“Jean-Luc Picard is back”: will new Picard show eclipse Discovery?

[jaime]

How isn't it Trek?

It makes the big small. It takes away from the differences and similarities being important. Five year mission? Only if you take the long way round....
Evolving into some higher being? Meh, the universe, nay, the multiverse is one giant lump anyway. Who gives a monkeys if you are stranded on the other side of the galaxy, or from another! Spore drive takes you there in seconds.
Vulcan Katra? Mindmeld? A human with a bit of tinkering is so special it can commune with all that has existed and all that ever will...
Slingshot for time travel?
Nah. Have some mushrooms you’re good to go.

It’s something you can do as a one off ‘it’s almost as if there’s a huge network underpinning realities’ in an episode and then you never mention it again, because it breaks everything.

And fundamentally, it is very very much New Age stuff. And I like New Age stuff. But that works better in something like Who than it does in something like Trek.

 

[Tuskin38]

They've banned the use of the drive so some of that is moot.

 

[fireproof78]

This is the same franchise that has an interdimensional being state that "thought is the basis of all reality" and our intrepid explorers accept that on its face.

 

[Pauln6]

I agree that the spore drive did much to trounce the spirit of discovery from TOS . How many plots hinged on the Enterprise needing to be somewhere to end a famine, divert an asteroid, treat an outbreak of disease, mitigate the contamination from a visit many years before, or avoid destruction by the galactic barrier? All that seems trivial if there is a way to travel instantaneously , albeit I feel the same about NuTrek's long distance transporters .

 

[Tuskin38]

I agree that the spore drive did much to trounce tge spirit of discovery from TOS .

Not really.

 

[Pauln6]

Not really.

They are very different. They can still explore the unexplored but it's instantaneous and far reaching. Lorca beams around his ship like it's not a big deal, despite TOS saying it is. They can pop into orbit in enemy territory with ease. It strips out numerous storytelling checks and balances. I suppose it's reflective of modern audiences who have seen so much, and the shorter seasons. Perhaps there is an assumption that it takes instant gratification to keep them on the hook. Either viewers don't want it to take 3 months to get to the mission or writers don't want to be constrained by the vastness of space and what that involves for the previous fictional laws of physics.

 

[jaime]

This is the same franchise that has an interdimensional being state that "thought is the basis of all reality" and our intrepid explorers accept that on its face.

Yup. Because it’s one and done.

 

[jaime]

They've banned the use of the drive so some of that is moot.

Genies out of the bottle though. This is like the reverse of the warp 5 speed limit, but just as damaging, and much harder to get around.

 

[Tuskin38]

but it's instantaneous and far reaching.

Not anymore. They banned the use of the drive.

 

[Pauln6]

Not anymore. They banned the use of the drive.

Just like S31 confiscated the formula for transwarp beaming in NuTrek. Maybe future guy planned it all along?

 

[Discofan]

Joining every single point in the universe, multiverse even, integral to its very fabric, making the universe ‘alive’ possibly sentient...it’s a big concept that renders so much of Star Trek essentially moot if carried through to logical conclusions. Throw in travelling through it, and it’s really done. Especially with the place in time they chose to set the series.
It makes all life into essentially fleas on the back of a bigger organism.
Great SF story. Maybe. Bad for Trek though, in its various established forms.
It very literally makes the universe essentially smaller.

I don't know if it makes the universe smaller but the universe is very big, (hundreds of billions of galaxies like our own). It can get a bit smaller and still remain extremely big, (not to mention the multiverse of course).

 

[Nerys Myk]

They are very different. They can still explore the unexplored but it's instantaneous and far reaching. Lorca beams around his ship like it's not a big deal, despite TOS saying it is. They can pop into orbit in enemy territory with ease. It strips out numerous storytelling checks and balances. I suppose it's reflective of modern audiences who have seen so much, and the shorter seasons. Perhaps there is an assumption that it takes instant gratification to keep them on the hook. Either viewers don't want it to take 3 months to get to the mission or writers don't want to be constrained by the vastness of space and what that involves for the previous fictional laws of physics.

It's Star Trek. The tech only matters when it has to matter. That's why the 24th Century isn't over run with androids, transwarp drives and Genesis planets.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Not anymore. They banned the use of the drive.

Which we already know won't last, since the red dots they're after in S2 are 30,000 light years apart.

 

[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

Yup. Because it’s one and done.

Except it wasn't.

-MMoM

 

[jaime]

Except it wasn't.

-MMoM

For about five years and then he popped back for one more that was about a different subject really. It’s pretty much the same odds no?

 

[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

Which we already know won't last, since the red dots they're after in S2 are 30,000 light years apart.

And for all we know as yet, they could turn out to be a direct result of damage done to the fabric of reality through the use of the Spore Drive! Perhaps not, but why don't we just wait and see? If DSC closes out its run without resolving the issue in any plausible way, then we'll talk. Right now it's a totally premature complaint.

-MMoM

 

[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

For about five years and then he popped back for one more that was about a different subject really. It’s pretty much the same odds no?

It wasn't only one more, and the whole concept was integral to Wesley Crusher's character arc.

Besides, what about Q and all sorts of other nigh-omnipotent beings, etc.?

-MMoM

 

[Pauln6]

It's Star Trek. The tech only matters when it has to matter. That's why the 24th Century isn't over run with androids, transwarp drives and Genesis planets.

Lol. Yeah but I'm not overly enamoured about those omissions either. At least Genesis was an unpredictable failure.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Besides, what about Q and all sorts of other nigh-omnipotent beings?

Uhh....SCIENCE!

 

[Greg Cox]

It's Star Trek. The tech only matters when it has to matter. That's why the 24th Century isn't over run with androids, transwarp drives and Genesis planets.

Not to mention telekinesis pills, body-swapping gizmos, super-speed serums, etc.