This is a transcript of our ninth season two recap, available here.
Admiral Cornwall [From
episode]: You sat out the war because if we’d lost to the Klingons, we
wanted the best of Starfleet to survive. And as this conversation makes clear,
that was you and all you represent.
Carla: Hello and
welcome to re:Discovery, the Star Trek recap podcast that won’t make a funny
quip this episode because it’s all just so dang sad. I’m your host, Carla
Donnelly, and I’m joined by my science officer, Ben McKenzie. Ben, I’m a little
bit suss on your implant now.
Ben: No three
cheers for cybernetics. Yay, yay, yaaay. Oh.
Carla: Project
Daedalus kicks off with Admiral Cornwall boarding Discovery. She has travelled
there secretly as something big is going on. Control, the computer that
Starfleet Admiralty use for threat assessment has blocked her account and
Section 31 had stopped taking her calls. She fears that Admiral Petard, who is
a logic extremist, has turned Section 31 Admiralty against the Federation. But
first, she must examine Spock and determine whether he is lying about all that
has occurred. Administering a lie detector test, Spock comes up clean. He
didn’t kill anyone. Nor did he leave the facility without permission. As a
voluntary patient, he was free to go whenever he pleased. This is in direct
opposition to the footage Cornwall shows Pike and Saru – that of Spock shooting
and killing three medical officers. Pike offers assistance and Cornwell sets
the mission, head to Section 31 to reset Control to accept her data, as if it’s
only in the hands of extremists, the entire Federation is in danger.
Carla: Cut to
Airiam scrolling through her memories, a process she must do each week to free
up space in her hardware. We see that Airiam was just married before having her
accident and confesses to Tilly that her partner died. RED ALERT! You generally
know what it means when you get to know the emotional backstory of a minor
character. Spock and Michael fight like children bitterly spatting, its mean
and raw and strange. Michael is devastated by Spock’s clear and merciless
assessment of her character, but not before it also affects him to the point
that he yells and destroys the chess set they were playing. Spock is embracing
his feelings, perhaps instinctively, knowing that it’s a journey through rather
than the prison that Michael thinks hers are. This enrages Michael, both
shaming and maintaining her blockage. Airiam is having many moments of
cognitive breaks. She is understanding that something is happening to her but
doesn’t know what. Fearful of the changes she asks Tilly to stay by her side as
she tries to decode the messages that Tyler supposedly sent to Section 31.
Their relationship is tender and warm whilst Nhan watches her like a hawk. She
knows something’s up.
Ben: Engaging the
spore drive Discovery arrives on the outskirts of a decommissioned prison star
base. The secret headquarters of Section 31. It’s surrounded by mines,
prompting a discussion between Pike and Cornwall about Federation ethics, in
which she reveals the Enterprise was kept out of the Klingon war so that if
they lost the best of the Federation, as exemplified by Pike and his crew,
would be what survived. They take Discovery in closer, using Cornwell’s data on
a safe path. But the ship is attacked by a variety of mines that slice into its
hull and scramble navigation. Burnham realizes Control is predicting their behaviour
and following Spock’s chess example suggests they use randomness. So, Pike has
the bridge crew take turns to suggest evasive manoeuvre patterns. It works and
the ship reaches the minefield, but not before Airiam again taken over, insists
Tilly leave her and finishes uploading something. Discovery is hailed by
Admiral Petar, who says the mine attack was ordered by Starfleet and labels
Pike, his crew and Cornwall all traitor’s. Burnham, Nhan, and Airiam beam over
to the base in shiny EV suits. Control has shut off power and life support to
most of the station and find dead bodies, one of which turns out to be Admiral
Petar! She and the rest of Section 31’s leadership have been dead for two
weeks; and Saru, who already had suspicions, confirms that their recent
communications were fakes holograms, as was the video evidence against Spock.
They realize they’re not fighting Section 31 but Control itself and that it
must want something from them to allow the away team to board. Tilly finds that
Airiam downloaded all her personal memories before she left and uploaded
something else. She must have what Control wants. Pike tries to warn Burnham
and Nhan, but Airiam has already flipped into evil mode and started uploading
her payload to Control – the sphere life forms vast collection of data on
artificial intelligence, which Control will use to evolve itself to full
sentience. She fights with the others, ripping Nhan’s respirator implant out
and almost killing Michael before she turns things around and traps Airiam in
an airlock. Tilly manages to reach Airiam by transmitting some of her memories
across and briefly herself again Airiam begs Michael to flush her out of the
airlock before she can unlock the door and kill her and complete the download.
Michael resists following Pike’s order to do it, but has a final conversation
with Airiam, who tells her everything is about her, Michael, and that she must
find Project Daedalus. Before she can say more or escape and kill Michael,
Airiam is ejected into space by a surprise Nhan. The crew watch in grief-stricken
silence as Airiam floats into the void, her last moments spent watching her
favourite memory sent to her by Tilly of herself and her husband on the beach.
Carla, I felt like Michael and the whole crew at the end of this episode, when
you see their faces. How did you feel about the death of Airiam?
Carla: A lot.
Ben: Yeah.
Carla: Yeah.
