Spoilers ST Discovery - Starships and Technology Season Four Discussion

Neither am I. They had their chance to do so with Season 4... and thus far, I'm not impressed.

Reality is often disappointing... what saddens me is that Disco has a 'team' of writers who apparently know their Trek inside and out... and STILL decided of not just repeating the mistakes of old series, but exacerbating them in the process.

Huh... thanks for the reminder.
Then I would say that kinda shoots down the idea they used HyperSubspace communications for the holo presence.
By its very nature, HyperSubspace needs to be much more powerful (and reliable) at extremely small distances than regular subspace (in the 24th century at least)... but again, its interesting how Stamets holo was able to maintain connection and verbal communications were still possible... but somehow, sending a copy of the sensor data to Disco was impossible.

Send out 1 copy of the data while STILL trying to get out. That way, if the wifi copy fails... the original is still on its way out.

24th century still sent out sensor data using Wifi under extreme circumstances... with no corruption I might add. Sure, instances were encountered where data could be corrupted if you sent it over massive distances... but its been over 800 years since then.

This would then imply SF made 0 progress in improving overall technology and signal strength.

This is sensible, but again, with Book and his ship being a part of Disco now for a while now (over 5 months), you'd think they would have improved on any hw incompatibilities.

Also, I'm curious to see where he got that ship of his... it certainly seems more advanced than most ships we saw.

Eh... that could be it.

I certainly wouldn't object, but nothing was mentioned one way or another... so, I would have to assume that regular subspace is what they're using.

Which they probably won't do.

Yes, and still nowhere near what 810 years (not counting the 120 years of Burn) of technological and scientific evolution might actually look like in Trek for preexisting technologically evolved spacefaring civilizations.
Regardless of how you cut it... the technology the 32nd century employs is far closer to what mid/late 25th century would have.

It would certainly be interesting if it turned out they went to a parallel world through that Wormhole or into a science experiment of some kind where the crew doesn't ask too many questions about advanced technology (because lets face it... from their POV, even the late 24th/25th century would look extremely advanced to them).

The numbers seemed small yes, but sparing 10 to 20 people would likely NOT be an issue.

He seemed to be quite capable... just a bit... jaded and in defensive mode at first.

I guess I am when you factor in the premise that Earth at the moment has nearly 8 billion people... and that each and every UFP member world would (even post Burn) at least have similar numbers (albeit obviously living in a sustainable capacity with minimal environmental impact).

That's at least 304 billion people to work with. Even if we assume that just 1% of those populations would want to join Starfleet to help keep the UFP together... that's 3.04 million people.

That took under a minute with a calculator btw.

Yup

With how many people aboard... I sincerely doubt they wouldn't have the time to study modern technology and science in detail.
The amount of people needing to transport dilithium from a mining ship or two near that nebula onto Disco would be what... 1?

Then you need Stamets or Booker to use the spore Drive to get to various worlds and deliver the dilithium in question... again, most of the crew would be free to study.

 

To say the least.
Especially after that whole scene when Disco entered the SF/UFP HQ distortion field and detected neutronium fibers, organic and holographic hulls.
I mean, in universe wise, those kinds of ships should be ridiculously much more powerful and not so easily damaged as we saw.

Or maybe its just Disco that's weak and has limitations which it can't quite overcome? Though that doesn't make sense because it actually makes more sense SF modified not only its superstructure but also its hull plating was replaced with neutronium based composite materials which would technically be stronger than actual 'pure neutronium'.

We've seen its hull plating was entirely replaced.. the ship was actually RESHAPED to a degree as well... so, yeah... it received thorough 'inside out' treatment and is now a full fledged 31st century ship (equipped with pre Burn technology mostly).

 

We both concur on this issue.

I HIGHLY doubt that DISCO's "Team of writers" knows Trek Inside & Out.

Mike McMahon's personal Writing Team for Lower Decks seems to know more.

Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if Prodigy's writing team knows more.

Hell, even ST: Picards writing team seems to have more overall Trek knowledge.

No Prob!

It might be, we don't know enough about 32nd century SubSpace radio tech to confirm which wavelength and frequencies of Radio bands they're using.

The sensor data must be vast and the bandwidth over whatever they're communicating with must be small.

And the Anomaly must be creating ALOT of SubSpace Radio interference for Stamets picture to randomly fritz out like it does.

I wouldn't trust critical data to be sent out over WiFi when you need Accurate Data to disseminate.

Sending in Inaccurate Data or Data filled with errors due to WiFi interference doesn't help the R&D team.

