Star Trek: Discovery 1.08: Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum
Kirsten Beyer
John S. Scott
It probably comes as no surprise that the
episode of Discovery that most
resembles the Trek we know and love
was written by one of the current crop of novelists. Kirsten Beyer has managed to make further
adventures of the Voyager crew
interesting, so why not do the same for the characters and world of Discovery? And it works because it harkens back to
concepts from the original series.
The idea is simple: the crew finds a planet
with natural broadcasting capabilities that will enable Starfleet to overcome
the Klingons’ current cloaking technology.
When an away team is sent to the surface, it turns out that a somewhat
non-corporeal species is responsible for that capability, but they wish to
compel the crew (through control of Saru) to avoid the conflict entirely by
staying on their planet. In a nice
twist, resisting that compulsion convinces the entities that they cannot stand
apart from the way, and they call for the Klingons to join Discovery in orbit, intent on forcing a resolution.
It’s a solid cliffhanger, and I can see why the
original plan was the end the first half of the season on this note. This is something of a callback to entities
like the Organians from the original series, though a bit less “grounded” in
what was the familiar in the 1960s. But
it also brings up an interesting point: there are ton of “more advanced” species in the galaxy
and universe that see the Federation/Klingon conflicts as childish and
unnecessary, which is precisely in the vein of Trek as a whole.
It would be so much more effective, I think, if
the changes to the Klingons wouldn’t feel less and less necessary. They are actually getting to the point of
being intrusive, even as the crew of Discovery
and their technology is quickly proving itself to be self-destructive in
nature. The apparent issues of
continuity are quickly resolving themselves, yet that won’t help the Klingon
situation if some work isn’t done to revert them to something less distracting.
It's not simply that the Klingons have a large
role in the story; there have been a ton of Klingon stories over the decades,
and many of them are considered classics.
And yet, it seems like some find them too familiar and friendly now, so
everyone keeps trying to “re-envision” them.
It goes from being somewhat complimentary in nature to discordant.
Stamets is also having severe issues, something
hinted at in the previous episode, and that makes it seem very likely that the
benefits to be gained from the spore drive will ultimately be outweighed by the
ethics of slowly killing living beings to make it function. It’s the kind of dilemma that meshes well
with the “what is acceptable in wartime” aspects of the story, and also fits
well into the Trek mold.
- Much about this episode felt like classic Trek
- The Klingon scenes were distracting and broke the pacing of the episode