Star Trek: Discovery -- Season 3 Episode 7 (Unification III)

It occurred to me that a 930-year jump is not insignificant.  The crew of the Discovery is so far in the future, it would be like someone from the Norman invasion of England coming to our time.  I bring this up because Spock gets a cameo in this episode, which is called Unification III.  This would be like one of us talking about William the Conqueror.  I want you to consider that for a moment.

You see, the central aspect of this episode is that Michael Burnham has to go to Vulcan.  Except they call it Ni’Var now, because Romulans are living there.  It looks like Spock’s efforts in The Next Generation paid off, even if he never lived to see it.  But that’s not why she’s going to Vulcan.  She needs information on The Burn.

Burnham has three points of reference as to The Burn’s cause.  She determines that the Burn happened at one location and spread out rather than happening all at once.  However, three points of reference only narrows down where that point of origin is.  Like Johnny 5 from Short Circuit, Burnham needs more input.

The Vulcans had this experiment called SB-19.  In an effort to find alternatives to warp drive the Federation pushed Vulcan to conduct an experiment that may have caused The Burn.  The Vulcans blamed themselves, withdrew from The Federation and didn’t share the information.  It’s up to Burnham to play on the fact that she’s Spock’s sister.

The whole thing seems a little odd to me.  It’s like someone showed up today and claimed to be William the Conqueror’s sister.  Any sense of who William the Conqueror is reduced to legend and fable.  Anyway, Burnham goes through a bit of an inquisition, learns a valuable lesson and gets the information in spite of it all.

On top of this, we finally find out what happened to Burnham’s mother.  She ended up on Ni’Var and joined that Romulan candor sect from Star Trek: Picard.  She basically throws her daughter under a bus during the hearing to get the SB-19 information, citing honesty and everything.  Michael is forced to face some hard truths.  It’s little wonder that she resists and feels betrayed.

It’s also notable that the Vulcans aren’t relieved that The Burn isn’t their fault.  I know.  Vulcans don’t show emotion.  And there are other considerations, like The Federation was pushing them to do something that they knew wasn’t a good idea.  A hundred years later and the Vulcans are still saying we told you so.

Meanwhile, Tilly is made first officer.  Sure, she’s an ensign.  She was on the command track and all, but she seems a little inexperienced to be the executive officer, even if temporarily.  This could be an attempt to develop the character.  Even if she doesn’t permanently become executive officer, it will give her a chance to grow.  I would think she’d at least get a promotion.  Maybe later on, she will.  It would make more sense to hold off on that.

One thing stuck out while looking at information about the episode.  Vulcan’s new name is Ni’Var.  What’s this thing with apostrophes in names?  In text, it usually denotes a contraction.  Cannot becomes can’t.  Is Ni’Var a contraction for something?  Phonetically, I wouldn’t think it makes any difference.  I don’t know if it’s to show that it’s different than something else.  How do we get these random apostrophes?

It’s also still not mentioned what happened to Remans when Romulus exploded.  I think I may have caught a glimpse of one, but I can’t be certain.  It’s just as well.  The whole Reman thing seemed like a contrivance to begin with.  It’s something else that Star Trek brought into the fold only to abandon after one use.

I can’t wait to see how this season ends.

 

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Star Trek: Discovery -- Season 2 Episode 11 (Perpetual Infinity)

We were given a lot to process in the previous episode of Discovery.  It was assumed that the mysterious Red Angel was Michael Burnham.  The assumption wasn’t far off.  It turns out that The Red Angel is actually her mother, Dr. Gabrielle Burnham.  This is a big shock, considering that Dr. Burnham and her husband were killed by Klingons, leaving Michael to be raised by Sarek and Amanda on Vulcan.

Gabrielle has been living more than 900 years in the future.  In that future, Control has taken over and killed all organic life on every planet she’s seen.  She’s been making trips back to Michael’s present so that she might prevent this.  Unfortunately, Gabrielle can’t stay in the present for more than a few minutes.  She’s sucked back, making meaningful change difficult.

This is where Discovery comes in; they’ve found a way to trap the Red Angel.  The bad news is that this only delays the inevitable.  It becomes apparent that Gabrielle will eventually return to the future.  Even worse, she doesn’t want to talk to Michael, her only child.  That’s how focused she has become on preventing this disaster.

Control is after some important information.  The data can’t be deleted.  The best plan is to move it into Gabrielle’s suit and send it into the distant future, where it will be permanently hidden from Control.

With three more episodes left, one can assume that the plan doesn’t exactly work out.  Gabrielle does go back to the future by episode’s end, leaving the crew to find some other way to deal with Control.

It occurs to me that since Control is a computer program, it could effectively wait the 930 years.  But that would be 930 years for humans to deal with Control.  It might also have served as the impetus for Control to wipe out all life anyway.

We also learn that Gabrielle didn’t just make a few trips to the present.  She had logs for over 800 trips.  She even hints at Captain Pike’s fate.  It’s no wonder she’s so focused.

There’s also the question of whether or not Control will become The Borg.  Both seek perfection.  Both are capable of assimilation.  “Struggle is pointless,” as Leland puts it.  Gabrielle has invented time travel.  Discovery has a spore drive that can go anywhere in an instant.  It is conceivable.

Alas, it doesn’t look like this is going to happen.  I’ve already finished the season and it looks like Control will be dealt with some other way.  Then again, anything’s possible.  I’ve noted before that nothing ever truly stays dead in the Star Trek universe.

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Star Trek: Discovery -- Season 2 Episode 10 (The Red Angel)

SPOILER ALERT:  I’m going to give away major surprises here.

There’s a line of thought that most mythology has some basis in reality.  Gods and angels could be powerful aliens.  Bigfoot could be any number of real-life animals, such as bears.  There’s even a word for it:  Euhemerism, which is the belief that actual events are distorted to the point where they become legend or myth.

In Discovery, there’s The Red Angel.  Spock saw it as a child.  The Red Angel even helped Spock.  He drew pictures of it, but it was dismissed as the product of a child’s active imagination.  Come to find out a few episodes ago that The Red Angel actually exists.  And it’s assumed to be a humanoid in a mechanical suit.

At the beginning of the episode, something comes to light:  The suit contains a bioneural imprint.  But it’s not any bioneural imprint.  It belongs to none other than Michael Burnham.  So, the crew sets off on the assumption that The Red Angel actually is Burnham.  It’s kind of a flimsy case, but whatever.

Here’s where the crew makes its next logical misstep, though.  They reason that since The Red Angel is Burnham, she’ll act to save Burnham.  Thus, putting Burnham at mortal risk will serve as bait so that they might capture The Red Angel.

Um, ok.  Is it really wise to have Burnham present during these discussions?  Wouldn’t it kind of give their plan away?  I would think they’d have her wait in the next room or something.

There’s also the cliché of having to possible actually kill her for the plan to be effective.  We all know that they’re not going to do that to such an important character.

Despite a few weaknesses, the episode serves as a good transition from Project Daedalus to Perpetual Infinity.  That may be its greatest weakness, in that the series had to get from one point to another and didn’t really have a great way to do that.  The Red Angel has to be drawn out somehow and there’s really only one way to do that with any certainty.  It’s not a great plan, but it’s hard to come up with a better one.

Dr. Culber also talks to Admiral Cornwall, who was a psychologist.  She doesn’t offer her a session, per se, but it is nice to finally see that he does recognize the need to reach out to someone.  I suspect it’s going to be a long road back for Culber.

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