Data Corruption over WiFi is still a thing. No matter how you go about it and how long into the future.

If your Signal can't overcome the noise, you're more prone to corruption and it only takes a wrong bit flipped in a critical area to turn the vast amount of data into junk.

DISCO team isn't know for their Star Trek technical knowledge.

It's Book's ship, we don't know how he likes his ship to be setup.

I know with my personal vehicles, I have preferences on how things are set up. I wouldn't be surprised if you have that too with your personal vehicles.

Kinda like the Millenium Falcon, looks like junk on the outside, plenty of advanced tech on the inside.

=D

It could be, but it's hard to say since we don't know enough at the moment.

But the reason I think Hyper SubSpace is the default is that the distances a late Pre-Burn 31st Century StarFleet must communicate with would need a SubSpace Radio standard that can meet the needs.

They already developed that tech in the late 24th century.

Time to mass deploy it across the UFP & StarFleet.

I won't be holding my breath for them to explain things.

There are aspects of 32nd century that seems like technological regression IMO.

It's hard to get a perspective on technology when you came from the 23rd century.

It's easier to look back than to look forwards.

We don't know what Vance's staffing situation is like.

He had every right to be.

Hopefully, each UFP member species has population #'s like that for each of their main planets.

I know =D

=D

You'll be surprised at how busy some folks are.

 

The very first time I saw his ship, Star Wars Millenium Falcon came to mind (I did NOT like the implication).
The general shape, etc. is a dead ringer for the Millenium Falcon... and then when I saw how it was firing its weapons pretty much confirmed the premise that it seemed like someone apparently put SW into ST (that could also explain why the 32nd century looks so... unadavanced... and regressed even as you mentioned).
Internally the Millenium Falcon doesn't really have impressive technolgy... seems to be junk inside and out.. at least Booker's ship looks more advanced... but to be fair, its a bit too similar to the Millenium Falcon in appearance.

That's what I thought too but I wouldn't get my hopes up.
Looking at how many technologies Disco handwaved away by just saying they aren't 'reliable'... it wouldn't surprise me if they said the same about Hypersubspace technology.
Remember, this is a show that acknowledges that VOY happened... but tech-wise, everything is a 'no go' and 'doesn't work' (even though we know it does).

Star Wars style it seems (as I mentioned above). Some things we came to understand of 24th century technology seem to be MISSING here.

For instance... Saru mentioned that the reason the nacelles were detached from the hull was to improve maneuverability... even though 24th century UFP ships deploy a low level subspace field around themselves to lower their inertial mass (allowing for very high fractions of light speed - at least 0.25 c - and of course maneuverability of fighter craft ships.

In fact, Disco already seemed very nimble at sublight while it was still in the 23rd century... it seems like it got SLOWER in the 32nd.

Adding to that... is it possible the Temporal Wars caused a regression compared to even what we saw in the 24th century?
Might be that some stuff just didn't survive the Temporal Wars... but to me that seems rather ridiculous, because we saw when the T.W. ended in Enterprise, Daniels said the Timeline is resetting itself... that means that none of the changes to the timeline that happened during the Wars could actually STICK.
I mean sure, the T.W. would still happen, etc... but if someone tried to remove technological and scientific knowledge from UFP, that would have massive implications across the timeline.
Someone would have noticed it if they had temporal shields on... and how many cultures the UFP interacted with would have been affected, etc.

And we know the events leading up to late 24th century still happened as we know (or at least it seems like they have)... otherwise, if the tech and science were removed... it would have affected other stuff.

Its a science ship full of scientists... one would think they'd at least be familiar with the idea of exponential developments and returns.
But this premise seems to be eluding Trek Writers and their representation of Trek technology... in fact, they usually go out of their way to make numerous techs we saw in the 24th century NOT WORK for UFP... even though the species that used them originally had 0 issues with the technology in question, and when we factor in just how advanced UFP is and its overall technological level... it WOULD be able to reverse engineer that tech very quickly - especially when we consider the fact VOY crew was able to reverse engineer technologies in very short time frames and even developed improved versions with limited resources in just few months (well 'limited' for what 1 ship has... to us that would be a ridiculously advanced treasure trove).

Ah well...

We don't know... I admittedly made an assumption based on present Earth's population numbers... however, it IS the DISTANT future... so each and every UFP member world when the organisation had 350 member planets would likely have ALL UFP species (or most of them) living/working/etc. on them... so even if a native species of a given planet has low reproductive rates... that particular disadvantage would be nullified due to migrations from other UFP member species who would move there.

