Nerd heaven

In the third part of the pilot of Stargate Universe, we follow our characters to an alien planet where they search for much-needed material to repair the scrubbers on Destiny. If they fail, everyone will die of asphyxiation. But there may be other life on this world. Is it helpful or hostile?

News mentioned in this episode

* The passing of Mira Furlan

* Sir Patrick Stewart's Critics Choice Super Award

* Star Trek Lower Decks available outside of North America.

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Welcome to Nerd Heaven

I’m Adam David Collings, the author of Jewel of The Stars

And I am a Nerd.

This is episode 52 of the podcast. Today we’re talking about the Stargate Universe episode “Air Part 3”.

There’s been a bit going on in the nerd world lately, that I want to mention.

And sadly, I have to start with the heart-breaking passing of Mira Furlan, who played Delenn on Babylon 5 and Rousseau on Lost. She was only 65 years old. So many of the Babylon 5 actors have gone before their time. I learned about this just last night and it really hit me. I am a huge Babylon 5 fan. One of the things that made the show so great was the fantastic characters, jointly created by writer J Michael Straczynski along with some truly amazing actors. Mira Furlan was one of those actors. I’ll always remember her for her passionate speeches as Delenn. The character was tender, loving, but also as tough as they come. There was a great deal of Furlan in Delenn. JMS wrote the character in a way to help Furlan express many feelings she had about her homeland of Yugoslavia which was going through all kinds of political turmoil.

My condolences go out to her husband, her family, and all those who loved her, which definitely includes her Babylon 5 family.

In happier news, I want to acknowledge Sir Patrick Stewart for winning the Critics Choice Super award for Best Actor in a Science Fiction/Fantasy Series, for his role on Star Trek Picard.

And just a reminder that Star Trek Lower Decks is finally available to watch, legally and ethically, outside of North America. All 10 episodes are streaming on Amazon Prime Video. While I’ve had most of the big moments of the series spoiled, I’m still enjoying going through and watching the episodes for myself.

And for those watching this podcast on youTube, just a reminder that I recorded the bulk of this episode before I decided to do live action video for the youTube version, so you won’t be seeing my face as I discuss the show. All back to normal next time.

The description on Gateworld reads

Lt. Scott leads a team to a desert planet to locate a mineral capable of fixing Destiny's life support system. Chloe visits her mother on Earth.

This episode was WRITTEN BY: Brad Wright & Robert C. Cooper

DIRECTED BY: Andy Mikita

And it first aired on the 9th of October 2009

So the team emerges through the gate onto a desert planet, but very different looking to Abydos. This is clearly a location shot and looks so much better than anything they did on SG1.

Eli steps through and looks at his surroundings. An alien planet in a whole other galaxy. He smiles and says “cool.” Of course he does. I would too. I’d take a moment to appreciate the enormity of it, but he doesn’t let it distract him either.

Meanwhile, SCott orders them to try dialing the gate back to the ship. Again, very wise. They want to make sure they can get back.

There isn’t a DHD but they have a hand-held device they likely found on the ship.

So good news. There is evidence of limestone on this planet. This whole dessert was once an ocean that probably supported life. Very different life than anything they’ve ever seen before.

One thing SGU does really well is it makes space feel more alien. 

It also feels like this show is more grounded in real science. Certainly what the geologist is doing feels authentic and not technobabble-ish.

Young is gonna use the stones to report in.

Colonel Talford, who was evacuated from Icuras by the Hammond is waiting by the stones. He wants to be the one who is connected. You see, the two people swap bodies, so Young appears in Talford’s body back on Earth, but Talford appears in Young’s body on the Destiny.

Deep down, I think Talford wanted to out there on the alien ship. But he missed out.

I do feel sorry for Talford suddenly finding himself in a broken body with the pain of broken ribs.

Chloe has also used the stones to visit earth so she can tell her mother the sad news about her father.

The way they do the stones thing, is the same wy they did it back on SG1. The actor who is playing the soul within the body is the actor you see, but he or she is wearing the clothes of the person they replace.

Young points out that these are the wrong people for the expedition. Those who are stuck on the ship are not qualified.

O’Neill can sympathise, but ultimately, he reminds Young that he wasn’t qualified when he first went through the gate to Abydos. They’ve sent hundreds of people through the gate to various planets, and none of them have been qualified. Humanity are in way over their head. They always have been. But they’ve come such a long way since SG1 season 1.

Franklin thinks they should be checking out the other planets in range. Rush is still convinced the solution is on this planet. And he has good reason to think that.

Chloe’s Mum probably already had security clearance to know about the Stargate program. But it still must be confronting to see your daughter wearing another person’s face.

She’s not handling it very well. She’s chugging whiskey before Chloe can even tell her that her dad is dead.

But then she breaks down when she learns the full extent of it. And the power of that scene moves me pretty deeply. Very well done.

Talford, and the other scientist from Earth, who is currently lending her body to Chloe, agree with Franklin that they should try to get past the locks on the other planets.

Brody isn’t convinced. There has to be a good reason why they’re locked out.

But Talford makes it an order. If there are good reasons, he wants to know what they are. And that’s fair enough, but it’s still a big risk.

And now we get our first exploration of the theme of how you treat somebody elses body when you’ve living in it.

Johansen wants Talford to rest, because Young’s body needs to heal.

Talford wants to push through with painkillers. He feels they need him here.

But that’s not his body he’s abusing.

We’ll continue to explore this idea through the series.

But Johansen tricks him by giving him a sedative she shouldn’t have had to waste, just so Young and return to a healthy body.

Scientist lady isn’t impressed. But I see why Johansen made the call, and she stands firmly behind it. You don’t want to press this woman on her medical ethics. She won’t back down.

Rush is concerned that if they don’t slow down, they’ll never be able to keep up the pace on the way back. Greer, cocky as ever, is convinced he can.It’s a tough call. They need to find the limestone, wherever it is, but they also need to get back to the stargate alive, before the time runs out.

And that’s when Scotts starts seeing things. A syringe wisp of sand twirling around. Is it just a natural phenomenon or something else?

As they leave, the wind seems very interested in the chemicals Rush used to test the sand. It appears there is some intelligence behind it.

Both teams keep testing, and keep failing. 

And that’s when the second team decide to mutiny.

Franklin has found an override to allow them to dial the other planets in range.

Even Palmer is agreeing with Franklin now.

They make a couple of reasonable points to consider, but they’re still stupid. And wrong.

Rush on the other hand, is smart enough to know he can’t go on any further. So he tells Scott to go on without him.

And Scott is still seeing the swirling wind. But can he be sure he’s not losing his mind due to heat and dehydration?

He tests it by pouring some water and watching the wind go investigate the water.

But then he sees a human face in the sand. Her knows that can’t be real.

There’s a nice character scene as Rush and Greer confgront a few prejudices they have about each other. Rush assumes Greer is poor, and Greer assumes Rush is rich. It seems Rush is right but Greer is wrong. 

Franklin has managed to open the gate. They’re gonna take the remote control, stranding everyone else on the planet. Palmer and the solder go through, but Greer arrives in time to shoot Franklin.

They are half way through the countdown. If Scott hasn’t turned back by now, he’ll never make it to the gate before Destiny jumps away.

Only problem is, he hasn’t turned back. He’s still looking for limestone.

Now a priest is following Scott around the desert.

And we get another little moment of humour when Eli says “I have a gun.”

Young is back on the ship and Rush has taken Franklin back to Destiny for medical treatment.

So we get a flashback. Scott in a church, crying and confessing his failure to the priest. Scott’s parents died in a car crash when he was only 4. He was raised by this priest, but he drank himself to death when Scott was just 16.

Scott thought that he had a religious calling, but he’s gotten a girl pregnant, and she’s not going to have the baby.

He feels he has failed God.

I’m not sure why exactly the wind creature chose this memory to make Scott re-live,  but maybe it’s a way of encouraging him not to give up, showing him that life can go on even after mistakes.

Anyway, it stirs up the sand, making some water bubble up to wake Scott. He sees the limestone, tests it, and it’s good. He’s found what they need.

Now he just needs to collect it and get back to the ship, 

Eli can’t make contact with Palmer and the soldier. We’ll never hear from them again. They’re gone. Whatever danger existed on that planet, it’s taken them. IT seems Destiny was right to lock out that planet after all. I kinda like the way they did this. It would have been interesting to see them meet their demise, but there’s something mysterious about just never knowing.

For all his faults, Greer is very loyal. He’s not gonna leave Scott out there on his own. He goes back for him. How he has the physical stamina for what he does in this episode is beyond me.

He ends up walking this distance 4 times.

3 minutes on the clock, and scott and greer are still not back. The rescue team have given up and returned to the ship.

No point all of them getting stranded on the planet too.

Eli can see them on the scanner, butr they’re not gonna quite make it. 

This is a really tense climax. They build up some great tension.

Rush had a brilliant idea. He tells Eli to stick his hand into the event horizon of the wormhole. That should prevent it from closing, and hopefully Destiny from leaving.

That’s how the stargates in the milky way work, but these are older gates. Will it just chop off his arm?

The timer runs out, and the gate is still open.

They make it through. What a moment!

We hear a contemporary song play as we see them repair the CO23 scrubberrs with the lime.

The air begins to flow, and we see the relief on everyon’es faces as they start to breath properly again.

Chloe brings Scott some water. They share some of their mutual pain.

Now I was all set up to talk about how Scott takes advantage of Chloe, how he uses her pain as an excuse to get her into bed.

I could have sworn there was a scene at the end of this episode where they have sex, but it’s not there. We leave with them sitting and talking. Let’s face it, in his condition, Scott’s not up for anything physical right now.

So I suppose I’ll have to leave the discussion of that for when it actually happens. Probably in the next episode.

It’ll be interesting to see if my opinions of their relationship changes.

Anyway, the final shot shows some kind of alien shuttle that was docked with Destiny lift off and fly away. Oooh. Very intriguing.

And that was Air Part 3.

I love this three-part pilot. It’s probably the best opening to a TV show that I’ve ever seen. This is a really strong start.

I like how it focussed on survival rather than rushing to introduce a new big bad.

It had everything I was looking for in a Stargate show in a post-Battlestar Galactica world.

This show clearly took a lot of inspiration in both tone and shooting style from that one, but it never felt like a cheap copy. Stargate Universe set it’s own course, and I’m thrilled to travel the rest of this journey with you all over the coming episodes.

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So we’re now done with the extended pilot and can launch into the rest of season 1. I first saw Air Parts 1, 2 and 3 on a DVD which I bought long before the show started airing in Australia, so for me, there was a big gap between this and the next episode. 

Nerd Heaven is now officially back on a fortnightly schedule. That means there will be no episode next week, but I’ll be back on the 8th of February to talk about the episode “Darkness”.

There’s plenty more great stuff to come, so I hope you’ll join me for it.

Until then, have a great two weeks.

Live long and prosper.

Make it so.

We begin a new era of the podcast as we look at Stargate Universe. SGU is the third TV series in the Stargate franchise, following SG-1 and Atlantis, not to mention the original 1994 movie. It was a divisive show, and still is to this day. It was a departure from the previous two shows in terms of tone, shooting style and story-telling. But it well-loved by its fans.

Today, I delve deep into the first two parts of the 3-part pilot. We'll look at the new characters introduced in this story, and talk about how the pilot grabbed me with both hands and wouldn't let go.

Check out Book 1 of Jewel of The Stars for just 99 cents at http://books2read.com/jewel

Or get the free prequel story at http://www.adamdavidcollings.com/free

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Welcome to Nerd Heaven

I’m Adam David Collings, the author of Jewel of The Stars

And I am a Nerd.

This is episode 51 of the podcast. I’m really excited because today, we’re starting something brand new. We’re going to be looking at each episode of Stargate Universe, just as we’ve done with Star Trek Picard season 1 and Star Trek Discovery Season 3.

This is a very divisive show because it was a significant departure from the previous two Stargate TV shows, in terms of tone, shooting style, and story-telling. Stargate Universe was heavily influenced by Battlestar Galactica. It’s a much more character-driven show. It’s more serialised, and it’s got a darker more serious tone. 

The show is hardly what you’d call grimdark, but the characters have a lot more flaws than you’d usually expect from Stargate. But in my mind, that just gives them a lot of room for growth.

I’ve loved Stargate from the beginning. I was a big fan of the 1994 film, and I loved both SG-1 and Atlantis. This third series, is actually a great launching on point, so if you decided long ago that Stargate wasn’t for you, it’s worth giving SGU a try.

Now a little note for those of you watching on youTube. I recorded the bulk of this episode a few months back, before I decided to show live action video on the youTube version of the podcast, so for the bulk of this week’s episode, and next week’s episode, you won’t have to look at my ugly mug. Lucky you. But by episode 3, it’ll all be back to normal.

The description on GateWorld reads

When a research team is forced to evacuate their secret base, they find themselves on board a derelict Ancient vessel that is many galaxies away from Earth.

This episode was written by Brad Wright and Robert C. Cooper

It was directed by Andy Mikita

And it first aired on the 2nd of October 2009.

Stargate Universe was not well-received by all fans. Many bemoaned the lack of humour, the darker grittier tone, and the more morally ambiguous characters.

But let me be very clear about this. Not everyone disliked the show. Many of us loved it, and still consider it our favourite Stargate show to this day. And I’m talking people who loved SG1 and Atlantis.

My first introduction to the show was the first three episodes edited together into an extended pilot movie on DVD. It would be months, maybe a year, before I would get to see the rest of season 1.

It’s hard to put into words just why I liked this show so much, but this three-part pilot really grabbed me with both hands and wouldn’t let go.

The gritty realistic tone of the show just felt like a breath of fresh air to me. And the wonder of them being on this ancient spaceship so far from home, with no idea what it was all about, that captures my imagination.

I love the character focus. SG1 and Altantis both followed a similar pattern in terms of their characters. They both had a four-person team who went through the gate, plus a command and support staff back at their home base.

Universe broke way out of this mold. These people are not the best of the best. They’re not all military. They’re definitely not supposed to be on this ship. In that sense, I get quite a Farscape vibe from the show. These people are not a crew, they’re a collection of people who have been forced together under unusual circumstances and forced to live and struggle together.

So, of course, there’s going to be conflict.

Add to that, Colonel Young is no Jack O’Neill. He may not be that great an officer, and he admits this himself. But, he tries. He really does. And we see a lot of growth in the character over the two seasons.

And Doctor rush, well, he’s brilliant, but a very very flawed man.

Seriously, I eat this stuff up. It’s great.

But let’s actually look at this episode.

It begins in space. A ship jumps out of hyperspace and slowly approaches the camera as the credits roll.  We’ve never seen a ship like this before, but we’ll soon come to know her as destiny. 

You get to see a whole lot of detail on this ship as the camera zooms in. It’s nice to see a Stargate show in high definition. It’s all pretty ominous. The ship is deserted. But then we pan into the gate room and see the gate spinning. Then the wormhole engages and people start flying out of it. It’s a mysterious beginning. WE have no idea what it’s all about. This first episode makes very effective use of non-linear story-telling.

We keep flashing back and forth between the destiny and the earlier stuff that explains how our characters got here. 

At this point we’re wondering about these people. This is not your typical SG team. We’ve got military, some guy in glasses dressed as a civilian, and a teenager in a red tshirt. The opening makes us hungry to know more.

But we can tell straight away there is something ominous about Doctor Rush. Everyone else is panicking. But he’s looking around at this ship with a quiet lust and a dark satisfaction.

The last one to come through is Colonel Young. He hits his head badly and passes out after placing Lieutenant Scott in charge. We won’t see him, other than in flashbacks, until the second part when he wakes up.

The episode does a good job of showing visually, that is this a much older stargate. Earlier technology. The whole gate spins, which is different. And when the wormhole closes, it vents out all this steam, as if the gate struggles to cool itself.

The ship jumps back into hyperspace but we have no idea what’s going on at the time. We just see a weird stretching effect on the picture, and the characters react with the same confusion we do.

Then we flashback to Eli playing a video game. He solves a difficult puzzle. And the next thing you know, Jack O’Neil is knocking on his door with Doctor Rush.

It seems they embedded a top-secret problem in the game and Eli solved what nobody else could. Lucky him.

I love Jack’s reactions here when Eli disbelieves them and is hesitant to sign the non-disclosure agreement. Jack’s got no time for this. He can just beam Eli up to the ship. No worries. This is a risk, of course. But I guess, if he still doesn’t sign, nobody is gonna believe him. But I think Jack knows people well enough to know he’ll sing.

This ship is the Hammond, named after the late General Hammond.

WE learn a little about Eli. We know he’s not unemployed because he’s lazy. He’s a genius, but his mother has health issues that require him to look after her.

The ship is leaving orbit to travel to another planet. But Eli would at least like some pants before they leave.

And this is a good reminder that while this show is much more dramatic and serious than SG1 or Atlantis, it DOES have humour. This line from Eli is pretty funny and nicely in line with the type of humour we often got from Jack O’Neill.

There’s a nice sequence where Eli watches a bunch of training videos, hosted by none other than Dr. Daniel Jackson. This is a good way to get up to speed with all things stargate, both for Eli and for the audience, who may not have watched the previous shows.

We also get some important backstory. Ancient ruins were found on an alien planet two years ago. There, they found a 9 symbols address. We know that gate addresses within the local galaxy contain 7 symbols. 8 symbol addresses call gates in another galaxy, like an area code.

But the stargate has nine chevrons. So what is the meaning of the ninth symbol? Nobody has ever managed to successfully dial a 9-symbol address.

Eli gets to call his mum on the phone. He tells her he’s doing some top-secret work for the air force.

She is up on her feet, walking around the house, and it looks like she’s wearing a uniform of some kind. So she’s got a job. So I’m confused as to the nature of her sickness, and why it prevents Eli from pursuing his career. It seems if he got a job, he’d be able to help pay for her medical expenses. Anyway, the air force are going to take care of him while he’s away.

And he meets Chloe for the first time.

She’s the only other person on this ship his age, and I think he immediately notices that she’s quite an attractive young woman.

He’s surprised to find out he’s quite the celebrity on this ship.

Anyway, these two characters are immediately pretty good together.

Then we jump back to the present. Eli and Rush discover they’re on a spaceship. Travelling faster than light, somehow, but not through conventional hyperspace. Rush has identified the ship as being ancient technology. Not only meaning it was built by the aliens we call the ancients, but that it is old. Really old.

And that’s when they notice the air is thin.

The life support system is failing on this ship. And that’s totally believable. How many millions of years has it been flying through space?

We meet Colonel Young through a flashback talking to his wife before he left to go on this mission. His career with the SGC is putting a lot of stress on his marriage. He’s always off-world and he can’t even tell her about it.

It’s obvious pretty early on that Colonel Young is not cut out of the same heroic mould as O’Neil, Shepherd and Mitchell. 

Our introduction to Scott comes with him having sex with a female officer in a storage room. Real classy Scott. It’s not always fair to judge people based on first impressions, but I have to say, this scene really colours the way I see his character throughout the show.

Eli, Chloe, her father, the senator, and Rush arrive on the planet that houses Icarus base.

The stargate on this planet doesn’t accept incoming wormholes, which is why they had to come here on a ship. It’s a plot convenience so we could have the scenes on the Hammond.

The puzzle Eli solved was the problem Rush has been working on for ages. He’s trying to figure out how to dial the 9 chevron address. Rush has been working on it for ages, and Eli has solved it.

Except it still doesn’t work.

This gate is powered by the planet’s core itself. Getting the energy output just right is the challenge.

While rush keeps trying to solve it, Eli is invited to a special dinner. And he’s happy to attend.

Meanwhile, we get a hint of Rush’s backstory. There was a woman who was in his life. Judging by his tears, she’s probably dead.

Senator Armstrong is pretty upset about them being on this ship and tries to order Scott to get them back to earth right away. But sometimes, you can’t just order things to be the way you want them.

Rush is trying to get life support back online, but Eli doesn’t trust what he’s doing. And emotions are very high. Grier is ready to shoot him. Especially given he blames rush for them being on the ship in the first place.

It’s a tense scene. In the end, the button does nothing, good or bad.

I wasn’t a fan of Grier at the beginning. He comes across so cocky. So sure of himself. He loves himself just a little too much. Of course, he’ll grow on me as the season progresses.

 And he was actually in the brig back on Icarus. He was only just released because Icarus base is under attack by the Lucian alliance. And this is where we see that Samantha Carter is still in command of the Hammond. I believe she left Atlantis to take up this post.

This episode has a lot to do. In between all that is happening, it has to set up the backstory of a large cast of characters. Certainly a bigger cast than any stargate show before it.

We meet Johansen and Camille. Johansen, the medic on the ship was actually planning to leave to the stargate program before all this happened. And Camille is a civilian representative of the IOA, an international group that oversees the stargate program.

It’s nice to see the pyramid ships and death gliders in this first episode. They’re a remnant of SG1 and the milky way galaxy. So we won’t be seeing them moving forward.

Rush is desperate to figure out this nine symbol issue now. This planet has unique properties. They may not be able to get the address to work anywhere else, and this bombardment could literally cause the planet to blow up. This is Rush’s last chance to realise his life’s work.

They figure out, if this is not a power problem, maybe it’s an issue with the address. Maybe they’re using the wrong point of origin because the gate was meant to be dialled from somewhere else.

The gate is supposed to be dialling Earth to evacuate the base, but Rush cancels it so they can try dialling his 9 symbol address instead.

He just some justification for this beyond his own personal selfish need to complete his work. He says they can’t risk dialling earth. The energy of the explosions, if the core goes could be devastating if it travels through the wormhole. And that’s a fair point. But is there really a risk of that, or is it just a convenient excuse for Rush?

As young says, he could have dialled somewhere else, anywhere else in the milky way.

And it works. The address connects. Whatever it leads to, they've established a connection.

In the end, they have to go through the wormhole to wherever it leads. Because anywhere is better than here. The planet is about to blow.

Rush finds a starmap detailing the ship’s journey. It began at Earth. IT left the galaxy, travelled past pegasus, past galaxy after galaxy. It’s impossibly far away. Several billion lightyears from home.

I got chills when I first watched this and realised just how far away they were.

Most of the people on base have to evacuate through the gate. But Colonel Talford beams up to the Hammond and remains in the milky way galaxy.

And the planet blows up, taking the Lucian alliance ships with it.

Back on Earth, Jack is working at the Pentagon, as he has since he left the day-to-day running of the SGC.

Walter is there with him. Not at the SGC.

Together, Carter and O’Neill realise that nobody came through the gate to earth. So where did they go?

Which takes us right back to the beginning of the episode, where they first came through the gate onto the ship.

And that’s the end of part 1.

So they’re gonna explore the ship, looking for whatever they can find. Scott is taking charge.

I like how they acknowledge that this ship is really old and there could be parts that are damaged or dangerous.

And then he looks at the woman he was having sex with in the closet and says “You’re James, right?”

Ouch.

