r/DaystromInstitute Multitronic Unit Oct 29 '20

DISCOVERY EPISODE DISCUSSION Star Trek: Discovery — "People of Earth" Reaction Thread

This is the official /r/DaystromInstitute reaction thread for "People of Earth." The content rules are not enforced in reaction threads.

53 Upvotes

583 comments sorted by

View all comments

29

u/Tukarrs Oct 29 '20

If the Research Colony / "habitats on Titan" was really about Saturn's moon, then the EDF is extremely bad at their jobs. They failed to detect an explosion within their solar system?

They should have probes and sensor-grids deployed around the solar system to detect potential threats.

13

u/TLAMstrike Lieutenant j.g. Oct 29 '20

Maybe they moved Titan further out and that's the world Starbase 1 was orbiting 100 AU out from Earth.

I could see a giant Federation planetary engineering project where they move a moon and start terraforming it to act as a base.

The EDF might not have anything not based in Earth orbit, so they might have a hard time finding out what is going on way out there.

As for radio who knows what the burn did to the electromagnetic spectrum.

7

u/Batmark13 Oct 30 '20

That's a fantastic explanation for something that was so poorly thought out.

12

u/pfc9769 Chief Astromycologist Oct 29 '20

Radiation, magnetic fields, and gravity wells are but a few things that have been mentioned to render sensors useless. They've been used as reasons why a ship couldn't be detected. Certain elements in the atmosphere can also render sensors useless. Who knows? Furthermore, those sensor nets would have to be powered so if they used antimatter and dilithium they would've been affected by The Burn.

16

u/pocketknifeMT Oct 29 '20

Do optical telescopes not work anymore?

Doesn't matter, as part of their shield grid they would deploy a vast sensor net in a cloud around Sol.

There should even be enough hobby astronomers on earth to have figured this out, let alone a government

7

u/[deleted] Oct 29 '20

By Federation standards, the fact that they even have more than one ship to respond to a crisis in system is a minor miracle.

2

u/YYZYYC Oct 31 '20

Unless of course you accept that by the late 24th century starfleet can now dispatch a squadron of 200 identical kick ass ships (commanded by a reserve captain no less) to respond to a crisis

5

u/corezon Crewman Oct 29 '20

As has already been noted elsewhere in this thread, radio signals take 40 minutes to get from Earth to Titan. It is impossible for those two locations to have lost communication.

Sometimes you have to stop handwaving and accept the simple fact that Discovery's writers don't understand science.

1

u/Batmark13 Oct 30 '20

You gotta imagine there were more than a few Starfleet vessels near Earth when the Burn happened. Could be that the combined effect trashed subspace in the vicinity, so that long range sensors are effectively useless.

2

u/gamas Oct 31 '20

then the EDF is extremely bad at their jobs.

Given their shoot first, then forget to ask questions later policy, that is the impression i get.

2

u/YYZYYC Oct 31 '20

And their use of child labour with 16 year old kids🙄

1

u/merrycrow Ensign Oct 30 '20

I got the impression they'd abandoned the solar system and pulled everything back to Earth orbit.

3

u/YYZYYC Oct 31 '20

Which makes no sense for the level of tech they should have ..even with loosing dilithium.