S02.E05: All the World Is Birthday Cake

[Driad]

New security officer seems bright and competent.  But they made the common mistake (IMO) of pushing the new character in our faces, giving her lines and scenes that should have gone to other characters.  In one scene I thought the doctor should have been there with Ed, but new security officer was there instead.

I've never delivered a baby, but I know the mother shouldn't push until her cervix is sufficiently dilated.  Did Kelly even check that?  This is assuming the anatomy is similar, give or take the silver face decorations.

[AnimeMania]

5 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

8 hours ago, AnimeMania said:

 

To get Kelly and Bortus back, I would have offered to take all the Gilliacs off of the planet to save Reger 2fers the trouble of guarding, housing, and feeding them. The Gilliacs could be distributed as laboratory test subjects to learn about Reger 2 physiology, to go with all the literature that was collected.

I'm confused. Did you mean Ed would lie to the rulers of Reger 2 (pretend the Union was going to use the Gilliacs as Guinea pigs) to get the Gilliacs released and taken off the planet to be resettled? They'd have to get massive amounts of therapy; how would that work? And then what about future Gilliacs born on the planet?

I mean take all the Gilliacs off the planet. It probably wouldn't be that many people since the planet does it's best to keep that population as low as possible. The Oriville can take them to different bases where they can be studied, live, or work or be ambassadors for the Reger 2 planet. Taken to different planets to colonize (The planet Ed and Teleya crash landed on last week looked like it could use some people), almost any life is better than being locked up from the time you are a baby till the time you die. Kelly and Bortus would be included in the release. Reger 2 would benefit by having the financial burden of taking care of all those prisoners removed and you would be doing a good thing by releasing people who have been unjustly imprisioned.

Another thing I was thinking the Orville could do was block their view of the stars some way. Losing one star was a traumatic event, losing the ability to see any stars might be devastating, a way to force Reger 2 to release the prisoners in order to get their celestial view back.

[Ubiquitous]

3 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

Real people believe in astrology, so it doesn't come as a surprise that fake people wouldn't consider the scientific and logical holes that might apply. Take it from this Sagittarius!

They pieced together the appearance of the black hole with the first belief that Gilliac=bad, assumed/deduced that they were connected, and jumped to  the conclusion that reversing the black hole might give the Regorians a different outlook.

Yeah, I realize people can be stubborn, but they would have to think about their position for people not born there and under the influence of different constellations.

 

1 hour ago, Florinaldo said:

Considering how obsessed this planet's society is with observing stars and the resources and technology they are devoting to it, how long before the deception is discovered, especially once they venture in space themselves?

I wondered about that too because it would be pretty obvious it was a mirror reflecting light of their Sun, but there was a throw-away line at the beginning about their satellites and observatories only tracking the position of stars, so I can rationalize them seeing a light at that position and not caring about any details.

[Joimiaroxeu]

Did they not have contraception on this nutty planet? Seems like it'd be easier to avoid creating any pregnancies during the time frame that would lead to the baby being born during the wrong month. Or did I miss a line about contraception being banned?

Interesting to equate astrology with religion.

Look at Seth taking it to Star Trek: Discovery by using an actual classic disco song in the soundtrack. I love it. (ST:DIS has been trying to use DISCO as their shorthand reference to the show. Neither within the show's context or ST history does it make any sense to me to reference disco.)

Wonder if they got the "hide the baby in a box" thing from A Quiet Place? I don't think I saw

Spoiler

a tiny oxygen mask

though. (Spoilered that for people who may not have seen AQP yet.

Edited January 25, 2019 by Joimiaroxeu

[Chicago Redshirt]

2 hours ago, Ottis said:

Another weak point. The only way they make that work is if they also portrayed the Regerians as somehow cowed by their astronomy. Like on TOS when the natives worshipped Vaal. More religious or devoted than Miss Cleo. But you have instead a society about as advanced as our real life society, and the simple fact a star winks makes them question one of their basic tenets?

They did portray the Regerians as obsessed with astrology/astronomy in service of their astrology.  So much so that it devoted 24 satellites to tracking the movements of the stars (and that might have just been one grouping of such satellites), imprisoned numerous people because they were born in the wrong month, forced premature births to avoid having others born in the wrong month, and anointed other children as future leaders who would get spoiled from jump street because they were born in the right month. 

For people who believe that fervently that the stars control our destinies, that "the stars don't lie," to see an apparent new star pop into existence would have a profound effect. As far as we know, that doesn't just happen every day.

2 hours ago, shrewd.buddha said:

• Why is the crew excited about going down to the planet? Do they not remember how badly things went  the  every time before? 
• Why would Bortus, born on different planet in a different solar system, be marking his birthday on a calendar system from Earth?
• Why is the Orville crew not freaked out that every planet they find has perfect gravity with human-type beings who speak English? (A universal translator would not explain why their lips were forming English words.) 
• Why would a leader on Reger 2 think he could make prisoners of people with advanced technology, with a starship with advanced weapons in orbit above his planet and part of an entire union of planets? It was not as if the crew had gone undercover and did not want be exposed as aliens. 
• Commander Ted Danson said it had been a month and they were not even sure they were alive.  Come on. Ed and Gordon infiltrated a hostile Krill ship, but now no one can figure out how to sneak Kelly and Bortus off the planet? 
• The camp guards were bad, but they were not shown to be killing people. But Kelly and Bortus sure did.  Why they were released after that was completely ignored.
• Of all the scientists and robots on the Orville, why would the new security officer be the one to figure out that a star had disappeared? 

This list could go on for pages, but there is really no point, because the writers are not interested in consistency or logic.
If Orville was better written as a comedy, most of these things could be hand-waved as being ridiculous for the sake of being ridiculous. But the Orville is not doing a good job of being a comedy - and it is not doing a good job of being a drama or action show. 

Our crew is a bunch of optimists, it would seem. Besides, their first contacts haven't gone too badly, relatively speaking. Few casualties, if any, and pretty much everything worked out in the end.

We don't know if the Union has a standardized time-telling system. I would assume so. In any event, his birthday is when it is. So even if his birthday was January 29, 2419 by Earth's calendar, the 21st or Marrrrf'ha by the Moclan calendar and Stardate 213203.12 by the Union Standardized calendar, it's the same date.

For all sci-fi featuring alien cultures (Trek/Gate/Farscape/etc) we just have to handwave things like universal translators, humanoids, Earth-normal gravity.

The prefect doesn't necessarily know how advanced the Orville's technology is beyond that they are capable of space flight. He also has a blind spot ideologically. He seemed to be incapable of thinking that the Orville's people did not share their belief about astrology and the evils of Gilliacs, and in fact seemed to think that by being more advanced it was to be expected that they would have confirmed astrology as a valid belief system. Moreover, sometimes you just have to do what you have to do. If we encountered aliens in the real world and one acted in a hostile manner, wouldn't we try to imprison or even kill it, despite the potential reprisals?

