Maybe the apple - Rod Roddenberry - fell too far from the tree?

I assume Michael Burnham is going to be the hero of the show and stop the Klingsons with the new insectdrive warp spray. That is one huge can of insect spray!

She's not going to end up in prison, is she? I doubt it. The writers set up an interesting scenario - the hero of the show going to prison - but nope, they sure let that idea flouder! I dunno, they could have had her incarcerated for a few episodes just to give the court martial sentence some meaning.

It would have to be easier for her to become free while en route, than to have to bust her out sometime later. Although I suppose they could have pulled an Ensign Ro.

Unless there is a twist at the end of the season I can't imagine Burnham will face further prosecution. Starfleet Command will say "thanks for stopping the Kinglons, we forgive your past crimes."

And everyone will live happily ever after until ep 1 of season 2* when the Klingons return... again!

*(Assuming the show isn't cancelled)

Actually they have to return in the last episode of season 1, for the cliffhanger.

Is the Federation's response to Klingons from now on still going to be " We never shoot first?" If not, then they should understand Burnham's mutiny. I am not saying she should NOT be punished, only that her decision should be understood NOT as someone acting as a renegade but as someone disobeying orders for a greater good...there is quite a difference. Lorcas understands this that is why he wants her next to him.

Besides this mutiny gives Burnham a path to walk so we can better understand her development into a more rounded, better human and officer. Haven't you ever gotten sick and tired of how always correct, good and righteous Piccard, Janeway and Kirk were? These characters are not human. They did not show depth and growth as humans do (perhaps Janeway did to some extent mostly due to her extraordinary circumstances) Sisko of DS9 showed much greater character development than the others: he went from being a skeptic of the Bajoran religion to its reluctant deity!

So perhaps you have to 'suspend disbelief' slightly. People will not question Captain Lorcas decision if he is able to able to find a way to help the Federation survive the Klingons. "History is written by the victor". Same thing for the spores. It is not that far fetched. If everything is, at its barest a collection of atoms, and atoms are merely "energy moving around, then Stamets is correct microbiology is also quantum physics, then the idea of us travelling greater distances via spores is NOT that far fetched. We are clearly going to have to think along those lines anyway, if we ever want to explore this huge universe.

I dunno, seems to me anything involving natural phenomenon whether it be plant cells or rockets, would necessarily be limited to the speed of light. And you never really get anywhere like that, especially if you only live for 100 years or so.

In the middle of War, even deals with the Devil are possible. As an Exobiologist, "Michael Burnham" has figured out how "the monster from the U.S.S. Glenn" fits into the Spore drive. (Experienced personnel, no matter how rough around the edges, can be useful.) Capt. Lorca is now down one Chief of Security, but it's easier to find another leg breaker than an ethical warrior among the lab rats/scientist-sheep. Besides, someone has to look after The Navigator, who isn't OK with being used to skate over time/space as needed. So "Michael Burnham" is the rough equivalent of the skirt-chasing, furniture-destroying figher pilot that's a handful in peacetime, but is as needed as "Tommy Atkins" since the guns are shooting.

Or she's Kwai Chang Caine and the Sarek flashbacks are blind old wise Master Po.

Knixon, The limitations you correctly point to of physical travel are exactly what should make something like "spore travel" a necessary avenue of exploration. If we have a rather slow top speed in a limitless universe, then we have to figure out a way to able to alter that universe if we ever want to really explore it. I think of it in the way you might try to explain radio waves or television to someone born a couple of centuries ago. Impossible then, merely science now!

But no matter how much power you transmit TV or radio with, it won't go faster than light. I don't see any reason to believe that "spores" could do any better, since they're still a natural phenomenon. And the "flashing around the universe" scene was dumb too. But they don't even need any of that. All they have to do is either retcon that warp drive is faster than they've said before - which may not be very difficult since they always got places faster than they could if warp drive was as "slow" as they said - or just for Discovery come up with a new kind of warp drive or something. It has to turn out to have some kind of unnecessary risks though, which makes it only "necessary" during the Klingon war, since they didn't still use it for TOS and later.

I think warp drive is already a measurement of light years which is the distance light will travel in a year. What I am talking about is a way to travel not FASTER but DIFFERENTLY. Something that may seem impossible now but which will be simple science in another 100 years, rather like how my iPhone would be impossible to Columbus, but is mundane science today.

I understand your point, but unless you make it so that there are unacceptable risks except during wartime or something like that, what's the explanation for it not being used by Kirk, Picard, Janeway, Sisko...

Yes, warp drive is faster-than-light and the most commonly given/accepted explanation is that the cube of warp factor is the multiple of speed of light. But as I've mentioned earlier and elsewhere too, even warp 4 cubed means it takes a few WEEKS to reach Proxima Centauri which is closest to Earth. It would take much longer to get anywhere else, and none of the shows really allow for that. Indeed even in the very beginning of the Enterprise series they said it was just a few days' travel to the Klingon homeworld, which is plainly - by THEIR OWN measurements - impossible. Since nothing is closer than Proxima, and it takes WEEKS at warp 4 to get THERE. (The TNG episode First Contact supposedly takes place at least 1000 light years from Earth, which even at future Enterprise-D/Voyager speeds would mean a YEAR just of sitting there on the bridge watching all the nothing go by, not exploring other planets, averting other crises, etc. And then we get to things like in the First Contact MOVIE where they got from the Romulan Neutral Zone all the way back to Earth while the battle was still going.)

But saying "hey, what about SPORES!" is not any kind of reasonable, believable, or credible solution. Even if intoned by dimly-lit Jason Isaacs.