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Given how far we are in the future I’m assuming Gray’s golem is virtually indistinguishable from a normal flesh and bone body and the only weirdness comes from the nature of the Trill katra stuff.
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Apr 21, 2024 06:38
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Gollom posted:Edit: Wait it was a plot point in episode one of THIS season that Stamets felt like he was no longer relevant because the mushroom drive was dropped in favour of something not stupid and they have already totally dropped that plot thread it seems? Even the show is aware how irrelevant they've made him.
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Apr 21, 2024 06:41
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Rubber Chicken posted:I hate feeling cynical about Trek but they've done so little with either character that it really feels the entire character concept was "lgbtq checkbox" Discovery is in that weird hazy middle of "we want these characters in this story because we want to tick off some boxes and don't actually care about them" and "we want these characters in this story because we genuinely want these characters to be in this story... we just suck at writing them lol." Though I've always been more inclined to lean towards their hearts being in the right place but they suck more than they're just incredibly cynical and also suck.
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Apr 21, 2024 06:43
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Right, I think it’s lovely to reduce the issues with those characters down to “they’re just there to check a box”. The problem is by no means their presence on the show, the problem is the writers running out of interesting things for either character to do. Both characters have had potential since their debut, it just feels like there was never any thought given to what either character would continue to do on the show once their main arc (Gray appearing to only Adira, and Adira being a non-Trill stuck with a symbiont) had been resolved.
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Apr 21, 2024 06:48
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nine-gear crow posted:Discovery is in that weird hazy middle of "we want these characters in this story because we want to tick off some boxes and don't actually care about them" and "we want these characters in this story because we genuinely want these characters to be in this story... we just suck at writing them lol." Though I've always been more inclined to lean towards their hearts being in the right place but they suck more than they're just incredibly cynical and also suck. It can be both. You can easily have well-meaning people and cynical box checkers in the same organization.
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Apr 21, 2024 06:50
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Big Mean Jerk posted:Right, I think it’s lovely to reduce the issues with those characters down to “they’re just there to check a box”. Yeah this seems right. Adira got a big coming out moment with being non-binary, but it turns out no one else on the ship really cared? Which is probably how it should be? "You're non-binary? Thanks for letting us know, we'll update your personnel file." Adira has a slug inside them? Okay. Once they properly joined with the slug it stopped mattering. I guess they were kind of a prodigy? Very good at engineering for their age and experience? But among a crew of people who are all supposed to be very bright it's kind of so what. You're really good at your job? Great. So is everyone else. There is nothing special for them to do. Might as well be spider-head guy who never talks at all.
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Apr 21, 2024 07:05
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Gollom posted:Edit: Wait it was a plot point in episode one of THIS season that Stamets felt like he was no longer relevant because the mushroom drive was dropped in favour of something not stupid and they have already totally dropped that plot thread it seems? Even the show is aware how irrelevant they've made him. I don't think it's been dropped, it was front and center in the previous episode where he has to meet with Rayner and is getting all pumped up about the progenitor tech, Rayner boots him out and Tilly blows up at Rayner because it's the most animated and excited she's seen Stamets been since it became clear the Spore Drive wasn't going to end up being anything but a weird footnote in science history about the single spaceship/pilot combo that could actually use it.
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Apr 21, 2024 07:07
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Which honestly makes no sense, even if they can't mass distribute it, being able to instantly jump anywhere is so massively valuable that it makes zero sense that they wouldn't have as many spore drive ships as they can find pilots. Especially since season 4 established that replicating the drive is a solved issue and that other people can be pilots.
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Apr 21, 2024 08:02
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MikeJF posted:Which honestly makes no sense, even if they can't mass distribute it, being able to instantly jump anywhere is so massively valuable that it makes zero sense that they wouldn't have as many spore drive ships as they can find pilots. Especially since season 4 established that replicating the drive is a solved issue and that other people can be pilots. Discovery doesn't seem much faster than the other ships, despite being able to travel anywhere in a few seconds. They shroomport to Trill and the other guys arrive . . . the next day? Despite having to go to betazed, find there wasn't a clue anywhere on that planet, go back to the last clue planet, find the clue they missed the first time, go buy a thing on the black market, and then go to Trill in time to plant the thing. The future was excited about shrooms as an alternative to dilithium, but now that an infinite source of dilithium has been found interstellar travel seems pretty trivial for everyone. The shroom dimension is also inhabited by shroom people who seem not totally chill with people using their home as a shortcut? And they can make humans hallucinate. And make shroom clones. And do who knows what else if they get riled up. Just one more factor that makes the shroom drive more trouble than it's worth.
