Star Trek Discovery. [SPOILERS WITHIN]

That might sound fun to us, but to Hollywood "amortization" is such a lovely word

Your problem is since you've decided to be a woman and join the LGBT crusade you frame everything from a fanatical viewpoint. It was predictable that you'd write this. You don't write it because you actually support the character.

You write it because you're virtue signaling.

'support the character'? dude we haven't seen her yet. who in the year 2017 cares if she's a gay, four-eared love child of sarek and the gh'chellian ambassador's incestious son.

but yea i know. hollywood is not good at queer characters. they either put them on a pedestal, spotlight on or forget them altogether. there are just two instances i can remember that did gay right: SENSE8 (which was so good and flowed so naturally i didn't realize the total gayness at first) and... cue drums... ST: BEYOND. sulu's gay. so what. nobody cares (could have done without kirk's pitiful look though)

"Virtue signaling" is a bullshit term that attempts to stigmatize basic decency.

...which episode was this?

"Turnabout Intruder".

You're right in that no one ever says "Spock has no human sister." But given the significance of Spock having a human sister, it seems really, really, really implausible that it never got mentioned, especially if this sister has a complex relationship with Sarek.

Retcons--in my opinion--must not only avoid contradicting prior canon, they must also be reasonably consistent and harmonious with it. The retcon cannot create a situation where the retcon is implausibly unexpressed in the original material.

Someone could, for instance, retcon Kirk so that he spent 10 years living on the Klingon homeworld when he was a teenager. Nothing contradicts that; it could even fit in the JJVerse reboot. But does it seem plausible that, in all our prior exposure to Kirk, such a fact would never have come up? No, and so I'd argue that the retcon fails the plausible inexpression test.

After he left the Klingons, Stryker shot him in the head with an adamantium bullet, and that wiped his memory.

So he forgot he built C-3PO?

Sounds plausible.

Also, come on, Enterprise crowbar-ed the whole NX-01 into history, we can't squeeze one more little Michael Burnham in?

Eh, I can sorta forgive Enterprise, since we knew there HAD to be earlier generations of starships (though TMP showed a ringship was the earlier Enterprise), and we knew from TOS that contact with the Klingons first happened years before. I'm less forgiving of Enterprise where it had storylines involving the Ferengi and the Borg. Did Starfleet just sorta forget about these aliens after the events? Did Archer forget to file reports on them?

A human raised by Vulcans *is* an intriguing character idea--it sorta turns Spock on his head--but why (other than fan service) does the character have to be tied to Sarek?

They previewed the theme song to a live audience; only text descriptions available, they say it sounds like a beefed up expanded on version of the TOS theme.

http://trekmovie.com/2017/08/01/cbs...theme-music-and-announces-after-show-details/

Also, 11 character posters.
I ain't re-linking 11 images so here's the link, have at it.

http://trekmovie.com/2017/08/01/11-...ter-posters-unveiled-including-new-character/

That was another symptom of the thing about Berman and Braga seeking to duplicate The Next Generation in every form of Star Trek they worked on.

I could understand the Borg. The Borg freaks out Earth, remember there is no Federation yet, and they just box everything up while telling everyone who saw a Borg to shut-up or else. I could forgive Enterprise for that. Plus as my memory serves me they were not called Borg in that episode.

When the Federation rolls around it just never gets mentioned to anyone and soon is forgotten.

The Ferengi on the other hand is not excusable.

But you brought up an issue that I want to mini-rant on about this woman being an adopted sister of Spock.

And that issue affects all of Star Trek and even other TV shows. Particularly Sci-Fi shows.

That is the concept where the writers bring established characters (in person or by name), species, incidents or old story lines into new shows in an attempt, often ham-fisted, to connect all the shows. It get's really bad when they try to tie the new characters from the new show to the old characters of the old shows. Like this woman and Spock.

Forget that it has never been mentioned ever that Spock had siblings of any type until Star Trek V. Are you telling me that the writers couldn't have found one Vulcan character not named Sarek who could have raised this girl? You see we the viewers are in essence being cheated by the writers. Instead of giving us new characters and enriching the universe with more stuff they are trying to shoehorn this woman character into an already established family line.

They could have given us so much more by having this human character being raised by someone other than Sarek. Maybe they were stuck on a planet somewhere. Or they were stuck in space because the warp drive was destroyed so they just floated through space for a decade with each other. Maybe there was a Vulcan family more into IDIC than Sarek, who let's face it was a dick to all humans who were not his wife in TOS, who raised this girl. Maybe it could even be someone famous. Sarek can't be the only famous Vulcan on Vulcan. Maybe it's a Vulcan who moved to Earth for a job and fell in love with a human, married her, he adopted the child after the marriage to make it official, and than the mom died suddenly meaning he had to raise the child.

But nope..... We've got to make Sarek be her father. He adopted her and she's Spock's sister. Boring!

