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Have you ever considered that the Prime Directive is not only not ethical, but also illogical, and perhaps morally indefensible?

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General Order 24 would seem to apply.

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Personally, I think the sandwich is the ideal food delivery system.

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Probably “admin”.

Subspace, Real Space, Warp Bubbles and a proposal as to how *Star Trek* Warp Drive might work

In this post I’ll be proposing a model to understanding how Star Trek warp drive works. In doing so, I’ll be attempting to reconcile the way the TNG Technical Manual describes warp drive with the idea that warp drive somehow takes advantages of shortcuts through real space by warping space around the craft, yet still...

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The TNG Technical Manual has another line that I think supports this general idea:

The combination of forces produced within the warp engine core and the flow of space and subspace around the vessel created the particular engineering solution to the problem of faster-than-light travel.

This seems to support the notion that subspace itself is bleeding into real space around the ship, at least to a degree.

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As far as I know, the directive mainly applies to officers who are sent back in time and/or given the opportunity to change established history. I don’t think it would prevent someone from making an arrest in their “proper” time.

At most, it might limit their ability to interrogate the prisoner, if they can verify that the intruder is from the future and possesses knowledge that the contemporary officers can’t have.

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To note in passing new life and new civilizations…

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Tuvix vs. the Swingin’ Fontaine Brothers? I don’t get it.

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sir this is a pleasure planet

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When you’re logical, you’re logical.

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Well that’s the thing - something can’t really “disappear from existence,” unless we’re talking about something that did exist and was destroyed.

But if it never existed at all…well, there’s literally nothing lost.

The exception to this would be if Kirk and his crew remembered the Cerritos existing before the time travel shenanigans.

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Even accepting this to be true, Spock sure wouldn’t have any way of knowing, or any reason to care.

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The interesting thing about cars like this, in which something is literally erased from reality, is that it’s completely victimless.

One cannot destroy that which never existed to begin with. From that perspective, I’d say Spock made the right call.

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I’d personally completely forgotten about the river of time stuff and the intention to never emerge.

I freely admit that this probably falls under the category of “personal interpretation” - here’s the exchange that makes me think that (without identifying who’s speaking, because the site I found doesn’t provide that info):

Instead of fighting time, we go with it.

Stop trying to destroy the Sphere.

Merge it into the river of time.

Send it so far into the future, it can’t do us any harm? I collected sensor data from Dr. Burnham when she first arrived.

The Red Angel suit has almost limitless quantum computational power. Literally infinite storage.

Meaning you can transfer the Sphere archive into the suit, program a destination beyond Dr. Burnham’s anchor point and let the wormhole take it forever? Perpetual infinity.

Control will never get the data in order to evolve.

However, I don’t think this idea is ever really acknowledged after this conversation, and like you said, Burnham seems thrilled when she arrives in the future in season 3, so maybe I’m way off.

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do you honestly remember why Discovery had to go into the future and be “erased"

It was to ensure there was no way for Control (which they were not certain had been eliminated) or anyone else to get hold of the sentient sphere data in their possession. I admit the episodes are a little muddled, but it seemed like the original “Perpetual Infinity” plan had been to go into the wormhole and never emerge, which isn’t exactly what happened in the end.

and even if you do … does it feel like a good or interesting story point to you?

Absolutely, I think the 32nd Century is pretty great, and the time jump was the means to that end.

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Was the sphere sentient by that point?

By that point, the sphere was actively resisting attempts to tamper with it or delete or destroy it, though it doesn’t appear to have developed a personality.

They couldn’t just destroy Discovery?

They tried, in “Such Sweet Sorrow” - the sphere disabled the auto-destruct and raised shields, preventing the Enterprise from firing at Discovery.

Or spore drive the ship far away?

I believe they discussed this as a possibility in “Perpetual Infinity” - IIRC, their conclusion was that it was too risky to bring the sphere data anywhere, which was why their original plan was to “merge it into the river of time” (which, to me, suggests they never actually intended to leave the wormhole.

I don’t personally think the climax of season 2 is very good or clearly-written, but there are explanations provided for a number of things.

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There are allowances for genetic therapies to treat medical conditions, but this probably falls outside of that realm just a bit.

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despite getting your facts wrong

By all means, enlighten me. I admire your dedication to tone policing, but it’s starting to feel just a little bit like you’re doing everything you possibly can to avoid addressing the topic at hand.

That couldn’t possibly be it, though.

If you did this on a regular basis I wouldn’t hang out with you.

Truly tragic.

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we saw Wesely grow dilithium as part of a high school science project.

Wow, what a significant development - which episode was that?

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The plot revolves around a wargames scenario. There is for some reason an alien race that is really good at war strategies. There is an advisor from that race on the enterprise.

Ah, that would be “Peak Performance”, in which Wesley has an experiment that has something to do with high-energy plasma reactions with antimatter, and nothing whatsoever to do with growing dilithium. Swing and a miss.

The Klingons use Trilithium.

Strike two - trilithium is an unstable explosive that is used in the engines of exactly no one. The Klingons do use tritium as an intermix, but as you are aware, that simply replaced the role that deuterium plays in Starfleet designs - it has nothing to do with dilithium.

The Romulans used a contained singularity.

This is the closest you’ve come to having something. Of course, there’s exactly zero information on how those drives operate or are manufactured, along with the pesky fact that the Romulans have enslaved an entire race to mine dilithium for them, which is…not something you typically do to obtain a substance that you don’t need. We’ll call it a foul ball.

In Voyager we saw a number of potential non-dilithium alternatives. One of them was a glorified slingshot.

What did we learn about how these alternatives are powered, particularly considering that several of them were plugged into Voyager’s warp core without too much trouble? You get bonus points if you can identify the one that was specifically described as “not antimatter,” which is most likely (but not guaranteed) to exclude dilithium.

So far we’ve got two strikes and two fouls. You’re still at bat.

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I have made up my mind about your factual errors, yeah. You’re not going to convince me of things that aren’t true.

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I’m just very interested in people who, you know, tell the truth. It shouldn’t be that challenging…

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Except Control was already destroyed before they went through the Singularity!

They didn’t know that for sure, and the debriefings with Pike, Spock, and the gang at the end establish that they took some time afterward to confirm that Control had been completely eliminated.

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Well, that’s where I think their plan falls apart a bit. My interpretation was always that they were going to try to stay in the wormhole, effectively removing themselves from the timestream - hence the episode title “Perpetual Infinity”. I don’t have access to episode transcripts right now, but Memory Alpha seems to support this:

Burnham speculates that perhaps instead of fighting against time, they flow with it, and try to merge the Sphere into the “river of time” itself – sending it so far into the future that it would not be able to harm them. Stamets’ examination of the Red Angel’s suit has revealed it has almost infinite data storage, which Pike takes to mean that they would input the Sphere archive into the suit, program a destination beyond Gabrielle’s anchor point, and let the micro-wormhole take it away forever. “Perpetual infinity”, Stamets confirms; Control will not be able to get the data, ever.

However, I think there are multiple ways to interpret the scene, and I think the last couple of episodes of the season are pretty sloppy in that regard.

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Before even that it’s shown them in considerable anguish to come out to their boyfriend even.

Cool! Do you have any examples from scenes that actually happened?

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That’s an awfully roundabout way of saying you’re spouting made-up bullshit.

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