The USS Discovery Refit And Two ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Theories To Resolve A Canon Conundrum

The following analysis has spoilers (and potential spoilers) for Discovery season three.

Some fans have been talking about how the newly refit USS Discovery has created an apparent conflict with the canon set out in the Short Treks episode “Calypso.” But we think there are some Star Trek ways around it.

The Disco gets an upgrade

The latest episode of Star Trek: Discovery (“Scavengers“) revealed that the USS Discovery has joined 32nd-century Starfleet and due to its unique spore drive, it is considered an important rapid response asset. However, the ship has also been upgraded with some of the latest technology. We’re told that during the in-universe three-week gap between episodes 305 and 306, the ship has “evolved even more than we could have imagined.”

The refit USS Discovery at Starfleet HQ

Upgrades to the internal systems include a new stabilization system, new spore drive interface, and the addition of programmable matter, complete with retrofit interfaces.

Bridge interfaces upgraded with programmable matter

The warp engines have also been given an update. Detached nacelles allow for more maneuverability and better efficiency, which is important in the 32nd century where dilithium is scarce.

New detached nacelles for the USS Discovery

The new refit Discovery has also apparently been recommissioned with a new Starfleet registry: NCC-1031-A. This could simply be a way to show the ship has been refit, or an attempt to maintain the fiction in Starfleet records that the Discovery was destroyed in the 23rd century. It ‘s been made clear that time travel is now illegal, so this would avoid any issues that people might have with a Starfleet ship having violated the Temporal Accords.

The USS Discovery is now NCC-1031-A

“Calypso” creates an issue with canon

While it makes sense for the Discovery to be upgraded, especially so it can defend itself, the new refit creates a bit of an issue in terms of canon. In our pre-season analysis, we took a look at how even in the “fresh snow” of the 32nd century, there were some tricky areas of canon that the show could run into, one of which was the Temporal Accords, first introduced in Star Trek: Enterprise. 

But there’s also a canon problem connected to the Star Trek: Short Treks episode “Calypso,” which was set on the USS Discovery after it had been abandoned for almost 1,000 years. That episode did show that the USS Discovery had evolved, but mainly through it being controlled by a sentient AI named Zora.

USS Discovery in “Calypso”

While some upgrades—like the programmable matter—could have been part of that future USS Discovery, many elements of the refit were not evident. Most importantly, in “Calypso” the ship did not have the new NCC-1031-A registry.

USS Discovery in “Calypso”

So the refit creates a bit of a canon issue: How can the USS Discovery seen in “Calypso” be the same ship 1,000 years later?

“Calypso” is clearly tied to season three

One could simply say that “Calypso” came out two years ago, before season two of Star Trek: Discovery, and this is just a bit of canon mismatch that can be ignored for the sake of allowing the show to forge ahead with their season three storyline. Had they known they were going to give the ship a refit and new registry they would have done so back in 2018. Star Trek has survived with these kinds of canon mismatches before. And “Calypso” could also just be seen as a nice standalone short story and that is that.

However, season three has already started to directly reference the future seen in “Calypso.” As another previous analysis highlighted, we have seen dialogue in season three (most notably the word “V’draysh “) that picks up on elements of “Calypso.” More importantly, the season three episode “Forget Me Not” showed how the ancient Sphere Data the ship picked up in season two is evolving and integrating with the USS Discovery, heading towards becoming the Zora AI seen in “Calypso.” They even brought back the actress who provided Zora’s voice.

It’s clear that they are not ignoring this Short Treks entry. In fact, just yesterday the official CBS All Access Star Trek account was promoting it on Twitter. So, how might they make it all fit?

Theory 1: The USS Discovery gets “defit”

If we are to assume that the USS Discovery seen in “Calypso” is a future version of the ship seen in season three, there is a simple way to make it all work. At some point in the future, the USS Discovery gets “defit” and “de-registered,” returning it to factory condition. And it is this ship that Craft finds 1,000 years or so after season three.

To make things fit even more, one motivation for the “defit” could be that there’s a reason the ship has to travel back in time, perhaps to return the crew to the 23rd century. It could be they have found a way to protect the Sphere Data from ever being used by Control, or perhaps there’s a region of space where the ship can be left where Control cannot find it. They might also believe the threat from Control is no longer an issue after it was defeated at the end of season two. And as a precaution in case the ship is ever found, all elements from the future would be removed to adhere to the Temporal Prime Directive. This wouldn’t be a first for the Discovery—after it was made to appear to be the ISS Discovery in season one, it was then returned to its original condition when it returned home.

Craft then finds the ship 1,000 years later. In fact, this time travel twist on the theory helps resolve some of the issues brought up in our previous analysis regarding resolving the timeline between season three and “Calypso.” It makes more sense that “Calypso” is set around the same time as season three of Discovery, and not in the 42nd century or beyond.

The USS Discovery gets returned to its original state in “The War Without, the War Within”

Theory 2: The USS Discovery in “Calypso” was not the same ship

Season two of Star Trek: Discovery dealt with a lot of time travel incursions, including peering into an alternative future where Control had wiped out all sentient life. The resolution to this was for the Discovery to jump into the future; however, what if one of these incursions into season two lead to another solution to keep Control away from the USS Discovery?

Star Trek time travel rules have varied over the years, but is has been established any instance of travel through time can create a new timeline. In season two, every time the Red Angel time suit did something, it was potentially creating a new timeline. And of course we saw Spock’s vision as one of those alternate timelines, in which they were not able to save sentient life.

So perhaps in an alternate timeline, events from “The Red Angel”  went differently, and the crew never found the suit. This would result in a different timeline where the USS Discovery crew never jumps forward in time but instead find a pocket of space, or perhaps even another universe (they have jumped universes before), to park the USS Discovery away from Control. This region could be so remote that only a fluke accident 1,000 years later resulted in the first visitor finding this alternative USS Discovery, which is what we see in “Calypso.”

It perhaps something happened as the Discovery travelled forward through the wormhole which splintered the timeline. This could be related to why the ship arrived one year after Michael arrived in the 32nd century. And perhaps another version in another timeline split off and it is that ship which was seen in “Calypso.”

Craft aboard the USS Discovery in “Calypso”

What do you think?

Is this overthinking what is just a visual mismatch that could just be ignored? Or do you think the show will find a way to tie up this loose end? And do you have your own way to make it all fit together? Sound off in the comments below.

More analysis

If you like these kinds of deep dives, check out more of our analysis and theory articles. In addition, every Friday our All Access Star Trek podcast reviews and discusses the latest episode, including doing some of the theorizings. In our latest (which you can stream below) TrekMovie editors Tony and Laurie also discussed this refit canon conundrum.

 


New episodes of Star Trek: Discovery premiere on Thursdays on CBS All Access in the U.S. and on CTV Sci-Fi Channel in Canada, where it’s also available to stream on Crave. Episodes are available on Fridays internationally on Netflix.

Keep up with all the news and reviews from the new Star Trek Universe on TV at TrekMovie.com.

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I tend to think Calypso is Zora’s daydream in response to the time jump – possibly even during refit, when she’s ‘shut down.’

But I really like the last theory, that it takes place elsewhere on the probability tree of alternate timelines.

It’s a mismatch, like the hairless/now fully haired Klingons. Disco has been disjointed since it started…

Star Trek TMP, with all the ridged klingons must have been a nightmare for the fans at the cinema.

Fans were having conniptions about variations in Klingon look on the original series, as evidenced by references in the 70s to Fred P’s anguish on realizing he hadn’t done them the same between ERRAND and DOVE.

I think it’s good to mix up the klingon look a bit.
They’re supposed to be alien and menacing. I feel like we got too comfortable with the TMP/TNG/DS9 look after awhile.

The Klingons had become a joke by the end of the TNG-ENT run of Trek, looked like 80’s heavy metal throwbacks.

Yep. I really am fond of the S1 look, although I know it was a bitch for the actors to express through all the prostheses.

