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The only issues I have (currently, until proven wrong) with DIscovery with the Spore Drive and other technological things, is that it didn’t seem to have an answer for why the Federation didn’t use it later. I do know that in the timeskip season, a log does not mention the use of the s-drive.
But man I can only imagine how pissed Admiral Janeway would have been to find out it exists.
Plus I can’t hate a show that has Doug Jones in it. I didn’t get into Discovery, but I don’t hate it.
it didn’t seem to have an answer for why the Federation didn’t use it later.
Well, you need to either find and enslave an exotic space tardigrade in order to navigate the network, or illegally splice said tardigrade’s DNA into your own.
And even then, navigation is pretty challenging, and can result in accidental time and/or interdimensional travel.
And a malfunction has the potential to destroy all life in the multiverse.
And both ships that had the prototypes installed were lost within about a year.
Take your pick, really.
Yyyyyyeahhh genetic modification has been a BIG NO-NO in trek canon since the 1990s eugenics wars, right…?
They’ve temporally shifted the eugenics wars so they’re no longer in the 90s but post those wars? Yeah. Genetic experimentation is still insanely illegal and taboo to all living hell.
There are allowances for genetic therapies to treat medical conditions, but this probably falls outside of that realm just a bit.
For the reward of instantaneous travel, I’m sure the Federation could muddle its way through amending a 100 year old law. The rest of the points don’t seem all that different than the complications we see our heroes regularly encounter exploring the galaxy. And none of them were enough to convince the crew of the Discovery to stop using the spore drive for the rest of the series.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Discovery anyway. Trek is full of miracle technologies that go conveniently forgotten. Janeway has no reason to be miffed given that she sat on an infinite speed drive herself, which had no downside that the doctor wouldn’t have been able to cure after it took them home.
For the reward of instantaneous travel, I’m sure the Federation could muddle its way through amending a 100 year old law.
Not really. The Federation, humanity most of all, are aggressively against genetic engineering. On top of it the genetic engineering requires one of those specific species of tardigrade. None were found despite Starfleet having a call put out to go looking for it. Only one was found and that was on accident.
The rest of the points don’t seem all that different than the complications we see our heroes regularly encounter exploring the galaxy.
Navigation in the other Trek shows isn’t difficult. It’s pathetically simple provided you’re not going through some weird distortion or nebula that messes with a bunch of shit. Warp also doesn’t destroy all known sentient life in the galaxy. Whether the Discovery keeps using it or not is irrelevant. At the time that the Spore Drive was known, it was not feasible to make another attempt at a spore drive. They did not have any of the originating scientists, they did not have required materials, and they were prohibited by their own law.
Janeway has no reason to be miffed given that she sat on an infinite speed drive herself, which had no downside that the doctor wouldn’t have been able to cure after it took them home.
Yep. That always made zero fucking sense to me. It’s proven you can be un-salamandered and they have an inorganic being on board who wouldn’t be affected. Why the hell don’t they just Warp 10 back to the Alpha Quadrant? Or put everyone in stasis while they Warp 10 over? They’ve done it before. Janeway doesn’t get to complain about a spore drive that would have required her to rebuild the nacelles from the ground up when she was sitting on a way home with a solution and didn’t bother.
Could you imagine a Voyager where the ship is no longer constantly running towards home? One where they have to stay and gather materials to get their warp 10 drive working. The species they meet will be the same species around a few seasons later, and the relationships they build with them matter. Maybe stasis isn’t good enough, and they have to hold everyone in a transporter buffer, which means rebuilding huge sections of the ship to support having all the crew inside transporters at once. They expect this to take years, but it’s still by far the shortest way home. A few shuttles get modified and they send couriers back to the alpha quadrant. So they have some contact with Star Fleet, but it’s not as simple as opening a channel.
If there’s only enough story material here to support a few seasons, then maybe something comes up that means they have to go back and fix it. Maybe some Borg shit. Make up a reason to keep the Maquis crew around (not like Star Fleet gives a shit once the Dominion War is underway).
Good thing they never gave us that nightmare of a show.
