Story: Species 10-C
Written By: Kyle Jarrow
Series: Star Trek: Discovery
Year: 2022
Discovery sends a message of peace using the hydrocarbons they found on the planet. Species 10-C brings them in and a dialogue is begun, though neither truly understands the other. The 10-C communicate through gasses and lights, but luckily the team of Discovery are able to crack the code and see they are sending mathematical equations. They are nearly able to establish some sort of peaceful communication, that could maybe stop the DMA...when the B-plot comes crashing in on them.
The B-plot is, of course, on Book's ship. With Reno as a hostage, Book and Tarka are trying to come up with a way to escape the bubble they are trapped in with Discovery. Reno sees Tarka's calculations and sees that he is out of his mind, and his plan will likely destroy not just the DMA, but the 10-C, and could easily destroy Book's ship and Discovery if they aren't ready to escape fast enough...and destroying the DMA will leave a trail of toxins that could wipe out Earth in the process. Basically, he is so blinded by his scheme he sees no reason anymore and the consequences no longer matter. She expresses this to Book, but Tarka was ready for Book to turn on him, and has created a force field of some kind. He is able to lock Book up with Reno, and gets the Earth general to leak Discovery's plasma into the bubble they are in so Book's ship can escape.
At which point those who were nearly establishing a dialogue are angrily beamed back into Discovery and it seems disaster awaits everyone. Hoo-boy.
I really liked the communicating with the alien stuff. I thought that was some good ol' fashioned Star Trek/sci-fi. In fact, I liked it just as well when it was the movie "Arrival." It's actually a topic Trek could tackle more often. The universal translator is a decent tool to help the story move along, but you need to expect that some species will have a language so different to our own, hell a culture so different to our own, that establishing first contact might be incredibly hard. Sokath, his eyes uncovered!
But honestly, even the giant aliens behind a barrier of gasses is very much just "Arrival," though I will absolutely take stealing from that than stealing from "Terminator."
NEXT TIME: Stopping Tarka
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