#does it feel just entirely out of character for t'pring or are you getting the sense that she's been on this ship with these people for long

[atopfourthwall]

Final modern Trek question then I’ll be good: What’re your honest thoughts and feelings on Strange New Worlds Season 1? Pros and cons, how it differs from Discovery and what it does either better or worse? The direction and writing, and if you feel it’s a step in the right path for current Trek shows? I watched it and I personally loved it, but I’m so curious to know what you think.

It is MOSTLY good. Its biggest strength is standalone episodes but compelling character arcs, which was the right call to make. We don't need a mysterious space hole or whatever to keep us invested week after week - just have a story with a beginning, middle, and end - do Star Trek stuff like meet new, weird, alien races and find interesting solutions to problems. The characters can change and advance and we can learn new things about them that influence how we next see them. The characters are just generally likeable and PROFESSIONAL. Professional is really the watchword I should keep bringing up - one of the reasons why I'm so uninterested in watching Lower Decks is because I continually see in gifs a bunch of BOZOS. Morons in command, morons doing the gruntwork. Oh, sure, I don't doubt they do their jobs and live and etc., etc., but nothing about them screams "These are people I would want to trust with exploring the galaxy." I see fanboys and people who shouldn't be anywhere near a phaser, much less the big chair. One of the episodes that many wouldn't put on their highest-ranking list of episodes for season 1 of Strange New Worlds is "Ghosts of Illyria." But it's entirely my jam - the stuff I want out of Star Trek. An interesting sci-fi mystery, character revelations, professionals doing their best to solve the problem, raising some interesting moral questions that will have to be revisited down the road, etc. For many it's just kind of "meh," but for me it made me want to watch more of it again after a long absence after watching the first two episodes. I want to see smart people being smart and solving problems. That's reductive, I know, but it's what gets me every time when watching. Now, as for the cons... well, ironically with that word the big problem is CONTINUITY. There are NUMEROUS continuity issues with this series, not the least of which being T'Pring - Spock's fiancé. There is no reason she should be such a significant part of the show. Everything that we saw in Amok Time seemed to suggest they were not close, had not seen each other in a long time, and the attitude T'Pring had in that is at odds with how she's portrayed as so loyal and dedicated to Spock in SNW. And given her reasons for breaking off her engagement in Amok Time, unless they REALLY openly contradict it with, I don't know, some kind of big betrayal or emotional fallout with Spock, I have a hard time believing that she'd break it off with him there. Don't get me wrong - the bodyswap episode was still good, but the problem again comes down to "I do not see a reasonable way for these two to no longer be together for Amok Time." The show focuses too much on old characters and not enough on new ones. I've already seen Spock's character development in TOS and the movies. I don't need MORE of it here, especially whenever they bring up Discovery. I don't need to see Pike's dilemma about his future - I know what's going to happen there. Uhura is a fine character... but I've seen her already. Give me more of everybody else - journeys for them, arcs for them, change for them. Killing Hemmer was dumb. Killing him while turning the Gorn into xenomorphs was dumber. Having the Gorn at all is dumb given we were pretty sure their first contact with the Federation was Arena in TOS. You could have invented a new baddie and gotten the same effect. Hell, it would have been better since one of the points of Arena is that we judged the Gorn as being aggressive, evil, and monstrous partially because of their appearance... but here comes SNW to be like "Oh, yeah, they are the absolute friggin' WORST. Unimaginably monstrous and horrible." Stop making all the uniform variants try to match with Discovery's stupid uniforms.

[enterprisetrampstamp]

The Martinstown WIP Part 2

Part 1

This is Part 2 of what is likely to be a nice, long t’pura fic once I’ve banged it out. It’s a bizarre length and actual amount of plot by my standards, so I’m in want of comments and breaking my usual rules to post sections of it before it’s fully complete. Please, holler at your ambiguously gendered author with any #thoughts you have!

***

“For Pete's sake,” Kevin says, as T’Pring calmly sweeps the pot of assorted trinkets and other random items that they’ve been betting from the center of the table to join the rest of the pile in front of her. “Who invited the Vulcan?”

