#but we are still thinking a lot about grim authoritarian rule there

[coffeecupandcorgi]

[magus-of-the-color-pizza]

My New Approach to Discourse

EDIT: I apologize for the long post and the lack of a Read More but APPARENTLY that feature is not available on this mobile app and also I'm having a super hard time trying to copy-paste this into the website version so like... sorry 😅

Hey everybody! I'm just gonna make a post to formulate a couple thoughts I've been brooding. This is in no way a proposal for an offical system of rules for everyone, but I think it's an interesting perspective to consider (of course I'd say that, I came up with it lol).

Those of you who know me well, know that in the past I've alternated from being completely disinterested in Discourse of any kind to engaging in it fiercely at times. And I know many others do that too, and frankly I understand! Sometimes you're just so RIGHT and the other side is just so completely WRONG that you just can't hold back, no?

I think that a lot of topics that have become subject of the infamous Discourse are actually really interesting and complex, like: are authoritarian tyrants all the same (Tarkirian Dragonlords)? Should we judge a person that has been put through severe trauma for centuries and stops at nothing to take revenge on the person that betrayed them the same way we would someone that commits the same acts for different motives (Nahiri)? Should people indoctrinated from youth (or that are still young) that are manipulated into committing terrorist acts be judged the same as a non-brainwashed person (Domri)? This last one was actually the topic of a very interesting lecture/discussion I had a few days ago in one of my university classes, Terrorism and Political Violence.

You see, these are not easy questions to answer, and not only that but we all have different perceptions of the stories and the characters that are being presented to us. Our mind tends to oversimplify, and though we may see a situation as a very clear case of, say, abuse, other people's experiences, information on the subject, and perception of the characters may put them at a completely different starting point, never mind what kinds of conclusions they may draw if they started with the exact same perceptions you did.

It's nowhere near being the sole reason, but the toxicity surrounding various discourse topics, like people calling each other names, invalidating someone's opinion entirely, endlessly restating the same points... yes, this sort of atmosphere did contribute to the fatigue that I experienced and which eventually drove me to take some time off of Tumblr.

Now that I'm back, and I feel re-energized, I do not want to commit the mistakes of the past. I saw a post that's going around as of right now, regarding narrative cliches or tropes in general, due to the story of War of the Spark. It's a post in which people are arguing about the concept of so-called "feel-good" stories, as opposed to "realistic" stories. These may not be the most appropriated term but I think you understand what I mean. What is the value of stories where the cast has to overcome impossible odds, but eventually and consistently it's always the Good Guys who win? On the other hand, what is the value of stories where we place ourselves in a realm of fiction where we dictate the rules, but arbitrarily decide that we cannot escape the grim casualties and losses of reality? These are both really, really good questions! Questions that deserve insightful debate, opinions, ideas, suggestions, the more the merrier! Personally, I think both of these typologies of storylines have value, even though I personally much prefer "feel good" stories, because I get attached to characters I like and I feel Big Sad when they die. But it's just a personal preference, and it's not the only reason one can prefer these stories! There's a lot of discussion to be had on the psychological effects that an author is enacting when they kill characters the audience likes, especially if said audience did not feel like the death was "earned", or timed correctly, or stuff like that.

But anyways, I saw this post, and actually I saw a lot of additions to both sides of the argument that hey, I actually agreed with, or found to be respectful, and well thought out, and worth debating. But I didn't reblog it, and I have no intention to do so. This is because the thread is filled, from start to finish, with negativity, shaming, and de-legitimization of other people's opinions. I'm not mentioning the original poster by name for two reasons: 1) this is not a callout post. I'm not going after them (in fact I follow them and like most of their content) or anyone in that thread. I'm not trying to establish rules here, or police how people interact and 2) this is, after all, tumblr: people have their own blogs, and you're free to post what you want on it (I mean, obviously within reason. If you post untagged porn I will unfollow you, for example), so why shouldn't you? Your opinions are your own, and you shouldn't have to feel like you always have to watch yourself in case someone is gonna come chastise you. I get it. We can be emotional at times, and type out things that can be perceived as aggressive, or mad, whatever. I get it, I do. Besides, the person in question didn't even necessarily want to start a discussion, you never know when someone's just venting.

