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Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 5x07 - "Erigah"

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I never get the beef with Spore Drive and Voyager. How do we know that they never considered it and decided it couldn't be implemented on the ship, considering the Discovery and Glen had to be retrofitted to support the technology. It's not like the Spore Drive is a USB stick that can just be plugged into a ship, and it's not like Janeway and crew had a bunch of starships to spare if something went wrong and Voyager was irreparably damaged.

Didn't stop them where Borg transwarp, subspace catapult, quantum slipstream, or any other half a dozen exotic technologies were concerned.
 
I think Fateor is referring to the drive on the Dauntless.
No, I'm talking about how the original Voyager was able to use it's regular warp core to create a slipstream.

The actual problem with that method, was that the ships hull geometry couldn't survive the quantum stresses. Presumably why Starfleets actual Dauntless class shared the same hull geometry as the Species 116 version.
 
I enjoyed Reno having an interesting past and T'rina being a badass. I'm glad a Betazoid clue required an empath to get more from it. I didn't expect L'ak to die, but apparently the mcguffin may be able to resurrect folks, so that may be reversed. I was fascinated that L'ak wasn't just royalty but the actual succesor and truly wanted no part of it.
 
I think the bigger issue is that not thinking through the tech that's already been established (i.e., transwarp, transwarp networks, etc.), and writing it to work within that continuity, plays into the idea of how some of these ideas are thought out for the larger plot.

I mean it doesn't take much in the writing to establish that by the 32nd century those technologies exist, Starfleet (and the other powers use them), but the lost spore drive technology has an advantage in that it's 1) quicker to get where you need to go, 2) it's more ecologically sustainable especially after the scarcity of "The Burn", and 3) the spore drive theoretically gives the option of crossing to other galaxies, the far reaches of our universe, or entirely different universes.

I mean I've actually been surprised that they didn't base an entire season around a sort of "five-year mission," where Discovery attempted a jump to a distant galaxy, and went on a mission of ... well, discovery. Instead, the spore drive is used as basically to move the plot of normal (Trek) stories without having to acknowledge the passage of time from warp drive.

But for the sake of argument, let's go with the particulars the show set up from season 3. "The Burn" occurred. The Federation and the galaxy at large were still dependent on dilithium for warp drive. The scarcity of dilithium after "The Burn" meant the collapse of most of civilization, and the Star Trek universe went sort of Mad Max with groups fighting for dilithium the way post-apocalyptic Australian road gangs stole and pillaged for gasoline.

Fine.

But if you have that as a backstory, how exactly did the Breen build dreadnaughts? If we're going to go with the idea that everyone lived in a dark age where all of the major powers were near collapse because there was no dilithium, or alternatives to dilithium, and the Emerald Chain had near exhausted their ability to pillage it, how can the Breen possibly be a threat to a Federation that's in control of the one major resource the galaxy needs?

Why is Starfleet afraid of antagonizing the Breen when, from what we've been presented, the Federation controls the only (known) major source of dilithium left in the galaxy? The Breen should be the ones afraid. The only reason they're not is because the plot nees them to be a threat. Also, if Starfleet and the Federation are so scared of standing up to one faction of the Breen, what does that say about their ability to protecting member worlds?
 
Why is Starfleet afraid of antagonizing the Breen when, from what we've been presented, the Federation controls the only (known) major source of dilithium left in the galaxy? The Breen should be the ones afraid. The only reason they're not is because the plot nees them to be a threat. Also, if Starfleet and the Federation are so scared of standing up to one faction of the Breen, what does that say about their ability to protecting member worlds?
That they lack confidence.
 
But if you have that as a backstory, how exactly did the Breen build dreadnaughts? If we're going to go with the idea that everyone lived in a dark age where all of the major powers were near collapse because there was no dilithium, or alternatives to dilithium, and the Emerald Chain had near exhausted their ability to pillage it, how can the Breen possibly be a threat to a Federation that's in control of the one major resource the galaxy needs?

Why is Starfleet afraid of antagonizing the Breen when, from what we've been presented, the Federation controls the only (known) major source of dilithium left in the galaxy? The Breen should be the ones afraid. The only reason they're not is because the plot nees them to be a threat. Also, if Starfleet and the Federation are so scared of standing up to one faction of the Breen, what does that say about their ability to protecting member worlds?
You likely put more thought into the this than the Discovery writers did.

