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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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The Star Trek: The Original Series Episodes That Best Define the Franchise

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By the time my generation got to watch Star Trek: The Original Series, the episodes often were being presented in top-ten marathons. When I was ten-years-old, for the 25th Anniversary of Star Trek, I tape-recorded a marathon of ten episodes that had all been voted by fans as the best-ever installments of The Original Series. Later, I got lucky and found Trek stickers at the grocery store and was able to label my VHS tapes correctly. But do I think all the episodes that were in that marathon back in 1991 were really the best episodes of all of the classic Star Trek? The short answer: no. Although I love nearly every episode of the first 79 installments of Star Trek, I do think that certain lists have been created by what we think should be on the list rather than what episodes really best represent the classic show.

This is a long-winded way of saying, no, I didn’t include “Amok Time” or “The Menagerie” on this list because, as great as they are, I don’t think they really represent the greatest hits of the series. Also, if you’ve never watched TOS, I think those two episodes will throw you off cause you’ll assume Spock is always losing his mind or trying to steal the ship. If you’ve never watched TOS, or you feel like rewatching it with fresh eyes, I feel pretty strong that these 10 episodes are not only wonderful, but that they best represent what the entire series is really about. Given this metric, my choice for the best episode of TOS may surprise you…

10. “The Man Trap”

The first Star Trek ever episode aired should not be the first episode you watch. And yet, you should watch it at some point. The goofy premise concerns an alien with shaggy dog fur, suckers on its hand, and a face like a terrifying deep-sea fish. This alien is also a salt vampire that uses telepathy that effectively also makes it a shapeshifter. It’s all so specifically bonkers that trying to rip-off this trope would be nuts. Written by science fiction legend George Clayton Johnson (one half of Logan’s Run authorship) “The Man Trap” still slaps, and not because Spock (Leonard Nimoy) tries to slap the alien. Back in the early Season 1 episodes of Star Trek, the “supporting” players like Uhura and Sulu are actually doing stuff in the episode. We all talk about Kirk crying out in pain when the M-113 creature puts those suckers on his face, but the real scene to watch is when Uhura starts speaking Swahili. The casual way Uhura and Sulu are just their lovable selves in this episode is part of why we just can’t quit the classic Star Trek to this day. Plus, the fact that the story is technically centered on Bones gives the episode some gravitas and oomph. You will believe an old country doctor thinks that salt vampire is Nancy! (Spoiler alert: It’s not Nancy.)

9. “Let that Be Your Last Battlefield”

There are two episodes everyone always likes to bring up when discussing the ways in which Star Trek changed the game for the better in pop culture’s discourse on racism: “Plato’s Stepchildren” and this episode, “Let that Be Your Last Battlefield.” The former episode is famous because Kirk and Uhura kiss, which is sometimes considered the first interracial kiss on an American TV show. (British TV shows had a few of those before Star Trek, though.) But “Plato’s Stepchildren” is not a great episode, and Kirk and Uhura were also manipulated to kiss by telepaths. So, no, I’m not crazy about “Plato’s Stepchildren.” Uhura being forced to kiss a white dude isn’t great.

But “Let that Be Your Last Battlefield,” oddly holds up. Yep. This is the one about space racism where the Riddler from the ‘60s Batman (Frank Gorshin) looks like a black-and-white cookie. Is this episode cheesy? Is it hard to take most of it seriously? Is it weird that Bele (Frank Gorshin) didn’t have a spaceship because the budget was so low at that time? Yes. Is the entire episode dated, and sometimes borderline offensive even though its heart is in the right place? Yes. Does the ending of the episode still work? You bet it does. If you’re going to watch OG Star Trek and skip this episode, you’re kind of missing out on just how charmingly heavy-handed the series could get. “Let that Be Your Last Battlefield” is like a ‘60s after-school special about racism, but they were high while they were writing it.

8. “Arena”

You’re gonna try to list the best episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series and not list the episode where Kirk fights a lizard wearing gold dress-tunic? The most amazing thing about “Arena” is that it’s a Season 1 episode of The Original Series and somehow everyone involved in making TOS had enough restraint not to ever try to use this Gorn costume again. They didn’t throw it away either! This famous rubber lizard was built by Wah Chang and is currently owned by none other than Ben Stiller.

So, here’s the thing about “Arena” that makes it a great episode of Star Trek, or any TV series with a lizard person. Kirk refuses to kill the Gorn even though he could have, and Star Trek refused to put a lizard costume in a bunch of episodes later, even though they totally could have. Gold stars all around.

7. “Balance of Terror”

The fact that Star Trek managed to introduce a race of aliens that looked exactly like Spock, and not confuse its viewership is amazing. On top of that, the fact that this detail isn’t exactly the entire focus of the episode is equally impressive. The notion that the Romulans look like Vulcans is a great twist in The Original Series, and decades upon decades of seeing Romulans has probably dulled the novelty ever so slightly. But, the idea that there was a brutally cold and efficient version of the Vulcans flying around in invisible ships blowing shit up is not only cool, but smart.

“Balance of Terror” made the Romulans the best villains of Star Trek because their villainy felt personal. Most Romulan stories in TNG, DS9, and Picard are pretty damn good and they all start right here.

6. “Space Seed”

Khaaaan!!!! Although The Wrath of Khan is infinitely more famous than the episode from which it came, “Space Seed” is one of the best episodes of The Original Series even if it hadn’t been the progenitor of that famous film. In this episode, the worst human villain the Enterprise can encounter doesn’t come from the present, but instead, the past. Even though “Space Seed” isn’t considered a very thoughtful episode and Khan is a straight-up gaslighter, the larger point here is that Khan’s evilness is connected to the fact that he lived on a version of Earth closer to our own.

The episode’s coda is also amazing and speaks of just how interesting Captain Kirk really is. After Khan beat the shit out of him and tried to suffocate the entire Enterprise crew, Kirk’s like “Yeah, this guy just needs a long camping trip.”

5. “A Piece of the Action”

A few years back, Saturday Night Live did a Star Trek sketch in which it was revealed that Spock had a relative named “Spocko.” This sketch was tragically unfunny because TOS had already made the “Spocko” joke a million times better in “A Piece of the Action.” When you describe the premise of this episode to someone who has never seen it or even heard of it, it sounds like you’re making it up. Kirk, Spock, and Bones are tasked with cleaning-up a planet full of old-timey mobsters who use phrases like “put the bag on you.” Not only is the episode hilarious, but it also demonstrates the range of what Star Trek can do as an emerging type of pop-art. In “A Piece of the Action,” Star Trek begins asking questions about genres that nobody ever dreamed of before. Such as, “what if we did an old-timey gangster movie, but there’s a spaceship involved?”

4. “Devil in the Dark”

When I was a kid, my sister and I called this episode, “the one with giant pizza.” Today, it’s one of those episodes of Star Trek that people tell you defines the entire franchise. They’re not wrong, particularly because we’re just talking about The Original Series. The legacy of this episode is beyond brilliant and set-up a wonderful tradition within the rest of the franchise; a monster story is almost never a monster story

The ending of this episode is so good, and Leonard Nimoy and Shatner play the final scenes so well that I’m actually not sure it’s cool to reveal what the big twist is. If you somehow don’t know, I’ll just say this. You can’t imagine Chris Pratt’s friendly Velicrapotrs, or Ripper on Discovery without the Horta getting their first.

3. “The Corbomite Maneuver”

If there’s one episode on this list that truly represents what Star Trek is usually all about on a plot level, it’s this one. After the first two pilot episodes —“Where No Man Has Gone Before” and “The Cage”—this was the first regular episode filmed. It’s the first episode with Uhura and, in almost every single way, a great way to actually explain who all these characters are and what the hell they’re doing. The episode begins with Spock saying something is “fascinating” and then, after the opening credits, calling Kirk, who is down in sickbay with his shirt off. Bones gives Kirk shit about not having done his physical in a while, and Kirk wanders through the halls of the episode without his shirt, just kind of holding his boots.

That’s just the first like 5 minutes. It just gets better and better from there. Like a good bottle of tranya, this episode only improves with time. And if you think it’s cheesy and the big reveal bizarre, then I’m going to say, you’re not going to like the rest of Star Trek.

2. “The City on the Edge of Forever”

No more blah blah blah! Sorry, wrong episode. Still, you’ve heard about “The City on the Edge of Forever.” You’ve heard it’s a great time travel episode. You’ve heard Harlan Ellison was pissed about how the script turned out. You heard that Ron Moore really wanted to bring back Edith Keeler for Star Trek Generations. (Okay, maybe you haven’t heard that, but he did.)

Everything you’ve heard about this episode is correct. There’s some stuff that will make any sensible person roll their eyes today, but the overall feeling of this episode is unparalleled. Time travel stories are always popular, but Star Trek has never really done a time travel story this good ever again. The edge of forever will always be just out of reach.

1. “A Taste of Armageddon”

Plot twist! This excellent episode of TOS almost never makes it on top ten lists. Until now! If you blink, “A Taste of Armageddon” could resemble at least a dozen other episodes of TOS. Kirk and Spock are trapped without their communicators. The crew has to overpower some guards to get to some central computer hub and blow it up. Scotty is in command with Kirk on the surface and is just kind of scowling the whole time. Kirk is giving big speeches about how humanity is great because it’s so deeply flawed.

What makes this episode fantastic is that all of these elements come together thanks to a simplistic science fiction premise: What if a society eliminated violence but retained murder? What if hatred was still encouraged, but war was automated? Star Trek’s best moments were often direct allegories about things that were actually happening, but what makes “A Taste of Armageddon” so great is that this metaphor reached for something that could happen. Kirk’s solution to this problem is a non-solution, which makes the episode even better. At its best classic Star Trek wasn’t just presenting a social problem and then telling us how to fix it. Sometimes it was saying something more interesting — what if the problem gets even harder? What do we do then?

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The humor and bombast of “A Taste of Armageddon” is part of the answer to that unspoken question, but there’s also a clever lesson about making smaller philosophical decisions. In Star Wars, people are always trying to rid themselves of the dark side of the Force. In Star Trek, Kirk just teaches us to say, “Hey I won’t be a terrible person, today” and then just see how many days we can go in a row being like that.

What do you think are the most franchise-defining episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series? Let us know in the comments below.

The post The Star Trek: The Original Series Episodes That Best Define the Franchise appeared first on Den of Geek.

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data-is-my-favorite-android · 7 years ago

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Ashburn’s Arc: Meta Analysis of the Entire Season (and Predictions)

I must be insane to sit here and labor for hours over another meta, but I can’t help it. I can’t get these characters’ arcs out of my head. Like, the writing blows me away and I’m really excited (and maybe a little nervous) to see what happens next. But one thing is for sure: Michael Burnham and Ash Tyler are the two common threads throughout this entire season, and their relationship is Important To The Plot.

Buckle up, friends, cuz this one’s a loooong one.

You may see that I just said that Ash Tyler is one of two common threads through the entire season, implying he has been important from the beginning.

“But data, Ash Tyler as we know him didn’t show up until episode 5, how can that be true?”

Yes, well, much as we hate to admit it, Ash is also Voq. And Voq has been around from the beginning. While Voq and Ash aren’t entirely the same, they are connected, meaning their arcs are intrinsically intertwined together. And while this may seem counter-intuitive, that fact actually might be good news for ashburn.

Before you riot, let me explain.

