La’an bluffs a Broken Circle weapons buyer with an ”antimatter detonation switch,” something she tells Uhura she made up on the spot. In “Surrender” Jack Crusher pulled a similar trick on Vadic, implying a personal forcefield was actually an unknown weapon.
In the dilithium mines, Doctor M’Benga and Chapel see what appears to be a mostly constructed Starfleet ship.
When the ship enters space, Mitchell says she thinks it’s a Crossfield-class, like the USS Discovery. The ship does have a Crossfield-class saucer, but the secondary hull is very different.
Motion graphics art director for the series, Tim Peel, has confirmed on twitter that it is not actually a Crossfield-class.
The Crossfake’s transponder has its registry as NCC-1729.
Doctor M’Benga and nurse Chapel inject themselves with a serum that that makes them slower and weaker so that when they attack their Klingon captors they don’t completely overwhelm them. Not doing so would be considered a war crime, as Klingons are extremely bad a fighting as seen in many, many episodes including, but not limited to:
“The Trouble with Tribbles” - Klingons provoke Scotty, Chekov and other Enterprise crew to a fight, only to lose
“Star Trek: The Search for Spock” - A Klingon lord gets the jump on a Starfleet captain, and ends up dumped into a pool of magma like he’s trying to steal the One Ring
“House of Quark” - The head of a Klingon House attacks a small Ferengi and ends up stabbing himself to death
“Marauders” - A group of malnourished colonists fend of a group of armed Klingon warriors after only a day’s worth of Vulcan martial arts training
“The Vulcan Hello” - A Klingon Torchbearer attacked an unarmed Starfleet officer with a bat’leth and stabbed himself to death
Apparently in the Klingon Empire they do call them Klingon disruptors.
The D7-class battlecruiser we see appears to be a reuse of the CGI model introduced in “Through the Valley of Shadows”, perhaps with some updated textures.
Doctor M’Benga was able to use the Crossfake’s transponder communicate with the Enterprise in Morse 2. Morse code has been previously used in:
The SS Botany Bay’s call signal in “Space Seed” was broadcast in morse
Scotty tapped out ”stand back” before destroying the wall of the brig in “Star Trek: The Final Frontier”
The SS Mariposa’s distress beacon was an SOS in “Up the Long Ladder”
In “The 37’s” the *USS Voyager” discovered an SOS coming from a planet in the Delta quadrant
Harry is able to alert Tom Paris of sabotage aboard the Delta Flyer using morse in “Drive”
In “Mindwalk” Dal was able to send an SOS to the rest of the Protogies, but they assumed those were the only letters he would have memorized so they couldn’t use it to communicate back to him.
”They thought it worth their lives to prevent another war. Logical.” This follows Spock’s reasoning from “Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan” where he first says, ”Logic dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”
The maneuvering pack Doctor M’Benga finds looks to be of the type introduced in “Brother”.
We see the D7’s nacelles reconfigure to ready weapons; “Elaan of Troyius” established that the nacelles also house disruptor cannons.
Spock is able to revive Chapel using CPR. We’ve previously seen Kirk use the technique to save the life of a child in “The Paradise Syndrome”, and Tendi do so with Boimler in “First First Contact”. It’s not entirely clear if Chakotay actually performed CPR on Janeway in “Coda” or if that was only part of a hallucination inflicted upon her by an alien entity.
Captain D’Chok’s armour has a similar design to the Klingon armour introduced in “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” and used all through TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT, and the TOS and TNG movies, but is gold, like the tunics Klingon soldiers wore during TOS.
D’Chok’s baldric bears a House symbol first seen in the DIS episode “Point of LIght” one by one of the members of the High Council.
Both House D’Ghor and House Kol wore gold armour in season one of DIS.
