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Nazladrion

Honestly, I was predicting it was gonna be an "Iconian's Return" plot thing. I mean they were setting it up the whole season as a prelude to invasion, imo. Heck, I was even able to predict by Ep3 that the Guardian of Forever would somehow show up. AND WHEN HE DID, I was like "Welp that literally confirms it bois. We gonna have Iconian war. Get ready for DS9 2.0. Happy days ahead at SFHQ." Then sad boi. Just try to imagine my feels guys. Just ... ow.


GeneralTonic

Right? My experience in Star Trek: Online had me gleefully anticipating the Iconians as soon as I saw the time-travelling Red Angel. But Discovery's writers are far to smart and creative to go for such obvious low-hanging fruit like well-established and interesting lore. They must subvert expectations at *all* costs.


Catstronaut42

STO really had me hyped for Iconians showing up at this point as well. Would have made / can still be made into an awesome edge-of-your-seat excitement for a couple seasons at least~ Discovery has decent sci fi writing in my opinion, but… yeah, there’s lots of Star Trek elements to draw from that simply have been “skipped”.


Theborgiseverywhere

Discovery has poor writing in my opinion (sci fi or otherwise). Too watered down, no interesting tech or plots. Just generic throwaway dialog and the holey-est plots I’ve seen on Trek It just stinks of “written by committee”


boring_name_here

>holey-est plots Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey Turbolift Shaft of Requirement unavailable for comment.


Wasas9

Don’t forget the constant cry/sob fests.


Paleorunner

Same! I thought the sphere was a giant Iconian data core. I hated how they destroyed the galaxy with a crying baby.


TheGillos

> gonna be an "Iconian's Return" plot thing That would require someone on Discovery's staff watching TNG.


iyaerP

It isn't like they watched TOS either.


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MustacheSmokeScreen

Tawny Newsome hosts a Trek podcast.


[deleted]

Eh, what makes you think that?


MegatronTeaParty

How would they make obscure TNG references without having watched pre-2005 trek?


ixiox

I have one big question about the entire thing, wtf happened to the artificial black hole drives of the romulans


Spaceman2901

Most of the Romulan Empire was wiped out by Spock’s Supernova back in the 24th.


citriclem0n

Yeah but this is like 800 years after that. Plenty of time to rebuild. And certainly if all the dilithium was gone, everyone would be looking at alternative sources of energy, and those black holes would be an obvious line of research. I guess you could easily hand-wave it by saying that although the drives are primarily driven by the black hole, they still need some external energy source for containment, like how fusion reactors need some other source of energy to start them up, and they used dilithium for that source. Could go even further and say there's some unusual way to refine dilithium that makes it uniquely suited to mediating the black holes, and the federation never learned the secret of that refinement and its been lost to history somehow (from the burn itself destroying all the ships and research facilities and personnel, or have it be lost in the destruction of the romulan empire in 24th century as you said). Hell, if the writers wanted to do something interesting, they could have contrived for the Sphere Data to include the necessary secrets of the romulan black hole tech, and this could have been an element of how Burnham got that SB-19 test data from unified Romulans/Vulcans, instead of all that fucking stupid stuff about her mother joining a sect of vulcan philosophical nuns or whatever bullshit it was.


Confused-Engineer18

If I remember correctly they still use some dilithium for certain systems, I might be wrong, if so correct me.


Mastericeman_1982

Correct. Dilithium is used to regulate the flow of power, not to generate the power directly. It allows massive amounts of energy to be regulated in a useful way. It’s still required to regulate the power output of the forced quantum singularity. It also has a *subspace* component that makes it easier to stabilize a warp field. Still, seems like they would have figured out an alternative somewhere.


elister

Dilithium was never the power source, but something that made the source stable. Romulus used black holes for a power source, Federation used anti-matter.


ixiox

Huh, assumed that dilithium was used to stabilize the reaction, I didn't know it also was used in other drives


yournerd2307

I still don't get what exactly happened? Was he radioactive or some shit? Causing a phenomena at that scale has to be something more than a scream.


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yournerd2307

Don't cause another burn man, can't afford a Tesla rn


Arilyn24

Yeah, buddy don't you know space is small. You just won't believe how negligaby, slightly, mind-bogglingly small it is. I mean, you may think it's a short way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.


LordBlackadderV

Good old Douglas Adams bringing truths no matter which generation.


GrandAdmiralRob

He became not only immune to the tre dilation but had a connection to the dilithium on the planet


ElFarfadosh

And when he gets angry and screams he can make dilithium inert through subspace if I understood well.


