Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Strange New Worlds | 2x10 "Hegemony"
LoglineWhen the USS Enterprise investigates an attack on a colony at the edge of Federation space, Captain Pike and his crew face the return of a formidable enemy.
The landing party moving through the attacked town positioning themselves around crates and fighting the youngling was like a glimpse of an XCOM adaptation to a tee (with fewer OP melee weapons and grenades).
This one was a bit disappointing to be honest. The darker/space-war episodes are rarely my favourite anyway but this one really suffered from impenetrable plot armour on most of the main cast. Gosh, will Spock and Chapel survive this time?! Of course they will; because it’s Mr. Spock and Nurse Chapel :-/.
And the federation apparently willing to just let it slide that an entire starship and crew were destroyed.
Chapel meeting Spock was a stretch. Proceeding to launch the rest of the ship into the planet after that was unconscionable.
Are the Gorn supposed to be dumb reptiles confused by flashing lights or technologically advanced space fairing antagonists? It’s too much of a stretch to leave unexplained at this point. Maybe part two will clear that up… in a couple of years :-/
And just the general bloodlust among the crew when prepping to go fight. These established affable and charming young scientists and nerds but suddenly it’s season final time and it’s all “the only good bug is a dead bug 😡”.
Some incredible best-of-show set pieces and special effects but a pretty dour end to a fun season of Trek. I’m not against more serious episodes at all, just this one has too many loose ends and inconsistencies.
No, that’s how they get back to the canon. Sad. I’m as confused as you about the Gorn, though. I’m also wondering about the affable/bloodthirsty crew and trying to make sense of the title, “Hegemony.” Here’s one way might make sense: The demarcation line was a power play, kind of like NATO moving to Russia’s back yard or Russia reclaiming Crimea. Pike crosses it, another power play. Are we looking at a battle for unipolar power? Depicting the crew as both affable and bloodthirsty might be a way of holding up a mirror to ourselves. The Gorn are from hell. Demonizing people makes it easier to kill them. Interestingly, toward the end of the episode, Pike has a sentence about understanding the Gorn. Don’t groan. All Star-Trek series have included social commentary. (Remember Pelia’s comment, a couple of episodes ago, about holding onto valuable art in case this no-money experiment in socialism were to fail?)
Just watched this and my biggest gripe with Star Trek will always be that the federation ships are just way too weak. Yes they aren't supposed to be a battle force, but any moderately powerful enemy and they are toast...at least they had that special crate of better weapons, but why not just make that the norm? Finally, what good are the force fields if everything inside of the ship is getting wrecked with each hit? And send more friggin ships...
For the number of ships, by TOS there are only 12 Constitution class ships, so there might not be more ships to send. We’re a year or so out from the Klingon war, and it doesn’t seem like the Federation is in a position to quickly replace ships. They already lost the Cayuga. Also the admiralty obviously isn’t interested in a Gorn war at all, and certainly not over this planet or the potential survivors.
I will say it’s been shown that Pike is just not a fighting captain. He’s not the person you want in a combat situation. It does make me wonder why he’s a Captain but idk. They really should send the Enterprise back on a deep space mission of exploration and have someone (who is not an evil mirror universe person) more like Lorca or Kirk running these border conflicts or something.
You do realize that without shields, they’d have been blown out of the sky in one shot rather than being able to survive in a firefight, right? It’s like saying what’s the point of a kevlar vest if I’m going to get a broken rib from a body shot? If I can live, I’ll take that vest and broken rib, thanks.
Power is relative. There’ve been times we’ve seen weapons from less advanced species than the Federation bounce uselessly off shields or are seen as no threat. We’ve also seen Starfleet ships get carved up like a prize turkey. The Gorn are powerful, that’s just it. That doesn’t mean Starfleet aren’t heavy hitters - at this point it’s just that there’s a stronger kid in the playground.
Yes i realize that it gives them time to basically run away or end up like the other ship in lil pieces floating in space...basically have to rely on some type of trick to win...kevlar vest also doesnt let the bullet wreck your organs, did you not see the people getting tossed around inside the hsip?