So, here's my new, personal approach to Discourse: I will gleefully engage with it whenever I see fit, but I will:

1) avoid demeaning, diminishing, invalidating or name-calling others;

2) avoid participating in and/or spreading threads/discussions which I believe will mostly just spread negativity and ill feelings; and

3) will back out of any discussion which I believe is turning or has the potential to turn sour, whether it is due to my own mood and general disposition or someone else's words.

It's only three rules, but I think with these and a tiny bit of mindfulness we can go a long way in making these sorts of conversations and community interactions feel more like a class debate and less like the spanish inquisition.

Thank you for stopping by ^_^

[shotgunbattleax]

Hey y’all. So I don’t talk a lot about my family and I’d like to start this by saying, not so much to protect them or myself but for the sake of clarity and transparency: I still have a very good relationship with my family and everything I am about to say, whether this is a good or bad thing for you, should be taken with that in context.

My father was a green beret. Which I know is an absolute bonkers, uncle works at Nintendo sort of thing to say, especially with stuff having to do with propaganda-y conflict build up sort of talk like this whole IRA/ Russian Troll program thing. But hey, some of the folks that work at Nintendo have to be uncles to kids, right? So yes, my dad was in the Special Forces. Specfically, he was in during Vietnam.

The green berets have a lot of jobs but one of the big things to keep in mind when talking about them is their own motto. It’s “Liberate the Oppressed”. Green berets differ a bit with a lot of special operations and commando style outfits around the world because one of the things that have always made them stand out (and make them a little messy and some would say even substandard in some of their mission designations) is the breadth of their specialization. One of the ways this has made them standout, however, is in one of their missions: raising opposition behind enemy lines.

My dad was a medic, and one of the main things he did was train medics for montagnard groups that defended their own villages. The montagnards, who’d been neglected by the french government, then the rising communist government, formed a very strong working bond with soldiers like my dad, and in return the states were able to project a lot of force with a few soldiers, the green beret groups basically raising their own battalions among an ethnic group actively persecuted by the seated government that was fighting for their lives. If this sounds familiar... good.

On the other side of things, my mother is a Congolese woman, specifically from Kindu, on the eastern border of the DRC. My knowledge of the country mostly comes from my mother’s stories, my uncle’s tutelage (he taught at University of Maryland and went to Cornell! He also remembers and sort of begrudges Lumumba for the behaviors that spelled the end of his amazing and ambitious role as our first democratically elected leader.), and my own research. One of the more interesting patterns I’d started to notice is if you dig deep enough, there’s a lot of stuff about the Chinese/Congolese relationship. Usually it’s told as a comparison to the American approach, specifically the CIA’s attempts to assassinate Lumumba (you know, if you read original print runs of Congo, Mon Pays, the introduction is written by... Kasavubu I think? Anyway he describes having to assuage Patrice Lumumba from his delusions that the Belgians were trying to kill him... lol). By comparison, the Chinese are shown to be sort of allies, friends, extending trade and goodwill, obviously with their own global intentions but kindly. What isn’t often mentioned is that during the rule of Mobutu, the Chinese deliberately armed ethnic minorites that were actively oppressed by Mobutu, who was as most people know, one of history’s monsters. What isn’t as mentioned is that they almost instantly stopped and sent envoys as soon as Mobutu stopped that business of recognizing Taiwan as a country. Even as they sent envoys, they flooded congo’s markets with cheap mass produced products and foodstuffs that tanked our agricultural and industrial markets, plucking feathers until we couldn’t fly or keep ourselves warm, metaphorically.