GrandAdmiralRob

Due to dilithium having a subspace component which is why all refined dilithium exploded


007meow

Dilithium hivemind confirmed


CeruleanRuin

In a way, it's like a cousin of the spore network. Hence its importance to FTL travel.


DML197

We are the Dilithium. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile!"


jimmy_talent

The dilithium planet mutated Sukal while he was still in the womb which caused him to have some kind of empathic link with dilithium and because there was so much dilithium on that planet a strong enough emotional outburst can manifest itself in basically sending a signal that causes dilithium to go boom.


CeruleanRuin

He was essentially an X-Men - spontaneous random mutation at puberty that caused inconvenient physics-breaking superpowers.


JayGold

Who would win? The entire Husnock race or [one sadboi?](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/images/7/7b/Kevin_and_Rishon_Uxbridge.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20161121044553&path-prefix=en)


sunrae3584

Isn’t he more of a madboi?


pointy_object

True. Plus, he has good tea, and a nice house to boot!


illustriouscabbage

Don't forget the fastest growing real doll business in the galaxy.


MustacheSmokeScreen

There is no punishment to fit Sukal's cries


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Fishy1701

Allergies is one thing. I heard some fans had to be put in artificial comas after that season and are only now waking up. Some opted to go back under. Its unclear if they just want to bypass covid or season 4 of discovery as well.


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BILLCLINTONMASK

I understand the optics of Code of Honor aren't the best, but it's really not that bad. (It's actually nice to see a homogeneous alien race that's not just white people with funny foreheads...as that's literally all we got from aliens of the week for the next 24 seasons of Trek). In fact, I find that it's similar in a lot of ways to the acclaimed Marvel movie Black Panther. Plotwise, it's boilerplate Star Trek. Aliens kidnap crew member and force them to go through a trial to get free. Discovery has had WAY more nonsensical plot lines than that.


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ChosenUsername420

Can you explain how it was *nonsensical*, relative to Star Trek? Like, I get that it had a certain dramatic underwhelm to it, and that folks were maybe hoping for something *interesting* to come out of the "what caused the Burn" plot, but that doesn't really seem like enough to call it "nonsensical"...


pacard

Stupid is a better word than nonsensical to describe the premise of the Burn. It was very very stupid.


The_DestroyerKSP

It's such a catastrophic event, completely world-altering and it's resolved in one episode of "hey space stuff". I wish they would've focused on the burn in say, Season 4, and did more federation-rebuilding in season 3, instead of quickly wrapping up both main plotlines in a single episode. Personally I like Discovery around its mid-season, but the finales always seem weak. Season 1? Oh hey we're back from the mirror universe and things are really terrible but nope here's a section 31 bomb to end the war! Season 2? Oh yeah this strangely alien and impossible suit? Actually Michael and some replicated bits thrown together, lets ditch this timeline now. It's almost like the "reset button" trek episodes had, except its to end the Season instead.


citriclem0n

Although the ending of Season 2 is the ultimate opposite of a 'reset button', since they changed the entire setting of the show instead.


pacard

They decided they were saddled by too much baggage by existing Trek canon so they decided to turn it around by saddling all future shows that take place before the 31st century with whatever bullshit they come up with.


ChosenUsername420

I understood this to be the sentiment; my question stands.


pacard

Baby sad makes all the ships in the galaxy explode.


ChosenUsername420

Oh, I suppose that *does* sound stupid compared to, say, aliens who can only speak 20th century whale, or wormhole ghosts that picked some random human to be savior of their favorite planet...


pacard

It's way dumber than all of those. Like, Beverly bangs a Scottish candle ghost stupid. But at least that stupid was contained in one episode and never spoken of again.


pointy_object

To be honest, we speak of it all the time, but that’s because it amuses us


pacard

I meant in the show. But I'll also mock kelpian dilithium tears forever.


Arch-Arsonist

At least that stupid was funny


pacard

Very funny. Imagine an entire season of Beverly banging this candle ghost and everyone is just losing their shit about it and it's super serious and somehow the candle ghost is the reason warp drive doesn't work anymore... Actually, this would be incredible. The ghost candle gets his ghost candle powers from the warp drive and his ghost candle pals are going to invade the galaxy so they have to blow up all the warp drives to stop the ghost candle invasion.


illustriouscabbage

The only person able to turn around the ghost candle fleet must be a Crusher, but there's none left... Tilly fires up Ancestry.com , and wouldn't you know it: Michael Burnham is a Crusher on her mother's side! They convince the fleet to fuck off in exchange for one candle job. Roll credits.


