would either nail the job DOWN or send the Good Ship Disco down in flames with deadpan calm – either would be delightful! Though in that case who would be Chief Engineer? (Even after her upgrades I’d be more comfortable with a native of the 23rd Century running the show on Discovery‘s vital systems).
@77. ChristopherLBennett: You most definitely make an excellent case for Ensign Tilly being an acting XO – one hopes those rascally fellow crew folk don’t take too much advantage of her inexperience! (and one hopes her replacement will be a worthy heir to the likes of Chakotay et al).
@78. MaGnUs: True – it’s a wonder the Good Doctor puts up with him!
Wasn’t Tilly in line for command training back in the 23rd Century? That suggests that SOMEONE thought she had steel in her. And if the potential’s there, then you really can’t use the “I can’t see in any way that she’s qualified” arguments…
Making Tilly acting XO may ultimately result in her leaving Discovery. When she is inevitably replaced how can she go back to the absolute bottom rung of officers?
@80. gwangung: In this case having potential is much less important than having training and experience – having the potential to be an excellent doctor does not help when there’s a trauma patient on the table and you have no clear idea about where to start cutting, how deep to go down & are desperately trying not to vomit at the unfamiliar sight of such carnage without the training or experience to help you cope.
So I have no objection to Ensign Tilly being trained for command, but having command handed to her before she has the training or experience to exercise it well is a major concern – hence my preference for regarding her time as XO as work experience/on-the-job training rather than her Full Time assignment.
Or more simply – potential must be made actual (through training & experience) to become useful.
@81. Charles Oppenheimer: Given that Ensign Tilly herself experiences reservations about being placed in the role and requires that she be talked into it by an enormously supportive selection of the crew? Presumably quite easily – all she need do is treat this as a temporary assignment come to a natural end, chalk it all up as life/career experience and go back to work in her old job without embarrassment (possibly planning ahead for the day when she can return to the command track with a greater confidence in her ability to follow it all the way to an independent command or more confident in her conviction while she gave it her best try, Command just isn’t for her).
Regarding Tilly’s promotion, it’s not quite as crazy as it first appears. Discovery is down (as per episode 302) to 89 active crew. There’s quite a few cadets and other ensigns on board, and most of the other Lieutenants, Lt. Commanders and Commanders mentioned over the show’s run seem to have vanished or been killed. We know that around 50 crewmen left the ship to remain in the 23rd Century. I strongly suspect all of the higher-ranking officers with families will have remained behind.
Canonically then, at the start of Season 3, Tilly is only definitely outranked by 11 people: Lt. (jg) Owosekun, Linus & Bryce; Lt. Detmer, Nilsson & Rhys; Lt. Commander Culber and Stamets; Commander Burnham and Reno; and Captain Saru.
You eliminate Saru and Burnham for obvious reasons. The Best of Both Worlds established that non-bridge officers and heads of departments cannot be XOs (Riker doesn’t even consider LaForge or Dr. Crusher for the position), so that eliminates Culber and Stamets, probably Reno as well. Detmer is having medical issues, so you take her out of commission. Owosekun’s position at Conn may also remove her from contention (in the TOS-era, helmsmen don’t seem to have been considered as an XO-compatible position even when you’re on the command track; Sulu went straight from Conn to Captain of the Excelsior without taking up an XO position; then again, Number One in The Cage seems to have been XO and helmsman simultaneously).
That leaves four people ahead of Tilly. I’m going to assume that Linus (dinosaur guy), who has been used mainly for comic relief so far, is not seen as command material. Nilsson (blonde bridge officer) seems to have been Acting XO in episode 302 and the start of 303, so I assume decided she didn’t like the job or Saru decided she wasn’t suitable for the position in a longer term. So you’re down to two: Rhys (Tactical) and Bryce (Communications). You can combine Tactical with XO (Chekov in The Wrath of Khan) and I don’t see why Communications couldn’t as well.
However, there role of XO in the 23rd Century Trek is not the more formal position it is by the TNG era. There’s no such thing as a dedicated “First Officer” role pre-TNG, it’s always combined with another position. One of the responsibilities is almost HR-like, acting as a liaison between the crew and captain (this is something Spock actually struggled with a few times before getting a handle on it). The position requires the trust of the crew and a strong rapport with the captain, and we’ve seen Tilly have both in the past. Rhys and Bryce could do the job, no doubt, but on that interpersonal role it’s clear that you’d go with Tilly.
