The U.S.S. Discovery Spore drive, is it complete nonsense or is there a scientific theory I’m unaware of?
You must log in or # to comment.
For some reason fungal mycelial networks and tardigrades were all the rage in pop sci and internet memes circa 2015. The writers just hopped on the bandwagon when they were deciding how their non-warp propulsion plot point would work.
Star Trek is a drama about societal issues in the context of a ship in space.
It’s pretty short on science. Star wars is just religious fantasy.
Star Trek does better when it shows us the process of science and engineering rather than science itself.
Much of the plant life on Earth is connected by a network of fungal mycelium that helps share resources. In Star Trek, that network of mycelium extends through the multiverse, connecting every planet in every universe. The spore drive allows the ship to travel along the network across all of spacetime instantly.
Current scientific theories do not support the existence of multiversal fungi.
Science based in that the dude who made the drive is named after a famous mycologist. Not sure how that makes it science based…
Not sure how that makes it science based…
Just barely, but isn’t that normal for treknobabble to be ripped from science headlines?
Usually it is, but nothing in the wiki you linked to even hints to travel with/through mycelium. Im actually a fan of Discovery, but the only hint of science in the spore drive is the fact that mycelium and fungal networks do exist, they dont however operate in a separate space outside of normal reality. Unless im missing some cool research
they dont however operate in a separate space outside of normal reality
Well, that would be difficult to prove one way or the other.
But since we’ve already got the fictional construct of subspace, the notion of a mycelial species that can extend through it seems…within the realm of truthiness, all things considered.
The part I’ve never fully grasped is how one travels along the network, but then, I’ve never fully grasped how the warp coils are supposed to work, either.
The original question for this post was whether or not there was any actual science behind the spore drive. You said yes and no. Please enlighten me as to what scientific theory you are getting the yes part of your answer from. Because I read through your linked Wikipedia article and couldnt find anything about how a spore drive could even be theoretically possible. The spore drive is purely techno babble. The warp drive on the other hand, while being mostly techno babble, has some grounding in actual reality and scientific theory.
Edit: I wasnt paying enough attention when writing this post and assumed I was replying to the original commenter. My apologies to everyone.
-
I said nothing of the sort.
-
Star Trek’s warp drive isn’t really an Alcubierre drive at all.
-
My apologies, I didn’t look at the usernames and made a bad assumption.
-
You are correct, my point was that the warp drive did fit within our understanding of theoretical physics at the time. So much so that it eventually inspired the Alcubierre drive. I couldnt find a way that the spore drive fits within our understanding of physics.
-
I and the physicists I know will go to the mat on the principal that the Alcubierre Drive is the first real life physics closed form proof of a warp drive.
For the purposes of this discussion though, the more fundamental point is that Alcubierre’s theoretical proof of concept for warp drives was created in the mid 1990s nearly 30 years after TOS first broadcast and TNG had completed its run.
As I have said here before, following the norm in mathematics-based theory development, Alcubierre started with a tractable corner case. This means he set a number of obviously necessary parameters to zero to make it possible to get to a closed-form solution that didn’t rely on crunching numbers.
His objective in his PhD thesis was prove there was an exception General Relativity that makes warp drives possible theoretically.
He did that, and as is usual with corner solutions, came up with something fairly absurd that would involve massive amounts of exotic matter and couldn’t steer a course due — simply because he intentionally set those parameters to zero for the purposes of the proof.
It’s a misunderstanding of the way theoretical reasoning and research gets done to say that Alcubierre’s warp drive isn’t the one in Star Trek, simply because he chose the simplest case for his proof. The Star Trek warp drive would involve setting these parameters to positive values - but that doesn’t mean it’s a different theory at the fundamental level.
As usual, more realistic applications of the theory, with nonzero values for those parameters that would:
- actually allow a ship to enter warp from a sublight velocity
- permit the ship to control its direction while at warp, and
- would not require massive amounts of exotic matter,
are very likely to involve massive amounts of numerical approximations calculated by a computer and advances in materials science.
Unless someone finds a mathematical trick to get around the numerical approximations with a better closed form solution — and comes up with a materially different basic warp drive equation — whatever we get eventually from this line of research will still be viewed as Alcubierre’s drive. Or, also likely an Alcubierre-OtherPerson drive.
-
Which imaginary treknologies strike you as the most scientifically sound?
For me it’s the replicator turning shit into food, but everything may as well be magic.
I think there are a couple treknologies that exist now, or at least are pretty close. The translator tech is not very far ahead of what we have today. The communicator actually influenced the design of early cell phones. Trek predicted quite a few real life technologies. I definitely think something similar to the replicators will exist eventually, hell 3D printing food already exists.
In terms of the more out there treknologies, I think the gene editing that is illegal in the federation is pretty scientifically grounded. I also think the medical tricorder will some day inspire/shape new tech similar to the communicator with cell phones.
Removed by mod
As others have hinted at, sharing a yes or no answer and pasting a link to a youtube video with no further context is not an adequate Daystrom submission. Citing a source is certainly acceptable, but your comment should make it’s own self contained argument supported by those sources, not rely on users clicking through to an external site to understand what you are trying to say.
Would be much more interesting to hear your own thoughts instead of just lazily pasting a link to people who are paid to be haters.
Nonsense? In SciFi?
Well I never!
Yeah, it also has aliens, matter-to-energy transporters + replicators, as well as universal translators and faster-than-light travel.
Complete drivel, Star Trek needs to get back to its roots and just be Horatio Hornblower fan fiction.
lmao “science! fuck yeahhhh!”
