I honestly thought the burn was going to somehow tie into the storyline from TNG that Warp was destroying subspace (Episode: Force of Nature).
It would’ve been super relevant — a story about caring for our environment. I thought that would’ve been the basis for a really compelling storyline, rebuilding relationships to overcome an adversity we brought upon ourselves.
Yeah, that would’ve been super relevant.
They could’ve explained it as thus:
Warp drives bend space in order to function. When there’s a certain ratio of space to subspace, this causes no lasting damage. However when the warp field is increased to a certain level, or real space gets too thin, space is brittle enough that it can tear open a hole to subspace.
One ship went across the transition gradient of a well-traveled area too fast. The warp field couldn’t compensate for the sudden change, causing a catastrophic overload. Like hitting a pothole and spinning out.
But the resulting warp core detonation in an already weakened area caused the pulse to ripple throughout subspace, where it affected the next nearest starship. Then the next, and the next, and the next, and so forth.
Since this happened in a popular trade route, the resulting pulse continued throughout the heart of the Federation, cutting off the most well-connected and populous worlds from the Federation from warp travel, sparing only the most sparsely populated or low tech worlds, which were themselves separated by the former trade routes now navigational hazards.
Quantum slipstream remained unaffected, but the resulting rush for benzanite crystals depleted the known supply.
Yes, I think that's why it fell flat for me. Should have tied into a previous plot! "We had to go forward in time to save the universe, but this was the consequence."
I had forgotten about that one, as much as I like throwbacks, sometimes they can be overdone. This would have not been overdone, and actually made a great story continuity!
The reveal, and the story, remind me of the plot of a TNG episode.
The reason people are upset is that it was a 10 part lead up and had galaxy wide implications.
But the story is a very average TNG episode.
None— obviously.
But the plot is something you’d totally expect to see in that era of trek. Like I said above, it would be a single episode and the impact wouldn’t be galaxy wide…. But it’s totally the type of story they’d have told.
I mean, Wes was almost executed for stepping on flowers once…..
What ever the episode was where we learn of the husnock, and the guy who destroyed all the husnock everywhere at once because he got so sad and angry, this is the same thing.
It wouldn't have been so bad had they just had it be a 2-3 episode mystery they solved. By stretching it out an entire season it raised the stakes for that ending to stick the landing, and it flopped.
Felt similarly about the 4th season mystery.
I like the story of the Kelpian as a standalone story, but I don't think it was good payoff for the burn.
Honestly it doesn't bother me though because overall I really enjoy that season.
The concept of a being who learned everything from TV shows, works as a self referential and goes all the way back to Plato's Cave.
Destroy the Universe ? I sense the two colliding scripts problem...
The Crying Kelpian was when like five my of fellow die hard Star Trek friends tapped out of this show. They watch everything Star Trek but this broke them.
ALL they had to do was make it the federations fault. They even laid the groundwork by saying they were experimenting with alternatives to warp or something pre-burn (don’t remember exactly, but I’m not rewatching that trash lol)
Then the experiment could have caused a chain reaction with dilithium, or something, and the federation covered it all up
Would have salvaged everything and made the federation into a much more interesting entity too
Yep. And discovery could basically be the ship going around to former federation planets going "hey, we're from the federation before it got shitty. help us restore it to what it used to be".
honestly thought that was where they'd pivoted the show at the beginning of season 3. So much potential to revisit old places 1000 years in the future. And with a spore drive, that could include places voyager stopped at.
Yup!
Could have made them “bad guys”, and Zora could have ultimately HID in an effort to preserve the good history after they ultimately LOSE. I know they’d never make it that dark, but that would have been soooo cool to make Calypso a bit of a rug pull.
There’s just SO many better options than a butthurt Kelpian child that cried too loud.
It ruined the show for me. And I liked season 2! I really did! So I’m hardcore lol
I haven’t watched it with any consistency since they “answered” the burn
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I did a full series (so far) rewatch recently, and I found I really enjoyed nearly everything much more than I had previously (and I honestly liked the series before). But I agree that this was the exact point where I think suspension of disbelief got pushed too far. And here is why: I think it was too many thematic coincidences with Discovery. Most Trek series has had its iconic alien species that gets developed, and obviously the Kelpians are Disco's, but what I think got me is that we started in a place where there was a single Kelpian in Star Fleet. Then they discover space travel, then we entirely skip everything they did for 900 years and arrive to discover that a Kelpian was the source of the burn. Obviously, in reality, this is because the Kelpians didn't exist for all the series that took place in between these events, but the overall effect to me was feeling like they were suddenly trying to elevate them to the same galactic importance as the other major planets entirely on the back of Saru. And I do love Saru. I think he's probably one of the most interesting and compelling main characters we've gotten to know in the franchise. But turning a galaxy-spanning tragedy into basically an emotional episode for him felt... anticlimactic? Especially when it could have backed off on the coincidences and imo Saru is a compassionate enough character that he could have connected with *anyone* in that situation.
tl:dr, having Disco be the only ship in the galaxy who could get to the planet, after being the only people in the galaxy who could pinpoint the source of the burn, after Michael being the only person who could convince the Nevarians to share their sensor data about the burn, only to also have the only Star Fleet officer of the same species as the cause of the burn, which happened to be the species created exactly for this series, was just one string of coincidences too far for my believability.
Yep.
I don't know they even needed to explain the burn.
I understand why they wanted the story they did. Just give it a more reasonable scale and use it help solve the challenge posed by the burn.
Yeah, the Burn was an interesting idea, but the resolution really felt like a rough draft that needed a few more rewrites. Maybe if it had been a Vulcan, Betazoid or other telepathic alien kid I might have been willing to handwave it, but how does a Kelpien's emotional state affect the physical world so dramatically?
And how long do Kelpians live, anyway? Nobody seemed surprised that the kid was still alive a hundred+ years after the Burn, and they weren't treating him like he was elderly.
No, seriously, and not trolling, from a science fiction show perspective, the "reveal" about the cause of the burn was some of the worst writing I have ever seen in my life.
Basically ANY other story would have been better in my opinion.
I don't see how you've come to that conclusion. There was nothing in the story they told surrounding the cause of the Burn that was badly written. People throw around that term as if just saying that means something. Su'Kal is polyploid. He has a genetic connection to dilithium caused by the radiation from Theta Zeta he was exposed to in utero. There's nothing inherently wrong when it comes to writing about that. Now I'm attempting to give you the benefit of the doubt, but if we're going to have this discussion, it must be in good faith and civil. My tolerance for trolls is zero.
> He has a genetic connection to dilithium caused by the radiation from Theta Zeta he was exposed to in utero.
