dsc 2x02 "new eden"
Jan. 26th, 2019 04:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mswyrrThematically, the key for me is the moment when Tilly says she needs Michael there because Michael would “yes, and” her - to build upon an idea, pass it back and forth, explore. Discover. Make sense of the universe.
This episode manages something delicate, which is to respect the ways people explore, make sense of the world, and discover, while maintaining the centrality of the pursuit of scientific inquiry. At the end Jacob’s faith in scientific inquiry is rewarded, he receives the generator, and the light of scientific knowledge literally shines forth from the church’s stained glass windows.
Quite a powerful symbol visually. The light is knowledge, but it can shine out through the specific cultural lenses of people… and this relates to the Prime Directive too, yes? Because, as these people grow in knowledge culturally and scientifically, by the time they reach warp drive capacity they will have something beautiful and unique to share with the rest of the galaxy. From out of the meaning they’ve made facing down war, death, survival, struggle and seeking knowledge in the specific ways they have.
Their context and perspective will one day become part of the dance of civilizations that the Vulcan concept of “infinite diversity in infinite combinations” celebrates. Their way of making meaning will shape how people decide to deal with coming conflicts and grief in ways we cannot predict. Ways that might prove vital to the future. Because, as we learned in S1 and as we saw in this episode, trauma, war, and death remain things all mortal beings have to feel their way through.
Feel and sing and pray and research. The condition of being mortal is both objective facts and inner experiences and feelings that require a place too.
All of this works so well because the episode does the thing I wanted the recent episode of Doctor Who that dealt with the religion of the Ux to do, which is show reason at work in it.
It has an important moment where we see the work of reasoning that went into building the shared faith and culture of New Eden: we see the holy book, which is carefully pieced together and shaped from multiple traditions. After being pulled from the trauma of World War III, a diverse group of people used their reason and faiths to make sense of the world and find a way to live together in peace.
Scientific inquiry is hard work and a beautiful endeavor: we see that in Tilly. In Jacob’s faith. In Michael’s advocacy for his faith being rewarded. The reasoning involved in creating meaning through faith that can enable people to live in peace is also intellectual labor and its results can save lives too, though.
The argument of the episode is basically just: don’t cut off or demean lines of thinking or inquiry, don’t shut ways of forming meaning down. They can have results. People who came from war can create peace. The light of scientific knowledge can shine out of the stained glass windows.
It’s ST, so the highest good is scientific inquiry and that is as it should be. It is the thing that we can all perceive and test and agree upon. (VACCINATE YOUR KIDS lol). It forms a foundation upon which we can work together across disagreements in other realms. But that common ground doesn’t have to become authoritarian and demand everyone have the same perspective, the same cultural context and meaning.
For what it was trying to do I think it was framed just right. It reminded me of the moment on DS9 where Sisko is talking to his son Jake:
I can know all there is to know about the scientific mechanics of being in love and yet there’s still room to write love poetry about the person I am in love with. To feel the mystery of that experience. The *living* of the experience of life is a felt thing, and feelings and interpretations are big and vary and their knowledge can transform or save our lives. Because choosing to live requires creating meaning, having hope, investing faith in something. Whether it’s political systems, forms of inquiry, other people, art, or religious practices.
Choosing to live and wanting life–throwing our fragile mortal selves forward into an unknown future, coping with the pain and fear of life–presents us all with challenges to navigate in terms of how we feel and understand.
The fact that this episode reminded me of DS9, which I consider the most subtle and humane of the Trek series, really just says everything I need to about how it totally blew me away.
-PERFECTLY paced. Moved along beautifully; every part of the story felt given enough time and space and the energy never petered out. I really liked especially how the season-long arc is being teased out; I feel satisfied but eager for more of the mystery to unfold. And the donut maneuver was just COOL. Full on geek-out awesomeness! That (and the compromise between Pike and Michael) is the kind of triumph of hope and knowledge that delivers pure Trek joy right into my veins.
-It’s great that everyone is now invested in the mystery/brought into the… sort of liminal nature of this red angel situation. Stamets, Tilly, Michael, Pike… there are multiple points of personal investment not just in finding out what it all means, but in the deep feelings it evokes about life and death. And family/emotions. The things that elude us but that we have to try to make sense of.
-In 2x01 we saw who Michael is now in her conversation with Sarek. The Vulcan-Human that is the person she is when she’s more fully in touch with herself, neither ashamed of her human feelings nor rejecting her deeply held Vulcan beliefs. Her conversations with Pike here further drew that out: the range of topics, from how difficult family is to science and faith. I really loved that they disagreed without either of them being painted as wrong or the bad guy. Quite the opposite: they come to a compromise that takes into account multiple perspectives. It really fit with what I’d argue is the “yes, and”/both/and heart of the episode and it was great to see.