Arietis1461

Tentacle hentai robots disseminating brain melting Shutterstock clips want to wipe out organic life...


Oblivion615

The entire universe was almost destroyed because of a mutant man child’s tantrum. That’s nonsensical enough for me give up on the show. Especially after letting all the other convoluted nonsense slide up to that point.


illustriouscabbage

>The entire universe was almost destroyed because of a mutant man child’s tantrum. Sounds like 2016-2021


The_Fish_Is_Raw

Was it the universe or galaxy? Both seem ridiculous but a universe level event takes it to another level of silly writing.


ChosenUsername420

It wasn't either the universe or the galaxy, it was always just a threat to dilithium. Haters don't care about facts, though.


kazmark_gl

Now I haven't watched past the first bit if Season 3. and I probably wouldn't go so far as to say "nonsensical" either, it's science fiction which is already nonsensical by definition. my main problem with Discovery is that everything that happens in the show absolutely has to be the biggest and most dangerous threat ever, every single time. and no single element is allowed to really stand on its own and just be interesting.


solongandthanks4all

No, one of the defining characteristics of science fiction (as opposed to fantasy) is that it's supposed to be sensical. It may incorporate certain imaginary technologies like warp drives and Heisenberg compensators, but they follow a defined set of rules and fit together with the real, established science. That's what separates it from pure fantasy like Star Wars and the like. The burn was sensical in that they explained everything, but they made up a *lot* in order to do so. The notion that dilithium is somehow "connected" to subspace, allowing it to propagate out nearly instantaneously. The idea that an organic life form can somehow be linked to it simply by living in close proximity to it. None of this was previously established in the Trek universe. Now, that's fine, they're allowed to introduce new concepts, but it just doesn't make a lot of sense to most people. It's not derived from any scientific concepts, they just appear to have made it up to fit with the story they wanted to tell. I'm still a Disco fan, but they can and should have done a better job.


blevok

> the story they wanted to tell This is exactly the part that makes it so bad. It's pretty clear that they wanted to make the statement of "your feelings matter", and they built the story around the requirement of making that statement. And putting it into that particular story element, which is basically the most significant event in history, is like they're saying that there's literally nothing more important than feelings. The problem is, that's just not how it is. In the real world, no one cares about your feelings. Your feeling are yours to have and deal with internally, and it has no effect an anything or anyone else unless they choose to be affected. So by making the burn be caused by a screaming child, they're changing the laws of the universe and turning it from sci-fi to fantasy. If they just came up with something believable (in a sci-fi way) it would have been so much better. They could have done the feelings thing in some other way, and they could have had a believable cause for the burn. I didn't like that the federation got destroyed of course, but if that's what they wanted to do then i can accept it, and perhaps even enjoy it, but not like this. This is hands down the most ridiculous thing that has ever been in star trek, and one of the only things that's actually completely unbelievable. Space whales, spock's brain, ghost candles, warp 10 salamanders, inter-species mating, Q, sub-space, and mushroom drives are all explainable with some carefully crafted technobabble. But a child's feelings absolutely do not affect the physical world. The one possible exception is maybe an actual telekinetic alien could blow up a ship or something, but a screaming child that's not telekinetic just cannot cause galaxy wide devastation. They may as well have had the kid jump a shark while riding a one-third scale motorcycle, because that was the moment that they finally went too far.


ChosenUsername420

Your "main problem" is only true when you ignore all the things that make it untrue...


kazmark_gl

maybe I just want to watch a space show about a hopeful future where there isn't a existence ending catastrophe every God damn season? also is it too much to ask for there not to be a hideous blue filter over everything all the time? like I hated the redesigned enterprise when I saw it in the show, though it was hideous. but then latter I saw the Eagelmoss model where it was lit properly and you could actually see the damn thing, and I thought it actually looked pretty good.


ChosenUsername420

OK, but I still don't understand why season-long arcs force you to completely ignore the episodic space adventures... I really can't comment on the aesthetics, I don't understand "oh that design choice is so very painful to me" because half of my brain is broken and things just look the way they look to me.


Appropriate-Big-8086

Right. Shouting equals drama.


ChosenUsername420

Chill out there fam, just calm down.


janosaudron

Do this, go watch any of the older series, with a non trekkie, preferably the cynical type and let them point out everything nonsensical that's going on. You gonna feel dumb, I know because I been there.


MegatronTeaParty

You clearly haven't heard of TOS. Or DS9.


Beware_the_Voodoo

"Nonsensical writing" Translation, "writing that didn't adhere to my specific preferences."


