27 Things you may have missed in Star Trek Discovery

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I believe that I have seen every Star Trek episode and movie so far, so of course I am interested in Star Trek Discovery.  I enjoy looking at story lines and visual elements, but I also enjoy watching for the little details that other reviewers often don't mention.

There are no significant spoilers about the story line, but here are some details I notice in the first two Discovery episodes of season two, Brother and New Eden.

1.  Spock told Pike about Michael ("He said you were smart") but not Kirk about Sybok.  Is there a chance that Kirk DID know about Michael, but it never come up on screen? 

2.  Change of command cannot be transferred without DNA authentication witnessed by the entire bridge crew since the war.  Tell that to Matt Decker and that other guy who appropriated Enterprise ten years later.  

3.  Pike served on the USS Antares, poor ship (it's the one that Charlie X blew up). 

4.  The Enterprise "new uniforms" are exactly the same design and cut, except with different colored fabric.  The design makes the Discovery uniforms look like jumpsuits, but the same design makes the Enterprise new uniforms look a separate top and trousers.  The trousers that go with Pike's gold shirt uniform have zippered pockets, by the way, and I believe that e have never seen pockets in a Starfleet uniform before. 

5.  In episode one, Tilly talks about living with ghosts, which actually happens to her in later episodes. Foreshadowing.  

6.  Michael's pillow is on her bed vertically, now horizontally, like most people have their pillows. Maybe it's pre-positioned for sitting up in bed.

7. Their phaser pistols DO have the little phaser 1 on top. They look a lot more like TOS phasers than the ones Pike had on Talos IV.  Plus, why did they take the bigger pistols to New Eden when they wanted masquerade as locals? With no threat obvious, the littler ones would be more inconspicuous. 

8. During the Klingon war, which the Federation almost lost, Enterprise was too far away to come back?  That means months at high warp (or what was high warp back then) because the war lasted at least ten months.  Were all of the Constitution Class ships that far out? 

11. The ships we see outside the window in Brother tractoring Enterprise look a lot like Miranda Class, with old-style nacelles. 

12. When Spock gave up the Kolinahr because he sensed Vyger from a distance, maybe his consuming curiosity came from the fact that he'd been through it all before with the still-mysterious Red Angel. "Wait - another one?"

13. In episode 1, Pike says he needs a new Ready Room.  By episode 2 he has one, and it is apparently NOT right off the bridge, as the old one was.  The new one has a surprising number of decorative items for a temporary captain. 

14 In New Eden, when Michael arrives on the bridge, Tilly says she has been using Michael's station to run calibration modeling programs, but the things she has open on the desktop are Command Training Program manuals, checklists, a "to do" list, and private messages. 

15. Identifying the location of the New Eden red signal needed better technobabble. Discovery uses a momentary warp jump to get closer to a signal in order to pinpoint its location, but being in maximum warp for five seconds is inconsequential compared to the 51,450 light years away the signal actually was. This compares to the roughly 70,000 light years Voyager was swept by the Caretaker, past the Beta Quadrant into the Delta Quadrant. Did Captain Janeway ever consider going to the known human colony on New Eden?   

16. Nice that Discovery mentions the ban on human genetic engineering that was featured in Star Trek Enterprise episodes and that resulted from the Eugenics Wars. 

17. "Be bold, be brave, be courageous" sounds like an embryonic catchphrase. 

18. The Discovery is under red or yellow alert, little motion graphics appear at the upper left and right of the bridge view screen to remind everybody. Presumably Black and Blue alerts, also.

19. Saru can determine how long the radio message has been transmitted based on "audiophonic degradation"?  Technobabble failure. 

20. Lots of people have comments on the reference to reframing Arthur C. Clark's third law. Suggesting that "any sufficiently advanced extraterrestrial intelligence is indistinguishable from God" pretty well lays out that this a YAGLA story arc (the term used by fans for "Yet Another God-like Alien"). 

21. Tilly referred to her metreon-charged asteroid and metreon-charged dark matter.  Metreons have mentioned several time in Star Trek's past, including as particles that interact with dark matter.  Nice technobabble continuity. 

22. In Brother, Michael has several holographic candles burning in her room, whereas in the New Eden church, real candles are burning during the day, plus flaming torches outside at night, with none of the locals around. Apparently the locals have plenty of candle-making and oil refining capability.  In addition, the basement lights are bright and have wires running to them.  They can keep them lit, but not the lights upstairs? Plus the power to run the transmitter for years and years?  Inconsistent portrayal. 

23. It looks like each of the seven red signals is leading Discovery to a rescue mission, but each of them seems to be a manipulated event - by May or somebody else?  Seven signals equals half of the season.  Will the second half of the season be a different story arc, like last season? 

24. I don't get how the entire 365 degree ring is heading toward the planet, but pulling away just some of the debris in one place pulls all the debris everywhere away.  By the way, the "donut in a starship" wasn't all that great a special effect.  A donut is a 360 degree skid.  Sorry, producers - the visual effect didn't pay off. 

25. Transporters can't lock on to the Metreon asteroid rock (Brother) but tractor beams can (New Eden)? Plot device. 

26. There did not appear to be a bell in the church belfry.  They should have one, plus lights there.

27.  The episode preview at the end of New Eden shows the Discovery commissioning plaque.  She is Crossfield Class, presumably a reference to famous pilot Scott Crossfield, the first pilot to fly at twice the speed of sound.

So, yes, these are the kinds of things I look at when each new Star Trek episode, along with the more obvious things like story line, script, visual presentation, and acting.