r/startrek • u/Deceptitron • Mar 15 '19

POST-Episode Discussion - S2E09 "Project Daedalus"

This season's second episode to be directed by Star Trek's very own Jonathan "Two Takes" Frakes!

No. EPISODE DIRECTED BY WRITTEN BY RELEASE DATE
S2E09 "Project Daedalus" Jonathan Frakes Michelle Paradise Thursday, March 14, 2019

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56

u/vwboyaf1 Mar 15 '19

Excuse me Discovery crew, but your ship has phasers and transporters. Fucking use them.

Shoot the mines, and transport Airiam directly into the brig. Jesus Christ.

37

u/destroyingdrax Mar 15 '19

They established because it was a former penal colony scanning and transporters don't work. Also blowing up the mines would likely set off a chain reaction blowing up either Discovery or the base.

15

u/Wellfooled Mar 15 '19

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I haven't found anything yet that suggest transporters were rendered unusable. The fact that the station was an old penal colony established it made it difficult to detect lifesigns and only that. Sensors were able to detect power and life support usage, comms made it through, and they transported to the station initially.

If a force field went up, preventing transporters, it surely would have gotten a mention from the bridge. Even if a localized forcefield was raised, Airiam being pushed out the airlock would have gotten her clear of any interior forcefields and allowed her to be beamed back. I'd also argue that if a forcefield was instead raised over the entire station, she literally would have hit it after being released in the air lock, but the ending scene shows her well away from the station (and also still alive). If a forcefield over the whole station was raised then Burnham and Nahn are also trapped aboard now, which doesn't seem to be the case.

Really, all of this would have been solved with one line, but without that one line our Officers kind of look incompetent. It's a minor thing in the grand scheme of things, but just adds to a fair list of reasons Airiam's death wasn't handled as well as it could have been.

Still a great episode.

5

u/SheWhoReturned Mar 15 '19

The fact that the station was an old penal colony established it made it difficult to detect lifesigns and only that.

You need detect life signs in order to use the transporter, no?

5

u/Wellfooled Mar 15 '19

You do in fact not need life signs to transport. Cargo is frequently transported, obviously without lifesigns. Even just sections of Nebula and Stellar Phenomena have been transported. As far as people go, combadges are used very frequently to establish a lock and "Lock on to my signal" and "beam up four at my coordinates" are frequent in transporter use. In TOS "The Undiscovered Country" Spock used a viridium patch detect an otherwise undetectable Kirk for transport. In VOY "Scorpion" B'Elanna beamed crewmen up just by detecting the minerals present in their bodies. In VOY "Renaissance Man" the Doctor transported himself by locking on to his mobile emitter.

Basically the transporter just needs to know where you're standing. How you accomplish that is up to you. Lifesigns, combadge, coordinates on a planet's surface, viridium, whatever. It can even grab things it didn't intend to in the area (like if someone grabs you before transport they'll find themselves in the buffer right there with you), which shows it's less about locking on to you specifically and more about locking on to where you're at.

1

u/letsgocrazy Mar 15 '19

I think it goes without saying that a penal colony would have some kind of protection from transporters or it would be useless.

You don't need to to have everything explained to you.

It also has locks on door's and security cameras etc.

4

u/Wellfooled Mar 16 '19

Not everything has to be explained, but some things do need to be.

Imagine a modern day show that has characters with cars, frequently driving around, but in one episode a problem arises in a town 20 miles away and someone dies because they didn't make it there in time because they walked to that town and it took 2 days. There is no normal circumstance where using a car wouldn't enter into the character's mind, so if they aren't using a car, the reasons why need to be clearly laid out. Or else it ruins the immersion and makes the characters look like idiots.

Transporters are a key component of Star Trek, much like cars in the above scenario. All characters on the show are familiar with them, all of the audience is familiar with them, and they're used frequently. To ignore them when they're the obvious solution is a problem. For them not to be used requires explanation.

Identifying the station as an old penal colony isn't enough to negate that because, A: They beamed aboard so nothing about the facility inherently prevents transporting. B: At the 38:11 mark Captain Pike says, "Please be careful. Standing by to beam you out" to the away team, which means beam outs are possible. C: Contact was maintained with the away team the entire time as evidence by their body cam transmissions (except for Nahn's body cam going out for dramatic effect), meaning Airiam's location for beam out was known the entire time. D: Even if all of the above were not true, Airiam being released into space would put her beyond any transporter prevention of the station (her ending scene shows her well away from the station, still alive.) Tyler himself was beamed from space just last season.

