The Orville [SPOILERS WITHIN]

Yeah, as soon as I found out the ep was written by Braga and Boormanis, I realized where the silly plot elements came from (the kid wandering off and blundering into a ridiculously unguarded secret; the ridiculously unguarded secret itself...). With Braga around, I fully expect the resolution to involve some poorly-thought-out time travel.

Definitely got Cloud City vibes throughout this episode. There was one scene aboard the Orville while they were docked on the planet that looked like a shot out of the Empire Strikes Back special edition. Also got some Coruscant vibes.

I also got some Doctor Who vibes. The Kaylons remind me of the Daleks and Cybermen.

This stood out to me the most. Isaac has blue eyes and blue features on his body, whereas all of the Kaylons on the planet had red eyes and red features. Every single one of them, as far as I could tell.

To me, this indicates that maybe they got hacked or succumbed to some sort of virus. It would be easy enough to explain their genocide of the biologicals on their planet as a matter of survival (shitty, but not completely illogical). But it would be difficult to explain their need to expand to other planets to wipe out other biologicals--especially when they don't need Earth-like planets to survive. They can expand to pretty much any planet with a solid surface and sufficient resources.

That, or crawling into a 50-foot woman's vagina.

I'm going to need a citation on that one.

Just for reference, you understand.

"I am something of an amateur gynecologist. I’ve been known to utilize a speculum now and again. The female body, as a functional instrument, obsesses me. If I were on the Enterprise's holodeck ... My greatest fantasy is to be with that fifty-foot woman from those schmaltzy 1950s sci-fi films. That would be the ultimate: To actually crawl up into a vagina."​

Jeff Greenwald, Future Perfect: How Star Trek Conquered Planet Earth

Well given how well the planet is apparently defended and how remote it is they might feel no need to "guard" their secret.

And be honest, it isn't really much of a secret. Isaac has no problems simply telling Mercer about what happened when questioned directly .

Yeah, they had no moral qualms about committing genocide. That fits perfectly with a race of androids/robots who lack emotion. And as you point out, they willfully share what they did because they saw nothing wrong with it.

Point. Though having watched this series I have problems believing that Twiki was intelligent or that Buck was alive.

The heaps of skeletons are their equivalent of an Earth garbage dump. Yeah, we tend to put them out of the way, but we don't try to hide them or secure them all that well.

That's only because it appears the humans were being kept as pets who the computers humored by letting the humans think they were in charge.

They weren't even allowed to pilot their own fighters until Rogers came along.

Um... Data.

I think they did see something wrong with it.

I also think they have emotions. I think they act like Vulcans but the emotions are there at some base level. Just like Vulcans but even more suppressed. I think this is why Issac became attached to Claire.

"We took no satisfaction in the destruction of our builders."

Perhaps that emotion stuff is their Achilles heel left over from their builders that they've never been able to get rid of from their programming.

Could explain why they didn't just outright wipe out everyone on the Orville.

They damn humanity for our genocides, so they must see their own hypocrisy on some deep level.

Exactly.

For superior beings they acted an awful lot like the biological beings they were pointing out as inferior.

Well, the reasoning would be certainly that human genocides were directed at other humans.

While the Kalons though they did destroy their creators were NOT destroying other artificial life forms but biologicals who they thought threatened their existence.

and strictly stepping back into real life, is their reasoning really wrong? If we on Earth created artificial lifeforms and then determined they were a possible threat wouldn't we be inclined to destroy them outright rather than take the risk?

The fact is in reality completely different intelligent life forms are very unlikely to be able to coexist on the same planet. Remember Babylon Five? What the Kalon did is EXACTLY what the Centauri did to the other intelligent life form on their own planet.

So maybe Mercer does the old Kirk logic bomb on them and that's how they win?

Data seems to be the rare case in Star Trek.

Every other type of artificial life from Vaal, Landru, Ruuk, V’Ger, Nomad, The Borg, sociopathic holograms, etc. has been dangerous.

And I think the only reason Data didn’t go evil is because Dr. Soong coded him to look up to and want to be like humans.

Data evens says to Riker that he is superior to humans in many ways... but would give it up to be human. If not for the second part of that programming, Data would have been just as bad as Lore.

The general theme of science fiction going all the way back to Frankenstein has been that artificial life is dangerous and a mistake.

Don't forget...



They were very, very friendly.

I think you all make some excellent observations.

I just have a sinking feeling we're in for a big disappointment with Part Two. (But I hope I'm wrong.)

It's official. Not-Trek is the superior Trek.

Our questions are likely to be answered in about 8 hours.

And the "No shit" award goes to...

Well, that was a very colorful space battle.

It would have made far more sense for the Krill to sit back and let the Kaylon and the Union cripple each other, but that would not have allowed a return to episodic normalcy.

Great followup. Maybe not an entirely unexpected resolution in terms of Isaac betraying his people and paying a price, but it was still satisfying. And I didn't expect the solution to involve the Krill.

Wondering what the Krills' motivation was -- why they chose to help instead of saying "Hey, let's let two of our enemies rip each other apart and then go after whichever one wins."

Probably seeing one Kaylon ship blowing away two out of three of their vessels brought home how dangerous they were.

But yeah, the episode was predictable with the exception of the involvement of the Krill. I was rooting for Isaac to kill Tyler. That kid annoys me massively. After Isaac saved him I at least hoped that Isaac was going to be left "dead". Too bad.

But as said, the space battle(s) were quite spectacular.

Maybe it matched a prophecy in their holy book or something?

Honestly, after watching the episode, one of my first thoughts was "Dayton probably LOVED this".

Wasn't that Nick Chinlund captain of the ill fated Roosevelt?

Well seems like I was right about the emotion thing since they are seriously hung up on being mistreated by their creators. You can hear the anger in their words.

And their creators made it possible for them to feel pain. Clearly there are emotions in them. They are also individuals. No hive mind here.

And maybe since Issac was created after the Kaylon were done destroying their creators they were trying to build a more perfect "Kaylon" to get rid of those emotions but failed which is why he's unique among them. They didn't know what to do with him so they kept him around until it was time to send someone to the Union.

Great episode. Glad to have watched it without all the commercials. That's ridiculous.

The space battle was awesome. You can also see that previous episodes impact future episodes. The Orville's shields were upgraded and it showed during the battle because her sister ships were getting torn up.

The Krill were good and it's nice to see the Krill captain has a brain and can entertain the possibility that AVIS wants the Union and the Krill together. I hope we see him again.

I only have two minor nitpicks: I can't see the Krill putting Gordon in a Krill fighter though it was a fun moment. Also Earth didn't seem to have any defense platforms in orbit. They've got the tech so why not?

And that was a hell of a lot ships they managed to scrounge up in a short amount of time and that's not even their whole fleet. I wonder if they will ever give us info on the speed of the quantum drive.

I think it comes down to their religion and their arrogance.

They think they are the universe's superior life form and they just watched a single Kaylon ship smash two of their ships with ease and almost take out the third one.

Since they are so arrogant to think everyone including the Union are beneath them they probably came to the conclusion that it wouldn't be two enemies ripping each other apart but the Kaylon massacring the Union and than coming for the Krill. It's best to jump into the fight because you don't know what the Kaylon will show up with if you stand on the sidelines and let them wipe the Union out.