What was "The Burn" and what caused it?

[XCV330]

This is what I gleaned from Memory Alpha (and my own memory)...





https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Dilithium

So it was definitely a known thing by the 2360's, at the latest.

And "The Burn" sounded like a one time event, so the Discovery should be fine.

I remember the Starlog special for TNG the month before it aired mentioned that recrystalizing dilithium was really one of the big deals for the series, as they weren't going to deal with materials shortages. One of the main reasons TNG is so "utopian" (It isn't but people use the term lightly and I am no better), is directly tied to that. Of all the magic devices in Trek, this might be one of the most magical. So if there wasn't anything left for it to crystallize, that would be problematic.
I'm going to bet that the recrystallizing chamber is one of the first upgrades Discovery gets.

 

[fireproof78]

I don't know, honestly. There are already plenty of questions of why the Federation would fall over dilithium when there were other forms of FTL and recrystalizing what dilithium they did have at play. I doubt going further into it would just raise more questions without satisfying answers. The Burn set the table, hopefully they'll leave it at that.

I guess I see understanding the Burn as a step to understanding the Federation's fall. So I want to know more. I care very little about being satisfied on this front though.

 

[Nerys Myk]

What is the point of jumping a thousand years in the future if everything from a tech standpoint is exactly the same? Star Trek has always been problematic on that front, but we’ve never done such a huge leap before.

Looks like tech has evolved in some areas. Warp travel doesn't seem one that has had a great leap forward at least when it comes to what make thing go. But not all tech evolves at the same pace.

 

[BillJ]

Looks like tech has evolved in some areas. Warp travel doesn't seem one that has had a great leap forward at least when it comes to what make thing go. But not all tech evolves at the same pace.

I’m struggling to see where beyond user interface (which don’t seem that advanced because Burnham is immediately able to tell what they do). Burnham is amazed by a mini-transporter but they’ve been in existence for seven or eight hundred years (2379). So it isn’t impressive to the audience.

 

[fireproof78]

Looks like tech has evolved in some areas. Warp travel doesn't seem one that has had a great leap forward at least when it comes to what make thing go. But not all tech evolves at the same pace.

Nor would I expect it

 

[Nerys Myk]

I’m struggling to see where beyond user interface (which don’t seem that advanced because Burnham is immediately able to tell what they do). Burnham is amazed by a mini-transporter but they’ve been in existence for seven or eight hundred years (2379). So it isn’t impressive to the audience.

She seems to think its pretty cool.
As for personal transporters that operate at the touch of a hand, they seem pretty advanced to me and I'm a Trekkie. I think a few folks might have had it in the past but I don't recall it being common place among the main civilizations in Trek.
Burnham being "impressed" is more important than me.

 

[SJGardner]

I’m struggling to see where beyond user interface (which don’t seem that advanced because Burnham is immediately able to tell what they do). Burnham is amazed by a mini-transporter but they’ve been in existence for seven or eight hundred years (2379). So it isn’t impressive to the audience.

How about nanotech that is seemingly able to reassemble itself into whatever form is required, like a bed or a desk with chair? As for the portable transporters, we are supposed to follow Burnham's wonder at them. I'm not sure that many viewers other than diehard fans would know that they were introduced in Nemesis. Not to mention the truth serum Burnham was sprayed with... she claimed "this thing has a real and integral consciousness", which the Orion guard even confirmed. I'm pretty sure we haven't seen semi-sentient drugs on Star Trek before. That was probably a bunch of AI-equipped nanomachines as well.

After just one episode, I have the gut feeling that they are probably going to portray technological progress via the presence of programmable nanotech. But warp drives, warp cores and dilithium are just so central to the setting that it probably wasn't worth it to introduce a whole new energy production method that would only serve as a backdrop for the backstory because it had already failed a century ago by the time we first heard of it.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I'm not sure that many viewers other than diehard fans would know that they were introduced in Nemesis.

They were? My Trek Fu is weak when it comes to TNG films.

