Romulan warbirds forced quantum singularity as alternative to Starfleet warp drive (dilithium)

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Other species used faster than Warp technologies without issues and ended up with much faster (and more efficient) velocities than Warp alone.
A TW conduit threatened the Enterprise-D with structural collapse in the 24th century when it first encountered it... and yet the crew modified their shields and hull to cope better with the stresses inside the conduit upon secondary attempt and ended up fine on the other side.

Furthemore, when Voyager generated its own TW conduit using the TW coil they stole from the Borg sphere, they were perfectly fine.
In fact, the Delta Flyer used the thing for a while and its structural integrity and overall systems remained intact.

You cannot possibly tell me that Discovery after all its upgrades (or heck, even Booker's ship) cannot withstand being inside TW conduit with a certainty in the range of 99.99% or even 100%. What was SF doing for the past 810 years? Apparently, nothing.

The writers are intentionally making everything look impractical and dubming things down, because if they didn't and SF didn't need to use Warp, then their whole idea of the Burn and failure to find alternate methods of propulsion and power sources falls apart (like we know it easily does).

32nd century Federation technical understanding is really disappointing. It was essentially portrayed as incompetent.
The writers are taking well established technologies which worked perfectly fine and crews were able to adapt to them, and then turns around and says they are 'impractical' (mainly because their primary story wouldn't work otherwise).

It's like the Discovery writers intentionally murdered 99% of StarFleet's engineering staff.

 

[Shawnster]

I wish they had somebody on Staff who knew all of Star Trek Lore as well as the equivalent of the Star Wars Lore Keeper on that side.
Somebody they can use as a reference guide.

Yup. The writers will do what is needed to tell story, lore or no lore.

I know, but the writers could have changed that to make it more realistic.

I've not seen this mentioned yet, and if we're just "in-universe spitballing" then I apologize. From the writer's standpoint, however, it's clear they needed or wanted to make Discovery's spore drive unique and relevant in the 32nd century and they did that by burning up all the dilithium (or maybe it's all just in Federation space, because DISCO isn't clear on that) and, therefore, making Discovery the fastest starship in the galaxy. This makes Discovery unique and priceless among all starships operating in the 32nd century.

 

[fireproof78]

It's like the Discovery writers intentionally murdered 99% of StarFleet's engineering staff.

I really wish the Burn would have ruptured subspace in such a way to make warp travel inherently more unstable and the consistent power of dilithium is what is needed.

I don't need much to support the idea that dilithium is the prime way to travel.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I know, but the writers could have changed that to make it more realistic.

There's realism and there's bog the story down levels of realism.

It's like the Discovery writers intentionally murdered 99% of StarFleet's engineering staff.

The show isn't about 99% of Starfleet's engineering staff. If they need a miracle worker to come up with a miracle it's gonna be an in house engineer.

 

[fireproof78]

There's realism and there's bog the story down levels of realism.

Indeed. It's Star Trek not Popular Mechanics.

 

[Dryson]

I'm surprised that Borg Transwarp Conduit technology hasn't been adapted for use in Federation starships. From what we know, the Borg do not utilize dilithium in their engine cores or we would have seen more of the Borg trying to assimilate dilithium mining colonies.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I'm surprised that Borg Transwarp Conduit technology hasn't been adapted for use in Federation starships. From what we know, the Borg do not utilize dilithium in their engine cores or we would have seen more of the Borg trying to assimilate dilithium mining colonies.

Who's to say they didn't?

 

[publiusr]

A singularity derive does not need antimatter. Why have Dilithium if it mediated M/AM reactions?

Maybe it isn’t the BH itself, but the X-ray jets accretion disk being used?

As far as trans warp is concerned, the Q who cube was straight trans warp. The conduits came later. As far as bad engineering, it doesn’t take long for tribal aerospace know-how to vanish...look at Boeing.

 

[Timo]

Other species used faster than Warp technologies without issues and ended up with much faster (and more efficient) velocities than Warp alone.

We can't really argue "without issues" from the point samples we have seen. So DSC simply establishes that there's a reliability deficiency there, and while you can run an interceptor made of death-resistant materials on super-duper fuel, you can't run an empire based on those.

A TW conduit threatened the Enterprise-D with structural collapse in the 24th century when it first encountered it... and yet the crew modified their shields and hull to cope better with the stresses inside the conduit upon secondary attempt and ended up fine on the other side.

Which is a perfect example of how this could work: the third attempt would have killed them all. Which is something the heroes might have realized, resulting in them not making a third attempt. But it could also be something the UFP finds out through statistics, when 63% of the missions fail to return.

You cannot possibly tell me that Discovery after all its upgrades (or heck, even Booker's ship) cannot withstand being inside TW conduit with a certainty in the range of 99.99% or even 100%.

Why not? It's what the writers are telling us, after all.

