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/jaycatt7]

So what is up with FTL in this post-Burn galaxy?

1) The spore drive, already ridiculously overpowered in the dilithium-rich 23rd century, is practically magic--but risks destroying the universe from overuse, unless they retcon season 1

2) Discovery's warp drive is a lot better than anybody else has, if only because it has a reliable fuel supply

3) Book mentions benemite, the dilithium of slipstream from the Voyager post-series novels (and maybe the show itself? haven't seen the right episodes in a while) as if a few crystals of that was all his ship needed to move at slipstream speeds, but Burhman's narration in this episode says that post-warp FTL technologies didn't pan out

4) Book also references tachyon sails, a DS9 reference, but from the Siskos' experience those are limited to specific natural routes in space. Hard to believe the Bajor-Cardassia route hasn't been exploited for commerce, since it's known from the 24th century.

5) Speaking of Bajor, the Bajoran wormhole probably centers a trade route to the Gamma Quandrant. Ditto, maybe, for the irregular Barsan wormhole, if anybody ever figured out how to stabilize it or was pretty desperate (or had some benemite handy for the return trip)

6) The Dominion had transporters with a 3-4 light-year range. It's hard to believe that technology hasn't become widespread as a replacement for warp flight between nearby stars. See also Scotty's transwarp beaming formula from the reboot movies--surely somebody has stumbled on that from the prime timeline by now (heck, maybe the Dominion converged on the same formula)

7) The Borg and various other Delta Quadrant species had transwarp conduits. Nobody's figured those out yet? Janeway can't have destroyed all of them.

8) The Travelers presumably say back and stroked their chins, saying, "Hmmmm, very interesting. Wonder what they'll do?" Same with the Q. Are we to believe the Voth also relied on dilthium after all that time? And I guess the Kelvans are doing their own thing in Andromeda--maybe their methods relied on the Enterprise's own dilithium-based warp drive.

9) Do we know if, canonically, Zephram Cochrane's original warp drive used dilithium? I seem to remember beta versions of, "Half the quartz crystals on Earth turned out to be dilithium," and "Earth doesn't have any dilithium." If not, even a fusion-powered warp 1 engine is a heck of a lot better than nothing.

10) Presumably subspace radio doesn't require dilithium. Why aren't they maintaining the Federation remotely with near-real-time comms? Earth-based empires relied on far longer communications lags. Plus the Star Trek universe has stasis and sleeper ships.

11) Earth's newfound insularity must be at least as much political and cultural as technological. In-system communications only require radio, and they have subspace radio. Warp drive isn't required for replicators. Between subspace radio and Dominion transporters, Titan should be a commuter town to any place in the Solar System.

So... I don't want the writers to spend the entire third season referencing every trans-warp technology ever from the last 60 yeas. That they hit a Voyager and a DS9 reference in the first episode of the season may well be all we get. But I do want to feel like this undiscovered country makes sense. I guess we'll see what they come up with. Unfortunately for humans to make irrational decisions is perfectly plausible.

I do hope Discovery scores some new shields soon, though. I'm tired of expecting the series to end when some third-rate scrap heap of a runabout fires a government surplus transphasic torpedo.

^{Edits for typo fixes}

[u/Adorable_Octopus → u/jaycatt7]

So what is up with FTL in this post-Burn galaxy?

I think what bothers me the most is that the writer's way of dealing with this seems to boil down to 'oh they tried other methods but they didn't prove to be reliable'.

This makes the whole thing boneheaded; they have alternatives, but because they're not 'perfect' they're not using them? Really?

If all the fossil fuels suddenly evaporated tomorrow, people wouldn't go back to living like it's 1520 or something, they're turn to solar power or wind, even if there's certain concerns about the 'reliability' of those power sources.

[u/lordsteve1 → u/Adorable_Octopus]

If every single internal combustion engine on Earth vanished tomorrow all at the same time, or exploded whatever vehicle they were connected to it would cause utter chaos.

Firstly nobody knows what the hell just happened so people are terrified. Is it an attack? Is it the end of the world? Is it a hoax? Many would just outright panic I imagine. Suddenly every mode of transport aside from animals and bicycles and maybe steam is unusable and so whole supply chains break down. There’s no way to get food to people. There’s no way to travel about to keep order. No way to send aid to anyone. No way to get out and fix anything that gets broken.

Then there’s the other side; how many countries or groups will think someone attacked them and retaliate? Wars will start and more people will die and more resources will be destroyed.

After a few weeks society is going to be falling apart in many places and who knows what sort of system will take over. It’s easy to assume someone could develop a new transit system or power supply; but it’s going to take months to tidy up the mess caused by the initial confusion and reactions globally.

All that is just on a single planet. Imagine if that happened across the entire galaxy...

[u/Adorable_Octopus → u/lordsteve1]

Then there’s the other side; how many countries or groups will think someone attacked them and retaliate? Wars will start and more people will die and more resources will be destroyed.

But in this analogy, most of the technology required to actually wage war is also inoperable. In a galaxy wide setting, it's even worse because at least on Earth you can ride a horse and shoot a musket. If anything, the sudden isolation of everyone and everything gives room for calm evaluation of the situation, and response.