S05.E06: Whistlespeak

[paulvdb]

Quote

While undercover in a pre-warp society, Captain Burnham is forced to consider breaking the Prime Directive when a local tradition threatens Tilly's life. Meanwhile, Culber tries to connect with Stamets, and Adira steps up when Rayner assigns them a position on the bridge.

Premiere date: May 2, 2024

[AnimeMania]

Alfredo Narciso as Ohvahz 

June Laporte as Ravah

[dwmarch]

We missed a golden opportunity to have Tilly calling cadence while doing the race:

I don't know but I've been told
Andoria Prime is mighty cold

Cut to a fellow racer giving her a WTF look and Tilly sheepishly explaining that it's a song that they sing in the East.

[Affogato]

Without Michael’s coaching earlier Tilly would never have made it. It was oddly moving to see them back together as friends. This is kind of callback is what this season is about. I’m betting Tilly needs to become captain of a cadet ship. 

Book is pining. Awww. 

the strong sense I get about this season is that it is about the journey, not the prize. Everyone is learning about themselves. 

[thuganomics85]

Name a more popular pair in Star Trek than the Prime Directive and a captain/lead character breaking the Prime Directive, heh.

For whatever reason, I just couldn't get into this episode.  I liked the idea of Michael and Tilly being on an away mission together and diving back into their relationship.  And there was some intriguing ideas with the mission, the particular planet's culture and look, and the resolution.  But it just didn't connect with me, when it was all said and done.  Maybe the guest characters just didn't feel fully fleshed out?  Or it's because we obviously knew nothing was going to happen and they'll get the next clue?  I don't know: just kind of got bored during a lot of this.

Still not sure what is going to be in store with Culber and him potentially finding some form of religion.  At least Stamets is supportive, but I agree that he right now doesn't seem to quite understand what Culber means when he is bring up this change.

Did like the Reyner/Adira scenes and seeing Reyner being more supportive and patient, while still maintaining some of his sternness and blunt talk.

 Book totally wants to rekindle that flame!

No Saru, again.  Hopefully Doug Jones was filming something else at the time, so that means we will get more Doug Jones awesomeness elsewhere at some point.  But I imagine he'll factor back in at some point.

[millennium]

Vaal!  He is angry.   He wants his story back.

[MissLucas]

The Prime Directive: it's more like guidelines anyway. Kicking a pre-industrial civilization into the age of high tech is super easy, barely an inconvenience.

[marinw]

Would it have been better if Michael declared: “Yep. I’m a God! I order you to fix my machine.”? I did like her little speech about how technology and religion are not mutually exclusive.

[marinw]

1 hour ago, millennium said:

Vaal!  He is angry.   He wants his story back.

The Mintakans would like a word.

[Chit Chat]

3 hours ago, thuganomics85 said:

I don't know: just kind of got bored during a lot of this.

That's what I've said with almost every single episode this season.  They really know how to drag things out!!  Just get to the point already!!  

[Stardancer Supreme]

2 hours ago, marinw said:

Would it have been better if Michael declared: “Yep. I’m a God! I order you to fix my machine.”? I did like her little speech about how technology and religion are not mutually exclusive.

 

 

Not really. I did like the way she explained this to Ohvahz. I suppose a simpler way would be to say, "The Gods sent me to help you and your people. I am no God. No one else has to die for rain."

The main thing that bugs a bit is that no one remembers that the Prime Directive only applies to Starfleet. Other Alien species have no reason nor are they under any obligation to follow it. Discovery shouldn't be dinged for the PD if they were fixing some technology another alien left behind and letting the locals know how to maintain it when they leave. Also, could none of the other 4 towers be fixed?

I tell you, Michael and Tilly went all in for the race. I would have pretended to take that salt cube and acted my ass off. And to have people that horribly parched run past water during the race AND carry water for the last leg just to be sacrificed to the gods? Brutal.  I also figured that there had to be a sacrificial element to the race simply by the way Ravah's father acted when they wanted to participate.  Did Ravah's mother die that way?

I'm so glad that Rayner took Adira under his wing. I am also glad that he was the one who told them that the time bug wasn't their fault; they probably wouldn't have accepted that from anyone else on the crew. I really like Rayner and it sucks that we will only get 1 season with him.