She gives him a death stare and says “Yes, Lieutenant.”

Scott has had her, and now he’s ready for his next conquest. We’ll see who that is later.

I really feel for James in this moment. He’s clearly trying to pretend he doesn’t really know her, but it feels more than that, like he’s just brutally tossed her out. Of course, nobody is buying it. Grier can see exactly what’s being said here, and what’s not.

Scott finds a door he can’t open. He orders Eli to open it. The other side is a room open to vacuum. There’s a big hole in the bulkhead. Another great reminder of how old and un-maintained this ship is. It’s a dangerous place.

Meanwhile, Rush gets out a device. One part of it might be familiar, the stone. Yes, this is an ancient communication stone, like the one that first sent Daniel and Vala’s minds into the Ori galaxy back in SG1 season 9. Although the base plate is human technology, which is interesting.

This device allows two people to swap bodies across un-imaginable cosmic distances.

This was a very cool addition to Stargate Universe. It allows the crew, stranded on destiny, countless galaxies away, to communicate with people back home on Earth. Even have little visits home.

And we get a little cameo from Doctor Lee who appeared in both SG1 and Atlantis. Apparently, like most of the former SGC staff, he’s now posted at the Pentagon in Washington with Jack. I can’t help but wonder if the SGC is till operating in Chyanne Mountain. Remember, last we saw of Atlantis, it was on Earth, and Pegasus gates take precedence over milky way gates. Meaning Atlantis could be the new SGC.

We don’t know if the city ever returned to Pegasus. We know there were plans for it to happen in stories that were never shot, but in terms of on-screen canon, it’s a total mystery.

So Rush swaps bodies with Doctor Lee and is effectively now standing in a room in the pentagon.

After his conversation, which you’ll notice we don’t actually see, he goes and informs everybody that there is no hope of rescue. The only means to dial this ship from the milky way galaxy was destroyed. And then he says “in light of my knowledge and experience, General O’Neill has placed me in charge.”

What do you think was really said between Rush and O’Neill?

I don’t think they ever outright say it in this episode, but it becomes pretty clear as the season goes on that Rush is outright lying about being put in charge.

He seems pretty hesitant to allow senator Armstrong to use the stones himself.

But the good senator is not in good shape.

So Camille doesn’t recognise Rush’s authority. As the only IOA representative on the ship, she probably feels she should be in charge.

Most people want to focus on getting home. Rush says that may not even be possible. And he IS right. There’s no known way home right now. Their primary focus needs to be making this ship habitable and safe. That will keep them alive in the immediate term.

But Rush has his own reasons for not wanting to find a way home. He’s spent his entire career trying to get here. Going home is the last thing he wants. And as we get to know him better, we’ll learn that he’s not above putting his own needs before the needs of everybody else.

Scott is able to salvage a situation that on the brink of turning into a riot. Colonel Young has put him in charge of all military personnel. They are required to follow his orders. And, as he says, if anybody else gets out of line, we’ll lock you down. Because they can.

And this is the kind of “push people around because we have big guns” mentality that I don’t really like about the military. You see it in the movie Avatar, and you sometimes see it here. But I’m not sure it’s representative of the real military. Real-world military people are there to serve. And I think most of them probably take that responsibility very seriously. I don’t think they would naturally throw their weight around unless there was a real cause for it.

Anyway, Scott has Rush’s back for now, because he knows they need him, but he warns Rush to try dialling the gate back to earth. He already knows Rush has his own agenda.

Colonel Young finally wakes up. Johansen is treating him. She brings him up to speed on the situation. When he learns that Rush claims to be in charge, he won’t have a bar of it. But he can’t do much because he can’t feel his legs.

Johansen thinks it’s temporary, but she’s not a doctor as such, she’s a military medic.

We learn that Johansen’s tour of duty had ended. She had a scholarship to study something. She shouldn’t even be here. Bad luck. If only she’d left Icarus a day earlier.

We see a Kino for the first time.  A little ball floating down the corridor.

Eli found them. They’re remote control flying drones.

Eli named them, after a Russian rock band, I think. He says “after the Russian..” and then Scott cuts him off. But a google search for Kino Russian leads us to this band.

I’m not sure if there’s any significance to flying cameras, or if Eli just likes their music. If anybody knows more, let me know in a comment or an email to [email protected]

Anyway, they have a whole supply on them on the ship. They will prove useful to check out what’s on the other side of the stargate. Much like a MALP.

Rush has figured out that the CO2 scrubbers are failing. Which makes a lot of sense given how many millions of years old this ship is. I really like that they spend so much time in early season one dealing with stuff like this. Just struggling for the necessities of life on this ancient ship.

Unlike SG1 and Atlantis, which were quick to introduce the new “Big Bady guy” this show takes a different tack.

Senator Armstrong has a real problem. He’s badly bruised. If he takes his heart medication, he’ll bleed internally. But if he doesn’t take them, he could die anyway.

Chloe takes the pills, making the decision for him.

They have some serious problems related to air. First of all, they have to seal off all the leaks, to prevent loss of atmosphere. If they can do that, they’ll have a day or two before the build-up of CO2 kills them, due to the failing scrubbers. They need to replace the failed compound that treats the air.

The main air leak turns out to be one of the shuttles.

There’s a problem with the shuttle door. It can only be closed from inside the shuttle.

Rush is quick to say “somebody needs to go in there and close it”. Thus, sacrificing their life. Of course, you know he won’t volunteer to do it himself.

Eli has started vlogging using the Kino. Scott finds this annoying, but Eli points out this needs to be documented. Maybe someday, someone will find the ship and know what happened to them all. He’s right.

But he’s possibly having a little too much fun with it.

But why not? Let the guy have a little fun. He’s probably gonna be dead soon anyway. Eli’s interest in film-making will continue throughout the series.

Anyway, Scott’s point is that they should be focusing on staying alive, not leaving messages behind for after they’re dead.

They have a dilemma to solve. Who is going to give their life to seal the door?

Rush is immediately coldly pragmatic about it. He looks at the list of people, noting those who are injured. He wants to find out which ones have valuable skills that could come in useful.

I mean, he’s not wrong. And yet, he’s suggesting they find the expendable, he’s reducing people’s lives to an assessment of how useful they are to survival on this ship.

That’s cold. REALLY REALLY cold.

Young’s approach is to sacrifice himself. He can’t ask anybody to make a sacrifice like this (Although military personelle do sometimes order their people to their death). Scott won’t let Young sacrifice himself. He’s the leader and they need him. 

While everybody is arguing about it, Senator Armstrong leaves his room, armed with a gun. He’s going to do it. He’s probably going to die from his injuries anyway. He’s gonna close the door.

This is a heart-breaking moment as Chloe runs through the corridor screaming “Dad No!” as he gives his life to save everybody else.

It’s pretty powerful stuff.

What other show has ever portrayed a politician as so noble a hero. This breaks all the stereotypes.

So in her grief, Chloe goes and starts hitting Rush. She blames him, not entirely fairly. But his attempt to comfort her quickly turns into a justification of his innocence. Why none of this is his fault.

Rush admits that as human beings, everyone is invaluable. Which I agree with, but I’m not sure he really believes that.

Young is back on his feet now, against medical advice, but he needs to help solve their problems. He asks Camille to keep people calm. She’d be good at that.

Scott spends a little time sitting with Chloe, trying to comfort her.

He wants to hear about the senator. “The man died so I could live. I’d like to know more about him.”

I get on Scott’s case a bit in this episode, and I’ll have some more negative things to say about him, but I like this moment. I think, in this moment, he genuinely cares and wants to help Chloe.

Anyway, it’s a nice character scene.

Rush has learned the name of the ship is destiny. He’s also learned that it was sent out un-manned and automated. The plan was that they’d eventually use the gate to get to the ship once it was far enough out.

They never did. They probably learned to ascend before it happened.

Ascension, of course, is a process the ancients learned millennia ago, where they transform from physical beings into beings of energy and thought. They go to a higher plane of existence. We learn a lot about this in SG1 and Atlantis.

At this point, I’m wondering about how all this fits together in the timeline.

So I’ve looked it up.

The ancients were originally known as the Alterans. They came from another galaxy. A group of them left that galaxy, after a big divide between them and others who called themselves the Ori.

Between 50 and 30 million years BC, the eventually settled in the milky way galaxy, choosing to live on Earth as the first form of humanity. 

It was after this that they launched Destiny, before they had even seeded the milky way with stargates

Later, they built Atlantis and left for the Pegasus Galaxy.

So there was at least 20 million years between the launch of Destiny, and the time the Ancients ascended. In all that time, they never gated to the ship. Had it still not reached the location where they wanted to board, or were there other reasons?

We still don’t know why the ancients launched the ship. Not yet.

Riley has found the address to dial the gate back to earth. It wasn’t hard to find. Young assumes Rush already knew but didn’t tell anyone. They don’t know the point of origin so they’ll have to use trial and error. They have 36 tries, but they could run out of power before they find the right combination.

The issues become moot when the ship drops out of FTL and the gate starts dialling on its own.

This is part of what the ship is programmed to do.

Rush believes the ship has detected a stargate on a planet nearby that may have what they need.

The ancients sent other unmanned ships out before destiny to seed planets with stargates, so that the crew could easily visit planets once they arrived.

So this gives the show a familiar yet different concept. Destiny is on auto-pilot. It flies from system to system. There are stargates out there, which means the characters can still go through the gate and explore, just like any Stargate show, except the gates are much shorter range than those in the milky way and pegasus. And Destiny leaves orbit after a certain time limit, which adds a ticking-clock element.

This all makes it feel familiar and yet fresh. I love it.

Rush has made the reasonable assumption that whatever they need is on the other side of that wormhole. The kino tells them about the atmosphere of the planet on the other side.

There are four other gates in range. Rush is convinced this is the planet they need to look at, because this is the one the ship chose.

So Young assembles a team.

Palmer the geologist. Franklin, a civilian scientist, Rush, Scott, And Eli wants to go too.

Rush and Scott are both hesitant about Eli going. He’s not trained for this. But Young points out that in order to survive, everyone, regardless of training or position, are going to have to step up. Young needs to know what Eli is made of.

Eli really is the heart of this show. He’s the character we can identify with. He’s a normal guy, and he’s a fellow nerd. Plus, he’s the good moral down-to-earth bloke amongst all the melodrama of the other characters.

I really like him.

And that’s where part 2 ends, as they step through the gate.

As I said, I originally watched this 3-parter as one big movie, but I think I’ve yabbered on for long enough.

We’ll save part 3 for the next episode.

I should be out getting some steps for my walk to mordor challenge, but it’s so hot at the moment. Summer doesn’t usually hit Tasmania until January, and it’s definitely hit the last couple of days. Maybe I should swim to Mordor.

I will do another Walk To Mordor episode some time, but probably not for a little while.

If you’re new here, you might be interested to hear about my book series, Jewel of The Stars. Just like Stargate Universe, it focuses on a group of people trapped on a spaceship, who weren’t planning for a long-term voyage. Unlike Destiny, it’s a luxury cruise ship. They were only supposed to be on board for a week, but while they were away Earth fell to an alien invasion, so now they can’t go home. They’re travelling through un-explored space. They may be the last free humans in the galaxy.

The series is structured like a TV series. Seasons of 6 episode. Each episode is a 30,000 word novella, so while shorter than a novel, it’s still a decent read. There is an on-going story arc through the whole series, but I aim to make each book a satisfying experience in its own right.

You can check out the first episode for just 99 cents by going to books2read.com/jewel and that’s the number 2.

Or you can get a free prequel story by going to AdamDavidCollings.com/free

I’ll be back next week to talk about Air Part 3.

Until then

Have a great week

Live long and prosper.

Make it so.

The season finale of Star Trek Discovery Season 3 is here, aptly titled "That Hope is You Part 2." We learn the full and complete truth behind the cause of the burn, and we see a resolution to the Emerald Chain / Osyraa plot. My response is mostly positive to this episode. I was happier with the cause of the burn than I think a lot of people will be, but let's dig in and talk about the episode.

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Welcome to Nerd Heaven

I’m Adam David Collings, the author of Jewel of The Stars

And I am a Nerd

This is episode 50 of the podcast. Today, we’re talking about the season finale of Star Trek Discovery Season 3. That Hope is You Part 2.

The last 13 weeks have been a wild ride. I certainly feel this has been a strong season, the best that the modern Trek era has given us so far.

The description on Memory Alpha reads

As the Emerald Chain tightens its grip and the mystery of the Burn is finally solved, Burnham and the crew have one last chance to save themselves – and the Federation. (Season Finale)

This episode was written by Michelle Paradise

It was directed by Olantunde Osunsanmi

And it first aired on the 7th of January 2021.

Make it so.

While I was watching the teaser to this episode, before the opening titles had even shown, I turned to my wife and said “I know who directed this episode.”

First time I’ve ever picked up on a director from their style.

Olantunde Osunsanmi likes to do weird things with the camera, film stuff upside down and have the camera rotate around as the scene goes.

Sometimes it’s a bit much for me. I feel that if the filmmaking draws too much attention to itself, it pulls me out of the story. But there were some moments in this episode where I found it effective.

We open with a beautiful shot of a gormagander flying through the skies of the simulated environment on Su’kal’s planet. We saw them in the background two episodes ago, but we get confirmation here that they are actually gormaganders. Space whales. I think they look awesome. We encountered them in season 1 but didn’t really get to see them in full flight like this.

The holographic narrator explains that gormaganders have spent more time on the Federation’s endangered list than any other species. However, this image is of a pup found in 3052, so that gives me hope that the species may be starting to recover by the 32nd century.

Su’kal is still unwilling to listen to Saru talk about his true nature.

Saru has to tread very carefully with him. If he causes Su’kal too much emotional distress, he may trigger another burn, and that could destroy what remains of the Federation. It’s a tricky situation. Saru’s greatest resource in this struggle is his Kelpien nature. But how does he convince the young man of his true species, when the holodeck has made him look human? (and I talked two weeks ago about how illogical it was that the holodeck made him look human, assigning seemingly random species to everybody.)

And then Adira shows up. This is the first time Culbert and Saru have seen her, so we’re backtracking a little in time, this is probably happening whiler Michael and Book are hurtling through the transwarp corridor at the start of last week’s episode.

The holodeck has made Adira look Xahean. Nice little callback to season 2.

Adira gives them the medicine. It won’t cure them but it’ll buy them time until they can be rescued.

And then the real shock.

Gray appears - looking like a Vulcan.

And Culbert and Saru can see him.

The holodeck recognises Gray as a separate independent lifeform, which is fascinating. The nature of Gray is still a big mystery, and it’s not resolved in this episode. We’ll have to look forward to season 4 for further exploration of this. But the fact that the holodeck recognises Grayt as a lifeform tells us something. It’s very interesting.

And I love the way Culbert and Gray react to each other. Gray is so thrilled to be seen. And Culbert embraces him like a long-lost son. It’s pretty cool.

It’s so weird so see him in full Vulcan makeup, but with blue hair and a big smile on his face.

It seems that Gray can experience some form of sensation because when Culbert hugs him, he feels it. 32nd century holograms would be much more advanced than those we saw in the 24th century, so I can buy that.

Meanwhile, a battle rages at Starfleet headquarters. The Veridian is bombarding the shield. I imagine it won’t hold forever.

Voyager is ordered to fire on the Veridian. Nice to hear it referenced again. All other ships are ordered to fire on Discovery. IT seems Vance is very willing to sacrifice that ship and crew to safeguard the rest of Starfleet. And as horrible as it is, I do understand that.

Even taking the spore drive into account, it’s a numbers game.

All hope for negotiation is gone at this point. As soon as Booker told Osyraa about the dilithium planet, she no longer needed the Federation. 

Book is no longer willing to help her get to the planet, because she killed Ryn last week. It was sad to see him go, but he was the logical choice to die. Not a regular or semi-regular, but not a redshirt either. That meant his death hurt more.

Osyraa has a truth serum so she doesn’t need Book to be cooperative.

So because Vance wouldn’t accept her proposed peace, and because she no longer needs them, she’s gone from wanting to ally with the Federation, to wanting to obliterate them completely. Out of spite.

Tilly and the bridge crew’s rebellion is going well, but it’s short-lived because Osyraa is turning off life-support on their section of the ship. Not much they can do about that.

Starfleet headquarters are about to lose their shield. Stammets appears, begging Vance to let him return to Discovery so they can rescue Saru, Culbert and Adira. Sadly for him, Vance agrees with Michael. They have to keep Stammets far away from Discovery, to ensure Osyraa doesn’t learn the secrets of the spore drive.

I’m not sure Vance speaks with enough compassion when he says “I know what you’re sacrificing here. I’m sorry.” But then he’s in the middle of a desperate battle and the shield is going down. He did well to be able to speak with Stammets at all given the circumstances.

And that’s when the Vulcans arrive. A fleet from Ni’var. I called it last week. Michael sent a good-bye message to her mother, so Gabriel got Ni’Var to send the cavalry.

Michael convinces Osyraa to let her hail Vance. She tries to talk Vance into letting them go. They can afford to lose the spore drive as long as Stammets is safely hidden away.

The way she locks eyes with Vance through the viewscreen and says “Trust me” suggests some hidden communication between them. Michael has a plan. She needs him to let Discovery go so she can implement it.

Vance isn’t happy, but he lets them go.

But Osyraa won’t give the bridge crew their life support back. “They had their chance,” she says.

Osyraa needs Aurellio to provide the truth serum. He’s not so willing to cooperate. He’s seen what Osyra is capable of. And the use of the drug, combined with Book’s empathic abilities, will make the experience excruciating. Aurellio doesn’t want to inflict that kind of pain on Book. Autellio is a good man.

We learn a little about how Orion physiology differs from human. Like a lot of characters in sci-fi TV, they may look similar to humans, but under the skin, there are a lot of differences.

But all of this is a metaphor for Osyraa’s feelings. Her moral compass. It’s much more complicated than Aurellio’s. In other words, she can find ways to mentally justify all sorts of horrible things in her mind.

I suspected, last week, that Aurellio was Osyraa’s husband. That seems not to be the case. She refers to “his family.” Not “our family.” She’s fond of him, but she keeps him around because he’s useful to her.

Zareh says this is a no-win scenario for Michael, but she replies that she doesn’t believe in those, which is a direct reference to Kirk. It was a little bit on the nose for me. That’s Kirk’s thing. Give Michael her own thing.

This is when Michael starts to implement her plan. She pretends to give in, to want to convince Book to tell Osyraa what she wants to know, but as soon as she’s close to him, she attacks the regulators, taking their phasers and activating a forcefield. She and book are now separated. And they run off into the ship.

To reboot the ship’s computer, and restore the crew’s command codes, somebody has to be present at the data core. Not sure that makes sense, logically, but it works for dramatic tension.

We learn why Michael couldn’t beam with her com badge last week. The emerald chain have got transport inhibitors on the ship. Okay. That makes more sense. And I see why they’d do that from a story-telling perspective. If Michael could beam anywhere, she wouldn’t have had to crawl around the ship, and that was half the fun of last week’s episode.

Michael sends a cryptic message to Tilly. She wants the crew to set off an explosion on the warp nacelle. It’ll knock Discovery out of warp. The dots can’t do it because of reasons, so it has to be done by a human. 

We learn that Owo can hold her breath for a long time. Growing up on her home planet, she used to dive for abalone in the underwater caves. I believe they dive for abalone here in Tasmania. Anyway, that makes her well suited for this mission.

Meanwhile Michael and Book are gonna head for the data core.

But annoyingly, we get yet another reference to people consuming synthahol a century before it will be invented.

Saru speaks to Su’kal of Kelpien cuisine. He admits he is a Kelpien, but has no proof to offer. But you can see in Su’kal’s face that he’s mulling it all over.

Su’kal admits he has noticed that the Holo sometimes changes things. 

We learn why Su’kal is so hesitant to talk about the outside. The holo told him the Federation would come from outside to rescue him. But they never came. It’s almost like he’s lost his faith because he feels let down.

Of course, the Federation have come now. Just not as soon as Su’kal was hoping.

This gives Saru an opening to explain the burn to him. Now he has Su’kal’s attention. He wants to understand because this is his life.

Saru can relate to Su’kal’s hesitance to leave the only world he’s known. He had to choose to leave Kaminar all those years ago. He’s getting through to him in a way that nobody else could.

Whatever is behind the locked door that terrifies Su’kal, he has to face it. The monster from the folk tale is trying to help him. To encourage him to face his fear.

But Su’kal isn’t ready to believe that. He wants to see the elder.

Culbert and Adira need to explore outside the edge of the simulation but the radiation is too strong out there. Lucky for them, they have holo-gray. Radiation can’t hurt him because he doesn’t have a real body.

Of course, he’s also holographic, so his body shouldn’t work outside the simulation. Bit of a plot hole there. But maybe it works. The ship they’re on has holographic emitters. Holograms can probably be sustained anywhere on the ship, not just within the confines of the simulation.

Culbert explains his theory about Su’kal. He believes that because he was born on this planet, his body was adjusted to be able to interact with dilithium in unique ways. Dilithium has a subspace component. Su’kal’s scream traveled at the resonant frequency of dilithium’s subspace components. That’s what hit every ship’s warp core during the burn.

Whatever happened to him 125 years ago was much worse than whatever upset him today.

Gray learns that the ship is falling apart. They need Su’kal to help them, and they need him to do it now.

Unfortunately, the elder is gone. The program is degrading. The Elder’s stories calmed Su’kal. But he doesn’t have that anymore. In a nice tender moment, Saru explains “you have us. You are not alone.”

Michael and Book are still making their way to the data core. We get an extended action sequence through the turbo shafts.

Discovery’s shuttles don’t travel through a shaft as such, they float through open space, through rings that kinda appear and disappear as needed. It looks pretty cool. But is it logical?

My issue with this is there is so much wide empty space inside the ship for the turbolifts to fly through, that just isn’t needed.

This whole sequence felt very Star Wars. Star Wars favours what looks cool over what is logical. You know, you’ll have characters fighting with lightsabers, surrounded by all this cool looking technology which looks awesome but doesn’t appear to have any meaningful reason to exist. Think of the duel between Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon and Darth Maul in Episode 1.

This turbolift sequence looked great. It was cool and fun, but I had to suspend my disbelief a bit more than I feel I should when watching Star Trek.

Anyway, Michael arrives at the data core.

But Osyraa has gone there to meet her. So we get our obligatory season finale fist-fight between the hero and the villain.

And it’s another great action scene. We get to see Book kill Zareh while Michael takes on Osyraa.

Meanwhile, Owo makes it to the nacelle and sets off the explosion.

The dot rescues her just before the explosion, essentially sacrificing itself.

The episode plays the loss of the dot as a significant thing. But it’s just an avatar. It’s not like the destruction of this robot is gonna mean the death of the sphere data AI.

We see last year how impossible it was to completely destroy that data.

