Why Spore Drive may not work in the future

[XCV330]

Just a hypothesis. Clearly no one is riding around on Prototaxis spokes in the rest of trek. I suspect we'll get our answer why eventually. It's been proposed that the reason is that the method for computing the navigation is cruel, and that certainly is a point.

however if that was the only issue, someone with less regard for animals would figure out the same tech eventually and run with it. What we do know from the plot so far is that the fungus is a microscopic web spanning vast distances via some other dimension. Sounds a bit like cosmic strings, but I digress. If this is a mycellium web it is one gigantic (or microscopic depending on the viewpoint) organism, similar to the largest living thing on earth, a fungus in Oregon.

So, if it dies, that's it, no web. It might leave a little theory left to tantalize scientists working on transwarp drive, but that's basically the end of the idea. Anyway that's my fan hypothesis.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Allergies.

 

[Kor]

Perhaps the Klingons sabotage things and end up killing this subspace fungus network, or whatever it is.

Kor

 

[USS Excelsior]

Or it precipitated the Omega directive which was implemented around about that time.

 

[guyute03]

Makes sense. I like the idea that they stop because of what they're doing to those creatures though. Gives me such a heavy Equinox & Captain Ransom vibe.

 

[PhotoBoy]

I was thinking it might be like TNG’s Force of Nature where travelling on the spore network damages those areas of space, leading to areas becoming inaccessible via spore drive. It would need to happen much more quickly and the damage be much more wide spread though to explain why we never see that propulsion method on newer ships.

 

[Mudd]

Oh come on, folks, they're going to stop using it because it's a big Moral Issue. That's what it's for.

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

Even prior to this weekend's NY comic-con, didn't the producers says something several weeks ago about things that apparently at first seem to go against canon would be later revealed to be in line with canon? I know I remember reading an article like that at least a month ago, but I can't find it.

Maybe that would be the case with the spore drive, and there will be an in-story reason why its use was discontinued.

 

[Admiral Rex]

Even if it turns out to be a moral thing, I'd think Janeway would have used it once to get Voyager back home. But then again, Voyager doesn't have a spinning hull.

 

[eschaton]

Tribbles get released into subspace and eat everything?

 

[XCV330]

Even if it turns out to be a moral thing, I'd think Janeway would have used it once to get Voyager back home. But then again, Voyager doesn't have a spinning hull.

It has flappy nacelles.

 

[Amasov]

So, at first I asked myself, "Where was this technology in the 24th century?" -- thinking this could get Voyager home.

Of course, Starfleet was experimenting with transwarp in the 23rd century and ultimately, they never successfully adopted it.

 

[Crazyewok]

I think it just gets banned because of ethics.




The n classified so the romulans and klingons dont get it.

 

[Crazyewok]

Even if it turns out to be a moral thing, I'd think Janeway would have used it once to get Voyager back home. But then again, Voyager doesn't have a spinning hull.

Not if they do a peguses and bury it under a mountin of claffication.

 

[Spot261]

Oh come on, folks, they're going to stop using it because it's a big Moral Issue. That's what it's for.

It wouldn't be a moral issue for the Romulans, the Cardassians, the Borg, whoever. It's not that we don't just see starfleet not using it in the future, we see no one at all using it, no matter how ruthless, cruel, determined or desperate, no matter how sophisticated their tech, no matter where they are in the universe, no matter how high the stakes and how useful it would be.

It stretches credibility that either:

• no one else from the hundreds of trillions of beings in the trek universe had the same idea, or:
• every single person who either did or who became aware of it had too much of a conscience and squashed it despite the massive advantages

It seems far more likely then that in some manner the drive becomes unusable, either through extinction of the spores or the introduction of some insurmountable dangers or problems associated with it (8472 origin story? Could those filaments turn out to be passing through fluidic space? I hope not)

 

[WarpFactorZ]

Not if they do a peguses and bury it under a mountin of claffication.

Computer -- please run a diagnostic on the universal translator.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

My prediction: It's going to stop working. It will be revealed to be a complex system that will break down due to overuse, perhaps after the loss of the mushrooms or the mushroom eating manatees.

 

[Trajet]

Maybe they never find another magic tardigrade and the technology proves to be dangerously unstable without one? My theory about what happened on the USS Glenn is that Ripper had had enough of being used as a living supercomputer, and broke free of his restraints during a jump, leading to chewed up, liquefied crew members. If that doesn't demonstrate a dangerously unstable technology, I don't know what does.

 

[SpocksOddSocks]

Maybe they never find another magic tardigrade and the technology proves to be dangerously unstable without one? My theory about what happened on the USS Glenn is that Ripper had had enough of being used as a living supercomputer, and broke free of his restraints during a jump, leading to chewed up, liquefied crew members. If that doesn't demonstrate a dangerously unstable technology, I don't know what does.

Although, episode 3 suggested that ripper did not kill the Humans, and escaped afterwards and killed the Klingons.

 

[Kor]

Ripper obviously didn't turn the Starfleet people into deformed puddles of flesh.

Kor