So I went in with higher expectations than normal with this episode of Star Trek Discovery,
season 3 episode 7, “Unification Part 3”. Did it live up to them? Well, not entirely,
but I was a little biased with this one because the whole Romulan-Vulcan angle is one of my
favourite parts of Trek. There will be spoilers ahead.
So Tilly gets approached to be the next First Officer of the Discovery. My literal notes
read “Tilly XO, WTF? Saru! No!” My reaction to hearing that was akin to Tilly’s own
shock as she heard. Then Stamets as he was then told. So appropriate reactions all around
then. However, having been given some time to reflect, it’s not as a catastrophic mistake
as I first thought. I’m just saying, she’s going to have to work super hard to prove
to me that she’s a good fit for that role, but I’m willing to give her a chance, if
nothing else, it’ll be fun. In that way, I guess, my reactions mirrored the crews,
from shock to well, I’ll support the choice and if it doesn’t work out, oh well.
The position it only acting with no official promotion in rank, unorthodox but not without
precedent. The typical first officer however, generally needs to be able to whip out the
intimidation card. I started out in this review by exploring all the various Number Ones in
star trek and the dynamics that they had with a captain, but after several paragraphs, I
decided that that would make its own video. Sufficed to say, the typical role of a first
officer is to provide a buffer between the captain and the crew. The crew need to unquestioningly
follow the captain and fear the XO. But there’s nothing traditional about neither Discovery
nor the circumstance it’s found itself in. As far as I can tell, there is not Starfleet
Academy, so where is Tilly going to conclude her command training? I believe that, much
as in wartime Starfleet doctrine, most “cadets” would be learning on the fly and at least
she’s a commissioned officer. I hope that she performs well under pressure, she did
a good enough job in the Mirror Universe so it could be that she just needs a push to
get her to follow her chosen career. And while the Enterprise D for example was having new
crew cycled through constantly (except the senior staff), Discovery, like Voyager, is
isolated from whom it can choose from. This has served to construct the familial environment
that Discovery has, dysfunction and all, so why not give her the chance. Still, we’ll
see if she can cope, but as of right now, I don’t see it. Introduce a new dynamic
and character growth, until then, I’ll reserve judgement.
That Starfleet was actively pursuing many FTL methods to replace warp drive is a plot
thread that I’m glad they didn’t just side line with a single dismissive back in
episode 1. I want to know more about this SB-19 research tech, but it looked like it
could be a myriad of things. From the hologram, it was a gateway portal thingy, so it could
be a form of interphasic catapult, which throws ships into an energy dampening realm for a
time, but one where physics works differently. It could be a repurposed Iconian gate, a folded
space transporter like the Sikarians spatial trajector, or an artificial wormhole. There’s
always the possibility of a transwarp network, like the Borgs, but that also needed dilithium
as far as I’m aware. I need to know more, please.
The mention of the Federation growing too big to oversee the “little” problems is
a weakness that has been present for a while. It’s not omniscient, and in Picard, the
failure of the Romulan evacuation is one such example, of Starfleet dropping the ball, you
can look at AI rights as another blind spot in Federation law, until Data’s trial there
was no precedent. Such small cracks lead to division, and divisiveness has ever been the
enemy of the stable UFP. This led Ni’Var, the renamed Vulcan now
home to the Romulans to leave the Federation, in part. The final straw was the SB-19 experiment,
which Starfleet forced the Ni’Var Science Council to continue against advice. Whatever
the result was, it coincided with the Burn and whatever info the gleaned pointed to SB-19
as the cause of the Burn. So, around 3089, Ni’Var withdrew from the UFP, which meant
that it no longer had to share its development and free exchange of scientific research.
They concluded that SB-19, which looks like some form of gateway tech, (it’s Iconians!
Again) was better off not seeing the light of day.
Despite Ni’Var’s falling out with the Federation, it seems to be doing rather well,
although, like Earth, it has its own issues. The Romulans and Vulcans have formed into
three political parties, two of which place their respective species over the others and
the middle ground which seems to be slower to act. Funnily enough, the way to settle
the T’Kal-in-ket scientific inquiry was for Burnham to basically make the most Federation
decision she could, withdraw her demands and simply offer to share the results of her future
findings regardless. As the request is nullified, President T’Rina
donates the data anyway, and also because she totes has a mad crush on Saru. You can’t
tell me not what to ship! Gabrielle Burnham being one of the Qowat Milat
made me say “you what, m’lad?” Although her emotional reunion didn’t do much for
me, honestly because I was too busy being kind of stunned with how out of nowhere it
was, her actions as Sha-Set to Michael, I enjoyed. Michael was under the impression
that acting like a Vulcan and arguing solely with logic would yield the day, but her mother
cuts her down to size so she can build herself back up truthfully before the Quorum of Peers.
Not only does this help her realise certain truths about herself, but it engenders her
conviction, which is what T’Rina responds to. Gabrielle was not there to raise her daughter,
Vulcans were, and as a result, we have a Michael Burnham who attempts to utilise logic to substantiate
her emotional claims. Her mother is a reassertion of her human routes, she all but states as
much in the show and it peels back layers of self-imposed Vulcan ideals from someone
who at their core is an emotional being, a human. Not a Vulcan. It was arrogance combined
with attempts at Vulcan logic that made Burnham mutiny in the first place, years ago. In many
ways, her attempted mimicry of Vulcan ideology may have served her well to fit in on Vulcan,
but not anymore. So I’m glad that her mother could step in and provide a course correction,
a unification of Michael’s conflicting upbringings. Tying Spock into this episode was nice and
to see him remembered in near-reverence by Ni’Varans, makes me think of him in the
same vein as Surak. For them, Spock is now this historical figure that set in motion
a plan of healing, much as Surak once did, which is probably why attributing Spock’s
development to Burnham did make me “harrumph” a bit. At least they provided a reason as
to why it had to be Burnham to save the day again this time, but if she’s the main character,
they’ll need to keep coming up with reasons, unless she gets back to a command position.
Now she’s sticking around, maybe she will return to the First Officer position, where
she’d be suited most. I also need to point out again that I dig
the Romul-Vulcan aesthetic. The deep green cloth, with Romulan angles combined with the
Vulcan cut of the robes. Schway cool. Overall I enjoyed the aspects of the show
I was already looking forwards too and I was kind of let down that we didn’t get more,
instead we got some development for Burnham. Which I’m okay with, it’s just that all
that doubt that was raised at the end of last episode about her future was completely resolved
in the next episode. It could have lingered somewhat before being sorted. But that could
be me just wanting more Ni’Varan history I hope we get back to that soon, plus Saru
needs to meet up with T’Rina again. What do you think the SB-19 experiment was? Wormholes,
interphase, warp catapult, drop me your theories below. Maybe it was an omega molecule powered
gateway. Thanks for watching this video review on Unification
part three, I’ve been Ric and I’ll see you later for another review or lore video.
Goodbye!