I haven't watched Disco S3... but from what I've read, I've got to say I'm torn on the idea of the Burn. If they're trying to make it a metaphor for our over-reliance on petroleum and the disastrous consequences it can have, I guess that could be interesting, depending how they play it. But on the other hand, crystals exploding suddenly simultaneously all over the galaxy is just such a silly idea at face value that I just can't take it seriously, not unless they give a solid explanation that make it not ridiculous.
So I guess I'll wait for the season to end and decide if it's for me.
god the actors really seem to love playing their mirror universe versions
They're comic book chaotic stupid villains that live on a diet of pure scenery. Consider that most Starfleet characters are stoic intellectuals and it's a fun change of pace, and a consequence free environment since nothing you do need carry over past the episode.
god the actors really seem to love playing their mirror universe versions
I think a majority of actors have said they love playing the villains, or at least villainous versions of their characters.
It gives them a chance to really cut loose and crew on the scenery in a way they're not usually allowed to.
I haven't watched Disco S3... but from what I've read, I've got to say I'm torn on the idea of the Burn. If they're trying to make it a metaphor for our over-reliance on petroleum and the disastrous consequences it can have, I guess that could be interesting, depending how they play it. But on the other hand, crystals exploding suddenly simultaneously all over the galaxy is just such a silly idea at face value that I just can't take it seriously, not unless they give a solid explanation that make it not ridiculous.
If they're trying to do a fossil fuel metaphor why wouldn't they just have the alpha quadrant run out of dilithium instead of having all the dilithium explode
They had a perfectly good metaphor about the environment already present with warp speed damaging subspace........... it also works for "destroying" the thing that holds the federation and the other empires together, warp based FTL...
They had a perfectly good metaphor about the environment already present with warp speed damaging subspace........... it also works for "destroying" the thing that holds the federation and the other empires together, warp based FTL...
Yeah, and they handwaved it away from being a problem immediately in TNG ("Oh, we'll just slow down, that'll fix the problem. Unless we need to go Fast for plot reasons, then it's okay"), and never mentioned it again on anything else.
They had a perfectly good metaphor about the environment already present with warp speed damaging subspace........... it also works for "destroying" the thing that holds the federation and the other empires together, warp based FTL...
Yeah, and they handwaved it away from being a problem immediately in TNG ("Oh, we'll just slow down, that'll fix the problem. Unless we need to go Fast for plot reasons, then it's okay"), and never mentioned it again on anything else.
Which could've been worked in nicely as "oh shit, we underestimated/ignored the problem"
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
Which was a flat-out good thing because literally the entire Star Trek setting falls apart if warp travel causes that damage everywhere. The solution would've been a better problem to convey that message, not sticking the whole setting with an obnoxious serious limitation for the sake of one episode.
Also, Voyager's movable nacelles are somehow supposed to combat that subspace problem, so it hasn't been completely ignored. Would've been a nice bit of actual continuity.
Which is why we'll probably only see it in Lower Decks
Which was a flat-out good thing because literally the entire Star Trek setting falls apart if warp travel causes that damage everywhere. The solution would've been a better problem to convey that message, not sticking the whole setting with an obnoxious serious limitation for the sake of one episode.
There have been various other non-warping methods of FTL travel mentioned in pretty much every Star Trek series. Hell, Disco S1 is basically all about one of those.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
I'm pretty sure using these words together in the same sentence also causes subspace damage.
Yeah, riding around on continuity is deader than the original Harry Kim, I know. But still... You could achieve the same story, have cool call backs, and not fall into the trap of "galaxy wide catastrophy out of nowhere PARKOUR" storytelling again..
This is hardly the same thing, anyway.
One was 'hmm, it looks like our primary means of travel can cause irreparable damage to space, we'd better be careful'.
This is 'what if 95% of the oil just suddenly blew up for no apparent reason?'
You could easily technobabble "warp speed is damaging space" to "it's also damaging the ships, catastrophically", imho
Here:
"At some point, the destruction of space became self-sustaining, and a superluminal wave of destruction traveled through subspace, compressing and annihilating every warp core"
This also leaves open whether space is regenerating somehow.. or you could have stories about shipt fleeing from the wave of destruction, and what not..
