[Shadowmeph]

one thing I thought about is that Saru didn't think that there was any risk in the area because know one could Warp in he didnt kow about that ( dam dont remember what ist is called) tunnel thing that was used to get there . all that said though TiIlly did hjer best but her inexperience ( she basically froze) and her ego which the Orion used against to by time to get onto the ship is why the ship was taken she. I guess in a way it kind oif all balances out for the mistake of tilly being given the number 1 position and now everyone has to pay for Sarus huge mistake because of his own inexperience.
as for the Child I can also remember another child well he was more of a teen named Charlie who could do the same things I am not sure if he could do it in such a extreme way
but back to the writing I would think that in the Trek universe of Star fleet and the Federation the people in command postions would hjave the training to not make silly command discitis's that could risk a ship and crew I still think that the writers are trying to please everyone . people like TIlly Hell I Like tilly buit I would never have written her into the Number two position through out Discovery there has been allot of Poor writing judgments people pleasing that to me makes no sense as to the way Star fleet and the federation works.
THe writers seem to purposely make mistakes so that they can write in the cost of those mistakes like I mentioned giving TIlly Number one so that when the Captin leave Number one gets active command until the captains return.

I really hope that they stop writing so loosely

[Jestersmith]

So I eventually got to watch this last night, I enjoyed this episode but despite that and finding the cause of the burn it felt like a filler episode in some ways.

I feel that we will see something more on the kid and the cause of the burn what they have shown so far and while i disagree with everyone on the Tilly thing but i feel what the intention here is that they will let Burnham save the day and this will see he return to a role of seniorority in some way.

Forgot to add the best thing for me in this episode was seeing Doug Jones as himself for once.

[Mack]

So a kid causes the burn in the galaxy. Ok, nice, that's so science!

[Chris Wilkinson]

one thing I thought about is that Saru didn't think that there was any risk in the area because know one could Warp in he didnt kow about that ( dam dont remember what ist is called) tunnel thing that was used to get there . all that said though TiIlly did hjer best but her inexperience ( she basically froze) and her ego which the Orion used against to by time to get onto the ship is why the ship was taken she. I guess in a way it kind oif all balances out for the mistake of tilly being given the number 1 position and now everyone has to pay for Sarus huge mistake because of his own inexperience.

I do disagree with you here, while yes the Emerald Chain managed to board Discovery, I don't think it was down to what Tilly did or didn't do. She had to wait for Books ship to leave before she could risk jumping Discovery, hence the pause. As soon as she was able to, she did attempt to jump but they'd already beamed across.

In this case, I think the problem was the ship was basically trying to hold station in order to affect the rescue of the away team. Not a problem with the command decisions. Let's be honest, how many times was Voyager or the Enterprise captured?

So a kid causes the burn in the galaxy. Ok, nice, that's so science!

It's not entirely against science, radiation can cause mutation in DNA so it's not beyond the realms of possibility that the kid is somehow in tune with dilithium which has given him the ability to mess it up.

[Sul-Matuul]

We've seen plenty of beings in ST that have incredible powers and have on occasion lost control; with terrible outcomes. Plus it's not outwith the realms of what's already occurred in previous shows with characters developing weird powers following accidents, exposure to radiation etc.

Gary Mitchell in TOS gained god-like powers following exposure to the Galactic Barrier.

Charles Evans was another human who gained god-like powers thanks to an alien race giving them to him.

Lt Barclay gained super intelligence and brain power from an alien probe sent by the Cytherians.

Cmdr. Riker gained Q's powers in one episode.

Kes develops powerful psychic powers and becomes an energy lifeform as part of her natural ageing process.

I don't think it's all that odd to have the cause of this devastation be a being that experienced great personal trauma and yet was immature enough to not be able to control its powers (if it even did know it had such power).
A young child, mutated by radiation and exposure to dilithium in vast quantities, develops powers to manipulate mater and energy. He then experiences a great trauma in losing his mother and being left alone in the galaxy and in his grief his mutation derived abilities manifest as release of raw uncontrolled power. A psychic scream of pain and anger so to speak; amplified throughout the galaxy via subspace.