Infiltrating a Krill ship where the Krill are not expecting an infiltration is a different kettle of fish than trying to break someone out from a secured location where they have every expectation of a possible rescue attempt. On top of that, the Union rejected the use of force as an option, which would seem to me to exclude that sort of a rescue mission. 

The point about releasing Kelly and Bortus after killing a dozen or so guards is pretty valid.

Isaac is not very good in terms of creativity or initiative, it seems to me. If you tell him, "Do X," he will do it. And once he starts on a task, he can make deductions and inferences. But in terms of working on an open-ended situation, he's not the best. I don't see any reason why it's unusual that the security person might not be the first to piece something together.

[Ottis]

2 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

They did portray the Regerians as obsessed with astrology/astronomy in service of their astrology.  So much so that it devoted 24 satellites to tracking the movements of the stars (and that might have just been one grouping of such satellites), imprisoned numerous people because they were born in the wrong month, forced premature births to avoid having others born in the wrong month, and anointed other children as future leaders who would get spoiled from jump street because they were born in the right month. 

For people who believe that fervently that the stars control our destinies, that "the stars don't lie," to see an apparent new star pop into existence would have a profound effect. As far as we know, that doesn't just happen every day.

Those factors, presented a different way, would have gotten partway there. What was missing was the theological aspect, i.e. dedication along the lines of TOS "Landru," or heck, even a priest. Lip service was paid to the stars controlling their destinies, but no examples were given. Were most government leaders Tauruses (or whatever their word would have been)? Were sports heroes Gemini? For that matter, and as I noted earlier, what examples do we have that Gilliacs are violent? Because aside from a guy being held in a detention camp without adequate food, we didn't see any. If anything, having satellites should have been a counter to their astrology beliefs, not a support. And they probably should have already found new stars being born by now, given their technology.

In any case, I agree with you that *an attempt* was made to create a world that *should have* clearly depicted what you suggest. It just wasn't done very well, which keeps Orville from being outstanding.

Edited January 25, 2019 by Ottis
I type like a drunken monkey

[iMonrey]

Quote

 Virtually every Orville ep has so many plot holes that you can drive the Orville through them. It's one of the frustrating things about this show. It is *this close* to actually being pretty damn good, and it can't quite get there. Based on how serious season 2 is vs. season 1, it seems like Seth wants this to be ST. But the writers don't make good enough connections.

Sadly I must agree. While I did enjoy this episode for what it was, it really falls apart under the slightest bit of scrutiny. The writing just isn't smart enough to be serious Sci-Fi and this season isn't funny enough to be parody or comedy.

Maybe I missed something a couple weeks ago, but won't this new Xelayan suffer the same fate as Alara did? Won't all Xelayans eventually acclimate to lesser gravity and lose their super strength like she did? Or does this only happen to them sometimes? I don't get the "logic" behind that either.

[Sandman]

17 hours ago, Superclam said:

I enjoyed the episode, but there are a lot of "science" and "logic" issues to ignore here. 

Same here. I've been watching occasionally, thinking that the pilot episode might not be typical of what the show is trying to do. I find it weird tonally, and I'm not sure whether it's a drama with some comic elements or a workplace sitcom that aspires to be a drama (or dramedy, to borrow a term I don't actually like all that much). Frankly, I'm not sure the show knows what's it's going for. (To be fair, I would make the same criticism of STD (Heh.)

The fact that Mercer never even tried to advance the argument that being born under a different arrangement of stars, on a different planet, in an entirely different galaxy is a plothole I could pilot a shuttle through. Mercer need not believe in the astrological basis of the planet's belief system to make this argument; he'd only be pointing out a potential loophole in their system. (To say nothing of the argument that the best way to deal with the nasty off-worlders would be to send them back where they came from.)

And, I'm sorry, apprehending visitors on a diplomatic mission would appear to be, if not an outright act of war, then certainly an incident of aggression which would escalate the matter immediately beyond the pay-grade of a ship's captain. I don't think "Well, hey, first contact missions are chancy work; we'll have to let them keep our citizens as prisoners for fear of offending the nice backward people" is how this would work. Why do "negotiators" only get involved about two-thirds of the way through the episode? And why do random explorer star ships apparently get a totally free hand with first contacts, anyway? Fine, explorers are going to encounter new civilizations, and it's nice to see that the crew actually looks forward to interacting with new potential allies and friends, but isn't there any protocol for making first contacts as free of potential interstellar incidents as possible? There aren't any ethno-cultural specialists, xenobiologists, (linguists!), or diplomats on board? It's all just "First contact! Party down! Whooo!"?

I want to like this show more, especially now that Ed's behaving more responsibly towards the crew, at any rate. And Kelly does seem to be a decent-or-better commander. (And Palicki still gets goodwill from me for Bobbi "Mockingbird" Morse.) But it's all a little too "WTF, McFarlane?" for me. 

Edited January 25, 2019 by Sandman

[Chicago Redshirt]

3 minutes ago, Ottis said:

Those factors, presented a different way, would have gotten partway there. What was missing was the theological aspect, i.e. dedication along the lines of TOS "Landru," or heck, even a priest. Lip service was paid to the stars controlling their destinies, but no examples were give. Were most government leaders Tauruses (or whatever their word would have been)? Were sports heroes Gemini? For that matter, and as I noted earlier, what examples do we have that Gilliacs are violent? because aside from a guy being held in a detention camp without adequate food, we didn't see any. If anything, having satellites should have been a counter to their astrology believes, not a support. And they probably should have already found new stars being born by now, given their technology.

In any case, I agree with you that *an attempt* was made to create a world that *should have* clearly depicted what you suggest. It just wasn't done very well, which keeps Orville from being outstanding.

There were explicitly scenes about the future leaders being born under the sign that followed the Gilliacs. The prefect gave a televised address about moving into the "good sign" and saying that those born under it would be future leaders and would be raised in prosperity. The two Gilliacs who were pregnant gave birth to a good-sign baby (which is actually a plot hole, now that I think about it -- since mama Gilliac was obviously pregnant and the society believed in avoiding Gilliac births by C-sections and other means, why didn't they cause her to give birth prior to the stars going into Gilliac?) and wrestled with Mama being willing to attempt to conceal the baby under the floorboards so they could remain a family unit (kinda impractical as a long-term solution, but whatever) and Papa eventually ratting the kid out so that she could get the full future-leader treatment. 