Look, I found it really interesting like I’m also like a bit like “oh,
really? Come on”. You know, but I feel like everybody it’s someone has
someone key has to die.
Ben: Yeah.
Carla: Right. But
the thing that struck me most, and it’s a mechanical thing, is like how
effective they were able to make you fall in love with her, like so quickly. In
such a short period of time, like, I found that really magical. And I don’t
know if that’s Frake’s or the scripting or it was just so lovely. And all you
needed was those little snippets of memories to really have that intimacy with
the crew and, yeah, and so it was devastating. I can’t believe that this has
happened.
Ben: Yeah. I
think they were really cleverly had sort of inserted little more and more
little bits of her throughout this season. And because she’d been with us from
the very start and she’s got such a distinctive visual look that we have always
been aware of her. And Discovery seems to have a fairly small crew as well. So,
you’re always seeing the same background characters and you feel like you know
them even when you’ve only seen them like a brief time. But I think they really
capitalized on that so well, as you say, and this episode really brings her to
the fore, gives us just enough information to really go “ah, yeah”,
just before she snatched away from us. And it’s yeah, it’s kind of awful. I
mean it’s beautiful and an awful but, yeah, yeah.
Carla: I have so
many questions.
Ben: Okay. Let’s
let’s hit them.
Carla: So, it
actually like, I was very confused by the end of my first watching of this. So
even at the end of the second I was like, okay, I think I kind of know what’s
going on. So, are we assuming that Control evolves to become the octopus in the
future? Is that the inference?
Ben: Yeah.
Carla: So then
how does it desire now to become sentient? Like, how is that how does an A.I.
desire that?
Ben: I think
there’s a couple of things that could happen. First of all, could be a big
paradox, because one of the first things Airiam does after she is taken over by
the influence is, she makes those secret transmissions. And we know it was sent
to Control at Section 31. And that’s around the time Control kills the leaders
of Section 31. So, it’s been given this information from the future saying,
“you need this”.
Carla: Oh, yeah.
Okay, good.
Ben: That’s a
bootstrap paradox. It’s like where does that start?
Carla: Of course.
Yeah, but I missed that. So that’s a good explanation.
Ben: Yeah. So
that could be it. I mean it also could be that it already wanted this stuff and
was looking for how to get it. And Section 31, remember, has pretty much access
to everything that Starfleet has. So, it might already know that it wants this
data and set programs in motion means the way it gets it is by doing this time
travel thing.
Carla: Yeah. And
it’s obvious like now like AI is racist now you know, like, yeah, that AI is
evil, you know, because it’s only learning what it’s being taught.
Ben: Yeah.
Carla: And so,
you know, they say that, you know, after making the Spock video, it now learned
that it could replicate, make hologram humans to utilize that for whatever it’s
will was. So where is Georgiou? Where is Leland?
Ben: Yeah. Yeah.
Well I mean I think it’s Georgiou obviously is not going to be on board with
this because she has already in a previous episode expressed her disdain at how
much faith they put in a computer telling them what to do. So, I think when she
finds out, she’ll be like “kill it”.
Carla: Yeah but
is she dead?
Ben: No, surely
not.
Carla: Where is
she?
Ben: Well, I
mean, this episode has a few notable absences. I mean, Hugh’s not there. This
has got a lot of implications for Tyler’s storyline. We don’t see him at all
this episode either.
Carla: Well,
because he is locked up.
Ben: Yeah. Oh,
well, yeah, that is true. And Michael is expressly forbidden from going to see
him at the start of the episode. So, it does kind of make sense there. But also,
by the end of the episode, I mean, hopefully the first thing they do next
episode, if it’s not having a proper funeral for Airiam, then it’s some, you
know, letting Tyler out and saying, we’re sorry we doubted you, but it was very
convincing evidence.
Carla: Sorry
again. Sorry.
Ben: Sorry,
buddy. At least it wasn’t you this time. You were framed. No. Yeah, pretty
rough. It’s not clear what’s going to happen with Control either. Like we
haven’t met Control. I mean, is there a backup Control? They had to go there to
fiddle with Control. Does that mean this is the only place Control exists? They
blow the station, that’s it? No more Control or. Or what?
Carla: Yeah. And
if its only admirals feeding data into Control, then maybe that’s why all the
Admirals are dead.
Ben: Yeah.
Carla: So,
Georg… Yeah, I have lots of other questions. Who gets to decide whether they
become a cybernetic human or not? Like obviously Airiam has been severely
injured in an accident? Yeah, hopefully they just didn’t make her into that
without getting her permission.
Ben: Well, I
think I mean, it seems like cybernetic augmentation is pretty common. Like
we’ve seen a lot of crew. We’ve commented before, you’ve seen a lot of crew
members on Discovery have some sort of augmentation, including the guy looks a
bit like Geordi in the transporter. So maybe they maybe it’s something that
people ask you about, kind of like organ transplants.
Carla: That’s
exactly what I thought. Like, you just kind of tick a box.
Ben: They have a
box is like, if I’m injured, I don’t want to be cybernetically saves cause I…
Carla: That’s a
significant augmentation.
Ben: It’s
massive. Yeah.
Carla: Yeah. It’s
not like having a visor because you’re born blind.