Thats your right of course, but wouldn’t it have been better in all respects to develop them as a whole new alien culture then, since everything from looks to costumes to ships was new anyway? Even as a distant offshoot of the Klingons. Let’s call them the KLINGOTS ;)

I do like making Klingons more scary. I wouldn’t want to see Worf get a nu-Klingon makeover though. That just ain’t right.

Plus, all of the scariness and menace in the world doesn’t matter if the actors sound like they’re gargling marbles. Those prosthetics are just total overkill and interfere too much with dialogue. Trying to understand what a Klingon is saying IN ENGLISH pulls one out of the scene.

We didn’t tend to get as overwrought about such things as much. TMP starts with bumpy Kilingons, then goes to give us the “Vulcan’s Moon” conundrum. It didn’t lessen my enjoyment of the film in 1979 (the slow pacing, stilted dialogue and monochromatic visuals did that).

I do recall those Klingons as a shock in TMP.

But there were so many other things to be less than thrilled by – mainly the long swirling dark scenes approaching VGer that seemed endless.

Even though it was shown in one of the best theatres in our area, it still wasn’t great. I enjoyed it more when the theatres were better and I was older.

I think part of the bad experience in the theater first-run may have had to do with odd factors. I was flabbergasted by how dark the film looked, seeing it four times at the Century 22 theater in San Jose (Had pre-bought four separate tickets, expecting I would love the film and also expecting tickets would be SW-level hard to get — wrong on both counts.)

But then I saw the film at a smaller second-run theater, the Plaza in Campbell, months later, and the film was massively brighter, like the difference you would expect between a regular theater and an old drive-in. Around that same time I heard that Wise ordered the film printed down to hide matte lines and image defects, so I wondered if the second run theater got an undarkened print. Either that, or they just had a decent projector bulb while the supposedly-nicest theater around (excepting the magnificent Cinema 150 in Santa Clara and the Palo Alto Square) didn’t. The Vulcan scene literally seemed as different as day from night to me.

Most homevid versions seemed brighter too, but that’s no guarantee of anything given all the variables with transfers. You can make the opening Klingon shot look better by turning down the brightness yourself to keep space from looking so gray, but that’s actually trying to improve on the theatrical experience, because that shot always looked bad in the theater (not the shot design,which is awesome, but the obvious big matte lines and how space looked fuzzy due to optical steps used by Apogee. The vger part of the shot wasn’t finalized till just a couple weeks before everything locked, so that comp certainly could have used a redo if there had been time.

I saw TMP in a 30-year-old, far from state-of-the-art theater on opening day (Barn Theater, Merritt Island, Florida). It looked great, not too dark at all. Your theater must have just used substandard equipment.

Agreed. It looked fine to me in ’79. I saw it in a smallish theatre in Joplin, MO, but it was the best theatre in town at the time.

I too remember TMP was darkly lit the first time I saw it in the theater when it first came out. In the early 80’s I read an article that said Wise turned down the lighting because the lights on the displays of all the bridge console stations would not show up when filmed under normal lighting.

I think it was that they had telephone hold buttons installed that melted at 25 watts and had to be lowered to something like 6 watts. So the tail really wagged the dog there, compromise the lighting on your actors and kiss off your depth of field in order to make sure your state of the art twinkle lights show up.

I saw TMP in the theatre when I was 6. The only thing I remember was hexagons. And to this day I adore hexagons. They seem cool and sci-fi and awesome. I had no idea what an original series Klingon was, and I think during their one scene I may have been napping from the half-hour intro music montage. Well, it seemed like a half hour because I was 6.

Also, I saw Chekov’s name on the Happy Meal box and had to ask mom “Who is Chekov?” Guess at that point I’d only seen reruns of Season 1 episodes, and none of them had had Klingons in them. Friggin’ noob.

Mom mentioned that they looked different in the show and they were scarier now. The only reason she knew they were Klingons was because of the K’Tingas. Mom was an awesome Trekkie.

I wish I’d been six instead of 19 when I saw TMP. I was 7-1/2 when I saw 2001 and it may well have ruined me for normal movies. TMP would have lowered my expectations without damaging them unduly.

It’s funny, there are a lot or hex shapes (mostly coffin-shaped hexs) in 2001 as well, and I remember that one of my main takeaways was how the excavation site on the moon had walls that seemed entirely built with patterns of these coffin-hex-forms.

I can’t wait until they re-make ST:TMP. I’ve always loved it.

IF they do remake TMP, I hope they have the Klingons teleported onto the Enterprise early in the plotline, after they enter V;ger., and then there could be more drama, Like in the episode “Day of The Dove.” This would also give that “ship in the bottle” episode more action. It would also showcase Kirk’s command abilities much better. Also, perhaps scrap Decker and just make Kirk and Ilia the main love interests. Or, perhaps Decker could be Kirk’s son?

So, you’re weren’t alive or old enough to go see that movie back in 79? The only nightmare I remember were the horrific new uniforms with the crotch bulges, not the Klingon changes or the new nacelles.

I do not know why the vision of the future was so colorless. I really dislike that idea.
Plus, yeah, there were some “awkward” features :^D

No, I think most enjoyed the change. It was done because the special make-up effects and budget didn’t allow for much in the original series. STD did it “just because.”

Agreed. There were many complaints about TMP, and the new look for the Klingons was way down the list.

Trek has always had such anomalies. For those of us who’ve been in it for the whole ride, one tends to disregard such picayune quibbling to enjoy the saga overall. If or when someone decides to come up with an elegant solution to fill such appearance discrepancies later (as with Star Trek Enterprise, “Affliction” for example), so much the better. Real life doesn’t answer every question, especially from the singular perspective.

Amen! Or even Worf’s “We do not talk about it…” in DS9

Could. Been from a alt universe like philippa georgiou

Yep, it’s a mismatch. It’s also fiction. Enjoy the holidays as much as Rona allows, folks. It’s all good.

Why do the klingons look like they do in DISCO?

Why does the discovery look as it did?

Because Bryan Fuller wanted a different look for his show.

In his original story, the Discovery’s saucer was going to detach and the nacelles were to shift down as the Discovery went behind enemy lines on a spy mission.

In fact, classic James Bond influenced the color palette he wanted.

It’s all covered in the Disco starships book.
Some of the odd choices make more sense reading it. He forbade round nacelles, for example.

Transporter Accident. The one Craft found is called Thomas Discovery.

Nah, the twins are called Discy and Over.

No, it’s clearly Disco O’Very, an Irish-built copy of Discovery.

*Disc O’Very

Option two would make better sense, but I would also suggest that something different may have happened. While going through the time ‘wormhole’, an anomaly occurred resulting in an accidental duplicate ‘alternate’ Discovery, and one that did not move forward in the future like the ‘prime’ Discovery of season 3. Then that duplicate crew indeed parked this ‘alternate’ Discovery away from Control into that Nebula until it is accidentally discovered by Craft almost 1000 years later in ‘Calypso’. Were that duplicate crew went is anybody guest, but it would make for a nice back story where ‘prime’ Discovery stumble onto a planet where the descendants of ‘alternate’ Discovery are now thriving since the last 930 years!

I like the idea of attributing this to a split in the timelines along the way during the 930 year transit.

Given all the incursions of the Temporal War, getting forward to a viable future would have been anything but a straightforward trajectory.

I’m wondering if there was no alternate crew at all, just Discovery on her own for a long time as some kind of eddy in the transit.

For all we know there was an oxbow where Discovery was left on her own and Zora experienced a millennium, but since it folded back into the main timeline, the crew has no memory of any of it.

Zora, as an advanced sphere data based AI, will have experienced and retained all of it though…

That’s why we’re getting Zora’s evolved British voice and interest in old visual media.

I was thinking the same thing except maybe the spore drive caused part of the ship to get stuck in the mycelial network without duplicating the crew, and then it just sat there before popping back into regular space at some random point.

