WiC Watches—Star Trek: Discovery season 2
Episode 206: “The Sound of Thunder”
The Discovery makes its way to Saru’s homeworld of Kaminar to investigate the sudden appearance of the mysterious red signals above the planet. Once there, Saru faces his worst fear: losing his family to the planet’s other inhabitants, the Ba’ul. This was a simple but very interesting episode of Star Trek: Discovery centering mainly on Saru and Starfleet’s decision to interfere with the evolution of his species, the Kelpiens.
We open with Saru learning to cope with the fact that his fear ganglia have now been replaced with quills that fire at incoming threats. This is something completely new for the Kelpien, who has lived his entire life fearing literally everything. On his homeworld, his people live in a symbiotic relationship with a predator species called the Ba’ul, who cull the Kelpien population for food.
Now that his fear ganglia are gone, Saru wants to return home and free his people from the lie of the “Great Balance” the technologically advanced Ba’ul have told them. It’s odd that the red signal appears above his planet just as his body is evolving, but we’ll talk about that in a bit.
Once the Discovery comes out of warp above the planet Kaminar, the Ba’ul immediately scan them for weapons. The Ba’ul are extremely reclusive and have a deal with Starfleet to leave their “Great Balance” intact. Pike hails the Ba’ul but they don’t respond, so he sends Saru and Burnham to Saru’s home village to investigate.
Once there, Saru learns that his sister has taken on the mantle of priestess and that both his parents died in a culling that took place after he left his homeworld. It’s also revealed that Saru is the only Kelpien in Starfleet, and that Captain Georgiou was the one who helped him off-world when he rigged a communicator to send messages to the stars.
Each village has a massive pylon that allows the Ba’ul to monitor the Kelpiens, and it notices Burnham and Saru have interacted with the locals. To avoid trouble, Burnham and Saru beam back aboard the Discovery, although Saru doesn’t want to run.
Back on board, Pike calls them to the bridge where they see the Ba’ul have sent 10 warships to intercept the Discovery. The Ba’ul hail Pike and demand the return of Saru to the planet’s surface. Realizing he no longer fears them, and knowing the Ba’ul will kill everyone in his village if he doesn’t return, Saru beams back down to the planet where he and his sister are taken to the underwater city of the Ba’ul.
While there, they gather all the information they can on the Ba’ul and realize the Kelpiens used to be the dominate species on Kaminar, but the Ba’ul eventually learned to use technology to subdue and enslave the evolved Kelpiens.
One of the Ba’ul reveals itself to Saru, who has never seen one. The Ba’ul looks like it’s covered in a black oily substance, with hair over its face. It’s tall and thin and has long taloned fingers. It really is the stuff of nightmares. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a scarier looking alien on any Star Trek series or movie.
Saru learns he has the strength to break free from the constraints the Ba’ul put him in. He contacts the Discovery crew, who realize they can cause all the Kelpiens on the planet to go through the same evolution Saru did by blasting a select frequency into the Ba’ul technology Saru hacks while trying to contact his shipmates.
The Ba’ul realize what’s happening and their city emerges from under the water to power up every pylon in every Kelpien village across the planet. They plan on wiping out the Kelpien race. Just as the lasers are warming up, the Red Angel appears in front of Saru and somehow disables the Ba’ul weapons before they can attack. Saru uses his enhanced eyesight and notices something odd about the angelic being.
Theory time: What Saru sees is actually a humanoid in what looks like a Starfleet spacesuit, and the red aura that surrounds it (giving it what looks like angelic wings) is actually some sort of energy that allows this being to travel through space and time. I believe the being we are seeing is somehow Spock using future technology to help right the wrongs of his past.
This entire season has been about the search for Spock, and how he’s gone temporarily insane as he searches for the Red Angel. What if he’s lost his marbles because he realizes the Red Angel is actually a future or alternate timeline version of himself, appearing at just the right time in the Discovery’s missions to help them rescue people, save entire planets from destruction, and help a member of the Discovery free his people from being subjugated by an evil species?
I don’t know if I’m right, but next week is looks like we’ll finally see Burnham return to Vulcan and somehow come face to face with her brother, Spock. I’m excited to see where this season takes us.