Discovery premise rumors

[Ometiklan]

Michael, a poster over at TrekCore, in the comments of the article about James Frain and the recent schedule pushback (http://trekcore.com/blog/2017/01/sarek-cast-as-star-trek-discovery-moves-off-may-schedule/) has posted about some of the premise of Discovery. He says that it comes from a source of his involved in Discovery's production.

He says "Discovery itself is an advanced prototype equipped with a stolen cloaking device that the Klingons want back quite badly. The ship is highly advanced, and uses experimental technology along with traditional Starfleet technology. The ship was built in secret by section 31 and is used "off the record" by Starfleet to shall we say... 'smooth over diplomacy' ".

I don't see how there can be a cloaking device (that the Klingon's have) 10 years before we see the Romulans with a prototype in "Balance of Terror". (I dislike Enterprise's "Minefield" on multiple levels: the Romulan's proximity to Earth, no one knowing they are there, their apparently fully functional cloaks, etc. - none of it makes sense and I consider it all a giant continuity gaffe and I think Enterprise's producers at one point agreed on this). If Discovery is going this route, I guess they have accepted "Minefield" as cannon and the retconned Romulan/Klingon treaty exchanging technology and ship designs happened earlier than previously understood.

Other than that, what do people think of this premise? Plausible? Not? Do you like it?

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Was there ever a canon mention of the Klingon-Romulan alliance?

I know we assumed there was one after we saw the Romulan version of the D7 on TOS.

 

[Timo]

The only dialogue mention comes from TNG "Reunion" where Riker is alarmed by the possibility of a "new" Klingon-Romulan alliance. This doesn't necessarily mean there was an "old" one, merely that such a thing would be a recent development and quite possibly unheard of.

We never see Klingons and Romulans operate at anything but cross purposes in the TOS timeframe. By the time of the earliest TOS movies, Kor is supposedly already (?) slaying Romulans at the Briar Patch, as per his boast in DS9 "Blood Oath", leaving very little room for a functional alliance...

I don't think we have to believe in any sort of technology exchange beyond the Klingons stealing from the Romulans and vice versa. OTOH, invisibility ought to be old news by the time of TOS, "BoT" or no "BoT" - it's such an inevitable scifi trope, and our heroes in all the shows are already comfortable with the idea of an enemy popping up from seeming nowhere (thanks to their better engines, their greater stealth, their interdimensional nature, whatever). And there are plenty of episodes now to establish that Klingons have it, and it doesn't matter whether they had it first or not...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Balok's Decoy]

Well it's super speculative at this point. But if that's the premise, I could get down with that. Sounds interesting.

 

[BorgMan]

The Romulans are stated to already have cloaking technology by the 2260's. If there was a technology exchange between the Klingons and the Romulans, I'm fairly sure that the Romulans wouldn't dole out very recent tech, and the Klingons didn't either. One could conclude then that they both offered powerful, but non-cutting edge tech to the one another. I think it's not such a far stretch to think that the tech exchange happened just a little bit earlier than what has been commonly accepted.
And think about it: if this is true, we're talking Section 31 here. If this is a cutting edge tech ship, it's not so strange we never heard about it.

 

[LtChange]

The Treaty of Algeron was signed in 2311 so I think the Federation making experiments with cloaking tech is in realm of possibility. In Balance of Terror Spock said that invisibility is possible but it takes enormous power usage and maybe they have resolved the problem. This can be understood as the Romulan had cloaking tech (as seen in Enterprise) but the tech was compromised by seeing the energy usage on sensors. So I can leave with this general idea. And I really like this premise, could make up for an interesting series.

 

[dahj]

Plausible? Not?

So they build a secret assassin ship and then call it Discovery?

It's certainly different, but I have a hard time buying that the show would revolve around a ship that goes against everything Starfleet and the Federation stand for.

 

[Balok's Decoy]

secret assassin ship

Assassin ship? Where'd you get that idea?

 

[sbk1234]

So they build a secret assassin ship and then call it Discovery?

It's certainly different, but I have a hard time buying that the show would revolve around a ship that goes against everything Starfleet and the Federation stand for.

Unless the name is meant to be ironic or misleading to the actual mission of the ship, like the way the Defiant in DS9 was identified as an escort or something.

 

[Sci-fi fan]

That michael has used the phrase "my source" about 100 times in that comment section alone. He seems very eager to to pronounce he has a source. Maybe someone is trolling him.

 

[Balok's Decoy]

That michael has used the phrase "my source" about 100 times in that comment section alone. He seems very eager to to pronounce he has a source. Maybe someone is trolling him.

Yeah this is interesting, but must be taken with a HUGE grain of salt.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I'm not buying the Section 31 angle. People keep saying that, but it's only because the Discovery's registry number is 1031. Which, if it really WAS a Section 31 ship, would be astonishingly sloppy tradecraft.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Why would a super secret Section 31 ship be called Discovery? The last Section 31 ship we saw was called USS Vengeance...

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Probably more likely the Klingons and the Romulans pulled a Soviet-reverse-engineer on captured ships.
The Soviets had a B29 lookalike (Tu-4). Practically identical, except ours worked.

 

[Cake]

There is a bit more said there:

Michael:

Discovery itself is an advanced prototype equipped with a stolen cloaking device that the Klingons want back quite badly. The ship is highly advanced, and uses experimental technology along with traditional Starfleet technology. The ship was built in secret by section 31 and is used "off the record" by Starfleet to shall we say... "smooth over diplomacy"

This is how they get around with not having to perfectly emulate TOS 60's style

someone else:

This doesn't work at all (outside of fan fiction). The Klingons didn't have cloaking devices then (10 years pre-TOS); the Romulans had a prototype in "Balance of Terror" and a refined one in "The Enterprise Incident".

Michael:

They did have them, the show will establish this. 31 steals their only prototype and this is why there is a Klingon captain featured in the show always hunting down Discovery to try to get it back.

September is the new release date. That is directly from my source as of two hours ago. My source was blindsided by this as apparently it came right from the top and was decided after the latest progress report was NOT well received by TPTB

I really hope he is a troll and this isn't true, although it doesn't sound too farfetched. I absolutely HATE section 31. I don't want a Star Trek series based on conspiracy stuff. That whole premise just sounds horrible too me.

 

[Kemaiku]

Well, that sounds pretty terrible.

 

[Phoenix219]

Makes me wonder what stuff the network didn't like from the original pitch? What were they trying to plan for?

 

[The Wormhole]

This sounds rather fanwanky, secret Section 31 ship doing off the record stuff and all. But overall, I kind of see potential in the concept. One thing's for certain, if this is the way things go, the arguments about whether Starfleet is a military or not are about to become a lot easier for the "is a military" camp.

 

[Borgminister]

Hopefully, "It's a faaaaaaake!"

 

[saddestmoon]

Hmmm... playing devils advocate, perhaps USS Discovery, as a name, refers to the tech being used in the starship as being advanced, despite also being stolen: it's an experimental 'discovery' of sorts (ie: untried tech, still being 'discovered' ) and far beyond what starfleet has available - therefore it's a Discovery...



Either that, or more simply the fact that the stolen tech is used, and the ship is utilised for explorer missions...

That's all I've got...

[gets coat]