Although I can’t remember if that violates any details Calypso gave us about when or why the crew abandoned her.

In Calypso, Zora says that the captain and crew departed and left Discovery in the nebula and that she was to wait for their return.

She also implied that she became sentient while waiting for them and keeping watch independently.

Probably unintentional, but what you describe is the part of the plot of Stargate Universe second season. :)

Indeed, that’s what came up to mind ;)

Easy. This season is A Year of Hell. In the end, Disco prevents the Burn from happening and thereby whiping out the timeline in which it was refit. They remain in the future but it is a different 32nd century. No detached nacelles, no Disco-A…
Future Starfleet will try everything to stop them from changing the timeline because it would whipe them out entirely. It’s the Tuvix morality play on a galactic scale…Thereby our friends will become the ultimate foe. They’ll protect their broken future at any cost. Not the Orions, Andorians or Vulcans are the enemies, it is Starfleet and not by malintent. They have a reason to act like they act. But hell, they will be the season baddies!

Indeed interesting theory.

That’s very interesting! You should be in the writers’ room.

I really really hope not. One of the biggest complaints about Star Trek is all the resets that happens in it. And usually it’s for just an episode or two. I don’t want this entire season to just be one big reset by the time we get to the end. It was actually the one thing I love about the Kelvin universe and that it had no reset button. And yet that’s what a lot of fans were crying about lol.

And I don’t see the point of making so many changes to the ship just to reset it all by the end of the season.

The whole “red angel” and “let’s go to the future” plot was a reset, in itself, just to avoid more and more criticisms for being a modern-prequel
I personally don’t think they will go with this “millennium of hell” line, but I like it

The difference being everything that happened still happened though. It was a symbolic reset for sure but since the crew are literally suffering the consequences of what they did in a big way and everyone remembers it, it’s not the same thing.

But a reset where everyone just forgets what happens and life goes after watching it for 13 episodes doesn’t sound all that appealing.

No reset button please!

Agreed Tiger2.

Agreed, resets have become quite the trope in Star Trek, almost as bad as the constant Time Travel.THIS time travel should have meaning, and that means some kind of consequence.

Actually, the “millennium of hell” already took place while Burnham was waiting an extra year for Discovery to show up.

See above: I think that Zora recalls it, but the humanoid crew does not.

I surely hope not – resets are lazy, and a cheat on dealing with consequences. That was the infuriating thing about Generations Nexus….you’ve just introduced a mobile Guardian, cruising around the cosmos. Why wouldn’t that be out there in the 32nd century? Just float Discovery through it once on a recon mission, pop back through again to fix The Burn, then pop back through to cancel Control, then pop back through to alert Michael that pulling a Phaser on the captain is a bad idea…..

Now, just substitute Chronometric particles or slingshotting, and you see the problem. Like it or not, people learn from consequences (and failure), time travel just takes all that away.

I think its just a minor continuity error. Just like we saw the original Enterprise labelled with an A in Ephraim and Dot. Its not a big deal.

It’s a little more to it then that though. The refit ship is VERY different now. We just didn’t get much in the episode outside of the changed nacelles and the new A. But there are a lot of differences including the color as a whole. Next episode should make that clear.

I would really like to know how detachable nacelles increase the mobility of the ship, LOL. But then watching Book’s ship change orientation was pretty kewl, so maybe it’s something like that …

I can buy it at least as a successor to Voyager’s foldable nacelles at least (which were never followed up upon of course), so there is sort of a design lineage there!

I think it’s meant to be ignored but CBS could easily redo the CGI shot or two for it and correct the error on streaming. They could even include it as a new bonus on the season 3 Blu-ray.

Perhaps it’s Theory 1 + TNG’S Time’s Arrow. Something happened, the crew remained in the 32nd century but Discovery had to be sent back to the past to pre-ENT era (maybe to mine information?) or the ship encountered an accident resulting in being thrown to the past, and the ship had to wait for 1000+ years for the Discovery crew to reclaim it. It was 1000+ years for the ship to wait, but maybe only few days for the Discovery crew to wait. Zora will just use 32nd century holographic tech to mask the upgrade.

My personal theory is so Zora can have a 1000 years to become fully sentient and absorb all the sphere data. Also maybe being able to navigate the mycelial network without Stamets. As he said he spent 10 years trying to be able navigate it. Only taking on DNA from a mycelium creature he was able to do it without almost flying into a star or only going short distances.

I’m going with #2. I think Calypso is just an altered timeline now. It’s really the least headache inducing one lol.

And the Trekyards guys did a really detailed review of the differences between the original Discovery and the refit version and there are really big differences in the ship as a whole. I posted it in another thread before I saw this one, but it’s a really good video and makes it clear just how much it’s been changed on the outside at least:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FySb6Bu9Ezw

Wow. Thanks for the link Tiger. I didn’t realize how significant the changes were before watching this video. It appears the entire secondary hull is new, plus all of the systems and propulsion upgrades. Makes me feel a little less frustrated with the “A” designation now. They basically kept the guts of the primary hull the same due to the spore drive but everything else is a different ship.

I know right?

They made it very clear this is more than just a cosmetic change. The ship has been upgraded in a major way. It just didn’t seem all that noticeable in the episode itself. It’s probably the biggest redesign of a ship since the original Enterprise into its refitted version in TMP. That one was just a lot more obvious.

Too bad they couldn’t refit its butt-ugly shape! Particularly the rear view is downright vulgar with those spreading apart nacelles and the gaping shuttle bay in the middle! Sorry Tiger if you can’t unsee that image now! :D

LOL, I’m on the internet, I’ve seen worse!

But I don’t disagree, you know my feelings on the ship. But I think this was the best compromise they could do and make it as less ugly as possible and giving it a different vibe. I think it would be too costly to dump the ship and also why the interior sets didn’t change. For me, I’m just happy the ugly and boring copper paint is either gone or subdued for something a little more Starfleet looking. The Trekyard guys mentioned that as well.

Season 3 is definitely shaping out to be a huge reboot for the show. Now, about the uniforms….

Sure I gotcha, just it’s a bit of an exercise of coating a turd with honey. Sure it looks and smells nice at first but wait until you dig deeper ;)

Give it time.

Hey, I’m from Canada where we have a highland regiment that drills in kilts.

Not that long ago the men drilled in kilts and the women in tartan trews … because : tradition. (Now everyone gets kilts.)

And we have a policy that troops returning from overseas deployments get to keep their combats on for a certain number of months even in HQ postings.

I’m really finding this uniform angst from fans pretty facepalm inducing.

Hey I don’t have uniform angst, I just find it extremely unimaginative and lazy to change up so little to denote 1000 years of technological development, of which the Federation clearly has plenty outside of clothing! It’s akin to putting a chain mail amor on a soldier in a WW2 movie.

Isn’t there a bigger difference in all respects between the maroon TOS movie uniforms, used up until the 2340s, and the TNG uniforms only 20 years later, than TNG uniforms and 32nd century Starfleet uniforms? This doesn’t make sense.

There’s even a self-congratulatory video up on st. com with Ms. Philips feting her use of “armor elements”. Only her own Discovery uniforms already have an armor variant! To me she is competent in execution, yes, but is lacking that special breakout ability in holistic thinking that qualifies her as costume lead (and her one home run in 3 seasons, the new TOS uniforms, really build on the giant shoulders of William Ware Theiss).

Science fiction should not primarily be about fabric quality but the visionary and predictive aspect is much more important here to be able to suspend disbelief – certainly for a world placed 1150 years in our future!

Funny, I didn’t care for the tri-colors being reintroduced for Pike’s Enterprise. I suppose it’s a necessary evil to maintain consistency with TOS, but I don’t like it nearly as much as the all-blue Discovery model. And I hope they get to keep wearing them, because the new unis 900 years from then are pretty boring, boring, boring. WHY is grey the color of the future. Why, God, why.

