Online Series: Star Trek: Discovery - III - Spock's Beard

[JetsFan815]

This episode would have been 100x more effective had they bothered to invest the audience in Airiam prior to this episode and if any amount of effort had been put into developing her as a character anytime before her death episode. All those hours we have spent on Michael Burnam centric storylines... a few of them would have been better suited developing the supporting cast so that episodes like this can land with the impact they should.

I literally groaned out loud when Airiam told Michael that "everything is because of her"... ugh ofcourse it is.

I thought the Airiam character had very compelling storyline in her had the show ever bothered to tell it.

 

[Guardian17]

In one episode they managed to somehow make me care for Airiam...

Pretty intense episode. I enjoyed it, seem Jonathan Frakes knows how to direct Star Trek.

I'd be happier if Burnham flew out the airlock rather than Airiam.

Damn you Federation Skynet!

 

[Blender]

This episode is a textbook example of terrible character writing for the exact reasons that have been pointed out in this thread, they didn't spend any time investing in Ariam's development prior to this episode, therefore no one in the audience was invested in her, and all the emotions they were trying to draw on were non-existent. They literally just had an entire episode dedicated to the death of what was essentially a named redshirt.

Burnham being told that this universe destroying AI is doing it all because of her caused me to groan for sure, and having it in the same episode where Spock was right on the nose about how self-absorbed and self-righteous Burnham is didn't really help matters. Now it just makes it look like Spock was completely wrong about Burnham, when in reality he nailed one of her biggest character flaws.

 

[Mimsy]

I didn't realize Airiam was portrayed by a different actress in season one, and that the former is still on the show in a minor role. It was an easy change to make without notice, but I wonder why this was done (prosthetic or acting related, maybe?). New Airiam says she was shown the ropes on set by old Airiam.

 

[Osprey]

I didn't realize Airiam was portrayed by a different actress in season one, and that the former is still on the show in a minor role. It was an easy change to make without notice, but I wonder why this was done (prosthetic or acting related, maybe?). New Airiam says she was shown the ropes on set by old Airiam.

I didn't realize that, either. Since I looked it up, still have the tabs open and others might find it interesting, here are some photos...

Sara Mitich as herself, as Airiam in Season 1 and as Lt. Nilsson in Season 2:

Hannah Cheesman as herself and as Airiam in Season 2:

Side by side Airiams:

 

[Mimsy]

I didn't realize that, either. Since I looked it up, still have the tabs open and others might find it interesting, here are some photos...


Side by side Airiams:

Thanks for uploading the pics for comparison. The contrast in prosthetic is most noticeable in the last two. I hadn't seen the difference until now. Cheesman didn't like wearing hers, not unlike every other Trek actor in heavy makeup.

I liked Airiam in the limited screen time she was given over the last couple of episodes. There was an opportunity for a really cool character. I'd prefer if the writers planned to bring her back from the dead in an upcoming episode instead of already resurrecting the doctor in the mycelial network (I'd think you can only go to the well so many times). Unless Airiam is the red angel -- and I suspect it's someone else -- then they pissed away what could have been an interesting character.

 

[The Nemesis]

I thought something looked off about Airiam this season, but I figured it was maybe just a prosthetics tweak. What has annoyed me a bit about her makeup is that the flesh part of her face (basically everything below her eyes) is a silicone piece. Having watched a ton of "Face-Off" (on which Discovery's head makeup designer and creature/alien concept designer were judges), they talk a lot about how they like silicone pieces over the foam latex that gets used more often for certain facial appliances because it offers translucence. but I keep finding that distracting because it doesn't look like a layer of skin (even synthetic skin). It looks like a mask The translucence makes clear that there's no substance to the layers of "flesh" the silicone represents.

