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Star Trek Discovery Season 02, Episode 11: "Perpetual Infinity" (Spoilers)

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  • thegrandnagus1thegrandnagus1 Member Posts: 5,165 Arc User
    It's Borg related even if it isn't.
    That is what Discovery does. When it's not a call-back it's an implied call-back because REMEMBER WHY YOU LIKE THE STAR TRAK?

    They really should just try to write good Star Trek, just for a change of pace.
    Yes, how dare a show based on an established series reuse elements from said established series instead of just making up new things that never get mentioned in any other show.

    I remember when people used to demand sequels and such use elements from the old shows, nowadays everyone seems hellbent on trying to make everyone forget everything before it even exists. This recent "abject hatred of anything that came before" is mind boggling nonsensical to the idea of series as a whole.

    Especially in Star Trek. A series often criticized, even by its own fanbase, for not following up aliens, factions, and plot events, from past episodes/shows, and instead endlessly making up new things only to dump them and never mention them again, creating a wide ocean of Trek lore that is mostly as deep as a small puddle of water.

    Discovery is honestly closer to what Enterprise should have been, and what future shows should be, a series that relishes and drowns itself in the aliens, factions, and characters from past shows, expanding on what has already been established, instead of mindlessly churning out new things no one cares about, and no one will remember.

    There is no need to strawman this. Yes, there is nothing wrong with writers picking up plot points from other shows. But there is an obvious difference between picking up some lose end and exploring it more, and doing the Borg again for the millionth time. Don't pretend that all re-use of stories are equal.

    The-Grand-Nagus
    Join Date: Sep 2008

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  • thegrandnagus1thegrandnagus1 Member Posts: 5,165 Arc User
    There is no need to strawman this. Yes, there is nothing wrong with writers picking up plot points from other shows. But there is an obvious difference between picking up some lose end and exploring it more, and doing the Borg again for the millionth time. Don't pretend that all re-use of stories are equal.
    This assumes that they are reusing the Borg again, which there really isn't any evidence of.

    I agree, but it seems the conversation was hypothetical, for the sake of discussion. If they ARE doing the Borg, it's ok/not ok because (insert points here). That is the context of my reply.

    The-Grand-Nagus
    Join Date: Sep 2008

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  • thegrandnagus1thegrandnagus1 Member Posts: 5,165 Arc User
    I agree, but it seems the conversation was hypothetical, for the sake of discussion. If they ARE doing the Borg, it's ok/not ok because (insert points here). That is the context of my reply.
    Even if they are doing the Borg, the whole "humanity created the Borg" thing has existed since WAY before them, and been the subject of several different books/comics/games.

    I'm not exactly going to fault them for taking what has, largely, become the go to explanation in the fandom, and making it the official one. At this rate, it will still be a better story then the Destiny novels at least.

    Yeah, I'm aware of some of the origin stories. As a matter of personal taste, I find the whole "humans created everything" (Borg, Xenomorphs, anything else that used to be mysterious and interesting) to be boring. But more than simply boring, it takes a huge universe full of mysterious things, and makes it a small world where they all came from the same place. Of course, this is purely subjective taste, and my taste is no more right than anyone else's.

    The-Grand-Nagus
    Join Date: Sep 2008

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  • jonsillsjonsills Member Posts: 10,354 Arc User
    I agree, but it seems the conversation was hypothetical, for the sake of discussion. If they ARE doing the Borg, it's ok/not ok because (insert points here). That is the context of my reply.
    Even if they are doing the Borg, the whole "humanity created the Borg" thing has existed since WAY before them, and been the subject of several different books/comics/games.

    I'm not exactly going to fault them for taking what has, largely, become the go to explanation in the fandom, and making it the official one.
    I will, should they go that route. Because the explanation is a stupid one, and takes agency away from both the Borg and whatever their origin might be. (For myself, I'd prefer it remain a mystery. Not everything needs to be explained in plain text. As long as we never encounter the Third Borg Dynasty, I'm fine.)
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  • theboxisredtheboxisred Member Posts: 450 Arc User
    It's Borg related even if it isn't.
    That is what Discovery does. When it's not a call-back it's an implied call-back because REMEMBER WHY YOU LIKE THE STAR TRAK?

