Spoilers Why do they need Dilithium?

[Deks]

I do think they fear change and that has been the case for a while now. They don't want to drift too far from what has made Trek successful in the past. Not just now, but also with other writing teams throughout. Same with the viewers at times. I see it reflective in so many different aspects of the franchise, from production teams, to writers, to fan art to fan films that it feels very much wanting to linger in the familiar than to explore something new.

I agree that current technological progress has far outpaced what Trek could imagine in terms of computing and programable matter and the like. But, Trek has remained inside its little box for too long. I have hoped it will change and it has not done so. I don't expect it to do so now.

Roddenberry certainly didn't seem to shy away from the idea of technological advancement... but his idea of Federation exploring other galaxies in late 24th century (while definitely appealing) was shot down apparently by the network (it actually made sense that TOS ships would be zipping around the Milky Way in the 23rd century with 100 years of advancement doing that to Warp drive and multiple species working together, with the 24th or 25th century having Federation ships exploring other galaxies - that certainly has more merit on the technological progression curve for a collection of alien species like the Federation).

I mean, there would be little point to making Trek stories in the far future without trying to extrapolate massive technological advancements and changes that would have followed... otherwise it seem very lazy (and the writers had more than enough material from 24th century to work with).
Unless of course we're being taken for a ride and we WILL get more - but as I said, I'm skeptical of Discovery writers being capable of that.

But for all we know, the Federation DID explore other galaxies in the 930 years that followed.
It may even have bases there (such as say in Andromeda and/or smaller even closer galaxies).
Wouldn't THAT be interesting to see at least?
The Spore Drive can certainly take Discovery there (anywhere in the universe really).

If the Federation did expand into other galaxies and then Milky Way (and possibly others) became cut off due to the Burn...it opens up other possibilities. Perhaps also someone artificially hamstrung technological development by removing previous data on alternative methods of power generation and propulsion... but even with that happening, the technological base people had would still allow them to advance from that point.

Still, I hope to see 'more' in regards to technological advancement than what we saw thus far.

 

[fireproof78]

Unless of course we're being taken for a ride and we WILL get more - but as I said, I'm skeptical of Discovery writers being capable of that.

Honestly, I don't think Trek writers are capable of that.

I'm with you-I want more technological development. I don't expect it.

 

[NCC-73515]

Perhaps she thought (and remember, she had a year to familiarize herself with the technology of the era) that DASHing into Saturn's orbit (high orbit, for sure, but still likely within the Saturnian lunar system) would mask the ship from detection by sensors, especially ones dedicated to detecting warp ships.

They should've jumped into one of the moon's atmosphere, and then risen up like the Kelvinprise

 

[fireproof78]

They should've jumped into one of the moon's atmosphere, and then risen up like the Kelvinprise

Still one of the best shots in Trek films, bar none, in my opinion.

 

[NCC-73515]

And now imagine that with the Disco. Proper lighting and soundtrack would make even the haters say it's not so bad in that shot XD

 

[fireproof78]

And now imagine that with the Disco. Proper lighting and soundtrack would make even the haters say it's not so bad in that shot XD

Hahaha


No.

 

[Therin of Andor]

It's Saturn, hence the rings.

"Jupiter also has several rings, but unlike the famous rings of Saturn, Jupiter's rings are very faint and made of dust, not ice..."

https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/jupiter/in-depth/

 

[Noname Given]

In the most recent episode we learned, via Discovery making the trip from Jupiter to Earth in roughly ten seconds with the warp core powered down and all it's Dilithium hidden on another ship, that Discovery's fusion engines can get the ship traveling somewhere around 262 times light speed.

Which according to the official scale puts it somewhere around Warp 6 on the TOS scale, and somewhere around Warp 5 on the TNG scale.

This means that with just Discovery's level of Warp technology, Discovery's level of Fusion technology, and Discovery's reactor size to internal volume, warp travel should have still been viable, if limited to slightly above/around Enterprise era speeds.

But before people say that still might not be enough, look at the three qualifiers. Because 1) We know from DS9 that the Federation has improved it's fusion technology, 2) we know from VOY that the Federation has improved the warp geometry and field formation of its ships, 3) we know from Enterprise that they can make ships which are bigger on the inside, and 4) we know from discovery itself that's there's a lot of extra space they could install additional fusion reactors if they needed to.

So why do they need Dilithium?

Huh? There was no indication that the discovery warped from Jupiter to Earth at all. In fact the whole reason that they jumped in via the spore drive outside of her scanning range, was so that they could claim that they returned to Earth via sublight drive and that's why the ship was a 23rd century ship.

That they could see Earth was just a function of the view screen. View screens even in TOS could see ships billions of kilometers away, so it's not hard for them to get a picture of Earth from the distance to Saturn or Jupiter.

They jumped in and went the rest of the way to Earth from Saturn at sublight speed. It probably took them between one and a half to two hours. That they didn't really bother to show that 2 hours just means nothing happened on the trip.

They do scene compression like that in Star Trek all the time.

 

[Krog]

Ever considered that it was probably much longer than 10 seconds and that was just what we saw on screen?

