Bonus:
The Omega molecule
According to Seven of Nine -
Omega is infinitely complex, yet harmonious. To the Borg it represents perfection. I wish to understand that perfection.
It’s not breaking the Prime Directive if you’ve already broken it
– Janeway, Time and Again
Alternatively: (hits bong) If you break the Prime Directive but reset time to before you broke it, did you really break the Prime Directive?
But instead they took the plot from Dragon Ball Z Broly, and had the whole galaxy get messed up because of one crying kid
- That would have been an infinitely better cause of the burn than what was given. Ugh. I loved Discovery but not that.
- Omega destroys subspace, so no warp travel would have been possible. That would have left Discovery as the only FTL-capable ship in the galaxy (rather than warp still being possible but used sparingly due to limited supply of “working” dilithium).
I feel like #2 would have limited the plot too much since there wouldn’t be any danger Discovery couldn’t just jump away from (no one would be able to chase them).
Then, the “fix the burn” plot would have involved either mass-producing spore drives for everyone in the 31st century (which would have been cool, though they didn’t solve the living navigator problem) or pulling a brand-new FTL method out of their ass that everyone else had been trying and failing to do for the last few hundred years.
Edit: I guess since Omega can do anything the writers want, I suppose rather than destroying subspace itself it could have rendered the dilithium inert to cause the burn and everything else plays out the same except the stupid ending.
What could have been cool is if omega molecule nuked large sections of subspace where ships currently were and it led to thin cooridors where warp travel was still possible…but that’s where pirate groups like Emerald Chain showed up taking control of them. Starfleet was already spread so thin they could barely maintain control which led to the fracturing
I believe that this was already the case. Many moons ago I read a synopsis of a Star Trek show pitch that was slated for development which was set in the future and where warp travel was limited due to the use of an omega bomb. When I watched Discovery, I thought it was just a reworking of that original omega-based idea.
Edit: found it! https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Star_Trek:_Final_Frontier
Discovery isn’t canon CMV
“Is Discovery canon?” is an interesting question because the only real purpose canon serves is to give us boundaries for where it’s reasonable to stop expecting (searching for?) a degree of consistency throughout all of Star Trek
When someone says “that’s not canon” what they’re usually telling you is that they don’t care to reconcile it with other Trek
Given that Discovery is two seasons of “top secret classified never happened” and three seasons of “800 years later than any other series,” even if we decided it was canon in some technical or legal sense, it gives us basically nothing that could potentially influence other Star Trek, before or since. In other words, it’s not canon in any practical or meaningful sense.
tl;dr yeah I guess you’re right
Strange New Worlds spins off from Discovery and carries on plot elements established there. Section 31 continues Georgiou’s story, and Starfleet Academy is picking up on the 31st century setting and characters. That’s a lot of ongoing influence.
I definitely loved certain aspects of discovery lol. I just hated how f’d up they made the rest of the timeline and I don’t love the future they locked TNG era into even if it was an interesting story to tell (except for the final episode with crying kid destroying dilithium because wtf)
