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I'd be interested especially in the Romulans. They didn't use dilithium at least into the TNG era, but then things weren't going well for them either, last we looked.
But this gets back to the point I made upthread. We were led to believe that life in the Federation is good because "humanity had evolved" or some such thing. Basically, that we (and other species) decided to put on our big boy pants and let go of shallow things like bigotry, materialism, etc.
I have no problem believing that without much FTL travel, it would become logistically impossible to actually keep the Federation going. But if things are actually crapsack, it means the Pax Romana provided for by the Federation wasn't due to moral advancement, it was the order and stability provided for by the government. And that's a really Hobbesian, reactionary, authoritarian statement.
Lorca had already made that argument to Burnham early on, and it seemed to make sense. For that matter Sloan (Ds9) and the Sisko also understood that the those elevated goals of federation society depened on the lower levels of Maslow's hierarchy being taken care of.
Good, but not great. Not a big fan of the whole marketplace sequence - just seemed uninspired to me. But I liked pretty much everything else. Book was good. SMG was good. The lonely non-com was awesome.
Re: the comments about how he sits there doing nothing for 40 years - I think he was saying he was waiting for an officer for 40 years, not that he was doing nothing for those 40 years. He wasn't surprised when they arrived, like he had never seen anyone in 40 years. He offered them services as a routine matter. I figure he provides whatever support he can, given his limited resources, to whoever shows up asking for help. Don't know how often that happens given how Book thinks the true believers are a lost cause and a little goofy (maybe Book is an outlier), but I figure it does happen regularly. Even given his level of dedication, no one could sit around for 40 years doing absolutely nothing.
The first, Burnham thinking Dilithium is the heart of every warp drive. She would have known that wasn't true since Zefram Cochrane ran his Warp Drive via fission.
All Time Travel technology being destroyed and outlawed. Because destroying and outlawing stuff in the preset doesn't stop people traveling to your time from the past or future.
Destroying and outlawing time travel technology does mean you can stop people traveling to your time, because you can use the time travel tech to destroy "all" time travel tech everywhere in the timeline. They just missed one in the Red Angel suit - maybe because they saw that the suit would save the universe and then get destroyed. Now after all the tech is wiped out, if a new timeline is made (through whatever mechanism changes time - be it multiverse theory or other) someone could recreate the tech - so it may not be a permanent fix.
...What if instead, they use this to show that the Federation ideal isn't all that it's craked up to be - with the 'true believers' hawking loaded language similar to what one might have heard in Victorian-era Parlement or the more insidious dog-whistling of modern America? And that, despite all the zinger nacelle sticker slogans to the contrary, the galaxy has gotten [mostly] along fine without the Federation?
But nothing about what I saw looks like that is what's going to happen and they just lazily stroll down the obvious, easy route once again.
But that isn't the role of the Federation in Trek at all. The Federation is supposed to be good/a better humanity. Like Burnham says, it's not the ships or even the institutions, it's the people and their beliefs. You can have individuals fail, even institutions fail (like Section 31 does every single day - or at least it should be shown to be doing that), but you cannot have the whole concept of the Federation be flawed enough to fail on its own in the way you suggest. Individual failures are a way to test the ideals of the Federation, to test the individual's dedication to those ideals. But to posit that the Federation is totally bad, or even rotten throughout is antithetical to everything that Star Trek is. If you want the Federation to be shown as "not what it is cracked up to be" then you don't want Star Trek at all.
Despite the common assumption/belief, Star Trekverse is not post-scarcity. Dilithium is THE scarcity and has already been shown to be as so before the pretense of it being so finite that it could all be destroyed. So until a near-infinite power source at near (or no) cost is achieved, then the search and development or evolution of power technology will continue.
Nevermind the fact that other power sources would have most likely been 'accidentally' discovered in a millennium's wroth a technological research.
Post scarcity doesn't mean that everything is infinitely available. Some things will always be limited in quantity, but in the way the Federation works (working together with advanced tech and the proper goals), all of its citizens (and anyone else who want to join) can live a post-scarcity life. Plus, as others have covered, dilithium is not the power source, it is just the modulator - antimatter is the power source and until or unless someone comes up with a better one (spore drive access the micealial network; quantum torpedoes accessing the quantum fluctuations of the universe itself, etc.) that power is still readily accessible to anyone with a solar array and a "antimatter inverter". But if you want advanced starships, dilithium is needed to enable them (at least in the Federation).
