‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Showrunners Confirm A Visit To Trill And More Spore Drive In Season 3

Discovery cast and crew on stage at PaleyFest2019

The cast and crew of Star Trek: Discovery were in New York this weekend for both New York Comic Con and PaleyFest New York.  They dropped some new tidbits about what we can expect from the show’s third season, which includes the spore drive—yes, it’s still up and running!—and a visit to the homeworld of a familiar beloved alien race: the Trill. Plus we now know we can expect “13 or more” episodes this season.

Season 3 of Discovery is going to Trill

On stage at PaleyFest New York, Star Trek franchise helmsman Alex Kurtzman confirmed that Discovery‘s third season will see future versions of Star Trek aliens that we all know and love. If you thought you saw the Trill homeworld in the trailer just released yesterday, you are right! Kurtzman confirmed it, saying, “We are going to Trill this year” and that some of the show’s new characters will have to go there for a very specific reason.

The Trill were introduced in Star Trek: The Next Generation, but their backstory was much more fleshed out thanks to Deep Space Nine’s fan-favorite character Dax (Jadzia and then Ezri), a joined Trill. The show being set 930 years into the future from Discovery season 2 means we may possibly get to see a whole new version of the Trill homeworld. No word on whether any of the Trill symbionts we’ve met in the 24th century will make cameo appearances.

Trills in the Discovery season 3 NYCC trailer.

The presence of a known alien race in season three brings up a question that fans have been wondering since season two’s finale: will the writers wipe the slate clean, or will we be seeing future versions of alien species and worlds we already know? Executive Producer Heather Kadin says that the jump into the future gives the writers some breathing room, saying that the advantage of setting the show in the future means “no more bumping up against canon,” and there is “new freedom in blazing new territory.”

TrekMovie spoke with Discovery‘s executive producers on the red carpet before the panel. Michelle Paradise explained that season 3 will be a mix of old and new:

It’s a mix of things. We’re going 930 years into the future, so we’re taking expectations and alliances and enemies and all of those things and putting them in a blender and mixing it all up and seeing what’s going to happen. It’s going to be very interesting, I think.

A mix of familiar alien species (including Andorian, Cardassian, and Lurian) in the NYCC trailer.

More spores in season three

The mycelial network was introduced in Discovery‘s first season but has never appeared anywhere else (so far) in the Trek franchise. Kurtzman says the spore drive will remain a big part of the narrative, verifying that the USS Discovery is still the only ship with one, even in the future—and adding that because of that, other people are going to want it.

Showrunner Michelle Paradise confirmed that the Federation will be going through a bit of a rough patch during the time period where the USS Discovery arrives, saying the Federation is challenged, but not gone, in the future. But she added that the show will have Trek’s optimism, and the characters [on Discovery] become the beacon of hope in the future.

The USS Discovery and its crew will be a beacon of hope in the 32nd century.

13+ episodes for season three

There’s no official word yet on how many episodes we can expect in the third season, but on the red carpet, Kurtzman described the way they can tell a story on TV vs. movies, and used the phrase “13 or more.”

[Discovery] is a movie on the small screen, and we have the benefit of 13 or more episodes to tell deeper stories than you have time to tell in two hours.

Kurtzman, Paradise, and Kadin confirmed that the show’s writers’ room has both familiar and new faces around the table working on season three. Paradise listed them:

There’s us, and Jenny (Lumet). Anne Cofell Saunders. Ken Lin. Alan McElroy. Kirsten Beyer. Brandon Schultz. Erika and Boey, who are going off to do Section 31. Chris Silvestri, Anthony Maranville, Sean Cochran. Kalinda Vasquez, who just joined, who’s phenomenal.

Kurtzman then covered their tracks, since they were being rushed away as we spoke to them:

We probably missed somebody, so whoever that is, I apologize.

TrekMovie talks with Discovery executive producers after the panel at PaleyFest2019

Discovery executive producers Heather Kadin, Michelle Paradise, and Alex Kurtzman on the red carpet before the panel at PaleyFest New York

Could Discovery make the transition to the silver screen?

We asked Kurtzman if the reunification of the Star Trek franchise could mean that his team will be making movies, and if the movies would now be directly connected to the (multiple) TV series:

Anything’s possible, really. Again, if you’re going to make a movie, you need to tell a story that is really better told on the big screen. So it has to be a very specific kind of story. We don’t want to just jam it in to jam it in. [The story] would have to be something that would inspire us to say, “We really want to tell this story in two hours.”

We’ll have more PaleyFest coverage over the next few days! Upcoming red carpet interviews include Mary Wiseman, Anthony Rapp, and Sonequa Martin-Green.

234 Comments
oldest
newest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

“…saying the Federation is challenged, but not gone, in the future.”

Good! Absolutely fine with that. There has to be some kind of Federation left as this is set roughly 150 years after Relativity’s existence and 300 years after Daniel’s origins. So the Federation couldn’t have just vanished shortly after Picard.

I think you have that backwards. 150 after Daniels and 300 after Relativity.

I don’t remember all the time travel incidents to the future in previous shows but if Discovery is set 150 after the last known point of reference that’s more than enough time to shake things up if they want to. Likewise, there’s enough time in between Picard and those events to shake things up and return to something that’s more familiar. History doesn’t have to be a straight line.

From what I remember, they never actually said what the condition of the Federation is, just that there is a Federation.

– Captain Braxton, Relativity and Aeon are from the 29th Century

– Daniels is from the 31st Century

– Discovery jumping 930 years ahead, puts them in the 32nd Century (ca 3188)

The examples of Relativity, and Daniels doesn’t pinpoint either to a given year. For all we know, Daniels could be from the year 3000 (188 years before Discovery), or he’s from 3099 (89 years before Discovery). There’s a slight possibility that Daniels might still be around in 3188, as an old man. Not likely, but it’s possible.

What little we know from Daniels, is that the Federation still existed in his time period, and includes races like the Klingons and the Xindi. He wasn’t entirely Human (Are you Human? More or less) and he wasn’t a member of Starfleet (in either his time period or Archer’s). Starfleet may not even exist anymore, but there’s no confirmation of that.

Good to know the Federation still exists. Hopefully the Discovery won’t be the most advanced ship out there in the far future.

It seems that Discovery will at least be the only ship with a spore drive.
The state of technology in the 32nd century will be a big point. There’s no way of credibly extrapolating technological developments this far into the future. Discovery was already more advanced in some respects than anything we had seen before. Now they have to show “reasonable” technological progress from Discovery’s updated 23rd century to Picard 140 years later and then jump another 800 years into the future.

Unfortunately we’ve already seen evidence that they’ve failed at that with 160 year old DSC shuttlecraft appearing in the Picard trailer.

It’s most likely because the SFX for Picard aren’t 100% finished. Not the first time time footage from other series have made it into a star trek trailer.

Is it the same or does it just look similar? The shuttle used in Star Trek V looked very similar to the type 6 shuttles used in TNG. They even reused the Star Trek V shuttle in Generations. So Starfleet seems to build these small ships to last.

The whole premise that millions of nearby worlds and sextillions of individuals, Disco is still anywhere near the top technologically is crazy. That’s even taking a coppalpse of UFO into account.

It’s kind of a stretch that nobody has developed another spore drive in those 800 years (or another type of drive that would make a spore drive outdated). Yet, even if you believe that it seems highly unlikely that Discovery would stand a chance in a confrontation with anybody trying to take it from them.

“It’s kind of a stretch that nobody has developed another spore drive in those 800 years ”

This is not a problem. The problem is that NO OTHER CIVILIZATION (and we know that many civilizations reached Warp thousands of years before us) developed it.

Agreed J.S., that’s the biggest problem overall, that no one OTHER than Starfleet has developed it considering all the other species out there that are much older and advanced.

It’s a stretch beyond belief. This is the most advanced space travel we ever seen. Starfleet should not be the first or at least only ones who have figured out how to do it.

That is part of the problem with going so far into the future. The tech very well could appear to be magic to us. It’s a hard illusion for the audience to shake. I think that is why a lot of stories set so far into the future involve some sort of de-evolution in some way. A world where innovation has stopped or something like that.

Problem is: technology would have to devolve on many worlds, not just one. They could have wiped the slate clean by suggesting that all the advanced civilizations wiped each other out, and the galaxy is now being colonized by a new wave of civilizations who developed space flight long after the first wave was gone. However, the trailer clearly shows familiar alien species.

There is that too. I really feel like going THAT far into the future is just a slippery slope for the show to settle on.

Someone else said it already: You just have to roll with it and accept that some things probably won’t make sense given the amount of time that has passed. Star Trek is fiction after all, not a documentary about the future.

Guessing that journey to Trill involves seeking out knowledge of “the domino,” which is either part of the living memory of Trill symbionts or about which they have some clue. Neat if it would be Dax, but not necessarily.

I would interpret ‘the domino’ as the key event that set off an unfortunate cascade of events in an adverse direction.

Asking Trill rather than hoping back and forth through time or geography makes a lot of sense.

What if that “domino” is Picard and his actions in the Picard show?

Wouldn’t make sense as the Federation is still fine much, much later than Picard with Daniels etc

In the century before this one, we know from Daniels that the Federation still existed and was bigger and stronger than ever. Centuries after this one, we know from “Calypso” that the Federation eventually morphs into the villainous V’dresh.

So something horrible happened that destroyed the Federation after Daniels’ time, and Burnham will succeed in restoring the Federation, only to have it eventually become evil.

If the showrunners care about continuity (and their comments about being “free of canon” might indicate that they don’t), it will be interesting to see how they make everything work together.

And I can imagine Burnham dragging Discovery another 900 years further into the future for season 4 after somehow finding out that her restored Federation will become the bad guys of the universe.

