"Deconstructing" Star Trek Discovery

There’s been a lot of talk about Star Trek Discovery, but I haven’t seen anybody yet really analyze the story.  Ergo, here is my “deconstruction” of the first two episodes.

First let me say that in 1990s, when The Next Generation was on the air, it was common for fans to go onto the message board and work through many fine details and nuances of the episodes.  As I said, I do not see that level of analysis as often today, which is why I am providing this example.

Many of my comments could come across as negative, or as complaints, but that it not what they are. They are observations concerning the many decisions made by the writers and producers. They are what they are, because Discovery is a completed work of art, which is unfolding week-by-week.  So I am looking at what the writers and producers did, how they did it, and why they did it.

There ARE spoilers below, for episodes 1 and 2.

About the Plot

T’Kuvma is a cult leader, having gathered together outcasts and those marginalized by Klingon society. He found his father’s crashed ship, repaired it, and has fixated on the Federation as the enemy of the Klingon people.

“They are coming. They will coil around us.  And take all that we are,” he says.

So, he lures the USS Shenzhou, NCC 1227, to the fringe of Federation space and provokes a conflict.  It is Stardate 1207.3, or May 11, 2256 on Earth.

Specifically, T’Kuvma ignites a huge beacon, both in visible light and subspace signals, that attracts representatives of the 24 “houses” of Klingon society.  He cites legendary Klingon leader Kahless, and essentially says, “Make Klingon great again.”  

Battle results between Klingon and Starfleet ships.  T’Kuvma is killed, and it is asserted in the episodes that killing him makes him a martyr that the Klingon people will rally around, setting the stage for the war storyline in the remainder of the series.

The main character of Discovery is Michael Burnham. This black female first officer of the Shenzhou was raised by Spock’s father after her parents were killed in a Klingon raid.  This is a little confusing because the episodes also establish that virtually nobody has heard from the Klingons in a century.  Maybe it will be clarified in future episodes.

Michael displays some Vulcan traits if employing logic and analysis, but emotions also influence her.  She is the one who actually kills T’Kuvma after he kills her captain, Philippa Georgiou.  Therefore, it is Michael who triggers the entire war, because she allows her emotions to overrule her logic, exacting revenge for her captain’s death.  Saving her captain and crew is more important to her than Starfleet’s principals, which appears to be a remarkably emotional reaction, for one trained by Vulcans.  

Apparently, they have never heard of setting phasers on stun.

Michael gets in big trouble, is court martialed, and sentenced to life in prison.


The Klingons

One of the biggest continuity issues is that Klingons in this era did not have head bumps. 

In Star Trek Enterprise, the Klingon people were infected with a deadly virus, and the cure removed their head bumps.  They only got them back after The Original Series.  This was done in Enterprise to rationalize why Klingons in The Original Series had no head bumps, but before and after, they did.

The Klingons in Discovery would not be as threatening and exotic, if they conformed to established continuity.  This is a question of design esthetics over rigid continuity, but it is one of the things long-term fans will grumble about.  

The assertions about “coming in peace” or firing on first contact were not persuasive to me.  If you fire on a Klingon, the Klingon will fire back.  I do not see that as leading to respect from the Klingons. Klingons respect honorable behavior, like the Enterprise-C defending innocent Klingon civilians from the Romulan raid.  Firing first and asking questions later would not fit Klingon ideas of honor, I believe.

A threat display MIGHT have impressed the Klingons. However, in a threat display, you would fire your weapons in different directions, not at the people you want to impress.  What Michael was advocating, firing first, would just make them mad and ready to defend their own honor against an unreasonable attack.  

Honor IS important to the current generation of Klingons. At one point, T’Kuvma talks about honor, but the other Klingons say he has not earned it. It is interesting that we see flashback scenes that show he had been bullied as a child, which appears to have been part of his stimulus to restore honor, as he saw it, to the entire Klingon people. 

The Klingon cloaking device is also troubling. It is a one-off technology developed by T’Kuvma, so I HOPE we will NOT see Klingon cloaking technology later in the in this series.  It is well established that the Klingons eventually obtain cloaking technology from the Romulans, a dozen years in the future after Discovery.


The Shenzhou

The Shenzhou, of course, is named after the current real-life Chinese manned spacecraft.  

The bridge of the Shenzhou is huge – much larger than a Galaxy Class bridge decades later.  I don’t mind the modern set design not being anything like the Pike/Kirk Enterprise, but to me the various workstations seem spread out too for effective teamwork and collaboration.

By the way, the bridge is on the bottom of the saucer, with real windows, or at least transparent view screens.  

The assertion that the Shenzhou has no shuttle maneuverable enough to navigate the accretion ring is a plot device. Going fast and dodging stuff is hard, but provides dramatic footage.  Going slow makes it not so hard to dodge stuff, but is more boring, even though a shuttle would give more protection from radiation, because it has shields.  

In addition, why didn’t Philippa move Shenzhou closer when they knew Michael was in critical condition?  Yes, there was some debris, but they have shields, and in one wide-angle scene, they were clearly well away from the debris, where they were parked.  It is a standard law of radio that if you cut the distance in half, you quadruple the signal strength between two locations.  They didn’t do this, again, to heighten the suspense.

