The warp 5 limit thing would be an excellent mirror for our current climate crisis.
Pretty sure this thread has better plotlines than they're actually going to come up with. Hopefully I'll be proven wrong.
Last edited:
What was "The Burn" and what caused it?
- Thread starter F. King Daniel
- Start date
Pretty sure this thread has better plotlines than they're actually going to come up with. Hopefully I'll be proven wrong.
Restarted watching ENT with my mom and got to the episode where they are attacked by a ship while they were setting up subspace amplifiers. And those get destroyed and now the Enterprise can't even call for help. And that got me thinking how important communication is for any decently sized community of planets. And that if the communication cut out, even if it's just for a few years, the Federation would splinter and falter simply because you can't keep something so big together in the vastness of space if you can't communicate in real time.
So I was thinking, if long range subspace communication is dependent on amplifiers, what if the burn is something akin to an EMP pulse that raced through subspace and knocked out every amplifier? Rebuilding that infrastructure would be a painstaking endeavor, and in the meantime it's the wild west out there. You can't call for humanitarian aid, your fleets are either too far out to receive orders or report back in useful time frames or they can't be reached at all if they venture too far, raids and attacks are unchallenged if there isn't a ship close enough by to receive subspace messages, diplomacy would be ridiculous to maintain for planets that are too far apart, etc. There might even be resentment between different systems, maybe because some systems are deemed more important to get back "online"?
So I was thinking, if long range subspace communication is dependent on amplifiers, what if the burn is something akin to an EMP pulse that raced through subspace and knocked out every amplifier? Rebuilding that infrastructure would be a painstaking endeavor, and in the meantime it's the wild west out there. You can't call for humanitarian aid, your fleets are either too far out to receive orders or report back in useful time frames or they can't be reached at all if they venture too far, raids and attacks are unchallenged if there isn't a ship close enough by to receive subspace messages, diplomacy would be ridiculous to maintain for planets that are too far apart, etc. There might even be resentment between different systems, maybe because some systems are deemed more important to get back "online"?
The other advantage with the Omega theory is it can give you a big bag guy/guys. If you write them as some kind of political group or terrorist group who detonate Omega particles all over the place to create a big reset, then it gives you an enemy that has to be rallied against by survivors. Makes it more interesting than Spore jumping to all the former planets of the federation.
I like the subspace theory.
Could it be that hundreds or thousands of years of warp travel took its toll on the environment and subspace was just wrecked making warp travel impossible?
It makes sense that warp travel would have side effects.
Maybe beings like the Q were playing literal snooker with suns and planets. Much chaos happens later they can't even fix.
Could it be that hundreds or thousands of years of warp travel took its toll on the environment and subspace was just wrecked making warp travel impossible?
It makes sense that warp travel would have side effects.
Maybe beings like the Q were playing literal snooker with suns and planets. Much chaos happens later they can't even fix.
Last edited:
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Kelvan_Empire
Maybe the Kelvin Empire from the Andromeda Galaxy finally got enough technology to get over here and conquer everybody?
Maybe the Kelvin Empire from the Andromeda Galaxy finally got enough technology to get over here and conquer everybody?
^^^
Now that would be interesting. Given what was stated in TOS S2 "By Any Other Name" - the Kelvin Empire could have started an invasion attempt as early as the 29th century.
But why wait till then they could have invaded at any time?
Takes a while to get from there to here.
It takes three centuries each way. (Per dialog from TOS S2 - "By Any Other Name").
If the Federation took Kirk's recommendation,. An automated robot ship with a peace proposal and a list of worlds they could colonize was sent to the Andromeda Galaxy in the 23rd century. such a ship would arrive in the Andromeda Galaxy in the 26th century.
If the Kelvins disagreed, their invasion fleet would show up in the 29th century. Assuming Starfleet back then managed to repulse them, reinforcements might arrive by the 32nd century.
OK so the Kelvans were like the rest of the galaxy limited to warp travel?
I do like the idea that continual use of warp drive damaged subspace for a great chunk of the galaxy.
I do like the idea that continual use of warp drive damaged subspace for a great chunk of the galaxy.
Or the Kelvans waited till they developed superior FTL drives to make crossing the distance between Galaxies reasonable and to where they can deploy a Supply Chain and properly plan out an invasion.