I don’t remember any explicit connection between the Federation and the V’dresh.

From Memory Alpha: The writer of “Calypso”, Michael Chabon, confirmed on Instagram that “V’draysh” is a syncope (a type of linguistic distortion) of “Federation”.

However, that doesn’t tell us that the V’draysh are necessarily “villainous.” WE have no idea why Craft was fighting with them.

That suggests a direction that the writers may choose to go in, but they aren’t bound by anything that isn’t on screen.

Agreed, Legate.

A Federation, not necessarily The Federation ;)

Maybe nothing horrible happened and some Federation worlds and colonies decided to secede and form their own government. If the Federation isn’t willing to give up territory and resources, then it would likely lead to hostilities.

I am left wondering if all the time travel stuff from previous shows, like Daniels and the time ship relativity, will be erased and ignored.

I’m not sure that they’re going to do something this drastic. However, I could imagine that time travel tech has developed to a point where it is so ubiqitous and dangerous that there is some sort of natural Mutual Assured Destruction dynamic at play where no one can ‘win’ by altering time. Or a sort of ‘time lock’ where the time travel shenanigans between the 29th (or earler) and 31st centuries are part of history that can’t be altered, but beyond that it’s impossible to do further alterations.

After all, time travel becomes commonplace and simple by Discovery’s time, in civilizations which have had interstellar capability for a millenium or two. There seems to be some sort of ‘block’ in the way – otherwise Empires such as the T’Kon or the Iconians, which ostensibly were far more advanced than the Federation and its compatriots, would still be around and meddle. Not to mention the Preservers, or the Ur-Humanoid species of billions of years ago…

Pike on the BIG SCREEN, please. That latest ‘Short Takes’ was really something.

I’m fine with Trek staying away from the big screen. They tend to get stuck in the same kind of villain story.

I agree Jim!

The problem is finding a story that can be told in 2 hours that really warrants cinematic treatment rather than just being a two-part episode.

I think Kurtzman is exactly right on that…

And has had the experience as a writer with trying to come up with a viable cinematic Trek plot.

Unless someone walks in an amazing plot that only will work for cinema, I think he’ll say no.

A miniseries of 6 or 8 hours of streaming might be another thing.

But my money is on a more episodic series. Doing a series of 3 Short Treks not only demonstrates viability for a Pike show in general, but also a current market for non-serialized Trek.

It’s kind of hard to tell, but it looks like the make up artists are being more true to the original look of the Cardassian and Lurian than they were to the Klingons and Tellarites in the first couple of seasons… That, plus the obvious continuity with TNG uniforms and the Enterprise-D seen in the new Picard trailer gives me hope that TPTB are continuing to restore a more cohesive aesthetic to what has come before.

Well, the Cardassians and Lurians were designed almost twenty hears after the TMP Klingons, so it makes sense that they feel that there look holds up a little bit better today,

The Cardassian makeup was brilliant from the get go, that will never need updating IMO, the Tellarite and Andorian look from Enterprise didn’t need updating either.

Lukas, I totally agree with you on the Andorians, but not the Tellarites.

Discovery’s Tellarites are the first ones I’ve been able to believe in….and I’ve been watching Trek since TOS in first run.

But I’m curious to see how the Andorians look with mor interaction in Discovery S3.

They look a bit tagged, and tough as though they are living in harsh times. Also, I can believe them as people of a harsh icy environment.

I’m hoping to see the animatronics on the antennae though. That’s what brought the Andorians on Enterprise to life for me.

You didn’t think the Tellarites were done well in Enterprise? I thought they were.

The Andorians look more badass in Disco, but I prefer the Enterprise look, less over the top IMO.

Check out the shuttle in the Picard trailer :/

They jumped this far forward but they didn’t really need to, IMO this show should’ve been set in the era that the Picard show is set in from the get go. 20 years or so after Nemesis, but that’s just my opinion, realistically could’ve kept all the same ship designs etc since they look that futuristic. I still genuinely don’t understand what possessed them to go 23rd Century.

Anyway as horrendous as seasons 1 and 2 were I’m curious and cautiously optimistic for season 3.

No.

And by that, I mean that nothing you said added anything to this discussion.

And by that, you mean he expressed an opinion different to your own.

My preference would not have been the Picard show era. But I do agree that they could have set the show in that era and changed NOTHING else about it and it would have looked right at home. I will say that as atrocious as season 1 was, season 2 was marginally better. But only marginally. It still sucked. Just not quite as hard. At this point I just don’t see the show improving no matter what time frame they set it in. Not unless there is a major shake up in the writers room. Not just a few changes. But I mean wholesale changes. Including the head writers.

Hate to be cynical again but Discovery so far has proven that hiring writers by quota rather than skill does not yield better results :)

Racist. Let’s assume you are correct that they are “bad” writers (which I disagree with, but that’s not the point I’m making.) To assert that they would be better and more capable if they were white men (presumably those not hired by “quotas” as you state) is to attribute their “bad” writing to the fact that they are women or people of color and to also ascribe the presumption of talent to people who are white men. For someone who call themselves “Vulcan Soul” you have neither the logical reasoning to see the flaw in your thinking, or the subscription to the Vulcan ideal of Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations. Please change your screen name to something more appropriate. Ferengi are very sexist, maybe “Ferengi Soul” would be more fitting. ;)

It’s you who neither understands logic nor IDIC.

As for logic:
Fact 1. Discovery is hiring writers by quota.
Fact 2. Discovery’s writing for seasons 1 and 2 was just as shaky, if not worse, than the worst of other Trek series (FYI, TOS from those “medieval” 1960s had its very best seasons at this time, and without it, there would be no Discovery)

Make of that what you want.

As for IDIC:
These days it has been instrumentalized to stand for the shallow contemporary and dogmatic idea of “diversity”, but actually it was referring to the acceptance of different ideologies, so the exact opposite of the scathing intolerance to opposing political ideas your faction is exhibiting! If you were a proponent of this concept, you wouldn’t have insulted me ad hominem, but answered like Surak in “The Savage Curtain”: “I’m delighted to disagree with you, Sir!”

Fact 1. Discovery is hiring writers by quota.

They are? Where? How? Says who? Inquiring minds want to know.

It was just in one of the background articles about NYCC again that they ensure “diversity behind the camera too”. Not ideological diversity of course – that much is obvious ;)

Couldn’t agree more, in 2 seasons of Trek the only episode that felt like Star Trek was New Eden, that episode was great. The quality spiked for 1 week and then plummeted again.

I’ve said it from Day 1, TNG wasn’t too great until season 3, DS9 was slow until season 3, so was Enterprise, I’ll see how STD season 3 pans out. But with Picard coming, if season 3 is more Burnham’s the savior of the universe BS I’m done, Star Trek’s always been an ensemble show.

You and I are on the exact same page, Lukas. New Eden had me hoping DSC was turning a corner into a good show, only to disappointment me afterwards to the point where I stopped watching because the next episode literally put me to sleep. And if DSC doesn’t finally become the ensemble show it should be this season, I’m chalking it off for good. Burnham, thus far, is one of the worst-written characters I’ve ever seen on a show, imo.

Yes New Eden has definitely been the biggest highlight for me as well. It felt like a classic TNG episode. I do feel there were other good episodes in the season but that was the pinnacle for me. But unlike you two I do think the season improved overall easily compared to season one but yes a lot of it still sucked lol. No doubt!

But I am hoping season 3 is the charm like so many Trek shows. And I think that’s exactly why they changed it so much next season. I have a feeling not only will the setting be a completely different thing but the structure of the show itself so you may very well get your wish. I’m hoping for it to feel more like an ensemble as well.

“I have a feeling not only will the setting be a completely different thing but the structure of the show itself so you may very well get your wish.”

I’d like to know, where did you see such indication? The talk about “dominos” reminds me of “red signals” last season, e.g. another season-long mystery box coming, this time: why and when did the Federation fall, and how can we right this wrong.

I just mean it will probably be more of an ensemble. The focus was on Micheal the first two seasons because both crisis were either set up by her or dealt directly with her family. I don’t think whatever next season is about will have her tied so directly to the plot and can make the cast all feel more invested. Unless we find out her great, great, great, great (throw in another 50 in there) will be the one who topples the Federation or something.

I’m pretty sure the mystery itself will be long and twisty like the Red Angel one though.

Comparing it to other Trek seasons I don’t think is very fair considering Discovery’s 3rd season is starting with episode #29 while TNG’s 3rd season started with episode #48. One could say it took TNG 49 episodes to find their footing. If Discovery manages to start sailing smoothly with episode 29 they will have done it much sooner than TNG and DS9.

Well you can’t really look at it that way. Every season these shows have a direction with writers and producers and map out that season. Its not until the next season can they really make any real changes, especially staff which is what they did. Why TNG had such a rough start because of all the staff changes DURING the first two seasons. Discovery had some of that too but not nearly as bad as TNG did.

And in fact I would argue the opposite in the sense that Discovery has LOTS more time to figure things out because they don’t have to produce nearly 30 episodes a year like TNG and the others did. They get waaaaaay more leeway to make the changes. That’s why second season of Discovery worked better, they had nearly a year off the air to decide what worked and what didn’t. TNG was just keeping its head above water just trying to get episodes out. And second season was doing it under a huge writer’s strike at the time.

And TNG was the first Trek spin off, Discovery is the fifth. All that said I’m not really comparing them, they all their own reasons for their issues but I do like the fact they are so proactive with Discovery and making so many changes, even rebooting its setting to improve it. But again, it has the time to make such big changes in the first place.

OK. Fair enough. I will counter with the lengthy season does allow for shows to make changes on the fly. Producers can see what is working and what isn’t and can make tweaks as the show is still in production. They even have the luxury of seeing public reaction to the first part of the while the show is still in production. This is not possible in the short seasons. Even less so in short season story arcs. They are locked into nearly everything come hell or high water.