This season opened with two ships, a Federation one and a Klingon one, facing off. Aboard both ships, we saw two captains interacting with two important subordinates. In the case of the Shenzhou, the pair was captain and first officer, but also surrogate mother and adopted daughter. Aboard the Sarcophagus, the relationship was between captain and chosen successor, messiah and devout follower. It isn’t hard to see the parallels. The parallels deepen further when Goergiou fights T’Kuvma and Voq fights Michael. At the end of the struggle, both captains are dead, leaving two grieving people behind to pick up the pieces. Michael is imprisoned immediately, while Voq is cast out later. Both are desperate to prove their worth and honor the memory of their fallen loved ones.

From a writer’s perspective, setting up these kinds of parallels between characters can go one of two ways:

1) The two become adversaries. Molded by similar circumstances, they diverge in response and become mortal enemies destined to fight until one of them is vanquished.

2) The two, while initially adversaries, become allies. They meet with the intention of fighting, but find common ground where they least expected it and go on to work together to overthrow the real enemy (whatever that might be). This is also fertile soil for the star-crossed/unexpected lovers arc.

Listen, everything that happens in a well-written story carries a kind of narrative momentum, a series of weights that pushes the Story Arc one way or another. I’ve taken the liberty of noting important moments in the story and their narrative weight as it pertains to ashburn. I’m using a pretty simple system, awarding points for each positive and negative instance, but tbh some of these moments carry more narrative weight than others. For now, let’s break it down like this: ones are for buildings block moments, twos are for scenes or lines carrying important themes, and threes are for Narrative Events that carry a lot of clout. I may have missed a few, or you may disagree with how I’ve weighted them, but here’s what I have presently:

For the parallels set up pre-Ash Tyler, I’m giving a weight of +3. This is a time-honored and well-established literary trope that carries a lot of narrative importance. This could have been a -3 (indicating an unhappy ashburn ending), but circumstances further down the line make me believe that it’s a positive thing.

Tyler shows up. When he meets Burnham for the first time, he doesn’t reject her immediately. Instead, he says “I prefer to assess people in the here and now”. I’ll come back to this and why I think it’ll be important in the future. So he greets her with an open mind. +2

He goes on to sympathize with her when she doesn’t know how to feel about Sarek. He accepts her duality (a human who is culturally Vulcan) and helps her realize that what she’s experiencing is “being human”. +2

Michael wants to initiate a relationship and does so by being honest about her feelings. +1

Michael nearly kills a bitch when Mudd kills Tyler and sacrifices herself (temporarily) to bring him back. +1

Tyler tells Michael he’s “not going anywhere” as they contemplate their budding relationship. +2

On Pahvo, Tyler tells Michael she deserves better than jail and that he personally puts her needs above the many. +2

Aboard the Sarcophagus, Michael tells Tyler “no one gets left behind” and promises to come back for him. +2

Tyler says that after everything that’s happened to him, he’s still happy because it led him to her. +2

Michael listens to Tyler’s experiences and doesn’t judge him, instead telling him he deserves peace, to which he responds that he found peace in her. +2

Tyler nearly suffers another breakdown. He says he can handle it, even though he’s clearly struggling. He asks Michael to trust him. -2

Tyler kills Culber. -3

Tyler pledges to protect Michael. +2/-2 depending on how you look at it

Tyler tells Michael he loves her, and she says she loves him too. +3

Tyler talks about Michael as his tether. +2/-2 depending

Tyler freaks out on Mirror!Voq. -2

Tyler tells Michael he wants to be human for her and that he’s been holding on for her. +2

But then Voq takes over and he tries to kill her. -3

Michael spares him, even though she knows he’s Voq. +1

Tyler asks about Michael with the few seconds of time he has as himself in med bay. +1

Michael refuses to see Tyler. -1

Sarek tells her there is grace in loving your enemy. +3

Sarek tells Michael not to regret loving somebody. +2

Tilly tells Michael that how she treats Tyler now says something about who she is and who they all are as people. +3

Tyler and Michael meet and argue. -2 but also +3 in the long run if my predictions are correct.

As you can see, despite some of the negative major events, there is a net positive momentum behind their arc presently.

Star Trek Discovery has been all about mirrors and echoes this entire season. Looking back at Ash and Michael’s interactions and some of the other big events so far, I can see a lot of potential to take the loose ends of their relationship and tie them back together. Here are some thoughts (that may not be organized that well, sorry!):

I think we’ll see another moment like the one with Ash accepting Michael when they first meet, except the roles may be reversed. This echo may have already been satisfied by Tilly’s intervention in the mess hall, but there might be a more significant moment where Michael assesses Ash “in the here and now”, putting his past transgressions aside and accepting him as he is.

I also think there’s something important about Tyler’s acceptance of Michael’s duality and sympathizing with her confusion around her father and her human emotions. We may see Michael begin to pivot toward accepting Tyler and his complexity like Tyler did for her. Also, Michael struggling with her emotions, specifically those around being angry, but wanting to love, have some narrative significance that I think we may see in the future. I’m seeing seeds here that I could very well see the writers planting for later use.

Ash is now the one more likely to go to prison than Michael, which is an interesting reversal of the previous situation. There may be another moment where Michael does for Ash what he did for her on Pahvo and state that there is something unjust about the situation and she doesn’t want him to be imprisoned. This could just be Ash’s arc playing out in a logical way, but it feels more like a foil of Michael’s trajectory.

Sarek explicitly telling Michael that loving “the enemy” is special and good seems like A Big Giant Plot Point. Telling her to never regret loving someone is crazy important, especially coming from a Vulcan. Michael could have gotten that talk from someone else, like Saru or Tilly. But the writers chose to have her emotionally closed-off Vulcan surrogate father deliver this information. While he may have had other reasons for saying some of the things he said, there’s no denying that he directly stated that there was grace in embracing an enemy. That wasn’t a mistake; it was designed for Maximum Impact.

Tilly also gave A Big Important Speech to Michael about Starfleet values as they apply to Tyler. We’re getting lots of cues from the writers that reconciliation, while difficult, is coming, and lots of confirmation that what Michael and Ash have is special and worthy of protecting.

Now here are my big predictions. Bear in mind that I could be crazy wrong on some of these, but I’m taking a swing at it and seeing how I do:

1) Tyler won’t die. There are a few reasons why I think this. We’ve already had a lot of deaths. There’s been a shit-ton of attrition on the show of not only primary and secondary characters, but also faceless masses of war casualties. Enough people have died in this conflict. At this point in the game, the writers need to give us big emotional wins. Losing Tyler is not an emotional win. Lorca’s death was somewhat shocking, but he was a different character than Tyler; he was unrepentant to the end while Tyler is clearly remorseful. To me, this kind of writing signals a coming redemption arc.

Now, if Ash and Michael had reconciled during their argument this last episode, I’d be more worried. A common trope used in television is the whole lovers making up shortly before one of them is killed (usually in a heroic sacrifice). The crude narrative logic behind this might be summed up like this: one partner in the relationship did something wrong but was forgiven quickly and didn’t have to suffer enough for their actions; death becomes their punishment. Also, it’s a way of giving the audience one last feel good scene before a character dies and creates character pain for the surviving partner. It’s stupid and cheap, but it’s a common enough sight in media. But that isn’t what happened here. Tyler is remorseful and wants to atone for his sins, but it’s going to be a long road. Michael didn’t let him off easy, either. His character has been set up to have to do emotional work; the writers need to show him doing that work. He needs to live to follow through on that.

So what will happen to him? I can’t be sure. I see a few more options, though.

I’ll start with the two least likely but still possible ones.

The first is that he’ll somehow remain with the Klingons. This could be either as a diplomat to build bridges between the Federation and the Klingons -or- as a traitor to the Federation. Voq was set up to be the unifier of the Klingons, and Ash has Voq’s memories; it makes sense that he might inherit his “fate”. It also might echo L’rell’s words to Voq about building bridges between her family’s houses. Of the two possibilities under this subheading, this seems the more likely. It’s possible that Tyler, feeling spurned by Michael or the Federation and disgusted with the war crimes they are threatening to commit, defects and joins the Klingons. But Tyler has thus far been unwaveringly loyal to Starfleet, and he currently has a lot of people in his corner helping him through this tough transition in his life. He knows there are good people around him, and honestly I don’t believe he’d be so petty that he’d betray the Federation because Michael won’t accept him. I do think we’ll see him speaking in defense of the Klingons when he learns of the inevitable war crimes Georgiou is pushing to commit, though.

The second scenario is that he’s incarcerated. This is entirely possible, given his unique situation. However, Starfleet may consider him an asset better left in the field, where he can be used as Klingon intelligence while still being observed in a controlled environment. Also, the Federation may feel it wrong to imprison him for circumstances outside of his control and they may think it inhumane to subject him to tests and experiments without his total consent and cooperation. If he does go to the clink, I think he’ll eventually be brought back to Discovery because, like Michael, he’s an important character and an important resource.

The third possibility is...??? Something happens that necessitates his continued presence on the Discovery or makes his exit impossible. And I’m not going to even begin to speculate how that happens, tbh.

2) Michael and Ash’s relationship will continue in one way or another (either as friends or lovers) as long as Ash is still aboard Discovery. That doesn’t mean it’ll be easy for them, but there’s a lot of narrative gravity pulling them together. But a few things need to happen first:

-Tyler needs to show that he can find his way without Michael as his tether. He needs to be willing to put in the work for himself and he needs to show through his actions that he isn’t relying on Michael (even if he still looks to her as a beacon).

-Michael needs to see Tyler doing something (perhaps protecting her, as he promised he would) in such a way that she realizes the man she knew is still there. Last episode the writers specifically called attention to Tyler’s eyes; Michael said all she could see was Voq when she looked into them. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that in the season finale they’ll be in a tight spot together and Tyler will do something brave or gentle or whatever and she’ll look into his eyes and see him, the man she loves.

3) I also think there will be a moment between them where Michael has to decide to trust Ash and take his hand (figuratively or maybe even literally). Or maybe it’ll be Ash doing something dangerous or reckless and Michael rescues him by taking hold of him, who knows. But I think the “Will You Take My Hand?” of the title may have something to do with them. I actually think we may see several iterations of this question during the episode, but I’m hoping that Ash and Michael reconnecting is one of them.

Ultimately, I think it makes sense for Michael and Ash to continue to be a driving force in Discovery because their relationship is a metaphor for so many things that are key aspects of the overarching story line. They represent the different sides of the war, the possibility for respect and love between enemies, the truth that patience and understanding in the face of adversity can build bridges between people. And remember when I said two people with parallel character arcs can work together to overthrow the real enemy? The real enemy here is fear, and the violence that comes from fear and ignorance. The Klingons were afraid of losing their cultural identity. The Federation is afraid of being annihilated. Fear is the enemy. Michael is afraid of Tyler because of what he is, and Tyler is afraid of losing touch with who he was. To defeat the enemy, they’re going to need to move past their fear and differences and start again from a place of compassion. Their reconciliation would represent a larger trend, one that embodies the optimism of Star Trek and promotes the ideals of the Federation.

And that’s why I think there’s hope for Ashburn yet.

#star trek discovery #ashburn #ash tyler #michael burnham #meta #predictions #really hope i'm right

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writesandramblings · 7 years ago

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The Captain’s Secret - p.65

“The Stars, Broken”

A/N: Covers the events of episode 6, "Lethe."

Sorry for the delay in posting these latest chapters, writing while rewatching the episodes can be a bit time-consuming, and I've been spending so much time working on the fic, my DVR filled up to 5% and had to be attended to! Rest assured, the delay does not indicate any faltering enthusiasm on my part. We're so close now, the home stretch is nearing, and I'm as excited and determined as ever to see this thing through to the end.

