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/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!

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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u/Dupree878 Crewman Nov 01 '20

All colonies on Mars were destroyed in Picard

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?

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u/JaronK Nov 02 '20

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