She blinks, pausing in her movements. “This is a weekly poker game.”

Kevin’s face does something complicated. “Yes, but--”

“I was not invited,” T’Pring tells him. “None of us were invited. This is a recreational activity intended to facilitate the formation of strong bonds amongst the crew; it occurs during a pre-established, recurring timeslot.”

“It’s a figure of speech,” Kevin tries, eyes roving about the table as he attempts to find a sympathetic face. (He does not. The most sympathetic among them, Cristobal, fell asleep nearly an hour earlier. A thin blanket has been draped across his shoulders, and his gentle snores undergird their conversation.)

T'Pring continues to gaze at Kevin. “I do not understand," she says.

“Except that you do.” Kevin sets his hand flat on the table, fingers spread wide and his eyebrows rising, as he attempts to keep his voice calm. “I’ve been on this ship for nearly two years, so I know you, and I know that you know what figures of speech are, and I know, and you know, that you are trying to fuck with me.”

“I am a Vulcan,” T’Pring says, managing to convey an air of vast insult without modulating her voice or altering her expression. “I do not ‘try to fuck with’ people.”

"No," Pinga agrees. Her eyes glitter with amusement, and she brushes a strand of her thick dark hair- shot through with streaks of grey- back over her shoulder. "You do not try to fuck with people."

The corner of T'Pring's mouth raises, momentarily and minutely, into a smile. She inclines her head, stating solemnly, "I accept your compliment as intended."

Laughter runs around the table.

“I’m going to cry.” Kevin runs a hand over his face, his own laughter a little fraught and helpless. “I’m--Lainey, I am, literally, I’m going to cry.”

“You can’t cry; you already bet your handkerchief.” Lainey snickers as he groans, leaning forward to thunk his forehead lightly against the table. She reaches out to pat his shoulder, and where it should be sympathetic, instead it is mildly condescending.

Such is the way of younger siblings, or so T'Pring has been led to assume.

She finishes collecting her winnings. It all means little to her, of course, but most of it means little to any of them, and what items may be missed by their original owners usually find their way back to them before the end of the night. The collection of material goods is not the point of this activity--regardless of whether or not T'Pring excels at it.

“I shall provide you the opportunity to win it back,” she tells Kevin magnanimously, picking the handkerchief out to toss into the center of the table as the ante.

The rest of the table follows suit; Lainey selects a battery to add to the pot, then reaches across her brother to grab a piece of candy from his pile. Elina adds a pack of saltine crackers, and Pinga- who has been playing for Cristobal since she herself ran out of items a couple of hands earlier- raids his pockets for the little slip of fabric he uses to clean his glasses, before ruffling his hair fondly and adjusting the blanket about his shoulders.

"How motherly," Elina teases, the words warm and taunting in her thick Georgian accent, and Pinga doesn't even look over at her.

"Bite me, grease monkey."

Cristobal snuffles in his sleep.

"Whatever," Kevin says, voice muffled. "Thanks, T'Pring. You're a real mensch."

She tilts her head slightly in agreement. "It is only logical, as I have no need of a handkerchief."

"Naturally."

T'Pring glances up as the door slides, silently, open on the far end of the kitchen. Their captain pauses on the threshold; not in need of their service but simply to observe, and so she returns her attention to the human bonding ritual of mild teasing and humiliation.

"Yes," she says. "It is in fact natural that Vulcans do not cry."

(This is not, strictly, an accurate statement; Vulcans are capable of tears, although they are rarely shed due to the obdurate cultural norms requiring mastery of their emotional expressions. But T'Pring has become fluent in the human usage of hyperbole for humorous purposes, as well as a great many other things which would scandalize even the most progressive members of her homeworld's society.)

(If only there were more of her people left to be scandalized.)

Kevin makes a noise which can only be classified as "pathetic", and groans out, "Please stop."

"Take pity on him, beta," Fatima says, one hip propped against the doorframe and her arms crossed over her chest. "He's too delicate for your sledgehammer of a sense of humor."