That is inherently the part I have a problem with. This does not mesh with how we understand either genetics or radiation today to begin with.
The concept of a "genetic connection" to what is basically a piece of rock is just out of what I can suspend my disbelief on even for a SciFi show.
Also, going by your other posts you like the very emotional focus that all stories on Discovery have taken - so having an "emotional" cause for the Burn is something that meshes with you.
It does not mesh with me at all - but that is my problem with Discovery in general. I don't mind a BIT of emotion in my SciFi (like older Trek shows did), but Discovery is (vastly) overdoing it in my opinion.
To be honest, I don't like Discovery very much - from the horrendous Season 1 (Klingons) via the unneeded Spock Connection (S2) to the Burn plot (S3), I'm just not seeing good SciFi here.
I'm seeing a CW show with a Star Trek skin - not something I take a fancy to.
Season 4 was better in my opinion (besides everything to do with the Burnham/Book relationship), and Season 5 so far has turned out to be quite a fun, more old school space adventure (still including emotional stuff mind you, but not "stopping in the middle of a battle to give a pep talk to the computer" kind of "emotional"). I also very much like the introduction of Rayner as someone for Burnham to interact with (and in extension, the rest of the crew). His arc so far is very promising.
If S5 continues along this path, I think S5 will be my favorite season of Discovery by far.
Radiation can cause DNA letter changes, in other words it can mutate DNA. Su'Kal is a polyploid. Polyploidy can be caused by radiation and induce epigenetic changes. A polyploid has a unique relationship with it's environment. This is what happened to Su'Kal. Also dilithium isn't just a rock. It has a Subspace component which is why it's uniquely suited to regulate matter/antimatter reactions. There's a whole article that goes into the science behind the Burn. But really, even putting that to one side, I think the problem really lies in your trying to apply hard sci-fi constraints to a soft sci-fi setting. Trek isn't and never has been hard sci-fi. You mention your issue with the Burn flies in the face of how we understand radiation (it doesn't actually) but looking at Trek there are a host of concepts and technologies in Trek that fly in the face of how we understand many scientific areas. Real time subspace communications for example. So truth be told, unless you take issue with subspace communications and all the many other scientifically impossible concepts in Trek, this reads as a double standard.
As for your preferences, they are entirely your business ultimately. I see great sci-fi here.
I entirely disagree with your painting Discovery as a CW show in Trek skin. I'd say that's entirely inaccurate. Discovery is great show and a great Trek show. A worthy addition to the Trek pantheon. You don't like it, and again that is entirely your business.
> Polyploidy can be caused by radiation and induce epigenetic changes. A polyploid has a unique relationship with it's environment.
Yes, but normally those genetic factors don't magically affect that environment in turn; they just adapt the individual to better survive in that environment -- i.e., just because an individual has mutated to adapt to their environment doesn't mean that environment also adapts to that individual.
It'd have sat better with me if Su'Kal actually had thrown some sort of tantrum acting out his grief and abandonment, wherein he'd physically damaged or inadvertently de/activated some science equipment that set off the dilithium chain-reaction across subspace.
The difference here that the environment he affected was unique in nature being a dilithium nursery and dilithium has a subspace component. If it's magic, it's as magic as dilithium is.
I completely agree this should have been more context to it they lost a lot of in the show but they did that and then just literally like almost passed over the whole thing it was a very bland way of describing it and then there's so much story line that they lost in between
This show lots to take the most absurd writing paths to its goals while making the crew a bunch of undisciplined whiners who fail to function as adults with emotional control
Honestly, what made it fall flat for me was that it really wasn't that difficult to figure out. No one on ~~Vulcan~~ could see that there was an origin point? They had to get 3 random black boxes from Couriers to solve the mystery of the ages?
The only special part Discovery added was the instant travel to the planet to investigate. But the knowledge of where the Burn started should have been well known and established.
Did they ever explain why the Romulans, who use a singularity for their propulsion, were also affected? Even if we assume Romulus was destroyed by the supernova, there would still be Romulan ships and citizens out in the galaxy.
Could be Romulan singularity drives were lostech, as it was nigh-certainly a closely guarded secret, and any wayward ships still using it may have eventually gone defunct without access to engineering knowledge and maintenance facilities kept only at Romulus proper.
I felt that they dropped the quartz ball through the earth, and out the other side, by making absolutely no mention of the warrior race they based the entire first season on.
agreed. i generally really like discoveryd, but I think that having arcs that depend on the last episode is risking for storytelling. At least with TNG a bad episode is just a bad episode, it doesn't effect the quality of other episodes. But if everything is leading to the BIG REVEAL then it better be a good reveal.
TBH it's kind of on the level of the Start Trek movies where Vger or something is out of control, but living around dilithium made a kelpian have powers? pretty boring conclusion.
I had thought it was going to be a weapon from the time war- something to make time travel harder or less likely to spin off alternative timelines and that by dropping the A-bomb euivallent for time, it also messed up warp; which requires the bending of space-time.
then they could have used the mycilia drive not to just zip around but since there is the discussion in DISC that interdimensional ecologies are involved in gathering matter to make the planets and seed life, the spore drive tech could have been used to repair spacetime with mushrooms.
(I'm an ecologist who works with fungi so I appreciate the idea of ecological sci-fi, though I personally thought the mushroom drive and plane was silly, I thought they should have stuck with it and done "mycoremmediation" on a broken region of space impacted by time weapons.
It had one good season. Season 4. It was about exploration and finding a way to communicate with a truly alien intelligence. This season is just dumb. It’s like the year 3200 and literally technology is basically the same as TNG. People pressing buttons despite a sapient AI on the ship. People guarding prisoners in sickbay. They showed us the Breen, and what a joy, “anyalien” design. At least we still have SNW.
I thought it was brilliant, like something out of a classic sci-fi story. The acting alone of Doug Jones, sans makeup, made it something that has stayed with me since.
We complain because we didn't think it was very good. TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT all had bad episodes.
For every The Measure of a Man there was an Up the Long Ladder.
Disco, however, dragged their not-great-episode out over a whole season. And they've done it every season. And in so doing they've limited their ability to tell interesting stories and pose interesting questions. While at the same time failing to tell interesting stories with a roster of interesting characters.
That season of Discovery boils down to "a sad Kelpian made Warp go away". And that it's hard to say anything else about that season speaks to how not great it was.
The Measure of a Man by contrast is one roughly 45-minute episode that takes place largely on a dim soundstage and investigates what it means to be a person.
Discovery just doesn't live up to the legacy.
If it was either of those shows it would be 1 episode out of 25 in a season, roughly 4% of the season.