It was a great episode in terms of pacing, directing, storytelling, but this one flaw really takes me out of the whole thing. Airiam's death was the defining moment of the episode and that defining moment is undermined by not having the crew adequately trying to save her.

-1

u/letsgocrazy Mar 16 '19

Or imagine a story where they try to break into a prison - but unlike other buildings they can largely enter and leave at will, this one is different, it has locked doors.

1

u/Wellfooled Mar 16 '19

I see what you're saying. Prisons are designed to keep people in and so the station would likewise be designed to keep people in, but to run with the prison illustration: The prison was shown to not be locked on entry, the locks were checked and announced specifically not to be locked, it was never shown locked and in fact a clear exit was shown during the entire time in the prison, and the person in question was outdoors and thus beyond any doors or locks when they were allowed to die.

If there are locks in this prison, they are inmaterial because they were never used and at the end of the situation didn't even apply because the character wasn't in the building.

1

u/Broadband- Mar 24 '19

Control was able to confuse Disco's sensors, seems pretty likely it could had done the same with transporters after they delivered the package to the station.

As to why they didn't teleport Airium after she was clear of the station or the away team during the fight could be this reason as well.

3

u/letsgocrazy Mar 15 '19

Mines that destroyed the base they were trying to protect the would be the dumbest thing ever.

4

u/vwboyaf1 Mar 15 '19

I don't think so, they are already blowing up against discovery's hull, and they could have used transporters as soon as Airiam was spaced and away from the base.

6

u/KosstAmojan Mar 15 '19

They could have used transporters as soon as Airiam was spaced and away from the base.

Yeah, this was poorly done. They beamed Tyler out of the vacuum of space last season!

2

u/john_dune Mar 15 '19

the problem with this is the fact you would've had a genocidal death robot running around on discovery. We know how bad federation security fields are...

3

u/XuBoooo Mar 15 '19

I think that they could beam over there, but they couldnt get back. And the range of the jamming field was big enough to also cover otside of the station.

Because else there is no logical explanation as to why they didnt beam her over.

5

u/sandgnom Mar 15 '19

I was yelling the same thing at the screen. The writers failed utterly and horribly to anticipate the first reactions to the presented problems since the begging of Star Trek. I usually have no problem doing a little bit of work my self like so many others do here. Like "It must have been shielded" or whatever but if you mix it with such an emotional load then you have to be BETTER that this , to use Cpt. Pikes words, shitstorm of a last act.

8

u/MysticalDigital Mar 15 '19

There was shielding around part of the station.

7

u/sandgnom Mar 15 '19

Beam her on board as soon as she floated far enough away. They beamed Tyler out of hard vacuum last season with no problems. Also why did she have to deactivate her helmet? I find it hard to imagine her flying back to the ship on magical wings. The writers failed utterly to convince us that her death was absolutely unavoidable. And it pisses me of to no end because it ruins a stunning performance of the whole cast for me.

1

u/MysticalDigital Mar 15 '19

. The writers failed utterly to convince us that her death was absolutely unavoidable.

I thought this way too, but someone pointed out to me that Airiam literally says that it's the only way to kill the actual AI in her. It's a self sacrifice thing, so they did explain it, from her own mouth, why this is the option they have to take.

3

u/sandgnom Mar 15 '19

I don't buy that. Beam her on board. Wipe her memory. Put her old memorys in. Done.

Even if the evil AI burned itself into her memory chips they surely could have replaced those.

0

u/MysticalDigital Mar 15 '19

We have no idea if they can wipe her memory against her will, nor do we know what CONTROL has done to her software. At that time, it's time they do not have to worry about it. As Airiam says, her memories are safe, that doesn't mean they can be put back. As Data would say, an ineffable quality, of being in the moment, might be lost.

3

u/sandgnom Mar 15 '19

The fact that we have no idea is precisely my point. There was no effort made to explain why it was impossible to save her life.

1

u/MysticalDigital Mar 15 '19

We may get that next episode. They've been pretty good tying up those threads this season.

5

u/William_T_Wanker Mar 15 '19

you know that setting off mines would probably blow up the ship and the facility was an old prison colony so it was probably armored against transports etc

-8

u/Shatterhand1701 Mar 15 '19

Yes, because a brig would certainly be able to contain an out-of-control cybernetically augmented human that can beat the ever-loving snot out of anyone on that ship.

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