Like last season, The Shuttle Pod has again transformed into Shuttle Pod At The Disco for the run of Star Trek: Discovery season two, with weekly podcasts about each new episode.
Shuttle Pod At The Disco – Season 2, Episode 12 – “Through The Valley of Shadows”
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Star Trek: Discovery Season 2, Episode 12
Jared, Kayla, and Matt board the shuttle pod this week and head to Boreth to discuss the twelfth episode of season two, which sets up the two-part finale. The episode offered nice moments of closure with L’Rell and Tyler, so they can go their separate ways for the next season. The podcasters discuss how Boreth is not only home to the devout Followers of Kahless monks but also time crystal keepers, which adds a new fantasy element to the Klingon culture. The big scene on Boreth was when Pike’s future was revealed to him, which was beautifully acted by Anson Mount. The trap set for Burnham on the rogue Section 31 ship was an exciting subplot, but once again it showed that universe revolves around Michael Burnham. The crew also praises the quieter scenes with Reno and Stamets and Culber.
The best episode so far. Anson Mount as Pike was perfect. Very profound experience.
Acknowledged and seconded 👍
Thank you.
I need some clarification on the last two episodes regarding the data archive Section 31 is trying to steal.
Apparently the plan was to “Cut + Paste” the data. Remove it from Discovery and transfer it to the Red Angel suit, then send the suit into a wormhole.
I already have a problem with this, since we understood that the data would not allow itself to be deleted, so if that’s the case you’d only be copying it, not transferring it. But let’s go with that; let’s assume that once the data is transferred to the suit it allows itself to be deleted from Discovery.
By the end of episode 11, the data has been transferred to the suit, the suit has been sent into a wormhole, and we also know that Leland/Control managed to steal 54% of the data, according to Spock.
Then in Episode 12, when discussing going after Leland, Saru says the following:
“We have determined that the sphere archive could not be removed nor deleted from this ship. By using Discovery to pursue Captain Leland we would be placing the data directly within his reach.”
So after all is said and done, the plan from Episode 11 to transfer the data didn’t work? Did the data only allow itself to be copied to the suit, but not deleted from the ship? Was it all for nothing? And are there now two copies of the data instead of one?
Yeah that’s another plot point that’s a bit muddled.
So after all is said and done, the plan from Episode 11 to transfer the data didn’t work? Did the data only allow itself to be copied to the suit, but not deleted from the ship?
Yep, sure seems like it.
Was it all for nothing? And are there now two copies of the data instead of one?
You’re right, the implication is that there’s a partial copy of the data in the suit, which would be another reason why they have to go into the future, so they can reclaim and/or destroy the suit.
I thought it had been fully copied to the suit and partially copied by Leland. So there are two full copies (Disco and the Red Angel suit) and one partial copy, Leland’s 54%. Is that not the case?
So there are two full copies (Disco and the Red Angel suit) and one partial copy, Leland’s 54%. Is that not the case?
As I understood it Leland was using that gadget that Georgiou planted to mirror the datastream to his ship as it was copied to the suit. So the progress we saw was the real-time transfer of the data to the suit and also mirrored to Leland.
However looking at the Memory-Alpha summary of “Perpetual Infinity,” the way they wrote it, it seems like Leland was actually hijacking the datastream entirely. So the suit may actually have gotten nothing.
It’s not very clear.
I do believe that the impression given is what is important. And that is that the suit received the data, and it was also intercepted in transit. Therefore, there are at least three (partial or complete) copies of the data: In Discovery, the ship; in the Red Angel suit; and also wherever “Leland” has taken his version of the data (the 54%).
There are now three copies (partial or complete) and what happens with this data is apparently central to the next episode or two.
When we last left our heroes, they were preparing to evacuate the USS Discovery, with the intent of destroying the ship so that the data on the ship could not longer be accessed by anyone. However, in the photographs we see…..
(Potential Spoiler Alert)
That the USS Enterprise comes to the rescue. Even with the Enterprise, however, the forces of good are confronted with Section 31, with their many advanced ships.
What happens now? Some thoughts:
1. It is unlikely that the USS Discovery will be destroyed, voluntarily or not, since we know that it exists in the future (from “Calypso”);
2. Pike is depicted in USS Enterprise-style uniform, meaning that he has transferred back to the Enterprise; he also needs to fulfill his destiny, whatever that may be;
3. Georgiou is depicted in command uniform, which means that she is in a position of control (no pun intended);
4. “Leland” the human being is essentially dead, having been “borgified”;
5. Rather than there being some battle royale between the Section 31 ships and the two hero ships, I think that there will be a resolution that makes use of the fact that the full Sphere Data is present only on the USS Discovery itself. Section 31, if in the hands of Control, knows that to destroy the USS Discovery means that that Data will be lost (except for the 54% that it already has). Section 31 will not destroy the Discovery. I think the photon blasts from the Enterprise are most probably warning shots, or something similar, which do not result in battle, which both the Discovery and the Enterprise would lose.