Spock states he ”[has] been known to” drink bloodwine. In “The Conscience of the King” Spock tells Bones that his father’s people were *”spared the dubious benefits of alcohol,” which might imply that they are not actually capable of becoming drunk from it. And in “Cease Fire” Soval declares that Vulcans do not drink, but he himself immediately makes an exception. Also, T’Pol, Sakonna, Tuvok, and Spock are all seen drinking at one point or another. And both Vulcan port and Vulcan brandy were introduced in “The Maquis, Part I” and “Repression” respectively.
Despite his claim, this is the first instance of Spock drinking bloodwine on screen.
Spock is hungover during his call with April, so perhaps even if Vulcans are spared the benefits of alcohol, they still experience the drawbacks, which could explain why they don’t drink. Except when they do.
When the map in April’s office resolves, a few locations can be made out
Deep Space 2
Galdonterre - The planet where Kang, Kor, and Koloth were able to track the Albino to in “Blood Oath”
Cestus - Cestus III is introduced in “Arena” as the planet where the Enterprise beams down to have dinner at an observation outpost only to find it’s been razed by the Gorn
What is a probable Gorn attack ship - in the Gorn Hegemony they just call them ships.
Klingons are extremely bad a fighting
Don't forget Worf losing a fight to a blue barrel
La’an bluffs a Broken Circle weapons buyer with an ”antimatter detonation switch,” something she tells Uhura she made up on the spot. In “Surrender” Jack Crusher pulled a similar trick on Vadic, implying a personal forcefield was actually an unknown weapon.
It made me think of Kirk’s bluff in “The Corbomite Maneuver”.
Ok, that’s pretty dang funny about the serum slowing them down. That part of the episode jumped the shark for me. I’m excited to see the rest of the series, but thought this episode wasn’t great.
Wonderful to see you here, USSBurritoTruck! These posts are amazing as always! That catch about a possible Roger Korby connection is fantastic, and with all the focus they've put on Chapel's relationship with Spock, I wouldn't be surprised to see that come into play.
I can’t imagine it was not an intentional callback to TOS, foreshadowing Chapel’s meeting, and falling for(?), Roger Korby.
Interesting. Yes, it has to be on purpose.
I had forgotten the Korby/Chapel timeline and had to look up the details.
#SNW 'The Broken Circle' takes place somewhere in 2260.
Korby disappeared around 2261 at which time he was engaged to Chapel who had been his student at some point. (the archeological medicine fellowship?)
The #TOS ep 'What Are Little Girls Made Of' takes place in 2266.
Damn... I'm going to need some sort of flow chart soon.
So things may move pretty fast with Korby. A whirlwind rebound after things get awkward with Spock?
If this fellowship Chapel is talking about is the one where she meets Kirby… yeah. A two month romance leading to engagement.
Fun as always, although a bummer that Lemmy can't let you have the full post all in the top post.
Also, I'm glad I wasn't the only one who caught the reference Korby's specialty.
Unfortunately that doesn't seem to be an option, or else I would pin it. I think what I'll have to do is link to the comment with the rest at the bottom of the post.
Then maybe in the future I'll need to work at keeping it under 10k characters, though this one was almost 16k.
Or I can just link to the admin every post asking them to extend the character limit.
Having a child comment to continue it is fine. I only wish it would be the to comment by default, but linking to it at the bottom of part one is a good countermeasure.
Oh God how I missed this kind of posts since I left Reddit last year. Thank you and the creators of startrek.website so much!
”You can always count on a Vulcan’s inability to lie.” Vulcans lie all the time.
Especially fun in the context of Star Trek VI:
SPOCK: Curious. Very well. In twenty-four hours we'll agree this conversation did not take place.
VALERIS: A lie?
SPOCK: An omission.
SPOCK: Thank you, Mister Scott. Lieutenant, please inform Starfleet Command our warp drive is inoperative.
VALERIS: A lie?
SPOCK: An error.
KIRK: Names, Lieutenant.
VALERIS: I do not remember.
SPOCK: A lie?
VALERIS: A choice.