The reboot Michael is trying to perform won’t do it. If it were that simple, they’d have just reboot the computer last year, rather than travelling into the future.

Osyraa almost kills Michael by pushing her into this weird well of programmable matter. It reminded me of Superman 3 actually, that scene that seemed so creepy when I was a kid, when the woman gets eaten by the computer and turned into a cyborg. Completely ridiculous of course.

And way, Michael shoots out of the wall, kills Osytraa and escapes. It was an odd ending to the fight, but again, it looked cool.

So the ship is rebooted. Starfleet are now in command again, life support is back up, and the ship is out of warp, so reinforcements can catch up.

They still have a problem, though. Discovery has been sucked inside the Veridian. 

Michael has an idea about that, and Tilly tells her to implement it, effectively putting Michael in command. She is the ranking officer on the ship. Even though Tilly is first officer.

She’s gonna blow up the Veridian by ejecting Discovery’s warp core.

But how will Discovery not be destroyed as well? The only way is to jump away.

Stammets can navigate the jump because he has tardigrade DNA.

But Aurellio thinks Book can do it as well, because of his magic nature powers.

Makes sense. It’s a nice little development, in my opinion.

Book gives us a little hint as to his back-story. We learned weeks ago that Cleaveland Booker isn’t his real name. Apparently, it was the name of his mentor. He took that name and tries to live up to it every day. Interesting.

Jumping the ship is proving harder for Book than they’d hoped. Michael keeps telling him to jump, but nothing happens.

Then the Veridian explodes.

This is fake tension. We know they’re not gonna destroy the discovery and kill all the crew. So I kinda wish they’d just shown discovery jumping away.

Don’t get me wrong. The lead-up to the explosion was wonderfully tense. But the fake-out didn’t work for me.

We learn what Su’kal is really afraid of. It’s turning off the holo. Behind the door are the holo controls. He hasn’t been in here since he was a child.

Gray is afraid. Once the holo is turned off, he’ll disappear. Adira will still be able to see him, but that’s not enough for him. Again, I like how Culbert comforts him. “We’ve got you gray. We’ll find a way to help you be truly seen”

This moment, as Su’kal goes to deactivate the holo is the emotional heart of the episode, of the season, really.

Once the program has ended, we find that we’re not in a holodeck as such, just a normal room on the ship. I understand that in the 32nd century, holograms can be projected anywhere, so in one sense, they don’t need a holodeck as such, but it’s still practical to have a dedicated room. I mean, shouldn’t they have been tripping over chairs and things? The holodeck uses force fields to keep you in a confined area during the simulation. I suppose this could be done anywhere on the ship but it just seems a little impractical.

But for story-telling reasons, it makes sense for them to be here. Where they can immediately see Su’kal’s mother. (although it would have made sense for her to have died in the holodeck, as she activated the program for her son.)

Su’kal’s next order is a brave one. “Computer, show me what happened here, so I can be free.” But his new friends have prepared him for this moment.

So Su’kal’s mother had already put him in the simulation. So he didn’t have to watch her die. She told him not to touch the controls until the federation arrive.

But he turned off the simulation. He saw everyone dead but his mother. And she was really sick from radiation poisoning.

The poor kid watches his mother die in front of him, and he screams like he’s never screamed before. He sends out the shockwave that causes the burn.

I suspected this would be the case. 

Saru tells him he is no longer alone. And then Su’kal turns around to see Saru in his Kelpien form. It’s a beautiful moment. Saru just gained a brother.

So. Now we know the full complete details about what caused the burn. What do I think about it?

I suspect many will not like it. Two weeks ago, many were saying “is that it? A Kelpien child screaming?”

And I can understand that from a certain perspective, it could feel anticlimactic. Like a weak payoff. But you know what. As I think about it, I think there’s a real poignance to the entire galaxy being ripped apart by the heartfelt anguish of a child seeing its mother die.

And the sentimental family man in me really likes it.

So … I’m good with this. I like it.

This is definitely the best pay-off that Star Trek Discovery (or Picard) has given us. So this is very much a positive response from me.

It’s very emotional. Very character-focussed.

Anyway, Discovery arrives just in time to rescue them. And they return to Starfleet headquarters.

The epilogue of the episode kinda ties together everything into a common theme. The human need to connect. Gray feels that very strongly. Su’kal felt that need growing up all alone with nothing but holograms to keep him company. The various scattered worlds have felt it on a global scale, the need to connect with the rest of the galaxy.

This is hit home at the very end with a quote from Gene Roddenberry.

“In a very real sense, we are all aliens on a strange planet. We spend most of our lives reaching out and trying to communicate. If during our whole lifetime we could reach out and really communicate with just two people, we are indeed very fortunate.”

Stammets is very happy to be reunited with Culbert and Gray. He gives Michael a look. It’s not quite a complete forgiveness of what she did, but I think there is some genuine gratitude that she rescues them. I think it’ll take a while for these two to regain their former friendship. But I think it’ll happen.

It was nice to see little glimpses of Doctor Pollard and Jet Reno.

The emerald chain has fractured without Osyraa. That kinda feels a little sudden. But thinking about it, a fractured chain could be worse. A whole lot of independent mercenaries out there just looking to their own interests.

But it’s nice to see the Federation beginning to rebuild. The Trill have returned and the Vulcans and Romulans of Ni’var are considering it.

Saru is taking some time off, helping Su’kal settle in on Kaminar. He is reportedly wanting to consider his future, which I suppose means he’s not sure he wants to remain in Starfleet. I’m not sure I buy that. He loves his homeworld and he’ll be very happy to see it again. He’ll always have a bond with Su’kal, but Starfleet is his life. His passion.

And it’s wonderful to finally see Sahil, the lone guy on the Federation outpost from the first episode of this season. He’s now been commissioned as a Starfleet Officer with the rank of Lieutenant. I really wanted to see him again. It would be nice if we see more of him next season.

And that’s when Vance has a heart to heart with Michael. First, nice to know Vance is a family man. He has a wife and daughter, off somewhere else where they’re safe. I love that. Vance has come to respect Michael’s unique way of doing things. 

Michael, and the other Discovery crew have had to wrestle with how to live in this new time more than the people who are native to it, because she came from a different time. That allowed Michael to see new ways of doing things. And she has taught Vance a thing or two.

Now I have very mixed feelings about what happens next.

Vance offers Michael command of Discovery. Apparently it’s Saru who wants Michael to be the captain. But Vance agrees.

She’s a little hesitant, but Vance needs somebody commanding that ship now. There is an important job to be done. The dilithium from that planet needs to be distributed around the galaxy to those that need it. Only Discovery can carry out that mission.

So Michael accepts.

So we now have captain Michael Burnham of the USS Discovery.

Now on one hand, I like this. Michael has what it takes to be a captain. She wasn’t ready when Georgiou first suggested it back in The Vulcan Hello, but she’s learned a lot since then. She’s grown up a lot. 

And this effectively solves what I’ve been calling the Michael Burnham problem. The idea that we have a lead of this show, who isn’t the captain of the ship, so they have to make everything be about her, because they have to constantly justify the fact that she is the lead character. With her in the captain’s chair, well, it works just like any other Star Trek show.

his is good for Michael’s character. It’s the next logical step for her arc.

 So I like that.

But what about Captain Saru. I’ve loved Captain Saru this season. His arc throughout the whole season has been him learning to be a better captain. If he’s no longer going to be captain then it feels like that was all for nothing. And I hate that.

I don’t want Saru to leave the show. And I know he’s returning for season 4, which they’re filming right now.

And I definitely don’t want him to get demoted down to serving under captain Burnham.

So where does that leave his character? Command of another ship? That could work, but it would probably mean we’d see less of him next season as the show would follow Burnham on Discovery.

This leaves me with great concerns for how Saru’s character will be treated next season, and I’m not happy about it.

So like I said. Mixed feelings.

It IS cool to see that the Discovery crew are finally wearing the new Starfleet uniforms.

So looking at the crew’s colours, Culbert is in white for medical. MAkes sense. Stammets is in science blue. Obviously. Tilly is also in science blue. She was technically engineering when she first started, I believe. I wonder what this means for her position as first officer. Will she serve as Michael’s number one? If so, she should probably be in command red. Although maybe she’ll be like spock and have a joint position as science officer and first officer. If they do keep her as first officer, that should at least promote her to Lieutenant. Realistically, she should be at least Lieutenant Commander to be first officer.

Detmer and Owo are both in engineering yellow, which is kinda weird. Owo might make sense, as operations tends to be yellow. But I’d expect Detmer, as helm officer, to be in red. 

But maybe the colours work a little different in the 32nd century than they did in the 24th. It has been a very long time.

And another surprise. Adira is in Starfleet uniform. So have they been fast-tracked through Starfleet academy given prior experience in the earth defence force? Maybe. Maybe Adira will be a cadet serving on Discovery kinda like Tilly was in season 1.

Book is also on the bridge, but not in uniform.

The episode, and the season, ends with a classic Star Trek fanfare, and then the TOS theme playing over the ending credits.

I’m not sure ths TOS theme fits as well here as it did with the last two seasons, but I think it’s meant to signify that Starfleet of the 32nd century are returning to former ideals of exploration and peaceful coexistence.

Next season should prove interesting. I’m very keen to learn what it will be about.

I wonder when we’ll get our first trailer. Not for a while. But I assume we’ll get a few verbal tidbits from Alex Kurtzman or Michelle Paradise at some point.

So that was Star Trek Discovery season 3.

As I said at the start, I thought it was a very strong season. The best so far. I really enjoyed it.

Discovery has well and truly established itself as a Star Trek show next to all the others at this point. I nitpic things from time to time, but no Star Trek show has ever been perfect. But the last 13 weeks have been a wonderful experience.

Well. That was quite a ride. It’s been a lot of work putting together weekly podcasts in a timely manner. I’m glad I moved my release date from Saturdays to Mondays, because it just took a little of the pressure off.

But I’m looking forward to taking it a little bit easier now that I won’t be covering a show airing for the first time.

I’ve mentioned it a couple of times before, but starting next episode, I’m going to begin covering Stargate Universe. It’s a show that not a lot of podcasters or youTubers have talked about. It’s actually a pretty divisive show, a little like Discovery.

I’m going to move back to a fortnightly schedule.

I’ll do my first Stargate episode next week, and then I’ll be back the week after as well, because I’ll be covering the 3-part pilot over a course of two episodes, But then I’ll be taking my first week off. From that point, we’ll be on the fortnightly schedule.

I hope you’ll continue to join me into the future, but if Stargate isn’t your thing and you want to part ways here, then thank you very much for joining me through Star Trek Discovery. This certainly won’t be the last time we cover Star Trek on Nerd Heaven. I’ve always loved Star Trek. It’s my primary fandom.

Anyway, There’s a lot of very cool stuff to talk about in Stargate Universe. In a lot of ways, it was ahead of its time. It feels very much like a modern sci-fi show. It was heavily influenced by Battlestar Galactica, which, in a way, has shaped all sci-fi TV ever since, including both Discovery and Picard.

I’ll be here next week to talk about the episodes Air Parts 1 and 2.

Until then, have a great week.

Live long and prosper.

Make it so.

The second-last episode of Star Trek Discovery Season 3 "There is a Tide" plays a little like Die Hard in space, but it also adds some serious depth to our villain Osyraa. There is a fantastic negotiation scene between her and Admiral Vance. So let's dig in and talk about it.

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Get my space opera book Jewel of The Stars for just 99 cents at books2read.com/jewel

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Welcome to Nerd Heaven

I’m Adam David Collings

The author of Jewel of The Stars

And I am a nerd

This is episode 49 of the podcast

Today we’re talking about Star Trek Discovery There Is A Tide.

And Happy New Year.

By now, the whole world has switched over to 2021. 

So far it’s been a great year. No major tragedies.

Of course, much of the world is still suffering the effects of that pandemic that turned last year upside down. I’m really lucky here in Tasmania. We don’t have any cases at the moment.

The description on memory alpha reads

After capturing the USS Discovery, Osyraa seeks a meeting with Admiral Vance while Burnham and the crew must overcome unimaginable odds as they attempt to regain command of their ship.

This episode was written by Kenneth Lin

It was directed by Jonathan Frakes

And it first aired on the 31st of December 2020.

Make it so.

After I upload each episode of Nerd Heaven, I go and check out what other youTubers and podcasters are saying about the episode. It’s interesting to compare notes and see where we agree and disagree.

I never watch before I finish my own review because I want to keep my opinions my own - as un-influenced by others as I can.

But I noticed the thumbnail of one last night said (“Die Hard in Space”)

And that’s not a bad way to describe this week’s episode.

It’s an action movie with Michael Burnham trying to rescue the hostage crew of Discovery from terrorists who’ve taken over the ship.

Last week, we learned the cause of the burn was basically a shockwave sent from a Kelpien, genetically modified from living on a radiation-soaked planet, having a tantrum.

The general consensus from people was “Is that it?”

I didn’t really comment too much about it, other than my relief that Michael Burnham wasn’t the cause (although I also saw a thumbnail with a depressing theory that she is indirectly responsible because she freed the Kelpiens from the Ba’ul, but let’s just leave that one aside)

No, I wanted to wait until this week, to learn more, before I said too much about my thoughts on it.

Except we never re-visited the planet in the verubin nebula this entire episode. The whole thing was centred on Discovery and Starfleet headquarters.

I wasn’t expecting that.

So we’ll talk more about the burn next week.

This week, in addition to giving us a pretty cool action thriller, also does some very interesting things with Osyraa’s character, which I’m looking forward to talking about.

But let’s start at the beginning.

Osyraa is playing a dirty trick. She has her own ship, the Veridian, firing on Discovery, to make it look as though the two ships are locked in combat, and that the Discovery crew are still in control of their own ship.

Vance is hesitant to Discovery in through the shields immediately. I guess to lower the shields would be to potentially allow the Veridian in as well.

We actually get a decent amount of Vance this episode. He’s doing more than just giving Discovery their mission. And that was great.

The bridge crew are being held in the mess hall. That seems to be standard procedure when you take over a Starfleet ship. It’s always the mess hall. 

Remember Zareh, from episode 2 of this season? He was the thug that broke into the pub and terrorised the local township. The bartender threw him out into the ice, to survive if he could.

Well, turns out he worked for the Emerald Chain, and he survived. He’s here now, Osyraa’s second in command for this mission.

Poor Tilly isn’t happy to see him again.

This episode makes a couple of references to Tilly’s ineptitude which lead to the ship’s capture. A lot of it comes from Zareh, who was already trying to belittle her back at the beginning of the season.

To be honest, this is fair. Don’t get me wrong. Tilly performed admirably for an ensign put into the big chair during a very difficult situation. But I’m sure the chain took over quick and easier than they would have if there had been an experienced captain in charge. No shame against Tilly for that.

 For the first time, We actually see some point to this morphing thing that Book’s ship does. They’re travelling through a transwarp conduit, and we finally get an understanding of why they are considered so dangerous. They’re full of debris from other ships. Book’s vessel is constantly morphing into different shapes to avoid hitting all this stuff. Okay. That actually makes sense. Nice to finally get answers to two outstanding mysteries in this scene.

Strangely, there’s a big ship in the way. Book says “There’s no morphing our way around that.” and then the ship morphs its way around that.

Vance is going to have to let Discovery in before their shields fail. So he orders a window just large enough for that ship. But orders security on alert. Something is weird with all of this. And then Book’s ship arrives.

But Michael can’t get through to federation HQ for some reason and is unable to warn them.

So Discovery is let in.

Michael decides the only hope now is to board Discovery.

So book’s ship morphs again into a long thin sharp kind of shape.

At first, I thought they were forming into a breaching pod. Something that could pierce the hull. That makes sense. But then I realise, as usual, Discovery’s shuttle bay doors are open and they just have the forcefield in place.

So….forming into a sharp thin shape allows the ship to get through the forcefield? I find that harder to buy.

And in fact, these forcefields are generally designed to hold in oxygen, but allow shuttles to pass through, so why would they need to do anything special to go through anyway?

Osyraa mentions something about them getting in while Discovery’s shields re down, which does make sense. Shields should prevent anything from getting into the shuttle bay.

But why are discovery’s shields down? Maybe to allow the tractor beam to pull them in, but why the need for a tractor beam? Discovery has thrusters.

It’s all a bit messy.

But let’s move on.

This is where we meet Aurellio. He’s a scientist working for the Emerald Chain. One of the best in the galaxy, apparently. He’s confined to a hoverchair because of a genetic defect he has. It’s another little element to add some interest to his character. And it’s nice to see people of different abilities on the show.

The interesting thing here is that Aurellio is plated by Kenneth Mitchell who played Kol in season 1, and then Kol’s father in season 2, as well as the child of Voq and LaRell. He’s fast becoming the new Jeffery Combs. In fact, he’s now played just as many distinct Trek roles as Combs.

But this is the first non-Klingon role he’s had.

But what I didn’t realise when I was watching, is that Kenneth Mitchell is currently suffering from Motor Neurone Disease and is confined to a wheelchair. And that’s really sad. My heart goes out to him. But isn’t it nice that they were able to create this character for him to play.

I love how Book’s first priority when getting back onboard Discovery is to find and secure his cat. He went all the way to sickbay and then back to the shuttle bay. A little far-fetched perhaps, but cute.

Book has a life-sign masking device which Michael can use to get around the ship undetected. He has to turn himself in because they’ll be expecting a pilot for the ship that just breached them. With some luck, they won’t even know Michael is on board.

And there’s a nice little moment when they say “I love you” to each other.

This relationship has played out so much better, and more naturally than the Tyler relationship in season 1.

Even though Michael wasn’t able to warn Vance, he figures it out himself, which is good. It shows he’s got some brains on his shoulders. 

Michael makes her first kill but gets a knife in her leg for her trouble. I like this. It’s showing she’s a capable fighter but she’s not Superman.

She takes the regulator’s badge but it won’t transport. Probably coded to his bio signs.

But why does she need his badge to transport? She has her own Starfleet insignia badge on her uniform. Why can’t she just transport with that? Certainly, no reason I can think of.

Osyraa hails HQ and Vance chats with her. She’s releasing all the Discovery crew, except the bridge crew, who she’s keeping as leverage, but keeping them in good health.

She’s here to talk and hopes that things will go well. If so, Vance will have the bridge crew back shortly.

This is an unexpected development. We were expecting invasion, not negotiation.

Michael is hiding out in the Jefferies tube. At first, I was confused about the phaser she was using. Did she get it off the regulator she killed? It seemed holographic, projected by a wrist band. Turns out, this is the new Starfleet phaser, as seen in the opening credits. This is what the Discovery crew use now. But they don’t have holsters. The phasers are constructed from programmable matter. They just wear a little thing on their wrist. This is really cool. I’m surprised the comm badge doesn’t create the phaser actually. It does everything else.

There’s a nice moment where Michael records a touching goodbye message to her mother, as she knows this might not end well. I wouldn’t be surprised if Gabrielle shows up with the cavalry next week.

I like that Osyraa calls out the absence of the Federation president. The type of negotiations she’s about to enter into really should include the Federation president. This has been an issue in the past for Star Trek. How many decisions did Sisko make on behalf of the entire Federation that really should have been above the pay grade of a captain?

Vance explains that to have the president sit down with a known terrorist at this time would be a security breach, which makes perfect sense, so he’s been authorised to negotiate on behalf of the Federation. He’s Starfleet Chief of Staff so he’s pretty high up there. And he’s not gonna make the final decision anything.

Nicely done.

I like the scene where the bridge crew overcome their guards. They work together, anticipating each other’s ideas, with the distraction of the morse code tapping. It shows these people have worked together for a long time now. They know each other well and make a good team.

Tilly immediately takes charge. Again, doing the best she can under the circumstances.

Zareh has managed to locate the intruder with the badge she took from the regulator, who’s death has now been discovered. 

Aurellio wakes Stammets so they can discuss the spore drive.

They bond over opera music, which Stammets has slowly come to appreciate because Culbert loves it.

Stammets identifies, that Arellio has children, and that his partner is Orion based on the traditional piercing behind his ear. And Stammets admits he has a child too. Adira.

At this point, I’m speculating that Arellio is actually Osyraa’s husband. She was acting very protective of him at the beginning of the episode. They seemed to have a personal connection. The episode never says it outright, but I think it’s strongly implied. What do you think?

We learn that sadly, the tardigrades are long-extinct in the 32nd century. (unless he’s lying to Aurellio)

But Aurellio thinks he can grow new tardigrade cells from Stammet’s DNA, thereby making other people able to navigate the mycelial network.

Michael takes out her second regulator, in another thrilling action movie sequence. It’s not just a fight scene. It makes good use of the fact they’re in space. It’s a triumphant moment. Although I suspect Michael should be facing more unpleasant consequences from the cold alone, when the tube is exposed to open space.

I also like how they have an EMH serve as a lie detector during negotiations as standard procedure.

So far, Osyraa is being truthful. She wants the Emerald Chain to unit with the Federation in peace.

And she’s being genuine.

Her reasoning, the chain can’t go on the way they are without dilithium. So realises she has to make changes to how her organisation works if it is going to survive. The spore drive is a big bargaining chip. So why does she need the Federation? The Federation was always a symbol of hope. The Emerald Chain will never earn the trust of the people like the Federation once did. What the chain needs most now, is legitimacy.

Remote parts of the former Federation, who no longer have contract with headquarters, are already engaged in trade with the chain, because they have no choice. This is really interesting stuff.

A fruit platter is brought in and Vance mentions that their replicated food is made from human feces. But he doesn’t say feces. That’s the base material they use in their replicators. They break it down to the atomic level and then reform the atoms.

This, of course, is a total load of … well….. Feces.

That’s not how replicators work.

Replicators work on a similar principle to transporters. It’s all based around the conversion between energy and matter.

Replicators don’t create matter from other base matter. They convert energy into matter. And then, when you recycle leftovers, that matter is turned back into energy.

They don’t stick base matter into them.

This might have been the case for the more primitive “food synthesisers” back in the 22nd century. But not of the 24th century onwards.

Modern Star Trek has a real problem with replicators. In Picard, they looked like 3D printers. They even built up the food item layer by layer like a 3D printer.

But it’s not how it’s supposed to work.

This annoys me.

The emerald chain, apparently, don’t use replicator technology. Not sure why. I mean, you don’t need dilithium to power a replicator. Dilithium is just a catalyst in creating the matter / anti-matter reaction in a starship’s warp core.

Osyraa wants trade with the chain legalised, and she wants to establish an embassy at Starfleet Headquarters. That will send a powerful message.

This is a big issue for Vance. The Emerald Chain engage in morally reprehensible acts. Slavery. Oppression. Interference with pre-warp civilisations.

Surprisingly, Osyra is making changes to the way the chain operates. She’s outlawing slavery. She’s even pulling back from worlds like Kwijan, at considerable financial expense, over a 15 year period, to prevent causing chaos.

She’s even got an armistice written up, a treaty that the president can sign.

