Star Trek: Discovery 4.07
Jan. 3rd, 2022 03:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakIn which we get ethical debates in both plot lines while the episode title goes E.M. Forster on us, but the ending does not.
I need to clarify something, though. Since Pluto tv does not allow for rewatches, I can't check myself, so: Did Risan scientist Ruon Tarka say he is from a parallel universe or that he wants to go to a parallel universe? Because I thought it was the later, but I've just googled for another review and that reviewer thought the former. Maybe I misunderstood? Anyway, he denies it's the Mirrorverse, saying there are plenty of other parallel universes, but you know, that only makes me believe that either he's lying and it's the Mirrorverse (last season made a big deal out of the fact Georgiou won't be able to return there other than through that Guardian organized trip into the past and is stuck with the Primeverse, which fits with Tarka saying it needs that gigantic amount of energy the Anomaly is fueled by for him to go there).
(Mind you: the TNG episode where Worf flips through a gazillion different realities certainly establishes the existence of the Multiverse in Trek.)
On to the episode proper. Which for the first time addresses the fact Earth isn't yet among the returned Federation members and lets us meet its representative (again, since it's a character from last season), who does feel inclined to come back but when the episode's big dilemma arises promptly votes for the shooting first, asking questions later approach, thus ending up outside of the Federation again. If you look back through the various ST incarnations, where Earth was usually presented as the most humane and idealistic founding member of the Federation, and due to San Francisco as the location of Earth scenes more often than not usually coded as American, the fact that now Federation values are mostly embodied by the other members and Earth is a bellicose and isolationist planet (though not without hope for change) is pretty telling in what it reflects of our time.
Otoh, Michael, who gets the big Patrick Stewart speech of the episode, is human, and her insisting that they need to find out more about whoever created the anomaly and try to approach them with diplomacy before declaring war by weapon of mass destruction carries the day. The episode now offers the pay off for having put Book through the destruction of his home planet by letting him champion the opposite "bomb first" approach, and it makes for good drama to have both pov presented for good emotional reasons, but when it comes to the rationale, I fnd it's definitely loaded in Michael's favor. Because never mind ethics, some of the other points she makes should be convincing even if you don't hold Federation ideals, to wit: at this point, without knowing anything about the unknown species other than that it created the anomaly, including whether it's even aware of the damage to sentient being it does, using force would trigger a war against someone who if the anomaly is anything to go by has vastly superior technology to anything available to our lot and completely unknown resources. Also, the nature of the weapon which has been outlawed by the Khitomer Accords is such that it leaves long term damage to our galaxy, so even if this works as intended, rebuffing the unknown species, it would do so at a terrible long term cost.
(BTW, in terms of continuity, I appreciate that Book who presumaby has learned about Michael's life in their time together asks "what about the Klingons?" -i.e. Michael's actions in the pilot, and Michael's reply isn't "I was totally wrong to do that", it's "I knew about the Klingons when I did that whereas we don't know anything about Unknown Species 10-C". That she's an idealist doesn't mean she can't also ague on a pragmatic level.)
So even from a non idealistic pov, "find out first who exactly we're dealing with and why they did what they did, and try to communicate with them" before any deployment of dirty bombs makes just more sense, so the dices are loaded in that argument. Whereas in the other plot, dealing with Zora having become a sentient AI, Stamets is given good arguments and while his also are informed by what he personally witnessed (Control the malevolent AI killing and bodystealing left right and center), he remains rational about it and takes into account conversely what Zora says and how he has experienced her so far. Dito for David Cronenberg. Here, too, ethics carry the day - Zora isn't dismantled or destroyed but made a crew member with the same rights and duties as the organic ones - and given the sheer number of malevolent computers when they gain sentience, usually deciding to go Ultron and destroy other life as the ultimate pacification, Zora as a sympathetic compassionate being is a refreshing change.
(Sidenote: of course between Data and the Doctor on Voyager, and Vic on DS9, sympathetic sentient AIs are hardly new on Trek, either, but the "good" ones usually come in human shape. Zora remains the ship's main computer without a human form (though she has a human voice to be embodied by), which is a greater challenge.)
After ethics win the day twice, of course something not so good happens, i.e.: Ruon Tarka takes off with Book, a new spore drive vessel (and the show played fair, by stating in Tarka's introduction episode he's working with Aurelian on the spore drive recreation/improvement project) and his dirty weapon of mass destruction to bomb Unknown Species 10-C. Book isn't so driven by homeworld avenging and the conviction he needs to protect the rest of the galaxy this way that he doesn't deduce Tarka must have an additional motivation, and Tarka admits it (getting control of the incredible amount of energy driving the anomaly), but he still goes along with it, and thus the stage is set for a Michael vs Book plot. You know, in another show I'd mind and suspect artificial relationship angst, but here it seems to me organic and more of the Magneto vs Xavier type, i.e. engrained on who these people are and what they have experienced, and I'm actually into that kind of dynamic. So, bring on the next episode!
