Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Strange New Worlds | 2x02 "Ad Astra Per Aspera"
khaosworks @ khaosworks @startrek.website Posts 107Comments 252Joined 2 yr. ago
khaosworks @ khaosworks @startrek.website
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107
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252
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2 yr. ago
My DaystromInstitute annotations are up at: https://startrek.website/post/90038 (spoilers, naturally).
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If Una joined Starfleet 25 years ago, that puts her age at around 42 (minimum joining age about 16-17, TNG: “Coming of Age”). Una was born on the planet in the Vaultera Nebula, which was given provisional Federation membership the year before she was born on condition all genetic modification was to stop. However, Una’s family carried on the tradition. New children were delivered by friendly doctors. Anyone found to be augmented would be arrested - which included a 10 year old boy named Ivan Ketoul, Neera’s cousin.
Una’s broken leg as a child was due to her trying to stop a fight when a child was accused of being Illyrian. It became infected and she would have died if they hadn’t found an Illyrian doctor to treat her in the middle of the night. The civil unrest became so bad that the local government separated the Illyrians into their own city. Una’s family could pass, so they went to the non-Illyrian city, and she left her best friend Neera behind.
Una turned herself in because she was sick of living a lie, because she believes Starfleet can be better.
Una’s experiences, of course, echo the Jim Crow era of American history, and the discrimination against black people. The treatment of Illyrians, with their hidden identities, also brings with it elements of discrimination against other minorities or sexual orientations. When did Star Trek become so woke? Since all the time, baby. Those who start protesting about Roddenberry’s utopia should remember Stiles from TOS: “Balance of Terror” and McCoy’s (intentions aside) casual racism when bantering with Spock.
As Pasalk questions Una, her hand rests on a glowing panel on her chair. It serves as a biometric verifier and lie detector as first seen in back in “Court Martial”.
Una states the date that Pike found out as Stardate 1224.3 (the Stardate mentioned in “Ghosts of Illyria”), 4 months prior. That means the events of Season 1 took place over a period of 2-3 months at best, with only 2 months between “Ghosts” and “The Quality of Mercy”. That’s a lot to squeeze in, considering the downtime for repairs between “Memento Mori” and “Spock Amok”.
Ketoul draws Batel’s attention to Starfleet Code 8514, which states:
In extraordinary and extreme circumstances, if the following conditions are met:
1.) any person fleeing persecution or fearing for their life due to political or religious beliefs, cultural engagements or biological truths may,
2.) seek safety within Starfleet; and
3.) upon revealing themselves to authorities and making a request, may be granted asylum.
Starfleet captains must exercise discretion in judgment when offering asylum. Status is confirmed by a Starfleet tribunal or designated authority.
This actually answers a question that has been lurking around for some time: why it was so easy for Picard to take Hannah Bates and her refugees from Genome Colony (TNG: “The Masterpiece Society”) aboard, and also why he could just take Mirasta Yale (TNG: “First Contact”) with him when she asked him to. In the former case pressure would be exerted on those who wanted to leave, and in the latter restrictions placed on Mirasta to prevent her from revealing the existence of aliens. The confirmation of Starfleet Code 8514 finally provides us with a legal basis for Picard’s actions.
The decision in Una’s case, to treat each case on its on merits, also provides us with a reason why the only issue with Dal in PRO was whether he be allowed to join the Academy, not his mere existence as an Augment in the Federation as the kids were all fleeing Tars Lemora.
One last thing though, is that while it’s clear the evidence shows Una lying about being modified and being modified, what’s the basis for the sedition charges? Sedition is basically inciting rebellion against authority, and none of Una’s actions amounted to that. Unless Pasalk was trying to prove that by claiming Una incited Pike not to report her, but then he did a piss-poor job of nailing it down. Also, Starfleet Code 8514 is horribly drafted. Oops, did I say this didn’t want to make me tear my hair out? Okay, I’ll stop now.
I once proposed on the sub that the different Chapel we see in TOS is because she was traumatised by "What Are Little Girls Made Of" but people preferred this retcon so felt such an explanation was both tragic and unnecessary.
Yep. The map shows Cestus right there close to outlined Gorn territory, so the establishment of Cestus III being seen as an incursion on Gorn space can’t really be much of a surprise - at least not in the way Spock put it in TOS: “Arena”.
The thing is that when Sarek is about to tell her how Vulcans achieved diplomatic relations with the Klingons, he makes it very clear that it was a special case.
SAREK: Be very careful that your assumptions are not being driven by your past.
BURNHAM: This isn't about what happened, Sarek. It's what's happening now. How did the Vulcans achieve diplomatic relations with the Klingons?
SAREK: That is a solution particular to us. One cannot assume it would work on a ship commanded by humans.