In the 24th century, you have Humans living in Klingon space and vice versa (despite the fact Klingons aren't UFP members - just allies).
Andorians, Vulcans, Tellarites and Humans living on Earth and inter-mixing with each other across all 4 founding member planets.

I'm actually thinking 8 billion per planet would be a very LOW end estimate.

Busy talking to each other about every little feeling they have it seems.
One would think most of this excess emotional spewage we saw would have been dealt with in those 5 months... or in case they hadn't... I'd THINK they'd want to familiarize themselves better with 32nd century technology and science in that time frame.

 

The essence / feel is for Booker's ship to be a variant of the Millenium Falcon.

But it looks nicer than the Millenium Falcon ever did.

I would never confuse the look of Booker's ship for the Millenium Falcon.

Both ships are way too different for that to ever happen.

Booker is a nicer loveable rogue than Han Solo ever was.

At the end of the day, blame DISCO Writers staff. They suck, we all know it, they should be fired.

I wouldn't put it on the level of "Fighter Craft".

If you see what IRL Fighter Craft can do and the agile manuevers they can perform, you wouldn't confuse the two.

The StarFleet StarShips were manuevering closer to a agile Speed Boat or a high performance car IMO.

Discovery did get FATTER =D.

Realistically, the DISCO writers forgot about it or ignored it.

Blame DISCO writers.

You're expecting too much from the DISCO writing staff.

I concur, 8 billion would be low, but it makes for easy numbers to pontificate about.

God knows that the DISCO writers LOVE having all their characters talking about feelings and spending more & more times about feelings. It's slowly getting to CW Show levels.

 

I remember people theorizing it was due to onboard engines, or other more extreme things, and it ends up as just magnets with no further explanation. I guess Book's ship is the explanation, but we never actually see the Discovery do anything remotely similar to it break dodging debris, and why would it when it has shields and phasers.

It thought of an extremely easy way to use detached nacelles for increased maneuvering, place them near the center of mass which will reduce the moment of inertia, then place the nacelles back for warp. The other is to leave the nacelles while the main hull rotates, then attach and slowly bring the nacelles back into position. Or, use the nacelles like a gyroscope, spin them while magnetically attached to move the rest of the ship. Frankly, all of these solutions are too mechanical for my taste.

 

Some of the best solutions are mechanical solutions on a larger scale.

 

The more I go through the sequence where we see the Credence, I become more convinced that it is NCC-2804. Was this ship brought back from the mothball fleet and retrofitted, as she has detachable nacelles, so she could serve in the fleet as a dilithium courier?

 

That would be an interesting question to explore.

 

We saw old yet intact ships from previous eras last year, and I guess they’re in need right now, so “a ship is a ship”, as one Cap’n once said.

Also as her interior was a thin redress of the Discovery corridor / airlock set, her being another ancient ship refitted and pressed into service as a second liner would dovetail well enough for this show’s look and logic…

Mark

 

It looks like NCE-2804 to me. New registry scheme for 32nd century ships? (Remember, every ship Starfleet was using was at least a century old by that point.)

 

"NCC" is going to continue as the ID tag for Federation Starfleet ships, I expect. We don't have much established as yet re: ships in other services, though...

 

Deks, perhaps. KRR? If I wanted a hardcore military sci-fi, I'd be watching BSG or Space: Above and Beyond.

 

These two have demonstrated a superior technical knowledge over all Trek writers, so I will defer to their superior knowledge and expertise if they want different writing style.

 

I would only be the technical writer. Not script writer.

I just advise on all Technical or In-Universe Technical Lore related stuff or come up with technical solutions to the problem at hand.

If you want to write Plot / Drama / Intrigue / Emotion / dialogue, I'll leave that to the PRO's.

Personally, I would want @Christopher to be part of the staff since he's very knowledge-able as well about all things Trek.

 

I want all or nothing.

 

The Credence is the most starfleet looking starship we've seen so far in Discovery.

 

I'm telling you what I would be useful for, if you want somebody to write dialogue & character, Christopher would be the person I choose.

I'm just the technical lore guy, because that's where my specialty / knowledge base is.

I'm not a writer by trade, so it would be best for Christopher to take the lead in that department.

You really should let your specialists focus on what they're good at and don't put them in situations they aren't suited for.

 

You want the writers fired and I want to see you and Deks write. Simple.

 

And I'm telling you, the best way to use people is to use them in the roles they want to be in.

You don't get to force people to do things they don't want to do.

That's how reality works. Sorry to burst your bubble.