Star Trek - Discovery - 2.09: Project Daedalus

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Nhan, Burnham and Airiam

Admiral Cornwall enlists the Discovery crew in arresting a leader of Section 31, while Spock tries to understand why the Red Angel is targeting him.

 

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The Red Angel Candidate List

1. Picard from the future, Prime Universe
2. Sisko from the future, Prime Universe
3. Janeway from the future, Prime Universe
4. Michael Burnham from the future
5. Michael Burnham from the Mirror Universe
6. Spock from the future from the Kelvin Universe
7. Gary Seven, Prime Universe
8. Zora, the Discovery's A.I. from the 33rd century (established in a short trek episode "Calypso")
9. Gabriel Lorca from the Prime Universe, from the future
10. The "real" Ash Tyler
11. Pike from the future, Prime Universe
12. Number One from the future, Prime Universe
13. An Iconian
14. Captain Braxton of the timeship Aeon
15. Berlinghoff Rasmussen
16. Professor Moriarty Holodeck Simulation
17. Tilly, current timeline, Prime Universe
18. Emperor Georgio, current timeline, Prime Universe
19. Commander Airiam, current timeline, Prime Universe

 

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When did holographic Cerebral Mapping became a standard in the Star Fleet? I have no idea, but taken that Cpt Archer's Enterprise was exploring with the idea, it must have become either a new standard after revelation of the Klingon Skin Crafting technology, or it is another thing that the Section 31 has installed into the Discovery.

Admiral Cornwell did the right thing when she used the technology to verify Spock's story personally, instead of subjugating him to the Section 31 torture. Thing is if the Section 31 is in control of the StarFleet then all is leaked back by the agent saboteur. But I think Burnham made a mistake, when she claimed that she can confirm that Tyler is innocent.

He never was. He was a freaking Klingon infiltrator before he was caught and given to Section 31 by Emperor Georgio. It does not make him any less of spy then what he is at the moment, by serving as 31's Political Officer.

It was surprising that Cornwell showed the footage captured from the Spock's cell, and as it correlates with the damage done to the corpses, it was mind boggling to see Spock acting so viciously. Cpt Pike said straight away that he moved unlike Spock. Given that he has served with Cmdr Spock for a length of time, he has seen how one fights and what they don't do in combat, like the lethal loads, instead of incapacitating first.

Spock's Vulcan Nerve Pinch is his unique move, and he uses it often. Maybe too often. But another thing is that the Control is an AI and with the StarFleet/Section 31 technology it is easy to imagine it being able to doctor any captured footage to achieve its goals.

The Control sounds just like the Source in my books. It is in the control of all decision making, and strategic communications, just like my Source. The similarities doesn't end there as Control is located in the Section 31 HeadQuarters.

As 24th century Ai, Control could possibly infiltrate biomechanical beings like Airiam, but the problem that I see is that in order to get rid of it, you would have to delete all that Airiam ever was and start from the scratch, or upload a backup.

While she was deleting her memories, it made me to believe that Airiam was exactly doing that because she recognised that something was wrong in her system, and she needed to make sure that if she was going to be rebooted that it wouldn't be a corrupted version.

I personally believe that her organic Ai is far more advanced than Control or my Source. It true that it came from organic source, but in the biomechanical body, the donator brain is just part of the whole thing. It is not the dominating factor, as there is no way for us, to use Airiam's memory booth and just flip through memories.

If Airiam is infiltrated by Control's virus, then it must be also a smart, maybe even a copy of Control's programming to take over the poor lieutenant. Although some can argue over the biomechanical status, Airiam claimed to be cybernetically enhanced. The thing about that is that those enhancements are covering her whole body. Not just bits of her.

That's why I call her biomechanoid as the border between the woman and the machine is heavily blurred, and how we see her is that she's more of a machine than a human. In a way you call real Airiam as a ghost-in-the-shell, or a soul inside a machine.

When Cmdr Nhan noticed that she was acting funny, she said nothing. Instead she acted like a nosy detective instead of an ellegant spy or as Pike's Head of Security. The moment she became suspicious she should have voiced her concerns on Pike instead of allowing Lt Airiam to go into the Section 31's HQ.

I love that Spock called Burnham's quarters almost Vulcan for lack of memorabilia that usually ship crew carry into the their quarters. And it was more of him to question Burnham ability to judge the situation, when he denied a game of Vulcan chess.

