S3 E6: Find the Burn
"Burnham. Girl. What are you doing?"
Halfway through season 3, we’ve figured out the nature of the Discovery’s quest: to find the origins of the Burn. Sonia Van Meter, who yet again failed to get through an episode without crying, points out that even when this show looks more Star Wars than Star Trek, they’re no longer a mission to seek out new life and new civilizations. This time, they’re trying to save their own.
by Sonia Van Meter
Since we’re just about halfway through season 3, let’s take a look at where we’ve already been as well as where we might be headed next. If you’re just now finding my nerdy little corner of the internet, welcome! Here’s your 60 second skinny:
The Star Fleet science vessel Discovery has slingshot itself 930 years into the future because a strange space entity with a memory a thousand years long somehow got on board and merged with the ship's computer. The entity posed a peculiar and singular threat to all existence, so to remove the threat and save all life in existence the ship found the nearest wormhole and got the hell out of Dodge. Michael Burnham, the ship’s first officer and our rakish protagonist, went first in a cool shiny spacesuit her mother gave her. Discovery followed right behind. Unfortunately the wormhole’s chaotic temporal mechanics shot Burnham into the new era a full year before Discovery finally made it. They reunited, though, and have begin their search for whatever is left of Star Fleet and the Federation after learning that a phenomenon referred to as “The Burn” destroyed most warp-capable ships about one hundred years before they arrived.
They visit Earth to find humanity a pack of surly, untrusting, self-serving jerks. The rest of the universe seems to have reverted to self preservation and lizard-brain thinking as well, a natural if disappointing response to catastrophe. But our heroes have brought with them to the 31st century their eternal Star Fleet hope, optimism, and love for all creatures, and they prove to this brave new universe over and over that they will do whatever it takes to bring compassion and public service back to Star Fleet. They visit Trill, locate Star Fleet headquarters, rejoin the fleet, and complete a mission to retrieve a cure needed for a plague at great personal cost, proving to Star Fleet leadership that not only are they fit for duty, they are in exceptional form and carry with them the values that made the Federation the incredible force for good that it once was.
That pretty much gets us to this week, which I will open with a question:
Burnham. Girl. What are you doing?
Book has sent word via his cat (yes, cat) that he’s found another “black box.” Black boxes in the Star Trek universes seem to be exactly what they are in our universe-- that thing we go searching for when planes crash. Apparently they’re such a good idea they’re still using them 900 years in the future. ANYWAY. Book sends a message to Burnham that he’s found another black box from a ship destroyed during The Burn. I’ve been laughably slow to figure out why Burnham was so hellbent on finding these black boxes until this episode gave us a lovely bit of exposition in which she explains it all to us. In short:
No one knows how or why The Burn happened, but it seems to have happened in a single moment, and it dramatically redefined the power dynamics of the galaxy.
Burnham spent her first year in the new era looking for black boxes hoping to find answers. She’s got two so far.
The black boxes she’s found have different timestamps at the time their ships were destroyed. If The Burn happened all once, those timestamps should be identical. The fact that they’re different means--
The Burn didn’t happen all at once, which means--
The Burn might have had a point of origin! And if she can get her hands on a third black box, she can triangulate from the data of all three what that origin point is, and perhaps find answers as to why it happened in the first place!
This, I now realize, is the theme of this whole season. Unlike Next Gen, where each episode was its own self-contained story and could easily be inserted into any season without problem, each season of Discovery has a story arc that extends through the whole season, and each episode informs where the next episode goes. This season’s theme is a quest to discover what The Burn is and how and why it happened. Was it a natural phenomenon? Was it manmade? If so, by whom, and to what end?
Like the proverbial frog in the pot of slowly heated water, the inhabitants of this universe, Star Fleet included, wonder about the source of The Burn, but there are so many more immediate problems on their plate that they’ve sort of decided to just accept it and move on. The Admiral in charge of Star Fleet even admits in one of his first appearances that Star Fleet has been in triage mode for a long time. But Burnham definitively hits the nail on the head when she tells Saru, “The Federation cannot stabilize while the cause of The Burn remains in question.” And that is some brutal truth. Without some kind of resolution regarding The Burn, Star Fleet will keep limping along in its diminished form, trying to help where it can, but never being able to grow into what it could again be. It will remain everyone’s bandaid, but will never be the cure.
