The third episode third season of Star Trek: Discovery arrives on Thursday. “People of Earth” is directed by Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Jonathan Frakes and introduces the character Adira (Blu del Barrio). We have a first look at some new images. And in case you missed it, we have a promo video and a clip too.
“People of Earth”
Star Trek: Discovery season 3, episode 3 “People of Earth” will be available to stream on CBS All Access on Thursday, October 29.
Synopsis:
Finally reunited, Burnham and the U.S.S. Discovery crew journey to Earth, eager to learn what happened to the Federation in their absence.
New Images:
Blu del Barrio as Adira
Michelle Yeoh as Georgiou
Finally reunited, Burnham and the U.S.S. Discovery crew journey to Earth, eager to learn what happened to the Federation in their absence
Finally reunited, Burnham and the U.S.S. Discovery crew journey to Earth, eager to learn what happened to the Federation in their absence
Ronnie Rowe Jr. as Lt. Price; Sara Mitich as Lt. Nilsson; Mary Wiseman as Tilly; Oyin Oladejo as Operations officer Joann Owosekun; Patrick Kwok Choon as Lt. Gen Rhys and Emily Coutts as Keyla Detmer
Sara Mitich as Lt. Nilsson; Oyin Oladejo as Operations officer Joann Owosekun; Mary Wiseman as Tilly; Patrick Kwok Choon as Lt. Gen Rhys and Emily Coutts as Keyla Detmer
Oyin Oladejo as Lt. Joann Owosekun
Finally reunited, Burnham and the U.S.S. Discovery crew journey to Earth, eager to learn what happened to the Federation in their absence
Sonequa Martin-Green as Burnham and Doug Jones as Saru
Blu del Barrio as Adira
Blu del Barrio as Adira and Phumzile Sitole as Captain Ndoye
Blu del Barrio as Adira
Doug Jones as Saru
Episode 303 video teasers
“People of Earth” Promo.
A clip from “People of Earth” was shown at the end of the latest episode of The Ready Room. The video below is cued up to that clip at 31:47.
New episodes of Star Trek: Discovery premiere on Thursdays on CBS All Access in the U.S. and on CTV Sci-Fi Channel in Canada, where it’s also available to stream on Crave. Episodes will be available on Fridays internationally on Netflix.
Keep up with all the news and reviews from the new Star Trek Universe on TV at TrekMovie.com.
I’ve said this before, but it’s incredibly lazy and myopic for the costume and set designers to place an overall Federation/Starfleet look nearly a millennium in the future as nearly indistinguishable from Discovery’s “present.” That’s like a Knight Templar travelling to our present day and expecting to see nothing but stone buildings while wearing mantles and chain mail. Same with the wrecked ships in the ep1 opening. Either Starfleet is still using sailing ships 930 years in the future or that wrecked saucer section is a timeloop of a “future” Discovery. I would much rather see the latter as the former IMHO is a copout. Yes, I know all about Daniels in Enterprise, but that’s just as inexplicable too.
Well, Imon, I’ve been griping about this since the first publicity pictures of Mr. Book and the ubiquitous contemporary chic, darkish leather coats have been released (so the standard “take Discovery uniform and attach stuff to it” formula they already pushed for the Mirror universe doesn’t surprise me the least), but according to one poster here, “clothes haven’t changed much in the past 2000 years” (!)
I suppose as a costume designer, you can get away with historical ignorance if your audience shares it ;)
To lift a quote from the ever dependable Reno, the production staff is definitely “not playing their A game” for what we have seen so far and what we expect for the biggest time jump in 50 years of Trek! Cmon folks, you got the biggest budget in Trek television history, make this future believable already!
LOL!! Whoever said “clothes haven’t changed much in the past 2000 years” has never read a book, looked at a painting, or watched a movie or TV show.
…or didn’t live in the last century. It is only 2-3 generations ago when women started to wear pants. Go 2 generations back and the clothing style looks so much more different, at least for women. Men on the other hand could wear suits 100 years ago and still can100 years later (or 140 years later as we see in ENT).
Daniel on ENT looked so futuristic. What we see know is just extrapolated from STD.
But maybe they this isn’t earth but Terralysium?
They are on the way back to earth, to find out what happened to the federation. It may be plausible that the galaxy was set back by a force that had devastated earth and their allies to a point of starting over from scratch. Film has away of going back later in the storyline to expound on what took place. The 3rd episode is still the arrival point.
Let’s also remember that this is a time of great nostalgia. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that the V’draysh of this time imitates many costumes from the past. I bet we see costumes seen from Enterprise through Picard for that very reason.
Yes Rios, but even now clothing is a mix of things old and new.
We still use skirts, robes, and songs or toggles and buttons for examples.
More, sometimes things that look very similar on the outside are constructed very differently and have different functionality. e.g. close-fitting medieval sleeves being laced or sewn on while someone was wearing them but the external difference is not obvious to the casual eye.
The fact is zippers are an inferior technology even in our age due to their constant breakage and need for fiddling, and I’m surprised nobody has disrupted the field of clothing fastening yet (velcro isn’t it, as it comes with a slew of its own problems).
The most striking point against zippers in a world disrupted by programmable matter is that like the sewn medieval draping you mentioned, this part of clothing could become invisible again as programmable clothes simply adjust themselves automagically to the wearer without seems and “un-sew” when needed to be taken off. Pretty much like uniforms and other costumes were already designed in the Roddenberry era! He was on to something here as people dont commonly associate zippers and buttons with “future” and what exactly replaces it is not a big problem of disbelief.
This believed need for “realism” in science fiction Kurtz & Gang believe in for costume and set design is especially ironic in light of their fantasy escapades in the field of technology.
Give me a zipper-less uniform over a “crystal driven time travel suit” any day!
