Discovery joins the fleet in evacuating a colony about to be hit by the DMA.
Tropes:
- Action Bomb: The prison has moving land mines disguised as giant beetles. Worse still, they can shoot red-hot sawblades if the ruse is broken.
- All Crimes Are Equal: The prisoners are held for such crimes as stealing food and going on a joy ride. One of them does happen to be a murderer and believes that he is being justly punished, but still advocates for the other five to get a fair shake.
- The Atoner: Because Felix committed his crimes on the Radvek Chain, he decides that he should die there, using his final words over comms to confess to the Discovery bridge crew. He also gives Burnham the lalogi orb he stole, asking her to return it to its rightful heir.
- Brutal Honesty: Dr. Culber calls Dr. Kovich for a therapy session with someone who won't pull punches. Dr. Kovich delivers on that by succinctly pointing out that he's burying himself in his work and needs to take some down time, and that it stems from a unique form of Survivor Guilt caused by his death and rebirth.Kovich: You died. You died and came back to life. Little wonder you're a mess. Your file is stunningly generic as to your feelings on this rather unique fact of your existence, so allow me to fill in some blanks. "Why me?" It's the question you ask yourself every morning and every evening. "No one else gets a second chance, so why me?" That led you to the idea that there was a reason for your survival. A purpose you're meant to fulfill right here, right now. And that led you to a savior complex, because if there is no reason, if there is no purpose, then your very existence is a middle finger to anyone who's ever lost someone. Which is everyone. How's that for brutal honesty?
Culber: Do you have a recommendation to go along with that sparkling analysis?
Kovich: Whether or not you were a miracle, Dr. Culber, you are only human. You need to allow yourself time to rest, as you advise your patients.
Culber: Well, I can't just stop. Not now, anyway. It's what I do. It's... It's who I am. It's...
Kovich: It's the way you escape the persistent guilt of being alive. This is a uniquely challenging time, yes. But if you don't find fulfillment in something other than work, then you will fail those in the chair in front of you. - Cathartic Scream: During a tense argument, Tarka roars at Saru and encourages him to do likewise — which he does.
- Chekhov's Gun: Burnham is able to hack into and deactivate the beetle mines. Later, during the Lockdown, she uses that to direct them into the prison wall and detonate them all at once, breaching the reinforced forcefield.
- The Cobbler's Children Have No Shoes: Doctors make terrible patients, and one pulling double-duty as a therapist is no exception. Culber avoids dealing with his own problems and has to enlist the services of the extremely blunt Dr. Kovich to force himself to listen. He even admits as such to Stamets.Culber: Look at us. We jumped a thousand years into the future, we helped solve the Burn, and we can't figure our own shit out.
- Confess in Confidence: Felix defies the "in confidence" part — when Burnham offers to use her chair's privacy curtain so that only she can hear his confession, he insists that the comm line remain open so that the entire bridge crew hears it.
- Continuity Nod:
- One of the ships studying the DMA is the USS Janeway. Another is the NSS T'Pau.
- The Metrons, Nacene, Iconians, and the Q Continuum are all considered possible suspects behind the DMA based on the scale of the engineering involved, though the Q are thought to be a long shot based on the last known contact being 600 years ago and it being incongruent with their usual behavior.
- Stamets mentions how he makes sure to protect the jahSepp when he spore-jumps.
- The primary inhabitants of the Radvek colony are Akaali.
- The Akaali magistrate greets Burnham with "Thank Draylan you're here", referencing the ruler of their afterlife.
- At the end of the episode, Tarka rubs a round scar on the back of his neck, suggesting that he was a former prisoner of the Emerald Chain, possibly at the salvage camp that Book escaped from previously.
- Drowning My Sorrows: Book heads to the bar to deal with the last prisoner refusing to be rescued.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: The map that Stamets is studying at the very start of the episode is full of them.
- Homeworld Evacuation: The Federation has to evacuate the Radvek Chain in four hours before the DMA's proximity prevents transporters from functioning.
- Hurl It into the Sun: The DMA's gravity shoves the Radvek Chain into the local star, incinerating it.
- Idiot Ball: It never occurs to either Stamets or Saru to simply postpone the incredibly dangerous DMA re-creation experiment for a few hours, when the ship won't also be engaged in an evacuation mission that requires keeping certain subsystems in continuous use. Tarka at least has the excuse of never expecting it to work at all; he just wanted to see whether the ship could power his scale model, as a means to gauge the kind of power necessary for the real thing.
- I Need a Freaking Drink: Book goes to the lounge on Discovery after the mission to deal with Burnham allowing Felix to stay behind and die.
- Insufferable Genius: Tarka is a pre-Character Development Stamets to a T, as Stamets himself acknowledges.