Ben: I mean
they’ve clearly replaced parts of her brain and her entire face and head. But
she also clearly has a human brain in there as well. Yeah. So that’s rough.
Like that a lot. And she’s got I think she’s got robot hands as, well doesn’t
she? So, it must have been pretty extensive, her injuries.
Carla: That’s
what I mean.
Ben: Yeah.
Carla: It, it’s
all unclear because we haven’t seen this before either. This type of…
Ben: We we sort
of have. But we’ll come to that in Short Chats.
Carla: Oh yes, of
course.
Ben: Yeah.
Carla: Lots of
other things for me. Was Admiral Petar frozen midden nerve pinch?
Ben: Oh yeah. I
didn’t notice that. But I think you’re right. Yeah.
Carla: Where does
Nhan’s Barzan gases come from?
Ben: Well, that’s
a good question, because those implant things are very small. Yeah, I think
it’s not that the atmosphere is radically different. That’s why they can just
wear this little thing. It’s just one extra gas that they need. So maybe she
isn’t, she doesn’t need much of it. I don’t know. Or maybe it can convert other
gases in the atmosphere.
Carla: That would
be a better, that would be a more smart…
Ben: Yeah. Could
be like a yeah like a “rebreather”, that kind of deal.
Carla: Yeah.
Ben: That scrubs
the carbon dioxide out of the air.
Carla: And the
one thing that I do hope from all of this is that she is now going to get more
of a of a presence, of a storyline.
Ben: Yeah.
Carla: Because
she’s awesome. I think she’s becoming my favourite character on Discovery.
Ben: She is
pretty cool, and it was nice to see her get a real chance to shine because she
sort of only been in a handful of episodes since she was introduced. And we all
thought I think she was going to be a bit more of a bigger character and now
maybe she gets a chance.
Carla: Yeah.
Fantastic resting bitch face.
Ben: Yeah.
Carla: Which is
my favourite of all time.
Ben: And just
like very appropriately suspicious as well.
Carla: Yeah.
Yeah.
Ben: Like Airiam
was acting weird.
Carla: A good
security chief.
Ben: Yeah. She
was onto it before anyone else, although she didn’t tell anyone which I thought
was an odd move. But maybe she thought maybe she was just second guessing
herself like “I want to know that something’s up before I…” But
then and then she does take her eyes off Airiam, like there was that great
moment where, you know, she’s got to go and do something apart from Michael and
Airiam and you can tell she’s like “oh, no, the whole reason I’m here is
to keep an eye on Airiam because I’m suss”. But she’s like…
Carla: “I’ve
got to do it”.
Ben: “I got
to do it. You’ll be all right. Okay”. And she doesn’t question Pike’s
orders or all on the needs of the mission or Michael’s capability. Exactly. So,
I like that.
Carla: My biggest
thing that I came to an understanding of this episode was that like 99 percent
of the action fight scenes in this entire show has been with women.
Ben: Yeah. Yeah
that’s true.
Carla: And I
actually thought it was 100 percent. But then I remembered the Tyler…
Ben: Tyler,
Culber…
Carla: Tyler
Culber fight followed and that’s the only non-female fighting I can think of on
the show.
Ben: Yeah. Cause
I mean all was Spock in the medical guards.
Carla: That’s
true.
Ben: But that’s
more a flashback and a little bit Spock and Michael when they’re in the
cockpit. But they weren’t major ones. They like backstory stuff.
Carla: Yeah.
Ben: Really.
Yeah.
Carla: The fight
scenes are incredible.
Ben: They’re
really well choreographed.
Carla: So good.
Ben: Yeah. And I
just like this one. You know, I the thing I love most about a good fight scene
is when it really allows the actors to express the emotion through their style
of fighting. And that’s why I’m never that concerned about too much technical
accuracy. I just I just loved how, you know, Michael’s trying not to hurt her.
And then you just see the point where she’s like, “you’re trying to kill
me”. And she just let’s go and is like, “I’m just going to smash you
because I’ve got to stop you. You’re going to kill me”.
Carla: Yeah.
Ben: And I love
that moment. It was just. Yeah. It just it really conveys what’s going on with
the character without any dialogue. I love it.
Carla: There’s
such a complexity to the expression of violence and trauma in this show, like
how people cope in those kinds of situations or don’t cope. And the bridge that
they have to build in cognitive dissonance to actually really begin to
understand what is happening to them. And usually it’s usually it’s too late.
That’s the reason why so many people, women in particular, end up dead is
because they just, it’s you know, it’s like their dog has started talking. You
know what I mean? It’s like it’s a world that they can’t have ever imagined
existing. So, it’s so fascinating to see that play out, be acted so finely. And
such a responsible, I think, representation of how PTSD can work as well. Like,
I’ve been so impressed with the work that they’ve really done in all of these
characters. And obviously the actors are incredible.