If they at least threw out a line why they are still wearing thousand year old uniforms then I don’t it would be that much of an issue. But for most it just comes off ridiculous when they basically ‘live’ at the Federation now and for some reason don’t get a new wardrobe.

But yes that could all change. Either way I’m not going to just stop watching the show because of it or anything. But for many it sticks out and for good reason.

I like that idea. I feel like, since Discovery’s a special ship, they should have their special uniforms.

Christ just not more gray, please god

I imagine every hiring by the Colonel is preceded by a special test of allegiance and apart from certain ideological questions, one question pertains the color red. If you like it, you are out ;)

They actually did change the shape a lot.

The secondary hull is all new. The neck has a different shape and angle, closer to the Galaxy-class Enterprise-D.

One can hope that all that programmable matter will be able to close the shuttle-bay.

The detached nacelles are cool.

And it looks like they may attach and detach depending on the drive.

What I want to know is whether it got a slipstream retrofit too. Maybe they’ll find some benamite out there.

Again, I’m more focused on the forest than the trees ; in this case, the overall shape and aesthetic harmony (or rather, lack thereof) rather than changed components and textures.

The main problem with this configuration, and why it probably was correctly ditched in the 1970s is that the relationship between saucer and secondary hull is unbalanced. The saucer is way too small for that giant triangle (or the the triangle too big). They could’ve fixed the latter with that switchout you mentioned but it would’ve maybe made no sense in-universe to make the habitable space smaller.

So I’d rather have had them park the pizza cutter in the nebula for Calpyso and get a whole new, genuinely 32nd century Discovery 1031-A, which incidentally would’ve also better fit previously established registry conventions, most prominently with the 1701-A!

LOL, I couldn’t disagree more on Discovery’s shape. I love her.

As for the gaping shuttle bay, unlike the vault you are obliquely referring to, the latter is a POTENTIAL space.

Well, OK, Marja! I guess every daughter finds her match, and SHE is no difference! :D

Simple.. the ship is full of programmable matter… Zora erases the A from the hull.

Yup, or sends the bots out to blast it off. Zora is definitely a “classic look” kind of gal.

There are other changes too, though. Especially the nacelles and the outer part of the secondary hull. That’s a lot of trouble for Zora to go to just because she’s feeling nostalgic for the 23rd Century.

There are other dramatic changes. It’s not just erasing an A, the ship we have now looks very different than what we saw in Calypso. The detached floating nacelles alone makes that clear.

Gol-durnit, I like the original shape …

I will give them this: from above it looks like an IDIC symbol (especially now that the nacelles are detached), which is sorta cool as a concept, however, the actual aesthetics as a starship just dont live up to it…

or theory 3 maybe calypso is not canon
and they used elements from it in season 3 developments but the overal all plot of the short treks episode is not canon

Why bother arguing canon when you can just have an alternate timeline. Seems to be the cheap way out of just about everything these days. Personally it makes little difference to me. I enjoy the series and have a high level or tolerance for suspension of disbelief.

Best attitude! Certainly Kurtzman is comfortable with alternate timelines. I am too.

Star Trek rules have essentially said every time you travel in time you create a new timeline.

But that is not correct. “Star Trek: First Contact”, “Yesterday’s Enterprise” and many, many other episodes deal with a timeline that has been changed and needs to be changed back. All these episodes and the movie would not make any sense if every change would just result in a different timeline.

And even the multiple timelines that proliferate in Parallels will fold back into one or a few main lines.

Trek’s multiverse isn’t an infinitely proliferating one.

Time crystals, where a single event exists across all timelines, anchors things into fewer branches.

I don’t think there is any continuity mismatch greater than TNG’s “Relics” and “Generations”. People use to get over it and understand how storytelling works. If the Writers can solve this in a meaningful way that’s not worse than the original problem, great. The most unlikely scenario? They redo the VFX for “Calypso”.

That wouldn’t work if the ship is actually in the past. Assuming Calypso takes place in or around the 32nd century, that means Discovery would have been in the past loaded with future tech. And that would be a massive violation of whatever laws exist after the temporal wars. I also feel like the Federation Timefleet that existed before the wars would have corrected this ‘anomaly’, but I have almost no clue how all of that is supposed to work.

And if Calypso takes place in the 42nd century, then the continued existence of the name ‘V’Draysh’ would seem to indicate that the Federation is still fractured after another 1000 years. So it’s a bit more problematic than just a VFX error.

BTW… Thanks Ashley for calling BS on the Burn / Dilithium dilemma in Episode 1.

I wrote off the “Generations” gaffe as being that Scotty just assumed Kirk wasn’t really dead, since they never found his body. And by the way, he was right. Kirk was alive and well in the Nexus the whole time.

A new option:

When Burnham and Disco entered the wormhole at the war with Control, they were in the 23rd century. When they exited the wormhole, they were in the 32nd century.

But they were not in the same universe. They crossed over to a different universe.

Again, I think they are not in the same universe the left.

NOTE: I assume Calypso is part of canon and not a one-off short trek that should not be canon. If so:
– Why would the crew arrive in the 32nd century then later park the ship 1000 years into the future?
– Why would the crew park DISCO in a Nebula and tell the Zora A.I. never to exit?
– Why would the crew arrive in the future to greet who they think is a good and benevolent Federation / Star Fleet, and not leave the ship and Zora with the Federation so that it could be passed on to new Captains and crews?
– Why would the crew not entrust the ship and Zora to Star Fleet so that they could build a new more advanced body around Zora for future generations of Star Fleet crews?
– Why would there be a human/humanoid person (Craft) who is fighting against the future version of the Federation / Star Fleet?

My point is that something about this 32nd century iteration of the Federation is OFF.

In Calypso, the crew left the ship, the spore drive, and the Zora A.I. away from the Federation / Star Fleet in the future and parked in a nebula because the Fed has to be corrupted or worse.

Voyager (the TV show) had many different types of alternative FTL drives that Janeway wanted to get her hands on. Ship’s logs, B’Lanna’s logs, and Janeway’s logs would have accounted for them all.

If the 32nd Century Federation and Star Fleet were doing forensic historical research to uncover new propulsion systems in Star Fleet history, they would know this. But the 32nd Century Federation / Star Fleet is not aware of them.

What?

Voyager got home in their last episode using Borg Transwarp Conduits and Nodes. Those did not just disappear. They could still be used by the Federation / Star Fleet. Bajor used worm hole singlularities in addition to warp to travel. Those could be used. Neither of these require 120 years to develop tech.

But the writers are telling me that the Federation has languished 120 years and have still found no alt FTL solution for non-dilithium based travel?

BS.

It is either bad writing, or there is something deeper in the world building.

If the DISCO exited that wormhole into a different universe:
– that had no Voyager lost in the Delta Q, it would explain a lot.
– that had not knowledge of Borg Transwarp conduits, it would explain a lot.
– that had no awareness of Bajor’s wormhole travel, it would explain a lot.
– where the 32nd Century Federation / Star Fleet leadership were not aware of seed ships carrying indigenous seeds from the original member worlds that could save those aliens in episode 305, it would explain a lot.
– it would explain a lot about why – to me, I say again, to me – this 32nd century Federation / Star Fleet / United Earth feels like a very corrupted, authoritarian, police state version of the Prime universe that even after 120 years post-burn, wants to stay isolated, corrupted, authoritarian and police-state-ish.

It is a simple thing:
Either it is bad writing, in which the writers built a season around a bad plot device (the Burn) and then reverse engineered a 13 episode narrative to support it….

OR, the writers have a much deeper narrative that they are building toward, and we have not caught on to how deep the rabbit hole goes.

I hope it is the second.

“bad writing”

Yup.

” or there is something deeper in the world building.”

Nope.

Evidence: precedent

Thanks VS!

I am trying to leave room for hope. But history says the repeated and obvious answer is the answer.