Just brought me back to Picard S03 where the Titan, one of their more powerful ships btw, getting folded by some pirate ship with a portal weapon...sigh...
I agree with most people here. Great episode as long as you kinda ignore the fact that only Chapel survived in the saucer section and neither her nor Spock made any attempt to look for anyone else or even acknowledge it.
Rest of the episode I loved and I’m now just a bit sad we are going have to wait so long for the next series.
That being said, I absolutely support the strikes so I’m not complaining about the wait.
I think we may already have enough to figure out what happened but the technological explanation is yet to come. Much of the plot mechanics related to the Gorn so far rely on issues around what can be detected or transmitted and differences in solutions.
The writers’ challenge for the saucer subplot was that they wanted Spock to be surprised by both the adult Gorn in the environment suit and by Christine Chapel.
Their arrivals behind Spock on the exterior of the saucer were both unexpected, and were key elements of the suspense. His surprise and ours was necessary.
We would have expected however Spock to have done some kind of local tricorder scan of the wreckage when he arrived. It’s possible that a tricorder scan was done, was negative, but we didn’t hear any report because there were no vocal coms back to the Enterprise. Uhura gave a play by play based on telemetry, we didn’t hear Spock report directly.
In that case, we’re owed an explanation about why the new tricorder technology failed. As long as we get it in the second part, I’d be fine.
Given the established interference field technology of the Gorn, I would be perfectly comfortable if the follow up episode acknowledged that the Gorn environmental suits put out some kind of localized disruptive stealth.
The new Starfleet tricorder technology is designed for unsuited Gorn. It’s designed to solve the problem of Gorn biology but not Gorn technology.
Gorn technology is different, they are driven by different species biological imperatives (as in the coronal flares), and that’s an extra hurdle for Starfleet.
We have already seen however that Scott designed a system to both spoof human life signs to Starfleet tricorders and Gorn as well as hide human life signs for hundreds of people. To do this, he used some of the specialized technology from the scientific research array that was studying the nearby sun.
Spock would naturally follow up on his surprise encounter on the saucer. Scott would be the natural collaborator to figure out how it was that the Gorn came up behind him undetected by his tricorder.
So then, what about Chapel in the saucer? If she was the sole human life form, and he completed the scan, why didn’t his technology detect her?
A couple of possibilities exist.
– Chapel’s suit has some local stealth technology. She got into her suit as soon as she saw Spock pass by. Given it was in her quarters it’s a personal suit not a generic one, and she’s established as being a war veteran who had to fight despite being medical corps, and/or
– the distortion field or stealth technology put out by the Gorn’s environmental suit was large enough to hide her as well.
I think it’s far more plausible that Spock simply didn’t scan for life signs, as his mission was to install the rockets and had nothing to do with rescuing any survivors in the first place, he stumbled upon Chapel by accident. It’s also logical to assume that there would not be any other survivors left in the same space as Chapel as from Spock’s perspective, she would have brought such along or at least have informed him of them. Therefore, we can conclude that there wasn’t any misconduct from either of the two.
I really enjoyed this episode, while I do agree that it’s strange only Chapel survived (she should have remained on planet).
That to be continued hurt with the way the strike is, so I guess we’ll have to see if we will actually get a follow up.
And I love the Gorn, this episode finally hinted at their intelligence. And the solar flare thing while a bit weird could be an interesting way of using biology to influence how a civilization develops. I know Arena exists but I really don’t mind retconning this. Having recently looked at the Enterprise depiction of Gorn, I feel like this remains in the same vein but looks more lizardy.
SNW is still my favourite Trek, maybe its because I never actually watched TOS but I feel like even if I did I wouldn’t dislike it.
Pelia knowing Scott doesn’t surprise me considering she seems to be the Boothsby of the Engineers.
Scotty being introduced made me really happy ^^
As a prequel I think this still works, some people say its not the Pike show they expected but I don’t get why, yes we have seen some TOS characters like Kirk and Scotty, hopefully Kirk will get less time next season, probably considering the ships has less to do together.
