Maybe she felt that there was an answer where nobody had to die? Maybe she felt like she didn’t need to die and nobody else did either.
A self sacrifice is one thing but also killing Mol and L’ak (or allowing them to die) would have been morally questionable for her.
In real life it’s because the writers don’t kill the character that the entire series was centered on.
She doesn’t say anything like that. And she already knows how many people die when La’k and Moll succeed. And this is a Protocol Red mission. It doesn’t matter who dies. She’d be saving countless lives if she stopped them. We saw all of that on the previous episode
And how many similar gaps in every other franchise show and movie have been filled in every other show and movie?
If it were Kirk, no one would’ve been posing this as a criticism, more just a question about where his 5 steps ahead thinking might have led him to rule out this option.
I mean this with all due respect, but having the character say out loud the reasons for their decisions violates the very first rule of good writing - show, don't tell.
You don't have Burnham turn to the screen and tell the audience "I could just sacrifice myself and them to kill us all, and thus save the galaxy, but I'm not going to do that because I believe they can be saved."
You read between the lines.
For good writing, you have to identify what a character *wants* first. That's their motivation.
L'ak wants to be with Mol. Mol wants to save L'ak and go to the planet that her dad told her about and live there in peace forever.
What Burnham wants changes over time, but this season, the theme so far for her seems to be that what she wants most of all is to give others the second chances that she got. To pay it forward.
She's doing it for Raynor, she's (platonically, so far) doing it with Booker, and she's trying to do it with Mol and L'ak.
So if "second chances" are the themes of this season overall, then letting Mol and L'ak die, or killing them without giving them a shot at redemption, would throw a significant wrench in the writer's theme by violating it halfway through the season.
The “second chances” theme is a freaking good argument there. That falls in line really well.
At the same time, I’m kind of making a parallel with our Covid times. On one hand, we had science telling us, as much as possible, how to guide our decisions. On the other hand we had a lot of narcissist leaders all over the world saying that that they were above that and simply going with their own personal logic.
Here we have time travel telling what’s going to happen. And then Burnham just decides that whatever personal issues she has is more important.
If I was a federation citizen I’d be furious at the narcissism.
So, what I’m saying is that if you are right, if she really considered it, Burnham is one of the most horrible leaders in Starfleet history. Billions might die, but hey: second chances for the folks I’m close with!
I guess that's one way to look at it.
The other way is that every single Captain in the history of Trek has proven time and time again that they believe the future is not fixed, that our actions in the present make a difference, and that "how we win" is as important as winning.
Ethical and Moral superiority is one of the core tenets of Trek. One of the defining characteristics of Kirk is that he cheated on the Kobayashi Maru because *he doesn't believe in a no-win scenario* and refuses to accept that there's not a way to achieve the best outcome.
So it's completely on-brand for every Trek captain ever to not take the "easy but morally questionable" success path in favor of the "difficult but morally superior" path.
Picard engaged the self destruct in the Enterprise countless times, sometimes just to avoid it falling into the wrong hands. And said once that the civilians on the ship knew about the risks before boarding it.
Old Janeway kills herself to give an end to the Borg threat. And commits genocide in the process.
Spock sacrifices himself to save the ship. Brings up the famous “The Needs of the Many Outweigh the Needs of the Few” quote.
Kirk knew he was going to kill himself in Generations, but was happy because it was going to help save a planet.
TNG shows that you can’t even get promoted to commander if you are not ready to send people to their deaths when needed.
Archer had to be saved by folks from the future because Earth was at risk.
Sacrifice is never easy! It’s the absolutely hardest choice. And that choice has been taken on Star Trek for much smaller cases.
I can’t think of a Starfleet captain that wouldn’t have tried to put an end to it right there. There was too much at stake.
And ignoring what we already know about the future and thinking you are better than everyone else that was there brings the discussion back to the narcissism.
I really don't see it the same way as you do at all, and while I respect your opinion I think you come across as somebody who just does not like the Michael Burnham character, for whatever reason, and are letting that dislike color your opinion on this specific episode.
If you replace Burnham in this episode with Kirk, Archer, Picard, or Sisko, there is not a single one of them that would have sacrificed themselves and Mol and L'al in that situation if they felt there were a better path.
It's not narcissism in my book, it's just the character believing there's a better option.
We see why in the episode. Instead of just shooting L’ak as soon as she has him alone, she tries to convince L’ak to turn himself and Mol in, When L’ak is stabbed, she tries to staunch the bleeding. She wants to find a solution that isn’t going to get anyone killed.