Sure they can make changes, but they are usually still pretty small because they have to think about the budget they have for the rest of that year and stick to a time table. I agree they can just write better stories, add new cast members, etc but you never see any big wholesale changes until the following season for a reason.

TNG third season was better because they replaced the show runner, infused it with a new writing staff while making a lot of production changes behind the scenes in the process. Nothing as big as what Discovery is doing by changing its premise but those changes couldn’t have been done during the season without stopping the production cold.

Here is a perfect example, the season finale of season 2, that AWFUL clip show of Riker in Shades of Grey came out as bad as it did because the production literally ran out of money lol. They couldn’t even afford to pay the crew to work the entire episode days they normally would work and why they came up with just making it a clip show with only a few scenes of Riker and a few characters mostly in sick bay. When you’re running on THOSE type of fumes you’re probably not making a lot of changes later in the season if its going to cost more money and time to do it even if you have better ideas.

But I agree shows can definitely improve as they go, but I don’t think the number of episodes have anything to do with it. Producers simply come up with better stories ideas and then make a change. That can happen in episode 5 or episode 50 and its better to happen sooner than later obviously.

And of course many never make that turn at all regardless how long they go for.

New Eden was also definitely my favorite episode last season. Then comes the Thalos IV episode, and then for a long time, nothing. The season finale was particularly nonsensical, from the good Admiral sacrificing herself for no reason whatsoever to Saru’s sister turning up as a fighter pilot 6 months after emerging from an Agrarian society.

Yeah unfortunately the finale was pretty bad! But still not as bad as the first season finale. That just felt like it was written between lunch breaks.

The 2nd season was indeed marginally better overall. But comparing it to the 1st season is pretty much as low a bar as could possibly be set. It would take some pretty amazing talent to make something that was WORSE than Lorca being from the MU.

Apparently Jason Isaacs wouldn’t have played Lorca if he was “just” a straight PTSD-challenged military man and not the reincarnate of evil he turned out to be, with a convenient political message to boot! Goes to show when actors confuse acting with activism, the whole product suffers (in that vein, don’t check the twitter feed of the “Edward” guy ;-)

If Issacs was not interested in playing a morally gray captain then don’t hire him. It really is as simple as that. Issacs is not some sort of amazing casting coup that demanded they bow to his every goofy whim just for the privilage of having him on their show. He was amazingly replaceable.

Who is that “Edward” guy?

You are absolutely correct. Unfortunately, you have more sense than the showrunners of Discovery had at the time… and probably still do.

Love that Spore Drive.

Me too.

But still wondering how they can justify using it.

Same as always, uninventive lazy writing.

I guess that’s why we have the Warp Drive. A device that will never exist in reality.

A Spore Drive just makes more sense.

Given the 800 year gap between the most advanced, aired Trek (VOY, Nemesis) and the new season, and looking at some of the pictures above, I really wonder if they truly appreciate it is 8 times as big a leap in time than from Kirk & Spock to TNG season 1, which showed some pretty massive changes both technologically and politically already (of course also owing to the fact that technology leaped massively between 1960 and 1990!), and do not actually understate the changes by “yet another uniform design, phaser design etc.” and merely “mixing up alliances” (which would be ironic given that Discovery has a history of OVERstating technological progress with regard to continuity/canon in its first two season).

For a near-millenia, technological, cultural and even linguistic changes should be near-incomprehensible to us (as the old adage goes, with any technology sufficiently advanced being indistinguishable from magic), which of course clashes with the narrative need to keep things relatable to contemporary audiences. Therefore, going so far into the future may not be as liberating as they think – they just traded one field of tension / backslash (about canon) for another (about relatability vs. realism).

It depends on what happens during that millenium.

To exaggerate, if 700 out of 800 of those years were a “dark age” (which couldn’t be true for ALL species anyway), what is the point to go so far into the future to begin with?

Even dark ages incur the cultural, religious and linguistic changes I mentioned. Just compare the time immediately before the Fall of the (Western) Roman Empire in the 5th century to the 15th century Renaissance (with only the first half of that gap possibly counting as a “dark age”).

In either case, stagnation or merely cosmetic change would be unrealistic.

You’re supposing technology can progress without limits, what maybe not true. Aside from the mastering time travel (something Starfleet was already getting good at with Kirk), we know nothing of the technology of the far future of Trek…

I would argue that it’s just not possible to credibly extrapolate technological development this far into the future.
They will need to show at least 3 levels of technology: Discovery’s 23rd century, Picard’s late 24th century and the new 32nd century. They will also need to find a way to make the USS Discovery “competitive” in its new surroundings. And with all of this, they need to make sure that their technology doesn’t get to the point where it magically solves any problem.

Three levels of technological differentation, that is no small feat, Diginon, especially given who we are talking about here (they already could not adapt to the one TOS level convincingly enough). However, I can think of a few things that were taboo before for political reasons and that may not be true anymore now that the politics have changed. Invisibility cloaks could be standard fare everywhere, but visually that would not make for very impressive space battles ;) More importantly, this whole ban on Eugenics all Trek series in all time periods have surprisingly adhered to could have fallen, and all humans be some sort of genetically and cybernetically modified hybrid as a result. There should be much more robotics and AIs, no doubt. All these are things we see shaping up in the real world that Star Trek (unrealistically) so far has ruled out or ignored, so that would be a perfect level of differentation between the 2xxx and 3xxx years.

Besides that however is the cultural and linguistic change and I think that is even harder to pull off both convincingly and in a relatable way (given that 2xxx Trek has already failed in that regard, safe for some failed attempts in TNG season 1). If anything Trek reflects contemporary fads and developments, and nothing is more proof of that than Discovery and its factionalist subtexts.

I can forgive Discovery having some more advanced tech than previous 23rd century or even 24th century shows just because these shows have partially been overtaken by our real-world technological progress. ENT was partially more advanced than TOS for the same reason. Still ENT tried to stay less advanced than the TNG era. That’s the level of consistency I’m hoping for: to see an evolution from Discovery to Picard to the 32nd century. That last part will be especially difficult to pull off unless they introduce some technological regression that slows progress during those 800 years.
Genetic and cybernetic modification is certainly a possibility unless they keep regulations forbidding it.
As for cultural and linguistic change: They can “get around” linguistic change because of the universal translator. Basically, we hear English but people may be talking in whatever language.
Trek has never been good at really developing “cultures”, be it alien cultures or future human cultures. For humans, we mostly got classical music or 20th century entertainment, maybe some spiritual mysticism with people like Chakotay from time to time. Klingons are probably the most developed alien culture and even they don’t get much beyond warriors chanting about honor.
Realistically, people in the future should probably use completely different (pop-)cultural references that we just don’t understand because they haven’t happened yet, or because they come from an extraterrestrial origin. However, you need those common cultural references to make it relatable for the audience. So I expect they will keep a mostly US-inspired cultural heritage – probably except for the whole financial industry and making money part.

Being able to have an accurate picture of 900 years from now is one thing, but seeing technology only advance 50 years in that 900 almost certainly wrong with an extreme probability

It’s all fiction, guys. Just go with the flow. As someone said, it is impossible to guess technology a 100 years from now, let alone a 1,000. Enjoy the ride, and let creators create.

Problem… Discovery’s 23rd century was 100 years ahead of TOS’ 23rd Century. So there is a flaw right there at the start.

Like I said in my other comment I don’t have too much of a problem with Discovery updating some technology to look more like something you would expect the future to look like today as opposed to what they imagined the future to look like in the sixties. However, I would hope that they strife for technological consistency within their own creations.

And I’ve said this over and over… A nice update of the era would be required, of course. But whatever is done it would need to at least evoke the FEEL of the era it is in. It felt like Discovery didn’t even attempt to do that. They just did their own thing. The era they were supposed to be in be damned.

Cardboard sets and blinking lights wasn’t the FEEL the showrunners wanted. They made the right choice. Discovery looks awesome.

Cardboard sets is where it should’ve been left, it worked fine for in a mirror darkly and the DS9 episode that went back.

Discovery looks like it’s from Picards time they should’ve set the show in that time.

Those episodes were just fan service for nostalgia fans. I never took those episodes seriously.

You’re absolutely right, they would be like Gods by then. However I suspect some massive cataclysm happened, or warp drive became impossible or something.

I see the section 31 show is still on. Am I the only one not looking forward to it? I hope it doesn’t become a case of too much, too soon.

There’s so much new Trek now which is awesome, two live action and two animated, but let’s not overdo it. Wait and see how these pan out first.

It’s the other way round. As Tiger posited, the number of people looking forward to it here can be counted on one hand ;)

Who are the other four?

I want to know too :D

I’m looking forward to it. And it may premiere in 2021. The whole point of doing this is really avoid trying to make everyone look forward to every show. It is okay not to look forward to whatever production they put out. They want to bring all Star Trek fans to CBSAA, and convert some more into Star Trek fans, not necessarily make all the fans watch all the shows.

“The whole point of doing this is really avoid trying to make everyone look forward to every show”

This is a REALLY STRANGE business strategy! :D

No it’s basic good marketing strategy.

It’s called differentiating your product line to appeal to different sub-niches.

Think about the old cereal companies – Corn Flakes vs Rice Krispies vs Special K vs Captain Crunch.

They’re in trouble now because they didn’t anticipate that Millennials wouldn’t eat cereal much at all, and so ignored branching to foods that substitute for cereals. But Trek has that covered with streaming + broadcast + experience entertainment.

Having many. many months between episodes is not at all the same as differentiating product lines at all, anymore than inducing amnesia in a viewer.

Absolutely agree that 13 episodes per year is too few.

