Star Trek

I mean, he's using Starfleet's emergency medical transporter for his own use.

There's no kids onboard either from what we see.

I get that, but why would he not just ask permission and set things up so it's not a problem? Starfleet vessels are not short on power (notice how once it's known, the actual problem of how to manage it is solved easily). This is a super weird and random thing to hide. To the extent it's because there aren't supposed to be kids onboard...okay? That's a reasonable demand and deciding to override it is...honestly pretty irresponsible.

It'd probably just get a blunt "no, that's incredibly unsafe, you do not store people in pattern buffers if you can possibly avoid it."

Edited by Zendervai on May 19th 2022 at 9:55:06 AM

But they can't avoid it? The options based on the text are pattern buffer or death. Unless there's something more to this story, 'I'll just hide her in the pattern buffer until we stumble across a cure' is a crazy/stupid/unnecessary plan. ETA: To be clear, it's the 'hide' part of that which is so odd.

Edited by ECD on May 19th 2022 at 7:38:14 AM

I think one of the most interesting things about the ending isn't even the fact that Una nicely subverts the "everything is good, emotional problems resolved" ending Star Trek tends to have about characters. Una saying, "I'm one of the good ones" as a way undercutting the situation is both true to life and highlights the issue. It's also the fact that it shows how prejudice and systemic racism (genetic engineering bans here) destroy personal relationships.

I 100% believe Pike does not give a crap about Una being an Illyrian and his reaction if this had come out the day before would be identical—possibly because he feels immortal but not at all because Una saved his ship. He's always been half in love with her from "The Cage" but know Pike is also the Paragon Shepherd of the setting before Captain Kirk. At least from DISCO onward. However, Una can't allow herself to be comfortable with that and allow herself to trust the person that probably cares for her most. Because that way can burn you.

It's really tragic if you ship them like Beverly Crusher not believing Captain Picard that he has her back always.

I also like the bait and switch with La'an. She's someone who has gone ALL IN on trying to assimilate to the greater culture to the point that she considers Augments to be monsters. Her ancestors either had their own genes degraded or they lost that over generations of interbreeding. Her fighting Una was basically like Wolverine fighting Scrappy Doo and that was good visual storytelling. It wasn't even a contest. Una just was playing keep away the entire time. It's a way of illustrating people dealing with generational trauma.

Doubly so the accusation Una was lying due to the fact she "passes" as a human being.

So my question is are Illyrian descended from humans? Presumably? And how did no one ever pick up that she's augmented. Like, the Transporter literally takes you apart and rebuilds you atom by atom while filtering out weird stuff. It felt weird that M'Benga didn't know.

Like, in Bashir's case you at least have him being his own Doctor so that at least gives him leeway why no one knew he was an augment (And Bashir is explicitly human) since he just fudges his own medical stuff.

I did appreciate the bit of the bait and switch on her situation. The glow in her cabin first makes it seem like she has the condition, but is just lying to herself and trying to tough it out coz she's doing the trope of the brave leader who neglects themselves in a time of crisis, only for the reveal that she really doesn't have it, and she knows she doesn't because thats what the glowing meant - the infection being wiped out of her system.

Edited by Ghilz on May 20th 2022 at 8:30:46 AM

Bashir still made it through Starfleet Academy though, plus a bunch of physicals. If it's a genetic augment, the doctors would likely need to be specifically looking for it and wouldn't bother if they didn't have a specific reason.

And the transporter almost certainly doesn't scan for augments specifically because...that'd be really great way to cause an interstellar incident if it incorrectly flagged an alien ambassador. And a lot of aliens, especially in first contact situations, would probably be really uncomfortable with learning that the transporter just logged all of their genetic information.

Yeah but depending how Bashir became a doctor, it's not unbelievable (especially knowing Starfleet's record of slapdash security) that if he joined the academy already as a doctor they just let him do his own medicals or let him forge medicals done by someone else. Like it's handwavy but I can accept "Bashir used being a doctor to weasel out of stuff".

It's a big weirder for Una who is... maybe not even Human? Did no one pick up on that? It's why I ask if her species are human descendants. You'd think her being an alien would flag things out when they ID her species as "those dudes who augment themselves".

True but also it's canon in trek that doctors keep track of the very cell count of clients (See TNG) and the brainwaves of the crew (See Voyager), so feels weird no one checks for Gene mods (or underlying genetic conditions) when the federation's apparently hardcore "No augments" when Starfleet's already SUPER obtrusive about medical stuff.

"We sure hate those augments but will take no step to ID them and will just go on the honor system"

...Then again Starfleet Security is dumb and bad at their job, so I guess that checks out.

I mean... the transporter's bio filters are still applied to ambassadors and aliens so they dont bring pathogens on board so it's already kinda filtering them to begin with (And how would the bio filter tell a necessary/benign bacteria vital to the host from one that isn't without reading its genes in a first contact situation)? But even if it wasn't, you could just turn that off for ambassadors/first contact. Like, there's a dude in the room controlling the transporter.