"Is that an order, Captain?" T'Pring asks calmly, as she collects the cards. It is her turn to deal. She considers employing sleight of hand in order to provide Kevin the necessary cards to regain his handkerchief, but it has been approximately 4.786 Terran years since she was last able to effectively avert suspicion by calling upon her species' reputation for integrity, and Elina is remarkably observant for a human.

Of course--

The ability to cheat is why they use a physical deck of cards, as opposed to the holo-capabilities of the glass table upon which they currently play. She meets Elina's warm hazel eyes across the table, a smirk hiding somewhere in the darkness of her own, and shuffles the deck with a sharp, crisp noise.

Fatima does not smile, but there is something in the twist of her lips that implies amusement. "Consider it a firm suggestion," she says, her tone dry.

"Very well." T'Pring turns her shoulders away from the table to face her, one slanted eyebrow rising slightly. "Do you wish to join us?"

"Hm." The captain pushes away from the door, shoving up the sleeves of her shirt and squinting as she moves to lean over the table. "Is there anything worth winning left?" she asks, poking at the modest pile of objects next to Lainey's elbow.

"Is there ever anything worth winning?" Elina holds up a primitive- and cheap- ink pen from her own pile. "I have no paper to use this on."

"Because the washers you brought are so much more practical," Pinga mutters.

"Don't be rude, bebia."

"I'll show you rude, tiguaq--"

Fatima clicks her tongue. "Behave," she admonishes, even as her hand sneaks out for a piece of chocolate out of T'Pring's winnings.

T'Pring, quick as a snake, smacks her hand away. "Behave," she echoes.

Despite the gloves- thin, dark purple leather- which she has long adopted as a method of protecting the crew from the brunt of her telepathy and vice versa, she catches the barest glimpse of her captain's playful shock and ire.

"Insubordination," Fatima says, with a side-eyed glare as she rubs her stinging knuckles. "I could have you court martialed."

"Given that we both have no brig, and that I am the member of this crew most often called upon to serve the role of a security officer--" T'Pring shuffles the cards with another crisp crack-- "I believe your Terran phrase is, 'I should like to see you try.'"

Fatima sighs. "You were so sweet when we met."

T'Pring pauses in her movements to stare at her. "I was not," she says, her blank face once more conveying an air of grave insult.

"No," Elina agrees. "She's always been a prideful twat; she used to just hide it behind Vulcan stoicism and words that none of us could understand."

"Now I am a strong independent woman who openly speaks her mind," T'Pring says, in a tone that could almost pass for dry.

Lainey shoves her glass in the air, cheering, "L'Chaim!"

T'Pring raises that piece of chocolate between her index and middle fingers, a glitter of amusement somewhere deep in those dark eyes, and agrees: "L'Chaim."

[musicin68]

Totally Disco.

Episode 2: Battle at the Binary Stars

I managed to wait almost an entire day before starting this episode. I think the reflection is helping, or maybe I'm just being a reasonable adult (ridiculous thought)...or I was sleeping.

My digression for today is on the nature of bingeable tv-entertainment and streaming services.

It's my understanding that Discovery was released like ye olde television shows of yore, one episode per week. But it isn't structured (or the two episodes I have seen lead me to believe it isn't structured) like ye olde Star Trek series.

Simply put, the Star Trek of my youth (first run TNG not TOS, I'm old...just not quite that old) was episodic rather than serial. Sometimes you would get a two or three-part episode in the middle of the season... is anyone else here old enough to remember sweeps week?...or the classic end of season cliffhanger so you'd be sure to tune in again after summer re-runs. But you generally expected that every episode was its own story. Character development was sprinkled in amongst the plot weeds like wildflowers in a meadow, to be picked and added to the show's ever brightening bouquet as you meandered along. Kids nowadays, boy howdy, with their loud music and dramatic lens flares and streaming whole seasons released at once. It's madness...or just a different kind of storytelling.

It does feel a bit awkward though, when a series takes the serial approach but releases episodically. I felt the same way about watching The Expanse. The story was made for binging and it was actually painful not to be able to do that. I mean I was literally feeling stressed about situations characters were in for weeks at a time and foreknowledge from reading the books made it worse. (I knew what happened to the Agatha King, you bastards. And I just knew you were going to make her watch. Assholes. Deep breath. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale - AND I know all about your 'sack of broken glass' imagery. Which she will act the hell out of and be amazing, but you absolute fuckers. Gah! I just - I get so - *snort* - I need to go wash something.)

