I just don't understand how this technology has affected the Star Trek Voyager series. They should have gone home less than 5 seconds from Delta to Alpha quadrant.
The Spore Drive Technology. What Do You Think About It?
- Thread starter Kane_Steel
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I just don't understand how this technology has affected the Star Trek Voyager series. They should have gone home less than 5 seconds from Delta to Alpha quadrant.
Once the spore drive has served it purpose story wise i suspect it will end up on the shelf next to trans warp, the galaxy range transporter and the massive in-ear communications device, and never be heard of again. lol
You can't progress as a civilization, or have peace and trust without a respect for reality - what the world is really like informs people and prevents tyrants and demagogues from pulling the wool over our eyes - a genuine love and wonder for the chance we have been given to study the mysteries of our existence is essential for healthy democracy.
Star Trek is sometimes inconsistent, but has an observable tendency anyway, toward respect for truth. This is why people are perhaps a little apprehensive about what might be pseudoscience appearing in Star Trek, not because they are unaware of fictional priorities - but because they might be disappointed if Star Trek contributed to obscurantist ideas about science, rather than public literacy. You can also do most things in sci-fi without violating natural laws too badly anyway, so I think many people appreciate the franchise when it tries.
No, Star Trek isn't an educational show, and has been treated as a profit making enterprise, first and foremost, for most of it's history. But would it have garnered the lasting respect if it hadn't tried, and had just been another "Lost in Space" full of magic?
The energy density of different fuels:
Antimatter (warp drive)
90,000,000,000 megajoules per kilogram - random antimatter
Nuclear fusion (impulse engines)
380,000,000 megajoules per kilogram - deuterium and helium 3
Nuclear fission
80,600,000 megajoules per kilogram - uranium
Chemical reactions
46 megajoules per kilogram - gasoline
37 megajoules per kilogram - fat
26 megajoules per kilogram - alcohol
25 megajoules per kilogram - coal
17 megajoules per kilogram - carbohydrates
16 megajoules per kilogram - protein
16 megajoules per kilogram - wood
Electrolysis
1.8 megajoules per kilogram - lithium battery
Obviously, carbohydrates such as sugar are the main fuel source of humans, plants, bacteria and fungi - if you burn a fungus you are mainly seeing energy from the carbohydrates in it's cells, as well as protein.
When someone says they can believe a fictional mineral like dilithium more than a fictional mushroom, they are being quite reasonable - they are just applying a High School level knowledge of energy density. So no, it's not reasonable to say magic stones and magic fungi are equivocal in terms of believability - it remains to be seen how these spores work, but some sort of quantum entanglement is about all I can think of.
Maybe the fungus will not be a big deal, or will be explained more, we shall see. But the idea it is right now just as believable as a mineral as a fuel source is not correct.
Star Trek is sometimes inconsistent, but has an observable tendency anyway, toward respect for truth. This is why people are perhaps a little apprehensive about what might be pseudoscience appearing in Star Trek, not because they are unaware of fictional priorities - but because they might be disappointed if Star Trek contributed to obscurantist ideas about science, rather than public literacy. You can also do most things in sci-fi without violating natural laws too badly anyway, so I think many people appreciate the franchise when it tries.
No, Star Trek isn't an educational show, and has been treated as a profit making enterprise, first and foremost, for most of it's history. But would it have garnered the lasting respect if it hadn't tried, and had just been another "Lost in Space" full of magic?
The energy density of different fuels:
Antimatter (warp drive)
90,000,000,000 megajoules per kilogram - random antimatter
Nuclear fusion (impulse engines)
380,000,000 megajoules per kilogram - deuterium and helium 3
Nuclear fission
80,600,000 megajoules per kilogram - uranium
Chemical reactions
46 megajoules per kilogram - gasoline
37 megajoules per kilogram - fat
26 megajoules per kilogram - alcohol
25 megajoules per kilogram - coal
17 megajoules per kilogram - carbohydrates
16 megajoules per kilogram - protein
16 megajoules per kilogram - wood
Electrolysis
1.8 megajoules per kilogram - lithium battery
Obviously, carbohydrates such as sugar are the main fuel source of humans, plants, bacteria and fungi - if you burn a fungus you are mainly seeing energy from the carbohydrates in it's cells, as well as protein.