As opposed to "oh hey crystal mystery explodey boom boom"...
I'm watching this season hopefully, but I'm expecting it to be some bullshit like red matter or "dilithium is actually the egg of a species" or terrorism or whatever. Something flashy and completely out of left field, to "subvert expectation" for "prime time TV"
You could easily technobabble "warp speed is damaging space" to "it's also damaging the ships, catastrophically", imho
Here:
"At some point, the destruction of space became self-sustaining, and a superluminal wave of destruction traveled through subspace, compressing and annihilating every warp core"
something something Omega Molecule.
something something bad thing happon.
You could easily technobabble "warp speed is damaging space" to "it's also damaging the ships, catastrophically", imho
Here:
"At some point, the destruction of space became self-sustaining, and a superluminal wave of destruction traveled through subspace, compressing and annihilating every warp core"
something something Omega Molecule.
something something bad thing happon.
I haven't watched Disco S3... but from what I've read, I've got to say I'm torn on the idea of the Burn. If they're trying to make it a metaphor for our over-reliance on petroleum and the disastrous consequences it can have, I guess that could be interesting, depending how they play it. But on the other hand, crystals exploding suddenly simultaneously all over the galaxy is just such a silly idea at face value that I just can't take it seriously, not unless they give a solid explanation that make it not ridiculous.
If they're trying to do a fossil fuel metaphor why wouldn't they just have the alpha quadrant run out of dilithium instead of having all the dilithium explode
I thought the point of this particular plot was less a fossil fuel metaphor and more "You don't have to end the universe every time with a big threat." If the Federation (or all of the space-faring civs, really) is taken out, it's fairly easy for the galaxy to fall into a dystopia because of the simple power vacuum that remains.
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daveNYCWhy universe hate Waspinator?Registered Userregular
I haven't watched Disco S3... but from what I've read, I've got to say I'm torn on the idea of the Burn. If they're trying to make it a metaphor for our over-reliance on petroleum and the disastrous consequences it can have, I guess that could be interesting, depending how they play it. But on the other hand, crystals exploding suddenly simultaneously all over the galaxy is just such a silly idea at face value that I just can't take it seriously, not unless they give a solid explanation that make it not ridiculous.
So I guess I'll wait for the season to end and decide if it's for me.
Problem I have is that if you're going to have the Federation fall, then you really should have the reason for the fall be something meaningful and ideally due to some weakness in the Federation or Starfleet. It allows the show to ask what went wrong and how can the Federation be better so it doesn't happen again. Random 'and then everyone lost their engines' is not super compelling.
Plus it makes no sense, we all know that if that happened the Ferengi would be ruling the galaxy because one of them would have had a huge stockpile of third-rate non-dilithium based warp drives that they were planning on using to scam some poor backwater planet out of their latinum.
Also: Did the dilithium explode in red, blue or green?
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
I had to look this up to make sure, but "all the dilithium just bowed up" was the concept of the Star Trek Renegades fan series that got canned after the Axanar bullshit.
That happened right after Voyager and Starfleet threw together a ship with a singularity core and some kind of transwarp drive that didn't use dilithium.
The Burn happens on... What, the 30th Century? I'm skeptical of the Federation's enduring dependence on dilithium in a period of history where the Enterprise-J (said in concept art go have a foldspace engine) is a 300 year old museum piece.
I had to look this up to make sure, but "all the dilithium just bowed up" was the concept of the Star Trek Renegades fan series that got canned after the Axanar bullshit.
That happened right after Voyager and Starfleet threw together a ship with a singularity core and some kind of transwarp drive that didn't use dilithium.
The Burn happens on... What, the 30th Century? I'm skeptical of the Federation's enduring dependence on dilithium in a period of history where the Enterprise-J (said in concept art go have a foldspace engine) is a 300 year old museum piece.
I don't remember that Voyager non-dilithium ship?
However, in the TNG/DS9/VOY era, the Romulans use a quantum singularity warp drive that doesn't use dilithium at all.