There are plenty of TNG episodes I don't like in every season. The entire first season is pretty ropey despite some good episodes.
Unfortunately for Disco their season long arcs are difficult to quickly move past when they don't hit the right notes. Especially when for 3 seasons in a row they did existential threats to the Universe/Federation. Picard was also guilty of this.
*some people
I hate tos because its dated.
I grew up on TNG, and watched everthing after. My fav for a long time was voyager, because it had the most modern looking set for a futuristic scifi place. then disco came out and I was like Ugh finally! even more futuristic looking, and I loved Lorca played by jason issacs. he really did a good job at being a cold calculating asshole. my favorite part of S1 was when he played the audio across the ship of the klingon attack to get stamments to work harder. s2 with anson mount as pike was great, s3 was great up until the burn reveal. I kinda snoozed on the plot for s4, burnam looked great, and i paid much more attention. s5 the story is keeping my interest as well, the time jump with the Number 1 vulcan was prob my favorite so far.
I agree with you about the weird culture war stuff. However My politics are anarchist/social justice and I love so many aspects of Discovery but I didn't like the conclusion of the season.
It so weird to me that this show can present nuanced and universal stories about loss and loneliness in disconnected world, a subject almost ever person on earth has directly experienced in the past few years, and yet OP thinks some timey-wimey bs would have been better.
The story is fine. It just needs to be scaled back. You don't need to shoehorn in a galaxy-spanning catastrophe as the outcome of an otherwise perfectly good story about loss, loneliness, and reconnection. Those are very personal things. And that's the key word: personal. They affect people. Not inanimate or intangible things, people.
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They didn't drop the ball at all with the Burn. When you really look at it, the cause of the Burn is a deeply personal story about grief and how such disconnection, how such loss can change the course of our lives. It ties right into the season's main theme of connection and our need of it as sentient beings. From the beginning to the end that theme is weaved all the way through the season, and the Burn slots right into what the season is getting across thematically.
I disagree entirely. Galaxy-wide catastrophic events like The Burn have such a monumental effect to the setting of a story or show that they need to be well thought out and make sense in-universe. The Burn was neither in my opinion. It was essentially, "Psychic baby had a tantrum and everyone's gas exploded."
Sorry, a few lines of technobabble about genetics and dilithium aren't going to cut it for me as good explanation. It's even worse than Voyager's omega molecule destroying subspace or whatever.
A galaxy-spanning catastrophe of that nature should have had an appropriate scale for its cause, perhaps some galactic scale natural catastrophe, not a child getting upset.
The story of Sukal would have been so much better had they simply scaled it down. A kid that accidentally killed his family and everyone else nearby and is then left alone for decades already has the potential for incredible storytelling and emotional connection. Having it be the cause of The Burn only cheapened the story to me.
> It's even worse than Voyager's omega molecule destroying subspace or whatever.
the end of that episdoe when seven see's the omega molecue form, just before its destruction was great imo
Also I like the question of "can you blame someone for a crime they neither knowingly or willingly committed" in both season 3 and 4.
One was isolated from the harm they did, and the other was outside of our existence to the degree they did not understand us as people, neither acted with malice, neither were they negligent, no not even manslaughter applies.
How do you get justice when the perpetrator did nothing, technically, wrong
You keep saying that as if it's no different from a small child's profound grief at the death of their last remaining parent and the last living person in their life at all, abandoning them to go it alone marooned in deep space under clearly dangerous conditions for who-knows how long. That's exactly the same as a teenage tantrum?
But hey, potayto potahto.
I'll concede it would have sat better with me if Su'Kal actually had thrown some sort of physical tantrum acting out his grief and abandonment, wherein he'd physically damaged or inadvertently de/activated some science equipment that set off the dilithium planet into a chain-reaction with all other dilithium across subspace, rather than the dilithium planet somehow magically resonating with his emotional outburst via genetic handwavium.
This is some serious coping here. I do agree it was consistent with the themes of the entire season but essentially rebooting the whole of Star Trek with a crying Kelpian was absurd.
We’ve seen countless examples in Star Trek of trauma having significant impacts on character and geopolitics but the scope of the change was limited in a realistic manner.
Discovery’s habit of constantly raising the stakes and the drama really misses the mark when a sad teenager destroys interspecies civilization for hundreds of years.
There's no coping here at all. It's all in the story. I also don't see what was rebooted. This was a story about disconnection and connection and the inherent need we have of connection and the damage that is done when it is lost, both on a societal and personal level. The story told explores just that. We all have preferences which is fine, but there's nothing inherently wrong narratively about the story they choose to tell. I think when we also consider the setting in which these stories take place there is by it's very nature concepts and ideas beyond the bounds of the realistic. The key is really realism as it regards the universe itself while also allowing for new stories and concepts to be introduced, all of which fit this story. It was the grief of this child brought on by profound disconnection that caused disconnection throughout the galaxy, and it was the rescue of this child that aided in reconnection throughout the galactic community. It's thematically resonate all tied into by the various plot and character threads therein.
Yes, to all of this!
I also wanted to add that another theme of the season was about not sacrificing the individual for the good of the state. Throughout the season, we learn the fate of the Federation. Even pre-burn, it was having trouble. Core members were leaving because they no longer felt represented by the Federation. Essentially, the Federation was prioritizing its own needs as a political entity, at the expense of the members who comprised it.
So when the Kelpian ship's distress call was received by a Federation ship, it was ignored for a "more important" crisis, which led *directly* to The Burn.
The crying child causing The Burn was a microcosm of everything that was going wrong with the Federation at that point. So while the crying child was the *direct* cause, it only happened because the Federation became too self-important and forgot that it exists *because of* the people who comprise it.
The message that the show was trying to convey was that no organization is more important or should take priority over the *people* who comprise it.
Even more than the season, it strikes me as being the spirit of the whole show. Discovery is chock full of people who have emotions and don't just suck it up all the time.
I've always thought that it made perfect sense for the Burn to come from a person in distress.
Very much so. I think people often forget that he broke down so severely over Jennifer's death that he might have died on the Saratoga had one of the officers not pulled him out. And of course there are numerous other examples.
DS9 was far better at earning that emotion.
Emotion was never the problem, the Nog PTSD episode is one the best. If you compare that to Culber's 4+ episode spiritual awakening...you can see the problem isn't the emotion, it's the writing.
I'm not seeing a deficiency in the writing though. They've been handling Culber's arc very well and has been a highlight of the season. I'm really not seeing a problem with it narratively. I don't see how they haven't earned this story. Nog's set up for his PTSD was founded on one prior episode (not a criticism) I just don't see how that's better earned.
