Let's discuss DSC's scientific believability, please provide examples if you can.
"Remember always that STAR TREK is never fantasy; whatever happens, no matter how unusual or bizarre, must have some basis in either fact or theory and stay true to that premise"
"IMPORTANT: The writer must know what he means when he uses science or projected science terminology. A scattergun confusion of meaningless phrases only detracts from believability."
"What have been the "big problem areas” in past story and script submissions? Again, it has been in areas of believability. Many otherwise good writers tend to pepper their science fiction with "out of left field” coincidences, un-explained and illogical actions, unmotivated character changes, things they would never dream of perpetrating on even a kiddies show script."
- 1967 Star Trek Writer's Guide, Third Revision
Violation of the 'conservation of mass'
Most fundamental rule in all of science - matter and energy are never created or destroyed - only changed into different forms.
In Season 02, Episode 01, we see Starfleet deploy a small metal object on the floor that seems to magically grow into a much larger metal object. The episode also includes a few other things like a science officer saying "the signal isn't a planet, star or moon", I guess he meant "isn't coming from".
Possible explanations: Maybe the metal is nano-meters thick, and is folded up like origami (...although it certainly does not look like that). Maybe it somehow replicates new mass from some energy source (...which seems ridiculously god-like ability).
Bottom line: It looked fucking stupid
Dark matter, which is 'non-baryonic' has magical properties
All matter we have ever seen, including you and me, is baryonic. We know nothing about dark matter. It's properties are a complete guess. We think it interacts with baryonic matter gravitationally. Not everyone is even entirely sure that the missing mass in the universe conclusively proves dark matter exists. It's just a moniker, it isn't actually poetically dark/ominous.
In Season 02, Episode 02, a piece of dark matter is used like a fast-moving black hole to pull some asteroids along in it's gravity well; we don't know the relative mass of the bodies but the effect seems super-disproportionate as if the dark matter were putting out neutron-star levels of gravitation. It seems to have just been done, like so many things in Star Trek: Discovery, for purely visual reasons. I have no idea, like with much of what happens in Discovery, why the ship needed to use a mycellial jump to get into position either, when warp would be near-instantaneous at those distances; maybe I would have to watch the scene again, since the scientific exposition in DSC is always super-unclear compared to TOS, TNG, DS9 or VOY. I also don't know what a 'space donut' is really meant to be in the vacuum of space, because it basically sounds identical to the kinds of standard turns that space vehicles would perform all the time.
Dark matter is often used (on the fantasy-end of the sliding spectrum), as a generic 'magic glowing rock', akin to some talisman in Dungeons and Dragons. People seem to have a fetish for floating rocks and magic rocks on the low end of the hardness scale. I guess a lot of people trying to think of something visually cool without scientific context invariably come up with 'floating rocks', 'glowing rocks' and the like. The concept has always looked fucking stupid in anything that is meant to be serious space opera.
Possible explanations: The planet's rings and the matter identified as dark matter in discovery are both some really exotic stuff, that glow and look cool for some reason, (i.e. emit light and are therefore really fucking detectable by telescopes), but actually through some obscure path, don't violate any rules of the universe somehow.
Bottom line: Magic visuals for visuals sake, instead of conceptual beauty as in actual science fiction. At least giant green space hands aren't meant to be a 'natural phenomena'.
DNA is magic, and stores people's memories
A person's memories are stored in the cells of their brain. Memory is not hereditary. This shouldn't need explaining further.
In Season 02, Episode 05, we are rushed through some very vague exposition about how injecting Dr Culber's DNA into a fungi-based multidimensional transporter pad, will allow him to be resurrected. Maybe this creates a third Dr Culber, after the second began to be eaten away moments before in the mushroom world. The new Culber wakes up and immediately knows the name of the person holding him.
Possible explanations: The mushroom transporter pad somehow knew that when some humans hypo sprayed some random DNA into it, it was meant to build a new person, then superimpose the brain structure of a dissolving man onto the new body. (Why it has this function, or how anyone would know it did, is beyond me however.)
Bottom line: It's seems really contrived. The exposition is deliberately super unclear.
Bonus: Burham not reporting the 'Red Angel' to Pike out of fear
All that Michael Burnham has to say to her commanding officer is "during an away mission, I thought I saw a potential alien life-form, but can't be absolutely sure as I was injured". Her commanding officer would then take her observation under advisement. It's actually a duty to report such information. The fundamental of science is the sharing of information.
Why is information so frequently withheld on Discovery, and why has a natural phenomenon been acceptably presented in non-objective ways by a team of trained scientists? For that matter, what is current science fiction's obsession with ambiguous visions? Not that many people can claim to have experienced psychosis or anything similar, it's not really a relatable experience for many people, thankfully. Yet Battlestar Galactica, Stargate Universe, and now Star Trek: Discovery seem to have an obsession with "is it or isn't it" hallucinations. Can we have some actual science fiction please, instead of relying on stuff like this?