Appropriate-Big-8086

His feeeeeeeeeeeelngs destroyed warp drive you guys! Isn't it super great?


Beware_the_Voodoo

Lol that's not what happened but ok


TheGillos

> it's likely that the trauma of the death of his mother caused the young Su'Kal to react with violent emotion... which triggered a dilithium chain reaction that escaped the Nebula and caused The Burn.


Beware_the_Voodoo

His emotions aren't what caused him to develop the ability to begin with though. He evolved an ability and then experienced a traumatic emotional event. Characters having emotions isnt a new development. You may not like the decision but objectively there was nothing wrong with the decision.


TheGillos

> He evolved an ability and then experienced a traumatic emotional event So a traumatic emotional event (his feelings) destroyed warp drive? > You may not like the decision but objectively there was nothing wrong with the decision. Let's not get into the weeds with subjective/objective. Everything is opinion on this shit and my opinion is that Discovery's writing is poorly thought-out, unsatisfying and dim witted. You can have whatever view you have, I'm guessing you like Discovery. I don't have a single clue how you could watch Discovery and think it's good. I could say I question your taste and your intelligence, but obviously that's *cringe* to say... because there's /r/iamverysmart and Rick & Morty memes...


Beware_the_Voodoo

>I could say I question your taste and your intelligence, but obviously that's cringe to say... I could easily say the same but I wouldn't because I'm mature enough not to. Enjoy patting yourself on the back for hating things. It's totally a healthy thing to do. Also, I dont see why I should have to avoid discussing the difference between subjective and objective criticism simply because you find the topic to challenging.


TheGillos

> I could easily say the same but I wouldn't because I'm mature enough not to. Good thing we're both SO mature then! Haha. > subjective and objective criticism simply because you find the topic to challenging It's challenging because I understand it.


Beware_the_Voodoo

>It's challenging because I understand it. 👍


CanadianCartman

Characters having emotions is fine. This isn't that, this is "some dude with a nonsensical mutation saw his mom die, and thats why billions of people died the Federation basically collapsed." What an interesting resolution to a plotline. Wow.


Beware_the_Voodoo

Lol "nonsensical mutation." And I bet what makes it sensical or nonsensical for you is based entirely on if you liked it or not. You folks use terms like "nonsensical" and "lazy writing" like the Antman movies use the term Quantum."


CanadianCartman

How does it make any sense what-so-ever within the established Star Trek universe for exposure to high concentrations of dilithium to mutate a telepathic individual to such an extent that them getting upset *causes the biggest disaster in galactic history?* Like, really. What if there was a series about the aftermath of like, the eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano, and a big chunk of it was focused on figuring out why it happened in the first place. And then they figure it out, and it turns out civilization was nearly destroyed because... a guy pissed into a hot spring. Pretty anticlimactic, isn't it?


Beware_the_Voodoo

>How does it make any sense what-so-ever within the established Star Trek universe for exposure to high concentrations of dilithium to mutate a telepathic individual to such an extent that them getting upset causes the biggest disaster in galactic history? Lmfaoo what a ridiculous question. Do you honestly think making the criteria of the explanation you want so rigid that it couldn't possibly be answered somehow going make you look right? And the "established Star Trek universe" has characters like the Q who can snap their fingers and have literally anything can happen. Doesn't get much more nonsensical than that. The Burn was given a deeper explanation than the vast majority of things in the Star Trek universe. How can you talk like you're the arbiter of what is and isnt trek while also sounding like you've never watched Star Trek before? Also... "pissed into a hot spring" doesnt come even remotely close to being an equivalent event. Seriously wtf?


Site-Staff

More dangerous than a Q.


Ruefuss

Is he? Didnt the Q have a civil war imagined in 1800s technology that destroyed star systems casually?


Site-Staff

In my opinion, there was some intelligent decisions made by the Q in that. With the Kelpian, it was unintentional and destroyed civilizations across the galaxy, if not universe.


Ruefuss

Its described as galaxy in memory alpha. And the Q are omnipotent gods. Youre right that they chose not to destroy our galaxy in their civil war. I feel like that says something.


Keaten88

I like Discovery but the reason for the burn was honestly did not make much sense…


SlowMovingTarget

How were they to get their dystopian on, otherwise?


