Stamets is already going mad. Since episode 5 I've been holding the theory that Tholians and the mad crew of the Defiant from The Tholian Web were trying to replicate the spore drive.
How will the spore drive fit into canon?
- Thread starter Rahul
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That makes absolutely no sense, considering the technological advance could be developed by another alpha/beta quadrant race. Indeed, given the number of technologically advanced races in canon, it's certain that it would eventually.
Of course, Trek has repeatedly approached tech as if scientific breakthroughs are unique and never to be revisited again, which means that would be keeping with existing (bad) canon.
Problem is not-so-ethical species would still hear rumors about it and do anything to try and catch up on the tech. Nuclear bombs have been around since 45 and even though no one actively hurling them at each other and the entry fee into the club is high, countries still try to obtain them.
That puts it into the same problem as the genesis device. Another incredible weapon that even 70 or 80 years later, no one was able to reproduce.
Borg closing in on sector 001. Starfleet: "Okay, to hell with ethics, let's dust off a Genesis torpedo"
Captain Picard, "You wanted to frighten us. We're frightened. You wanted to show us that we were inadequate. For the moment... I grant that. You wanted me to say, 'I need you'? Fuck you, Q, I got a motherfucking Spore Drive!"
Dominion War: "Klingons and Romulans are saying if we don't start using Genesis torpedoes they'll make their own." "Could we just ask the Organians to make it all stop again?" "No!"
Capt. Janeway: "I'm afraid it's going to take us many many painful and dangerous decades to return to our own quadrant. We could of course just modify the ship to make a single spore jump. That tech is what.. 80 years old? But it would not be prudent. And I am only going to do prudent things to get us home. What are you all doing? put those phasers down. Now!"
There are ways to at least get out of this one, kill off the mycellium network, or have some Handy NonCorporeal Entities decide no one can use it anymore for a few million years. But I hope they dont just put it in the Vault of Incredible Inventions We Can't Use Anymore.
David Marcus "I'm sorry sir, Genesis doesn't work."
Captain Kirk, "You mean you used protomatter and it will always unravel the matrix in a violent explosion?"
David Marcus "No, I used blueberry flavored protomatter, and it will always unravel the matrix AND I used all of it in the universe and no one can ever make a genesis torpedo again, ever. If I just had a beaker of red matter I could have fixed all this. Arrrhgh!"
Captain Kirk, "Klingon bastards you retconned my son!"
If I were to offer a guess (and it's hardly original), I'd say something will happen to destroy the network, thus no "tech" solution in the "future" can ever make use of it. It's the easiest way to both address why no one in "future" series ever make use of it and how its existence does not, in and of itself, contravene what comes "after".
This is what irritates me about Hollywood TV writers, they never plan stuff out. Which in episodic Tv series is ok, but when you are doing serials like Discovery you kind of have to plan shit out. Hollywood treats us like dumb shits and when people let this stuff slide by saying they don't care it allows them to continue doing this. Sorry I want some somewhat smart TV, especially from Star Trek. So yes, this does worry me although it is sort of what I expected so I don't know why I am surprised.
Well, as you know, one can pop up anywhere with the Spore Drive.
I'd say have the spore drive jettisoned at some point, and have it corrupt space where the later defiant constitution class was trapped in the Tholian Web incident, thereby making the Enterprise NX series mirror mirror episodes tie up with Disvovery, and that section of space is where the defiant ended up in the mirror universe, which all ties back then to the spore drive jettisoned explosion plot in discovery. Canon matched and New out of Canon tech reconciled. It was abandoned after that. Starfleet Intel is going to have to be shown to be familiar with the Mirror verse after..
So discovery and the spore drive is responsible for the rift in space and time to the mirror parallel universe. It even shows up backwards in time as well as still in the future. The tholians avoid that space now like the plague.
So discovery and the spore drive is responsible for the rift in space and time to the mirror parallel universe. It even shows up backwards in time as well as still in the future. The tholians avoid that space now like the plague.
I think "not planning everything out in advance" is a perfectly reasonable approach in genre fiction, especially if you don't know if you're getting picked up for an entire series anyway.
My problem more comes from: "Doing stuff that obviously needs a hell of explanation" without planning stuff out. Like, the klingon war is just a collection of events. They pretty much can make that up on the fly, introducing new characters if they like, and altering their plans on the fly without anyone really noticing. Same goes for the characters stuff invented for this series: They can totally decide on a whim were to go with Burnhams redemption arc, or if they want to keep Lorca as a Captain for long, or what rank Saru has.
