Michael's next mutiny
Feb. 2nd, 2018 08:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lizbeeI only have about a 40% success rate with predicting Discovery's plot developments, and it's only that good because I hopped on a certain bandwagon right after "Despite Yourself", having argued strongly against it previously. But I have a theory, and I like it enough to record it for posterity, ie, you can all come back and point and laugh when I turn out to be wrong on Monday.
Early on, a lot of people (including me) thought we'd end up with Michael leading a second mutiny, this time against Lorca, and this time with the support of Saru and the crew.
As it turns out, we were ever so slightly off-track about Lorca's long-term survival, but it occurred to me this morning that it could still happen.
The logline for next week goes, "Back on the U.S.S. Discovery, Burnham and the crew are faced with the harsh reality of the war during their absence. In order to move forward, Starfleet must use unconventional tactics and sources to take their next action against the Klingons." The trailer includes Georgiou telling Sarek (it seems) she could bring the Klingons to their knees, and she's as unconventional a source as any.
So what if Georgiou proposes some kind of extreme action against the Klingons? Say, spore drive into Qo'nos' orbit, drop some nukes (or asteroids, or a bioweapon, or Lorca's tribble, or whatever), spore drive out, send a friendly message telling the Klingons to withdraw from Federation space and start paying reparations, or else they'll do it again.
It sounds like they're just desperate enough to seriously consider that -- either Kat, or Sarek, or both.
(Who is in charge here? How much of Starfleet Command and the civilian government are left? Sarek has the title of ambassador, but quite often seems to be acting like he's on the Federation Council. Has anyone actually given any thought to how the Federation's government works? This is the type of thought that keeps me up at night.)
It's one thing to take a stand for Federation values when you're in the Mirror Universe and dealing with Klingon spies and thinly-veiled Trump allegories. It's just a tiny bit harder when you're dealing with the Federation itself, as embodied by The Only Sane Admiral and Your Disapproving Dad.
I can see this ending in another rejection of the no-win scenario -- cannot wait for Tilly's Kobayashi Maru, by the way -- and a third option in the form of time travel to undo the nine months Discovery was missing (and also swing by and pick up Hugh, or revive him, or whatever).
But in the meantime, just as Lorca had to teach his crew how to pass as natives in an alien dimension (...man, we really should have seen this coming), Michael has to teach Saru and the rest of the team how to lead a mutiny.
(And also have a long talk with Philippa about war crimes. Starting with the fact that the concept exists, and eventually moving on to the idea that they are bad. I figure it'll go like the scenes in The Good Place where Chidi tries to teach ethics to Michael.)
Early on, a lot of people (including me) thought we'd end up with Michael leading a second mutiny, this time against Lorca, and this time with the support of Saru and the crew.
As it turns out, we were ever so slightly off-track about Lorca's long-term survival, but it occurred to me this morning that it could still happen.
The logline for next week goes, "Back on the U.S.S. Discovery, Burnham and the crew are faced with the harsh reality of the war during their absence. In order to move forward, Starfleet must use unconventional tactics and sources to take their next action against the Klingons." The trailer includes Georgiou telling Sarek (it seems) she could bring the Klingons to their knees, and she's as unconventional a source as any.
So what if Georgiou proposes some kind of extreme action against the Klingons? Say, spore drive into Qo'nos' orbit, drop some nukes (or asteroids, or a bioweapon, or Lorca's tribble, or whatever), spore drive out, send a friendly message telling the Klingons to withdraw from Federation space and start paying reparations, or else they'll do it again.
It sounds like they're just desperate enough to seriously consider that -- either Kat, or Sarek, or both.
(Who is in charge here? How much of Starfleet Command and the civilian government are left? Sarek has the title of ambassador, but quite often seems to be acting like he's on the Federation Council. Has anyone actually given any thought to how the Federation's government works? This is the type of thought that keeps me up at night.)
It's one thing to take a stand for Federation values when you're in the Mirror Universe and dealing with Klingon spies and thinly-veiled Trump allegories. It's just a tiny bit harder when you're dealing with the Federation itself, as embodied by The Only Sane Admiral and Your Disapproving Dad.
I can see this ending in another rejection of the no-win scenario -- cannot wait for Tilly's Kobayashi Maru, by the way -- and a third option in the form of time travel to undo the nine months Discovery was missing (and also swing by and pick up Hugh, or revive him, or whatever).
But in the meantime, just as Lorca had to teach his crew how to pass as natives in an alien dimension (...man, we really should have seen this coming), Michael has to teach Saru and the rest of the team how to lead a mutiny.
(And also have a long talk with Philippa about war crimes. Starting with the fact that the concept exists, and eventually moving on to the idea that they are bad. I figure it'll go like the scenes in The Good Place where Chidi tries to teach ethics to Michael.)
no subject
Date: 2018-02-02 12:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-02-02 12:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-02-02 12:36 am (UTC)(God, Elephant and Piggie / Star Trek is the crossover I didn't ask for but really want.)
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Date: 2018-02-02 03:58 am (UTC)Yeah, that sounds pretty much exactly right. Also, I would read that fic. XD
Your theory sounds entirely probable to me! Particularly since, given the whole thing with "The Vulcan Hello" (which, yup, still sounds dirty all these months later), Sarek would probably be 100% behind a preemptive nuke-strike or similar. The one thing I would add is that L'Rell and Voq/Ash are likely to be integral to Burnham being able to launch a move for actual peace.
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Date: 2018-02-02 04:05 am (UTC)Right! Which is completely consistent -- Spock was the great peacemaker, and Sarek was the dude whose very last conversation with his son involved telling Spock not to bother building bridges with the Romulans.
