StillPaisleyCat

In July, I finished The Lords of Uncreation (and therefore the Final Architect trilogy) by Adrian Tchaikovsky, read the newest Lee and Miller Liaden novel Salvage Right when it arrived, then zoomed through Wool, the first of the Silo books.

Currently, I’m reading a Star Trek novel Agents of Influence by Dayton Ward. It’s a sequel to the excellent Vanguard and Seeker series set in Star Trek’s 23rd century. Not sure what’s next.

Thanks for volunteering. I appreciate the change in the community guidelines towards being more welcoming and informative.

A question and some observations, and a suggestion …

What is this community willing to consider as on topic?

The sidebar says this is a place to discuss all things sci-fi but the community name is ‘science fiction.’

‘Sci-fi’ is often considered to encompass all of speculative fiction including horror and fantasy.

‘Science fiction’ can be defined more narrowly. In the old subreddit for sci-fi books, as an example, the discussion could be captured by those who insisted that only classic, hard science fiction, or fiction based on currently established science theory, was science fiction. There seemed to be a fair bit of gatekeeping of more popular franchises or works that involved more speculative science. There was a great deal of dismissiveness from some users about anything with faster than light travel. It made it challenging to have more wide ranging discussions.

My own preference would be for a big tent sci-fi community that embraces all the different permutations of the genres, and allows for the mashups.

If the intent is to go with that big tent speculative fiction definition, in the spirit of being open and welcoming, it would be helpful to be yet more clear in the sidebar on this point.

Fascinating concept. It makes one wonder how workplaces could incorporate this kind of doula support for employees who are many their transformational journeys as persons with disabilities.

I’d like to drop TAS’ ‘The Practical Joker’ into the conversation.

The simulators in the Rec Room of the 1701, seem to be a more basic holographic VR along the lines of Discovery’s combat training simulator that we saw Lorca use to put Tyler through his paces as a security officer in season one. Yet, the simulator was able to take control of the ship and advance its own objectives. It’s not as clear that sentience was achieved in The Practical Joker but it’s hard to argue that there’s no self motivation.

What the problematic Rec Room simulator in TAS has in common with the TNG holodecks is that it is integrated with the ship’s main computer. And unlike in Voyager (and Picard season three), TAS’ Rec Room simulator and the early TNG holodecks were fully integrated into and interoperable with the power supply, communications and other core systems.

I think the OP’s point that the integration of multitronic technology with highly advanced simulators may be one necessary element is fair. Combine that with access, integration and interoperability with the full resources of a starship, and it may be enough to argue that Starfleet should have considered the potential for holographic entities to attain some level of sentience.

A mix of Klingon types is a very compelling situation and I’d really welcome seeing it in a live action show.

I understand why the EPs wanted, practically to pull back from the full face printed prostheses that have been the norm on Discovery for all aliens. They very much impede expression. It takes a lot for the actors to project their performance through.

However the Klingons in SNW aren’t quite working. Somehow, depending on lighting, they have a very plastic quality that does not give a natural skin effect in UHD.

The ones we saw in the season premiere varied in this to some degree, but under the brightness of the lighting on Enterprise it was extremely evident in some scenes. The kind of airbrushing that was done for Worf on the latex prostheses back in the 90s likely wouldn’t work in UHD, but what they’ve got just isn’t working on our OLED.

On the other hand, I found the Andorian special forces officer to be the best Andorian of the current era.

I think you mean Scotty in engineering.

Or, if you mean that McCoy should be unchallenged in his dominance of saltiness…

In either case, as with Kirk, there was and is no reason to rush any of their introductions for at least a couple of seasons. While some legacy characters draws seem to be something dictated from Paramount above, they are crowding out the development of the original characters in the show.

Adding Uhura to a crew that already had young Spock was already a heavy legacy character load. Fridging a great character and performance to advance her growth is a lazy writer’s shortcut, and doing it with the first main cast person a disability is unworthy of Trek values.

I really hope they cast Bruce Horak in another role if we’re not going to see Hemmer brought back to life.

That Klingon headpiece and wig combination was evoking bad clown makeup.

The shininess of the prosthesis and lack of significant colour grading of the ridges made it appear all the more fake. I am not getting why so many fans think this is an improvement.

David Brin’s book ‘Kiln People’ explores this idea.

The problem is, as we saw with Tom Riker, the duplicates have their own existence and experiences. Should they just be destroyed like Tuvix in order to restore the originals?

Given the very long timelines in making an animated show, Prodigy’s storyline for the season would have been done, and in this case the dialogue was recorded, while Picard seasons three was still being developed.