So...I'm not sure how I'm going to feel about Discovery going that route. Especially because...

Spoilers.

This episode was basically a giant bummer. The worst possible thing to happen on the show has happened. Asshole Klingon guy, (whose name was not Tuvok, the only thing my unhelpful brain is supplying despite it being repeated at least twenty times this episode, a sure sign he was going to bite it) T'Something-or-other, stabbed me in the heart - err stabbed Capt. Georgiou in the heart and killed my desire to watch this show.

T'Somebody gets to be a martyr, just what every Klingon wants and gets his war, which he specifically wanted. Future Michael gets failure and misery while present Michael gets all that plus jail time! Confused? I often am. (Episode 1 might help.) Let's not forget that T'Murderingbastard has deep seated childhood issues too. Do I sense a theme for our show? All the other Klingon kids beat him up. Probably because he has a Vulcan girl's name. Think about it. T'Pring. T'Lar. T'Pel. T'Pol. T'Whichever way you look at it he's dead and so are my dreams after what felt like the shortest fight scene in history.

I get it, Disco creators. You have a limited amount of time to tell your story and you felt Michael's response to Georgiou's death was the important thing to highlight here not the death itself ... Wait a minute, oooh you almost had me there with your episodic releases. This isn't broadcast tv. You don't have an hour long time slot your episodes have to fit. You could linger on Michael's pain AND give us a decent fight scene. Shame on you.

Now, wasn't the whole point of beaming into danger to capture, rather than kill this guy? Do phasers not have a stun setting yet? I am a bit vague on what the canon is at this point, but I’m going with revenge killing on Michael’s part. Girl’s got anger issues...like movie Spock has anger issues...Sarek we need to have a chat about you teaching kids to repress emotion. Don't worry though, T'Kahless-wannabe, Pippin is still there to carry a torch for you.

Other thoughts: → 1. The little nods to TOS that make an appearance are nice. I particularly like the view screen "ding-boing" noise that's played occasionally on the bridge and the captain's chair aboard the Shenzhou. It's a blingy, metallic version of Kirk's! ❤️ → 2. There are a bunch of names in the opening credits and it feels like we've only really met five fleshed out characters, two of whom are already dead. I think I need to keep a running list:

Georgiou, Burnham, Saru, T'What's-his-face, Pippin

Are the writers working on an add three subtract two sort of pattern? How many episodes in will we be when we finally have enough regulars to crew the bridge? → 3. This show is going to be really boring if it's just Michael in jail for the rest of her life. Lol! That's ridiculous. It would be great. Blue With Gold Stripes Is The New Black. Can we have Kate Mulgrew too? → 4. Lateral transporters. The look of the giant satellite dishes behind everyone on the transporter of the Shenzhou is fabulously retro. lt's well...disco. And not a moment after I thought that, the writers put a lampshade on it. They are being phased out. Newer ships don't have them. They require enormous amounts of power. The Shenzhou is then abandoned so there's no reason for us to see them again. Therefore...THEY ARE IMPORTANT. My plot sense is tingling. → 4.5. I mean, aside from holodecks, there's nothing more guaranteed to maim, kill, or send you into an alternate universe than a transporter. (Maybe spores? Lateral transporters + spores = the worst vacation ever?) → 4.75. Can...can we go there right now? The one where Michelle gets to show off a bit more martial arts prowess presumably, and her character is, you know, not killed off in Episode 2?

[realmofstupid]

Hehe, universal translators are always a fun interpretations. It's my mom's headcanon too, btw!

Op, I agree with you on the complicated canon of TOS. I think we progressed when making shows with better tech and better looks. I'm glad we could leave a lot of the shitty things from the 60s behind.

My complaint starts when the writers take the themes of TOS and make them worse, instead of better.

You know... a little bit of continuity doesn't hurt. As much as TOS is outdated, you wouldn't be surprised, as a fan, with how many of it's themes still carry into our present day. Besides, sometimes people miss the familiarity. You can't deny a large part of SNW is banking on nostalgia points, so why change the very same things they marketed that they would bring back?