Fair enough. Tho I’m sure Janeway would still consider using Tuvix for that one editing your DNA thing.
All the points I was about to make. Thank you Sir.
So a coverup then. Interesting.
Spock flat-out said it at the end of “Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2”, albeit with a focus on the time travel shenanigans of the second season:
Regulation 157, Section 3 requires Starfleet officers to abstain from participating in historical events. Any residual trace or knowledge of Discovery’s data, or the time suit, offers a foothold for those who might not see how critical, how deeply critical, that directive is.
Therefore, to insure the Federation never finds itself facing the same danger, all officers remaining with knowledge of these events must be ordered never to speak of Discovery, its spore drive, or her crew again, under penalty of treason.
And a malfunction has the potential to destroy all life in the multiverse.
I didn’t like that part at all. An infinite multiverse, which they state in DSC is the case, means that anything with a probability greater than zero is guaranteed. Mathematically, the multiverse should have already been wiped out at some point. It’s also a throwaway line meant to increase dramatic tension for all of ten seconds before the scene ends, and an empty threat given that following through would end the show.
I can look past the mycelial network. I just can’t tolerate some of the characters. And unfortunately they decided to focus on one main character. And that character’s main feature is to cry throughout the entire series, despite being raised by vulcans. Also the pacing of the show is very annoying. It’s high tension drama, all the time.
I watched the whole thing. There were some episodes that kinda gave me hope. Those usually were the ones that weren’t part of the main plot. But the next episode it went back to the same dramatic formula.
Oh, and Tilly. What the hell man? How did she get into Starfleet??
That said, I’m happy people enjoy it! It’s just not for me.
Pssssh, I bet these people don’t even realize that reversing the quantum polarity in the nacelles is absolutely a hard science solution to whatever problem the enterprise faces.
(Please don’t verbally hit me for that sentence.)
It’s a perfectly cromulent sentence.
Gotta admit that introducing big fancy transwarp highway in a prequel wasn’t the most clever move… Especially considering Voyager…
It requires incredibly specific tech, a ship that has been designed for it, and generic engineering which is outlawed by starfleet. It is also insanely classified and had black badges posted on board.
Whether it’s a prequel or not is kinda irrelevant. Secrets are secrets.
That’s all well and good for the lore, but it doesn’t make it feel any less like a way of getting out of the corner they wrote themselves into. It would also probably be little comfort for the version of the Voyager crew that took something like 70 years to get home.
I’ve enjoyed Discovery. Not as much as other series, but I have enjoyed it. I still think the spore drive is a story that should’ve been told later in the timeline, though.
They chose to start there. The classified tech was something from the beginning. Same with the tech on board being specific to the ship. In no way did they “write themselves into a corner”. Also Janeway is completely irrelevant but also she would have completely understood. This is the woman who destroyed the Caretaker array and has sacrified ways home in order to benefit the majority. Do you honestly think she would ever even bat an eye if she found out about that tech? She’d probably be interested because she’s a scientist but then completely understand why it was shelved.
Unless it gave her access to coffee, then she’d install that on the Delta flyer and make weekly secret trips to Seattle to stock up.
Discovery also had hologram communication technology that I guess was also a secret? Starfleet went back to flatscreens for everything and didn’t use holograms again until the 24th century.
If it was just one thing, okay, but there were such numerous inconsistencies, it was like the writers and designers did not care about trek, they were writing a sci-fi show with the trek name slapped on top.
It’s totally possible to respect the heritage of old sci-fi - look at The Mandalorian and Andor - maintaining consistency with the old retro sci-fi aesthetic actually elevates them above what a modern redesign would have done.
Discovery also had hologram communication technology that I guess was also a secret? Starfleet went back to flatscreens for everything and didn’t use holograms again until the 24th century.
In “The Undiscovered Country” we see the Klingons are watching the Federation President’s discussion with Azetbur using a grainy hologram. If they’re able to receive a holographic signal, that implies that the Federation is transmitting one. Hell, even in the TOS episode, “Return of the Archons” when confronted with the holographic projection of Landru, Kirk and Spock recognize it for what it is right away, but the things they remark upon are the fact that there’s no visible projectors, and Kirk says it’s “Beautiful.”
