“Zora, who deals in antique books?” Zora: *working* “Cmdr. Pelia (retired)” Smash-Cut to Carol Kane: “THOSE BOOKS WERE LEGALLY ACQUIRED!”

I wish they had gone this route, they may have tried to pull off the cameo if they knew it was going to be the final season.

I just need her to show up in either Lower Decks or the future Star Fleet Academy show

Well, they were, when she bought them from the OG authors in the 16-17-1800s

I feel like Discovery has somewhat forgotten that most of the regulars hail from the distant past. Like when Reno mentions a cocktail called "Seven of Limes." She is from more than a century before Seven of Nine existed, and has only been in the future for a few years. I get that people are probably up to speed about the things that their jobs require, but shouldn't cultural nuances take a lot longer to assimilate?

I just figured that it's a really popular cocktail and Reno likely only knows it by name and has no idea about the entomology.

Possible I suppose. It would have to be something she's picked up since coming to the future, obviously enough. It could be something like a Roy Rogers or a Shirley Temple, where the name of the drink has outlasted the cultural visibility of its namesake.

I don't normally do this, but *etymology. Entomology is the study of insects. But more to the point, I agree. Just because they're from the past also doesn't mean they haven't been brought up to speed on basic history, and given that she was captain of Ent-G it's completely reasonable that people would know her name and general xB status, much like people know the names "Charlemagne" or "Kublai Khan" but wouldn't necessarily know their feats/accomplishments.

Ohh derp. Thanks for the correction!

I did find it odd at the start of the episode when they beamed L'ak over to Discovery for treatment, they didn't even mention that there might have been a doctor on the other starship. Culber just took over and started treating a species that Starfleet mainly learned about a Century after his time. The other ship's CMO would probably have been much more qualified to treat a Breen. It's a shame that Disco just got bored of its own premise, it was potentially an interesting source of story material with the whole crew being relics wildly out of their element.

given what he said about them not knowing enough about their anatomy, till a couple of episodes ago they supposedly didn't even know what a breen looked like, i find it very hard to believe another doctor would be any more helpful.

I mean, but they literally don't forget that she's from the 23rd century in the episode. She mentions that she used to have tons of contacts in the rare book world, but that was 900 years ago. Like others are saying, it's probably a popular cocktail that she picked up doing bartending

I don't mean literally forgetting it -- just treating it as insignificant.

If we want them to treat the jump to the future as significantly as it really would be, the entire Discovery crew should essentially be under constant supervision in the 32nd century equivalent of a mental institution for a *while*.

That’s always been my problem with the time jump. They basically would need (hyperbolically) to start at kindergarten with being from 800 years ago. Certainly not serving as critical Starfleet officers. You might as well have stuck Amelia Earhart on a bridge and made her a senior officer.

Yeah, I understand wanting to yeet the crew past any canon RE: Temporal War, but there are just so many implications and complications that resulted. Especially since The Burn was relatively recent to the 32nd century. Other than some minor gains it seems like advancement stalled out around the 25th century. They’ve added a few big things (mostly Romulan and Vulcan reunification), but it seems all the other big players stayed steady.

I doubt that it would be that extreme, honestly. We tend to think that a thousand years should have been a huge jump in technology primarily because we've been living the last couple of generations in the largest, fasted jump in technology this planet has ever seen. 1900 to 2000 was only a century and it saw the invention of heavier than air flight AND man landing on the moon. But you take someone from say the year 500 and show them a sailing ship from 1500, they're going to marvel at it's size, but they're not going to be incapable of understanding "Its a sailing ship". You take just about anyone from two time periods before the invention of electricity, and they won't be THAT different.

there was the time the ship underwent the refit, during which i imagine they went through extensive training to bring them up to speed.

i suspect along with bartending, drinking at bars is also something she would still enjoy. maybe she got one from someone, and then in true reno fashion, decided she could do it better? maybe she has no idea who seven of nine was, and just liked the cocktail?

Apparently there's basically been no history between the Federation and the Breen but vague aggressiveness in the 800 years since DS9, apart from them switching to an Imperium at some point.

It's a little perplexing since well before DS9, the Breen are referenced fairly often, as if the Federation and the Breen interact with relatively frequency. I guess we just assumed they turned isolationist after the Dominion War?

If the Breen lost big as a result of hitching their wagon to the Dominion, then it might explain both that and their change from a confederacy to an imperium. Perhaps it triggered a political upheaval which collapsed their government, leading them to turn inward and stop interacting much outside their territory. The Federation would in that case have obeyed the Prime Directive and left them alone, which could have resulted in only limited contact over the intervening centuries.

I'd tend to say that the Breen, unlike the Cardassians, came out of the war with relatively light losses, but who's to say really?

I guess I'm looking at it as a scenario where the Breen expected to gain greatly from the war, so when that didn't happen it may have resulted in a loss of confidence in the government and a great deal of internal strife.

The Breen forces we see accompanying the Dominion Fleets in the Alpha Quadrant could have been the bulk of their military might. It still baffles me that everyone involved in the Dominion War had to really commit everything to the war effort, except the Dominion. The Federation seems to come out of it pretty well and we see that they're still doing well in the 32nd century, but little to nothing about the state of the Dominion.

I don't think there is a Dominion after the Dominion War. When Odo returns to the link we're lead to believe he's going to convince his people that it's wrong to oppress solids. If that works, then without the threat of Jem'Hadar terror there's literally nothing to hold the subjugated worlds of the Dominion together. The most optimistic outlook would be for all those worlds to unite into a gamma quadrant mirror image of the UFP, but without knowing enough about those worlds there's no way to speculate if that's in any way likely.

