Magic to Make the Sanest...confirmed "bottle episode"

[Jadeb]

I dunno. I think there's a difference in giving futuristic names to basic extrapolations that we understand inherently (something powers a ship's engines, the spacemen use space guns) and using made-up jargon as a shorthand way to justify what seems highly improbable or impossible, even in the future.

I'm not saying the latter is always bad. Sometimes it's quite necessary. But I do see a difference.

 

[Greg Cox]

Depends, I guess, on what kind of story you're telling that week. A science-heavy story about the relativistic effects of FTL drive? A morality play about understanding the alien or the futility of vengeance? A tragic love story with a sci-twist? A gritty war story? A rollicking time-travel farce?

You use as much or as little technobabble as you need to serve to whatever story you're trying to tell.

 

[BillJ]

And I'm sure the producers were kicking themselves in the ass by the time they got to mid-season and had to start cutting sets and effects budgets because of it.

It seemed like a waste of money. But would it have been any less expensive to green screen everything? I don't know?

One thing I do know: the only real vision the show seemed to have was "look at how much money we have to spend".

 

[eschaton]

I have to ask, though: Has STAR TREK really ever spent all that much time explaining how exactly "dilthium crystals" work, not counting Technical Manuals and magazine articles and fan theories? On the air, in the actual episodes, it was usually just a case of "Oh, no, our dlithium crystals have been compromised, so the warp drive is on fritz! Unless we can use the MacGuffin particles to reenergize the lattice."

In other words, magic crystals powered by technobabble.

Which, again, is not a bad thing, because the stories generally aren't about the technical details; they're about putting our heroes in stressful situations that test their character and resourcefulness. Or maybe just amusing situations to entertain the audience.

Look at STAR TREK IV: Does it really matter how exactly the radiation from the aircraft carrier is going to fix the dilithium crystals on the Klingon ship? Of course not. It's just a pretext for a fun, exciting comedy sequence.

Works for me.

I agree it's all technobabble. My point was, to a large extent, from episode 3 on, the spore drive was not just a method of conveyance in DIS - it was the plot. Or at least one of the major plot points. There was the initial battle to get it working properly, the tardigrade arc (which was three episodes long) the drama about Stamet's health, the decisions on whether or not to jump, being sucked into the MU, Stamet's weird trippy experiences in the mycelial network, hints that the soul of Culber was somehow inside, finding out it linked "all universes everywhere," finding out that it could be killed, and destroy "every universe" by the ISS Charon, jumping forward in time four months, growing shrooms on a planet in a matter of minutes, then shelving the whole concept (seemingly) with a single off-comment two minutes before the end of the season.

Basically, Discovery said the loud stuff quietly, and the quiet stuff loud. If they just let the spore drive quietly sit in the background like Trek historically did with warp, it would have seemed much less ridiculous.

 

[BillJ]

I agree it's all technobabble. My point was, to a large extent, from episode 3 on, the spore drive was not just a method of conveyance in DIS - it was the plot. Or at least one of the major plot points. There was the initial battle to get it working properly, the tardigrade arc (which was three episodes long) the drama about Stamet's health, the decisions on whether or not to jump, being sucked into the MU, Stamet's weird trippy experiences in the mycelial network, hints that the soul of Culber was somehow inside, finding out it linked "all universes everywhere," finding out that it could be killed, and destroy "every universe" by the ISS Charon, jumping forward in time four months, growing shrooms on a planet in a matter of minutes, then shelving the whole concept (seemingly) with a single off-comment two minutes before the end of the season.

It is funny. Stamets seems more like the central character of Discovery. Far more important to the plot of the first season than Burnham.

 

[PhotoBoy]

So what is the best bottle episode? I’m thinking probably Duet.

 

[Hey Missy]

So what is the best bottle episode? I’m thinking probably Duet.

Clues, The Drumhead, Lower Decks, Duet, The Wire, all wonderful "bottle shows" filmed on existing sets using already existing props and requiring no newly-filmed space shots either.

 

[gblews]

There's nothing wrong with bottle episodes. Especially ones that focus on character building and use very familiar tropes in unique ways.

Indeed. One of my favorite Ent season 4 episodes was Observer Effect, which was a proper bottle episode. There was no guest cast and the entire episode takes place inside the NX-01. Episode was written by the long time Trek novel writers Garfield and Judith Reeves-Stevens.

 

[gblews]

I agree it's all technobabble. My point was, to a large extent, from episode 3 on, the spore drive was not just a method of conveyance in DIS - it was the plot. Or at least one of the major plot points. There was the initial battle to get it working properly, the tardigrade arc (which was three episodes long) the drama about Stamet's health, the decisions on whether or not to jump, being sucked into the MU, Stamet's weird trippy experiences in the mycelial network, hints that the soul of Culber was somehow inside, finding out it linked "all universes everywhere," finding out that it could be killed, and destroy "every universe" by the ISS Charon, jumping forward in time four months, growing shrooms on a planet in a matter of minutes, then shelving the whole concept (seemingly) with a single off-comment two minutes before the end of the season.