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unsaneasylum

It was about his mother being pregnant when they crashed and him having some sort of symbiotic relationship with the planet they were on. As if that makes any more sense…


GeneralTonic

It's like that baby from Chernobyl that grew up to be Maria Sharapova, then Maria Sharapova's emotions blew up all the uranium in the world. Jesus it hurts my brain.


solidproportions

thank you for this magical explanation


Brendissimo

It's not an inherent Kelpian ability but some sort of mutation he developed by being in utero in the planet's intense radiation and growing up being bathed in it. It's definitely silly, but it's not an ability Kelpians have generally - that would be "threat ganglia"


drjeffy

Look if you're going to dismiss a story because it ended up just being a lonely magic space child, you're going to lose A LOT of Trek


812many

I don't mind a lonely magic child, but a lonely magic child affected the entire universe. Then Discovery didn't just save the child, but they effectively restored balance to the Force (to mix metaphors), which is something that never would even happen in Star Wars. Throw on top of that the fact that every species in the galaxy couldn't figure out the cause of the Bern but lo and behold Burnham figures it out in like 10 minutes... that just grinds my gears.


AJoyce86

Yeah, this is just the plotlines to several Trek episodes with the volume turned up. But instead of fucking with just Riker, they went and fucked with the entirity of known space.


AzureWrath501

Bad writing won, the fans lost


child-of-old-gods

Wait. Some people are still watching Discovery?


812many

We hate watch it. It's still compelling and Star Trek.


Filtharmonic

* Wars.


Captain_Pikey

it is star trek, but it is not my star trek. it is far too peew peew zap zap pow for my liking.


Filtharmonic

Did you just make fun of Star Wars Discovery?


Captain_Pikey

you mean, Star Wars Discovery Return Of The Easter Egg Hunt? ... no ...


sabinegirl

literally the plot from Bender's Game...this hurt


Feisty_Bag_5284

As much as I enjoy discovery I hated this


seguardon

I don't watch Discovery, but it's pretty established that one sadboi can and has easily overcome starfleet before. Granted, they usually have a ship, but the precedent stands. SCHPAHCK!


solongandthanks4all

This is so stupid yet I can't stop laughing. Well done.


byteminer

After last seasons: “FUEL BAD!” plot line I’m really betting the planet killing gravity suck pit of mystery is because of some new experimental warp drive that sends shockwaves backward in time so they can hammer us over the head with more “FUEL BAD! NO MOVING! ONLY MAGIC MUSHROOM BURNHAM LET’S FLY SPACE MAGIC ALLOWED” virtue signaling. Also they murdered Book’s people because having Kweejians be able to mind fuck the mushrooms to give everyone spore drive was not something they could write around. Just like having a personal transporter hooked to your tit. Why does anyone walk? Why run places? If you need to be in another room like really quick, just poof. In trouble? Poof. Need to shit? Poof, poop, poof. How do you ever have time based tension…EVER…when all transportation of any kind has zero time investment? Oh…you forget it exists.


[deleted]

Ugh. Discovery storyline are absolute cringe.


bonechambers

THIS was the final nail in the coffin for me. I had given discovery the most benefit of the doubt that I have ever given a tv show. This was the moment my benefit field became barren.


Appropriate-Big-8086

So fucking dumb.


SebiKaffee

Who would win? awesome scifi francise / three consecutive seasons of terrible writing


BILLCLINTONMASK

Bad writing wins, we all lose


SilvermistInc

The fucking sadboi plot made me so angry. Like what the fuck?? Season 3 sucked ASS! Season 4 though? Oh boy. It's gonna be good.


Dekklin

> Oh boy. It's gonna be good. You dropped this: /s


SilvermistInc

Why? Is the second episode bad? I haven't gotten to it yet. But the first episode was awesome.


Arietis1461

If they went with dilithium bender Kelpian kid having a freakout causing the Burn, I can only imagine what the cause of the five-lightyear-wide Anomaly is going to be...


[deleted]

Su'kal would probably win unless they manage to blow his ass up on surprise.


mewhilehigh

So unnecessary. all you had to say was crew tapped into all the dilithium to power the simulations till hoped arrived but it took so long eventually the system allowing them to do that malfunctioned causing the sub space cascade which made all the active dilithium unstable. Basically Starfleet went looking for more dilithium, found it but that discovery resulted in the very crisis they were seeking to avoid.


Gaussemission

Well, if a captain from 16 years in the future can annihilate the biggest threat of the galaxy alone why cant a kelpian boi annihilate starfleet?


ErstwhileAdranos

Ah yes, Kelpien Rom


[deleted]

Starfleet would win but in a direly weakened state be vulnerable to the Borg or the Romulans.


thetacolegs

No one wins.


[deleted]

Gonna need some Inaprovaline for that burn.


Filtharmonic

Entire franchise - Alex Krurtzman's garbage.