No better a Pah Wraith
Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 2x10 - "The Red Angel"
- Thread starter Commander Richard
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No better a Pah Wraith
Yes, but Spock chose to do it anyway. It certainly wasn't the irst time we'd seen him do something unethical when he thought he was right. I think he also defied a direct order from Pike to allow Burnham to be rescued.
But as I've said, I think definitely planning on killing Burnham was (to Spock) the only way to ensure an appearance by future Burnhm as the Red Angel.
You cut off the quote too early. That wasn't my point of contention. I'm not talking about follow through, which Spock had, but the ethical question of keeping info from a voluntary 'sacrifice' for want of a better term. I was questioning the ethics of "Yes, we'll go along with murdering you, but won't inform you as to when and how it will happen, so you will be completely caught off guard and terrorized in your death."
It does? There's been a little bit of lip-service dialogue about the bridge crew feeling like a family (which doesn't quite ring true, but is obviously an attempt to balance the scales for last season), a story about the tension between Burnham and Spock (which seemed unnecessary, and just threw more fuel on the unfortunate "Sarek's a terrible person" fire), and a brief appearance from Saru's sister. Those are the only uses of "family" elements I can think of this season, and I'd be hard-pressed to identify any coherent theme connecting them. (Unless it's something as prosaically basic as "it's good to have people you love in your life.")
I couldn't agree with you more. In fact, the whole post this is quoted from is one of the best reviews of the episode I've seen. This particular point is one I thought of myself, but neglected to include in my own write-up. I remember thinking when they closed before a "commercial break" with Leland saying "we have to capture the RA" that this was stupidly aggressive and made no sense, so it was obviously meant to set up tension about how the Disco crew would oppose him... and then finding it utterly bizarre when the show resumed and they were all like "okay, sure, that sounds good, let's do it."
Actually, I'd argue that TOS did a good job of resolving all of its apparent paradoxes within a single episode, and leaving the timeline as clean as they found it, as it were. It was only 30 years later when Braga got his hands on the franchise, and proceeded to indulge his love of writing time travel stories without actually understanding how to structure one logically, that the unresolved paradoxes really started to pile up.
I'd argue otherwise... I thought that the assorted close-ups of people at the funeral actually served to underscore how uncomfortable some of them were in that setting. We couldn't read their thoughts, of course, but we could infer from their expressions. Culber, for instance, seemed to be looking around in a way that suggested he was wondering whether he'd been given a funeral like that, and if not why not, and if so then how weird was it to be alive among all these people again, and what were they thinking about him, and would he ever fit in?...
Wow, that's damning with faint praise! 25 years ago was 1994, after all. Almost every good thing the Trek franchise has produced was already in the past by then. Since then it's almost all been unmitigated crap, with the arguable exceptions of First Contact and a few episodes of ENT S4.
How do you figure? There's no way it could have been Romulans; the whole story occurs during the century-long period of no contact between humans and Romulans. No one even knew what they looked like yet.
I'd like to think the opposite... that the Federation is an open society that trusts its citizenry and believes in accountability, not a present-day-style regime obsessed with keeping its activities secret.
Yeah, it's frustrating. Something like this doesn't quite break the premise, but it comes close. It seems like some writers don't have any concept of tech levels; anything that's "futuristic" is interchangeable to them. Granted, from its beginnings Trek never exactly had the most internally consistent tech level, but at least there were some clear boundaries about what Starfleet tech could and couldn't do, which shifted and expanded (slightly) as the franchise moved into its own future in the TNG era. Unfortunately ENT undermined that in a lot of ways by "backdating" versions of TOS tech... and DSC seems to have doubled down on the problem, pretty much tossing any concern with depicting a consistent progression of tech right out the window.
Yes, they did. But that doesn't quite address the logic problem you were responding to. After all, if the RA wasn't Burnham, and therefore didn't have Burnham's memories, how would the RA even know that Burnham was in danger at that particular time and place? The implication is that the RA somehow has the ability to view past events... which is not remotely a logical corollary of the ability to travel in time. But if it's so, then (A) it makes the RA suit even more absurdly overpowered for the era in which it was created, (B) it implies that Section 31 created tech that would allow them to violate the privacy of anyone, anywhere, any time, which is ominous indeed, and (C) it means the RA would not only have been able to see that Burnham was in danger, but also to see the surrounding context and activities of the DSC crew, and hence know enough about the trap that she should've been able to figure out a way to avoid it.
Any way you slice it, any angle you approach it from, the underlying logic of the whole "trap" scheme just doesn't hang together.