Full Chapter List Part 1 - Objects in Motion << Part 64 - Where the Wild Things Are Part 66 - Past and Present Tense >>

You could learn a lot about a person in times of peril, and the experience aboard the Klingon prison cruiser had given Lorca a very good measure of Lieutenant Ash Tyler. That measure was only clarified after a round of target practice against holographic projections of Klingon adversaries. Despite staring straight into the faces of his former tormentors, Tyler held himself together well.

Lorca already knew all the facts and figures of Tyler's life from his file. Hearing Tyler tell them himself, the takeaway was that the young lieutenant possessed a potent resilience, that tragedy did not define him, and through it all he maintained a strong, centered sense of self.

Much more telling than any of the biographical details was the fact that, at the end of their target practice, Lorca had racked up twenty-four kills and Tyler reported he'd gotten twenty-two, which was a lie. Tyler's kill count, when Lorca checked, was thirty-six. Tyler started to apologize for the deception. "Don’t apologize for excellence!" said Lorca, in a tone that was as much an instruction as a warning that lying to him again was not advisable. Then his tone softened. "I want my chief of security to shoot better than I do."

Seven months in Klingon prison and Tyler had not given up. Instead he had fought, learned, and adapted to survive. Exactly the sort of person Lorca wanted on Discovery and a more than capable replacement for Ellen Landry. Slightly less fun in terms of recreational possibilities, but no one could be everything, and Lorca rather thought he was going to make some inroads on that particular front soon enough without requiring anything of any security chiefs.

Lorca was in his ready room trying to think of a way to get Discovery into battle "accidentally" when an alert came that Michael Burnham had collapsed in the mess hall. He beamed directly to sickbay, startling Cadet Tilly, who stood at Burnham's side.

"What happened!" Lorca demanded of Tilly, a degree louder than he should have.

"I don't know, sir!" said Tilly. "We just, we sat down to eat, and then she collapsed!"

"I'm reading an abundance of neural activity," said Culber.

Burnham sat suddenly up and shouted, "Sarek!"

Culber quieted Burnham and gently eased her back down onto the biobed.

"What's the matter with her?" asked Lorca, looking to Culber for some sort of clue.

Burnham answered herself. "It's not me, it's Sarek. He's in trouble." Sarek was Burnham's adoptive father, a Vulcan ambassador.

There seemed to be no immediate reason why Sarek being in distress would cause Burnham to collapse. "How do you know that?" asked Lorca.

Burnham explained. The majority of Burnham's past was already known to Lorca. Her parents' deaths, her adoption by Sarek and his wife Amanda, her studies at the Vulcan Science Academy, where she had outperformed all the Vulcans and graduated top of her class. What Lorca did not know was that, as Burnham described it, she shared a piece of Sarek's soul, his katra, which he had infused within her to save her life when she was a child. Now, twenty years later, that link remained. It had even helped Burnham survive the events of the Battle of the Binary Stars.

Now, the link was telling her Sarek was endangered. Burnham looked at Lorca, her face as close to a plea as her Vulcan upbringing allowed it to be. "Captain, help me find him."

Lorca nodded his head. "The full resources of Discovery are at your disposal."

The first step was finding out where Sarek was and why he was there. Admiral Terral was entirely forthcoming with the details of Sarek's mission. Two Klingon houses, fallen out of favor with the main faction, were offering secret talks to strike a deal with the Federation that had the potential to turn the war in their favor.

But when Lorca suggested Discovery could rescue Sarek before the Starfleet could scramble any other rescue operations, Terral's rejection of the offer was immediate. "Absolutely not. There are protocols to be followed, captain!" Namely, that block Cornwell had put on Discovery actually doing anything.

This was not a battle, this was a rescue operation. There was no good reason for Starfleet to deny Discovery the chance to save a life when there was no real risk to the ship. Most importantly, he had already told Burnham they were going to rescue Sarek.

"You can tell the Vulcans they're welcome, happy to clean up their mess. Discovery out," said Lorca, and closed the channel on Terral.

He reached into the bowl of fortune cookies for a sign as to the likely outcome of this newest insubordination, crushing one between his hands and munching on the remnants. "You are filled up with a sense of urgency. Be patient or you may end up confused," it read.

Lorca twisted the fortune into a tiny curl of paper. The cookie was immaterial. He had already decided on their course of action. The look on Burnham's face was the closest he had seen to true humanity in her, and it was an expression of suffering he did not want to see again. He would endure all the stony-faced, unemotional Vulcan nonsense so long as it meant not having to see her suffer.

Burnham was different than he expected. He had hardly expected her to fall over herself with gratitude at his getting her out of prison, but she had impressed him with a poise and strength entirely unbroken by her conviction and imprisonment. She was like Tyler in that regard. The universe might try to change her, but her inner self was entirely unassailable. She was savvy, too, even if she jumped to conclusions a little too quickly. That quickness was another wonderful trait of hers and it had served her well during the Glenn incident. She hated waiting. So did he.

It was impossible not to admire her. That Starfleet at large had failed to appreciate fully her talents and potential in light of her lone act of informed disobedience was a travesty. There was something truly amazing about this Michael Burnham, and he intended to make full use of it.

They scoured the Yridia nebula for signs of Sarek's ship, but it was not along the course it should have been, and the nebula's gases made the warp trail impossible to follow. Lorca sat in his captain's chair fighting the feeling of helpless frustration that came from not having a clear path to resolving the problem.

Burnham arrived on the bridge, looking slightly worse for wear. He was surprised to see her. "How are you feeling?" he asked.

"I still sense Sarek, but it's growing erratic. Think he's getting worse," said Burnham. This was not the question Lorca had asked. It was a little sad how oblivious Burnham was to simple human kindnesses.

"Don't worry," he assured her, "we'll get him back."

But the nebula was immense. Their sensors were ineffective in its radioactive gases and probes could take months. Saru was making little progress on his scans.

More frustration. "Well, any other options, number one?" demanded Lorca.

"Me," said Burnham. When Lorca looked in her eyes, he saw again that fervent devotion and love for her adoptive father.

The plan was crazy, but it was the sort of thing that just might be crazy enough to work. Lorca accompanied Burnham down towards the engineering lab to pitch it to Stamets. Mischkelovitz would have been a better choice, but no way was Lorca going to make the mistake of trying to put Burnham and Mischkelovitz together on a project. Mischkelovitz was useless if she crawled back into the walls.

In the turbolift, Burnham suddenly staggered slightly as if dizzy and Lorca caught her arm to steady her. "Halt turbolift," he barked to the computer, and asked Burnham a second time, "you okay there, Michael?"

"Sarek is..."

"Not Sarek," he said, "you."

Burnham straightened with one hand on the wall of the turbolift, pulling slightly away from him as she did, and he released her. Something seemed to say that, even if there was good reason for him to have taken her arm, she did not appreciate the gesture on any level and it was as unwanted as it was unexpected.

"We're wasting time," said Burnham. "Computer, resume turbolift." Lorca had not issued a command lockout and the computer responded to Burnham's command.

"You know, it's all right to be human," said Lorca as the doors opened. He saw a momentary hesitation on Burnham's face in response, but then it was replaced by that steely, faux-emotionless mask she wore and she strode out of the turbolift and he followed.

"As any Vulcan will tell you, simply because I was raised according to Vulcan teachings does not change the fact I am human," Burnham declared as they walked down the hall.

Could've fooled me, thought Lorca, but bit his tongue.

Stamets was, oddly enough, happy to see them.

"You're talking about building a synthetic mind-meld augment," he exclaimed upon hearing Burnham's proposal. "Groovy!"

"Clearly your trip down the mycelium path has lightened your mood, lieutenant," observed Lorca with a touch of wry amusement.

Normally, this sort of jibe would have elicited some sort of obstinate pushback from Stamets, but today, the astromycologist smiled benevolently at Lorca. "Once you're past getting stabbed by needles, it's pretty great!"

Lorca narrowed his eyes in assessment. Since when did Stamets have a sense of humor?

At least one thing hadn't changed. Stamets responded to this revelation about the Vulcan katra with excitement for the pure research opportunities of such a network, immediately enchanted by the possibilities and threatening to go off on a scientific tangent. Lorca directed him back to the task at hand with the firm admonition that there was no time for them to explore the metaphysical implications of Vulcan katras. Sarek was out there in that nebula and they needed him, now.

The only problem was, for this plan to work, they would need to put Burnham inside the nebula. The radioactive interference was not just a problem for the ship's sensors, but also Burnham's connection to Sarek. Lorca relentlessly shot back at every problem Stamets presented with attempts to find solutions. "So we take the Discovery inside the nebula and get closer to him."

"Ooh, bad idea," said Stamets delightedly. "Guess what happens if we mix those cosmic gases with the concentration of mycelium spores we have on board?"

"Um," said Lorca, staring at Stamets and wondering if maybe Stamets had taken something before starting his shift. Perhaps tetrahydrocannabinol concentrate. He might need to check the security feeds later to see if Stamets had started eating his precious mushrooms.

Stamets imitated an explosion. Then, he looked at Lorca knowingly and said, "I know, I know, get to work."

Lorca stared after Stamets as Burnham rattled off some mission specifications. Stamets had just willingly set himself to do the actual task he had been assigned to do. What in the hell was happening. There might actually be something seriously wrong with Stamets. Whatever it was, it seemed like an improvement. Lorca found he actually sort of liked Stamets now.

He was only half-listening, still perplexed by this complete change in Stamets' personality, but he heard Burnham request Cadet Tilly's assistance and promised her whatever she wanted or needed for this mission. He gave her Tyler for a pilot, too, and before sending them off he pulled Tyler aside on the shuttle and said, "Bring her back in one piece."

"Not a scratch," promised Tyler, patting the shuttle's controls, and Lorca's smile softened.

"I'm talking about her," Lorca clarified, glancing over at Burnham, and then offered Tyler a piece of his trademark gallows humor: "Or don't come back at all." As usual, despite the smile, there was something very real in those words.

Finding himself in yet another one of those depressing waiting patterns while Burnham flew off to save her adoptive father, Lorca examined the latest iteration of Mischkelovitz's mycelial map from the privacy of his quarters. It was coming along slowly but surely. Each jump added something new, some detail, some revision, some elimination of a previous possibility.

Unfortunately, with an absolute dearth of reasons for them to jump anywhere at the moment, there was really nothing Mischkelovitz could add to the map, so she was back on the Klingon cloaking problem.

An alert from the bridge interrupted his examination. Admiral Cornwell wanted to talk to him.

In person. Her cruiser was here. This, he knew, was not going to be good.

It was even worse than he expected. Cornwell wasn't just mad, she was furious, because the rampant insubordination she had been putting up with for far too long had just spread to his interactions with other admirals.

"You are captain of the most advanced ship in the fleet. The cornerstone of our entire defense against the Klingons!" she proclaimed, her every word a judgmental reprimand. (Could Cornwell even hear herself? Yet again, Lorca was reminded of the fact they would not let him deploy Discovery in battle where it was truly needed. Was the cornerstone of their defense supposed to be empty air?) Her accusations went on and on: he had launched an unauthorized rescue mission with a convicted mutineer and a POW of questionable trustworthiness (unfair; Tyler had proven himself both true and capable to Lorca), he was treating Discovery like his own fiefdom (fair; as far as Lorca was concerned, the ship was), Stamets had engaged in illegal eugenics modifications (but he had gotten the spore drive working in the process and saved everyone on the ship). "There are rules—"

"Rules are for admirals in back offices," he said to her, face set with fierce determination. "I'm out there trying to win a war."