I get its corpo decisions but I will trust the creative team to not drop the ball with overusing fanservice characters, having scotty as a member of the Enterprise crew is also imo not a problem. If anything I hope we get to keep Pelia and have him as a underling for next season and maybe build up to him being promoted head of engineering later on.
Hopefully Paramount will dare to make a new series about an entirely new crew set post VOY or maybe even some time in the early 2300s around the time the Enterprise D was around as we haven’t seen a lot of that time. But I would prefer a firmly 2400s series.
I like that Pike avoids conflict whenever he can. And him not immediately knowing what to do at the end is so him. I’m confident that none of the cast will be killed off. Just unnamed red shirts.
They seem to be bookending the season with flashbacks to Pike’s expedition to Rigel VII. His decision to withdraw there cost people their lives and led to Zak corrupting the local culture. Now he’s back under fire, under seemingly unwinnable odds, and forced to make the call to leave people behind again.
The more I think about the Chapel plot, the more I think it was a blunder.
If she survived the initial attack on the Cayuga, it’s likely that others did, too - at the very least, it should give Spock a reason to look before hot-dropping the saucer onto the planet.
Agreed, the entire saucer section was on the Federation side of the line of demarcation, they could have openly had rescue teams checking for survivors
Which does raise the question of why there was a Gorn aboard the wreck of the Cayuga.
The Gorn drew up the demarcation line and broadcast it to the Federation, held their fire as promised, and did not consider the arrival of another Gorn ship as a hostile action.
So the Enterprise sending a shuttle to check the parts of the Cayuga’s wreckage for survivors is something that appears permitted and even expected, so long as it doesn’t cross the line.
But any such rescue party would then bump into this lone Gorn who was very clearly violating the demarcation line that they themselves proposed.
Sort of feels like the attack on the colony was unplanned, and that the later Gorn ship was playing damage control while trying to figure out what happened.
Sort of feels like the attack on the colony was unplanned, and that the later Gorn ship was playing damage control while trying to figure out what happened.
That’s consistent with what they theorized regarding the solar flares causing the first ship to attack the colony.
That’s the best explanation I’ve heard, and I’m going to stick with it until a better one comes along
@JohnnyDelirious@Zoboomafoo One moment Spok is frantically trying to find Chapel on the Kayuga, but then doesn’t even mention survivors when they plan to crash it. It’s too much of a stretch. There must be some key plot here they deliberately didn’t show us. We don’t see the initial attack on the Kayuga at all. Why was the lone Gorn (stuck?) on that side of the line trying to access command codes on a destroyed ship? I think we’ll get a revealing flashback in S03E01.
Agreed about the survivors part, it seems like a major oversight that I hope they can explain in a satisfying way.
As for the Gorn on the ship, I presumed it was just a crewman trying to gather intelligence on the Federation by picking through the remains of the saucer section
Gotta agree, it seems like an unforced error. A good chunk of the audience knows she shows up in TOS, which robs the whole idea of any tension it might have, and on top of that it feels plot armor-y to have one person survive and then not check for anyone else.
They could’ve just contrived to have Spock and Chapel be the best persons for the saucer deorbiting-- Spock as the precise vulcan/science officer to place the thrusters, Chapel as medbay’s lead in case they could bring anyone back from the Cayuga.
I’m fine with Chapel being stuck there - I think the tension comes from the overall Spock/Chapel emotional arc, rather than wondering whether she will survive - but the sequence practically demands a second scan with the newfangled tricorders to verify that there are no other life signs on the ship.
Isn’t the point though that the Gorn interference field was preventing any scans, comms or transport? The tricorder wouldn’t have worked there. And sending rescue teams would have been dangerous given Gorn belligerence, demarcation line or not.
True, but that’s on the ground and short range. There’s specific dialogue to show that it’s interfering with signals between space and ground.
SPOCK: I detect a counter-frequency emanating from the planet. It appears to be negating all scans, communications, and transporter signals between here and there.
Spock can’t even scan for life signs on Cayuga. The best they have is passive sensors like spectrometry.