Sci-Fi writers just have a hard time extrapolating what a few hundred years into the future looks like, never mind a thousand. When TOS tried to extrapolate what the future looked like, it got a bit wrong (although it did get key concepts right like cellphone/communicator look, but the interior design didn’t age well). The Bell Riots episode in DS9, Past Tense, extrapolated where our society is like horrifically accurately, but the tech was off (Interface instead of Internet). Even First Contact hasn’t aged well–we now know Geordi would have just snapped a photo of Cochrane using a PADD instead of saying, “I wish I had a picture of this”.
Sometimes it’s best to just keep the tech/look the same but ensure the concepts are advanced. In any case, even a knight time traveling to our era would just look like a Renaissance Fair cosplayer. And if you think Trek is bad, the old Star Wars EU had a stagnant look going on for thousands of in-universe years.
Look, I think going boldly and being proven wrong is still much better than not trying at all! And frankly, the Discovery writers now have the opportunity and privilege to NEVER been proven wrong if they come up with the most outlandish stuff for the 32nd century, because it’s A THOUSAND years!
Zippers, it is not :/
Zippers are a pretty handy thing, compared with buttons or hooks-and-eyes. Except in a certain area gentlemen are sensitive to.
Gentlemen in general are more flummoxed with hooks and eyes than sensitive zipper areas.
At least, this gentleman. Sniffle.
Marja, see my reply to TG47 above. Zippers are an imperfect solution to a problem that needs disruption and reinvention.
What Federation/Starfleet uniform are you referring to?
In the “this season on Star Trek: Discovery” trailer we see another officer wearing a Starfleet badge (like the new ones in the title sequence). I’m taking that as the default 32nd century Starfleet uniform.
It’s a fn tv show chill the f out
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Finally reunited, Burnham and the U.S.S. Discovery crew journey to Earth, eager to learn what happened to the Federation in their absence
“Burnham and the U.S.S. Discovery crew journey to Earth”
TG47 owes me a root beer now ;)
TG47 owes you a root beer LOL!
Yep.
I guess that if one has a spore drive there’s no reason not to go to Earth first given that Burnham has already spent a year gathering intelligence working as a courier in the nearby warp-reachable sectors.
But it seems a bit naive, given what Burnham has found out, to risk putting themselves in the power of an Earth government that isn’t aligned with the Federation.
Perhaps the writers felt that they had to show the Discovery crew making that logic error to drive the point home to the audience.
I keep getting the impression that the spoilers you have read are still much more substantial than what I have seen ;) Afaik we don’t have a clue what Burnham did in that one year – yet.
So Earth is not in the Federation, neither the Andorians or Tellarites. Who is in the Federation? Not the Vulcans either, if you go by the huge spoiler in the episode 7 title.
Mostly, I’m just looking at the trailers (including the “this season on…” one) and parsing what Kurtzman and co have said in various interviews and panels and trying to parse it.
We’re not confident about the episode titles for 5 on since they haven’t officially been released.
But if Adira is (a commander?) in some military hierarchy on Earth, it’s not the Federation.
The uniforms that she and her superior are wearing on Earth or in Earth space aren’t the same as the Federation ones we have been shown in the trailers. More, they use a completely different system of rank insignia.
Now, of course that would be more clear if the Federation was shown to be more consistent in its uniforms in other eras. But I’m still going with that.
More, it makes a better narrative. This isn’t a story about humanity reimposing itself on other species and cultures: it’s about restoring a concept of a just society that’s composed of a diversity of peoples and cultures.
Last thought: I’m increasingly convinced that the “Cyclops Owl” tatoo shown in “Calypso” is a representation of Mother Burnham’s timesuit. I strongly suspect that the Craft’s people are on Terralysium.
FTWIW neither above Earth Force uniforms nor the Starfleet uniforms from the trailers strike me as believable conjectures for 1000 years in the future. These societies have mastered programmable matter and still resort to zippers for fixing up clothes. Really? What would partly mollify me is if it turns out this primitive clothing is the equivalent to the yellow grid holodeck “off state” and all sorts of programmable projections and fields can be enabled.
When we saw the six star Federation flag everyone thought this means the Federation is reduced to its core worlds. How ironic now that it’s the founding members who have left? Maybe it is carried on by younger members like the Trill.
I’d rather not have them dabble in any post-colonialist analogies though. Metaphor is not a strength of the Colonel, to say the least (and no, I didn’t expect him to let the crew don MFGA hats either – not this close to the election ;).
Not to jump on to politics in the real world here, but the irony is right in front of us.
“…primitive clothing is the equivalent to the yellow grid holodeck “off state” and all sorts of programmable projections and fields can be enabled.”
Yes with programmable matter I wonder if clothes can be easily “changed” … we did see Sahil in pj’s then in a formal suit, but maybe the one changes to the other.
Pretty sure Roddenberry would have a lot of semi-nude people equipped with “clothes generators,” LOL!
PS “not a strength of the Colonel” … who would that be?
Why, the Colonel Kurtz & Gang of course, always up to mischief and disrupting fans! ;)
That was my line of thinking. Not just any clothes, but clothes that are always individually snug-fit without any conventional “disrobe mechanism” – they just un-sew by voice command (hilarity ensues…)!
The thinking that all daily life technologies and inconveniences will still be the same 1000 years hence reveals a, to quote Picard, “shocking lack of imagination”.
Wow it would be crazy if Earth itself is no longer part of the Federation. That never even occurred to me as a possibility. That’s basically akin to one of the original 13 colony states seceding from America today.
If true pretty gutsy move but it shows the writers really want to shake things up. If so I think its cool AS LONG AS they are a part of it again by some point at least.
Apparently she spent some time on Planet Rogaine to get all that hair in one year.
