S02.E02: Ad Astra Per Aspera

[rtms77]

4 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

I know that the Federation has a huge thing about genetic augmentation because of the eugenics wars, but it seems so weird that they insist that any new species that joins them has to follow that very specific rule based around human history. Sure, other races might agree with them having heard about the eugenics wars and might have their own issues with genetic augmentation, but forcing a culture to give up what they need to do to survive on their own planet seems like its a totally different issue than what happened in the eugenics wars. That's the point of the argument I suppose, that this whole rule is based on fear and not logic, so the opposite of the smug Vulcans excuse for booting Una.

This is my argument, and one that has already come up on the Enterprise series. Dr Plhox mentioned more than once that his species used and continued to use genetic augmentation to great success and that they over came the problems that overwhelmed humans . He also mentioned other aliens successfully using genetic engineering. So are his planet not allowed in the Federation? Again it’s absolutely silly that human standards are being applied to all other Fed members just because humans are failures. I can understand humans having the rule over other earth humans but to terrorize a colony such as Una’s is way overboard. It become draconian as Neera  pointed out. 

Edited June 27, 2023 by rtms77

[millennium]

On 6/22/2023 at 10:37 PM, cdnalor said:

Despite this episode being basically a courtroom drama, this felt as close to classic Trek ( and I include both TOS and TNG) as I 've seen in many years. 

I wholeheartedly agree.   This was the first Star Trek episode in a very long time to explore current real life issues beyond lip service (as Discovery tends to).   It hit close to home for me, being a transgender person in today's America where there are prominent voices stridently calling for our eradication and trying to enact laws to that end.  

Transgender people are no strangers to bodily "modifications" so I personally regarded Una's plight as an allegory for the hatred and persecution being stoked against people like me, whose only crime is wanting to live in peace without fear or prejudice.   Of course, the episode was also a broader appeal for tolerance of all those in our society who feel marginalized and under threat of losing their rights, their liberty, and perhaps even their lives simply because their very existence makes some uncomfortable.

I also liked this episode because it felt like people were finally getting around to acting.   Anson Mount was very good here, I thought.   So too were the actors who played Una's lawyer and Captain April.

One unexpected effect of the episode was that it made me aware that I have been craving a certain kind of show that doesn't exist -- a Law & Order or Criminal UK in space, where all the cases have a sci-fi theme but in the end are about the truths we live with as humans.  Why hasn't anyone made that show yet?

 

 

Edited June 28, 2023 by millennium

[tv-talk]

Liked the episode well enough, but what I thought it was missing was the Vulcan prosecutor getting more screen time to make a very damning argument given the facts of the case.  The asylum angle was good but man that was a lot of grandstanding and exposition. At the end of the day this continued in the long tradition of Trek speaking for tolerance and empathy rather than hate. 

[paigow]

19 hours ago, millennium said:

a Law & Order or Criminal UK in space, where all the cases have a sci-fi theme but in the end are about the truths we live with as humans.  Why hasn't anyone made that show yet?

Hopefully, it would avoid becoming J.A.G.  where Starfleet is exposed as a collection of felons and miscreants on a weekly basis... but also not spend too much time in Phantom Menace territory, litigating arcane trade disputes in Federation court...

[Chicago Redshirt]

On 6/28/2023 at 4:25 AM, millennium said:

One unexpected effect of the episode was that it made me aware that I have been craving a certain kind of show that doesn't exist -- a Law & Order or Criminal UK in space, where all the cases have a sci-fi theme but in the end are about the truths we live with as humans.  Why hasn't anyone made that show yet?

I assume it is because there's probably little overlap between the types who write for the L&O type shows and the ones who write for the sci-fi kind of shows.

One of the things that is surprising when you take a step back and think about things is there has never been a ship's JAG/chief magistrate/lawyer as a regular or recurring character even though there are almost by definition the need to actually prosecute/defend/judge people who are accused of crimes on board the space station/ship/planet, to interpret the laws of the Federation, other civilizations, etc. 

If/when TNG gets remade eventually, maybe they will make Counselor Troi into not just a psychiatric counselor but also an attorney/legal expert. 