Maybe Spock had never understood that while he is gaming his subconsious mind is processing the problem. To me personally gaming is meditating. I can let my brain to rest instead of pushing it to invent new worlds, new characters, or to solve problems.

I love that Burnham mocked Spock's move and honoured Sarek's teachings, while Spock claimed that dear old daddy is a fool, and he would never be able to think other strategies. He even went to say that his sister couldn't be able to judge his character or help to solve the riddle concerning the Red Angel. Why? Is it just the Vulcan arrogance and need to feel superior?

It is a wonder that Vulcan's and Human haven't clashed, when they are so opposite to each other. Funny as it is you see more of that going in the Archer's Enterprise through Chief Engineer Tucker. It is love that changed his heart as towards the end he was sharing bed with T'Pol. Spock however shares no real love for his sister.

Funny as it is, I recognise myself in Spock's outburst as I too have a problem on leading with the truth, instead of identifying what is the source of the anger and putting on the breaks. When it happens, I can recognise my error and back down before it is too late.

Statmets approach was closer to what a logical mind Spock needs

I don't understand why Cpt Pike is so scared of mines, when human history has been fighting with them for so long time that we cannot even recognise, when it really started. It didn't surprise me at all that Control took over the mine field, and then activated the virus inside Lt Airiam.

The problem was that Tilly was too trusting as she left the post her superior had assigned to her. Maybe Airiam should have told her that "I'm scared of losing my mind," or something along those lines. I suspect that Ai's agent prevent her from doing so, or then she seriously though that she was going to lose her post, and her friends with it.

Why is that Cmdr Nhem didn't said nothing when she saw Airiam communicating with someone? More so, she accepted her as a rogue agent in the infiltration party, and she was willing to leave Airiam to guard Burnham's six. In her shoes, I would have aired my concerns.

Pike and Cornwell were equally silent, when they learned that the starfleet people had died in the cold vacuum. Why they couldn't think in technological terms, before they saw Adm Patar frozen solid in Burnham's headcam?

Is it really that impossible to believe that Ai's can be living life-forms?

Saru, the least technological person in the star-fleet was able to understand the case, and then Tilly to piece it together to point Airiam being a rogue agent.

Maybe Cmdr Nham's or as I call her now Aham problem is the red shirt. It effective disable her ability to judge danger. The moment she was ordered to stop, she should have opened fire and burn Airiam with blaster fire.

Instead of her acting as she should have, Airiam is freezing and baking in the cosmic ray bombardment. I hope they'll capture her, wipe her system and reinstall from the backup.

 

[Dave]

Well, the red Angel isn't number 19 in the list if Airiam is dead. But seriously, you wait two years to find out a little back-story about Airiam, after which they immediately kill her off. What gives?

I hope they'll capture her, wipe her system and reinstall from the backup.

You're correct! Main characters don't die in this show, They always come back to life. If it is possible to unlock and download her mind then that is going to give them so much information on what is happening.

While she was deleting her memories, it made me to believe that Airiam was exactly doing that because she recognised that something was wrong in her system, and she needed to make sure that if she was going to be rebooted that it wouldn't be a corrupted version.

Or, keeping those special memories she would relate to and help her to break out of the programming.

The Control sounds just like the Source in my books. It is in the control of all decision making, and strategic communications, just like my Source. The similarities doesn't end there as Control is located in the Section 31 Head Quarters.

Sue them for every penny!

It won't get you anywhere though. I read that a guy had a published game with a Sporedrive and a gay blonde officer but he hasn't got anywhere up against their lawyers and profits.

When Cmdr Nhan noticed that she was acting funny, she said nothing. Instead she acted like a nosy detective instead of an ellegant spy or as Pike's Head of Security. The moment she became suspicious she should have voiced her concerns on Pike instead of allowing Lt Airiam to go into the Section 31's HQ.

Not only that, but when the Discovery was under attack by unknown types of deadly mines, the Chief of Security was not at her station on the Bridge, but was instead, hiding in a dark corner looking over the shoulder of Airiam. And nobody thought this was odd!

Neither did Nhan think it was odd that after working with her for six months, Airiam suddenly asks her out of the blue, if she needs that apparatus to breath in our atmosphere. "Don't worry, you may have your doubts about me, but I'm not planning on pulling it off you at a critical juncture."

