Theory why spore drive isn‘t used later on in Star Trek Universe

Why didn't those species do the same thing with the dozens of tech Starfleet and other people have also discovered and discarded over the years?

Discovery is not unique in this regard.

 

Fair enough.

 

It's one those suspension of disbelief instances.

 

Unless something happens that completely "shuts down" the spore realm altogether, or at least closes it off from all outside access.

Probably the latter, esp. given the comments by "May" in An Obol For Charon.

 

Yes the network must not allow any entries or ceases to exist.

 

I sense a galactic topical application of anti-fungal cream is about to be applied to the network... ooer!

O_o

 

I wonder if this is a red herring, and they won't actually end spore jumping as we're all assuming? The spore drive is what makes the USS Discovery unique among Trek vessels and the first half of season two seems awfully soon to retire a concept that can take them anywhere and anywhen in the multiverse. There's so much untapped story potential!

Very good point. It has to be more than just the Federation choosing not to use it on moral grounds.

Stamets was talking about calculations to close off the network so I'm guessing that's where it goes. If it does.

 

It very much seems that the Red Things appeared as the direct result of the Starfleet spore drive use. There's the timing, and then there's the fact that only spore drive would allow "New Eden" to take place at all, yet "New Eden" taking place seems to have been part of the great plan of the force behind the Red Things.

If the spore drive "solution" is offered in the first third of the season already, then the Red Thing "solution" sorta follows as well. How it could be stretched to span the rest of the season, with at least five and probably six Red Things to go, is a bit of a question.

Timo Saloniemi

 

I imagine the spore drive could be used again as a point of drama, if they have to cut it off or stop using it.

 

So maybe more of a "hey you kids, get off my lawn" type situation?

 

Spore drive must not exist, else Janeway would have used it

 

Or if there is a moral reason why she wouldn't.

If the drive is harming aliens to use it, she won't use it. Remember Equinox.

Also if it isn't in the ships computers she can't make one. Plus it looks like ships need special modifications to use it properly. She probably wouldn't be able to do that without a dry dock.

 

Exactly. It's not like she could just walk up to any terminal, inquire about the spore drive and be instantly linked to "Spore Drive Documentation P.Stamets TOP SECRET v3 Final.pdf" and prompted for a password. This is also the main reason why I think it's improbable that other races would steal (or, in the Borg's case, assimilate) the research data. It's probably not stored on a location that an Obsidian Order agent could easily access.

And as I've said earlier in this thread, other races developing a spore drive that can be reliably used to jump over interstellar distances is just as improbable in my opinion. Without the Tardigrade, you essentially have a shiny toy that's woefully inaccurate over a range of a few hundred kilometers. Stamets said the longer the jump, the less accurate it is, because the computer needs to calculate for more possible outcomes. Basically, if you don't have a sentient navigator, your effective range is limited by your available processing power and at that range it's ultimately too complicated, too dangerous, and most importantly, too costly and wasteful to use if you have more reliable and less energy-intensive alternatives.

And don't forget that the Glenn only encountered the Tardigrade by accident, because whatever method they were using to gather spores instead of growing them lured it there. Not only is it practically able to shrug off a photon torpedo to the face, it's also incredibly dangerous if agitated (which, obviously, lovers the chances of surviving an encounter with it), and as The Butcher's Knife demonstrated, its connection to the mycelial network isn't even apparent if you don't see it interacting with the spores or reacting to jumps. Now, Tilly has started to hypothetise that navigators might be replaced with dark matter, but we only found out about that by accident too. I don't suppose many research ships fly into regions with high concentrations of dark matter while they are carrying large amounts of spores as well.

Basically, there are so many steps involved that rely on unholy amounts of good luck or depend on random chance that I think the probability of someone independently reproducing Discovery's results is negligible. It's not unconceivable, but possibility doesn't mean certainty. That being said, I still admit that the cleanest and easiest way, storywise, to solve this Gordian knot of mycelia would be to simply render the entire network inaccessible.

 

And not an Iconian gateway?...

Edit: Or Q, or the aliens from "The Nth Degree", or stasis and a temporal anomaly, etc, etc, etc. I mention the Iconians specifically for a reason, here - their involvement is the theory I favor.

 

Discovery is a science vessel. Cutting edge experimentation and technology. What if this technology takes 25 years to "perfect"? What if we then replace the name "Spore drive" with the name "Transwarp"? And then, what if, after three decades of experimentation, this "Great experiment" is considered a failure and all ships are retrofitted with traditional warp drive?

 

Still a tactical tool if you can jump light years accurately,and not be detected until you appear.

 

Nah, she wanted the crew under her to suffer. Look at all the chances they had to get hope faster that she deliberately spoiled. And that's just what we know of.

 

Nope. This is a tailored crisis - tailored for a starship with a jump drive. You need the ship to deal with the radioactive rain of rocks, and furthermore you need the ship to be packing a dark matter asteroid.

It's a step-by-step plan with, if not split-second, then at least minute timing. If not for the careful guidance of the Red Things, a starship with the means to deflect the radioactive ringfall would not have arrived at Terralysium at the exact minute required to complete this step of the quest.

We're yet to see whether all the Red Things are directly related to carefully orchestrated quest steps. But the spore drive is front and center there: unless Connolly got the distances wrong (a distinct possibility, considering the dialogue in "New Eden"), the second Red Thing apparently wasn't even one of the original seven, but an all-new signal, in any case appearing in such a way as to force the use of the spore drive. Everybody is seeing these signals, including Klingons and Terralysian primitives, but only the Discovery out of all the assets in the universe is in a position to act on them. And rather clearly because she is being put in that position.

Plenty of suspects for who is doing the putting. Spore Aliens who want to regulate Starfleet use of the technology - we've seen one who claims to be such. Do-gooders who subcontract Starfleet to Quantum Leap and Put Right What Is About To Go Wrong when they Gods Themselves are too busy - we've seen the angelic connection and, in a seemingly unrelated thread, the Preserver obelisk (now upside down and glowing red, so Preserver Satanists?). Spock - he's explicitly in on it somehow, he's a sensitive individual who might be doing mushrooms, and we know mere mortal individuals plugged into the mycelial net can work miracles. And then Starfleet/Section 31 - they are up and about, they may soon be revealed to be manipulating Spock, and they would be the only Alpha Quadrant regulars other than our main heroes and L'Rell who actually know the spore drive exists.

Any of these players could have enough clout to put a stop to Starfleet use of the tech. None can touch the existence of the tech, though - the stakes there are the highest ones imaginable, as all the universes vitally depend on the tech continuing! But this is also reassuring, as if the continuing could even in theory be in jeopardy, the repercussions would have been felt already. Not even an Evil Stamets can put much of a dent in this, as we so readily observe.

Timo Saloniemi

 

The USS Voyager may not get trapped in the delta quadrant in the CBS prime timeline like it did in the original timeline. We’ll have to wait until the Picard series drops to find out, that’s if they can use legally use characters from VOY....

 

you've lost me - this is the original timeline.