This is where I think Georgiou comes in.
OK thanks for the clarification. You’d think then that if the data was refusing to be deleted, they would’ve figured this out prior to attempting the transfer. It feels like they created their own problem.
That’s a very valid point.
Why did they previously want to send the time suit through time if they could just destroy it?
Why would the sphere data, if it won’t let itself be deleted, suddenly allow itself to be deleted after a copy operation? And even if it did think to itself “This is fine now, since I’ve been copied I’ll allow myself to be deleted,” how would anyone on the crew know that ahead of time?
How does something as small as this suit, which was supposedly designed as a time travel device and nothing else, have the capacity to hold the data, but a shuttle or the facility itself doesn’t?
Why did Burnham’s mom arrange for the Discovery to intercept the sphere data, when without that interception the sphere data would have been destroyed solving the entire problem? And if the sphere data wouldn’t exist without that intervention, why would Burnham’s mom even discover herself in a timeline where control won in the first place?
Why does the binocular device that poked Leland in the eye even have a giant needle in it? How did an immaterial control tie up Leland? This could have easily been solved, and would have been more narratively rich, if control had a human collaborator helping it along. A Saruman to its Sauron.
Intellectually insulting plot convenience, thy name is Discovery season 2.
Well, some of those are really good questions. I would say that there is a lot of plot contrivance here. I am particularly unhappy with the “capture the Red Angel” gambit which I cannot easily justify by any logic. Aside from that, as occurred, “Leland”/Control is offered the opportunity that did not heretofore exist. These are problems that are created by the characters themselves, and yet no one seems to realize that. What is this? Why does no one seem to realize the problems with this line of thinking?
I haven’t had the chance to think about why the Sphere Data is in Discovery to begin with. In general, a requirement of suspension of disbelief here presumes that we as the audience will not question why this timeline even exists if there are an infinite number of timelines at which Burnham’s mother could choose to arrive: It doesn’t fit the idea of prescience of the kind we would expect of a time traveler. The presumption is perhaps misplaced.
I agree: The plot doesn’t really make sense if you examine it. Let’s hope for something that explains this somehow.
Right, I forgot about that one. That’s probably one of the most egregious things too. Putting Burnham in mortal peril only works if the Red Angel isn’t Burnham. If it is, as they thought, it could only end in her death. A future version of her isn’t going to be able to gather the information on a past version’s demise. She would be dead already!
So… the season finale sees Burnham take the giant pizza cutter 1000 years in the future never to be seen (or mentioned) again, while Saru, Dettmer, Stamitz, and Reno join Spock and Pike for a five-year mission on the Enterprise, leading up to Kirk’s time. Good. Nice. Do that.
Pretty much LOL
Hear hear!
Amen to that idea.
Umm…then what happens in season 3? Does every character apart from Michael leave the show, or does Discovery just continue without its main character or its title starship?
This may be a stretch, but I took the whole Boreth/time crystals thing as a deep cut reference to VOY ”Endgame”. IIRC, Admiral Janeway obtains crucial time travel tech from the Klingons.
I had forgotten about that Klingon chrono deflector from Endgame. The only issue there is of course that was early 25th century tech. The Red Angel suit was developed in the early 23rd century, making it incredibly advanced for the era.
I’ve been pondering this, and I have to disagree with Kayla’s assertion that once Burnham’s parents developed the suit, it meant that other researchers and engineers of the same era would be able to do so.
1) Off the top of my head, I can think of a number of examples where the intellectual technology was not replicated for nearly a century…
Computing and software code: Babbage’s difference engine and Ada Byron’s code did not kick of an early 19th C computing revolution – but in hindsight they had the tech.
Financial engineering : Bachellier watching the horse races in France at the turn of the 20th C developed the Martingale Representation Theorem and much of the foundation for derivatives… but this languished in completed obscurity, and was only recognized after being reinvented in the 1980s.
2) the invention of the time suit was completely dependent on the knowledge and availability of a physical crystal matrix for time crystals – a speculative science concept which exists in a fixed state in all time periods.
The Klingons had access to the only known source. Clearly, prior to L’Rell’s unified government, there was some leakage into the Orion black market…
L’Rell could shut this down…and it may be that the time crystals acquired by Leland and by Mudd had been old family heirlooms from before the monastery protectors. Old crystals, passed through many hands, might have different properties.
