Spoilers Theory: The "Villain" in Season 4 might be the Prime Directive

[Unimatrix Q]

https://www.trektoday.com/content/2021/01/kurtzman-what-to-expect-in-season-four-of-discovery/

"There have been many kinds of villains over the course of Star Trek. What happens when the villain is not actually any kind of living, breathing entity, but something else? How do you solve that problem?"

Maybe the "villain" is the Prime Directive, that causes problems because some former Federation members may have lost access to warp technology after the Burn.

Not being legally allowed to contact or interact with worlds that the crew may have known as being members of the Federation, may cause a lot of trouble for the crew.

Especially if some of the crew are citizens of these worlds.

Could one of these planets be Sauria? In this case, there might be a character arc about this for Linus...

 

[Dukhat]

I believe that cultures who were once warp-capable, then weren’t, don’t really apply. The Prime Directive exists so that pre-warp cultures aren’t interfered with by a culture with more advanced technology. So unless Sauria reverted back to a 20th century Earth level of tech in just 120 years after the Burn, I don’t think it’ll be a problem.

 

[The Wormhole]

It's probably going to be a space pandemic. Supposedly Kurtzman and Akiva Goldsman wanted to do a pandemic storyline on Picard but Patrick Stewart vetoed them on it. Assuming that's the only obstacle from doing it on Picard, they can just do the storyline on another Trek series, where Stewart doesn't have input on story content. Since SNW will be episodic, Lower Decks is comedy, and Prodigy will be for kids, Disco really is the only other option.

 

[Unimatrix Q]

I believe that cultures who were once warp-capable, then weren’t, don’t really apply. The Prime Directive exists so that pre-warp cultures aren’t interfered with by a culture with more advanced technology. So unless Sauria reverted back to a 20th century Earth level of tech in just 120 years after the Burn, I don’t think it’ll be a problem.

Could be, but i'm not sure about it. Iirc we never heard about if cultures that lost their warp capability fall under the PD.

 

[Agony_Boothb]

Maybe the real villains are the friends we make along the way.

 

[Dukhat]

No one lost their warp capability. They lost the means to power that capability. But they still know how to build warp engines and still know about other alien races and the Federation. So the PD doesn’t really apply.

 

[Tuskin38]

Maybe the real villains are the friends we make along the way.

Maybe if you're in an Anime.

 

[Unimatrix Q]

No one lost their warp capability. They lost the means to power that capability. But they still know how to build warp engines and still know about other alien races and the Federation. So the PD doesn’t really apply.

I think it may be possible that there were worlds in the Federation that were hit so hard by the burn that their societies fell apart, which may have led to bloody civil wars and the knowledge getting lost.

 

[jackoverfull]

Too complex. I vote for a pandemic too.

Which, in a Trek setting, has been explored in shatner’s third book, by the way!

 

[Unimatrix Q]

It's probably going to be a space pandemic. Supposedly Kurtzman and Akiva Goldsman wanted to do a pandemic storyline on Picard but Patrick Stewart vetoed them on it. Assuming that's the only obstacle from doing it on Picard, they can just do the storyline on another Trek series, where Stewart doesn't have input on story content. Since SNW will be episodic, Lower Decks is comedy, and Prodigy will be for kids, Disco really is the only other option.

Too complex. I vote for a pandemic too.

Which, in a Trek setting, has been explored in shatner’s third book, by the way!

Viruses and bacteria are living things. So a pandemic actually doesn't match with what Kurtzman said.

 

[jackoverfull]

Viruses and bacteria are living things. So a pandemic actually doesn't match with what Kurtzman said.

we’ll see!

 

[Yistaan]

Viruses

From what I recall, viruses aren't technically alive. They're just strands of rogue DNA or something like that.

 

[fireproof78]

From what I recall, viruses aren't technically alive. They're just strands of rogue DNA or something like that.

They are not. They are strands of either DNA or RNA that require a host in order to replicate itself to ensure survivability.

 

[Orphalesion]

The question on whether viruses are alive is..complicated.
https://www.khanacademy.org/test-prep/mcat/cells/viruses/a/are-viruses-dead-or-alive
They tick some boxes, but not others (they don't have cells) and some are kinda depending on how you look at(because they use our cells to do several of the things living things do, such as creating more viruses) it or unknown (then again, fire ticks quite a few of the boxes, and that's definitely not alive) And they clearly mutate as we can all attest right now.

So to use a Star Trek phrase...they might be life, but not as we know it?

If I remember correctly one of my professors in high school once said they might be some sort of life, but completely unrelated to our tree of life and from some sort of independent genesis. Of course that was just his speculation, I think.

 

[The Wormhole]

we never heard about if cultures that lost their warp capability fall under the PD.

Why would they? The whole point of the Prime Directive is to protect a developing society from contamination of learning there are other aliens in the universe. We have seen examples where the Prime Directive is waived with a pre-warp culture because they are aware of alien life anyway, so a culture that had warp drive but lost it wouldn't fall under the Prime Directive.

 

[Lord Garth]

Maybe the real villains are the friends we make along the way.

Hmmm. I don't know if I can say I disagree with you...

 

[Unimatrix Q]

Why would they? The whole point of the Prime Directive is to protect a developing society from contamination of learning there are other aliens in the universe. We have seen examples where the Prime Directive is waived with a pre-warp culture because they are aware of alien life anyway, so a culture that had warp drive but lost it wouldn't fall under the Prime Directive.

I think it may be possible that there were worlds in the Federation that were hit so hard by the burn that their societies fell apart, which may have led to bloody civil wars and the knowledge getting lost.

 

[TimeIsAPredator]

Too complex. I vote for a pandemic too.

Which, in a Trek setting, has been explored in shatner’s third book, by the way!

Unless pandemics or the prime directive develop loads of phasers the I don't see it happening

 

[The Wormhole]

I think it may be possible that there were worlds in the Federation that were hit so hard by the burn that their societies fell apart, which may have led to bloody civil wars and the knowledge getting lost.

In just a hundred years? Really?

 

[Unimatrix Q]

In just a hundred years? Really?

Why not? Nobody would have expected Earth to leave the Federation or that the Andorians would join the Orions to create the Emerald Chain.

And if some of the species have a violent nature like the Klingons, such things might happen.

A hundred years might be more than enough time to erase all that knowledge in this case. Especially if temporal technology and advanced weaponry factor in