New Big Bad Original Big Bad or Enterprise Big Bad ? Discovery Season 4 theory

ryuranger

I just finished watching new Episode of Star Trek Discovery and I think I may know who is created the DMA The Sphere Builders from Star Trek Enterprise this Theory comes in at Evidence from How Sphere Builders can work with Subspace to manipulate like in Season 3 of Enterprise. Even through they think it might be from out side the Galaxy but I think it might be them since they are advance enough to create such technology.

garaffe

What?

strathkin

It might very well be a possible and plausible theory to consider.

@garaffe consider these links to read more on the Sphere Builder's, we actually see them in the STO Episode with the Temporal Captain Pavel Chekov played by Walter Marvin Koenig an American Actor & Screenwriter. You could also search for Sphere Builders on that Star Trek Fandom site as well.

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Trans-dimensional_disturbance

" Such a disturbance was essentially a convergence of spatial anomalies, which were very common in the Expanse, created by spheres in that region. A trans-dimensional disturbance was also an unusually strong type of gravimetric disturbance and generated gravimetric waves."



Have a good and safe Holiday season, and let's all hope & pray for a good New Year for Humanity!

ryuranger

that got me to think it might be the Sphere builders because we saw kind of Technology they can produce and Death Star like Weapons like the Xindi weapon in 2253. in the Last Episode of Discovery They mention that a Device of Some kind is Controlling the DMC so that got me thinking of the Sphere Builders what if they are trying again but this time getting rid of anyone who can stand in there way first before Reformatting the Galaxy.

lianthelia

If there is anything I've learned is that fan theories are wrong because they pick the dumbest thing possible as the reason...like the burn, some fans had some really great theories and what was it? A boy throwing a temper tantrum

rattler2

Moved to Ten Forward as it has nothing to do with STO.

That being said... watched a few clips on YouTube. I'm actually wondering if it might be the Kelvans or some other species from Andromeda.
Main reason... presence of exotic particles in that rift void that are EXCLUSIVE to the Galactic Barrier. Which means... the DMA... ain't a local thing. It came from outside the galaxy. So for me, Kelvans just jumped to the top of my suspect list, followed by Unknown Species Alpha through Omega and every other designation beyond that. And with Discovery's Spore Drive... we could very well see another galaxy.

saurializard

The thing is, for a supposed galactic threat, the DMA... hasn't done much damage so far.
The only bad things it did were wiping out Kwejian, then 2 small space "stations" (including a prison complex) and leaving rifts that are only dangerous if you're crazy enough to want to enter them.

For a five-light-year large, engineered, destructive anomaly, that's a pretty low score, especially after half a season. Which makes me wonder if it's really a galactic weapon or some kind of OP probe or "test" with its creators not realizing it can cause some serious damage the Milky Way superpowers can't handle.

naabal421

saurializard wrote: »

The thing is, for a supposed galactic threat, the DMA... hasn't done much damage so far.
The only bad things it did were wiping out Kwejian, then 2 small space "stations" (including a prison complex) and leaving rifts that are only dangerous if you're crazy enough to want to enter them.

For a five-light-year large, engineered, destructive anomaly, that's a pretty low score, especially after half a season. Which makes me wonder if it's really a galactic weapon or some kind of OP probe or "test" with its creators not realizing it can cause some serious damage the Milky Way superpowers can't handle.

I recall reading somewhere that DSC's writers have said that the species behind the DMA are not a big bad/not hostile. So it just seems like some experiment gone wrong, but they don't know it.

jonsills

Five lightyears isn't that close, in galactic terms. It's a little over 4 ly from here to the Centauri stars, around 6 to Barnard's Star or Wolf 359, a bit under 12 to Tau Ceti, and then we start looking at really big spans. Basically, the DMA could pass between Sol and Tau Ceti and we'd never know it.