Me, too. All the evidence on hand suggested that the RA was not only well-intentioned and helpful, but was also the future self of someone they knew and trusted. It would only make sense to expect that person would therefore share her information willingly if she were simply asked and able to do so... and if she didn't do that, to infer that she probably had some good reason for it. Either way, attempting to capture and detain such a figure (much less by nearly killing her (supposed) past self) seems like a needlessly hostile and counter-productive tactic.
The TNG Tech Manual (among other sources) indicates that even in the 24th century, a typical photon torpedo was armed with just 1.5 kg of antimatter, which a little math shows would produce (when annihilated with an equal mass of matter) an explosive yield of roughly 64 megatons. It makes sense to suppose that TOS-era torpedoes were no more powerful than that, probably less. Granted that's a bigger explosion than the most powerful nuclear bomb ever tested on Earth (50 mt), and frankly larger than most actual photon torpedo blasts on the show appear to be, but still, it's not enough to take out a Doomsday Machine.
Looper had absolutely terrible time-travel logic. It's not something to emulate.
You starry-eyed optimist!...
I did kind of like that part, tangential though it was. IMHO it's been pretty clear for some time that Trek's main timeline is a complex knot of retrocausal alterations, but it's nice to have it acknowledged in-story.
Not necessarily. My favorite example of the "classic" kind of retcon is from Doctor Strange #53 (1982), which reveals that Strange was secretly present (in his astral form) behind the scenes during the Fantastic Four's first encounter with Rama-Tut, on their first time-travel trip, published in FF #19 (1963). It doesn't change a thing about the original story; it just sheds a little extra light on how some things played out the way they did.
I'm not really talking about this in terms of subjective impressions. (Even identical events can be depicted in different ways that elicit different reactions, after all.) When I describe a retcon with a word like "contradictions," I don't mean thematic or character-related inconsistencies. I mean actual logical negations, such that Event X cannot logically coexist with Event Y, meaning that one version must displace the other.
Again, sure, opinions are subjective. But that's not the same as saying they're a matter of complete relativism. I thing you'd have to look long and hard to find anyone whose favorite episodes of Trek are "The Alternative Factor" and "Spock's Brain." Intersubjective aesthetic standards do exist... and Sturgeon's Law does apply, to Trek as to anything else. If you were to ask a statistically valid sample of fans to name the best 10% of Trek episodes, you certainly wouldn't get all the same answers from everyone, and there would be a few outliers... but I think it's safe to assume you'd get a range of episodes showing a normal distribution... that is to say, concentrated around a central cluster of oft-chosen "good" ones that it would at least be safe to characterize as "better than average." (And you could repeat a similar survey to identify the ones that are subpar.) Those better-than-average episodes represent a quality threshold that it would be nice to see new material aim for.
Moreover, in the specific exchange you were responding to here, Arpy wasn't merely suggesting Trek should be "good" according to some arbitrary subjective standard. On the contrary, he was using the new backstory on the RA suit as an example of "bad" writing comparable to past underwhelming Trek outings, and explaining in some detail why that backstory was problematic, in a fairly logical and persuasive way. In light of that, it seems much fairer to say "yeah, that makes sense, the writers should have thought through the implications more carefully" rather than to say "taste is subjective, I'm sure somebody out there liked it."
I look at it from the reverse angle: if it has obvious logical inconsistencies, then it's too over-the-top to make for a good story.
Interesting. I'd contend that the almost complete lack of interaction between Detmer and Burnham last year (which drew quite a few puzzled complaints at the time) isn't something to emulate, but instead represents a serious failure to explore potentially interesting character dynamics, even glaringly obvious ones.
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Quinn from Death Wish?Well, I wanted an example from every show.Who else would you suggest for the Voyager spot?
I think your math is off (or maybe it was different in the 23rd century) because from TOS S2 - "Obsession":
http://www.chakoteya.net/StarTrek/47.htm
^^^
See highlighted line above - Plus mine is a direct canon on screen source.
Antimatter is about 10 billion times that of high explosives in a positron annihilation reaction.I think your math is off (or maybe it was different in the 23rd century) because from TOS S2 - "Obsession":
http://www.chakoteya.net/StarTrek/47.htm
^^^
See highlighted line above - Plus mine is a direct canon on screen source.
1 gram of positrons = 37.8 megatons of high explosive.
so two grams would surpass Tsar Bomba.
Krakatoa was probably around 200MT.
1.5kt of antimatter would not be a supernova but it would be an astronomical event.
I think your math is off (or maybe it was different in the 23rd century) because from TOS S2 - "Obsession":
GARROVICK: Just think, Captain, less than one ounce of antimatter here is more powerful than ten thousand cobalt bombs. Plus mine is a direct canon on screen source.