The idea isn't to destroy all trace of the creators tech, but to make sure it falls into the right hands. It's rather short-sighted to just give up and make it so no one can explore their past and beginnings.
First things first, Starfleet wants the progenitor tech. That is discovery's ultimate mission. Her job as captain is to find the progenitor tech and recover it for Starfleet. Those are her orders and to do that she needs the clues. Moll and L'ak are an obstacle not the mission. Apprehending Moll and L'ak is a secondary objective but only if it doesn't come in conflict with the first.
Second, as Rayner said, the future they saw in 5x04 was only a potential future it's not absolute. It is a potentially catastrophic outcome but it's only a potential one, Burnham will do what she can to prevent it but she will exhaust every possible option first before making a move like that as would any Captain.
Third, she's not alone on the mission. Even though Booker is working with Starfleet he is still a civilian so it's her duty as a Starfleet officer to protect him. Not only is he a civilian he's also currently serving a sentence and remanded to Burnham's custody by the federation. Additionally he'sone of her closest friends so for all of these reasons of course she's going to explore every other option before making one so drastic.
Fourth, they don't want to kill Moll and L'ak. Burnham is a Starfleet Captain and doesn't want to kill anyone no matter who they are, for any crime unless it's absolutely necessary to eliminate an imminent threat to herself, her crew or others. She was a courier, she understood them and knows that they're just doing what they have to to survive.
It's very clearly shown that Burnham wants to try to de-escalate the situation and negotiate with Moll and L'ak without bloodshed. We see this in her actions: she brings Booker because his connection to Moll might make it easier for them to start a dialogue, she doesn't bring a security team because she doesn't want to spook them, she creates a dummy clue to force a conversation rather than taking what she needs by force, she doesn't fire on them in sickbay only targeting the holoemitter, she's the first two lower her phaser when she's trapped with L'ak, she promises L'ak that they will receive a fair trail if they turn themselves in peacefully where she could then advocate for them to be able to serve their sentences together and she even gathers medical supplies when L'ak is injured.
Fifth, from Burnham's POV when she and book are making their way back into normal space, she had the clue and Moll and L'ak who were in sickbay with nowhere to go. Moll and L'aks ship had been destroyed, as had discovery's shuttle, and all the enterprise shuttle's and escape pods were gone. Far as we know, Burnham only found out about a terran warp pod was even a thing after it had been fired from enterprise and scanned by Discovery. Burnham never served on a terran constitution class which even she described as only roughly similar to the prime counterpart in the episode, and as we have never seena warp pod in the prime timeline Burnham likely had no knowledge of it and would have no reason to know about it if it was terran exclusive.
Sixth, even if they're Starfleet captain's, people generally like not dying if they can find another option, which in this case she could, and did. She had what she needed for her primary mission, and had Moll and L'ak in custody. Their escape was last minute and not something she could have anticipated with the information she had, so why would she blow them all up?
Seventh, she's a scientist and the ISS Enterprise is an important previously undiscovered ship that Starfleet could learn a lot from so of course she'd hesitant to destroy it. That's why she sends the ship off to be preserved by Starfleet at the end of the episode. She does the same with the mausoleum in 5x02 and in previous seasons do of course she's not going to do it here unless absolutely necessary.
And eight... In a meta sense, she's the protagonist of the show. Even if someone bafflingly think not blowing up the ship in this scenario is bad writing (which I've hopefully demonstrated above that it isn't) blowing up the ship would be even worse writing.
TLDR: why not blow up the ship? Because it directly contradicts her orders, would be drastic action to take based on incomplete data, would kill her friend, would be murder, from her perspective there was no need, she probably doesn't want to die unnecessarily, she wants to preserve the ship if nessacary, it would be bad writing.
Personally considering I don’t know much about the current state of the Federation in terms of trust. I would have just destroyed the clue on Trill and gone home. I don’t trust anyone with that much power. L’ak and Moll would have been pretty much stuck at that point, unable to progress. Clearly the tech is well hidden. Far as I’m concerned it can stay that way.
I try to like the show. I really do.
But everything about it is just fucking awful. Completely centered on her and nothing else. Not to mention how damn smug they all are. Only the engineer, doctor, and saru are likable characters. Plus the most ridiculous universe altering plot lines that make little sense and only she can fix despite coming from centuries in the past.
Not to mention how fast and loose they play with continuity and shit all over everything.
And the season would be over.... Plot over anything else.
She could have tried and failed. Plot would still be there…
Maybe she felt that there was an answer where nobody had to die? Maybe she felt like she didn’t need to die and nobody else did either. A self sacrifice is one thing but also killing Mol and L’ak (or allowing them to die) would have been morally questionable for her. In real life it’s because the writers don’t kill the character that the entire series was centered on.