Having an Ensign in the position is unusual – which could be solved by promoting her to Lt. (jg), which she deserves by now anyway – but again it is precedented that a junior officer can command superior ones. LaForge as a Lieutenant in The Arsenal of Freedom comes to mind. Riker also considers making Worf XO in The Best of Both Worlds when he’d only just been promoted to full Lieutenant, putting him ahead of Data, LaForge and Dr. Crusher. In an episode of DS9 O’Brien also says it’s not an uncommon practice, and in Valiant emergency battlefield commissions are even given to Cadets, putting them in CO and XO positions (admittedly that was an extreme circumstance, but Discovery‘s not far off that at the moment).
@6– Christopher L Bennett, the only problems with Data being the source of the recording is that the recording is specifically mentioned as coming from the personal files of Jean-Luc Picard, and Data wasn’t there for the first part of Spock’s monologue, the part about closed minds keeping the two cultures apart. That was from earlier in the episode when they were dining at the open air marketplace.
@83/Werthead: “There’s no such thing as a dedicated “First Officer” role pre-TNG, it’s always combined with another position.”
Yes, there is. Burnham was first officer on the Shenzhou while Saru was the science officer, and they reversed those posts on Discovery. In TMP, Will Decker was first officer and only temporarily doubled as science officer between Sonak’s death and Spock’s arrival.
@85: Decker was the Captain of the Enterprise and accepted a short-term demotion to serve as first officer because Kirk wanted to take direct command of the mission. We don’t know who Decker’s XO was going to be, if it was a dedicated role or combined with another position (or if it was even going to be Sonak or Sulu). We don’t even know if Decker had selected an XO at all. Apologies since I haven’t read it, but I believe your post-TMP book Ex Machina briefly mentioned that issue?
Discovery – as usual – is vague about the precise rules of the situation, but Burnham appears to be a special case as her role in Starfleet seems to have been partially a political placement at Sarek’s request rather than through usual ground-up channels. Her position as a dedicated xenoanthropologist seems to be unusual in Starfleet, and it seems to have been maintained to her promotion to XO of the Shenzhou.
Saru continues to perform science officer-ry tasks as XO on Discovery, but IIRC (I need to rewatch the first season), I believe it is stated that he has formally transferred to the Command Division from Science. I believe that’s the sole, definitive pre-2360s indication that First Officer may exist as a dedicated position versus a whole lot of evidence to the contrary (I forgot the Excelsior XO in Search for Spock, played by Miguel Ferrer, who was also the helmsman), and Discovery of course was a very strange and unique ship with regard to its positions.
@86/Werthead: I’m just skeptical that it’s normal for first officer to be combined with other positions. It should be a full-time job in and of itself, since the XO is responsible for doing the actual step-by-step work of figuring out how to execute the captain’s orders and assigning and overseeing the crew in the process of doing it, as well as being generally in charge of managing the crew on a day-to-day basis. My assumption is that it’s the other way around — that first officers usually don’t double up, and Spock is able to manage being both XO and science officer because he’s so brilliant.
And really, we’ve seen so few 23rd-century ships that we don’t have a large enough data set to draw conclusions about which approach is normal.
@86 – And there was no reason for Decker to be demoted to Commander. Many ships, particularly large ones, have multiple people with the rank of captain. At one point, the aircraft carrier Enterprise had 5 captains assigned to it. And, in a Star Trek case, Scotty kept his rank as Captain even after being assigned to the Enterprise-A as did Spock.
The fact the planet “Vulcan” (Ni’Var) exists would appear to go against the “Kelvin” timeline theory – but we do see the moon where Spock was forced to watch the destruction of his homeworld.
Speaking, again, from personal experience. When I was a new PFC in a sergeant’s slot, I was able to give orders to people who outranked me because my position “outranked” theirs. We had 2 new squad members in that I had to take care of, and all the other stuff that even in a line unit would be done by someone with a bit more experience than I had. It was a weird few weeks, and I was happy to go back to being just a squad member when we got an actual sergeant in to be squad leader.
@89/Dennis Koch: The moon of Vulcan (or rather, the companion planet, to handwave away “The Man Trap”‘s “Vulcan has no moon”) was established in TAS: “Yesteryear” and the theatrical version of Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The ice planet where Spock was stranded in ST ’09, Delta Vega, was not meant to be a moon of Vulcan; I take the depiction of Spock seeing Vulcan’s destruction in the sky as symbolic, since it occurred during a mind meld (though since Abrams used the same plot device in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, it’s clear he just has no comprehension of interstellar distances).