UNA: Still trying to scan for life signs?
SPOCK: I theorized I might be able to find a frequency gap through the interference field, but I have not managed to discover one yet.
UNA: Spock, I don’t think anyone’s alive over there.
SPOCK: Spectrometric analysis suggests there are still pockets of oxygen on board. It is possible someone could have survived.
That’s why they had to do a visual confirmation and discovered Cayuga’s sickbay had been blown away.
I was just trying to answer the technological criticisms about why Spock didn’t search.
I see where the criticism is coming from, but I can also see there are all sorts of extenuating circumstances around it (not to mention lack of time) and to take the plot there for a search would kind of kill the story momentum.
It’s not invalid as a criticism, just saying that tech reasons are covered.
I see where the criticism is coming from, but I can also see there are all sorts of extenuating circumstances around it (not to mention lack of time) and to take the plot there for a search would kind of kill the story momentum.
This is a blunder on writer's/producer's/etc. They could have written a one-off line where Spock cold-bloodedly says "the needs of the many outweighs the needs of the few." They could have sent rescue shuttles to search the wreckage since it was on the right side of the line early on in the episode. They could have chosen an entirely different solution (seems like flying a shuttle disguised as wreck worked well, toss another stuffed with torpedoes).
“Shuttle stuffed with torpedoes” wouldn’t work because it’d be obvious it was weaponized - a single shuttle likely couldn’t take out that beacon on its on.
At least the saucer section of the Caygua was big enough to provide plausibility. Even if they found pieces of the rockets later they’d have no real proof - the rockets could be claimed to have been standard equipment or part of the RCS or impulse systems.
I love how they tock one of the most laughable elements of TOS and made the Gorn into a terrifying and interesting enemy. I genuinely want to know about Gorn society.
This exactly. Using something closer to the xenomorphs of Alien, introduces a truly frightening species that is sufficiently different that their kind of intelligence and motivations are believably difficult for Federation humanoids to understand.
I know there are other older fans struggling with this, but I think it’s saving the Gorn and Arena from absurdity.
No matter how compelling the story, TOS Arena’s ridiculous rubber suit Gorn has become one of the most recognized images from the franchise in popular culture.
Even as a child watching the episode in its first run it seemed more like silly monster movie stuff. It didn’t have the quality of truly scary monsters of that era such as the Creature of the Black Lagoon. It wasn’t in any way reaching Roddenberry’s target high value sci-fi standard of Forbidden Planet or even The Cage.
More, with so many later stories of Kirk and other captains welcoming the strange and different, coming to terms with very alien species, we need to be shown why Kirk was so hostile to the Gorn by the time of TOS.
While they could have gone for some other kind of reptilian, I like SNW’s choice to go with a the biology of parasitic R-breeder. Roddenberry’s original concept for the Ferengi was closer to the parasitic bat people of Andromeda than what TNG and DS9 gave us. The updated Gorn can be viewed as incorporating that idea and making them as terrifying.
I like the Gorn being legitimately scary, but to me it kind of retroactively highlights how silly “Arena” was. You can’t really compare modern TV with the episodes from the 60s, but stick one of these Gorn on the planet with Kirk and he would have been proper fucked. I can accept it easily enough and take it with a grain of salt that, if we assume they were going to re-shoot the episode today with Paul Wesley and modern cinema techniques that the fight scenes wouldn’t be these silly ponderous things and the episode would probably largely not have Kirk confront the Gorn at all, mostly running away until the big climax with the “cannon”. However, it is kind of an unforced error, where they could have simply introduced the aliens as a totally new species without really losing anything while also not highlighting how silly the rubber suit Gorn was.
Kirk’s Gorn was the captain. Maybe he was old and feeble? Not suited for a fight, still pretty strong but no longer fast and agile. The Metrons chose the captains, not the best fighters.
I love this actually. Kirk, probably top 5% percent against the Gorn captain who happened to be some ancient, arthritic, half blind, one foot in the grave, and still beat his ass all over the paramount back lot.