 

Edited May 3 by Stardancer Supreme

[marinw]

What feels weird about the later seasons of Disco is how little society has changed in 900 years, even if there was some regression or stagnation post Burn. We still have the same social structures and Starfleet is more or less the same in terms of ranks and overall missions. It's still super difficult to leave the Milky Way Galaxy. I would think that society would be vastly different, like the Middle Ages compared to the 21st Century. Maybe things just got to a certain point and stayed there? Or did the Temporal Wars frak things up to the point that society stayed largely static? Or do the Disco writers lack imagination? Given that last night's episode was another version of a plot that's been done a bunch of time in Trek already makes me assume the later.

(One of the best examples of imagining a future with a vastly different society and political and system that I have seen or read is Ada Palmer's Terra Ignota series)

Edited May 5 by marinw

[Affogato]

8 hours ago, marinw said:

What feels weird about the later seasons of Disco is how little society has changed in 900 years, even if the was some regression or stagnation post Burn. We still have the same social structures and Starfleet is more or less the same in terms of ranks and overall missions. It's still super difficult to leave the Milky Way Galaxy. I would think that society would be vastly different, like the Middle Ages compared to the 21st Century. Maybe things just got to a certain point and stayed there? Or did the Temporal Wars frak things up to the point that society stayed largely static? Or do the Disco writers lack imagination? Given that last night's episode was another version of a plot that's been done a bunch of time in Trek already makes me assume the later.

(One of the best examples of imagining a future with a vastly different society and political and system that I have seen or read is Ada Palmer's Terra Ignota series)

Societies have usually changed with glacial slowness. Right now we are living in an extremely unusual period. Will technology continue to change that fast and have a major impact on society as a whole? You have a phone now, it may be a chip inserted under the skin of your wrist at some point, but how different will its function be? 

Of course, I saw TOS when it first came out, and I’d read a lot of science fiction before that time, and most of the ideas in TOS were not new. Also, like all star trek, it has the structure of a parable and the characters encounter things that illuminate our current society. They don’t encounter things that are totally alien to us. 

TNG ran into primitive cultures, including twentieth century analogues, all the time. DS9 was different, but it had Nazis and Machiavellian mysogenists.

Stargate had a weather tower show. Also ran into a lot of primitive cultures and simplistic ones. Lower Decks mines past shows shamelessly. So does SNW. 

After the burn I imagine a lot of places, without contact and imports, slid back to something surviva le. Some probably lost enough so they forgot. Meanwhile some aspect of the Federation worked at not losing more ground.

It makes sense.

In addition, I think everything this season is in service to the characters and giving them the sendoff they would have gotten if the show had lasted longer. 

[Jodithgrace]

So, the father doesn’t notice that he is literally using machinery to close and open the doors? And, speaking of science, how did the flames keep burning with no oxygen? 

[marinw]

1 hour ago, Affogato said:

You have a phone now, it may be a chip inserted under the skin of your wrist at some point, but how different will its function be? 

Great point. When I was watching Dowton Abbey I thought that the folks in the 1920s had most of the stuff we have now: phones, cars, radios, electricity and movies. Cultural change can be slow, but 900 years is a huge chunk of time.

[Affogato]

11 hours ago, marinw said:

Great point. When I was watching Dowton Abbey I thought that the folks in the 1920s had most of the stuff we have now: phones, cars, radios, electricity and movies. Cultural change can be slow, but 900 years is a huge chunk of time.

I get that and it is a good point. On the other hand They did retrofit discovery. When Stamets is able to work on Fred because  he is a packrat, he has saved old stuff from before the retrofit and it makes sense that older trch would still be in use. There is the personal transporter. The managed to upgrade the drive quickly. Then, it is hard to tell what 31 has suppressed and what they have encouraged. They may be rediscovering stuff first used before the burn. 
 

they allude to change but don’t focus on it. People are the same. 

Edited May 4 by Affogato

[PurpleTentacle]

Now that you have broken the prime directive anyway, maybe repair the other towers? Leaving the survival of an entire species of sentient beings to one point of failure is so dumb... it actually perfectly tracks with something the Discovery crew would do. But still, try to be better, guys.

I really don't love all of that spiritulity mumbo jumbo in my Star Trek. If a primitive culture believes in it, fine. But does half of the crew of a future starship really have to?