Sigh…

Tarnwood,

I suggest you review Voyager.

There aren’t as many kinds of FTL tech as you recall. Some of the apparent tech was a chimera.

There were mainly just Warp drives and Slipstream drives.

Warp is shown to be the entry-level FTL for most species. That’s why the Prime Directive sets it as the required condition for contact.

Voyager meets many species that have better and more efficient warp drives. Getting their hands on better warp technology or enhancements meant that they can go closer to the maximum warp of 1000 light years per year threshold on a sustained basis with less rationing, but it didn’t mean it’s fundamentally different tech.

The Romulan singularity drive is still a variant of warp drive, and considered by other species to be a riskier one. It’s still possible that they used dilithium as the regulator for the reaction.

TransWarp is still also warp, but within an anchored network of permanent TransWarp conduits. So it’s like building highways, not a different base technology. One assumes that if

Slipstream is the next level of technological development and most of the species with it keep themselves hidden and don’t share. Voyager became aware of it fairly early on and saw other species with it, but only got hold of it because someone was trying to con them out of the ship. The ship could not safely maintain slipstream (wrong design).

Book’s ship has a slipstream drive, but he has said that getting benamite is also a problem.

Otherwise, there were unstable wormholes, and other risky phenomena.

The Excelsior had come up with another solution but that was an abomination, based on the natural biological ability of another sentient species.

Lastly, the Kremin technology offered another kind of FTL, but that was bound up with their time travel. So, it would be banned in the 32nd century.

Thanks TG!

I think you kind of validate what I am trying to say. Perhaps I didn’t state it well, however.

My point is that there were many types of drives – viable or not – that were documented in the 23/24 centuries. With advanced 32nd Century tech and scientific knowledge, there must be at least one or two of those other types of drives found in Voyager etc., in the 23/24th Century that could now be improved upon and made far more viable as a non-dilithium alternative for 32nd century FTL.

Similar argument: say the new Federation / Star Fleet team researching propulsion tech actually spent time (weeks) debriefing Stamets on all things spore drive. Likely they would have learned that Stamets was part of a larger 23rd Century research team that failed on 4 beta versions or iterations of their drive (this is my supposition… science rarely gets it right the 1st time out) before landing on the current iteration of the spore drive used in the 1031.

With 32nd Century tech, the current Federation might be able to take any of those non-dilithium based FTL solutions that were called unstable or unviable in the 23/24th Centuries and make them work today. They could take an early beta of Stamets’ work and likewise, make it work today with 32nd Century tech.

I am saying don’t be bound by what did or did not work back then. There are 930 years of new science that should have given someone an idea on taking a prior failure and McGuyver-ing it into a non-dilithium-based solution by now.

Off topic…

Otherwise what is the actual point of building advanced, detachable warp nacelles when most of travel is now non-FTL?

If your economy was based on funding from 350 worlds and is now a fraction of that, and you don’t have dilithium to fill a 5-gallon bucket…. who would spend trillions on fancy detachable warp nacelles if they can’t create a new form of FTL in 120 years? If Stamets and his original team can make a mushroom drive in the 23rd Century, the 32nd Century should be able to stand on the shoulders of history, use current knowledge to optimize some problematic tech from 900 years ago, and innovate the hell out something today. And do it 10x faster than Stamets could.

Something is amiss.

This is either bad writing or there is a deeper narrative that we have not caught on to.

Still disagree in general.

From what I understand pretty much all warp drives are dilithium dependent and all slipstream drives need benamite.

Efficiency is the main variant, not the primary unreplicatable materials. These critical unreplicatable materials are the binding constraints throughout all of Trek, starting with “the Devil in the Dark.”

If detached nacelles are more efficient and dilithium is rare, then detached nacelles are necessary to maximize the dilithium available. They aren’t the luxury.

Consider If the precious spore drive fails, Discovery will need the most efficient warp drive possible. More, to avoid revealing they have a new kind of drive, high warp capability is needed.)

Now it sounds as though some kind of low quality synthetic dilithium is available, but how useful it is isn’t clear.

Why both benamite and dilithium would be absent is the bigger question, although my recollection was that benamite was even more rare and difficult to recrystallize than dilithium. So, they may just not be able to travel to a benamite rich source with their limited warp capacity.

It’s all good TG!

The conversation is what I am here for.

What I perceive as an illogical narrative gives me the rare chance to bandy ideas about with a well-informed you and others. That’s fun. One creates new wrinkles in the grey matter that way.

So disagreeing has actually made the issue richer for me.

Thanks!

As Surak said in The Savage Curtain: I am pleased to see that we have differences. May we together become greater than the sum of both of us.:)

Glad to engage! (LOL)

By the way, I owe all this Voyager perspective to our kids who love the show dearly and brought me around to believing that it’s the entry-show for the franchise at this point.

The Borg had a transwarp network, but that wasn’t necessary for using transwarp drive. It just made it easier and more efficient for them to travel within their space. All a ship needed was a transwarp coil, presumably a deflector dish, and about 0.75% of the power output of a warp core like Voyager had. And Voyager did indeed use one until it ‘burned out’.

You also failed to mention coaxial warp, and whatever type of transwarp the Voth used. On top of that, I doubt the Timefleet in the 29th century was using matter/antimatter reactors to travel through time and space.

As for benamite, there’s nothing to suggest that it was necessary for Slipstream. I was under the impression that Voyager used it as a dilithium replacement to work with their existing (matter/antimatter) reactor. But on the Dauntless, Tom Paris specifically states that he doesn’t know what the power source was, but it ‘wasn’t antimatter’. So Slipstream should be able to work with another power source, like whatever the Dauntless used.

It’s just lazy writing and a lot of handwaving to suggest that dilithium-mediated matter/antimatter reactors were the only thing they could use. VOY alone indicated there were many types of propulsion and power sources that could be used. They couldn’t use all of them, but they MacGyvered quite a few of them, and used them. That’s one 24th century ship on it’s own. To suggest that the entire Federation and all it’s resources over hundreds of years couldn’t make any of this stuff work, or even find another alternative, is ridiculous.

Plus, even if we’re handwaving the temporal tech away because of the wars and laws in place, Starfleet (or Timefleet?) DID have access to an alternative at one point. Even if it were the only alternative, not every ship would have it. I can’t imagine every shuttlecraft and cargo ship and civilian vessel would have the ability to travel through time and space. SO, if they had to still rely on dilithium, they would have seen the shortage coming and would have used the temporal tech (even just the ability to travel anywhere in space) while they could to at least find more dilithium. The shortage before the burn shouldn’t have happened.

Burnham dismissed sooo much in 1-2 lines of dialogue, and that’s why I have a problem with DSC’s handling of the future.

Dilithium is NOT fuel.

It is a component of warp drive.

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Dilithium

Hi Josh!

My issue is not whether it is fuel or not. Fuel or not, that is an argument that does not move me.

Dilithium is a consumed, scarce resource needed for Warp. Period. Which means someone should have had Alt-FTL plans on the drawing board somewhere that did not depend on that scarce resource. This is one reason why I guess Stamets and his peers pioneered the non-dilithium based Spore drive.

——

Also, in that Memory Alpha article you posted, toward the end of the article, it says :
Dilithium as a Power SourceWhile the early Earth NX-class starships utilized dilithium matrices in their warp cores, (ENT: “Affliction”) during the mid-2260s, Constitution-class also used crystallized lithium. (TOS: “Mudd’s Women”).

Housed in a dilithium crystal converter assembly, the crystals were used as a power source as well as a regulator. Dependency on that power meant the starships risked losing the ability to maintain an orbit, let alone use of their warp drive, when a number of dilithium crystals were drained of their power or became fused in their assembly. In some circumstances, crystals could be re-amplified to provide continued service, rather than replaced. 

-> Memory Alpha calls dilithium a power source. Sooooo….

Thanks!