This is a bit long winded. I guess I wanted to sort of illustrate where I’m coming from when I say I’m pretty disappointed in my mutuals who are taking the whole IRA/ Russian spy thing as a joke, who don’t see what the danger of it is. I’m not talking about people using this as a talking point for how people who own platforms pick and choose which issues they want to stand against (tumblr and its robust population of nazis, fascists, european neo traditionalists that stay on the site even as they shut down the ‘russian troll’ accounts), but the ones who are trying to say ‘well what was the problem? they were giving legitimate information! they made good points!’

No shit! Of course they did! Propaganda works on decontextualizing intents! The information they shared and the points they put forward weren’t meant to educate, they were meant to cater! To you! To us! They were courting favor of discontent minorities and it worked, to a certain extent! This shouldn’t be something to shrug off, this should be a grim reminder. When our own efforts in fights against injustice, against the authoritarian bent of our own government line up with imperialist goals of other nations (and please, please never forget that an organization funded by the Russian state is specifically imperialist), they will use that to their advantage. Not just by the obvious and blunt forms of propaganda, misinformation and incitement, but in the form of soft power, of maintaining an image that pits them as fighters against the evil of our country. They will decontextualize their own goals, they will embed themselves comfortably into the day to day of our own efforts. Please! Don’t let that happen! Don’t be stupid! Don’t take the reblogging of good information, stripped of origin and peddled to folks as a non threatening mask of a wing of a government specifically aiming towards infiltration at face value! I ask you this as someone who has so few reasons to trust most people who consider themselves allies in my own fights. You do nothing to engender a trust at all in you! This isn’t a shout out to everyone either, I don’t know you. This is to people who actually read my blog, to mutuals who are interested in my voice or believe they are part of the same struggles as I am.

Be smart. Please.

[militant-holy-knight]

The Sick Old Man of Europe

Its about time that Recep Tayyip Erdogan must be put into his proper place 

I’ve posted before how the Christchurch tragedy would have huge consequences due people using it to advance their personal agenda, but I must admit: I was rather shocked at what selfish lows Erdogan would go. During an election rally in Izmir, the Turkish dictator showed video footage of the massacre to an open crowd, something which the Western media has been trying to censor desperately for good reason. His reasoning is that the NZ terrorist wanted Turks removed from Europe, thereby presenting the voters with an “us vs them” mentality and essentially telling them “I am the only one who can protect you from this, so if you know what is good for you, then vote for me”. Not content with this, he has pressured New Zealand to execute the terrorist in custody and has basically threatened any New Zealander tourists with we will send you back home in coffins like we done to your ancestors in Gallipoli.

He probably took it more personally this time since the terrorist called for his death in his manifesto and he is in full-blown panic mode knowing that someone who wanted him dead slipped inside his country - oh the horror, nevermind the possibility of an white supremacist actually killing him is less likely than a radicalized Kurdish militant. He really wants that nutter dead despite him being in no position to harm anyone else or ever getting out and that is not if someone actually kills him inside and promised that he will take necessary action if New Zealand doesn’t cave to his demands. Many outsiders will say that he is just spewing a lot of hot air, but I think many outsiders - even those who are also critical of him - really underestimate the real danger he represents.

Coming from an Islamist background, Erdogan’s greatest dream was to relive the glories of the Ottoman Empire’s past which is reflected on his policy referred to as “Neo-Ottomanism”. After the Turkish sultan Selim the Grim defeated the Mamluks in 1517, the Ottoman Empire was elevated from an realm at the margins of the Islamic world from being in charge of it, ruling their most important seats of power such as Cairo, Aleppo, Mecca and Medina. As such they were recognized as a caliphate and their leader was regarded as the successor of the Prophet Muhammad and the spiritual leader of Muslims worldwide.