I think part of the critique is that the belief on the Gilliacs' supposed violent nature was not supported by objective evidence. It's not like there was the Gilliac Rebellion of 1013 or something. At some point, and seemingly connected to the collapse of a star in the constellation of Gilliac, the Regerians began believing as they do about Gilliacs, and the "reasons" are lost to time. 

I agree with you that they could have gone deeper on how and what the Regerians believe, but they only have 42-48 story-telling minutes, and I think they did a pretty effective job with them.

5 minutes ago, iMonrey said:

Maybe I missed something a couple weeks ago, but won't this new Xelayan suffer the same fate as Alara did? Won't all Xelayans eventually acclimate to lesser gravity and lose their super strength like she did? Or does this only happen to them sometimes? I don't get the "logic" behind that either.

The end of that episode had a solution for Xelayans getting weaker -- weekly therapy sessions in the simulator under gravity that is even higher than Xelaya's. So presumably the new crew member is doing that/will be doing that.

[Sandman]

1 minute ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

The two Gilliacs who were pregnant gave birth to a good-sign baby (which is actually a plot hole, now that I think about it -- since mama Gilliac was obviously pregnant and the society believed in avoiding Gilliac births by C-sections and other means, why didn't they cause her to give birth prior to the stars going into Gilliac?)

And has nobody ever tried to delay the birth of a child to avoid giving birth to a nasty criminal Giliac baby, since, apparently, giving birth the very next month means your child is set for life? It's not like they have objections to unnecessary medical interventions from a health and safety or ethics point of view. And would Giliac parents just be allowed to keep their golden-child future leader babies if they do win the astrological lottery? Wouldn't allowing Giliac couples to reproduce be considered societally risky? 

[Bort]

5 minutes ago, iMonrey said:

Maybe I missed something a couple weeks ago, but won't this new Xelayan suffer the same fate as Alara did? Won't all Xelayans eventually acclimate to lesser gravity and lose their super strength like she did? Or does this only happen to them sometimes? I don't get the "logic" behind that either.

Claire came up with a physiological regimen to prevent muscle and bone-density atrophy but Alara elected not to do it and decided to return home.

[paulvdb]

50 minutes ago, Joimiaroxeu said:

Wonder if they got the "hide the baby in a box" thing from A Quiet Place?

The idea of hiding a baby or young child is not exactly original. Of the top of my head I can think of the youngest daughter on Terra Nova and Octavia on The 100. Octavia was even hidden under the floor boards like the baby in this episode.

[Chaos Theory]

I don’t bother with logic errors on shows like this.  I don’t even really call it a hand wave.  There are shows you think about and contemplate and there are shows you just kinda.....enjoy.  This is the later.

Both are valid.

i like episodes that focus on Kelly.  She is still my favorite character.   Kelly and Bortus made an interesting pairing.   

This episode was a fun first contact episode that does what science fiction first contact episodes are supposed to do.  Make a point about society but then have the crew just go back to crewing.

Edited January 25, 2019 by Chaos Theory

[Chicago Redshirt]

11 minutes ago, Sandman said:

And has nobody ever tried to delay the birth of a child to avoid giving birth to a nasty criminal Giliac baby, since, apparently, giving birth the very next month means your child is set for life? It's not like they have objections to unnecessary medical interventions from a health and safety or ethics point of view. And would Giliac parents just be allowed to keep their golden-child future leader babies if they do win the astrological lottery? Wouldn't allowing Giliac couples to reproduce be considered societally risky? 

I'd guess that trying to delay a birth by a week to a month would be harder than inducing birth a month early. And the risk of failing to get the kid born in the good month seems pretty high. But trying to get a kid in the set-for-life lottery would probably be worth the risk to a lot of people.

From what we saw from the show, the future-leader baby was going to be taken out of the internment camp and raised in the lap of luxury despite her parentage. I could see there being a tension between her being a golden-child on the one hand and the child of Gilliac trash on the other.  

It seems like a society convinced that all X were inherently evil would do a lot more to prevent X than C-sections and camps. Like I would have been interested in the justification for keeping the Gilliac alive at all.

[rmontro]

15 hours ago, kariyaki said:

I think that was Jennifer Landon playing the pregnant girl. As in daughter of Michael Landon. But she looks completely different than I remember her from As the World Turns.

Not sure who it was, but it must be difficult for an actress to portray giving birth.

As a Beatles fan, I wanted to note that the title "All the World is Birthday Cake" is a lyric taken from George Harrison's song It's All Too Much, which is in the Yellow Submarine film.  A somewhat obscure song (for the Beatles), so it was nice to see that.

This is just a stupid TV show, but it's amazing how much it can draw you in.  I really wanted to punch that prefect in the face.  

I agree with some others that the solution to the whole situation seemed a little too pat.  I'm surprised they acted so quickly to the new star in the sky, but obviously they put a huge emphasis on astronomy, so I guess it makes sense.

[Sandman]

27 minutes ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

From what we saw from the show, the future-leader baby was going to be taken out of the internment camp and raised in the lap of luxury despite her parentage.

Well, technically, what we saw was that the baby was removed; I'm not sure how the children of Giliacs were to be treated in this society, though it's certainly implied that the baby will be raised with advantages, but I'm skeptical, even so.

31 minutes ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

I could see there being a tension between her being a golden-child on the one hand and the child of Gilliac trash on the other.  

I can see this, too.

Frankly, this episode kind of made me want to punch everyone in the face, including the ones who came up with the fake rebirth of a star plan. Because there aren't a thousand different ways that could go wrong.

[shapeshifter]

1 hour ago, iMonrey said:

Maybe I missed something a couple weeks ago, but won't this new Xelayan suffer the same fate as Alara did? Won't all Xelayans eventually acclimate to lesser gravity and lose their super strength like she did? Or does this only happen to them sometimes? I don't get the "logic" behind that either.

1 hour ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

The end of that episode had a solution for Xelayans getting weaker -- weekly therapy sessions in the simulator under gravity that is even higher than Xelaya's. So presumably the new crew member is doing that/will be doing that

Also, didn't they say Alara was more predisposed to lose strength because she left her high-gravity planet at such a young age?

 

 

39 MINUTES AGO, RMONTRO SAID:

As a Beatles fan, I wanted to note that the title "All the World is Birthday Cake" is a lyric taken from George Harrison's song It's All Too Much, which is in the Yellow Submarine film. A somewhat obscure song (for the Beatles), so it was nice to see that.

This is just a stupid TV show, but

Thanks for the title reference, @rmontro, but I am now imagining George Harrison groaning in his grave after this episode aired.

Edited January 25, 2019 by shapeshifter

[Chaos Theory]

1 hour ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

 

It seems like a society convinced that all X were inherently evil would do a lot more to prevent X than C-sections and camps. Like I would have been interested in the justification for keeping the Gilliac alive at all.