From everything we have seen, they wanted the Breen to be a threat and so they are a threat, and it doesn't matter how little sense that makes.


A valid point. I would add - why is Starfleet still using dilithium in matter/antimatter FTL drives? You would have thought that by the 32nd. century, they'd have been using something else for a while and while "The Burn" was significant in scope, are you telling me the best brains in the Federation at the time couldn't figure out an alternative that wouldn't need dilithium? You'd have thought that by the 32nd. century, at the rate they were going that the tech in that time would be significantly advanced that it would be indistinguishable from magic. But, alas.
The funny answer is that almost everything they had that was more advanced then the 25th century was considered temporal adjacent technology and the entire universe decided to toss it aside and forget it existed. :p
 
According to Doug Drexler the mid-26th century Enterprise-J worked on a radically different technology of drive that allowed it to traverse great distances and faster than earlier Federation starships could. I forget what he called it but he once surmised that the 1701-J might have been capable of extragalactic journeys outside the Milky Way and returning in short order.
 
You likely put more thought into the this than the Discovery writers did.
Well, we are posting on a board dedicated to a show that started over 50 years ago, and still discuss things at far greater length than they thought about it.

So, Discovery is par for the Star Trek course.
A valid point. I would add - why is Starfleet still using dilithium in matter/antimatter FTL drives? You would have thought that by the 32nd. century, they'd have been using something else for a while and while "The Burn" was significant in scope, are you telling me the best brains in the Federation at the time couldn't figure out an alternative that wouldn't need dilithium? You'd have thought that by the 32nd. century, at the rate they were going that the tech in that time would be significantly advanced that it would be indistinguishable from magic. But, alas.
One of the things that has been demonstrated again and again by the Federation is a complete unwillingness to adopt a technology if it is dangerous. Warp 10? Nope. Going past Warp 10 (per the Original Series, and The Next Generation)? Nope. Journeying outside the galaxy? Too dangerous too attempt. Age reducing technology? Nope.

They want something safe and reliable. Period.
 
A valid point. I would add - why is Starfleet still using dilithium in matter/antimatter FTL drives? You would have thought that by the 32nd. century, they'd have been using something else for a while and while "The Burn" was significant in scope, are you telling me the best brains in the Federation at the time couldn't figure out an alternative that wouldn't need dilithium? You'd have thought that by the 32nd. century, at the rate they were going that the tech in that time would be significantly advanced that it would be indistinguishable from magic. But, alas.
I don't think science and engineering work that way
 
My point remains. Where is the advanced tech in this show? All I see are the familiar things like tricorders and combadges and transporters and so on, things that are instantly recognizable. Why do things on this show feel so limiting?
They are advancements of existing tech. Smaller, and faster. Comm badges are now personal transporters. Tricorders are contact lenses. Not seeing the problem.
 
It's even wilder to think that this tech is 600 years more advanced than even the Enterprise-J, which was almost eerily and intimidatingly sophisticated compared to starships from ENT through PIC.
 
But why is it a phaser? Why is it not a, for example, a quantum polaric disruptor or whatever - Why are they still using phased energy weapons?

Simplicity? Tradition? In much the same way that the general saucer-shaped primary hull with separate warp nacelles shape and layout of many 32nd century starships is just keeping the general layout of 22nd and 23rd century Earth and Federation Starfleet vessels and just improving how well that design works with more modern technnology.

If it works and it's worked for centuries why completely overhaul the way everything is done? I mean, could be a compromise given how many Federation worlds there were before the Burn. Designs that are known to work and ones that most member species and their representatives can find acceptable.
 
What i'm saying is that the tech should not only be upgraded from the familiar but so advanced that the Discovery's crew can't even sort out what the hell it is they're looking at. Like how someone from the middle ages would think a smart phone would be like magic.
We can presume there is a learning curve with the new tech. We saw that with the personal transporters. But our heroes are smart and adaptable. And they aren't going to spend a lot of time with our heroes trying to figure out the three sea shells, any more than Buck Rogers being flummoxed by 25th Century tech.
 
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