It's an odd comparison for Garrovick to make, not least because (questions of explosive yield aside) the purpose of a cobalt bomb is radioactive fallout for purposes of long-term lethality, something you only get precisely because a nuclear explosion doesn't annihilate all the matter involved. When Star Trek was produced cobalt bombs had been theorized but not actually built (nor have they been since, thankfully), but unless we assume they're incredibly low-yield (less than the smallest tactical nukes ever built), we'd have to say that Garrovick (or, to be fair, the episode's writer) got his math wrong by a few orders of magnitude.
Why? Because the explosive yield of antimatter is perfectly simple to calculate. The longstanding convention is that 1 kt of TNT releases 10^12 calories of energy, which equals 4.184x10^12 joules. Meanwhile 1 gram of antimatter annihilating an equal quantity of matter releases the entire mass-energy of both, which amounts to ~1.8x10^14 joules. That's equivalent to roughly 43 kt of explosive yield.
So @XCV330, I have no idea where you got 37.8 mt. There's some energy loss in the form of neutrinos, so perhaps that accounts for the reduction from 43. However, the bigger error is mt vs kt. (Perhaps you or your source were accidentally calculating using food calories, which are 1000 times larger than thermal calories?)
(Admittedly I'm not a scientist myself, nor do I play one on TV, so my own sources for this are mostly a few Wikipedia pages and a couple of blog posts. However, they're all basically consistent with one another, so I trust the underlying calculations.)
Star Trek did have a science advisor at the time "Obsession" was made, but evidently either this bit didn't get corrected or the correction got vetoed by a story editor. That's a shame, as it would've been a fairly easy fix. An ounce of antimatter is 28.35 grams, so we're talking an explosive yield of roughly 1,200 kt, or 1.2 mt. The yield of the original A-bomb dropped on Hiroshima is typically estimated at about 12-13 kt. If the intent was to impress the audience, then, Garrovick could have said something like "one ounce of antimatter here is more powerful than 100 atomic bombs!" That would've been something the audience could relate to easily (albeit somewhat anachronistic in the 23rd century), and it would've been accurate to boot.
That's presumably why TNG, when it got around to these things, invented nonsense units like "isotons" for photon torpedo yield, making it easier to fudge the math. Still and all, if they're going to tell us how much antimatter is involved, it becomes straightforward to calculate. (Granted the tech manual isn't technically canon, of course, but it was written by people doing the show, so it's fair to assume a certain level of consistency.)
So circling back!... if a standard TNG-era photon torpedo had a yield of 64 mt, and TOS-era torpedoes were no more powerful than that, it's reasonable to assume that one would not be enough to take out the Doomsday Machine.
Of course, that does leave open the question of why firing multiple torpedoes wouldn't do the trick. (In "Taste of Armageddon," when Kirk is bluffing about destroying the planet, Scotty says it would be possible to fire dozens at once.) A line or two of dialogue foreclosing the option in some way would've made "DM" more airtight. Still, it's a great episode!
(Ye gods, the things I waste perfectly good time on when I should be working on my dissertation...)
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But, Burnham had to know "when" the "murder" would occur and also 'how", assuming I understand what you're saying. She knew the plan. Spock also told her that that if the Angel didn't show, he really would be responsible for killing a Starfleet officer. So, there is evidence that Spock even told Burnham that she could die by Spock's hand.
I don't see how she could have been caught off guard by her suffocation, because she knew that was the plan. Likewise I can't see how she would not be 'terrorized' by suffocating. Terror was an inevitable part of the plan.
But I also think that to Spock, it was imperative that Burnham really 'die", presumably, because the Angel could have been a future version of Burnham who might know that there was a team planning on preventing Burnham's actual death.
Ultimately, I think Spock was in "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" mode and was willing to set aside "ethics" in some form or fashion in order to accomplish his goals. We've seen him do it before.
I don't get why Spock thought he'd get charged for killing an officer here when this plan was approved by the superior officers as part of the mission. A plan that Burnham was part of thinking up and carrying out. He'd face questioning but with everything as part of the approved plan and on mission it seemed a funny line.
I think he had realized that he would have to hold the rescue team at phaser-point until the Angel arrived or not.
The TARDIS takes the Doctor wherever she needs to be.
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The concept of "forcing the Red Angel's hand" still makes no sense, though. So long as everyone assumed the RA was future!Burnham, the only reasonable assumption was that the RA knew the details of what had happened (in her past) to present!Burnham... including the plan, the safety precautions, any actual danger faced, the outcome, and so forth. She would know whether she had been rescued or not, and how. There would be no way to surprise future!Burnham, and indeed if there were a way to surprise her, the whole plan would make no sense from the get-go, as it depended on future!Burnham knowing that her life was at stake.