I need to clarify something, though. Since Pluto tv does not allow for rewatches, I can't check myself, so: Did Risan scientist Ruon Tarka say he is from a parallel universe or that he wants to go to a parallel universe? Because I thought it was the later, but I've just googled for another review and that reviewer thought the former. Maybe I misunderstood? Anyway, he denies it's the Mirrorverse, saying there are plenty of other parallel universes, but you know, that only makes me believe that either he's lying and it's the Mirrorverse (last season made a big deal out of the fact Georgiou won't be able to return there other than through that Guardian organized trip into the past and is stuck with the Primeverse, which fits with Tarka saying it needs that gigantic amount of energy the Anomaly is fueled by for him to go there).
(Mind you: the TNG episode where Worf flips through a gazillion different realities certainly establishes the existence of the Multiverse in Trek.)
On to the episode proper. Which for the first time addresses the fact Earth isn't yet among the returned Federation members and lets us meet its representative (again, since it's a character from last season), who does feel inclined to come back but when the episode's big dilemma arises promptly votes for the shooting first, asking questions later approach, thus ending up outside of the Federation again. If you look back through the various ST incarnations, where Earth was usually presented as the most humane and idealistic founding member of the Federation, and due to San Francisco as the location of Earth scenes more often than not usually coded as American, the fact that now Federation values are mostly embodied by the other members and Earth is a bellicose and isolationist planet (though not without hope for change) is pretty telling in what it reflects of our time.
Otoh, Michael, who gets the big Patrick Stewart speech of the episode, is human, and her insisting that they need to find out more about whoever created the anomaly and try to approach them with diplomacy before declaring war by weapon of mass destruction carries the day. The episode now offers the pay off for having put Book through the destruction of his home planet by letting him champion the opposite "bomb first" approach, and it makes for good drama to have both pov presented for good emotional reasons, but when it comes to the rationale, I fnd it's definitely loaded in Michael's favor. Because never mind ethics, some of the other points she makes should be convincing even if you don't hold Federation ideals, to wit: at this point, without knowing anything about the unknown species other than that it created the anomaly, including whether it's even aware of the damage to sentient being it does, using force would trigger a war against someone who if the anomaly is anything to go by has vastly superior technology to anything available to our lot and completely unknown resources. Also, the nature of the weapon which has been outlawed by the Khitomer Accords is such that it leaves long term damage to our galaxy, so even if this works as intended, rebuffing the unknown species, it would do so at a terrible long term cost.
(BTW, in terms of continuity, I appreciate that Book who presumaby has learned about Michael's life in their time together asks "what about the Klingons?" -i.e. Michael's actions in the pilot, and Michael's reply isn't "I was totally wrong to do that", it's "I knew about the Klingons when I did that whereas we don't know anything about Unknown Species 10-C". That she's an idealist doesn't mean she can't also ague on a pragmatic level.)
So even from a non idealistic pov, "find out first who exactly we're dealing with and why they did what they did, and try to communicate with them" before any deployment of dirty bombs makes just more sense, so the dices are loaded in that argument. Whereas in the other plot, dealing with Zora having become a sentient AI, Stamets is given good arguments and while his also are informed by what he personally witnessed (Control the malevolent AI killing and bodystealing left right and center), he remains rational about it and takes into account conversely what Zora says and how he has experienced her so far. Dito for David Cronenberg. Here, too, ethics carry the day - Zora isn't dismantled or destroyed but made a crew member with the same rights and duties as the organic ones - and given the sheer number of malevolent computers when they gain sentience, usually deciding to go Ultron and destroy other life as the ultimate pacification, Zora as a sympathetic compassionate being is a refreshing change.
(Sidenote: of course between Data and the Doctor on Voyager, and Vic on DS9, sympathetic sentient AIs are hardly new on Trek, either, but the "good" ones usually come in human shape. Zora remains the ship's main computer without a human form (though she has a human voice to be embodied by), which is a greater challenge.)
After ethics win the day twice, of course something not so good happens, i.e.: Ruon Tarka takes off with Book, a new spore drive vessel (and the show played fair, by stating in Tarka's introduction episode he's working with Aurelian on the spore drive recreation/improvement project) and his dirty weapon of mass destruction to bomb Unknown Species 10-C. Book isn't so driven by homeworld avenging and the conviction he needs to protect the rest of the galaxy this way that he doesn't deduce Tarka must have an additional motivation, and Tarka admits it (getting control of the incredible amount of energy driving the anomaly), but he still goes along with it, and thus the stage is set for a Michael vs Book plot. You know, in another show I'd mind and suspect artificial relationship angst, but here it seems to me organic and more of the Magneto vs Xavier type, i.e. engrained on who these people are and what they have experienced, and I'm actually into that kind of dynamic. So, bring on the next episode!
no subject
Date: 2022-01-03 10:35 pm (UTC)I heard Tarka say that he’s from a different universe and wants the anomaly’s power to get back there.
no subject
Date: 2022-01-08 08:58 pm (UTC)I liked this episode, which is very for me in the last couple seasons of Disco. It had a lot of strengths, of which the natural conflict between Michael and Book was one, as you note.
no subject
Date: 2023-02-19 08:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-02-20 07:01 am (UTC)