Ben: Yeah. And
you know what? That actually brings me to one thing I really wanted to talk
about, which is the chess scene with Michael. Because I …
Carla: Hoo boy…
Ben: I mean, it
was full on and I really enjoyed it. But I also find it really interesting the
way that this episode really wants to paint Spock as the villain in that
relationship and then kind it and then sort of tries to turn it around because
it very much presents Michael as the calm one who’s like, “no, come on, we
can sort this out”. And Spock is the one who’s very spikey, and I was
watching that at that scene and all the way through, I’m going “he’s very
emotional”, like he’s not voicing it too much. But the things he’s saying
he’s clearly pissed off. And then, you know, he has this explosion at the end,
and he gets one in at her is like absolutely right about her kind of saviour
complex. I don’t know if that’s what it’s appropriate to call it, but that’s
kind of how I was like. Yeah. Well it’s always yeah. It’s always about her but
it’s not good. Like she hates it. And he’s revelations like “the logic
extremists much more worried about me as like a half human half/half
Vulcan”. And you’re like “whoa that’s like that’s quite a true burden
to bear”. And he’s like “and you took it all on yourself”. I
guess I found that a bit weird. I mean, we talked about last episode. It seemed
like what she said to him wasn’t maybe as awful as we were expecting, given how
it was built up. But at the same time, we’re expected to believe that it had
that effect on him.
Carla: Sure.
Ben: And now that
it’s been turned around, it just felt weird to me that he was being painted as
the main an evil, awful one.
Carla: Yeah. I
didn’t see you like that at all, actually.
Ben: Yeah? Okay.
Carla: I saw. I
saw his beef with her – once he articulated it, and probably the way he
articulated is not rational. But the gist of where he was going, I thought was
totally fine. Yeah, I was like, I understand that. I understand why you’re
angry. You know, she’s always tried to take control and never it’s never been a
conversation. And now again, she’s trying to take control. And he’s like “the
only thing I can do with this situation is passively go along with everything
that you demand of me, and you don’t want to hear anything that I have to
say”.
Ben: Yeah.
Carla: Right. So,
you know, chess. Ha, ha. You know what I mean? So, I thought it was. I thought
I was actually very smart the way that it was depicted.
Ben: That makes a
lot of sense when you put it like that. Yeah. Yeah, I can see. Yeah. That that
kind of resolves some of the things I was wondering about that scene.
Carla: Cause she’s
extremely pigheaded.
Ben: Yeah.
Carla: You know
and that that goes beyond all realms of logic. You know what I mean. And that’s
her running. That’s her on the run. And that’s what I said in my introduction.
That’s why she was so gutted with what he said because it’s so true. It’s like
she is constantly running towards the future to try to get away from her past
and that if she keeps running fast enough, she’ll always be one step ahead of
it when really, like, you know, she’s completely glued to that moment in time.
And unless she evolves through it, which is what it seems like Spock is trying
to do. He’s acknowledging that he has these human feelings and he’s comfortable
in the discomfort.
Ben: Yeah.
Carla: And that’s
a very evolved way of being, you know, and that’s threatening to someone like
Michael.
Ben: Yeah.
Carla: Because
you can’t control someone like that.
Ben: Yeah.
Although she tries. I mean, I think…
Carla: She sure
does.
Ben: Is very
calculated and really mean of her to keep bringing up Sarek, for example, when
she knows that there’s this massive rift between them, they haven’t spoken for
years and won’t speak as we know for at least another decade. It’s like, yeah,
that’s rough, you know. And also, I’m really enjoying that we’re finally
getting back to Michael’s storyline because like I said that in the last
episode, it’s felt very much like she’s been, you know, a protagonist, but
she’s it’s not been about her like it was so much last season.
Ben: And now
she’s coming back to the fore, not just because of what Airiam says to her at
the end, but also now we’re finding out more about her backstory and we’re
seeing more about that moment when, you know, the Klingon’s kill her family.
And we know that Leland somehow is responsible for that, although we don’t know
why or what the deal is with that yet. I mean, I’m really interested to know,
was it really Klingon or was it like fake Klingon who actually Section 31
agents or something?
Carla: I mean,
that is dark. Whatever is going to happen, there is fuckin dark.
Ben: It’s going
be awful.
Carla: It’s going
to be full circle like it’s going to be full circle for everything that’s
happened and it’s going to drop the bottom out of everything.
Ben: Yeah.
Carla: And she’ll
go deranged or something.
Ben: Yeah. Oh
yeah. No, it’s going to happen. You know I also want to talk about there’s a
really nice scene with Spock and Stamets and it was short, but I just I really
liked how they both sort of gave each other that bit of insight and they both
went, “well, maybe I’ve been a bit of a dick” like, and I was like,
yeah.
Carla: From one
to the other. (laughs)
Ben: Yeah, yeah,
yeah.
Carla: I was just
laughing because I was like, “oh, Stamets you are getting a dose of your
own medicine” you know, like you’re really…
Ben: Someone just
piercing you with like “Hey, this is what’s going on, buddy”.
Carla: Yeah
“I’m the more anal prickish person in this room”. (laughs)
Ben: (laughs)
Yeah. Yeah, I know. I really, I enjoyed that. I also really liked Saru getting
another moment to shine this episode.
Carla: So
textured. I mean ha-ha not a joke but so textured in performance.
Ben: Yeah.
Carla: I
couldn’t. Yeah, I don’t. Yeah. I just find it miraculous what some of these
actors do, you know what I mean? Like he’s just covered in latex. And he can
just be so. But he was just like I’m loving it, I’m loving who he is becoming,
or who he has become. He’s become so calm.