Spock is somewhat easy to justify, being half human. Valeris is trickier. Had she remained Saavik, and been revealed to be half-Romulan as planned, it would once again have been easy to justify. The change from Saavik to Valeris, and dropping of the half-Romulan aspect, means we have a TOS-era Vulcan following in the "it's not a lie if I can use a different synonym" pattern Spock uses, so more or less renders the whole thing untrue.
I always thought of it as being like how Vulcans say they have no emotions even though they have very strong emotions. They probably just have a strong cultural taboo against lying, but they're really full of themselves, so they think of it as being unable to lie.
Remember that it's the Vulcans that tell everyone that they cannot lie. People tend to assume that such logical beings are telling them the truth, and they just reinforce that belief by saying it. It's a tactical advantage to them.
Kirk did not have a ”thing.” Nor did Sisko or Janeway. The idea that everyone likely to give the command to go to warp needs to have their own catchphrase is unsustainable.
I'll give you Kirk and Sisko, but Janeway absolutely did. Whereas Picard had "engage" and "make it so," Janeway had "Do it." It wasn't always her 'warp' thing, but it was certainly her go to phrase for finishing an order.
"Do it" is certainly something Janeway says a lot, but it isn't specifically her command to engage the warp drive, nor do I believe it was something that the writers room intended to be a phrase she put any thought into, but rather something they felt suited her character.
For that matter, I don't think Picard was intended to be a character that put any forethought into his *"Engage," and, "Make it so," catchphrases.
The idea that every character needs to have a "thing" irks me probably more than it should. Saru trying to come up with a phrase suited the character to an extent because he was anxious and trying to project a certain authority, and also he wasn't work on it on the bridge. I'll even forgive Captain Freeman her "Warp me!" because it's part of her character that she's trying to stand out and get more recognition. But here, when the characters are ostensibly on a rescue mission they felt was important enough to steal the Enterprise, they still take a pause to banter about the need for a "thing." Nah, this is easily the worst trope of modern Trek.
It wasn’t necessarily a warp command, but I’d say that “Steady as she goes” was Kirk’s thing.
I am of two minds.
On the one hand, some monetary recompense would make the prospect of rewatching that episode someone less objectionable.
However, the idea that anyone would be willing to part with their money for one of these lists makes me never want to do one again.
One time to refresh everyone’s memory of how SNW does things, here are the stardates mentioned in season one:
so.... how do we reconcile figuring out how stardates work here? it would seem to not be linear.
My assumption at this point is that the stardates in SNW are a targeted attack on me specifically. The one way to resolve it is for me to challenge Akiva Goldsman to ritual combat with the lirpa, but he won’t reply to my emails.
They work just like they did in TOS, where everything is made up and the stardates don't matter.
For real tho. The TOS season 2 writer's bible (which you can find online) basically says the stardate number is a complex calculation that depends not only on time, but your location in the galaxy. I would not be surprised at all if the showrunners/writers are aware of this and are purposely doing it as an homage.
I usually don't get involved in overly technical discussions of fiction, but this is bothering me now. How can so few numbers give sufficient precision to calculate X,Y,Z,T(?) coordinates?
Yeah, I mean, practically, it doesn't make much sense. In the bible's context, I think Roddenberry was just giving potential writers (like all their guest writers) an out to not have to worry about their date falling into some continuity with another episode, and just made it sound more science-y to explain it away. Really, back then, he didn't really care so much for technical jargon, as long as the story was good and made sense for the characters (this point is also essentially stated in the bible). If you've never read that bible, I highly recommend it, especially if you like behind the scenes kind of stuff. It gives you a bit about what Roddenberry was thinking back then in his approach to the show. Even has a joke or two sprinkled in.
Wow, what an awesome post. Thank you for all of the cool details!
Pelia seems like a fun character. I'm interested in seeing how this season develops, especially with the new "big bad."
This felt more like a mini movie than an episode. I hope this is just to please the studio as a season opener than what to expect the whole way through. I want conversational drama, not adrenaline filled action.