And yet, it also seemingly depended on her not knowing, at least enough for the trap to be effective. Because if she knew about the trap, why would she walk into it voluntarily rather than trying to evade it? And if she did walk into it voluntarily... then that would obviously be a cooperative act, so why not just skip the whole "trap" part and merely arrange with present!Burnham to have her future self meet them and explain what was going on?
So again: any way you slice it, the whole scheme just didn't make a lick of sense.
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But then, even before you get to that pile of meshugenah, this was already the episode that whipsawed us from "Burnham's parents were a couple of ordinary scientists who wound up in the wrong place at the wrong time," to "Burnham's parents were a couple of super-geniuses who were able to work outside their fields to devise a portable time-travel suit in a matter of months, and were targeted for death because of it, due to the actions of an intelligence agent who Burnham just happened to wind up working alongside 20+ years later." It took something simple and evocative, and turned it into a case study in bad writing — building a story out of coincidence stacked on top of implausibility stacked on top of contrivance.
So with that as a lead-in, why should we expect the rest of the ep to make any sense, either?...
And yet, it also seemingly depended on her not knowing, at least enough for the trap to be effective. Because if she knew about the trap, why would she walk into it voluntarily rather than trying to evade it? And if she did walk into it voluntarily... then that would obviously be a cooperative act, so why not just skip the whole "trap" part and merely arrange with present!Burnham to have her future self meet them and explain what was going on?
So again: any way you slice it, the whole scheme just didn't make a lick of sense.
---
But then, even before you get to that pile of meshugenah, this was already the episode that whipsawed us from "Burnham's parents were a couple of ordinary scientists who wound up in the wrong place at the wrong time," to "Burnham's parents were a couple of super-geniuses who were able to work outside their fields to devise a portable time-travel suit in a matter of months, and were targeted for death because of it, due to the actions of an intelligence agent who Burnham just happened to wind up working alongside 20+ years later." It took something simple and evocative, and turned it into a case study in bad writing — building a story out of coincidence stacked on top of implausibility stacked on top of contrivance.
So with that as a lead-in, why should we expect the rest of the ep to make any sense, either?...
1.
Its not about surprising Future Burnham. Its about compelling. Two different things.Also, your arguments depend on wholly linear thinking. the RA isn't necessaily limited to linear travel since it can go back and forwards in time. This means it can likely cross its own path, Future and past versions can likely interact etc. I take it you haven't watched the 12 Monkey's TV series.
2.
Based on Lelands behavior, I don't think he's involved by accident. Its very likely that he's involved himself in this because he's guilty about what happened to Burnham's parents. So, not a coincidence, but intentional maneuvering.
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It may have already been discussed, but why do you think the writers had Leland introduce the notion of time-travel interference in terms of technological advancement? There's an exchange between Leland and Michael in the episode which felt like a major set up to me.
"They were working on a theory that sudden technological leaps across certain cultures - including those on earth - weren't happenstance but the result of time travel."
"No. They would have known that certain leaps, including technological advancements, can be explained."
"I wasn't convinced either, until they built the suit."
"They were working on a theory that sudden technological leaps across certain cultures - including those on earth - weren't happenstance but the result of time travel."
"No. They would have known that certain leaps, including technological advancements, can be explained."
"I wasn't convinced either, until they built the suit."
That ship has already sailed. The TOS timeline is well and truly gone because of time travel and technological advancement created by subsequent trek series. The events of the VOY episodes “futures end pt 1 and 2” created the technologically advanced computers of ENT and DIS that make the extinct timeline of TOS look archaic, also postponing the Eugenics war. I’m okay with it being a new timeline if only DIS would admit it was and stop trying to line up with a timeline that no longer exists....
I just took that as an in-joke about previous shows timeline hijinks
Although it could also be a subtle reference to the Temporal Cold War, which may well be known about and at least partially understood by the 2230s-2250s(at least within restricted covert circles) if Section 31 gained access to Jonathan Archer's classified log entries and official reports to Starfleet Command on his run-ins with the Suliban, Daniels and Future Guy.
Knowledge that time travelers once altered the outcome of World War II and engaged in other terrifying activities across the width and breadth of human history could have frightened Section 31 into researching what was previously thought of by most as theoretical or implausible. The Red Angel suit was the eventual result.
Knowledge that time travelers once altered the outcome of World War II and engaged in other terrifying activities across the width and breadth of human history could have frightened Section 31 into researching what was previously thought of by most as theoretical or implausible. The Red Angel suit was the eventual result.
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