Ben: And he’s
onto it you know.
Carla: Onto it.
Ben: Yeah.
Carla: But not
like. “Holy shit”. Frantic before. Just like. Hang on. Dot, dot, dot.
Yeah.
Ben: Yeah. I mean
it’s. It is. I mean it’s one of those classic things of modern television that
we really enjoy watching characters who are really competent and what they’re
doing. And Saru now is becoming an extreme example of that where every time he
goes, I’m just going to work something out. You like, oh, he’s going to crack
this case. It’s going to be awesome. And he does. And I just. Yeah, I really
love that.
Carla: Do you
think he’s going to shoot his spines to kill Georgiou?
Ben: No,
Carla: You sure?
Carla: Oh, I’d
love that.
Ben: It would be
amazing. But I mean, yeah…
Carla: Put that
on my Wishlist.
Ben: I can’t I
can’t quite disengage my brain from the knowledge of that she’s got a spin off.
Carla: She’s got
another show.
Ben: She can’t
die. I mean, unless there’s some massive time jump, and it all occurs in the
gap or something. I don’t know. Yeah, I’m interested. That’ll be weird to find
out.
Carla: What else
about this episode? Any other scenes of note for you?
Ben: How Airiam’s
memories and how her brain works, I thought was really interesting and a nice,
quick way to kind of establish that she was human and now is part computer
basically. But how, like the fact that she’s deleting memories I’m like
“oh, okay”, does that mean they’re gone forever? Or is it more I
mean, she’s backing up to the cloud and just deleting them off their local
memory because she doesn’t need them right now. I mean, that’s how I prefer to
think about it, because I think it’s pretty rough otherwise.
Carla: But we
don’t remember everything that happens to us on a daily basis.
Ben: No. And I
mean and you would know this better than me, although I’ve been reading about
it recently, is that memories are kind of constructed when you try to recall
things rather than written into your brain like a computer.
Carla: Exactly.
Ben: But the I
still feel like it’s kind of rough. Like it’s all. Yeah. It’s not written in
there like a book, but it’s kind of, you expect that. Well you think of your
past as a continuum where if your memory is good enough, you will remember
anything. It’s not like if there’s a gap that’s unusual, where she has to
choose to have gaps every week and that just seems seems a rough way to live.
And I like the way that she talks about it with Tilly as well. She’s not sugar-coating
it.
Carla: Yeah, but
they were joking around.
Ben: Yeah, yeah,
yeah.
Carla: Also hang
on. I just want to get in a hashtag first trap moment and here.
Ben: Yeah go on.
Carla: The fight
scene that she has with Rhys, I’m like Rhys!
Ben: Oh yeah.
Yeah.
Carla: That’s
such a good way of showcasing all the other bridge people. And like all there,
they must have a close relationship with each other because they’re all at the
same level in the hierarchy much you know.
Ben: Yeah.
Carla: And in
that high-, in that structure as well. I don’t know if it’s in this version of,
this era but yeah. Like superior officers aren’t really allowed to and
fraternize with more junior officers as well.
Ben: That seems
to be less of a thing in the Federation than in Starfleet. I mean it does get
referenced a few times I think in the Original Series, and certainly it’s a
thing that comes up a few times in Next Gen.
Carla: Well, no,
they’re definitely not allowed to have relationships, but it’s also like…
Ben: But they’ve
got a real friend friendly relationship going on. They’re just all buddies. And
I guess if you’re stuck on a starship, it’s not like you can go home. You can’t
get out of the port an…
Carla: But there
still is like thousands of people I guess as well. So…
Ben: Yeah, well,
I don’t know. I was actually just thinking about this because I think the
Discovery’s got a fairly small crew, only about 130/140 people.
Carla: Oh well
then that’s a really small pool of potential friends and enemies.
Ben: Weirdly,
that’s not that many more than the Enterprise NX-01, they’ve only got like 80
people on board.
Carla: Yeah,
that’s true.
Ben: Yeah. So,
it’s a pretty small crew so they would all know each other. And I think that
goes back to what we’re saying at the start about how we’ve seen all these
people all the time because there’s only so many people on board the ship and
now there’s one fewer.
Carla: Yeah.
Because you know how many people we generally know like, actually know?
Ben: What is it
like? About 100 is that.
Carla: Yeah. It’s
about 100-120.
Ben: Yeah. Wow.
Carla: These are
all people that we can you know, say their full name and recall a memory of.
Ben: And
understand their relationship to us and the other people that we know.
Carla: Yeah
exactly.
Ben: Yeah.
Carla: What else?
You always have more things to talk about Ben.
Ben: I want to
say when Cornwell first shows up, Admiral Cornwall. I thought she was going to
turn out to be evil because she turns up in this weirdly disguised shuttle.
She’s acting real suss. She’s really like “Spock’s not innocent”. She
believes the video footage, even though she’s just done a lie detector test on
him. And I’m like, “surely the video footage could be doctored?” And
her excuse for why it wasn’t was pretty flimsy. It was like, “no, it
definitely came from the star base”, which seems to me to mean that
Section 31, it wasn’t just Control that faked this it was Section 31 did it.