And if it turns out that the current actress hates the prosthetics, I'm gonna bet that means she doesn't come back. Actors will put up with that stuff to be a main character, but I doubt they'll want to come in and endure 5+ hours in the makeup chair so they can stand in the background and maybe say a couple of lines every other week. The only Trek actor I can think of who might've been the exception was Andrew Robinson, who actually had claustrophobia (hence the reason Garak had the trait himself), enduring the Garak makeup to show up as a recurring cast member. I remember the story that for that one episode that Nana Visitor had to play Kira playing a Cardassian, she basically had panic attacks and was almost in tears by the end of the shooting day because she couldn't handle being "trapped" in the makeup. And after that she basically said she'd never again do something that required anything more than her simple little Bajoran nose applique.

As to the last episode (Which I finally got around to watching):
-I agree that it felt like too little, too late to try and establish something approaching a connection and sympathy for Airiam. All they had to do was bring up some of that stuff in the B or C plot of a couple of earlier episodes and it would've felt better. Shows that make you feel awful for a killed character do so by making you get used to teh character with no expectations of where they're going. Discovery failed at that because they didn't decide you needed to care about Airiam until it was clear that something bad was going to happen. The things they showed us today were really interesting and made me want to learn more about her (as I already had on the basis of her character design). So her death didn't make me sad. It made me disappointed. That's a very different emotion and I would argue it's a bad one when you're talking about intended audience reactions to character death because it equates the character more to being a walking plot device than a hypothetically living/breathing person.

-I hadn't realized that the new security officer that Pike brought with him is Barzan. From that TNG episode with the wormhole that everyone was bidding on the access rights to until it turned out that its other end zipped around randomly. That's a nice little callback/tie-in.

-The chess scene was laughable because we're supposed to sympathize with poor Burnham being needled by Spock when all she's trying to do is help. Then after everything he says falls on deaf ears because she's so convinced she's right, elements of his side of the discussion become relevant in the minefield and it turns out that she takes inspiration from Spock's point of view, instead of getting a contrite Michael realizing that she was wrong to dismiss him out of hand, nothing happens. Literally nothing. It never gets brought up again. She just gets to keep being smug and "right"

-Jesus ****ing Christ, they know that using the spore drive damages the mycillial network. they know it's killing a sentient civilization. And yet they don't seem all that morally conflicted about needing to fix and use it.

-The lighting on the show drives me nuts. Everything is so dark and then we get the scenes with the EV suits and the spotlights where they're so goddamn bright and pointing at the camera and it's impossible to see much of anything besides the vague, light-washed shape of the suit.

-Why would a hologram have a heat signature to begin with" It's just (by established Trek logic) projected light and force fields. Saru's explanation of things makes no sense. They could've come up with a jillion different explanations for the footage manipulations that didn't involve heat signatures. Hell, they could've used holograms and just not brought up the heat signatures/UV bull****.

-Kill Tilly, keep Airiam. The cringey conversation where Tilly tries to reach her completely lost me the moment Tilly said "you adore me" Because now we're having characters shill themselves in dialogue

-Why didn't Burnham's phaser have a proper stun setting capable of disabling/incapacitating Airiam? The fact that they had to do the Airlock sacrifice play was dumb. The fact that basically everyone except Burnham tells her to do it is even stupider. Because once again it lets Burnham bear the burden of this alone just like Spock said she did. Except it's not her doing it to herself. It's the writers doing it to her.

-"It's all because of you." UUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

-I'll at least grant that the ending sequence with Airiam's system shutting down and the music-less credits was well done. Even if my reaction was muted because of the stuff I noted above.

 

[Mimsy]

And if it turns out that the current actress hates the prosthetics, I'm gonna bet that means she doesn't come back. Actors will put up with that stuff to be a main character, but I doubt they'll want to come in and endure 5+ hours in the makeup chair so they can stand in the background and maybe say a couple of lines every other week.

I reread the article that informed my first reply. I misrepresented what Cheesman said about "hating" her prosthetic. My bad. She would prefer to not wear it, but would welcome a return if the opportunity presents itself.

Here's the quote:

“I hope I come back. But I’m equally in the dark with the rest of the fans," Cheesman says. "My dream, though, is this — fans, feel free to support this! — they do use her memories and bring her back. But she’s somehow more humanoid and I don't have to wear the prosthetics. So, I would love to come back, but even if it’s like Airiam goes to her room and takes off her mask. So, her memories are there, and if we are what we've experienced, then she's alive."