BURNHAM: Sarek, please.
SAREK: I caution you, be considered with how you use this information. You cannot save lives that have already been lost.
It is telling that we never hear Sarek tell Burnham what happened. Burnham relays the story about H’Atoria to Georgiou, but how much of it is filtered through her own biases is unclear.
BURNHAM: 240 years ago, near H'Atoria, a Vulcan ship crossed into Klingon space. The Klingons attacked immediately. They destroyed the vessel. Vulcans don't make the same mistake twice. From then on, until formal relations were established, whenever the Vulcans crossed paths with Klingons, the Vulcans fired first. They said hello in a language the Klingons understood. Violence brought respect. Respect brought peace. Captain, we have to give the Klingons a Vulcan hello.
But Burnham isn’t being logical here - she’s ignoring a vital factor which Sarek had already pointed out to her:
BURNHAM: We're facing off. No fire has been exchanged. But they didn't turn on their beacon until Starfleet was on its way to our position. I think they're summoning more of their kind.
SAREK: An odd proposition given that their Empire has been in disarray for generations. But you are describing something out of the ordinary. Restraint in the face of conflict. When a civilisation acts in opposition to its instincts, it may be under the influence of something, or someone, new. Great unifiers are few and far between, but they do come. Often such leaders will need a profound cause for their followers to rally around.
BURNHAM: A war.
Burnham knew. She is brought to the same conclusion that Sarek has come to, that whoever is in charge might want a war.
And yet she insists on shooting first, in opposition to Sarek telling her the H’Atoria Incident and what followed was very different.
The initial contact between Klingons and Vulcans was a meeting of equals and based on a misunderstanding of relations with no larger agenda of war behind it. That is why the Vulcan Hello worked then. There’s no reason to think it might work in the same way now.
In this light, Burnham’s justification on firing first rings very hollow, and is likely more driven by the past trauma of her parents’ death. It wouldn’t have worked, and she was aware that there was a real possibility it wouldn’t work but took the risk anyway. That’s the legal definition of recklessness, and played right into T’Kuvma’s hands.
Inaction may not have prevented the war, but it would have made her less complicit in its beginnings.
The difficulties are not about the physical appearance of the Gorn - it's about the fact of the Gorn's existence in the first place (Kirk being seemingly ignorant of the species name) and that they didn't know Cestus III could be considered an incursion on Gorn territory.
KIRK: I have been somehow whisked off the bridge and placed on the surface of an asteroid, facing the captain of the alien ship. Weaponless, I face the creature the Metrons called a Gorn.
and
MCCOY: Can that be true? Was Cestus III an intrusion on their space?
SPOCK: It may well be possible, Doctor. We know very little about that section of the galaxy.
MCCOY: Then we could be in the wrong.
Then again, McCoy does refer to the alien as a "Gorn" without seemingly having previously heard the name (there are multiple possible explanations for this), so there's that. My point really was that mental gymnastics already need to be employed to square "Arena" with SNW, and we're getting into areas which need even more.
Yes, but thematically, the phrase "steal the Enterprise" - and the heist aspect of it, whereas in TOS: "The Menagerie" it's a more of a one-man show - is more associated with Kirk & Co. because of the sequence in ST III.
One thing I have to note in more detail is that with the star chart showing Cestus and delineating the boundaries of Gorn space, we are getting further and further away from what was established in TOS: "Arena".
While thus far we can handwave Sulu not recognizing the Gorn vessel as being an unfamiliar Gorn ship class, try and interpret the dialogue of Spock and McCoy has not recognizing that specific species of Gorn, or even - less plausibly - Kirk not being aware of the Gorn in the first place, the large continuity issue that looms here is that in "Arena" they should be well aware they are at the very least near Gorn space.
The dialogue in "Arena" explicitly states that the Cestus III outpost was established in ignorance of the fact that it was in Gorn space. McCoy even asks if that makes the Federation the bad guys in this scenario. With the chart seen in SNW: "The Broken Circle", this excuse rings hollow. Granted, at this point Cestus still lies outside Gorn borders, but surely there would have been some discussion about that if Spock, et al. had been aware of it or if the Gorn had indeed pushed forward to claim that area of space.
We can still sort of handwave it because Cestus isn't in Gorn space on the map, but we're treading closer to major revisions to "Arena" here which might not be able to be handwaved away as I've suggested above.
To be honest, it resembles the starbase insignia but it isn’t quite the same as what we see in TOS, so it could mean something else entirely.
I’ve put it up as a post on /c/daystrominstitute.
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Uhura’s PADD identifies the Klingons meeting with La’An (to buy phaser pistols) as speaking an obscure dialect called Kach-Ugh. She manages to decipher that whatever is being planned is happening tomorrow.