We get the memo.
Hmmm yes, was the Federation’s sole headquarters on Earth? I mean, the Andorians and Vulcans and Tellarites already had a planetary alliance.
It’s more of Trek’s typical “America/Earth First!” philosophy. But in the ’90s the US was still one of the leading nations for human outreach.
On Enterprise, Humanity is the only one that gets along with all of those species, so they bridge the gap, leading the formation of the Coalition of Planets and eventually the Federation
Marja, I’m hoping this narrative in Discovery might be sufficiently courageous that the American/Federation Exceptionalism gets turned right on its head.
It would be a great way for them to make the franchise more appealing globally.
Wouldn’t it be great if the Federation views having a Kelpien like Saru leading a mostly human crew as an advantage as they reach out to reconnect with planets isolated by The Burn?
“It would be a great way for them to make the franchise more appealing globally”.
Maybe they should have started by including any Asians in any of the new shows, beyond Space Hitler and never-speaking Harry Kim Jr.
A little window-dressing to placate the home audience won’t do it ;)
(And I see Captain Earth Defense Force is predictably serving the usual demographic!)
I’m seeing Adira from the Earth Defence Force as a liaison.
They may start our with a looking-down-their-noses paternalistic attitude towards the Discovery, but over time may appreciate Federation values and aspirations.
“They may start our with a looking-down-their-noses paternalistic attitude towards the Discovery, but over time may appreciate Federation values and aspirations.”
A reprise of Vulcan attitudes towards humans in Enterprise?
Btw I really like the idea of having an alien liaison as part of a Star Trek crew again since Kira worked out so well, with the added twist this alien liaison now is a human from the far future! You’d hope that would produce conflict both on the larger level as well as the personal ones (as hinted at by the “museum” exchange). We’d probably have alot of prejudice regarding the level of development of Knights from the 11th century as well…
Regarding Saru, actually that was my follow up thought too. For a human-less Federation and Starfleet, trust in those pesky Earthers could be diminished so they’d surely pick the alien Captain over Mutineer Michael, if they are the ones who made the appointment official, that is!
I’m so happy we are going to Earth this season. “People of Earth” is a profound title.
I see Earth looks beautiful as ever. Earth is the little blue dot. A blue gem in the black void of space. The Federation is a shadow of its former self. It has lived beyond its glory days.
Do you want to write a haiku about it? ;)
For all we know, that term may be the galaxy’s version of “People of Walmart”.
Well, well. “EDF” in the com badge. Earth Defense Force?
I noticed that too and thought the same thing! Exciting possibilities here.
I think that would be prettying interesting, if even Earth, the capital planet of UFP was weary of an ancient Starfleet ship showing up at their doorstep. It would add to the stakes a great deal. How does xenophobia play itself out on Earth when they’ve lost the ability perhaps to travel into deep space?
“Unification III” could not be about Romulans and Vulcans (keeping mind the Romulan Empire fell 800 years prior). It could be about reunifying, via the Discovery, many of the planets of the UFP.
Yes, humans do revert quite easily to tribalism, an unfortunate aspect of our species. And one that, as proved in 2016, is all too easily awakened. Especially when fear is involved.
MAGA
Tribalism is alive and well on all sides, as can be regularly observed in this forum when spoonfed partisan ideologies are simply proselytized without an ounce of individual self-reflection or criticism.
I like that idea too Eric, that Unification III is really about uniting the Federation again in general. I know many are thinking its about the Vulcans and Romulans but I don’t see that as a major impact now given where the Romulans ended up post-Nemesis. The original idea behind unification wasn’t just seeing Vulcans and Romulans unite, but also for the aggression between the Federation and Romulus to cease once they do and just become more friendly towards each other. Well that’s already happened, just through a more tragic way obviously.
I think with the Discovery and obviously the spore drive, it begins the way to bring many of the planets back together.
Thankfully Earth looks like it is being depicted as optimistic and beautiful instead of the cliche hellscape I thought it might be.
Really?
I don’t think that it is a hellscape, but I don’t think that it is the ideal it once was either.
Yeah I guess I exaggerated a bit. It probably isn’t the utopia it was.
TG47, This presents interesting story possibilities. Hope they’re not all wound up in two episodes.
I’m having the same thoughts.
In fact, one season isn’t enough really, but it may be enough to solve the problem of The Burn, find a workaround to enable regular FTL travel on a larger scale, and restore FTL communications.
It may not be as utopic as before but hopefully its still a very nice place to live. But yes, being cut off from the Federation, that will bring some issues I imagine.
The question is, if humanity is doing well on Earth, why are they content to leave the rest of the former Federation prey to the Orion Syndicate and other abusive powers?
It smacks of “I’m all right Jack, devil takes the hindmost” thinking.
Not the Federation’s aspirational values at the forefront there I suspect.
We have to remember the burn happened a century ago. Who knows how much things have changed from that time. Book said it himself, the Federation held on for as long as it could, but it probably just couldn’t be sustainable enough for planets to really depend on it anymore including Earth. Again I agree, it would be shocking one of its founding members left it, but it doesn’t necessarily mean because it became bad or anything. Maybe it was just too weak and Earth had to fend for itself just like the pre-Federation days of Archer and company.
BTW, I read that exchange between you and Vulcan Soul, I’m a little confused what were you wrong about? You didn’t think we would see Earth this season or something else?
In the last major thread reviewing episode 2, I speculated that they would leave the trip to Earth until they had done more exploring and intelligence gathering.
I got it wrong. I guess they felt that Burnham had enough from her year of courier trips.
This is one case where I suspect that my recommendation will match MU Georgiou’s: find out everything you can before heading to one of the former major planets and putting yourself in the power of who knows what authority.