I really liked the way the show used the spore drive as a plot device. It was a brand new piece of tech in the Trekverse and therefore subject to massive amounts of analysis and discussion. If the DSC write staff had introduced the spore drive and used it to zip around the galaxy with no problems, something tells me there just might have been a few complaints abut that. "Why introduce a brand new piece of tech and have it work perfectly"?

Discovery said the loud stuff quietly, and the quiet stuff loud.

I think this would have made a great catchphrase for DSC.

If they just let the spore drive quietly sit in the background like Trek historically did with warp, it would have seemed much less ridiculous.

Except it wasn't warp. It was brand new piece of tech that replaced warp, or was expected to replace warp drive. And as I posted above, it would have been ridiculous to introduce this new tech and then relegate it to the background.

 

[jaime]

About the "time crystals," how is that different from the magic time orb used to transport the DS9 crew back to "The Trouble with Tribbles"?

And here's the thing: that's not a case of using one case of "lazy" writing to defend another. DS9 handled it perfectly and so did DISCO, because the story was not about the technobabble; that's just a plot device to set up the situation and the more time you waste trying to justify it, the less time you have to spend on the actual time-loop fun and games. To my mind, the DISCO ep would not have been improved one bit by a bunch of technobabble about "a recursive chroniton matrix generated by a localized quantum displacement field."

Besides, seriously, does Mudd seem like the kind of guy who likes to expound on the finer points of temporal theory? Maybe he's just calling them "time crystals" because that's pithier than some fancy scientific label. I call my TV remote a "remote" because I don't know or care how it works, just what buttons to push. It's just a magic TV wand as far as I'm concerned.

The "time crystals" are just a plot device to justify the time loops. And that's all they need to be.

One more example: compare "Trials and Tribble-ations" to, say, VOYAGER's "Flashback." DS9 got Sisko and Co. back to TOS before the opening credits just by evoking a "Time Orb." By contrast, VOYAGER made us suffer through endless technobabble about Tuvok's neuro-something-something before we finally got Janeway meeting Sulu, which was the whole point of the episode.

Bottom line: Sometimes "Time Crystals" save a ton of boring exposition.

(P.S. I like SUPERGIRL.)

The Time Orb has a lot of set up in the show, which makes it essentially an extension of existing lore. (All the tears of the prophets, the other time displaced by the prophets episodes, the fact they exist outside of time etc...)
Time Crystals do not have that luxury, and sound silly. Technobabble On established Trek basis would have sounded better. ‘Some kind of crystal matrix of stabilised chronitons’ boom and you are done, laced with pure Treknobable uncut.
‘Time Crystals’ is He-Man, and such a vague concept it could refer to the quartz in my wristwatch.

 

[BillJ]

Technobabble On established Trek basis would have sounded better. ‘Some kind of crystal matrix of stabilised chronitons’ boom and you are done, laced with pure Treknobable uncut.

 

[WraithDukat]

It was one of the better episodes in my opinion.

 

[eschaton]

Except it wasn't warp. It was brand new piece of tech that replaced warp, or was expected to replace warp drive. And as I posted above, it would have been ridiculous to introduce this new tech and then relegate it to the background.

The tech should never be the plot in Trek, just a plot device. The plot should focus around ideas, people, and difficult choices which lack simple answers.

 

[Ovation]

Some kind of crystal matrix of stabilised chronitons’ boom and you are done,

Yep. Done with the show. I enjoyed TNG enough to buy the series box set on Blu-ray but if I could go back and edit out 90% of the technobabble I’d do it in a heartbeat.

 

[Greg Cox]

Clues, The Drumhead, Lower Decks, Duet, The Wire, all wonderful "bottle shows" filmed on existing sets using already existing props and requiring no newly-filmed space shots either.

See also "Journey to Babel."

 

[gblews]

The tech should never be the plot in Trek, just a plot device. The plot should focus around ideas, people, and difficult choices which lack simple answers.

You're saying that the spore drive was the sole plot driver in season 1. I maintain that it wasn't the sole plot driver in any episode. If you disagree, please name the episode(s). The spore drive was never anything more than a plot device, albeit more important than the warp drive or transporter, but a plot device nonetheless.

The importance of the drive, it was being prepped to be a major tool in the war, was stressed from the first time we see the Disco. As a plot device, it was used similarly to the way a brand new type of ship or other piece of new tech in Star Trek. Think of the slip stream drive in Voy or the Defiant in DS9. A certain amount of time was devoted to the spore drive in certain episodes, which led to crew interaction, which in turn provided a vehicle for character growth, drama, and storytelling. But this was only in certain episodes.

In other episodes it was some other plot device, like the magic time crystals, or the MU, or the Klingon shrine, or Georgiou's telescope, or the Tartigrade. But none of these were the sole point of any plot in any episoe. As I said, if you disagree, please name the episode(s) that you think fit your discription.

 

[Awesome Possum]

The Time Orb has a lot of set up in the show, which makes it essentially an extension of existing lore. (All the tears of the prophets, the other time displaced by the prophets episodes, the fact they exist outside of time etc...)
Time Crystals do not have that luxury, and sound silly. Technobabble On established Trek basis would have sounded better. ‘Some kind of crystal matrix of stabilised chronitons’ boom and you are done, laced with pure Treknobable uncut.
‘Time Crystals’ is He-Man, and such a vague concept it could refer to the quartz in my wristwatch.