The idea to re-commission the ship with a ‘new’ registry to fool enemies of the Federation this is not an illegal act of time travel (and the makers of this accord must have had precisely this scenario in mind – that one power/faction gains an unfair tech advantage from another time period) is a typical Kurtzman solution akin to making Starfleet covering up Discovery by simply an act of document obsfucation and Spock lieing (presumably thousands of memories must have been wiped too including of enemies!)

It’s completely ridiculous to think any other ship wouldn’t know immediately when this ship is from by scanning its quantum signature (and the myriad of other ways 50 years of canon have tackled dating the age of something or someone). Or they just check the hull of the ship which is composed of ancient duranium, not neutrinum alley. Since Discovery did just that (scan hulls) an episode ago, they already self-contradicted here!

If you hate Discovery so much, why are you constantly commenting on posts about it? I don’t understand why someone would spend so much time talking about something they like so little.

Bob, you ask an emotion-focused question, and the answer is in my user name ;)

The external hull is all new VS.

And we know that salvaging from old ships is very much a thing.

Discovery can now pass as a new ship built on the core of a very old spaceframe — because that’s essentially what she is.

That is conjecture, or are their any lines of dialog? The saucer section is not new, I think it merely got a “paint job” (or armor). And even if the external hull was all new, all the bulkheads inside surely are not, and those are made of Duranium and can be quantum dated. Any item on the ship (or in fact, the crew members) could be dated back to the 23rd century. In fact, we just saw this technology in action on Picard (Soji). Surely 32nd scanners are even more advanced than 24th century ones? So in short, realistically there is no way the ancient origin of Discovery could be hidden.

Kelvin Discovery?

It’s been stated over and over that Discovery’s time jump to the future is PERMANENT. They won’t go back in time. In the series finale they will hide Discovery in a nebula, the end.

All hail Grudge!!!!

Another possibility – simultaneously convoluted and straightforward – is that the Discovery in ‘Calypso’ is actually the I.S.S. from the Terran universe. Having acquired its own sphere data but much earlier in its mission then finding itself in our universe it does what the U.S.S. crew does. Changes its hull markings to fit in the Prime fleet. Not having a Prime universe version of the Emperor’s flagship power core to fly through, they are trapped here. Operating in stealth they are able to tap into Star Fleet subspace communications (being identical technology) and learn what is happening throughout our war, at some point faking their own destruction – hence Admiral Cornwall’s statement when the U.S.S. returns – and upon learning about Control but having no Red Angel suite of their own, opt for hiding their ship while that crew leaves it to go join the Orion syndicate which is more to their liking.

I think this is another example of what I have stated elsewhere in the forums. This is a case of having too many cooks in the kitchen and writing staffer #87 not sharing notes with executive producer #109.

Anyway, let’s follow the Showrunners example by accepting it, shrugging our shoulders and moving on to another close up of the Bridge officers staring into each others eyes in heart felt moment #909.

What did I like about this episode? Well, actually I think they are portraying the new starfleet ships…refits and all pretty well. After all, there is only so many things you can do nowadays to be original and the Terminator Genisys tech is nicely done. But MY GOD…what is Eaglemoss going to do about those detached warp nacelles?!

Eaglemoss! Ha!

I suppose some transparent or translucent plastic will do the trick, but still, good on you for noticing.

I don’t think this is a canon issue at all. Just a minor inconsistency, that’s all.

It could be a cannon issue though!

Did they also install new weapons to stand a chance against aunts and
nephews of the Orion Syndicate, and are they really still using phaser cannons 800 years after TNG? That’s akin to Trump assassinating Iranian military uncles with (iron) cannon balls instead of killer drones ;)

Look at the video analysis recommended by Tiger2.

There are new emplacements on the saucer among other things that suggest new weapons. The secondary hull looks to have been replaced completely. The entire hull surface appears to be armoured as well.

Saru didn’t detail every upgrade, he gave a brief. The writers have left some new things to show us, but the ship is basically a new ship on the old spaceframe, with core crew spaces left much as they were to help with psychological adaptation.

Why would you assume that if we haven’t seen it yet, it new weapons or other features don’t exist?

“Why would you assume that if we haven’t seen it yet, it new weapons or other features don’t exist?”

I dont, I was building a legitimate question around a pun ;)

And not merely focused on Discovery but all weapons. It seems the ships we have seen so far still do pew pew pew which is neither a 23rd or 32nd century feature but a Kurtzman /Abrams feature ;)

Arguably the Discovery uniforms are a matter of taste (apart from contradicting canon) but the uniforms of 930 years in the future defy common sense of technological development! One just has to look how much fabrics have changed in the past 30 years alone (of everyday clothes like winter coats even) ans the witness the beginnings of smart clothing like Nike’s self-sealing sneakers to understand how ignorant these costume choices really are. At least William Ware Theiss was *trying* to show us the future will be different.

I think it’s pretty impressive that Kurtzman and his band of mediocre writers (I’m trying to be generous at the beginning of a new week) have even managed to get the Discovery (still the ugliest Star Trek ship ever) in the timeframe of Calypso and have teed up Zora.

Not having an “A” at the end of the registry or those ludicrous detached nacelles (facepalm) are relative minutiae. Even I as someone who thinks Discovery is the weakest Star Trek series by far (it’s not even Trek to me) can let them off not having these small details wrapped up.

Remember, they used Discovery era ships in Children of Mars FFS.

I’m still trying to grasp the logic behind the registry number suffixes. Established Trek canon has shown that a starship (namely the Enterprise) is given a new suffix after the registry number whenever a new ship of the same name is commissioned. But now it seems the Discovery writers/producers have modified this rule to allow for a new letter after the registry number when an EXISTING ship undergoes a major refit, i.e. when it “evolves”.

The USS Discovery was given the suffix “-A” after the registry number not as a way to circumvent the Temporal Accords, but because it was refit to incorporate programmable matter and to bring it in line with the ships of 32nd-century Starfleet. The Discovery was “evolved” from a 23rd-century starship to a 32nd-century one. I dislike this bending of the rules very much, but it’s supported by the presence of the USS Tikhov, the Starfleet seed vault ship. The Tikhov was around in the 23rd century, and Admiral Vance confirms it still functions as a seed vault in the 32nd century. In the scene where Tilly, Stamets, and Reno discuss the coronal mass ejection, Tilly’s holographic interface shows the Tikhov’s registry number as NCC-1067-M. I don’t think there have been 14 Starship Tikhov’s, all serving as seed vaults. When Vance remarks that the Tikhov is still around, he’s referring to the same Starship Tikhov from the 23rd century, having undergone 13 major refits or “evolutions” over the past 930 years.

This seems to indicate, then, that the USS Voyager NCC-74656-J is not the 11th starship to bear the name, but in fact the SAME USS Voyager launched in 2371 under Janeway’s command, having undergone 800 years worth of major refits, receiving a new letter suffix after the registry each time. That’s why its 32nd-century design is still reminiscent of the 24th-century one, and it is still designated as an Intrepid class. That’s why the Discovery bridge crew, though they should have no idea what’s going on, comment that it’s the 11th “evolution” of the ship, and remark about the “stories it has to tell”.

Again, I don’t like this bending of previously-established unwritten rules, but it seems to fit with what we’ve seen on screen.

In the season two finale, Starfleet deemed and recorded that Discovery was destroyed.

This season, Admiral Vance states that the ship coming to the future and traveling through time was a crime and made them criminals.

So that Discovery could remain in 3199, the refitted and added the “A” suffix due to time travel being outlawed by the temporal accords. As Admiral Vance has stated in the last two episodes, Starfleet does not have the ships or man power it did in the 23rd or 24th century.

The spore drive makes Discovery an asset and a “first responder” for Starfleet at the moment.

Voyager, is NOT the same ship that was commanded by Janeway. It is the same class only. TrekCore confirmed from CBS that Voyager J is a 32nd century Intrepid Class starship.