I may despise her lack of values, but her tactical assessment on the colony planet was right, and she’s likely right again.
Sticking to high road values is not an excuse for naivety. I’m thinking that Saru needs to start taking in the analysis even if he makes decisions from another value set.
OK, I gotcha now!
And to be honest, I actually had the same feeling as you did and we wouldn’t see Earth for awhile–but for different reasons.
For me, I thought season 3 was going to revolve around Terralysium and the beta quadrant. I meant they spent season 2 setting up that entire story line and as we know where they were supposed to arrive in the 32nd century. And that was already 50 thousand light years from Federation space. I thought all of that was done on purpose to keep them away from Earth and to focus whatever the story would be around the Beta quadrant.
But now we are three episodes in and we haven’t even seen Terralysium yet and already going to Earth. I wonder did something just change story wise or was this the plan all along and we will get to Terralysium eventually? But now it no longer seems to matter since we know the story is about the fall of the Federation and Discovery’s mission will be to help rebuild it. So I’m surprised to, but in a good way. I really wanted them to go to Earth and be a focus. But last season it sound like it was going to be avoided mostly.
DS9 had the answer right there: IT’S EASY TO BE A SAINT IN PARADISE. And really hard when paradise is no more. How ironic the lofty ideals of the Federation were really resting on a bunch of raw minerals and antimatter, same as much of first world comforts rested on cheap oil for most of the 20th century. Change is difficult and doesnt come for free.
I thought Adira was going to be a Trill, but evidently they are human.
Ian Alexander’s new character Gray will be Trill.
The outdoor scenes looks like they filmed it in a park in Toronto.
Toronto has nice parks… interesting observation on your part Harry.
Well, Faze, I’ve lived in Toronto my whole life, and not that I’m an expert on grass, but that “green” looks familiar! :-)
As do the trees.
So, TG47, if the original Dr. McCoy was guest starring on this episode, you’re saying I wouldn’t see DeForrest for the trees?
(runs and hides)
Harry, I don’t want to hear what sort of jokes you come up with for The Shat!
Vulcan Soul, what can I say, the last time I met Bill I nearly SHAT myself!
Harry Ballz,
Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! Just like old times…
Hey ‘Beach. Yes Harry’s wit is only getting sharper with time. It’s been a while. How are things?
Silvereyes, our core group has always been aces! We should interact more often!
SIlvereyes,
As well as can be expected given the current situation. How’s yourself?
‘Beach!! Long time, no post! How are you, my friend?
Harry old man! I am well. Yourself?
Odd how rarely we see the old crowd anymore…
Well, time marches on, and challenges arise, but when it’s important, you make the time!
Ok, here’s a obsessed fan type observation.
One of the new stills appears to be taken from the transporter pad looking towards the corridor (Burnham’s arrival).
It looks like the production designers have updated the walls with removable panels and trim that can be switched from gray to red for the Enterprise.
Tamara Deverell showed how they had covered panels with removable film to make them look damaged to be used for the Hiawatha in Brother, but that still required touch ups when the film was removed.
It seems like there’s been a more substantial change if you follow through from the end of season two through the Short Treks.
Anyone else seeing this?
Making sets shareable for the no doubt lower budget SNW (keeping roots with TOS ;) seems smart business – especially if overall set quality can be raised in the process (using metal, apparently). If lower set costs means SNW will spare us Picardian copy & paste fleets, I’m all for it.
I’m more intrigued by the white-ish section Adira is standing in above. Is that supposed to be a future Earth ship or unseen part of Discovery that doesn’t quite adhere to its usual design aesthetic? See, that is the problem with far future designs being not outlandish enough (while Discovery’s were TOO outlandish for being a prequel) – it all becomes alike and no clear design timeline is discernible anymore.
I think it’s all Discovery’s hexagonal corridors, just a different angle.
By the way, Discovery is on its third head of production design. I think we’ll need to see the season as a whole before we can really assess how well the jump ahead is imagined.
Tamara Deverell took over from Todd Cherniawski as of S1 episode 4.
(Cherniawski who is American also headed production design for Picard S1.)
Deverell is however doing production design for Guillermo del Toro’s new feature film “Nightmare Alley.”
This seems to have been anticipated as Phillip Barker who is a very senior Canadian production designer, with serious artistic awards in Canada, joined Deverell’s team in S2. The rotisserie corridor of the S2 finale is definitely one of his specialties.
So, Deverell has handed off to Barker for S3. While there’s continuity, I think we can see a bit more of Barker’s sensibilities showing through. If you’re interested, his work is searchable.
Can you help me imagine what possible use a “rotisserie corridor” would be in a working starship?
The rotisserie corridor was the construction that showed the artificial gravity failing in part of the ship.
Georgiou, Leland and Nhan fought in it and tumbled as the entire corridor set rotated along the axis. No wires or vfx required, just mechanics. (There’s a cool featurette showing how it was done on the StarTrek.com official.)
Assuming Barker is staying on for season 4, it will be very interesting to see how he and his team integrate practical physical sets with the Augmented Reality (AR) wall.
It’s ‘rotisserie’ because it’s a room/hallway that rotates on an external axis. They used something similar in the hallway fight scene in Inception, and rotating rooms on the same principle for old Fred Astaire movies and the Lionel Richie video ‘Dancing On The Ceiling’.
Yes, it’s just a section of Discovery with a bright light (like some of the junction areas), but you can see it has the same illuminated mid-wall stripe as the other shots.
My speculation is Section 31 has become the face of this new Federation. Would this then be the setup for the Yeoh’s S31 show?
Hmmmm … an interesting possibility! Then Georgiou has to negotiate with them, something an Emperor is not used to doing.
But if S31 was defeated by various forces when Control went down, what the heck happened?