And Eli, the EMH confirms she is being completely genuine about all of this.

This is very interesting to me.

This is taking Osyraa from being a moustache-twirling villain to something much much more interesting. She is now by far the most interesting villain we’ve had on Discovery. Now she has depth.

She’s still very dangerous, but she’s a reasonable woman who is willing to make significant changes for the good of her people.

I’m kinda loving this.

Aurellio seems to have a very rosy-coloured view of Osyraa and the chain. He’s surprisingly blind to the horrific things she’s done. Stammets tries to open his eyes to the reality of it all.

Vance is impressed with the armistice. Osyraa has made a lot of concessions. She really is wanting to plot a new course for the chain. One free from the immoral acts of the past.

But Vance needs more.

He can’t just ignore the past.

So he asks Osyraa who will be the public face of the chain for this alliance. The implication is that it can’t be Osyraa. She’s a known terrorist and criminal. Not somebody that the Federation can legitimise.

As soon as he asks that question, I think Osyraa is reasonably sure that a deal is not going to be reached.

She wants to be the public face of the Emerald Chain, or at least be the controlling power in the background.

But Vance wants her to give herself up to trial for the crimes of her past.

Vance can’t just forgive the crimes of the past. He can’t just overlook it.

Osyraa says the past cannot be undone,

And Vance says “but it can be made right.”

This is a very interesting dilemma, and I’m curious where people sit on this.

One the one hand, Osyraa has made a genuine commitment to change her ways from now on. And since the burn, the Federation hasn’t had completely clean hands. They’ve done their best to continue living the ideals they have always represented, but this is a messier universe than it once was.  Maybe the concessions Osyraa is making are worth wiping the slate clean and forgiving the crimes of the past. 

One the other hand, Osyraa may have made some promises regarding policy, promises that I believe she is willing to honour, but at her core, her values haven’t changed. She’s offering to be good, not because she’s had a change of heart or any true repentance, but out of political necessity. This will be confirmed at the end of the episode where we see what kind of person she is deep down.

Vance asks his people to die for Federation moral values on a daily basis. How can he ask that of them and then just forgive Osyraa with no consequence for her crimes.

So what do you think? Should Vance just accept the armistice and let go of the past, or is he right to push for this?

And what about Osyraa? Is she letting her pride talk her out of a deal that will be good for her people? The federation has a very just legal system and quite humane and generous treatment of the convicted. The penal colony in New Zealand where Tom Paris did his time looked like a beautiful paradise. Osyraa could do worse than to accept punishment for her crimes for the sake of her people and live out a comfortable life as a Federation convict.

It’s funny, but I see a lot of theological parallels here that connect with me on a spiritual level.

It’s these deep and interesting ideas that make this a really great episode of Star Trek.

Sadly, these two can’t find any common ground on this issue so the negotiations break down and Osyraa returns to Discovery, where Book and Rin have been captured.

Michael arrives to rescue Stammets.

But Michael and Stammets have a profound disagreement on how to proceed.

Michael wants to get Stammets off the ship. The Emerald Chain can’t be allowed to learn the secrets of the spore drive from him. So he needs to be removed.

But he wants to jump straight back to the nebula to rescue Hugh and Saru. And then he learns that Adira is there too.

As he says, his whole life is in that nebula.

It’s wonderfully acted. So much raw emotion. Michael admits that they’ll likely die back there, but she has to make the tough call. True to her word. She told Vance she’d never hesitate again, like she did with Arium.

She renders him unconscious

Osyraa asks Aurellio to leave the bridge. She doesn’t want him to see what she’s about to do. But he wants to stay. Stammets words have impacted him. He wants to see who she really is when he’s usually not around.

Ryn gives a nice speech about how he’s no longer afraid of Osyraa because he’s seen real bravery. It’s great.

He won’t fix the sensors so she can locate Michael, Stammets and the bridge crew.

So she’s about to shoot him. But in a potentially foolish attempt to save Ryn’s life, Book volunteers information about the dilithium planet in the nebula. So that’s where Saru is.

But she kills Ryn anyway, and Aurellio is watching.

She’s going to get the information from Book using truth serum.

Michael has put Stammets into an emergency escape field.

She’s going to eject him out of the ship so Federation HQ can rescue him, getting him away from Osyraa’s grasp.

He begs Michael no to do this. Without him on board Discovery, Hugh, Sar and Adira will die a horrible death.

It’s a heartbreaking scene, and so well acted by Anthony Rapp.

He reminds her that the Discovery crew gave up everything to follow her here into the future, so she wouldn’t have to be alone. They did that for her. And now she’s going to let those three die.

She’s doing this to save the Federation from being destroyed by Osyraa.

So many hard choices being made in this episode.

Michael has been captured, but she’s accomplished what she set out to do.

The bridge crew have armed themselves and are ready to re-take the ship. Tilly is being pretty awesome.

And then the dot robots show up, possessed by the sphere data. Otherwise known as Zora.

It’s hard to take these robots seriously, as they look so cute, but despite that, it’s a great ending to the episode. They have a cool new ally. Who’d have thought, when we first saw the sphere data back in early season 2, they’d be paying it off like this?

This wasn’t just a great episode of Discovery. This was a great episode of Star Trek.

I loved it.

And I’m very much looking forward to seeing how it all resolves next week in the season finale.

Next week’s episode is called “That Hope is You Part 2” calling back to the very first episode of this season. Interesting. 

I wonder if that name will stay. A lot of these episodes have been getting new names from what was originally announced.

It was cool to see Zareh come back this week, but you know who we haven’t seen since episode 1, that I really expected to be a recurring character throughout the whole season? That lone Federation representative serving faithfully on that outpost. I’m disappointed we never saw him again. Is he still there? Has Discovery even mentioned him to Vance?

But with next week’s episode title making it a direct sequel to the first episode, I’m wondering if this is when we’ll see him again. It’ll be interesting to find out.

I’m still doing my walk to Mordor Challenge that I started in April last year. I’ve passed the gates of Moria.

I’m now back at work on Jewel of The Stars season 3, and am looking forward to getting it out in the world when I can.

Hard to believe there’s only one more episode of Discovery to talk about this season. We’ll be launching into Stargate Universe very soon. I’ve already recorded a couple of episodes. I hope you’ll all stick around for that. I’m looking forward to it.

But first, I’ll see you next week for the season finale of Star Trek Discovery.

Have a wonderful week.

Live long and Prosper.

Make it so.

We're in the final 3 episodes of Star Trek Discovery Season 3 now.  The crew enter the Verebin Nebula to rescue a Kelpien survivor and learn the source of The Burn. This episode gets a little wacky with the away team, but also gives us some real growth for Tilly as she takes the captain's chair for the first time.

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Transcript

Welcome to Nerd Heaven.

I’m Adam David Collings, the author of Jewel of The Stars

And I am a Nerd

This is episode 48 of the podcast

And today, we’re talking about the Star Trek Discovery episode “Su’kal”

This episode actually came out on the 25th of December in Australia, so I spend my Christmas night watching Star Trek. Not a bad way to round off a happy Christmas actually.

The description of Memory alpha reads

Discovery ventures to the Verubin Nebula, where Burnham, Saru, and Culber make a shocking realization about the origin of The Burn as the rest of the crew faces an unexpected threat.

This episode was written by Anne Cofell Saunders

It was directed by Norma Bailey

And it first aired on the 24th of December 2020

Make it so.

This is a bit of an unusual episode, which took a few unexpected twists and turns, but it was still pretty good. It’s got some thrills near the end, some growth for some of our characters, and some kinda weird but fun stuff with the away team.

We pick up right where we left off last week. Our characters are still at Georgiou’s memorial. Adira is feeling a bit left out. Everyone here seemed to know Georgiou. They’ve all been through so much together. They all came from the 23rd century together. Adira is the odd one out. A native of the 32nd century. Not a Starfleet officer.

Stammets tries to reassure them that they’re still a part of this crew. The crew are all here for you. Culbert and I are here for you.

And then Gray shows up. He hasn’t appeared to Adira in a long time. With no explanation.

I like how Stammets says into the empty air “You’re lucky we’re at a memorial service because otherwise, I’d be giving you a piece of my mind.”

I really like how Stammets just takes this thing at face value, and doesn’t treat Adira like they’re crazy. He can’t see Gray, but he believes he’s there and even addresses him from time to time.

But in hindsight, it’s occurred to me that it may have been a good idea to recommend a medical examination, just in case, to make sure Adira isn’t hallucinating.

I mean, the disembodied soul of a former Trill host appearing in a form only the new host can see is not exactly out of the range of possibility in the Star Trek universe, but it might not be the only explanation.

For all Stammets knows, Adira could have schizophrenia, which is probably not something you want to leave untreated.

I don’t think that’s what is happening here, but it’s probably a good thing to rule out.

Anyway.

Gray explains why he’s been absent. He’s struggling with the whole disoconnected aspect of his existence. He has consciousness. He has emotions. But nobody but Adira can see him. He can’t interact with anybody else. That’s not what life is supposed to be. It’s like he’s stuck in limbo, a ghost that can’t move on.

This is a very believable reaction to his situation. And I’m glad the show is addressing it, allowing Gray to feel this way and struggle with it. That’s some emotional realism right there. The kind that I like characters to have.

He also admits that his struggles are no excuse for simple vanishing without an explanation.

He could have explained this to Adira before he vanished.

Admira promise they’ll work this out together. Somehow.

With this nice little character moment done, we launch right into the main plot of the episode.

they’ve recovered some new data from the Kelpien ship. There’s a life sign.

Saru reverals the Kelpien doctor was pregnant. That’s what the marks on her head were about. Not sure why he kept this to himself but anyway. Her child, now an adult, is still alive on that ship.

So they jump into the Verubin nebula, which looks awesome.

I’ve learned, through a little research while writing Jewel of the Stars book 1, that if you were inside a nebula, it would not look like this. In fact, you’d see nothing. The gass particles are so sparse they’d be essentially invisible. It’s only many lightyears away, where you can see from a vast distance, that the particles appear close enough to actually look like anything.

But I can’t help but forgive Star Trek for getting this wrong, and it’s been getting it wrong since The Wrath of Khan, because it looks so good. And this nebula, with modern CGI, looks like something straight from a Hubble image.

Anyway, the radiation is wreaking havoc on the ship. They’re gonna have to leave the nebula, but Saru is unwilling. Or, at least hesitant. Michael seems to interpret this as emotional interest in the Kelpien. And in fairness, there may be some of that, but recovering this Kelpien is important if they want to understand the cause of the burn. And goodness knows Michael has been compromised by that obsession herself.

This episode has a thread running through it of “Saru can’t be trusted to make rational decisions because there is a Kelpien on board.” And I still don’t get that. Kaminar is still out there. He can go visit it next time he has shore leave. It’s not like this crashed ship is his last chance to ever see his people again. I think this whole business is artificial and overdone.

But we’ll keep talking about this as the episode progresses.

Anyway, Book takes his ship ahead. He has better shielding and his ship can morph, as he calls it. That morphing thing has never been explained. What exactly does this weird reconfiguration of his ship accomplish? What’s it all about?

While Book is mapping the nebula, Discovery jumps back top safety.

The radiation gets to him a bit but he manages to locate the ship and it’s lifesign before auto-pilot brings him back to Discovery. He’ll be okay after some DNA recombination.

The Kelpien ship crashed into a planet that’s practically made out of Diluthium.

That’s good news for the Federation.

Saru plans to lead the away team personally. While not standard Starfleet procedure, it’s not unheard of for a captain to be part of an away team, if there is deemed sufficient reason. Vance and Michael both give him a look for this, but Vance accepts it. It’s Saru’s call.

Personally, I think Saru has sufficient justification for this. A single KEpien survivor, all alone. Never seen anyone else. Having someone of the same species could be reassuring. And I think you’ll agree that the episode demonstrates that he was right about this.

My only concern is leaving Tilly in charge. You know I love Tilly. She’s one of my favourite characters. And You know I want to see her achieve her dream of being a captain.

But I’m still not convinced she’s ready for this yet.

Although, nobody knows the challenges she’s about to face. If The Emerald Chain didn’t show up, she’d have been quite capable of holding the fort until the away team returned.

But we’ll get to all that.

We learn that the Emerald Chain are running military exercises near Caminar. Osyrra is trying to lure Discovery out so she can steal its spore drive. Starfleet is going to handle that. Discovery has a job to do here.

Do you notice that Vance is really sold on this mission to learn the source of the burn, now that they have solid leads to follow. Early in the season, he was very hesitant to expend any resources on this, because there were more important things to deal with.

Ironically, they could never have gotten these solid leads if Michael hadn’t been like a dog with a bone in the first place. 

So Michael tells Book she doesn’t think Saru can be objective. 

She’s not sure how he’ll handle it if he has to make a hard call. A painful one.

First of all, Michael herself doesn’t have a great track record when it comes to difficult calls. Vance even called her out on the whole Arium thing earlier this season.

I’m not saying Michael is right or wrong, but I’m curious what has lead her to this conclusion about Saru.

I don’t think any of this stuff is fair to his character.

Stammets is freaking out about Culbert going on the away mission.

At first, I thought this was really weird.

This is Culbert’s job. He’s a Starfleet officer. Starfleet officers go into dangerous situations all the time. That’s part of the deal if you’re a member of Starfleet, or you’re in a relationship with a member of Starfleet. Stammets is both.

Plus, Saru just said that as long as they take the right medications with them, they should be fine.

But I realised, actually, my wife pointed it out. Stammets has already lost Culbert once. So he’s understandably over-protective here.

Now despite what I said earlier about Tilly and her unreadiness to be first office, I do really like how they develop this whole thing in the episode.

First of all, we get a wonderful scene where Michael reassures Tilly and tells her the story about the little bur of metal under the arm of the captain’s chair. How Georgiou used to press her finger against it to keep herself in the moment during difficult encounters. It’s a wonderful exchange that they’ll call back to a number of times.

I love how she allows herself the moment of fear and anxiety, with her trusted friend, and then sucks it up and says “okay, let’s go.”

With medications, the away team will survive four hours on the planet.

Discovery’s shields will take three hours to repair. After that, they can jump back in to rescue the team.

And despite everything, Tilly looks good in that chair. Michael is right, she does belong there. It’s her destiny.

The away team arrive on the crashed ship. And this is where everything gets a little weird.

The first thing we notice is Michael is dressed differently. She and Culberty are in thick jackets with hoods. Then we realise that Culbert is a Bajoran and Michael is a Trill.

Now … forgive me for thinking we’re suddenly watching Hitchhiker’s Guide to the galaxy.

I mean, what’s next Is Saru going to be a penguin?

No, Saru is Human.

I called it before we saw his face. Just before the camera shot that slowly panned up from his feet.

So we get to see Doug Jones out of makeup. That’s kinda cool, because we can finally see all his amazing face acting. Don’t get me wrong, nobody can act tinder all that prosthetic like Doug Jones can. He’s a master, but he’ll always be able to do more with his face without all that slapped on him.

The other weird thing is, they don’t appear to be in a ship. They’re outside surrounded by snow.

Of course, we quickly learn they’re on a holodeck inside the ship. The holodeck has changed their appearances. We know it could do that, even in the 24th century.

This is all very strange, and it is explained, at least somewhat a little later, but I think the writers just wanted an excuse to get Saru out of makeup and see the others as different species. They wanted to have some fun with it.

The bad news is, they’ve lost all of their equipment. No badges and no medications.

If Discovery returns as scheduled, they’ll be sick but alive.

The first holodeck character we meet is wearing a new Starfleet uniform. We haven’t seen this one before.

It seems to be a bizarre blend of the discovery uniform with the TNG uniform. It’s got a very shiny version of the TNG com badge.

No idea if this is supposed to be a real uniform that was worn at some point in history. Until we see it outside the holodeck I think we can basically dismiss it.

Clearly, the holo programs are malfunctioning due to over 100 years of exposure to the radiation.

When they enter a different part of the program, the holodeck changes their clothes again. They find a crumbling structure with some very cool looking alien creatures flying in the distance.

Here’s a strange thing. Saru asks if human bodies react negatively to heights because his heart is racing.

So are we to assume the holodeck has somehow reconfigured Saru’s internal organs? That doesn’t make any sense.

A surface-level image to change their appearance, sure. But to make Saru’s body react differently, that seems a little absurd and completely unnecessary as we’ll soon learn when we discover the purpose of their transformation.

They find the Kelpien child, now an adult male.

And Saru’s eyes nearly bug out of his head. OH, it’s another Kelpien. How amazing.

It doesn’t make sense.

The child assumes the away team are programs but Saru tries to explain they are from outside the simulation.

There’s a door here containing something that scares the Kelpien. The door breaks open but nothing comes out.

The episode portrays the Kelpien as mentally a child, because he’s never seen anythingh outside of this holodeck.

Again, that doesn’t make sense to me. Sure, his perspective will be limited, but his faculties still should have developed just like anyone else. He has the brain of an adult. I’m not sure it makes sense that he’d mentally be a child.

A voice goes through the Discovery com system. “We’ve found them.” A female voice.

Why this voice is heard on board Discovery is never explained. It doesn’t make any sense. We know how this is, but why would the voice be heard here?

Anyway, Discovery has picked up another ship nearby. A Federation ship.

Now we all knew where we thought this was going right. How many of you thought this was going to end up being another USS Discovery, tying into The short Trek calypso.

I was relieved to find out that wasn’t where they were going.

No, it’s Osyrra. Trying to sneak up on them by emitting a Federation signature. Apparently, she used a transwarp tunnel to get here. Book keeps saying nobody would be silly enough to use one of these tunnels but has never explained why. And it seems OSyraa’s ship came through fine with no problems.

Anyway, she’s been tracking their ship since Kwijan and she wants Discovery’s spore drive, and she wouldn’t mind the planet of dilithium here either.

Nice to learn Discovery now has a cloaking device. This makes sense. Ever since the fall of Romulus, the treaty of Algeron would no longer be in effect.

But they can’t jump while cloaked. Again that makes sense. Starships don’t seem to be able to do anything while cloaked.

Culbert and Saru find more holo characters. One of them, a vulcan, explains that this holoprogram has been set up to help raise the Kelpient child, educate him, and prepare him for the day rescuers would finally arrive.

Since he has never seen anybody outside of the program, the holodeck has changed their appearance to make them look like part of the program.

Okay. That part makes sense.

But why does Culbert fit into this program more as a Bajoran than as a human?

Why does Saru fit in more as a human than as a Kelpien?

They still look like themselves.

This doesn’t make any sense to me.

Michael meets the creature behind the door. It looks very spectacular. Wonderful CGI.

It chases her for a bit before she somehow falls upward and finds herself in another room with the KElpioen. In order to not freak him out, she pretends to be a program, one designed to teach him how to interact with outsiders.

Meanwhile, Saru and Culberty find a holographic representation of a Kelpien elder.

They learn the Kelpien child’s name is Sukal. That name symbolises the end of suffering and is given to a baby born after a hardship.

Saru is enjoying what the elder is able to share with him. The song. How it reminds him of home. But it doesn’t stop him doing his job. He’s learning what he can from the book.

And he realises what it is that Sukal is afraid of. It’s a monster from Kelpien mythology.

Apparently, nobody will be able to leave this program until Sukal is willing to face the monster.

Again, not sure why.

The visuals of the fortress and the flying creatures continue to be absolutely top-notch.

At this point, Tilly is feeling a whole lot of anxiety. Facing down Osyraa in her heavily armed ship is not something she expected to have to deal with on her very first time in the big chair.

Tilly’s lack of experience adds a whole new dimension of tension to these scenes. It’s v very effective. I find myself doubting Tilly’s ability to handle the situation, but desperately wanting her to rise up to the challenge and prove me wrong. So even though I wouldn’t have put the character in this number one position, I’m finding that this is effective story-telling here in this episode.

Tilly is not feeling as confidant as she’s trying to portray to Osyraa, and yet, if you compare this scene to the scene in season one, where she pretended to be Killy while Lorca stood at her side, she is so much more confidant now. She has come a long way.

Osyraa is trying hard to convince Tilly she hasn’t got what it takes.  And Tilly is putting up a brave fight in this battle of wits.

The away team are all back together again, and Sukal is face to face with the monster.

And then something weird happens again. He pulses with a shockwave of energy. This energy disrupts Discovery’s cloaking device. But worse than that, it’s starting to destabilise the Dilithium in the ship’s core. That sounds familiar. Sukal’s shockwave almost caused another burn.

So it seems that Sukal was the cause of the burn. How? Why? We don’t yet understand. Why can be do this weird shockwave thing? We don’t know. But it’s all about him. Interesting.

With both ships unblocked, it’s time for a battle.

Tilly is making a hard call. She has to jump away to prevent Osyraa from getting the spire drive. She promises they’ll come back for the away team, but it’s not looking good for them.

Book takes his ship to rescue them, but Adira also has a plan. She just needs Jett’s badge.

Saru manages to calm Sukal by singing a Kelpien song. As he calms, the monster scurries away. Nobody but Saru could have done this.

Tilly says she’ll self destruct the hip rather than let Osyraa get it. It’s a wonderful moment. But instead, when threatened, she tries to jump away. And that makes sense. Self destruct should be a last resort. IT makes sense that she’d try jumping first.

Culbert theorises that being in-utero amongst all this dilithium and subspace radiation  explains why the radiation doesn’t kill him.  Something must have happened to trigger him when the burn happened.  Perhaps the death of his mother?

Saru has to return to the ship to deal with Saru. He asks Michael to stay, to help prevent Sukal from causing another burn.

Michael argues it should be Saru, because of his connection to Sukal as a fellow Kelpien.

And now Michael gets back on her “Saru is compromised” horse. He says he would never let his emotions to factoir into his decisions.

She says he already has.

I’m not buying that. Sorry.

Yes, he’s a little distracted, although I don’t think the episode has given him good reason to be.

But he hasn’t yet made any mistakes because of it.

Look, if this is all part of the season’s on-going Saru learns to be a better captain arc, then I’m okayt with it.

But it’s starting to feel like they’re setting up to push him out of the captain’s chair so Michael can take it. If that’s where they’re going, I’ll be very disappointed.

Culbert also wants to stay. He knows what it’s like to be alone in a world that doesn’t make sense.

They’ll only have an hour before the planet kills them.

But Adira beams down with more radiation medication. That’ll buy them more time.

Osyraa takes over the ship by sheer force of numbers. Her people beam on board and secure both the bridge and more importantly, the spore lab.

Tilly doesn’t have a chance to destroy the ship.\

Michael and book arrive just in time to see Discovery and Osyraa’s ship jump to Federation headquarters.

End of episode.

This is a thrilling cliffhanger. And I’m dying for next week’s episode.

I loved the stuff with Tilly in the captain’s chair. I’m still loving Janet Kidder as Osyraa. And the stuff with Sukal was very interesting. I’m so glad that Michael Burnham wasn’t the cause of the burn.