 

[Noname Given]

Trilithium was an explosive in GEN and DS9 but then again nuclear power was also an explosive before it was used as a fuel source for naval vessels and in the Trek universe interplanetary spacecraft.

No...Trilithium Resin (a waste product from Trilithium used in Warp Reactors) was an explosive. (TNG - "Starship Mine")

 

[cooleddie74]

Nerd.

 

[fireproof78]

Burnham being "impressed" is more important than me.

Exactly how I feel. I'm not watching Trek to be wowed by tech. Boring for me because it carries no weight. Is a phase different in application from century to century? No.

 

[Tuskin38]

When book's ship is at warp it doesn't seem to be traveling in a straight line, so there was some sort of advancement there.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

It is sort of amusing that the one visit Archer makes to that century shows an archaic library full of paper and leatherbound books and almost no futuristic technology whatsoever

That's the alternate future that Daniels is trying to prevent, isn't it? Meaning, it's a timeline where Archer never returns to his own time, and therefore never fulfills his destiny to help form the Federation.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Dilithium is a supposedly rare crystal, only located on a few planets. How did first time warp capable worlds control the M/AM reactions before learning of it?

Supposedly on Earth it was mistaken for quartz. According to some novels, museums became rich overnight.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Supposedly on Earth it was mistaken for quartz. According to some novels, museums became rich overnight.

Something... Something... no money

 

[cooleddie74]

That's the alternate future that Daniels is trying to prevent, isn't it? Meaning, it's a timeline where Archer never returns to his own time, and therefore never fulfills his destiny to help form the Federation.

The episode never makes clear that anything else is out of order in that immediate area save for the destruction of the city and the fact that the monument to the Federation is missing. Daniels never says: "This library...paper books...this was never here in my time. This shouldn't be here at all." The implication seems to be that the published information on Earth and galactic history in those books may have been there before the timeline was changed, but who knows? The episode left the changes to history vague enough that you can go either way with the interpretation.

 

[137th Gebirg]

I remember the Starlog special for TNG the month before it aired mentioned that recrystalizing dilithium was really one of the big deals for the series, as they weren't going to deal with materials shortages. One of the main reasons TNG is so "utopian" (It isn't but people use the term lightly and I am no better), is directly tied to that. Of all the magic devices in Trek, this might be one of the most magical. So if there wasn't anything left for it to crystallize, that would be problematic.
I'm going to bet that the recrystallizing chamber is one of the first upgrades Discovery gets.

I remember that! This came about shortly after TVH was made, where Scotty invented the process on the creaky old BOP. If he could do it there, it should be relatively business-as-usual to perfect the tech in a controlled research facility and deploy on all SF warp platforms which are inherently far more stable than Klingon ships. I had assumed that the tech was always there and taken for granted by the time Picard’s crew came around, but I honestly have no recollection of it being mentioned in dialogue during any of the 24th century Berman-era Trek.

They obviously never shared the tech with the Klingons right away, or otherwise Praxis might never have gone pop!

 

[XCV330]

Supposedly on Earth it was mistaken for quartz. According to some novels, museums became rich overnight.

millions of old Casios and Timexes left in long forgotten night stands exploded all at once

 

[F. King Daniel]

millions of old Casios and Timexes left in long forgotten night stands exploded all at once

Earth 3188 is a ruin

 

[yenny]

What ever had cause the burn, except for a omega device weapon, the Federation should have recover with in 120 year.
It seem like the burn was a EMP burst. It probably a Breen type weapon that can cause everything 100,000s of light years from the burst to lose all power. As soon as the burn effect had wear off. Multiple wormholes open up, 10s of thousand starships comes through and begin attacking everything in sight. Destroying Starships, star bases, space stations and planets. The Federation and everyone else repulsed the invaders. But the burn had left a after effect, that caused all dilithium crystal within a 100,000 light year to become useless. Except the crystals that are beyond a 100'000 light years
Someone most likely have left a log of what had cause the burn.