Except that time crystals are an actual thing that has been created in a laboratory.

A time crystal or space-time crystal is a structure that repeats in time, as well as in space. Normal three-dimensional crystals have a repeating pattern in space, but remain unchanged as time passes. Time crystals repeat themselves in time as well, leading the crystal to change from moment to moment. A time crystal never reaches thermal equilibrium, as it is a type of non-equilibrium matter — a form of matter proposed in 2012, and first observed in 2017. This state of matter cannot be isolated from its environment[citation needed] – it is an open system in non-equilibrium.

The idea of a time crystal was first described by Nobel laureate and MIT professor Frank Wilczek in 2012. Later work developed a more precise definition for time crystals. It was proven that they cannot exist in equilibrium.[1] Then, in 2014 Krzysztof Sacha at Jagiellonian University in Krakow predicted the behaviour of discrete time crystals in a periodically-driven many-body system.[2] In 2016, Norman Yao et al. at the University of California, Berkeley proposed a different way to create time crystals in spin systems. From there, Christopher Monroe and Mikhail Lukin independently confirmed this in their labs. Both experiments were published in Nature in 2017.

It doesn't sound as cool as time orbs and other silly shit like that, but it's actually based on something real and was probably just discovered at the time of the writing. So I do find it funny that Trek fans find pure fantasy more realistic than actual research done on this planet.

 

[jaime]

Except that time crystals are an actual thing that has been created in a laboratory.


It doesn't sound as cool as time orbs and other silly shit like that, but it's actually based on something real and was probably just discovered at the time of the writing. So I do find it funny that Trek fans find pure fantasy more realistic than actual research done on this planet.

Then those scientists had cheeses naming approaches xD and did DSC give us the info Dump? They should have, particularly if it’s real world science being used. It doesn’t have to be lengthy, but if they had throw in ‘theorised in 2012’ or ‘theorised in the early 21st century and observed shortly after’ it would have been more informative, which sometimes is one of the jobs of SF.
If it wasn’t real science, would it’s name sound hokey to you too?

 

[Awesome Possum]

Then those scientists had cheeses naming approaches xD and did DSC give us the info Dump? They should have, particularly if it’s real world science being used. It doesn’t have to be lengthy, but if they had throw in ‘theorised in 2012’ or ‘theorised in the early 21st century and observed shortly after’ it would have been more informative, which sometimes is one of the jobs of SF.
If it wasn’t real science, would it’s name sound hokey to you too?

No, it was published and fairly well reported to anyone who reads any news source that has a science section. Really anyone with even a hint of interest in actual science would have known about it. Maybe the writers were respecting the intelligence of the audience to catch the mention of a recent discovery that got a lot of press. That the audience was actually smart and cared about science. I've seen it argued on this very forum that the show never does it. But when they actually do use eal science, not made up technobabble meant to explain warp drive and teleporters, these same fans act like it's the silliest concept they've heard of. I guess the were wrong to do that, a lot of this audience clearly needs everything spelled out for them based on your idea of how it should have been presented.

Also if it wasn't real science it would sound like all other technobabble from Trek. It stuck out to me because I have an interest in actual science and take the time to read websites that aren't just about Star Trek or scifi. Vice had a whole series of articles explaining it, what it meant and what it could lead to. Even Rick and Morty referenced it a few times and it's audience ate it up because they like to brag about how smart they are.

But not Trek fans, they want cartoonish sciencey mumbo jumbo because real science doesn't appeal to them.

 

[jaime]

No, it was published and fairly well reported to anyone who reads any news source that has a science section. Really anyone with even a hint of interest in actual science would have known about it. Maybe the writers were respecting the intelligence of the audience to catch the mention of a recent discovery that got a lot of press. That the audience was actually smart and cared about science. Real science, not made up technobabble meant to explain warp drive and teleporters. I guess they were wrong to do that, a lot of this audience clearly needs everything spelled out for them.

Also if it wasn't real science it would sound like all other technobabble from Trek. It stuck out to me because I have an interest in actual science and take the time to read websites that aren't just about Star Trek or scifi. Vice had a whole series of articles explaining it, what it meant and what it could lead to. Even Rick and Morty referenced it a few times and it's audience ate it up because they like to brag about how smart they are.

But not Trek fans, they want cartoonish sciencey mumbo jumbo. I guess they aren't as smart as they like to think they are.

*ducks bit of broken truth flapping about after hearing snapping sound, pirouettes around insult because hey, why not*

I think you exaggerate how commonly it was reported, and do Trek fans a dis-service. Though you are of course entitled to your opinion. 2012 was a busy year for me, so my general news reading was low, and my science reading more so, but I haven’t come across it in the usual places we get the ‘hmm that’s I teresting’ stories show up. So maybe it wasn’t that big a news for anyone with a passing interest in science. Regardless, as that’s not my point, my point was that ‘time crystals’ sounds like Hokey sci-fi concept.