Daystrom Institute

3470 readers

4 users here now

Welcome to Daystrom Institute!

Serious, in-depth discussion about Star Trek from both in-universe and real world perspectives.

Read more about how to comment at Daystrom.

Rules

1. Explain your reasoning

All threads and comments submitted to the Daystrom Institute must contain an explanation of the reasoning put forth.

2. No whinging, jokes, memes, and other shallow content.

This entire community has a “serious tag” on it. Shitposts are encouraged in Risa.

3. Be diplomatic.

Participate in a courteous, objective, and open-minded fashion. Be nice to other posters and the people who make Star Trek. Disagree respectfully and don’t gatekeep.

4. Assume good faith.

Assume good faith. Give other posters the benefit of the doubt, but report them if you genuinely believe they are trolling. Don’t whine about “politics.”

5. Tag spoilers.

Historically Daystrom has not had a spoiler policy, so you may encounter untagged spoilers here. Ultimately, avoiding online discussion until you are caught up is the only certain way to avoid spoilers.

6. Stay on-topic.

Threads must discuss Star Trek. Comments must discuss the topic raised in the original post.

Episode Guides

The /r/DaystromInstitute wiki held a number of popular Star Trek watch guides. We have rehosted them here:

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

Episode Analysis | Star Trek: Strange New Worlds | 2x08 “Under the Cloak of War” (startrek.website)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

5 comments fedilink hide all child comments

This is the Daystrom Institute Episode Analysis thread for Strange New Worlds 2x08 Under the Cloak of War.

Now that we’ve had a few days to digest the content of the latest episode, this thread is a place to dig a little deeper.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I believe M'Benga that it was self defense. If you think about how Dak'Rah was goading him it was obvious that he wanted to suss out what our good doctor knew about what happened in J'Gal. Remember, as M'Benga was killing his 2nd, 3rd, and 4th in command he was fleeing and knew there was someone out there who knows the truth of what happened. Given the large number of casualties, he most likely is on high alert when he comes across anyone who "was there". He figures Ortegas and Chapel don't have it in them to assassinate 3 Klingons so that leaves M'Benga who (upon rewatch) has this dark edgy energy, so... maybe? When he finally gets the truth out of M'Benga he has no choice but to kill the person who can disrupt his new cushy life.

Thinking about it, either M'Benga dies or he dies. Let's say M'Benga spares his life and exposes him for the coward that he is. He tried to kill civilians! His own people too! The Federation could never allow him to continue his cushy life and his fellow Klingons would never allow him to live after finding out. To not make that attempt to kill M'Benga first would be an illogical choice.

Also other questions to consider:

Did M'Benga hold back during the sparring so as not to give away his abilities?

How threatening was Rah? What if Rah had just said something like "I'm going to make sure no one knows the real story" and M'Benga takes that to mean Rah will kill him at the first justifiable opportunity? So might as well defend himself now?

M'Benga would have to know exactly where to stab so that the 2nd Klingon heart doesn't keep him alive. Otherwise what are the chances of hitting that right spot by luck?