I really hope Section 31 is lllloooonnngg gone by the 31st century.
The REAL reason why Starfleet didn't try rescuing Voyager using the Spore Drive.
- Thread starter bryce
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I really hope Section 31 is lllloooonnngg gone by the 31st century.
If someone in the know at NASA knew that the CIA was in possession of spore drive technology, it's likely they'd at least put out some feelers.
I'm not sure why this requirement for spore drive use gets repeated. It is very clearly stated in DSC that both Ripper and the genetic enhancements to Stamets were alternative methods of using the spore drive because the computer system on their 2260s era starship could only make calculations fast enough for small jumps. The spore drive is not the slipstream drive from Andromeda.
As far as Voyager is concerned, they've had a century of computer enhancements and at least two paradigm shifts in computer processing capability -- first from duotronic to isolinear, and then from that to bio-neural circuitry. Surely the spore drive can be deployed on Starfleet ships giving them a reasonable range capability -- and certainly shortening Voyager's trip greatly -- without genetic modifications to anyone or involving the enslavement of sentient space-borne lifeforms.
I mean there's no talk about this at all in regards to the infinitely advanced 32nd century computers. Why do they need Book? Maybe it's been retconned?
I kept expecting them to show that the spore drive was somehow killing sentient creatures in the spore network, was surprised when they didn’t. That would have been a more Starfleet reason to bury it.
But one thing you could also consider. What if section 31 never did stop using it? That’s how they seem to easy get anywhere they want. And they buried it because they knew any official research would inevitably wind up in Romulan hands too who would use it more aggressively.
One other theory is time travelers ensured Voyager could not be rescued because the universe depended on what they did in Endgame. Why do you think Relativity never cleaned all that up? Uploading that virus to the Queen is a cornerstone event of history. Maybe the Borg originally won and then time travelers went to work and puzzled together the only timeline where the Borg did not win was the one where Voyager gets home exactly the way they did.
The time travelers couldn’t stop Discovery from getting spore drive because then Control wins, that was another cornerstone event. But they needed it to disappear directly after.
But one thing you could also consider. What if section 31 never did stop using it? That’s how they seem to easy get anywhere they want. And they buried it because they knew any official research would inevitably wind up in Romulan hands too who would use it more aggressively.
One other theory is time travelers ensured Voyager could not be rescued because the universe depended on what they did in Endgame. Why do you think Relativity never cleaned all that up? Uploading that virus to the Queen is a cornerstone event of history. Maybe the Borg originally won and then time travelers went to work and puzzled together the only timeline where the Borg did not win was the one where Voyager gets home exactly the way they did.
The time travelers couldn’t stop Discovery from getting spore drive because then Control wins, that was another cornerstone event. But they needed it to disappear directly after.
I've heard that theory about the Voyager before.
Time travel really should be left mostly alone. Leads to too many headaches.
Time travel really should be left mostly alone. Leads to too many headaches.
Honestly, I like this theory. As far as fan theories go it makes enough sense while still be quite headache inducing, largely because time travel sucks.
But, honestly, I really want the spore drive to be deleterious to the beings there and eventually them forming a resistance to intrusions in to their space.
It would also explain why Relativity wasn’t willing to bring them home but never took back the mobile emitter.
The Doc’s mobility was absolutely required for Voyager to make it to year seven.
The Doc’s mobility was absolutely required for Voyager to make it to year seven.
The REAL reason why Starfleet didn't try rescuing Voyager using the Spore Drive is that the drive and the show that introduced said drive didn't exist when Star Trek: Voyager was made.
Go get your logic out of here! Star Trek's a documentary!
True...and?
Most people don't dig into historical research projects labeled as failed to see if they can be the one to fix them, they work on new projects. There were 2 ships with this tech and each one was destroyed. That is enough to deter organizations from putting resources into re-evaluating the tech. If some people were to dig into it, they would find more reasons why the tech was not feasible so it has a built in second line of defense that says, this tech is unstable and destroyed 2 ships and it also requires exotic DNA be implanted into the pilot.
Why would any org waste time with that? Only a few knew the truth that it did not Destroy Disco, and it's not like people get cleared to access highly classified historical info just because.
Why would any org waste time with that? Only a few knew the truth that it did not Destroy Disco, and it's not like people get cleared to access highly classified historical info just because.
I mean, the DISCOVERY can destroy the Multiverse. Everyone should have their memories erased of how it works and all backups destroyed.
Yeah. Insta-travel isn't all that interesting: you want a solid sphere of influence, as you can't control a cloud of influence created by spot visits to really distant locations. Spore travel would automatically mean overextending, unless Starfleet somehow managed to build millions if not billions of spore ships in a very short time. Special operations applications might abound, but extensive research would be the antithesis of that.
Yet the weaponizing prospects are well beyond Armageddon scale, even if one only considers the universe-hopping and not the whole universe-burning thing.
Timo Saloniemi
Yet the weaponizing prospects are well beyond Armageddon scale, even if one only considers the universe-hopping and not the whole universe-burning thing.
Timo Saloniemi
Even with millions of Ships, there are Billions of Stars in the milky way alone along with countless planets.
You can't police everything, even if you tried, you'd wear down the crews of the ships really fast by having a bunch of them jumping around the Milky Way solving various incidents.
The fact that you have a finite # of Spores in a Cannister and the # of Cannisters ready & available along with a Genetically Engineered Navigator is a inherent limitation on the Spore Drive where you would only have a finite amount of each.
Obviously you would mass grow these Spores across all of UFP along with having some local Spore growing on your vessel, but that makes it a very finite resource.
Even with the Genetic Ban lifted, there will only be a finite number of people who want to get genetically altered to become a Spore Dimension Navigator.
