What was "The Burn" and what caused it?

Burn = Burnham?
Maybe Mama Burnham finally fixed the timeline and used her time travelling suit to enslave the world to worship her daughter as a literal god

 

Is there anything that we know of that would have a galaxy-wide effect -- or even affect an entire quadrant or two?

I know there are GRBs (gamma ray bursts) and galactic jets emanating from supermassive black holes that can fry things, but they are highly directional and things not directly in the tight beam of a GRB of galactic jet would not be greatly affected. There are also colliding neutron stars (like the event that made the gravitational waves picked up by LIGO a few years back), but an event like that would have an effect only locally -- say frying things that are within a 50-LY to 100-LY radius. That's still a tiny part of the galaxy, and even a small part of a Star Trek quadrant.

Having said that, I suppose an event like a GRB, galactic jet, or colliding neutron stars that affects just a few key Federation worlds like Earth, Vulcan, and Qo'noS (and maybe other nearby worlds) enough to send them back to the stone age, it might be enough to facilitate a galactic/quadrant-wide disruption in the Federation that could eventually lead to its collapse. It wouldn't need to be a galactic-wide or quadrants-wide cosmic event, but the political and social repercussions of the event might be felt across much of the galaxy.

 

Did he say "What was the Burn?", or "What was the Boooo-urn?"

 

I came to the same conclusion. No Warp Drive or Subspace communications. Saru said specifically they were disconnected. No shots of any ships at warp in the trailer, only Spore Drive jumps. Talk of having faith that others were out there. The big impossible mission is to fix subspace.

It's also possible that Subspace was just heavily damaged, only allowing for slow ships and (relatively) short range communication. Thus the Federation flag with 6 stars, the only core worlds close enough to each other to stay in communication. Discovery's Spore drive advantage remains intact.

 

The multiverse-destroying Disco S1 peril, and the all-life-destroying Disco S2 peril XD
Maybe that's why they chose to now show something huge that actually happened, so it wouldn't seem too big anymore

 

I'm still more intrigued by the "dog" in the Lower Decks trailer than I am by "The Burn".

 

This!

Makes a lot of sense that warp drive will be un-usable, maybe related to the issue first described in the that episode of TNG, 'Force of Nature'. Because from a writing POV how would you make a 900 year old ship like Discovery relevant in this future, they can get to places other ships cant via the spore drive.

 

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Omega_molecule

This was also one case revealed in VOY where Starfleet suppressed information, so classifying the mirror universe, the Disco and the DASH drive is not without precedent.

 

There is a scene in the trailer where it appears tilly stamets and reno are researching coronal mass ejections. Maybe some species attacked the federation via triggering simultaneous ejections in core systems that were powerful to wipe out key planets and cripple the federation.

 

So, instead of Warp we get the Iconian Gateways? or other types of FTL.
And just to put it out there.. Its been Millions of years of intelligent civilizations coming, peaking, declining, and extinction. Not one of them found out about Omega Molecule and detonated some?? Call BS on that.. Maybe civilization rises to the point of discovering Omega, then try to harness the power, and then "Destroy" Subspace. and with out that, interstellar civilization dies out for a time. Subspace heals itself in time for the next wave of intelligence. A sort of "Wall" every civilization hits??

 

Sounds biological perhaps?

 

Gonorrhoea not only became antibiotic resistant it became sentient

 

Neelix. Just blame Neelix.

 

I called it years ago.

 

It started on Risa.

 

It's going to be a huge revelation in Episode 5 or 9 when Burnham realizes that part of her name is "Burn". OMGWTFLOL!!!1!!

 

The Burn? Hard left? Seems pretty clear what it's supposed to be and how the higher-ups were just Biden their time waiting for Disco to show up.

 

Something that happened on a mass scale when Mariner cleaned the holodeck's "filters."

 

What about simultaneous trilithium warheads destroying most Federation stars, but leaving the founding members stars intact?

 

I just wonder which worlds are left of the Federation and what day-to-day life is like on them. Is Earth still a member and is it still a utopia?

That would be interesting, maybe the remaining members became complacent if subspace was broken since they would be safe while also still maintaining their utopian way of life.