That could explain why Georgiou seams to be wearing an Admiral uniform in the trailer.
I really really hope not! But if you’re right, this would go to the theory I been saying for a year now that Georgiou would just stay in the 32nd century and the new show would take place here.
But I don’t know how I feel about Section 31 now being the new Federation. It would almost feel dystopic in many ways.
I assume that the Section 31 show is going to be them travelling through time to fight the temporal cold war or whatever.
That would be crazy if the Section 31 show was all about time travel and jumping from era to era trying to set things right.would personally love that angle. It could also tie in to the original Red Angel suit and that was a starting point into Section 31 tinkering with time travel to becoming a very important component for them centuries into the future. Yeah they said all the time travel tech in the Federation was destroyed after the Temporal war but that doesn’t mean Section 31 tech was. ;)
Another interesting theory some think the show already hinted at and that the Section 31 show could deal with the multiverse and jump into various universes since apparently Section 31 does that in some of the novels. Fans caught on to it when Georgiou said she like jumping universe to universe in the second episode. Of course that just might be a joke about jumping from the MU to the PU but it could imply something bigger down the line.
One of my theories was that Discovery had arrived in a future that was not their own. As the season unfolds they come to the realization that they are not where they believed that they were. Double plot twist: The future is that of the Mirror Universe.
That would have been fun but Star Trek is never that bold.
Now that would’ve fun! Of course it doesn’t mean they didn’t jump to another universe, they very well could have. But yeah, I’m not holding my breath either. ;)
I think the fear is if you take the show out of the prime universe for good, people would be less inclined to care. I don’t really believe this but many fans really do seem hung up on seeing the prime universe all the time even though Trek exists in a multiverse. I don’t really understand it but there it is. And it does partly explains why the Kelvin universe lost popularity so fast.
I think they’re in a position to take chances now. I’m hooping for something unexpected by season’s end.
Well, we know that there may be at least a few major branches after the pre-TOS era.
So, it’s not as though there was only one future to go forward to.
Which really expands the possibilities of the series. Linear but parallel?
That does solve the problem of having to send her back.
To stimulate discussion they should have it where humans/intelligent life is banned from planet Earth and it is now a nature reserve protected by the “forest rangers” of the time.
That’s an interesting thought experiment.
I suspect that’s not what we’ll see though.
Yes, I know, which is too bad.
Would have really been cheap to shoot on Earth then.
I really think that having Discovery personnel on beaming to Earth being labelled 23rd century barbarians, potentially put under arrest by the authorities of the time, would up the drama and shake things up.
But why?? I don’t really see the point? What is the long term consequences of not having humans on Earth anymore? Especially if they just migrated to another planet? And being put under arrest over it seems a little extreme.
That would be the argument for the ban, what are the term consequences of having humans vs. banning humans?
You are living in a bubble if you haven’t realized that a significant amount of the population would love to ban the majority of humans from Earth to limit their impact (with them of course being an exception).
Well I guess I am living in a bubble if there is a serious push by people out there for humans to leave Earth now when we never gone farther than the moon lol. Where are they suggesting we go exactly? But the way 2020 has gone, I shouldn’t be too shocked. ;)
As far as the show, I guess I don’t really understand the point though? One thing I always just imagined by the 23rd century the planet would be environmentally friendly everywhere with no pollution whatsoever. All the stuff people rail about today would have been solved centuries from now, so why would humans have to be ban living on it if they solved all the issues that was creating problems on the planet in the first place?
So yeah I’m not really following the point? Haven’t all of that just been solved by the 23rd and 24th century?
At what point are people and their buildings the pollution and how much is too much? There is no single answer to this, that’s the drama. You can take it to extremes either way.
I live in a world where people are upset that if we use wood waste for carbon balanced biofuels that we would have to sustainably manage forests that they don’t burn down – how dare we have to use wood from forests? Better we use lithium in batteries from massive mines that we then dispose of in landfills when we are not covering the world in wind turbines?? Meanwhile billions for fusion researchers that won’t result in something that can lead to power generation despite the fact they know if they detonate devices we can generate steam and make power, but they don’t like explosions (aren’t we trying to save the world people??). Drama everywhere on all sides.
Yeah, with dilithium. So all bets are off.
So was lethal injection for walking on the flowers on the planet with beautiful people in rompers. Classic Star Trek trope.
Sure but I can’t see humans doing something like that. OK, maybe North Korea. ;)
We’re having forced sterilizations for being brown. Like right now today. In ‘Murica! In 1,000 years, think of how much human barbarism will have a chance to flourish and evolve.
Uh, what? Where in America are people being forced to be sterilized right now? Seems like this would be a pretty big election topic at the moment.
He’s just making it up to feed his victimization complex…
The free world has never been more free throughout 5000 years of human civilizations, and by all the inadvertent or deliberate attempts to dismantle this, it will never be as free again!
Just look how free the competitors to world dominance are today who are celebrating every time “‘murica” and Gang shoot themselves into the foot…
That’s such a terrible idea that I expect you’d stand a pretty good shot of getting hired by the current producers.
Exactly. People don’t like confronting that their idea of utopia is a world without people… except them of course generally with everything they want. Indeed how dare people in the 24th century pollute the Earth with their presence when they could be living in space stations?? In some ways, why not?? There is no right or wrong on this, just controversy and critical thought/debate which is why they should do it.
People love Avatar world… when there are no people (but them). Think about it.
That’s kind of an odd idea, but not a shocking one coming from you lol. So are you suggesting humans would just have migrated to another planet altogether? Of course that probably wouldn’t be too big of a deal because I imagine by the 32nd century the Federation would have thousands of colonies all over the alpha and beta quadrant by now.