It looks like we’re gearing up for an epic ending to the series.

Just two episodes left.

I say bring it on.

Overall, this season is doing a much better job than the last two seasons of paying off it’s mystery.

And yet, there are still some threads that seem to have been dropped.

Remember how the Vulcans were absolutely convinced that the SP-19 data proved the burn started at Ni’var? That’s been conveniently forgotten. It doesn’t add up for me.

And what about that music? Will that come back and be any further explained? Because honestly, the little bit of explanation we had for that last time it was mentioned made very little sense.

We’ve still got two episodes left, so the music, at least, might still get a bit more exploration, but I’m not counting on it.

And even without these elements being handled satisfactorily, it’s still overall a strong season, in my opinion,but I’m pointing these things out because they do bug me somewhat.

Anyway, far be it for me to end on a negative. I think next week is going to be a thrilling episode as Osyraa strikes at the heart of Federation headquarters, and we will hopefully learn some more fascinating things about Sukal and The burn.

I think we’ll have a lot more to talk about regarding the season mystery this time next week.

Next week’s episode is called There is a Tide (formerly announced as “The Good of The People”)

It’s another Jonathan Frakes episode, so that’s always cool.

I’m now officially on Christmas holidays and won’t have to return to work until mid January.

I plan to use some of this time to work hard on Jewel of The Stars book 3, and get it published as soon as possible.

I hope you had a good Christmas and have enjoyed some time off, if possible.

It’s been a long weird year, but it’s almost over. 

Anyway, catch you next week.

Live long and prosper.

Make it so.

Today we discuss the conclusion to "Terra Firma Part 2" in Star Trek Discovery Season 3. We see the culmination of Georgiou's character arc, which I felt was nicely done. This two-parter has definitely change the way I see Mirror Georgiou and I'm loving it.

So let's dig in and see what we can find to talk about in this episode.

----more----

Welcome to Nerd Heaven

I’m Adam David Collings, the author of Jewel of The Stars

And I am a nerd

This is episode 47 of the podcast. Today, we’re talking about Star Trek Discovery “Terra Firma Part 2”

And big news. It’s just been announced that Star Trek Lower Decks has an international distribution deal. It’ll be arriving on Amazon Prime in the U.K., Europe, Australia, New Zealand,  Japan, India, and more on the 22nd of January.

This has been a long time coming, but we’re finally going to be able to see it. Of course, at this point, I’ve pretty much had the entire first season spoiled for me, because, you know….I have access to the internet. Still, it’s good news.

So let’s talk about Terra Firma Part 2.

The description on memory alpha reads

Georgiou uncovers the true depths of the plot against her, leading her to a revelation about how deeply her time on the USS Discovery truly changed her.

The teleplay for this episode was written by Kalinda Vazquez

Based on a story by Bo Yeon Kim & Erika Lippoldt & Alan McElroy

It was directed by Chloe Domont​

And it first aired on the 17th of December 2020.

Make it so.

We pick up where we left off, in the mirror universe, onboard the ISS Discovery.

We won’t see our prime characters until this whole thing with Georgiou is over.

.Michael is dragged kicking and screaming into the brig. Begging to be killed. That’s the honourable way out for a failed traitor. The Terran empire have a lot in common with the Klingons when you think about it. And that’s nothing new.

Michael says “every moment you keep me alive proves further how weak you’ve become.

We learn the reason Lorca moved against her, the reason he got to Michael is because Mirror Georgiou was already being considered weak. She was losing her harsh edge, even before she met prime Michael. It turns out half of her biography opera was a lie. One thing I forgot to mention last week was how the story portrayed Georgiou as a peasant who rose up the ranks to emperor. I wonder if this part was true or false. This is a fascinating insight into her backstory, and while it may be a little bit of a retcon, it helps to make sense of the arc the character has been on.

Now that she's back in the mirror universe, Georgiou is learning just how much she’s changed. And Micahel is noticing. Rescuing Kelpiens, fretting over artists.

Interestingly, Gorgeous is starting to see what mirror Spock ultimately saw, with a little help from prime Kirk. The Terran Empire is not sustainable. They can’t go on like they are forever. Its downfall is inevitable. She tries to explain this to Michael.

Georgiou is only holding on to her power, at present, because of the loyalty of those who still serve her, like Owo and Killy. But how long will she be able to hold on to their loyalty if she really pursues peace?

Michael mentions an alliance is forming against them. This is the coalition we saw in season 1. Vulcans, Klingons, Andorians, Tellarite. Michael mentions a bunch of other races including the Denobulans, which was cool.

I have to assume the coalition of this time will eventually morph into the alliance that we saw in the mirror universe during Deep Space Nine. At that time, the empire had fallen and the alliance ruled the galaxy with almost as strong a fist as their predecessors. The main powers behind the alliance were the Klingons and the Cardassians.

The first thing Killy asks when she has a minute alone with Georgiou is “Why is Michael Burnham still taking up oxygen on my ship?”

Killy already has her doubts about the emperor. Could Michael be right? Is Georgiou weak?

I’m sure Killy has seen it. She knows Georgiou has changed. The only question she needs to wrestle with now is “what do I do about it?” Which option will best serve Captain Killy? She remains loyal, and I don’t think it’s because of anything Georgiou says here about trying to reforge a broken michael into a loyal subject. It’s because Killy doesn’t currently have the resources she needs to lead a revolution of her own. Terrans don’t really care about loyalty. They look out for number one. And she still thinks it’s in her best interest to support Georgiou.

I also think she is genuinely enamoured with the idea of being given the job of breaking Micahel. That sounds like a fun challenge to her. One she will embrace. Apparently, there is no greater interrogator than Killy. And that scares the hell out of me.

And then we get mirror universe opening credits. Just like Enterprise did with In a Mirror Darkly. Though they’re not as changed as what Enterprise did.

The inverted colours work for me.

The upside-down imagery not so much. I don’t really get that. 

Had it been me, I’d have changed the starfleet logos to Terran empire logos. That kind of thing. But that would have taken a lot more work than just turning everything upside down.

Michael is pretty confident they won’t break her. At least, that’s what she says. I imagine that Terrans have a higher tolerance for pain than we do. I understand it was a little bit like that in the middle ages. When pain is a normal part of life, it’s not pleasant, but it’s accepted more readily.

At least, so I’m told.

Killy’s interrogation doesn’t last long. She asks Michael to pledge her loyalty. Then zaps her with the agoniser booth. And then says “we’ll try again tomorrow. You don’t mind sleeping in there do you?”

And this is pretty horrifying. She’s left in the booth all night. And every now and then, when she’s least expecting it, it will fire up and put her into incredible pain.

The agnoiser technology itself is horrific. The human body eventually shuts down to protect itself from pain, but this technology is designed to circumvent that, so the victim continues to feel the agony.

So Detmer comes to see Michael. They all know these two were working together.

Detmer tries to convince her to give in, because she won’t be able to cope with uch more. Plus, nobody has heard from Lorca. Which means he has abandoned Michael. There is no sense remaining loyal to him.

And all of this makes a lot of sense. Lorca knows his rebellion is beaten. He can’t do it without Michael. That’s why he went through so many hoops to bring prime michael into the mirror universe.

This also means they don’t have to bring Jason Isaacs back again. Which is a shame.

It also makes sense that Michael gives into Georgiou at this point. IF she is being offered a chance to redeem herself she’d be stupid and stubborn not to take it.

Then there’s a rather sweet scene as Georgiou shares a memory of walking with Michael through her night terrors to see the fireflies. She leaves a jar of fireflies on Michael's bed.

And we get the impression that Georgiou is finally getting through to Michael.

And I think she actually is.

It’s obvious that Georgiou loves Michael as a daughter, and always did.

And so she presents herself. I’m ready to pledge my loyalty to you.

But there’s a question here we’re all asking.

Is she genuine, or is this all just part of Michael’s plan?

Michael goes and kills all her co-conspirators. (at least, those who are nearby. Lorca and his offsider are gonna be harder to find. There’s a cool shootout with Landry.

When Michael and Detmer come in with the badges of all the dead conspirators, it becomes clear that the forgiveness Georgiou is showing Michael doesn’t extend to Detmer.

The kitchen is no longer serving Kelpien. Another of Georgiou’s changes. She can no longer stomach the idea of eating sentient beings. She no longer sees them as animals. She’s gotten to know Saru.

I think Michael is being honest when she says she no longer loves Lorca, and is willing to kill him. He abandoned her.

The culmination of Georgiou’s transformation comes when she tells Saru the truth about vahari. Essentially she frees the Kelpien people by revealing this information to him and telling him to share it with others.

Goergiou’s transformation has been accelerated by coming back to the mirror universe. Had she not come here, it would have remained the slow and steady change we’ve seen over the last few years. Sometimes you have to be reminded to who you were, in order to appreciate and embrace who you are becoming.

This is all very well done, and is the heart of this two-parter.

And Georgiou says this world is her home. She vows to remain here and re-shape it into what it needs to become. Much as Spock will later on.

So now they’re on the hunt for Lorca, and they’re going to find him through his off-sider, Duggen. They find him in orbit of Risa.

And this is really cool. LAst week, we saw the return of Hannah Cheesman, who played Arium in season 2. She was just in the background, wearing a Terran uniform, but it wasn’t made clear exactly what role she was playing. Was this just an easter egg, like how they got all the alien actors to play humans in Vic’s bar in the final episode of DS9?

Now, we get confirmation she is indeed playing Arium. Remember, Arium was human, but she was injured in an accident and made into a cyborg in order to survive.

It seems that the mirror arium had no such accident and remained human. This also confirms that her name was Arium even when she was still human.

I love this. Very nice touch.

So they beam Duggen aboard to question him about Lorca.

And this is when the surprising but inevitable betrayal happens. Nice little nod to Firefly for you.

All through this episode, I’ve hoped that Georgiou was successful in rehabilitating mirror Michael - turning her into something new.

But deep down, always knowing that at any time, she may turn on Georgiou.

So we’re really not surprised when it happens.

Gorgeous isn’t surprised either. She’s become a lot more soft-hearted but she’s not stupid.

She knew this was a likely scenario when Michael pledged her loyalty. She hoped for the best but she prepared for the worst.

Michael knew, the minute Goergiou spared her life, that she could never respect her mother again.

I love it when Georgiou says “I have changed. I have seen another way to live. Another way to rule.”

The prime universe has really had an impact on her.

So the battle begins. And again, it’s a cool fight. Discovery has always done action well.

Michael had a lot of people loyal to her. Were Culbert, Nilsson and the others co-conspirators all along, that Michael chose not to kill, or has she recruited them since her false return to grace? I suspect the latter.

Sadly, Georgiou is left with no other choice but to kill her daughter.

Again.

Georgiou wakes up back on Dannus 5 with Michael and Carl.

She’s been in the mirror universe for months. From Michael’s perspective she passed out for less than a minute, but her wrist monitor has recorded 3 months of bio-readings.

She wasn’t transported bodily. She shared the body of an alternate Georgiou. 

Carl has essentially spun off a new timeline off the mirror universe we know.

A timeline that Georgiou has affected greatly. One where the Kelpiens may gain their freedom from the terran empire. Where some good has been done, at least.

Michael and Georgiou keep asking Carl, who are you really. The same question we’ve been asking. And finally, he answers.

I am the Guardian of Forever.

And they use the original voice recording from the original series.

I thought the guardian was voiced by James doohna. I know he did a lot of alien voices, but no, the guardian was played by Bart LaRue. Apparently Doohan voiced the Guardian in the animated series, though. But I haven’t seen that episode. I really need to finish watching the animated series. It’s not great, but it’s still Star Trek.

Sadly, I didn’t feel anything much from this reveal, because it was spoiled for me.

I woke up Friday morning, and within minutes, I saw this big reveal spoiled on Instagram. I was quite unhappy.

Spoilers are an interesting thing. I think there’s some responsibility on both sides.

I’ve seen people on social media who’ve said things like “I plan to see this movie months after it releases, and heaven help anyone who spoils it for me.”

That seems unreasonable. If you’re gonna wait that long, you have to take a little responsibility for protecting yourself, and understand that spoilers likely will happen during that time.

But for a spoiler like this to be posted before the episode has even gone live on most of the planet, well, I think that’s a bit unfair.

But, those who posted it have apologised and are going to hold to a 24 hour grace period, which I think is a really good idea.

Lower Decks is an interesting case. I’ve had much of that spoiled for me, because I move in the Star Trek circles online. I mean, that’s how I market this podcast. I don’t blame those who have posted spoilers. You can’t expect them to wait 6 months to talk about anything. I can’t even fully blame CBS. COVID kinda messed up their plans for releasing Star Trek.

Anyway, the door breaks apart and re-forms into the familiar stone portal from City on the Edge of Forever.

I’m kinda surprised they went there. There was always a lot of controversy and disagreement around the use of the Guardian of Forever in Star Trek while Harlan Ellison was alive.

I guess some agreement was met between CBS and his estate.

But this reveal is kinda like the reveal of Khan in Star Trek Into Darkness.

It’s played as this big dramatic reveal, but it means nothing to Michael and Gaorgiou. It’s all just for the audience.

Personally, I would have dispensed with the artificial suspense and just revealed the guardian properly in part 1. There’s no real reason for it to disguise as a door. A slight reason, perhaps, given it’s in hiding, but then why reveal itself now?

So we get some backstory of what’s happened with the guardian since TOS. When the temporal wars began, everyone kept trying to use the guardian as a weapon to kill each other. It wasn’t pretty. I can well understand the guardian not wanting to be used like that. So, it hid. It removed itself from its original location and hid here on Dannus 5.

That makes sense. I kinda like how they tied the guardian into the temporal wars.

But what do I really think of this reveal?

Well, it’s cool to see the guardian of forever again. No questions. It was one of my favourite things introduced in TOS. In fact, City on the Edge of Forever is my favourite TOS episode.

But is this a good use of it?

I like the character of Carl. He’s cool. He has a fun personality.

But, that’s not a personality I associate with the guardian of forever. The appeal of the guardian was it’s mysterious nature. Part mechanism, part being. Both and Neither. That big booming voice. And part of it’s appeal was also it’s setting. That mysterious ancient alien city left in ruins. Where did it come from? How and why was it created?

As much as I like Carl, I feel that he humanises the Guardian of Forever too much. I don’t want it to be humanised. I want it to remain mysterious and alien. That doesn’t mean I don’t want answers to some of the questions about it, but …. I don’t want it to be turned into a pleasant gentleman from the  1930s.

So ultimately, I think this was a mistake.

I think they should have either:

Made it obviously the guardian from the beginning and do away with Carl altogether.

Or

Forget the guardian, and just have Carl be a Q (which I still think really fits his personality) or have him be something new. Some new alien with Godlike powers. 

I’ve always wanted to see the Guardian of Forever again, but just not like this.

But all of that aside, let’s look at what is explained next, because I do really like it.

Georgiou is still dying. She wasn’t sent back to be cured. She was sent back to be weighed. To be tested. To see if she was worthy of the Guardian’s help. Would she make different choices? Has her time in the prime universe changed her?

She doesn’t belong here, but sending her somewhere else could cause a lot of problems. The guardian doesn’t want to inflict another time or place with the dangerous Emperor Georgiou. But is she still dangerous?

What’s interesting is that Georgiou assumes she’s failed the test. She killed her daughter. Again.

Carl is more interested in her heart than the outcome. And I like that.

Georgiou doesn’t want to go back to the mirror universe. Why would she?

But that’s not carl’s plan. He’s going to send her to a time when the prime and mirror universes were still aligned, where her cells won’t fall apart. He doesn’t say exactly where or when. And we’ll talk about that shortly because I have some thoughts.

Carl believes Michael is just where she needs to be, so she can’t go with Georgiou. It’s nice that Geirgiou wants her, though.

So we have a very touching farewell between these two characters. It was wonderful.

We get a brief mention of Husan, the name mentioned in Georgiou’s episodes. She still doesn’t explain who he is, or what he meant to her. Michael tells her to tell the people she’s about to meet. So I guess this backstory will be revealed in the section 31 show.

okay.

Georgiou has one final word of wisdom for Michael. This century is more Terran than the 23rd.

Saru has navigated the change admirably but he’s not the only one suited for the captain’s chair.

I’m not sure exactly what they’re trying to imply, but I thought we were done with the whole, will Michael take the captain’s chair thing. The way I see it, the only way for Michael to become captain of Discovery in any way that I'll accept is to get Saru out of the picture. Either kill or promote him.

And frankly, I don’t want that, because Saru is one of my favourite characters.

And then she steps thorough, and is gone.

It’s funny. I really liked the prime Georgiou character, but never quite warmed to mirror Georgiou in the same way. But now, well, I’m really going to miss her.

So …. Where has she ended up?

For a long time, fans have been saying that Georgiou has to return to the 23rd century so she can star in the section 31 show.

Now while I’ve never dismissed that possibility, my response has always been “Why are you assuming the section 31 show will be set in the 23rd century. We’ve never been told anything that would suggest that.” But people have been treated that as gospel.

I always thought there was at least an equal chance that the section 31 show would be set here in the 32nd century. Georgiou would leave Discovery to work with section 31 as she had in the past.

Well, we know that’s not the cast anymore.

The most obvious answer to the question is that she has returned to the 23rd century, as so many fans always assumed. And that’s a very likely scenario.

But is it the only possibility?

Carl said he was sending her to a time when the prime and mirror universes were aligned. We know they were closely aligned in the 22nd, 23rd and 24th centuries, and on into the 27th, that was the time of the last incursion.

So Goergiou could be going anywhere within that window.

Here’s a wild theory for you.

What if she’s going to the 24th, or early 25th century?

That’s the time where we first learned about section 31, in Deep Space Nine.

That’s where section 31 was used most effectively in story-telling.

This newly changed mirror Georgiou would fit in well with 24th-century section 31, and might even make them a little more moral than they are.

What if the setting of the Section 31 show is just after DS9, or more likely, around the time of Star Trek Picard?

I can see that making a lot of sense, and I’d definitely be up for that.

Here’s an even wilder theory. She has been sent back to the time of Enterprise, and she ends up being the founder of Section 31.

I really like what they’ve done with Georgiou’s character. I used to complain that she was not evil enough, given who she was. But now, I have a different perspective. I see now that her time in the prime timeline has gradually changed her. Made her better., And I love that. And I really like the person she has ended up being. I think the arc could have been done a little smoother. I think they were kinda making it up as they went, rather than planning it from day 1, which is a shame. These things always work better for me when they’re been planned in advance.

So .. I’m not totally ready for a Michelle Yeoh lead spin-off. My only concern about the show is how they’re going to treat section 31. I felt that Discovery season 2 kinda ruined section 31. They didn’t handle it well. Have they learned from this? Will the section 31 we see in the new show be more like the section 31 we saw in Deep Space Nine? I can only hope.

But I’m very eager to learn more about the show now. I’m especially keen to learn what the setting will be.

I’ll probably be disappointed if I learn it’s back in the 23red century. Strange New Worlds has that era covered.

And honestly, I’m not pinning to have Tyler back. I didn’t like this character in season 2, so I don’t think he needs to be part of the new show.

Time will tell.

We finally return to Discovery, to see what our other characters are up to.

Adira and Stamets are still trying to hack into the Kelpien ship’s sensors. But they’re having trouble.

Book turns up with a device that will help. It’s emerald chain technology.

So they finally check in with Vance, who is very concerned about using Chain technology on a Starfleet ship. It could be dangerous and Starfleet can’t afford to risk having their only ship with a spore drive compromised.

Book is absolutely convinced it is safe.

But I’m still concerned. They’re obviously setting something up here. I think it’ll become problematic in the next couple of episodes.

So this whole thing of Saru delaying his report on the Kelpien ship. I’m not fully following that.

Saru hasn’t seen another Kelpien in a long time, and this is a Kelpien ship.

But ….. So what?

It’s not like the Kelpiens are extinct. They’re a Federation member.

Kaminar is still out there.

I don’t quite understand Saru’s reason for not reporting the information to Vance as soon as he knew it. Did he think Vance would not want them to rescue it?

I just don’t get it.

I don’t know what the writers are getting at here.

Then we get another touching scene. It’s not quite a funeral, it’s just a little get -together to remember their friend who they’ll never see again.

It was a lovely scene.

And this ends the story of Phillipa Gaorgiou, closing a story that began with the first episode of season 1.

In a way, this two-parter has seemed a bit like a distraction from the greater season plot, but I’m totally cool with it. The character arcs are just as important to this season as the burn story is.

And I, for one, have really enjoyed Terra Firma Parts 1 and 2.

We’re getting close to the end now. Just 3 episodes to go.

Next week we’ll be talking about episode 11 “The Citadel.”

I’m excited to see what happens as the season’s plot arc goes into top gear.

It should be cool.

And I’ll be watching that episode on Christmas day. But I’ll be on holiday by then.I plan to get my podcast out Monday morning, Australian time, as always.

I’ve revamped the books page on my website, so if you’re interested in trying out some of my fiction, you can see it all nicely laid out at AdamDavidCollings.com/books

I’d encourage you to check it out.

Until I see you next, have a great week, Merry Christmas, live long and prosper.

Today we talk about the first part of Star Trek Discovery's first traditional two-parter. It's a character study of Georgiou and it takes us back to the mirror universe. Meanwhile, Stamets and Adira continue to uncover new information about the source of the burn.

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Transcript

Welcome to Nerd Heaven

I’m Adam David Collings, the author of Jewel of The Stars.

And I am a nerd.

This is episode 46 of the podcast. Today we’re talking about Star Trek Discovery Terra Firma Part 1.

But just before we launch into that, did you hear about all the new Star Wars shows that Disney+ just announced? They announced 7 new TV shows. Combined with The Mandalorian and Obi-Wan Kenobi, that’s a total of 9 shows.

We currently have 6 Star Trek shows either already on the air, or in various stages of pre-production.

That’s a whole lot of sci-fi entertainment. Now … if only we can get an official green light on the new Stargate show they have in the works. That would be awesome.

But as I said, today, we’re talking Star Trek.

The description on memory alpha reads

The USS Discovery crew journeys to a mysterious planet in hopes of finding a cure for Georgiou's deteriorating condition. Stamets and Adira make a stunning breakthrough with the newly acquired Burn data.

The teleplay for this episode was written by Alan McElroy based on a story by Bo Yeon Kim,  Erika Lippoldt & Alan McElroy

It was directed by Omar Madha

And it first aired on the 10th of December 2020.

Make it so.

This episode has a big Georgiou focus.We open with Culbert seeking advice from the Starfleet interrogator. The one that was questioning Georgiou a few episodes back. Apparently, the character’s name is Kovich, although I don’t think that’s ever been said out loud in-universe. A lot of people have been referring to him by the name of the actor playing him. A guy named David Cronenberg. He sounds like a big deal. I’m not familiar with him myself. I actually thought he reminded me a little of British actor Bill Nyee. Some people have even theorised that he’s section 31, which is a reasonable theory, but certainly not yet canonised.