Despite their prestigious position, it was just a nice new title the Ottomans held in their long list and even then their authority was questioned for a number of reasons: for one, the caliph is supposed to be elected among the most capable and pious leaders while the Ottomans were infamous for relying on fratricide, having the prospective sultans killing their brothers to get to the throne (they later changed it to imprisonment or exile). Otherwise, they functioned like a typical Islamic absolute monarchy and they really wouldn’t adopt a policy of pan-Islamism until much later after their decline really began and they were referred to as the “sick old man of Europe”. Despite being in charge of the Empire, Turks only compromised a minority of its Muslim population while Arabs were the majority and they promoted Islam as the one thing tying them together in an attempt to counter nationalism in Europe. 

Rather than trying to restore the House of Osmanoglu (the descendants of Osman who founded the dynasty that ruled over an uninterrupted line over the empire since its foundation until Ataturk abolished the caliphate) back to power, Erdogan wants to do right what his predecessors have failed and recreate an Neo-Ottoman Empire based on what should have been and declare himself caliph by the correct application of Islam. He has worked all of his life with Islamist movements like the Muslim Brotherhood and some pleasant people like Afghan warlord Gulbuldin Hekmatyar (an well-known genocide perpetrator against the Hazara people and responsible for spraying acid on women for being unveiled) to plant the seeds necessary so that he could be recognized as the new caliph of all Muslims. He had spent a good time also antagonizing the Gulf States specially Saudi Arabia whose kings serve as Custodians of the Two Holy Places. But make no mistake, just because the Saudis are promoters of a fundamentalist brand of Islam it doesn’t make Erdogan less of an fundamentalist himself - he just sees Wahhabism/Salafism as a rivals to his conservative Islam. 

That opportunity finally came when the Arab Spring erupted. Erdogan was part of the international powers that formed an alliance to strike Libya. When Libya fell, followed by Tunisia and Egypt falling into the hands of Islamists, he rushed to pay these countries a visit and portraying himself as defender of all Muslims to get into their good graces. He spread his influence even further offering to build mosques in Albania, something which local Muslims found outrageous because they despise the memories of being under Ottoman occupation. 

However, he left all pretense and reason behind when it became obvious that Syria was not easily succumbing to the Muslim Brotherhood. He turned Turkey’s borders with Syria into an assembly of hardened terrorists brought in from all over the world, equipped with weapons and funds and aiming to bring Bashar Al-Assad down. Finally, the collapse of the Muslim Brotherhood rule in Egypt seemed to have pushed him over the edge. 

Most realists will coincide that he is a necessary evil since as a NATO member the West can’t afford to have him as an enemy - case in point, the main reason why Israel hasn’t recognized the Armenian Genocide is because Turkey is one of the few Muslim nations they consider as allies in the region. I really must question Erdogan’s reliability as an ally: 

Consider that Turkey has avoided confronting ISIS directly in order to let them fight the Kurds and the Assad government. 

Consider that Turkey has allowed Western volunteers to cross the border to join ISIS.

Consider Turkey has also supported jihadist groups that are no different than ISIS.

Consider that several people (such as Iraq’s Prime Minister, the King of Jordan and the Hezbollah leader) have accused Turkey of outright backing ISIS.

Consider that Hamas implied that Turkey backs ISIS when they refused to denounce them when they burned the Jordanian pilot alive saying that Jordan had no business fighting them and they should have taken Turkey’s position instead. 

Of course, I will admit this is circumstantial evidence and conjectural “he said, she said”. Some will point out that Turkey held the biggest number of Syrian refugees since the civil war more so than Europe itself which has struggled with the migrant crisis, but its clear that Erdogan doesn’t hesitate to weaponize them when it suits him such as when he threatened to evict all refugees into Europe in case they don’t play ball with him. And this is the reason why I made this blog. He must be disciplined for his arrogance and short temper.