Full article:

https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/star-trek-discovery-hannah-cheesman-airiam-interview

 

[The Nemesis]

I reread the article that informed my first reply. I misrepresented what Cheesman said about "hating" her prosthetic. My bad. She would prefer to not wear it, but would welcome a return if the opportunity presents itself.

Here's the quote:

“I hope I come back. But I’m equally in the dark with the rest of the fans," Cheesman says. "My dream, though, is this — fans, feel free to support this! — they do use her memories and bring her back. But she’s somehow more humanoid and I don't have to wear the prosthetics. So, I would love to come back, but even if it’s like Airiam goes to her room and takes off her mask. So, her memories are there, and if we are what we've experienced, then she's alive."

Full article:

https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/star-trek-discovery-hannah-cheesman-airiam-interview

I don't think her idea is feasible since my understanding was that she's not wearing a mask, she's actually a synthetic/robotic body with a human mind in it (originally I figured maybe it was a Ghost in the Shell setup like the Major where she was a brain in a box in an artificial body, but the fact that she had to do the memory storage thing implies that her "brain" is more or less a hard drive with her personality data imprinted onto it.)

Also as much as I wanted to see more from the character, I don't think they can bring her back that easily. Not from an in-universe technical standpoint, because they clearly left that option open with the whole "her memories are in the computer" aspect of things, but from a narrative standpoint.

Bringing a character back from the dead is tricky because it (metaphorically) is a spell cast from the show's hit points. Or if you prefer, every time you do it, the attempt eats a little bit of the show's soul. You can handle it a couple of times with no noticeable effects, but if you go back to that well too much, you damage the fabric of the writing and the credibility of any drama you have. Especially when the death it undoes is treated as a big dramatic event milked for all the emotion they can muster. Magically-focused shows with heavy fantasy can get away with it a little more, but even then you end up with a setup like Supernatural where the potential deaths of the main characters has zero impact because they've died so many times before that it's essentially become a running joke. And on a mildly "harder" (using the term very loosely) sci-fi show like Star Trek you can't just go out and violate the laws of nature willy-nilly without it getting old fast.

I'm even trying to think, how many times did they literally bring a character back from the dead without time travel shenanigans, god-being interference, or crazy alien biology workarounds? The only one I can even think of is that Voyager episode where Neelix has a crisis of faith and total meltdown after he was dead for most of a day and revived by Borg nano-magic. And that was treated as a radical and fantastic case that only worked because of a very specific confluence of events (and stands as maybe the one really good Neelix episode)

Discovery has already gone the fantastic back-from-the-dead plot with Dr Culber (yay! It only took me a season and a half to remember his name! ) and are already doing the the whole existentialist "am I still me? Does remembering everything make me the same or was some inexorable piece of my soul lost forever and I'm just a clone with the original's memories stuffed into a brand new body?" crisis through him. That would be the meaty part of bringing Airiam back, but they can't very well go to the same story well twice like that. Even a show that's living in a Trek fantasy world where they have a magic mushroom drive that's killing a bunch of alternate-dimension aliens but nobody seems to care when it's inconvenient to do so can't possibly support retreading that same plot line twice in the same season. Or even in consecutive seasons. And if they wait 2+ more seasons to go there (assuming the show continues that long), can they even pick up the plot threads from a C-tier background character that nobody's going to remember all that much after a couple years away because their only character development came in the very episode that they died?

 

[Mimsy]

I don't think her idea is feasible since my understanding was that she's not wearing a mask, she's actually a synthetic/robotic body with a human mind in it (originally I figured maybe it was a Ghost in the Shell setup like the Major where she was a brain in a box in an artificial body, but the fact that she had to do the memory storage thing implies that her "brain" is more or less a hard drive with her personality data imprinted onto it.)

Also as much as I wanted to see more from the character, I don't think they can bring her back that easily. Not from an in-universe technical standpoint, because they clearly left that option open with the whole "her memories are in the computer" aspect of things, but from a narrative standpoint.