"Then don't make enemies on your own side!"

As strained as things had become, he was stunned by the implication she might now be in some way his enemy. "What are you doing here? What's really going on?"

"I came to see my friend," she said.

There were two ways Lorca could interpret that. One way was to challenge whether or not she truly understood the meaning of the word, because these days he was no longer sure.

He went with the other. "Okay," he said softly, and decided to remind her exactly what sort of friends they were. "Why don't we stop talking like Starfleet officers, Kat, and, ah, start talking like friends?" He produced a bottle of whiskey from under the table and offered a tiny smile of invitation.

He could see the reluctance, but also the hope.

"If you don't want to, that's fine. But it's the end of my day, and it's been a long one, so..." He put a glass on the table next to the bottle and poured himself a measure.

Cornwell stared at the alcohol as it went in the glass. "There are better ways to unwind," she said.

Lorca picked up the drink with a smirk. "Are you offering?"

"Reading, music," corrected Cornwell, kicking herself slightly for walking right into that one.

He took a sip of the whiskey, felt the initial bite of the alcohol dissolve into a smoothly satisfying, earthy warmth, and put a second glass on the table. "You gonna make me drink alone?" Her will to resist dissolved a little more with each passing moment, but she was still not at the tipping point. "You came an awful long way to see me. These days, there's no telling when either of us'll get a chance like this again, to share a drink with a friend."

He said when, but they both knew full well that he could just as well have said "if" and the statement would have been just as if not more true. She stepped forward and he poured her drink. A little more than he should have, so he poured some more in his own glass to balance things out.

"I really hate how we left things on that starbase," said Cornwell.

"Yeah," said Lorca. "Me, too." He sighed and took another sip, leaning his free hand on the surface of his desk.

Cornwell tilted the glass in her hand, admired the amber color. "This war has made things difficult in more ways than I think any of us expected."

"That it has." He watched her take a slow sip of her whiskey. "Do you mind if we adjourn to a more comfortable setting?" She shrugged at him faintly, not saying no. He picked up the bottle. "Computer, two for site to site transport. Captain's quarters."

He closed his eyes as they rematerialized in a shimmer of white light.

"I still can't believe you won't get your damn eyes fixed," she said.

"They're my damn eyes," he said. "And I—"

"You're keeping them, I remember." She rolled her eyes at him and sat down on the chair next to the coffee table. Intentionally, because it only had room for one and kept this encounter more firmly on her terms. He sat on the couch across from her and put the bottle on the table, clinking his glass against hers. "Nothing like a single malt, straight from the motherland."

She recalled a bottle of the same they had once shared while watching the Perseid meteor shower. Lorca smiled at her as she reminisced, but somehow it felt less than fully genuine and slightly distracted.

"We were so young, with grand plans for the future," she said, and lifted her glass with a faintly giddy motion.

"Well, some of us still have," he boasted.

"I know," she said, and sat there, looking at him intently. Her face shifted from the fond sweetness of distant memories to the sharp focus of the here and now. "I worry about you, Gabriel. Some of the decisions you've been making recently have been troubling." She said it with a small laugh, but Lorca could see she was not joking.

"Well, war doesn't provide too many opportunities for niceties," he countered, and framed his response just as jokingly in the hopes of eliciting more of the same.

Instead, the levity evaporated on her side of the conversation. She began to list off some of her concerns: the way he pushed his crew, his recent disregard of Starfleet's orders, of her orders. To him these were mild rebukes. To her, they were serious questions as to what he thought he was doing out here in the reaches.

"Starfleet needs you at your best," she said, trying to soften the blow with a return to a more lighthearted tone. "I'm not sure we're getting it."

"I'm not sure the Klingons would agree," he said with a smirk, raising his glass to his lips, still stalwartly dismissive. Besides, if the Klingons were getting less than his best, it was only because Cornwell kept trying to tie his hands behind his back and stop him from doing what he knew was needed.

"I don't think you've been the same since the Buran."

There it was, of course. Lorca shook his head and chuckled faintly. If this were a drinking game, he would have lost right then and there, because it always, always came back to the Buran. Predictable to a fault. He leaned forward, reminded her he had passed every test, every psych eval, and she admitted that was true. "So what's really the problem?" he asked.

"Less than a week ago, you were being tortured. Now you're back in the chair. How do you feel about that?"

He laughed. They had a bottle of single malt, they were in his quarters, and she was dime store psychoanalyzing him with the greatest known cliché of her profession. "Are we in session?" He put his glass down, shifted his position so he was sitting on the edge of the couch, and leaned in even closer. "'Cause if I have your undivided attention for fifty minutes, I can think of a whole bunch of other things we can be doing." His hand reached over and touched her knee, fingers lightly tracing the fabric of her uniform.

She could not help but smile. Between the alcohol, those clear blue eyes, that devilish smirk, the relentless pursuit and focus that accompanied it, and the way he did everything in carefully-calculated escalating steps to get exactly what he wanted, it was like twenty years ago all over again.

Cornwell stood up, removed her insignia, and put it on the table. The signal was clear. As of right now, she was no longer an admiral, they were just two people in a room with a bottle of single malt.

Fifty minutes turned out to be an exhausting goal. Which wasn't to say that it wasn't fun, and that Lorca didn't enjoy every minute of it, but after a very long day and in the blissfully exhausted satisfaction following, he drifted off into an almost happy sleep.

He awoke to the sensation of something touching the triangular-shaped scar upon his back and with the loss of his sleep state came a surge of panicked adrenaline.

For a moment, he was not on Discovery, he was somewhere else entirely, and it terrified him beyond anything. He instinctively felt someone was trying to kill him. His fingers were already wrapped tightly around the phaser under his pillow and he rolled over onto his perceived attacker with the phaser drawn. His other hand closed around her neck as the phaser pressed against her chin. His breaths were a series of rapid, panicked pants of overwhelmed anxiety.

He saw Cornwell. He was still on Discovery. He looked at the phaser in his own hand almost incomprehensibly. It was hard to tell which of them was more shocked, her for the phaser pointing at her face, or him for the realization he had drawn it on her.

He released her, tried to calm the wrongness of the moment. "I'm sorry," he gasped.

Cornwell pushed him off her, jumping out of the bed. "You sleep with a phaser in your bed and you say nothing's wrong!" she exclaimed.

"Kat!"

She grabbed her clothes, frantically pulling them on. "I have ignored the signs. I can't any more."

He listened with rising alarm as she decried him as a stranger, a liar, someone who had changed in ways that made him unrecognizable to her. He watched the anger and fear on her face and was helpless to stave off the deluge of condemnation. She said, "Now I see it's worse than I ever thought. Your behavior's pathological. That's what tonight was, right? Trying to get me to back off?"

She was fully dressed now. She picked up her insignia from the table and clapped it back onto her uniform.

"I can't leave Starfleet's most powerful weapon in the hands of a broken man."

She went for the door.

For all that he had been scared upon waking, his was even more terrified now. He scrambled from the bed after her, stopping short of reaching for her, because it was impossible for him to unmake her memory of his hand around her neck and he had no wish to reconjure it for either of them. His voice cracked as he pleaded with her, "Don’t take my ship away from me! She's all I got. Please, I'm begging you." She did not respond to this. Lorca changed tactics, attempted to give her what he thought she wanted. "And you're, you're right. It's been harder on me than I let on, I lied about everything and I need help."

He stood there, completely exposed, desperately looking for some sign of forgiveness or understanding or compassion that would signify she was not really going to take Discovery from him. She was supposed to be his friend, she kept insisting she was, and he needed this ship because it was his everything.

"I hate that I can't tell if this is really you," she said, unmoved.

The look on his face was so lost, so scared. She left him standing there like that. As the doors closed, he felt like the universe was about to come crashing down on top of him.

It surely would have had not the comm beeped a priority message from the bridge. It was Saru, reporting the return of Burnham with Sarek. Lorca tried to process this news and everything that had just unraveled around him. "On my way to sickbay," he said, a tremor in his voice.

He had thought she would be putty in his hands, but he'd squeezed too hard, and it had slipped right through his fingers.

Cornwell beelined to Lab 26, not caring if Lorca tracked her movements at this point, intent on ending this farce once and for all and making sure everyone she held responsible for this mess knew they had played a part in it.

O'Malley was outside the door alongside the big Swedish man who had served with Lorca on the Triton and whose name Cornwell did not remember. "Colonel, with me!" she barked, and O'Malley followed her into the lab, not certain what was going on. He found Cornwell entirely not in the mood for small talk as the doors cycled them inside.

Mischkelovitz was startled to see Cornwell come through with O'Malley and beeline for Lalana's room. Lalana was similarly surprised to find Cornwell on her doorstep. Cornwell did not bother to wait for an invitation. She charged straight in and O'Malley trailed after in a continued state of confusion.

Lalana was typically cheerful in her greeting to Cornwell, but as the door slid shut, Cornwell was not having any of it.

"You told me you would tell me if there was something wrong with him," Cornwell said. "There is something very wrong with him!"

"What are you talking about?" asked Lalana, beginning to knock her hands together.

"Come again?" said O'Malley, confused for more reasons than the fact that he had not been privy to the referenced conversation between Cornwell and Lalana.

"After the Buran!" clarified Cornwell, repeating, "You said you would tell me if there was anything wrong with him."

Lalana tilted her head. "That may be what you heard, but that is not what I said."

Cornwell stared, aghast. "Excuse me?"

Lalana's hands stilled. "I told you I would look after him and let you know if there was anything of concern about Hayliel."

Cornwell breathed in, shaking from the combination of anger and adrenaline she was still feeling. It suddenly seemed very important, the exact words Lalana had used in San Francisco, but Cornwell could not remember precisely what they were. "Don't you dare try to downplay this with word games."

"Words are not games," said Lalana. "Words are the most important things humans have because words are used to tell stories."

Cornwell was utterly flabbergasted. After all these years, Lalana remained unmistakably alien and the limited extent to which she understood humanity had clearly failed both Cornwell and Lorca in the most spectacular and unfortunate fashion. "There is something very, very wrong. That is not the Gabriel Lorca I know."

O'Malley began to wonder what he was doing in the room. Bearing witness in the event of legal proceedings? Preventing one of Lorca's lovers from murdering the other?

"There is nothing wrong with him," said Lalana. "He is exactly who he is."

Cornwell exploded. "He pulled a phaser on me!”

O'Malley's mouth fell open in shock. "What? Who?" He did not mean to ask who, because it was entirely self-evident who they were talking about, but O'Malley could not believe it. Cornwell shot O'Malley a look that said his momentary obtuseness was extremely not appreciated and O'Malley hastily replaced it with another question. "Why?"

"Is there a good��reason for a captain to draw a phaser on an admiral?"

There were, in O'Malley's experience, several. Admirals were not immune to mistakes and corruption, even if their shortcomings tended to be slightly above his colloquial pay grade. He tried again to elicit an answer that would make sense of this horrifying information. "Why on earth would he do that?"

Cornwell did not appreciate the colonel's questions. It felt like he was interrogating her and from her perspective, the reasons for the offense were not so important as the fact it had happened in the first place. "You tell me. I sent you here to assess him, colonel, and you're telling me you missed that?"

"I—" O'Malley was really struggling with this. "I don't know what you're talking about! He's never pulled a phaser on me. Nor anyone on the crew so far as I know. Why would he? What the hell happened?" Lorca had not even pulled a phaser on Groves, despite having more than ample motivation to do so.

"It was under his pillow," said Cornwell.