Its pretty self-evident to outsiders that he is a dictator. His apologists will quickly come to his defense and say that he was democratically elected with 80% of the public support, which is a really tepid response. Nevermind how the electoral race was heavily skewed in one’s favor, I find almost comical that Erdogan supporters would hold democracy as an valid argument for him considering that he once served time in jail for declaring:

"Democracy is merely a train that we ride until we reach our goal. Mosques are our military barracks, minarets are our spears, and domes are our helmets.”

Looking at today’s Turkey, it’s very hard to believe that he regrets saying these words when he was mayor of Constantinople. Furthermore, the mark of an dictatorial regime is authoritarianism. Political dissidents, critics and journalists are jailed with staggering frequency, subjected to torture, rape and abuse that honestly makes the abuse in Abu Ghurab look tame and his outrage at it hypocritical in hindsight. Just imagine: Turkey arrests more journos than Saudi Arabia itself.

Erdogan is incapable of taking criticism, which is why he gives a platform for the Muslim Brotherhood members to criticize the current Egyptian government for overthrowing Mohammed Morsi because they pay lip service to him, all while jailing any journalist that publishes anything he dislikes on the excuse of “promoting terrorism” and it must strike him something fierce knowing not being able to do as he wills wherever he wants.

For all the shit that people pins on Donald Trump, Erdogan manages to be even less tactless and diplomatic than him. Remember how much scrutiny Trump got for describing third world countries as “shitholes” in a closed meeting? Can you imagine the cataclysm that would ensue if he made the same kind of comment as Erdogan? Or if he even showed footage of the Islamic terrorist attacks on Europe to prove a point? Now don’t get me wrong: you are in no way obligated to like Trump, you can certainly criticize both him and Erdogan for different reasons. But its really sad how American journalists live on easy mode when Turkish journalists constantly have to look over their shoulder to not post anything that the regime finds objectionable. 

I realize that not all Turks support Erdogan, but a significant number of them (including a former friend of mine) voted to place him into power and are fine with living under his autocratic rule. This speaks something truly depressing about the Turkish people that for all the pretense they were once the secular model that all Muslim peoples should aspire to be, if the statistic of support for Erdogan are correct, it means things must be worse than imagined.

To conclude this text with an anecdote, it seems that that not only Erdogan’s long-life dream appears to have been for naught with Assad still standing in Syria, Morsi gone, the Kurds are on the rise and Turkey’s economy being on the toilet and only being bailed out by Qatar, it seems Erdogan doesn’t have much time left on his planet and not only because of his advanced age. Wikileaks has reported that he has been diagnosed with cancer, and while he has officially denied it, his oncologist has been arrested too which is a very interesting development. As of the time of writing, the man doesn’t appear to be any worse than before so we should see how this pans out. But it should be interesting what kind of succession will be in place or if Erdogan actually planned that long enough. Its a luxury that dictators very rarely afford it for themselves.

I find it very fitting: that the actual sick old man of Europe would want to restore the previous sick old man of Europe that was the Ottoman Empire that he identified the most, the pan-Islamist one trying desperately to survive in a changing world only to live long enough to see political Islam fall flat on its face and become discredited as a viable ideology. 

[vinayv224]

Russian president Vladimir Putin addresses the Federal Assembly in Moscow on January 15, 2020. | Photo by Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images

Vladimir Putin is looking to the future and trying to figure out how to hold on to power.

It’s not every day an entire government resigns, but that’s what happened in Russia on Wednesday as President Vladimir Putin announced plans for major constitutional reforms that could extend his grip on power long after his term in office is supposed to end.

Because Putin’s power is really what this surprise announcement is all about. Putin’s tenure as president is up in 2024, but because authoritarian strongmen don’t tend to just quietly retire, the Russian leader is trying to secure his position long after those term limits.

Putin’s plan for staying in power past 2024 “has been in the works for years,” Alina Polyakova, director of the Project on Global Democracy and Emerging Technology at the Brookings Institution, told me. “It’s not a power grab, it’s a plan to ensure that Putin de facto remains in power for life.”