My head canon is that there’s another stage to the Gorn lifecycle that we haven’t yet seen on SNW. It might be that with full maturity, the Gorn gain significant intelligence and brute strength relative to earlier stages, but lose speed and agility.
It’s also been suggested in the beta canon that the Gorn are made up of multiple reptile variants. The ones in SNW seem to be raptor based. It’s possible the less agile more tank like variants might show up later.
No highlighting is necessary. No need to be a fan to instantly associate the rubber suit Gorn of Arena with the franchise.
The meme of Kirk in a ripped tunic fighting the rubber-suited Gorn with the Vasquez Rocks behind is one of the most recognizable images in pop culture.
Goldsman and Myers have my respect for their attempt to salvage it.
HOLY CRAP, I AM SO GLAD I WENT INTO THIS SPOILER FREE!!!1!
Someone posted earlier this week that it looked like Captain Batel was having a really bad day, and yup, she definitely was. My heart sank when she revealed the Gorn egg infestation. My money’s on her being the sole “main” character casualty from the events of this episode.
I didn’t know Scotty was going to show up so that was a total surprise. Finding out he was Pelia’s perfect student who somehow flunked made all the sense in the world, ignoring the obvious small universe complaints.
I LOVED all the effects shots of the Cuyuga’s debris field. I initially thought crashing the remains of the saucer section into the Gorn jammer was complete overkill, like throwing a dinner plate at a toothpick, but then realized the jammer must have been absolutely massive and far away from the settlement. It looked like it was relatively nearby upon initial viewing which didn’t appear to be the case considering the explosion from when the saucer section hit it.
That cliffhanger, wow. I pray that they have the second half already written and aren’t going to do like TNG and wait to write the conclusion. It was mentioned in the TNG Companion that the writers only wrote the first part of their season ending cliffhangers and waited until closer to filming to write and finalize the second part which doesn’t seem like the best way to develop a strong resolution.
I love SNW so much. It’s going to be an agonizing wait until the new season, probably 2025 at this point? Argh.
EDIT: I swear I didn’t read any posts in this thread before posting my thoughts. I’m glad and amused to see we Trek fans had many of the same reactions!
The TNG writers held off on writing BOBW2 at least partially because Patrick Stewart was renegotiating his contract and they needed to know if he was staying on. I doubt that’s a concern with SNW. The writers strike could be a problem, though.
Season 3 was originally scheduled to start production May 2nd, just before the start of the strike. It’s only the impending strike date that caused them to stand down on that.
This tells us that the script for the season premiere has been locked for some time.
I think we can excuse the fact that apparently everyone and their transporter clone had Pelia as their engineering professor. She’s been at the academy for so long, I wouldn’t be surprised if she dated Boothby on and off again or at least got him into gardening.
There’s a long tradition in star trek where characters talk about one particular professor or class at the Academy and the other character always knows who the professor is.
Nice of them to have a colony modeled after an Earth town. Saves on budget.
“SIGNAL LOST.” In space, a dropped call can mean only one thing: Invasion.
Oh, we’re doing the Independence Day thing?
Telling a Starfleet captain to just do reconnaissance is basically telling them to go weapons free.
Nice little tinge of one of the TOS scores at the end of the cold open. Someone more geekier than I can probably place it.
If you ever feel like you are useless in life, just remember that there is a “skip intro” button during a “Space, the Final Frontier” monologue.
Is the “Gorn Protocol” a hand-cannon with with a diamond?
She flies the ship!
I’d like to imagine there is a deleted scene where they glue every piece of junk they have onto the shuttle.
If they’re going to do a “is someone still alive in the wreckage” storyline, they probably should have flip-flopped Batel and Chapel’s spots, given that we obviously know she’s going to live.
They keep giving Jenna Mitchell lines! FREE MITCHELL! Give that actreess a cast credit, cowards!
Ah, a good old fashioned beam into the sky.
Oh, look, a Gornzooky!
And… vaporized.
More Gornzookies!