Edited by Ghilz on May 20th 2022 at 8:40:17 AM

I think part of the hiccup here is just that...we have absolutely no idea what the standards are like for this time period. All the relevant examples are from a century later.

TOS didn't generally care that much about the transporter beyond it facilitating episodes.

Edited by Zendervai on May 20th 2022 at 11:45:17 AM

There is really just a greater discussion on the difference between genetic corrections (which could be argued something as simple as vaccines) and augmentations. The Fantastic Racism came from the Eugenics Wars where elective modifications were its own Lensman Arms Race.

Voyager also had an episode where the Doctor identified and corrected a genetic defect in Torres baby in the womb, which lead Torres to exploring how to eliminate her Klingon traits altogether. So evidentially the technology and practice of some modification are commonplace, it may be more about the methods and the reasons than the act itself.

Illyrians are aliens, ENTERPRISE showed them as such.

Una is genetically modified so she wouldn't register as an Illyrian.

Remember Voq registered as a human.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on May 20th 2022 at 10:19:50 AM

I actually do not recall the episode of Enterprise that featured Illyrians. Not saying it doesn't exist, but.. Actually, we have wikis. Let's see...

Okay, the episode in question, "Damage," was set during Season 3, AKA the Xindi season. Enterprise was damaged and needed a new warp coil and time was a factor. An Illyrian ship came by and was really helpful, but would not give up a warp coil because that would essentially strand them. Enterprise then attacked them and stole the warp coil. As far as a I can tell, there was nothing in that episode that indicated Illyrians were into genetic engineering, and they had obvious rubber foreheads that Trek loves to do.

Edited by WillKeaton on May 20th 2022 at 11:35:11 AM

Nope.

What it was, however, was a homage to "The Cage" as the Illyrians have existed for decades in secondary media. They were created by DC Fontana (Word of Saint Paul) as the race for Number One in her novel Vulcan's Glory.

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Vulcan%27s_Glory

The Illyrians being established as a race heavily into genetic engineering.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on May 20th 2022 at 10:37:56 AM

"Nope" what? What part of that post are you saying "nope" to? And what was a reference to "The Cage"? "Damage"? The episode from yesterday?

What I mean to say is that there was no reference to the Illyrians being into genetic engineering.

But they were established as such in DC Fontana's novel that introduced them in the first place and they were adapted to ENT (at least in the context of using their name).

So, it was "nope, there was no genetic engineering in the Enterprise episode." Gotcha. The bit about the Illyrians being a thing in secondary media prior to the Enterprise episode was clear. But you said "it" was a reference to "The Cage." What's "it"? If the Illyrians were first established an that book, then there couldn't be a reference to Illyrians in "The Cage."

The use of Illyrians as a name for the aliens in "Damaged." They wouldn't have been named such unless Una had been identified as a member of an alien species named that in DCF's book.

Sorry that was a pronoun-iffy set of paragraphs.

Eh, it happens.

It’s really interesting that they chose to use that really obscure novel plot point for Number One.

Makes me really wonder if the first episode also was inspired Diane Carry’s novels. I can’t remember the name but it was about how the Enterprise was damaged after attempting to stop an alien planet from W W3ing itself after discovering that they influenced their culture and Kirk and crew were charged with breaking the prime directive and yada. Things go dramatically differently but the premise is the same.

If they are pulling ideas from old TOS novels I am all for it. Into Darkness ripped off another one of her novels (‘Dreadnaught!’ specifically.) buuuut these episodes are actually good.

Edit: the novel was called ‘Final Frontier’.

Edited by Memers on May 21st 2022 at 4:58:25 AM

What we were talking earlier

Episode 4 trailer. now wasnt 'The Arena' Starfleet's first contact with the Gorn? All these references they have made in Discovery and SNW make them seem so much more monstrous than they should be... like way too monstrous than they should.

I was fine with a raid on a civilian freighter but... a full attack on a Starfleet ship is quite a bit too much to have Arena make sense.

Edited by Memers on May 21st 2022 at 4:39:52 AM

Maybe they'll classify it all. :)

I'm expecting it to be classified.

It wouldn't be the first time Star Trek has gotten around showing species before their historical first contacts by saying the history books have reason to refute this one.

It's probably half continuity oversight and half specifying what counts as official first contact versus rumors passed around trade lines. The TNG pilot episode mentioned Ferengi before meeting them a few episodes later, while the Stargazer had a battle with a Ferengi ship they just didn't know it at the time.

Star Trek Enterprise had a number of similar encounters, the Ferengi and Borg in particular, but it was always framed as isolated events where they couldn't cleanly identify who they were and exchange business cards.

It's also possible that The Arena was more of an official semi-diplomatic first contact with authority figures, rather than some civilians getting attacked/kidnapped, as otherwise, human first contact with Vulcans/aliens would have been Star Trek Enterprise S 02 E 02 Carbon Creek, rather than Star Trek: First Contact. Official "First Contact" would have been much later, but you can probably have singular events.

As a bit of an aside, I've been rather enjoying the introduction to Strange New Worlds. Reminds me a lot of Voyager's intro.