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and his entire cabinet resigned abruptly Wednesday, right as Putin announced the new constitutional reforms. It’s still unclear if Medvedev and the other officials were surprised by Putin’s move or whether they were part of the plan all along.

But Medvedev, a longtime Putin ally, will still have a role in government, as Putin has placed him as the deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, a powerful body that advises the president on national security decisions.

Just a few hours after Medvedev’s resignation, Putin appointed a new prime minister to take his place: Mikhail Mishustin, a technocrat who’s been in charge of Russia’s tax services for a decade.

Experts told me that Mishustin is not a well-known or influential figure even within Russia, so Putin likely sees him as a placeholder — a loyalist type who isn’t looking to accumulate too much power for himself.

Which all kind of works out as Putin prepares for his future.

How to be in power for life, Putin edition

Putin’s proposed constitutional reforms broadly seek to limit the power of the presidency and give more responsibilities to the Parliament, including the job of choosing the country’s prime minister. He also intends to give more power to the State Council, an advisory body to the head of state that doesn’t have a ton of authority right now.

On paper, this all doesn’t sound too bad; vesting more authority in the Parliament and checking some of the president’s powers might not be a bad move, and Putin is a perfect example why.

The problem is that Putin’s constitutional changes intend to limit the power of a president who is not him, thus ensuring his successor is far weaker than he was.

And what Putin hasn’t quite revealed yet is where he’ll, personally, end up. There’s speculation he may become prime minister again (a role he held in 2008, when Medvedev took over as president), who will have more power under the reforms, or he may put himself atop this newly elevated State Council as a sort of shadow figure running the show behind the scenes.

But Brian D. Taylor, a professor of political science at Syracuse University, said all of these constitutional tweaks are clearly designed to give him “multiple options” for how to maintain control of Russia beyond 2024.

“I’m not sure his plan is fully worked out from A to Z,” Taylor added. “He might only know A to E — and we’re at about A to C right now.”

Putin was always going to find a way to stay in power. The question was how.

Nobody really expected Putin — who has effectively been in power since 2000 — to quietly retire after his tenure ended in 2024. Putin served as president between 2000 and 2008, then stepped into the role of prime minister when his term limits were up, from 2008 to 2012. His close ally Medvedev took over as president, where many saw him as a placeholder for Putin. Then, Medvedev let Putin come back as president in 2012.

Putin, then, has attempted this kind of power reshuffle before. The question was how exactly he would orchestrate it this time.

The first, and most obvious, option was to extend or eliminate presidential term limits again, buying him more time in the role. Putin is almost certainly not choosing this route, as his proposed constitutional changes include limiting the president to two consecutive terms.

Another option he apparently considered: creating a brand-new country and becoming president of that place instead.

This is not a joke — it just doesn’t look like it will pan out for Putin. The country in question is Belarus, a former Soviet Republic in Eastern Europe that borders Russia. Belarus declared its independence in 1991, but in 1999 Belarus and Russia signed a union pact that outlined, albeit vaguely, closer integration between the two countries. The Moscow Times likened the agreement to trying to replicate something like the European Union’s Schengen zone, with no customs checks and the same currency.

Last year marked the 20th anniversary of the pact, which jump-started talks between Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko over what a union between the two could look like — and whether it would ultimately lead to Belarus being absorbed by Russia.

This led to some speculation that Putin would try to become president of a united Russia-Belarus and basically get around term limits that way. The talks haven’t been going all that well, though, and a lot of opposition exists, so the prospects for that avenue looked pretty grim.

That brings us to option three, which seems to be the one Putin chose — what Taylor dubbed the “half leave” scenario: Putin won’t be president anymore, but he’ll still be Putin-ing.

“He’s leaving the presidency, but he’s almost certainly going to take some other position and try and stay on,” Taylor told me. “But we still don’t know what this position is, or when this is going to happen.”

“There were multiple options under consideration,” Polyakova told me. “This was always the most straightforward one.”