- Lockdown: When Burnham and Book try to escort the prisoners out, their biometrics set off a lockdown protocol that drops a forcefield reinforced with nanomaterial.
- Loophole Abuse: When the prisoners refuse to leave without an assurance that they won't simply be reimprisoned wherever they're dropped off, Burnham combs through Starfleet regulations and comes up with the idea of having them request asylum, so their crimes will be judged under Federation law.
- Make an Example of Them: The Radvek Chain follows an Emerald Chain tradition of holding a group of criminals up as Examples to show the population what will happen to those who break the law. Even with the collapse of the Emerald Chain, they find it a useful way to deter crime.
- Mythology Gag: When discussing who could be behind the DMA, one of the groups mentioned are “surviving members of the Iconian Empire”. In Star Trek Online, usually considered non-canon, it was revealed that some Iconians were still alive with one still holding a major grudge.
- Never Accepted in His Hometown: Tarka feels that his intellect made him unpopular at home.Tarka: I was never understood on Risa. The "pleasure planet". I was Surrounded by Idiots. Felt like your Gally Leo at the Inquisition.
Stamets: You mean Galileo?
Tarka: Sure. Why not? The point is, great intellect can be costly. - No One Gets Left Behind: Burnham is resolved to rescue the Examples despite the demands of the Magistrate.
- No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup: The prison is automated and the only people who know how it works already fled the Radvek Chain. Burnham and Book have to figure it out on the fly based on the latter's knowledge of the Emerald Chain's methods.
- Noodle Incident: Burnham mentions a delivery where Book blew up some noodle stalls.
- Not Me This Time: Early suspects for the DMA are the Metrons, Nacene, Iconians, and the Q Continuum, but Vance rules out the latter immediately because the Q haven't been heard from for some time and would have made their presence known about the whole affair. Tarka rules out the other three before he even sets foot on Discovery.
- "Not So Different" Remark: Stamets complains that Tarka has a single-minded dedication to his work. After a sly look by Culber, Stamets acknowledges that it feels a little familiar.
- Obstructive Bureaucrat: The Akaali magistrate tries to discourage Discovery from rescuing the criminals at the colony, even though The Federation has a No One Gets Left Behind policy. After Burnham and Book rescue the prisoners anyway, the magistrate tries to have Burnham confine them to the brig. Burnham bluntly tells him that the prisoners have been granted asylum and are now subject to Federation law— and since the magistrate no longer has a colony to govern, so is he. All he can do is wordlessly storm off the bridge.Magistrate: Captain Burnham. I demand that the prisoners be held in the brig. We will not share space with them.
Burnham: Under what authority are you making these demands?
Magistrate: I am the sovereign magistrate of—
Burnham: Of a colony that no longer exists. Those people are now under Federation protection, and thereby subject to Federation law.
Magistrate: But—
Burnham: As are you, as long as you are on this vessel. I need to remind you that wherever you find a new home, you'll be arriving as a refugee seeking shelter and grace. I hope you find a more just society than the one you had a hand in creating. - Out-of-Character Alert: Burnham and Book realize that something is up with the beetle when it proves immune to Book's powers and moves in a precise, repeating pattern. From this, Book deduces that it's actually a security measure.
- Promotion to Opening Titles: This is the first time that Tig Notaro has been listed in the opening credits.
- The Reveal: The DMA isn't a natural phenomena—it was created by someone or something with very advanced technology.
- Sacred Hospitality: Felix tells Burnham how someone once gave him shelter and food— and he then abused that man's hospitality by robbing and then killing him. For that, he says that he's the only prisoner who deserves to be imprisoned, and for the same reason he refuses to be rescued, choosing to die when the DMA destroys the colony.
- Teleport Interdiction:
- The DMA naturally blocks transporter activity within a certain distance. Unfortunately, said distance is also the point at which one can be absolutely sure what it will impact next, including its victims.
- The Radvek Chain prison has a field which blocks transporters and comms within a half-kilometer radius.
- The Tell: When Culber says that he's feeling fine, Stamets points out that his eyes looking down say otherwise.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Felix is the only prisoner who refuses to evacuate from the colony, feeling that his crimes make him unworthy to be freed. Unfortunately, that act has the side effect of further hurting Book's psyche when he finally seemed in better spirits, leaving him open to Tarka's manipulations for the rest of the season.
- Wham Shot: The DMA inexplicably teleports 1000 light years away, which leads to the conclusion that it was deliberately engineered and is being controlled by someone.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: It's not stated what exactly becomes of the rescued prisoners, though Burnham promised that the Federation would review their cases; judging by the years of incarceration that they suffered for relatively petty crimes (and the fact that the system responsible for their incarceration no longer exists), it's likely that they'll be allowed to go free based on time served.
- You Are Number 6: The mysterious force behind the DMA has been designated as Unknown Species 10-C.
