Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

BrianDavion wrote:

 Overread wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
Yeah. I can't help but feel Axanar is like Star Citizen. It's never coming out. The big talking head behind it is just going to keep teasing that it's almost here while holding out his hand for more money. It's like there's a new industry now where you can get paid to 'work' but never actually deliver any sort of end product.

Eh its nothing new. Duke Nukem spent well over a decade in that kind of pit.
.

and the end result was complete and utter garbage

It's worse than that. I went and read about it after this thread. Duke Nukem Forever is misogynistic to a degree that is nauseating.


Prelude to Axanar is enjoyable, but from what I've read it's not actually based on canon material. Garth of Izar's legendary victory has multiple variations and none of them (ASFAIK) have appeared on TV. I do like seeing Tony Todd, Martok, Apollo, and Ellen Tigh in their respective roles and the fellow playing Garth has an uncanny resemblance to his TOS version.

I've mentioned it before.

Prelude to Axanar is based on an old FASA RPG campaign more than anything in the Star Trek canon.

 LordofHats wrote:
I've mentioned it before.

Prelude to Axanar is based on an old FASA RPG campaign more than anything in the Star Trek canon.

Yup. I really like the Four Years War book that actually deals with the conflict (whereas the one with Axanar in its name is a TMP era adventure). It does a great job with both technical details missing from the construction manual (like introduction dates of tech) as well as the tactics and strategies of both sides in the conflict.

Episode 4....

Half way through, and it’s a cracker. Even a cheeky acknowledgment of Super Burnham (referred to as a responsibility hoarder...)

So, they reference no non-Trill hosts in two thousand years, did they lose the records from that time Riker was a temporary host?

Also a reference to virtually no suitable Trill hosts left, but didn’t DS9 decide that virtually all Trill were able to be hosts and the whole rarity thing was a lie?

 AduroT wrote:
So, they reference no non-Trill hosts in two thousand years, did they lose the records from that time Riker was a temporary host?

Also a reference to virtually no suitable Trill hosts left, but didn’t DS9 decide that virtually all Trill were able to be hosts and the whole rarity thing was a lie?

A truth which was again covered up, for fear it would reduce Symbionts to commodities to be bought and sold.

The Trill are also clear that their knowledge has been decimated following the Burn - so that one time one human was a host for a very, very short time? Very easily forgotten over the centuries.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Just checked. Around 50% of Trill are capable of joining. But each year, only around 500 Symbionts are available.

Given Symbionts share memories and lifetimes and that, the academy structure ensures they’re blended with the finest - those who truly want it, and will add to the overall gestalt in a meaningful way.

That’s a powerful sociological tool in its own right - the exact morals of I’ll leave to the individual.

 AduroT wrote:
So, they reference no non-Trill hosts in two thousand years, did they lose the records from that time Riker was a temporary host?

Also a reference to virtually no suitable Trill hosts left, but didn’t DS9 decide that virtually all Trill were able to be hosts and the whole rarity thing was a lie?

Clearly this is a separate universe or timeline from TNG/DS9.

It mostly seemed to fit from my memory of DS9, particularly if you assume that knowledge was lost or hidden over, what was functionally an apocalypse.

Because that's really what this is, a post-Apocalyptic Star Trek.

My memory of TNG is a bit, well, vaguer, but the line in the episode mentioned 'no successful non-human hosts' - Wasn't the whole thing that Riker and the Symbiote were dying unless it got removed?



Overall, I'd say season 3 is a big step up for them so far. The occasional wobbly bits here and there, sure. But a good step up.

I'm now wondering where the Federation are going to be based, I have a few ideas that it's going to be somewhere Important.

Bajor and DS9?
Khitomer?
K-7?


I also like the idea that for 'Discovery' they really have gone back to the 'Caravan of the Stars' space Western feel of the original Star Trek. I think this is what they always wanted for the show, but they found out after the first season that it didn't really work fitting in the design space of a decade before Trek, because people were wanting to see more original Trek-ish things. - Which is, where I imagine Pike's show answers that wish.

But we've got lots of Western elements now, like the Couriers (which of course, also gave me the Western inspired Fallout New Vegas vibes).

Then the idea of these little forts of Federation presence out in the 'wilderness'.

I imagine that when they do find the Federation, it will be pretty similar to the Federation we know, but due to the lack of dilithium (Which I guess would be the railroads in the Western analogy?) their sphere of direct influence is very limited.

All in all, I think this has been a good step of a setting for Discovery. And, of course, it's simply just a possible future, so no need to worry.

ALTHOUGH, part of me still wonders if there's crossovers with Control and the TotallyNotReapers at the end of Picard.

Post-Apocalyptic Star Trek? ??
????