My theory is as follows:
1. The AI has evolved.
2. Federation is back to how it used to be.
3. Discovery is now time travel capable due to the AI.
4. Due to the temporal directive rule it is deemed that Discovery should be decommissioned.
5. AI in self-preservation bid suggests that upgrades be undone and that it will travel back in time.
6. Hence problem solved. Discovery officially never travelled to the future. Instead it drifted for centuries and was “discovered” in the future.

I think they’ll just ignore the lack of continuity. But good point on the “A” suffix as trying to avoid the illegality of time travel. I would buy that. But otherwise I think it’s not called for.

Hmmm another theory…..

Theory A:
The Burn was actually caused by a faction in the future that wanted to neutralize the Federation and freeze space travel by limiting it which in itself is a violation of the temporal accord stuff. Much like spice melange was key to interstellar travel in Dune. Dilithium is a key factor. So by controlling the Dilithium you control the universe.

Disco finds out about this and they are allowed to travel back in time to prevent the burn since they are traveling back to correct it.

Hence Disco is retrograded to match pre-burn tech. And it is given the code NCC-1031. (Notice without the “A”) Which is the designation of another secret science vessel that was experimenting with time travel based instant propulsion tech which disappeared in mysterious circumstances. Basically it uses a temporal drive that allows it to seemingly teleport across universes but in reality it is just distorting time.

So Disco and crew travel to the past and prevent the burn. The ship now fully sentient is capable of defending itself and making decisions. Disco decides it’s best it stays in the current timeline, and the crew can choose to stay in the timeline, go
back to their own timeline, or go back to the future timeline.

Disco’s year later arrival is because of time dilation. Michael entered the wormhole deeper in the gravity well. Someone (I don’t recall who) connected with the show confirmed this recently.

It occurs to me that any version of Control would have come with them to the future trapped in the spore cube. So now Control is in the future.
Only thing they can do is hide Discovery in the past where they know control definitely isn’t anymore, somewhere remote possibly in another galaxy.
But they can’t send future tech into the past so they strip out the ship and send Discovery piloted by Zora who is now advanced and intelligent enough to operate the spore drive using specially bio-augmented tardigrade gelpacks from the USS Voyager-J or whatever.
She waits and jumps away from anything that comes close enough to detect it so as not to polute the timeline. Meanwhile the Discovery crew find a way to destroy Control before Discovery reaches its final waiting point for the crew 1000 years later in the present.

Okay, now for theory B:

The burn was caused by Burnham’s mother.
After returning to a changed future she discovered that Discovery was destroyed on arrival into the future due the temporal accord. Thinking her daughter was in Disco at that time, the mother travels into the past to create the burn to prevent Disco getting destroyed on arrival.

So Burnham and crew go to the past to stop Burnham’s mother from causing the burn and also to reunite them.

Once they stop the burn, Burnham’s mother sends the crew of Disco back to their own timeline. Retrograded Disco remains. And Burnham and mother return to the future.

That sounds like a worthy successor to the one decent ep of LOGAN’S RUN, written by David Gerrold (though he put a pseudonym on it due to interference), MAN OUT OF TIME. Man, thinking about all they got wrong on that show just hurts my mind even now. I remember they had one show that ripped off THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME and had Horst Bucholz hunting the good guys with a Thompson sub-machine gun sprayed gold that shot laser beams. I hope I’m remembering that wrong, but it seems etched in my mind now that I am flashing back to age 17 (indulge me, today’s my birthday.)

If Discovery was refitted, shouldn’t the registry number and name of the ship match the rest of the fleet which appears to be in the font of Starfleet Bold Extended? Why keep the existing font? Boo.

It’s not the same font as it was, and it has a line around it. The close ups are surprising.

But I’m not sure it matches the 32nd century fleet either.

Take a closer look.

  1. I didn’t see any problem with the -A added to the registry, seemed clear to me that if Starfleet regarded Discovery as destroyed centuries ago, they’d reclassify it for active duty.
  2. Calypso never bothered me enough for me to worry about it, I can write it off as something that would have happened in another timeline.

Damn! I reckon it’s just another example of poor continuity – the Discovery ‘creatives’ are not top notch at the best of times! But hey, maybe they’re on top of this one???

Simple solution: do a Star Wars style update and fix the cgi in Calypso to add the -A. It’s NCC # isn’t to my recollection mentioned in dialog.

In the past iterations of Star Trek, the letter following the number indicated a NEW ship with the same name after the previous one had been either destroyed or decommissioned, not just because of a refit. Second, are we supposed to believe that, regardless of the secrecy behind her existence in the 23rd century, that they never used the name “Discovery” for a Starfleet ship over the following 900 years?!?

My theory is this: Calypso happened between Episode 1 and Episode 2 of this year.

There’s missing time here. Burnham’s hair growth in the 1st episode is the tell, in my opinion. The shuttle sequence during the “year” she’s waiting on Discovery is intended to show the passage of time with the growth of Burnham’s hair. That doesnt grow that long naturally, and there’s no reason for Burnham to just play around with a hair growing doohickey out of boredom. There’s a hint there.

I think a second hint, which may sound bizarre, is Detmer’s PTSD. I think she experienced things during the missing time that created her PTSD, and her implant is “remembering” it partially for her. At the dinner, she gives a haiku on Stamets’ blood, describing it in detail. Only problem is, Detmer was on the bridge when Stamets was injured during the Battle with Control. So why Stamets? Because she saw him get injured during the missing time.

Basically, I think something is going to happen where we find that Discovery didnt make it safely to the future, and they’re going to go back at the end of this season to set things right. Somehow that’s going to involve abandoning the Discovery for 1000 years. Maybe to let Zora evolve? It’s going to be one of those headache inducing, boot strapping, closed time loop things where they figure out that they have to go back in time to make sure that their present happens. That’s my wild theory, at least.

Hi LogicalLeopard,

I think we have the same theory.

I suggested further up the thread that Calypso happened in some kind of oxbow, or side-loop, experienced during Discovery’s transit to the future.

I really like the idea that Detmer’s implant may have retained some flickers of memory that the rest of the “wet-brained” crew lost.

I would have thought Stamets should have remembered too given what happened in “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad” , but he was in a medically induced coma.

I’m wondering if there is a clue in Stamets unconscious fugue scene in Sick-bay in 302….?

I think the simplest explanation is the best. The writers didn’t think ahead and now we have a slight continuity problem. I’m sure the writers will figure something out.

Yeah. This is most likely the situation. A similar but much less significant issue was in the Short Trek where Saru was picked up by Starfleet. In the original Short Trek the shuttle was from the Shenzou. But when it was replayed for the Season 2 episode it was changed to a different ship since Georgiu wasn’t on the Shenzou then. Whenever they get around to addressing Calypso again (I am betting it is the Series Finale) they will retcon the visuals.

Calypso is probably an alternate future. One where the crew abandoned the Discovery to avoid it being found by Control, the Section 31 AI. Where the Sphere Data slowly evolved the ship’s computer system and gave it AI. Which meshes with the reason Control wanted the ship/ Sphere Data in the first place.
Calypso was showing that even if they just abandoned the ship and prevented Control getting it, the future wouldn’t be great.

Which probably planted the seed of the far future in the writer’s heads.

My problem is the “A” itself. We already know that Voyager is on “J” Enterprise is likely still in the fleet maybe as a J. So discovery was never re-used in the last 1,000 years? The only way to fix THAT plot hole would maybe be to say that the registry number for future Discovery ships was changed for some reason and was now being changed back.

Discovery isn’t a name that’s used much. It totally scans that it would have been put on the “reserved” list after the “destruction” of the first Starfleet vessel with the name in the 23rd century.

Navies are superstitious and Cook and Vancouver’s HMS Discovery had an unfortunate voyage of exploration in many ways.

The UK and Canada have used the name only for an converted whaler used for exploration of the North-west passage. There’s also a Canadian naval reserve station by the name in Vancouver.