I'm wondering if it might have come from the same species that built the Doomsday Machine, which did similarly little damage before it was disabled - destroyed a couple systems, ate the world Decker had deposited his crew on, ate a starship, but in a large sense didn't do that much. Could have been either a more advanced weapon system, or possibly an attempt to find and disable the weapon later.

rattler2

I will say that I like the extragalactic angle. Its one thing that Star Trek really hasn't explored as much because of technical limitations of the Federation. They CAN'T travel to another galaxy even at warp because it would take too long to get there. And that's not taking into acount the Galactic Barrier, which it, and the Great Barrier, are still one of the biggest mysteries in Star Trek. WHY does our galaxy have a barrier? Is it the only one with such a Barrier? If so... why? (I've read the Q Continuum books, but we don't have any On Screen canon.)

While some people dislike the Spore Drive, it DOES open up a lot of possibilities in being able to go places Star Trek has never gone before. One of those being a new galaxy.
And honestly I would have expected 32nd Century Tech to have gotten around the need for a living pilot, but I guess there are some elements of the tech that still requires that.

Also another thing I'd like to learn more about is the Whale Probe. (And yes I read the novel, and there was mention of cube shaped "bubbles", that were hostile, as the Probe referred to ships. But again... no on screen canon since ST4.)

starkaos

rattler2 wrote: »

And honestly I would have expected 32nd Century Tech to have gotten around the need for a living pilot, but I guess there are some elements of the tech that still requires that.

Just look at how behind the 32nd Century is in Android technology. There is also the issue that we have never seen a single android in the 32nd Century until Gray Tal. They had to use 24th Century technology created by Soong to create a body for Gray Tal which is not used anymore due to its low success rate. However, both cases are transferring the consciousness of a living being into a android body instead of creating a new android. It is just the story of Federation science with the only other known instance of it working is Picard.

We have numerous interesting technology introduced like protomatter, omega particles, folded space transporters, and numerous types of FTL drives in Star Trek, but it gets ignored since it is either too dangerous, cost prohibitive, or some other reason instead of trying to figure out how to make the technology work safely. With protomatter, we had the Lukari able to master it before they left their planet.

jonsills

Sometimes technology really is too dangerous. That's why we stopped researching nuclear-powered aircraft and cars. There's simply no way to make nuclear fission work safely in vehicles within the atmosphere. Even NERVA is only safe in space.

rattler2

The reason the Federation abandoned protomatter research is because, while yes Genesis could have revolutionized Terraforming, its WAY to easy to weaponize and there was already one power in the quadrant that was interested in its use AS a weapon, the Klingon Empire. Hell... the Klingons ALREADY referred to it as the Genesis WEAPON.

The other forms of FTL... we know at least two others exist alongside normal Warp Drive in the 32nd Century, however resources are the problem.
And don't forget there technically hasn't been a WORKING Spore Drive for nearly a thousand years. The only known working model is on Discovery. There must be some quality or element that a living pilot gives that can't be replicated with even Bio-Neural gel packs, let alone whatever they use in the 32nd Century for computer calculations.

naabal421

rattler2 wrote: »

And don't forget there technically hasn't been a WORKING Spore Drive for nearly a thousand years. The only known working model is on Discovery. There must be some quality or element that a living pilot gives that can't be replicated with even Bio-Neural gel packs, let alone whatever they use in the 32nd Century for computer calculations.

As I recall they mentioned in both S3 and S4 that the missing element is the space Tardigrade DNA. Without it a human can't connect to the mycellial network, and it can't just be extracted from Stamets either.

legendarylycan

Given the Klingons refer to ANYTHING as a weapon, them calling it one doesn't mean anything.​​

rattler2

naabal421#0722 wrote: »

As I recall they mentioned in both S3 and S4 that the missing element is the space Tardigrade DNA. Without it a human can't connect to the mycellial network, and it can't just be extracted from Stamets either.