Bringing a character back from the dead is tricky because it (metaphorically) is a spell cast from the show's hit points. Or if you prefer, every time you do it, the attempt eats a little bit of the show's soul. You can handle it a couple of times with no noticeable effects, but if you go back to that well too much, you damage the fabric of the writing and the credibility of any drama you have. Especially when the death it undoes is treated as a big dramatic event milked for all the emotion they can muster. Magically-focused shows with heavy fantasy can get away with it a little more, but even then you end up with a setup like Supernatural where the potential deaths of the main characters has zero impact because they've died so many times before that it's essentially become a running joke. And on a mildly "harder" (using the term very loosely) sci-fi show like Star Trek you can't just go out and violate the laws of nature willy-nilly without it getting old fast.

I'm even trying to think, how many times did they literally bring a character back from the dead without time travel shenanigans, god-being interference, or crazy alien biology workarounds? The only one I can even think of is that Voyager episode where Neelix has a crisis of faith and total meltdown after he was dead for most of a day and revived by Borg nano-magic. And that was treated as a radical and fantastic case that only worked because of a very specific confluence of events (and stands as maybe the one really good Neelix episode)

Discovery has already gone the fantastic back-from-the-dead plot with Dr Culber (yay! It only took me a season and a half to remember his name! ) and are already doing the the whole existentialist "am I still me? Does remembering everything make me the same or was some inexorable piece of my soul lost forever and I'm just a clone with the original's memories stuffed into a brand new body?" crisis through him. That would be the meaty part of bringing Airiam back, but they can't very well go to the same story well twice like that. Even a show that's living in a Trek fantasy world where they have a magic mushroom drive that's killing a bunch of alternate-dimension aliens but nobody seems to care when it's inconvenient to do so can't possibly support retreading that same plot line twice in the same season. Or even in consecutive seasons. And if they wait 2+ more seasons to go there (assuming the show continues that long), can they even pick up the plot threads from a C-tier background character that nobody's going to remember all that much after a couple years away because their only character development came in the very episode that they died?

Yes, her brain operates like a hard drive. She also has emotions, so therefore a combination of human and cybernetics. Initially, I thought she was alien. I never suspected synthetic, since it would have predated and lessened Data's uniqueness in Starfleet. From interviews, it seems the show didn't settle on exactly what Airiam was until the most recent episode.

I agree that the show shouldn't introduce Airiam 2.0 after having already brought back the doctor. The card has been played. There are in-universe explanations involving her downloaded memories that might allow for a "rebirth", but doing so diminishes whatever gravitas the show tried to establish with her death. I also agree that Airiam's death could have been much more impactful had the audience learned anything about her in previous episodes. All her character nuggets were revealed in this one episode.

I loved her design and thought there was a lot of potential, so I'm disappointed the show killed off the character I was most intrigued about. She was almost entirely background, but I was a sucker for the aesthetic, including little things like the quirky robotic noises made by her movements (i.e., I'm not hard to please).

If the sentient future A.I. wants to harvest Airiam's hard drive brain and/or body and make her the red angel, I'm okay with it. I'm confident this isn't happening, but I also don't like some of the other more obvious candidates. There are only so many, assuming it's someone we know.

I'm with you on the danger of resurrecting characters, and especially doing so twice in the same season.

 

[Osprey]

I'm glad that she's dead. There, I said it. She should've never been introduced in the first place. There was never any explanation of what she was, where she came from or how she fit into the timeline. This is supposed to be 10 years before TOS, which had no (semi)artificial officers, and 100 years before TNG, which made a big deal out of Data being the first artificial officer.

These writers are trying to have a world that's more technologically advanced than we've ever seen in Trek before (with Airiam, 3D holographic projection, instantaneous spore drive travel and so on) while also setting it before just about every Trek series so that they can establish through fan service what we have seen in Trek before. It's so fundamentally contradictory and makes no sense. I haven't really seen Enterprise, but I get the impression that its writers at least tried to be faithful to the expected technological progress of the era that they were working in (ex. by not having tractor beams or universal translators, initially) and certainly didn't introduce many things that seemed better than what Voyager would have 200 years later. It may've been a bad series, but I admire that restraint and respect, two things that I get the impression that the writers of Discovery have little to none of.