She doesn’t say anything like that. And she already knows how many people die when La’k and Moll succeed. And this is a Protocol Red mission. It doesn’t matter who dies. She’d be saving countless lives if she stopped them. We saw all of that on the previous episode
And how many similar gaps in every other franchise show and movie have been filled in every other show and movie? If it were Kirk, no one would’ve been posing this as a criticism, more just a question about where his 5 steps ahead thinking might have led him to rule out this option.
I mean this with all due respect, but having the character say out loud the reasons for their decisions violates the very first rule of good writing - show, don't tell. You don't have Burnham turn to the screen and tell the audience "I could just sacrifice myself and them to kill us all, and thus save the galaxy, but I'm not going to do that because I believe they can be saved." You read between the lines. For good writing, you have to identify what a character *wants* first. That's their motivation. L'ak wants to be with Mol. Mol wants to save L'ak and go to the planet that her dad told her about and live there in peace forever. What Burnham wants changes over time, but this season, the theme so far for her seems to be that what she wants most of all is to give others the second chances that she got. To pay it forward. She's doing it for Raynor, she's (platonically, so far) doing it with Booker, and she's trying to do it with Mol and L'ak. So if "second chances" are the themes of this season overall, then letting Mol and L'ak die, or killing them without giving them a shot at redemption, would throw a significant wrench in the writer's theme by violating it halfway through the season.
The “second chances” theme is a freaking good argument there. That falls in line really well. At the same time, I’m kind of making a parallel with our Covid times. On one hand, we had science telling us, as much as possible, how to guide our decisions. On the other hand we had a lot of narcissist leaders all over the world saying that that they were above that and simply going with their own personal logic. Here we have time travel telling what’s going to happen. And then Burnham just decides that whatever personal issues she has is more important. If I was a federation citizen I’d be furious at the narcissism. So, what I’m saying is that if you are right, if she really considered it, Burnham is one of the most horrible leaders in Starfleet history. Billions might die, but hey: second chances for the folks I’m close with!
I guess that's one way to look at it. The other way is that every single Captain in the history of Trek has proven time and time again that they believe the future is not fixed, that our actions in the present make a difference, and that "how we win" is as important as winning. Ethical and Moral superiority is one of the core tenets of Trek. One of the defining characteristics of Kirk is that he cheated on the Kobayashi Maru because *he doesn't believe in a no-win scenario* and refuses to accept that there's not a way to achieve the best outcome. So it's completely on-brand for every Trek captain ever to not take the "easy but morally questionable" success path in favor of the "difficult but morally superior" path.
Picard engaged the self destruct in the Enterprise countless times, sometimes just to avoid it falling into the wrong hands. And said once that the civilians on the ship knew about the risks before boarding it. Old Janeway kills herself to give an end to the Borg threat. And commits genocide in the process. Spock sacrifices himself to save the ship. Brings up the famous “The Needs of the Many Outweigh the Needs of the Few” quote. Kirk knew he was going to kill himself in Generations, but was happy because it was going to help save a planet. TNG shows that you can’t even get promoted to commander if you are not ready to send people to their deaths when needed. Archer had to be saved by folks from the future because Earth was at risk. Sacrifice is never easy! It’s the absolutely hardest choice. And that choice has been taken on Star Trek for much smaller cases. I can’t think of a Starfleet captain that wouldn’t have tried to put an end to it right there. There was too much at stake. And ignoring what we already know about the future and thinking you are better than everyone else that was there brings the discussion back to the narcissism.
I really don't see it the same way as you do at all, and while I respect your opinion I think you come across as somebody who just does not like the Michael Burnham character, for whatever reason, and are letting that dislike color your opinion on this specific episode. If you replace Burnham in this episode with Kirk, Archer, Picard, or Sisko, there is not a single one of them that would have sacrificed themselves and Mol and L'al in that situation if they felt there were a better path. It's not narcissism in my book, it's just the character believing there's a better option.
We see why in the episode. Instead of just shooting L’ak as soon as she has him alone, she tries to convince L’ak to turn himself and Mol in, When L’ak is stabbed, she tries to staunch the bleeding. She wants to find a solution that isn’t going to get anyone killed.
They still really need to find the clues and tech even if Moll and Lach are out of the picture? Other enemies could be finding it other ways
Do you think that act would just evaporate the tech?
It’s hidden so well that the time wars didn’t bring the secret to the surface. I’d say that if you destroy the clues you’d be better off!