Right now, the two most likely options, experts say, are the prime minister or the head of the State Council, which Putin said would be getting new powers. But it’s still not clear what his ultimate move will be.

Putin has said that he will seek these constitutional changes through a national referendum — something that isn’t actually required to change the constitution but which he said would give the reforms legitimacy. Or, at least give Putin’s initiative the veneer of consent.

Putin’s proposal isn’t a done deal, though. Far from it.

Putin has faced pressure in recent months, including massive pro-democracy demonstrations in Moscow this summer.

Putin and the ruling United Russia party (from which Putin keeps his distance) have been slipping in popularity as more Russians become disillusioned with the state of the Russian economy, including rising inequality and falling incomes. Declining oil prices and sanctions have squeezed the Kremlin, and the government had to push through unpopular measures in previous years, including increasing the retirement age.

Experts told me this resistance is partly why Putin is making this announcement now. The Kremlin is under pressure, and what better than a shake-up to help distract from those issues. Polyakova told me it helps give Putin an “image of stability and strength.”

Putin’s future, though, is still not decided, and obstacles remain. Challenges with the economy and questions of corruption can’t totally be ignored. David Szakonyi, a professor of political science at George Washington University, told me that reforms and other changes will need to accompany these tweaks to the power.

Russia also has parliamentary elections in 2021, which means Putin has to make sure he retains overwhelming support there.

“I think it would be a mistake to assume that he’s got this all under control and everything’s going to go smoothly,” Taylor said. “We’re at the early stages of a multi-process, multiplayer game and lots of things can still go wrong.”

from Vox - All https://ift.tt/2QWdHld

[gta-5-cheats]

Star Trek: Discovery Season One Finale: A Bold, Original Mess

New Post has been published on http://secondcovers.com/star-trek-discovery-season-one-finale-a-bold-original-mess/

Star Trek: Discovery Season One Finale: A Bold, Original Mess

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In its first year, Star Trek: Discovery has committed nearly every misstep in the book. But the best thing the show achieved in the second half of its first season – which ended this week with the season finale, “Will You Take My Hand?”, available on Netflix – was the commentary provided by the Mirror Universe that it’s all too easy to give into our worst tendencies if we’re not careful, and slide into autocratic rule with supremacist ideologies.

Discovery successfully argued that the worst versions of our beloved characters aren’t all conveniently present in an “evil” universe, but rather have become so as a result of the choices they made at crucial times. And if the seemingly better versions of those characters made similar choices in the universe they’re originally from, they would start to resemble each other, as happened briefly on Discovery.

It’s what brought Starfleet so close to genocide on the Klingon home-world Qo’noS, appointing the Terran Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) to lead the Discovery once again, a desperate measure in desperate times. Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) had to be the one to intervene, and say she’d rather mutiny (again) than abandon her Federation principles, a moment that united her ship-mates in an unnecessary cheesy fashion, with all of them slowly standing up one-by-one.

If that moment felt poetic, it was designed to be. In an interview, co-creator Alex Kurtzman – co-writer on J.J. Abrams’ both Trek films – said: “The whole season was reverse engineered from the ending that we know that we wanted. Really the big driver there was [Burnham’s] arc and the confusion about how and why she decided to mutiny in the pilot to the absolute certainty that it was the only way to protect the ideals of the Federation.”

Sonequa Martin-Green as Michael Burnham in a still from Star Trek: Discovery Photo Credit: Jan Thijs/CBS

That’s classic character building, bringing back an earlier point to finish the circle, and imparting a lesson to the protagonist – and in turn, to the viewers – in process. Burnham has seen a lot of failures over the course of the show’s first season, right from her inability to protect Captain Georgiou at the Battle of the Binary Stars to her lover Ash Tyler (Shazad Latif) turning out to be the Klingon Voq (a subplot many predicted long before the official reveal), and Star Trek: Discovery provided some redemption in the finale, with Sarek (James Frain) handing back her Starfleet pin.