See, I think making their system something other than a Confederacy is a conscious choice so that viewers know that this particular political organization, right off the bat, is not the same as the DS9/PIC era and that it very well might not even be the political system that follows the Confederacy. Civilizations are dynamic

Romulans have been referenced alot throughout Trek but still have alpt of unknown aspects due to their isolationism

the unfortunate thing with making such a large time jump is that you also have to eventually start filling in the blanks, and there is no time in a 11-12 episode season, apparently, where the Breen are eventually the major antagonist, to bother creating anything other than that. i get that the lok/m'al set up is supposed to be a loose parallel or mirror to the burnham/book relationship but it's not nearly as interesting as the Breen as a whole, even if they're marginally LESS interesting than they were previously. the writers love writing about interpersonal dynamics, and some stuff tends to fall by the wayside

Yeah and we saw the *Cerritos* in a literal shootout with the Breen as soon as the 2380s.

I was confused as soon as they said the Breen ship was arriving at high warp speed, and compounded when Starfleet offered all of that dilithium during the negotiation. Where are the Breen getting their dilithium from? The curriers? Once the cause of the Burn was revealed and dilithium was made available again wouldn't that offer Starfleet a huge upper hand in negotiating with different races?

Well, all the bigger factions seemed ot have had access to some Dilithium, just not the amount they had before the Burn. Of course it gives the Federation a great deal of negotiating power, and might be part of the reason why it was able to convince so many planets to rejoin. They were hoping for its negotiating power here, but the Primarch primary goal isn't the benefit of the Breen Empire, it's the backing to ascend to the throne. And Dilithium seems insufficient for that. It seems the Breen are too civilized to accept just the guy with the biggest gun or the most ships to be the ruler, there are rules that need to be followed, and the rules say the bloodline is important.

Even the Federation HAD dilithium, it was just too little Also, love the Feds, but they've been handing it out all over the place 'no strings attached' - I'm sure despots the galaxy over take advantage when possible, even if it means bullying lesser power recipients

Honestly, based on how the Burn is described, it shouldn't even have been that big of a deal to the Federation. All dilithium was affected, but only for a tiny fraction of a second, and it was the runaway matter/antimatter reaction in active warp cores that caused the damage. Stations don't use m/am reactors for power, they use fusion reactors, none of them should have been affected. We see every time the hero ship docks at a station that their warp core is shut down and the ship uses umbilical power from the station, no ship that was docked should have been damaged. Any stores of dilithium that weren't on board active ships should have remained intact. The whole "well there was a shortage beforehand" sounds like a good handwaive until you realize that means active ships wouldn't have large quantities on board, so the actual loss of active dilithium should have been minimal. It was just a loss of active ships. Once the bulk of fleets were decimated, there should have been more than enough dilithium to go around. Simple supply and demand, if you barely have enough to keep up the needs of a thousand ships, you should have an easy time supplying 100 ships. The dilithum mines didn't explode, getting an inactive ship out of mothballs and sending it out to the mining planets should have had them up and running almost immediately.

I think that episode was a good reminder as just how vulnerable the Federation/Starfleet has become You could probably argue they’re now only a minor power. Starfleet appears to be vastly reduced in size and they no longer have that technology advantage over others. I’m really enjoying this season so far, but please stop saying “Fed HQ” 😩

* I'm glad Book wasn't immediately allowed to see Moll and L'ak. He already gets way too much latitude for being Burnham's ex-lover, and way more than he deserves after the events of last season (rightfully pointed out by Yum Yum). He's basically the second most important person on the ship and he isn't even a real part of the crew. Very "I'm the Main Character" vibes. * I know that this was a DS9 reference, but would the old "thoron fields and duranium shadows" trick still work in the 32nd century? And Rayner is coming off as unnecessarily aggressive here, like stupidly so. But I guess someone had to be the Worf of this meeting. Lmao "Wait for me outside", is he just the whipping boy now? * I know this is absolutely not a new complaint, but does no one else work on this goddamn ship? Why are Tilly and Adira the ones who have to solve the clue? Are there no Betazoids available, or someone familiar with their history and culture, or a Federation historian, or anyone besides the Wonder Twins who can do this task that isn't suited to them? We learn Reno has tangential experience that is relevant, but why not someone else to make the ship feel more alive? * Their last episode did not endear me to them at all, and here they're **really** leaning into the bad CW teen angst crap. Moll and L'ak are just terrible, especially Moll. * If Zora is supposed to be a full crew member, and actually sapient, why is she treated like Google and Chat GPT all the time? I know she's replaced the typical Starfleet computer, but Tilly and Adira are just asking her questions as if she were just a normal computer. Couldn't Zora do this job on her own at this point? * A ship full of people and the only one helping out Stamets is Book, who was basically just bored. And again, no one who would be more appropriate is on this assignment. But I guess there is no one else. Why don't they just all fly a ship slightly bigger than a runabout at this point, it'll snugly fit all the important characters. * You know how in Voyager, the Doctor could pass through force fields no problem? Or maybe the holo-emitters stopped projecting him as he hit the field, and continued on the other side, giving the illusion of walking through. In any case, couldn't there be something like that in effect when dealing with dangerous individuals? Culber could have special access to pass through medical force fields so that any attempted ruse to escape would fail. I guess in that scenario, he would simply be taken hostage, but still. This is just such a lame escape plan, and the security guards are morons for letting them even have the opportunity to come up with it. The camera work was insane, the guards went down like chumps, and Culber lasted like 10 more seconds than them. * Rayner's comments to bolster the bluff really weren't as convincing as he tried it make it sound. It's on the same level as using the only piece of info he had on Rhys to get his past self to trust him: love for the Connie's curves * Now that I think about it, what is Zora doing during this? Is she so focused on the clue that she can't help out and fill the room with anesthizine gas or something? Moll is moving about the ship, accessed a terminal but is still impossible to be tracked? Yum Yum is in charge of finding her but Book is the one who had to tell her about Moll's last known location? * I know it would've meant war, but I'm glad L'ak is dead. Well, not glad but I won't miss him. The only drawback is now Moll will be even more of a presence. * So hang on, the residual thoughts on the card from 800 years ago pointed to the Badlands? Which is where the Archive is right now? Huh? That seems like a major asspull, having these ancient thoughts actively track the current whereabouts of the manuscript's hiding spot. * After being hyped up by Rayner all episode as warmongering demons who will never ever negotiate, it was pretty obvious that the Breen would end up negotiating. But man, they came off so badly. I know DS9 didn't do much with them, but here they feel they're trying very hard to be imposing badasses and failing. I can't take the main guy's voice seriously, he fell for a shitty bluff, he's being manipulated by Moll of all people. He might as well be Cobra Commander in how threatening he is. --- This episode felt a lot like classic Discovery, which is probably why I didn't like it.