"His... His pillow? His..." O'Malley paled, making his freckles stand out in sharp relief. He seemed to come to a full and total stop and stared at Cornwell with a vacant expression on his face.

It was clear what facet of this exchange O'Malley was now processing. "You're focusing on the wrong thing," said Cornwell bluntly.

"No, you are focusing on the wrong thing," said Lalana. "Why are you upset? He did not shoot you. There is nothing for you to be upset about because there is no problem."

Neither human could quite believe their ears. Lalana had yet again found a way to thoroughly demonstrate her utter lack of human morality in a horrifying way.

"We need to remove him from command at the earliest opportunity," said Cornwell. "I'm authorizing you to arrest him."

O'Malley shook his head, mostly to get rid of the idea that Lalana thought pointing phasers at people was no big deal. He focused his attention on Cornwell. "With all due respect, I can't possibly do anything of the sort without conducting a proper investigation. This is a very serious accusation, admiral."

"Accusation?" repeated Cornwell. "I'm telling you what happened." She jerked her head as she said this, emphasizing the bitter truth.

"If I ask Captain Lorca, will he tell me the same?"

"Are you really turning this into a he said, she said situation?" said Cornwell. "I am an admiral and I just had a phaser pulled on me by a man who is completely unfit for command." She was really getting tired of repeating herself for them both. How O'Malley could possible stand there and not immediately declare Lorca in need of arrest, Cornwell did not know.

"Vice admiral," said O'Malley automatically, meaning it only as a technical clarification and not a disparagement, but it came off that way all the same. "And I'm a colonel in Investigative Services. Admiral, I cannot eschew my duties based on the word of anyone. This is literally the foundation of what Investigative Services is built upon. Now, if you want to remove him through command channels, that's entirely your prerogative, but I do not make arrests until after I have investigated the events in question." (There was one exception, if the suspect in question posed a flight risk, but in this instance, Lorca was less likely to flee Discovery than to flee with the ship and O'Malley on it.)

Cornwell could hardly believe what she was hearing, wondering how O'Malley could possibly downplay the magnitude of Lorca's transgression, but O'Malley wasn't done.

"Which isn't to say I won't investigate, I certainly will. I'll take your statement into consideration, and his statement, and, if the evidence bears up, which I should think it would because I do place great importance on your statement and I certainly don't question it, then and only then will I arrest him. But the man has a regulatory right to defend himself and respond, and I'm not the person to strip away anyone's right to a defense." This right to defense was the only thing that had saved his sister.

Cornwell chewed her lip. She was slightly concerned about the optics of removing Lorca in the middle of a warzone and O'Malley was going to adhere to his protocols. There was also the issue that there was no telling how Lorca or his crew would respond to an attempt to remove Lorca by force. The look on Lorca's face when she left him had been that of a cornered animal, and in Cornwell's experience, cornered animals were the most dangerous kind.

Lalana's tail twitched back and forth in catlike agitation. "If you are quite done, you may leave my home now, admiral."

The look Cornwell gave Lalana would have withered anyone else, but it had no effect on the lului. "I should never have trusted you," Cornwell said.

"I believe the human phrase 'you have made your own bed and now you must lie in it' may apply," said Lalana, "as it seems your own bed would have been a better place for you to lie down than in Gabriel's." She had the audacity to click her tongue once.

"Fuck you," said Cornwell, turning on her heel, and left. O'Malley trailed after Cornwell again, offering Lalana one last confused glance as he did.

"I want full updates on everything in your investigation," said Cornwell as they bypassed Mischkelovitz once more.

"With respect, admiral, as you are a part of the investigation, it wouldn't be right for you to be involved to that degree. I'll direct my findings to my superior and she'll be in contact as needed."

"Fine, but don't wait," said Cornwell, and strode away, leaving O'Malley standing next to Larsson.

Larsson watched the admiral go. "What was that about?"

O'Malley just shook his head. "I have no bloody idea, but I'm damn sure going to find out."

Standing in the hallway with Burnham, Lorca looked at the figure of Sarek lying in sickbay, but he was only halfway attentive to the issue of the unconscious Vulcan ambassador. Part of Lorca was still back in his quarters having everything stripped away from him.

The talks Sarek had been delayed from attending represented a very real chance for the Federation to hold its own and even turn the tide of this war. Sarek was never going to make the meeting in his present state.

"The window for the talks closes in a few hours. Even if the Federation wanted to step in, they couldn't get there in time," said Burnham.

As she spoke, the wheels turned in Lorca's head. There were so many things up in the air right now and he was barely keeping it together, not that Burnham seemed to notice. Her appreciation of human emotions was largely stunted because of the Vulcan lying on the biobed.

Something slightly mad occurred to Lorca. "Admiral Cornwell could." He could scarcely believe he was saying it. "I know her. She'd do anything to keep the chance of peace alive."

Even if Cornwell had lost all faith in him, decided he was a stranger, and was now trying to ruin his life, this war was too important and he was not going to take away any hope the Federation had of surviving it. Even if it meant giving someone who was actively trying to destroy him a feather in her cap.

It might actually play in his favor, show Cornwell that he was still worthy of his command because he could appreciate the bigger picture. Make her see the bigger picture, too.

Burnham turned to Lorca. Her expression was still so steely. "Sir, you didn't have to mount this rescue mission for Sarek."

"I didn't do it for him," said Lorca, and for a moment there was something gentle in his eyes. "I need a team around me that's gonna help me carry the day. And that includes you." If he was going to find a way to keep Discovery, he would need such a team more than ever.

"I'm grateful," she said, "to serve under a captain like you." He smiled, nodded, and left her to watch over her father.

This was a shit day, but at least he had managed to make good on one miracle. Time to try for another.

There was precious little time to waste, so even though he received a message requesting his presence at Lab 26 urgently, he went to the actual guest quarters Cornwell had been assigned. She was gathering up the handful of personal effects that had been transferred over from her cruiser, namely a toothbrush and change of clothes.

She was not pleased to see him again this soon. "You have a lot of nerve—"

"The talks on Cancri IV," he said quickly, aware he had to get as much information out before she tried to cut him off or close the door on his face. "Sarek can't make it. No one can, except you. We're halfway there already."

She stared.

The helplessness filtered onto his face once again. "Kat, please. I'm sorry, but this is bigger than either of us."

"You're goddamn right it is," she said, and meant it on two counts. These talks were a real and tangible chance for her to make a difference in the greater scheme of things. Then there was also the fact his command of Discovery was never intended as a personal favor, it was supposed to be for the good of Starfleet, and she no longer believed at all that it was.

He recognized she was agreeing to attend the talks, which was good news, but he had to keep trying to save himself. "And when you're back, then we can..."

"It won't change anything."

He stood there, breathing shallowly. "A bit of perspective might—"

Her eyes were cold and her voice was unyielding. "You're only delaying the inevitable."

"Just tell me what to say to fix this!" His voice rose, startling an ensign at the far end of the corridor. "I'm trying to do what's right. For the greater good." If only he could make her realize how much that applied to his captaincy of Discovery.

"I can see that you believe that," said Cornwell, and closed the door.

There was still the request for him at Lab 26, but he continued to ignore it, instead focusing on preparing supplies and a shuttle for Cornwell's departure. This gave him an excuse to be in the shuttlebay when Cornwell turned up.

One last try. "I'm sorry," he said. "It's unforgivable, I know, but please don't ruin me because of one night."

"I don't want to ruin your career," she told him, intended it as a reassurance. "But when I return, we'll talk about how you step down. And after you get some help, maybe we'll get you back in that chair."

There were a lot of words in that Lorca did not like. Step down, maybe, and even help. He bit back anything that would give her more ammunition to destroy him with and said simply, "May fortune favor the bold, admiral. Good luck with your negotiation." He did not wait around to watch the shuttle launch.

He had a destination in mind but he did not reach it. O'Malley appeared in his path. "Captain, a word?"

"Not now, colonel," said Lorca.

"Yes, now," said O'Malley, and Lorca swallowed, because he knew O'Malley had a connection to Cornwell and had a pretty good guess as to what this conversation was going to be about. "We can go wherever you like, but we are talking right now."

Lorca chose his ready room, as he always did, thinking as they walked towards it how he was going to get out of this seemingly impossible situation. Was he at the point now where he had to be figuring out how to neutralize threats he had thought were his allies?

The dimness of the ready room was comforting and more so the stars, but Lorca was tense and jumpy as the doors closed. He prepared to attempt to defend himself from O'Malley, but before he could, O'Malley spoke.

O'Malley's voice was surprisingly soft. "I heard what happened with Cornwell. Are you all right?"

It was not a demand for explanation but the same question Lorca had asked Burnham, and offered with the same intent. There was nothing in O'Malley's stance or expression that suggested he was here in an official capacity, and everything to suggest he was here as a friend. That thing Cornwell kept claiming to be.

Still. "What, so you can rat me out to her?" Lorca asked, eyes wide. He wanted to sneer but his mouth was not quite managing it.

"I wouldn’t rat you out to Cornwell if she paid me in cheese," said O'Malley, entirely serious and sincere despite the ridiculousness of the words.

Some part of Lorca still worried this was some sort of trap or trick, but he decided to take a chance on O'Malley. His head shook back and forth in small, repetitive denial and his face took on the same hopeless and lost expression it had worn when Cornwell left his quarters. It was an expression he had been struggling to contain ever since that moment. "Mac," he said, and swallowed. "I fucked up." His mouth twisted into an anguished grimace. "Big." Lorca closed his eyes and covered them with his hand, then dropped his hand and turned to look at the stars. It felt like he was on the verge of losing everything that mattered to him right now.

They did not have the sort of relationship that permitted one man to hug another, but O'Malley moved to join Lorca at the window, his freckles reflected in the windowpane, dark specks on pale in a perfect inversion of the spacescape.

"Tell me what happened, in as much detail as you can, and don't leave anything out."

Lorca discovered that, as much as O'Malley was a great talker, he was an even better listener. Patient, attentive, sympathetic. He did request clarification on a few points: "I thought you were sleeping with Commander Landry."

There were a lot of jokes Lorca could have made in reply and he managed to muster up the capacity for absolutely none of them. "There was no actual sleep involved," he said blandly.

"And Lalana?"

"I don't bring a phaser in her room," said Lorca. Being restricted to the lab, Lalana had never been to his quarters on Discovery.

"But you keep one in yours."

"It helps me sleep!" managed Lorca, but even though it was true, it sounded pathetic to them both. "I can't lose my ship, Mac." Lorca's face twisted into an expression so pitiful he looked away from the window so he would not see his own reflection.

O'Malley could see clearly how devastated Lorca was by that possibility, but he would not and could not lie to Lorca. "Gabriel, I'm not sure you have a choice. But it may not be as bad as it looks. Certainly you're among the best tacticians, in a moment when we happen to need that area of expertise. It may be possible for this action to be deferred, at least for the time being, and then we can sort it out after the war."

"If that's the case, then I don't want this war to end," said Lorca bitterly.

"You don't mean that," said O'Malley, but Lorca did mean it a little bit. "You're just lashing out, and understandably. Look, put it to you this way, if it comes out that a war hero has been under a lot of stress and needs some time after the war, no one would judge you in the slightest. It's just a matter of us all getting to that point so everyone can appreciate it. Cornwell isn't the absolute authority of all things Starfleet, she's just your direct supervisor, and from what I can see, that relationship is well and truly compromised. Step one, have Cornwell removed from supervising you. We'll start there."

Lorca almost smiled at that. He had been hoping sleeping with Cornwell would demonstrate to her he was perfectly fine, but now that it had blown up in his face, at least there was still some tactical advantage to the event. It reflected poorly on her, too. Not as badly as it did him given how it ended, but still.