I had to look this up to make sure, but "all the dilithium just bowed up" was the concept of the Star Trek Renegades fan series that got canned after the Axanar bullshit.
That happened right after Voyager and Starfleet threw together a ship with a singularity core and some kind of transwarp drive that didn't use dilithium.
The Burn happens on... What, the 30th Century? I'm skeptical of the Federation's enduring dependence on dilithium in a period of history where the Enterprise-J (said in concept art go have a foldspace engine) is a 300 year old museum piece.
I don't remember that Voyager non-dilithium ship?
However, in the TNG/DS9/VOY era, the Romulans use a quantum singularity warp drive that doesn't use dilithium at all.
There was the Equinox, it ran by throwing alien corpses into the warp drive. But I hardly think that would be a sustainable practice.
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HardtargetThere Are Four LightsVancouverRegistered Userregular
edited October 2020
Voyager still has dilithium, their big thing was the bionematick gel dealies i'm pretty sure
Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
And unless I'm misremembering, by the time of TNG wasn't dilithium no longer even the power source anyway? That was TOS-era stuff, TNG and beyond just used dilithium for helping to align the warp field or something. So there's like a solid half-dozen reasons why the galaxy-wide disappearance of dilithium, itself an idiotic premise, would barely even be a speedbump for the Federation and many of their allies.
At least Discovery continues to do me the service of being blatantly nothing I'd want to slog through watching.
And unless I'm misremembering, by the time of TNG wasn't dilithium no longer even the power source anyway? That was TOS-era stuff, TNG and beyond just used dilithium for helping to align the warp field or something. So there's like a solid half-dozen reasons why the galaxy-wide disappearance of dilithium, itself an idiotic premise, would barely even be a speedbump for the Federation and many of their allies.
At least Discovery continues to do me the service of being blatantly nothing I'd want to slog through watching.
I mean there was emergency power but if wanted to go to warp or use weapons you still need dilithium.
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
edited October 2020
Dilithium was never the power source (except sometimes when the episode writer hadn't read the series bible thoroughly and nobody caught the goof; the intention was always that the warp drive is powered by matter-antimatter annihilation, and dilithium is just a super cool material that can focus/channel the antimatter stream somehow (why is this better than a magnetic bottle or a force field or something? idk).
And unless I'm misremembering, by the time of TNG wasn't dilithium no longer even the power source anyway? That was TOS-era stuff, TNG and beyond just used dilithium for helping to align the warp field or something. So there's like a solid half-dozen reasons why the galaxy-wide disappearance of dilithium, itself an idiotic premise, would barely even be a speedbump for the Federation and many of their allies.
At least Discovery continues to do me the service of being blatantly nothing I'd want to slog through watching.
It's still essential to warp travel, even if ships have other methods of powering their internal systems.
This last page has been a great example of fans extrapolating huge conclusions from very limited textual information, sometimes ignoring context along the way.
On the Burn:
1. We don't know what occurred beyond a few lines from Book, a character who is no position to be an authority on it.
2. However, dialogue indicates that the Burn did not destroy the Federation, but was the beginning of its decline. We know nothing about that decline as yet.
3. Labeling the Burn an allegory for climate change or overeliance on oil is premature—again, we don't actually know anything about it. That said, a galaxy-spanning catastrophe that just so happened to kneecap a superpower? Yeah, I'm thinking "attack" is more likely than "natural disaster."
4. While the trailers include lines about finding out what caused the Burn, we have no way of knowing how much that will actually drive season's plot. Season 2 was a mystery, yes, but the stakes of that mystery were clearly outlined in its premiere. Here, the season opener focused on immediate survival and finding Discovery/Michael.
In sum:
1) Chill
2) Please start using spoiler tags again.
I had to look this up to make sure, but "all the dilithium just bowed up" was the concept of the Star Trek Renegades fan series that got canned after the Axanar bullshit.
That happened right after Voyager and Starfleet threw together a ship with a singularity core and some kind of transwarp drive that didn't use dilithium.
The Burn happens on... What, the 30th Century? I'm skeptical of the Federation's enduring dependence on dilithium in a period of history where the Enterprise-J (said in concept art go have a foldspace engine) is a 300 year old museum piece.