Why Culbert goes to Kovich, I’m not sure. But it turns out, he has all the answers we’ve been looking for. It turns out to be a case of temporal displacement. Our molecules like to remain in the time they were created. But the whole crew have travelled 900 years into the future, and they’re all fine. But Georgiou not only travelled in time, she’s also from another universe. A universe which has been growing ever further apart from ours. Every molecule in her body is screaming to return home. So the hologram theory is out.

And then Kovich activates a holographic image of Lieutenant Commander Yor, a deceased time soldier from the Temporal War. And he’s wearing a Next Generation season 1 uniform, with the shoulder stripes. IT was delightful to see this nostalgic old uniform on Discovery. Do you notice that Discovery is paying a whole lot more respect to TNG than it ever did to TOS?

But I was all set to have a good old nitpick about this. You see, I’d seen images from an episode preview, that they show in America, which clearly showed Tor in this uniform, but with a Voyager-style com badge. That com badge didn’t come into effect until 2371, which would have been the 8th season of TNG. It was never worn with this particular uniform.

Now Kovich says something that can explain it shortly, which we’ll get to in just a sec.

But I noticed in my second watch of the episode, that they’ve edited it. They’ve put in the proper TNG com badge that matches this uniform. That must have been a digital effect. It’s a silly mistake that should never have been made, but I’m glad they sorted it out.

But Kovich explains that Tor is from the year 2379. Okay. So that means the Voyager com badge was correct, but the uniform was dead wrong. 2379, the year Star Trek Nemesis was set.

But then he says something that changes everything.Tor came from an alternate universe created by a temporal incursion caused by a Romulan mining ship.

Whoa.

So Tor is from the Kelvin universe. This is huge. This is the first outright acknowledgement of the Kelvin universe from the prime universe. This is also our first canon look at someone from the TNG era of the Kelvin universe. So apparently, over there, they didn’t change uniforms near as often as they did here in the prime. They skipped the TNG season 3 uniform, the Voyager/deep space nine uniform, and the First Contact uniform. This is really interesting.

So this also means that the Kelvin universe was involved in the temporal wars. Which kinda makes sense. That war was all about temporal incursions and creating new timelines. Although Enterprise used a different concept of time-travel than what Star Trek 2009 did, but let’s just leave that aside.

So yeah, wonderful to see that uniform, and fascinating to get a connection with the Kelvin timeline.

Sadly, things didn’t turn out well for poor old Tor. He ended up in so much pain the Federation petitioned for euthenasia. They couldn’t send him back to his own universe, because to do so would violate the temporal acords, which were taken very seriously.

That doesn’t bode well for Georgiou, because it means Starfleet won’t allow her to return home either.

Kovich doesn’t want Goergiou to know of her fate. A dying Terran’s instinct is to find a way to die in battle. Much like a Klingon. Nobody wants that loose on Discovery. He recommends sedation and locking her up.

But Culbert, the good doctor as ever, asks the computer to find another solution, combining all additional data that Discovery had, which obviously includes the sphere data.

And, much to Kovich’s surprise, it’s found another option.

Meanwhile, Gorgeous can’t even pick up a glass, because her hand goes straight through it.

I kinda like how Georgiou refers to Tilly as Saru’s walking command blunder, echoing what a lot of people have said, that her promotion makes no sense. Tilly is awesome, but she’s not ready for first officer yet.

The sphere data says the solution is on Dannus Five. A world near the border between the alpha and gamma quadrants. It’s still only a 5 percent chance for her, but better than zero.

I like the way Discovery has been using the sphere data this season. Remember back in Voyager ,when an alien entity put gigaquads of information about the universe into the ship’s computer, and it was never mentioned again? That was an absolute travesty. Discovery is still probably under-selling the usefulness of this data but it’s doing a significantly better job than Voyager did.

Saru is inclined to not ignore Goergiou’s plight. The Emerald Chain are conducting exercises near Federation space and Starfleet are on yellow alert.

But Vance is willing to authorise the mission on one condition. That Michael assures him she can let go of Georgiou when the time comes, because the odds are not good. She hesitated when she had to sacrifice Arium. Vance wants to know that she won’t hesitate again. And she gives him her word. This has got to be one of the hardest parts of being a starfleet officer. The willingness to sacrifice a life to save a crew. I don’t think I could handle being in a situation like that. I don’t think I have what it takes to make a tough call like that. Especially when it’s somebody you care about.

We see a very good conversation play out between Vance and Saru. Saru is trying really hard to be the good reliable captain. He doesn’t want to let Vance down. He wants to prove that he can be trusted to serve the needs of this new Starfleet. That’s why he was willing to sacrifice Georgiou and forgo the mission altogether.

Vance explosions a little of his backstory. He made a lot of mistakes over the course of his career. One thing he’s learned is that if a crewmember is drowning, and you let her, the crew will never look at their captain, or the Federation, the same way again. The hard pragmatic choice is not always the right one. You have to have heart and compassion. You have to treat your crew as people. Any captain needs a little bit of Kirk in him.

I love this scene. I’m loving Saru’s arc through this season as he learns to be a better captain. And I’m really liking Vance as a character more and more.

Georgiou’s vulnerability is really poking through the cracks of her bravado. We’re seeing past the tough emperor to the scared little girl inside her. She doesn’t see much hope for success in this plan. She wants an honourable death. She wants Michael to kill her.

But Michael’s having none of it.

This episode is really showing us what Michelle Yeoh can do as an actor.

We also get a little backstory about mirror Burnham. Apparently Georgiou picked her up from a rubbish heap.

We get a pretty heart-warming farewell to Georgious from both Saru and Tilly. Georgiou has come a long way so that she can look Saru in the eye and call him captain. When they first met, she saw him as nothing but dinner.

So they beam down to the planet. It’s a pretty icy place. And I love the visible rings in the sky. I doubt it’s scientifically accurate, but it looks awesome.

As much as I like their trek through the snow, why didn’t they beam directly to the coordinates? Why beam down close and then walk, following the tricorder’s directions?

Now we cut back to the overall season plot with the burn. Honestly, I was expecting this two-parter to be all about the burn. Learning what was in the centre of the nebula. I wasn’t expecting a character study of Georgiou, or a re-examination of the mirror universe, although, given the episode title, I probably should have connected Terra with the mirror universe.

Anyway, Adira is still trying to use the algorithm to decipher the starfleet distress call. Stammets notices that Adira is exhausted and has made a silly mistake, which has cost them hours of wasted effort. Adira is really frustrated by this. It’s the same old story. Starfleet officer becomes obsessed with a task and refuses to sleep. But in this case, we see realistic consequences. And I really like that.

As a computer programmer, I often make stupid mistakes like this which take hours to hunt down. And that’s when I’m not sleep-deprived. It happens.

Gray is still not speaking but Adira is apparently not angry, although facial expressions may suggest otherwise. Stammets points out that Gray wanted Adira to make more ties with the outside world. Friends. Maybe that’s why he’s hiding.

Adira makes a good point. “He doesn’t get to decide what’s good for me.”

It feels a bit manipulative, especially for the disembodied spirit of a dead person.

And the algorithm has finished.

While on his way to find out what Stammets and Adira have uncovered, Saru has a chat with Book.

Books wants in. He wants to help the crew of Discovery. But he wants to do it on his own terms. Saru isn’t interested in that. I’m not sure exactly what Saru is expecting. Putting on a Starfleet uniform and joining the crew perhaps? Which may require training at whatever the equivalent of Starfleet Academy is these days.

I think it’s going to take a while for Book to really find his place, and it’ll take a little bending on both sides.

It turns out, the ship stuck in the nebula is Kalpien. 

So a few years before the burn, their ship got stranded in the nebula. Another ship was coming to rescue them. The end of the message is sadly lost.

A lot of people were theorising that it was actually discovery in that nebula, trying to tie it into the short trek Calypso. That made a lot of sense, but I’m kinda glad that’s not where the show is taking us. That would have just been another case of “The red angel is actually michael.” I used to enjoy that trope, but it’s getting a bit old, to be honest. 

This Kelpien thing is interesting, because it’s an unexpected development. I’m keen to learn more about that happened, and what they may have had to do with the burn.

Gorgeou keeps comparing Michael to her mirror counterpart. The reason she picked Burnham from that rubbish pile was that she was the only one not begging for help. She was prepared to be her own salvation, and Georgiou respected that.

It’s interesting. Georgiou clearly had a desire to experience motherhood. So there was always some form of humanity in her. She probably wasn’t able to have children biologically. But her choice to pick someone from a rubbish heap is interesting.

She wasn’t there to do charity work. If she’d really cared about helping kids out of poverty, she’d have rescued the mall. She certainly had that within her power as emperor. But she ignored all the pleas and just took Michael.

But why not adopt some other way. I don’t think we have enough insight into her character to really understand this yet.

This is where things get … interesting.

They find a wooden door just sitting in the snow, and a man dressed in 1940s style clothes, smoking a cigar and sitting on a park bench reading a newspaper, which claims “Emperor Georgiou dies horribly painful death. The newspaper is called The Star Dispatch.

Who is this bloke? He offers Georgiou a doorway into her own past. Back into the mirror universe.

I can only assume he is a Q. This is totally their style.

The episode keeps the truth of this character pretty close to its chest. We will probably learn the truth next episode. I’ll probably be disappointed if it’s anything other than the Q. Because I can’t see anything else making sense.

Anyway, the guy calls himself Carl. He tells a few really punny dad jokes, and then makes it clear the door is for Georgiou to walk through.

He makes an interesting statement. The door doesn’t lead. It follows. Does that mean that Georgiou plays a big part in determining what she’ll experience? Her past in the mirror universe, and her relationship with mirror burnham are clearly on her mind, so it makes sense she’d lead the experience where it goes.

I tried to pause the episode and read some of the other headlines in the newspaper, but it was too blurry.

Michael wants answers, but Carl says the question needs to proceed. It’s dangerous to go the other way around. Now, apart from giving me some Hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy vibes, this suggests to me that Georgiou is not yet sure what exactly she’s seeking, or what question she needs to answer. She’s about to go on a journey of self-discovery.

Michael rather illogically wants to return to Discovery. This is what they came down for. This is what the sphere data lead them to.

So she steps through and finds herself in the mirror universe. Onboard the USS Discovery. Being welcomed by captain Killy.

This is actually the first time we’ve seen Mary Wiseman play Killy. We’ve seen prime Tilly try to impersonate Killy, but that’s all.

It takes Georgiou a moment to adapt to her settings, but she quickly realises she’s in the past. This is the day they christened the Charon. The day Lorca and Michael betrayed her.

Now I’ve been complaining a little bit that over seasons 2 and 3, Gorgeous just doesn’t seem evil enough. She’s the mirror universe emperor. She’s ruthless and cares nothing over taking lives. She eats Kelpiens.

But I’m seeing through this episode that they’re taking her character in a new way. They’re showing that her time in the prime universe has changed her. More than she had realised.

And that’s cool.

So they’ve actually won me over.

I mean, they could have done a better job of portraying her as a little more evil throughout season 2, but I’ll buy that he time in the prime universe has slowly made her a better person. I just felt like it happened too rapidly and suddenly.

But this episode is really highlighting how she’s changed. She misses her own Michael, regrets killing her. She tells Tilly she wants to bring Michael back into the fold.

But as we’ll soon learn, in Michael’s eyes, Georgiou was already becoming weak. Not as ruthless as a Terran emperor should be. Even before she met anyone from our universe, she was already softening. Initially, we saw her from the perspective of the prime characters, so she looked like a monster. But now, seeing her through mirror Michael’s eyes, she is an old softy. It’s fascinating. And it’s pretty well done.

This episode is also the first time we see mirror burnham. Sonequa Martin Green plays her wonderfully ruthless.

And it’s also an excuse to bring back Landry from season 1, played by BattleStar galactica’s Rekha Sharma.

Mirror brnham really hates Kelpiens. When she calls for Saru to be killed and cooked for dessert, Georgiou intervenes.

This is the moment we realise just how much Georgiou has changed. She can’t just sit by and watch while Saru, a man she seems to have come to respect, is treated like meat.

The Terrans have basically taken on the role of the Bau’ul in the mirror universe. They kill kepliens before they can finish going through vahari. That makes them much easier to enslave, obviously.

And Saru ends up being a useful source of intelligence for Gergiou.

But Georgiou has a problem. We’ve learned the reason Michael and Lorca tried to overthrow her was because of her weakness. But now, given the way she’s changed, she’s more weak, not less, (at least in the way that the mirror universe defines weakness)

Gorgeou keeps trying to drop hints about the importance of loyalty.

I think Michael knows she knows.

It turns out that mirror stamets was in league with Lorca and Michael. But Georgiou knows this. She kills Stamets, which is the first major change to history.

So we have to ask. Is she actually in the past, changing the timeline? Or is this all one big illusion, as the Q often like to play with? We won’t really know until next week.

Given how much ambition she’s supposed to have, I’m surprised Killy hasn’t tried to overthrow Georgiou. But she’s smart. She probably figures she can gain more power by siding with the emperor against Lora and Michael, cementing herself as a trusted captain.

Georgiou offers to let Michael live, if she’ll confess. This is why Michael tried to kill her in the first place. The weakness she has seen in her mother.

Gorgeous says don’t confuse weakness with growth. And this is actually how we’d see this from a prime universe perspective. We don’t see compassion as a weakness. We see it as a strength. A virtue. Something to be applauded.

Georgiou has learned that from us, but it’s a lesson that won’t serve her well in the mirror universe.

She’s not really sure what she’s supposed to be accomplishing here. But she’s been given a chance to go back and do things differently. And she’s taking it.

And now we get to understand Michael’s adoption from her own perspective. She was a master of that rubbish heap. But now, she’s forever in her mother’s shadow. Lorca loves her for her.

But, of course, he doesn’t. She’s just a tool to get at Georgiou.

When goaded into executing Michael, Georgiou can’t do it. She spares her daughter. As of this moment, their future is unwritten.

I think Owo is unconvinced. She may be the next one to turn.

I spent the whole second half of this episode waiting to see if Jason Isaacs would return as Lorca. I really expected to see him in the last few minutes. But that didn’t happen.

So what do you think? Will he turn up part 2?

This was not what I was expecting from Discovery’s first traditional two-parter. I really didn’t think we’d ever be going back to the mirror universe. But I enjoyed it. It was kinda cool to see it again and to get to see some of the characters we’ve heard about but have never seen. 

I think in a lot of ways, this episode is setting up Georgiou to be ready to helm the section 31 series. Making her a better person, so she can believably be the hero that we root for.

 A lot of people have been assuming she has to go back to the 23rd century because they assume that’s when the show will be set. But I’ve never been convinced of that. I mean, the reason they brought Discovery into the future was so that the show didn’t have to trample all over TOS canon. If they go back and do section 31 in that time, it kinda defeats the purpose.

I know Strange New Worlds will be set in that time, but its exploration focus will make it a lot more insular. It’ll be less likely to stomp all over canon.

I have mixed feelings about the section 31 show. I love Georgiou, and I love section 31, but I’m not a fan of what discovery did with the organisation in season 2. So I suppose I should clarify that I love section 31 as it was portrayed in Deep Space Nine. Can this show redeem what discovery season 2 did? Maybe. We’ll see.

Anyway, I’m really looking forward to next week. It should be fun to see how things are going to be resolved.

Next week, of course, we’ll be talking about Terra Firma Part 2.

We’re getting close to the end of the season. It’ll all be finished in early January. 

I’m looking forward to the Christmas holidays. It’s been a long year and I’m exhausted. I’m gonna have 3 weeks off work, which will be nice, and should allow me some time to catch up with my writing. At present, this podcast basically takes up all of my creative time and energy. And I really need to get Jewel of The Stars book 3 out soon.

Speaking of which you can grab book 1 for just 99 cents at books2read.com/jewel.

It’s basically Star Trek but on a cruise ship.

Well, I’m tired and I can’t think of anything else to say, other than

Live long and prosper.

Make it so.

This episode 8 of Star Trek Discovery Season 3, Book is called back to his home planet Kwejian. Osyraa, leader of the Emerald Chain wants Ryn the Andorian back, and she'll do anything to get her hands on him.

There were a lot of different strands running through this episode, so let's dive in and see what we can find in "The Sanctuary".

Get my Sci-fi Christmas Short story "The Christmas Star Disaster" for 99 cents at https://books2read.com/christmasstar

Get the prequel to Jewel of The Stars free at http://www.adamdavidcollings.com/free

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Welcome to Nerd Heaven

I’m Adam David Collings, the author of Jewel of The Stars

And I am a nerd.

This is episode 45 of the Podcast.

And this is also the one year anniversary of Nerd Heaven.

The first episode went live on the 6th of December 2019. In that episode, I talked about the Star Trek: The Next Generation Episode “Best of Both Worlds.” as part of my ‘what should you watch before Star Trek Picard’ series.

I can’t believe it’s been a whole year. 

During this first year, we’ve covered the entire first season of Star Trek Picard, we’ve talked about the DC Extended Universe movies, from Man of Steel up to Shazam, we’ve occasionally dipped into Middle Earth for my Lord of The Rings Read, Walk and Watch series, and a few other little bits and pieces.

It’s been quite a ride so far. And there’s plenty more to come. After we’re done with Star Trek Discovery season 3, I’m very excited to launch into our analysis of Stargate Universe.

So thank you to everyone who has listened to Nerd Heaven at any point during the last year. I appreciate the support, and I hope you’ve enjoyed my musings.

But today, we’re talking about Star Trek Discovery Season 3 Episode 8 “The Sanctuary.”

The description on Memory Alpha reads

“Burnham and the USS Discovery crew travel to Book’s home planet to help rescue it from Osyraa, the formidable leader of the Emerald Chain. Meanwhile, Stamets and Adira continue their search for valuable information on the origin of the Burn.”

The episode was written by Kenneth Lin & Brandon A. Schultz

It was directed by Jonathan Frankes

And it first aired on the 3rd of December 2020.

This episode has a lot of strands. There’s the main A plot involving Book’s planet, along with character pieces for a number of characters, and the continued investigation into the cause of the burn. Usually, I really like episodes like that, but in this case, I feel like the A  plot may not have been developed enough.

Georgiou is in sickbay getting checked out for her weird episodes, but she’s not cooperating. She outright says to Doctor Culbert, “I don’t need your help.”

It makes me wonder why she’s here in the first place. Was she ordered to report to sickbay? Until now, only Michael knew of the severity of Georgiou’s condition. It’s all a bit confusing.

She’s trying to hide from her own fear of this problem by falling back on her Emperor Georgiou pattern. Making vague threats against Culbert, as if she were still in the mirror universe, and he was a subject that had displeased him. She’ll continue to do this throughout the whole episode.

Sometimes it feels like a bit much.

Culbert can see right through her. He knows she’s terrified. 

Culbert manages to convince her to accept some help by describing how brain dysfunction will progress over time, but her outward attitude hasn’t changed. Her fake bravado is as see-through as my windows. But, I guess she can’t help but maintain it. She’s Emperor Georgiou.

Book’s home planet is called Kwejian. And he’s frantic about having to return there. His brother Kyheem has sent him a message through the courier network. And he wants Michael to go with him. He doesn’t know what’s going on. He doesn’t know why he needs to return home. He only knows it somehow involves Osyrra and the Emerald Chain. So it must have been a pretty vague message. But he hasn’t heard from his brother in 15 years, so he assumes it’s bad.

Apparently, there are transwarp tunnels around the galaxy, but using them is very dangerous. We’re not told why. This is something that needs to be explored more fully.

The first time I watched this episode, I had trouble following this particular plotline. The details came in so fast and frantic I just couldn’t take it all in.

So, the burn caused a shift in the orbit on Kwejian’s moon. This caused sea locusts to come out of the ocean and eat all their harvest. So the people were starving. I guess Kwjian is an agrarian world with little technology. I mean, you’d think they could plant crops further from the ocean. They have an entire planet, after all.

Anyway, they couldn’t solve this problem on their own, for whatever reason, so the Emerald Chain came along and promised to help. They had a humane way to send the locusts back into the sea. In exchange, the people of Kwejin had to give Osyrra their trance worms. (the same worms that Book has made a career of recovering and returning home)

This seems to be the way the chain operates.  They make reckless contact with pre-warp civilisations that have something they want. Vance is aware of 50 other systems in the same predicament. Vance doesn’t have enough ships to help them all and he doesn’t want to risk the spore drive on this.

These episodes all seem to fall into the same pattern lately. Michael goes to Vance with a mission she has some personal stake in. He refuses. Then Saru says something diplomatic and he agrees.

It hasn’t bothered me until now, but this time, it’s starting to feel a little repetitive. 

We check back in with Tolor, Osyraa’s nephew. And we get a glimpse of a Star Trek Picard era combadge. It has no meaning to the scene whatsoever, but, I’m a sucker for a familiar com badge, so … cool, I guess.

And we finally get to see Osyraa for the first time. She is played suitably menacingly by Janet Kidder, who interestingly, is the niece of the late Margot Kidder, famous for playing Lois Lane opposite Christopher Reeve. So that’s cool.

Osyraa is ticked off that Tolor lost Ryn. Which kinda surprises him. To Tolor, Ryn was just a nameless Andorian slave. But Osyraa has a very special interest in him.

The episode doesn’t outright say it, but we get the impression Osyraa killed her brother, Tolor’s father, in order to take control of the Emerald Chain. So it comes as no surprise that she’s willing to kill Tolor for his failure. She uses the tranceworms for overly dramatic executions. Apparently, they’re so-named because they mesmerise their prey before eating them. She promises he won’t feel a thing, but his screams suggest a different story.

Tilly is settling into her job as acting first officer. Saru is trying to come up with a catch-phrase to instruct the crew to carry out their orders.

He says that “hit it” was Captain Pike’s.

Well, .. Star Trek 2009 had him saying “punch it” and Discovery had him saying “hit it.”

But if you look back at The Cage, Captain Pike was actually the first to say “Engage.”

The current Star Trek writers seem to associate this word solely with Picard. But, “Engage” is not really a personal catchphrase. That’s the order captain’s give when they want to go to warp. Pike said it, Picard said it, and I’m sure Janeway and Sisko at least said it occasionally.

Now, Picard DID have a catch-phrase of his own. “Make it so.” That was used in a different context. He said that when he wanted his subordinates to carry out their orders.

This episode seems to be confusing those two concepts together.

I guess it mildly amusing at times, but I found it all a little too meta for my liking.

So while Michael is distracted helping Book, Stamets and Adira have solved the mystery of the burn’s origin. It started in the Verubin Nebula.

Apparently, combining the SP-19 data with the black boxes has revealed this. But … the Vulcan representative last week said that the SP-19 data conclusively proved that the burn started at Ni’var.

This episode doesn’t address that. It doesn’t even mention it. They need to deal with this, or it becomes a massive plot hole. Somehow, I don’t think they’ll address it, sadly.