When someone says they can believe a fictional mineral like dilithium more than a fictional mushroom, they are being quite reasonable - they are just applying a High School level knowledge of energy density. So no, it's not reasonable to say magic stones and magic fungi are equivocal in terms of believability - it remains to be seen how these spores work, but some sort of quantum entanglement is about all I can think of.
Maybe the fungus will not be a big deal, or will be explained more, we shall see. But the idea it is right now just as believable as a mineral as a fuel source is not correct.
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It's like midichlorians, omega molecules, red matter or genesis wave. It's just another magic-techno-babble nonsense macguffin plot device. They could have said "subspace wave propulsion", or "blue matter particles" or "thing-a-majig gravimetric ray bursts" and it would make no more or less sense than this does. So why not Spore Drive? They had super transporters in Abramsverse. So now we have Super warp. I regard this as a reimagination of Star Trek anyway, so let them make up whatever they want.
Well then, in that case why can't the Discovery use four Diluthian Swamp Goats for propulsion?
It's a rare species that feed of sub space fungi spores, and which have the ability to travel along the sub space spore-corridors really fast.
All the Discovery needs is to take four of them and tie them to front of the ship.
(They can be steered either through a quantum relativistic brain implant, or by Burnham sitting on top of them with a carrot tied to a stick, take your pick!)
Scriptwriters in the 60 70 80 and 90ties didn't had a good idea how to interpet for instance string theory in a script. Nowfor instance there is evidence for gravitational waves so string theory and living in a holgraphic univerers could be correct. I guess the spore drive looks like a sort of string manipulation to the biologicel level. I also gues that fighting the Klingons is a distraction they will figuere out (in the first or second season) howe time and space (strings/spors) realy realy works but so do other species/fractions. They will end up (Section31) in a temporal cold war restoring there time line for ever (Section31 fate). Much better would be they find out that we live in a Holgraphic Univers and are searching for the source.
I like that it's not a completely safe choice and is a bit inspired. It'd be real easy to make this some techno thing that'd be probably just as ridiculous but be more acceptable sounding on the surface and more in line with Trek "science". If nothing else this doesn't feel completely done by committee.
Oh, for crying out loud. That's ridiculous. Everyone knows you need six.
What you're saying is 100% correct. However, Trek cannon is so littered with existing technobabble I'm not sure why they felt the need to create new technobabble rather than mine what is already there.
I love the spore drive, it's new, exotic and exciting (well not really, but it's fun, new and exotic). It's exactly as believable as any other Star Trek Magic(c). Star Trek has always been as scientifically accurate as my imaginary pet gerbil's predictions about the future.
As poster Billj is fond of pointing out, using TOS speeds and technology Voyager should have been home in days.
Star Trek has a tenet of believability. Extensions of current science or engineering beyond what we can do today. That drive sounds like the worst technobabble created, or close to it.
Here's my hypothesis. The spore drive will only work with the slugs. The slugs will come from a border planet (maybe the wrong side of the border. It will have a minimum 20% failure rate. The federation will use a spore attack once (whether with "long range torpedos" or ships appearing in atmospheres for planetary bombardment. The Klingons will capture a ship and reverse engineer it with a higher failure rate. The parties see the level of potential destruction and come to a treaty ban of spore technology (in addition to other tactics) and placing the slugs in a neutral zone (or the Klingon's commit genocide on them). The Klingons then look at the federation as honorable for never breaking that treaty and, at times, effective warriors for their use of science for waging war.
What do you think will happen with the spore tech?[/QUOTE]
What do you think will happen with the spore tech?[/QUOTE]
I honestly don't really think the spore drive is any different than many other things in Star Trek. We accept (at least most of us) biological creatures doing all kinds of crazy stuff. There are several species that communicate telepathically. The Travelers have their weird understanding of subspace and warp drive. Kes had her telekinetic powers. I don't think warp drive fungus is that outrageous.
I feel like Alien, Lovecraft, and Warhammer 40K has wandered into Star Trek. That's what I feel like.
That's okay, I once felt like Shakespeare, Wagon Train and Forbidden Planet had wandered into Star Trek.
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