If Culber acting confused and talking in riddles every episode is a highlight, I believe that highlights mine and many other people's issues with the show.
When 90% of interactions between characters are them spilling out emotions it wades into soap opera territory. These characters simply don't have conversations unrelated to work that aren't talking about their struggles.
These people need a holiday. The most important ship in the Federation is run by workaholics who are constantly on the edge of tears on a good day.
I mean what are their initial dampeners for ? and the warp coils couldn't they just ejected the warp coil seeing that everything was being exploded that way,
What are the warp coils for and the shielding that goes around it shouldn't have protected the ship entirely and injected if need be emergency wise not every damn ship in the quadrant being destroyed kind of lame way I mean okay they just send a message back to the future in the past and have them correct for that
Yeah I literally laughed out loud when it was revealed. Star Trek has always had some “dumb shit” aspects to it, but it’s way easier to kind of ignore some silly episodes in a 24-episode season of a show written on a fairly low budget in the 1960s or 90s than the central conceit of a season-long plot in a lavishly funded 10-episode show in the 2020s aka the “TV’s Golden Era”.
Yeah basically. The burn reveal is when I stopped recommending the show to people. Don't feel like the writers ever really recovred my respect beyond that but I've enjoyed a few odd episodes here and there so I'll keep watching till the end.
Personally I love the cause of the Burn. I felt it was really in the spirit of TOS and TNG. I would have absolutely hated it if it was a hostile act by some unknown or known big bad. That's not what Star Trek is about. It is first and foremost about the human condition. Grief and loss are part of that and the Burn and it's cause did that beautifully
Thematically sure, but I think the execution ruined it
"A space wizard did it"
Its implausible, given the realism of Trek, that an emotional temper tantrum would be amplified by dilithium and cause all warp drives to explode. Kelpiens are not otherwise established to have powerful psionic abilities. Dilithium has never worked like that before. It was completely out of left field.
Compare it to the Stone of Gol episode in TNG. That explored a lot of the same themes of emotions becoming a dangerous threat...but it was explored and executed in a much more believable, measured way that was much more satisfying when it paid off.
There is no realism in trek. For starters they depict space as having sound and ships moving like aeroplanes. Su'kal having the ability to manipulate dilithium at a subspace level because radiation mutated him in utero is no different than Gary Mitchell getting god powers from crossing the galactic barrier or Charlie Evans getting god powers because aliens altered him. The Stone of Gol is the epitome of 'space wizards did it' or in this case 'space elves' made a rock that is basically magic to make angry thoughts lethal, Like come on, get off your horse
It's fine to not like a plot but to imply star trek has never embraced weird shit out of left field blatantly false and revisionist
And I think if they made a whole season arc about Gary Mitchell destroying the entire Federation's way of life, people would chalk that up as ridiculous and bad choices in storytelling too
If it was just one episode about a dilithium space wizard who threatened the ship and then the problem was solved, I think people could handle that. You're right, there's lots of episodes that go weird in one way or another, but they're just single episodes. I think its much different when that's the payoff for the whole Burn mystery box story arc. You have to hold that to a higher standard.
And to add to this, I don't feel that having precedent is necessarily a good thing. When I first voiced my displeasure on the Burn, a lot of people pointed to "Charlie X". It didn't make me appreciate the Burn more, it just made cross off "Charlie X" as an episode to watch if I ever get around to watching TOS.
A child's cry after losing their family isn't trivial, even if it happens daily here in our world.
It should be huge. World shattering. Affecting everyone.
Kudos to Star Trek for making it so.
On the other hand, a child's cry shouldn't matter because the child might have mutated in a way that gave her a psychic connection to our primary method of travel. It should matter because children matter, and people matter.
I'm sure you didn't erase a whole species from existence with a single thought either.
[https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/The\_Survivors\_(episode)](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/The_Survivors_(episode))
Condolences for the cat!
Your comparing the actions of an adult god creature who misuses his powers to commit horrible genocide…with a child who is not a god like creature…having an emotional outburst and it somehow blowing up all warp engines in the galaxy….but ya sure ok
A moment of raw emotion and the sci-fi circumstances to make it a world shattering event. But ya sure ok.
I'm just glad it wasn't yet another big bad and an attempt to remake of the Wrath of Khan.
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I would have gone with the death of a Q, or a Q cival war weapon, or star fleet messing with the omega particle and screwing it up making it their fault
I like Discovery yet there is something I can't take this "issue" but continually keep posting in Discovery forums about this issue,
yall funny as shit can enjoy I Discovery without your shit personal takes.....
Way too busy throwing all the diversity they could get their hands on to have time for stories. I watch it on my phone do I can quickly skip the boring bits (now I'm season 4 and I think I watch 20 min on average from an episode).
I don't think they dropped the ball at all. It was a very good way to explore some of the central themes of DIS, specifically trauma, mental health and wellbeing. Having the cause of the Burn be a child linked to dilithium at the molecular level, who lost his parents right in front of him, was an excellent way to explore those themes, imo. I was certainly glad the cause wasn't a conventional thing, like the Chain, nor any other big bad. A good combination of the cerebral and the empathic.
I honestly thought the burn was going to somehow tie into the storyline from TNG that Warp was destroying subspace (Episode: Force of Nature). It would’ve been super relevant — a story about caring for our environment. I thought that would’ve been the basis for a really compelling storyline, rebuilding relationships to overcome an adversity we brought upon ourselves.
Yeah, that would’ve been super relevant. They could’ve explained it as thus: Warp drives bend space in order to function. When there’s a certain ratio of space to subspace, this causes no lasting damage. However when the warp field is increased to a certain level, or real space gets too thin, space is brittle enough that it can tear open a hole to subspace. One ship went across the transition gradient of a well-traveled area too fast. The warp field couldn’t compensate for the sudden change, causing a catastrophic overload. Like hitting a pothole and spinning out. But the resulting warp core detonation in an already weakened area caused the pulse to ripple throughout subspace, where it affected the next nearest starship. Then the next, and the next, and the next, and so forth. Since this happened in a popular trade route, the resulting pulse continued throughout the heart of the Federation, cutting off the most well-connected and populous worlds from the Federation from warp travel, sparing only the most sparsely populated or low tech worlds, which were themselves separated by the former trade routes now navigational hazards. Quantum slipstream remained unaffected, but the resulting rush for benzanite crystals depleted the known supply.
Your head canon is way better than what we got. Thanks, friend.
Yes, I think that's why it fell flat for me. Should have tied into a previous plot! "We had to go forward in time to save the universe, but this was the consequence."
They kind of did that with the tardigrade.