And they did it by projecting holograms into the room so that it was actually
recorded in the room where it happens.
Carla: Or either
just fictionalized the entire thing, like.
Ben: Yeah, but I
think I think this is why they use – I thought this is a clever use of
holograms. But just by the by. Because, you know, if you give someone a fake
image, you can detect that fairly easily. But what they’ve done is they’ve projected
a hologram into the real space and recorded it using the actual recording
equipment. So, it all seems legit, except when, you know, Saru does his thing
and goes…
Carla: Does that
mean the hologram killed the people?
Ben: No, I think
Section 31 did. But they’ve and they’ve then recorded a hologram of it
happening in the room and sent that as the legit.
Carla: That’s
complicated.
Ben: Yeah. Yeah,
but that’s how I read it anyway. But who knows? I mean. Yeah. But yeah, I
really thought maybe she was going to turn out to be a villain this episode and
I was like I hope not, I kind of always liked her. Although her last appearance
where she’s basically telling Pike that Section 31 is all right me should stop
complaining about them. I was like, “oh I’m starting to like you”.
Carla: No, I was
like “toe the party line”. You know, you can’t ever really tell what
their true intentions are, particularly in a public environment around other
offices. So I wasn’t. I don’t take a lot of things that they say with a grain
of salt. Like even with the speeches she gives Pike, I’m like “you’re buttering him up” you know,
like it has it has a ring of truth to it. But I’m like, you’re a fuckin player
lady, like in all senses of the word. And that’s why I love her.
Ben: Yeah, maybe
we can’t quite trust what she says here.
Carla: I don’t
think you ever can. Because when you’re at that level, you’re playing a
political game that a lot of people aren’t privy to. And, you know, you got to
eat a shit sandwich every day, you know, to kind of get everything over the
line. And so, it’s a fine balancing of your own morals and ethics. And you know
what it is that you can do. But, you know, she put herself on the line to come
and do this, and she. She was right.
Ben: Yeah. So, do
you think do you think it’s true what she said about Pike and why they sidelong
the Enterprise?
Carla: Well of
course, I would believe that is true.
Ben: Yeah, I
believe it’s true. I want to believe it’s true. Do you think maybe she’s lying
about it for some other reason?
Carla: Well, no,
it did. That is that is a standard military tactic.
Ben: Yeah. Okay.
Carla: You know,
is to take best pieces off the board. Yeah. But also, like pack it with your
best scientists and your best you know, your best peeps.
Ben: Oh yeah.
Carla: Yeah. You
know your best civilians, or the brains trust like when it’s really when the
shit’s really going down and it’s like total annihilation kind of stuff. Yeah.
Yeah. You put all of your historically important people that are still alive
somewhere safe.
Ben: Yeah. And
they’re like this is one of our best starships with our best crew off doing the
important five-year mission stuff. Yeah. Let’s make sure they are still out
there doing stuff.
Carla: And that’s
also strategic as well, because if something does survive or partial survive or
whatever, they can either come back and save or, you know, repopulate with all
their mega brains. You know what I mean? Like eugenics as well. You know what I
mean?
Ben: But they’re
very down on eugenics and stuff.
Carla: I know.
Ben: They’ve
already had bad experiences. I mean, although they don’t know that. They don’t
know that Khan is still alive at this point. But they know what he did before
he left Earth. Yeah. There’s two quick things I want to mention. We saw the
return of the shiny suits.
Carla: Yes. Very
cool.
Ben: Although I
have a question.
Carla: Oh, no.
Ben: Because
Airiam’s wearing blue and which makes sense. She’s science officer. Nhan is
wearing red. Makes sense. She’s in operation slash security. But Michael’s
wearing silver. Whereas previously she was wearing, was she wearing blue
before? I can’t remember now.
Carla: I can’t
remember.
Ben: Maybe she
was wearing silver before. Maybe the Discovery one’s are silver.
Carla: Silver is
science officer.
Ben: Well, the
badge is silver.
Carla: She’s
still a science officer?
Ben: She still
is. I think. I’m not sure. Anyway, I just thought that was interesting. And I
like that they brought those back because those suits are super cool.
Carla: Yes.
Ben: I like a
good, cool spacesuit. And I also really liked the couple of “what the fuck
moments” that the crew shares like when Admiral Cornwell tells them that
they have to have the shields down and all the crew just had to look at each
other for a moment going “are you fucking kidding me? This was already
bullshit”.
Carla: Yeah.
Ben: And then
also when there’s another one later on when they realize what’s going on and
just really good faces from everyone. Yeah, I just really enjoyed those two.
All right. Shall we Short Chats?
Carla: Let’s do
it.
Carla: Now it’s
time for re:Discovery Short Chats where we talk, news, trivia and anything
related to Discovery or Star Trek. We will also be taking questions during this
segment from you the list. So please follow our socials to be in touch. Haven’t
heard from you guys in a while. So, yeah, we haven’t reminded them lately.
Ben: That’s true.
Carla: It’s a
give and take relationship.
Ben: Maybe. Maybe
you’ve just been so struck by the awesomeness of the last few episodes
Carla: The last
few episodes have been great.
