RetroFedSpore drive?
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The U.S.S. Discovery Spore drive, is it complete nonsense or is there a scientific theory I’m unaware of?
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Much of the plant life on Earth is connected by a network of fungal mycelium that helps share resources. In Star Trek, that network of mycelium extends through the multiverse, connecting every planet in every universe. The spore drive allows the ship to travel along the network across all of spacetime instantly.
Current scientific theories do not support the existence of multiversal fungi.
The mycelial network also exists largely within subspace. So far, we have yet to discover whether subspace exists or not.
For some reason fungal mycelial networks and tardigrades were all the rage in pop sci and internet memes circa 2015. The writers just hopped on the bandwagon when they were deciding how their non-warp propulsion plot point would work.
Both, since it relies quite heavily on Star Trek’s Signature Subspace Science, and there’s no real-life equivalent for it.
The spores are from the mycelial network, an organism/structure that exists in a subspace domain, and like subspace, is spread/connected throughout the universe/multiverse. The spore drive shifts the ship into that subspace domain, and uses the mycelial network to route the ship to the appropriate destination.
The closest things that might apply is the hyperdrives in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, or the space-folding drives in Dune, where you have a spanning extradimensional network that you can use to get to your destination, as long as you can find the right set of routes to get to where you want to go.
Yes and no.
Instant FTL? No.
Science-based? Yes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Stamets
Science based in that the dude who made the drive is named after a famous mycologist. Not sure how that makes it science based…
Just barely, but isn’t that normal for treknobabble to be ripped from science headlines?
Usually it is, but nothing in the wiki you linked to even hints to travel with/through mycelium. Im actually a fan of Discovery, but the only hint of science in the spore drive is the fact that mycelium and fungal networks do exist, they dont however operate in a separate space outside of normal reality. Unless im missing some cool research
Well, that would be difficult to prove one way or the other.
But since we’ve already got the fictional construct of subspace, the notion of a mycelial species that can extend through it seems…within the realm of truthiness, all things considered.
The part I’ve never fully grasped is how one travels along the network, but then, I’ve never fully grasped how the warp coils are supposed to work, either.
Especially since TNG already had creatures that lived within subspace, in Schisms. If humanoid-ish beings can live in subspace, fungal life doesn’t seem that much of a stretch.
IIRC, it’s like the Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Hyperdrives. Once you get into spore-space/hyperspace, you get an infinite amount of choices to navigate through, but if you can figure out how to figure out your path, you can exit where you want. Though unlike the Heart of Gold, which tests every single possibility and impossibility simultaneously, the later iterations of the spore drive take a bit more after Dune, where a navigator can commune with the mycelial network and divine the way the ship should go, rather than needing inordinate amounts of computing power to brute force the solution.
How the ship is moved along the network after the navigator figures out the route is left as an exercise for the reader.
The original question for this post was whether or not there was any actual science behind the spore drive. You said yes and no. Please enlighten me as to what scientific theory you are getting the yes part of your answer from. Because I read through your linked Wikipedia article and couldnt find anything about how a spore drive could even be theoretically possible. The spore drive is purely techno babble. The warp drive on the other hand, while being mostly techno babble, has some grounding in actual reality and scientific theory.
Edit: I wasnt paying enough attention when writing this post and assumed I was replying to the original commenter. My apologies to everyone.
1) I said nothing of the sort.
2) Star Trek’s warp drive isn’t really an Alcubierre drive at all.
Which imaginary treknologies strike you as the most scientifically sound?
For me it’s the replicator turning shit into food, but everything may as well be magic.
I think there are a couple treknologies that exist now, or at least are pretty close. The translator tech is not very far ahead of what we have today. The communicator actually influenced the design of early cell phones. Trek predicted quite a few real life technologies. I definitely think something similar to the replicators will exist eventually, hell 3D printing food already exists.
In terms of the more out there treknologies, I think the gene editing that is illegal in the federation is pretty scientifically grounded. I also think the medical tricorder will some day inspire/shape new tech similar to the communicator with cell phones.
I would disagree with the translator. On the surface, yes, but it is incredibly far removed from how any of our translation technologies work.
The universal translator works by scanning your mind/brain signals, finding universal constants within it, and then constructs a translation that way. In theory, a novel alien could be parked next to a universal translator, and it would still be possible to translate for them, in the absence of a linguistic database.
It sort of has, but more in the other way, where the devices are inspired off its functions instead of its form. Going off of wikipedia, there’s some speculations that a smartphone might well become our equivalent of a tricorder thanks to the massive amount of sensors that they have in them.
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Yeah, it also has aliens, matter-to-energy transporters + replicators, as well as universal translators and faster-than-light travel.
Complete drivel, Star Trek needs to get back to its roots and just be Horatio Hornblower fan fiction.
Nonsense? In SciFi?
Well I never!
As others have hinted at, sharing a yes or no answer and pasting a link to a youtube video with no further context is not an adequate Daystrom submission. Citing a source is certainly acceptable, but your comment should make it’s own self contained argument supported by those sources, not rely on users clicking through to an external site to understand what you are trying to say.
Would be much more interesting to hear your own thoughts instead of just lazily pasting a link to people who are paid to be haters.
lmao “science! fuck yeahhhh!”
Star Trek is a drama about societal issues in the context of a ship in space.
It’s pretty short on science. Star wars is just religious fantasy.
Star Trek does better when it shows us the process of science and engineering rather than science itself.