[Morris]

We've seen plenty of beings in ST that have incredible powers and have on occasion lost control; with terrible outcomes. Plus it's not outwith the realms of what's already occurred in previous shows with characters developing weird powers following accidents, exposure to radiation etc.

Gary Mitchell in TOS gained god-like powers following exposure to the Galactic Barrier.

Charles Evans was another human who gained god-like powers thanks to an alien race giving them to him.

Lt Barclay gained super intelligence and brain power from an alien probe sent by the Cytherians.

Cmdr. Riker gained Q's powers in one episode.

Kes develops powerful psychic powers and becomes an energy lifeform as part of her natural ageing process.

I don't think it's all that odd to have the cause of this devastation be a being that experienced great personal trauma and yet was immature enough to not be able to control its powers (if it even did know it had such power).
A young child, mutated by radiation and exposure to dilithium in vast quantities, develops powers to manipulate mater and energy. He then experiences a great trauma in losing his mother and being left alone in the galaxy and in his grief his mutation derived abilities manifest as release of raw uncontrolled power. A psychic scream of pain and anger so to speak; amplified throughout the galaxy via subspace.

You're right, with respect to your previous references from Star Trek, about how Su'kal may have attained this power. None of those examples manifested in the type of galaxy-wide destruction that happened because of Su'kal. On top of that, there are far better explanations that the writers could of come up with! This explanation is very unsatisfying for viewers that appreciate intelligent science fiction, and for some, it is just plain insulting. They couldn't be bothered to give us a better reason than a child's temper tantrum! It does fit with this show...an emotional explanation for a manufactured problem in an emotionally biased show. One problem that I have...among many with this show...how does Su'kal have a tantrum as a child 125 years ago, but not again since...until Burnham and gang show up? How has he gone that long without at least having a bad day every once in a while? If I had grown up with nice stable holo-people, then they started glitching around me, I'd be pretty unnerved, to say the least! What about when he went through Kelpian puberty? If this is the explanation for The Burn that you want to go with, then at least try a little harder with the writing! Multiple Burns would have better explained the current state of the Federation. Every time the Federation started to recover, another Burn would knock them down again. As is, the Federation is made to look incapable of recovering, at least until Burnham shows up to save them!

The episodes this season, for the most part, have been a huge step up from previous seasons, but the writing continues to be adolescent, IMHO. I have been feeling more entertained this season, and the stories do have a more 'Star Trek-like' feel to them, but because of the writing, I also feel insulted by the overall premise for this season. The Burn happened 125 years ago. The space faring races should have gotten their acts back together by now! The reason for The Burn is very dissatisfying. It would have been easy for the writers to make the Kelpian ship, that was lost on the dilithium planet, be a scientific research vessel conducting experiments on/ in subspace. When it crashed on the dilithium planet, the interaction sent subspace shockwaves through the planet, resonating with it's atomic structure, and propagating throughout the galaxy, destroying dilithium as it goes along. This should also destroy the dilithium planet....while not a perfect solution, this explanation would have been more satisfying to me, and would explain why it was a one time occurrence. I'm not going to re-write the entire season, but this is an example of how the writers choose superficial, emotionally based story elements. I get it. It's aimed at being part of this current generation of emotional drama shows. They've borrowed an existing property (Star Trek), to serve as a vehicle for more of the same of what's currently working, or at least being promoted, for television these days. I do wish that they would follow the example of The Expanse though, and develop compelling stories around a scientifically believable universe.