Well, the Plasma Stream contains antimatter, so that's true.
But the real purpose of Dilithium is to focus and concentrate that Plasma to obtain higher Warp Speeds.
No, it contains and modulates the reaction. What is important for higher warps (in my understanding) is not the concentration of the plasma stream or its direction, but how much power you can put through the system every second. More antimatter -> more power -> greater warping of subspace -> faster motion. The limiting factor is how much power you can push.
Just now watched the episode and decided to skip the first 21 pages. Was it me or was Burnham seriously channeling Mariner in that one scene? The fast talking really felt Lower Decks. Interesting look at the far future. Gave it an 8.
So what is with the overlap between Trek story points?
- Riker shows up to save the day in the finale of Picard and in Lower Decks
- Boimler and Burnham both get gummed on by "monsters" in their respective series premieres
I think there needs to be a little more communication between series before someone really steps on someone else's toes - like what if Picard season finale had been that the AI had succeeded in blowing up all dilithium in the 24th century? Where would Discovery be then?
Weird mix of violence and unfunny comedy. Some really stiff dialogue, too, and way more theatrical displays of emotion than I needed. But I liked the guy playing Book (and his cat), and the futuristic design work was nice. I liked looking at what was on the screen more than I enjoyed the story being told.
Besides Booker, I also loved the landscape and the epic shots of it (Greenland?).
The city looked very fake/ cgi to me. Also, what's up with te alien make-up, particularly the Orion? I thought he was an android...
A lot of the rest felt a bit like every SciFi movie ever.
It's funny that the show is in the 32nd century now and that silly red Angel suit is still the most advanced thing. It can travel instantly to any place and time, survive a head on Collison with a starship, can defend itself against many threats and it only takes a few hours to make.
This 23rd century era fan LIKED what they've shown of the 32nd century. I'm also happy the linear A to B to C as to how a story flows aspect of Berman era 24th century is dead and gone. I actually enjoyed the way the characters and character interaction flowed here as it wasn't your usual wholly plot driven episode. All the character action/reaction, etc. worked to progress the episode along; and it was nice (for once) to not be able to immediately see where all of it would go.
Some nice world building; and the tech IS way more advanced, but so far not so overpowering and used effectively by the characters who have it. I'm also happy "The Burn" was just ex[plain and it wasn't just a event they were going to obfuscate for a part of the season. The interesting question from me would be - the Federation was (and still should be aware of non-dilithium methods of warp travel and powering ships (like the Romulan singularity cores of the TNG era; and Fed scientists must be aware of how they work; so it'll be interesting if there were other factors more than just "The Burn" itself that caused the downfall of the Federation, and prevented it from rebuilding/reforming itself.
I guess I also just like that this situation means we won't be seeing too many 'Picard-esque' psychologically well adjusted Federation types pontificating Federation values ad nauseum as "The Burn" seemed to make the Federation citizens who remain, relatable humans again. Yes, there may be a few holdovers, but they'll probably be the exception and not the rule.
Anyway, nice mix of stuff in this episode, emotion, action, different people still working together towards a goal even when they don't necessarily always like/agree with each other; but still getting the job done.
Yet, felt like classic Star trek to me, and it's interested me enough that I'll keep matching this season. There were some interesting bits in the "This Season..." montage too.
Might be the anticipation for live-action Trek talking, but BEAUTIFUL. From digging out post-impact Living Dead style, to "thanks yo" (did I hear that right), and the Matrix architect vibe I got from the final scene before it turned gloriously hokey, I'd give it an ale-supported 9. What a start
Does anyone get a feeling that Disco season 3 is gonna to be similar to Andromeda. Basically, someone from the past, trying to restore a collapsed interplanetary union in the distant future.
Does anyone getting a feeling that Disco season 3 is gonna to be similar to Andromeda. Basically, someone from the past, trying to restore a collapsed interplanetary union in the distant future.
So what is with the overlap between Trek story points?
- Riker shows up to save the day in the finale of Picard and in Lower Decks
- Boimler and Burnham both get gummed on by "monsters" in their respective series premieres
I think there needs to be a little more communication between series before someone really steps on someone else's toes - like what if Picard season finale had been that the AI had succeeded in blowing up all dilithium in the 24th century? Where would Discovery be then?
They have a story group.........I don't see your examples being that big of a deal and your "what if" didn't happen. It's no more an issue than Kirk talking various evil AI into committing suicide in just 3 seasons of TOS......
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