History Recap / StarTrekStrangeNewWorldsS2E02AdAstraPerAspera

* TranquilFury: Spock and Pasalk can barely tolerate each other despite seemingly having a cordial conversation. Spock even apologizes to Ortegas and M'Benga for his "outburst".

Soon, the trial starts and, after being told the charges against her, Una pleads not guilty. Batel and Neera make their opening statements, arguing for the protection against another Khan Noonian Singh versus the belief that some laws go too far. Admiral April is the first on the stand. Batel reveals that April had been the one to sponsor Una to Starfleet Academy and was there for her early years. However, he regretfully admits that if he knew the truth, he wouldn't have sponsored her. Neera tries a different tactic: attacking the DoubleStandard of the Prime Directive. However, Neera goes too far and the whole thing is stricken from the record. While the ''Enterprise'' crew discuss Neera's tactics, Una accuses Neera of doing this for her own reasons and not to help her, but Neera dismisses her again. Admiral April briefly joins Pike, figuring out Pike was the one who recruited Neera while Pike is regretting recruiting Neera. April's upset that Neera's antics caused him to not be able to defend Una's character and she marches out.

* OmnidisciplinaryLawyer: Neera is a civil rights attorney who reluctantly takes on a case involving law for the government's military arm (while the trial is still about civil rights in the abstract, military law is significantly different from civil and criminal law, which is given a nod when Neera asks for a copy of Starfleet's Uniform Code of Justice).

* NewJobAsThePlotDemands: Captain Batel was the arresting officer to bring Una into custody, but before and after this episode she was Captain of the USS Cayuga and suddenly now the prosecutor for Una's trial. This was seemingly done to continue the conflicting loyalties set up by keeping her involved, and while not impossible for her to have a legal background it's unlikely she would be personally designated as the lead JAG officer.

* FantasticRacism: We get to see the worst of the Federation's NoTranshumanismAllowed rules at work in this episode, making it a quite clear allegory for modern-day racism and queerphobia, in particular, the sudden rise of anti-transgender laws.

** The whole defense is bizarre. Counsel doesn’t dispute the facts of the case, nor that Una broke the law. Instead, she argues the merits of the law. Not on Constitutional grounds, but on policy grounds: she argues that the law is unwise and the court should substitute its own judgment for the legislature’s. Then she introduces a bunch of “Una is awesome” testimony that is wholly irrelevant to the case.
*** What Neera is trying to do is something WebVideo/LegalEagle praised "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E9TheMeasureOfAMan Measure of a Man]]" for doing -- Picard admits that, yes, Data is a machine, to argue that is pointless because it's patently obvious, but it's also irrelevant, the question is if Data has enough self-awareness and self-determination to be considered a lifeform with legal rights and protections under Federation law. Essentially, acknowledging the prosecution's points that are both damaging and difficult or impossible to argue. In Una's case, there's no denying she's an illegal genetic augment under Federation law, and that she lied about that. Those are both crimes, she committed those crimes, there is no point in trying to deny them. Instead, Neera is trying to convince the tribunal that enforcing the law, in this case, does not serve justice. It's not a ''great'' argument, since judges are not supposed to make law or decide if and how they are enforced, but it's the best argument she has. . . until she goes for the asylum argument late in the game.

** La'an tries to get Uhura to retrieve personal logs in her gambit to save Una. It's averted as Uhura refuses to get La'an in trouble to save her friend.

*** What Neera is trying to do is something Website/LegalEagle praised "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E9TheMeasureOfAMan Measure of a Man]]" for doing -- Picard admits that, yes, Data is a machine, to argue that is pointless because it's patently obvious, but it's also irrelevant, the question is if Data has enough self-awareness and self-determination to be considered a lifeform with legal rights and protections under Federation law. Essentially, acknowledging the prosecution's points that are both damaging and difficult or impossible to argue. In Una's case, there's no denying she's an illegal genetic augment under Federation law, and that she lied about that. Those are both crimes, she committed those crimes, there is no point in trying to deny them. Instead, Neera is trying to convince the tribunal that enforcing the law, in this case, does not serve justice. It's not a ''great'' argument, since judges are not supposed to make law or decide if and how they are enforced, but it's the best argument she has. . . until she goes for the asylum argument late in the game.

** By present-day legal standards, the show correctly portrays that it's very risky to have a defendant testify in their own defence, because the prosecution can then cross-examine them and elicit unfavourable truths (which indeed happens). However, it's downright ''insane'' to put your defendant on the stand ''without intensively prepping them for the line of questioning you're going to ask them.'' Springing a surprise question on your own client is very, very weird behaviour.