It was explained that regular Warp drive damages subspace, however, it is highly unlikely that this would be the reason behind 'the burn' because Voyager for one thing has variable warp nacelles which circumvent that issue, and it stands to reason that Warp engines on other ships (especially new ones) would be modified and designed in a way to prevent this kind of damage from occurring in the first place (in the meantime, the Federation and the Klingons did agree to put restrictions in place so that only Warp 5 would be used, whereas higher warp speeds would be used in case of emergencies or if the situation deemed it necessary).
Besides, it was established in TNG that the particular (narrow) section of space was afflicted due to it being the only viable option to travel safely in that region.
It is highly unlikely that this would become a problem throughout Federation space because first off, space is HUGE, and second, most ships travel separately and are usually scattered throughout the Federation... most ships don't travel en mass at high warp frequently (only during war time would this happen likely, and I'd be surprised if Starfleet/Federation couldn't find a solution to REPAIR the subspace damage).
Also, why would only the Federation be affected? This would likely have to happen throughout the Galaxy. The Dominion certainly doesn't strike me as caring too much about the environment, and its been in existence for 2000 years.
You'd think they would have been cutoff from the rest of the Galaxy completely and isolated in their space.
Like what?
Apart from the civil war in the Q continuum, it is unlikely that Q would be unable to fix large scale problems or certainly something on a galactic scale).
Actually Daniels was from the 31st century - so unless Daniel's is from an alternate reality, or his faction was not part of the Federation (and I say that because he talked about a monument to the Federation - which could indicate that the Federation in that time either no longer existed or was not the galactic power that it was previously), and Daniels group was a part of something else - we really don't know much about Daniels.
For all we know, Daniels could be working with the remnants of the Federation Section 31.
A monument to the Federation could indicate it simply changed into something else (a different type of organisation that spanned a large portion of the Galaxy)... not that it necessarily diminished or no longer exists.
Daniels did mention he worked for a group that are meant to preserve the timeline (prevent people from changing the past)... but that was brought into question when Silik disconnected the manifold from the Warp core.
Then again, the temporal cold war did affect things to a degree, so its possible that without this cold war, the discharge might never have happened.
Sure they could fix whatever damage their galactic snooker match does, but once the damage is done they might have rules about not fixing things too much because reasons. Who knows what rules godlike beings have amongst each other? If they did have some kind of galactic snooker match maybe the damage was enough they can't fix it without changing destiny for the galaxies inhabitants.
Maybe it was just a really, really good match of Brockian Ultra Cricket... 
Cheers,
-CM-
Cheers,
-CM-
So, you're going on record as saying " It's been a long road, getting from there to here."?
The Burn will probably be Star Trek Online's next massive playable in-game event full of lots of overleveled enemies and voice appearances from Trek stars (who'd still be alive? Maybe bring in Q and Voyager's Doctor. Add in Scott Bakula to play evil old President Archer who decides to destroy the Federation in his time rather than using his Future Guy gimmick). 
...We never hear anybody in-universe suggest that this might be so, though.
And the Voyager sails out pretty soon after "Force of Nature", and the class ship for that class probably was launched even earlier (indeed, "Force of Nature" itself features a USS Intrepid that is in competition with the modern E-D on propulsion efficiency!). Would there be time to build the ship around this new technology? It's unlikely to be a last-minute modification, what with the impulse engines being integrated to the system and all.
Or then, just as you say, it would be pointed out to the decisionmakers that the galaxy had seen four billion years of warp travel, and this has not resulted in any damage so far, outside the Hekarras Corridor. So the decisionmakers probably would just close the Corridor and leave it at that, if not for the next four billion years, then at least for the next hundred.
Of course, while "doing nothing" is a pretty good default position in many cases, including this one, there may arise a point at which somebody does have to do something. But perhaps the Burn is a case of some busybody attempting repairs, a few hundred million years ahead of schedule, and actually fucking it up?
Timo Saloniemi
The Burn will probably be Star Trek Online's next massive playable in-game event full of lots of overleveled enemies and voice appearances from Trek stars (who'd still be alive? Maybe bring in Q and Voyager's Doctor. Add in Scott Bakula to play evil old President Archer who decides to destroy the Federation in his time rather than using his Future Guy gimmick).
Was it ever confirmed that Future Guy was Archer?
Speaking of ENT, I think Daniels looks like Mark Zuckerberg.