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Apr 21, 2024 08:48
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This kind of thing gets bought up all the time because DISCO has no follow through on any of the interesting sci-fi ideas that they put in the show.
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Apr 21, 2024 08:57
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The number of possible pilots went from 1 to millions then back down to 2 after Kwejian exploded, so it's still pretty unsuitable for mass adoption when they have another no dilithium alternative ready to roll out in it's place
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Apr 21, 2024 09:45
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Yeah it's not going to be a widespread drive but it's absolutely something you'd always maintain for rapid response and instant transport as much as you could.
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Apr 21, 2024 09:49
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:This kind of thing gets bought up all the time because DISCO has no follow through on any of the interesting sci-fi ideas that they put in the show. My number 1 peeve with most scfi shows about humans exploring space and discovering new stuff. Stargate actually handled it well with all sorts of advances by the end of the series.
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Apr 21, 2024 12:55
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Megillah Gorilla posted:My number 1 peeve with most scfi shows about humans exploring space and discovering new stuff. Yeah, Stargate was one of the few that were good at that. Haven't seen it in a while, but I seem to recall Babylon 5 was pretty good at that sort of thing as well.
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Apr 21, 2024 13:15
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Stargate was good but I do think they went a bit too fast in the end. I liked that early on Prometheus was effectively a bunch of sealed metal boxes with a cargo ship hyperdrive they only half understood strapped to the back. They shouldn't have had them become basically experts so fast. Atlantis was worse for this, the city should've stayed almost magic for longer.
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Apr 21, 2024 13:19
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dr_rat posted:Yeah, Stargate was one of the few that were good at that. Haven't seen it in a while, but I seem to recall Babylon 5 was pretty good at that sort of thing as well. It helps that Babylon 5's tech level is pretty restricted compared to Star Trek -- no warp drive, no transporter, no replicator, no holodeck -- and it's pretty good at thinking through the implications of the technology it does have, like the jump gates and psychics
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Apr 21, 2024 13:30
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I really liked how Bab5's hyperspace was like an ocean. If you went too far you could get lost and never find your way back. And there were things in it.
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Apr 21, 2024 14:45
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There were also people who would go into it and try to chart and explore it. Which is pretty dangerous, all things considered.
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Apr 21, 2024 15:07
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Megillah Gorilla posted:And there were things in it. this is giving a lot more weight to the encounter with the Fen than it deserves.
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Apr 21, 2024 16:30
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The Chairman posted:It helps that Babylon 5's tech level is pretty restricted compared to Star Trek -- no warp drive, no transporter, no replicator, no holodeck -- and it's pretty good at thinking through the implications of the technology it does have, like the jump gates and psychics Babylon 5's concepts were planned out so good NASA was extremely invested in using the Starfury design as a forklift for work in zero-g for a long time. JMS only requested they keep the name.
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Apr 21, 2024 18:51
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Rubber Chicken posted:I hate feeling cynical about Trek but they've done so little with either character that it really feels the entire character concept was "lgbtq checkbox" Theyve done more with the saurian guy this season than ever before and I wish they'd done it earlier. More characters need to not be so full of themselves.
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Apr 21, 2024 19:03
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The Last Call posted:Babylon 5's concepts were planned out so good NASA was extremely invested in using the Starfury design as a forklift for work in zero-g for a long time. I've heard this a bunch. Does anyone have any source for it? Because that's not really how NASA works when it comes to designing things.
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Apr 21, 2024 19:31
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MikeJF posted:I've heard this a bunch. Does anyone have any source for it? Because that's not really how NASA works when it comes to designing things. It's from JMS himself. He tells the story so I don't know what to tell you other than he's either telling the truth or lying.