[PurpleTentacle]

On 5/3/2024 at 4:49 AM, Stardancer Supreme said:

The main thing that bugs a bit is that no one remembers that the Prime Directive only applies to Starfleet. Other Alien species have no reason nor are they under any obligation to follow it. Discovery shouldn't be dinged for the PD if they were fixing some technology another alien left behind and letting the locals know how to maintain it when they leave.

Except they are following a trail laid by Federation scientists and one of them also had a hand in building those towers, so somebody there violated the prime directive. Even if that wasn't the case, this planet seems to be in Federation Space, which puts it under Federation law. Another species can't just come by and do to the planet what it wants.

Also repairing the towers is technically still influencing the natural development of this species and so violating the prime directive.

But there is some wiggle room. This basically maps exactly to the TNG episode Pen Pals, with the planet that had a lot of seismic activity and was going to get destroyed. Of course there the whole episode was about the deliberation if the Enterprise should help or not. But in the end they came out on the side that yes, they should.

Still, outright telling the people on the planet that there are aliens and advanced technology is a clear cut violation of the highest law of the Federation. The correct course of action would have been to let Tilly die and send a team once in a while to covertly service the towers, or maybe replace them with service-free technology. Didn't even seem like that chamber would have been sealed for long, so you probably could have gotten Tilly out of there and revived her in time. It's like 5 minutes without oxygen to brain damage and they have medical technology that is basically magic.

16 hours ago, Jodithgrace said:

So, the father doesn’t notice that he is literally using machinery to close and open the doors? And, speaking of science, how did the flames keep burning with no oxygen? 

lol. I was even looking at the flames and was wondering when they were going to go out. But by the end of all the drama and speechifying I had forgotten about them and didn't notice that they were still on. I just assumed they would go out at some point. This is so dumb. It's Kindergarten level science.

[AWhittle]

Yes.... Might as well go all the way now that the cat is already out of the bag. Repair the other 4 towers and expand the atmosphere of that planet. Schedule a repair crew to maintain when need be. Sneak in spy anthropologists to study the effects on the culture.

Reminds me a little of TNG when the primitive people were talking about "The Picard"

All reminds me of Dr. Who season "The Key To Time".  And in video games the old Tomb Raider 3 where the explorer Lara visited primitive places that looked up to a structure and she knew more than the locals, that the structure was an advanced artifact. While I am at it... this might be Thanos finding and assembling the stones . 🤣

[millennium]

On 5/3/2024 at 7:59 PM, marinw said:

When I was watching Dowton Abbey I thought that the folks in the 1920s had most of the stuff we have now: phones, cars, radios, electricity and movies.

They had one thing we don't (fortunately):  Edith.

[Chyromaniac]

On 5/3/2024 at 5:32 PM, Jodithgrace said:

So, the father doesn’t notice that he is literally using machinery to close and open the doors? And, speaking of science, how did the flames keep burning with no oxygen? 

He believes the entire chamber was created by gods to produce rain.  I don't think he's even thinking of it as a mechanical process, especially since it's not obvious how the machine works (no visibly moving parts or gears to move the doors) - turning that lever has likely just evolved into a part of the ritual they've created for the rain making ceremony.

As for the flames - their size seemed consistent to me for the amount of air that was in the chamber at any given time.  They were very strong at the start, nearly out by the time Tilly and Ravah were humming the tune, and came rushing back full when the doors were reopened.  I don't think there was ever a time when there was "no oxygen" since Tilly never stopped breathing - so the flames wouldn't necessarily have gone out entirely.  Ravah got to the point where they couldn't breathe - but again that doesn't mean the air was totally gone - just that they were too weakened for their lungs to work.

On 5/4/2024 at 9:54 AM, PurpleTentacle said:

Now that you have broken the prime directive anyway, maybe repair the other towers? Leaving the survival of an entire species of sentient beings to one point of failure is so dumb... it actually perfectly tracks with something the Discovery crew would do. But still, try to be better, guys.

I really don't love all of that spiritulity mumbo jumbo in my Star Trek. If a primitive culture believes in it, fine. But does half of the crew of a future starship really have to?