I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch based on what we’ve see to say that Starfleet decided that holographic projections were too low fidelity compared to viewscreens.
Hell, it even happens again. As you note, they made another attempt at holographic communication in the 24th century, which we see in DS9 the Defiant is kitted out with the new holo-communicator, allowing a fully realized, high fidelity, holodeck quality real time holographic communication. And where else have we seen it? We never see the Enterprise E use that technology; In “Nemesis” Shinzon is able to broadcast a hologram of himself from the Scimitar to Picard’s ready room, but he claims it’s through the use of his own holo-emitters. We’ve never seen it in LDecks, PRO, or PIC, all of which take place after DS9.
So yeah, Starfleet went back to flat screens for everything.
Discovery also had hologram communication technology that I guess was also a secret?
No, it wasn’t secret but that also wasn’t invented by Discovery. It was invented by Voyager. Flashback. The episode where Tuvok goes back onboard the Excelsior and they start talking about holographic imagers. Those imagers were created specifically to take holographic image. You cannot take a holographic image without the ability to project a hologram. Moreover, Enterprise showed the crew interacting with holographic technology them. So if you want to complain about inconsistency of holograms in canon, you cannot point the finger so easily at Discovery.
If it was just one thing, okay, but there were such numerous inconsistencies, it was like the writers and designers did not care about trek, they were writing a sci-fi show with the trek name slapped on top.
This complaint gets trotted out constantly. It’s tired and old and frankly it’s dead. There are no violations of established canon in Star Trek Discovery, as much as everyone wants to say that it is. The only examples I’ve ever come across from people, and I use the word examples quite wrongly, are the DOTs, Burnham being Spocks sister, Holographic Tech, and the klingons looks.
It simply does not violate canon.
You’re right, it doesn’t violate the canon.
It just cheapens it.
This is just petty.
So you think going from “This didn’t exist yet” to “This existed, it just wasn’t used,” doesn’t in any way cheapen the older stories?
Not for the most part.
I would probably be more annoyed by the Klingon cloaking devices in season one if not for the fact that ship had already sailed when ENT established that the Romulans already had that technology a hundred years before “Balance of Terror”, and oh, so did the Suliban and the XyrIllians whom the crew of the Nx-01 also encountered.
Not to mention there’s a throw away line in one episode of season one about how the sensors are picking up massive power readings but can’t actually pinpoint the ships, and in “Balance of Terror” Spock notes that the Romulans must have figured out a way to bend light around their ship without the tremendous power draw. I have to assume someone on the writing team was trying to square that circle.
But yeah, the idea of a technology existing but not being widely used doesn’t bump me at all. This is like getting mad that when you go into watch the latest Marvel movie and they’re not using Smell-O-Vision. The technology exists! Hell, I can’t remember the last movie I saw in theatre that was 3d. Obviously they still exist, but it’s not a technology that’s really taken off once the gimmick lost its lustre. Or think about how many people, especially young people, prefer to text over talking on the phone.
So yeah, I don’t think anything is cheapened by the idea that a technology exists by is not widely used, and I do think it’s silly that anyone would make that argument.
Next you’ll tell me the other ships run on space rocks!!!
Dilithium=crack rock
Traveller sends the ship at Mach Jesus with his mind? Not a problem.
Stamets pilots the ship through the Mycelial Network using his mind? PROBLEM
Q did it? Seems fine
Logic Extremists
I wouldn’t say they’re exactly logical…
I don’t pretend to be. It just strains my willing suspension of disbelief beyond the breaking point. I don’t even know why it’s the spore drive that does it instead of telepathy or fucking Q, but it is.
Come on. It’s supposed to be sci-fi, not just fi!
Star Trek has never been hard science fiction, though.
How is the spore drive any more fantastical than half of what happens in Trek?