Yeah, absolutely -- provided they can be persuaded (in just two episodes!) that it's a cause worth believing in.
(Oh God -- Michael's going to be the new T'Kuvma, isn't she?)
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Date: 2018-02-02 04:20 am (UTC)Oh, Sarek. He's just so bad at everything he's well-known for doing...
Yeah, absolutely -- provided they can be persuaded (in just two episodes!) that it's a cause worth believing in.
If (as it appeared at the end of "Vaulting Ambition") Ash and Voq have been put in a position to start the work of synthesizing one identity out of two, I'd say they're in a decent place to both believe in it and be a spokesperson of sorts for it.
(Oh God -- Michael's going to be the new T'Kuvma, isn't she?)
I can't say I think that's likely, but, what the hell. I argued against Lorca being from the Mirror Universe for months, what do I know.
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Date: 2018-02-02 04:22 am (UTC)Don't worry, I thought about it some more, and decided that, while Michael will probably end up being a catalyst for the war's end and the unification of the Klingon houses, it's more likely that Voq/Ash and L'Rell will be T'Kuvma's actual successors.
(Maybe more L'Rell than AshVoq? I have literally no idea how Ash's storyline is going to go -- at this stage, I'd as easily buy him integrating his inner Klingon and staying in Starfleet as anything else.)
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Date: 2018-02-02 04:29 am (UTC)Yeah, I keep thinking about that line from, gosh, the pilot, I think? About how L'Rell had served T'Kuvma longer than Voq had, and whether she resented that he'd been made torchbearer instead of her. She didn't, but it keeps coming back in my head as evidence that she's going to wind up being the one taking over, in the end.
Which I think would be great, both because I love Mary Chieffo and because Voq was, frankly, pretty goddamn useless as Torchbearer. He pretty much just sat around starving until Kol showed up, and then he sat around sulking until L'Rell saved his ass. So if anybody should be taking charge of the Klingons, I vote for her.
I have literally no idea how Ash's storyline is going to go -- at this stage, I'd as easily buy him integrating his inner Klingon and staying in Starfleet as anything else.
That is my greatest hope, honestly. Not just because he's stupidly pretty, but also because it would be really nice to keep as much of the crew together as possible. Especially the non-white actors? Let's not kill/plot-discard any more of those. That'd be great.
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Date: 2018-02-02 04:36 am (UTC)PLUS she represents a bridge between two houses. And a leader who is savvy but not interested in power for its own sake might be exactly what the Klingons need as they move to a Cold War footing for the next few decades.
STRONG AGREE. Shazad Latif is great, he's charismatic, and honestly? Even though he's not my favourite character, it's been really weird remembering to exclude Ash from any crew hijinks going on in my mind. The Tilly-Michael-Ash trio worked really well together.
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Date: 2018-02-02 04:47 am (UTC)Ooo, right, she's got that whole dual-house lineage thing going on! See, it totally works out, and they could have her guest star whenever, which is how the best Klingon characters always work.
STRONG AGREE. Shazad Latif is great, he's charismatic, and honestly? Even though he's not my favourite character, it's been really weird remembering to exclude Ash from any crew hijinks going on in my mind. The Tilly-Michael-Ash trio worked really well together.
I kind of hate that he's sort of my favorite, because of course I'd fall for the guy with the stupidly huge brown eyes and the angsty backstory, but... he's from my hometown. Ash Tyler is the first character in the history of Star Trek to ever even be from my region of the US, and he is from my literal honest-to-god hometown. I can't help but love him for that, on top of everything else.
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Date: 2018-02-02 04:49 am (UTC)And they've demonstrated that no one recognises a Klingon actor out of make-up, so she could also play, say, Cornwell's extremely tall but perfectly human aide.
They blatantly cheated. What choice did you have but to love him?
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Date: 2018-02-02 04:56 am (UTC)I cannot tell you how much I've been hoping they'll follow that grand old sci-fi tradition. ♥
They blatantly cheated. What choice did you have but to love him?
No choice at all, clearly! Nobody outside the Seattle area has ever even heard of Issaquah. I'm 100% convinced it only came up here because Bryan Fuller grew up in the area.
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Date: 2018-02-06 05:30 am (UTC)I preemptively ship it.
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Date: 2018-02-02 01:13 pm (UTC)TBH a couple episodes ago, when I was still at "ok I'm 70% sure Lorca's just out for himself, buuuuuuut I do think there's a chance that he was a rebel sympathizer" that was basically my guess -- that he wanted her on the throne as a unifier and peacemaker. ("Peacemaker" relative to the mirror universe, anyway. So, you know, basically Kate Beaton's Genghis Khan.) Which might also begin to explain how, ten years later, the half-Vulcan son of a prominent, quasi-religious rebel leader is a high-ranking officer on an Imperial ship.
(Now I'm...increasingly wondering whether mirror!Georgiou, who Lorca had viewed as insufficiently anti-alien, maybe survives and ends up back home, and her experience working with Sarek, a Vulcan-raised Michael, and other aliens leads her to begin trying to make overtures toward the rebels.)
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Date: 2018-02-06 05:23 am (UTC)Say, spore drive into Qo'nos' orbit, drop some nukes (or asteroids, or a bioweapon, or Lorca's tribble, or whatever)
That's much higher than 40% accuracy!!!
(Please just drop tribbles on their heads, okay, show, I cannot DEAL if Kat fucks up (on a moral level) that badly.)
I'm hoping very much for a third option at this point. Though I also feel like Disco is a show that hasn't gone for the cheap and easy answers at any point, so whatever they do it's going to put us through the wringer.
(And wtf is that with the dancing girls and boys in the preview for the finale? ????? I'm so very confused right now.)