    They really should just try to write good Star Trek, just for a change of pace.
    Yes, how dare a show based on an established series reuse elements from said established series instead of just making up new things that never get mentioned in any other show.

    I remember when people used to demand sequels and such use elements from the old shows, nowadays everyone seems hellbent on trying to make everyone forget everything before it even exists. This recent "abject hatred of anything that came before" is mind boggling nonsensical to the idea of series as a whole.

    Especially in Star Trek. A series often criticized, even by its own fanbase, for not following up aliens, factions, and plot events, from past episodes/shows, and instead endlessly making up new things only to dump them and never mention them again, creating a wide ocean of Trek lore that is mostly as deep as a small puddle of water.

    Discovery is honestly closer to what Enterprise should have been, and what future shows should be, a series that relishes and drowns itself in the aliens, factions, and characters from past shows, expanding on what has already been established, instead of mindlessly churning out new things no one cares about, and no one will remember.

    This is honestly why I am so excited for all the newly announced Star Trek works. They aren't just another TOS, or just another TNG, with a ship and a crew going out on adventures of the week. Instead, they are opting for more expansions on already existing Trek lore
    -Ceti Alpha V: Expanding on Khan's struggles on said planet(assuming it get made)
    -Starfleet Academy: Showing us the kinds of trials and tribulations most of the character we know had to go through to get where they were in the shows
    -Section 31: Finally giving us a look at Section 31 from their own perspective, rather then from the perspective of normal Starfleet officers.
    -Lower Decks: Giving us a view on what the no name basic crewmen we see walking around the halls in other shows, but never really get any interaction with.

    It isn't just mindless expansion, with forgettable new aliens, but rather an attempt to add depth to various parts of the fairly shallow lore that comprises most of Trek.

    You're inferring. That's not on me.

    It's one thing to explore that which came before. It's quite another to cheapen it at every opportunity.

    Enter Star Trak: Discovery and, to be fair, anything else the JJ Kurtzman Hack Machine touches.
  • theboxisredtheboxisred Member Posts: 450 Arc User
    It's one thing to explore that which came before. It's quite another to cheapen it at every opportunity.
    And what have they done exactly to cheapen anything in Discovery?

    Super Secret Section 31 announcing their presence with distinct adornments and being written more like Special Forces than Black Ops.

    Taking Mental Defective Spock to a planet of telepaths from a planet of telepaths so they can telepathic a fix and in the process cheapening Spock, Vulcans, Sarek, the Talosians, Vina, and Pike for the sake of having some effects shots. indistinct images and lens flares are a thing, yo.

    Making the Mirror Universe a literal mirror image and its light dimmer because, "ooh, aren't we clever!"

    Changing Harry Mudd from unscrupulous semi-comedic pest to Villainous Villain of Villainy!!!11!!1!

    Chris Pike, originally a solid Starship Captain, is now a doormat. He let's Mike Burnham walk all over him in front of his crew.

    Klingons. A once passionate and animated people now reduced, except when fighting, to mumbling their way through insurance documents for all the passion they display.

    I'd go on but I grow weary of repeating myself. It's all stuff I've covered In threads elsewhere, as well.

    Discovery is a bad Star Trek show. The best way to save it would be to have it's final scene blur and fade to reveal an eight-year-old Mike Burnham in the year 2433 getting a failing grade on her History Holo-Report because, as her instructor states, it was obvious that she allowed a Bad Robot to produce the report for her.

  • angrytargangrytarg Member Posts: 11,001 Arc User
    The Borg don't really have agency though.

    They are machines following unalterable, and un-fightable, programming from 1,000 years ago that not even they know the origins of, and might not even be doing what they were originally made to do. They have no free will, no ability to think or reason, even the somewhat "unique" Borg Queen is still a slave to the overall programming of the Borg, she can just make decision on what the best way to follow said programming is.

    The Borg are literally drones to masters that likely don't even exist anymore.