TG47, the difference is we don’t like to eat ALL cereals (plus substitutes) for breakfast, and usually ONLY for breakfast. My point was, right now we have 13 hours of programming PER YEAR for Trek fans, and that may change to 23 soon thanks for Picard (supposed one doesnt abandon Discovery now that the “real deal’ is coming, as some people announced they would). I dont know about you but I could watch ALOT more new Trek per year than this, and we certainly did in the golden 1990s when 52 hours of new Trek were on every year. THEIR problem is that investment in these series and per episode cost is too high now to allow for long seasons and so many series that any given fan could pick a handful and still end up with Trek every week. So whats the next best option – make the series you have appealing to the biggest possible audience! More Trek per year per fan, more permanent subscribers, more profit.

No it’s basic good marketing strategy. It’s called differentiating your product line to appeal to different sub-niches.

I humbly suggest that if CBS wants to do this, they develop some quality non-Trek series. The next THE CROWN or THE AMERICANS needs to be on CBS. Hairsplitting the Trek community between “people who like Section 31” (all ten of them, I guess) and “people who don’t” is a fool’s errand.

“Think about the old cereal companies – Corn Flakes vs Rice Krispies vs Special K vs Captain Crunch. They’re in trouble now because they didn’t anticipate that Millennials wouldn’t eat cereal much at all, and so ignored branching to foods that substitute for cereals.”

A most interesting example. I suggest you research the “cereal aisle phenomenon.” In short, a considerable amount of research has demonstrated that when you give consumers too many choices, they become bewildered and stop consuming the product entirely. Offer 20 different kinds of Colgate toothpaste and consumers can’t make up their mind and defer the purchase. The cereal aisle was a prime example of this phenomenon.

There is a virtue in simplicity.

I think I know what Salvador was getting at. He just worded it weird. He means they want to have different genres of shows that are aimed at different tastes and demographics to try and make Trek as appealing to as many people as possible. Which I think IS a good business strategy.

Exactly.

No, it is the only viable strategy if you want to bring different people into Trek. There’s not one single concept that could do that. Not even the original was able to be that. There are many Trek fans that don’t care much for TOS. Accepting the diversity of fandom and trying to serve each of them seperately is the ONLY strategy that makes sense. All others would mean alienate part of the audience.

> It is okay not to look forward to whatever production they put out.
Said no fan ever..

As it stand the wait between Star Trek seasons is far too much, so I welcome more shows. However, Section 31 in the form Disco shows is not appealing at all. They have screwed a lot of things they have touched.

From what I can tell you are in the minority. There does not seem to be a lot of desire for the Section 31 show as currently described. It’s OK. I know what it is like to be in the minority. Just check out my views on TVH!

Looks like someone’s a fan of Mega Man. :-D

The big problem with this that I have not seen them answer is around technology. The Discovery and it’s tech should look like a steamship would to us today. 1000 years in the future technology would be indistinguishable from what Discovery would have on-board. This really just takes me right out of the story.

and this is the problem with continually “going forward” in the timeline.

it looks to me like the landscape of the future (930 plus)** is the result of some galactic cataclysm that may have halted or regressed technology. So when DSC arrives, it is truly a relic from a more advanced age.

and this is EXACTLY what I had ben saying since before this aired and everyone hated the idea of a prequel. stories set after VOY have to inhabit a world where technology is so advanced that it stunts narrative potential.

they’ve been having this problem since the 90s. for voyager they decided to set the show away from the federation where the writers could create new “rules”. they didn’t have starlet support, and they could run into races with less tech.

they had to write around it for ds9, setting the show on a space station at the edge of the federation, again, far away from starfleet, and orbiting a primitive world. on the edge of wormhole to a whole new universe of sorts where they could encounter more primitive cultures.

for enterprise they just said ‘eff this’ and set it 100 years before tos. say what you want about enterprise (good not great show, lots of clunkers, bad cast, bad writing) but the prequel nature of the show really set the writers free to tell some interesting stories, and create problems for the crew that couldn’t be solved by a push of a button.

so yeah, that’s why I liked the pre-TOS stuff. A little more lawless, futuristic tech without having everything.

And like I predicted 3 years ago, in order to go forward, they have to come up with some galactic reset.

**another inherent problem with a show set 1000 years in the future, as someone else here alluded to, is that, that far in the future its almost impossible to predict– or impossible to even conceive. what would technology be like that far into the future? nothing a writer could come up with would be at all believable as technology 900 years past starships and holodecks, and transporters, and androids. You can see they’re even having trouble coming up with believable tech for Picard, set a mere 25 years after nemesis. because much of what they predicted for TNG looks laughably behind-the-times for 2019.

Depends …

Han Chinese society had gunpowder for a very long time, but did not put it to the same military applications or develop it in the way that Western Europeans did.

Why is it that helicopters weren’t widespread by the 17th century despite da Vinci’s invention of the air screw?

Why was the primary application of the steam powered difference engine the industrial manufacturing of jacquard fabrics and not computation?

Or, more recently AG Bell’s development of the hydrofoil has had marginal uptake and impact, while his invention of amplified sound and the telephone has had profound impact… keeping in mind his work on sound amplification was due to his being a teacher of the deaf, and his deaf wife was wealthy and funded his research.

Last, why was Bachelier’s research on stochastic theory and martingales completely ignored in the early 20th century only to be reinvented in the late 20th century to support advances in physics and financial engineering?

Not only is technology not linear, David Moss, there can be cultural, industrial and economic organization, and other reasons why technology is or is not adapted or advanced.

Sorry that I have to disagree with you on all fronts above. The more technological advanced a society gets the further away from not using and advancing technology is. Even Moores Law would dictate that the tech would be so far advanced. Think about going back to the year 1019, and add a level of Moores Law to that. The only way this could possibly make sense is if the entire Federation fell after a war that decimated every member and they had to revamp.

Moore’s Law is a a parameter in a simple linear regression model calculated for a particular kind of industrialized society of human beings : it’s not a physical law or constant.

It may apply ‘in a neighborhood’ of sociological time and space, but to expect that trend-line to extrapolate to non-human societies in the far future is pretty out there.

I seen a blue duck therefore all ducks are blue.
Naa. You’ve cherry picked extreme examples as the basis for all aspects millions of worlds and sextillions of people. It only takes one of them to make the advancement.

erpa I agree that in our current society technology advances and disseminates quickly.

But not all societies and not all inventions was my point.

We saw highly advanced, and almost god-like aliens from TOS on. Nothing new there.

My point is that for whatever reason (ethical, organizational, etc.) The Federation may not have kept pace and fell behind others, or lost influence. Or a series of shocks of war (beyond the Dominion and the Borg) led to a breakdown in the Federation structure.

Burnham’s mission seems to discover the why, the ‘domino’, so that the Federation can go forward.

This is just conjecture at this point, but has anyone else of you got the impression that we will get a similiar narrative season structure in season 3 as last season, despite the radically new setting? A season-long mystery box or search where “red signals” have been replaced by “dominos”.

I don’t think that conclusion requires any special clairvoyance. Season long arcs is what TV is doing today.

Of course it’ll be a season arc with these writers, but not all arc have to be “go to A, go to B, go to C, to derive D”

The shorter the season the less likely one can deviate from the primary story arc. With a longer season one can deviate from the path, kinda, and still have some stand alones. Enterprise managed it in the first half of season 3’s Xindi arc. The first time I saw single season arcs was in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And they managed to have a number of standalones that only slightly moved the arc forward. But these shows had much longer seasons to work with. It is a casualty of the short season. To have standalones in a short season means the main arc must still press onward and if the season is short enough it really takes some very talented writers to pull it off. Something in my opinion Discovery lacks.

And talented writers they are lacking! I never clamored for short seasons though (nor these super expensive SFX orgies with bulky “Eaves-droppings” sprinkled in), they are kind of shooting themselves in the foot with this.

I’ve said this before and I stand by it: ultimately Discovery will be looking more dated than TOS even, in less time, due to it slavishly adhering to the mainstream “contemporary cool” in all respects, rather than daring to be different and visionary once again.

And I have said this many a time… I would much rather sacrifice production value in return for a longer season. Maybe if these writers were FORCED to extend the story arc and include a stand alone or two they MIGHT write a good episode by accident.

Unless something cataclysmic happened, you’re right it would be a shambles of a decision by CBS.

erpa, many science fiction writers 10 years ago would argue that any space opera like Trek ia unrealistic in terms of technological development because ‘the singularity’ in AI development would surely be upon a society before that, with a transcendent AI taking over.

If you can buy into sociological limits to prevent the singularity or eugenics or even thermonuclear extinction, then we are really talking about humanoid societies that have deliberately rate-limited their technological development and/or use of technology at risk of some stagnation.

“we are really talking about humanoid societies that have deliberately rate-limited their technological development and/or use of technology at risk of some stagnation.”

TG47, that is an interesting aspect! Something that crossed my mind looking at some of the locations in the trailer, and going back as far as TNG proper, is that there seems to be a fairly mainstream Neo-luddite movement on Earth as early as the 24th century already; people living simple lives in settings close to nature that are old-fashioned and technology limited even by 21st century standards. In particular I’m referring to Chateau Picard and Raffi Musiker’s trailer (?) at Vasquez Rocks. That is another hint that technological development and social development dont necessarily go in lockstep and certainly don’t progress in a straight line everywhere.

Addendum: I forgot Rikers’ (and Kirks’) house too! There seem to be an odd fascination among TPTB (even different ones) with presenting this fairly low-tech 20th century sitcom setting in the show, or maybe they think it makes scifi more relatable to the viewer? But for an in-universe explanation, it seems 300 year old interior design is fairly en vogue with 23rd and 24th century folks ;)

It’s worth considering VS.