And yes, of course this show is set in Prime rather than Kelvin. We’ve always known that. As I said above, the clips of Leonard Nimoy from “Unification II” should have put that bizarre misconception to rest by now, even aside from all the explicit proof we’ve had already. DSC has the Enterprise in service in 2256-7 when Kelvin doesn’t launch it until ’58, and has a major Klingon war in those same years while Kelvin states that there have only been a couple of minor skirmishes with the Klingons prior to 2259.
@89 – Dennis: There is no “Kelvin timeline theory”, it’s been stated and proven over and over that this is the prime timeline. It’s just a ridiculous idea that some Disco-haters cling to.
Dennis, Christopher, and MaGnUs: Sadly, the “Kelvin theory” is still floating around out there. The review of this episode on the AV Club specifically expressed confusion about Discovery travelling to Vulcan because Vulcan was destroyed. *heavy sigh*
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
That’s what I’m saying, it’s a ridiculous idea.
Checking the AV Club review, it seems the person writing it is either trolling, or is abjectly ignorant of Star Trek and should probably at least read a Wikipedia article or two before questioning plot points that have been referenced to exhaustion by now.
@krad: he got called out on it in the comments. I think he knows better and may have been trolling. He seems unhappy he has to review the show. Otherwise, he’s won at least one award for his criticism, though it may have been for comics.
Honestly, Zack Handlen’s reviews on AVC are usually pretty good. His DS9 reviews (which he watched for the first time in the 2010s) were excellent. *shrug*
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@87: We have the Enterprise under Pike and Kirk, the Reliant, the Enterprise-A, apparently both the Styles and Sulu Excelsior (no XO is identified in Star Trek VI or Flashback) and the Enterprise-B (Harriman doesn’t seem to have an easily-identified XO in Generations either) as data points, which seems quite a reasonable number of points to conclude that the role of First Officer in pre-24th Century Trek is not a solo job and is usually combined with another role. Discovery mixes it up a little bit but not enough to definitively conclude that this is not the case.
It is also worth noting that 24th Century ships – the Enterprise D and E, Voyager, Odyssey and a few others (apart from the Defiant) – also have specific seats for the XO to sit in (near/next to the Captain), whilst 23rd Century ships do not (it also appears that the Enterprise-C doesn’t either).
@89: “Vulcan’s Moon” may be the very first major continuity controversy in the show’s history (predating the redesigned Klingons by many years). Roddenberry sent back the artwork from Yesteryear with “NO MOON” written on it and the designers ignored him and kept the shot in the show. In order to make the logic of it work with Amok Time, which also said that Vulcan had no moon, I believe Roddenberry grudgingly bowed to fan theories that Vulcan had a companion double planet which was sometimes large in the sky and sometimes further away (a bit like Gemenon/Caprica in the rebooted Battlestar Galactica and Caprica, although that was also a retcon, and actually the idea of double planets that vary their position towards one another is astronomically nonsensical). The Motion Picture then confused things by showing two bodies in the sky, leading fans to suggest the companion planet had a moon, but Vulcan did not.
The 2002 Director’s Cut of The Motion Picture removed the two bodies from the sky and, with The Animated Series being of doubtful canonicity for some time (and the mistake in Yesteryear being a well-known bit of trivia), some fans reasserted the belief that Vulcan had no moon or double planet. However, the Director’s Cut fell out of circulation (due to not being suitable for HD release) in favour of the cinematic cut, which brought back the errant moons/planets. If the 4K restoration they were discussing last year goes ahead, presumably they’ll be removed again but who knows.
Some fans have also identified the errant double planet as being Delta Vega from the 2009 movie, since that would actually explain why Vulcan is close enough that Spock can see it destroyed in the sky overhead. I think we can safely conclude that whilst that’s a nice bit of fanon, it’s certainly not anything JJ Abrams was aware of or thought of.
The show is definitively not set in the Kelvin Timeline. The alternate theory that the show is set in a “reconstituted Prime timeline” (like the timeline alterations in Past Tense and Yesterday’s Enterprise) – where the difference is that Burnham lived instead of dying as a child on Vulcan – is a lot more convincing.