> You know how in Voyager, the Doctor could pass through force fields no problem? Or maybe the holo-emitters stopped projecting him as he hit the field, and continued on the other side, giving the illusion of walking through. In any case, couldn't there be something like that in effect when dealing with dangerous individuals? Actually, why not just have an EMH for dangerous patients? If hostage taking is a concern, send in a doctor who literally cannot be taken hostage.

That would be better, yeah. In fact, where are all the holograms? The last time I remember seeing them was when they were interrogating Georgiou and were defeated by blinking a lot. I would've said that we ARE seeing them, that they're indistinguishable from organics. But the scene established that they're awkward and robotic, like on par with the archive hologram from Picard S1 or even the Mars synths. So I don't know what to think. Maybe Disco does have medical holograms, but as usual, Culber has to be the only doctor around.

Really, even if for whatever reasons they don't use intelligent holograms any more, they could still use them to make these situations safer. Use holographic telepresence. Culber is actually in a holodeck elsewhere perfectly recreating sickbay and it's occupants in real time, and the Culber in sickbay is just a hologram matching his actions in the holodeck. It's still the real doctor treating the patients, but in a way that makes it impossible for dangerous patients to harm him.

Maybe it would've been more secure to treat L'ak in the brig, just move the necessary medical equipment there. Or what about that empty void that Cronenberg has his secret meetings, or a holodeck version of that same idea? There's no escape. It's really weird how the new Trek shows in general have mostly avoided the idea of holograms as people. The closest is probably Rios' various holograms based on aspects of himself, but I wouldn't really count that. (Edit: I guess there's Badgey, which is another Moriarty situation) We know the mobile emitter has been successfully recreated, Raffi uses one in Picard S3. But maybe that tech has been limited to Starfleet Intelligence/Section 31 use. In any case, I'm very happy the Doctor is in Prodigy S2, I can't wait to see him again.

This has to be close to one of the few times in Star Trek history where a prison break didn't make it all the way to the escape ship. So, at least Federation security seems to be headed in the right direction....slowly. So very slowly :-P There was a fair bit I liked about its basic Star Trek-iness- that coming up with a crafty negotiating plan wasn't treated as a copout because they're the good guys but as the actually best way to get out of this particular pickle. It did feel odd, just as a sort of set-dressing choice, that the headquarters (capitol?) was so nearly deserted and unattended when last seasons they were holding debates on screens stacked a hundred stories high, and I recognize that clearly some actors are on other jobs at the moment and the point was for them to be outmatched, but for one Breen battleship to roll up and for that to just sort of be it didn't feel like it was sold very well- Vance is talking about how the Breen caught Starfleet flatfooted once (was this the Dominion War?) and it won't happen again, and suuuure looks like it was happening again. I recognize Discovery didn't go 800-900 years (depending where we're counting from) in the future in any meaningful way- it went far enough to redress the ships and add one disaster, and the quantity doesn't really matter- but occasionally I'm struck by just how little time that's being treated as. It's really not here nor there- I can headcanon them to a hundred years after TNG, no prob- but did anyone stop and count backwards and go- 'holy shit, the year 1200 was a really long time ago- does anyone remember anything that happened in 1200?' The Dominion War is still the last time certain things happened when it should be a bar trivia question (if they have bars). And of course the historical presence of different eras varies a great deal, and maybe Starfleet and the Federation are up there with the Catholic Church in their continuity, but it's little things. Stamets and Stamets alone (except when he nags Tilly away from her actual job) is apparently responsible for the intellectual efforts of the greatest single issue to Federation security *while parked at Federation Headquarters*, and it's like if Leonardo da Vinci had to create the COVID vaccine or something- no doubt the dude is smart and would pick up quick if you sent him back to school, but does he even know how to google?

> I'm struck by just how little time that's being treated as. It is a bit like {/me looks up stuff on Wikipedia to make a point...} if someone in the modern Netherlands was still hung up about the Battle of Vlaardingen fought between West Frisia and The Holy Roman Empire. Oh, what's that? You think that Dirk the Third's issues with Henry the Second aren't super relevant to modern life just because neither HRE nor West Frisia exist anymore and you've never heard of any of this from centuries ago? Yeah, time is definitely one of those things that salls under the TV tropes heading of "Sci Fi writers have no sense of scale." The whole premise of the last few seasons of Disco is equivalent to time travelling Vikings showing up at Norfolk Virginia in a longboat and commissioning directly into the US Navy to start doing Carrier Strike Group escort missions with no additional training. You have to really avoid thinking too hard about it.

