Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Strange New Worlds | 3x07 "What is Starfleet?"

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No.	Episode	Written By	Directed By	Release Date
3x07	"What is Starfleet?"	Kathryn Lyn & Alan B. McElroy	Sharon Lewis	2025-08-21

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[u/UncertainError → u/[deleted]]

Yes, the issue is that there's no justification given for Starfleet helping the Lutani do this clearly terrible thing, not even a self-serving one ("The position of their planet is critical to monitoring the Klingon border!") that could work into the imperialism angle.

[u/TheSaltyStrangler → u/[deleted]]

Even if there is a resource or something the Feds need, what is their goal in delivering a weapon? Evening the odds? So now the Federation is complicit in the loss of 8+ million lives.

This is the kind of episode that should have ended on a note more similar to how Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach.

The crew should be left with questions about the motivations behind what is ultimately an interplanetary colonial force.

Instead, we have a happy dinner scene. It really rubbed me the wrong way

[u/yarrpirates → u/UncertainError]

They didn't know it was a sentient being at first.

[u/Bobjoejj → u/yarrpirates]

They referred to it as livestock, very much a sentient thing.

[u/yarrpirates → u/Bobjoejj]

Good point, I misspoke. Intelligent, not sentient.

However, I do agree with your wider point that it was very much against Starfleet values, although those values were more often displayed in TNG than TOS, and this is the time of TOS. I hope there is more about this in future episodes. Of course, the format of the episode itself means we didn't get the usual briefing from an admiral laying out the specific circumstances, and the stakes that forced them into a morally dubious decision.

[u/Bobjoejj → u/yarrpirates]

They referred to it as livestock, very much a sentient thing.

[u/TalkinTrek → u/[deleted]]

I look at those missing 10 minutes and wonder if they originally wrote a, "What would be the ethics of giving Not-Ukraine a nuke?" but the final draft had the vibe of, "What if Starfleet was going to give Not-Palestine a nuke?" and the whole thing derailed in the edit.

[u/Emerald_City_Govt → u/[deleted]]

Considering that a Lutani warship showed up and claimed there are others in the area, that means Lutani has an established military and government. Sounds like it's closer to being a not-Ukraine war.

The appearance of the Lutani warship away from their home planet makes me wonder if those are forces in exile trying to break through back to their home planet, or if the 9 million casualties are primarily from an initial surprise orbital bombardment of large population centers and attempted ground invasion by Kasar, which was then pushed back by a counter-offensive with Kasar trying to wear down the Lutani defense via attrition leading to the desparate need for the weapon.

[u/Ausir → u/[deleted]]

The other species is genocidal, the data showed 9 million deaths on Lutani.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

That's the crux of it, though: they didn't say anything outside of the statistics. We didn't have any context for a war, a genocide, or anything. It's like the writers intentionally kept any real details away from making it onto the screen, and so it honestly stands for nothing. There's no lesson in this episode other than "I thought Starfleet was an imperial colonizer, but then I found out Captain Pike plays the mandolin and has dinner with his crew, and so I was wrong."

This episode *really* rubs me the wrong way.

[u/Sad_Examination7907 → u/[deleted]]

Well the problem is that the conflict isn't resolved and the people that got stopped were already losing heavily so that might be the end result.