It will be interesting to radio folks, like me, that a Shenzhou graphic shown while Michael is missing near the Klingon Ship says the transmitters are using 100 watts with an antenna length of 8 meters, but radiated power is a whopping 12,599 watts. In the radio business, we call that a lot of “gain.” 

Nevertheless, why are they using faster-than-light Subspace Radio (subspace frequency 1142) to talk to a ship that is within viewing range, at the most a light second or so away?  Plain old VHF or HF radio would have solved many of their problems. 


The Other Ships

Several Federation starship names had cool associations.  The T'Plana-Hath is named after a Vulcan philosopher mentioned in Spock’s testing at the beginning of The Voyage Home.  The Yeager is named for legendary test pilot Chuck Yeager.  The Ride is presumably for the astronaut Sally Ride.  Many people seem to think that the Edison was named for the inventor, but I think it was for the long-lost Balthazar Edison, a character in the third JJ Trek movie.  The Europa, NCC 1648, is a reference to either Europe, or the moon that may harbor life (and by Michael’s time, they will know whether Europa has life).

By the way, all the ships zapping at once does not make sense.  Surely they came from different distances.  Why would some fly extra fast and some unusually slow so they all arrived POP at the same time. It is a dramatic visual, evoking the new Battlestar Galactica fleet arrivals or departures, but not very likely in the Star Trek universe, where even decades in the future the Enterprise is often the “only ship in the quadrant.”


The Uniforms

I also don’t mind that the uniforms don’t look like Pike/Kirk Enterprise uniforms, again because of modern design expectations.  The uniform side panels appear to reflect position - gold for command, silver for science, and I think maybe bronze for positions like navigation and helm.  If you look closely, they are made of a mesh of very tiny Starfleet insignia.  The Starfleet insignia on the chest also has different colors to reflect divisions, and that is where the rank insignia pips are in this incarnation of Trek.  The space suit helmet liner also had Starfleet insignia fabric. Note that the admiral’s insignia is different and does not have pips.

Yes, I know that in this era, every starship has a different insignia, and what I call the Starfleet insignia is really only assigned to the Enterprise.  But I do like the visual continuity that its consistent use provides.  


Professionalism in Starfleet

The entire first officer nerve pinching the captain, mutinying, and then the captain pulling a phaser on the first officer doesn’t really work very well.  It is part of the set-up of Michael is a disgraced convict, about to be pulled into risky events, but it isn’t how Starfleet officers behave in MY Star Trek universe.  

Nobody in Starfleet would imagine themselves getting away with this.  Spock didn’t even imagine himself getting away with hijacking the Enterprise to Talos IV, although his plan allowed him to not get caught for longer.


The Galactic Vicinity

We’re told that the Andorian colony at Gamma Hydra is six light years away. Gamma Hydra is where the Enterprise was going in the Kobyashoi Maru exercise. This means that the double star setting of these two episodes is near the location of the future Klingon neutral zone. Gamma Hydra is also mentioned in passing in other past Trek episodes.

Really, the whole basis for the conflict in Discovery is a bit strained. 

“This is Federation space.  Retreat is not an option.”  Who says its Federation space?  

It’s an uninhabited binary system with stars still forming.  There is no indigenous species. The implication is that the Federation just out-and-out annexed it by fiat. 

I was also troubled by the Sarek-Michael telepathic conversation while they were 1,000 light years apart. Sarek says that part of his Katra is in her, which of the Vulcan consciousness.  Basically, Michael is apparently like one of Voldemort’s horcruxes?  

Oh, and 1,000 light years away, Sarek already knew that there was a “new star in the sky” after only a few minutes?  That is not a reference to invisible subspace signals, but rather to light, which would take, oh, 1,000 years to get to him.


Formula Plot Elements

There were several elements of this story that draw on common screen writing formulae that you see all over the place, if you know what to look for.  

Formula scenes include the opening scenes that set the tone of the story, the catalyst that changes everything, the main character making a choice that defines the “journey,” The Dark Night of the Soul in which the main character struggles with hopelessness (the brig scene), and others.

I can see many of these elements in episodes 1 and 2.  Of course, the story continues for 11 more episodes, so they may be stretched out, or we may see the formula being repeated time after time in the subsections of the story.

However...formula plot elements are not automatically bad.  Because they contain elements of familiarity, the audience relates to them easily, making it easy to engage with the story.  (For more information on a very widely-used formula, see this link.)    


Final Thoughts

There are plenty of additional things from these two episodes that could be mentioned.  But I think I have given an example of productions such as Discovery working on many levels, and having many factors that affect them.

Discovery plays fast and loose with certain points of Star Trek continuity.  The richly developed world defined by this continuity is what appeals to many long-term fans. Bit I think my many examples show that in every case where Discovery deviates, it is for a practical “works better for the audience” reason, and as I have shows here, the audience they are catering to is the newer fans they hope to attract, not the entrenched long-term fans.