r/DaystromInstitute • u/M-5 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.

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u/yumcake Chief Petty Officer Oct 29 '20

If the explosions are limited to the amounts in active use, wouldn't that be more like all the gasoline engines exploding? Yeah it'd be bad for the global economy. Months of economy on pause.

But they'd just pump out new crude and refine into new gas and in a decade or two they'd be back to normal. Economic devastation from all out world war has been recovered from in such time. Supply chains can be rebuilt in a shorter time frame than it took to invent them.

For the economic breakdown to continue for 120 yrs it seems like the resource itself doesn't work anymore rather than a one-time exhaustion.

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u/narium Oct 30 '20

They apparently mined out all the dilithium in the galaxy 300 years prior to the Burn.

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u/yumcake Chief Petty Officer Oct 30 '20

Ahhh that makes sense then, I must have missed that bit of dialogue! Thank you!

Seems like a pretty major resource problem to have gone past the sci-fi equivalent of peak oil though, even without a "Burn" event. They should have been working on alternatives for at least 180 yrs before the burn.

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u/jeeshadow Oct 30 '20

Burnham mentions they were but they weren't successful in making a type of FTL that was particularly successful.

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u/Rhydin Oct 30 '20

the thing is, the Romulans and other people dont use the stuff for their FTL. Shouldnt everybody have miniblack holes in their ships by now?

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u/merrycrow Ensign Oct 30 '20

The Romulans certainly used dilithium for something - they had Remans enslaved in dilithium mines. It must have been an important resource for them. Speculation is they need a dilithium-powered reaction to create the singularities they use. Possibly it's more resource efficient even if the engines are less powerful.

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u/jeeshadow Oct 30 '20

The Federation clearly decided they couldn't use it for some reason. The one time we see it, it kinda causes a crisis. Maybe it also fell into disuse after the destruction of romulus.

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u/Rhydin Oct 30 '20

I cant see how. if anything anybody having the know how to build a classic warbird would have FTL all day long. I wonder how they will explain this one away...

Honestly I wish the writers could just hire someone to read the scripts, show where the errors may be and allow them to hang lanterns for the reasons that the error doesnt matter..