Yeah, but it was pretty clear in the episode that the tests were either dead-ends or extraordinarily dangerous. It was pretty clear that there's no "work around" and that the Tardigrade is the necessary link.
Theory why spore drive isn‘t used later on in Star Trek Universe
- Thread starter ChrisRBee
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Yeah, but it was pretty clear in the episode that the tests were either dead-ends or extraordinarily dangerous. It was pretty clear that there's no "work around" and that the Tardigrade is the necessary link.
And without a navigator or Tilly's dark matter-based system, however that will end up, it might stay a means for short-range travel with the computer's calibration as Stamets and Straal initially experimented with it. That's why I randomly thought of its possible applications as an untraceable transporter which something like Section 31 would find very useful. Starfleet itself probably wouldn't experiment with navigators if that can't be solved without genetic engineering, but Section 31 would probably continue to use them if they could... other species, if they even managed to develop something workable, would probably only use it at a short range without finding a Tardigrade.
I admit, I genuinely didn't think of Tilly's dark matter idea before it was brought up, and I really should've, because that's the natural way to proceed with the experiment if one found about it and wanted to eliminate the need for genetic engineering. If the spore drive isn't used for interstellar travel in the future, then the experiment will either fail or it will cause a whole lot of problems that would eventually render it too dangerous to use. We will only know for sure when the experiment is (probably) finished in a later episode.
I'm not recalling it was that clear (hence my comment), but in fairness I haven't watched those early episodes for a while.
"Clear" might be a slight overstatement on my part. It was pretty obvious (but not made explicitly "clear" though dialogue) given the circumstances presented in "Context" and "Butcher's Knife."
If you are suggesting that Tilly's experiments might somehow "break" the ability to travel the mycelial network, I don't think that's going to happen. That is, I don't think they will go the route of "Tilly broke it, so now we can't use it." They wouldn't do that to poor Tilly, making it her fault.
I do, however, think it WILL somehow break -- i.e., something will happen that will prevent anyone in any existing Star Trek from ever traveling in that manner again. I think that is more likely than simply the spore drive be voluntarily "discontinued" for: reasons. Voluntarily discontinuing its use would still make it possible for future use. So why isn't it used in the future?
Granted, that non-use in the future could be attributed to the spore drive being a classified secret. However, that is not as tidy an explanation, since that doesn't guarantee that someone/some other race couldn't independently discover the technology on their own.
So I think it falls back to "it is not used in the future because it's broken." It's possible that every time DISCO uses the network, it does harm to it (maybe that's why Parasite May wanted to speak to Stamets), and that it gets used so much that enough harm is done to the network to close itself off to being used for space travel for a period while it recovers from the harm -- a period long enough to render it useless in human terms for travel (let's say 50,000 years).
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Christopher made a great post over in Lit'verse section about Star Trek and abandoned/one off tech
https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/dis...iscussion-thread.287852/page-64#post-12780047
https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/dis...iscussion-thread.287852/page-64#post-12780047
You could say that forgotten super-tech is an entrenched part of Trek canon.
See also:
Genesis Device (TWOK/TSFS)
Kelvin Warp Drive Modifications (By Any Other Name)
Slip Stream Drive (Hope and Fear)
Klingon ability to fire while cloaked (TUC)
Ability for holodecks to create sentient beings (Elementary, Dear Data)
Transporters can Heal / Restore People (Unnatural Selection)
Ability to Time Travel at Will (City...Forever, TVH, Naked Time, etc)
Red Matter (2009)
Transwarp Beaming (STID)
I myself think Discovery will use the 'broken' explanation itself, as it would, as you've said, tie up the whole thing neatly. I simply observed that even doing this wouldn't be necessary in my opinion, given how much of the spore drive's development required random chance and sheer good luck. Of course, as could be seen from my own argument, its continued presence even as a theoretical possibility still involves a huge amount of convoluted logic and invasive canon surgery, which, I admit, does even more to prove your point.
I agree with this sentiment. However, I'd rather the plot hole (as Christopher admits in his post does exist) not exist if I had my druthers. I'd rather them give a reason why it can't be used, not just they voluntarily decided to not use it.
Having said that and as he points out, we Star Trek fans have always been generally OK with those plot holes, so ultimately I would be fine if the story ends up being that the spore drive technically can still be used in the future, but they just don't. I'd just rather a tidier explanation.
Mycillium network stops ships from using it. Network dies but the multiverse is intact.
Maybe it has something to to with omega particles. They might be able to damage the part of subspace, where the mycellium network exists.
It seems like it's building to that. The network doesn't want them there.
Janeway rewrote 25 years of cosmic history to get her crew home a little faster. I'm curious if their final explanation will be good enough against that.
Janeway knew about the spore drive all along, but she kept it to herself so she could enjoy being the overlord of 141 souls for as long as she desired. All those "close call" episodes were just her own orchestrations to see how disappointed the crew would be and revel in it. Like dangling freshly cooked bacon to a dog just before eating it up and having a good hearty laugh. Then she has coffee.
What, you're surprised that Janeway was evil all along? Why else do you think she hired Neelix as the chef to feed her crew subpar food?
What, you're surprised that Janeway was evil all along? Why else do you think she hired Neelix as the chef to feed her crew subpar food?
They were trying to jump further than the computer can process within the travel time, ergo screwing calculations up and nearly getting everybody killed by Jumping into a Star's Corona.
The problem is that without fast enough computers, Biological Navigators are the only ones that can process it fast enough / safe enough given the speed of travel & volume of information that needs to be processed / decided upon.
Well, May's people don't want them there. But they are an insignificant minority in what reputedly spans all the possible universes! So we're yet to learn how the majority regards spore travel, and why they didn't stop Evil Stamets a few episodes back.
Timo Saloniemi
I wouldn't assume all of May's people don't want Stamets to travel. We don't have enough info to verify that. We know that May doesn't want Stamets to travel along the Spore Network, but maybe she has a faction or group of sentient beings that don't want Stamets traveling. But to classify every member of her species to want the same thing is a bit to early and not enough info IMO. And we can't take her word at face value given her hostility to the protagonists.
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