And there’s a transmission coming from that nebula. It’s the song everyone has been hearing. Interesting.

Apparently, Saru listens with his eyes, because as he’s intently listening to the music, his pupils dilate.

He can hear something else coming from the nebula, in addition to the music. A federation distress signal.

Apparently, there is a third message as well, which Adira can decode by writing an algorithm.

Stamets volunteers her.

And Adira tells him that she would prefer to be addressed as “they” rather than “she”.

So I’ll follow the episode’s lead and refer to the character this way from now on.

Book explains that Kyheem is not his biological brother. “Brother is something we said, we felt,” he says. I’m really not sure what he means by this, but it appears to me that perhaps the two of them are maybe in a religious order or some sort together. Maybe not quite religious. It’s not well explained, but we’ll get to that later in the episode.

But their relationship was damaged when Kyheem started hunting tranceworms for the chains, which obviously would have put them at odds.

It seems the nacelles aren't always detached. They can join and separate. They attach during spore jump and then detach after they arrive.

Apparently, Discovery has a music room. Which makes sense. IT would be one of many recreation areas on the ship. I kinda like that there’s a place where the crew can just go and jam together.

Adira reveals to Stamets that Gray is not talking to them anymore. No idea why. This is interesting. We still don’t really understand what caused Gray to manifest like that in the first place, so understanding why it’s no longer happening will be difficult. But it’s clearly got Adira upset. Which is understandable.

But on top of that, Adira is really struggling with being joined and having all these memories of previous hosts. Ezri Dax went through a similar thing after she was joined. Waking up and not knowing who she was. In Ezri’s case, she wasn’t prepared for it. 

Adira didn’t have any training either. The Trill offered it but they turned it down. 

Stamets can’t really solve that problem, but he can spend time with Adira. So they play some music together. Apparently, Stammets can play piano. It’s a nice little scene.

So Ryn is recovered from his injuries, and is still onboard Discovery. I like when Tilly corrects his attitude and makes him show a little more respect for Saru’s rank. He wants to get off the ship.

He says something very interesting. “Federation help always comes with strings.”

Tilly is very quick to say “No it doesn’t.”

But, of course, she only knows so much about the Federation of the 32nd century. Ryn is not the only character in this episode to express similar sentiments. So why does the Federation have this reputation, and is it in any way justified?

Saru is happy for Ryn to beam down to Kwejian, if that is his wish, but it may be a dangerous thing to do, given that Osyraa’s ship will be here in 15 minutes.

And again, Ryn thinks the worst when Saruy says “however,” but he’s only looking out for Ryn’s interests.

The sea locusts are interesting. They float in the air with bladders like hot air balloons. It’s funny. I recently watched the first episode of a documentary on Netflix called Alien Worlds. The show uses a lot of imagination to speculate, based on observations of life on earth, what life on other planets might be like. There was a species in that first episode very much like these sea locusts. Of course, they were predators, whereas the sea locusts are herbivores. That’s the problem. They’re feeding on the people’s crops.

Given how many locusts there are, so far inland, the planet has apparently not had any repellent for weeks.

Book can talk to them using his super nature powers. To be honest, I’d almost forgotten he had that ability. He seems to have a way to commune with other lifeforms. He can ask them to go, but it’s up to them if they agree.

These do, and they float away. But trying to convince all of them to retreat, on a planetary scale, is something that has eluded Kewjian’s scientists.

Book and Michael are in an area called the sanctuary. Not sure why. But it’s protected by a field that prevents sensors or transporters. So they’re completely on their own.

Kyheem arrives with armed guards. He doesn’t look very welcoming of his brother, who he calls Tareckx. Apparently, Book changed his name at some point. So they’re led away at gunpoint.

Georgiou goes into sickbay for a scan. She seems a little more cooperative now. Both Culbert and Pollard are working on her. I really wish they’d just tell us who the chief medical officer on this blooming ship is. It’s so frustrating.

Anyway, Georgiou has one of her episodes while they’re scanning her, and everything goes a bit weird. The two doctors are pretty freaked out. And Georgiou’s face kind of… turns into a rough polygon model, like an early 90s computer game. My wife had a theory, that after her interrogation a few episodes back, Georgiou was replaced with a hologram. This visual effect would seem to be evidence for that theory, but it would have to be an insanely sophisticated hologram. One that could fool all the sensors on Discovery into thinking she was human. But .. this is the 32nd century.

I dunno.

But it seems that having an episode while in the scan is endangering her life. Pollard wants to stop but Culbert wants the data so they can diagnose her condition.

It’s an ethical dilemma that is not explored at all. Which is a pity.

But she wakes up and pulls out of the scan herself.

So …. Was the scan completed or not? The episode doesn’t make that clear.

But when Georgiou hacks into her medical records, she comes to the conclusion that she is dying. Culbert says it’s not that simple, we don’t hear anything more that is said between them.

So Kyheem’s job, officially, is to protect the tranceworms. But he’s doing the opposite.  And there’s a lot of bad blood between him and Book. Book left once his family started working with the Emerald Chain.

So the reason Kyheem called Book here is that Osyraa wants Ryn. She’s stopped repelling the locusts and will only resume when they have over Ryn.

Saru notes the irony that the Orions are now enslaving so many people, given that many of them, particularly their females, were sold as slaves in the past. In reality, slavery is nothing new to the Orion people.

I like the actor that plays Kyheem. He does a great job. I’m not an acting expert, so I don’t think I can elaborate on that in any more detail, but I like his performance.

Osyraa wants to swap Book for Ryn, but Kyheem is hesitant to hand him over. So Osyraa threatens famine and starts shooting. Seriously, doesn’t this planet have replicators? And if they’re a pre-warp civilisation, how did Book leave? Where did he get his ship? Book IS human, more or less. He said so in episode 1. That makes me think this is a colony world.

At first I thought Osyraa was shooting up their crops, but it seems she is shooting the defense shield so she can beam Book up. But then, that will allow Discovery to beam him up too.

It’s all a bit confusing.

Saru wants to know why Ryn is so important to Osyraa. But he refuses to answer. Until later in the episode when he’ll randomly decide to tell Tilly for no reason.

Saru is in a difficult situation. He’s under orders not to get into a shooting war with the Emerald Chain. Such an act will have repercussions for the entire Federation. But what choice does he have? Until Tilly comes up with an alternative. Fire on her from Book’s ship. Pretend it is under control of a pilot gone rogue, who will be severely punished.

AT first, I thought she was suggesting herself, but then it becomes clear she’s setting up poor Detmer. That seems a pretty harsh thing to put Detmer through. It could be damaging to her career because you can bet Vance will want to know who fired.

Anyway, she gets to show off her piloting skills in a pretty impressive space battle, with a little help from Ryn. I think this will go a long way to helping her regain her confidence, as she proves to herself what she can do.

Detmer is now officially a character now, rather than just set dressing. It’s only taken two seasons. I’m really liking what they’re letting her do this season.

She’s successful. She damages Osyraa’s ship enough that Osytraa leaves the system.

But she clearly blames the Federation for this, so did they really achieve anything by using Book’s ship instead of Discovery? I don’t think that makes a difference at all.

Osyraa vows that the Federation will feel the full weight of the chain. And that’s worrying.

Kyheem just couldn’t bring himself to hand over his brother, after a great hand-to-hand fight scene. Now that Osyraa is gone, he faces the fact that his people will starve.

But Michael has a plan. Both Book and Kyheem have super magic nature powers. They’ll work together to ask as many locusts as possible to retreat to the ocean. And Discovery will use technobabble to amplify the signal across the whole planet.

There is definitely something that feels religious about their powers. The brothers use ritualised moments and chant in an alien language, using words like sacred and harmony. As they do this, their foreheads glow with some kind of glyph.

Tilly has a chat with Ryn. He’s worried about Osyraa’s retaliation. All his life, growing up, he was taught about how deceitful the Federation was. They were the boogeyman they scared their kids with.

So now, is when Ryn decides to reveal his secret. The one he told Saru that he couldn’t share. No idea why he couldn’t share, and no idea why he suddenly can now.

The emerald chain are running out of dilithium. I’m not sure why this should be a big secret. Dilithium is scarce. Everyone is running out.

Also, apparently, Ryn is the only one who knows. That’s why Osyraa wanted him back, so he wouldn’t tell anybody.

Which makes no sense.

The minute Ryn escaped on a Federation starship, Osyraa should have considered this information compromised. 

Book admits to Kyheem that although Kwejian is home, Discovery, and Starfleet, are where differences are being made, and he’s liking being around them, which definitely gets Michael to perk her ears up.

He says there’s a story about why he calls himself Book. A story he doesn’t want to tell right now. Okay.

Anyway, he was serious about the Federation. He wants in. What that means exactly, I’m not sure. Is he wanting to join Starfleet? OR just stick around and help them as a civilian advisor? I guess next week will reveal that.

So that was The Sanctuary. There were a lot of parts I liked about it, but much of it didn’t hold well together for me. But it plays well into the larger story, so as always, it’ll be interesting to see where it’s all leading.

I’m especially looking forward to them digging deeper into the burn, now they know where it originated.

Next week’s episode is called Terra Firma Part 1. In this serialised age of story-telling, it’s not often that a show does a traditional two-parter, but I guess the next two episodes will be even more connected than usual.  It should be exciting.

Thanks again for sticking with Nerd Heaven over the last year. Have a piece of cake. Calories don’t count at a birthday party, right?

Don’t forget you can get my sci-fi Christmas short story, The Christmas Star Disaster on all the major ebook retailers for just 99 cents. And you can get the prequel to my Jewel of The Stars series, Fall of The HMAS Adelaide, for free, by signing up to my email list at adamdavidcollings.com/free

Have a great week.

Live long and prosper.

Make it so.

And happy birthday

In Unification III, Star Trek Discovery gives us a conclusion to the classic beloved Next Generation Story. But can this episode possibly live up to its name? Michael Burnham travels to Ni'Var (formerly Vulcan) where the Vulcan and Romulan people live in peace, thanks to the efforts of her brother Spock. Can she convince them to provide the data that could help understand the source of the burn?

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Welcome to Nerd Heaven.

I’m Adam David Collings, the author of Jewel of The Stars

And I am a nerd.

This is episode 44 of the podcast.

Today, we’re talking about Star Trek Discovery Season 3 Episode 7. Unification III.

The description on Memory Alpha reads

While grappling with the fallout of her recent actions, and what her future might hold, Burnham agrees to represent the Federation in an intense debate about the release of politically sensitive – but highly valuable – Burn data.

The episode was written by Kirsten Beyer

It was Directed by Jon Dudkowski

And it first aired on the 26th of November 2020.

So this is the big one we’ve all been waiting for, ever since the episode titles were released a while back.

Here’s an important guideline for life. If you’re going to name an episode after one of the most beloved and iconic episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, one that brought Spock himself into the 24th century, you had better make sure the episode lives up to the name.

So...did this episode do that? Let’s talk about it and find out.

In the wake of her demotion from first officer last week, this episode opens with Michael struggling to understand whether she still fits in here. I was talking about this last week. Wondering how much longer Michael is gonna stay in that uniform. She’s asking herself the same question. She believes in the ideals of the Federation, no question. But struggles with the chain of command. She’s the kind of person who wants to get things done. She sees something that needs doing, she’s just gotta do it. Regardless of who tells her not to.

But there’s another aspect to it as well. As much as she wants to be with her family on Discovery, she’s grown close to Book, and she wants to be with him too. He has no interest in joining Starfleet. She’s caught between two worlds who don’t want to collide.

I like how this season is continuing to call out Burnham on her need to take responsibility for everything. They’re kind of portraying it as a character flaw. I’d say this does help to alleviate the whole “everything is about Michael Burnham” problem that the show will probably always suffer from.

So Michael and Tilly have an awkward catch-up. It’s a good scene. It gives some character consequence to the events of the previous episode. Nothing is really resolved, because sometimes things can’t be easily resolved, and Michael has a lot of soul-searching to do at the moment, so Tilly takes them back to the task at hand.

With three black boxes, they have proven that the burn had an origin point. But it’s still not enough data points to fully pinpoint the location. Tilly says the three data points would be enough to triangulate in two dimensions, but in three-dimensional space, they’d need more. I found myself wondering if this was just nonsense, or based on real science. I did a quick look, and according to Wikipedia, Triangulations of a three-dimensional volume would involve subdividing it into tetrahedra (which are triangular pyramids) packed together. So Tilly is actually correct. But the big question remains if Michael is senior science officer, how come she doesn’t know basic geometry? The answer to that, is they need to explain things to the audience. It’s basically a glorified “as you know Bob” conversation.

And we learn the name of the first ship, whose black box Michael got her hands on. The USS Yelchin. This, of course, is a nice tribute to Anton Yelchin, the actor who played Checkov in the Kelvin-verse movies. Who was tragically killed way too young. I appreciate these little moments.

Michael has found a record of an old Federation experiment, SP-19, which had a front-row seat to the burn. They must have valuable information, but they never shared their findings.

Admiral Vance says we don’t have access to their information, because it’s on Ni’Var, a planet that was once called Vulcan.

And this is the part of the episode where we get lots of goosebumps. It turns out, it’s not just the Vulcans who live there now. They share their planet with the Romulans.

Saru and Burnham have heard of the Romulans, but know of them only as the enemy who fought a war with Earth in the 22nd century. Vance quickly breaks the news to them that Romulans and Vulcans were two tribes of the same species that went their separate ways. Correct. Discovery came from a time before Balance of Terror, so they shouldn’t know this.

But Burnham’s ears perk up when Vance mentions that Ambassador Spock helped bring them back together.

Sonequa Martin-Green’s facial expressions during this scene are fantastic. Once again, I’m in awe of this thing called acting. Michael has deliberately not looked her brother up to see what kind of man he became. I’m not entirely sure why.

But now she’s learning just what a legend he was.

There’s so much packed into these couple of sentences.

Burnham is shocked to learn just how instrumental to history her little brother was, but then her face turns to joy as she realises, and we realise, that Spock was ultimately successful. It took centuries after his death, but the Romulan and Vulcan people eventually re-unified.

This made me very emotional.

We all remember that scene at the end of Unification, where Spock talks about the growing awakening he’s seeing in the Romulan people. “It may take them centuries to achieve it, but they will achieve it. And I must help.”

This actually ties nicely into Star Trek 2009 and Star Trek Picard. Spock helped get the ball rolling, some of the enmity between the Romulans and the Federation faded as they worked as allies during the Dominion War. Then Romulus was destroyed, and the Romulan people became refugees. They had no home. Where else, logically, would they end up, but on their ancestral home with their genetic cousins.

I’m thrilled that Star Trek has now canonised the fact that re-unification was successful. Spock’s dream has been realised. He never lived to see it, but his sister did. And that’s just so heartwarming. I love it.

But it’s not all roses. Ni’var left the Federation over 100 years ago. It seems there’s still a little work to be done.

Okay. So even before the burn, The federation was running out of Dilithium. And that makes sense to me. It’s a finite resource. You may have many planets to draw on, but you also have many many ships using it. SP-19 was Ni’Var’s contribution to solving the problem. An alternative propulsion system that would allow instantaneous travel, much like the spore drive. Yes. Good. This is the far future. They should have been developing stuff like this.

But they felt their technology was too dangerous, but it was so promising, the Federation ordered them to continue. They believe the Federation forced them to cause the burn.

Wow. That’s an interesting development.

This is one of those many theories Vance said are floating around.

But Michael quickly jumps on this. She has proof the origin point of the burn was not Ni’var. They would want to know this. It could not only alleviate all their feelings of guilt, but rebuild the relationship between Ni’var and the Federation. Vance doesn’t think any evidence will convince the Vulcans and Romulans, but then he gets this little smile as he realises he has Spock’s sister.

If she comes bearing that news, they might just listen.

And that’s when we get another really touching scene. Michael views a holographic recording of Spock during the events of Unification. It was recovered from the files of Admiral Jean-Luc Picard.

Now you might ask, was Picard actually filming this encounter that happened in a cave under Romulus? Where did this footage come from? Actually, I think it’s conceivable that Picard did make a record of all this for Starfleet. He wasn’t holding a camcorder, but maybe his com badge was able to record it. Or maybe Data was standing just off-screen with a tricorder. Who knows. But I’m more than willing to suspect a little disbelief on that because it’s just so touching to see Michael watching this.

I was kinda hoping for a scene just like this, actually. They even picked the exact clip that I would have picked. 

I find myself having the exact same emotional reaction to Burnham during all this. Kinda half crying, half smiling. Michael is so proud to see what became of Spock. When she last saw him, he was just a junior science officer on the Enterprise. A man full of internal conflict. He was nothing special. Except to her. He hadn’t yet become the legend we know him as.

This is just so satisfying to see.

One of the first things that I thought about, when we learned Discovery was going to the far future, was “I wonder if Michael will look up her brother and see what he became.”

I like how Book is just standing with her as she watches the recording. He knows how important this is to her. It speaks volumes of their relationship that she chose to watch this in his presence.

And I laughed when he said “You guys are chronic over-achievers.”

I’m really liking the Michael/book relationship. So much more that I ever liked her with Tyler.

This is not the kind of shallow relationship you often see on TV, that is based on nothing but sex appeal. This is a bond formed over a year of friendship. That’s the foundation great relationships are often built on. I can see these two spending their lives together. I could never see that with Tyler.

Now the episode introduces an interesting subplot. Saru asks Tilly to be his acting first officer while he decides on Michael’s permanent replacement.

I have mixed feelings about this.

Tilly is shocked. I love how she says “Sir…...what?”  She didn’t even complete the command training program.

But she’s had enough real-world experience that Saru thinks she’s already exceeded the parameters of that training. Possibly true.

But she’s just an ensign. Only a year out of graduating. She was a cadet in season 1.

And this is my big issue with it. It kinda reminds me of Star Trek 2009, when Kirk went straight from cadet to Captain. No Ensign, Lieutenant, Commander. It’s like going from kindergarten straight to university. This isn’t as extreme as that, thankfully, but it still feels like an unnatural jump.

Don’t get me wrong. I love Tilly’s ambition to be a captain. And I absolutely want to see her get there.

But it’s a process. She needs to work her way up there.

I think Saru should at least be offering her a promotion to Lieutenant along with the job (which frankly she has probably earned at this point.) It would be a weird situation. Almost the entire crew would outrank their first officer. There’s a difference between position and rank, but the first officer of a ship usually holds the rank of commander, and is outranked only by the captain.

But rank aside, Tilly is also concerned because she would be responsible for a lot of lives. And that makes good sense. I like this. The feeling of inadequacy, when responsibility is offered to us, is a very common human reaction.

Saru is right about one thing. Unlike Michael, he knows Tilly will always put the needs of Starfleet and the Federation above her own wishes.

And then Tilly asks another very good question. “Are you asking because I’m qualified or because I’m compliant?” I like that. She’s concerned Saru just wants her to be a puppet.

But he believes this is in the best interest of the crew.

And Saru wisely sees she needs a day to think about it.

When Tilly talks to Stamets about it later, he is kinda weirded out. He admits the notion of her being his superior, of him taking orders from her, is deeply deeply weird. Almost disturbing.

I’m pretty sure that statement was going to be followed by a “but” but he never gets it out because he’s interrupted by something.

So they jump to Ni’var. And Statements gets to use the new Gel interface for the first time.

When we see discovery emerging from the shield that hides Starfleet headquarters, I thought this was a new spore jump effect. It seemed a disappointment. Then I realised my mistake. The jump looks basically the same, but it is faster. They don’t sit there for ages spinning the saucer. Makes sense. Same technology, but with a 32nd century upgrade.

They meet the president of Ni’var. She is honoured to meet the daughter of Sarak and the sister of Spock. But she makes it very clear right from the start, that there is no chance of sharing the SP-19 data.

She explains the delicate political and cultural balance that exists in this post-unification world. The burn only made that more delicate and digging into this stuff could reopen old wounds.

We don’t fully appreciate what she’s trying to tell us here, but we’ll gain more insight as the episode progresses.

So Michael, in a last-ditch effort, she invokes an ancient vulcan custom that will allow her to un-earth deep truths. She forced the president’s hand. A little more of her impulsive and insubordinate nature coming out. But Saru is willing to go along with this.

We see that Discovery has now been upgraded with 32nd century transporters. So the old pre-tos effect will no longer be seen.

This ceremony is kind of like a trial. It’s Burnham’s assertions that are on trial. She gets an advocate. But only members of the Quowat Milat may serve as advocates. So that’s a connection to Star Trek Picard. This order of Romulan warrior nuns were first introduced into Star Trek canon by Picard season 1. Apparently, they were instrumental in helping the Romulans and Vulcans trust echo there during the early days of reunification. Which makes a lot of sense to me.

This episode really is bringing a lot of things together. I like that.

As soon as the president says one of the Qowat Milat sisters has taken a particular interest in Burnham’s case, we know it’s likely somebody we will recognise. When she says Michael may have an interest in her as well, it’s all but confirmed.

And then when she beams aboard with a hood over her face, we know they’re setting us up for a reveal.

So who is it?

It’s Gabrielle Burnham. Michael’s mother. That’s an unexpected development.

Gabrielle never made it to terralysium. She arrived in the future on Essof IV. That’s the planet where they captured the red angel. So she travelled in time but not space. (and yes, I know, galactic drift.)

But that still doesn’t explain why Michael and Discovery ended up on that random planet when they got here. I wonder if we’ll ever get an explanation for that.

We learn that even within Starfleet, it is not widely known that Discovery is from the past. Given the temporal accords, it could be a controversy that Vance doesn’t need. Interestingly, this also helps to explain the A designator on Discovery, even though it’s just a refit and not a new ship. They’re portraying the illusion that it is a new ship.

Okay. I’m with that now.

The quorum is made up of a Romulan, a Vulcan purist, and a half Romulan half Vulcan.

Michael assumes the Vulcan purist will be the one they need to appeal to. He’ll listen to logic.

Surprisingly, he is the most hostile to her cause. And it’s the Romulan who is most sympathetic.

From his perspective, carrying the weight of guilt for the burn has been a hard thing for the Romulan people. They would welcome evidence that they are not responsible.

There’s a big question of who’s interests Michael is representing. Her own, or those of the Federation. Her mother feels she needs to be truthful with them about her feelings of misgiving concerning remaining on Discovery. She also points out the quorum are not the only audience in the room. That’ll be important later.

The Vulcan representative says that the SB-19 data conclusively proves that the burn started at Ni’var. So I’m very curious to know the specifics of that data. If Vulcans, who are purely logical, are that convinced of its accuracy, it’s going to be very difficult to disprove. Is it possible they are right?

So then Michael’s Mum, who is supposed to be her advocate, rips into her really bad. Attacking her position and everything she’s saying. Michael won’t be honest about her misgivings, so Gabrielle makes them public for her.