Let’s keep in mind Sisko’s father : a chef who sought out naturally produced traditional ingredients.

Or, even the existence of agricultural colonies at all when food synthesis was possible in the 23rd century and food replication was possible in the 24th. What was the point really of the Federation having agricultural colonies like the one Worf’s parents settled on?

“we’re taking expectations and alliances and enemies and all of those things and putting them in a blender and mixing it all up and seeing what’s going to happen. It’s going to be very interesting, I think.” – what a terrible statement to make. “Let’s just throw lots of things up in the air and see what happens”. Hardly how good writing works, Michelle Paradise?

And one of the mainproblems still exists :-(
13 Episodes are not enough for creating good Trek when you have not a small Cast.

IMAGINE DS9 with only 13 Episodes per Season and the consequences for character development and the Story !!! So much Story-Arcs would have become terrrible, similar to DSC.
Season 6 is a good example . Cut it down from 26 to 13 Episodes and then try to put the entire Story-Arcs in 13 Episodes.

The delays between seasons are so long that it almost feels like a new show and interest has gone down massively. People who say “well that’s how TV is these days” are ignoring the fact that we don’t want it like that.

Well, if that meant “Profit and Lace” wouldn’t get made, I’m all for it. ;)

Seasons 6-7 of DS9 ARE both good examples. But that’s when they actually started doing longer arcs. Seasons 1-5 had lots more episodes that, while good in their own right, weren’t all integral to an arc.

I agree. The short “mini” seasons are becoming more and more of a thing and while this allows them to spend more money on production values it has the side effect of making people wait too long between installments. There are too many shows I watch where I have completely forgotten what went on in the season finale because more than a year went by for the next season. Maybe that’s just my age because I come from a time when it was a mere 3-4 months from finale to next season premiere. But I do consider it a drawback. Personally, I would trade lower production value for more episodes in a heartbeat.

I agree that it’s a drawback, and as Anson Mount has noted 2 weeks to produce one episode is a lot.

On the other hand, a lot of the problem arises from the streaming companies not confirming future seasons in advance.

Trek in the 90s involved multi-season contracts with options up to 7 seasons. Waiting to start writing the next season until the current season is being streamed is one the biggest barriers to getting the next season out in a timely way. Especially given the long period of post-production required.

I was really encouraged that the Expanse has already been extended to the 5th season and is starting production. This means that the Expanse will be releasing 2 seasons in not much more time than Discovery is releasing 1 season.

They could do a lot of character development within 13 episodes. The problem is that they also throw in a lot of plot and twists and then race through it all. Discovery probably would have crammed the whole Dominion War into 1 season. This breakneck pace leaves little time to develop all the characters.

Please, no more spore drive… Or as I like to call it “plot contrivance” 😊

You’re kinder than I am, I call it a cartoon. Utterly ridiculous.

It’s no more ridiculous than a hundred other aspects of Star Trek. Those with an actual imagination aren’t so narrow in their view.

900 years into their future any technology they encounter may come off as plot contrivance.

Any faster-than-light can be considered a plot contrivance based on current physics knowledge and technology.

Yes, warp drive has some scientific basis now, but it didn’t in 1965 when TOS premiered.

Just because it merges biology with physics doesn’t make it an less plausible or less hard science. The boundaries of these disciplines aren’t what they once were.

Personally, I’m wondering if the negative reaction that many are having to the spore drive is a reflection of the persistent unconscious bias against biological sciences vs physics and chemistry.

Underrated comment. Should be pinned to the top.

Would you care to elaborate on that? I think the basic resistance (at least mine) and difference to warp drive stems from the fact that biology is based on chemistry and physics and not the other way round. Without the laws of physics, there would be no biology, no life. In fact, the Anthropic principle posits that natural constants are having the observed ‘perfect values’ so that the universe and life as we know could arise (as even a slight deviation would lead to no stars, no planets and no humans). There is a fundamental hierarchy that cannot be confused (not in the respective worth of scientific disciplines, but the building blocks of the universe), and we are fairly certain of that. That does make the Spore Drive more far fetched than Warp Drive, an element of fantasy rather than science fiction as there isn’t even a theoretical grounding in basic science.

VS whatever one’s view on fundamental hierarchy, Trek has always included speculative bending of the laws and building blocks of physics – and creatively messed around with chemistry and biology in pretty wild ways to.

Here’s a basic one from TOS : individuals cross over to a mirror universe that has slightly different physical constants, but memory is not messed up…which is wild when the mind is a sophisticated construct operating on a biological platform at likely the quantum level.

It’s always amazing how much me and you think alike TG47!

I made a similar point to another poster below. Star Trek has ALWAYS dealt in (very) vague speculative science. Let’s face it, we wouldn’t have most episodes if it all depended on by the book science.

William Shatner said it best in one of his (multiple) Star Trek TV specials/documentaries I saw where he said when he worked on the show they would always try to use some real form of science to connect to the story…but when that didn’t work then they just made it up. ;)

It’s true Tiger2!

I often intend to make a point and then find that you’ve got it covered.

It’s interesting that we think so much alike when my sense is that we come from fairly different social contexts and expertise. Really shows how Trek can bring diverse people together.

I think the negative reaction to the spore drive stems almost entirely from the fact that it is a tech that never existed in the 23rd or 24th century. If the show was set post Nemesis I suspect there would be a lot fewer folks who would have a problem with it.

And that NO OTHER SPECIES (which we know have different levels of tech development and many have reached Warp thousands of years before humans) came up with it.

J.S. no other species that any of the Trek stories have bumped into was actively using it…

Not seen in now way means never happened.

Remember Trek only showed us what was needed to keep a particular episode going.

The idea that a technology discovered will always be used is very particular to modern human society.

The spore drive requires the conjunction of a low probability events (encountering a space tardigrade), the scientific and engineering readiness, and the amorality to exploit it. Not a measure zero probability event. But not the natural sociological path for the development physics of the warp drive.

Totally agree with you Mark. The spore drive ‘invention’ is just embarrassingly weak as a plot device and makes DIS seem as though it was written by a 7 year old. The writers laud this show as being reflective of current times. They’re right if they’re referring to the show’s embarrassing science, which is very post-facts age.

My main issue with taking the spore drive thingy into season 3, is that it could probably be used to return them (easily) to the 23rd century… Which would be a shame, as there is the potential to tell some darned good stories with where they are now.

They already said multiple times now Discovery is not going back to the 23rd century. The show is based in the 32nd century now. So i wouldn’t worry about it. The show is essentially getting rebooted so even if they find a way to get home they will most likely give them some reason why they just want or need to stay.

And let’s not kid ourselves, they have plenty of other ways to time travel. We watched a season where someone built a time travel suit, which they also built another in a matter of hours in the finale and still have. If they REALLY wanted to get home trust me they can figure it out.

They said they were canning it after season 1 when they realised how much they screwed up canon, yet here we are with another lie.

No one ever said that! In fact they made it clear going into season 2 the spore drive would be a vital part of it as they are making it clear now for season 3.

It was fans who ASSUMED the spore drive would just eventually have to go away so it line up with canon since nothing this advanced was seen in later shows. But they obviously found a way around it. ;)

I feel the same way about the Nexus, and to a lesser extent, The Guardian. Generations established The Nexus apparently cruises around space, without adult supervision, so who’s to say Discovery doesn’t make good use of it in the future.

God, I hate the time travel episodes.

I think it makes total sense that a 23rd century starship would be a beacon of hope in the 31st. I mean TNG showed us the Federation in the 24th was bland, stagnant and a massive bureaucracy content with free energy and a sense of moral superiority over all others. Wouldn’t surprise me if Picard ends up being why the Federation fell, maybe he destroys half of it with the Borg again. As DS9 alluded to the Federation at the top was becoming a collectivist destructive organization on part with the Borg. Kind of a Roman Republic converting to the Roman Empire, it takes a ship from the wagon train to the stars era to remind them that freedom, critical thought and individualism are beneficial to all. It’s just too bad the 1701 couldn’t fit in that restoration, nothing says building the Federation like the Constitution class Enterprise they left behind.

Picard could not be there reason with almost 1,000 years in between.

No but looks like he sets the stage.

> I mean TNG showed us the Federation in the 24th was bland, stagnant and a massive bureaucracy content with free energy and a sense of moral superiority over all others

Watch out, we have a Star Wars fan here where pew-pew la-zors are interesting but a rapidly growing, exploration and science based society where scarecicity has been eliminated is boring! lol

A society we’re scarcity is eliminated is fake (ie we replicate everything at no cost to anyone anywhere), I just prefer a future where dilithium crystals and matter anti matter reactors are of value and hunger is eliminated. See TOS.

Dude, you know none of this is real right? Dilithum crystals is about as fake as replicating things. Nothing in Star Trek is realistic outside a few minor things. And I prefer a post scarcity view of the future. That’s what make Star Trek special. I think most do.

Your right reality is that we are going to need pumped flux compression induced fusion and that it will take hundreds of years of standard time to reach nearby star systems, the reality is that space travel will be filled with even more scarcity and danger than predicted even by TOS!

And that’s why Thanos did what he felt he had to do. :(

That dude seen it up close.

Why do you think that is not possible, Cmd? The number of humans and their energy needs are miniscule compared to the size and available energy in the universe. As such, near infinite resources (from our perspective) do exist, all it needs is low cost access. If that is achieved, a post-scarcity society becomes possible (at least regarding material needs).

Spoken like someone that doesn’t really care for real science, understand entropy (the clock is ticking) and how much energy we need to get to the nearest solar system much less explore the universe. We are going to need to have macroalgae to biofuel facilities just to replace the fossil fuels you are using to keep your house warm. To get to the next starsystem we are short huge hydrogen mines over Titan and Saturn and massive solar power stations in orbit while we are blasting fusion devices for power on Earth.

