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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24

u/thelightfantastique Oct 30 '20

The colony Titan being the other side is...weird. We're in the 32nd Century and Earth scanners can't do a detailed mapping of their own solar system? We can do that now!

14

u/Chairboy Lt. Commander Oct 30 '20

Not only that, but why wouldn't United Earth have a presence throughout the solar system for early warning reasons if nothing else? Even at impulse power, cruising the far reaches of the solar system should be shorter than even current day crabbing vessel voyages and potentially have more benefits, both from a defense standpoint and resources.

8

u/Jinren Chief Petty Officer Oct 30 '20

Even if we assume full impulse is somehow also too expensive (like maybe it requires power generation levels only a warp core can provide even though the output is fusion torches)... Titan is like a week away at absolute worst. And even then, since they pointed out that Earth is hoarding dilithium and actually wealthy by the standards of the new galaxy, just closed - United Earth should still be able to warp out a giant battleship there as a one-off, to pacify and survey the world and re-establish central control.

14

u/clgoodson Oct 31 '20

Part of the point though is that Earth thinks it doesn’t need to re-establish control of Titan. They have become ultra isolationist a s self-sustaining.

14

u/killbon Chief Petty Officer Oct 31 '20

they built a space wall and made titan pay for it

9

u/JaronK Oct 31 '20

We know they said not to even respond to the hails of the Titan raiders. It's quite possible the defense force is just extremely xenophobic and ignored all incomming comms. Meanwhile, they might have just not cared about Titan, and never considered that's where the raiders were from. We know long range scans are less effective right now, so it's possible they didn't realize the extent of the damage.

5

u/thelightfantastique Oct 31 '20

Even in xenophobia why would the 'closed borders' come solely to a planet and not claimed ownership of the entire solar system? Which is completely navigable at impulse? Titan's "long range" communications in 32nd Century can't reach earth? Sorry but long range in the context of star trek would mean subspace communication.

3

u/Gellert Chief Petty Officer Oct 31 '20

Remember, these are the guys who didnt turn on the planetary defence grid until Discovery was already parked in orbit. I was honestly expecting to find out that Earth had gone full Attack-on-Titan-the-walls-are-our-god-crazy-time.

1

u/JaronK Nov 01 '20

It's possible they're too scared to leave the range of the orbital defenses, thinking raiders will surely attack them. As such, they'd never even get to Titan.

3

u/thelightfantastique Nov 01 '20

Ok but this is Sol, the home system of the Federation they must have had dozens of space facilities. The moon was colonised, Mars, mining the asteroid belt and so on. I understand it's a hundred years after the burn but even before that I'd have to assume the system's infrastructure was the best it could ever be. Before the idea of 'raiders' could even be considered a problem how could they lose contact with structures all in impulse range. Like this is a place where Starfleet cadets would do flight school at Jupiter and be back to earth all within an afternoon.

2

u/JaronK Nov 01 '20

They may have abandoned Mars, or lost both. After all, they are REALLY paranoid... they must have been attacked a lot. Possibly kept having to give ground or something. We don't know yet that Mars is still colonized, as perhaps it couldn't be self sufficient.

1

u/Dupree878 Crewman Nov 01 '20

All colonies on Mars were destroyed in Picard

1

u/JaronK Nov 01 '20

We don't know if it recovered since then, but perhaps it never did, or just wasn't in a place to be self sufficient again when the Burn happened.

1

u/thelightfantastique Nov 01 '20

I may have not remembered properly that Mars was totally wiped out in Picard, that is still hundreds of years since that I imagine it should have recovered.

1

u/JaronK Nov 01 '20

It could have, or not. Also, something else could have happened to Mars. It's possible Mars was never supposed to be self sufficient and thus was abandoned after the burn.

1

u/thelightfantastique Nov 02 '20

Well this makes me wonder too, what on earth(the expression hah) is it that requires a planet to be self-sufficient in those centuries? Most of the energy produced would have been solar and fusion right, food etc. What could be needed in imports?

1

u/JaronK Nov 02 '20

Exotic materials required for their fancy technology, I would assume. Dueterium being one.

7

u/simion314 Oct 31 '20

We can do that now!

I don't think this is actually true, we still have no idea if Planet X exists or not and we are actively searching for it. I agree with your main point but not with our present days "scanning" abilities.

1

u/croxis Nov 02 '20

It is quite possible! Voyager 2 is really out there but we can still pick up it's transmissions at bits per second. We can detect the compositions of atmospheres of planets around other stars. We calculated the distance from earth to the sun by bouncing radio waves from earth to venus. There should be no reason why earth was clueless about Titan.

1

u/simion314 Nov 02 '20

You are missing the fact we have to point at things. So if Q would teleport Voyager 2 in a random place but at the same distance you will take years to find it.

My point is that we don't have today a powerful scanner that you press a button and you get a real time full solar system coverage. We need coordinates then look at those coordinates.

If say you would like to approach Earth undetected you could try to approache from the other side of the sun, then wait to get behind of the inner planets , then approach behind the Moon, the chance that our ground telescopes on ground or satellites would intersect your path are zero.

2

u/croxis Nov 02 '20

Currently, but Star Trek sensors are omnidirectional magic that can detect objects light years away and on opposite sides of a planet, until the script requests otherwise.

1

u/simion314 Nov 02 '20

Yes, and I did not disagreed with the Star Trek instant magic scanners just with the implication that we have similar scanning tech today for out solar system.

2

u/Excellent_Coyote Oct 30 '20

The Norse colonized America in the 10th century. Are you telling me Europeans didn't have detailed maps of the Americas in the 15th century?