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The Spore Drive Technology. What Do You Think About It?

Rahul said:
My biggest problem really is this giant fucking galaxy-spanning space shroom organism itself.
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I've actually asked some kind souls to explain it (Spore Drive) to me. Though if I'm entirely honest I don't need explanations of say electricity to accept it in real life but it IS rewarding knowing and frankly marvelling at what is technology and science is not a bad thing to want in our Science Fiction too. Suspension of belief to me is a last resort when someone can't weave a good story.

So I might ask you, as I'm not in the mood for someone to call me stupid because I have this dumb question. 'The giant fucking galaxy-spanning shroom organism' you speak of. I hadn't put substance to it before. I thought Ripper and Stamets connected to a mental map of something well, not tangible. That the mycellium network was all but invisible in real space and that the jumps though piloted in the head of the interface subject were based on setting a direction, with spores powering the force. Is there actually this massive shroom organism slapped onto the Universe itself??
 
Refuge said:
I've actually asked some kind souls to explain it (Spore Drive) to me. Though if I'm entirely honest I don't need explanations of say electricity to accept it in real life but it IS rewarding knowing and frankly marvelling at what is technology and science is not a bad thing to want in our Science Fiction too. Suspension of belief to me is a last resort when someone can't weave a good story.

So I might ask you, as I'm not in the mood for someone to call me stupid because I have this dumb question. 'The giant fucking galaxy-spanning shroom organism' you speak of. I hadn't put substance to it before. I thought Ripper and Stamets connected to a mental map of something well, not tangible. That the mycellium network was all but invisible in real space and that the jumps though piloted in the head of the interface subject were based on setting a direction, with spores powering the force. Is there actually this massive shroom organism slapped onto the Universe itself??
Click to expand...
From my understanding, the mycellium network exists in another dimension. Some form of subspace, fluidic space or similar extra dimensional realm. It interfaces with our own dimension but doesn't fully exist in it.
 
Nerys Myk said:
From my understanding, the mycellium network exists in another dimension. Some form of subspace, fluidic space or similar extra dimensional realm. It interfaces with our own dimension but doesn't fully exist in it.
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Okay, so it (the network) essentially is a dimension or realm that though connected, doesn't change ours as such. Though it can take us to other areas of space/time as well.

Thank you.
 
Refuge said:
Okay, so it (the network) essentially is a dimension or realm that though connected, doesn't change ours as such. Though it can take us to other areas of space/time as well.

Thank you.
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I'd like to respond, if I may. I think they said the spores exist in both dimensions, but the network they travel is a separate dimension from ours.

The idea of a species that could exist in two different dimensions is not unheard of in Star Trek, Think of the TNG episode "Phantasms": The aliens in that episode lived in a dimension invisible to us (that, from what I gather, coexisted with our universe but in a separate dimension), and the aliens were able to cross back and forth, and even take Riker, Worf, et al. with them.
 
Jackson_Roykirk said:
I'd like to respond, if I may. I think they said the spores exist in both dimensions, but the network they travel is a separate dimension from ours.

The idea of a species that could exist in two different dimensions is not unheard of in Star Trek, Think of the TNG episode "Phantasms": The aliens in that episode lived in a dimension invisible to us, but they were able to cross back and forth, and even take Riker, Worf, et al. with them.
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Please do add. It's good :)
 
But the weird (IMO) part is, it's not that this funghi lives in another dimension. This shroom itself IS this other dimension. So imagine a funghi that has roots spanning the entire galaxy. But these funghi roots are phase shifted out of our reality, but not in another reality itself. Then you have supersized tardigrades (and the Discovery) that can access these funghi roots and insta-travel along their root lines to other places. But you need the spores of the funghi (that grow in the real world) for it. And you need a real brain as acomputing device to plot a course through it, that is linked through funghi-DNA (like it is found in tardigrades and humans) with the space shroom network.

It expects of you to accept a lot of science-mumbo-jumbo upfront. Like:
  • the fact tardigrades absorp DNA from plants and funghi (they do, but not more than any other living being - it was big news in science papers a few years ago, around when they created DIS, but since then we have found DNA-exchange between all living things, including mosquito--DNA in humans and vice versa).
  • The next thing is that humans share a big percentage of DNA with funghi. This is also true. But it steems from our shared evolutionary ancestors, that means EVERY living being on Earth shares DNA with funghi, and every member of the monkey family about the same percentage like humans. They could theoretically use the brain of a dog to use as a computing device, and don't need a human for it.
  • The next audacious step is that travelling along the roots of this funghi makes you travel instantly. This is not supported by anything - it's not like folded space, our a dimension without time or anything - theoretically it's just roots phase shifted into subspace. But it has the same dimensions, width and range as the whole galaxy. They never explained how someone can fast travel on it. By Trek laws anything should travel along it the same speed as in normal space.
  • The next problem is: It apparently can be accesed from anywhere, as was seen by the DIS being able to make 133 jumps very close to each other. That means the funghi's roots must be literally EVERYWHERE in the entire known galaxy! This shroom is huge. The largest living organism ever seen in the Trek universe.
  • And that leaves us to the last problem: How such an organism (a galaxy spanning shroom) was ever ably to evolve at all in the first place? Is this only one funghi? Where is the rest of this funghi species? Are there evolutionary predecessors anywhere? How can it have DNA, if it is phase shifted from our reality (in which DNA molekules exist)? From this comes also the very biological question:
  • What does it eat? Where does it's biological energy come from? It can't use photosynthesis, it's far larger than all the suns in the galaxy combined, and a funghi needs minerals, but it can't reach soil, because it's phase shifted. But it STILL is a regular funghi that needs those things, we know that, because it posseses DNA compatible to terrestrial funghi DNA.
It simply does not make a lot of sense.
 
Once you've read the original Warlock comic series from the 1970s the spore drive really isn't that audacious (Star Trek in general isn't that high on the audaciousness scale compared to Warlock). It is nowhere near as ridiculous as growing to a size multiple times of Earth (without affecting its graveity when you're nearby) because of space travel and it isn't nearly as mad as, er, I'll quote the Marvel Wiki: "Warlock had become the Magus through the intervention of the In-Betweener, who had entrapped Warlock in his extra-dimensional realm for centuries, bombarding him with contradictions; spinning his protective cocoon around himself had not been enough protection against the consciousness-altering stimuli for Warlock." Goddamn it, I love comics. And Discovery's pretty good to.
 
More audacious than warp 10 propulsion. Anything moving matter instantly to any multiverse space-time location is suspect. How does matter move through "roots"?
 
No one has mentioned this yet. The Spore drive is essentially the unattainable warp ten.
 
Interesting point. According to one wiki, the idea of warp 10 was developed in one episode of VOY, and beyond that in other shows. Maybe they'll select on of those episodes and connect it to STD.
 
Rahul said:
That being said: You're right in one way: Discovery IS Star Trek. It has a lot of problems (like many other first seasons of Trek had before), but from start to finish, it feels a whole lot like Star Trek. I find the whole concept of the mycellium network stupid beyond belief. But that's mainly the concept of it itself. The way they are handling and portraying it is very good. It's ridiculous, but they very well pretend that it's regular science. It's only if you take a step back, and think about the larger implications of it, that the pieces are starting to fall apart. And even then, I may complain about it, but it doesn't "ruin" DIS or anything.
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That's fine for you to think that way. I don't think it is more ridiculous than things that Star Trek has done in the past. The whole DNA thing isn't less ridiculous than Klingons, Romulans, Vulcans, Ocampans, Xyrillians and Betazeds being able to breed with humans. That's some serious DNA craziness there.
 
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