I mean, why directly reference episodes from the original show at the center of your writing if you're actually gonna completely disregard them? That's not small canon details being lost to time, it was a deliberate decision to completely rewrite something over. And it gets confusing when a show is setting up the one it's also rewriting entirely.

There were a lot of changes since TOS into the 90s shows, but it still feels like the same universe, and the same timeline. The movies, specially, helped in the transition from the old shows to the new. The stories, the episodes, still worked to send a message accurate to their times.

Imagine how much difference there's been from TOS to DS9? DS9 strongly criticizes the colonization themes present in every other trek show, (specially on TOS, just try to watch it nowdays. I agree with you the thing is full of controversies that didn't age well). It sees the problems in it's past installations, and works to call them out, and make them better.

But it still remained consistent enough that Sisko can go back in time and play with tribbles, and it's perfectly believable. There's even a joke about Worf reacting to the first Klingon redesign.

That's not the way it was handled in Strange New Worlds. It was done very differently, to the point it upset people. And not just the ultra tos-purist fans, just... star trek fans, in general.

The Arena does get worse in retrospect after Star Trek SNW canon retconned everything about them. To make the Gorn into evil xenomorph aliens that are plain murderkillers with no nuance to them at all defeats the themes of that episode - that Kirk and the Gorn should've reached for diplomacy and talk in the first place, instead of battling. How can that even be an option for the characters if the other side wants to eat you?

And Amok Time was also everyone's favorite episode from TOS, but in the context of Strange New Worlds, it also gets worse. If T'Pring could've, all this time, ended her bond with Spock, then why did she want to kill him in ritual combat? They weren't even supposed to know each other - and the retcon that they did makes the loekey themes of T'Pring being a woman using the only system she can to get a divorce in a sexist society disappear. (Plus it makes a lot of scenes seem creepy in retrospect).

Just because the original show was episodic, doesn't mean the added canon of snw doesn't add a new context, a new spin to it. And in these cases, that context made them worse. If people complain about that, it's not a case of TOS being THE SACRED TEXTS!!! It's, as you said, people also being miffed that they managed to take themes and episodes from the 60s and make them worse in context, instead of better.

I mean, at least I'm pissed about that. Aren't you? Not even a little bit?

Klingons get a redesign every once in a while. That Worf meta scene made fun of it. Klingons getting a redesign isn't the bad part. But you can't deny the new context they chose in star trek discovery was worse, and more racist, than even the ones they had in tng.

We're star trek fans. If we're good ones we're gonna look for the depth in what we watch - instead of just focus on the surface level details and continuity. And sometimes, even with that in mind, we will find it lacking. It's not a bad thing to criticize it in these cases.

TLDR: you're right, TOS isn't sacred, but the themes that defined this franchise from the start should be respected, we should not make them worse than they were in the 60s, we should make them better.

But also, aside from depth discussions, how can these two canons even correlate? There's been so many major inconsistencies... I have trouble seeing how they still connect. There's a lot of lose ends. My favored wstsonian explanation was that it was another universe, another timeline. But idk if that works, then, if it's all primeverse. It feels like TOS is being rebooted through SNW, and isn't canon anymore.

TOS in Beloved Retrospect

A GREAT Show that is absolutely canon! But I’m Taking the Rose Colored Glasses Off

Listen, it’s no secret that I absolutely ADORE Star Trek: The Original Series. It’s easily in my tied top 3 with SNW and DS9.

But you know what?

I am so, incredibly SICK of people treating it like a sacred document whenever literally any show that’s set before it does almost any plot point that’s even tangentially related to it.

Let’s take off the holy pedestal for just, two seconds please I am BEGGING you.

Star Trek TOS is an episodic show from the 1960s and the showrunners (including Roddenberry!) had NO IDEA, at all, was going to spawn an absolutely massive, beautiful scifi universe that’s practically a genre unto itself.

Even when they made a second series they tried to get away from TOS with the century time jump! Some creators going so far as to want it to never have existed at all, at least briefly, like, uh, Gene Roddenberry.