 

[The Nemesis]

I'm glad that she's dead. There, I said it. She should've never been introduced in the first place. There was never any explanation of what she was, where she came from or how she fit into the timeline. This is supposed to be 10 years before TOS, which had no (semi)artificial officers, and 100 years before TNG, which made a big deal out of Data being the first artificial officer.

These writers are trying to have a world that's more technologically advanced than we've ever seen in Trek before (with Airiam, 3D holographic projection, instantaneous spore drive travel and so on) while also setting it before just about every Trek series so that they can establish through fan service what we have seen in Trek before. It's so fundamentally contradictory and makes no sense. I haven't really seen Enterprise, but I get the impression that its writers at least tried to be faithful to the expected technological progress of the era that they were working in (ex. by not having tractor beams or universal translators, initially) and certainly didn't introduce many things that seemed better than what Voyager would have 200 years later. It may've been a bad series, but I admire that restraint and respect, two things that I get the impression that the writers of Discovery have little to none of.

She's not so much an artificial life form as she's wearing what amounts to a whole-body prosthesis. I can accept the fact that this never showed up on TOS because of budget/technological production limitations and didn't on TNG because it would've detracted from Data in spite of him being wholly artificial. But then we also have The Doctor on Voyager, so they've never been afraid of going in that direction. I could've seen that if Airiam had've been kept around a little more that perhaps she turned out to be a sort of proto-Data. A guinea pig for cybernetics and artificial life components that served as a look at a transitional step between the sort of robot prosthesis/transhumanist idea of her or Detmer's weird robot eye and making an entire living being from the ground up like Data. Also there's the side effect that the greater marvel about Data isn't his components, but his AI brain. That's supposed to be what made Data special compared to the fact that other AI-type applications like computer systems don't have the level of complexity or sentience that Data did. There are also hints about Airiam's design that she is a very crude representation of the form in that she has to offload her memories on an ongoing (Weekly?) basis for lack of storage space and the more robotic nature that she affects that show this is supposed to be low-level, rickety tech compared to something as sophisticated as Data. In that regard I was OK with her as a character had they done more to actually pay off the interesting visual and constant teases that there was more to her than just being weirdness eye candy.

For the stuff like the Spore Drive and 3d holoprojector communication? I'm with you on that. Hell, DS9 did a brief runner about Starfleet trying holoviewers as a 3D representative communication device and they balked at it. That does seem like it was a lazy attempt to make something cooler than a viewscreen just because modern entertainment tech has evolved past having to subsist on easy greenscreen matting. And the Spore Drive has been a silly contrivance since day 1. I've been vocal about that as well.

Regarding Enterprise, it was weird in that it tried to be lower tech, but, like Discovery, was bound by the fact that TOS' zeerust-y 60s future look was far too simplistic and plain to try and downgrade without looking hokey and B-Movie like. And while they tried to downgrade the tech with no phasers, no photon torpedoes, no transporter, no tractor beam, they also ended up largely abandoning most of this within the first couple of seasons by getting proper phasers, proper transporters, and having their non-tractor-beam grappling hook be every bit as functional as a tractor beam ever was. It's awkward and annoying, but the unfortunate reality of a series that's existed for 50 years is that if you are bound by the aesthetic timeline that the series has in the real world, it's going to be hard to ever look back. I'm less concerned by that sort of technological framework as I am the storytelling framework of having to shoehorn things in to satisfy future canon or rewrite or ignore canon to sell their point or whatever.

If the sentient future A.I. wants to harvest Airiam's hard drive brain and/or body and make her the red angel, I'm okay with it. I'm confident this isn't happening, but I also don't like some of the other more obvious candidates. There are only so many, assuming it's someone we know.