And Dilithium isn’t crucial for warp travel. It just makes matter-antimatter reactors efficient. The Romulans use quantum singularities by TNG, so the Federation should have no problem figuring that tech out over decades post-Voyager. That is, if they don’t just develop Omega particle reactors or Subspace taps or something.

 Compel wrote:


I'm now wondering where the Federation are going to be based, I have a few ideas that it's going to be somewhere Important.

Bajor and DS9?
Khitomer?
K-7?

you're missing an obvious one.

Quonos.
If you want to hit the discovery with a serious WTF moment.... that'd be how to do it.

Gamma or Delta Quadrant?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Gamma or Delta Quadrant?

won't mean anything, but make it Quonos, the Klingon homeworld and THAT would be a major WTF factor

Today I learned that Star Trek Picard has TotallyNotReapers and am increasingly glad I only watched the first episode.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Post-Apocalyptic Star Trek? ??
????


And Dilithium isn’t crucial for warp travel. It just makes matter-antimatter reactors efficient. The Romulans use quantum singularities by TNG, so the Federation should have no problem figuring that tech out over decades post-Voyager. That is, if they don’t just develop Omega particle reactors or Subspace taps or something.

Yeah I am unimpressed with the handwave. Book mentions like 3 other FTL methods, quantum slipstream and whatever. There was also a passing mention of the Gorn destroying 2 light years of subspace or something, so maybe we can assume there's more to it? Spacial rifts and anomalies and warp tears across the whole of space making any FTL hazardous? Maybe?

maybe this'll tie into that episode of TNG where it was revealed that use of warp drive was damaging subspace or something?

Forgive my thick, but do we know how long it’s been since The Burn?

A hundred -ish years I believe

Episode 4 another cracker. Discovery is absolutely hitting it's stride.

Discovery definitely seems to have improved since the first episode of this season. Episodes 2-4 felt a lot more like Star Trek and they seem to be giving the rest of the crew more screen time, which has already helped make the show better and more balanced.

I like the direction they're going with the fragile mental/emotional state of the crew and the scene in the last episode at the dinner was really well done.

Lower Decks - bit of rough edges, the two main characters are so thoroughly unlikable, Becket is a truly annoying Mary Sue and Bradward is just too stupid to live. But but I got a smile or two each time. I'd watch season 2. I just hope they don't hit a reset button after the last episode.

In the larger picture I think it answers the question of where are the enlisted folks in Star Fleet.

Answer - they're crowded out by overqualified, overeager Ensigns who will vacuum the conference rooms if it means they can be out there on a starship. So yes there are enlisted (the guys in TOS wearing the karate gis, the guys in TMP wearing the red boiler suits, and of course Chief O'Brien in TNG) but they're getting scarce. It's like people in competitive companies and industries with Masters degrees working as secretaries to get their foot in the door. And why would a captain take an E5 shuttle pilot when he could get an O1 command officer who can do first contact, helm the ship AND fly shuttles too. So the E5 gets stuck flying shuttles between Mars and Earth cause Starships have way too many overqualified applicants competing for way too few jobs.

Also it answers why captains and first officers are beaming down to hostile planets and leading commando missions. No one get promoted for saying they sent their highly qualified commando team on a mission. You get promoted for leading from the front. And everyone wants to move up. From a starbase to a starship. From the USS Cerritos to the USS Titan, from the Titan to the Enterprise. And so on. If you've ever worked in a competitive environment it suddenly makes sense.

Also it answers why captains and first officers are beaming down to hostile planets and leading commando missions. No one get promoted for saying they sent their highly qualified commando team on a mission. You get promoted for leading from the front. And everyone wants to move up.

This is largely a trope for the TV shows, to keep the camera on the main characters. Every so often they remind each other (and the audience) that they're Not Supposed to Do This.

In reality these would be the nasty jerk COs who are trying to keep their officers from getting promoted (as they don't get to lead missions on their record), to keep the efficient (or ambitious) ones under their thumb.

Voss wrote:

Also it answers why captains and first officers are beaming down to hostile planets and leading commando missions. No one get promoted for saying they sent their highly qualified commando team on a mission. You get promoted for leading from the front. And everyone wants to move up.

This is largely a trope for the TV shows, to keep the camera on the main characters. Every so often they remind each other (and the audience) that they're Not Supposed to Do This.

In reality these would be the nasty jerk COs who are trying to keep their officers from getting promoted (as they don't get to lead missions on their record), to keep the efficient (or ambitious) ones under their thumb.

It's also just a plain god awful way to run a ship.

"Let's send the science officer and the chief of security into an unknown situation because they want promotions" is really bad logic. Spock would be ashamed. If they died the entire ship would be put in a tight spot. Heaven forbid you lose you chief medical officer, chief engineer, or captain in an off-ship hike they didn't need to go on. Most of the shows post-TNG itself though do make efforts to show that the main characters aren't the only ones who go on these missions. They're just the ones who go on the missions the episodes tend to be about. Away teams featuring red shirt characters are frequent in the background of Voyager for example, and it happens a couple times in late TNG.

