Sparky Prime wrote: ↑Fri Oct 30, 2020 3:34 am Tidbits from episode 3...
Spoiler
Even though they weren't ever going to use the Spore Drive again... Discovery uses it to return to Earth. Earth is pretty far away from wherever Discovery ended up in the galaxy, but I haven't seen anything establishing where exactly they were in relation to Earth...
Burnham fills the crew in on The Burn, and Stamets says nothing could have affected all dilithium across space at the same time. Burnham goes on to say she found a transmission from 12 years ago asking any remaining Starfleet personnel to meet an Admiral on Earth.
Turns out the Admiral was killed on a departing ship, no destination planet was recorded (anti-climatic). Earth has become self-sufficient (meaning introverted and cynical, to the point they even ignore other humans living elsewhere within their own solar system) following "The Burn" to defend themselves from Raiders looking for dilithium. When Discovery arrives, a planetary shield goes up and the "United Earth Defense Force" confronts them telling them to leave, until they explain a cover story about being the descendances of the crew following an extended mission (how anyone would buy this when Discovery is clearly a 23rd century ship... I don't know).
Apparently the Federation and Starfleet headquarters left Earth following The Burn a century ago. No one knows where they went. (That's really dumb.) Because most of the ships destroyed in the Burn were Federation and it's unknown if it was an attack or if it'd happen again, it was felt Earth would be a potential target. As such, Earth is no longer part of the Federation. (This is just really, really dumb. I mean, I can kinda understand Earth becoming more self sufficient with warp drive becoming scarce, but why would Earth leave the Federation when there wouldn't be a Federation without Earth? And why would Starfleet headquarters leave the planet? Earth has been a potential target PLENTY of times throughout the history of Star Trek because it's the capital of the Federation/Starfleet. It was even attacked during the Dominion War by the Breen! We didn't see them talking about isolating the planet and moving Headquarters then. The idea Earth would leave the Federation, and Starfleet Headquarters moving somewhere unknown just because they don't know if something was an attack in the first place, or if it'll happen again, is ludicrous. Honestly, I feel this goes against everything Star Trek stands for with Gene Roddenberry's vision for the future of humanity with what they've done to Earth.
Spoiler
They show a fleet of 31st century era Starfleet ships... just before they exploded in The Burn. However, it's only from a distance, so you can't really see them in any great detail. I get the impression that's the point, so they didn't have to spend time fleshing out a couple of new designs, that and several are just copy/pasted (which is a little better than Picard having the ENTIRE fleet all just one copy/pasted design). A few are decent enough generic Starfleet designs, while others are pretty bad IMO (one ship design is essentially a flying donut for example).
It's odd to me the Earth ships don't look like Starfleet ships, considering Starfleet was predominantly human based designs. But I suppose it's possible these designs are meant for planetary defense rather than space exploration... but still, I'd expect hints of a design lineage there. I gather the episode basically treats Earth like a planet of the week.
When Saru gives their cover story to the "United Earth Defense Force", he's asked how they survived The Burn, to which he explained they weren't at warp at the time... Which really doesn't work. The Burn is said to have happened to every ship with an active warp core, whether they were at warp or not. In fact, the entire fleet of ships they showed explode were idle at the time. Captain Ndoye didn't really seem to buy the story regardless, and also didn't really seem to care (being more interested in getting Discovery to leave Earth), but she also doesn't call Saru out on what should be an obvious lie here, suggesting a(nother) mistake on the writer's part.
Saru is given the position of Captain of Discovery by Burnham, since she has realized she may never be right for the position. I'm not sure why this is even a question they apparently had planned to have a discussion about. As first officer, chain of command falls on Saru to become Captain regardless. And Saru has often been the defacto Captain of the ship in the absence of one anyway.
Do aliens even still live on Earth in this century?
Continuity nitpick: Discovery apparently has Synthahol, despite TNG episode "Relics" established that it wasn't invented until the 24th century, as Scotty had never even heard of synthahol before, and Data had to explain it to him. Despite travelling 900+ years into the future to stop stepping on continuity, somehow they're still managing to do it.