"Remember always that STAR TREK is never fantasy; whatever happens, no matter how unusual or bizarre, must have some basis in either fact or theory and stay true to that premise"
"IMPORTANT: The writer must know what he means when he uses science or projected science terminology. A scattergun confusion of meaningless phrases only detracts from believability."
"What have been the "big problem areas” in past story and script submissions? Again, it has been in areas of believability. Many otherwise good writers tend to pepper their science fiction with "out of left field” coincidences, un-explained and illogical actions, unmotivated character changes, things they would never dream of perpetrating on even a kiddies show script."
- 1967 Star Trek Writer's Guide, Third Revision
Violation of the 'conservation of mass'
Most fundamental rule in all of science - matter and energy are never created or destroyed - only changed into different forms.
In Season 02, Episode 01, we see Starfleet deploy a small metal object on the floor that seems to magically grow into a much larger metal object. The episode also includes a few other things like a science officer saying "the signal isn't a planet, star or moon", I guess he meant "isn't coming from".
Possible explanations: Maybe the metal is nano-meters thick, and is folded up like origami (...although it certainly does not look like that). Maybe it somehow replicates new mass from some energy source (...which seems ridiculously god-like ability).
Bottom line: It looked fucking stupid
Dark matter, which is 'non-baryonic' has magical properties
All matter we have ever seen, including you and me, is baryonic. We know nothing about dark matter. It's properties are a complete guess. We think it interacts with baryonic matter gravitationally. Not everyone is even entirely sure that the missing mass in the universe conclusively proves dark matter exists. It's just a moniker, it isn't actually poetically dark/ominous.
In Season 02, Episode 02, a piece of dark matter is used like a fast-moving black hole to pull some asteroids along in it's gravity well; we don't know the relative mass of the bodies but the effect seems super-disproportionate as if the dark matter were putting out neutron-star levels of gravitation. It seems to have just been done, like so many things in Star Trek: Discovery, for purely visual reasons. I have no idea, like with much of what happens in Discovery, why the ship needed to use a mycellial jump to get into position either, when warp would be near-instantaneous at those distances; maybe I would have to watch the scene again, since the scientific exposition in DSC is always super-unclear compared to TOS, TNG, DS9 or VOY. I also don't know what a 'space donut' is really meant to be in the vacuum of space, because it basically sounds identical to the kinds of standard turns that space vehicles would perform all the time.
Dark matter is often used (on the fantasy-end of the sliding spectrum), as a generic 'magic glowing rock', akin to some talisman in Dungeons and Dragons. People seem to have a fetish for floating rocks and magic rocks on the low end of the hardness scale. I guess a lot of people trying to think of something visually cool without scientific context invariably come up with 'floating rocks', 'glowing rocks' and the like. The concept has always looked fucking stupid in anything that is meant to be serious space opera.
Possible explanations: The planet's rings and the matter identified as dark matter in discovery are both some really exotic stuff, that glow and look cool for some reason, (i.e. emit light and are therefore really fucking detectable by telescopes), but actually through some obscure path, don't violate any rules of the universe somehow.
Bottom line: Magic visuals for visuals sake, instead of conceptual beauty as in actual science fiction. At least giant green space hands aren't meant to be a 'natural phenomena'.
DNA is magic, and stores people's memories
A person's memories are stored in the cells of their brain. Memory is not hereditary. This shouldn't need explaining further.
In Season 02, Episode 05, we are rushed through some very vague exposition about how injecting Dr Culber's DNA into a fungi-based multidimensional transporter pad, will allow him to be resurrected. Maybe this creates a third Dr Culber, after the second began to be eaten away moments before in the mushroom world. The new Culber wakes up and immediately knows the name of the person holding him.
Possible explanations: The mushroom transporter pad somehow knew that when some humans hypo sprayed some random DNA into it, it was meant to build a new person, then superimpose the brain structure of a dissolving man onto the new body. (Why it has this function, or how anyone would know it did, is beyond me however.)
Bottom line: It's seems really contrived. The exposition is deliberately super unclear.
Bonus: Burham not reporting the 'Red Angel' to Pike out of fear
All that Michael Burnham has to say to her commanding officer is "during an away mission, I thought I saw a potential alien life-form, but can't be absolutely sure as I was injured". Her commanding officer would then take her observation under advisement. It's actually a duty to report such information. The fundamental of science is the sharing of information.
Why is information so frequently withheld on Discovery, and why has a natural phenomenon been acceptably presented in non-objective ways by a team of trained scientists? For that matter, what is current science fiction's obsession with ambiguous visions? Not that many people can claim to have experienced psychosis or anything similar, it's not really a relatable experience for many people, thankfully. Yet Battlestar Galactica, Stargate Universe, and now Star Trek: Discovery seem to have an obsession with "is it or isn't it" hallucinations. Can we have some actual science fiction please, instead of relying on stuff like this?
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