Did Discovery jump too much into the future?

[JesterFace]

TOS takes place around 2260. TNG and others approximately one hundred years after that.

Then we have Discovery going nearly a millennium into the future. What? Is that just too much? When you start to think how much technology has advanced in the last 20 or 50 years how can we even guess what will happen in a thousand years? What was humanity doing a thousand years ago? With the speed things are developing right now is a thousand year leap just too much?

 

[fireproof78]

Yes.

 

[Jinn]

I don't think we can make a proper guess for how the 23rd century would look like, so I'm not too bothered by that.

Plus, setting it after the whole Temporal Cold War shenanigans from Enterprise and the time ships from Voyager (ca 29th century; right?) is a good move on the part of the writers. It could well be that a lot of the time between the 24th century and the TCW was spend developing temporal technologies, and thus other potential advances were less likely to be pursuit by the Temporal Powers. The whole programmable matter stuff might be a pure post-war innovation of the last two hundred years, considering it's never seen on the time ships from Voyager and Enterprise.

 

[Tuskin38]

No.

 

[FederationHistorian]

No. Culture shocks would be likely for every 1000 year jump ahead in time. That may have what the writers were going for.

2nd century – Classical Antiquity (height of the Roman Empire)

12th century – Medieval Age (Roman Empire long gone, various fiefdoms and empires in its place)

22nd century – first deep space missions (Starfleet and Federation first established)

32nd century – Post Burn (Starfleet and the Federation have both fallen, various interstellar powers in its place)

 

[Jadeb]

It doesn’t really matter. We can’t predict 100 years in the future, much less 1,000.

 

[fireproof78]

It doesn’t really matter. We can’t predict 100 years in the future, much less 1,000.

/thread?

 

[The Wormhole]

The reason behind choosing the 32nd century specifically was a sound enough one, that it's further into the future than all the other shows had offered a glimpse into, therefore they had complete creative freedom. Plus, I imagine they wanted a built in reason for why Disco crew can't just go back to the 23rd reason, and having it set in a distant future where time travel is outlawed is the best way to do that. Moving to the 25th century would just raise questions of "why not slingshot maneuver" or whatever, while the 26th-31st centuries are when we know the Federation had active time travel abilities complete with time ships and temporal portals, so that would raise questions of why aren't they going back. 32nd century was the earliest they could have gone for narrative reasons.

 

[JesterFace]

Time travel episodes or movies.... boring with only few exceptions.

 

[fireproof78]

Time travel episodes or movies.... boring with only few exceptions.

That's my feeling as well. The Voyage Home, ST 09 and Trials and Tribble'ations being the primary examples of ones that I really enjoy and creative in their use. Others are hit and miss.

 

[JesterFace]

That's my feeling as well. The Voyage Home, ST 09 and Trials and Tribble'ations being the primary examples of ones that I really enjoy and creative in their use. Others are hit and miss.

The time travel thing that works for me would be TNG and 'All Good Things...', although it's more a trick by Q than actual time travelling episode.

 

[fireproof78]

The time travel thing that works for me would be TNG and 'All Good Things...', although it's more a trick by Q than actual time travelling episode.

All Good Things is the one time Q works.

 

[JesterFace]

All Good Things is the one time Q works.

Perhaps 'Q Who' too?

 

[fireproof78]

Perhaps 'Q Who' too?

No, not for me. Borg and Q are two of my top 5 Star Trek pet peeves.

 

[Dukhat]

They chose the 32nd century to align the show with the Calypso Short Trek. That’s pretty much the only reason behind the choice.

As for whether it’s too far in the future: that doesn’t really matter. Star Trek has been pretty consistent in showing that nothing really changes much whether it’s 100 years or 1,000.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Really I'd imagine Trek's 32nd century to be a lot more alien than it was. Humans should be technologically assisted proto-Q, rejunivating their bodies with a transwarp beam across the galaxy at the tap of a badge. Never ageing.

But they went for everything being 90% the same and a recent apocalypse as the reason things aren't too far progressed. Meh.

 

[Swedish Borg]

Star Trek makes the stupid assumption that all space-faring civilizations are at the same point give or take a millennium or so. But that's idiotic, given all the randomness introduced, when the solar system coalesced, how long the different geologic eras have lasted. Certain technology should be as much as a billion years or two in the future and you should have many many that would be in between, from one million to ten, to a hundred, etc... So basically once you're part of the galactical whole you should have pretty much all the knowledge of all time at your fingertips and progress would be meaningless.

 

[dupersuper]

It wouldn't have been if they were more creative with the tech (us still using warp instead of slipstream or transwarp conduits or stable wormholes or something by this year strikes me as absurd), but of course you can always blame the slow progress/reversal of progress on the burn and temporal wars.

 

[Swedish Borg]

It wouldn't have been if they were more creative with the tech (us still using warp instead of slipstream or transwarp conduits or stable wormholes or something by this year strikes me as absurd), but of course you can always blame the slow progress/reversal of progress on the burn and temporal wars.

On TOS warp drive started as a rather obscure and contradictory thing. I mean they start by going through a barrier (there's always a barrier) that gets them outside the galaxy, even at warp 9 that's a several-year trip!!

Then again even in Enterprise, they go to Chronos (or however they spell it) in their first mission but we've been previously told that Chronos is over a thousand light-years away, and at warp five that's a several year trip!!!

Anyway, consistency is not the franchise's strong point.

 

[fireproof78]

Yeah, I like Star Trek but how tech gets applied is probably one of the most inconsistent things. TNG had them go over warp 10 with no side effects. Then warp 10 is infinite speed.

 

[Swedish Borg]

Yeah, I like Star Trek but how tech gets applied is probably one of the most inconsistent things. TNG had them go over warp 10 with no side effects. Then warp 10 is infinite speed.

Yes, on TNG they have that alien that has three fingers on each hand that look like polish sausages and he's supposed to be a wiz at entering data. I'd like to see that clod tapping a key without hitting one of the neighboring ones!!! Anyway, that alien sends the ship to the end of the universe and back!!! Tuns out all your wishes are granted there!!! Picard talks to his long-dead mother, And in that episode, they pass warp ten, and not one of them turns into a lizard!!!