We all know it's going to be a time-kinapped Burnham, because the only way they can hit the Space Jesus metaphor any harder with her is to make her a literal ****ing angel

 

[Osprey]

She's not so much an artificial life form as she's wearing what amounts to a whole-body prosthesis.

If that's all that it was and she was just a bionic woman, I could buy that, too. The thing is, though, that her memories seemed to be on a hard drive, rather than in a organic brain. Also, she was artificial enough that some kind of virus or remote control was able to almost completely take her over. Those two things are what make me view her as more artificial than organic.

 

[Mimsy]

Airiam is described in show as "cybernetically augmented". This may seem like a precursor to Data, but not so much so that her existence negates his uniqueness. She is not AI. She is/was human and experiences emotions. An augmented human coexisting alongside warp and transporter technology is not out of place in Starfleet or the timeline in general, nor does it lessen Data's legacy.

Airiam's distinguishing feature is her hard drive brain (and I'm not sure how much of her "brain" is comprised of tech vs grey matter). This feature alone doesn't make her an aberration. You'll get no argument from me when questioning Dicovery's use of the mycelial network, but I don't see a case for arguing against Airiam's technological plausibility, when we're required only to suspend disbelief about futuristic enhancements to currently existing technologies. She is effectively made up of prosthetics and a hard drive, grafted onto a human body. There is fair criticism that the show thrust Airiam upon us in her third and final act without fleshing out the first two, but that's another discussion.

I don't think Burnham is the red angel. That's too obvious and is going too far into what is already an "all things Michael" universe. I avoid reading even fan theories for shows I watch, but I rabbit-holed myself into two red angel possibilities that make sense, even though it was just spit-balling (I won't rehash here due to potential spoilers).

 

[The Nemesis]

If that's all that it was and she was just a bionic woman, I could buy that, too. The thing is, though, that her memories seemed to be on a hard drive, rather than in a organic brain. Also, she was artificial enough that some kind of virus or remote control was able to almost completely take her over. Those two things are what make me view her as more artificial than organic.

She's still a human mind crammed into an artificial brain. It's not the same as creating a sentient AI whole-cloth out of absolutely nothing the way Data is. It's less Ghost in the Shell and more... that movie with Johnny Depp where he uploads himself into a computer network thing and ends up making a robot body. I don't remember what it was called. Or it's more what Sargon and his people were shooting for in that TOS episode where they had the Enterprise crew help them build robot bodies that could contain their living consciousnesses.

 

[Osprey]

Airiam is described in show as "cybernetically augmented". This may seem like a precursor to Data, but not so much so that her existence negates his uniqueness. She is not AI. She is/was human and experiences emotions. An augmented human coexisting alongside warp and transporter technology is not out of place in Starfleet or the timeline in general, nor does it lessen Data's legacy.

Airiam's distinguishing feature is her hard drive brain (and I'm not sure how much of her "brain" is comprised of tech vs grey matter). This feature alone doesn't make her an aberration. You'll get no argument from me when questioning Dicovery's use of the mycelial network, but I don't see a case for arguing against Airiam's technological plausibility, when we're required only to suspend disbelief about futuristic enhancements to currently existing technologies. She is effectively made up of prosthetics and a hard drive, grafted onto a human body. There is fair criticism that the show thrust Airiam upon us in her third and final act without fleshing out the first two, but that's another discussion.

To me, a hard drive brain is more than just a cybernetic augmentation or futuristic enhancement to currently existing technologies. If her brain has been replaced with a computer and a hard drive, then she's no longer human, and if her brain has been augmented with hard drive memory, then that's some very serious medical advancement that we haven't seen in Star Trek before, even 100 years into the future. I don't think that you can look at Data's positronic brain and consider that an augmented human brain is something that's simpler and would pre-date it. If that were the case, we would be using our own augmented brains instead of external computers. A completely artificial brain is much simpler and less technologically advanced than artificially enhancing a real human brain. The latter takes technological and medical advancement.