Gilliacs are the ones who are inherently violence keeping them alive...but separate might have been seen by a “civilized”  society as compassion and proof they weren’t like the Gilliacs because they didn’t act violently.  

1 hour ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

From what we saw from the show, the future-leader baby was going to be taken out of the internment camp and raised in the lap of luxury despite her parentage. I could see there being a tension between her being a golden-child on the one hand and the child of Gilliac trash on the other.  

That is something I might have wanted to see.  How are future golden children raised when their parentage is less desirable?  We saw what happened to the unwanted but it might have been interesting to see one of the crew get treated like a king just because he was born on a certain day.  

[Ottis]

1 hour ago, Sandman said:

Same here. I've been watching occasionally, thinking that the pilot episode might not be typical of what the show is trying to do. I find it weird tonally, and I'm not sure whether it's a drama with some comic elements or a workplace sitcom that aspires to be a drama (or dramedy, to borrow a term I don't actually like all that much). Frankly, I'm not sure the show knows what's it's going for. (To be fair, I would make the same criticism of STD (Heh.)

What's *really* weird is that, last season, many viewers (including me) were puzzled and even critical of Orville because it couldn't seem to decide on a tone. TNG one moment, fart jokes the next. It was awkward. But one benefit of that was, it excused a lot of poor script writing because, well, it was a jokey, Family Guy/Star Trek kind of show.

Now that they seem to have landed on "we are like Star Trek," the plot holes are more noticeable and exposed. Not that ST was airtight in terms of logic; it wasn't. But Orville takes me out of the show about every 5 minutes with one huge hole, or incomplete thought, or disconnected action.

45 minutes ago, Sandman said:

Frankly, this episode kind of made me want to punch everyone in the face, including the ones who came up with the fake rebirth of a star plan. Because there aren't a thousand different ways that could go wrong.

Loved that. LOL. In fact, that "solution" was so untenable  and shot full of possible issues that I didn't quite understand it.  It would be like if someone told me the answer to getting to Paris was to create a helicopter out of cheese and take advantage of a wind storm to glide across the ocean. 

[Emma9]

4 hours ago, shrewd.buddha said:

Why is the Orville crew not freaked out that every planet they find has perfect gravity with human-type beings who speak English? (A universal translator would not explain why their lips were forming English words.) 

Further, how did the Orville immediately interpret that first satellite message? A universal translator that can work on a single one-sentence sample of a previously-unknown language stretches even sci-fi trope handwaving.

ToS Trek had a tidy little deus ex machina called the Preservers, who seeded at least one (and, it was implied, many more) worlds with life from others, making the 'an improbable number of alien races could pass for human' thing, while of course done for budgetary reasons, have a plausible explanation in-universe. Wonder if we'll ever encounter something like them on this show.

[Chicago Redshirt]

45 minutes ago, Sandman said:

Well, technically, what we saw was that the baby was removed; I'm not sure how the children of Giliacs were to be treated in this society, though it's certainly implied that the baby will be raised with advantages, but I'm skeptical, even so.

...

Frankly, this episode kind of made me want to punch everyone in the face, including the ones who came up with the fake rebirth of a star plan. Because there aren't a thousand different ways that could go wrong.

The commander of the internment camp, when he was informed of the baby's presence, seemed respectful, almost in awe, and proclaimed she would get golden-child status. He didn't even bother to be like "Just like Gilliac trash to deprive us of a golden child" or whatever. I think it's fair to take his statements at face value, especially given the equally reverent statements of the prefect toward children born under the best sign.

It's a little hard for us to imagine parental status wouldn't influence how a kid is treated because for pretty much all the known history and present of Earth, one's parentage/genetics was a major influence, if not THE major influence, on how a given society might treat someone. But it's not impossible to envision a society where one's parents are far less relevant than one's birthdate/sign.

I would be interested in revisiting this planet down the line and exploring the effects of the Orville's scam. It may have been a decent short-term solution (or at least, it was made to be a decent short-term solution for plot reasons), but there are a whole bunch of potential ramifications once it comes out that there was no new star and the constellation Gilliac is the same as it had been for 3,000ish years, and by extension of Regerian logic, so are people born under the sign.

[femmefan1946]

Back to the '24 hours' thing.

It would make more sense in my mind to go for a 25 hour day, with 50 minutes which are 50 seconds long.

Then redefine what a second is.

Our 24 hour day is based on the Babylonian base 6 system of mathematics. 

[thuganomics85]

I'm choosing to believe that this episode stem from someone really bugging Seth MacFarlane over what is horoscope or "sign" is, and he was like "Fine, I'm going to create an entire episode just to shit on that!"

But, no, this was clearly their take on a lot of those classic "First Contact goes to hell in a hand-basket" episodes.  That alien race definitely has some out there beliefs and whatnot, although I don't think anything will ever top the time Wesley Crusher almost got executed for accidentally destroying plants on TNG.  Definitely some plot holes and questions over the way they solved everything, but whatever.  I'm glad they at least acknowledge that their plan will eventually be discovered, and they just have to hope the species will be advanced at that point that they won't care.

Kelly and Bortus were a good team.  I don't blame them for taking a stand, but I do wonder how they worked around them likely killing some of the soldiers in their botched escape attempt.

I can't fully blame the dad for wanting his daughter to have a better life, but I don't see how the wife will ever be able to forgive him after he flat-out went against her wishes.  That's just a betrayal I can't see her ever recovering from.

What are you doing here, Michael?!  Quit dicking around in space, The Good Place needs you!  Kidding... always great to see Ted Danson.

Keylai was alright.  I like that even though she is the same species as Alara, they aren't just coping the character, and she has a different personality.  Also, I'm going to say she will end up punching Ed by at least the penultimate episode.  Chekhov's Punch!

Klyden's giddiness over the video LaMarr and Gordon made with Bortus was great.

I do wonder who was actually in charge of The Orville, when Ed, Kelly, Claire, Bortus, and Keylai were all down on the planet?  Gordon?  Isaac?  That seems risky...

Edited January 25, 2019 by thuganomics85

[Featherhat]

1 hour ago, Emma9 said:

Further, how did the Orville immediately interpret that first satellite message? A universal translator that can work on a single one-sentence sample of a previously-unknown language stretches even sci-fi trope handwaving.

Eh, I've seen even really good, thoughtful sci fi shows (Farscape IMHO) handwave that one where a planet wouldn't have reciprocal translator microbes. I might have liked some more handwaveium about it but I was okay. I guess they wanted the iconic "Is there anybody out there" message to come through immediately. 

I'm watching the show for the characters and letting go of most other things and it's working for me. I was iffy about continuing when I wasn't doing that last season but now I am I'm thoroughly enjoying it. 