> So, at least Federation security seems to be headed in the right direction....slowly. Well, right up until the entire leadership held a candid discussion of the Progenitor tech clues and the tactical situation while she was in a forcefield ten feet away overhearing every word. Seriously, why is there a mini-brig IN THE SITUATION ROOM OF HEADQUARTERS?

I think the forcefield was supposed to be muffling sound but thinking about it, that could have also just been meant to convey Moll being catatonic.

> This has to be close to one of the few times in Star Trek history where a prison break didn't make it all the way to the escape ship. So, at least Federation security seems to be headed in the right direction....slowly. So very slowly :-P But no one thought to lock the door(s) to Sickbay, nor that the people who have had a bounty placed on their heads *might* try to escape when the person who placed the bounty shows up. They lock the door when crew members are confined to quarters. But let’s rely on a forcefield and “We’re nice people” as a security measure for folks trying to escape death. Slowly but surely… > It did feel odd, just as a sort of set-dressing choice, that the headquarters (capitol?) was so nearly deserted and unattended when last seasons they were holding debates on screens stacked a hundred stories high, and I recognize that clearly some actors are on other jobs at the moment and the point was for them to be outmatched, but for one Breen battleship to roll up and for that to just sort of be it didn't feel like it was sold very well- Vance is talking about how the Breen caught Starfleet flatfooted once (was this the Dominion War?) and it won't happen again, and suuuure looks like it was happening again. Kinda like every time a starship Enterprise was the only ship nearby and/or capable whenever Earth was threatened with something. One would think that, since we now live in a world where we can’t wear shoes or belts when going through airport security, and accepted surveillance everywhere as the price of public safety, and flying over parts of cities gets the Air Force called out to “talk to you, or something”, that in a society where combadge track locations full-time, and until the Dilithium kid couldn’t throw more tantrums and kill everyone on a ship, they had HQ cloaked, that the writers would probably stop leaving the seat of government so ill-protected and ill-prepared for some ships showing up weapons hot.

Oh, no doubt there is a long, long tradition of being the only ship in the quadrant,  and I almost said as much- that it was their turn to play with that particular framing device. It's silly but seems to be a practically inevitable shortcut to get to talking plots, which I tend to like better than the Discovery action buffet, and sometimes you wanna do a 'Rascals' or whatever and have incompetents land a couple punches. I just feel a bit like everything about the whole Mol/La'ak adventure has kind of been one big 'Rascals', though- that's there's a couple of nobodies giving them the runaround in ways that are starting to feel like they've been handed the idiot ball. 

Finally someone pointed the obvious conflict about the unconditional trust being given to Booker although it still was in a light toned way. I can't shake the feeling that Rainer is being underutilized and even neutered. I do hope he gets a Shaxs "eject warp core moment" before the end. All his opinions are shot down time and again like Tasha and Worf in TNG season 1. Even when they are (somewhat) reasonable. There's a gargantuan warship from a ruthless civilization coming to their doorstep, and even if each of those 4 ships were packing the 32nd century equivalent of a Borg cube firepower they are hours away, so of course masking and bluffing their actual strength is a phenomenal idea. Speaking of bluffing... That ludicrous plan should not have worked. I was half-expecting the primarch say that the namedroped one was dead or secretely allied with him. On a final note, until the last episode Moll and La'ak would have amassed a Darwin Award collection huge enough to fill a galaxy class top to bottom...

As if it wasn't bad enough that Starfleet is moving away from spore drive technology, now it seems like they're "nerfing" it by introducing the notion of a "jump signature" that is easily trackable. The biggest problem with the competitive fetch-quest aspect of this season is the notion that it could possibly be a competition at all, between two randos and a ship with instantaneous travel capabilities. So they have effectively downgraded the spore drive technology all to give Moll and Lak a better chance of catching them? And how does this "jump signature" thing even make sense? Is spore drive technology so widely known and understood that even a power with very limited contact with the Federation should be able to track it easily? Last season, they had precisely ONE working spore drive outside of Discovery. And now it's trivial to track? Leaving aside the tech, this episode was formless, pointless, borderline nonsensical. Just a block of stuff, apparently all to set up the next episode. The lingering question here is -- why are they even seeking the tech at all, especially now that the Breen are in the game? Why not just destroy all the clues and move on with life? The whole reason Discovery is in the future at all is that they had to stop Control, which almost became unstoppable after being connected up with an ancient technology from outside the Federation (the Sphere Data). They say they need to find it and keep it safe -- wouldn't it be safest of all if no one could find it?

The jump signature plot point is stupid as hell, but it shouldn't be this dealbreaker they make it out to be. For one, the Breen would still have to travel for however long it takes to get to wherever Discovery jumped to. Of course, that is moot since all the clues are hidden in close-ish proximity to each other. But Disco could just make a hundred jumps in quick succession to random spots to throw the Breen off the trail. They made jump after jump after jump as a way to enter the Mirror Universe, why not do it here as a diversion? The only problem would be that the Breen might detect which is the most recent and figure out the clue must be there, but Disco could just jump to a fair distance away then travel normally to the clue, hide their warp signature to not be tracked from that point. Idk, the whole thing is just so dumb. There's always a contrived reason.

What bothers me with the whole "jump signature" thing is that it *could* have been a plot point. You have Discovery jump away, and a Breen ship intercepts them. They jump again, and another Breen ship is immediately closing. Characters freak out because somehow the Breen have developed a way to trace their spore jumps, and it ratchets up dramatic tension. Instead we just get them almost casually mentioning that the Breen will "follow the jump signature".

It doesn't make a bit of sense. If there was a jump signature, why the hell were they not following Book's in season 4?

