Logline
Captain Pike and his crew welcome a Klingon defector aboard the USS Enterprise, but his presence triggers the revelation of some shocking secrets.
Written by Davy Perez
Directed by Jeff Byrd
Annotations are up at startrek.website/post/508416
Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Strange New Worlds | 2x08 "Under the Cloak of War"
Submitted 1 year ago by ValueSubtracted@startrek.website to startrek@startrek.website
Comments
khaosworks@startrek.website 1 year ago
tdriley@mas.to 1 year ago
@ValueSubtracted
Did anyone else wonder (spoiler warning):When Rah arrives on Enterprise, all the war vets hate him, but did M'Benga's damaged mind actually awaken his military instincts as a defence mechanism, compelling him to "finish" the unfinished mission to kill Rah?
When M'Benga & Rah first spar, M'Benga says he thought about not showing up but changed his mind because "Klingon judo is good exercise". Does he then use the session in a safe environment to A) trick Rah into...
tdriley@mas.to 1 year ago
@ValueSubtracted ...thinking he is the superior fighter, and B) test if he can get a quick, sharp attack past his guard? Was he prepping in case he wanted/needed to kill him?
We don't see the end fight, but we believe from M'Benga looking Pike in the eyes, twice saying "I didn't start the fight" that he didn't.
However, in M'Benga's PTSD-ridden mind, where he never "finished" the mission to kill Rah, maybe he really doesn't think he started it, because Rah "started it" on J'Gal?
tdriley@mas.to 1 year ago
@ValueSubtracted This could be the case whether or not Rah started the fight at the end, but after rewatching, it feels like M'Benga's actions were all preparing for that outcome (or preparing to protect himself?) Rah of course also has a motive to kill M'Benga - he's the only person who knows what actually happened with the Klingon commanders on J'Gal.
Poggervania@kbin.social 1 year ago
Man, this had some serious Apocalypse Now kind of vibes. M'benga's heart was touched by the darkness of war, and he couldn't let go of it long after the war was over.
Ending was kind of lame, but I think it's also sort-of in line with Pike as a captain - he's a great diplomat and will always side with his officers, almost to a fault. The ending was one of the times where Pike was himself to a fault. Hopefully Star Fleet either somehow calls it out or throws M'benga under the bus for something.
StillPaisleyCat@startrek.website 1 year ago
A fantastic episode.
Certainly, another YMMV of episode as the season takes on radically different tones and tropes episode by episode.
In my view, it’s one of the few episodes in the franchise that tackles trauma authentically and successfully. I would put it the ‘best of lists’.
It’s astonishing how many standout episodes we’ve had already this season.
startrekexplained@startrek.website 1 year ago
I hated this episode when I first saw it, must have been in a bad mood because I rewatched it tonight and its brilliant. It has DS9 levels of writing, the acting is excellent, especially from M’Benga, and it leaves a lot to debate about, even the slightly wtf ending does.
rother_stuebs@mastodon.online 1 year ago
@ValueSubtracted
I rewatched VOY "Jetrel" some days ago by coincidence and see some parallels (and - of course - differences) on the meta level.M'Benga and Neelix both in trouble with their conscience (for opposite reasons) - Rah/Jetrel both ignoring the borders of M'Benga/Neelix, behaving selfless but having selfish reasons.
Wellmeaning Starfleet personnel that was not involved in the war pushing M'Benga/Neelix.EnsignAesop@startrek.website 1 year ago
I figure this is as fine a place to ask as anywhere else… what is the extra badge that Pelia wears? I don’t recognize it and I haven’t spotted any close ups on it to get a good look
NikkoJT@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 year ago
I don’t think it’s been identified. However, she is a long-serving Starfleet officer, and was both a Chief Fleet Inspector and a (probably senior) instructor at Starfleet Academy before joining the Enterprise, so you could make a reasonable guess that it’s a badge of seniority/advanced qualification.
triktrek@startrek.website 1 year ago
I see that they replaced transporter chief Kyle with an Asian actress, given that André Dae Kim is now unavailable to Star Trek. I wonder if they will develop her character.
RootBeerGuy@discuss.tchncs.de 1 year ago
I liked it, but two things went a bit too far.
The bio-bed acting up was just too silly of an issue to bring up. I mean this is starfleets flagship with the best of the best on board and M’Benga keeps working on this bio-bed, never fully fixing it? Sounds weird.
Second, they are making this whole keeping a person buffered in a transporter thing way too useful. Like the only downside seems to be that if you get a malfunction you may need to “delete” the person. I remember some episode of another series, was it Rikers clone in TNG? Where they were worried about integrity of the pattern, since it was stored so long. Did not seem to be a problem for his daughter though. Don’t like how this is so trivialized, it would solve so many problems if this could be done “professionally”.
ari@startrek.website 1 year ago
ValueSubtracted@startrek.website 1 year ago
Personal attacks are out of line.
eva_sieve@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Our literal introduction to Brad Boimler is him trying to repair a broken replicator! Things break and they don’t magically get replaced despite (because of?) Starfleet.