Years ago, a young Una suffers from a bad leg injury, and her parents fear taking her to a doctor because her Illyrian lineage could be discovered. Back in the present, Captain Batel gives Una a plea deal -- plead guilty for willingly hiding the truth and they'll dishonorably discharge her, meaning she gets to walk free, but all her hard work gets sealed away and she's PersonaNonGrata to Starfleet. She suggests Una talk to her legal counsel about this, but Una's rightfully miffed that her counsel works for Batel and wants her to accept. Elsewhere, in the Vaultera Nebula, Pike's little journey from last episode reaches its conclusion as he reaches the offices of Neera, a well-known civil rights lawyer, but she's still being really pissy about seeing Pike. So, Pike decides to play a GameOfChicken, seeing if she'll see him before he runs out of oxygen as the area is ''not'' so friendly to humans. Thankfully, it works and Pike sees Neera.

* WeUsedToBeFriends: Una and Neera used to be friends when they were younger, but Una's desire to get into Starfleet, requiring her to hide who she really is, ruined it.

* IronicJuxtaposition: Likely unintentional: as Una waxes about how Starfleet is filled with people from "so many worlds", the camera cuts to four crew members and all but Spock are from Earth.

* DoomedByCanon: Neera was never going to get the Federation to change, let alone reconsider, their anti-genetic augmentation stance, because it's still in place in [[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine the 24th century]].

* StatusQuoIsGod: Thanks to Neera's legal maneuvering, Una is cleared of all charges and restored as [[NumberTwo first officer]] of the ''Enterprise'' without affecting the Federation's broader eugenics laws, which will persist well into the 24th century-- as [[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Dr. Julian Bashir will one day find out]] after his own augmentations come to light.

** The tension between Una and Neera over Una's ability to "pass" for human mirrors the tensions in real-world minority communities, such as between lighter-skinned and darker-skinned people of color, bisexual people in male-female relationships, etc. On Neera's side, she resents Una's choice to join a society that shuns those who don't have a choice to try blending in (like herself). On Una's side, she believes in the good parts of that society and wants to be an InternalReformist, and she's painfully aware of how fragile her position is starting from childhood (when she almost died of a treatable infection because if an unsympathetic doctor outed them, her family would have lost everything). This is emphasized by Neera being played by a black actor and Una by a white actor. (This is also emphasized by Una being played by a white actor and Neera by a black actor.)

** Part of the tension between Una and Neera is because Una can "pass" for human, while Neera and many other Illyrians don't have that option. This mirrors discussions and tensions within minority communities--e.g. frustration between lighter-skinned and darker-skinned people of color, or resentment towards bisexual people who are in male-female relationships, etcetera. (This is also emphasized by Una being played by a white actor and Neera by a black actor.)

** In current law, at least, an "expert character witness" isn't a thing. An "expert witness" is a witness who is an expert in a specific field and is therefore qualified to give their opinion on relevant evidence (e.g. an automotive engineer who explains what happened during a collision, or a doctor who opines about how a person died). It doesn't just mean "really knowledgeable witness."

** Upon refusing the plea deal, Una is charged with sedition (inciting/taking part in rebellion against the government). By no stretch of the imagination could Una's actions be defined as such. If lying on her application form is enough to qualify for sedition, it paints a rather dystopian portrait of the Federation.

** Suffice it to say, having asylum from the ''Federation'' into Starfleet is an absurd idea, like asylum from the United States civilian population into U.S. Navy active service. Also, in the claim for disclosure for asylum, that would cover the four months after she told Captain Pike about it, but not the previous 25 years in Starfleet.

* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: PlayedForLaughs. As Dr. M'Benga and Ortegas are watching Spock be interrogated by Pasalk, M'Benga notes that Spock is unusually tense based on his body language (though Ortegas can't tell). When Spock approaches his comrades, he apologizes for Pasalk bringing out the worst in him, despite the fact that both he and Pasalk looked as stoic as ever. The pair get a good laugh out of the apology.

* GagDub: InUniverse -- Ortegas watches a conversation between Spock and Pasalk and play-acts how two "Vulcan bros" would talk to each other.

* MyRuleFuIsStrongerThanYours: As Batel had warned Pike, Admiral Pasalk forces Una to admit that she had previously disclosed her genetic augmentation to him, and tries to use that as a stepping-stone to charge Pike as an accessory. Neera outwits him by invoking Starfleet regulations on political asylum for refugees during her closing arguments, providing a legal cover for the tribunal to acquit Una and therefore stop Pasalk before he could even start investigating Pike.