[Sandman]

1 hour ago, Ottis said:

It would be like if someone told me the answer to getting to Paris was to create a helicopter out of cheese and take advantage of a wind storm to glide across the ocean. 

Oh, come now. Haven't we all done that a time or two? (Hee.)

ETA: I did rather like the detail that the message wasn't responded to in a matter of days or weeks after the planet started sending it, but rather years. That felt almost realistic... esque. Scientistical, if you will.

Edited January 25, 2019 by Sandman

[ajsnaves]

I actually enjoyed this more than I thought.   My first thought, as we see the shuttle going down, “Did they call, or are they just gonna show up?” I’m glad it sounds like they called first.  Then I thought, “that’s a whole lot of uniforms for the government.  Uniformed governments never leads to goo things.”  I also thought they should have explained that Kelly and Bortus born under different signs and what the attributes of those signs were. “Kelly is an Aquarius. On Earth, that means she is...” Ed can just fill in the blanks.

I noticed that apparently they get their baby blankets from the same place every other hospital in North America does.  Those ubiquitous white with blue and pink stripes.

As too whether or not this was the right time for “First Contact,” Ed did say that The Union likes to be “the first” to avoid it being with someone more violent.  Imagine if it was the Krill who got that message first.  That said I would love to see a successful first contact, where everything goes as expected.

[MissLucas]

8 hours ago, Chaos Theory said:

It’s interesting that no actual research is done on first contact.  Say what you want about Star Trek and all their protecall a lot of their first contact strategy makes sense. A lot of this could have been avoided by a small amount of research.

 

Well, the Union doesn't do much research on cultures and rites of its member planets either *insert every plot about Bortus* Nor do they actually keep any field notes of previous clashes due to cultural ignorance (s. Majority Rule).

52 minutes ago, thuganomics85 said:

I'm choosing to believe that this episode stem from someone really bugging Seth MacFarlane over what is horoscope or "sign" is, and he was like "Fine, I'm going to create an entire episode just to shit on that!"

 

There's a clip of him on the Late Late Show on Youtube calling it bollocks (complete with an explanation why).

[Raja]

13 minutes ago, ajsnaves said:

I actually enjoyed this more than I thought.   My first thought, as we see the shuttle going down, “Did they call, or are they just gonna show up?” I’m glad it sounds like they called first.  Then I thought, “that’s a whole lot of uniforms for the government.  Uniformed governments never leads to goo things.”  I also thought they should have explained that Kelly and Bortus born under different signs and what the attributes of those signs were. “Kelly is an Aquarius. On Earth, that means she is...” Ed can just fill in the blanks.

I noticed that apparently they get their baby blankets from the same place every other hospital in North America does.  Those ubiquitous white with blue and pink stripes.

As too whether or not this was the right time for “First Contact,” Ed did say that The Union likes to be “the first” to avoid it being with someone more violent.  Imagine if it was the Krill who got that message first.  That said I would love to see a successful first contact, where everything goes as expected.

Not just uniforms but tactical grey uniforms. 

[Pike Ludwell]

"All the world is birthday cake" seems a reference to the Beatles song "It's All Too Much". Is Seth a Beatles fan?

Edited January 25, 2019 by Pat Hoolihan

[legaleagle53]

1 hour ago, thuganomics85 said:

But, no, this was clearly their take on a lot of those classic "First Contact goes to hell in a hand-basket" episodes.  That alien race definitely has some out there beliefs and whatnot, although I don't think anything will ever top the time Wesley Crusher almost got executed for accidentally destroying plants on TNG.  Definitely some plot holes and questions over the way they solved everything, but whatever.  I'm glad they at least acknowledge that their plan will eventually be discovered, and they just have to hope the species will be advanced at that point that they won't care.

 

Even if it's discovered before the Regerians have gotten past their belief in astrology, the planet's technology (which appears to be late-20th/early 21st Century Earth level at best) is centuries behind that of the Union's.  Exactly what can the Regerians do to the Union in retaliation?  If they try to start a war over the deception, that would give the Union carte blanche to wipe the floor with them.

Edited January 25, 2019 by legaleagle53

[marketdoctor]

Quote

Loved that. LOL. In fact, that "solution" was so untenable  and shot full of possible issues that I didn't quite understand it.  It would be like if someone told me the answer to getting to Paris was to create a helicopter out of cheese and take advantage of a wind storm to glide across the ocean

Ok, now I want cheese.  (Not a complaint; I like cheese--in this case, we'd need Parmesan cheese, though.)

On-topic:  I liked the horoscope-snarking, but I'm still not sure how the DNA analysis would work with alien DNA (or, that's why they got a negative result every time.) 

In keeping with Godwin's law, there was a civilization that got the ability to send a message into space at about the same time they were really big into astrology...and fascism, and rounding up people they didn't like.  Maybe there's a broader point that if you can rationalize pseudo-science, you can rationalize lots of other evils with it.

Quote

Agreed that it would've been simpler to argue for the expulsion of Kelly and Bortus from the planet rather than try to reform the entire sign's public image

I think that would have been the eventual diplomatic solution, with maybe a "call us if the Krill show up, you'll need us" button.

There were things I liked a lot:

1.  Ed invites them to the Galaxy, not the Union.  He's reserving some of the judgment.

2.  There is more than one admiral.  There's still a chain of command.

3.  Ted Danson!

4.  The tone--sometimes it's funny and light, and sometimes not--reflects life really well; some years are darker than others.  It did not reflect the tone of the pilot episode, but it's finding its footing.

Though I think it would have been better to have them be captured a week or so, so that either the Gilliax were a small portion of the planet, or find another way...at some point you'd want to jailbreak them or at least find out if they're alive.

Also, the Union's policy on non-interference seems to be less strict than the Federation--and once they'd made the first contact, didn't that no longer apply?  I could see that becoming a "we busted them out because we could, but you locked them up, let's call it even and walk away not-enemies" situation.

[Nellise]

I was really disappointed in this episode since Seth wrote it and barely any of it made any logical sense. Really did feel like Seth wanted to make a comment about Astrology and never really thought much else about the plot.

Others have brought up a number of the issues with this episode, but my biggest issue was with the prison camp. Why were the guards so over the top antagonistic? If I understood it right, these people have been there since birth, and the Gilliac thing has been going on for a long time apparently such that the people in the camp accept that as their fate. We didn't see any effort by them to break out or any outside resistance movement that would cause the guards to behave like they were. It sort of felt like they were trying to emulate a war camp, but that's not what was going on, these people have been there forever and apparently allowed to marry (I think), have kids, etc.

And were we supposed to side with the mother? She wanted to keep her child in a prison camp for its life with no hope for its future rather than be taken care of and given an excellent life (at least from what we were shown).