I can safely say I and many others are VERY glad TOS never got decanonized, but some facts still remain.

As a result of time, The Original Series is very much limited by when it was made. Such as!

In it’s cultural attitudes to minorities and women, see: the POC and female characters not getting any major plot lines until after TOS.

Literally one of the first things that got disregarded by pretty much all other Star Treks that take place before and after is that women can’t become captains (like wtf was that about?? Oh wait, it was the 60s 🙄). It was literally like, the peak of sexism, and cloaking devices existing before the Romulans showed up that get decanonized the first chance they had (it’s literally been happening since Enterprise and people freak out about invisible ships, every time).

In the fact that because it was exclusively, extremely episodic, every episode was the first time anybody ever saw anything because they had to introduce it to the audience without confusing them and making them turn off the TV or change channels.

Do you know how many times I, a Zillenial who grew up with a mix of episodic/serialized shows, had to suspend my disbelief because if this show was any less episodic the main characters would’ve learned their lesson already from a previous episode or would still be processing the trauma of a previous episode? So many! Watsonian explanations galore!

It was TOS movies that changed the Klingon character design with no explanation. Every time there’s an evil double of Kirk or he gets possessed the crew reacts like it’s never happened to anybody before! Kirk convinces a computer to kill itself like eight times and every time it’s like “oh wow look how smart Kirk is getting a computer to commit die”. Kirk loses his brother, his sister-in-law AND his love interest within the span of two episodes and is totally fine afterward! And you know what? I’m ok with that because I have a brain cell and recognize the show was created before serialized television got even a bit popular!

Third of all technology! Listen I hate all that touchscreen chrome color pallete stuff too! I’m also not, never have been, and never will be a technobabble guy! I’m so happy that the Enterprise is still colorful and has buttons and stuff! But ultimately, TOS was a 1960s conception of 250 years of progress, and it came up a little, even VERY short at times (so do all the other Star Treks, you can’t predict progress with 100% accuracy).

So if the tech is better than say, not much more fancy than a submarine in space, I’m willing to give it a pass. Star Trek has been making up and then immediately forgetting/disregarding some completely world altering technobabble from a single episode or movie since the beginning! The tech is a means of storytelling, and it’s clearly not a limitation because people are always changing or ignoring it! It’s only pure vomitous rancid evil when “NuTrek” does it right?

If you take all three of those HUGE things into account, TOS has, by far, the most tissue paper thin delicate canon of all of Star Trek. Quite frankly I would MUCH rather enjoy exploring the 2200s without walking on incredibly fragile eggshells regarding technobabble details or certain alien encounters.

It’s not like Federation ships have cloaking devices in the 2260s or that the SNW crew is out here fighting off Romulan boarding parties or sipping Meridor with the ruler of the Gorn Hegemony. They’re toeing the line to explore familar concepts in a new format (like serialized short form TV) and like, that’s fine! For crying out loud the Ferengi popped up in an Enterprise episode and most people tend to regard that as funny without ripping their hair out!

Have there been some changes to canon I’m a bit lukewarm about (see, the Gorn being as xenomorph-adjacent and unsympathetic as they were in All Those Who Wander) sure, yes, absolutely! Do I think it obliterates the canon of TOS, in which the Gorn only show up in a single episode with very little and vague lore around them? No!

The Doylist explanation, even if it hurts, is that a lot of meta aspects of TOS are falling out of favor or otherwise obsolete. NOT the stories or the characters for certain, but other fundamental building blocks are frozen in the context they were created in. Trying to adhere to them would severely limit any writer trying to explore that era of Starfleet’s history. So the writers are going to adapt to the spirit if not the precise letter of TOS’s canon.

The Watsonian explanations are numerous, but my favorite interpretation (which you don’t have to like, but maybe it’ll help) is that TOS is still fundementally canon, but the elements that make it inconsistent with other treks or with modern expectations for representation and technology are the result of a “universal translator” sending the truth about our future being translated into a way 1960s audiences could understand. Which is ultimately, kind of what Roddenberry’s desires were in the first place, to show us a better future within the confines of what was then modern TV.