It is all making more sense now. Section 31 are just following orders, but don't realise the orders are from an A.I. Control is acting exactly as all Star Trek A.I.'s do act when left to their own devices, controlling, God-like and homicidal. Star Fleet also follows what Control says, but they are likely having some doubts. Maybe with Control down they can now contact Star Fleet. The Red Angel was coming back in time to warn of the impending Doom and is almost certainly someone from the list.

But what is project Daedalus? And why call the episode that when it wasn't anything to do with it and was only something mentioned in the last few minutes?

 

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project Daedalus

Some sort of avatar, in my honest opinion. The Daedulus has been used in so many context, but Airiam wanted specifically for Burnham to remember it, as if she wanted her to use to rescue her or warn her that the Control has an avatar program. Maybe it's the Red Angel thing?

 

[Dave]

Daedalus has been used in so many contexts

It has and they could have randomly picked any Greek name, however, these writers have proved cleverer than that and I would expect it would be some kind of breadcrumb clue left for us to follow.

Daedalus was the designer of the Labyrinth for King Minos that was home of the Minotaur. He was imprisoned to keep its secrets safe but escaped from a tower using flying feathered wings he invented (that's when son, Icarus, flew too high and the Sun melted the wax and he drowned.) He then became a refugee in Sicily and built a temple to Apollo, but King Minos followed him there, and Minos was then killed in his bath.

Daedalus is also the design of the oddest looking Starfleet ship class ever produced with a huge ball shape at the front (and sometimes with more than two nacelles.) It also had a unique subspace distress call among starship classes. The USS Horizon featured in TNG: Power Play and a model was in the DS9 classroom, and later in Sisko's Ready Room. However, it was a very early design decommissioned long before Discovery was around. Enterprise suggested from the dates that the Daedalus class was among the first new warp 7 star ships and superseded the NX-class star ships.

Daedalus is also the name of a crater on the far side of the Moon, an asteroid, a volcanic depression on Io, and an extra-solar planet COROT-7c.

Project Daedalus, was also an interstellar spaceship project by the British Interplanetary Society conducted between 1973 and 1978.

It was also, a human-powered aircraft, a turbine powered flight pack, invented by British inventor Richard Browning in 2015, a nineteenth-century fifth-rate Royal Navy frigate, a former Royal Naval air station near Portsmouth, England, a current Royal Naval air station in Lincolnshire, England, and it is a fraternal and professional order of American military pilots.

Additionally, it is a genus of fungi, and name of countless books, games and bands.

What does that imply?

I would think it either:

1. has something to do with the ship class or something discovered by a Daedalus class ship on an early exploration.
2. refers to the extra-solar planet and something there.
3. refers to some invention that is partly 'human-powered' and so possibly an A.I. - Human interface.

 

[Narkalui]

Could any of this have any influence from Mirror Universe Archer or his crew? my memories of those episodes of Enterprise aren't exactly complete...

 

[Dave]

Neither are mine. I think I might need to watch the final Season again sometime.

 

[Narkalui]

Just read the Wikipedia page for Mirror Darkly, and no, I don't think Control has anything to do with the Mirror Universe

 

[Narkalui]

By the way, my new top candidate for the Red Angel is Airiam

 

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By the way, my new top candidate for the Red Angel is Airiam

Why do you think it's her?

 

[Dave]

I know you asked @Narkalui and I also think it is Burnham, but if it is Airiam then she could be trying to make amends or atone for her actions.

 

[ctg]

, but if it is Airiam then she could be trying to make amends or atone for her actions.

Or then at some point in the future, her body is located, repaired and the data inside her head is used to create the squid probes. Is that plausible?

 

[Narkalui]

I think it's more the atonement aspect. I think in the far future she witnessed the mass genocide and found a way to travel back and prevent it as the Red Angel

 

[Werthead]

It isn't Sisko, as Avery Brooks has gone a bit weird in his old age (check out his recent interviews with Shatner where even Shatner got stranged out by his behaviour) and apparently isn't that interested in acting any more. They could have recast, but it seems unlikely.

It also cannot be anyone or anything from the Kelvin timeline, as CBS do not have the rights to use anything from that iteration of the franchise.