I hope they bring back a bit more comedy in future episodes since it doesn't seem they're able to write the sci-fi parts that well.

[ketose]

20 hours ago, Driad said:

The people on that planet are able to build telescopes, but they can't understand that from a different star system (e.g. those that Kelly and Bortus come from), different constellations etc. would be visible?

They're version of astrology is probably complex, taking into account 360 degrees of star views from every point of the planet outward. They may believe that system is universal, like coordinates based on them as the center of the universe. Apparently, they don't understand concepts like black holes.

 

20 hours ago, kariyaki said:

I don’t think that would’ve mattered, Kelly and Bortus were born at the same time as that sign on their planet, it didn’t seem to matter where they were at the time.

I found it interesting that they had the technology to determine someone’s exact age from a tooth sample (like a tree?) but couldn’t detect a big sail orbiting their planet.

That's total BS. Teeth don't even exist at birth. Even if they did, how does birth impact teeth to find such a precise date?

 

19 hours ago, marinw said:

Technological progress is never consistent, it depends on the priorities of the society. We 21st Century Earthlings can carry a tiny computer in our pockets but fossil fuels are still our main power source.

Fossil fuels have 50 times the energy density of a battery. Some technology is easier to implement than others. In Back to the Future 2, there were flying cars, but they still had fax machines in 2015. Flying a car takes a tremendous amount of energy. Building smaller computers takes less raw material and just requires times to advance the technology.

 

5 hours ago, iMonrey said:

Sadly I must agree. While I did enjoy this episode for what it was, it really falls apart under the slightest bit of scrutiny. The writing just isn't smart enough to be serious Sci-Fi and this season isn't funny enough to be parody or comedy.

Maybe I missed something a couple weeks ago, but won't this new Xelayan suffer the same fate as Alara did? Won't all Xelayans eventually acclimate to lesser gravity and lose their super strength like she did? Or does this only happen to them sometimes? I don't get the "logic" behind that either.

I guess the assumption is that Talla is older and is less prone to bone density issues. So far, her character is also prone to being smart, rather than strong. Plus, it probably shaves a few bucks off the SFX budget, much like the disappearance of Yaphit.

[Andromeda]

17 hours ago, Mysteris said:

See, this is why I couldn't be a starship captain in the Union or Star Trek's Federation. If some primitive culture took two of my people hostage, I'm going in hot. I don't give a damn what the admirals say. We're coming down in force with as many armed shuttles or transporters as we can manage, we're breaking out the top of the line weapons and armor, and we're showing these screwheads why they don't pick a fight with an advanced species, first contact protocol be damned. I'd be the guy who stood before the admirals over the smoking ruins of those camps (or maybe the capitol) and dare the motherfuckers to court-martial me for rescuing my people.

I was frustrated, too. If not actually firing on them, I would definitely threaten them. Tell them we have the power to wipe out their capital city with the push of a button if they don't release our people. Do a demonstration in the middle of the ocean on an unpopulated island. Do something.

I was also frustrated that they couldn't show these idiots how constellations move over time, how they appear differently from different perspectives, how Earth doesn't even have the same constellations, so Kelly and Bortus couldn't have been born under that sign, etc. Then again, it's their entire culture, so probably nothing would convince them.

But I did love the message that astrology is bunk. The people probably wouldn't be convinced regardless, so I'd focus on scaring the crap out of them to give up my people.

I'm grateful this show doesn't have a transporter, which would have been an easy solve.

I like the new security person. Glad they stuck with a Xalayan, and had a reason, too. Well done, show.

Edited January 25, 2019 by Andromeda

[Quickbeam]

I loved the graphic of the deploying solar sail. I could watch that all day. Seth has the best smile, it feels so genuine.

[Pike Ludwell]

One of the hilarious aspects of this show is the exaggerated goofy traditions, thoughts and characteristics of the aliens -- and the appearance of the aliens as well. Yes Star Trek and TNG had aliens with odd rules. But this goes further - into hilarious satire.  E.g. the idea that Bortus' people urinate once a year and make a sacred ceremony out of it. Or they divorce by killing the partner. The peoples in this episode being insanely ruled by very simple minded astrology beliefs. So many other examples. And last week we saw the Krill justifying their attacks with some simple minded thing along the lines "we believed the planet was our sacred right, by the great God, "Avis". The inhabitants did not conform to our thinking that it was our sacred right, so they had to be destroyed." Absolutely hilarious stuff.

Edited January 26, 2019 by Pat Hoolihan

[Dobian]

First episode this season I did not especially like.

Racing to make contact with a planet without researching the people first.

The old Stark Trek trope about the civilization that looks great on the outside but has one thing seriously wrong with them.

Collapsing a whole bunch of governments and leaders into a single person who just runs the whole planet from his office.

Ed caving to this guy when he could have simply done a non-lethal show of force and demanded immediate release of Kelly and Bortis before talking to Admiral Sam Malone.

The Neville Chamberlainish admiral who won't protect the crews of his fleet from the nutty governments of weaker civilization because... we don't want them to not like us?

A civilization at our technological level that's going to blow relations with extraterrestrials in the biggest moment in their history over two people that they could simply release and demand they never return.

Kelly and Bortus kill a bunch of guards but they're let go because a star reappears.  Huh?

New security chief was alright, but I kept thinking about how Alara would have done some of those scenes, like the demonstration at the dinner.

The Orville reintroducing another old Star Trek trope where the future is a socialist paradise where people don't need any money and don't have to toil away working anymore, as Claire put it.  But isn't that what they're all doing on the ship as well as elsewhere, having careers and working long hours under stress, and filing reports and all the other things you have to do on a job?  So what's the diff?

Edited January 26, 2019 by Dobian

[EllenB]

6 minutes ago, Pat Hoolihan said:

One of the hilarious aspects of this show is the exaggerated goofy traditions, thoughts and characteristics of the aliens -- and the appearance of the aliens as well. Yes Star Trek and TNG had aliens with odd rules. But this goes further - into hilarious satire.  E.g. the idea that Bortus' people urinate once a year and make a sacred ceremony out of it. Or they divorce by killing the partner. The peoples in this episode being insanely ruled by very simple minded astrology beliefs. So many other examples. And last week we saw the Krill justifying their attacks with some simple minded thing along the lines "we believed the planet was our sacred right. The inhabitants did not conform to our thinking that it was our sacred right, so they had to be destroyed." Absolutely hilarious stuff.

Finally, someone who gets it!  I loved Star Trek, especially DS9 and Voyager, but this is NOT Star Trek.  It's more Galaxy Quest.  Or Star Trek but only if run by O'Brien, Bashir, Quark, Kim, Paris, and Neelix.  All good at their jobs but with a LOT of immaturity or character flaws.  It's why I love it.  Star Trek: Goofballs Rule!  And people forget that Star Trek took a LOOONG time to find it's tone and consistency, not to mention technical plausibility.  I'm loving The Orville just as it is, for what it is.