But who would’ve ‘banned’ humans from their own home? Its one thing to be a nature preserve in large areas of the planet, it’s another for humans to be forced to leave it.
Lots of questions, would be fun to deal with.
That would be quite the departure from originalist Trek, as colonial expansion was apparently quite the norm. Considering how often the Starfleet would be shooting it out with other races who weren’t happy about that, one could presume humans weren’t the most neighborly of neighbors….
Dropping a line to note that while Discovery S1 isn’t bringing in huge Nielsen numbers for CBS on broadcast in the United States, it’s still the network’s top performing new scripted series, and ties “One Day at a Time” for the key age demographic.
Basically, scripted broadcast television hasn’t been performing as well during COVID-19 as some had expected. Just another indication of the shift in where people are getting their content.
I’m wondering if we’ll be hearing that Discovery season 2 will be following on to continue in that late Thursday evening slot in early 2021. After all, it can build audience for both Discovery and SNW on streaming.
Plus it is a three year old show already on home video. That might hurt it too. But yeah network/cable tv has problems.
Absolutely, T.Boyle, Discovery like a lot of it is older or content imported from other countries or from streaming.
It’s really not doing as poorly as the naysayers suggest.
More, Discovery’s 1.7+ million per week is about the same as all the Hallmark Christmas movies together get in their peak week before the holidays. So, compared to cable, it’s not such a small audience. I’m just genuinely surprised that US audiences for broadcast and cable are so small, particularly scripted content.
There isn’t anyone in our household who watches reality shows, and just one of our kids has ever followed a season of one of the singing competitions. I’m always stunned that they draw as much as they do.
Wow, this looks like it’s going to be a great episode! Looks like we’re going to get a lot of information about everything that has happened. I kind of thought they were going to really stretch things out with the mystery and seeing how it affected everything but it looks like the opposite.’
And going to Earth this soon is really surreal. I don’t know why but I literally thought they were going to try and avoid going to Earth (the production I mean) and maybe have Discovery just in the Beta quadrant somewhere. We’re going to see just how much Starfleet/Federation has changed and it already sounds like a lot.
And I guess I need to study up on dilithium because I’m just realizing I’m really not sure what it does lol. I know that’s odd for a long time Trek fan, but I was under the impression dilithium wasn’t all that important by the 24th century. I just assumed they had some other power source by then. So I guess it was always the main power source all this time?
It was pretty haunting to see all the ships just blow up that way. My guess is by the end of the season, Discovery will have found a way to equip everyone with spore drives. ;D
It’s also a Frakes episode so I know it’s going to be solid directing wise.
Dilithium crystals were where you could take anti-hydrogen and hydrogen from deuterium and mix them together without if blowing up that you could extract useful energy (just because you can set off a thermonuclear device, doesn’t mean you can easily spin a turbine and make power).
I liked it because it assigned “resources” to spaceflight of which the need is considerable.
Of course in real life anti-hydrogen would take insane amounts of power to make right now (think solar swarms around star systems that would require us to suck up deuterium from Saturn and destroy whole asteroids) that at least a resource constraint as a source of drama (what most call a McGuffinite) is present. Taking that out of the equation made TNG anti-science in my opinion, where adults could go play holodeck instead of ended up stranded, with a generation convinced that power is easy and free. Glad they eliminated the idea of dilithium as a perpetual motion machine.
OK, I understand it a little more, thanks. I was just under the impression in the 22nd and 23rd century it was a vital part of making the ships go, like the transmission of a car and not the engine per se. Clearly I never put that much thought into it lol.
But I thought by the 24th century it was replaced by something probably easier and better. Only because its rarely talked about in the other shows. I assumed by the time we got so far into the future it would be non-existent but clearly dilithium is very important even now.
It’s not a big deal either way, I was just really confused about it. So I’m wondering will they fix whatever the problem is that make dilithium explode or just find a different power source? I was joking about the spore drive, but not completely. It could end up being the long term solution in some way and the mycelium network the new way of traveling, but I hope not.
Since in Trek getting anti-matter is some how free (in real life, it is most certainly not, 1g of anti-hydrogen was estimated to cost $62.5 trillion) the only real cost to spaceflight in TOS was those non-regeneratable dilthium crystals, though there was a cost. Spock then discovered how to “recrystalize” dilithium in Star Trek IV dilithium thus eliminating that cost. Higher level – 60’s Roddenbery was about today’s humanity in succeeding in the future despite challenges like scarce resources that he injected dilithium into the stories that there was a parallel. 90’s Roddenbery was about today’s humanity being obsolete where tomorrow’s humanity is above challenges or needing to work, thus perpetual motion regeneratable dilithium. The impact on the stories was definitive, one being ultra boring with little to no conflict/relevance and one being ultra exciting with relatable stories. Super excited to see Discovery has done away with dilthium as a perpetual motion machine.
The spore drive is ultra lame in my opinion, I feel for all science teachers who end up with kids telling them faster than light travel is a magic mushroom away.
Or maybe he just thought in another century they find a way to use something more sustainable than dilithium? It’s all made up, so I don’t think it’s a big deal. That and the fact not every warp faring species even used it like the Romulans. It’s just one source some ships used to get around, not the only source. But clearly they have made it obvious now dilithium is still a very important resource for Federation ships at least. I just never cared about it one way or the other.
I know your opinions on the spore drive, but since it’s LITERALLY the only thing they can use in this time period for now, then its not a shock it’s going to be a big factor to bring the Federation back together. But I don’t think they will use it as a new way for ships to travel BUT you can’t be shocked if its used a solution somehow.
The irony is you would think its the 32nd century where they have perfected spore drive technology and not a thousand years earlier. Just more proof Discovery never belonged in the 23rd century. ;)
They would need to have a mycelial lifeform pilot to use the spore drive. Without the mycelium creature DNA Stamets almost flew the Discovery into a star.