"I don't understand one thing," said O'Malley. "We finally have Stamets acting as a pilot for the drive and it makes the whole thing tenable, but they haven't rolled the technology out even now that we don't need the tardigrade?"

There was something infinitely calming about being directed away from thinking about the pending loss of command and back to the usual set of problems.

"It was a eugenics augmentation," said Lorca. "I don't think Cornwell wants that getting out, and we don't have any more tardigrade DNA to merge into another human." That was another thing Saru might have considered before letting Burnham and Tilly release Ripper, but it was too late now.

O'Malley sighed heavily. "How much simpler my life would be if we didn't have this unilateral ban on genetic engineering."

He finally made it to Lalana. "Something happened," was how Lorca began the conversation, and Lalana listened with just as much attentiveness as O'Malley had, but with fewer interruptions. "There's a chance..." It was hard to say it, even now. "They might take Discovery from me."

Lalana did not hesitate. "Then don't let them. You are most yourself when you are on a ship. You belong here. Don't let them take it from you."

His look was one of utter helplessness. "I might not have a choice." There was no guarantee any part of O'Malley's thought process would actually work. It largely depending on him finding an ally in Starfleet higher-ranking than Cornwell, and the only other admiral he had any particular working relationship with at the moment was Terral, whom he'd angered by rescuing Sarek, in so much as Vulcans could be angered. "Maybe your friends in Starfleet?"

"I will ask," said Lalana, and cupped the side of his face with the broad end of her tail. "I was given the stars by this face. I have not forgotten that. You will always be the man with stars in his eyes to me."

Saru woke Lorca from his bed. Aware his first officer might be coming to try and remove him from command, Lorca slipped the phaser under his pillow into the band of his trousers, hidden at his back, and answered the door.

The news was something else entirely.

"It was a trap, sir. The Klingons have taken the admiral."

The Klingons' invitation to talk had been a ruse from the beginning. The Klingon houses in question had not split off from the main leadership, they were looking to hook a fish to curry prestige and favor. In lieu of the high-ranking Vulcan they had expected, a human admiral from Starfleet made just as good a prize.

"Notify Starfleet Command," ordered Lorca. "Ask for orders."

Saru's head turned, indicating confusion.

"Is there a problem?" asked Lorca.

"No, sir, uh... Just, in the past, we have engaged in alternative thinking on these matters."

"What if we go after her and it's another trap, Mr. Saru? Did you consider that? Starfleet can't afford to lose the Discovery. She's bigger than all of us. If so ordered, we will try and rescue the admiral, but not without authorization."

"I will hail Starfleet now, sir," said Saru.

Lorca closed the door and went to the window, looking out at the stars.

It was everything Admiral Cornwell had ever wanted from him. Obedience, caution, and adherence down to the letter of the regulations.

She could choke on it. It seemed fate had given him a second chance.

Part 66

#Star Trek #Star Trek Discovery #fanfic #fanfiction #Captain Lorca #Gabriel Lorca #Discovery #Michael Burnham #Commander Saru #Katrina Cornwell #Admiral Cornwell #Cadet Tilly #Sylvia Tilly #Lethe

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musikat18 · 7 years ago

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The Room Where It Happens (Jim Kirk x Reader Part 5)

That Would Be Enough (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4) (Part 5- you are here)

Pairing: AOS Jim Kirk/Reader (mentioned)

Warnings: A little bit of angst, some recap mentioning injuries and death, some mentions of Bones-being-Doctor-MacGyver

A/N: So, I’ve figured out where I want this to go, and I think there may be two or three more parts. Hopefully these last few parts will leave you satisfied with all the build-up. :) Enjoy!

“Y/N? Hey, come on. Open your eyes, it’s alright.”

You swung as hard as you could with your right hand through the murky state you were waking up in.

“Fucking hell, that’s a nice thank-you!”

When your vision adjusted, you realized that it was not one of the attackers who had found you, but just Bones.

“Sorry,” you said sheepishly, “reflex reaction.”

McCoy rolled his eyes in that loving way he usually reserved for you and Jim, before opening the hatch above his head. The light from Altamid’s sun blinded you momentarily, but your eyes quickly adjusted. You pulled yourself up and out of the crashed ship, and Bones took your hands to help you to the ground.

You began studying your surroundings almost instantly; Bones had crashed your three into a trench-like rock formation too high to climb and find high ground. The land seemed to be clear at the moment, but you weren’t sure how long that wound remain true.

Three, you remembered. Spock had been injured.

You turned around to see Leonard helping pull Spock from the wreckage. If at all possible, his wound looked even worse; there was now a piece of debris lodged in his side.

“Y/N, can you find-”

“-I’ll look for something to stop the bleeding,” you ducked back inside, trying to look for anything to help McCoy. You frantically ravaged through the ship to find some sort of medical kit. After tearing apart the panels and parts of the entire interior, you emerged, frustrated and sweaty.

“There’s no medical supplies on board. The soldiers inside must not be expected to try to save themselves if they crash and burn.”

You didn’t want to think about the further implications of the lack of med supplies on the lackey ships. Leonard either didn’t hear you or was more concerned about the bleeding Vulcan on the rock in front of him. You stood back quietly and let him work; you liked to watch the med crew, sometimes. Their work was more delicate than yours, and as a security ops, you certainly appreciated it (though perhaps not as much as the engineers).

“All good, boys? Because we should head for cover,” you said. McCoy lifted Spock’s arm over his shoulder and began to follow you toward the rocks.

“Any insight on who or what those bastards could be?” McCoy asked.

“I wish. Their technology is so vastly different than anything else we’ve seen...I almost wish I’d stayed on the bridge...to hear what Kalara knew about them.”

“I know,” he said. He didn’t look at you.

“Leonard,” you said softly, “we can’t save everyone. I’m sorry I made you leave that guy behind back there.”

He doesn’t respond, but you can tell that the lost crew member isn’t what’s on his mind.

“That looks dark and dangerous,” McCoy assessed the shadowed shelter that the three of you had stumbled upon. You raised your eyebrows at him as Spock looked over the entrance.

“We don’t have a ton of options, and we need to make sure we have cover by nightfall.”

“Doesn’t stop it from-” Bones grumbled, but Spock made the clear command decision by venturing forward.

“Two against one,” you bounced with a smirk and followed behind the Vulcan commander.

“And we’re going in.”

“It is only logical that we find shelter, Doctor,” Spock explained in his usual even tone. “Our chances of survival will increase greatly, thus increasing the likelihood that we are able to locate any other survivors and devise a plan of rescue.”

“For the missing crew members or us?” you raised your eyebrows and looked around the small, round structure the three of you had entered. It was plant-like in composition, with odd markings along the ceiling and what looked to be the remnants of circuitry.

“...Preferably both,” Spock noted. You whirled around at the sound of Spock grimacing and clutching his side. McCoy quickly rushed to the Vulcan’s side and lowered him to the ground. You swiftly pulled off the lower part of your left sleeve and wrapped it around Spock’s torso, trying to prevent any more external bleeding.

“It’s the adrenaline, it’s wearing off,” McCoy sighed and sat against the wall. “He’ll be quiet for a while.”

You let out a huff as you sat beside the doctor. The two of you stared at the unconscious Vulcan; the silence was palpable.

“I still wonder, you know...what you said to Jim before you left the hospital that day,” Leonard said, so quiet that his gruff voice was barely a whisper. “He made it sound like you hated him.”

“I can’t hate Jim,” you pulled your legs to your chest and rested your cheek on your knees. “I couldn’t hate him if I tried.”

“That makes two of us,” he chuckled, sounding empty. “What I would’ve given to be in the room where it happened.”

“What, the room where our best friend was recovering from literally dying? I couldn’t wait to leave.”

“I guess that’s not exactly what I mean...I just thought that you would have been bursting at the seams to see him.”

“I-it was complicated. I don’t know if I could explain it in an easy way.”

“You love him,” he shrugged, and you were somewhat surprised. “I saw the way you looked at him...the way you’re scared to now. Then you were put in a position where everything you loved about him became the one thing that might have taken him away forever, and you got scared. It happens to all of us.”

“And you say you needed to be in the room to understand,” you laughed sadly.

“I’ve...been there before.”

You sighed, “I know, your divorce, everything that happened. I’m sure it was aw-”

“That’s not what I’m talking about.”

You sat up straighter and turned to face your friend. He was looking at you with soft hazel eyes, and you knew.

“...when?”

“Jim wasn’t the only one Khan hurt, you know that,” he said. “It’s my medbay, I still had to confirm your prep for the rescue operation from your injuries. And your little spat with the Romulan wasn’t a picnic, either. But it was a little before that, if that’s what you mean. I’m sorry. I don’t wanna confuse you.”

You cast your eyes to your boots, trying not to be overwhelmed by all that had happened in this one crazy, emotional day. Chewing on your lip, you focused on keeping your breaths even. Bones didn’t offer anything beyond a pat on the arm; his considerate gesture of restraint almost pushed you over the edge.

We will find Jim, you tell yourself.

I will go back to Yorktown, and everything will be okay.

Okay...

Tagging: @mrkrychek @wonders-of-the-enterprise @insposcollective @7minutes-tomidnight @kaitlynw011 @justapieceofgeekytrash

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aceofwands · 7 years ago

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Ria hateblogs Star Trek Discovery: Episode 6 “Lethe”

This week I’m really feeling the disappointment that I’m not here, 6 weeks in to a new Star Trek series, eagerly awaiting and watching each new episode every week with my family, like I expected and hoped. I don’t even know that I should bother hateblogging the few remaining episodes of this half of the season, it’s like ... it’s just so awful and the writing is terrible and I feel nothing but apathy for the characters and the plot ... I guess I’ll see how bad this week’s episode is

Wow, I will admit, it’s real neat seeing Vulcan in 2017 graphics. I wish it was under better circumstances ...

This aide to Sarek has such a bowl cut, it’s cringe worthy :/

... what. Ignorance is never beneficial? How is it remotely helpful to a mission to not know what it is or why you’re going there?! ugh, the writing for these characters is just so ... artificial ... it’s a problem with so much modern storytelling, it’s like they’re more concerned with having characters say cool dramatic things rather than having actual conversations

The Disco shirts are sooooo dumb. Why wouldn’t they say Discovery in full?

does she have a personality Tilly? does she?

lol Enterprise mention, because we can totally believe that this grimdark holographic spinning mess of a ship exists at the same time as Pike’s Enterprise

cut to Voq, oops I mean Tyler, and Lorca on a Klingon ship apparently

what is this a video game? oh lol, it IS, it’s the HOLODECK because they have those in the 23rd century FFS

lol Voq’s worried his cover was blown when Lorca interrogated his backstory

right. the random prisoner you just found should definitely be your security chief

“someone i can trust” HA it’s SO OBVIOUS HE’S A SPY - so now Lorca just seems stupid as well as an asshole

back to Sarek and the aide ... who just injected himself with something dubious

a Vulcan fanatic who believes humans are inferior ... whoooo just blew himself up

WOW this is bad

like this is the story you needed to tell? so much possibility for a Star Trek series in 2017 with serialisation and this is the series we end up with?