    Though I do agree the Borg's origins remaining mysterious would be better. I also hate the idea that the Borg made V'ger, or vise versa. Though the IDW comics for the Kelvin Timeline have Nero meeting V'ger, and learning that both the Borg and V'ger come from the same, even older, civilization. But there is no implication that V'ger caused said civilization to become the Borg. I am ok with that.

    That is completely false, even in regard to FC/VGR wussyborg™.

    The Borg (singular, TNG) or the Borg (plural, FC/VGR) are not machines. Never have been. They are people that have augmented themselves to the point of growing co-dependant on their augmentation. I agree that the original superuser-Borg didn't really have an "agency" though, as it was busy assimilating technology. The hive formed one being and roamed the galaxy like a natural phenomenon to accumulate technology in a compulsive fashion.

    Wussyborg™ are the private drone army of a single sapient, cosncious individual, the "Queen" and she has a political agenda and even thirsts for territory and revenge. Which goes completely against the original concept, but since it was easier for people to understand (that's literally the reason they created the queen, because they thought the audience was stupid) it's what we ended up with.​​
    lFC4bt2.gif
    ^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
    "No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
    "A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
    "That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
  • jonsillsjonsills Member Posts: 10,354 Arc User
    An individual Borg drone lacks agency as such, acting as it does as an arm of the Borg Collective. However, the creators of the Borg certainly had agency, and used it - unless someone decides to timeloop ControLeland back to "explain" the Collective, which removes that agency (and falls into the incredibly annoying (IMO) Humans Are Special trope, which I think is well enough served by Humans being so reckless in advancing of new technologies, then so gunshy when those technologies go bad).

    I also tend to disagree with the notion of a Borg Queen - a Collective is not a hive, and doesn't require a literal physical leader - but that Rubicon has been crossed, and must be dealt with at this point. I did prefer the Borg as an implacable force of nature, though, made all the worse by the fact that according to their own directives they were being helpful (if all sapient life is either assimilated or destroyed, peace spreads across the galaxy - a Hellish stagnant peace lacking anything resembling Humanity, but peace of a sort...).
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  • angrytargangrytarg Member Posts: 11,001 Arc User
    It is repeatedly said in dialogue that the collective voices shut out the individuals thought. Separated Borg like Hugh and Seven are fully sapient individuals that are drowned out by the collective, which is a sort of dystopian democracy really. There is no program, at least not in the way it was ever presented.​​
    lFC4bt2.gif
    ^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
    "No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
    "A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
    "That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
  • angrytargangrytarg Member Posts: 11,001 Arc User
    Except that most individuals want to be with the collective. When separated they are confused and afraid and want to go back. But I do grant you that the rewrite (repratedly) changed how the Borg worked. Originally it didn't assimilate people but bred new Borg. It was only interested in technology. The abduction/assimilation came later and was the first retcon, but it wasn't as bad as FC/VGR made it later. But one could argue that the number of people freshly assimilated is infinitismal compared to the hive and their "rebellious minds" would soon melt in. If a majority of drones would want to change the course of the entity, then that would happen. But there is no programming.
    lFC4bt2.gif
    ^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
    "No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
    "A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
    "That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
  • redvengeredvenge Member Posts: 1,425 Arc User
    Especially in Star Trek. A series often criticized, even by its own fanbase, for not following up aliens, factions, and plot events, from past episodes/shows, and instead endlessly making up new things only to dump them and never mention them again, creating a wide ocean of Trek lore that is mostly as deep as a small puddle of water.

    Discovery is honestly closer to what Enterprise should have been, and what future shows should be, a series that relishes and drowns itself in the aliens, factions, and characters from past shows, expanding on what has already been established, instead of mindlessly churning out new things no one cares about, and no one will remember.
    Except that is the entire premise behind Star Trek: Discovery: everything and anything of consequence is going to be "classified". The only things ST:D will have the dubious claim of "adding" to the universe is characters and concepts that were already introduced. The writers get the conceit of saying "Hey, you know that thing you enjoyed 20, 30, 50 years ago? Yeah, that was only possible because of something I wrote 2 months ago. You are welcome, Trek fans!".