[Sul-Matuul]

Having the Burn just be an experiment gone wrong would be pretty boring I think; it's been done to death in Trek over the years of new technologies or bad understanding of things causing harm.
I for one am relived they decided to go with something a bit different for a change, something that could not just be blamed on technology or someone intentionally doing it.
Simply crashing onto a pile of dilithium and causing it to cascade across the galaxy makes even less of a decent plot than what they have come up with Dilithium is not inherently unstable, it does not explode or cause chain reactions.
My thoughts are that the dilithium was not exactly a cause of the Burn but perhaps was a reason for it. Perhaps the child blamed the dilithium for the crash and the loss of his mother and his psychic outburst and anger at it propagated through subspace to attack the stuff everywhere at once. In short he lashed out at the only thing his immature mind could blame for his situation; a bit like how the Douwd lashed out at the Husnock and erased their whole species in anger.

Su'kal did not have a "temper tantrum" as you put it; he suffered a massive trauma of everyone he had with him including his mother dying horribly to radiation after trying to escape from being trapped for years.
I think it's a bit silly to try to claim the trauma of losing one's mother to simply being a temper tantrum like a child upset at not getting their way. People deal with grief in different ways and a child who does not fully understand what is going on will likely be scared and not understanding the situation. Add to that the damage from all the radiation and who knows what could happen.

[Morris]

Having the Burn just be an experiment gone wrong would be pretty boring I think; it's been done to death in Trek over the years of new technologies or bad understanding of things causing harm.
I for one am relived they decided to go with something a bit different for a change, something that could not just be blamed on technology or someone intentionally doing it.
Simply crashing onto a pile of dilithium and causing it to cascade across the galaxy makes even less of a decent plot than what they have come up with Dilithium is not inherently unstable, it does not explode or cause chain reactions.
My thoughts are that the dilithium was not exactly a cause of the Burn but perhaps was a reason for it. Perhaps the child blamed the dilithium for the crash and the loss of his mother and his psychic outburst and anger at it propagated through subspace to attack the stuff everywhere at once. In short he lashed out at the only thing his immature mind could blame for his situation; a bit like how the Douwd lashed out at the Husnock and erased their whole species in anger.

Su'kal did not have a "temper tantrum" as you put it; he suffered a massive trauma of everyone he had with him including his mother dying horribly to radiation after trying to escape from being trapped for years.
I think it's a bit silly to try to claim the trauma of losing one's mother to simply being a temper tantrum like a child upset at not getting their way. People deal with grief in different ways and a child who does not fully understand what is going on will likely be scared and not understanding the situation. Add to that the damage from all the radiation and who knows what could happen.

I'm not saying that my explanation is exciting. I'm saying that it's scientifically plausible. With everything that we know about how excessive high energy radiation affects life, we know that it would likely cause deformities, sickness, and possibly death. There is no recorded instance of superpowers being granted from excess exposure to radiation. If there were, we'd have The Hulk, Spiderman, The Fantastic Four, etc. existing as historical figures, rather than fiction. Just because Star Trek has done similar things before does not make it more believable now. That is what's irritating to me. These writers look at the less believable things that Trek has done before, then try to outdo it, like it's fantasy. Maybe it is, but I've always looked at Trek as aspirational science fiction, with at least some loose basis in real science. I know that we can recall Clarke's 3rd law here, about sufficiently advanced technology being indistinguishable from magic, but I prefer my science fiction to at least not contradict known science.

If Su'kal did acquire this power, surely he would have been triggered into using it more than just once. It obviously doesn't take just the level of trauma that one goes through after the death of loved ones to trigger this power...he almost went full Burn again just by talking to Burnham and gang. I'm sure that he was scared, and possibly threatened at being introduced to outsiders/ new people, but that is not the same as the trauma that you feel with the loss of your family. My point being...I'm sure that he was scared at least a few times between the Burn and the Burnham, but there was only one Burn...why?

