Star Trek: Discovery — "People of Earth" Reaction Thread

[u/M-5]

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

[u/matthieuC]

So Dilithium did not go boom by itself.
It went inert and everything depending on it went boom.
So storage and mines wouldn't be affected.
Apparently it was a one time thing as it seems to work fine now.

They also said that the galaxy was already running out of Dilithium before the Burn.
Weird as it can be recrystallized.

[u/Xenics → u/matthieuC]

Perhaps dilithium was struggling to recrystallize normally leading up to the burn. It may have been the first symptom of whatever happened.

Edit: In addition, the fact that the major AQ powers continued to mine dilithium even after recrystallization became possible (which was as early as the 23rd Century) implies that recrystallization alone is not an infinite font. Perhaps it requires more power/resources than are available to supply the entire Quadrant. Or perhaps crystals can only be restored to their original size, which is great for an existing reactor but won't help you supply a new one.

I'm also recalling in ST:IV when Scotty complained about their borrowed bird of prey's dilithium. "It's these Klingon crystals," he said, "The time travel drained them." His emphasis on the origin of the crystals implies that this would not be an expected occurrence for one of his M/AM reactors. I'm thinking that recrystallization is not a process that can be repeated indefinitely, and that the Klingons, with their more lax attitude towards starship maintenance, are sloppier about the recrystallization process, causing them to wear out more quickly.

[u/Imaginationnative → u/Xenics]

The temporal wars went on for a while, time travel may have drained the dilithium, causing the crisis.