These were conversations that wouldn’t have gone down like this in season 1 and just really cast into sharp relief how Michael has grown into herself in an organic way. In S1 she had to get past the anxiety she had over having feelings at all: this season she’s learning to ride them out the way humans have to, to cope with nuances in her familial love she had been shutting out of her mind, to engage with complexities in other people and their perspectives that can’t just be shut down with logic since there isn’t one clear, simple answer. It’s really awesome.
The complexities of interpersonal love, particularly in families, and the fact that we’re mortal, that death is part of life? Both of those things can’t be simplified. People have to have the right to the space they need to make sense of them and cope with their pains and joys in their own ways.
The way they’re highlighting that stuff this season is really, really cool. They’re very aware of moving things up to the next difficulty level for Michael.
I can feel the season building up to where Michael is going to be when she finally meets up with Spock again and it is going to be emotional FIREWORKS. I’m excited!
-BTW Pike is only there as part of Michael’s journey, just like Spock… I mean, they matter as characters and have plot significance and other stuff but Pike is clearly designed to be part of this stage of Michael’s character arc. And Spock certainly is about her rounding out her experience of/coping with the complexities of family and the intense feelings it evokes.
-IT WAS SO PRETTY! Jonathan Frakes is a gift to this show. I’m really excited for the other episode he directed this season!.
This episode manages something delicate, which is to respect the ways people explore, make sense of the world, and discover, while maintaining the centrality of the pursuit of scientific inquiry. At the end Jacob’s faith in scientific inquiry is rewarded, he receives the generator, and the light of scientific knowledge literally shines forth from the church’s stained glass windows.
Quite a powerful symbol visually. The light is knowledge, but it can shine out through the specific cultural lenses of people… and this relates to the Prime Directive too, yes? Because, as these people grow in knowledge culturally and scientifically, by the time they reach warp drive capacity they will have something beautiful and unique to share with the rest of the galaxy. From out of the meaning they’ve made facing down war, death, survival, struggle and seeking knowledge in the specific ways they have.
Their context and perspective will one day become part of the dance of civilizations that the Vulcan concept of “infinite diversity in infinite combinations” celebrates. Their way of making meaning will shape how people decide to deal with coming conflicts and grief in ways we cannot predict. Ways that might prove vital to the future. Because, as we learned in S1 and as we saw in this episode, trauma, war, and death remain things all mortal beings have to feel their way through.
Feel and sing and pray and research. The condition of being mortal is both objective facts and inner experiences and feelings that require a place too.
All of this works so well because the episode does the thing I wanted the recent episode of Doctor Who that dealt with the religion of the Ux to do, which is show reason at work in it.
It has an important moment where we see the work of reasoning that went into building the shared faith and culture of New Eden: we see the holy book, which is carefully pieced together and shaped from multiple traditions. After being pulled from the trauma of World War III, a diverse group of people used their reason and faiths to make sense of the world and find a way to live together in peace.
Scientific inquiry is hard work and a beautiful endeavor: we see that in Tilly. In Jacob’s faith. In Michael’s advocacy for his faith being rewarded. The reasoning involved in creating meaning through faith that can enable people to live in peace is also intellectual labor and its results can save lives too, though.
The argument of the episode is basically just: don’t cut off or demean lines of thinking or inquiry, don’t shut ways of forming meaning down. They can have results. People who came from war can create peace. The light of scientific knowledge can shine out of the stained glass windows.
It’s ST, so the highest good is scientific inquiry and that is as it should be. It is the thing that we can all perceive and test and agree upon. (VACCINATE YOUR KIDS lol). It forms a foundation upon which we can work together across disagreements in other realms. But that common ground doesn’t have to become authoritarian and demand everyone have the same perspective, the same cultural context and meaning.
For what it was trying to do I think it was framed just right. It reminded me of the moment on DS9 where Sisko is talking to his son Jake:
As long as everyone can understand the wormhole aliens/Prophets in terms of certain shared physical properties (and the political and social consequences of those), the realm of interpretation doesn’t have to be foreclosed. Would the Bajorans have survived without seeing them as the Prophets and investing in that shared meaning? Possibly; there are many ways to create meaning. But the fact is that it did bind them together. And it isn’t a lie, it’s a perspective/interpretation on shared information.JAKE: How could anyone be so stupid?
SISKO: It’s easy to look back seven centuries and judge what was right and wrong.
JAKE: But the same thing is happening now with all this stuff about the Celestial Temple in the wormhole. It’s dumb.
SISKO: No, it’s not. You’ve got to realize something, Jake. For over fifty years, the one thing that allowed the Bajorans to survive the Cardassian occupation was their faith. The Prophets were their only source of hope and courage.
JAKE: But there were no Prophets. They were just some aliens that you found in the wormhole.
SISKO: To those aliens, the future is no more difficult to see than the past. Why shouldn’t they be considered Prophets?
JAKE: Are you serious?
SISKO: My point is, it’s a matter of interpretation. It may not be what you believe, but that doesn’t make it wrong. If you start to think that way, you’ll be acting just like Vedek Winn, only from the other side. We can’t afford to think that way, Jake. We’d lose everything we’ve worked for here.
