If the Federation every relaxes their restrictions on genetic engineering it might fall into public discussion.
It doesn't appear implausible that Starfleet would have a number of classified projects that involve oaths of silence from its personnel. Any big business worth the name today has those. Doesn't mean the secret to be kept would be massively important, and doesn't mean that extraordinary measures would be required to stop leaks. Spock recommended "treason" as punishment/sentence for babbling, whatever this odd choice of words means. Businesses may use different legal jargon. In the end, the so-called secret may still leak out, usually to little effect. So Starfleet doesn't want folks to know about the research conducted by the Discovery in wartime? That's no doubt standard fare, and happened to a dozen of other things during that war, too. A secret easily kept, as we saw in those S1 episodes where this Lone Ranger ship was a mystery to those she rescued, or left no witnesses (other than Klingons, who may have mistaken the disappearing act for a Starfleet cloak) when she failed. So Starfleet wants to cover up the emergence of a vicious AI, essentially a screwup by the organization? Again, standard fare. And again, very few witnesses, as the AI killed most of those directly involved. So Starfleet wants to label "dead" people who are off to other things? Kirk did that often enough, too. And given what our heroes do for a living, them going missing and presumed dead will raise no questions. Few of these would appear to have longterm consequences for Starfleet or its later sets of heroes. What is relevant is the hush-hush around the existence of the mycelial network and its potential. But this is an exceptionally easily classified piece of knowledge, akin to Genesis technology: tested in great secrecy, unlikely to be accessed through independent research, not a big problem for Starfleet if it goes unused... Genesis at least might have involved widespread research correspondence and a paper trail, but Straal and Stamets would simply get shot for writing anything down. And Sarek would have much dirtier and more relevant secrets in his head, the contents of which he probably didn't fully share with anybody, least of all Picard. The "my mind to your mind" thing has always had its limitations, the hero melder failing to learn all the facts despite lots of trying (extreme example: TUC). Would knowledge of Stamets' research have helped Janeway? Certainly. But why would Starfleet care about the Janeway scenario? It's an extremely unlikely one, and total loss of the Voyager would be rather trivial to the organization, a spore rescue operation not worth the hassle. I mean, the organization certainly knows about time travel, but does not engage in constant resets anyway, these again and demonstrably tending to be a worse disease than the one they try to cure. If anything, the final scenes of "Sorrow II" comically exaggerate the degree to which the secrecy was to be implemented. Just trust Sarek's judgement as a person who knows when to share. I'd tend to trust Picard there as well. Timo Saloniemi
Keeping something like this secret strikes me as exactly the opposite of what Picard the explorer and scientist would do.
But he doesn't divulge the secret of time travel to bystanders, despite the immense exploration potential. And given how many discrete time travel techniques he himself has encountered, he must realize others are also staying mum about these things, including fellow skippers he otherwise freely discusses issues with. Picard isn't an anarchist. And freedom has never been one of his buzzwords. Timo Saloniemi
Conjecture and discussion is mostly what these forums are about — and that’s the fun of it! There are certainly questions about how much people like McCoy and Picard might have learned from their specific contacts with Spock and Sarek. I don’t recall if it’s ever been truly established how much two-way traffic happens during a “normal” Vulcan mind-meld and how much it’s possible to establish and maintain some sort of mental firewall and control over what comes in and what seeps out. It’s probably also fair to say that Spock placing his katra in McCoy and Sarek’s illness at the time of his meld with Picard make these very different circumstances and events anyway. On the other hand, the real answers to all these things are invariably (a) we just don’t know yet, and (b) it will be whatever the producers and writers decide they want it to be. It’ll be interesting to see if they choose to use any of this within the story arc of the Picard series or whether they try to steer clear of a lot of the potential canon “baggage” for their characters and situations.
Maybe slipsteam is old hat in the 32nd/33rd century and phasing in and out of subspace is the way to go (Similar to how the Shadows did it with hyperspace in B5).
My assumption is that Picard Season 1 (and Lower Decks Season 1, and Starfleet Academy Season 1...) will try to stand on its own merits, and not obliquely reference other All Access shows. That said, much like Discovery, Season 2 will open the floodgates, and I fully expect some sort of CW-style crossover events to occur between the various shows in production at the time. Sarek is the best connection between Picard and the 2 or 3 (at least) 23rd century shows. But also, Discovery is travelling through time now, something Picard is no stranger to (that and creepy trickster Gods), so crossovers are relatively simple. Despite Discovery's season finale, I have to believe that Michael Burnham is somehow a minor historical figure that Picard is aware of, apart from the connection to Spock and Sarek.
I'm pretty sure the Spore Drive is way faster than slipstream was portrayed as, but I can't find any hard figures (other than the Spore Drive being "Warp 1041", although that isn't canon).
The idea that nobody in the Federation can ever speak of Michael or the Discovery again is ridiculous. Everyone knows she started the war with the Klingons. It's clear from the context that Spock was personally making this promise, and the rest were promising not to speak of the Discovery's role in the Control incident and its disappearance.
There is reason to think this is so. Chabon is heading writing and he'll want his own canvas to work on. His sole foray into writing for trek so far was to give himself a setting, even if he had to use preexisting sets, that would enable him to deal with a time, place, and characters never seen before. I don't think he's interested in wasting half his creative time back-checking canon lore.
If he felt it was wrong to keep it secret he would. He went all rogue in Insurrection for a lot less. I wonder if he would ever tell Admiral Janeway if she ever pissed him off over something. "Remember how you were stuck in Delta quadrant for 7 years? Well, we here in Starfleet headquarters basically let you. We knew how to get you back but just didn't want to"
Picard: "Step 1: Enslave a poor sentient creature and drain itof power, and hurt it if it fights back" Janeway: "Yes we already know about the Equinox.." Picard: "Merde!"