Michael instructing Tilly in the ways of being healthy is just ... why? is this supposed to show that they’re friends? are people really seeing this as cute banter? I just don’t get it

are they gonna go befriend the Klingon spy?

oh good, even better, Tilly thinks he’s hot

“my mentor, Michael” cringe.

how can Michael have spent 7 years amongst humans on the Shenzhou and need Tilly’s guidance on social interaction like shaking hands?

yeeeeah Rick Berman was excited that Enterprise was a Star Trek series where people wore sneakers, having them in a show set in the 23rd century just reinforces - along with the tactical vests and t-shirts that look like they’re straight out of any modern cop show - that this isn’t even set in the future

oh good, Michael is telepathically connected to Sarek still ... wow, this whole sequence is really dumb. like, why are they bonded? how can she sense his pain? HOW CAN THEY MIND MELD ACROSS SPACE?

ethnically diverse Vulcans are the best though

raising a human as a Vulcan just seems like emotional torture tbh? like how ethically dubious?

BEING RAISED AS VULCAN DOES NOT GIVE YOU VULCAN ABILITIES

“how can he put that kind of pressure on a child” GOOD QUESTION

renegade Vulcans tried to murder you

ka’tra has healing powers?! WHAT IS THIS BS

look, okay, it’s one thing to establish new things when you’re making up a series - but this is exactly the problem with saying your series is a prequel and part of the prime universe which has had 5 series worth of content, to then contradict it all by making up nonsense using established canon ... What’s the point? Why not just make a reboot? Set it in a parallel universe, which it obviously is. If you’re so desperate to get away from canon then don’t tell us it’s part of it! But more importantly, if you’re that desperate to ignore it and rewrite it and change it ... why not just make something new?

Lorca has shown 0 compassion to anyone before ever, why would he help her personal request?

these holograms are just so Star Wars, it bothers me every time

“there are protocols to be followed” but they’ve never followed them before, so why would they now lol

Stamets really is different - why couldn’t have been this fun from the start? “groovy” “super cool” “Sarekvision” “psychic hit of speed”

“are you really that crazy?” ummm have you met Michael?

Michael, Tilly, and Voq-Tyler on a shuttle going into a nebula to mind meld with Sarek and find it, what could possibly go wrong?

so many holograms. sigh.

lol Admiral came to see Lorca in person and tell him off for launching an unauthorised mission led by a mutineer and a POW who has barely had time to recover - and I quote "can you even trust this guy?"

because that's how Starfleet Admirals speak

sigh. I miss proper Star Trek. this FEELS like 2017. it feels like these people just stepped out of today and onto these spaceships. it doesn’t feel like 2250-whatever. add all the holograms you want, holograms do not maketh the future - there was a tone, an aesthetic quality, including goofy space clothes and Shakespearean dialogue, that made it feel like it wasn’t happening now

“I checked him out” ya-huh, you’re gonna have egg on your face when it’s dramatically revealed that he’s a Klingon spy lol

the cornerstone of their entire defence against the Klingons is a science vessel with an experimental mushroom drive ... I can’t even with this show

Lt Stamets engaging in eugenics - hey yeah, I forgot that was an issue, funny how they’re happy to throw away 90% of what we know but keep the tiniest parts, it just makes it all so meaningless

and now they’re having a drink ... so that whole scene was just to remind us that Starfleet exists and remind us that Discovery is important to the war ... they really have to do a lot of telling on this show don’t they?

oh good, the tac vests are back

right. of course. who else would Sarek’s thoughts turn to when he’s dying? not his wife. not his son. YOU. “I was supposed to be his proof that Humans and Vulcans could co-exist as equals” ???? the Federation has existed for almost a century by this point! he LITERALLY HAS A HUMAN WIFE and that half-Human son they keep forgetting - WHY THE ACTUAL FUCK WOULD HE NEED A HUMAN WARD TO PROVE ANYTHING??????

YOU’RE his greatest disappointment? not that he’s fucked up his relationship with his son? or y’know, his full Vulcan son off making a cult?

we’ve done this storyline so many times in more interesting ways - the original, Spock - Worf raised by humans

oh good, Michael and Sarek fighting ... in his mind ...

AND THEN WE’RE BACK TO LORCA AND ADMIRAL DRINKING WHISKEY?

bleeeuuuugh

“some of the decisions you’ve been making lately are troubling” Sooooo stop him? if only there was a chain of command?

I’m glad someone’s calling him out for being awful, but why is it a friendly chat?

oh, he passed psych evals and tests with flying colours. right.

lord please stop flirting. is that ... sleazy saxophone music?

WHAT.

ARE YOU SERIOUS SHOW?

she has GENUINE CONCERNS about his ability and mental state as a Captain and instead of telling other Admirals or having an official meeting or hearing ... she goes to talk to him directly, and then allows him to distract her by seducing her?

this has gotta be the worst written piece of crap I’ve seen in years. and I just rewatched the DS9 season 1 gems The Passenger and Move Along Home. I’ve seen Threshold, and These are the Voyages, and Shades of Grey. All of which, are better than this show’s first 6 episodes have been.

how is the Klingon spy the best character on the show? the only one with any compassion or actual emotions - is it because he’s trying to be a perfect human

they finally mentioned Spock! wait, isn’t Spock supposed to be on the Enterprise at this point? oh no right it’s 7 years before. LOL Sarek chose Spock over Michael AND THEN SPOCK REJECTED THE SCIENCE ACADEMY

why must we come back to Sarek at all? was this story really necessary? was it burning to be told? like ... what do we gain from it? does it add to his character, or Spock’s?

Admiral found some scars on Lorca’s back in bed ... and poked them while he was asleep. LOL “you sleep with a phaser in your bed and you say nothing’s wrong?” THAT DOESN’T EVEN MAKE SENSE???? WHY would he have a phaser in his bed? who’s gonna attack him on his own ship?

“all these months I have ignored the signs” and it took this to finally tip you off? geezus. good lord. and she’s not like the other Admirals at Starfleet - I mean, okay actually this is the only thing the show has gotten right so far, they always were idiots lol

“I can’t leave Starfleet’s most powerful weapon in the hands of a broken man”

lol she doesn’t believe his plea not to take his ship away, and him admitting he needs help - I don’t believe him either

Saru we knew he was severely wounded, that was the whole point.

lol is he gonna get the Admiral killed so she backs off? what am I saying, of course he is - I mean, of course this diplomatic negotiation with the Klingons he’s sending her off to is going to get her killed

how can he give Michael a bridge position when she’s a criminal? this whole thing makes no sense. why did they go this nonsense route? other than for the sake of drama (oh wait, that’s the only reason they do anything on this show)

why does the replicator tell you how nutritious your food is

oh of course Voq is gonna befriend and flirt with Michael.

lord, could someone please please tell the writers that they’re supposed to show emotions, not have characters explain what they’re feeling through clunky exposition

“it’s just being human” LOL IT’S FUNNY CAUSE HE’S KLINGON

lol yep, cut to neutral territory, let’s watch as this show’s THIRD FEMALE CHARACTER IS KILLED oh no she’s just been taken hostage LOL

“notify Starfleet Command, ask for orders” W O W he is an ASSHOLE

oh good, next episode is a time loop. Mudd’s back. Voq kisses Michael.

how is it that this show is serialised and yet feels more disjointed than say, the serial arcs of DS9? every episode it’s like ... Stuff Happens ... and it’s very very loosely connected to what happened before, but seems to be mostly at random?? like, reflecting on what I just watched, not a lot of anything happened? their plots were literally, Sarek is attacked and they rescue him because space telepathy is a thing, so Michael can have some drama I guess ... and Lorca sleeps with the Admiral who realises he’s a dangerous asshole, recommends her for a dangerous mission, then refuses to rescue her. that’s it.

Like dude, I just rewatched DS9′s Duet and In the Hands of the Prophets last night. This rubbish doesn’t even hold a candle to it??? Kira’s entire emotional arc in season 1 from Emissary, through Past Prologue, Battle Lines, Progress, Duet, and In The Hands of the Prophets, is more nuanced, engaging, and well crafted than Michael’s emotional arc as the protagonist of Discovery. and they weren’t even allowed to do proper serialisation at that point??

#hateblogging #anti Discovery #STD #spoilers #I guess #though its reeeeally obvious

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mara-the-cactupus · 7 years ago

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Let’s Hit the Highway at Warp Speed - 2

“Spock, this is Uhura; Uhura, this is Spock.” Jim rubbed his hands against his shirt anxiously, glancing back and forth between the two of them. Then he turned to Nyota. “Tell me you’re seeing him too,” he whispered breathlessly.

“Um, yeah, I see a guy in your barn,” muttered Nyota, rolling her eyes.

“The ears,” hissed Jim. “Look at his ears! Are they pointy?”

“As you have previously confirmed, my ears are, in fact, pointy,” supplied Spock, looking mildly embarrassed.

“Oh, yeah, sorry about that,” said Jim, causing Spock to blush a delicate green. “You know how I am when I’ve just woken up,” he added, seeing Nyota’s raised eyebrow. “He freaked me out, I grabbed his ear, let’s just say that it is definitely, 100%, attached to his head.”

- 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - (ao3) -

“You drove here, and you know that you’re drunk?” she asked accusingly, when they’d rounded the corner to find Jim’s battered old pickup truck parked by the side of the road.

“I told you, I only had a few drinks, and that was hours ago,” Jim replied defensively, raising his hands in surrender.

“Fine. But I’m driving.”

He tossed her the keys in response. “Be careful with her, okay? I just started working on her engine again.”

“When have I ever not been careful with anything?” asked Nyota, smiling primly. She swung open the door and hopped in, sliding the keys into the ignition as Jim scrambled around to the other side of the truck.

“Ouch, as I recall, you’ve never been very careful with my heart,” he grinned.

She didn’t dignify that with a response, instead punctuating the silence with a rumble of the engine. Jim slammed the passenger side door, and they were off.

- - -

Dawn was starting to creep into the sky as they made their way up the dusty private drive and slowed to a halt. The cornfield stretched lazily around the borders of the farmhouse’s scraggly yellow lawn; from the ground, if she didn’t know any better, Nyota would never have been able to tell that deep within that maze of corn, the stalks had been trimmed to form a series of winding pathways with geometric precision. As they reached the end of the drive, she found the pathway blocked by several cars in various states of repair, all parked haphazardly in front of the large barn.

“Come on, he’s just in there,” said Jim, when Nyota hesitated. “I had to move all my stuff out here so he could hide his spaceship inside.” She glanced over at Jim, squinting as though searching for some slight indication that he was joking, but when he continued to look at her with sincerity in his eyes, she huffed a sigh and turned the key to the ignition. The headlights turned off, throwing them into silent darkness.

“No, you don’t want to freak him out, okay?” Jim insisted hurriedly, as Nyota pulled out her pepper spray and held it at the ready. She cast a wary glare in his direction, but complied, letting her arms relax.

“I’m warning you, any funny business and I’m using this pepper spray on you,” she threatened.

Her phone buzzed once, and she quickly flicked it open to respond.

She took a deep breath. “Okay. Lead the way.”

As they got closer, they could see that there was light emanating from the cracks between the barn’s doors; whoever was inside would have the advantage, as the pair were momentarily blinded.

“Whatever you do, don’t freak out, okay?” said Jim, and then he pounded a cautious fist against the door. “Hey, Spock, could you unlock the door? It’s just me, I brought a friend but it’s cool, you can trust her.”

The door unlatched, and then swung outwards, revealing...

A human. In robes. “Greetings,” he said, in a smooth, neutral-sounding voice.

“Hi,” said Nyota warily.

“Um, yeah, I see a guy in your barn,” muttered Nyota, rolling her eyes.

“The ears,” hissed Jim. “Look at his ears! Are they pointy?”

“As you have previously confirmed, my ears are, in fact, pointy,” supplied Spock, looking mildly embarrassed.