[tv-talk]

1 minute ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

there are almost by definition the need to actually prosecute/defend/judge people who are accused of crimes on board the space station/ship/planet, to interpret the laws of the Federation, other civilizations, etc. 

That would just be another person to be in trouble when the capt or 1st officer inevitably breaks whatever rules they want to ostensibly save civilization before returning home to receive a slap on the wrist accompanied by a wink&nod (sorry Kirk, you are demoted to Starship Capt for disobeying orders)

[ML89]

49 minutes ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

If/when TNG gets remade eventually, maybe they will make Counselor Troi into not just a psychiatric counselor but also an attorney/legal expert. 

Or Jack McCoy from L&O as the other McCoy: "Damnit, Chris, I'm an attorney not an empath."

[Raja]

On 6/24/2023 at 5:13 PM, tkc said:

 

PS: However, can someone remind La'an that she shouldn't be calling the XO "Chief", as she does at the end of the episode?  😀

She serves on a ship where the crew calls the Captain "Chris" I haven't noticed, or just don't remember the use of chief in public 

[Raja]

On 6/23/2023 at 2:13 PM, statsgirl said:

The Vulcan prosecutor said that it was a question of the law, not emotion. But the law against genetic alteration was based on emotion, the fear of those modified.  A better episode than last week but other Treks have had better courtroom scenes.

The resolution about asylum was done well but I wanted someone to bring in a discussion of whether it was acceptable for the Federation to let species join only if they end their cultural practices, some necessary to survive on toxic planets, and pretend to be as humans.

 

I did love the shots of both Vulcans reaction to the logic of the asylum as a matter of fleet regulations claim

[Raja]

On 6/22/2023 at 6:15 PM, KeithJ said:

Is that really how it works?  Turn down our plea offer and we will tack on more charges that weren’t even discussed before?

Normally we see it on the cop side as they try for a confession before the suspects lawyer up.

I did notice Ortegas hostility towards Vulcans. It was a call back to Enterprise. And given what happened to her acting like LT. Stiles in the Balance of Terror what if it acted like a seeding of hostile feelings that showed up seemingly out of nowhere. Did she really no know the Vulcans could hear her with the doctor?

[Stardancer Supreme]

On 6/24/2023 at 8:13 PM, tkc said:

PS: However, can someone remind La'an that she shouldn't be calling the XO "Chief", as she does at the end of the episode?  😀

 

That could be what La'an calls Una instead of her first name.

[paigow]

1 hour ago, Stardancer Supreme said:

That could be what La'an calls Una instead of her first name.

She got confused during game night at the Pike BBQ Pit... and started calling her Uno...

[millennium]

[Chicago Redshirt]

On 7/1/2023 at 5:49 PM, Raja said:

Normally we see it on the cop side as they try for a confession before the suspects lawyer up.

I did notice Ortegas hostility towards Vulcans. It was a call back to Enterprise. And given what happened to her acting like LT. Stiles in the Balance of Terror what if it acted like a seeding of hostile feelings that showed up seemingly out of nowhere. Did she really no know the Vulcans could hear her with the doctor?

Ortegas was hostile toward the Vulcans not because of them just being Vulcan but because she perceived them being indifferent as to what she saw as fair treatment for Una.

That's more in line with the sort of McCoy (and others) school of thought in TOS where they are upset at Spock for seeming aloof about things with high emotional import rather than Stiles' bigotry to Spock for nothing that he did, or even that Vulcans did, but because Vulcans and Romulans look similar.

I don't know if the Vulcans could hear her conversation with M'Benga. I don't know if it has been established that Vulcans have particularly good hearing, and there was nothing in the scene that suggests that Spock knew what they had been saying, only that he knew that they had been watching to see the "outburst" and thus felt the need to apologize. 

[Prevailing Wind]

2 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

I don't know if it has been established that Vulcans have particularly good hearing,

I seem to recall Nimoy/Spock saying that he does (or maybe it was Shatner/Kirk remarking on it.)

[Pallas]

On 6/27/2023 at 12:03 PM, marinw said:

Or no to going to Talos 4?

No to Spock's forfeiting his life to kidnap Pike, mutiny and take Pike to Talos IV. "The only death penalty left on the books."