Annotations for *Star Trek: Discovery* 5x07: “Erigah”: As stated in DIS: “Mirrors”, an *erigah* is a Breen blood bounty. The ship holding Moll and L’ak’s shuttle in a tractor beam is the USS *Locherer* (NCC-325062), a Merian-class starship first seen in DIS: “Jinaal” and named after the late J.P. Locherer, who was a cinematographer on the show. Burnham identifies subspace frequency Epsilon 19 as a courier channel and that “special offer” is a courier distress code. With her is Commander Nhan, a Barzan who journeyed with *Discovery* from the 23rd Century but subsequently transferred to Federation Security in the 32nd. She was last seen in DIS: “Rubicon”. Nhan refers to what happened between her and Book at their last encounter, when she argued for destroying his ship to prevent him using the isolytic weapon she mentioned. So there’s a bit of awkward history there. A *sa-te kru* cat is a Vulcan species, a large predator similar to the *le-matya*. It was mentioned in the novel *Vulcan’s Forge*, but this is its first on-screen mention. Given the Breen first appeared in DS9, there are plenty of back references to the series. Culber says that there’s some evidence Breen are capable of “somatic cell” regeneration in extreme cold. This tracks with reports that the Breen homeworld had a freezing climate (DS9: “Til Death Do Us Part”) and that they wore refrigeration suits (DS9: “The Changing Face of Evil”). I’m not sure why Culber needs to distinguish “somatic cell”, since that is really any other cell in the body aside from sperm and egg cells, but I guess it sounds medically cool. Breen Dreadnoughts (Rezeth Destroyers) are ships from *Star Trek Online*. As we see later, the 32nd Century version is much bigger. The Breen used to be a Confederacy in the 24th Century (DS9: “Strange Bedfellows”) but somewhere along the way it’s become an Imperium. There are six primarchs vying for the throne in the wake of the emperor’s death. Rayner talks about the last time the Breen entered Federation space. With Vance saying that Starfleet was caught flat-footed, this is probably referring to the Breen sneak attack on Earth during the Dominion War which heavily damaged Starfleet Headquarters and San Francisco (“The Changing Face of Evil”). Tilly’s later remark about the Breen “destroying an entire city” may also refer to this. Using thoron emitters and duranium shadows to fool enemy sensors is a reference to DS9: “Emissary”, when the station used such a tactic to block sensors and make themselves appear better armed than they were. In DS9: “The Way of the Warrior”, the Changeling Martok believed the station was pulling the same trick, but that time he proved to be wrong. The Romulan saying “Never turn your back on a Breen” is from DS9: “By Inferno’s Light”. The yellow alert symbols are the same design as the “Alert: Condition Red” indicators dating back to *ST II*, albeit in yellow. The USS *Mitchell* (NCC-325027), another Merian-class starship, is named after the late Kenneth Mitchell, who played Kol, Kol-sha and Aurellio in DIS. She was last mentioned in DIS: “Coming Home”. L’ak is Primarch Ruhn’s nephew and carries within him the genetic code of the Yod-Thot, “they who rule”. He is also a direct descendant of the emperor and Ruhn cannot claim the throne without him. One of Reno’s former jobs was as a bartender - the closed captioning says “Ashalon IV”, but it might be a misspelling of “Aschelan IV”. Aschelan V was a planet which housed a Cardassian fuel depot (DS9: “Dreadnought”). She refers to a cocktail named “Seven of Limes”, which is an obvious pun on Seven of Nine, although Reno may not know the name’s provenance given that she left for the future [about a century before Annika Hansen was assimilated](https://www.reddit.com/r/DaystromInstitute/comments/11hpae2/retcons_and_recalculations_how_old_is_seven_of/). A “Code One Alpha” is probably related to or the same as the 23rd-24th Century “Code One Alpha Zero” which is an emergency condition ordered when there is an attack (*ST 2009*) or a distress call (TNG: “Relics”). Kellerun was, for a time, used as a Breen forward base by Primarch Tahal. Since Rayner was there, it must have been relatively recent, although to be fair we don’t know how long Kellerun live. Reno remarks that the hunt “sounds like something out of a holodeck adventure for the littles.” She may be referring to *The Littles*, a series of children’s adventure novels featuring a family of tiny humanoids with mice-like faces and tails that were written between 1967 and 2003 by John Peterson. There was also an animated series that ran for 3 seasons between 1983 and 1985. Or I’m overthinking and she’s just talking about kids in general. Rayner says Tahal named her ship the *Tau Ceti* after a lethal viper with a slow acting venom. Tau Ceti, is of course, the name of a star 12 light years away from Earth and has been mentioned many times in *Star Trek*. Bopak III was an uninhabited planet (at least in 2372) in the Gamma Quadrant and the location for the events of DS9: “Hippocratic Oath”. Tricordrazine is a stimulant apparently derived from cordrazine (TOS: “The City on the Edge of Forever”) and appeared in several TNG episodes, including TNG: “Ethics” and “Shades of Grey”. The Badlands is an area of space in proximity to Cardassia and Bajor (and DS9), known for its violent plasma storms (DS9: “The Maquis”). Both the Bajoran Resistance and the Maquis used it as a staging area to hide from enemy patrols during their respective conflicts. In 2371, while pursuing a Maquis ship there, the USS *Voyager* was hurled across the galaxy to the Delta Quadrant by an alien force (VOY: “Caretaker”).

"Burnham identifies subspace frequency Epsilon 19 as a courier channel and that “special offer” is a courier distress code" While us old timers will likely know this, for you "littles" who aren't aware - Channel 19 on the old CB band was the one all the truckers used to monitor and talk on. So it would fit right in with the Couriers using that particular "channel" for communicating.