I can know all there is to know about the scientific mechanics of being in love and yet there’s still room to write love poetry about the person I am in love with. To feel the mystery of that experience. The *living* of the experience of life is a felt thing, and feelings and interpretations are big and vary and their knowledge can transform or save our lives. Because choosing to live requires creating meaning, having hope, investing faith in something. Whether it’s political systems, forms of inquiry, other people, art, or religious practices.
Choosing to live and wanting life–throwing our fragile mortal selves forward into an unknown future, coping with the pain and fear of life–presents us all with challenges to navigate in terms of how we feel and understand.
The fact that this episode reminded me of DS9, which I consider the most subtle and humane of the Trek series, really just says everything I need to about how it totally blew me away.
-PERFECTLY paced. Moved along beautifully; every part of the story felt given enough time and space and the energy never petered out. I really liked especially how the season-long arc is being teased out; I feel satisfied but eager for more of the mystery to unfold. And the donut maneuver was just COOL. Full on geek-out awesomeness! That (and the compromise between Pike and Michael) is the kind of triumph of hope and knowledge that delivers pure Trek joy right into my veins.
-It’s great that everyone is now invested in the mystery/brought into the… sort of liminal nature of this red angel situation. Stamets, Tilly, Michael, Pike… there are multiple points of personal investment not just in finding out what it all means, but in the deep feelings it evokes about life and death. And family/emotions. The things that elude us but that we have to try to make sense of.
-In 2x01 we saw who Michael is now in her conversation with Sarek. The Vulcan-Human that is the person she is when she’s more fully in touch with herself, neither ashamed of her human feelings nor rejecting her deeply held Vulcan beliefs. Her conversations with Pike here further drew that out: the range of topics, from how difficult family is to science and faith. I really loved that they disagreed without either of them being painted as wrong or the bad guy. Quite the opposite: they come to a compromise that takes into account multiple perspectives. It really fit with what I’d argue is the “yes, and”/both/and heart of the episode and it was great to see.
These were conversations that wouldn’t have gone down like this in season 1 and just really cast into sharp relief how Michael has grown into herself in an organic way. In S1 she had to get past the anxiety she had over having feelings at all: this season she’s learning to ride them out the way humans have to, to cope with nuances in her familial love she had been shutting out of her mind, to engage with complexities in other people and their perspectives that can’t just be shut down with logic since there isn’t one clear, simple answer. It’s really awesome.
The complexities of interpersonal love, particularly in families, and the fact that we’re mortal, that death is part of life? Both of those things can’t be simplified. People have to have the right to the space they need to make sense of them and cope with their pains and joys in their own ways.
The way they’re highlighting that stuff this season is really, really cool. They’re very aware of moving things up to the next difficulty level for Michael.
I can feel the season building up to where Michael is going to be when she finally meets up with Spock again and it is going to be emotional FIREWORKS. I’m excited!
-BTW Pike is only there as part of Michael’s journey, just like Spock… I mean, they matter as characters and have plot significance and other stuff but Pike is clearly designed to be part of this stage of Michael’s character arc. And Spock certainly is about her rounding out her experience of/coping with the complexities of family and the intense feelings it evokes.
-IT WAS SO PRETTY! Jonathan Frakes is a gift to this show. I’m really excited for the other episode he directed this season!.
no subject
Date: 2019-01-27 02:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-01-27 04:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-01-27 11:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-01-27 12:11 pm (UTC)I think you'll like DSC's handling more overall so far because it's allowing questions of these issues (the fundamentally fragile and often irrational nature of being a mortal creature) into the human characters... I'm very interested to see what their overall point is with this season.
I think it's about deconstructing the "idol" of Vulcan logic: not rejecting it or anything like that!! [ETA2: Hmm, perhaps not the best way of phrasing this. What I mean is that it is an object of worship and the conflicts within Vulcan society over it have had that intensity and at times absolutism and that Michael has been absolutist over it in the past, to the point of elevating it above her own well-being]. But continuing to explore that there's more to the experience of being human and that more isn't shameful and doesn't have to ride roughshod over logic and scientific inquiry.
IMO by focusing on a Vulcan-human character who is figuring out how to stay true to her values and to her own feelings, you have a "believer" in a philosophical system at the center of it all. And her aim is growth and integration, not division or simplification.
ETA: To be clear, I don't think Trek has to talk about religion at all if they don't want to! With that recent Doctor Who episode, I really wished Chibnall hadn't because he mishandled it really badly.
But if they're going to, I'm glad they found a way to handle it that neither violated the fundamental goals of Trek--celebrate a secular utopia and the beauty of scientific inquiry, promote a vision of progress not bound to a nation state or religion--nor was insulting toward religious people.
And I think it works within where they're at in Michael's journey, as I see it, which is turning up the difficulty level on her addressing the parts of feeling--the mysteries and confusion of family and guilt, namely--she locked up in a box for years. So it's kind of folded into that; literally in the case that Pike compares his experience growing up in a complicated household where his father taught comparative religions to Michael's complicated household.