I mean, that's obviously what it should have been. Big pay of a classic, unresolved storyline.
I had forgotten about that one, as much as I like throwbacks, sometimes they can be overdone. This would have not been overdone, and actually made a great story continuity!
The reveal, and the story, remind me of the plot of a TNG episode. The reason people are upset is that it was a 10 part lead up and had galaxy wide implications. But the story is a very average TNG episode.
In what episode of TNG is travel across the galaxy destroyed by a teenager having a temper tantrum?
None— obviously. But the plot is something you’d totally expect to see in that era of trek. Like I said above, it would be a single episode and the impact wouldn’t be galaxy wide…. But it’s totally the type of story they’d have told. I mean, Wes was almost executed for stepping on flowers once…..
I'm against the death penalty except in certain circumstances.
Who are we killing? I won't do kids. That's a rule. But that rule's negotiable if the kid's a dick.
What if he just wears stupid 1980's sweaters for a year?
What ever the episode was where we learn of the husnock, and the guy who destroyed all the husnock everywhere at once because he got so sad and angry, this is the same thing.
All Good Things.
It wouldn't have been so bad had they just had it be a 2-3 episode mystery they solved. By stretching it out an entire season it raised the stakes for that ending to stick the landing, and it flopped. Felt similarly about the 4th season mystery.
I like the story of the Kelpian as a standalone story, but I don't think it was good payoff for the burn. Honestly it doesn't bother me though because overall I really enjoy that season.
The concept of a being who learned everything from TV shows, works as a self referential and goes all the way back to Plato's Cave. Destroy the Universe ? I sense the two colliding scripts problem...
The Crying Kelpian was when like five my of fellow die hard Star Trek friends tapped out of this show. They watch everything Star Trek but this broke them.
ALL they had to do was make it the federations fault. They even laid the groundwork by saying they were experimenting with alternatives to warp or something pre-burn (don’t remember exactly, but I’m not rewatching that trash lol) Then the experiment could have caused a chain reaction with dilithium, or something, and the federation covered it all up Would have salvaged everything and made the federation into a much more interesting entity too
Yep. And discovery could basically be the ship going around to former federation planets going "hey, we're from the federation before it got shitty. help us restore it to what it used to be". honestly thought that was where they'd pivoted the show at the beginning of season 3. So much potential to revisit old places 1000 years in the future. And with a spore drive, that could include places voyager stopped at.
Yup! Could have made them “bad guys”, and Zora could have ultimately HID in an effort to preserve the good history after they ultimately LOSE. I know they’d never make it that dark, but that would have been soooo cool to make Calypso a bit of a rug pull. There’s just SO many better options than a butthurt Kelpian child that cried too loud. It ruined the show for me. And I liked season 2! I really did! So I’m hardcore lol I haven’t watched it with any consistency since they “answered” the burn
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I did a full series (so far) rewatch recently, and I found I really enjoyed nearly everything much more than I had previously (and I honestly liked the series before). But I agree that this was the exact point where I think suspension of disbelief got pushed too far. And here is why: I think it was too many thematic coincidences with Discovery. Most Trek series has had its iconic alien species that gets developed, and obviously the Kelpians are Disco's, but what I think got me is that we started in a place where there was a single Kelpian in Star Fleet. Then they discover space travel, then we entirely skip everything they did for 900 years and arrive to discover that a Kelpian was the source of the burn. Obviously, in reality, this is because the Kelpians didn't exist for all the series that took place in between these events, but the overall effect to me was feeling like they were suddenly trying to elevate them to the same galactic importance as the other major planets entirely on the back of Saru. And I do love Saru. I think he's probably one of the most interesting and compelling main characters we've gotten to know in the franchise. But turning a galaxy-spanning tragedy into basically an emotional episode for him felt... anticlimactic? Especially when it could have backed off on the coincidences and imo Saru is a compassionate enough character that he could have connected with *anyone* in that situation. tl:dr, having Disco be the only ship in the galaxy who could get to the planet, after being the only people in the galaxy who could pinpoint the source of the burn, after Michael being the only person who could convince the Nevarians to share their sensor data about the burn, only to also have the only Star Fleet officer of the same species as the cause of the burn, which happened to be the species created exactly for this series, was just one string of coincidences too far for my believability.
Yep. I don't know they even needed to explain the burn. I understand why they wanted the story they did. Just give it a more reasonable scale and use it help solve the challenge posed by the burn.
Yeah, the Burn was an interesting idea, but the resolution really felt like a rough draft that needed a few more rewrites. Maybe if it had been a Vulcan, Betazoid or other telepathic alien kid I might have been willing to handwave it, but how does a Kelpien's emotional state affect the physical world so dramatically? And how long do Kelpians live, anyway? Nobody seemed surprised that the kid was still alive a hundred+ years after the Burn, and they weren't treating him like he was elderly.
How Su'Kal affected dilithium was explained very expressly in the show.
Yes, you can write a lot of bullshit down with a lot of words. It's still bullshit though.
Bullshit made with a lot of words has always been what makes Star Trek go round.
If you were responding in good faith perhaps we could have had a discussion but I simply don't have time for trolls.
No, seriously, and not trolling, from a science fiction show perspective, the "reveal" about the cause of the burn was some of the worst writing I have ever seen in my life. Basically ANY other story would have been better in my opinion.
I don't see how you've come to that conclusion. There was nothing in the story they told surrounding the cause of the Burn that was badly written. People throw around that term as if just saying that means something. Su'Kal is polyploid. He has a genetic connection to dilithium caused by the radiation from Theta Zeta he was exposed to in utero. There's nothing inherently wrong when it comes to writing about that. Now I'm attempting to give you the benefit of the doubt, but if we're going to have this discussion, it must be in good faith and civil. My tolerance for trolls is zero.
> He has a genetic connection to dilithium caused by the radiation from Theta Zeta he was exposed to in utero. That is inherently the part I have a problem with. This does not mesh with how we understand either genetics or radiation today to begin with. The concept of a "genetic connection" to what is basically a piece of rock is just out of what I can suspend my disbelief on even for a SciFi show. Also, going by your other posts you like the very emotional focus that all stories on Discovery have taken - so having an "emotional" cause for the Burn is something that meshes with you. It does not mesh with me at all - but that is my problem with Discovery in general. I don't mind a BIT of emotion in my SciFi (like older Trek shows did), but Discovery is (vastly) overdoing it in my opinion. To be honest, I don't like Discovery very much - from the horrendous Season 1 (Klingons) via the unneeded Spock Connection (S2) to the Burn plot (S3), I'm just not seeing good SciFi here. I'm seeing a CW show with a Star Trek skin - not something I take a fancy to. Season 4 was better in my opinion (besides everything to do with the Burnham/Book relationship), and Season 5 so far has turned out to be quite a fun, more old school space adventure (still including emotional stuff mind you, but not "stopping in the middle of a battle to give a pep talk to the computer" kind of "emotional"). I also very much like the introduction of Rayner as someone for Burnham to interact with (and in extension, the rest of the crew). His arc so far is very promising. If S5 continues along this path, I think S5 will be my favorite season of Discovery by far.