Because it doesn’t even work in the imagination. A trail of spores going through space? It’s an insult to our intelligence and requires far too much suspension of disbelief.
I do seriously hate the spore drive though. The travel time is a huge part of what makes a Star Trek episode.
The travel time is a huge part of what makes a Star Trek episode.
It is almost never what makes part of a Star Trek episode. Not beyond “We’re far away from people for reasons”. Besides, a single ship having it and being able to be handicapped isn’t exactly something that suddenly shattered everything in Star Trek.
Voyager might want a word …
It was always a part of it though … travel times were always there and relevant, the delta quadrant was very far away, getting to the battle in time wasn’t always possible, being alone when in trouble was almost always the point … space hadn’t been reduced from a final frontier to an irrelevant playground.
a single ship having it
Well this was part of the contrivance … once Discovery made it work why wouldn’t the whole federation be running spore drives ASAP? Security wise they’d be nearly unstoppable.
Because they needed the tardigrade and then a specific person to make it work…
And Star Trek was never about human ingenuity coming together to make near-magical technology work? Stamet’s DNA changes weren’t recorded? They weren’t studied and replicated or had the essence of their effect distilled into an interface that mimicked the physical effects?
This all seems like clutching at very untrek-like straws … which kinda encapsulates the whole issue that some have with Discovery.
I personally don’t mind the idea of a mycellial network, or more broadly, some sort of futuristic bio-physics phenomenon/technology. I just think Discovery didn’t land the handling of it. I think there are plenty of possible reasons for the spore drive not being used by all of the federation that are more interesting than these “lucky, only one person got the DNA so I guess it’s over now” reasons … reasons that would actually contribute to the Sci-Fi of it all. Like, just shooting from the hip … it has an immune system that learnt to kick out foreign starships.
The ship was erased from records, the tardigrade found by accident, genetic modifications are pretty much unacceptable to humans… Plenty of other great answers in this thread.
It’s funny how people are able to suspend their disbelief for some extremely convoluted things but for something fairly simple like that? Nah, the show is just bad.
Depends on the episode.
When Quark is abducted from Deep Space 9 in “House of Quark” he’s taken clear across the entire Federation and into the Klingon Empire in about a day. And then D’Ghor sends someone to the station to grab Rom and get him back to Qo’noS the next day.
Trek moves at the speed of plot.
I feel like the problem with Discovery is the same of the warp 10 episode in Voyager. A bunch of people create the most OP way of travelling and barely use it, and don’t tell me that the ship is unique and Stamets is the only person in the universe in the following centuries to be able to use it, because that just doesn’t make any sense, it’s a cheap trick to justify why such an incredible technology has never been mentioned after, not even by a super villain that gives no crap about genetic augmentation.
At least with Voyager you could just write it off as a badly written episode, but you cannot ingore a whole series. Yes even TNG had some magical guy make the ship travel fantaszilion light years, but at least it was out of their control and they could not exploit it.
Also, Trek shows have not been the most consistent ever, but Discovery really went their way on completely distegarding every Star Trek lore existing in the first season which, personal theory, is a major reason for the writers to “get rid” of the ship at the end of season two. Discovery just did not make sense in the universe created by the othee series, to put it where it does no more damage.
It could have been solved if they just decided that the mycelium network got destroyed. They could have had Control release a weapon that destroyed it or something. I agree, “never talk about this” doesn’t make sense when science progresses and someone else could have easily discovered it. And I’m guessing there were plenty of spies from Romulus and other such places that became aware of at least the basics of the spore drive.
I like Discovery a lot, but it was handled badly.
They couldn’t have destroyed the network, because it was strongly implied that it was a fundamental aspect of the universe itself. What would have been better is if some higher-dimensional beings living there said “You abused the privilege, and your rights to use this network have been revoked”.
I don’t think you need to do a ‘god said so.’ That’s a real deus ex machina. I’m sure there are ways to make the network unusable for travel in crafting the show.
The retcon is that the whole spore drive program was actively suppressed, because any knowledge of Discovery and/or Control would lead to cosmic apocalypse. And so part of Section 31’s imprimatur was to work behind the scenes and prevent it and other disruptive tech from seeing the light. And other civilizations did the same, because the same thing happened to them at some point in their history.