I don't think that it can be minimized as simply prosthetics and a hard drive, but, even if it could, it's not something that we've seen before in Star Trek. If the Federation has the medical knowledge to enhance the human body to such a degree, how come no one else has any of these enhancements even in the TNG, DS9 and Voyager eras? Even if Airiam's malfunction generated some fear, 100 years is more than long enough for that to dissipate and for scientists and doctors to try again and fix those issues. Despite that, there's next to no indication of any cybernetic enhancement of humans (by humans; we're not counting Picard becoming Locutus) in the TNG/DS9/Voyager era, so I really don't think that it's appropriate to introduce that 100 years earlier, much like it's not appropriate to introduce some of the other technology on the show.

 

[Osprey]

I don't think Burnham is the red angel. That's too obvious and is going too far into what is already an "all things Michael" universe. I avoid reading even fan theories for shows I watch, but I rabbit-holed myself into two red angel possibilities that make sense, even though it was just spit-balling (I won't rehash here due to potential spoilers).

Is anything really "too obvious" for this show? In Season 1, Lorca's turn, the mirror universe reveal and the Tyler=Voq twist were all seen coming months in advance. About a month ago, I said that Airiam would die very shortly after we learned anything interesting about her. The writing is so predictable and the world of the show is so small that the Red Angel could very well end up being Burnham... not necessarily her, exactly, but maybe a mirror universe version (because she's so pure that even her "evil" twin probably can't help being the universe's savior). I hope not, but my hopes for this show don't have a great success rate so far.

 

[Harbinger]

I wish Burnham and her merkin were the ones to fly out the air lock. She is just awful.

 

[Blender]

Anson Mount has been carrying the season. Hardly surprising.

 

[Mimsy]

To me, a hard drive brain is more than just a cybernetic augmentation or futuristic enhancement to currently existing technologies. If her brain has been replaced with a computer and a hard drive, then she's no longer human, and if her brain has been augmented with hard drive memory, then that's some very serious medical advancement that we haven't seen in Star Trek before, even 100 years into the future. I don't think that you can look at Data's positronic brain and consider that an augmented human brain is something that's simpler and would pre-date it. If that were the case, we would be using our own augmented brains instead of external computers. A completely artificial brain is much simpler and less technologically advanced than artificially enhancing a real human brain. The latter takes technological and medical advancement.

I don't think that it can be minimized as simply prosthetics and a hard drive, but, even if it could, it's not something that we've seen before in Star Trek. If the Federation has the medical knowledge to enhance the human body to such a degree, how come no one else has any of these enhancements even in the TNG, DS9 and Voyager eras? Even if Airiam's malfunction generated some fear, 100 years is more than long enough for that to dissipate and for scientists and doctors to try again and fix those issues. Despite that, there's next to no indication of any cybernetic enhancement of humans (by humans; we're not counting Picard becoming Locutus) in the TNG/DS9/Voyager era, so I really don't think that it's appropriate to introduce that 100 years earlier, much like it's not appropriate to introduce some of the other technology on the show.

I’m not convinced Airiam is out of place in this timeline or that Data’s brain is “much simpler and less technologically advanced” than her cybernetic enhancements, especially when TNG spent seven seasons showing us why Data is unique in the Trek universe. His positronic brain was never fully understood by anyone other than Dr. Soong. Even Data’s attempt to create an android in his (sort of) own image failed. Airiam possesses no technological advantage over Data.

Trek medicine seems sufficiently advanced to make Ariam possible. We’ve seen countless examples of Trek doctors performing surgeries where almost every major medical crisis is averted by episode’s end. Med staff repair broken limbs and open wounds with the swipe of a regenerator. Random crew members suffer head traumas and doctors reconstruct neural pathways in routine procedures.

If we accept warp and transporter technology as commonplace in Starfleet during TOS, then why can’t "hard drive + medical technobabble = Airiam"? When the show can’t explain away broader concepts like Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, it invents Heisenberg compensators and we go along for the ride because “science fiction”. I can easily suspend disbelief for Airiam. Fair enough if you can't. As previously stated, you’ll get no argument from me when questioning the mycelial network's place in Trek canon or scratching your head over the new Klingon makeup.

