That’s how I understood it. Alternatively, depending on how the Kelpians evolved (engineered to present state or conquered), this information may have been wiped from their species knowledge. I highly suspect that a “liberating Kelpians” plot, and the conflict with the prime directive, is a possible future plotline.
This episode of “Star Trek, Discovery of our Hidden Emotions", aka “STE” (Star Trek Emo) was too much for me. With every chance encounter between crew members being mined for maximum situational angst, it leaves me feeling like half the crew is stoned, exploring every moment for inner beauty & pain.
As soon as Captain Emo himself showed up (Tyler), I had had enough and turned it off. These writers have even managed to make me dislike Georgiou. What a devolution from an amazing Season 1.
Couldn’t disagree more. This has been a solid season so far and much better consistently than number one which was a hodgepodge of multiple show runners/producers.
Yeah, I’ve had fun with it. While nothing has made me drop my jaw in amazement, it’s been an enjoyable ride.
I am enjoying this season more than the first one, as they seemed to be moving towards more of an episodic approach.
Same here. I like the more episodic format and more “Trek” like episodes while the main storyline comes up regularly. But the overly dramatic voiceover by Michael is a bit straining sometimes. Still, great show.
I may have been a little harsh. I blame Tyler’s “oh ffs him again?” re-appearance for pushing me off the couch and over to the power button, but Michael definitely needs to tone down the empathy, or at least spread it out a little more between exercises.
Tig rocks, though.
Funny about the episode before this last one: remember how I wrote upthread that when I see Anson Mount in other roles I find it hard to picture him as Cullen Bohannon from Hell on Wheels? In the episode in question, I wonder if the writers made a conscious callback to that role. At one point Captain Pike gives an order to move to a certain tactical position “and don’t spare the horses!” I could totally hear Bohannon there.
Stupid autocorrect changed Hell on Wheels to Hell on Wednesday??
It’s the last full day before the next Discovery episode. It’s definitely hell.
Talk about a General Order #1 violation, warp-capable culture or not… Damn.
The Picard show is going to be him teaming up with the remainder of the Romulans, the Klingons, the Cardassians, the Dominion, the Xindi, and even the Borg, to defeat the freaking Kelpians.
The Prime Directive doesn’t make any conceptual sense in a situation where there are two interwined sentient species, one warp-capable and one not. The Directive is meant to protect the natural development of cultures. No such natural development is occurring in that type of situation.
Starfleet has no issue engaging with the warp-capable species, but is patiently waiting for the non-capable species to develop on its own? How will that happen with the action of the warp-capable species affecting the development of the other species?
The show seemed to acknowledge that by saying that the Prime Directive didn’t fully apply here.
While watching the episode, I had hoped that the Ba’ul would turn out to be evolved Kelpians and that the secret was that the few “evolved” Kelpians were cannibalisticly preying on/oppressing their own people while allowing a small percentage to evolve. I guess that turned out to be too macabre or too much of a political analogy.
Discovery is getting a third season.
I’ve only just watched last weeks episode (Sounds of Thunder), but the way the alien race was depicted in it didn’t really ‘sit right’ with me.
Summary
- What happened to humans with wrinkly foreheads as aliens? Now we’re getting full on slime monsters that are accompanied by spinny-blade drones and creepy-screaming soundtrack? This is ridiculous! They couldn’t have made a more “evil nightmare” looking species!
Edit: then again I remember evil blob monsters in TOS and TNG.
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2000 years ago this Ba’ul race was wiped out down to about 100 people, but apparently fought back and took over the entire planet? Not only is that a massive genetic bottle neck, but how could they achieve that? I guess they invaded the Kelpien’s dreams with nightmares??
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They apparently only achieved warp 20 years ago… and yet their technology involves transporters, a planet wide beacon-network all powered from an underwater building (that can lift up, and was conviently next to Saru’s village?), and most importantly star ships that can legitimately threaten a Starfleet Crossfield-class ship?? Whilst I understand that not all technology had to be made by them, e.g. they could have traded for it, that’s a bit difficult to believe on an isolationist species.
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Kelpian’s go through puberty and evolve spikes, and this is triggered by a certain wavelength of sound, which that magic sun emitted, and that magic sun caused Saru to go loopy for a few days… but yet Saru managed to emit that sound to all Kelpians instantly and make them all change suddenly? Hmm.
Edit: I wish they’d slow down and have a conference room chat about this. They might have realised that no one has a clue about this kelpien puberty business and therefore they might be screwing over the entire race or something
- They didn’t brief the Kelpien extras that there’s a special, floaty, hand-swinging way to walk.
ps: The most interesting thing about the episode, to me, was the tactical officer had to smash physical switches with his hand to enable the torpedo tubes! I like the contrast of that vs AndroidHead person ‘swiping’ data at Tilly.
Has everyone stopped watching? Yesterday’s episode was pretty good! It provided a lot of backstory for Spock.
On the downside, there was even more lens flare than usual.
Oh the Red Angel story line is getting good, now we now why he’s appearing and a glimpse of The Big Bad to come.
The planet killer ships seem to be more powerful than those from not just any Star Trek race to date, but most sci-fi genres.
She, surely! From when Saru got a good look at her in the horror-themed transporter-room: dem hips don’t lie.
Also, even though they’re capable of destroying planets with a single bomb, their squid-ships don’t seem to be able to overpower a flimsy shuttle all that quickly.
Indeed. I was watching the episode and thinking wtf.
Ugh. I dunno. The Michael / Spock flashbacks just slow the story down in uninteresting ways for me.
Diego
My money is on the Red Angel being a future version of Michael Burnham although it would be an interesting twist if it were Georgio using advanced section 31 tech