Spock calls up to Transporter Chief Jay, who informs him that they lost M’Benga and Chapel’s signals an hour ago. The pair are brought to a huge cave, hollowed out from decades of mining, which has a Federation starship M’Benga thinks the faction built themselves.
Inside, M’Benga treats a Klingon (Ro’Quegh) with ion burns that are normally too severe to treat, but Klingons had a redundant dermal system (like many other Klingon organs: TNG: “Ethics”).
M’Benga was stationed on the moon of J’gal, and after the Battle of ChaKana, there was so much blood in the air that the rain turned red. Klingon blood was established as pink/purple in ST VI, but its depiction on screen has not been consistent.
Chapel says that the severity of the burns suggest the torpedoes are on this ship. M’Benga theorizes that they are going to use the Federation tech to attack the Klingons and restart the war.
M’Benga always carries a vial of green liquid with him that when injected gives him and Chapel enhanced strength and aggression, which they use to beat down a group of guards. He beats answers out of a Klingon: 30 soldiers on the bridge and engineering, armed with phasers, phase rifles and Klingon disruptors, and a transponder on Deck 13.
M’Benga reprograms the transponder to send a simple message which usually only sends out the name and class of a Federation ship. They escape through Airlock 5-E but the ship takes off.
A Klingon D7 battlecruiser warps into orbit. The Enterprise is hiding in Cajitar IV’s rings, which are interstellar ice with a high iron content, so she looks like space junk. Ortegas says she’s hidden from enough Klingons to know when to take a breather, indicating she also served in the war.
La’An says her contacts in the Broken Circle have vanished. That must be the name of the faction that plans to restart the war.
Mitchell identifies the faction ship as a Crossfield-class (same class as Discovery), but it doesn’t really look like one, resembling more an Akira-class. Perhaps this is the standard Crossfield configuration and Discovery and her sister ship Glenn were variants.
Uhura picks up M’Benga’s message (in Morse 2) from the transponder: “Enterprise, destroy this ship.”
The transponders in EV suits activate automatically once they are in the vacuum of space. The D7’s disruptors are mounted on the sides of the nacelles. M’Benga says it will take about a minute for them to die in space, but they will lose consciousness after 15 seconds. While he’s correct about the latter, it should take about 90 seconds before you die from asphyxiation.
The Captain of the D7 is named D’Chok. Spock says he has been known to drink bloodwine, which surprises D’Chok. Pelia interprets D’Chok’s toast as, “May your blood scream,” which Spock implies has to do with how drinking bloodwine feels.
Spock is visibly affected by bloodwine and gets a hangover, although he states in TOS: “The Conscience of the King” that “My father’s race was spared the dubious effects of alcohol.” It may be that the alcohol is acting on his human side. Though we know Vulcan port (DS9: “The Maquis, Part I”) exists, it is unclear if that produces an intoxicating effect in Vulcans or if it is intended for imbibing by non-Vulcans.
Pelia wears a Starfleet delta with a black backing, indicating the Academy, along with another insignia which resembles the flower-like insignia worn by starbase personnel in TOS. Lanthanites are almost immortal and lived on Earth, undetected, until the 22nd Century. Amanda was one of the first people Pelia came out to and she says the worst thing about living almost forever is boredom - echoing Zefram Cochran’s words in TOS: “Metamorposis”: “Believe me, Captain, immortality consists largely of boredom.” Her longevity and experience marks her as potentially a similar advisor-type character as Guinan in TNG.
The war April is worried about centers on what appears to be an incursion by a Gorn attack ship in proximity to Deep Space 2, the Galdonterre system (DS9: “Blood Oath”) and the Cestus system (TOS: “Arena”), the latter two of which are established in Geoffrey Mandel’s Star Charts as near the border between the Federation, the Klingon Empire and the Gorn Hegemony.
The episode is dedicated “For Nichelle, who was first through the door and showed us the stars. Hailing frequencies forever open…” in memory of the late Nichelle Nichols, who was both a pioneer as a major black female character on TOS in the day and later worked with NASA to recruit people of color to the astronaut program.
Well, my breakdown is ready to go as soon as I figure out where to post it! Thanks for the support!
I do annotations for every episode on DaystromInstitute, noting references and so on. Do I post the one I’ve done for “The Broken Circle” here or wait for Sunday?
There’s a theory that every major race has gone through some version of Earth’s Eugenics Wars, or at least the most influential ones, such that the laws against genetic modification were pushed through. Other races simply didn’t care enough to protest or protest much.
As for the Denobulans, it could be that they wound up on the wrong side of the Neutral Zone after the Romulan War when borders were drawn, so they were never Federation members. This also explains why they weren’t seen between ENT and, chronologically, their appearance in PRO.