As I've said before, this show just isn't made for me. Unfortunately, it's the only new Star Trek show to watch right now. (I group all of what CBS is doing with Star Trek right now in this basket) If I had to pay for it, I'd have stopped watching it by now, but because I can watch it without paying for it, through one month free trials to CBS All Access and/ or Netflix (which I pay for, regardless of Star Trek being on it or not), I continue to watch. That being said, I find the writing to be more in line with a daytime soap opera than intelligent science fiction. With the time and budget that they have, I wish that it was better. The Expanse epitomizes intelligent science fiction to me. Battlestar Galactica and Stargate were also very good. I have enjoyed all other incarnations of Star Trek, though not as much as The Expanse, BG, and SG. Every show has it's off episodes, but these new incarnations of Star Trek have off plots for the seasons. Even the good episodes during the seasons are just setups for letting me down, because the writers are just bad, IMHO. The writers are obvious, uncreative, and heavy handed with their plot points...always aiming for an emotional response/ reaction, over an intelligent and well thought out journey.

These are just my thoughts on this. I'm happy for you if you like what Discovery is doing, and if you disagree with me, that's fine. I respect your opinion.

[Bridger]

On another point of view this "child" is the most dangerous being in existence for the Galaxy. If they rescue him and his powers are not local to the planet the Federation will have to deal with him, I would either put him in either in stasis or kill him as drastic as this may sound the lives of so many others are at risk.

But my feeling is that we will go further in the direction of Doctor Who is that his powers are not only limited to destroy Dilithium but also create it and will so save the Galaxy.

[Morris]

But my feeling is that we will go further in the direction of Doctor Who is that his powers are not only limited to destroy Dilithium but also create it and will so save the Galaxy.

God, I hope that you're wrong!

And just to clarify, Bridger....I was not addressing you with my use of the word 'God'. I was using it metaphorically. 😉

[darthnovawave]

I just find it underwhelming. Love it or hate it, Disco's formula has been to set up 2 "big bads", with the second being hidden and unveiled late in the season. For season 1, it was the Klingons with the Mirror Universe being the hidden threat. For season 2, we had the Red Angel (who wasn't a big bad after all) and Control was the big hidden threat.

For this season, we were given the Emerald Chain and the Burn. Despite dialog trying to set up the Emerald Chain as this big, ominous threat, the action scenes have portrayed them as the disorganized petty thugs that are the cannon fodder of countless action movies. Osyraa has been sold as a cold, evil mastermind, yet she doesn't really feel intimidating on screen and the only prior action confrontation saw Detmer kicking her big ship's backside in Book's tiny ship while Disco sat and idly watched. Thus, it is this huge, jarring disconnect for the same cannon fodder to suddenly find Disco in the middle of nowhere and capture it without any type of fighting back whatsoever despite so many one-sided conflicts going in Disco's favor every single other episode this season. How? Is Ryn or maybe Book a double-agent to be revealed in these last couple episodes? Grudge the cat?

As for the hidden big bad of the Burn, we have Su'kal getting the superhero comic book origin story treatment this episode. It is a stretch, but not entirely unheard of in past Trek shows and obviously Marvel has had no shortage of success with that kind of story. The only problem is that instead of the second big bad being the "true" evil mastermind of the season, we are given a foil for our protagonists that is dealing with serious mental health issues but otherwise has no grand evil plan, nor even necessarily malicious intent towards others for that matter. That's not to say that maybe there isn't something more that could come out of that side of the story, but the cliffhanger for that story arc leaves us feeling like a rehash of Counselor Troi needing to deal with Lt. Barclay's holodeck issues. Hopefully there is another layer to the story arc forthcoming, but to end the episode making the McGuffin of season 3 out to be the stuff that filler episodes were made of in past series was a terrible call.

Norma Bailey was in the director's chair this time, so maybe it was just her lack of experience with anything Star Trek showing. Jonathan Frakes is back at the helm this week, so hopefully this week will feel more on track again. Otherwise, hopefully Season 4 will take some notes....

[Petrarch]

Part of me is half expecting the 32nd century Enterprise to appear in the season finale.

We've had the Voyager-J appear and there was another one I originally missed in the same scene, NCC-1864-M - though the name wasn't visible, that number belongs to the USS Reliant from Wrath of Khan.