I don't remember that Voyager non-dilithium ship?
However, in the TNG/DS9/VOY era, the Romulans use a quantum singularity warp drive that doesn't use dilithium at all.
I didn't say they didn't? Renegades was set immediately after the show Voyager.
I had to look this up to make sure, but "all the dilithium just bowed up" was the concept of the Star Trek Renegades fan series that got canned after the Axanar bullshit.
That happened right after Voyager and Starfleet threw together a ship with a singularity core and some kind of transwarp drive that didn't use dilithium.
The Burn happens on... What, the 30th Century? I'm skeptical of the Federation's enduring dependence on dilithium in a period of history where the Enterprise-J (said in concept art go have a foldspace engine) is a 300 year old museum piece.
I don't remember that Voyager non-dilithium ship?
However, in the TNG/DS9/VOY era, the Romulans use a quantum singularity warp drive that doesn't use dilithium at all.
I wonder if the writers got this idea from Gall Force which uses black holes to power their solar system destroying ships...
Lithium, sorry, dilithium crystals (nice save, guys) are somehow capable of acting as a lens without otherwise reacting (destructively) with the antimatter, because of their Unique Properties™.
Truly classic Treknobabble.
And yeah, the problem with warp engines causing pollution damaging subspace (besides little things like, surely that damage would have already been noted in other high-traffic areas, like around Earth and the other Federation homeworlds, or the Orions, who've had it even longer?) is that it cuts the legs out from under the optimistic, casual-space-travel premise of the setting ... or worse, might force people to take a hard look at the hidden costs of our their civilization and high standard of living and actually have to make some changes and sacrifices for the sake of greater sustainability.
.... yeah, like we they were having any of THAT back in the Booming 90s. Nope, just give the problem some lip service and then quietly sweep it under the rug and ignore it. (Let future generations deal with it!)
and now here we are, in the future.
Commander Zoom on
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HardtargetThere Are Four LightsVancouverRegistered Userregular
edited October 2020
you god damn nerds are gonna make me do it aren't you? one sec
Hardtarget on
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That_GuyI don't wanna be that guyRegistered Userregular
Ahh the ancient texts. I love how much of the show bible got officially published.
the chapter on how warp works on the enterprise in general is shockingly long and "well researched"
A lot of the science in Star Trek is unexpectedly well researched. Especially in TNG when a lot of it was being fleshed out, they brought in theoretical physicists to consult on the chemanics of the technology. The likes of Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking offered their insight for the show bible. I've often paused when there was a load of technical data on the screen. Stuff like a computer readout. It all seems plausible to me. They really went the extra mile for technical accuracy in the TNG/DS9 era.
Posts
They're comic book chaotic stupid villains that live on a diet of pure scenery. Consider that most Starfleet characters are stoic intellectuals and it's a fun change of pace, and a consequence free environment since nothing you do need carry over past the episode.
It gives them a chance to really cut loose and crew on the scenery in a way they're not usually allowed to.
If they're trying to do a fossil fuel metaphor why wouldn't they just have the alpha quadrant run out of dilithium instead of having all the dilithium explode
Which could've been worked in nicely as "oh shit, we underestimated/ignored the problem"
Which is why we'll probably only see it in Lower Decks
There have been various other non-warping methods of FTL travel mentioned in pretty much every Star Trek series. Hell, Disco S1 is basically all about one of those.
Yeah, riding around on continuity is deader than the original Harry Kim, I know. But still... You could achieve the same story, have cool call backs, and not fall into the trap of "galaxy wide catastrophy out of nowhere PARKOUR" storytelling again..
One was 'hmm, it looks like our primary means of travel can cause irreparable damage to space, we'd better be careful'.
This is 'what if 95% of the oil just suddenly blew up for no apparent reason?'
Here:
"At some point, the destruction of space became self-sustaining, and a superluminal wave of destruction traveled through subspace, compressing and annihilating every warp core"
I'm watching this season hopefully, but I'm expecting it to be some bullshit like red matter or "dilithium is actually the egg of a species" or terrorism or whatever. Something flashy and completely out of left field, to "subvert expectation" for "prime time TV"
something something Omega Molecule.
something something bad thing happon.