[millennium]

On Talos IV, the Talosians offered  Pike Number One  and a junior female officer as breeding choices, since he seemed uninterested in mating with Vina.   The Talosian even summed up the ladies' strong points:  Una would give him children with higher intelligence, while the junior officer would produce offspring that were more robust physically.

Now my question:  why didn't the Talosian immediately identify Una as an Illyrian and not human?   The Talosians were interested in acquiring a mating pair of humans for their menagerie.   Why didn't these mentally advanced creatures detect Una's non-human status?    And why would they say the other woman was likely to produce stronger children than Una, given that Una could lift Pike over her head if necessary and is not susceptible to disease?  

Regarding the latter question, I suppose a distinction could be made that Una's strength and immunity are the result of a genetic modifications, but if she had been altered at the DNA/chromosomal level, wouldn't those modifications be passed on to her offspring?   The former question though is the one that nags at me most -- SNW thought it would be cool to make Una Illyrian but they forgot that she was already biologically scanned and stamped "human" by the Talosians in TOS.

[marinw]

3 hours ago, millennium said:

The Talosians were interested in acquiring a mating pair of humans for their menagerie.

Two people would not provide enough genetic diversity, unless the Talosians wanted to go all Game of Thrones. So maybe keep both women?  Which wouldn't quite work either.

The Talosian's telepathy and other technology was powerful but perhaps imperfect, so they could have missed some things, like Una's genetics or the fact that humans (usually) really don't like being imprisoned.

Edited July 12, 2023 by marinw

[millennium]

2 hours ago, marinw said:

The Talosian's telepathy and other technology was powerful but perhaps imperfect

That's a good point.  And it reminds me now of something Vina said when explaining her real appearance:  "They had never seen a human before."

If we extrapolate from that, they evidently did not have a familiarity with all races, raising the possibility they had never seen an Illyrian either.   Though I don't want to James Blish the TOS, it might be supposed that they noticed Number One's differences but because she appeared human -- and they weren't all that familiar with humans -- they assumed such variances were natural to the species. 

Still, the Talosian attributing greater physical ability to the other crewman's genes ... that doesn't fit.

[Raja]

13 minutes ago, millennium said:

Still, the Talosian attributing greater physical ability to the other crewman's genes ... that doesn't fit.

Not them, but they stood in for  us the TV viewer with Number One being taller but Yeoman Colt as the younger woman. 30 something just looks different today than it did in the Dragnet era.

[tv-talk]

6 hours ago, millennium said:

Regarding the latter question, I suppose a distinction could be made that Una's strength and immunity are the result of a genetic modifications, but if she had been altered at the DNA/chromosomal level, wouldn't those modifications be passed on to her offspring?

I got the impression that, almost Borg-like, the Illirians alter their offspring depending on what's needed so maybe her children wouldnt have the same genetic codes as her. If they did, how could the Federation really say they were modified and not allowed in? Of course I could be totally wrong as I'm not always paying that close attention to plot intricacies I already know will be laced with inconsistencies. 

[paigow]

3 hours ago, marinw said:

The Talosian's telepathy and other technology was powerful but perhaps imperfect

They had no idea how to reassemble Vina... thus, it is reasonable that Talosian  understanding of human DNA / psyche is also essentially zero...

Edited July 12, 2023 by paigow

[Guest]

7 hours ago, millennium said:

Now my question:  why didn't the Talosian immediately identify Una as an Illyrian and not human?   The Talosians were interested in acquiring a mating pair of humans for their menagerie. 

Illyrian’s are humanoid so it just depends on how broadly they are defining human. Starfleet also didn’t figure out she was Illyrian and they would have performed a lot more tests that the Talosian.

The easiest explanation is that Una is part of a species that uses genetic modification to adapt to their surroundings and the best adaptation, for her, involved passing as human. 

[marinw]

Reading a person's thoughts and interpreting them can be very different things. For example, many law abiding people may fantasize about stealing or committing some other crime, but would never act on those thoughts. The memories of books we read or movies/TV shows we have seen may be as vivid as a lived experience. In Un'a's case, she had spent years convincing everyone that she was a normal human so that's what the Talosians picked up on.

Other telepathic species such as the Vulcans and Betazoid live among other species so are more skilled, as well as (usually) more mindful about consent. The Talosian's sloppyness makes them freaking dangerous, so I can see why Talos IV is off-limits.