This leads to a great scene where Michael is finally honest and shares her heart with everyone in the room. I don’t have much to say about it, other than it’s great stuff.

A lot of this becomes more about Michael’s dilemma and less about the SP-19 data. It’s a time of reconciliation between mother and daughter.

This is when everything starts to fall apart. The Vulcan is as determined as ever to keep the information secret. But the Romulan advocates are seriously considering sharing. And we begin to see the tenuous fabric of re-unification falling apart. The Romulans are openly opposing the Vulcans.

The peace, so hard-fought by Spock, and others is breaking apart.

This is what the president was afraid of. All those old feelings are coming to the surface and it’s threatening to put a rift between the Vulcans and the Romulans.

Michael points out this is the last thing her brother would have wanted. If they truly honour Spock’s memory, they can’t tear their family apart again.

And so, Micahael withdraws her request. It turns out that unification is more important to her than the data. She demonstrates the purity of her motives to everyone in that moment.

This all works beautifully on so many levels. 

Michaels helps to recement the relationship between Romulus and Vulcan. In a way, she does help to finish the work that Spock started.

And by helping to re-connect, in a small way, Ni’var with the Federation, she is still doing the work of reunification.

But, there was another audience in that room. The president. And she decided to trust Michael with the data.

There’s a touching moment between Gabrielle and Michael. “You always know where to find me. For the first time since Michael was a little girl, she has her mother. They may not be living close to one another, but she’ll always be here on Ni’Var if Michael needs her.

And that’s wonderful.

So then we get the scene where most of the crewmembers that Yilly all know tell her to accept the job as first officer.

As Stamets says “We know you, and knowing you, we’d follow you anywhere. Saru made the right choice.”

It’s very touching.

It gets even more touching when Micahel tells Tilly that she’s not leaving Discovery. She’s here for the duration. So Michael has made a firm commitment.

And Tilly’s first order is for Michael to analyse the SP-19 data, solve the mystery of the burn and rebuild the federation.

She doesn’t even have to tell Book she’s not leaving Discovery. He knows. So what does this mean for them? They’re not sure yet. But I have no doubt he’s gonna stay close. They each feel like home to one another.

So that brings me back to my original question. Does this episode live up to its name? Is it worthy to be called Unification III?

Well, after thinking about it for a while, I have to say yes. This episode pays homage to Unification in a profound way. It shows the end result of Spock’s work. It demonstrates that his greatest hopes and dreams for the Vulcan and Romulan people have been realised.

But this episode pays homage in a way that feels natural and not forced or overly fan-service-ey.

This is more than just a nostalgic callback to Unification. It’s also its own thing. It’s very much its own story.

So I say a hearty well done to Kirsten Beyer and all those involved in the making of this episode.

I think it’s a triumph.

It certainly made me feel, which is the goal of any story.

I think Unification III will be remembered among the classic episodes of Star Trek.

We’ve now passed the halfway mark of season 3. I wonder what the rest of the season will bring. It’ll be interesting to find out.

So, next week, we’ll be celebrating the one year anniversary of Nerd Heaven. I can’t believe we’re there already. Thank you to all who are listening. I know there’s not many of you, but I appreciate that even a single person would take time out of their day to listen to me yabber about Star Trek and other nerdy things.

I’ll try to make it special somehow. I have a week to think about how.

In the meantime, have a wonderful week.

Live Long and Prosper.

Make it so.

In the latest episode of Star Trek Discovery, Michael Burnham must choose between loyalty to Starfleet, and her captain, and helping a friend. Cleaveland Booker has located a black box that could provide vital information into the source of the burn, but he has been captured. This was a solid action episode with some nice connections to the larger arc, in both plot and character.

----more----

Welcome to Nerd Heaven

I’m Adam David Collings, the author of Jewel of The Stars.

And I am a Nerd

This is episode 43 of the podcast.

Today, we’re talking about Star Trek Discovery “Scavengers”

The description on Memory Alpha reads

After receiving a message from Book, Burnham and Georgiou embark on a rogue mission to find him, leaving Saru to pick up the pieces with Admiral Vance. Meanwhile, Stamets forms an unexpected bond with Adira.

This episode was written by Anne Cofell Saunders

It was directed by Douglas Aarniokoski

And it first aired on the 19th of November 2020.

Make it so.

We begin the episode with a zooming out shot of the USS Discovery, which has undergone an extensive refit to bring it in line with 32nd-century technology.  As we pull back, we see the name and registry have been repainted. NCC 1031-A.

Okay. That’s kind of a big deal. So this is now the Discovery A.

But is that valid?

The letter is added to the registry when a brand new ship is constructed and given the name of an iconic ship. But this isn’t a new ship. It’s a refit to the same ship. It’s a very extensive refit, but then, so was the refit to Kirk’s original Enterprise in Star Trek The Motion Picture. But that ship was not the Enterprise A. It was just the Enterprise. The Enterprise A was a brand-new ship that first appeared at the end of Star Trek IV after the original was destroyed in Star Trek III.

So...technically, this shouldn’t be the Discovery A. However, it could be argued that this refit is even more extensive than the one from The Motion Picture. And maybe the rules for registry numbers have changed over the centuries. So … I think we can just accept it.

I’ll admit that I do get a bit of a kick out of the A.

This refit has taken 3 weeks. They’ve installed programmable matter, which makes a lot of sense.

They’ve also detached the nacelles.

Saru says this is to make the engines more efficient and the ship more maneuverable.

The nacelles are floating next to the ship. I’ll admit, this whole detached nacelles thing is a bit weird to me. My first reaction is, that’s silly and doesn’t make any sense. My second reaction is, 930 years have passed. We SHOULD be seeing things that are so wacky and out there that they seem to make no sense. That’s actually logical. So the more unbelievable it is, the more believable it is.

I assume the nacelles are kept close to the ship by some kind of tractor beam or gravity field. How does the power get to them? Wireless power, I suppose. That’s already kind of a thing.

So ultimately, I approve, even though I think it’s weird.

In the briefing meeting, Saru gets some insight into the kinds of missions that Starfleet is now carrying out.

Helping with food shortages.  Delivery supplies. Helping planets that are facing solar flares.It’s all very humanitarian aid, and the distances can cause significant difficulties.

Saru immediately sees where Discovery could help. The spore drive would save a lot of time in helping these people. I like how Vance agrees that he could use ten Discoveries, but since he only has one, he needs them to stay close, ready to serve as a rapid response unit.

When Vance says “Rapid Responder” one of the other captains acts like Vance has sprouted a second head. His reaction seems to be way overdone. I kinda get the feeling that maybe this guy was the previous rapid responder. Maybe he’s feeling outed. 

But Vance tells them all about the spore drive. It’s classified information that is not to leave the briefing room.

We’ve never really seen a scene like this, with a bunch of captains getting their assignments from the admiralty. It probably happened a lot during the dominion war.

It’s nice to see that all the captains are wearing a similar uniform to the admiral, but with different rank insignias. It’s good. I really like this uniform. It’s my favourite of all the new uniforms.

Argeth is on Yellow. Alert. The Emerald chain, the Andorian and Orion Syndicate, might be making a move sometime in the next 12 hours. Nobody knows  what they want on Argeth, but Vance is determined to make sure they don’t get it. When things come to a head, that’s when Saru needs to jump in and save the day.

So the crew of Discovery are receiving their new com badges. Just like the ones all the other Starfleet officers wear.

But for some reason, they don’t exchange their uniforms for the new ones.

That seems a little odd.

Anyway, there are practical reasons for adopting the new badges.

In the 24th century, Starfleet made the badges communicators, rather than just decorative.

By the 32nd Century, they’re so much more.

They’re also tricorders, holo padds, as well as communicators, and personal transporters.

This is all a very logical evolution of the technology. I like it a lot.

They kept the user interfaces on the new consoles similar, so it would be easy for the crew to adjust. But at the same time, it’s adaptive, programmed to analyse the way people work, and conform to whatever would be most useful for them. It’s all very clever.

The crew seem to really like it.

There’s an ongoing joke about Linus beaming into random parts of the ship because he doesn’t know how to set the coordinates properly on his personal transporter.

It’s amusing, if a little overdone.

And then they’re hailed by Grudge the Cat, who has decided to pay them a visit.

I love how she’s just staring at the screen purring.

Michael has been looking for the black boxes of ships destroyed during the burn, to get information about what caused the phenomenon.

Book was on his way to the Bajoran exchange (another DS9 reference) But he heard about a black box on Hanhau, which is Emerald Chain territory. He programmed the ship to bring Grudge here to Starfleet headquarters if he didn’t return after 24 hours.

Seems like he’s in trouble.

So technically, Grudge didn’t fly the ship. Pity.

Naturally, Michael wants to go rescue him. Not just because the black box could be invaluable, but also because she cares very much about Book.

The black boxes record the time of detonation, and they don’t all match. This suggests it didn’t all happen at once. It had a point of origin that swept outwards. With a third black box, they could triangulate that point of origin.

This is valuable information.

Saru understands how important this is to Michael, but he can’t authorise this mission. They need to be ready to jump to Argeth at a moment’s notice.

Admiral’s orders.

He’s seen how vulnerable the federation is. How important these humanitarian missions are.

Of course, his big mistake here is not taking this to the Admiral. He’ll learn this lesson at the end of the episode. But instead, he flatly forbids Michael from doing anything about Book or the black box.

We all know where this is heading. We know what Michael is going to do.

She’s always had this rebellious streak that leads her to take matters into her own hands. And while she’d made some progress keeping that side of herself in check, the last year of working on her own as a free spirit, outside any chain of command, has only made things worse.

She can’t let this go.

So she goes to Georgiou. The only other person on this ship who doesn’t care about chain of command. Gorgeous is always up for an unsanctioned mission.

But she makes a very astute point. Michael is gonna cause a lot of problems for Saru by doing this. He’s trying to win Vance’s trust and prove the legitimacy of Discovery’s dedication to Starfleet. If Michael goes ahead with this, it will definitely hurt that.

But that’s not enough to dissuade Michael.

Her dilemma feels very real here. She has two very strong motivations. A man she clearly loves, whether that love is romantic or not, and critical information to solving the mystery of the burnt. But it’s not just about the mystery to her. She genuinely believes the Federation will never get itself together until they learn the truth.

What do you think about that? I think I need a little more convincing. I agree it’s very important for them to find answers. If they know how and why it happened, they’re better able to determine if it’ll happen again and prevent it.

But I’m not convinced that the Federation can never again rebuild and stand proud without that information.

Book has actually made a pretty big sacrifice here for Michael. He’s put aside his own work to try to recover this black box - a very dangerous mission - because he knows it is important to her. 

In a sense, they are both being very self-sacrificial here. Book put himself in danger for her, and she is risking her entire career for him. And that’s basically what love is. Self-sacrifice. The definition of love is putting the needs of another person ahead of your own needs.

Book’s ship continues to slowly grow on me. The asymmetry still bugs me, but I’m starting to understand the design. The bridge on the side kinda gives me millennium falcon vibes, but way more futuristic. I really like the shot that starts as a purely CGI exterior of the ship flying at warp, and then zooms in on the bridge. We spend a reasonable amount of time looking through that window watching Michael and Georgiou walking around and talking. It’s very effective and adds some real believability to the ship as an environment.

Georgiou can tell there is romantic tension between Michael and Book. She’s quite amused by it. But I love when Michael tells her she isn’t qualified to judge on matters of the heart, since her emotional spectrum ranges from cranky to homicidal. Which it definitely does. But in some twisted way, Georgiou does feel some form of love. She loves Michael like a daughter. A replacement for the one who betrayed her.

And that’s when Georgiou has the first of her episodes. It’s not exactly a seizure, it seems more emotional than physical. But she’s suddenly overwhelmed by what I assume are memories. She sees her hand covered in blood, and cries over someone called San. I wonder who that is.

Something weird has been going on with Georgiou ever since she was interrogated by that bloke with glasses. I am really curious what he’s done to her. Michael has noticed something is not right.

Hanhau is a private salvage yard. Not open to new customers. The general public are expected to do their business at the local Bajoran exchange. But Georgiou talks them into letting her land with promises of large quantities of dilithium.

I think we’re getting some information in this episode to help us get some idea of where the new Starfleet headquarters are situated in the galaxy.

Federation space is primarily in the alpha quadrant. Their early adversaries, the Klingons and the Romulans are primarily in the beta quadrant.

The core of federations worlds are near the border between the quadrants. Worlds like Bajor and Cardassia are much deeper into the alpha quadrant, a long way from the border with the beta.

Michael indicated she could get to Hanhou, complete the mission, and be back, at warp speed, within 12 hours.

Hanhau is close to a Bajoran Exchange. I’m not sure exactly what that is, but it’s clear near Bajor.

So I think we can say that Starfleet headquarters is pretty deep into the alpha quadrant. Near the outer parts of what was considered Federation space back in the 24th century.

And then the scene we’ve all been waiting for. Tilly meets Grudge. Apparently, she’s not a cat person, but, I’ll admit, she’s doing pretty well. It’s a cute scene. I genuinely laughed when Tilly asks Grudge if he ate Michael.

Admit the cuteness and humour of this scene, Tilly learns that Michael has stolen Book’s ship and left on the mission.

The wide shot of Hanhau as they descend on the settlement looks awesome.

Tolor, the Orion they’re dealing with is the nephew of Osyra, leader of the Emerald Chain.

There’s a lot of slave labour on this world. I guess the Orions are back to their old tricks. But it’s not slaves as a commodity to sell. These people are working because they owe Osyraa.

Naturally, Georgiou wants to meet her, as she sounds like her kind of girl.

Seriously, how long do you think it will be before Georgiou goes full rogue and tries to take over the galaxy for herself?

The only thing that’s holding her back from doing that, at this point, is Michael.

Well, that and the weird seizures. I suspect that’s part of some plan to disarm the danger that she represents to the galaxy.

It’s time for our next DS9 reference. Self-sealing stem bolts from the 24th century. And we’ll meet an actual Bajoran shortly. It’s almost as if Alex Kurtzman had a listening device in my office, when I’ve been talking about how I want more love for DS9. I guess I’m not the only person who has felt that way.

Georgiou says she wants items from before 2400, which was the end of the 24th century. And the guy holds up an old TNG phase. Nice. but apparently, it contains parts for a later time. I wonder if the writers actually meant pre-2300, which would be the 23rd century.

So was this all just part of the act, to give Michael time to find Book? Or is she genuinely interested in old technology? I can’t see Georgiou being nostalgic, especially for stuff that’s not even from her native universe.

Michael has re-jigged Book’s cat-finder to locate him. And he’s close.

He’s a slave working here.

And this is where we meet Lai, the Bajoran.

And I’m thrilled to say his makeup effect looks just like it did on Deep Space Nine. I guess it’s kind of hard to mess up a Bajoran nose. Notice he’s not wearing an earring. So either it’s forbidden for slaves to adorn themselves, or he doesn’t believe in the prophets.

We also meet Ryn, an Andorian slave who is responsible for implanting all the newcomers. Seems most of the slaves view him as a traitor.

But Book is kind to him.

When Lai tries to steal a water ration, Tolor makes an example of him. From a writing perspective, it's useful because it demonstrates how difficult it is for people to escape this prison.

So Adira is back on the ship, after having some kind of medical examination last episode. She seems a bit workaholic. Doesn’t want to explore the ship. Gray wants to see more of Discovery, but he can only go where Admira goes. And she’s not interested.

Stamets is annoyed that his spore lab has been messed with. Things are not where they used to be. But he’s quite impressed when he learns that Adira has upgraded the interface, so he doesn’t have to have metal plugs in his arm anymore.

Michael finally makes contact with Book. And he says what people always say in this situation. “You weren’t supposed to come and rescue me.”

And then she says what the rescuer always says. “I had to.”

They’ve got 40 minutes to rescue him and get the black box, before he is sent up to work on a ship above for a week. He’ll be harder to rescue from there.

This is where we learn more about Ryn. He was born into the Emerald Chain, but tried to rally people against the organisation. They were starting to listen so Osyraa cut off his antennae and made him the guy who implants the slaves.

Now, this is interesting. We know from Enterprise that Andorian antennae grow back.

So maybe she did something to prevent that, like cauterising the stumps or something. I dunno.

This is why he’s a pariah to everyone.

Saru has a quiet word with Tilly about Michael. Tilly knows even less than Saru.

Saru is feeling pretty distrustful of Michael now. As much as he did when they were back on the Shenzhou. Which is kinda sad, given how close they seemed to have become last season.

This is really interesting because Tilly acts in a way other than what we might expect. Certainly not how Saru expected. But it makes sense. She makes a good point.

She pushes for Saru to tell the Admiral. It’s a delicate time for the Discovery crew at the moment. Things will look bad if the Admiral finds out from someone other than Saru.

Tilly loves Michael like a sister but she also cares for this crew.

Tilly is trying to be understanding of Michael’s motives, but Saru believes Tilly would never have done this, had she been in Michael’s situation.

It’s time for the jailbreak. Ryn is in on it too. He’s retrieved the black box for Book.

Saru is explaining Michael’s disobedience to Vance, but promises, they are still ready to carry out their mission, even without their first officer.

He overhears a line about a ship returning and undergoing a baryon sweep. This is a process that the Enterprise D once underwent. It’s meant to eliminate Baryon particles from the starship’s hull. Let’s hope this ship doesn’t get taken over by terrorists like the Enterprise did.

Vance tells him that diplomacy is failing. Discovery will need to jump soon.

The prison riot is on. But the perimeter fence is still up. Michael and Georgiou have to take it down, but they have their hands full with Tolor and his thugs.

It’s all standard action scenes, which Discovery does pretty well.

I was listening to a writing podcast the other day. In it, one of the presenters said “if your character has seizures, you’d better make sure they have one in the middle of the climactic battle.” It was The Six Figure Author podcast, if you’re interested.

Anyway, this is exactly what happens here. Georgiou is about to shoot Tolor when she has another episode.and drops the gun.

Fortunately, she comes to just in time to bring the fence down, as Tolor beams away.

The slaves all escape, but Ryn is shot with one of those cool ring phasers. I thought, at this stage, that Ryn was a gonner. But Book isn’t willing to give up on him.

And then Book’s ship turns into a transformer!

Seriously, it breaks into a bunch of separate parts and reconfigures itself. Except the new configuration doesn’t seem to look any different to my eyes. I’m not sure what the point of this reconfiguration was, but it was visually pretty cool.

Another example of those “seems silly, but believably silly given the century” things.

I imagine the same technology that lets the nacelles hover next to the ship is also responsible for this transformation.

I’d like to understand a lot more about what the transformation actually means, and why it happens.

Book beams aboard with Ryn.

Georgiou takes out Tolor’s ships. One of them looks like an old Miranda class. The crashing scene looks awesome. Comparable to anything you’d see in a big-screen movie these days.

Michael is more freaked out that Georgiou doesn’t know what’s up with her episodes than she is about the episodes themselves.

From Georgiou’s point of view, until she understands, there’s no point revealing her weakness, because she doesn’t know what help to ask for.

This is a reasonable attitude for a Terran from the mirror universe. Over there, she’d be killed for showing any kind of weakness.

Stamets sits down with Adira in the mess hall. He’s noticed her talking to herself. She decides to open up and explain the whole situation with Gray.

Adira speculates that this has happened because they were so close, and the symbiont passed from one to the other. I’m betting there’s more to it than that. But it’s a reasonable theory.

They get Ryn back to the ship, and Doctor Pollards says he's going to make it. Which is nice. Poor guy deserves a break.

Michael has to go face the firing squad, but on the way, she has a little moment with Book. And they finally kiss.  I get the impression this is their first kiss. That they were both honest about not having been romantically involved during the past year.

Stamets sees a lot of himself in Adira. Somebody who lost a person they loved, but then, got them back in some form. 

Stamets says he believes Adira. And I want to believe him. But part of me wonders if he still thinks of this as a bit more metaphorical than literal. Is this just part of her grieving process, like he went through with Hugh, or is she literally carrying Gray’s soul around with her? Either way, Stamets is willing to take it at face value and definitely not ridicule.

As he and Hugh get ready for bed they talk about Adira. Stamets is starting to think that he can be a help to her. Something of a mentor. It’s not a role he ever thought he’d find himself in.

It’s time for Saru and Micahel to face the Admiral.

He points out that Saru was right to follow orders but he also needs to trust his judgement. He should have brought this opportunity to Vance, who might have considered the intel worth the risk. He may have actually authorised the mission. They’ll never know now.

I really like this because they’re not turning Vance into the stereotypical bad admiral. He’s a reasonable guy, even though there’s a lot of antagonism between him and Michael because of their differing opinions.

I love that this is a learning opportunity for Saru as well. He’s a good captain, but he’s an inexperienced captain.

Vance doesn’t think Burnham deserves special consideration for saving the galaxy by going through that wormhole. She was doing her duty. She starts each new assignment at zero along with everyone else.

In the end, Discovery didn’t have to jump. I’m guessing the happenings on Hanhau stole away Osyraa’s focus.

Michael saved lives on that planet, which is the only reason she’s not in the brig.

Vance leaves her punishment in Saru’s hands.

So he does what he doesn’t want to do, but honestly, the only thing he can do.

He relieves her of her role as first officer. She will be restricted to chief science officer duties.

Even Michael agrees this is right.

It’s all about trust, and right now, he can’t trust her to the extent that a captain should trust their number one.

I’m starting to think that Michael will never really fit in with Starfleet. She’ll always be the rebel that just can’t manage to follow orders. It makes me wonder how long she’ll hang around Discovery. I guess she has to stay associated with them for as long as the show runs, since it’s called Discovery, and she’s the lead.

So now I’m wondering who the new number one will be. I hope they address this next week and not just ignore it.

It was nice to see Book again. This was a solid episode. Nothing mind-blowing, but a good fun action story, with some good character connections to the larger whole.

I enjoyed it.

Next week, we have the episode Unification III. I’m really curious about this. One of the most iconic two-part stories from Star Trek The Next Generation was Unification I and Unification II. The story was based around Spock’s attempts to re-unify the Romulan and Vulcan people. How will this episode tie into that? There’s gotta be some connection. The name is too much of a coincidence to be .. well .. a coincidence. So I’m really looking forward to finding out what the deal is.

One of my favourite authors, Brandon Sanderson, has just released the 4th book in his Stormlight Archive series. The minute it happened, I sent a link to my wife, so she can buy it for me for Christmas. I’m looking forward to reading it. I might do a couple of podcasts episodes about the book next year, kinda like what I do with my Lord of The Rings series, which I haven’t forgotten about. I haven’t been walking as much as I should, so I’ve gotten a little behind with the whole Walk to Mordor Challenge that it’s all based around.

Anyway, nothing is set in stone. But we’ll see.

Don’t forget, you can get the first book in my Jewel of The Stars series for just 99 cents on all major eBook retailers, or you can read it for free on Wattpad.

Have a great week, and I’ll see you for Unification III next time. Live long and prosper.

Make it so.