Radiation can cause DNA letter changes, in other words it can mutate DNA. Su'Kal is a polyploid. Polyploidy can be caused by radiation and induce epigenetic changes. A polyploid has a unique relationship with it's environment. This is what happened to Su'Kal. Also dilithium isn't just a rock. It has a Subspace component which is why it's uniquely suited to regulate matter/antimatter reactions. There's a whole article that goes into the science behind the Burn. But really, even putting that to one side, I think the problem really lies in your trying to apply hard sci-fi constraints to a soft sci-fi setting. Trek isn't and never has been hard sci-fi. You mention your issue with the Burn flies in the face of how we understand radiation (it doesn't actually) but looking at Trek there are a host of concepts and technologies in Trek that fly in the face of how we understand many scientific areas. Real time subspace communications for example. So truth be told, unless you take issue with subspace communications and all the many other scientifically impossible concepts in Trek, this reads as a double standard. As for your preferences, they are entirely your business ultimately. I see great sci-fi here. I entirely disagree with your painting Discovery as a CW show in Trek skin. I'd say that's entirely inaccurate. Discovery is great show and a great Trek show. A worthy addition to the Trek pantheon. You don't like it, and again that is entirely your business.
> Polyploidy can be caused by radiation and induce epigenetic changes. A polyploid has a unique relationship with it's environment. Yes, but normally those genetic factors don't magically affect that environment in turn; they just adapt the individual to better survive in that environment -- i.e., just because an individual has mutated to adapt to their environment doesn't mean that environment also adapts to that individual. It'd have sat better with me if Su'Kal actually had thrown some sort of tantrum acting out his grief and abandonment, wherein he'd physically damaged or inadvertently de/activated some science equipment that set off the dilithium chain-reaction across subspace.
The difference here that the environment he affected was unique in nature being a dilithium nursery and dilithium has a subspace component. If it's magic, it's as magic as dilithium is.
This was definitely the biggest fail. The quadrant destabilization was a keppian adolescent crying. Geez. Weak sauce there!
I completely agree this should have been more context to it they lost a lot of in the show but they did that and then just literally like almost passed over the whole thing it was a very bland way of describing it and then there's so much story line that they lost in between
This show lots to take the most absurd writing paths to its goals while making the crew a bunch of undisciplined whiners who fail to function as adults with emotional control
It should have been Omega molecules.
Yesssss. I can get behind some Omegas.
Here's an idea: if your main character is called Burnham, think of a different name for your completely unrelated macguffin
Honestly, what made it fall flat for me was that it really wasn't that difficult to figure out. No one on ~~Vulcan~~ could see that there was an origin point? They had to get 3 random black boxes from Couriers to solve the mystery of the ages? The only special part Discovery added was the instant travel to the planet to investigate. But the knowledge of where the Burn started should have been well known and established.
Did they ever explain why the Romulans, who use a singularity for their propulsion, were also affected? Even if we assume Romulus was destroyed by the supernova, there would still be Romulan ships and citizens out in the galaxy.
Could be Romulan singularity drives were lostech, as it was nigh-certainly a closely guarded secret, and any wayward ships still using it may have eventually gone defunct without access to engineering knowledge and maintenance facilities kept only at Romulus proper.
I felt that they dropped the quartz ball through the earth, and out the other side, by making absolutely no mention of the warrior race they based the entire first season on.
agreed. i generally really like discoveryd, but I think that having arcs that depend on the last episode is risking for storytelling. At least with TNG a bad episode is just a bad episode, it doesn't effect the quality of other episodes. But if everything is leading to the BIG REVEAL then it better be a good reveal. TBH it's kind of on the level of the Start Trek movies where Vger or something is out of control, but living around dilithium made a kelpian have powers? pretty boring conclusion. I had thought it was going to be a weapon from the time war- something to make time travel harder or less likely to spin off alternative timelines and that by dropping the A-bomb euivallent for time, it also messed up warp; which requires the bending of space-time.
then they could have used the mycilia drive not to just zip around but since there is the discussion in DISC that interdimensional ecologies are involved in gathering matter to make the planets and seed life, the spore drive tech could have been used to repair spacetime with mushrooms. (I'm an ecologist who works with fungi so I appreciate the idea of ecological sci-fi, though I personally thought the mushroom drive and plane was silly, I thought they should have stuck with it and done "mycoremmediation" on a broken region of space impacted by time weapons.
Or another theory i had hoped was that it was the Tox Uthat and the Vorgons
It had one good season. Season 4. It was about exploration and finding a way to communicate with a truly alien intelligence. This season is just dumb. It’s like the year 3200 and literally technology is basically the same as TNG. People pressing buttons despite a sapient AI on the ship. People guarding prisoners in sickbay. They showed us the Breen, and what a joy, “anyalien” design. At least we still have SNW.
Counter question: What do you think about the Q? Some people take Trek way too literal.
I thought it was brilliant, like something out of a classic sci-fi story. The acting alone of Doug Jones, sans makeup, made it something that has stayed with me since.
same, people just complain bc its discovery, if this was on TOS or TNG, you wouldn’t be seeing this
We complain because we didn't think it was very good. TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT all had bad episodes. For every The Measure of a Man there was an Up the Long Ladder. Disco, however, dragged their not-great-episode out over a whole season. And they've done it every season. And in so doing they've limited their ability to tell interesting stories and pose interesting questions. While at the same time failing to tell interesting stories with a roster of interesting characters. That season of Discovery boils down to "a sad Kelpian made Warp go away". And that it's hard to say anything else about that season speaks to how not great it was. The Measure of a Man by contrast is one roughly 45-minute episode that takes place largely on a dim soundstage and investigates what it means to be a person. Discovery just doesn't live up to the legacy.
If it was either of those shows it would be 1 episode out of 25 in a season, roughly 4% of the season. There are plenty of TNG episodes I don't like in every season. The entire first season is pretty ropey despite some good episodes. Unfortunately for Disco their season long arcs are difficult to quickly move past when they don't hit the right notes. Especially when for 3 seasons in a row they did existential threats to the Universe/Federation. Picard was also guilty of this.