Burnham says they're going to teach the aliens how to run the machines, now that they know about them.  Presumably they can go out and fix the other towers themselves.  That is, if they haven't been fixed already - they had to get the puzzle piece out of Tower 5, so they likely had to do something in order to retrieve it.  As the ship leaves, the planet looks basically the same - but it's been, what, two days?  Even if the had fixed all five towers, it's probably going to take a while for their territory to become habitable again, like with the high summit.

The only character going through a spiritual event is Culber.  That's one guy - not half the ship.  Granted, he talks to Stamets and Booker about what he's experiencing.  But, it's not like they think he's turning into a god or something - they just know there's nothing physically different about him, as far as they can tell with their scientific understanding.  And if it doesn't seem like anything bad is happening, then he should just see where it takes him.  Otherwise, I think Burnham does an excellent job in helping Ohvahz contextualize the new reality of his people.  She doesn't trivialize his faith, or his concerns over what this will mean for his society.  She just helps him to understand that what he believes (apart from the human sacrifice) is not inconsistent with the new information she's giving him.  

[PurpleTentacle]

5 hours ago, Chyromaniac said:

Burnham says they're going to teach the aliens how to run the machines, now that they know about them. 

How to maintain them. Maintaining and fixing are two very different things.

5 hours ago, Chyromaniac said:

Presumably they can go out and fix the other towers themselves.

No they can't. Not only do they not know how, those are in the dust storms. The woman at the beginning nearly died from inhaling dust while still being in the livable area. There is no way they can venture into the dust-desert to repair those towers.

5 hours ago, Chyromaniac said:

The only character going through a spiritual event is Culber.  That's one guy - not half the ship. 

Every main character on that ship except for Stamets is into some woowoo.

5 hours ago, Chyromaniac said:

But, it's not like they think he's turning into a god or something - they just know there's nothing physically different about him, as far as they can tell with their scientific understanding.

Which is the problem. Turning into a god would actually be scifi.

[Affogato]

1 hour ago, PurpleTentacle said:

 

Which is the problem. Turning into a god would actually be scifi.

No. No it would not. Good gravy. Unless you are using ‘scifi’ in a sarcastic and contemptuous way. Turning into something that appears to primitives to be godlike can be science fiction. Exploring an unknown feeling or idea can be science fiction. 

also you need to fix before you can maintain and the federation will likely maintain contact with these folk, now that the secret is out. 

 

[millennium]

2 hours ago, PurpleTentacle said:

Which is the problem. Turning into a god would actually be scifi.

 

Turning into a god has no place in Star Trek!

 

[PurpleTentacle]

19 minutes ago, Affogato said:

No. No it would not. Good gravy. Unless you are using ‘scifi’ in a sarcastic and contemptuous way. Turning into something that appears to primitives to be godlike can be science fiction. Exploring an unknown feeling or idea can be science fiction. 

I have no idea what you are even trying to say. Turning into a god is a very old trope in scifi. @millennium even pointed out an example from Star Trek, which also came up again more recently in lower decks.

Religious mumbo jumbo is more science-fantasy (think nBSG). Maybe it can be part of science fiction, depending on your definition, but even then, it's certainly not Star Trek.

22 minutes ago, Affogato said:

also you need to fix before you can maintain

Yes, which is the problem. Nobody is going to fix those other towers.

23 minutes ago, Affogato said:

the federation will likely maintain contact with these folk, now that the secret is out. 

What gives you that impression?

[Affogato]

1 hour ago, PurpleTentacle said:

I have no idea what you are even trying to say. Turning into a god is a very old trope in scifi. @millennium even pointed out an example from Star Trek, which also came up again more recently in lower decks.

Religious mumbo jumbo is more science-fantasy (think nBSG). Maybe it can be part of science fiction, depending on your definition, but even then, it's certainly not Star Trek.

Yes, which is the problem. Nobody is going to fix those other towers.

What gives you that impression?

I believe that the Federatuon feels a responsibility for the planets and races they contact and would therefore make sure they are okay, when possible. Even 31. That is why I think long term contact would be established on some level with the planet. 
 