Kinda agree on the media literacy thing. Subtext and symbolism exist! I don’t even think this episode’s was particularly subtle. Sometimes I wonder what percentage of the fandom believe that Janeway genuinely would get her crew killed just to get some coffee.
Hogger85b@kbin.social 1 year ago
Excellent post, absolutely right about symobolism
RootBeerGuy@discuss.tchncs.de 1 year ago
You raise some good points but your condescending intro was seriously unnecessary and uncalled for. I get it, you are smart, wow, congratulations.
Sure it could be symbolic. It could also be just a bio-bed. If its used as a metaphor it is a terrible one in my opinion, seeing as this is an advanced future with massive technological advancement. Why out of all people on this ship is it M’Benga doing this, never succeeding, but at no time an actual engineer, you know, like someone with 1000+ years experience, is asked to fix it? I get it that its part of his character that he is handy, but still this is medical equipment, its essential, it needs to work 100%. How would this not be escalated to relevant personel? This is not the war times depicted in the flashbacks, they have resource to do this. Also quite some time has passed since the Gorn attack.
I rather agree with one of the other posters who said its a setup for something to come.
So, thanks for your comment but seriously work on your attitude if you consider posting more than just this one comment.
ValueSubtracted@startrek.website 1 year ago
Re: the transporters.
Patterns in the buffer usually degrade over time - The TNG Technical Manual says patterns can last about seven minutes before degradation begins. Obviously, Scotty was able to extend this dramatically, though with only a 50% success rate.
They did touch on this in SNW season one, when M’Benga said he had to rematerialize his daughter periodically. However, the timeframe, while not specified, seemed a helluva lot longer than seven minutes.
khaosworks@startrek.website 1 year ago
The Tech Manual notwithstanding, on screen we’ve definitely seen longer than seven minutes, notably VOY: “Counterpoint” and DIS: “Stormy Weather”. I take it like I do the original Tech Manual’s statement that you can’t fire phasers at warp.
StillPaisleyCat@startrek.website 1 year ago
I love the TNG Technical Manual but anything onscreen has to trump it.
I’m much more fussed about rapid organ fabricators and dermal regenerators being a thing this early.
I think we’re going to have to buy into 23rd century technology being ahead of were we expect from TOS - but not necessarily ahead of some of the wild claims (and therapies) Bones had access to in the movies.
Odo@lemmy.world 1 year ago
About the bed: There seems to be an ongoing sub-plot about random systems on the ship glitching out. I’ve seen speculation they’re quietly setting up some kind of AI takeover issue later on. Note the odd shot the episode ends on, with the bed’s info screen flickering again.
Hogger85b@kbin.social 1 year ago
My take is the same as the other poster the biobed was metaphor for the doctors state of mind.....but happy to be wrong if it is system glitches and have seen suggestions it links to romulan time sabatours
RootBeerGuy@discuss.tchncs.de 1 year ago
Sounds feasible but reminds me of the DISCO control plot. I hope that is not returning.
a_random_fox@discuss.tchncs.de 1 year ago
There was the episode with Scotty in TNG (Relics) where there was indeed the problem of the pattern of the person who was in the buffer with him degrading, but that was over decades (2294-2369), while M’Bengas daughter was in the pattern buffer significantly less time. She was also rematerialised from time to time and it was noted that not doing so risked the integrity of the pattern, which contributed to the issue seen in the TNG episode.
michaelgemar@mstdn.ca 1 year ago
@RootBeerGuy @startrek The transporter is essentially magic. If you think too long about it, you’ll wonder why, for example, *everyone* doesn’t “store their pattern”, and thus become effectively immortal. Or why a pattern can’t be materialized multiple times, to generate an army of clones.
I love Trek, but it’s much more space opera than hard sci-fi, and often the “sciencey” bits are purely for narrative convenience (see also “holodeck”).
Hogger85b@kbin.social 1 year ago
I thought it was played like pattern bugger storage is an m'benga special skill he is better at than his peers
triktrek@startrek.website 1 year ago
They should take the idea of “storing people in buffers” all the way to extreme and explore it like Black Mirror does. What does this mean if everyone had the opportunity to store people in buffers? Can everyone sign up for this service and instantly beam you into a buffer whenever you have an incurable diseases at the time? Is there a service to auto-beam you into the buffer if the ship is about to crash-land? Can richer people pay to have poorer people’s buffer be deleted when you run out of buffer space? What happens if there is a glitch and people who are in the buffer experience 20 years in real-time?
I think there’s so much potential for more exploration here. It would be cool to have Charlie Booker on a Star Trek episode, as he kinda did a fun/excellent/dark Star Trek Black Mirror episode too.