Counterpoint: Book seems to be able to use the Spore Drive, and he's not human with Tartigrade DNA.

legendarylycan#5411 wrote: »

Given the Klingons refer to ANYTHING as a weapon, them calling it one doesn't mean anything.​​

Except it clearly shows a species willing to weaponize it if they ALREADY refer to it as such.

legendarylycan

No, he's alien with telepathy, which can apparently link with the network the same way a Tardigrade can. So any Kwejian with similar talents should be able to pilot a spore drive too...or would have been able to if the entire species hadn't 'conveniently' been driven to near-extinction by the DMA.​​

phoenixc

naabal421#0722 wrote: »

rattler2 wrote: »

And don't forget there technically hasn't been a WORKING Spore Drive for nearly a thousand years. The only known working model is on Discovery. There must be some quality or element that a living pilot gives that can't be replicated with even Bio-Neural gel packs, let alone whatever they use in the 32nd Century for computer calculations.

As I recall they mentioned in both S3 and S4 that the missing element is the space Tardigrade DNA. Without it a human can't connect to the mycellial network, and it can't just be extracted from Stamets either.

The Tardigrade DNA was the missing element that a living pilot needed which is not necessarily the same thing needed for a machine to handle it.

Going by the visuals and other clues (including the fact that Kurtzman subscribes to Abram's "steal from the best" philosophy) it is most likely the same reason that Andromeda's slipstream drive (and some other sci-fi drives like Niven's Known Space hyperdrive) cannot be navigated by machinery, even biotech machinery, which is navigation in that alien environment can only be done psionically by tapping into that potential in a living mind, not by sheer calculation.

naabal421

phoenixc#0738 wrote: »

The Tardigrade DNA was the missing element that a living pilot needed which is not necessarily the same thing needed for a machine to handle it.

They already covered back in like S1 that a machine can't do it.

Going by the visuals and other clues (including the fact that Kurtzman subscribes to Abram's "steal from the best" philosophy) it is most likely the same reason that Andromeda's slipstream drive (and some other sci-fi drives like Niven's Known Space hyperdrive) cannot be navigated by machinery, even biotech machinery, which is navigation in that alien environment can only be done psionically by tapping into that potential in a living mind, not by sheer calculation.

Neither of those shows created that trope, so claiming Kurtzman stole from them is a bit disingenuous.

phoenixc

naabal421#0722 wrote: »

phoenixc#0738 wrote: »

The Tardigrade DNA was the missing element that a living pilot needed which is not necessarily the same thing needed for a machine to handle it.

They already covered back in like S1 that a machine can't do it.

Going by the visuals and other clues (including the fact that Kurtzman subscribes to Abram's "steal from the best" philosophy) it is most likely the same reason that Andromeda's slipstream drive (and some other sci-fi drives like Niven's Known Space hyperdrive) cannot be navigated by machinery, even biotech machinery, which is navigation in that alien environment can only be done psionically by tapping into that potential in a living mind, not by sheer calculation.

Neither of those shows created that trope, so claiming Kurtzman stole from them is a bit disingenuous.

Yes, I know they established that a machine cannot do it back in season one, the way I phrased it is simply a standard idiom, a way of speaking in an informal conversational way (though it may be slightly archaic nowadays I suppose). Maybe I should avoid that kind of thing because of the number of people here who speak English as a second language and may be confused by it, but it is a hard habit to break, especially when writing quickly.

And yes, that trope is old, in fact I mentioned one earlier instance of its use already (the hyperdrive from the Known Space series), and it was not even the first. I don't know what the very first psionic-requiring drive mentioned in sci-fi is, but I have seen them in books published at least as early as the 1950s and I doubt they were the first either.

By "steal from the best" I was not accusing Abrams or Kurtzman of plagiarism, I was referring to some of Abram's talks on the subject of screenwriting where he points out that everything out there has been done before and much of TV and Movie productions take things from each other as nods to each other quite often, and if you do that then make sure to "steal from the best" as he put it.