And it would make sense that, after allying with the Federation and having access to Federation science in the late 24th C, that the Klingons might permit research on the crystals to have a Renaissance….especially if the Federation shares historic Intel about the Intertemporal Cold War.
Yeah the Red Angel suit is crazy advanced for mid-23rd century technology, but that’s a different issue. I guess I’m saying there’s an implication that the Klingons have an understated/guarded interest in time travel shenanigans. Admiral Janeway had to backchannel in order to get the chrono deflector, Pike had to sort of backchannel via L’Rel in order to approach the monastary on Boreth. Like I said, a stretch, but given all the Voyager callbacks this season I wouldn’t be surprised if it was intentional.
VOY novelist Kirsten Beyer is a consultant for the CBS Trek shows, so it may well be purposeful :-)
Hey, Discovery producers! Like Kayla, I am also available as a science consultant!
This was a solid episode of Discovery AND Shuttle Pod Cast. I do miss Jared’s Trek anecdotes, though. But is that for non-Discovery themed podcasts?
BTW: Kayla is right about the amount of magnetic field strength needed to affect pull down the nanites in that guy. Magnetic field strength drops off by a cube of the distance away from the source, so to be enough to pull down the weight of a man at the distance of his height, you would need an extremely large current (for the magnetic moment) in the floor. I would worry about the dangers of electrocuting Michael!
Hi VZX, I’m not thinking that the science itself on Discovery is so bad.
I actually don’t agree that it’s more magical than in previous Trek series.
I do see that as non-Euclidean math, and the integration of network theory has become more pervasive in science and engineering, it becomes more difficult for the writers to explain speculative science in a way that is accessible.
Quantum physics is hard enough to wrap ones head around, but 5-d space, L2 Hilbert spaces, and other n-dimensional spaces etc, that have been pretty prosaic for a few decades and are foundational from computing to finance to neuroscience, are hard to get across to a reasonably educated but non-specialist background. And this has been where Trek has been speculating.
At the same time, there seems to be a big push back against technobabble. (From fans and critics…)
But without the scaffold of the technobabble explanations:
1) the dialogue between the characters that represents the science process, including peer challenges, is lost
2) it makes the experts scientist characters into magicians.
My bottom line…the problem is the writing of the process, and not the speculative science.
And personally I find it weird / incongruous that although the audience is so much more educated than in the Golden age of television, the willingness to play with speculative science is less.
Additionally, the podcasters concluded that since Burnham’s suit wouldn’t be made of ferrous materials she wouldn’t be attracted to the magnetized floor. Which begs the question, how did Spock know that nanites were made of ferrous material?
Well a material can still have free electrons and not be ferrous. Ferrous basically means having iron in some amount. Copper is not ferrous but, as we know, is very conductive to electric current. But I have sure there are some insulating materials in Michael’s space suit, but a high enough potential difference can arc through it and zap her. It is a little nit pick and I really don’t care since I love how Spock “scienced” a method of saving Michael without resorting to a more violent means.
I used to listen this podcast because you analyzed the Star Trek legacy very well. Your first impressions about Discovery were adequate: it’s not Star Trek. What happened now? The CBS banner and the money that contribute to the site does not allow you to give your opinion? Obviously, this is not Star Trek, and I am surprised, knowing this podcast years ago, that you say that Discovery is good. It really surprises me.
“TrekMovie.com is not endorsed, sponsored or affiliated with CBS Studios Inc., Paramount Pictures Corp or the “Star Trek” franchise.”
Just to clarify.
The banners of CBS are free?
I didn’t mind the time crystals that much. The only major source of them seems to be Boreth, the monks keep them secret from pretty much everyone, even people who do know about them have to pass a difficult test of character to get them, and even the Chancellor can’t tell the monks what to do. Plus, the time crystals on Boreth could explain why Future Guy wanted to destabilize the Klingon Empire during the Temporal Cold War. If the Empire collapsed, those time crystals would be up for grabs.
Cool point Legate Damar.
Between the Future Guy in the TCW and Voyager Endgame, it’s s already pretty established in canon that intertemporal tech is something that the Klingons have some comparative advantage in.
And only the combined efforts of the Chancellor and the monks of Boreth could keep that from getting out of hand in any Klingon era.
So, Boreth’s involvement is logical…
If not previously shown…
Last thought…
Miral Paris and the prophecy of the Kuva’mach, including Klingons in the Delta Quadrant, makes much more sense in the context of time crystal visions…not to mention the whole intertemporal interplay in Endgame with the adult Miral from an alternate timeline obtaining the time crystal and prototype tech.
They are already up for grabs. All one needs is to show up with a bigger gun and a complete disrespect for the Monks and what they are doing there.
You forgot to mention the obvious Gothic monastery from Earth being passed as a KLINGON monastery…