Over the weekend we took a closer look at the new 32nd-century refit to the USS Discovery, which introduced new systems and features to the ship, inside and out. While she didn’t appear in the latest episode, one could imagine that the always opinionated engineer Jett Reno might have some views on the upgrades. Imagine no longer: Jett Reno vents her views in a new official Star Trek log on Instagram.
Programmable matter with duct tape?
Here is Reno’s official personal log (voiced by actress/comedian Tig Notaro):
View this post on Instagram
Holodecks on the disco
If you listened closely to Reno’s various issues with new features of the refit Discovery, there was one she did approve of, saying:
New holodecks are cool, though. Risa sounds good right about now… Me. A beach. No one around as far as the eye can see.
That’s right, the USS Discovery has holodecks, the TNG-era technology that allows the characters to create virtual environments for training, and entertainment. The big question is: have they finally solved the problem of holodeck malfunctions that plagued ships in the 24th century, including creating rogue characters like Moriarity and Badgey.
24th-century holodeck
A closer look at the Refit
The StarTrekLogs Instagram also offered up this closer look at the USS Discovery-A, if you stitch together two posts.
New episodes of Star Trek: Discovery premiere on Thursdays on CBS All Access in the U.S. and on CTV Sci-Fi Channel in Canada, where it’s also available to stream on Crave. Episodes are available on Fridays internationally on Netflix.
Keep up with all the news and reviews from the new Star Trek Universe on TV at TrekMovie.com.
Every day is getting better. Detached Nacelles…look forward to hear the scientific argument, on how this could be possible. Can’t wait to see the new Discovery in action! =D
I’m with those out there who speculate that each nacelle has its own warp core.
And if one thinks about how a warp field/bubble would be generated, there is no particular need for the nacelles to be attached, just that the ship is in the interior space created.
And in terms of powering the rest of the ship using the warp engines, I think that we all know by know that hard physical conductors aren’t the only way to relay an EM field.
I just can’t come to terms with it….but otherwise I have been loving season 3. I just can’t wrap my head around detached nacelles.
Magnetism. Works today for levitation and control without material contact.
The warp nacelles are Qi compatable.
Drew wins this one
Discovery looks like a lit-up Christmas ornament now – Hallmark’s gonna make BILLIONS! ;)
They need to explain the detached nacelles. They don’t make any sense.
Foldable nacelles on Voyager neither. At least there is the faintest hint of a design lineage here!
Doug Drexler came up with the idea of detatched “bluetooth” nacelles, in his design for the Enterprise J. reasoning being that if it makes sense, it isn’t futuristic enough. (eg if you had shown iphones and wireless earbuds to Victorians they would have said “that doesn’t make sense”). we can’t imagine what tech from 1000 years in the future will be like. Infact, some of the concepts he came up with for Enterprise J make the stuff we’ve seen in Disco so far seem tame lol
That’s an interesting approach that, if it makes sense, it isn’t futuristic enough. I had not heard that before. I assume the reason for the detached nacelles is in case there is another “burn” it minimizes damage to the primary hull. Asto whether it makes sense, this is the a future with all kinds of magical technology—transporters, holodecks, force fields, tractor beams. Who’s to say the engines can be detached to minimize risk of exposure from radiation, explosions, etc. In my mind, they are held in place by a invisible tractor beam or electromagnetic thingy of some sort.
My guess is that detachable nacelles allow for making curves while at warp. You can change the attitude of the warp bubble…
No, they don’t. TOS spent little time explaining stuff, that it worked was sufficient for continuity….when they weren’t ignoring continuity. FTL is still fiction. Lots of explaining does not change that.
Want to know what doesn’t make sense? That anyone is still sending crewed ships into space, on cargo runs. A planet needs replicators, why would you not just transmit that design and manufacturing specs to planet Bazinga III instead of loading a few on a ship? AI seems to have benignly evolved to the point where they are going the daily grunt work…so let them.
I sorta disagree. Being super far in the future one can dream up nearly anything and say the reason is super future tech. I’m not a huge fan but in that context it does work. It’s just that I, like other viewers, have a tough time getting past the “doesn’t make sense” line. Even though I know it could make sense with unknown far future tech. And is one of the reasons I was not a fan for them going SO far forward.
Still think Reno is the best character on the show. And even the tiny bits we got of her contain more laughs than the entire season of Lower Decks.
But admittedly with this character less may very well be more. Better to have the audience wanting to see more of her and not get it than get a lot of her and end up wanting less.
I must disagree. I found the characters in DISCO to feel like trial runs for the better versions we got on LDS. Tilley is Tendi, Burnham is Mariner, and Reno is Cat Lady
“Reno is Cat Lady”
:D That fits perfectly. I already call her Space Helge. ” Katzeklo, Katzeklo…”
You do have that right to disagree. I thought that about TNG. Those characters ended up being mere trial runs for the vastly superior ones we got on DS9 and Voyager. Even Enterprise had more interesting characters.
But as far as LDX having superior characters… I cannot come to the same conclusion. At best they are both on the same 2 dimensional level with each other. This is tolerable from an animated show whose main goal was to be funny. (even though it was a spectacular fail on that front) But having such weak characters on a regular dramatic show is not good. The one thing STD has over LDX is their characters are portrayed by full on people (who give us more than just a voice) who have physical depth as opposed to figurative depth.
I feel like Burnham and the crew are from two separate shows. Both have their ups and downs, and the downs could be fixed by jettisoning the other to focus solely on the chosen POV.