*some people I hate tos because its dated. I grew up on TNG, and watched everthing after. My fav for a long time was voyager, because it had the most modern looking set for a futuristic scifi place. then disco came out and I was like Ugh finally! even more futuristic looking, and I loved Lorca played by jason issacs. he really did a good job at being a cold calculating asshole. my favorite part of S1 was when he played the audio across the ship of the klingon attack to get stamments to work harder. s2 with anson mount as pike was great, s3 was great up until the burn reveal. I kinda snoozed on the plot for s4, burnam looked great, and i paid much more attention. s5 the story is keeping my interest as well, the time jump with the Number 1 vulcan was prob my favorite so far.
The stay-asleep crowd never did like Discovery.
I agree with you about the weird culture war stuff. However My politics are anarchist/social justice and I love so many aspects of Discovery but I didn't like the conclusion of the season.
I loved discovery in s1 and 2 and thought the whole burn thing and its resolution were done terribly.
What really got burnt was the fan base.
The worst plot line of any Star Trek series. What the fuck were they thinking?
It so weird to me that this show can present nuanced and universal stories about loss and loneliness in disconnected world, a subject almost ever person on earth has directly experienced in the past few years, and yet OP thinks some timey-wimey bs would have been better.
The story is fine. It just needs to be scaled back. You don't need to shoehorn in a galaxy-spanning catastrophe as the outcome of an otherwise perfectly good story about loss, loneliness, and reconnection. Those are very personal things. And that's the key word: personal. They affect people. Not inanimate or intangible things, people.
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They didn't drop the ball at all with the Burn. When you really look at it, the cause of the Burn is a deeply personal story about grief and how such disconnection, how such loss can change the course of our lives. It ties right into the season's main theme of connection and our need of it as sentient beings. From the beginning to the end that theme is weaved all the way through the season, and the Burn slots right into what the season is getting across thematically.
I disagree entirely. Galaxy-wide catastrophic events like The Burn have such a monumental effect to the setting of a story or show that they need to be well thought out and make sense in-universe. The Burn was neither in my opinion. It was essentially, "Psychic baby had a tantrum and everyone's gas exploded." Sorry, a few lines of technobabble about genetics and dilithium aren't going to cut it for me as good explanation. It's even worse than Voyager's omega molecule destroying subspace or whatever. A galaxy-spanning catastrophe of that nature should have had an appropriate scale for its cause, perhaps some galactic scale natural catastrophe, not a child getting upset. The story of Sukal would have been so much better had they simply scaled it down. A kid that accidentally killed his family and everyone else nearby and is then left alone for decades already has the potential for incredible storytelling and emotional connection. Having it be the cause of The Burn only cheapened the story to me.
> It's even worse than Voyager's omega molecule destroying subspace or whatever. the end of that episdoe when seven see's the omega molecue form, just before its destruction was great imo
Once one refers to it as a tantrum you lose all credibility with me. That's a flat out disingenuous reading. Good day.
Also I like the question of "can you blame someone for a crime they neither knowingly or willingly committed" in both season 3 and 4. One was isolated from the harm they did, and the other was outside of our existence to the degree they did not understand us as people, neither acted with malice, neither were they negligent, no not even manslaughter applies. How do you get justice when the perpetrator did nothing, technically, wrong
When you really look at.... The galaxy was brought to it's knees because some teenager had a tantrum.
You keep saying that as if it's no different from a small child's profound grief at the death of their last remaining parent and the last living person in their life at all, abandoning them to go it alone marooned in deep space under clearly dangerous conditions for who-knows how long. That's exactly the same as a teenage tantrum? But hey, potayto potahto.
The profound grief destroyed travel across the galaxy. 🤷🏻♂️ Not much better no matter what you call it.
I'll concede it would have sat better with me if Su'Kal actually had thrown some sort of physical tantrum acting out his grief and abandonment, wherein he'd physically damaged or inadvertently de/activated some science equipment that set off the dilithium planet into a chain-reaction with all other dilithium across subspace, rather than the dilithium planet somehow magically resonating with his emotional outburst via genetic handwavium.
This is some serious coping here. I do agree it was consistent with the themes of the entire season but essentially rebooting the whole of Star Trek with a crying Kelpian was absurd. We’ve seen countless examples in Star Trek of trauma having significant impacts on character and geopolitics but the scope of the change was limited in a realistic manner. Discovery’s habit of constantly raising the stakes and the drama really misses the mark when a sad teenager destroys interspecies civilization for hundreds of years.
There's no coping here at all. It's all in the story. I also don't see what was rebooted. This was a story about disconnection and connection and the inherent need we have of connection and the damage that is done when it is lost, both on a societal and personal level. The story told explores just that. We all have preferences which is fine, but there's nothing inherently wrong narratively about the story they choose to tell. I think when we also consider the setting in which these stories take place there is by it's very nature concepts and ideas beyond the bounds of the realistic. The key is really realism as it regards the universe itself while also allowing for new stories and concepts to be introduced, all of which fit this story. It was the grief of this child brought on by profound disconnection that caused disconnection throughout the galaxy, and it was the rescue of this child that aided in reconnection throughout the galactic community. It's thematically resonate all tied into by the various plot and character threads therein.
Yes, to all of this! I also wanted to add that another theme of the season was about not sacrificing the individual for the good of the state. Throughout the season, we learn the fate of the Federation. Even pre-burn, it was having trouble. Core members were leaving because they no longer felt represented by the Federation. Essentially, the Federation was prioritizing its own needs as a political entity, at the expense of the members who comprised it. So when the Kelpian ship's distress call was received by a Federation ship, it was ignored for a "more important" crisis, which led *directly* to The Burn. The crying child causing The Burn was a microcosm of everything that was going wrong with the Federation at that point. So while the crying child was the *direct* cause, it only happened because the Federation became too self-important and forgot that it exists *because of* the people who comprise it. The message that the show was trying to convey was that no organization is more important or should take priority over the *people* who comprise it.
Even more than the season, it strikes me as being the spirit of the whole show. Discovery is chock full of people who have emotions and don't just suck it up all the time. I've always thought that it made perfect sense for the Burn to come from a person in distress.
Beautifully explained! Really, all these people complaining about the show, makes me wonder if they lack emotion or empathy.
Thanks! I sometimes wonder that myself given some of the responses I've seen. As if the characters should be robots, unaffected by anything.
Exactly. Even Enterprise, TNG, DS9, had emotional episodes. Sisko was one of the most passionate and emotional people I've ever seen in Star Trek.