It's obviously a narrative element and I'm not going to criticize it outside of being factitious, but Star Trek does not need additional stupid explanations justifying narrative conventions.

 LordofHats wrote:

Voss wrote:

Also it answers why captains and first officers are beaming down to hostile planets and leading commando missions. No one get promoted for saying they sent their highly qualified commando team on a mission. You get promoted for leading from the front. And everyone wants to move up.

This is largely a trope for the TV shows, to keep the camera on the main characters. Every so often they remind each other (and the audience) that they're Not Supposed to Do This.

In reality these would be the nasty jerk COs who are trying to keep their officers from getting promoted (as they don't get to lead missions on their record), to keep the efficient (or ambitious) ones under their thumb.

It's also just a plain god awful way to run a ship.

"Let's send the science officer and the chief of security into an unknown situation because they want promotions" is really bad logic. Spock would be ashamed. If they died the entire ship would be put in a tight spot. Heaven forbid you lose you chief medical officer, chief engineer, or captain in an off-ship hike they didn't need to go on. Most of the shows post-TNG itself though do make efforts to show that the main characters aren't the only ones who go on these missions. They're just the ones who go on the missions the episodes tend to be about. Away teams featuring red shirt characters are frequent in the background of Voyager for example, and it happens a couple times in late TNG.

It's obviously a narrative element and I'm not going to criticize it outside of being factitious, but Star Trek does not need additional stupid explanations justifying narrative conventions.

I get what you mean, I often think about narrative decisions from a production standpoint (I doubt Riker would have turned down his own command three times in real life, but to keep an episodic show you have to keep your main cast around). Naturally I care about canon, character consistency, and good storytelling. But episodic television often has episodic canon. I figure that's why we haven't heard from the Douwd all that much.

It's kind of like: if you pick up a history book about a country in a part of the world that's relatively unfamiliar to you. You read the book and you remember the broad periods of history; Archaic Period, Classical Period, Industrial Period, and so on. You don't have to remember the exact name of every minister of finance, or even every prime minister, to understand the important events and react to them on an emotional level. So with Star Trek, we have at this point I think eight or nine different shows (TOS, TAS, TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT, STD, STLD, STP, plus the CGI one for kids?), produced by dozens of people over ~60 years, and you get some major inconsistencies, but you're left with a lot of great characters, some of whom grow and some of whom stay the same but most of whom remain interesting, hundreds of stories full of great science fiction concepts. Smooth-forehead Klingons don't bother me in the least.

Watching First Contact for the first time in ages and it...

IS REALLY GOOD!

What I like is the characters act intelligently and decisively throughout, they see a threat and take measures to stop it.

Well except for that holodeck scene. WTF?
Oh and how the Enterprise goes from the Neutral Zone to Earth orbit in 12 seconds. Why not have the Enterprise ordered back to Earth to get a new captain to fight the Borg, raising the stakes accordingly. Then the new captain is killed as the Borg arrive early and everything goes as written. Ah well.

I also like how when our Wise Patriarch Father Figure dude starts acting irrationally (OK that might explain the holodeck) other characters call him out on it. And, when confronted, he stops, reflects and corrects himself. Awesome stuff, one of the best character moments in Trek.

The new cast, Lilly, Cochrane and the Borg Queen are all great.

Best or second best Trek film.

What the heck happened with the other TNG films?

Wait, why is Mariner a Mary Sue?
Because she is good at stuff?
She is like the opposite of a Mary Sue. She has like, several psychology problems that prevent her from being the best.
And it's a cartoon, a comedy one at that, her type of character is expected.

I also just watched Discovery, do they explain why klingons look so different at all?
Is it the virus nonsense again?

I think there was an out of show explanation of different houses or something? They look way less different in season two when they’re allowed to grow hair.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Wait, why is Mariner a Mary Sue?
Because she is good at stuff?
She is like the opposite of a Mary Sue. She has like, several psychology problems that prevent her from being the best.
And it's a cartoon, a comedy one at that, her type of character is expected.

She's just good at everything and faces no consequences other than Captain Mom yelling at her from time to time. You're right the holodeck episode added some depth to her and cast her in a different light.

But still she feels to me the sort of character the creators want us to like, she's so cool and knows everyone and never gets things wrong, but in reality is just annoying. So maybe Poochie is a better comparison. Not a total deal breaker, but she gets annoying, especially when I had to binge it before I left the US.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Watching First Contact for the first time in ages and it...

IS REALLY GOOD!

What I like is the characters act intelligently and decisively throughout, they see a threat and take measures to stop it.