[legaleagle53]

28 minutes ago, EllenB said:

Finally, someone who gets it!  I loved Star Trek, especially DS9 and Voyager, but this is NOT Star Trek.  It's more Galaxy Quest.  Or Star Trek but only if run by O'Brien, Bashir, Quark, Kim, Paris, and Neelix.  All good at their jobs but with a LOT of immaturity or character flaws.  It's why I love it.  Star Trek: Goofballs Rule!  And people forget that Star Trek took a LOOONG time to find it's tone and consistency, not to mention technical plausibility.  I'm loving The Orville just as it is, for what it is.

I agree. Even something as little as the scene where Bortus is being teased a little about the fact that Kelly wants to have a joint birthday celebration and he's not having any of it. I cracked up when even Klyden started laughing about it, and explained to Bortus (who was looking daggers at him) that he thought it was amusing.  Who says Moclans don't have a sense of humor?

Edited January 26, 2019 by legaleagle53

[Pike Ludwell]

17 minutes ago, EllenB said:

Finally, someone who gets it!  I loved Star Trek, especially DS9 and Voyager, but this is NOT Star Trek.  It's more Galaxy Quest.  Or Star Trek but only if run by O'Brien, Bashir, Quark, Kim, Paris, and Neelix.  All good at their jobs but with a LOT of immaturity or character flaws.  It's why I love it.  Star Trek: Goofballs Rule!  And people forget that Star Trek took a LOOONG time to find it's tone and consistency, not to mention technical plausibility.  I'm loving The Orville just as it is, for what it is.

When I see people discussing Lt. Yaphit as if it is a serious character ... well, I grimace.

[shapeshifter]

1 hour ago, Quickbeam said:

I loved the graphic of the deploying solar sail. I could watch that all day.

Me too. But it felt like it was from a different show. Maybe that more serious show that CBS wants me to pay to see?

Meanwhile, a lot of the problematic stuff just wasn't as satirically written as it could've/should've been.

I will keep watching for Bortus.

Is it just me, or does Seth MacFarlane's face look like someone has talked him into some unnecessary cosmetic treatments with undesirable results?

[TVSpectator]

12 hours ago, shrewd.buddha said:

• Why is the crew excited about going down to the planet? Do they not remember how badly things went  the  every time before? 
• Why would Bortus, born on different planet in a different solar system, be marking his birthday on a calendar system from Earth?
• Why is the Orville crew not freaked out that every planet they find has perfect gravity with human-type beings who speak English? (A universal translator would not explain why their lips were forming English words.) 
• Why would a leader on Reger 2 think he could make prisoners of people with advanced technology, with a starship with advanced weapons in orbit above his planet and part of an entire union of planets? It was not as if the crew had gone undercover and did not want be exposed as aliens. 
• Commander Ted Danson said it had been a month and they were not even sure they were alive.  Come on. Ed and Gordon infiltrated a hostile Krill ship, but now no one can figure out how to sneak Kelly and Bortus off the planet? 
• The camp guards were bad, but they were not shown to be killing people. But Kelly and Bortus sure did.  Why they were released after that was completely ignored.
• Of all the scientists and robots on the Orville, why would the new security officer be the one to figure out that a star had disappeared? 

 

5

6

I liked this episode but to answer your questions as best as I can :

 

- I guess it's because primary they are basically scientist and explorers and that is what they do. Second, they will be ones who could possibly be the first to established diplomatic relations to a totally new species that could end up being a member of the Union. Also, the aliens will remember them at least- even if things do not go right. 

- I guess the Union has some kind of way to keep track of time in space. In Star Trek, they had the Stardate system (along using the Gregorian Calander) so it's not too much of a stretch to think that the Union has their own version of Stardates. I  mean not everyone uses the Gregorian Calander (some people in Eastern Europe, like in Russia, would use the Julian Calander. Which is only two weeks behind our calendar) here on Earth but we are still able to keep track of time and people's birth dates.

- I guess because of the plot? Or since Ed seems like a pushover and I can see someone picking up on that and just having Kelly and Bortus being locked up for being born in January. 

- This is what confused me as well and I have no explanation. 

- My headcanon was that Commander Ted Danson came in and was able to reach some kind of deal?

- Because of the plot. 

 

Quote

This list could go on for pages, but there is really no point, because the writers are not interested in consistency or logic.
If Orville was better written as a comedy, most of these things could be hand-waved as being ridiculous for the sake of being ridiculous. But the Orville is not doing a good job of being a comedy - and it is not doing a good job of being a drama or action show. 

 

I agree that the show isn't t that well written at all but I still enjoy it. Just because it reminds me of Star Trek and it has charm/heart from the writers/creators. You are right that there are issues with the writing but it's not bothering me right now. For most of the episodes, they stay logical and they also do bring things up in a timely manner (i.e. we don't have to wait seasons after an event to see some fallout from events from a previous episode). 

 

Edit Why do does my page always freezes?

 

2nd Edit:

 

I guess it was my Javascript.

Edited January 26, 2019 by TVSpectator

[Dobian]

This episode was basically a Star Trek episode with Orville characters.  There were a few Orville moments, like after Ed's mildly nauseating Picard-like toast he comments to Kelly that he plagiarized nine sources for it, and the animation of Kelly and Bortus twerking on each other at the end.  But the rest was Star Trek.  Compare this to what I thought was a great Orville episode, Primal Urges, that was uniquely Orville.

[ACW]

If someone told me that Brannon Braga left behind a old rejected-for-a-reason TNG script in the Orville writers room, and they just changed the names and a few minor details, I'd believe it.

[Chicago Redshirt]

11 hours ago, Dobian said:

First episode this season I did not especially like.

Racing to make contact with a planet without researching the people first.

The old Stark Trek trope about the civilization that looks great on the outside but has one thing seriously wrong with them.

Collapsing a whole bunch of governments and leaders into a single person who just runs the whole planet from his office.

Ed caving to this guy when he could have simply done a non-lethal show of force and demanded immediate release of Kelly and Bortis before talking to Admiral Sam Malone.

The Neville Chamberlainish admiral who won't protect the crews of his fleet from the nutty governments of weaker civilization because... we don't want them to not like us?

A civilization at our technological level that's going to blow relations with extraterrestrials in the biggest moment in their history over two people that they could simply release and demand they never return.

Kelly and Bortus kill a bunch of guards but they're let go because a star reappears.  Huh?

New security chief was alright, but I kept thinking about how Alara would have done some of those scenes, like the demonstration at the dinner.

