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

Time to hit the casino.

 

This is true. 50 years ago they showed us flat screen viewscreens, small portable communication devices, space travel. Who knows what other BS will become reality.
In the context of Star Trek past present and future story arc. This starfleet tech, will go away because we know it doesn't exist in the future.
For now it exists, so be it. Once it's gone, I say good riddance, and let's move on at warp speeds.

 

Those are some delicious cherries you've picked.

 

Thought you would like them.

 

If larger consequences are explored within a series, then its less a reset button and more an exposition on Trek history.

 

Not exactly the best examples of "science" though. TV screens and walkie-talkies of the Future!!!!!! What wild concepts!!!!! Space Travel? Are you kidding me?

 

Some argue it's science, some say total fantasy. Who cares?
The spore drive is going away because it doesn't exist in the Star Trek future story. So I say let it go ASAP.

 

Nah, let the story dictate how and when it's "let go".

 

I sometimes feel, watching it, that they worked backwards. Like this finale we just saw was one of their end points, then they worked out how to almost arbitrarily get to the multiple Picard manoeuvre 3D imaging jumps to get past the cloak. Like an RPG player coming up with a novel thing, then applying almost chess logic to get to that thing. I will see how I feel once we get to the other end points (Burnham, Tyler, Stamets, with Lorca as an outlier.) but like the theme tune, it feels like a build, without any payoff, because the payoff was known (this will likely be true of the whole series...we know TOS et al.) before the build up started construction. Even the Shenzhou stuff feels very tightly laid out, but you can see the workings out and the function and framework a little too clearly...we know Yeoh is too expensive to be regular cast, her character fulfills a function of being a Human mother figure for Burnham (but then a few episodes later, we remember Amanda...) Who of course absolutely must die, because we need Burnham to be in play from an artificial zero point to make her journey have more gravitas (but it can’t be too close to zero, because we want her to feel loss after loss to engender sympathy) and it’s all building to...well we will see. It’s gonna be about being true to yourself and who you choose to be after struggling with duality (Which is likely gonna be the recurring motif on this show) or a loss of identity (ditto) which seems to have been worked back from.
I am not sure if I am complimenting it or condemning it, but that’s what’s going on, and part of me dislikes feeling like I can see the joins...and big part of that is the mushroom glue they are using. It’s so silly and paradigm shifting, it will have to go, and we have known that since the beginning. But..but...in some ways, that is true of so many elements. The ship. It’s captain. Burnham. The Klingons. In order to fit with canon, as they have said it will, they will have to be written out in a very inorganic way.
I can’t even go with ‘oh, it’s just a reboot’ and dance on my merry way, because it’s not just that these are changes to the canon history, it’s that they automatically feel like they contained a planned obsolescence...the big red self destruct button is on everyone’s foreheads almost from day one. ‘You let down your father figure’ slap ‘you are broken and obsessed’ slap ‘you are afraid, and in the wrong job because you are selfish and prideful’ slap ‘you aren’t a real boy, and we have made dangerously serious commentary with you’ slap ‘your whole reason for being is to be a cautionary tale’ slap...slap...slap...boom boom boom. There’s a real sense of fatality about this show, that feels more overt than anything I have seen since Titanic. The mushroom drive is one more ‘you are too powerful a technology, and a gimmick’ slap. Boom.

I will likely be wrong. But we will see. We can hope I guess. If not....three seasons. And I would be surprised to find out the second was even planned that much, let alone a third.

 

It won’t be an exposition on Trek history, because so far it’s not really touching anything in a way that makes it feel like a history to the future we already know. And larger consequences are almost always explored in the 46 mins such things used to take...things won’t be any more explored in DSC that they used to be I suspect. It will just take longer. And at the end of the show, everything new will wrapped up neatly in a bow, and likely tossed. Maybe it’s jsut the difficulty of interquels. The recent Alien book set between Alien and and Aliens had the same prob...great story, great sequel to Alien, but there’s point about two thirds in (if that, truth be told) where you know it’s not going to be satisfying because it has to end in a particular way (lo and behold, everything moves to put Ripley back where we found her.) and literally has to be reset.

That’s DSC. The toys have to go back in the box, or the toys get broken. Unless it’s a reboot. (Let’s be honest, even if we hope a universe hop to something closer to Prime, rather than it simply being Prime all along, we know that’s just going to be...let’s say it again....silly. Same for the mirror universe Lorca theory...it will be silly. There’s probably gonna be some sleigh of hand with time frames soon, and we will be shown that what we thought we saw....is not.
Maybe the themes around duality and being true to yourself are going to be the metaphor for the whole series.
Maybe next year the new chief engineer will lick toads to power the ship. Who knows.

 

Since the larger consequences and wrap up are unknown, this is not a fair assessment to make.

 

I am assessing it based on what we have so far, and assuming it continues in this vein...does it elucidate existing Trek historical points so far? Nope, it adds new ones, and fair enough, but that’s not working with what’s already there. The only only sort of argument is it adds backstory to Mudd and Sarek, but one of those is unimportant, and the other...again it’s adding to, but not really working with what is known, except in the broadest terms.
That’s the kernel really....it seems afraid to engage with existing canon, except when it’s contradicting it, and only ever broadly, as it stands right now. This may change.

 

I don't think its afraid at all, but mileage will certainly vary on this. I think it is building up the main characters, their arcs and the Discovery ship itself and then connecting in to canon.

Even if it doesn't, it's obstinately not different than TMP. When was Kirk promoted? Why did Spock decide to pursue Kohlinar? How did an imbalance in the warp engines cause a wormhole? Why is that never done again? Why are the Klingons different. Those wider questions are largely unaddressed and the story continues.

 

Everything apart from the Klingons in TMP could be inferred from context or context to TOS. TMP also took place when Trek wasn’t as established as it is now...and that’s the thing, Trek is established, and at the moment, DSC is sometimes playing a game of trying to have its cake and eat it ‘look at this Easter egg!’ Followed by ‘look at this contradiction’ while never actually committing to a path. I enjoy the show (though man did it take its time to warm up.) but I probably have it easy as I am not the greatest TOS fan, and it’s that it’s gonna bump it’s head on first. Spore drive goes wrong and gets canned? I can see why a century or so later B’Ellana isn’t looking into it. TOS is a decade down the line.
So we are back at the ‘is you is or is you ain’t a reboot’ stage. Or a narrative sense upgrade. It’s gonna be bumpy for the show and it’s writers.

 

I guess I'm more forgiving. I think DISCO is setting itself up just fine and will fit than most will give it credit for.

I do agree that it will be a bumpy ride.

 

Offensive Dual Post Deleted by Mod

 

Nope.

 

I think Spore Drive is Mushroom Drive. As such, it's Mario's favorite type of propulsion.

 

Super Mario Discovery?