    The incredibly advanced technology that Section 31 (and Starfleet itself for that matter) just happens to have lying around will never be mentioned again. Except possibly in the Picard series, set hundreds of years in the future, where such technology is probably obsolete.
  • jonsillsjonsills Member Posts: 10,354 Arc User
    In point of fact, most people today wouldn't know who Gavrilo Princip was if he popped up at a sandwich shop and took a shot at them. They know someone did what he did, but that's about it - "an assassin". Heck, most don't even know the whole thing was a comedy of errors from start to finish, from the motorcade changing direction to Ferdinand dying mostly of vanity because he insisted on being sewn into his outfit so it would fit better.
    Lorna-Wing-sig.png
  • westx211westx211 Member Posts: 42,206 Arc User
    patrickngo wrote: »
    valoreah wrote: »
    redvenge wrote: »
    Except that is the entire premise behind Star Trek: Discovery: everything and anything of consequence is going to be "classified".

    Archer had a rather significant role to play in the early days of Starfleet and you never heard a peep about him on any other Trek series. Last I checked, nothing about the NX-01 was "classified".

    Again, these kinds of statements are made from a false premise of we know specific details about what happened in the years post Enterprise and pre TOS in intimate detail. We don't. There are large swaths of time and story we know nothing about. Plenty of stories to be told there.


    How often do you talk about Tun Tavern? How about Saratoga? (not the ship, the place.)

    Archer was a century away from Kirk, can you name (without google search) the signers of the Declaration of Independence, or the secretary of the first Continental Congress?

    how about something more recent..? Who was the first secretary general of the United Nations, when did he serve? (Do Not Google this. you never see anyone in Trek needing to look up Federation History.)

    Can you name five officers that served on the panel in the Nuremburg courts-martials? (without google)

    Let's get even more recent...who signed the initial treaties forming the European Union? (again, without Google)

    How about who was the american Speaker of the House in 1984?

    do you talk about George Washington as a regular part of your normal conversations in your modern life? How about George Washington Carver? do you know who Sojourner Truth was without consulting the history books? can you name the first woman to serve in the U.S. Congress, and what state she came from? (bonus points if you can name the year, and the year that women nationwide got the vote, without having Google or your textbooks tell you.)

    who invented the first major programming language? the electronic computer? the integrated circuit?

    Archer by 2260 is one of those 'trivia questions' that Cadets would have to know for exams, and will most likely only dimly remember (if at all) two years out of the Academy. even if you elevated veneration of him to levels of Chesty Puller or Admiral Byrd, or even John Paul Jones, it's vanishingly unlikely that he would come up as a subject in dialogue while you're standing off against a renegade Klingon warship, chasing down a Romulan torpedo ship, or futzing around trying to figure out how to ask several hundred kilometers of moonscape to introduce you to its leader.

    and that's fame for you in a nutshell. most of what Archer did, was TRIBBLE up, but the people who'll be remembered better than him in spite of his accomplishments are all more recent. even if all Schoolage children in the Federation have to know his name, he's not going to be a frequent topic of conversation.

    on the flip side, pretty much everyone in the western world knows Gavrilo Princeps and what he did in 1914, an they know it without having to make an emergency run to google...but even he is not a frequent subject of discussion outside of historian circles.

    I mean, it's been a century, after all. For Archer, it's a century if you're Kirk, and more if you're Picard, Janeway, Sisko, or their contemporaries.

    If I'm being honest considering how famous each enterprise is I feel like everyone in starfleet and even some in the klingon empire and romulan republic/empire would know each of the Enterprise captains by heart considering how influential each of them was. Archer would up helping found the federation and helped cure a degenerative disease in klingons, Kirk helped bring peace between the federation and the klingon empire, the Enterprise C sacrificed itself to help a klingon outpost leading to a more permanent peace between the 2 and hell wound up producing the Empress of the Romulan Empire because of it, picard did many amazing things and fought the borg and shinzo, and the current captain Shon destroyed an undine planet killer by almost killing himself and has done an awful lot for the federation and everyone. Even Data though his time captaining the E was short lived did some cool stuff.

    These would be like George washington or Abraham lincoln to the factions, names everyone would know and would atleast know some of what they did though maybe not all.
    Men are not punished for their sins, but by them.
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