@99/Werthead: “We have the Enterprise under Pike and Kirk, the Reliant, the Enterprise-A, apparently both the Styles and Sulu Excelsior (no XO is identified in Star Trek VI or Flashback) and the Enterprise-B (Harriman doesn’t seem to have an easily-identified XO in Generations either) as data points, which seems quite a reasonable number of points to conclude that the role of First Officer in pre-24th Century Trek is not a solo job and is usually combined with another role.”
Where the devil do you get that conclusion? You admit yourself that neither Sulu’s nor Harriman’s first officer is mentioned, so neither of those counts as a usable data point. And the E-A doesn’t count because it has the same first officer as its predecessor. Chekov appears to be Reliant‘s science officer as well as its first officer, as his department color is science gray rather than command white, but implications are not conclusive proof. So that drops it down to only three first officers that we know for a fact had other roles — Spock was science officer and Una and Miguel Ferrer were at the helm — and one probable case with Chekov. Three or four data points out of hundreds of ships is not remotely a reasonable sample size to conclude anything from.
After all, fiction is not about representative samples. It’s about exceptions to the norm. The characters we follow are the best and the brightest, the most exceptional officers around. So maybe there’s a selection bias at work. Maybe the reason so many of the first officers we see double up in other jobs is because they’re just that awesome, able to handle the responsibilities of two jobs at once. The more ordinary first officers who only do the one job might well be in the majority, but the ordinary ones don’t get TV shows made about them.
And no, 23rd-century ships didn’t have first officer’s seats, but they didn’t have ready rooms or shipboard bar/restaurants either. They were less luxurious. Heck, if you look at real-world ship bridges, they don’t have chairs at all. So lack of a chair doesn’t prove lack of a post.
“and actually the idea of double planets that vary their position towards one another is astronomically nonsensical”
What??? No, it isn’t! That’s the norm, not the exception. It’s called orbital eccentricity. We’ve known since Kepler that orbits are ellipses, not perfect circles, so orbiting bodies almost always vary their distance (and obviously they vary their position constantly, because they’re going around each other). There are countless cases where binary objects have highly eccentric, elliptical orbits that sometimes bring them close together and sometimes much further apart — for instance, Alpha Centauri A & B have an eccentricity of 0.516, which brings them as close as 11.4 AUs and as far as 35.8 AUs, more than three times as distant. There’s no reason binary planets couldn’t have large eccentricities as well. Just because the Moon’s orbit of Earth is nearly circular doesn’t mean it’s always that way.
But as we’ve seen, notably in TMP, the double planet with Vulcan is huge. In fact, they would both have extreme orbits around each other if that were the case. However, look at Pluto and Charon (The closest thing to a double planet in our system). tight, stable orbit about their barycentre and the eccentricity of the other moons is small. Stars are more likely to have wildly eccentric orbits than planets are as we’ve seen among the discovered exoplanets.
@100: Stars orbit one another at distances of many billions of kilometres. A double planet would be separated by thousands to hundreds of thousands of kilometres, which depending on the two masses involved would encourage a less eccentric orbit.
If you had a double planet system with high eccentricity, that would result in the planets moving closer and significantly further away from the star, far moreso than the Earth and its relatively minor eccentricity, making both planets less likely to harbour life due to the moving between more extreme conditions. Various studies have shown that planets with high orbital eccentricity, either by themselves or as part of a double planet system, are much less likely to develop or harbour life. Vulcan would fall into that category.
@102/Werthead: Okay, that’s fair, though that’s not what you said last time. You said it’s nonsensical for planets to “vary their position,” which they obviously do, because they aren’t standing still. It would’ve been clearer if you’d said something like “change their orbital distance by a large amount,” say.
Jean Lorrah’s TOS novel The Vulcan Academy Murders established Vulcan’s companion planet T’Kuht (later called T’Khut in other books) as a world in a close but non-binary orbit, passing near Vulcan once every seven years. That’s probably the fan theory you referred to.
If a planet the size of T’Kuht passed Vulcan that closely every seven years, they would eventually either collide or totally disrupt each other’s orbits. T’Kuht is big enough that it even has it’s own spherical moon, as seen in the original TMP. Or was that retconned out by the Director’s Cut and then reinstated later?
I did like the episode, but am i the only one who is really getting upset about the constant crying-whining attitude especially from Burnham? And the total theatrical behaviour of people? unrealistic conversations?
The story was great here, but the way how it got delivered killed it for me…:(
If this was the first time, it would be OK, but this seems to be a trend during the series getting stronger and stronger as we move on…
Also I love Tilly, she is a truly great character, but that still does not mean that she would be the best fit as the first officer of the ship…