Burnham in her usual go-getter mode tells Saru that she’s going to go look for Book. She fears for his safety, but as far as she’s concerned there’s no greater priority than getting the black box he found. But Saru gently reminds her that she’s no longer a solo artist. The Fugees are back together again, and her Lauren Hill days are behind her. That means following the orders Discovery was given, and those orders did not include missions to planets in known gang territory to rescue random people, no matter how good one’s intentions might be.
The Fugees are back together again, and her Lauren Hill days are behind her.
Burnham looks crestfallen, but nods her understanding and turns to leave. She’s not even out of the room however before the look on her face betrays exactly what she plans to do. She’s going anyway, Saru and Star Fleet be damned. But she’s going to need help. And where on Discovery do you turn for help when you want to break rules, piss people off, but absolutely, positively, and without question get the job done?
Hellooooooo Philippa Georgiou!
Readers, I will be the first to admit that not nearly enough ink has been dedicated to the spectacular specimen that is Emperor Philippa Georgiou. The woman is a wrecking ball to the status quo. She is devious, brilliant, conniving, captivating, the very essence of evil, and still somehow just vulnerable enough to keep you emotionally invested in her. But after two seasons of being impervious and badass and just the teeniest bit two dimensional, the woman is suddenly dealing with an actual personal crisis. We’re not entirely sure what’s causing it, but she seems to be having flashbacks to a battle where someone she cared about died beside her. The flashbacks paralyze her momentarily, a hindrance in the events to come, but we could at last be drilling down a bit to the foundations of her dark and twisted psyche, and whatever we find down there it’s bound to be interesting.
All Georgiou needed to hear were the words “unsanctioned mission.” Though in a striking moment of concern for others, she points out to Burnham that she’ll be throwing Saru very much into the fire if she disobeys orders. Discovery has had to prove themselves worthy of reintroduction to the fleet, and it will not reflect well on Saru if his first office goes rogue on him right out of the gate. But Burnham is certain in her motives and her mission.
“I’d rather regret something I did than something I didn’t.”
Would that we all had such strength of our convictions.
The rest of the episode is vintage but somewhat generic space adventure. Burnham and Georgiou commandeer Book’s ship to go off in search of him, and discover he’s been forced into slavery by the owners of a salvage yard. The Emerald Chain gang seems to have a lot of sway in this part of the galaxy, but even they’ve never met with a force like Georgiou, who lies, bullies, and manipulates her way into their complex with Burnham to find Book. And find him they do. He and several dozen other humanoids of all different species are in bondage, maintaining the salvage yard under the vicious management of some green punk who’s clearly power-drunk on the perks of middle management. It’s grim and dark and a surprisingly honest representation of indentured servitude for a franchise that has kept things so very PG for half a century.
It’s grim and dark and a surprisingly honest representation of indentured servitude for a franchise that has kept things so very PG for half a century.
Meanwhile back on Discovery, Tilly has figured out that Burnham’s wandered out of bounds and is trying to decide what to do about it. And Adira is having vivid conversations with herself. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of the presence of Gray, Adira’s deceased boyfriend, as a character who talks to Adira, but here we are. Has she had some kind of mental break? Is this all in her imagination? Did the transference of the symbiont somehow make conversation with the dead possible? The longer this goes on, the more reclusive Adira becomes. She’s basically only interacting with Gray who is… not actually there. But even weirder than Adira talking to a figment of her imagination is Stamets taking an interest in this 16-year-old genius. Stamets doesn’t ever open his mouth without first considering how to belittle the person standing in front of him, so when the words “thank you” and a smile are directed at Adira when she reconfigures the spore drive interface to be much more comfortable for him, I definitely cocked an eyebrow. Something’s going on.
If there’s a central theme to this episode, it is the issue of trust, and nowhere is it more pronounced than in the scene between Saru and Tilly, when Saru asks her what she might suspect regarding Burnham’s motives in going rogue. Tilly, sweet Tilly, recognizes that Burnham’s done something unacceptable and unforgivable, and with a heavy heart tells Saru what he needs to hear. Discovery still has a lot to prove to Star Fleet. They’ve only just been welcomed back into the fold, and Burnham’s actions absolutely must not be allowed to represent the entire crew. She made a choice, and in doing so, left Saru with no choice. If the Admiral finds out from anyone other than Saru what Burnham’s done, Discovery and her crew will lose any confidence they may have earned thus far. Tilly is loyal, kind, compassionate, and understanding, but she also sees with unclouded judgement what Burnham’s actions will do to Discovery if Saru doesn’t act. She may be a flibbertigibbet, but she’s no fool. It’s her career on the line along with everyone else’s.
Tilly may be a flibbertigibbet, but she’s no fool.