Not all Navigators would be of the same quality and they stated that exiting the Spore Dimension into the real Universe is "Probability" based.
I interpret that as a Spherical Error of Probability, with bad Navigators having a large Spherical Error of probability and good Navigators being able to precisely jump into a cavern on the Klingon Home Planet of Qono's.
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I'm not seeing why they would try. The spore drive is possibly the most devastating piece of military technology ever made, allowing any piece of weapons technology to be placed at a moment's notice anywhere, ignoring planetary defenses and the like. It is also the deepest held secret, especially during VOY, as the dominion war is raging with a small detachment from the gamma quadrant and a minor alpha quadrant power successfully holding off the combined forced of everyone else.
If the dominion got hold of spore tech, the federation would have no choice to surrender once thousands of ships jump to the alpha quadrant (even before we get into the genocidal tactics that could quickly be deployed). There is no doubt the dominion could genetically engineer a race to be pilots.
On the other side, VOY is a ship build for exploration, doing remarkable exploration (Janeway likely set all-time First contact records) without having any significant supply, morale, or military survival issues while setting (non-spore/non-wormhole) travel-time records. Looking at Endgame, the results of Voyager's original 20 year mission is stunning with the Federation having made a leap beyond the Klingons and even the Borg.
If the dominion got hold of spore tech, the federation would have no choice to surrender once thousands of ships jump to the alpha quadrant (even before we get into the genocidal tactics that could quickly be deployed). There is no doubt the dominion could genetically engineer a race to be pilots.
On the other side, VOY is a ship build for exploration, doing remarkable exploration (Janeway likely set all-time First contact records) without having any significant supply, morale, or military survival issues while setting (non-spore/non-wormhole) travel-time records. Looking at Endgame, the results of Voyager's original 20 year mission is stunning with the Federation having made a leap beyond the Klingons and even the Borg.
This.
I remember clearly from S1 of Disco that it was stated the computer wasn't fast enough to make adequate calculations.
By the 24th (and most certainly 32nd) century, this should have no longer been an issue and the Spore Drive should have been easily replicated and installed on ALL (or most) Starfleet ships while Discovery was undergoing refits.
My thoughts exactly... but in that case we wouldn't have had a show about a ship lost in the DQ.
To be fair, it was stated on Voy itself that Warp 9.9 = 21473 times Light speed (allowing the ship to get back in about 3 and a half years back home)... and Voyager was supposed to have a sustainable cruising Warp speed of 9.975 (which would result in the ship crossing 75 000 Lightyears in just under a week).
However, since on TNG and DS9, no SF ship actually went beyond Warp 9.9 (apart from the freak accidents which we won't count), and most maximum speeds were touted at BELOW that range (around 9.5 - 9.6 actually), its safe to say, Voyager's 'sustainable' cruise velocity should have been Warp 9.75.
In fact, in one of the Voy episodes, Paris stated he might be able to sustain 9.75 for about 12 hrs (which seemed more in line given the fact previous SF ships were topping at 9.5 or 9.6), and in another episode (Threshold), Voy was 'nearing maximum Warp velocity' when trying to match their shuttle at Warp 9.9, at which point the computer announced there is going to be a structural collapse in 45 seconds.
It was actually the USS Prometheus (the one seen with 4 nacelles in VOY season 4) that was apparently the only ship in the fleet capable of flying at Warp 9.9 sustainably without danger... meaning, that in-universe, SF developed engine ability to travel from one end of the galaxy to the other in about 7 years time... and this would have likely expanded to other SF ships in the decade AFTER the Prometheus launched.
Those speeds actually make sense given what was previously established on-screen and the 9.975 shouldn't have been put out to begin with (if they wanted to keep things in the same galaxy that is).
If they wanted to make it 'interesting', the writers should have just thrown Voy over 200 million Ly's away. That way, the ship could have actually used Warp 9.975 as a sustainable cruising speed to cruise at for most of the time and would need 75 years to get back to Earth and described as a recent breakthrough in Warp speed which the Intrepid class was designed to use to the fullest extent.
This would have illustrated exponential technological progression of UFP by leaps and bounds in terms of Warp drive in the 24th century... and not contain things to the Milky Way anymore.
Also, as far as I understand it, there was no real in-universe reason to cover up the Spore Drive technology as part of Discovery's disappearance (seeing how it wasn't originally part of the Sphere Data).
Furthermore, the crew planted spores on a lifeless planet and gave it life (essentially). That planet was in Federation space if I'm not mistaken, which would mean someone may have or would have eventually found it and analyzed the spores - in fact, this alone would have been enough for someone in UFP to re-discover the Spore Drive in the late 24th or 25th century or at least use the spores as a brand new energy source - unless Starfleet prohibited access to that planet for whatever reason... maybe designated it an 'interstellar preserve' of some kind - which would technically ward off most people (sans a few people who may not have much regard for such regulations).
And now that UFP has a whole planet filled with spores , they could technically use it to seed other lifeless planets throughout their space. Who knows... maybe the spores growing on such planets could create those previously uninhabitable planets, well... habitable.
Plus, as we've seen, Discovery has its own spore garden... and most SF ships (and stations) could easily create such space on each and every one of them. Take a small sample from the planet and create their own garden of spore supply.
I also don't think 'containers' would be still used in the 32nd century. Starfleet would have been able to find a way to directly transfer the garden spores into the spore chamber (they had Disco and all its technology for 3 weeks in their possession while upgrading it... sending a team to analyze the spore drive in detail would have taken proverbial minutes or hours at best - feed all of the data into an AI so it can determine how best to maximize efficiency when it comes to transferring the spores).
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