Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 2x12 - "Through the Valley of Shadows"

[Gingerbread Demon]

Generally enjoyed it. Found Pike's vision of his unpleasant future illuminating, but hardly unexpected. Seems to me that the whole time crystal thing is a bit hokey, but then again, so is the whole spore drive thing.

I found loopholes.

If he hadn't taken the crystal that future doesn't seem set in stone. Taking the crystal means that future is set in stone so events later on Talos IV happen just like we know they should.

Also the torpedo might not have exploded had he stayed in that room. Or it might have and that would rule out what the crystal showed. So loopholes.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

You misunderstand me. It is the whole idea of a mineral that, by its existence, warps time that I find hokey. Not the idea that Pike has written his future irrevocably (and it's a ruptured baffle plate, not a torpedo).

 

[fireproof78]

As opposed to dilithium?

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

That's a good point, if we're going to discount time crystals why not dilithium too while we're at it? Why is that one the exception?

 

[Tarek71]

That's a good point, if we're going to discount time crystals why not dilithium too while we're at it? Why is that one the exception?

For me the problem is not the Red Angel suit or time crystals or the mycelial network. We all buy that the Tardis can go anywhere in time and space. If we can buy that, we can buy this. My issue was with all of this being understood, built and innovated in the 2250s Federation. If the Starfleet of the 31st century discovers what the Time Lords discovered millenia ago, that it is possible to travel anywhere, anytime, Im fine with that. But how was all this known to 2250s Federation scientists/engineers, but the Borg 140 years later use the much, much slower transwarp hub system. Vorta scientists know nothing about this in the 2370s but Stamets can pull it off in the 2250s?

 

[cooleddie74]

The time crystals on Boreth are one aspect of DSC Season 2 I like and a lot. They're very TOS in feel and nature, a wildly-powerful and exotic substance that doesn't really get explained but is a pivotal plot point and doesn't get a technobabble name.

The time crystals may be one of the most TOS things about DSC. It was nice for once to see advanced tech in a modern Trek series and not have a five-minute scene of technobabble explaining how it works.

 

[fireproof78]

But how was all this known to 2250s Federation scientists/engineers

Except, time travel is still a part of even TOS knowledge. Kirk even remarks that now that they know one method (I believe the slingshot method) they can use it to go back and study history again.

Time travel is something handled inconsistently, at best, in Star Trek. Every single generation, from Archer, to Kirk and on and on. At each interval there should be more knowledge than is actually presented on screen. Even the Vulcans act like it is impossible, even though one of their teams ends up in the past.

Like many Trek technologies the implications are often ignored.

 

[cooleddie74]

And in the case of things we saw in ENT that don't jibe very well with TOS we can chalk them up to being classified or not really talked about outside the highest ranks of Starfleet Command or intelligence agencies. We even see the details of the Xindi Mission and the Delphic Expanse being classified after Archer and Enterprise NX-01 return home and presumably buried so deep in the records that future Starfleet legends like James T. Kirk would know little about one or either other than a Xindi probe launched an unprovoked attack on Earth and 7 million people died.

 

[Tarek71]

Yes, but a few problems. Classification is typically used in the real world to prevent potential enemies from knowing about your advanced tech, not to bury it and make no further research about it yourselves. Second, classifying Fed research would not explain why the 24th Century Romulans, Borg or Dominion have no knowledge of this. They arent bound by UFP classification.

And Enterprise goes farther. They encounter time travel AND a ship that is bigger on the inside! Again, no problem from me that in Daniels era their capability of manipulating space and time is far more advanced. Maybe even instantaneous point to point travel to anywhere in space and time in ships that are bigger on the inside. No problem from me with any of that. Just dont tell me Stamets can do it, but Borg, Dominion, Romulans, 24th Cent Fed cant figure this out. 24th Century Section 31 decided not to use their time travel and uber weapons? I dont think so.

 

[Tarek71]

Time travel is something handled inconsistently, at best, in Star Trek. Every single generation, from Archer, to Kirk and on and on. At each interval there should be more knowledge than is actually presented on screen. Even the Vulcans act like it is impossible, even though one of their teams ends up in the past.

Like many Trek technologies the implications are often ignored.

Yes. I would have hoped for a little less inconsistency in introducing a whole new set of never before seen ubertech. Unfortunately, that is not the case.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

As a research ship the Disco would be at the very cutting edge of what they are working on so why not? Spore drive could be very, very experimental and kind of classified anyway. Only people like the admiral know.