Ben: Yeah.
Carla: So, what
do you have for me today, Benjamin?
Ben: Well, I
thought it took a little bit about silent credits.
Carla: Oh cool!
They’re always so sad.
Ben: Yeah. And
they’ve got a long history. They’ve been around for a long time. I couldn’t
quite figure out what the first one is, but I know one of the early ones was in
Coronation Street back in the 60s. I think when the first character on
Coronation Street died.
Carla: You had to
say (Geordie accent) “Coronation Street”.
Ben: Coronation
Street? No, I think I did say it now. So anyway. But it’s got it. Yeah. And I
my familiarity with them comes from Doctor Who in the 80s, they killed off one
of the companions, Adric, who was famously unpopular with some of the audience.
I think probably a smaller proportion of the audience than was expected. Like
they were just very vocal, they didn’t like him. And he gets killed off. And at
the end of the episode where he dies, they don’t show the normal like space
credits with the theme song. It’s silent. And the only thing you see is under
the credits is a picture of this badge that Adric where’s that got broken in
the episode before he died. And they just show that smashed on the ground. And
it’s really sad, huh? And yeah, it’s it was it was really affecting like I was
like “oh no” and it’s been used in lots of shows.
Ben: The end of
“Blackadder Goes Forth” doesn’t have credit music. It just sort of
kind of has, you know, “To the Fallen” and fades to black. And also,
it’s been in in Star Trek before. It was used in Star Voyager, oddly enough,
not for a main character dying, but in the episode, “The Thaw”, which
you might remember, has Michael McKean as a weird clown.
Carla: Oh yes, I
hated that episode because I’m terrified of clowns.
Ben: Oh, yeah.
Carla: And I like
Michael McKean, you know.
Ben: Yeah. Oh,
no, it mashed up your favourite and your worst together. But when he says his
last words, it just sorts of fades to black. And then there’s the credits
rather than the usual Voyager stuff. And I thought that was weird use of it.
Carla: But I
think because he was so creepy, it was so good.
Ben: Oh, yeah,
yeah. I love that episode. But the saddest use of it that I found was in Blue
Peter, which is this children’s show in the UK. And they always have like pets
on the show. It’s usually a dog. Sometimes they had a cat. And if one of the
pets died or if somebody who had been on the show a lot as a guest or
associated with the show died in real life, they would have silent credits. But
I’m like, that’s for real. So, yeah, it’s got a long and interesting history.
And I just really liked that they did that this episode when, you know, they
might have chosen not to because Airiam’s technically kind of a supporting
recurring character. But, you know, they really sold her death and they really
made us care about her effectively.
Carla: So, yeah,
they milked it for all it’s worth putting in that beach scene right at the end
and like, you know. Yeah,.
Ben: Yeah, yeah.
I liked it.
Carla: Tonally
they got it right
Ben: They did.
I’ve got some more things, but what have you got?
Carla: Oh, look
I’m really, I love the whole, well I don’t love it, but I really find the whole
A.I’s gone bad genre really fascinating.
Ben: Yeah.
Carla: Because
obviously it’s like this existential interrogation of who we are because there
are only them because of us. Right. But it’s had such a weird – mostly I tried
to do a little bit of stats on it because I’m primarily remember it rightly or
wrongly, it’s mostly women. Female A.I’s that go bad.
Ben: Yeah, I’m
not sure about.
Carla: I think
it’s a good half, half after doing my stats today, that it’s pretty equal along
the gender divide. But the stories are very different when it’s a female A.I
gone bad and a male A.I gone bad. So surely there’s some kind of screen studies
essay out there that I can read on this or a doctorate or something like that.
Which, I will go away to find.
Ben: OK.
Carla: But lots
of questions made me think about Zora, mostly.
Ben: Zora. Tell
me about Zora.
Carla: Zora’s
“Calypso”.
Ben: Oh, yeah, of
course.
Carla: So, I was
thinking about Zora. A lot.
Ben: Yeah. Yeah.
Carla: And I’m
like. Is she Airiam?
Ben: Oh, well,
because. Yeah, because Discovery does have like all of Airiam’s memories
downloaded into it.
Carla: Yeah.
Ben: I mean,
presumably not her actual personality because she’s still at least partly
human, but they could turn into a personality. Oh, wow. I hadn’t thought of
that. That’s amazing.
Carla: Yeah. So,
think about that.
Ben: She lives
on.
Carla: What has
been your favourite A.I go, goes bad movie.
Ben: I look I
mean, I do. I do enjoy Terminator. And it’s interesting. I was thinking of it
because, like Control. You never meet Skynet.
Carla: Yeah.
Carla: You only
ever meet its minions. Like no one ever has a conversation with Skynet in any
of the films, at least not that I know of. And I haven’t seen the most recent
one because it looked rubbish. But yeah, I thought that was interesting. Yeah.
But yeah, I really like – that’s probably my favourite one.
Carla: Anything
else?
Ben: Yeah. A
couple other things. I like that there are a couple of little links in this
episode to the Star Trek movies. Probably not for the first time, but I noticed
them this episode when they find the floating blood in the zero G, that
reminded me a lot of Star Trek 6 when they assassinate Chancellor Gorkon and
his blood like floats through the air and the little globules. I thought that
was cool and also…
Carla: It’s a
pretty good space trope anyway. And like. Yeah.