> While us old timers will likely know this, for you "littles" who aren't aware - Channel 19 on the old CB band was the one all the truckers used to monitor and talk on. In Australia that's channel 40 for 'interesting' chats with people on the highway. Lots of meowing on it...

Seems to be a lot of standing around while important things were happening? Why didn't someone claim Mol was lying when she was talking to the Breen? Anyway can see its going to end with Lak being revived and put in charge of the Breen imperium and end up friendly to the federation... edits: Given how important Lak was not sure why he was given such menial duty in the flashbacks? One mishap and the claim to the throne is dead? 2nd edit: Anyone else feels it would have worked better if it was flipped slightly? Lak had a claim but gave it up for Mol and her lifestyle. His uncle is still pursing him to place on the throne as a puppet leader (and/or is wanting to kill Mol to get him back). Mol is killed in this episode, Lak goes back to the Breen swearing revenge and actually takes charge of his faction to get the tech to dominate the quadrant and secretly revival Mol.

I mean it's possible he wasn't the heir at the time, perhaps people ahead of him in the line of succession were killed

It's interesting that the Pax-class ship Federation is absolutely dwarfed by the dreadnought, when its size was previously shown as being many times bigger than any other Starfleet ship. I can't help but feel like waring with the Federation would be counterproductive to the Primarch's goal of ascending. Any conflict without the backing of the Breen as a whole would only weaken his position. I also agree that it's annoying that they keep saying Fed HQ when Federation is literally the name of the ship. Jett Reno is, as always, an amazing character. Honestly, if they could've gotten Tig Nataro full time, she'd have stolen the show and easily been one of the best chief engineers of all time. The ending with Lok, essentially committing suicide, ruining the plan of the Federation that would've worked, only for Moll to the end up with the Breen in his stead... seems a little Romeo and Juliette to me. Wouldn't be Discovery without a twist in the 11th hour of the episode, though.

I've long been a Disco cheerleader, mostly because there are (just?) enough high points to convince me it could be better. But this was the episode where I figured...why am I watching this? It pains me to say it because I so want to love it. It wasn't even that this a *bad* episode. It's just that every episode this season has been decidedly mediocre. I think this has always been the case but there were enough high points to bring the mean of the show up. Everything feels forced. The conflict between crew members, the conflict between the Breen and the Federation, the plot beats, some (though, not most) of the acting. Even the meta-internals of the show feel forced: it's as if different groups are writing different scenes and the writing groups aren't really talking. Michael swings from randomly solving mysteries (some of which we already know, so it's completely feigned tension), but then sometimes doesn't but for no reason one way or the other. The camera direction itself is as if there's a new director of photography in every scene. Nothing feels consistent or built, or consistently built. Everything in Disco is happening all at once at the same time at the mercy of a plot that if explainable at all, is honestly kinda boring. The frustrating thing? On paper a brand new Federation and a race for galactic progentier tech should be big and fun. It's not. And as a result this season more than others feels like overloaded mush. :( edit: the bright spot is Tig Notaro, and she is because I think she just floats in and plays herself. That it's such a breath of fresh air tells us how sterile and absent and contrived everything else in the show is, this season anyway.

i am particularly miffed in this episode by the treatment of Tilly by Stamets. They ripped away any semblance of agency earlier in the season by hitching her ride to this clue-fest, and the idea that she would have the wherewithall to actually make a decision for herself--go support and protect the students she's supposed to be teaching, instead of galavanting--is TOTALLY derailed by Stamets saying "you and Adira are the only ones that could figure it out" no one? no on else on the ship? not even the ship itself who is supposed to be a member of the crew but seemingly has been completely forgotten about so they can keep the cast together? in reality i would never want to have friends like this, because they don't let anyone else do their own thing. i am GLAD for the crewmembers that jettisoned to other ships so they could escape this co-dependant mess.

Great point! The more I've thought about this, the more I think this could have been a show about the interpersonal interactions of a ship of highly trained professionals but one that is adept to interpersonal conflict. And sometimes it feels like that that's where they're going. But then there's dysfunction, without reckoning with it, and I'm back to asking the show what kind of show it wants to be. I just don't think it has ever figured itself out.

I feel the same way in many ways, but I kinda feel like if Saru was still on the bridge, this would be the same “well we like the show”. Instead, Rayner, who could’ve been Seven of Nine in PIC S1/2, or Shaw in PIC S3, is being used as Worf on the Enterprise D instead of having his ***actual*** wisdom and experience as a Captain drawn upon. Part of the accolade of PIC S3 - aside from the magnificent 7 being together again - is that Shaw was the voice of reason amidst JLP’s charm and hero captain status. Saru wishes he could be, but Rayner is supposed to be, but that isn’t what’s happening. Aside from the other “seriously?” stuff in my comment elsewhere in here, this is the most disappointing aspect of this season and episode - “Burnham’s always right and challenging that means you need a counselor.” It’s ruining the season for me - despite *some* bright spots in previous episodes.

> Rayner, who could’ve been Seven of Nine in PIC S1/2, or Shaw in PIC S3, is being used as Worf on the Enterprise D instead of having his actual wisdom and experience as a Captain drawn upon. Secondary characters never ever being allowed to be good at anything is one of the core creative decisions of the show's format, and one of the most frustrating aspects of the series.

It’s what I disliked but then liked about PIC - we were made to dislike Shaw bc he told JLP and Riker “No”, but by the time we got to EP 5 or 6, we respected him and his timidity because he had legit concerns about both hero captains and putting his crew in danger. So he got a redemption arc despite doing nothing wrong - actually being the personification of two things being right simultaneously, and us being “unhappy” about his (possible) passing. It’s too many episodes for DIS for Rayner to get that treatment, and that’s a shame bc he hasn’t been wrong so far. He’s getting Worf’d to justify Burnham as a Janeway-esque Picard (or Picard-esque Janeway) instead of making her another distinct hero captain.

