How to explain Starfleet forgetting alternatives to warp drive

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I think the main reasons DSC did the time skip is 1) they realized they were way too advanced looking for the 23rd century anyway, and 2) the writing was on the wall about the Pike series (SNW).

But you know, if they had any balls, they'd do something like this:

Spoiler: story idea

Make the 'big reveal' that they were never in the 23rd century to begin with.

 

[MarkusTay]

I agree that I do not envy the writers because of the tech-escalation that went on.

By the time TNG ended, we were at near god-like levels. in fact, Picard easily faked 'being a god', using transporters, and weapons & other tech. SNW had people able to beam medical injections directly into people on the planet's surface(!) Why do modern starships even have phaser arrays? You can literally have a track and simply beam the emitters to any point on the outside of the hull without mechanical contrivances. Want a fleet of shuttles/fighters? Just build a giant replicator into your hanger deck. Oh wait, screw hanger-decks, you don't even need them. Just replicate the ship right in space, with the crew already aboard. Humans/people in wars? Why? holograms seems to work just fine. Evacuate an entire planet? (Vulcan? Romulus?), you don't need a fleet of ships, silly Picard! You just need ONE with a transporter that has a HUGE memory core (just outfit one galaxy-class ship so its mostly filled with those gel-packs). You can store an entire population that way (heck, it worked for Scotty). In TNG canon, they moved a tribe of people to another planet without them even knowing they left their world! And don't get me started on how Moriarty had a 'whole universe to explore' inside one simple memory cube.

By the start of the new Picard series, Federation technology had already reached the level of Trelaine in the Squire of Gothos. You could literally just have a glass of wine appear in your hand by asking for one. What can writers write about when humans have become demigods?

 

[fireproof78]

Remember the Black Widow movie?

Yup. Loved it, so did my daughters. Quite an interesting exploration of character. And?

Why bother reading/watching it, when it is no longer relevant?

Enjoyment.

just outfit one galaxy-class ship so its mostly filled with those gel-packs). You can store an entire population that way (heck, it worked for Scotty)

Barely. It killed poor Matthew Franklin.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Why bother reading/watching it, when it is no longer relevant?

Relevance is overrated.

 

[Macintosh]

You just need ONE with a transporter that has a HUGE memory core (just outfit one galaxy-class ship so its mostly filled with those gel-packs). You can store an entire population that way (heck, it worked for Scotty).

Except that's not how transporters work. Per DS9: "Our Man Bashir", storing the full quantum-resolution pattern of a person being transported in computer memory is immensely difficult even in the 2370s. That's what the pattern buffer is for – to spool and temporarily store the active matter stream without it needing to be "digitised" and stored in computer memory.

Scotty found a way to prevent the pattern in a pattern buffer degrading by having the pattern continually shunt between the buffer and the emitter array but with the materialisation subroutines disabled. Since we already know pattern buffers in the 2360s/2370s work differently to the pattern buffers of the 2290s (per TNG: "Real of Fear", confirming that pattern buffers were multiplexed in the 2310s) we have no idea if Scotty's idea would even be possible with transporters of the late 24th century. And even then, it was clearly a "hail Mary" last ditch attempt to save their lives with a low chance of success anyway, given that it only worked for Scotty and not the other survivor of the Jenolan.

And don't get me started on how Moriarty had a 'whole universe to explore' inside one simple memory cube.

But that's not what the cube was for. Per TNG: "Ship in a Bottle": "In fact, the programme is continuing even now inside that cube... The programme is continuous but only within the computer's circuitry...". The cube was the processor running the simulation, not the memory storing it. The active memory for the simulation was a separate, and much larger, module ("This enhancement module contains enough active memory to provide them experiences for a lifetime"). And assuming it's a photonic processor with a nanoscale memory architecture, that tiny desktop system could have vastly more computing power than we have available today on our entire planet combined.

By the start of the new Picard series, Federation technology had already reached the level of Trelaine in the Squire of Gothos. You could literally just have a glass of wine appear in your hand by asking for one. What can writers write about when humans have become demigods?

Iain M Banks managed to get ten Culture novels out of it You just need to learn how to tell different types of stories.

 

[1001001]

Discovery is it's own thing, and is unreconcilable to real Star Trek.

Ah, yes. The "It's Not Real Star Trek" argument...

 

[FederationHistorian]

Beverly took the Pasteur to Warp 13 in All Good Things….

I know, Q and all that. Still…

Because that’s transwarp, and they shortened the slang to warp. Hence Warp 13.

As for Starfleet forgetting all the other alternatives to warp…I think the Temporal Wars has something to do with that. How much information got altered or deleted or removed from history because of that.