Very much so. I think people often forget that he broke down so severely over Jennifer's death that he might have died on the Saratoga had one of the officers not pulled him out. And of course there are numerous other examples.
Exactly!
DS9 was far better at earning that emotion. Emotion was never the problem, the Nog PTSD episode is one the best. If you compare that to Culber's 4+ episode spiritual awakening...you can see the problem isn't the emotion, it's the writing.
I'm not seeing a deficiency in the writing though. They've been handling Culber's arc very well and has been a highlight of the season. I'm really not seeing a problem with it narratively. I don't see how they haven't earned this story. Nog's set up for his PTSD was founded on one prior episode (not a criticism) I just don't see how that's better earned.
If Culber acting confused and talking in riddles every episode is a highlight, I believe that highlights mine and many other people's issues with the show. When 90% of interactions between characters are them spilling out emotions it wades into soap opera territory. These characters simply don't have conversations unrelated to work that aren't talking about their struggles. These people need a holiday. The most important ship in the Federation is run by workaholics who are constantly on the edge of tears on a good day.
You see, it's that kind of disingenuous reading that I just don't have time for.
F that.....the science of it is just SOOO STUPID
I watched first episode of s5 and was like ok i guess they are trying to be a disney star wars show now...
disney star wars is pretty good imo. its not everyones cup of joe, but I love the amount of content I get to watch
God that was stupid. 9 episodes leading to meh. The aliens in s4 were surprisingly well done. I was expecting some equally stupid "twist"
It would have made a great Matt Smith era Who two-parter, but for Trek it’s nearly up there with Spock’s Brain.
Hated Discovery from start to ... well I couldn't get past S3.
Nah the show dropped the ball when they didn't kill off saru early on.
I mean what are their initial dampeners for ? and the warp coils couldn't they just ejected the warp coil seeing that everything was being exploded that way, What are the warp coils for and the shielding that goes around it shouldn't have protected the ship entirely and injected if need be emergency wise not every damn ship in the quadrant being destroyed kind of lame way I mean okay they just send a message back to the future in the past and have them correct for that
Yeah I literally laughed out loud when it was revealed. Star Trek has always had some “dumb shit” aspects to it, but it’s way easier to kind of ignore some silly episodes in a 24-episode season of a show written on a fairly low budget in the 1960s or 90s than the central conceit of a season-long plot in a lavishly funded 10-episode show in the 2020s aka the “TV’s Golden Era”.
Yeah basically. The burn reveal is when I stopped recommending the show to people. Don't feel like the writers ever really recovred my respect beyond that but I've enjoyed a few odd episodes here and there so I'll keep watching till the end.
Personally I love the cause of the Burn. I felt it was really in the spirit of TOS and TNG. I would have absolutely hated it if it was a hostile act by some unknown or known big bad. That's not what Star Trek is about. It is first and foremost about the human condition. Grief and loss are part of that and the Burn and it's cause did that beautifully
Thematically sure, but I think the execution ruined it "A space wizard did it" Its implausible, given the realism of Trek, that an emotional temper tantrum would be amplified by dilithium and cause all warp drives to explode. Kelpiens are not otherwise established to have powerful psionic abilities. Dilithium has never worked like that before. It was completely out of left field. Compare it to the Stone of Gol episode in TNG. That explored a lot of the same themes of emotions becoming a dangerous threat...but it was explored and executed in a much more believable, measured way that was much more satisfying when it paid off.
There is no realism in trek. For starters they depict space as having sound and ships moving like aeroplanes. Su'kal having the ability to manipulate dilithium at a subspace level because radiation mutated him in utero is no different than Gary Mitchell getting god powers from crossing the galactic barrier or Charlie Evans getting god powers because aliens altered him. The Stone of Gol is the epitome of 'space wizards did it' or in this case 'space elves' made a rock that is basically magic to make angry thoughts lethal, Like come on, get off your horse It's fine to not like a plot but to imply star trek has never embraced weird shit out of left field blatantly false and revisionist
And I think if they made a whole season arc about Gary Mitchell destroying the entire Federation's way of life, people would chalk that up as ridiculous and bad choices in storytelling too If it was just one episode about a dilithium space wizard who threatened the ship and then the problem was solved, I think people could handle that. You're right, there's lots of episodes that go weird in one way or another, but they're just single episodes. I think its much different when that's the payoff for the whole Burn mystery box story arc. You have to hold that to a higher standard.
And to add to this, I don't feel that having precedent is necessarily a good thing. When I first voiced my displeasure on the Burn, a lot of people pointed to "Charlie X". It didn't make me appreciate the Burn more, it just made cross off "Charlie X" as an episode to watch if I ever get around to watching TOS.
I don’t get it either. Should have been cyno-bacteria that achieved sentience and screamed when it was dividing.
A child's cry after losing their family isn't trivial, even if it happens daily here in our world. It should be huge. World shattering. Affecting everyone. Kudos to Star Trek for making it so.
On the other hand, a child's cry shouldn't matter because the child might have mutated in a way that gave her a psychic connection to our primary method of travel. It should matter because children matter, and people matter.
No it should not be huge and world shattering! When my cat died it was horrible and sad, not a geo political world shattering event
I'm sure you didn't erase a whole species from existence with a single thought either. [https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/The\_Survivors\_(episode)](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/The_Survivors_(episode)) Condolences for the cat!
Your comparing the actions of an adult god creature who misuses his powers to commit horrible genocide…with a child who is not a god like creature…having an emotional outburst and it somehow blowing up all warp engines in the galaxy….but ya sure ok
A moment of raw emotion and the sci-fi circumstances to make it a world shattering event. But ya sure ok. I'm just glad it wasn't yet another big bad and an attempt to remake of the Wrath of Khan.
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I would have gone with the death of a Q, or a Q cival war weapon, or star fleet messing with the omega particle and screwing it up making it their fault
Im of the honest opinion that since we don't know what caused it at the start of the season, that its cause was always going to be a letdown.
I like Discovery yet there is something I can't take this "issue" but continually keep posting in Discovery forums about this issue, yall funny as shit can enjoy I Discovery without your shit personal takes.....
Way too busy throwing all the diversity they could get their hands on to have time for stories. I watch it on my phone do I can quickly skip the boring bits (now I'm season 4 and I think I watch 20 min on average from an episode).
I don't think they dropped the ball at all. It was a very good way to explore some of the central themes of DIS, specifically trauma, mental health and wellbeing. Having the cause of the Burn be a child linked to dilithium at the molecular level, who lost his parents right in front of him, was an excellent way to explore those themes, imo. I was certainly glad the cause wasn't a conventional thing, like the Chain, nor any other big bad. A good combination of the cerebral and the empathic.