#emerald chain

Class: M

Quadrant: Beta

Moons: four

Capital: Requiem

Affiliation: United Federation of Planets (pre-Burn); Emerald Chain (until at least 3188)

Inhabitants: Orions, Andorians, Cardassians, Lurians and many other species

Appearance: DSC "That Hope is You, Part 1" (2020)

Fun fact: location of the Mercantile, a floating trading structure used by the Emerald Chain and many races.

Another fun fact: the planet that Michael Burnham crashed into the minute she arrived in the 32nd century.

Let's overanalyze!

So, I watched the finale and I only have two questions about the 3rd season:

First:

They actually explicitly said that capitalism is the big bad? Explicitly? Of course, Star Trek always alluded to the fact that the Federation is about space communism. They hinted, joked, danced around, made Rom quote Marx, but I never dared dream that I will see the day when this scene appears on my Netflix screen.

Let's begin with a round of applause for the brilliant dialogue about apples made of shit -

Osyraa: If the Chain is to unite with the Federation, you need to send a message that our culture is fundamentally valid and ethical.

Vance: And how are we supposed to do that?

Osyraa: By acknowledging that capitalism is already happening within the Federation.

Osyraa is hoping that Vance will go for a reformist approach, as she had to spend "a lot of political capital" to pass an amendment outlawing slavery. (Cue to the smallest violin). When Vance asks about other concessions, she goes:

Osyraa: You're asking very powerful people to give up huge amounts of income.

Sounds familiar? We hear it every fucking day when Jeff Bezos decides not to end world hunger.

And most importantly, Vance turns her down. It is possible to interpret this as Vance wanting her to be tried for her crimes, but, I think, it's only part of it, the real reason is broader. There's no way that the Federation, the ultimate metaphor for the bright future, can accept capitalism as a "fundamentally valid and ethical culture". There can be no fucking compromise.

And for this I salute ST: Discovery. The creators have some fucking balls. The first openly gay loving couple in the franchise, trans representation, strong racial diversity, all of which are not solely a plot device, and now explicit acknowledment that capitalism is not the solution, and this time not in a form of a silly joke which looks more like an anti-Semitic allegory than a genuine statement, as was the case with the Ferengi. Discovery is boldly going, making a social commentary which reminds me once again about the revolutionary power of art. And this fucking slaps. What a time to be alive!

Second question, though: is Owo/Detmer a thing?

If Emerald Chain is running out of dilithium than almost everyone in the sector also is running out. This means couriers and people like Zareh and everyone else. Even if they didn’t get dilithium doled out by the syndicate directly I’m sure EC is coming to get it as the supplies dwindle. Until no one has any. No one outside of Federation that is. And not just because they were frugal but also because Starfleet has been just resupplied by Discovery with pre-Burn dilithium. No matter what Discovery did not to provoke EC this war was coming.

But no matter who wins the war the stocks are not going to last forever. One day dilithium will run out and there be no more space travel. Or there only be slow unreliable ones like collapsing transwarp tunnels. So here Discovery comes in again with their spore drive. Another advantage over EC and everyone in the galaxy. If the EC wasn’t so evil it’d be much easier to see how bad this lack of balance of power may push people to resent Federation for completely valid reasons.

Especially, since it looks like it was all their fault after all. The dreaded Starfleet summer camps may not have been real but the Burn originated with it. It wasn’t the experiments Vulcans did for them but it was Federation starship at the origin point. Can they fix it? Can they fix it for everyone?