I was referring to your comment on post-scarcity societies, which could very well be established on Earth using resources from astroids, harnessing the power of the Sun more directly, and so on. Interstellar travel is not a requirement for it.

No its just Cmd. Bremmon, he says this stuff in literally every post and seem to think many share this view. I’m sure some do, clearly many don’t though. I prefer 24th century vision of the future but its not a huge difference in 23rd century view, just more advanced.

Well congrats, your 24th century vision led to the end of the Federation. Thanks a lot!

I’m sorry, did you already watch these shows or something? What did I miss? Everyone is just assuming Picard and Discovery will be tied together because of what Picard said in the trailer. Thats a huge leap, especially since its 800 years apart lol.

In fact we know the Federation was humming along just fine in the 31st century because of Daniels so most likely whatever happened could’ve been something that stared in the 31st century. That’s still an entire century, anything could happen.

Point is no one knows anything yet, stop acting like you do.

Hey you are the one obsessed with them going forward even if going forward is boring and results in the end of the Federation. If having the Federation end up obsolete/in ruits before a 23rd century starship doesn’t force you to look in the mirror, I don’t know what will.

You don’t have to watch it man lol.

And don’t speak for everyone! You always sound like you speak for the majority. You don’t. And obviously MOST people have no problem going forward since the fanfare over Picard has made that very very clear. But that’s what 18 years of prequels and reboots will do I guess. And Discovery season 3 trailer seems to be very popular now. I think a lot of people are excited over it.

But no it doesn’t mean it will be good either (it’s still Discovery ;)) but it seems people are genuinely excited about it because its all brand new and they are taking a different angle we never seen before. We haven’t had something this wide open since TNG started back in 1987.

And hey, don’t blame me. I just wanted ONE show to go forward lol. Now there will be three next year! And I didn’t ask for Discovery to jump a thousand years, I would’ve been fine if they kept it in the 23rd century. But can’t say I’m disappointed over it. Most excited I been for the show. I wish they did this concept in the first season, it probably would’ve gotten a lot more fanfare because its Star Trek doing something different again and taking risks.

Hey I am all aboard this new revelation that the TNG Federation equaled stagnation… I’m looking forward to seeing that! I’m pretty excited, TNG might be watchable now in the lens that it pretty much sets up the Federations long and slow decline which only a 23rd century starship can overcome! It’s a good arc TOS builds an exciting awesome Federation, TNG makes it boring as hell and sets up it’s decline, DS9 is the Bellarius trying to save some of it, Voyager shows that the Federation doesn’t colonize, it just wants to pack up its bags and go back to Earth… the Discovery comes back to remind everyone just how great TOS was and that they should get back on that track and ignore the TNG Federation and its bureaucracy. Works for me.

Again where did it say that? You’re just making an assumption based on literally nothing. But if you’re right, fine, its not REAL lol. It’s all made up man, seriously.

But we don’t know what happened. Maybe the Dominion really got their stuff together and finally defeated the Federation. Maybe time travelers from the 44th century caused it. Maybe an alien wizard did it. We don’t know. It’s Star Trek. Literally all of these are possible lol.

But it just becomes tedious to have these discussions with you. You cherry pick everything to death and think in absolutes. You don’t like where the Federation is at in the 24th century, so its all bad. But everything in TOS is presented as all good and ‘realistic’. And now you’re trying to claim they are saying what happens 800 years earlier is the Federations downfall. The two shows may not be connected at all and whatever happens in Picard this season could all be wrapped up and that’s that. Especially since Kutzman and Chabon said that show will lean more to the positive like TNG did.

But I’m excited to see where it all goes of course! Discovery can really go big now and boy it is lol.

I honestly do not see how that conclusion could be made logically, erpa.

I think Janeway ends up being the reason the Federation changes and things start to go downhill. She was responsible for badly damaging the borg, which could be the reason why we see a damaged cube in the Picard previews.

As for the Federation being stagnant, a lot of that has to do with its ability to expand. Warp drive just isn’t practical to continue exploring the galaxy. But I find it hard to believe that by the time of the Picard show, progress hasn’t been made on the failed quantum slipstream drive Voyager attempted to use. Faster propulsion would definitely allow the Federation to continue exploration and expansion throughout the galaxy. If not by the time of the Picard show, definitely by the time of Discovery season 3.

>Could Discovery make the transition to the silver screen?

It would be a massive flop, nobody has any investment in the characters, the sloppy writing and the destruction of canon enough for that.

for you. lots of people love the show, and besides, plenty of movies come out with no attachment to anything previous and GAIN investment. you have a narrow, angry vision because of your dislike of the series. sad.

To be fair you couldv’e said the exact same thing about TNG in its second season. And yet…

In erpa’s defense, the TNG movies are best forgotten.

The point is they all made money except for Nemesis. And that even became profitable in time. I agree they aren’t all great, but First Contact is my third favorite film and probably watched that the most outside of TWOK. Nemesis is my least favorite though.

We’re going 930 years into the future, so we’re taking expectations and alliances and enemies and all of those things and putting them in a blender and mixing it all up and seeing what’s going to happen. It’s going to be very interesting, I think.

“Seeing what’s going to happen” isn’t inspiring a lot of confidence. Neither is the proposition that the spore drive is still a thing of mystery 900 years into the future. Speaking as someone who likes the show, I’m concerned that the creative team is bending over backwards to make this ship of antiquity relevant is just going to seem contrived.

“I’m concerned that the creative team is bending over backwards to make this ship of antiquity relevant is just going to seem contrived.”

Let’s spill the beans, the effort is to make St. Michael stay relevant. Yes, Her Holiness is going to be the savior of the past, present AND future of the Trek universe! In a galaxy far, far away, the Skywalkers are wallowing in jealousy already ;)

Excellent post, VS.

Yeah, Michael never makes any mistakes. Apart from committing mutiny. And alienating her brother. And trusting a mad man from another universe. The list goes on. Like most Trek protagonists, Burnham is a good person who had done some insanely great things, but she is also flawed and makes mistakes.

Look, I think the problem is not that she never makes mistakes, but that they write the show in a way that these do not seem to matter in the long run. Even her biggest “mistake” (an understatement), the mutiny and the resulting death of her Captain, destruction of her ship and Klingon War, is laughably easily and quickly forgiven by her shipmates. Realistically she should have enemies on the ship who would never forgive her and see her crimes as past redemption. And realistically she would AT LEAST be written as more humble as a result of her experiences, as grateful for being given a second chance against all odds, not a know-it-all loud mouth who consistently corrects her captain as in season 2.

Also, if you mutiny,usually there’s a good reason and you would have friends who agreed with you. Or you’re just… nuts.

There wasn’t ANYONE on her side in this (ok, her father… sort of). So it must be the latter :P

I predict that we’ll meet non other than Dax in this season, since they can obviously hire any actor to play the symbiont’s latest host!

Just curious. What’s the life span of a symbiont?

Not defined in canon that I know cdcody.

There was one post Relaunch novel in which Ezri Day went to Trill and descended deeply into the pool in an environmental suit to find out what was killing symbionts.

Deep below the pool lived the ancient mythical ones. The ones that bond don’t all survive indefinitely, but more crucially are limited in the number of hosts they can take on due to a slow but constant growth in size. But they can dive down and transfer their memories to the old ones.

Basically, super old leviathan-sized trill symbionts gathered up all the experiences of all the younger symbionts as a kind of mega species living memory bank.

Given an apparent search for the ‘domino’ or trigger event in the past, I’m wondering if Discovery will pick up on this concept from the novels.

Now, in Discovery it looks like someone might be able to get certain old memories by hosting the correct symbiont.

I remember that one. Some of the humungous symbionts even had memories of the first joinings, although I can’t remember if those were their own memories, or if the memories were just passed down from symbiont to symbiont.

Given that the trailer seems to show Michael taking a dip in the pool in the Mak’ala cave, it could be cool if she met a giant Dax. Perhaps Dax could even use the image of Jadzia or Ezri as an avatar to speak with her, although that might be too much to ask for.

The concept that the Discovery has a Spore Drive and no one in 900 years has been able to make that tech work is laughable. Unfortunately the show is already starting out on a shaky concept. We can only hope that element is not as big as one might think it is.

in the real world, in our own history, there are many technologies that were discovered by ancient cultures that were lost, and rediscovered hundreds of years later. again, people’s dislike of a concept is coloring their view of the internal logic.

Yeah I have to agree with this lol. As you know I never had problem with the idea of the spore drive and frankly one of the few original ideas the show had in season one so was all for it.

But yes, it has never made any sense to believe Starfleet and ONLY starfleet has cracked this technology. I just don’t buy it when you have thousands of advanced civilizations out there and many more way more advanced than us. Now we have to somehow pretend a thousand years later and no one else has developed it? Starfleet didn’t keep any blueprints in the basement? No one else in all this time has figured out how it works?

I was willing to buy the idea that maybe Picard and Janeway didn’t have it because Starfleet just saw the dangers with it and decided not to use it anymore. Still a stretch but you can buy it. But a thousand years later and no one still has it?

I personally don’t like the spore drive because it is boring dramatically. It’s like the transporter to the nth degree. Not only do you have free energy, but you are wherever you want to be. Need to go somewhere, bang your there. War between the Federation and Klingons, why not just ‘jump’ to Qo’nos? Hell let’s just spore beam over there if that’s possible now, what’s the point of starships? The end of the universe, bang your there, it can be a fun tourist attraction now. I think the only ‘novel’ ending you could have is conflict where everyone just spores in weapons and destroys each other, the only ones able to survive are the metrons and other energy beings. It’s like someone never told the writers that the journey is more important than destination.