We know that Kurtzman instituted monthly meetings to short out plots and use of legacy characters sometime while Prodigy was producing the first season because there were mentions in interviews about sorting out the use of Okona between Lower Decks and Prodigy.

Asking why Picard was able to go forward with a very similar storyline is reasonable. One inference is that somehow those in charge hadn’t really taken into account the overlap in audience between a live action adult targeted show like Picard and Prodigy as a family oriented offering.

More MASH the movie than the show, at least not the early seasons.

I understand your reaction.

For me, this is in many ways a less dark and cynical take than DS9 In the Pale Moonlight and certainly the Section 31 references.

What was critical here was the difference between the journey of individual traumatized officers who had been forced repeatedly to take actions in wartime that compromised their values, and brought out capabilities they never sought to own, vs Starfleet leadership taking cynical action. It’s also a direct outcome of Starfleet’s cynical actions in having M’Benga develop the serum and then use it.

Starfleet’s postwar directive, and Pike’s insistence on pressing it with his senior officers, created the immediate crisis.

However, we need to take account of the fact that it was the ambassador’s own repeated insistence on confronting, engaging and attempting to recruit M’Benga to assist in his mission that led to the break.

M’Benga seemed to be processing his trauma and managing it as well as he could. He wasn’t at the point of exposing the ambassador’s deceit although he appeared to have been contemplating it.

It was the ambassador’s decision to seek M’Benga out again, in his own safe space, his private office, and own refusal to take M’Benga’s rejection that seemed to take the contemplation to action.

The cover up by Chapel and M’Benga is serious, and in the case of M’Benga this is the second case of his hiding something of significance from his captain. He’s an understandable but grey character, and we will have to see where the show takes him.

In Chapel’s case, we have been shown that her bright effervescence hides much darker experiences. It’s now easier to imagine how she will evolves to the very restrained version of herself in TOS.

I feel this is a very authentic portrayal of the chronic legacy unaddressed of trauma in individuals, how a military service and society will need to move on after a society-wide war when its individuals are not yet ready to do so, and how disasterous the potential outcomes when the divide been societal and individual needs in healing are ignored.

It’s not the 24th century Starfleet we’re seeing where there has been a long period of peace and officers can be treated effectively for trauma before returning to duty and it locks in with chronic effects.

I agree that it does not show Pike’s leadership in a positive light, but I find it realistic. What it does show is the gulf between war veterans and those senior officers who, while veterans of other kinds of conflicts, were not involved.

Starfleet needs senior officers, without direct personal history, like Pike to lead the peace and move forward, just as the western allies needed to find a way with some German leaders and scientists after WW2. But not every individual at the front can withstand the stress of that direct engagement with a former enemy.

Starfleet’s order to force veterans into direct contact with a former enemy was psychologically unhealthy and unrealistic, but a value-focused officer like Pike would not have the insight to see that.

This gulf was underscored at a personal level by Chapel’s conversation with Spock, when she could not share her experience with him and he could not ease her pain. The scene between them was an essential confirmation.

What I found interesting is that Number One had the best read on the situation. She saw the pressure the ambassador was putting directly on the veterans in the crew.

As the executive officer, it’s her job to manage personnel, to assess readiness, to deliver a functioning ship for the captain’s command. She accurately saw the problem and recommended action to mitigate the situation by reducing the time to deliver the ambassador to Starbase 24.

What she was not able to do however was to convince Pike to stand down a bit on Starfleet’s toxic order to require veterans of the war to show acceptance of the ambassador. Nor did we see her attempt to try to convince Pike. He was leading from his values and unable to really take measure of its impact on the individuals.

I find it interesting that this show is giving us episodes that show the negatives of Pike’s command style as well as the strengths. While we’ve seen the negatives in Kirk’s and Picard’s temperament’s and command styles acknowledged in the movies and in Picard, this seems to be the first time we’ve had it done with a hero captain in an ongoing television series when he’s in active command of the ship.

Not sure which you’re referring to.

The backdoor pilot in seasons three of Picard is very much Terry Matalas proposal.

The mix of one-shots, direct to streaming movies and mini/limited series for legacy characters across all the eras is something that Kurtzman described in an interview this March with SFX Magazine. TrekMovie recovered the key messages in an article that’s not behind a paywall.

By the way, even individual characters – I think we could absolutely continue to tell stories about individual characters that are set up on the show in other contexts. That’s the beauty of having a universe now is that, in a perfect world, we’re not just doing seasons of television, we’re doing event series [miniseries], we’re doing single events that could be two, three hours long [TV movies]. I think that we are now at a place where that’s really possible.

If there was an interview with Akiva Goldsman describing something similar to Kurtzman, it would be great to have that report.