 

[Timo]

The continuous dialogue from Saturn to Earth has only one weak link we might try and break. When Book and Burnham cease to speak about the spore drive, the camera moves immediately to Detmer stating that Earth is within visual range - but we could treat this as a cut that is three or four hours long, and not fifty milliseconds, to keep it consistent with ST:TMP where a trip half as long as this takes a bit under two hours.

Earth being on the viewscreen is synonymous to the heroes already being there, alas. Because immediately and integrally as part of this, Rhys performs a close analysis of the shield generator satellite they spot, and immediately after (during!) this, the satellite fires up and erects a forcefield around Earth - with the hero ship just one ship's length away!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[DaveyNY]

Earth at this point just isn't looking for anybody from any distance to come visiting, so no need to keep a lookout.
They've been isolationists for quite awhile by the time Discovery shows up and it's probably well known in the quadrant not to go knocking on their 'doorstep' cause they will blow yer arse up!

Only the foolish and/or ignorant (Discovery), or the desperate (the TItan folks) would be so bold.

 

[Imaus]

I always held it that Impulse power was Fusion, at least, at first, and cou;d a

Roddenberry certainly didn't seem to shy away from the idea of technological advancement... but his idea of Federation exploring other galaxies in late 24th century (while definitely appealing) was shot down apparently by the network (it actually made sense that TOS ships would be zipping around the Milky Way in the 23rd century with 100 years of advancement doing that to Warp drive and multiple species working together, with the 24th or 25th century having Federation ships exploring other galaxies - that certainly has more merit on the technological progression curve for a collection of alien species like the Federation).

I mean, there would be little point to making Trek stories in the far future without trying to extrapolate massive technological advancements and changes that would have followed... otherwise it seem very lazy (and the writers had more than enough material from 24th century to work with).
Unless of course we're being taken for a ride and we WILL get more - but as I said, I'm skeptical of Discovery writers being capable of that.

But for all we know, the Federation DID explore other galaxies in the 930 years that followed.
It may even have bases there (such as say in Andromeda and/or smaller even closer galaxies).
Wouldn't THAT be interesting to see at least?
The Spore Drive can certainly take Discovery there (anywhere in the universe really).

If the Federation did expand into other galaxies and then Milky Way (and possibly others) became cut off due to the Burn...it opens up other possibilities. Perhaps also someone artificially hamstrung technological development by removing previous data on alternative methods of power generation and propulsion... but even with that happening, the technological base people had would still allow them to advance from that point.

Still, I hope to see 'more' in regards to technological advancement than what we saw thus far.

Andromeda shouldn't be on the list - too far away - but if we do need something extragalactic the halo and smaller galaxies around us should be fine. ESPECIALLY for the Lovecraftian, old, ancient horror craze/wave going on now. Warhammer has the Ghoul Stars, for example.

And the Trek galaxy is hilariously underexplored, especially the areas around the gamma/delta, delta/beta, and beta/gamma borders, along with the core, which could hold new threats or old civilizations or the like.

I wish the writers would dip into Stellaris and Orion's Arm and the Culture series a bit more, just flesh it out with what could be, while making the stakes not so stupidly big (galactic, universal level stuff should had always been shot down).

 

[valkyrie013]

Favorite Discovery shot is it going through the nebula/gas cloud like voyager.

But yeah, some more hero shots would be nice.

 

[Deks]

I always held it that Impulse power was Fusion, at least, at first, and cou;d a


Andromeda shouldn't be on the list - too far away - but if we do need something extragalactic the halo and smaller galaxies around us should be fine. ESPECIALLY for the Lovecraftian, old, ancient horror craze/wave going on now. Warhammer has the Ghoul Stars, for example.

And the Trek galaxy is hilariously underexplored, especially the areas around the gamma/delta, delta/beta, and beta/gamma borders, along with the core, which could hold new threats or old civilizations or the like.

I wish the writers would dip into Stellaris and Orion's Arm and the Culture series a bit more, just flesh it out with what could be, while making the stakes not so stupidly big (galactic, universal level stuff should had always been shot down).

Andromeda isn't too far away.
With Quantum Slipstream Version 2 which Voyager used in episode Timeless, it managed to achieve a speed of about 10 000 Ly's per minute.
Any phase variance and benamite crystal degradation/manufacturing issues would be overcome with hefty R&D by Starfleet in a few years to maybe ten years (maximum) after Voyager got back (Voyager did most of the grunt work anyway... and if that ship with limited resources can accomplish what it did with QS technology just 4 months after first encountering it... imagine what Starfleet could do with it when over 150 alien races are working together - not only would they be able to solve the phase variance problem... they would also be able to synthesize new crystals in a much shorter time frame - probably days as opposed to years... and they would likely find a way to recrystalize them - in fact, I know that the pocket books aren't canon, but in there, Starfleet did manage to overcome those issues in a just a few years... but B'Lanna Torres was the one who invented the technology to recrystalize benamite - and she probably used recrystalization technology for dilithium crystals and adapted it to benamite - my point is, SF wouldn't have too much issues in overcoming those problems in a few years to a decade after Voyager got back).