It’s pretty sweaty, and requires quite a bit of stretches credulity, but it beats a lazy handwave.
I assume the spore drive is in a wood box in section 31s “neato beans” warehouse next to Rikers “phase through matter and I guess go invisible whatever do what you want bro” cloak.
What specific lore has been disregarded?
Everything about klingon for example, the spore drive itself. Even the uniforms!
Fuckin’ jeepers, this is grasping at straws.
There’s no “lore” regarding the spore drive or the uniforms, so nothing to disregard.
What specific lore about the Klingons was abandoned by Disco. Just one specific thing. Any single, specific thing.
In Discovery, instead of honorable warriors, the klingons are a bunch of sneaky backstabbing and coward warriors. They also don’t look like klingons at all, both in appearance and architecture, the speak like their mouth is full of potatoes and for some reasons they make ships out of coffins.
I’m not against change, what I don’t like is calling another thing with its name just because you get to be part of a franchise. The only thing they have in common with klingons of other series is the language and that they want to kill. All the modifications they made, just for the sake of it, makes it look like they wanted to use the standard scifi appearal of standard bad aliens and just put the name “klingons” on it. No surprise they reverted this change and discarded all of this in season two.
Btw “the klingons started growing their hair again” might be the single most stupid line I’ve ever heard in a Trek show, especially considering the reason why it was said.
In Discovery, instead of honorable warriors, the klingons are a bunch of sneaky backstabbing and coward warriors.
Like they are in TOS?
They also don’t look like klingons at all
Are you similarly upset by the change in appearance the occurred between TOS and TMP?
and architecture
Architecture? I don’t know, the House Mo’Kai fortress we see in season two doesn’t seem all that out of place. The rounded towers of the capital city seen in ENT is a greater divergence than anything we see in Disco. But that’s also fine, because architectural styles change over time.
the speak like their mouth is full of potatoes
And apparently, according to experts in the language, that’s the best Klingon has ever sounded on screen. Not really sure how that qualifies as a lore thing, though.
they make ships out of coffins.
One ship. The home of a cult leader.
I feel like the issue with Discovery is that it just shoe-horns in an overproduced and under considered last 2 episodes every season in the name of “stakes”.
I don’t like Discovery because of the nonsense with the Klingons. I don’t know why they changed their look again, but mostly I like to be able to do other things when watching TV, like cleaning up or making food, and hate the subtitles.
I understand if I’m watching a movie and a scene takes place in France with a bunch of Frenchmen speaking in French accents that “in universe” they are actually speaking French and it’s being translated to English for my benefit. The long drawn out subtitled scenes just killed the show for me. Give me a dubbed Discovery and I’ll happily give it a go.
I thought the issue with Discovery was that it was written like a schlocky action movie and the crew are constantly at each other’s throats
Schlocky action is a matter of opinion (one I vehemently disagree with) but the crew at each others throats thing is pure nonsense. That happened in the first two episodes. From then on there were occasional disagreements but that’s sort of expected. Constantly? That’s pushing it beyond it’s breaking point.
Here we have an example of the discovery crew going at each other’s throats. This poor Emperor just wants to rule and her second in command is always going after her. This is from season 3. Also I’m just being a smartass to tease Stamets.
You have no idea how easily you just activated the “Fuck you just say, bitch?” response deep within me.
The only problem I had is it kind of gave me what I always wanted in more reoccuring trek plots from episode to episode like some of DS9 had but in giving me that it also gave CONSTANT DRAMA TO MICHAEL at like… all times, it just had to be what way cappy is set up to be the only one who can do it and then it’s just another even more bigger mountain non stop with hardly any downtime. Jumping from persistant klingon threat, to bad AI, to bad future without much letup for downtime and moments to let the rest of the crew shine compared to other shows. Still it had some great visuals and ideals and interesting characters that totally needed more focus but thing is about to blow always.
I think I had a stroke.