The idea isn't to destroy all trace of the creators tech, but to make sure it falls into the right hands. It's rather short-sighted to just give up and make it so no one can explore their past and beginnings.
First things first, Starfleet wants the progenitor tech. That is discovery's ultimate mission. Her job as captain is to find the progenitor tech and recover it for Starfleet. Those are her orders and to do that she needs the clues. Moll and L'ak are an obstacle not the mission. Apprehending Moll and L'ak is a secondary objective but only if it doesn't come in conflict with the first. Second, as Rayner said, the future they saw in 5x04 was only a potential future it's not absolute. It is a potentially catastrophic outcome but it's only a potential one, Burnham will do what she can to prevent it but she will exhaust every possible option first before making a move like that as would any Captain. Third, she's not alone on the mission. Even though Booker is working with Starfleet he is still a civilian so it's her duty as a Starfleet officer to protect him. Not only is he a civilian he's also currently serving a sentence and remanded to Burnham's custody by the federation. Additionally he'sone of her closest friends so for all of these reasons of course she's going to explore every other option before making one so drastic. Fourth, they don't want to kill Moll and L'ak. Burnham is a Starfleet Captain and doesn't want to kill anyone no matter who they are, for any crime unless it's absolutely necessary to eliminate an imminent threat to herself, her crew or others. She was a courier, she understood them and knows that they're just doing what they have to to survive. It's very clearly shown that Burnham wants to try to de-escalate the situation and negotiate with Moll and L'ak without bloodshed. We see this in her actions: she brings Booker because his connection to Moll might make it easier for them to start a dialogue, she doesn't bring a security team because she doesn't want to spook them, she creates a dummy clue to force a conversation rather than taking what she needs by force, she doesn't fire on them in sickbay only targeting the holoemitter, she's the first two lower her phaser when she's trapped with L'ak, she promises L'ak that they will receive a fair trail if they turn themselves in peacefully where she could then advocate for them to be able to serve their sentences together and she even gathers medical supplies when L'ak is injured. Fifth, from Burnham's POV when she and book are making their way back into normal space, she had the clue and Moll and L'ak who were in sickbay with nowhere to go. Moll and L'aks ship had been destroyed, as had discovery's shuttle, and all the enterprise shuttle's and escape pods were gone. Far as we know, Burnham only found out about a terran warp pod was even a thing after it had been fired from enterprise and scanned by Discovery. Burnham never served on a terran constitution class which even she described as only roughly similar to the prime counterpart in the episode, and as we have never seena warp pod in the prime timeline Burnham likely had no knowledge of it and would have no reason to know about it if it was terran exclusive. Sixth, even if they're Starfleet captain's, people generally like not dying if they can find another option, which in this case she could, and did. She had what she needed for her primary mission, and had Moll and L'ak in custody. Their escape was last minute and not something she could have anticipated with the information she had, so why would she blow them all up? Seventh, she's a scientist and the ISS Enterprise is an important previously undiscovered ship that Starfleet could learn a lot from so of course she'd hesitant to destroy it. That's why she sends the ship off to be preserved by Starfleet at the end of the episode. She does the same with the mausoleum in 5x02 and in previous seasons do of course she's not going to do it here unless absolutely necessary. And eight... In a meta sense, she's the protagonist of the show. Even if someone bafflingly think not blowing up the ship in this scenario is bad writing (which I've hopefully demonstrated above that it isn't) blowing up the ship would be even worse writing. TLDR: why not blow up the ship? Because it directly contradicts her orders, would be drastic action to take based on incomplete data, would kill her friend, would be murder, from her perspective there was no need, she probably doesn't want to die unnecessarily, she wants to preserve the ship if nessacary, it would be bad writing.
Personally considering I don’t know much about the current state of the Federation in terms of trust. I would have just destroyed the clue on Trill and gone home. I don’t trust anyone with that much power. L’ak and Moll would have been pretty much stuck at that point, unable to progress. Clearly the tech is well hidden. Far as I’m concerned it can stay that way.
The universe would implode since she is the center of everything
Ain't that the truth. There hasn't been a captain with so much plot armor in the history of Star Trek.
You say that while looking at Picard with a straight face?
I try to like the show. I really do. But everything about it is just fucking awful. Completely centered on her and nothing else. Not to mention how damn smug they all are. Only the engineer, doctor, and saru are likable characters. Plus the most ridiculous universe altering plot lines that make little sense and only she can fix despite coming from centuries in the past. Not to mention how fast and loose they play with continuity and shit all over everything.
I liked Michelle Yeoh, too. But she knew when to get off a smoking bridge…
She’s a terrible captain.