(sigh) the Prophets of the bajorans, however powerful, are wormhole aliens. Science generally would say they can be known, although maybe not by us, now. Michael is looking for our creator and God is an alien, as it turns out, with the power to create life. Who should have this power?  If Michael gets the prize will she be a god. No she won’t. Nor was she a god when worshipped as the red angel. It is sort of a theme in star trek. But no. They are not turning into gods, even if people worship them. 
 

this is my opinion. Of course. But i do argue that turning into a god like being may be a trope in science fiction, but rarely, if ever, turning into a god. 

 

Edited May 6 by Affogato

[Chyromaniac]

2 hours ago, millennium said:

 

Turning into a god has no place in Star Trek!

 

Mitchell and Dehner may have thought they were turning into gods - we don't know what was actually happening to them.  But in the end, they are defeated by plain old mortals - so, not gods after all.  Star Trek is full of stories where characters think they are gods, or claim to be gods, or were once worshiped as gods - and time and again, that's proven not to be the case. 

 

4 hours ago, PurpleTentacle said:

How to maintain them. Maintaining and fixing are two very different things.

No they aren't - both are synonyms for repairing.

Can the natives go out in the dust storms?  Admittedly - it's not great for them.  But if they can't, how did they survive before the weather stations were installed in the first place?  Wouldn't the entire planet have been one giant dust storm?  There must be some way they can handle it, even for limited periods.  If that's the case, then they can potentially go out in the dust and mend the control panels.  Once they've refurbished the closest one, they could probably expand their reach - and soon enough they would all be reconditioned.  But again, I assume Discovery, or at the very least Starfleet, will overhaul the other stations first, because I prefer to think that the characters are smart and will take care of things like that, even if we don't explicitly see it on screen.

Again, no - Culber is the only character on a spiritual journey.  Other characters may be considering the philosophical and ethical implications of the technology they are looking for, but that's not spiritualism.  That's the show examining moral questions, and trying to come up with answers - and that's generally what Star Trek does.

"Turning into a god" can certainly be an interesting premise for sci-fi - but again, Star Trek is fundamentally more about disproving, than affirming those kinds of stories.  Even in the most optimistic scenarios - like Dekker and Ilia merging with V-Ger at the end of TMP - that's presented as them "evolving" or "going somewhere else."  What that actually means is left intentionally vague, because we don't know.  We'll have to see where Culber's journey leads him.

Edited May 6 by Chyromaniac

[millennium]

6 hours ago, Chyromaniac said:

We'll have to see where Culber's journey leads him.

Therapy would be a good start.

[tennisgurl]

I'm not going to lie, its nice to take a bit of a break from the main story to have a good old fashioned Star Trek "away mission to a pre-warp civilization where they stumbled through the local culture while talking about (and breaking) the Prime Directive. We're still on our chase to gather the artifacts, but I liked taking some time to explore Michael and Tilly's relationship and engage in some one off hijinks. 

I knew that something was up with this race, Raava's dad seemed so apprehensive about her joining the race and was so relieved when she lost, I knew it was something bad. Now that Michael has already told one of the local leaders the truth and they fixed their weather machine, why not just fix the rest of them and have people surrounding them as well to maintain them? 

Nice seeing Rayner settling in more and mixing his own style with Discovery's. With Adira, he was still blunt and pretty stern, but also supportive and showed a lot of understanding as to what was going.

Book is very clearly still holding a torch for Michael, they might have well just be together again, it seems pretty obvious that they're still into each other. 

I'm always happy to see David Cronenberg. 

Edited May 6 by tennisgurl

[Chyromaniac]

54 minutes ago, millennium said:

Therapy would be a good start.

Practically everyone in Star Trek would be better off with regular access to therapy.  It's weird that there's really only been three counselors across the series - Troi, Ezri Dax, and Migleemo.  Culber is arguably the 4th, although I think his status is still unofficial, since his actual crew position is as a MD.  I think that could be difficult for anyone to handle - when you're dealing with everyone else's issues, it's easy to lose track of your own.  Still, I feel like Culber does a good job of managing his emotional state, especially after his chat with Kovich in (iirc) Season 4.  He's open and honest with his friends about what he's been experiencing since Trill, and he seems to be taking those conversations to heart.

[Affogato]

Maybe Lorien can come over from Babylon 5 occasionally to ferry the star trek folk with god complexes, past the rim. 