*cough* *cough*
Now would be a good time for the science advisor they hypothetically hired to speak up, something about getting off the magic mushrooms.
…as opposed to magic crystals, to achieve something Relativity continues to prove is impossible?
Phil, Alculbierre’s warp bubble within General Relativity is increasingly looking possible, and is one of the least hand-wavy parts of Trek science.
It’s come along way since Albucierre (as a doctoral student in the 1990s) came up with a way to make the vocabulary in Trek work as physics. In particular, the existence of gravitational waves, a key assumption for warp drive, has since been established.
Last I looked, more recent work that took a different choice of parameters, and possibly added starting sub-light velocity, had the mass of exotic matter required down to something less than the size of a planet ;)
To me, none of it really matters. Me and you had this discussion before, but most of Star Trek ‘science’ is all based on highly speculative science at best. Yeah, spore drives and mycelium networks are definitely out there, but no more than transporters and holographic doctors in my view.
And of course what is forgotten here is that the idea of fungi being used on Discovery also came from speculative science of the real Dr. Paul Stamets and his theories based on mushrooms. He was even on After Trek to discuss it when the spore drive was introduced on the show. Of course his idea had nothing to do with teleporting across the galaxy but welcome to Discovery. ;)
The only issue and I others had about it is that it did not fit the era at all and should’ve been part of post-Voyager technology the earliest. But it’s no less ridiculous than all the other crazy stuff Star Trek has done in the past. Seriously, is time travel via slingshot around a star feasible? It’s not, but that form of time travel is actual canon and basically any warp society should be able to perform (which I always find funny everyone in Star Trek seems to conveniently forget that technique to time travel including Discovery in season 3. If you REALLY need to travel backwards or forwards in time, no advance time travel suit required, just find a star and a 9.9 warp capable ship and you’re good to go).
I understand people like Cmd Brennon wants to see more ‘realistic’ science in Star Trek, but that’s the problem, very little of it is realistic to begin with. Yes, some of it is based on real grounded scientific theory, a lot of it isn’t either. If people want a show based purely on hard science they should watch The Expanse. Star Trek uses whatever fits their crazy plots basically. It could be hard science one week, something totally made up the next.
I actually forgot about that and you need an actual person with tardigrade DNA. But, and I know how this sounds, is it really that hard to do? I mean they found this creature the first time, maybe there is a planet full of them? All that seems required is to extract their DNA now that we know other aliens can use it to interact with the spore drive.
And that doesn’t seem too hard in itself since they had no problem finding someone on Discovery who was viable. Of course I always thought that was very convenient not only can humans be given the DNA to pilot the spore drive, but that Stamets himself was feasible; the only guy on the entire ship who understood the technology behind the spores and mycelium network in the first place.
Seems to me based on Discovery anyway it wouldn’t be that hard to find people who are viable with the tardigrade DNA to be viable candidates. It seems more of a question of how hard it is to find those creatures more than anything.
Here’s a wrinkle in the Burn problem. Romulans had warp drive through an artificial singularity as a power source. No dilithium involved as far as I know. So nuking all of the dilithium in the galaxy wouldn’t theoretically affect ships using that type of power source.
Now I know Romulans love their secrets, but if Kirk can slap on some rubber ears and nab himself a cloaking device, and if Jack Ransom can hijack an antique bird of prey in a tactical onesie, someone, somewhere would have had full schematics of a singularity reactor. Hell. QUANTUM TORPEDOES use zero point energy as boom juice.
So, are there still Romulans around with that technology?
Could be that there were other reasons to ban it.
What I want to know is why is deuterium for quantum slipstream also nowhere to be had.
What amazes me is that the Borg haven’t taken over the alpha quadrant by now. They should have quite a toehold in the 29th century by now. Of course Burnham and crew wouldn’t know anything about the Borg yet. Either the Borg had some kind of precipitous calamity, or this temporal flaw in the storyline is going to be overlooked.
Burnham and crew MIGHT have access to intel on the Borg through Georgiou. Either from a MU encounter or from Section 31 files (Enterprise NX-01 encountered them but didn’t learn much as I recall; it was probably classified, but she probably has access or read about them at some point when researching badass threats to Starfleet).
Or the Federation became powerful enough itself to keep the Borg at bay.
Or maybe the Borg finally reached the quest for perfection and said, ‘eh, we’re good now’ and stopped assimilating. ;D
I will enjoy the episode with exception to the crew telling Burnham how amazing she is, judging by the pictures that is what is happening. *cringe*
It may make you feel better to consider it’s always the narcissistic people with really low self-esteem that require these sort of moments (or write them). Just look at 45. This is the 45 of Star Trek leads, and now she even looks to MFGA ;)
I wonder where the real technical advances are …
e.g Ships made out of programmable matter that reconfigure to the task needed..
(Or holographic ships for that matter, think a REAL warpcore, computer and some emitters and you have a holographic ship that can also reconfigure at will … and even let through projectiles at will … and no repairs )
Programmable matter for a spaceframe would need to be incredibly robust (i.e. not vulnerable to external reprogramming by an enemy agent or attack.
There are more than a few military sci-fi writers who’ve looked down that rabbit-hole.
Having an inert ship with nonfunctional systems due to an external computer attack is one thing. Having a ship reconfigure and crush or expel all hands into space is another.
“Programmable matter for a spaceframe would need to be incredibly robust”
That’s why programmable matter for clothing is such a no-brainer. It’s really the low hanging fruit for this technology.