10 000 Ly's per minute = 4 and a half hours to reach Andromeda galaxy.

 

[Timo]

Earth at this point just isn't looking for anybody from any distance to come visiting, so no need to keep a lookout. They've been isolationists for quite awhile by the time Discovery shows up and it's probably well known in the quadrant not to go knocking on their 'doorstep' cause they will blow yer arse up!

That's an interesting issue, though. If Burnham isn't streetwise enough yet to know that Earthlings bite the head off anybody trying to visit them, she can't be certain Earth won't spot them at distance X, either. Heck, the former is a rumor she could have caught; the latter is specific and exact technical knowledge.

So how come they drop out of sporespace at Saturn specifically? A former Earthling might think this is way too close for comfort: in the TNG era, ships approaching Sol were supposedly spotted and tracked farther out.

Two options there:

a) Sensors in the 2250s could only spot folks warping in at Jupiter distance or so, making our heroes confident that doubling the distance will mask their unconventional approach. But that's pretty silly: surely a thousand years of improvement could be feared to result in more than twofold range!
b) Sensors in the 2250s were infamous for having difficulty near the gas giants (Titan is the perfect cover against detection of in-warping by Nero in the alternate-timeline 2258, and even in the 2360s, the vicinity of Titan almost masks the mischief the Nova Squadron cadets are up to). This masking might be fundamental enough a phenomenon that Burnham has a basis for counting on it in 3189 still.

The latter I guess is more plausible in every way. Dropping in right next to a planet would be rather inexcusable otherwise, say. And the double precedent for the neighborhood being a sensor cover is pretty suggestive.

Timo Saloninemi

 

[valkyrie013]

Plenty of times even in enterprise where scanning distance was measured in light years. Sol system only being able to scan to Saturn is ludicrous.

The ST09 thing of jumping into the atmosphere of a planet would make more sense.

 

[Ronald Held]

The magnetic poles of a gas giant would be good cover as a place to come out of warp/spore drive. Not certain in the PU if this tactic has been used to hide from sensors

 

[fireproof78]

The magnetic poles of a gas giant would be good cover as a place to come out of warp/spore drive. Not certain in the PU if this tactic has been used to hide from sensors

It has.

 

[UssGlenn]

"Jupiter also has several rings, but unlike the famous rings of Saturn, Jupiter's rings are very faint and made of dust, not ice..."

https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/jupiter/in-depth/

Yeah, I don't see how anyone could look at that scene and think it was Jupiter. The ring systems aren't comparable at all.

 

[Deks]

That's an interesting issue, though. If Burnham isn't streetwise enough yet to know that Earthlings bite the head off anybody trying to visit them, she can't be certain Earth won't spot them at distance X, either. Heck, the former is a rumor she could have caught; the latter is specific and exact technical knowledge.

So how come they drop out of sporespace at Saturn specifically? A former Earthling might think this is way too close for comfort: in the TNG era, ships approaching Sol were supposedly spotted and tracked farther out.

Two options there:

a) Sensors in the 2250s could only spot folks warping in at Jupiter distance or so, making our heroes confident that doubling the distance will mask their unconventional approach. But that's pretty silly: surely a thousand years of improvement could be feared to result in more than twofold range!

More than twofold? Aren't we being overtly conservative/stingy?
A thousand years is a ludicrous amount of time.
From the 23rd to 24th century as you say, they could already spot things lightyears away.
Dedicated/stationary sensor stations (even those on a Starbase) would probably also have greater ranges than Starships.

This is further compounded by the issue that Sahil had access to short range sensors (on a damaged relay station) which allowed him a 600 Ly radius.

For Earth to NOT have something like that in orbit would be really stupid (especially with their notion that they have to defend themselves from Dilithium raiders - in which case you'd want to be able to spot them lightyears away.

Also worthy of note is that Earth's planetary shield didn't come online until Disco was already in Earth's orbit - otherwise, you'd expect Earth to raise it the moment Disco appeared on their scanners.

I mean, WHAT?
Earth's sensors in that case seemingly degraded to what... pre mid 22nd century level it seems.

b) Sensors in the 2250s were infamous for having difficulty near the gas giants (Titan is the perfect cover against detection of in-warping by Nero in the alternate-timeline 2258, and even in the 2360s, the vicinity of Titan almost masks the mischief the Nova Squadron cadets are up to). This masking might be fundamental enough a phenomenon that Burnham has a basis for counting on it in 3189 still.

The latter I guess is more plausible in every way. Dropping in right next to a planet would be rather inexcusable otherwise, say. And the double precedent for the neighborhood being a sensor cover is pretty suggestive.

Timo Saloninemi

Yes, sensors could be fooled by planetary bodies even in the 24th century... however, only if you used those planetary bodies properly.
I'd imagine that 810 years after that point Starfleet's sensors would have improved by an unimaginable amount.

Of course, I'm sure MODERN ships of the 32nd century can hide themselves from modern sensors, but not Discovery.