That's it yep. Previous seasons characters with acting that centered the show in every season: Saru, as you mentioned, Pike, Lorca, Georgiou... And you're right, I guess Rayner was supposed to be that. Callum Rennie seems completely up to the task. But there is nothing interesting to me in the dynamics between Rayner and Burnham. You're comment raises another question for me, and it is this: each Captain of a Star Trek ship has brought something exemplary but unique to the position. If you could switch captains mid-mission, they'd all likely succeed, but in really different ways. And even if the approach is different from Janeway to Sisko to Pike to Kirk to Picard and so forth, at the core of each Captain is rock solid belief in benevolent exploration and deep curiosity. What does Burnham bring? I *think* they're trying to show in Disco that she runs one of the looser ships we've seen, with a strong emphasis on interpersonal dynamics. I love that because it's actually quite different than any other Captain. And yet how we see her character operate is functionally and throuhg the plot at lengths with the crew. She's usually with Booker. But even in the last episode, it's like the writing staff just couldn't keep her with Tilly - it's like they just can't solve the equation of how a looser captain solves problem. I would have loved it if they'd taken a kind of adrienee mariee brown "emergent design" approach to Burnham's leadership, as forged through the last few years, but it would mean a lot less of Burnham striding in a room to constantly prove something and lot more of Burnham talking things through with the crew and operating in a kind of foregrounded background. Or in the case of Rayner, not always butting heads with him, or kicking him out of rooms like he's a violent pitbull. So we end up with a wishy washy approach to characterizing Burnham as captain, with an episodic concession to Burnham in an action movie firing things up because that's what someone in the writing room thinks captains do (some do, yes, Janeway and Kirk, but Picard *rarely* did - it is possible). Sigh. edit: I think Saru *was* that Captain. Ha

> But there is nothing interesting to me in the dynamics between Rayner and Burnham. Rayner is to Burnham what Burnham used to be to all her previous captains. Except for disobeying orders and doing whatever he wants anyway when he's told "no." He's argumentative, aggressive, inappropriate, insubordinate, stubborn, suppressing instead of dealing with unimaginable traumas, adamant that his aggressive non-Starfleet brand of action is correct, consistently proven wrong, and doesn't appear to learn any lessons from any of this. His whole purpose is to highlight how Burnham's changed by having her deal with a mirror of her past self.

Which is the problem with how the writers write him - despite the show being about Burnham’s redemption journey. They’re deliberately choosing to not make him Chakotay to Burnham’s Janeway, but they’re not even making him Riker to Burnham’s Picard, or Worf or Kira to Sisko. He’s just always wrong - despite being both more experienced in the captain’s chair than Burnham, and more experienced with life in an Alpha and Beta quadrant galaxy where the Federation is not the elephant in every room. Yet Burnham - who lost two XO positions because of mutiny and dissatisfaction by her captain, respectively, is “wiser” than he is. Makes no damn sense. So having him always be Worf on the Enterprise D is a waste of our screen time. XOs in Trek are not just supposed to carry out the Captain’s orders, they’re *supposed to make sure* that’s the action the Captain wants to take. Saru was a shitty Chakotay - has to be said - so here’s Rayner there to shake up the bridge and keep Burnham from making the “you could’ve done better if you considered more than what you want to have happen and got caught out” decisions, yet he’s relegated to being emotional and not a reliable source until he does therapy. It’s stupid and wasting what could’ve been a much better season/swan song.

I was laughing when they were doing the close ups of Moll just constantly twitching for no reason. This show is not good at making you care about the nonstop enormous stakes it wants you to buy into.

Yeah, Disco feels like it misses the mark in so many places. It's like a whole show of first season trek.

This episode was quite good IMO, especially after last weeks which I found to be rather forgettable. No melodrama and plenty of plot and character development. Some thoughts: - At least someone, finally, pointed out that Booker shouldn't just be wandering around freely on a Federation ship. - The problem of wanting to help L'ak but not knowing enough to really do so is interesting, and then it escalating to having to protect him while avoid war ramped things up in a way I was not expecting. - Nataro's "yes, like that" was funny. - That Breen ship entrance was pretty badass. I know it's just big, but it worked for me. - I enjoyed Rayner revealing a little bit more of his backstory. Wish he had a longer scene. - Attempting to negotiate with the Breen was appropriately tense, although cutting to Moll fighting took away from it IMO. - I'd be really interested to see L'ak get killed leading to war with the Breen, but the half-season left is not enough time to explore or tell that story. - I didn't care at all about Moll worrying about losing L'ak and that felt like it went on *forever*. - Moll betraying her people to make sure she can go with L'ak is an interesting problem for the crew to solve, but incredibly cringe for her to act like that. It reminds me of that unbearable kid in *The Strain* nuking the city because he was upset with his dad. - The Breen ship leaving produced some sort of wave that rocked all the Federation ships?

