Daystrom Institute

3454 readers

41 users here now

Welcome to Daystrom Institute!

Serious, in-depth discussion about Star Trek from both in-universe and real world perspectives.

Read more about how to comment at Daystrom.

Rules

1. Explain your reasoning

All threads and comments submitted to the Daystrom Institute must contain an explanation of the reasoning put forth.

2. No whinging, jokes, memes, and other shallow content.

This entire community has a “serious tag” on it. Shitposts are encouraged in Risa.

3. Be diplomatic.

Participate in a courteous, objective, and open-minded fashion. Be nice to other posters and the people who make Star Trek. Disagree respectfully and don’t gatekeep.

4. Assume good faith.

Assume good faith. Give other posters the benefit of the doubt, but report them if you genuinely believe they are trolling. Don’t whine about “politics.”

5. Tag spoilers.

Historically Daystrom has not had a spoiler policy, so you may encounter untagged spoilers here. Ultimately, avoiding online discussion until you are caught up is the only certain way to avoid spoilers.

6. Stay on-topic.

Threads must discuss Star Trek. Comments must discuss the topic raised in the original post.

Episode Guides

The /r/DaystromInstitute wiki held a number of popular Star Trek watch guides. We have rehosted them here:

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

Was the USS Discovery upgraded completely, or does it still keep its original technology? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

5 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Inspired by a bit of discussion over on discord, where there was an argument over whether the USS Discovery had been upgraded by the 32nd century Federation.

On the one hand, the Discovery did undergo a vast overhaul, being fitted with an upgraded power/propulsion system, detachable nacelles and the works, however, we also know at the end of Discovery Season 3, that Burnham resetting the Discovery's computers effectively put much of the ship back to the 23rd century baseline (or as much of one as it could return to). We're also shown that the Discovery still uses microtapes in its computer room.

So was the Discovery upgraded completely to 32nd century standards, or is it still a 23rd century ship underneath the 32nd century paint?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I've always had a fan theory that navigating the mycellial network requires that the navigator be a conscious entity for one reason or another. It explains why there was so much trouble with development in the first place. If that's true, you could argue that no matter how advanced 32nd century computers are, they still won't be able to calculate a spore jump. Starfleet seems opposed to the idea of a sentient AI in any era, so that leaves Zora as the only "computer" that could operate the spore drive without a flesh-and-blood navigator. That would explain some of why the Discovery is still in service.

Also, we've seen on screen that the navigator must have some kind of connection to nature and/or the fabric of the universe itself. Stamets had the tardegrade DNA, and Booker had his species' unique abilities. I'm not sure anyone else fits this role, excepting the obvious like Q or the Travellers, who would have no use for it in the first place.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I've always had a fan theory that navigating the mycellial network requires that the navigator be a conscious entity for one reason or another.

Having a conscious navigator is highly beneficial, but isn't a necessity. Discovery was able to perform spore jumps prior to that, it's just that their range was limited, as their computers were not powerful enough to make the calculations required for longer jumps.

Starfleet seems opposed to the idea of a sentient AI in any era, so that leaves Zora as the only "computer" that could operate the spore drive without a flesh-and-blood navigator.

I wonder if Zora could. They may be conscious, but they are still a computer, and might lack the intuition required for mycelial travel by virtue of not being biological.

That would explain some of why the Discovery is still in service.

It would. But as someone else pointed out, Discovery is currently housing several time-displaced humanoids from the 23rd century, and a sapient comouter. Evicting them might be more unethical than letting them continue piloting a comparatively ancient starship, especially if they can refit it to something close enough to modern starship performance.

It might no longer be the bleeding edge starship that the Crossfield used to be, but it also doesn't need to be.

Also, we've seen on screen that the navigator must have some kind of connection to nature and/or the fabric of the universe itself.

I'd disagree there, and say that it seems it be more due to needing a way to commune with the spores to make it work.

Humans can't do that, so Stamets is only able to do that using the Tardigrade DNA, mimicking the connection that it had with the mycelial spores. By comparison, Book could tap into his empathic abilities to the same end, and wouldn't need that kind of modification.

Although it does raise the question of how much of the Mycelial network navigation is due to the navigator, how much is due to the drive itself, and how much is due to the spores/network itself doing things in response to the intent communicated by the navigator.

Logically, any other species that could communicate with the spores in one way or another would also be able to take starships on the same journey, even if their way of communicating with the spores is different to that of Book or Stamets.