We then return to the salvage yard where Burnham, Georgiou, and Book are staging a jailbreak for the entire yard that’s more Star Wars than Star Trek, and for the first time in my natural life I mean that in a good way. In most Star Trek battle scenes, our vantage point is on the bridge of a ship. Everything we see is happening on the ship’s view screen, an effective but muted way of showcasing a battle. But Discovery clearly has a budget to play with, because for the next several minutes we’re treated to a full JJ Abrams-style battle scene from the vantage point of the slaves on the ground complete with deafening bass and lens flares. From incredible hand to hand combat to fulgid phaser fire to Book’s ship flying overhead and then breaking apart and reorganizing itself into a new configuration (seriously, that programmable matter technology is something we should really look into) the whole thing looks more like a Jedi versus Sith battle than anything Gene Roddenberry could have conceived. And I’m not gonna lie, it was FUN. And in true Trek form, all the good guys get away. Book, Georgiou, and Burnham get all the slaves on the ship with minimal casualties. All’s well that ends well. At least until they get home.
We get one more look at the newly developing dynamic between Adira and Stamets before Burnham comes home to face the music. Stamets finds her in the mess hall having another conversation with her not-actually-there boyfriends and poses a hypothesis: She’s holding onto someone that she loves.
What the hell, people? Saru and Tilly and even the foolhardy Burnham are the ones who are supposed to make us cry, not the stinging and self-righteous mushroom navigator. But here I am, listening to him make perfect sense of the trauma she’s dealing with in her own perfectly creative and perfectly healthy way trying desperately not to cry yet again at this infernal show. Hell. Maybe next week.
At last Burnham is standing before Saru and the Admiral to hear their judgement of her actions. And while the Admiral is justifiably pissed at Burnham, he also directs a small amount of frustration at Saru for not bringing the information to him sooner that he might judge the value of Burnham’s mission for himself. “If asked, I may have deemed the intel worth the risk,” he tells them both. It’s a surprising bit of vision from a man clearly beaten down from years of putting out individual fires without the resources to address the source of all the conflict.
Burnham takes her medicine, and very respectfully defends her actions while conceding the difficulty she created for everyone in the process. I’d call it a moment of growth for her, except that we’ve seen this contrition from her before. Her first decision ever as a character was to go against her captain’s orders, a move which resulted in her captain’s death and began a war with the Klingons. If anyone should understand the value of playing by the rules of this kind of game, it’s Burnham. But as she clearly does not, Saru’s actions in the next moment are to be expected. He can’t trust her. And he can’t have a person he doesn’t trust as his First Officer. He relieves her of her duties as his Number One. She’s just a science officer again.
Here I am, trying desperately not to cry yet again at this infernal show. Hell. Maybe next week.
As she should be.
As she tells him it should be.
The final image before the credits roll is Burnham fighting back tears as she contemplates the consequences of her actions. She’s absentmindedly fingering her badge on her chest as she does so, and just before the screen goes dark, she pulls the badge off her uniform. A hint of things yet to come? Perhaps. But that’s not where I want to leave you today.
Star Trek, as I’ve said countless times, is always about hope, and faith, and the conquering of problems that seem insurmountable. While this episode closes on a mournful note, it opens with moments of discovery and wonder that are as of yet unseen in the Trek franchise. Everytime a series starts, the audience is introduced to the new technology as though it’s a given. We simply “have” spaceships and transporters and tricorders and holo-technology. It’s accepted as the norm because we’re looking at the future, and in the future, everyone is already utilizing this tech every day. But with Discovery’s thrust into a new millennium, we get to see this new technology through their eyes, through the eyes of people who couldn’t have imagined things so impressive and grand and groundbreaking. We are children seeing the world for the first time, and we giggle and gasp and stare in wonder alongside the crew as they play with their new panel interfaces, their new personal transporters, their new comms badges that make the iPhone 12 look like a blinking brick.
And the joy, at least for me, is not simply in the imagining of this extraordinary new technology in a fantasy world. It’s remembering that so many things we have now were once only imagined on the sets of this same fantasy world. Doors that slide open based on motion sensors are now standard at hospitals and grocery stores. Hand held communicators are now cellular telephones. Portable tablets? We call them iPads. So much imagined in science fiction eventually shows up in our lives as tools. If they can imagine programmable matter, what could possibly come next for us?
See you next week.
Sonia Van Meter, Larry Wilmore’s nemesis, is an award-winning political consultant, a partner in the Truman National Security Project, and former aspiring Mars colonist. Follow her on Twitter at @bourbonface.
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