Oh yeah, that would have worked too!
I thought the point of this particular plot was less a fossil fuel metaphor and more "You don't have to end the universe every time with a big threat." If the Federation (or all of the space-faring civs, really) is taken out, it's fairly easy for the galaxy to fall into a dystopia because of the simple power vacuum that remains.
Problem I have is that if you're going to have the Federation fall, then you really should have the reason for the fall be something meaningful and ideally due to some weakness in the Federation or Starfleet. It allows the show to ask what went wrong and how can the Federation be better so it doesn't happen again. Random 'and then everyone lost their engines' is not super compelling.
Plus it makes no sense, we all know that if that happened the Ferengi would be ruling the galaxy because one of them would have had a huge stockpile of third-rate non-dilithium based warp drives that they were planning on using to scam some poor backwater planet out of their latinum.
Also: Did the dilithium explode in red, blue or green?
That happened right after Voyager and Starfleet threw together a ship with a singularity core and some kind of transwarp drive that didn't use dilithium.
The Burn happens on... What, the 30th Century? I'm skeptical of the Federation's enduring dependence on dilithium in a period of history where the Enterprise-J (said in concept art go have a foldspace engine) is a 300 year old museum piece.
I don't remember that Voyager non-dilithium ship?
However, in the TNG/DS9/VOY era, the Romulans use a quantum singularity warp drive that doesn't use dilithium at all.
There was the Equinox, it ran by throwing alien corpses into the warp drive. But I hardly think that would be a sustainable practice.
edit - https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Bio-neural_gel_pack
At least Discovery continues to do me the service of being blatantly nothing I'd want to slog through watching.
I mean there was emergency power but if wanted to go to warp or use weapons you still need dilithium.
It's still essential to warp travel, even if ships have other methods of powering their internal systems.
This last page has been a great example of fans extrapolating huge conclusions from very limited textual information, sometimes ignoring context along the way.
On the Burn:
2. However, dialogue indicates that the Burn did not destroy the Federation, but was the beginning of its decline. We know nothing about that decline as yet.
3. Labeling the Burn an allegory for climate change or overeliance on oil is premature—again, we don't actually know anything about it. That said, a galaxy-spanning catastrophe that just so happened to kneecap a superpower? Yeah, I'm thinking "attack" is more likely than "natural disaster."
4. While the trailers include lines about finding out what caused the Burn, we have no way of knowing how much that will actually drive season's plot. Season 2 was a mystery, yes, but the stakes of that mystery were clearly outlined in its premiere. Here, the season opener focused on immediate survival and finding Discovery/Michael.
In sum:
1) Chill
2) Please start using spoiler tags again.
I didn't say they didn't? Renegades was set immediately after the show Voyager.
I wonder if the writers got this idea from Gall Force which uses black holes to power their solar system destroying ships...
Truly classic Treknobabble.
And yeah, the problem with warp engines causing pollution damaging subspace (besides little things like, surely that damage would have already been noted in other high-traffic areas, like around Earth and the other Federation homeworlds, or the Orions, who've had it even longer?) is that it cuts the legs out from under the optimistic, casual-space-travel premise of the setting ... or worse, might force people to take a hard look at the hidden costs of our their civilization and high standard of living and actually have to make some changes and sacrifices for the sake of greater sustainability.
.... yeah, like we they were having any of THAT back in the Booming 90s. Nope, just give the problem some lip service and then quietly sweep it under the rug and ignore it. (Let future generations deal with it!)
and now here we are, in the future.
yes I do too, what's your point
A lot of the science in Star Trek is unexpectedly well researched. Especially in TNG when a lot of it was being fleshed out, they brought in theoretical physicists to consult on the chemanics of the technology. The likes of Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking offered their insight for the show bible. I've often paused when there was a load of technical data on the screen. Stuff like a computer readout. It all seems plausible to me. They really went the extra mile for technical accuracy in the TNG/DS9 era.
Yeah, that silly goose Hardtarget, the one and only person in this thread nerdy enough to own both the TNG tech manual and the ST encyclopedia!
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