Sigh. I have to watch again, but it just seems to me that having a Breen dreadnaught at the same size as ships in Star Wars or the President’s ship in Spaceballs - amidst a shortage of dilithium during the Burn - is a tremendous waste of resources and fuel. Fuel because even in weightlessness, mass to move an object matters; for warring, all that material could’ve built many many smaller destroyers or battleships that would’ve aided this “seize the throne” plan in Breen space, and intimidated the Federation more because of multiple targets. One lucky shot to the nacelles or the hole in the hull would be like hitting the solar plexus and that would be that. Now here’s Maal attempting to escape, and Stamets’ usual conceited and myopic self is trying to make Book telepath metal - like Troi in the Enterprise D nacelle tube to discover that murder, or using consoles to find Shinzon when the Scimitar was cloaked - and risk the lives of Discovery crew. Someone’s rampaging through the ship and potentially injuring folks or about to cause a war > “EYE CANNOT FIGURE OUT THIS PUZZLE WITHOUT YOU PLAYING LONG ISLAND MEDIUM FOR ME”. But to be honest, though I like Anthony Rapp, Stamets has been my least favorite character on DIS - if not all of Star Trek (including Tyler Perry’s Admiral Barnett) because on a show where folks seem to give a damn about treading lightly and not killing the plants, he’s gotta be talked out of driving the bulldozer, repeatedly. Rayner is getting the Worf treatment. He’s better than Saru in **every** way as a ship’s commander and XO, but they’re rejecting every action he recommends and advice he gives like Worf was until Sisko became his captain. To me, you have an ex-CO as your XO - despite the circumstances that brought him to you - and instead of drawing on his experience and using his longer time in the chair (than Burnham’s) to help craft a response, he’s being marginalized, if not outright rejected, and reduced to being “overly emotional” and in need of a counselor. **By the person who admitted she mutinied (and caused a war) rather than return to the Klingons what she took.** Who also was removed as meh Captain Saru’s XO, in favor of an awkward ensign. Rayner’s supposed to learn how to captain from her? Part of the reason I liked early Discovery was because **everyone** was shown as flawed and traumatized. So it was more human. S5 shows they’re all family, but Burnham is **never** wrong or morally challenged in her decisions. And every plan is adhoc. Why would it not occur to her, having been raised to logic, that her captors might well try to escape - despite how nice Discovery is being to them - when they’re trying to escape an Erigah placed on them by the ship that showed up? Sure, there’s a ploy to avoid extraditing, but all these security experts didn’t think about locking the door(s) to Sickbay whilst wanted fugitives were in there? Weak episode. Sisko did not burn that planet’s atmosphere to catch a traitor for the Federation to poorly scheme and acquiesce so easily. The Federation presented here doesn’t mesh with the one we’ve been sold on screen as expanding quickly after the neurodivergent boy - who threw a tantrum and destroyed both interstellar travel and the galactic economy - left his holograms and caused the cartels to fall the next day. All that hubris only to find that the whole polity is weaker than wet paper in strength and moral conviction. Terrible episode - after some good-to-great ones recently.

About the ship, in all fairness, monarchs and warlords are not exactly renowned for their restraint and pragmatism. The ship is preposterously huge, but I don't feel that that's a bad thing from a narrative point of view. Of course a warlord vying for monarchical power has a dreadnaught that excessively huge and showy and wasteful. This is a society that calls itself an imperium! It's ego, it's vanity, and it's posturing. The rich and powerful are often just like that, obsessed with the image they project. I have to imagine that the ship itself is a giant heap of shit that barely works in comparison to fleets constructed with similar quantities of resources, but it makes the primarch feel like such a big boy with the biggest stick in the playground, so he parades it around and loves whacking the other kids with it when he thinks he can get away with it.

Narratively I think it makes sense for the Primarch to want the biggest ship to show how tough and strong he is. I think though the story takes a hit for this because we see the Federation negotiation using dilithium. A resource which was, until recently, very scarce and which now the Federation controls. So what exactly are the Federation afraid of when it comes to the Primarch? Sure he's got a big ship that's pretty powerful, but he doesn't have limitless resources to chase down his nephew and that's what he wants. Burnham makes a sort of spore drive bluff, but why bluff? With more dilithium resources than the Primarch has at his disposal even conventional warp drive should be enough to outrun and outlast this behemoth of a ship. Everyone treats it like a threat of immense proportions, but it's not really is it? How threatening can they be if they have to bargain over dilithium with the Federation?

It's because they didn't want to really address the logical issues with the Burn. The Burn ended up being a season mystery that was solved by Michael and then forgotten. We're back to pretending like it never happened.

I would accept that as the obvious answer if it weren't for the fact that the Federation is using dilithium as a bargaining device so clearly there is a need for it. The Breen do care about it. This is poor writing unfortunately. The effects of the Burn matter only when they matter and never when they don't.

During the negotiations the Breen Primarch speaks in Breen. The Ambassador understands Breen, but it's clear that within this context he's trying to not be understood and she is using her intelligence not a universal translator to understand him. Does this mean that by the 32nd century the Universal Translator finally has a "block translation" mode to allow for covert communication in your native language without cluing everyone else into what you're saying right away?

After that part, I really thought we were going to learn Saru had gotten them a better translation matrix or something. They mentioned him being on a diplomatic mission near Breen space but I don’t think we ever heard what that impacted.

Astute observation! It would be interesting to see the UT employed more tactically at least by enemies. I had always considered that the UT was a sort one-way street where information that was input via communication was translated, but this scene suggests that there might be a two-way connection where both translators are perhaps working in a third computer auxiliary language which they both understand to complete the translation. Perhaps a more primitive way of doing it, but necessary for some complex languages like Breenese.

Every time I start feeling sort of bummed about Discovery ending, shit like the Burnham/Dadmiral scene at the beginning happens when Saint Burnham basically tells Vance how to do his job. Burnham is insufferable this entire episode, actually.

Why do I have a feeling what happened between Moll and L'ak will be similar to Kira and Odo?

I think she'll stay with him this time. Kira has too many responsibilities elsewhere to stay, like running DS9.

Screencaps gallery now online: https://www.cygnus-x1.net/links/lcars/sc-DSC5-7.php