I’m not sure in-universe explanations for not seeing Ariam-like beings elsewhere satisfy when the practical answer is that no one pitched the character design until now. Airiam’s hard drive feature seems a pragmatic means of helping viewers understand her internal wiring. On its face, hers is a relatively simple technology with fantastical applications. And it's cool.

I’m maxed out on this topic. I’ll read any replies, but I don’t know how else to defend my being okay with Airiam's design.

I won’t see The Red Angel episode until Friday or else Sunday, so I’m avoiding the thread until then. The angel may indeed be Burnham, and it won’t shock me in the least. I’m hoping the show takes a less predictable approach. I read three alternate theories, two of which are more interesting, and the last of which is almost as predictable a choice as Burnham. I just want this plot point to move toward its resolution.

In Trek news, Anson Mount is confirmed to not be returning to the show after this season.

 

[Cloned]

Spoiler

Interesting episode. Some nice moments with all the characters, and it looks like Sara Mitich got her job back on the bridge.

Also looks like the AI hurt or killed Leland.

For those wanting a spoiler, the Red Angel is Burnham’s mother.

 

[The Nemesis]

Spoiler

Interesting episode. Some nice moments with all the characters, and it looks like Sara Mitich got her job back on the bridge.

Also looks like the AI hurt or killed Leland.

For those wanting a spoiler, the Red Angel is Burnham’s mother.

Re: the spoiler:

That is profoundly stupid. So stupid that it almost makes me wish that my joke theory was the true one instead. Jesus Tapdancing Christ, this show....

 

[Cloned]

Re: the spoiler:

That is profoundly stupid. So stupid that it almost makes me wish that my joke theory was the true one instead. Jesus Tapdancing Christ, this show....

Within the context of the episode it actually makes some sense. In general though I wish they fleshed out their writing better so that these things don’t come off as haphazardly as they do.

I’m optimistic that Paradise has been given the reigns for Season 3 though.

 

[The Nemesis]

Within the context of the episode it actually makes some sense. In general though I wish they fleshed out their writing better so that these things don’t come off as haphazardly as they do.

I’m optimistic that Paradise has been given the reigns for Season 3 though.

The thing with me is that it seems the opposite of haphazard, but in an incredibly bad way. They make the universe seem incredibly small because everything has to have a personal relationship to the central characters, especially Burnham. The characters aren't experiencing a story as a part of a grander scope setting. They're existing in a tiny little bubble where every detail is meticulously crafted to be personally relevant to them for some sort of fear that you can't have the characters develop personal stakes in the plot if it doesn't speak directly at them.

Just about the only thing they haven't done so far to color that path in even more is make Airiam's former human life relate to another Discovery character by making someone we've already seen into her spouse. Like, for example, that Barzan security chief lady.

The revelation that Anson Mount is one-and-done makes me even less likely to make it through the rest of this season knowing I don't even have the best part of this season to look forward to next year.

 

[Cloned]

The thing with me is that it seems the opposite of haphazard, but in an incredibly bad way. They make the universe seem incredibly small because everything has to have a personal relationship to the central characters, especially Burnham. The characters aren't experiencing a story as a part of a grander scope setting. They're existing in a tiny little bubble where every detail is meticulously crafted to be personally relevant to them for some sort of fear that you can't have the characters develop personal stakes in the plot if it doesn't speak directly at them.

Just about the only thing they haven't done so far to color that path in even more is make Airiam's former human life relate to another Discovery character by making someone we've already seen into her spouse. Like, for example, that Barzan security chief lady.

The revelation that Anson Mount is one-and-done makes me even less likely to make it through the rest of this season knowing I don't even have the best part of this season to look forward to next year.

You can have small world shows that are successful, but it has to be planned more meticulously and carefully so that it’s believable. They’re skirting the line of suspension of disbelief and it sometimes comes off as poorly planned.

I wouldn’t worry about Mount leaving though. Their casting has been on point so far with Isaacs and Mount and I think they’ll grab a guy with charisma for Season 3 as well.