Oh my god, it’s young Scotty. Hopefully this means Keenser is there. I always loved Keenser and his ability to sit on things he isn’t supposed to.
Doesn’t seem like Keenser is there :(
Of course Scotty would engineer a way to save people. He truly is a miracle worker.
Smashing a piece of space debris is a very… brilliant idea.
Pelia continuing to harass Una for her poor academics in engineering.
Why do I get the feeling that whatever plan Spock has to put the rockets on the hull will also allow him to check for survivors?
Wow, imagine that, Chapel is alive! Imagine that! Whoever would have thought! (Seriously they should have flip-flopped her and Batel if they were going to do this)
USE THE MORSE, CHRISTINE!
Oh, now she grabs the spacesuit. Although I guess she didn’t need it yet.
WARNING: GORNZOOKY
COMMAND CODE INVALID’
That looks like a bigger Gorn. An adult? Or at least like a teenager.
So incredibly Alien.
“GET YOUR HANDS OFF HIM, YOU BITCH!”
Oh shit, she’s been impregnated with gornzookies. A very zombie movie trope.
“There’ll be time later.” Before or after you get engaged to Dr. Korby?
“We need to abort some Gornzookies.”
Yeah, Scotty would be a shitty student despite being brilliant.
OH FUCK THE GORN KIDNAPPED THEM
TO BE CONTINUED?!?!!?! Okay, who wants to drive to Hollywood and personally beat up some billionaires? I want this strike over NOW and I want a conclusion WITHIN A YEAR, A YEAR AND A HALF MAX!
Strangely LD seems to me to be THE MOST CATCHY Star Trek theme. Every time I hear it it’s playing in my head for the next 24 hours. Not saying it’s the best, it’s great, but goddamn does it burrow its way into my brain
Star Fleet seems to like to compartmentalize information. Examples:
At least post ‘First Contact’ they had hints of the Borg before ‘Q Who’ but kept it quiet. Similarly the Genesis device information was on a need to know basis (although probably for good reason). There was also that Voyager episode based around the Omega directive that only Janeway knew about.
Also didn’t they mention it’s basically untested. So no point rolling out weapons in mass till you have a chance to verify they work. It’s just cause false hope, or risk additional lives if they don’t work.
I think they are still trying diplomacy with the gorn, admiral april says they want to try to bring them in and see if they can be allies. Star fleet doesn't want to be outward threat
Also I think admirals are downplaying the gorn threat, maybe not to scare citizens
Idk, it was pretty predictable and it’s still not clear to me why writers who seemingly can’t do better than blatantly rip off Alien deserve to be at the helm.
Get Stephen Baxter and IDK Arkady Martine on the writing team as consultants ASAP because this show needs help. People deserve more interesting sci fi than this. Arkady Martine wrote a more interesting and thought provoking Star Trek style story than whatever this Gorn arc is shaping up to be.
They’ve been building up an impending Gorn conflict since early in season 1 and this is like the third or so episode that has centered on them. It’s an arc, unless we think the story gets reset to zero every season?
At a minimum the script editor should have asked the writers hard questions about the Chapel and Batel subplots to justify their inclusion.
I would have dropped the two subplots and used the screen time on La’an who was strangely reduced to giving color commentary for an episode that she should have been front and center on.
Yea generally, with S2 at least, there’s been a strange amount of not using the main cast. With Pike it seems to be attributable to paternity leave. Still, it has been to the detriment of the season, with the ending scene hanging on his apparent indecisiveness being a callback to the finale of S1 and the differences between him and Kirk … and it not really landing because it’s under-developed arc.
Beyond that, a good amount of room has clearly been made for TOS prequel work (Kirk and Scotty now), which IMO is structurally problematic but also just detracts from the main cast. Ortega, La’an, Una even, have been too easily put into the background for my liking, especially for a 10 episode per season format.
Given Pelia took a leave (ran away) from her post at the Academy to have a bit of fun and replace her deceased student Hemmer, she may be more than happy to leave Scotty with the ship once she’s put him through her paces.
I would like to see at least one episode where she gets more of a guest star featured turn though.
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