I’d image the problem with programmable matter would be similar to those who see replicators as material perpetual motion machines. At some point physics isn’t going to be denied – you need energy to manipulate matter, and you need that base matter to be manipulated. Both have to come from somewhere. Both won’t magically appear, and neither are finite. Trek continues to ignore this, like it continues to ignore that AI will be doing the lions share of exploring the galaxy in the future. That’s where the technological advances lie….
Well, between NoMad, V’Ger and Control (and the strategic vulnerability of something like the Sphere Data Archive), I would say that Trek writers have provided a good rationale why AI-based exploration is constrained.
In fact, we heard through much of TNG that most of the sectors that Enterprise went to had been previously visited by unmanned probes. That’s why there was baseline data in the Starfleet database.
I agree with you about the programmable matter but as far as AI exploring space, we had this argument before Phil. It’s not that Starfleet CAN’T deploy more AI technology to do the exploring, they simply choose not to. They explore personally because they want to be part of it.
Janeway made that point to Seven in One Small Step and that Starfleet could’ve just made a fleet of AI probes. She makes the point exploration is to be part of it personally.
What’s crazy is I just came across this really great summation about One Small Step someone made on Youtube just a few days ago. It was made just a week ago and talks about the episode’s importance about its emphasis on space pioneering and the quest for humans to explore on their own:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgZ3ttlk-24
It also brings the point home for all of Voyager’s missteps, that show still had many great episodes that was quintessential Star Trek and a reminder what makes this franchise great. This is definitely one of them.
Now, ALL that said, yes it does make sense to have AI probes go to the more dangerous and just unreachable parts of space. Starfleet should’ve sent probes to the Gamma and Delta quadrants back in the 23rd century for example. They have the technology to send thousands of probes to these parts of space and then to return back to Earth with the data after a certain amount of time. That would just be well, logical and surprising something they never did.
Of course we did send the Voyager probe pre-Starfleet and that actually came back. ;D
Hmmm… I am curious about Adira’s uniform….
Is it that the one of the 32nd century Federation Starfleet? Or even of 32nd century Earth Starfleet?? (Due to the Federation losing most of its power, maybe the planets have to take military defense etc. into their own hands again.)
And are those shapes on her badge supposed to be letters? (EDF for “Earth Defense Fleet” or something??)
Numeris has just posted it’s top 30 television listings for Canada for the week ending October 18th.
Discovery’s season 3 premiere placed 24th with an average 733,000 viewers.
(Most higher ranked shows were news or reality series. Only Next, Blue Bloods and Big Bang Theory ranked higher for scripted shows.)
Keep in mind that Canada’s population is 38 million and that CTV Sci-fi channel is premium cable. (I don’t think that OTT service crave is included in those viewers numbers). The Masked Singer at #1 got 2.08 million viewers.
Sounds pretty good. If the US numbers were proportional that’d be something like 6 – 7 million viewers?
Tilly in photos 5 and 6 – Discovery’s half marathon winner ladies and gentlemen. The only conclusion one can draw is that the other entrants gave her a 13 mile head start.
I’m not sure what response you’re looking for here. Lousy attitude you’re projecting here. IDIC, as long as you fit Sully’s standards.
What he’s saying is that reality and facts are not about attitude and emotion or we end up at those much despised “alternate facts” and personal realities that both sides are heavily involved with now. In the real world untrained obese people don’t win marathons and are projecting a rather poor health role model to begin with, but of course we shouldn’t offend the sugar fairies and snowflakes with something as pesky as “reality”, life is like a fantasy tv series where you just CGI your way out of such problems :D
Funny you should take such pains to ride in to defend “reality”. In the real world, people like Tilly are not considered obese. They look that way next to the Hollywood standard actor look, which is achieved by a grueling diet, constant exercise, timed dehydration (and often cosmetic surgery), not to mention clothing augmentation and prosthesis. All to be perfect for a few weeks or months of shooting, after which the look is no longer sustainable because it is unrealistic or even dangerous.
That’s not a positive health role model.
Tilly probably wouldn’t win a half-marathon against a crew of perfect Starfleet officers- that much may well be fantasy, but I don’t think it’s a harmful one. We’ll probably never go faster than light either. I think Tilly has a better shot at the half marathon. That compromise with reality doesn’t seem to offend you for some reason.
Using the pretense of standing up for realism to sneer at the “obese” girl? Taking a swipe at “snowflakes” for being pleased to see more realistic body representation?
I’m constantly amazed at the kinds of people who watched Star Trek for decades and learned nothing of substance from it.
“Funny you should take such pains to ride in to defend “reality””
No pain involved at all ;) And reality needs no defending, it comes back biting those in denial sooner or later. No matter which fictions tv programmes come up with, scifi or otherwise (no science to be found there though).
There’s an obesity epidemic going on in the West in general and America in specific, you should be careful to defend such negative role models under the pretense of “progressivism” (isn’t it always). The only times when obese people (and yes, in Trek that includes those fat male admirals from the 1990s, no need for whataboutisms here) were considered the pinnacle of beauty and aspiration was all those times and civilizations most people were facing the real threat of starvation and a trim body was associated with poverty and hunger while the opposite was the pedigree only of the elites (just look at pictures of the rich and mighty of the times). Now I doubt anyone who gripes about “negative body images” would want to get back to those times. In our time it is just a byproduct of affluenza.
If Discovery wanted to make a real aspirational storyline about it (as little sense as obesity makes in the 23rd century), it would show Tilly struggling with her inner demons of excess hunger and junk food craving, or trouble with work out (much like a struggle to get off drug addiction has been featured in the past), instead of proclaiming her the winner and handing the main prize without any contest. Because on the subject of learning, nothing is to be learned from such a fantasy storyline.
No international clips? Not even bothering to try now Trekmovie?
Just use the VPN of your choice. Don’t forget to turn it off before posting though, the IP blocker is vicious ;)