But given the number of Naval ships that rolled out of the yards in Vancouver and Victoria during WW2, it’s clearly a reserved name.

Best Star Trek since Deep Space Nine and the Next Generation.
I must say that the Klingons look is not pleasing to the eye and their vocals sounds like they are talking through a mask. It aggravates my ears.
I hope they continue to write in past aliens from the original series into the current series. That would be awesome.

The possibilities are endless. This could have been just one of many futures for Discovery. We didn’t know when Calypso was made what could happen to Discovery and her crew.

Infinite diversity, Infinite possibilities.

All versions of the Discovery look BAD, but WTF is the “future version” with detached nacelles?? That wouldn’t even WORK!! LMAO!! God, I hate modern Star Trek…for myriad reasons!

I think after listening to many fan reviews, I think because it has programable matter it could alter it’s out ward appearance to fit into the time it reappears and with Zora in control and it’s upgrades I see how it could be possible.

I believe that discovery will undergo a de-fit and be sent time-traveling again, but they will be headed to the dawn of the 25th century. I can not guess as to the circumstances that will lead to this but I believe the writers will do this so they can have crossovers with Picard and Strange New Worlds much more easily. With Discovery in the 32nd century, crossovers with any of the current or planned shows is pretty difficult. Now, I know crossovers aren’t mandatory for a good show, but you got to admit, the writers have got to be considering how much fun they can have with crossovers.

Doug Jones stated a few weeks ago they are staying in the 32nd century permanently.

So no theories on how the original suit and Michael’s mom created the burn when her time crystal ignited in subspace on the same harmonic frequency as dilithium when the suit, and her, were released and flung back to the future… The temporal accords are just a plot device used so that they just don’t create a new suit and go hopping through time. They have to go through the process of providing Starfleet with enough data to prove that the only way to save the future is by breaking the temporal accords. They have to send the ship to the past where it does something to fix the timeline and then stays in some sort protected space until the crew can find the ship in the future again. That’s my humble theory.

It could be the Discovery in the 42 century and the Sphere data has total control of the ship and directed the ships bots to defit the ship.

Right after “Scavengers” aired, I went back and rewatched “Calypso” to see how much of the outside of Discovery was shown – the thought being that if not a lot of Discovery was seen from the outside, the various refit changes could be easily ignored away. Alas, it’s pretty clear in “Calypso” that we’re looking at a non-refit Discovery.

Which of course, as a Star Trek fan and a nerd, got me to thinking how much of Calypso can be considered canon, and if it is truly canon, how it will eventually fall into the Disco timeline. I like the idea of Calypso being an alternate future of sorts, which got me thinking of how it could be tied back into the main Disco story, and here’s my idea!

At some point the Disco crew is able to uncover the reason for the Burn, and it is directly related to their trip to the future (their temporal incursion caused an instability in subspace, which destabilized dilithium – or some other sufficiently technobabble reason). As such, they decide to travel back into the past, near the moment they left, and hide the Discovery somewhere where Control can’t find it (re: the nebula, or other special anamoly that we find Disco in in Calypso), and then abandon it there were she sits for 1000 years until a raft shows up.

However, even though the Disco crew is able to prevent the Burn, the Federation ends up in a massive Galaxy wide war (as sorta mentioned in Calypso) that results in far more many deaths than the Burn, and ends up destroying the Federation. As such, the crew realize that they must let the Burn happen and stay in the future in order to save the Federation, thus wiping out the future we saw in Calypso.

As far as how the crew is able to ascertain that this alternate future exists and what not, one of the crew (probably Burnham, because it always Burnham) stays in the future and her and the crew devise a way to protect her from the timeline changes and also keep in communication with the past to let them know if the Burn is prevented and if Control re-emerges. When it’s clear that this new future is worse than the one with the Burn, the Disco crew undoes their second time travel, and everything snaps back into place. Haven’t quite figured out how they “undo” everything, but I’m sure it’ll be another suitably technobabbly answer.

Just noticed a typo – third paragraph, end of the last sentence – “until a raft shows up” should be “until CRAFT shows up.” Annoying that you can only edit a comment for a short period of time after it’s posted :p

multiple universes

Okay, after looking at the theories of other posters I have come up with a very convincing storyline.

Previously I was using my phone to write so my story ideas were simplified.

So here it goes:

Theory B – expanded:

As per my last post, it could be that when Michaels mother, Gabrielle, returned to the future she discovered that Discovery was destroyed on arrival due to the Temporal Accords. Thinking her daughter was in Disco at that time, the mother travels into the past (to 3069) to create The Burn to prevent Discovery getting destroyed on arrival. Gabrielle knows it will kill a lot of people but she is confident Michael will figure it out and prevent it.

So in actuality Discovery was destroyed on arrival, and that is what Detmer’s PTSD is about.
(Kudos to LogicalLeopard for this idea). Her cybernetic implants somehow still retains some sort of memory of what happened. But clearly since the past has been rewritten no one remembers Discovery getting destroyed.

So Michaels eventually discovers that The Burn was caused by an explosion that has traces of tachyon radiation similar to what the Red Angel suit creates. Since Michaels has not been able to find her mother yet she grows suspicious that perhaps her mother had something to do with The Burn.

She finds records of a “temporal agent” that matches her mother’s description popping up since the 27th Century.

Convinced that The Burn has something to do with her mother Michaels tries to recreate her own Red Angel Suit to create a wormhole to 3069. She has to deal with the Emerald Chain that happens to have some crucial parts and scraps from the actual Red Angel Suit that Michael believes it must be from her own suit that she had sent back.

However, the finished Red Angel Suit is stolen by the Emerald Chain on instructions from the Mysterious Benefactor of the Cabal (henceforth referred to as MB). (A couple of episodes here involving the Emerald Chain and the attempt to recover the suit unsuccessfully.)

Now with the AI of Discovery fully sentient, it turns out the suit is no longer needed and that the AI (Zora) using its vast knowledge can actually identify and predict natural occurring wormholes and use the spore drive when within the wormhole to actually travel through time.

So Discovery is retrograded to fit 3069 technology (and the “A” erased) and they set to 3069 to prevent The Burn.

On arrival they discover that the Red Angel Suit that caused The Burn is not her mother’s, it is actually Michaels new suit. When the Emerald Chain tried to send Michaels’ New Red Angel suit back to MB, it malfunctioned and crashed into 3069 causing The Burn. Then the mystery of the whereabouts of Gabrielle deepens.

But now back with the new Red Angel suit and fixed thanks to Discovery and Zora, Michaels finds out that MB is actually her mother who is stuck in the 27th Century with only a partially working Red Angel Suit and that the scraps and parts she got from the Emerald Chain were actually part of her mother’s suit.

Michaels once more dons the new Red Angel Suit and heads to the 27th Century to meet her mother.

And Discovery is able to return to its own timeline. Now that Discovery is sentient and can control the spore drive by itself, Control is no longer a threat. However due to Discovery having 31st Century technology it can no longer be part of the Federation.

The crew returns to Starfleet and they give a story that Discovery was hidden away by Michaels and no one knows where it is now.

But Zora/Discovery could have easily just gone back to the future but it chose not to. The reason being because it wanted to continue what it had done when it was The Sphere. There is no way it was going to skip a few hundred years because of another sentient evil AI. So it wanders the universe with its Spore Drive collecting data and avoiding all sorts of danger.

Michael appears in the 27th Century to meet her mother…. only that it was not her mother. MB had Gabrielle’s broken suit that had been discarded.

We have another episode of MB and Michael fighting in space for control of the suit and blah blah blah. And Michael having to finally destroy her Red Angel Suit like she did the first time.

She is floating in space prepared to die when Discovery appears to rescue her.

It turns out Zora/Discovery was on the lookout for Michaels mother and rescued her, and they waited together for Michael to appear.

Discovery flies off into deep space with Michaels and Gabrielle finally reunited.

The END.