• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Stamets and Cochrane

F. King Daniel

Fleet Admiral
Admiral
Zephram Cochrane is famous for inventing warp drive. He's perhaps too famous, since he only invented it for humans in a Federation of 150 races, several key of which (Vulcans and Andorians) were warping around centuries prior.

Paul Stamets invented a spore drive system that teleports a ship anywhere in the universe, and with correct co-ordinates anywhere in the multiverse and can jump forward in time also. This is insanely huge, and would change everything across the universe of Trek.

Yet, in 125 years of subsequent Trek canon, nobody mentions Paul Stamets or uses his drive system. Inevitably, they'll have to write a story explaining why his drive in never mentioned or used again in Trek, and he'll never have the fame he deserves. It's kind of sad and tragic.
 
There is a lot of magnificent tech in Star Trek universe that someone invents and then by the end of the episode they find some fault or side effect in it and never speak of it anymore. Even if it would have been easy to develop the tech further and maybe eliminate the fault or find a workaround.

So I count spore drive amongst those failed technologies that we never hear again. Sure, it worked for a while but at the end it caused harm to people and used too much mushrooms.
 
So I count spore drive amongst those failed technologies that we never hear again. Sure, it worked for a while but at the end it caused harm to people and used too much mushrooms.
Warp drive caused much more harm to more people in the Trekverse, led to countless deaths over resources (dilithium) and whatnot. The spore drive only caused harm when incorrectly used.
 
What about that crap about the mycelium network destroying all life in all realities? Or am I misremembering and overstating the damage it "almost" caused?
 
What about that crap about the mycelium network destroying all life in all realities? Or am I misremembering and overstating the damage it "almost" caused?

Nope, that really nearly happened. Had the Empress drained the network and it died, all life everywhere in the multiverse would have dropped dead because...well they don't even remotely say why.
 
That would be because he wasn't invented yet.
Much like nobody mentioned brave Captain Archer and the first Enterprise that boldly went where no one had gone before...
And the Cardassian War, and Henry Archer, and the inventor of the transporter that I can't remember the name of
 
One of the major things in Discovery that pissed me off
I mean ffs, how are they going to get out of the whole Spore Drive thing ?
Its clearly not a thing in future Federation vessels.
The Enterprise story with Eriksson was similar, aw ffs here's the guy who invented the transporter, now how come he's never been mentioned in all of Trek ?
 
One of the major things in Discovery that pissed me off
I mean ffs, how are they going to get out of the whole Spore Drive thing ?
Its clearly not a thing in future Federation vessels.
The Enterprise story with Eriksson was similar, aw ffs here's the guy who invented the transporter, now how come he's never been mentioned in all of Trek ?
Did Erikson even invent the transporter? I'm pretty sure Klingons and Andorians were already using them before humans.
 
The Enterprise story with Eriksson was similar, aw ffs here's the guy who invented the transporter, now how come he's never been mentioned in all of Trek ?

I thought Archer asked T'Pol about Andorian transporters, which she replied no, in "The Andorian Incident"?
 
Here it is:

The Andorian Incident said:
ARCHER: Do the Andorians have a transporter?
T'POL: No.
ARCHER: That gives us the element of surprise. We could bring an assault team right into the atrium.
 
The Klingons had transporter tech in ENT I think. Isn't that how the sabotage team got on board?

The Andorians also had one in Season 4, how else could they have kidnapped Soval?

The Enterprise story with Eriksson was similar, aw ffs here's the guy who invented the transporter, now how come he's never been mentioned in all of Trek ?

I could be mistaken, but Cochrane was hardly mentioned after TOS. He's mentioned by name in one episode of TNG, and there is a unit of measurement related to the Warp drive named after him used in one other episode of TNG.
 
Last edited:
The Klingons had transporter tech in ENT I think. Isn't that how the sabotage team got on board?

The Andorians also had one in Season 4, how else could they have kidnapped Soval?
The Klingons certainly used transporter technology in the episode "Marauders"
 
Indeed
But Eriksson was obviously the go to guy on Earth
Never mentioned before "Daedelus"
Never mentioned again (I think)
Cochrane was only mentioned once between his appearance in TOS and First Contact, and he invented the damn warp drive.

I don't see what the issue is.

Do people in the modern day go around dropping the name of the inventor of the TV, Car or Plane in daily conversation?

Archer never being mentioned before is a way bigger issue then Erickson.
 
Last edited:
This is why prequels are inherently silly, because you invariably have retcons that make no sense in the larger scheme of things. Or worse, things that were completely fine for decades now suddenly get changed just to cater to the whims of some shithead scriptwriter. This kind of thing is why we get an iconic character like Zefram Cochrane suddenly morphing into an alcoholic dirty old man who only cares about money and himself (a clear riff on Roddenberry). Or a young Darth Vader who is now a lovestruck Backstreet Boy who turns to the Dark Side in a matter of seconds for no real logical reason.
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top