That’s all fine, I get your point. I don’t have much of a problem wit it, but I read enough of your posts to understand why you do lol.

But this should ALSO be made very clear to you and others who keep pretending like the 23rd century is some lesser primitive upstart. Yes MAYBE in TOS because it was a show in the 60s and it also represented a different time. But I never remotely believed the show wasn’t suppose to be considered the most forward thinking and advanced for its time, it was simply the 60s lol. Technology was less advanced in general. We haven’t even gone to the moon by then. But what’s funny is transporters aren’t any less magical than the spore drive is, its just transporters have been around since the show started so everyone is conditioned to it. But for me its no less nutty than the spore drive or holodeck is, but as we progress in the real world things just feel more acceptable in the science fiction world as well.

Today people who write for Star Trek will want to make actual innovative tech far beyond anything we know and let their imaginations run wild. Thats the fun of doing Star Trek because its set in a universe where everything runs wild lol.

But I been saying this forever, it DOESN’T MATTER what centuries you put these shows in today, writers will still want to do cool and crazy things. Both the Kelvin movies and now Discovery proves that in spades. TOS was simply a different time, that’s all.

Also why they probably put Discovery so far in the future, because they probably got sick of hearing ‘you can’t do that in this era’ and someone finally said ‘fuck it then, move the show a thousand years and the nerds can’t complain about it because now we can do anything we want!’ ;)

Tiger2, my critic of the spore drive is irrespective of what “era”. It would be boring to have the ability to ‘jump’ to Qo’nos in the 23rd century, it’s boring to have the ability to ‘jump’ to Qo’nos in the 24th century, it’s boring to have the ability to ‘jump’ to Qo’nos in the 33rd century. That the chances of you having the ability to ‘jump’ to Qo’nos in the 33rd century > 23rd century increases the chances that the 33rd century is dramatically boring.
TOS wasn’t unique because it was in the 60s, it was unique because it had writers that were story first, everything else second and the story was everything cool in Horatio Hornblower in space.

Yes I know that, I’m only making the point you and others harp on the idea that having a show set in the 23rd century again was somehow going to be more ‘grounded’ (I can never put grounded and Star Trek in the same sentence lol) or less advanced and that’s obviously not the case. Nothing in Discovery feels any less advanced than what you had in the TNG era. The only thing missing is a holodeck basically. Everything else from spore drives to time traveling space suits that can create wormholes is way beyond anything we seen in the 24th century.

But yes I get your basic issues with the spore drive. I certainly understand why so many people hate it. But I never had an issue when Star Trek does stuff like this but I always viewed Star Trek closer to a fantasy sci fi show instead of a hard sci fi show and yes that includes TOS as well.

If I want more grounded realistic space travel I watch The Expanse (and I do btw). For me, Star Trek is to think of the impossible!

I never think of Star Trek as fantasy (i.e. the impossible).
For me Star Trek was ‘what if humanity moving out into the stars is like a more exciting repeat of the age of frigates but with starships’ minus all the racial strife but plus aliens and an even more unexplored frontier that goes on forever.
I DO love the Expanse, I wish Enterprise had been more like that (i.e. Expanse leading up to TOS instead of wormholes or whatever where they lost me).
Thus the more ‘impossible’ it gets the more un-relatable and dry it gets. It’s like the Akira class, when I was a kid I thought it was awesome (let’s go warp 9.9999 with 20 quantum torpedo launchers) but as you grow up you realize how lame that is.

So you really believe one day we may find a planet with the the Greek God Apollo living there?

You also think we may find a parallel universe where mirror versions of ourselves exist?

You really think there is just a conscious time portal sitting on an uninhabited planet waiting for anyone to jump to through it to go to anyplace or anytime in the universe?

You also think we may meet Abraham Lincoln in space?

Or the multiple planets where where the aliens have adopted Earth sub cultures portraying Nazis and gangsters?

Or find a planet that can create anything because you thought of it?

Or that thing sitting on Shatner’s head is real? (That’s the biggest fantasy of all!)

That’s just from TOS that I can think of. You add in all the other shows then it gets even crazier. But yes TOS had some of the looniest episodes, especially with all the god like aliens that pop up every other episode (Apollo already mentioned).

So yes Star Trek definitely has plenty of fantasy elements. I’m not saying its a fantasy show and it definitely has a lot of real science and theories, definitely in the later shows. And obviously it has always tackled real world issues and history. But same time Star Trek isn’t close to reality either.

And yet so many Trek fans act like Star Trek is somehow a projection to how humanity will really explore the galaxy one day. Sure, what you said in the beginning is true, but then you leave all the loony stuff that happens in these shows. I love Star Trek obviously but I never looked at it as anything but a crazy and entertaining science fiction show, it just happens to have a powerful and uplifting message with it about the human spirit and progress, but its still about as realistic as a Marvel movie.

In fact a lot of the aliens and their powers could literally be in a Marvel movie lol.

The more ‘fantasy’ the episode, the dumber it was in my opinion. Balance of Terror, Doomsday Machine, Errand of Mercy, The Changeling, No One Has Gone Before > > > Spocks Brain, Who Mourns for Adonais, etc. That being said quite frankly the Marvel movies these days do have more exciting and flushed out aliens (Guardians of the Galaxy, etc) than TNG who come off as just want-to-be-humans with bad make up.

I didn’t say you have to like it, I’m saying you can’t pretend it doesn’t exist. ;)

Star Trek does fantasy as much as it does sci fi, it just presents that fantasy as science but its still mostly fantasy.

We get it already, you didn’t like TNG. No one forced you to watch every episode and movie man lol. Again I point out, its soooo boring and bad to you and yet you manage to catch all 7 seasons of it. Yeah, OK. Makes total sense.

Either way, its not going anywhere, definitely not now.

Tiger2,

Re: Fantasy

Well, if you buy into the basic conceit of the show, that 17,000 years after the rise of homo sapiens, i.e. creatures with brains capable of conceiving and making real the inventions of teleportation and interstellar travel, it would be utter fantasy to suggest that they are the only ones to arise in the entire existence of the universe capable of reaching that level.

And once, you start populating the universe’s timeline with civilizations that reach that level before humans do, it is pretty much fantasy to suggest that Earth NEVER gets visited by such advanced civilizations, nor could they be influenced by Earthers’ philosophies when they do and continue to advance to godlike capabilities once they left.

Even in our real world, radio transmissions from us are expanding out lightyears in an ever increasing sphere of possible reception by a civilization capable of making something of them. Those from Nazi Germany are just as likely to be the first decoded by a distant civilization as any of our others.

If we do somehow manage to travel out to the edge of that sphere, it would be surprising NOT to find an occasional alien civilization shockingly overly influenced by our exported consumer kitsch from said transmissions.

Yes but do you think they would literally start dressing like Nazis just because they got a radio transmission?

I don’t disagree with everything else. I’m not saying space travel in itself is fantasy or that there aren’t other species out there doing it now, although the way its presented by Star Trek PROBABLY is, but that’s for another thread lol.

Tiger2, Disinvited:

We’ll be lucky if the reality of what’s “out there” is like Star Trek — because in most cases, Trek depicts that at least there are common emotional/psychological frames of references between humans and the aliens they have to deal with. The real galaxy could be vastly different.

Last year there were some very interesting articles quoting scientists discussing how aliens would realistically react to seeing/hearing aspects of human culture. Depending on how the aliens’ brains were wired — and how different their basic psychology is from our own — their reactions may be very unpredictable, and could range from incomprehension to extreme irritation. Not necessarily because they’d take any moral stances on whatever they were analysing, but because of the potential gulf in psychology.

I’d provide URL links here but apparently that causes posts to go straight into the filter. So, Google “The Guardian Nasa’s Golden Record may baffle alien life, say researchers” and “Discover Magazine Will Aliens Understand Voyager’s Golden Record?” for the articles. It’s interesting stuff. The same basic points apply to any other material the aliens receive from us (including radio transmissions etc).

You may also be aware of recent recommendations for mankind to take a radically different approach to attempted communication — Harvard’s Avi Loeb, the Breakthrough project, Arizona’s Paul Davies and so on.

In some ways, TMP could be the most realistic depiction of human-alien contact, especially if they’re tens/hundreds of thousands or even millions of years more advanced than us.

If/when we finally get “out there”, one of the many fascinating things we’ll find out is whether there are species we can at least relate to on a common basic psychological level or whether the norm is intelligent species that are truly “alien” in all senses of the term.

Hi Jai,

First off, I agree with you COMPLETELY! No, I don’t think REAL aliens will act or look anything like what see in most of Star Trek. I don’t think we will have anything close to how Vulcans or Klingons would act which are basically set around human frames of emotions and impulse or lack thereof.

Which is exactly why I said I don’t look at Star Trek as HARD science, because its not. I look at it for what it is, a very entertaining science fiction show, nothing more than that. No one seems to pretend Stargate or Star Wars has some proper view of the universe and alien life, I don’t think Star Trek is anymore realistic than those in that view.

I’m sure there are some true aspects in relation to how we might travel the universe and the kinds of things that could be out there if the universe is teeming with alien life, but I’m going to go on a hunch that any alien life we do encounter won’t look anything close to human which 90% of all Star Trek aliens look like lol. We all know this of course. I mean look at the life on THIS planet alone. Millions of other species we co-exist with and oddly enough NONE of them looks or act like us and we literally evolved on the same planet. So why would we expect to find life forms on OTHER planets that has created completely different biodiversity would suddenly create something like us when on our planet we are unique to every life form we share it with?

So no, none of that would be a shock. If we removed ourselves from planet Earth, then this planet could be seen just as alien as anything else we might encounter out there.