Well except for that holodeck scene. WTF?
Oh and how the Enterprise goes from the Neutral Zone to Earth orbit in 12 seconds. Why not have the Enterprise ordered back to Earth to get a new captain to fight the Borg, raising the stakes accordingly. Then the new captain is killed as the Borg arrive early and everything goes as written. Ah well.

I also like how when our Wise Patriarch Father Figure dude starts acting irrationally (OK that might explain the holodeck) other characters call him out on it. And, when confronted, he stops, reflects and corrects himself. Awesome stuff, one of the best character moments in Trek.

The new cast, Lilly, Cochrane and the Borg Queen are all great.

Best or second best Trek film.

What the heck happened with the other TNG films?

What happened? They denied Patrick Stewart juicy scenes to really bring to life (Lily’s “k, Ahab” scene is frankly superb.) And it also built more on Picard’s PTSD. he truly hates The Borg. There are many sci-fi tropes about personal violation, but this one is a doozy. Forcibly assimilated, somewhat still conscious, and his knowledge used to kill thousands.

Good point, First Contact sort of recognizes that, whatever their merits in TV, the rest of the cast really can't carry a film while Stewart and Spinner can.

Nemesis also made it the Picard and Data show but never quite gelled...

Kid_Kyoto wrote:Watching First Contact for the first time in ages and it...

IS REALLY GOOD!

What I like is the characters act intelligently and decisively throughout, they see a threat and take measures to stop it.

Best or second best Trek film.

What the heck happened with the other TNG films?

It's awesome isn't it, definitely best opening scene of a Trek film. Possibly the best Trek film (would put it up there with 2 and 6), certainly with the TNG crew.

Not sure what happened with the others - Number 10 Nemesis broke the 'evens good, odds bad' rule of the Trek films didn't it. I did watch it again recently to see if maybe I had been a bit too critical of it before, but it was still pretty poor.. Not sure why exactly but it just seemed to miss the mark.

Slipspace wrote:Discovery definitely seems to have improved since the first episode of this season. Episodes 2-4 felt a lot more like Star Trek and they seem to be giving the rest of the crew more screen time, which has already helped make the show better and more balanced.

I like the direction they're going with the fragile mental/emotional state of the crew and the scene in the last episode at the dinner was really well done.

Agree 100%. These are the first episodes that have felt like Star Trek I think since Discovery was released, am really enjoying them.

BrianDavion wrote:

 Compel wrote:


I'm now wondering where the Federation are going to be based, I have a few ideas that it's going to be somewhere Important.

Bajor and DS9?
Khitomer?
K-7?

you're missing an obvious one.

Quonos.
If you want to hit the discovery with a serious WTF moment.... that'd be how to do it.

That's my bet as well. The only question is have the Klingons adapted Federation ideals or corrupted them?

So far this season has at least been a bit interesting. I actually want to see what all of our favorite races have been up to since the Apocalypse. I believe this season was actually what Kurtzman wanted this new Trek to be in the first place but it was rejected for being too dark. Having the show jump 1,000 years into the future and introducing "The Burn" gave a good excuse to go with the original premise. It could be fun to see The Discovery put The Federation back together again. At least there's some point to the show now.

I wonder if they'll ever get through an episode without a gun fight or Kung Fu move ever gain? This last episode would have been a perfect candidate but alas even the planet Trill requires two people to get shot and some Kung Fu fighting. At least they actually spent a significant part of the episode developing characters not named Burnham and even more surprisingly in the total absence of Burnham.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Watching First Contact for the first time in ages and it...

IS REALLY GOOD!

What I like is the characters act intelligently and decisively throughout, they see a threat and take measures to stop it.

Well except for that holodeck scene. WTF?
Oh and how the Enterprise goes from the Neutral Zone to Earth orbit in 12 seconds. Why not have the Enterprise ordered back to Earth to get a new captain to fight the Borg, raising the stakes accordingly. Then the new captain is killed as the Borg arrive early and everything goes as written. Ah well.

I also like how when our Wise Patriarch Father Figure dude starts acting irrationally (OK that might explain the holodeck) other characters call him out on it. And, when confronted, he stops, reflects and corrects himself. Awesome stuff, one of the best character moments in Trek.

The new cast, Lilly, Cochrane and the Borg Queen are all great.

Best or second best Trek film.

What the heck happened with the other TNG films?

Agreed. First Contact is my favorite ST Movie and just solid overall with many great scenes. A few pages back people where giving Worf a lot of love. One of my favorite Worf moments is in First Contact when Picard is just demeaning him in front of the entire crew because he won't lead a suicide charge against in hand to hand combat again the Borg and calls him a coward. Worf says if Picard were any other man Worf would kill him right then and there for that insult. There's a lot to unpack there. I believe what Worf is saying but also clearly...Worf's feeling have been hurt... but also Picard is hurting too from PTSD.