“Great,” said Nyota, pressing her fingertips against her temples. “You grabbed his ear. ...yeah, I’m gonna need more explanation than that.”

“The spaceship!” exclaimed Jim, pointing. “You’re seeing this, right? That thing flew right out of the sky and put a dent in my cornfield.”

“Apologies for my rudimentary landing,” said Spock, his voice still politely neutral. “I am accustomed to flying over desert terrain, and did not anticipate the presence of crops at the landing sight. Indeed, I was surprised to have been directed to such a heavily vegetated area at all, at least until I understood the mistake.”

“Yeah, sorry about that too,” Jim winced. “I just thought it was a cool design, I didn’t know that it actually meant something in your language.”

“Wait, hang on a second,” said Nyota, holding up her hands. Both men fell silent. “First of all, Jim, how the hell did you accidentally pick a word in an alien language, that you don’t even read, out of all the possible symbols you could have chosen?”

Jim squirmed sheepishly. “Well, the book did say that the translation was ‘SOS,’ but how was I supposed to know that aliens are real?”

Nyota sighed, turning her accusatory gaze on the stranger instead. “And you – how are you even speaking English, anyway?” she added, eyes narrowing suspiciously. “Have you been here before?”

“I have not,” admitted Spock, unfazed. “However, my father has studied foreign cultures extensively, and it is my understanding that he spent some time here on Earth several years ago. It took approximately one week for me to become proficient in this human dialect, guided by my knowledge of Universal Grammar, and aided by his recollections of Earth. Together, we were able to piece together what I hope is an adequate replication of your dialect.”

“Universal Grammar, indeed,” murmured Uhura, her face lighting up at the familiar mention of linguistics. “You keep calling this a ‘dialect’... where you’re from, aren’t there multiple languages? We refer to English as a language, not a dialect.”

Spock’s brow furrowed, but he maintained his neutral tone. “On Vulcan, we speak a single Standard language, with some regional variation. Is this not the case on Earth? Based on my limited knowledge of human texts, I was under the impression that English, Spanish, and French are all dialects of the same language.”

Nyota laughed. “For them to be dialects, they would have to be mutually intelligible. C'est ça?” she added to Jim, who proved her point by looking confused.

“Ah,” said Spock. “Perhaps humans are less skilled at linguistic comprehension than Vulcans. I amend my previous statements.”

“I think it’s safe to say humans are a little less skilled at everything, if your ship is any indication,” said Jim, attempting to steer the conversation back into familiar territory. “How does it work?”

“Likely very different from human technology, if your own vehicle is any indication,” replied Spock smoothly. “I would attempt to explain it to you, but I find it doubtful that humans have achieved even a theoretical comprehension of Warp technology yet.”

“Oh, you’d be surprised at my ability to comprehend crazy science shit, especially after I’ve had a few cups of coffee,” insisted Jim, grinning. “...but that explanation can wait. Scotty would kill me if we started without him.”

Spock looked slightly perturbed. “A most illogical motivation for homicide,” he observed. “Should I be concerned for my safety, while here on Earth?”

“No, I was just joking,” Jim explained hastily. “But don’t worry. We’ll tell you if you’re in any real danger.”

“My thanks.”

Nyota cleared her throat. “Well, now that we’ve got that out of the way... how exactly did you get here, Spock?”

“A long story,” said the alien. “I suggest that we sit down.”

#mara actually writes stuff (!!!)#I'm a linguistics nerd can you tell #it was a happy accident I swear I didn't even plan it like that

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badbackgroundscience · 8 years ago

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Worst. Hazmat Protocol Follower. Ever.

Title of the Week: The Naked Time

Planet of the Week: Psi 2000 Villain of the Week: a fake Irishman fake mutated!water molecules Redshirt death count: 0 (1 blueshirt lost, but it was his fault...)

TL:DR: Dude takes off his glove in a room where a bunch of people died by mysterious circumstances to scratch his nose, nearly kills everyone on the Enterprise. Otherwise known as “the one where a half-naked Sulu chases people around the ship with a sword”.

Behold, the Enterprise’s dumbest crewman:

The episode opens with an away team (Spock + this moron) on the surface of the planet Psi 2000, finding 6 people dead. A woman strangled. A man fully clothed in a shower. Another who looks like he just gave up at his station. All of them covered in fake!snow. No one knows what happened. Lt. Tormolen gets itchy underneath the worst hazmat suits ever designed by a space-faring society, so he takes off his glove to scratch his nose, then goes about his scanning business without putting the glove back on until he feels something brush it (That’d be the ‘virus’, moving toward and getting absorbed into his naked hand).

The Enterprise, meanwhile, is in orbit of this planet to collect the members of the science party and then observe the planet breaking apart (We learn later that the planet’s star “went dark” - presumably that means it’s a white dwarf now). They beam up the away team and run a decontamination program, then send them both to sickbay. Spock checks out fine with his pulse of 242 and “practically nonexistent” blood pressure. Tormolen is visibly distraught about the dead people and everyone in the room misses him staring at his hand (They also miss the rattlesnake sound effect...). The instruments reveal no source for the strange deaths,* but Kirk decides to keep the ship in orbit to continue monitoring the planet.

Tormolen starts acting funny, wiping his hand a la Lady Macbeth, crying out that we have no business out in space, and trying to stab himself with a butter knife. As Sulu and Lt. Riley (aka ‘Kevin’) restrain him, the ‘virus’ passes onto them and Tormolen ends up with the knife in his belly. He dies on the table (that is, the surgical table...not the mess hall table, where he stabbed himself), inexplicably. McCoy concludes it’s because he lost the will to live.

On the bridge, we’re alerted that the “relative gravity” of the planet is increasing, and Kirk orders an orbit adjustment. (Finally - science time!)

This makes no sense for a breaking up planet that’s also “shrinking in mass”. The amount of gravitational force a planet (or any object, really) generates decreases with a corresponding decrease in mass.** No one in the episode ever tells us where this mass is going - the only way the gravity would increase would be if a large enough chunk broke off and headed right toward the ship, shifting the center of mass of what’s soon to be a pile of rubble. (This all assumes, of course, that a planet can naturally fall apart with no apparent outside influence.)

Spock specifies later that the planet is also shrinking “in size”; so, basically the planet’s collapsing in on itself but instead of increasing in density*** (despite Spock referring to a “rate of compaction”) the mass just vanishes. There’s never any discussion by the crewmen about having to dodge debris - the only trouble is the ‘gravitational anomalies’.

Sulu hightails it off the bridge to go to the gym in the middle of his shift, and Kevin’s ordered to sickbay after telling Spock, “One Irishman is worth ten thousand of you”. [Side note: Uhura is ordered to fly the ship, instead. Because she’s...on the bridge?] He passes the ‘infection’ on to Nurse Chapel and says Tormolen died because “he wasn't born an Irishman”.

We’re then treated to this image:

The Enterprise soon finds itself spiraling toward the planet (which, again, it shouldn’t be according to the laws of physics) with dead warp and impulse engines. Sulu attacks the bridge, but is taken out by our very first appearance of the Vulcan neck pinch.****

Turns out Kevin locked all of the engineers out of engineering (It’s a small room...) because he thinks he’s captain of the ship. He takes control of the communications system, the helm, basically everything (How does the ship’s navigator know how to do that?), and orders the cooks to give everyone ice cream for dinner, and sings a very annoying Irish shanty.

Spock gets touched by Chapel while she confesses her love for him; he ends up in a pool of tears in Briefing Room 2.

When Scotty and Kirk break into engineering, they find the engines are completely shut off and need 30 minutes to get them going. (Meanwhile, Uhura reports they’ve entered the atmosphere.*****) When Kirk orders Scotty to fix everything, he responds, “I can't change the laws of physics” for the first time (Yay, more firsts!).

One piece of good news: McCoy successfully cures Sulu, and finds the cause of all this trouble. In his own words, “It's water. Somehow on this planet, water's changed to a complex chain of molecules...It passed from man to man through perspiration. Once in the bloodstream, it acts like alcohol".

Let’s just assume all the water on the planet actually did react chemically with some other completely unknown compound to form a new product. It wouldn’t need to be a “chain of molecules” - a regular molecule would do just fine.

For example, here’s the relatively simple molecule for ethanol - the specific type of alcohol`* McCoy is referring to:

And here are a few other molecules that are perfectly capable of inhibiting regular human thought and action in different ways:

(−)-(6aR,10aR)-6,6,9-Trimethyl-3-pentyl-6a,7,8,10a-tetrahydro-6H-benzo[c]chromen-1-ol

(RS)-N-methyl-1-phenylpropan-2-amine

(6aR,9R)-N,N-diethyl-7-methyl-4,6,6a,7,8,9-hexahydroindolo-[4,3-fg]quinoline-9-carboxamide

You might know them better by their non-IUPAC names - THC, Meth, and LSD.

However, if we want to get something a bit closer to what McCoy said, I submit to you an actual chain of molecules - a string of amino acids - that twists and folds into an elaborate shape. These, in general, are called proteins, but I’m looking at one specific brand:

Prions`**

Prions are mis-folded proteins which cause (the very undesirable) transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) like mad cow disease, Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (CJD), Kuru, and - my personal fave - Fatal Familial Insomnia (FFI). In that case - which is only found in about 40 families - victims suffer from progressively worsening insomnia. This leads to, as Wikipedia eloquently puts it, “hallucinations, delirium, confusional states like that of dementia, and eventually, death”. All TSEs are, so far, untreatable and fatal.

Prions are in no way what McCoy’s talking about - you can’t take a bunch of water molecules and string them together to get them - but they do something that the other compounds don’t, in that they are transmissible. Although, you’d gave to make someone eat your brains to transmit it - not just touch them...

But let’s wrap up.

Kirk slaps Spock over and over in an attempt to get him to run some calculations to get the engines going. Thus, he catches the “disease” (as he calls it; is being drunk/high a disease?) and starts complaining how he loves the Enterprise too much (”This vessel, I give, she takes. She won't permit me my life. I've got to live hers.”). This somehow snaps Spock out of it. Kirk pulls himself together and they head to the bridge.

They “implode” the engines to escape the planet, and end up traveling back in time 71 hours. No one thinks to go back to Psi 2000 and check if that science team is still dead, or to head back to the planet and try to make observations without a crazy fake!Irishman taking control of the ship.

* Side note: Spock gives us a good line to remember for science in the real world: “Instruments register only those things they're designed to register.”

** Fancy equation in words: (Force of gravity between 2 objects) = (gravitational constant) x (mass of object 1) x (mass of object 2) / (distance between their centers of mass, squared)

*** like what happens when a very massive star’s core collapses into a neutron star or black hole, or a less massive star’s core collapses into a white dwarf

**** We also get a great line where he tells Uhura, “I'll protect you, fair maiden.” and she responds, “Sorry, neither.”

***** Also, Yeoman Rand is flying the ship. Or at least she was the last time we saw her.

`* which, in chemistry, refers to a group of organic compounds containing the ones you definitely don’t want to drink, like methanol (wood alcohol) and isopropyl (i.e. rubbing) alcohol

`** short for "proteinaceous infectious particles”

TOS s01e04 - Written by: John D.F. Black, Directed By: Marc Daniels

Image Credits:

Ethanol, Public Domain

THC By Ben Mills - Own work, Public Domain,

Meth By Jynto (talk) - Own work, CC0,

LSD By Ben Mills - Own work, Public Domain,

HUMAN PRION PROTEIN VARIANT S170N from RCSB Protein Database

#tv #star trek #physics #gravity #chemistry #prions

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