Ben: Yeah.
Anytime they remember about zero gravity, you’re just happy, aren’t you? But
the other one was, and I had not noticed this before now and I found it on
Reddit. Someone spotted that in Star Trek 3 “The Search for Spock” in
a scene in a bar. There’s a character in the background who looks an awful lot
like Airiam. Like it’s clearly not her. It looks like it looks like a male
character, but he’s got like a full face, kind of, makeup on to make them look
like a cyborg or robot. And they don’t have any lines. They’re just in the
background. But it seems fairly clear that they’ve modelled Airiam after that
character.
Carla: Of course,
they would of.
Ben: And that’s
set like 20 or 30 years after Discovery. I think closer to 30 or maybe even 35,
because it’s like well after the five-year mission of the Enterprise with Kirk
on it, it’s over. So that’s like 15 years in the future from where we are now
in Discovery. But yeah, that’s. I just thought that was super cool. And we know
that they they’ve looked at all of the material and everyone working on the show…
Carla: The style
libraries for this would be fucking nuts, like seriously. I would love to get
my mitts on that, particularly like set design, weapon design and costume
design or even aliens.
Ben: Surely there
would be a good book about that.
Carla: I did
think of you. There was another fucked up alien on the bridge. This episode was
that this episode was at last episode. The guy that looks like a crab.
Ben: Oh yeah. He
was on this episode. He’s been in it a few times. Yeah. Yeah, but he was more
prominently on standing around on the bridge.
Carla: Do you
know, kind of alien that is?
Ben: I don’t
think we’ve ever seen them before.
Carla: We’ll do
that next Short Chats.
Ben: You know,
maybe we have, but only in the background. I seem to think maybe there was
something that looked a bit like him in one of the films, like maybe in the
background in Star Trek IV or something.
Carla: Sure.
Ben: But anyway.
No, I don’t know what kind of alien they are. It is a cool makeup.
Carla: Yeah.
Ben: Yeah. Much,
much less like a human with a bumpy forehead.
Carla: Yeah. It’s
still two arms, two legs, but you know. Yeah.
Ben: Yeah. Yeah.
The other thing is probably worth talking about is what Daedalus is all about.
Carla: Yeah. I
don’t know anything about this. I know it’s got something to do with Icarus.
Ben: Yeah. So,
Daedalus was Icarus’s dad. This is in the Greek myths and Daedalus was given
the job of building the labyrinth for King of Mynos, who I believe actually was
called Mynos, King Mynos. And so that’s where they put the Minotaur in there.
And he also. Yeah, his son was Icarus and they got imprisoned so that he could
never give up the secret of how the labyrinth works because Daedalus built it. So,
he knew the way in and out and they got imprisoned in a tower on the island and
Daedalus devised a way for them to escape, which is that he made these wings
out of feathers and wax and sends Icarus out and “says, all right, let’s
go, we’re going to escape”
Carla: An Icarus
is the son.
Ben: Yeah, Icarus
is his son. And he gives Icarus two instructions. And a lot of the time we only
talk about one of them, which was don’t fly too close to the sun because it’ll
melt the wax.
Carla: Yeah or
you’ll fall down.
Ben: All feathers
will fall out, but also don’t fly too close to the water or your wings will get
wet and you’ll be too heavy, and you’ll drown. It’s often used as a kind of a
metaphor for don’t get too proud of yourself, don’t try and overreach yourself
or you’re going to fail. But also, it’s like but don’t aim too low either. Like
aim in the middle. Right. Be reasonable. Don’t be, don’t go too high. Don’t go
too low so that’s…
Carla: Be
mediocre.
Ben: Yeah.
Carla: The
Australian motto.
Carla: Yeah,
yeah. But Project Daedalus is like, you know, he’s I assume it makes sense
because the Red Angel has a suit with wings on it.
Carla: Exactly.
Ben: And so,
Project Daedalus must be creating it.
Carla: Yeah. So
that was going to be my question.
Ben: Yeah, I
think that must be it. Although that is weird that the technology is so far
advanced that they assume it must come from the future, Project Daedalus must
be like really in its infancy at this stage of the timeline, surely?
Carla: What do
you think? Like everyone thinks now, the Red Angel is Michael.
Ben: Why else
would it all revolve around her? and why else would Airiam have that knowledge
from the future that the evil from the future is targeting her? I mean, why
bother?
Carla: You know,
like she gives a shit about the Kelpians.
Ben: Yeah. Yeah.
Carla: But then
the first mission doesn’t really make sense. Yeah.
Ben: Well, look,
I think I think the motivations for the missions that aren’t directly to do
with the robots is still really unclear. Even the Kelpian’s really, because it
seems to me that the time rift was an accidental thing and possibly even caused
by Discovery poking it with a stick essentially to find out what it was. So
yeah, I’ll be really interested to see how that resolves because it could go a
few ways.
Carla: You’ve
been listening to re:Discovery. All links to creatives are in the show notes or
on our website rediscoverypodcast.com. We’d love to connect with you, please
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