One good example of that in a fictional technology sense is that Duranium is the same material in both Star Trek and Star Wars. Lucas has said in interviews that he took it from Trek as a tribute to Trek.

In the case of my previous comment, to all appearances DSC uses a variant of the Andromeda style slipstream drive (they use the spores to ride the inside of the superstrings instead of slipstream runners to skim along the outer surface) as a touchstone to another Roddenberry creation, so it makes sense that it would use the same psionic connection that requires a living mind (which as you pointed out has long been prior art anyway so unlikely to cause legal problems).

rattler2

I was basing what I said on the computational power of 23rd Century Duotronic Computer systems. As we know, the 24th Century improved on that with Isolinear and later Bio-Neural Circuitry.
I figured that maybe by the 25th Century at least Bio-Neural Circuitry would have allowed for some independence from the need for a living pilot, then the sheer computational power of a 32nd Century computer system would have been able to bypass that entirely.

However it does appear that its not just the computer calculations that are needed for the Spore Drive to plot a jump, as even a 32nd Century 2nd Gen Spore Drive is running into the same problems that Discovery's 1st Gen Spore Drive ran into.

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rattler2

Yet it worked for terraforming. Yes it was unstable, but it worked. Refinement of the technology would have made it more stable with enough time and research.

And again, the Klingons showed interest in its use as a weapon, with the ambassador accusing the Federation of developing a WMD and implying intent to use it against the Klingons.

If the Genesis Device had been used on a proper target as intended, the Genesis Planet would have been FAR MORE stable. But again... its destructive potential on an already inhabited planet was made blatantly clear by the Klingons, especially with Kruge wanting it himself. Combine that with the "failure" of the Genesis Planet... and the Federation pretty much had no choice but to abandon it to prevent it falling into the wrong hands.

jonsills

McCoy recognized its potential for destruction too.

"My God, do you think we're intelligent enough to -- suppose -- what if this thing were to be used where life already exists?"

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phoenixc

valoreah wrote: »

rattler2 wrote: »

Yet it worked for terraforming. Yes it was unstable, but it worked. Refinement of the technology would have made it more stable with enough time and research.

And again, the Klingons showed interest in its use as a weapon, with the ambassador accusing the Federation of developing a WMD and implying intent to use it against the Klingons.

If the Genesis Device had been used on a proper target as intended, the Genesis Planet would have been FAR MORE stable. But again... its destructive potential on an already inhabited planet was made blatantly clear by the Klingons, especially with Kruge wanting it himself. Combine that with the "failure" of the Genesis Planet... and the Federation pretty much had no choice but to abandon it to prevent it falling into the wrong hands.

Yes I saw the film, thank you. The point being, the Federation seemed to have not had an issue with Genesis clearly being a potential weapon since they approved the project, regardless if protomatter was used in it or not.

Oversight always was spotty in the Federation all the way back to TOS. A real doozy was that no one noticed that sometime in the late 2250s or early 2260s the ship assignment board in the admiralty had turned capital ship command postings into a men's social club that only gave the choicest ship commands to their protégés. A lot of people thought that kind of thing did not belong in Star Trek, but Roddenberry based it on the Hornblower style tall ship stories were there was often corruption and extreme cliquishness like that.

The civilian side wasn't any better either, like the Sherman's planet project being headed by that moron Nilz Baris completely oblivious to the sabotage that was only uncovered by accident (seriously, they should have given Cyrano Jones a medal). That episode also highlighted the fact that civilian agencies and Starfleet generally did not get along particularly smoothly with each other.

Then there was the fact that (according to a story Roddenberry often told at conventions, based on his disagreements with NBC) Starfleet went to the Federation council with a proposal for a battleship class that was badly needed for the war but the council was adamant that they would not allow any battleships.