 

[Tuskin38]

1) they realized they were way too advanced looking for the 23rd century anyway, and 2) the writing was on the wall about the Pike series (SNW).

You contradicted yourself there. SNW doesn't look any less advanced than Discovery Seasons 1 and 2.

If moving Discovery to the future was because of that, they wouldn't have created SNW.

 

[Lord Garth]

They moved DSC to the 32nd Century so they could shake things up as they saw fit and could escalate stakes without having to worry about how it would affect TOS, TNG, DS9, or VOY.

It also helped that they could shift all the 23rd Century stuff over to SNW and keep it going over there instead.

If DSC stayed a prequel, the Spore Drive would've had to have been a failure, Zora wouldn't be able to further develop as an AI because of "Sacred Holy Canon", and they wouldn't be able to do certain storylines like Earth not being part of the Federation, Vulcans and Romulans reuniting, or have a Federation President who's part Human, Bajoran, and Cardassian. Not to mention the Burn and its aftermath.

DSC no longer being a prequel opened the series' possibilities all the way up. I'm glad they made the switch. As much as I like the first two seasons.

EDITED TO ADD: I go into further detail about how I think things ended up the way they ended up here.

 

[at Quark's]

^I suppose that's exactly why TNG chose '80 years into the future' as its setting. To have part of the universe already laid out for them by TOS, yet be unrestrained by it, except for some basic continuity nods.

One still wonders though why DSC didn't start in a more distant century to begin with, if they were worried about that.

EDIT: read your speculations in the other thread after I posted this. Interesting food for thought.

 

[Ronald Held]

Good phrase: sacred Holy canon.

 

[Weyoun 251]

This is part of a larger issue that I have with Discovery's 32nd century setting, which is – between ENT, TOS, and TNG, there is a mostly consistent trend of starship speeds being shown to have roughly quadrupled every 100 years or so.

The NX-01 tops out at warp 5.2 (old scale) – 140c

The 1701 tops out at warp 8 (old scale) – 512c

The 1701-D tops out at warp 9.6 (TNG scale) – 1909c

By 3190, the speed of starships should be in the region of 130,000,000c. Whether they're using incredibly powerful conventional warp drives, or quantum slipstream drives, or someone finally got the Excelsior's transwarp drive to work, that's in line with the rate of technical advancement we see across all the other Trek series. And yet they still seem to be pottering around using conventional warp drive running at conventional 24th century warp speeds. It's the almost complete technological stagnation lasting for centuries even before the Burn that bothers me.

I get where you are going with the speeds but that doesn't account for potential limiters in terms of, say, navigation or impact on subspace (other limiters are available)

A Veyron can comfortable buzz around a track at 250 kph or something daft but you can't use that for normal travel as environmental (i.e state of the road, other road users more than literal environment) mean that whilst it can do it, it doesn't.

Maybe it is the same here where they hit limits in terms of what was practical rather than what was possible

 

[at Quark's]

Good phrase: sacred Holy canon.

Goes well together with 'Klingon Imperial Empire', doesn't it ?

 

[Macintosh]

I get where you are going with the speeds but that doesn't account for potential limiters in terms of, say, navigation or impact on subspace (other limiters are available)

A Veyron can comfortable buzz around a track at 250 kph or something daft but you can't use that for normal travel as environmental (i.e state of the road, other road users more than literal environment) mean that whilst it can do it, it doesn't.

Maybe it is the same here where they hit limits in terms of what was practical rather than what was possible

While a Bugatti Veyron maxes out at 409km/h and is wildly impractical at even half that speed, a Boeing 787 maxes out at 1,110km/h and Concorde reached 2,100km/h. Engineer your way round the problem. We've seen starships going at bonkers speeds before. 130,000,000c is as nothing compared to what the Enterprise-D managed in "Where No One Has Gone Before" or "The Nth Degree".

 

[Weyoun 251]

While a Bugatti Veyron maxes out at 409km/h and is wildly impractical at even half that speed, a Boeing 787 maxes out at 1,110km/h and Concorde reached 2,100km/h. Engineer your way round the problem. We've seen starships going at bonkers speeds before. 130,000,000c is as nothing compared to what the Enterprise-D managed in "Where No One Has Gone Before" or "The Nth Degree".

But that is my point that the medium through which they travel may be certain practical limitations and it may simply be that there isn't another way - that said the whole concept is completely made up so all they need is to introduce Supersubspace and it is no longer a problem.

 

[Macintosh]

that said the whole concept is completely made up so all they need is to introduce Supersubspace and it is no longer a problem.