Edited July 12, 2023 by marinw

[Chicago Redshirt]

From a Doylist perspective, the writers of The Cage/The Menagerie had no idea that Number One was anything but a garden-variety human. 

From a Watsonian perspective where the Number One in the Cage is Illyrian, some possibilities occur to me:

1. The Talosians are not very good at knowing biological differences, generally. Vina IIRC explicitly mentions that they hadn't seen a human being before so they didn't know how to put her back together "correctly" after the crash. It's not a far stretch from there that they did not know what the heck an Illyrian was or how it was genetically superior.

2. Una's genetic modifications don't show up on basic scans unless they are active. So whatever scans the Talosians did failed to pick up on them, just like any scans Starfleet did over the years, just like the gazillion times she went through a transporter, etc.

3. The Talosians did not in fact do any actual genetic scans but just jumped to a conclusion based more on the appearances of Colt and Una than on any actual scientific data. Obviously, even taking it as a given that Una is smarter than Colt, it would not follow biologically that children that she had with Pike would be more likely ro be smarter than children that Pike might have with Colt. Or the Keeper was making an argument based on some combination of his reading of Pike's thoughts, Una's, Colt's and Vina's. Pike (presumably) had at least some level of fantasy about Una and Colt, and seemingly has placed Una in a "not really a woman" category based on his "I'm still not used to a woman on the bridge" comment. It's interesting that basically the Talosian takes Vina's comments about her two "rivals" -- that Una is basically a walking computer and that Colt is a bimbo -- and agrees with them but spins them into positives (smart offspring vs. the hot, frequent sex implied by her "stronger than usual female drives").

Edited July 12, 2023 by Chicago Redshirt

[Prevailing Wind]

I never understood why the Talosians had such big heads. If they were assuming humanoid form for the comfort and relatability to Pike, et al., why didn't they have normal sized heads?  They had Vina's head to use as a template.

[Zaffy]

I was really distracted by the bad face job of RR and her inability to actually show a range of emotions.... At one point I thought they would also charge her for being a robot..
It is even worse than the Doc's voice, but at the least the guy can act.

I know it is difficult to get the kind of rare chemistry the TNG cast managed to have, but for me this crew hasn't really earned all their "camaraderie" and intimacy yet. Although Pike and Una hug was a nice touch.
And I would also love Ortegas stop being reduced to a one line machine. 

Edited July 24, 2023 by Zaffy

[Quickbeam]

Tip of the hat to the lighting people and casting. At least 3 dark brown actors who were well lit. Everyone looked good so it *can* be done. 

[phlebas]

Just rewatched.  Apologies if this has been discussed before, but I couldn't find it here and don't remember it being addressed in the show:

- Is Batel a starship captain who moonlights with the JAG office, or is she an attorney who gets to command a Constitution-class starship between cases? The closest parallel I can think of in Trek lore is when Riker had to be the prosecuting attorney against Data in "A Measure of a Man," but that was a) a one-off emergency at a starbase with a skeleton crew, and b) bullshit.  And Riker would never have considered that judge to be his boss, but Batel definitely referred to the bald grumpy Spock-hating Vulcan that way.

- Batel is prosecuting her boyfriend's first officer. To not recuse herself is some sort of malpractice. Batel is obviously not wholly advocating for the prosecution, judging by the smile she threw at Neera during the asylum argument.

I enjoyed the episode, but trying to figure Batel out was a distraction.

[Sandman]

On 6/24/2023 at 7:58 PM, Dani said:

We saw on Disco that a Vulcan joining Starfleet was controversial. Throughout Trek, Vulcan has had its own interests that often run contradictory to Starfleet’s interests. 

I think it’s always been canonical that Sarek discouraged Spock from joining Starfleet, rather than accepting a place at the Vulcan Science Academy (though this might be less about Vulcan feelings of cultural superiority, and more about career prestige, kind of like the way some parents prioritize getting accepted into medical school over joining the army, say). 

And we know T’Pau was the only person ever to refuse a seat on the Federation Council. So I would say that there’s evidence that some parts of Vulcan society  (old school, perhaps?) have a degree of reservation when it comes to the Federation.