Lazy writers and show producers.

Agreed on all points.

My reaction when I heard that Michael Burnham was raised by Vulcans:
My reaction when I heard that she was raised by Sarek:

Yep.

No, it stigmatizes arseholes.

Case in point, an acquaintance of mine was busy screaming about how all homeless people were scum and the like when I was getting a homeless guy some food and drink.

Fast forward a bit, he's moved to a new city and is now piously informing the world, via social meeja of course, how the homeless are people too. They have - *gasp* - names no less! How sage is this fellow? Educating the world that the homeless may not have crawled out of their mommas cunny to live nameless in a gutter, really, he deserves some form of award for this public service.

This sudden conversion obviously had zero to do with his new clique. Obviously.

No, virtue signalling is where people pretend to be decent so they can announce it to all and sundry for a fistful of likes and retweets. They're like the born again Christians who've found a social and psychological straitjacket for the less pleasant aspects of their personality. But online. Where decency has been debased into currency.

When I do good or ill it's off my own back, it's not a performance to a crowd, desperately hoping for some validation, some form of social acceptance.

The online world is losing that, self-awareness is eroding, and that's why the hard-left and alt-right want control so much - whoever 'wins' gains control of a pile of online drooling zombies whose concepts of right and wrong are divined from online quorum sensing.

The internet has brought a lot of good to the world, sadly it's also turned a depressingly large chunk into virtual bacteria and I look deeply forward to the day bleach is poured over the faux fuckers.

One thing I don't like about this "adding a previously unknown family member" to an existing known group is that it smacks too much of being "soap opera like". As anyone familiar with American daytime drama's the "never before seen , or even mentioned family member showing up" is a routine occurrence on them. No one even blinks at it happening anymore. It is a convenient and cheap way to juice up storylines.

Maybe I'm wrong but I expect more of Star Trek.

Ya like constant lame romances, evil twins and dream episodes. Not soap opera like at all

Soap operas are basically a time waster when you don't want to tune into the 24 hour news or reruns of "classic" television.

That's the original definition, yes. Unfortunately, the term has been misused by misogynists and conservative trolls to the point that the new definition is far more prevalent, similar to how "fake news" now generally means "inconvenient news."

Not even. The original definition doesn't include pretense, it just allows for it. And since we build much of our morals through interaction, even 'mere' expressions of virtue can have a virtuous effect.

Anton LaVey called it "the Goodguy Badge."

And we have a backpedal.

"Balance of Terror" showed a chapel with Angela praying before the ceremony and Kirk stating that they had "many beliefs."

When you can't decide which derisive rep to give....


Also, I assume since you went wildly off topic you conceded the point so thanks for that.

having read over the discussion upthread about whatever-the-fuck "virtue signaling" is - I didn't see ANY definition which covered saying "don't be a pedantic asshole about a tiny canon point you aren't even correct on"

I did not defend, literally, any characteristic of the character as virtuous, worthy, noble, or what-the-fuck ever. I simply agree with the author of the bit I linked that it is entirely NOT unusual for ANY character (let alone a notoriously private Vulcan) to not sit around chatting about his half brother, his adopted sister, his fiance, or anyone else.

Palidin said (paraphrasing) "It's kind of a big deal"

Well, your dad being the face of Vulcan to the Federation is a big fucking deal
Your mom being, as far as we know, the only human married to a Vulcan is a big fucking deal
Being engaged to a Vulcan princess which you will literally die if you don't fuck on schedule is pretty important
Your half brother being the Vulcan version of....Jim Jones or some shit - kinda newsworthy.

All that and, "oh by the way my parents raised this human kid too" PROBABLY is down the list a bit

There's been A LOT of discussion of Spock's family, and story points about how he relates to humans. There's also been considerable discussion on Sarek's opinions about Spock joining Starfleet, which would seem likely to generate at least some discussion about an adoptive sister serving in Starfleet (if one existed). If Burnham is successful as a Starfleet officer, Spock should say to Sarek "How can you object, father, given my sister's success?" Or, if she winds up dead (or worse), Sarek should say "Serving in Starfleet is dangerous; remember what happened to your sister."

I personally thought it was stretching things too much to have Sybok be Spock's brother (or even a half-brother) in TFF. I don't see ANY reason why they had to be blood relatives; Sybok could've simply been someone (a mentor, a teacher, a friend) that was significant in Spock's youth. I like that TFF lampshades this a bit by having Kirk say "I happen to know that you don't have a brother," mirroring what the Trekkers in the audience are thinking.

Again, I'm intrigued by a human character raised by Vulcans, but I'm disappointed they had to connect that character to Spock without any (apparent) need, and in a way that makes the retcon implausible because of, again, implausible inexpression in the prior canon. It's too big a change to plausibly fit.

Details on the novels and comics.

http://trekmovie.com/2017/08/03/stl...or-first-star-trek-discovery-comic-and-novel/