this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2023
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Risa
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Come on'n get your jamaharon on! There are no real rules—just don't break the weather control network.
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I think the big difference is that this is Federation science, not super-being using their superpowers. I like Discovery, as you know, but I think they could have done a lot to handle the idea that no one else has ever used the mycelial network again, not even 900 years in the future, better. I think they could, at the very least, have come up with an explanation for why no other non-Federation empire- not the Klingons or the Romulans or the Cardassians or the Borg or anyone else- ever made the same discovery despite being at basically the same technological level or, in the case of the Borg, at an even higher level. They didn't, but I think they should have. Maybe they will in the new season, but I have a feeling they won't. It by no means ruins Discovery for me, but it could have been handled better.
Discovery, in a way, seems to take place in its own universe. All the other new series seem to ignore the Discovery Klingon look, for instance. In Picard, Worf looked like Worf. In SNW, Klingons in the musical episode looked like TNG Klingons.
I realize it would create continuity problems, especially with Pike, but it wouldn't kill me if they decided by the end of the show that it took place in an alternate universe like the Kelvin movies did.
I guess but I genuinely don't get why people are bothered by others not using it. The tech was made insanely classified and the only two people who ever conceived of the idea are dead. Mentioning of the spore drive was made essentially punishable by death and it was left forgotten to history. Stamets and Straal were never working on it as a propulsion method. They were working on it as an idea in general. Starfleet was the ones that co-opted their really niche research and then classified it to the highest level because they were desperate. The Klingons and the Romulans weren't ever at that state of desperation like the Federation was and if there's one thing that we've seen throughout Trek is that humans excell at pulling things out of their ass when times are beyond perilous. That's our gimmick. Not to mention that the Romulans and Klingons have cloaking tech. We don't. Not like we didn't try. Why can't we have tech that they don't have?
Note for below that I'm not projecting any of this onto you. After writing it it does feel kinda angry. The tone should be read with casual conversation, no hostility pointed towards you or your idea. Just my personal opinion on it. Sorry if it comes off abrasive because that is not the way I mean it.
I get where you're coming from but I can't think of a bigger insult than if CBS/Paramount were to do this. One of the loudest things from people who hate the show are those screaming that Discovery isn't in the Prime Timeline. Started with Season 1 with people arguing that 'CBS doesn't own the rights to the prime timeline' which was the dumbest fucking concept ever devised but ran like wildfire. That whole "It isn't prime" thing still sticks. You see it from people who hate the show even here on Lemmy who refuse to believe that it's canon and act like it isn't. If they suddenly ended the show with something that says it isn't the prime timeline then ignoring the issues it makes for SNW/Lower Decks, they would literally be giving the rage baiting assholes everything they've ever wanted. They would bend over and say "Fine. You were right. It isn't canon." It would invalidate everything that came before it and make all the fans of the show like myself who've defended it feel like utter fools. Honestly if they ever did it? I would abandon Star Trek in its entirety. Would sell off my models, get rid of the flag, and eradicate Trek from my life. It would feel like a slap in the face to the fans to say "Hey, the trolls were right."
I just think expecting it to never be discovered again over 900 years is a little hard to buy. Sure, not having it by TNG works for me, but the fact that this whole mycelial network crosses the galaxy and multiple universes and was never discovered again, even almost a millennium later... I don't know.
A good example- we have no idea what 'Greek Fire,' a secret military technology used by the Byzantines actually was, but we have many ways to recreate what it did through rediscovery of technology.
That said, I realize it's just a TV show. I take your point about it being in the Prime timeline. I just wish there was more reconciliation with the rest of it, like why the Klingons look totally different in Discovery than in SNW and Picard. You can just dismiss that as being the same as the Klingons looking different between TOS and TNG with no explanation (unless you accept the explanation in Enterprise that many people hate), but I still would have appreciated an explanation. For example, I saw it suggested that the Klingon empire was actually more diverse than it seemed and various 'types' of Klingons were in power at various times. So in the TOS era, the "human" Klingons were in charge, in Discovery, the Discovery Klingons were in charge, and in TNG, the TNG Klingons were in charge.
So the "impossibility" of the spore drive doesn't bother me. I just have a hard time with the idea that it was never rediscovered by someone else over many centuries. One solution would have been that everyone was using the spore drive in the future until the planet that the Kaminar guy was on made it impossible instead. It could even have ended differently with the mycelial network becoming unusable, even destroyed, and them having to go back to, maybe even re-engineer ships with warp drive technology. I also suggested above that they could have had Control use a weapon that destroyed the network and it took 900 years to heal. I can just see so many ways around the problem that they could have used but didn't. I don't want to suggest I'm a better writer than they are or anything, Discovery has had some episodes with exceptional writing, I just think this particular story element was handled badly in this specific case.