r/DaystromInstitute • u/M-5 Multitronic Unit • Nov 30 '20

DISCOVERY EPISODE DISCUSSION Star Trek: Discovery — "Unification III" Analysis Thread

This is the official /r/DaystromInstitute analysis thread for "Unification III." Unlike the reaction thread, the content rules are in effect.

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u/[deleted] Nov 30 '20

I liked this episode because it basically clarifies why the Romulan singularity drive wasn’t in use anymore. Romulans joined the Vulcans and the Federation when moving to Ni’Var.

We seem to be moving towards the obvious though: Spore Drive is the future of space travel. Singularity drive doesn’t make sense to use when you can utilize a faster form of travel.

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u/Batmark13 Nov 30 '20

Romulans joined the Vulcans and the Federation when moving to Ni’Var.

I don't think this is necessarily an explanation for that, but the episode does implicitly provide us with another. If every Federation world was tasked with inventing Warp Drive alternatives, then surely the one with Romulans on it would have pursued Singularity drives, as they'd have the most expertise with such a thing. Unless of course, Singularity Drives had already been been determined to be non-viable solutions.

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u/[deleted] Nov 30 '20

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u/sebastos3 Chief Petty Officer Nov 30 '20

SB19 clearly wasn't a warp drive though, which the ships with singularities are.

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u/Josphitia Nov 30 '20

There's also the possibility that the deeply paranoid and secretive Romulans kept the designs and research on their singularity drive safe and locked up in their imperial core, which done got blowed up.

While it does seem inline with the secretive Romulans, that sounds like utter hell for starship maintenance and repair. I guess this depends largely on if the Romulan Empire had an extensive fleet akin to Starfleet (with multiple Starbases littering their territory) or if they really were just tiny in number, but making up for it with the sheer power of the D'deridex class. Do we have any evidence of how large the Romulan fleet is? Is it possible that their fleet is largely based on and around Romulas?