The Orville reintroducing another old Star Trek trope where the future is a socialist paradise where people don't need any money and don't have to toil away working anymore, as Claire put it.  But isn't that what they're all doing on the ship as well as elsewhere, having careers and working long hours under stress, and filing reports and all the other things you have to do on a job?  So what's the diff?

To each one's own, of course, but making contact with a planet without researching the people first is a fairly common thing in ship-based sci-fi, as is the trope, the notion of a main ruler rather than various factions etc. 

Under Union rules, Ed couldn't use any show of force, lethal or non-lethal. Presumably that carries over to threats of force as well. It may seem dumb, but ethically, if using force on weaker civilizations is an option, that can easily become a slippery slope. 

Suppose aliens came here, and two of them committed what we considered a crime. What do you think would happen? Yes, there might be voices that would say let these aliens go anid just ask them to leave and never come back. I'm guessing that those who would say that the two aliens would have to submit to our justice system would win the day, even n the face of potentially dire diplomatic and military consequences.

As in Star Trek, the people are doing the jobs because they want to, not because they have to. If you don't understand the difference between those things, I'm not sure I can explain it. 

12 hours ago, Nellise said:

I was really disappointed in this episode since Seth wrote it and barely any of it made any logical sense. Really did feel like Seth wanted to make a comment about Astrology and never really thought much else about the plot.

Others have brought up a number of the issues with this episode, but my biggest issue was with the prison camp. Why were the guards so over the top antagonistic? If I understood it right, these people have been there since birth, and the Gilliac thing has been going on for a long time apparently such that the people in the camp accept that as their fate. We didn't see any effort by them to break out or any outside resistance movement that would cause the guards to behave like they were. It sort of felt like they were trying to emulate a war camp, but that's not what was going on, these people have been there forever and apparently allowed to marry (I think), have kids, etc.

And were we supposed to side with the mother? She wanted to keep her child in a prison camp for its life with no hope for its future rather than be taken care of and given an excellent life (at least from what we were shown).

I hope they bring back a bit more comedy in future episodes since it doesn't seem they're able to write the sci-fi parts that well.

I don't think the guards were over-the-top antagonistic. We didn't see anything to indicate that they treated the planet's own Gilliacs harshly or with antagonism. Their antagonism was only directed at Kelly and Bortus, and even most of that was in reaction to Kelly and Bortus being less-than-model inmates. The one thing that was over-the-top toward them IMO was putting a gun to Kelly's head to get her to say she was Gilliac trash.  And even that is understandable in context (if not condonable). Here Kelly and Bortus disbelieve the Regerian's faith in astrology and the notion that they are basically inherently evil. They have already shown that they are willing to cause problems and rebel. If left unchecked, they might inspire others to follow their example by talking about how there's nothing wrong with being Gilliac. Part of what the commander was doing was to try to break Kelly down, and part of what he was doing was trying to make sure none of the planet's own Gilliac got any bright ideas. 

[jumper sage]

Wow!  So many good questions that I really don't care about.

I take this show tongue in cheek.  I imagine them all either high as kites or with a hangover.

When they landed on the planet and we saw the government I said to myself, "They look like Nazis".  I was right.

The time difference was daunting but do we even know what the length of their day is?

[shapeshifter]

36 minutes ago, jumper sage said:

I imagine them all either high as kites or with a hangover.

The writers or the characters? LOL Or both?

[FormerMod-a1]

15 hours ago, ketose said:

That's total BS. Teeth don't even exist at birth. Even if they did, how does birth impact teeth to find such a precise date?

Yes, they do.  I assumed the technology to date the teeth was like carbon-dating, but much more precise.  

[shapeshifter]

The teeth drilling freaked me out. I wanted a throwaway line about how Dr. Finn would restore them with 3-D printed stem cells from the bank on the ship that holds genetic material for each crew member. I know we've already seen her restore a leg, but I wanted it acknowledged for the teeth because, no, destroying any enamel is never harmless.

 

 

one more thing. Is that a model of Wilbur and Orville's Kitty Hawk on Ed's desk?:

Edited January 26, 2019 by shapeshifter
Space

[Dobian]

3 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

To each one's own, of course, but making contact with a planet without researching the people first is a fairly common thing in ship-based sci-fi, as is the trope, the notion of a main ruler rather than various factions etc. 

Under Union rules, Ed couldn't use any show of force, lethal or non-lethal. Presumably that carries over to threats of force as well. It may seem dumb, but ethically, if using force on weaker civilizations is an option, that can easily become a slippery slope. 

Suppose aliens came here, and two of them committed what we considered a crime. What do you think would happen? Yes, there might be voices that would say let these aliens go anid just ask them to leave and never come back. I'm guessing that those who would say that the two aliens would have to submit to our justice system would win the day, even n the face of potentially dire diplomatic and military consequences.

As in Star Trek, the people are doing the jobs because they want to, not because they have to. If you don't understand the difference between those things, I'm not sure I can explain it. 

Ed could do whatever he wanted, it was his command and there was no admiral physically there to stop him.  In real life, commanders in war time do things all the time that go against or potentially go against their superiors, and just deal with the consequences later.  There are many examples of this from WW!!, Korea, and Vietnam.  And yes, people's lives have been saved because a commander went against protocol.  Commanders don't care about the potential ramifications on future treaties and trade deals.  They are not politicians, their responsibility is to their crew or unit.

Where did the aliens land when they came here?  If they landed in North Korea their experience would be vastly different than if they landed in the U.S. for example.

If the aliens did commit some perceived crime in this country, the normal rules wouldn't apply to them, as our political leaders would be thinking big picture with how to deal with them and the potential far-reaching ramifications.  Even when the Salem witch hysteria was happening, the governor and leaders in Boston knew it was a load of crap and wanted to put a lid on it.  The myopic "they're staying locked up and we don't want to have anything to do with you aliens anymore!" response from this leader was both childish and nonsensical coming from the leader not of some primitive society but a fully advanced 21st century-level civilization.

I've had a thirty year long career so there is nothing whatsoever you can explain to me about the motivations for working.  Lots of people love their jobs but don't love the stress that comes with it and don't want to do it for as many hours and as many years as they have to.  Removing money from the equation doesn't change the fact that people have to work to keep society running, unless you want to argue that most things in the future are automated.  But you still need people for certain things, and if you want to go down the path of A.I. taking over all the jobs then there is the whole other issue about A.I. sentience and their rights, humans getting displaced, etc.  Most sci fi shows only touch on these topics occasionally.  The whole, "we just don't need money anymore because we are so evolved" is just a whitewash, and very shallowly explained.  They did the same thing on TNG.

Edited January 26, 2019 by Dobian