Starfleet then pulled a Mr. Haney maneuver on them and came back with a proposal for a "heavy cruiser", which was actually the exact same design that they rejected the first time but they approved it because it was not a "battleship". The TOS Enterprise was one of that first ships of that class built (and notice in the show that the Enterprise outclasses a single battlecruiser enough that it takes either sabotaging the Enterprise's warp drive or sending two battlecruisers against it to ensure a victory for the D7s).

So the Federation is not quite on the ball when it comes to thinking a lot of stuff through.

jonsills

phoenixc#0738 wrote: »

Then there was the fact that (according to a story Roddenberry often told at conventions, based on his disagreements with NBC) Starfleet went to the Federation council with a proposal for a battleship class that was badly needed for the war but the council was adamant that they would not allow any battleships.

Starfleet then pulled a Mr. Haney maneuver on them and came back with a proposal for a "heavy cruiser", which was actually the exact same design that they rejected the first time but they approved it because it was not a "battleship". The TOS Enterprise was one of that first ships of that class built (and notice in the show that the Enterprise outclasses a single battlecruiser enough that it takes either sabotaging the Enterprise's warp drive or sending two battlecruisers against it to ensure a victory for the D7s).

So the Federation is not quite on the ball when it comes to thinking a lot of stuff through.

Similar to the reasoning behind calling the Defiant and Sao Paulo-class ships "escorts". They were clearly destroyers, but the Federation doesn't build "destroyers", does it? No, they build "escort ships". That can devastate large battle cruisers belonging to other powers.

rattler2

phoenixc#0738 wrote: »

Starfleet then pulled a Mr. Haney maneuver on them and came back with a proposal for a "heavy cruiser", which was actually the exact same design that they rejected the first time but they approved it because it was not a "battleship". The TOS Enterprise was one of that first ships of that class built (and notice in the show that the Enterprise outclasses a single battlecruiser enough that it takes either sabotaging the Enterprise's warp drive or sending two battlecruisers against it to ensure a victory for the D7s).

And the funny thing is... thanks to Discovery, we now know that the D7 Battlecruiser was actually a NEWER design than the Connie, and the Connie STILL kicks its Impulse Engines.

legendarylycan

Does it actually, though? Any results of combat involving the Enterprise can't be considered, because her captain and senior staff heavily skew the results - and we've never seen any other Constitution go up against a D7.​​

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rattler2

legendarylycan#5411 wrote: »

Does it actually, though? Any results of combat involving the Enterprise can't be considered, because her captain and senior staff heavily skew the results - and we've never seen any other Constitution go up against a D7.​​

While crew experience is a factor, the fact remains that a ship class that's been around for at least 10 years already can stand toe to toe with a brand new design and win. And based on the punishment Enterprise took defending Discovery, it makes sense. She was able to tank quite a bit, and was still able to warp away with a good sized chunk of her saucer section blown off.

valoreah wrote: »

I am not sure spotty is the word I would use in this instance. It seems more like gross negligence and incompetence with regard to the Genesis project. I mean honestly, McCoy was the only one who thought to ask the question about Genesis being used on a world where life already exists? No one else anywhere in the chain of command or in a decision making position thought of that? This point has always been a minor nitpick of the film for me personally.

Sure, there are other examples where it seems like facts are either omitted or not elaborated on when it comes to approving projects, like the Baku issue in Insurrection. However I think that something with the potential to wipe out all life on a planet being overlooked is a bit of a stretch.

To be fair... a Starfleet Captain was able to develop a Phase Cloak, in blatant violation of the Treaty of Algeron, right under the nose of Starfleet Command, and was able to hide it for years.
Its entirely possible that in the proposal for Project Genesis, the scientists assumed that the very idea of using it on an inhabited world would be enough to swear off using it on an inhabited world. Either that or they never really considered it a possibility. Sometimes scientists can be so wrapped up in their research that they don't consider the fallout from its misuse. You know... the whole argument of "so wrapped up with if they could that they don't think of if they should" or something along those lines. Probably following McCoy's questioning line.