But they didn't, and that's the problem. In fact they actively avoided doing so by stating that all the post-warp alternatives we'd already seen, and even ones we hadn't, were either handwaved as somehow impractical or had been outright forgotten. The implication of Discovery is that after a pretty constant rate of technological development from the NX-01 in the 22nd century right up to the Enterprise-J in the 26th century (which was supposed to be fast enough to explore other galaxies and which looks more advanced than any of the 32nd century starships we've seen) there's almost half a millennium of complete and utter stagnation, if not outright regression, even before the Burn occurs. It's a galactic dark age. Just... generations of people saying "ho hum, everything's rubbish but there's nothing I can do about it" and going about their day. It's just so depressing.

 

[Lord Garth]

But they didn't, and that's the problem. In fact they actively avoided doing so by stating that all the post-warp alternatives we'd already seen, and even ones we hadn't, were either handwaved as somehow impractical or had been outright forgotten. The implication of Discovery is that after a pretty constant rate of technological development from the NX-01 in the 22nd century right up to the Enterprise-J in the 26th century (which was supposed to be fast enough to explore other galaxies and which looks more advanced than any of the 32nd century starships we've seen) there's almost half a millennium of complete and utter stagnation, if not outright regression, even before the Burn occurs. It's a galactic dark age. Just... generations of people saying "ho hum, everything's rubbish but there's nothing I can do about it" and going about their day. It's just so depressing.

They switched focus. They shifted from space-travel to time-travel. Once all four quadrants were within easy reach, the next place to go in space was another galaxy and travel to another galaxy is different than travel within the same galaxy. They didn't have the means to reach that far nor the want. Also, necessity is the mother of invention. If there's no necessity, and everyone's happy with where they're at, things will stagnate. It happens.

Do I buy the 32nd Century in DSC as being 800 years more advanced the 24th Century and 900 years more advanced than the 23rd? Not really. But I suspend my disbelief. They can't make the galaxy too unrecognizable or the series doesn't work.

I'd be more concerned about this if they ever set a series in the 26th-31st Centuries, but I don't think they're going to. I think the 24th/25th Century will continue to be the most common timeframe for Star Trek and the 23rd Century will be the second-most common timeframe. Anything else will be the exception, including DSC. I don't know how much of the 32nd Century we'll actually see besides Discovery, so they might even relegate it to Possible Future status, if they ever decide they want to do something else. Who knows?

 

[fireproof78]

But they didn't, and that's the problem. In fact they actively avoided doing so by stating that all the post-warp alternatives we'd already seen, and even ones we hadn't, were either handwaved as somehow impractical or had been outright forgotten. The implication of Discovery is that after a pretty constant rate of technological development from the NX-01 in the 22nd century right up to the Enterprise-J in the 26th century (which was supposed to be fast enough to explore other galaxies and which looks more advanced than any of the 32nd century starships we've seen) there's almost half a millennium of complete and utter stagnation, if not outright regression, even before the Burn occurs. It's a galactic dark age. Just... generations of people saying "ho hum, everything's rubbish but there's nothing I can do about it" and going about their day. It's just so depressing.

Well, a whole war happened so that probably impacted development.

But, if we want to talk depressing I'm still depressed that people age.

 

[at Quark's]

I'm not too put out by the 32nd century technology.

The Dominion was supposed to be 2000 years old and they weren't super advanced. As far as Trek technological development goes, there seems to be a technological plateau then you just evolve into energy beings or something.

It seems to be unique for every species. The Voth were certainly more advanced (more advanced than the Borg, even), and had been around for millions of years, but didn't seem on the cusp of becoming energy beings. Assuming the Dyson sphere builders were corporeal (why else would they have built the sphere?) they probably also were thousands of years ahead, technologically. The Zalkonians on the other hand seemed roughly as advanced as the Federation (with the exception of their breathing-stifling weapon), and they were on the edge of that transition. Perhaps other factors come into play as well (e.g. the attitude of said species, though the Zalkonians didn't seem that open minded).

 

[Tim Walker]

Ric of Certifiably Ingame suggested an altered scale for speed. Actually, a double scale.

The lower part of the scale is Warp 1 up to Warp 9. This part corresponds to a conventional warp drive. Ric then addresses the awkwardness of following a 9 with a "point" and then adding a long string of numbers. Instead of saying 9.999999, for example, you would say "Transwarp 3."

I think this is relevant, because the Admiralty would be keenly interested in the experience of Voyager with slipstream. But it was implied that...to make slipstream work it might be necessary to limit its use to brief bursts. Between those brief bursts the ship might use a conventional warp drive.

Come to think of it, a dual scale was implied in The Search For Spock.