I’m just curious, who do you think is the weakest set of characters, Discovery or TNG? As you know I love the TNG characters but the DIS characters are growing on me. For me overall I still think its the Enterprise crew that is the weakest, but don’t get me wrong I still love them all to death!!!
Man they’ve really changed a lot on the refit Discovery. The engineering section is vastly different. I wish we got some more fly by beauty shots like they used to do on the older series so we could really get a closer look
It’s really a whole new ship, which is why I think it got the “A” designation in its registry number. I assume the main computer (with the Sphere data), the spore drive system (and thus most of the saucer) and the saucer section’s habitable spaces are all that are left of the original ship… I like the changes a lot.
I agree. Still, I understand fans arguing for the “A” designation being the same ship. Let’s see their argument on the show, if they will explain in the upcoming episodes.
Pet theory is a cover-up of the time travel.
How is it a cover up, if it puts a spot on it? 900 years later nobody would care about the Discovery. But if you put an A there then people might be interested in the original and might research the original suddenly disappeared and there where rumors about time travel when that happened.
Only idiots try cover something up with text marker.
Yeah, even if it isn’t explained in an upcoming episode, given how much media attention it is getting on this and other sites, they may very well address it in some fashion in the future. Unfortunately there is some evidence in dialog that others have commented on suggesting that the writers have chosen to ignore precedent and now use the letter designation to reference evolution of a ship – not a new ship. If you listen closely to dialog regarding both the Voyager-J and the Tikhov-M, you might come to that conclusion. I personally hope not, but I could probably deal with it better than almost all of the visual and technology changes the producers made for their version of the 23rd Century, ha!
Simplest explanation is that time travel is illegal “now.” Having a ship flying around that was “lost” during a battle 930 years ago would raise some eyebrows. Now they can just say we decided to build a new Discovery based on that old Crossfield design, you know, just like we did with Voyager.
Also, it’s 930ish years in the future. Maybe the rules have simply changed?
Yeah, it’s crazy just how much they changed this ship. This has never happened on a show before to change a ship so dramatically. And I really love the new look.
Honestly, I’m still a little floored with what they have done with this show overall. Third season Trek shows have a famous tradition where major changes happen and try to reset the show in some way but never like this lol.
Again you have to give Kurtzman a LOT of credit here. Think of the amount of crazy work they are doing to put this show in a new era. They basically redefined everything. And thankfully it’s really paying off. Frankly I thought the changes they did in season was for most part were great, but that pales in comparison to what it is now.
I love Reno; she’s so thoroughly herself, no matter what happens!
I’m just so glad that we got a real good show going, back to proper Trek! Too many other Treks like Picard were trying to be contemporary…. how can you be contemporary based 400 years in the future? The point of the future is that the problems and issues of today are resolved. Back to the Tech, yeah im with all, looking forward to it being shown off soon! Ever since the last episode of Voyager I’ve been looking forward to seeing how these things evolved.
I 100% agree Richard!
For me, Star Trek was about the future, first and foremost. About all the crazy possibilities, especially when it came to technology. Star Trek relished in it, especially with the 24th century shows once Star Trek had a real budget and could show off things TOS couldn’t.
It’s why I originally had a problem with Enterprise because I didn’t went a ‘downgraded’ Star Trek show. I didn’t want a show where everything feel closer to us. That’s not Star Trek to me. Like most things though, I did eventually accept it (and even want to see more stories with the NX crew) but it was far from ideal for me overall.
But going so far into the future, they can literally do anything they want. This is what I always wanted to see. I assumed we would get it some day but I was thinking ten years down the line when they exhausted every 23rd and 24th century storyline they could do. I assumed we may get a show 100 years post Voyager in time, but not much farther than that. Now Star Trek is so wide open again and it’s just so much fun. It’s only been 6 episodes so far so I don’t want to get ahead of myself but having a show this far advance Discovery may end up being my favorite show now. That would say a lot when it was my least favorite for two seasons lol.
I think the writers are probably just loving it as well. No more tip toeing around canon or people complaining that stuff looks and acts too advance like the first two seasons. They can dream as big as they want now, detached nacelles and all. We even got holodecks again! :)
And its cool thats not full of blood and gore. Its a proper great show making its mark with good story lines. I feel like saying “Star Trek is back!!” … hey… i said it :-)
So, how they make sure the nacelles get taken with them when they jump? :P
Everything inside the warp bubble gets taken
I’m really not a fan of the new refit.
I won’t argue from the ‘science’ standpoint, but . . . frankly it just makes the ship look like a generic piece of modern sci-fi. They were already crossing the border into “everything has to glow” territory, but this new detached with blue glowy bits everywhere aesthetic just looks like something out of a dime-a-dozen video game to me.
Aside from the saucer + nacelles = trek equation, this does not feel like Star Trek to me.
I’m not going to get grumpy over it, but, not a fan.
Why can’t the special effect lighting be more what its like in the Instagram post? I can actually see Discovery without feeling I’m looking past a torch/flash light.
They say the nacelles are detached for more maneuverability, but the ship doesn’t change direction during warp. So, why detach? Do they detach to change warp field configuration?
LOL, the Discovery now has holodecks! That’s pretty funny. I know some people here reeaally hate them, but they are just too cool not to have. ;)
NOW, it’s feeling like a post-Nemesis show. I wonder when we get our first holodeck episode? It will probably be a Burnham and Tilly adventure of some kind.
And the ship looks so bad ass now! I would still prefer a new one all together but this does look like a good compromise and make it look less ugly as possible.
Nice
Nice if they’d used models instead of 100% CGI. I still don’t get a feel for the ship in the shots they have used. It looks…i dunno….skinny and brittle… past trek ships have looked really good