 

[cooleddie74]

How often is the Genesis Device mentioned by anyone in Starfleet after Star Trek IV, set in 2286? Captain Janeway mentions it briefly almost 90 years later when discussing the ramifications of the Omega Directive but that's it in the entire Trek canon post-TVH. The Genesis Device is a technology that can literally destroy a planet and then rebuild it from the subatomic level as a world that can sustain life. If any technology in Trek would prove disastrous to constantly talk about and leak to a potential enemy it would be something like Project Genesis.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

How often is the Genesis Device mentioned by anyone in Starfleet after Star Trek IV, set in 2286? Captain Janeway mentions it briefly almost 90 years later when discussing the ramifications of the Omega Directive but that's it in the entire Trek canon post-TVH. The Genesis Device is a technology that can literally destroy a planet and then rebuild it from the subatomic level as a world that can sustain life. If any technology in Trek would prove disastrous to constantly talk about and leak to a potential enemy it would be something like Project Genesis.

Yes and if anything should have been classified and locked up it was Genesis after the events of that movie just to stop any leaks, but then Janeway knows about it so it couldn't have been a high priority.

 

[KennyB]

I found loopholes.

Award yourself a cookie. Trek NEVER has loopholes.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Award yourself a cookie. Trek NEVER has loopholes.

Thanks but I'll change those beers to chocolate milk I hate beer or any other drinky thing unless its a chocolate mudshake.. That's chocolate milk with a bit of vodka

 

[Timo]

Supertech couldn't plausibly be chained to any sort of a "timeline" anyway. What possible reason would there be for Kirk encountering more primitive tech than Picard? Space shouldn't get more advanced the farther you sail from Earth. It also shouldn't get more advanced with passage of time - because time has already passed, at least four billion years of it, with humanoids inventing everything there is for humanoids to invent, and then moving beyond inventing.

That Pike's folks rather than Picard's get their hands on time crystals first is fine, even though the reverse would also have been. And it's pretty cool that the Klingons got there first, and then classified the whole thing by turning it into a religion.

How to read that bit about Tenavik calling the crystals "namesake of Qo'noS"? Is the entire Klingon culture based on the task of guarding the crystals, going back at least thousands of years?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[eschaton]

Supertech couldn't plausibly be chained to any sort of a "timeline" anyway. What possible reason would there be for Kirk encountering more primitive tech than Picard? Space shouldn't get more advanced the farther you sail from Earth. It also shouldn't get more advanced with passage of time - because time has already passed, at least four billion years of it, with humanoids inventing everything there is for humanoids to invent, and then moving beyond inventing.

That Pike's folks rather than Picard's get their hands on time crystals first is fine, even though the reverse would also have been. And it's pretty cool that the Klingons got there first, and then classified the whole thing by turning it into a religion.

How to read that bit about Tenavik calling the crystals "namesake of Qo'noS"? Is the entire Klingon culture based on the task of guarding the crystals, going back at least thousands of years?

Timo Saloniemi

To be fair, Trek has always, always messed this up. I mean, realistically speaking, most alien races should be vastly more advanced than humanity, considering humans just gained warp travel while other species could have been out and about for thousands - even millions - of years. However, particularly after the end of the TOS "godlike alien" period, Trek focused on races that were more or less on even technological footing to the protagonists - presumably because the best antagonist is evenly matched.

As far as I can tell, the internal logic within the Trekverse is that alien races pretty much universally "evolve" into some sort of weird energy being and sod off somewhere else. No one just sticks around in corporeal bodies for millions of years slowly building their technological base. Thus everyone active on the scene is a newcomer, with no more than a few hundred years in space.

It would be nice if they invented some sort of deeper backstory - like the Iconians having burned their way through the galaxy, which is why no supertech races exist. But I'm not holding my breath.

 

[fireproof78]

Yes. I would have hoped for a little less inconsistency in introducing a whole new set of never before seen ubertech. Unfortunately, that is not the case.

Would I hope so? Sure. But I don't expect it.

 

[JD]

To be fair, Trek has always, always messed this up. I mean, realistically speaking, most alien races should be vastly more advanced than humanity, considering humans just gained warp travel while other species could have been out and about for thousands - even millions - of years. However, particularly after the end of the TOS "godlike alien" period, Trek focused on races that were more or less on even technological footing to the protagonists - presumably because the best antagonist is evenly matched.

As far as I can tell, the internal logic within the Trekverse is that alien races pretty much universally "evolve" into some sort of weird energy being and sod off somewhere else. No one just sticks around in corporeal bodies for millions of years slowly building their technological base. Thus everyone active on the scene is a newcomer, with no more than a few hundred years in space.

It would be nice if they invented some sort of deeper backstory - like the Iconians having burned their way through the galaxy, which is why no supertech races exist. But I'm not holding my breath.

The Progenitors created all of the other humanoid races at around the same time, so maybe they've all just followed a fairly similar rate of progression.
As for the whole time crystal, advanced tech debate, Trek and other shows do this kind of thing all the time, so I just don't really think about it anymore. If someone wants to try to explain away later, that's fine, but otherwards at this point, I just shrug my shoulders and move on.

 

[cooleddie74]

We never got a detailed explanation of how the Eymorg women installed Spock's brain into their central computer network. All we were told is that it was placed in the central node and light rays of some kind connected his brain to the Eymorg underground power and environmental systems.