What was SF doing for the past 810 years? Apparently, nothing.

Improving the survival odds from 8% to 42%, perhaps? And they may well have hit hard limits there centuries ago already.

The writers are intentionally making everything look impractical and dubming things down

...That is, reinforcing the preexisting truth about the Trekverse. Because, after all, everybody does fly around using dilithium there, in every show and movie. Or then is a superbeing the heroes have to dance around, not mere centuries ahead of the UFP in the tech race, but significant timespans.

That the Milky Way should have "advanced beyond dilithium" while the heroes were inside the timehole is an odd fallacy to cling onto. Why would these 810 years be in any way different from a thousand other sets of 810 years earlier on? The Milky Way by and large has found no alternative to dilithium that would make a difference; the UFP is in no special position there.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Deks]

There's realism and there's bog the story down levels of realism.

Realism in the sense that it would create a sense of advancement connected to how fast things are accelerating in reality and expand the story universe beyond its usual limits to something better.
There's no need to bog anything down.

 

[Unimatrix Q]

I'm surprised that Borg Transwarp Conduit technology hasn't been adapted for use in Federation starships. From what we know, the Borg do not utilize dilithium in their engine cores or we would have seen more of the Borg trying to assimilate dilithium mining colonies.

There is actually a hint in "The Sanctuary" that Transwarp Conduits are a common way to travel in the 32nd century...

" BURNHAM: Kwejian is two weeks away at full warp.

BOOK: Okay.

BURNHAM: And we have less than a 50% chance of surviving the transwarp tunnel."

https://scrapsfromtheloft.com/2020/12/03/star-trek-discovery-s03e07-the-sanctuary-transcript/

 

[fireproof78]

That the Milky Way should have "advanced beyond dilithium" while the heroes were inside the timehole is an odd fallacy to cling onto. Why would these 810 years be in any way different from a thousand other sets of 810 years earlier on? The Milky Way by and large has found no alternative to dilithium that would make a difference; the UFP is in no special position there.

Indeed, yes. There is a lot of assumptions around 32nd century technology while we are being told different things in the story.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Realism in the sense that it would create a sense of advancement connected to how fast things are accelerating in reality and expand the story universe beyond its usual limits to something better.
There's no need to bog anything down.

Thing is, not every thing in reality advances at the same rate. There's no magical formula for X number of years= X level of advancement.
I'm happy with what advancements we've seen.

 

[Fateor]

That the Milky Way should have "advanced beyond dilithium" while the heroes were inside the timehole is an odd fallacy to cling onto. Why would these 810 years be in any way different from a thousand other sets of 810 years earlier on? The Milky Way by and large has found no alternative to dilithium that would make a difference; the UFP is in no special position there.

That's not really true.

The obvious option of the thread title aside, many civilizations didn't use Dilithium controlled mater/anti-matter reactions to generate power or travel faster then light.

Dilithium controlled mater/anti-matter was always treated as the "low hanging fruit" of power generation in prior series. So the question of why the Discovery writers are so obsessed with it is a good one.

 

[Deks]

Thing is, not every thing in reality advances at the same rate. There's no magical formula for X number of years= X level of advancement.
I'm happy with what advancements we've seen.

Thing is, the more advanced you are, you end up experiencing accelerated advancement in ALL areas (exponential advancement and its returns).
A spacefaring organization like the Federation would actually experience even faster advancement because they had over 150 alien species working together.
Let's say a single species is advancing for example at an exponential pace... even 'neglected' areas would saw unimaginable advancement in just 100 years due to increased interconnectivity in the fields etc... nevermind over 150 different perspectives.

Can you imagine all those supercomputers (or their equivalents) each working in specific areas using adaptive algorithms?
My word... the advancement wouldn't only increase, it would be occurring by the minute (and today its already occurring on a practically daily basis).

 

[fireproof78]

That assumes that each species would immediately contribute and determine an agreement of the next course of action, and that that Federation as a whole would act upon those findings. The Federation has demonstrated it is not always willing to do so.

I get it-it's 830 years in the future and apparently it should be flying cars and cities on the Moon. But it's not.

 

[Timo]

is there any real-world example of multiculturalism boosting innovation or research? Seems more as if empires that span cultures would tend to the ultraconservative, coming up with nothing much...

...And, if discovering something, quickly suppressing it so that nobody else gets a whiff of a potential qualitative advantage that might threaten the quantitative one of the empire - see the Royal Navy and its insistence on deliberately backward tech throughout its struggle with France. And its rapid decline after it made the mistake of going forth with the Dreadnought...

The Borg milk multiculturalism in a realistic fashion: it's possible to extort one or two innovations from oddly thinking strangers, after which they become useless to the innovation effort because they get drowned in the sea of mediocrity, preexisting ideas and shared beliefs.

Timo Saloniemi