BUT! Doing stuff that really is at odds with the premise of 700+ hours of previous television of movies, like introducing a new adopted sister to a known character, or introducing universe-altering technology, really needs to be played out in advance! I wonder if Fuller has a desk full of outlines he just never handed over...
"How will the spore drive fit into canon?"
I suppose that depends on how big the cannon is...
I suppose that depends on how big the cannon is...
I actually like something like "Each jump actually makes them jump to another alternate reality", where, with all the jumps already happening, were just jumps to remarkably similar realities, like the many realities that were presented in TNG's "parallels". But! There is no way of ever coming back home. Thus making the spore drive as a means to fast-travel useless, as you don't reach your destination, but instead reach the disered position, but potentially in a completely different parallel universe. Could be a great way to introduce minor ret-cons later on as well.
Well... The spore drive kinda' IS the defining feature of the Discovery. If you don't like people to talk about that, sounds more like you don't want people to talk about Discovery as a whole. And considering this is because of brand-new information (there is nothing planned out), it doesn't really fit with the existing threads ("Do you like/What do you think about/ the spore drive...?").
Sure it does.
Someone tell John Rhys-Davies he and the sliders gang will be needed for that crossover episode.
Yeah. I mean I'm not really that well versed with modern episodic TV, but the amount of stories which actually had "a plan" can problably be counted on one finger. IIRC The Wire did have a plan, but it didn't have a plot arc which stretched over seasons, only common thematic elements.
The only well-planed "epic plot" shows tend to be ones like Game of Thrones or The Expanse where there is a huge written canon to mine. And you can see the limitations of this in the case of Game of Thrones, because as soon as they ran out of book content, the showrunners just started making crap up.
Again, technological advances have been done and then shelved in so many episodes. This will neither break canon or continuity as it will simply be filed away.
Secondarily, if the spore drive ends up being a living being then they might just cut it off and not allow starships to continue.
Finally, I love how medical ethics make no sense, when genetic engineering is completely outlawed in the Federation. The Federation outlaws tech all the time. Maybe S31 will confiscate it and Stamets will make a dimensional jump to get rid of it all, including himself to keep it out of everyone's hands.
I would agree with this broadly. Making shit up as you go along has positives. Like if you have a breakout guest character, you can incorporate them into the ongoing narrative organically. Or if an element isn't working, you can drop it from the plot no problem. This also means you don't have to accelerate your conclusion if your show is canceled (ala Babylon 5) or stretch things out if your show is unexpectedly renewed (again, ala Babylon 5).
As I said in another thread, they could have solved a lot of issues if they maintained this show as a "character focused work" as originally intended, rather than inserting half of an epic war story. They could have kept Burnham a mutineer who caused the death of Captain Georgiou, kept Lorca and all of the other Discovery characters, but just made the stakes a bit smaller. Don't have Discovery have the spore drive, just have it be a normal science ship that gets into normal Trek adventures. Since the core of the story - the serialized aspect - should be Burnham's journey to redemption. The story wouldn't be stuck in an episodic mindset and they'd have an excuse for not fleshing out the Klingon war much.
As I said, Trek has done this many times in the past, because tech is virtually always treated as a MacGuffin rather than being thought of as the natural outcome of advances in science.
Look at how the real world worked once the scientific revolution happened in the West. Nation-states needed to adopt technology (as Japan did) or were overrun.
That wouldn't stop Klingons, Romulans, the Dominion, Ferengi, etc from investigating it.
Again, it's not that ethics make no sense, it's that if the Federation invented this technology, other states would as well, even if all knowledge was suppressed. Scientific breakthroughs flow from the physical laws of the universe, and their applications in chemistry, biology, etc. It's extremely implausible to think something like the spore drive would be invented once, but no one would ever come up with it again. It's like arguing the atomic bomb was only invented on Earth, but by no other Alpha Quadrant species.
Honestly genetic engineering is a good example here, because even though right now people in the west have icky feelings about it and are passing laws to outlaw human genetic modification, China and other Asian countries going full speed ahead with it, because it doesn't conflict with their idea of medical ethics. People in the biological sciences are already predicting this means that any attempt to legislatively ban "designer babies" will fail, because rich people will just go to Asia to get it done. Now imagine in another two generations if everyone in China can get IQ enhancing gene therapy for their children, while it's still banned in the U.S. and Europe. What do you think would be the result?
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