[PurpleTentacle]

23 hours ago, Affogato said:

I believe that the Federatuon feels a responsibility for the planets and races they contact and would therefore make sure they are okay, when possible. Even 31. That is why I think long term contact would be established on some level with the planet. 

They only said they'd teach the people how to maintain the one tower themselves. There was no mention of anybody being sent to repair the other towers.

Yes, sending somebody to repair the other towers would be the sensible course of action, but since when has Discovery ever been sensible? Even in this episode they didn't take the sensible way out.

23 hours ago, Affogato said:

(sigh) the Prophets of the bajorans, however powerful, are wormhole aliens. Science generally would say they can be known, although maybe not by us, now. Michael is looking for our creator and God is an alien, as it turns out, with the power to create life. Who should have this power?  If Michael gets the prize will she be a god. No she won’t. Nor was she a god when worshipped as the red angel. It is sort of a theme in star trek. But no. They are not turning into gods, even if people worship them. 

Tomato, tomato. If you have god-powers you are a god in my book.

I mean what else makes a god a god?

22 hours ago, Chyromaniac said:

Mitchell and Dehner may have thought they were turning into gods - we don't know what was actually happening to them.  But in the end, they are defeated by plain old mortals - so, not gods after all.  Star Trek is full of stories where characters think they are gods, or claim to be gods, or were once worshiped as gods - and time and again, that's proven not to be the case. 

Greek and Norse gods are occasionally defeated by mortals. Does that mean they aren't gods?

22 hours ago, Chyromaniac said:

No they aren't - both are synonyms for repairing.

If any dictionary had those as 1:1 synonyms I'd question the person's, whoever wrote it, grasp on the english language.

Repairing is fixing something that is broken.

Maintaining is keeping something from breaking. It can mean making minor repairs, but it can also mean just oiling something. In this case it seemed to consist of swapping a few isoliniear chips around.

22 hours ago, Chyromaniac said:

Can the natives go out in the dust storms?  Admittedly - it's not great for them. But if they can't, how did they survive before the weather stations were installed in the first place?

The planet's climate changed in the last 900 years. It was starting to become unlivable when the towers were installed.

So they didn't survive in those dust storms, because there were still natural areas without the dust storms.

22 hours ago, Chyromaniac said:

But again, I assume Discovery, or at the very least Starfleet, will overhaul the other stations first, because I prefer to think that the characters are smart and will take care of things like that, even if we don't explicitly see it on screen.

I think these characters have shown us time and time again that we shouldn't give them the benefit of the doubt.

If this was any of the Enterprises, sure. But not with these bunch of chucklefucks.

22 hours ago, Chyromaniac said:

Again, no - Culber is the only character on a spiritual journey.  Other characters may be considering the philosophical and ethical implications of the technology they are looking for, but that's not spiritualism.  That's the show examining moral questions, and trying to come up with answers - and that's generally what Star Trek does.

Micheal seemed to actually believe the stuff she was saying to the elder and in general this whole ship is always on about some spiritual mumbo-jumbo.

[RobertDeSneero]

Several have asked why they don't fix the other towers.  Discovery has a priority mission.  Fixing the other towers, however brief it might take, is a job for a follow-up mission, one that you send after Burnham files her report admitting to breaking the Prime Directive so that you can assess the cultural damage.

I would not be surprised if Starfleet deems their mission so important that at least some violations of the Prime Directive are tolerable.

[marinw]

2 hours ago, RobertDeSneero said:

Fixing the other towers, however brief it might take, is a job for a follow-up mission,

The Cerritos to the rescue!

[aemom]

What was the point of the whistlespeak? It had no bearing at all later in the story. Even when Tilly and the young woman were dying and she was recalling a song her mother used to sing, it wasn't even a whistled song but something that she hummed. Stuff like that drives me crazy 🤪 

[sugarbaker design]

Why bring up the fact that the planet has three genders without showing the audience the personifications of each gender?  Stuff like this drives me crazy.

[Affogato]

On 5/7/2024 at 8:00 AM, PurpleTentacle said:

 

I mean what else makes a god a god?

Greek and Norse gods are occasionally defeated by mortals. Does that mean they aren't gods?

 

It is supernatural as opposed to natural. ‘God’ implies a supernatural element. Take a field trip to Stargate SG1. Once you know the ‘Gods’ are Go’uld, total shift in perspective. Right?