Spoilers [DIS] Solve Peak Dilithium with Genesis Device?

[Kamen Rider Blade]

The Genesis Planet fell apart because it wasn't a planet to begin with - it was created out of the Mutara Nebula and this is what made it unstable.

Why did they decide to use it in the Mutara Nebula?

 

[Angry Fanboy]

Why did they decide to use it in the Mutara Nebula?

Have you not watched the film? The Genesis Device detonated within the nebula and 'sucked in' all available nebula gas/matter to create the Genesis Planet.

 

[F. King Daniel]

STIII makes it clear Genesis was flawed from the get-go, that it only worked because David used protomatter which is inherently unstable.

 

[Henoch]

I assumed that the protomatter genesis technology wasn't scalable. Small test - pass. Medium test - pass. Big test - failure.

 

[Ronald Held]

If you use the device in a nebula, vs on a planet(which it is programmed for), then abberent results should not be considered a failure

 

[Angry Fanboy]

It's made pretty clear that the iteration of the Genesis Device stolen and activated by Khan was designed to be deployed against an existing planetary body by specialists, rather than being activated by a madman aboard a starship inside a nebula where it had to create an entire planet from scratch.

Not particularly surprising that the resultant planet was unstable all things considered is it?

 

[Henoch]

I guess there was a star close by to capture the new planet, otherwise, it would get cold without the solar radiation. Maybe it became unstable because it didn't have a star to stabilize it, so, the planet needed to constantly adjust itself leading to its instability. For example, if the protomatter was continuously active even after the genesis effect to maintain its programmed environment such as to maintain a set temperature at the equator. Solution: create massive volcanism to warm the planet.

 

[Timo]

I guess there was a star close by to capture the new planet

Well, of course there was - the very same star that the Regula planetoid orbited. The action never got far away from that star, what with both ships being crippled and crawling at impulse, and at the end of the day, there is only one star on the sky.

Heck, most probably the planet was there to begin with, too - this is what the device was supposed to do, work on a preexisting planet, and there was no flexibility to it, no way to "cram another byte" into the program. As far as we can tell, Genesis Planet was formerly known as Regula!

Any "it failed because of the challenging circumstances" explanation would weaken the plot point that ST3:TSfS so desperately wants to make, that Genesis was an inherent failure with no chance of ever working right. Which is a commendable goal because Star Trek doesn't need Genesis and cannot accommodate Genesis.

Alas, the goal is not scored because we see that Genesis works just fine. Not only in the small-scale tests, but also in the creation of the Genesis Planet. It is a potent weapon of mass destruction, just as feared by Kruge... That it completely breaks the planet afterwards is just a big bonus.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Henoch]

You might be right. Nebulas are star formation machines, so, Regula's star/planetoid must have been formed out of it. The nebula was a few minutes (~3.5 min.) at limping impulse (if ~0.1c or a total of ~4 million miles) from Regula station and its planetoid. The genesis effect (if moving at c) looked like it encompassed about 30 light seconds of range (~5.5 million miles) (I based this on the Enterprise's jump to warp speed (warp one? = c) when it outran the blast wave. It is conceivable that the blast affected Regula's planetoid and mixed it into its matrix. It's star would have been too far away assuming it to be in the AU range from the planetoid.

 

[fireproof78]

Why did they decide to use it in the Mutara Nebula?

They had not decided to do anything. Reliant was surveying for appropriate dead planets when Khan was discovered. So, the detonation of the Genesis Device in side the Nebula was not planned.

STIII makes it clear Genesis was flawed from the get-go, that it only worked because David used protomatter which is inherently unstable.

Yup. If it was simply the use of the nebula vs. a planet then David wouldn't be so quick to admit defeat that it didn't work. Now, maybe he was super depressed but it seems rather apparent than Genesis isn't immediately salvageable. Except as a weapon.

 

[Deks]

What I find annoying is how every alternative we know was quickly dismissed by Book in episode 1, even trilithium, with no further explanation, and when we find out about transwarp it has a 50/50 chance of death slapped on it, again without explanation. I understand wanting to avoid infodumps, but we could really use explanations, especially since the crew is as ignorant as the audience up until they find Starfleet.

There are plenty of technologies introduced in TNG and VOY as alternative power sources (along with faster than Warp technologies) which indeed worked and SF could have easily transitioned to by late 25th century (say 100 years after Voyager returned).
The Disco writers dropped the ball here mostly as they wanted to create drama and difficulties intentionally.
Heck, we even know that Benamite Crystals can be synthesized with 24th century technology and they don't last long, but that the process to make them takes time... I'd surmise these issues would have been ironed out fairly quickly after Voyager returned (in the 5 to 10 years it got back) and perfected in the next 40-50 years tops... not to mention, these technologies would continue to improve in efficiency vastly over the next 710 years (just prior to the Burn)... to the point where Dilithium exploding wouldn't affect the Federation AT ALL.

The 50/50 chance of surviving a trip through the TW conduit made no sense when it was mentioned at first.
We know that Federation ships can survive transit just fine. Heck, even in Picard it was stated you simply need to establish a structural integrity field and chroniton field to make the trip (and Voyager traversed Borg TW conduits easily enough as well). The La Sirena did it too, and it survived a trip through the Borg TW conduit with relatively minor turbulence (the Chroniton field integrity dropped to 90% of maximum in transit, but it held steady at that level).

