Spoilers Has Discovery destroyed the possibility of any positive progression until after the 32nd Century?

Star Trek Discovery season 4 takes place in the 32nd century and establishes that many major incidents have occurred which have shaped the galaxy in major ways, nearly all in negative and almost post apocalyptical ways. The biggest events of which are the collapse of the Federation, it’s reformation and also the burn.

It’s almost like all progression in the Star Trek universe has been lost, and no matter what happens in any possible future Star Trek series set in the 800 hundred years between the 24th and 32nd century it would all pretty much be for nothing. It’s almost as if the writers have boxed off hundreds of years worth of Star Trek history from any meaningful progression of the timeline which is true to the series original vision.

The burn prevented the use of warp drives for example… does this mean that in the preceding 800 years the Federation never developed transwarp or slipstream drives? Was an alliance never formed with the Borg co-operative which led to peace throughout the quadrants? We don’t hear from the Klingon’s any more either as far as I know…

Unless there is a big reset at the end of Discovery, any Star Trek series created in the era of 24th-32nd century would essentially be a prequel and severely limited in scope and doomed to an apocalyptic reset.

A franchise continuation post 32nd century could work…

 

Not at all. Discovery establishes that the Federation keeps growing and we know from Enterprise that the Federation will make allies of former enemies like the Xindi. Just because the golden era doesn‘t last forever doesn‘t mean it wasn‘t worthwhile for those who were alive for it.

 

That made me feel a bit better, thank you!

 

Or Discovery's new adventures are set in the same kind of possible/alternate future that we saw in "All Good Things" and "Endgame".

 

Hopefully?

Star Trek can be a multiverse of possibilities!

 

They had transwarp and slipstream drives, and Book talks about them in S03E01. They weren't sustainable long term.

800 years is a long time, all we know was the century before was a time war, which could have changed or reset anything. Empires and alliances can rise and fall.

 

It also implies that more "golden ages" are possible for the Federation.

 

nope.

 

Alot of knowledge & people & resources could've been lost in "The Burn".

 

Why?

 

Counterpoint: yep.

 

Exactly. This idea that knowing the end someone reduces dramatic potential is nonsensical. Look at the series based during the Roman Empire. Did the fall of the Roman Empire somehow curtail dramatic possibilities?

 

First question. No.

Disco really haven't gone to far explaining the intervening years. So it's still 98% wide open

 

Parts of the galaxy could be fantastic - just more isolated.

 

There's no evidence of that. That also isn't how timeline changes work in Trek.

 

Sure it is.

Timelines are the way they are until somebody does something to change them.

Dr. Crusher didn't marry and then divorce Captain PIcard. Jake Sisko didn't go to live with Jadzia Dax when his father disappeared. Voyager made it home in seven years, not twenty-three.

Considering they've already pulled a version of "you can ignore continuity issues because these events were classified and didn't officially happen", a possible future seems just as logical.

 

Changes to the timeline work however the writer wants them to. That's the only rule.

 

Did TNG kill off TOS' creativity by being set 100 years later? Or ENT or SNW or has Disco harmed Picard...

Nope.

 

On a meta level, as someone who enjoys history - no.

Nothing lasts forever. No empire, no polity. Not even peoples, though peoples arguably last longer than nations or empires, but peoples, too, pass and evolve and wither away.

The Federation waxed, held high, waned. That's just a extension of polities. It lasted strongly for almost a thousand years. Then, instead of just evaporating, it contracted*, and iirc from DIS it's held onto its values and regained core members and is entering a second age of rebirth.

I counter your line '800 hundred years between the 24th and 32nd century it would all pretty much be for nothing' with that, 800 years ago, no extant polity has made it to now. No house is the same, no kingdom, barely a few borders and proto-states that formed into nations later. 800 years from now, nothing from our net is liable to survive and again, no polity will be the same, hell the world will most likely not even be the same as now.

But just because we and all we have made will decay doesn't stop us (save maybe the true nihilists) from doing what we do or striving for better or to fix and work the systems we have now for our immediate benefit and immediate future. That's just livin'.

As for in the show, in regard to that tech...well, if there's any 26th, 27th century show, most likely they'll have their own things.

 

I honestly was a bit creeped out the Federation lasted 1000 years.

I would have preferred its ideas grow and change.