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Apr 21, 2024 19:44
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I'm guessing a NASA guy said 'hey we've got something similar on the concept board, don't mind if we steal it, do you?' in a joking manner and JMS took it way too seriously.
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Apr 21, 2024 19:52
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That might be the case. It easily explains things.
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Apr 21, 2024 20:26
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“Showing interest” is also diplomatic language for “yeah that’s cool”
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Apr 21, 2024 20:28
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I don't like when Gray is on screen because his skin weirds me out. I don't know what it is, it just looks fake and weird. I googled pictures of Ian Alexander and they look normal, so I don't know what it is. But every time I see Gray on screen I get an uncanny feeling. Maybe they use makeup in a weird way on them.
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Apr 21, 2024 20:49
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MikeJF posted:I'm guessing a NASA guy said 'hey we've got something similar on the concept board, don't mind if we steal it, do you?' in a joking manner and JMS took it way too seriously. Don't forget that Straczynski spent quite some time creeping on Claudia Christian because he mistakenly thought she briefly flirted with him once. The Chairman posted:“Showing interest” is also diplomatic language for “yeah that’s cool” Especially with government agencies. "Hey, this is neat, we might be interested in this" is quite often code for, "OK, that's nice, call my assistant's assistant's intern and we'll set up a meeting."
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Apr 21, 2024 20:52
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It's hard to think of a moment in the past 30 years where NASA would have been seriously in the market for a single-seat spacecraft. We're talking what, spending a few billion dollars to replace a small portion of ISS EVAs?
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Apr 21, 2024 21:51
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Isn’t JMS kinda notorious for stretching the truth and outright lying about poo poo?
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Apr 21, 2024 22:13
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Strikes me as a supreme one-two punch of writer laziness to 1) have the big thing you're serializing in your final season "a search for clues" with the characters literally referring to them as "clues," getting back together on the bridge at the end of the episode and going "time to search for the next clue!" 2) have a hard-nosed gruff commander who has to learn that this crew thrives on empathy and communication! be your big new character addition
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Apr 22, 2024 01:37
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Big Mean Jerk posted:Isn’t JMS kinda notorious for stretching the truth and outright lying about poo poo? I can't remember if they did it for B5, but I do remember JMS being proud that Crusade had NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab signed on officially as the shows science advisors, so he was definitely talking with those types
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Apr 22, 2024 01:41
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When he was meeting with all the crew in the previous episode and limiting the meeting to a very short face to face for each I was thinking "God this guy would be a great boss, he is so loving good at meetings, no time wasted"
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Apr 22, 2024 02:08
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When you consider how many times this series paused the life threatening scenario so the characters could have a drawn-out heartfelt conversation with each other before finally executing a solution, it is really funny that Raynor doesn't have time for the bullshit. His ship's life threatening scenarios probably never allowed its crew to get emotional.
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Apr 22, 2024 04:08
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DaveKap posted:When you consider how many times this series paused the life threatening scenario so the characters could have a drawn-out heartfelt conversation with each other before finally executing a solution, it is really funny that Raynor doesn't have time for the bullshit. His ship's life threatening scenarios probably never allowed its crew to get emotional. Was anyone counting the 30 seconds when Rayner had to talk everyone down before everything exploded? It felt astonishingly short by Discovery standards.
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Apr 22, 2024 05:08
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Man who gives a poo poo, it was a good scene
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Apr 22, 2024 05:52
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Yeah that's the kind of thing that is annoying when the show is bad, but when it's good you don't notice or care. If the audience is sitting around counting down seconds instead of paying attention to the scene, you failed on a more fundamental level.
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Apr 22, 2024 06:00
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Grand Fromage posted:Yeah that's the kind of thing that is annoying when the show is bad, but when it's good you don't notice or care. If the audience is sitting around counting down seconds instead of paying attention to the scene, you failed on a more fundamental level. But also I was just making a joke.
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Apr 22, 2024 09:11
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I'm never going to forget last season when the bridge is literally on fire and they are having a big teary heart to heart as the crew has 30 seconds to get out
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Apr 24, 2024 02:53
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Everyone gasping their heartfelt goodbyes as the oxygen level plummets.
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Apr 24, 2024 03:16
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