What we subsequently learned in Discovery is that it seems the TW conduits are filled with large chunks of ship debris... and this is what basically decreases survivability odds to 50% (which makes more sense rather than to say that non-Borg ships cannot survive travel through TW conduits in general).
Much like Subspace corridors used by the Vaudwaar, there were remnants of 900 year old ships in those corridors, but Voyager did manage to navigate one even with debris inside.
Still, We've seen that TW conduits in Federation space had a lot more debris in them (with huge pieces). I'd surmise that these were ships that exploded in those conduits while in transit when the Burn occurred... or they were pulled into the conduits).

As for trilithium... I don't recall canon statements for Trilithium being used as a power source. If I'm not mistaken, the Federation banned the use of Trilithium.

I think the only outright statement we have had in regard to non-replicatability has been in regard to living things. There is a mineral water stated to be impossible to replicate, but if we go by the first rule then that means there is a living component to it, maybe like a pickle? Then again there have been medications too, though they could have a living component too.

To be fair, the 'limits' on replicators (aka that they cannot replicate living matter) never made real sense to me... especially when you consider the premise they are an outgrowth of transporter technology which can convert matter into energy, then energy back into matter, or energy to matter, etc. (and the transporters were able to duplicate living people as well).

The primary limit was predominantly in the amount of energy the replicators need because they converted actual energy into matter (this was since retconned or changed in Discovery season 3 to say that base matter is manipulated and recombined into what they need - but both versions could equally exist in canon - aka, 24th century uses energy to matter conversion replicators mainly - specifically the Federation does, whereas the 32nd century Federation mainly uses replicators that convert matter into other forms of matter - mainly due to resource limits imposed by the Burn - but this wouldn't apply to star systems that have access to Stars as a source of power - which could easily be tapped into via Dyson Swarms - aka, Space based solar power).

There is also Worf's replicated spine, which was made with a specialized replicator. If a normal replicator can't make dilithium then a specialized one should. Worst case, maybe the Federation has to build Dyson spheres or Dyson swarms to power dilithium manufacturing plants.

The Federation should have been building Dyson Swarms since its inception to be fair. It only makes sense. Each star with a Dyson Swarm would have massive energy available for all kinds of things... direct energy to matter conversion and creation of whatever you require - though of course, the writers never saw to go into this direction (no matter how useful it would be).

Replicators were usually limited to the amount of energy they have... and this usually extended to ship's power not being enough... so, if you had a Dyson Swarm with fully equipped industrial grade replicators in ever massive solar power collection array (10 km in diameter) with sensors, thrusters, field generators, etc. all spread out and copied/multiplied over that massive surface area, you'd be able to replicate massive FLEETS of ships into existence with everyhthing they require.

I think everyone must be recrystallizing their dilithium, and it's one of the few things which should be taken for granted since it was perfectly common in TNG. But, recrystallizing dilithium only means their stockpile is not constantly diminishing through use, while fleet expansion would diminish the supplies. Every ship would be more expensive than the last if we assume a finite dilithium supply, and every loss would be ever more costly.

Recrystallization of dilithium crystals as a technology exists in the 32nd century... its just that even with pre-existing stockpile, and the larger the fleet, your stockpile (depending on its size) would eventually diminish... but we've also seen that a ship can operate on proverbial chips of dilithium for extended periods. Still, not every new ship would mean more resource expenditure.
SF has a lot of supercomputers at their HQ in their ships... they could have tasked those to research how to improve dilithium usage so they can vastly increase their supply - which is something the writers apparently didn't do. Its as if technology progressed marginally (by a few decades since late 24th century) and then just stopped completely.. heck its implied that no new technology was developed after the Burn at all.

A bigger deal should have been made about Discovery's dilithium supply since it looks like enough for a hundred ships. The 1701-D only ever had the one crystal, while the 1701 had less than a quarter as much as the Discovery. That spore drive must take a ton of power, but with a modern engine it wouldn't need the vast stockpile.

The Spore Drive can function off auxiliary power without the use of the Warp core or dilithium as a whole as we've seen in Season 3 episode 'The people of Earth' (Discovery powered down the Warp core and ran the Spore drive through the auxiliary systems which are usually powered via fusion reactors).

As for Discovery's dilithium supply.... yes, I agree a more prominent deal should have been made about it by Federation HQ (especially because Discovery came from a time [a decade or two] before dilithium recrystallization was made available - hence why they have so many), so the fact they had a huge stockpile should have given 32nd century Stafleet a massive boost and an edge over the Emerald Chain. Plus, with Discovery's retrofit in place, they'd benefit from dilithium recrystalization technology, which also means that they could have kept a few crystals on Discovery for backup, and used just one and recrystallize that when needed).
But since the Spore Drive can run without dilithium and Warp core, Discovery would seldom use the entire Warp core... in fact, they'd probably only use it during combat situations and in cases where Spore Drive is not available... but for primary mode of travel, they'd use the Spore Drive (which can also be used for power generation).

 

[Officer Schröder]

Genesis is way to instable, as explained in The Search For Spock.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

(and the transporters were able to duplicate living people as well)

Transporters move the atomic matter of the living people, not duplicate, they change phase from matter to energy and back.
Ergo the Matter Stream. No new matter is introduced, none is removed.

Recrystallization of dilithium crystals as a technology exists in the 32nd century... its just that even with pre-existing stockpile, and the larger the fleet, your stockpile (depending on its size) would eventually diminish... but we've also seen that a ship can operate on proverbial chips of dilithium for extended periods. Still, not every new ship would mean more resource expenditure.

They should've been able to artificially manufacture Dilithium Crystals by then.

With local Stars being the power source and using the essential raw materials, they should be able to mass produce Dilithium Crystals like we can make artificial diamonds today in bulk.