Of course, the threat of Klingon obliteration couldn’t have been realised; Discovery is set before the original 1966 Trek series, where it’s all good. But it did help the writers undercut everything we’ve always been told about the utopian Starfleet – which was their primary aim with Discovery,offering a realistic, dark and cynical version of Gene Roddenberry’s project in the age of Game of Thrones – and help serve as the catalyst for ending the Federation-Klingon War, which was meant to last for the duration of Star Trek: Discovery’s first season.

But despite all that plot, what the show couldn’t achieve was a satisfactory conclusion, be it for its full-season arc or with the cliff-hanger in the finale. After L’Rell (Mary Chieffo) gets the bomb detonator from Burnham, why would she threaten her own people with full-scale destruction? Wouldn’t it be easier to unite the Klingon empire by defusing the bomb and go ahead with the attack on Earth?

L’Rell herself said the Klingons wouldn’t relent until they were conquered, so why would they choose to stop the war when they hold all the cards? It doesn’t make sense. When the US wanted Japan to surrender in World War II, they didn’t hand the keys to the nuclear weapons over to the enemy. Starfleet would lose the moral high-ground if it ever took America’s cue, but it’d have been a lot more believable, especially when you’re facing annihilation in a war.

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Mary Chieffo as L’Rell in a still from Star Trek: Discovery Photo Credit: Jan Thijs/CBS

The bigger problem for Discovery, though, has been the lack of desire to explore the Klingon race. While the show kept killing off its leaders one after another in the first half of the season, it relegated them to non-existence once the USS Discovery entered the Mirror Universe, which occupied a large part of the season’s second half. Even L’Rell, the Klingon prisoner aboard the Discovery, spent most of the runtime in a cage, sticking around for the finale.

Unfortunately, the Klingons aren’t the only ones affected by haphazard writing. If the confirmation of Tyler being a human-Klingon hybrid wasn’t disappointing enough, the character has virtually stagnated since then, and sending him with L’Rell towards the end of the finale of Star Trek: Discovery season one seemed like an acceptance on behalf of the writers that the character had ran out of its arc.

Discovery’s old captain Gabriel Lorca (Jason Isaacs), who had a major influence on the crew, was never properly discussed since he turned out to be an impostor. Hugh Culber (Wilson Cruz), the ship’s medical officer, was also promptly forgotten after being murdered by Tyler/Voq. And no one in Discovery’s crew – except the ones who knew – seemed to think that the returning Captain Georgiou displayed traits of a far more authoritarian ruler, like the one they saw in the Mirror Universe.

Michelle Yeoh as Philippa Georgiou (Mirror) in a still from Star Trek: Discovery Photo Credit: CBS

For what it’s worth, it was a joy watching Yeoh lean into Evil Georgiou, freed from the principles and responsibilities that come with being a Starfleet officer. She got to deliver lines with an irreverent swagger, even throwing references to the original series, and have her way with green strippers, thereby add a jolt of fun to the grim proceedings and serious demeanour of the people around her. It’s likely why she gets her freedom so easily; Discovery’s writers love the option to have her back later.

Speaking of later, the gaps in the writing are signs of originally-developed storylines being expanded to fit more seasons. You can see the blueprint for co-creator Bryan Fuller’s anthology plan amidst the existing structure of Star Trek: Discovery’s first season, what with multiple main characters being killed off across the episodes. But CBS disagreed with the idea, asking him to make a serialised show, and Fuller eventually left after further disagreements.

The result has been all over the place at times, but it can’t be said that Discovery hasn’t tried something new. In that at least, it has boldly gone where Star Trek hasn’t before. Now hopefully, its meeting with the USS Enterprise – currently in the hands of Captain Pike, Kirk’s predecessor – will be more than just mere fan service.

Star Trek: Discovery airs on CBS All Access in the US, and on Netflix in India and around the world.

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