Jai and Tiger2,

Re: What aliens make of it

If aliens can receive and make something of what they are getting from us then their science and mathematics (and technology to some degree) must share a common basis with ours in some way, at the very least.

Jai, it’s a numbers game where I’ve lived long enough to see prominent thinking science promoting that planets around stars were rare and that we’re alone, to the plethora that now seems to hold sway. Granted the vast majority of extra-terrestrials may, indeed, be truly alien to each other as well as to ourselves, but as the number of earth-like worlds are increasingly being added to our catalogs, it seems only logical to occasionally run across a small few where we find the gulf between us is surprisingly smaller than naysayers imagine.

Tiger2,

Re: Can complex images emerge from simple transmissions?

It all depends on on the route the signals take to get there. It’s quite possible the 1936 AM Nazi audio broadcasts go a longer route and get gravitationally lensed to arrive at the same time they are receiving from a more direct routed TV broadcast of HOGAN’S HEROES images which were broadcast using AM too but haven’t figured out TV’s “new” FM audio.

Also, I was alive and listening to the last vestiges of Radio Network programming which was still broadcasting audio only entertainment and information simultaneously while its television counterparts rose. You’d be surprised what type of things they were able to communicate descriptively through an imageless medium.

I remind you that we have sightless artists and seamstresses that manage to produce things that dazzle our eyes while they themselves possess no optical sense.

Also, don’t forget the Nazi broadcasts were propaganda, i.e. designed to sell their ideas. For that matter, the vast majority of the Earth’s broadcasts are commercial, i.e. intended to sell something – would it be THAT surprising to find that somewhere out there someone bought it?

And again, (sigh) had the show been set post Nemesis, such a new tech could have been more easily bought. Since it was set in Pike’s heyday we know it ultimately could not work. The idea that there are some left behind that know it really does work and Discovery was just sent to the future tells me that the idea would eventually get out. There was just no way to lock up ingenuity like that. That is why the entire concept of the spore drive in the Pike era was problematic at best.

Yes that was and is ultimately the problem why so many have issues with the spore drive. Yes I definitely believe many people just hate the basic idea of it, but more could at least accept it if didn’t feel like it was 1-200 years ahead of its time.

I mean if the show started in the 32nd century and someone brought a spore drive everyone would’ve just shrugged. In the 23rd century it just comes off way too advanced.

To make the tech work, somebody would have to stumble across another tardigrade, and then they would have to be willing to either torture an animal or illegally genetically modify a human.

I don’t think there would be any shortage of life forms willing to do such a thing.

This argument holds zero water when this sort of thing has been a part of trek forever. why don’t all ships have transwarp? or an iconian style gateway? or the Borg transwarp hubs? or phasing cloaks? you think the treaty of algeron would stop the cardassians from developing it? or the Klingons or the ferengi?

why doesn’t everyone use kreieger waves? or time travel portals like any number of time travel devices we’ve seen?

you and those like you are suffering from selective suspension of disbelief.

“The concept that the Discovery has a Spore Drive and no one in 900 years has been able to make that tech work is laughable. ”

That “in 900 years” argument is meaningless. The question we should be asking is “why no other civilization EVER came up with this”. And we know that other civilizations were fare more advanced than humans. Some of them reached warp thousands of years before us. It’s just a stupid human-centric POV – even moreso given that this show apparently promotes “diversity”.

I don’t remember, but was it ever said how common the mushrooms that Stamets uses are? If the Federation were the first to encounter them, it makes sense that nobody else ever came up with a spore drive.

I think in one of the early episodes of Discovery, his research colleague stationed on Discovery’s sister ship, said something about Stamets creating his own mushrooms during their holographic phone call. If I remembered correctly.

I think he said that Stamets grew his own, but Stamets must have gotten the initial spores from some place.

I took it to mean that he created the specific type (like a hybrid or something) rather than just use what was in the wild. When they returned from the mirror universe, he had, what I thought, was his original sample that they used to seed the moon and grow more mushrooms.

And also if the researcher on the Glenn wasn’t growing his own, then they must have been common enough. That or Stamets was using a very rare strain so had to cultivate his own.

I think no one expected the Federation to be well and thriving in season 3. Then the Discovery and its crew would be backwards primitives with ancient technology and not the messiahs TPTB obviously want to turm them into.

It is sad though to see that despite all the efforts of Kirk, Picard, Sisko, Janeway, Archer and their crews the Federation will be much reduced and far from thriving in 1000 years.

Hopeful. This setting is stacked with possibilities. I hope the writers nail this, because I would really like – to Like, this show.

Given that Trill symbiotes are living witnesses to history, it makes perfect sense for the crew of the Discovery to consult with them to get a crash-course of everything they’ve missed out on. Making one of those symbiotes Dax would be much-appreciated fanservice.

I think you nailed the reason why they are going to Trill. Trills would be about the only friendly, accessible beings (or so they think) that have first-hand knowledge of what happened to the Federation and Starfleet.

Indeed. I think we’re going to see a very satisfying (and for audiences, emotional) montage showing the MOST relevant and important moments in all of Star Trek, from Where No Man Has Gone Before to Nemesis (sorry, Enterprise) as Michael gets a crash-course on galactic history. I just hope whatever version of this hypothetical montage that appears in the episode is long (five – 10 minutes) and that there is an even LONGER extended version released separate from the episode people can check out.

I want the Trill to show Burnham Pike’s accident, Pike on the wheelchair, Pike returning to Talos IV, Spock dying saving the Enterprise in Trek II, Spock coming back to life in Trek III, Sarek dying, Spock vanishing through the anomaly in Trek ’09, and all other events from the previous Trek series and movies she would be emotionally invested in.

The only conceptual problem I’m having with the premise is that this is SOOO far in the future, we really should barely recognize or understand that world. The technology and cultural should be completely unfathomable to us or to the characters. The task the writers have on hand to build this new world convincingly seems almost impossible. But I’m looking forward to it.

See I just don’t really agree with that argument because if that was the case, the Federation itself really shouldn’t exist. What I mean is you have HUNDREDS of worlds and cultures united, but many of these in reality should have all kinds of different levels of technological, biological and cultural development. In can be anywhere from hundreds to thousands of years. Humans are one of the youngest in terms of space travel and yet they have some of the highest authority with the most advanced fleets and probably over cultures who could have been space faring for thousands of years. The technological level should be wildly off scale for some of these planets if they developed their civilizations faster.

But yet everyone seems to be pretty equal in that regard. This has always been an issue for Star Trek and to be fair end of the day it is still just a TV show. They can only do so much. But they supposedly meet and interact with civilizations that is thousands of years ahead of them and yet they all seem to fit and understand each other just fine.

And it always bothered me that we rarely meet aliens out there woo could be hundreds of thousands if not millions of years more advanced. I mean we seen them but they are always god-like like Q or the Wormhole aliens (or the prophets for all you religious folks). So advanced they evolved beyond anything we know of. But there should still just be very old species on a planet somewhere, just millions of years ahead of us and we never see them. The closet I think they ever got was when the Enterprise D encountered the Dyson sphere but whoever built that were gone long ago.

So I’m not that bothered that Discovery is a thousand years ‘behind’ because when you are traveling the galaxy any planet you go to with developed life you can be thousands if not millions of years behind theoretically but you never see them panic over it lol.

Yeah, it is kind of dishonest to criticize Discovery for stuff that has never been handled convincingly by Trek.

Not saying I buy into that 100% but to support your case… The Organians, the Metrons, the Thasians… whatever Tralane was, (perhaps Q?)

That was TOS where the writers had the sense to realize that all that was best left abstract and in the future while constantly harping on how important it is to keep everything in a frontier time period that everything is relatable and drama filled.

I’m not sure if I understand what you’re suggesting?

You fail to take into account any possible collapse of civilization that might result in the sudden halt of any advancements, either cultural, technological, or societal, resulting in a galaxy that is not all that dissimilar to or alien from the one we’re familiar with.

im very excited about the heavy ds9 references in the trailer… would be so awesome if that was actually morn

An Omega-Explosion leaded the entire Federation, her Partners and Enemys into chaos.
The Timeage of Warp-Drive is over, only some small Areas are still usable.
Based on Quantum-Slipstream-Technology Voyager brought home, the Federation was able to build a few Ships. The Slipstream-Drive need Benamite-Crystals, very rare and unstable so only some Elite-Ships are equipped with it ( one of them is certainly the Enterprise ).

The ancient Federation Starship Discovery and his Spore drive is a Chance to rebuild the Federation.

Am I the only one thinking that it´s basically a given that we´re going to see Dax (in whatever new host)? I don´t think they´re going to risk the backlash of a “non-mention” or “oh..there was a symbiont named Dax…but he died stardate X because of Y”.

A backlash over not mentioning Dax would be ridiculous. There are probably billions or Trill of which we may meet 10 (or make it 20 if they are splashing out for extras). But sure, one of them must be a Dax. And while we are at it, let’s get really offended if they don’t include a descendant of Kirk or Picard. There are humans on this show after all.

I will be mildly disappointed if Dax shows up, but I’m sure the story would still make sense without him/her. I certainly wouldn’t bash the writers for bringing back the Trill without Dax.

I hope the holographic representation of the Discovery’s AI seen in Short Treks becomes a regular part of the series in season 3. Though I haven’t seen any casting announcement to support that.

Eventually they can give it an android avatar body and call her Rommie.

Hahah. Right?

It would be difficult.

The voice for the AI Zora was done by one English actor Annabelle Wallis while the holograph was another Canadian actor/dancer/singer Sash Striga.

Wallis was in The Tudors. Striga has had a few modest roles in productions in Canada, including a recurring role in Letterkenny.

I’d settle for the voice like Lucy in Killjoys, with a variety of people playing different types of holograms, one for each task.