warp drive – Trekking with Dennis

Star Trek: Discovery Season 3 – Could transporters have helped avoid the Burn?

Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Discovery Season 3, Star Trek: Picard Season 1, Star Trek Into Darkness, and for other iterations of the Star Trek franchise.

This article is going to be the first in a short series about the Burn – one of the main elements of Discovery’s third season. We’re going to consider different ways that the Federation – and the wider Star Trek galaxy – could have avoided the Burn, a catastrophic event that caused untold damage to factions and citizens across known space and beyond.

In order for the Burn to have occurred at all, a very specific set of circumstances needed to align in just the right way (or should that be just the wrong way?) One of these was the dilithium shortage that Admiral Vance elaborated on after Saru, Burnham, and the crew of the USS Discovery arrived at Federation HQ. In short, for a long time prior to the Burn there had been a shortage of dilithium across the galaxy. This shortage was so severe that the Federation began looking at alternative options for faster-than-light travel. One of the ideas they considered was something called SB-19 – a Ni’Var project that seemed to involve some kind of starship-sized “gateways” to get from place to place.

SB-19 was a pre-Burn experiment to send starships at faster-than-light speeds without warp drive.

We’re going to leave those ideas behind for now and focus on one aspect of Star Trek that has been present since the beginning: the transporter. In short, would it have been possible for transporter technology to provide an alternative to some or all of Starfleet’s faster-than-light travel?

On the surface it may seem that the two things aren’t related. Transporters are mainly shown on screen as a method of sending people from starships to planets, and vice versa. Faster-than-light starship travel is in a completely different ballpark, right?

Not so fast! What is the main purpose of warp drive in the Federation? Starfleet uses it for exploration and military purposes, of course, so as viewers that’s what we associate warp drive with – setting course for an unknown destination and racing away to explore it. But the Federation is much larger than just Starfleet, and there must be an awful lot of civilian and cargo traffic that uses warp drive in the same way we use a car, bus, train, or aircraft – it’s a means to an end; a way to get from place to place.

Book’s ship at warp in *Discovery* Season 3.

2009’s Star Trek introduced something that I think is vital to this consideration: transwarp beaming. On first viewing I felt the film wasn’t clear about how and when transwarp beaming was invented, so for the sake of clarity here’s what seems to have happened: after arriving in the 24th Century following decades in suspended animation – events depicted in The Next Generation sixth season episode Relics – Montgomery Scott eventually went back to work with Starfleet. Sometime prior to 2387, Scotty perfected the formula for transwarp beaming, and Spock provided this equation to Scotty’s younger self on the planet Delta Vega after arriving in the alternate reality.

In Star Trek Into Darkness we see how much more powerful transwarp beaming can be than a regular transporter. As with most of Star Trek’s technologies, transporters have always been somewhat vague and mouldable to the needs of a particular story, but Into Darkness actually gave us a pretty solid idea about the range that transwarp beaming has: it’s possible to transport from Earth to the Klingon home planet of Qo’noS.

Into Darkness doesn’t give an exact distance to Qo’noS, but in Enterprise’s pilot episode it was far enough away from Earth that no human had ever encountered a Klingon despite humanity being a spacefaring species for decades. The travel time from Earth to Qo’noS at warp 4.5 was around four days in that same episode.

Memory Alpha, the Star Trek wiki, suggests that the distance between Earth and Qo’noS could be somewhere between 90-110 light-years, so for a rough guide for the sake of this argument we’re going to say that transwarp beaming has a range of at least 100 light-years. This technology was known to Spock in 2387, so it definitely existed in the Prime Timeline in the late 24th Century. Even if 100 light-years is the absolute maximum distance for transwarp beaming, it’s still a far faster method of travel than anything else known to the Federation. In Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1 (the ninth episode of Star Trek: Picard), Admiral Picard tells Dr Jurati that the use of a Borg transwarp corridor allowed La Sirena to travel “25 light-years in fifteen minutes.” Picard says this with a tone of surprise, as if such speed is something that the Federation, even in the year 2399, is unaccustomed to.

In the year 2399, travelling 25 light-years in 15 minutes was remarkable.

Transwarp beaming, then, is even faster than the Borg’s transwarp network. Though the Borg’s spatial trajector (a technology they appear to have assimilated from the Sikarians) may give it a run for its money! Regardless, transwarp beaming is arguably the fastest method of long-range travel ever seen in Star Trek. It allowed “John Harrison” to travel around 100 light-years in a heartbeat, something that even Borg starships couldn’t do a century later.

So how does all of this connect to the Burn? Based on what we saw on screen, it doesn’t! That’s the short answer. For whatever reason, Starfleet appears not to have pursued transwarp beaming in the 29th and 30th Centuries. But this is a fan theory, so we’re running with it anyway!

Despite what’s usually shown on screen, transporters don’t just move people. In fact, living beings are arguably one of the hardest and most complex things for a transporter to manage. Early episodes of Enterprise explained that the first transporters were only supposed to move cargo, and we’ve seen industrial-sized cargo transporters on other ships, including the Enterprise-D. These transporters were often larger, capable of beaming large objects, groups of people, and other things.

Dr Crusher and Geordi La Forge in one of the Enterprise-D’s cargo bays.

Do you see where this is going yet? Much of the reason for interstellar travel within the Federation was to move objects and people from place to place. Going into space in a starship and travelling at warp speed was the best method that the Federation had of doing so – until transwarp beaming came along. Transwarp beaming, even if it had an absolute maximum range of 100 light-years that could never under any circumstances be surpassed, was still a viable option for a significant portion of the Federation’s interstellar travel needs.

Nothing we know of in Star Trek should have prevented the further development and honing of transwarp beaming. Even if no one did anything with the transwarp beaming concept before the 29th or 30th Centuries, when dilithium supplies began to run short Starfleet could easily have started to work again on a concept they’d sidelined. The formulae and information about transwarp beaming seem unlikely to have been lost in that time. Industrial-sized transwarp beaming hubs could have been built, capable of sending vast amounts of goods and whole crowds of people from one planet to another. Not only that, but transwarp beaming hubs in space could even have been constructed, forming a network that would’ve allowed Starfleet to send its vessels from system to system without expending valuable fuel.

Two crewmen carrying a dilithium crystal aboard the Enterprise-D.

It is possible based on what we saw on screen that some version of transwarp beaming was part of the aforementioned SB-19 project. But that has never been confirmed, and considering that transwarp beaming was known to work reliably in the late 24th Century (or the 23rd Century in the alternate reality) it seems unlikely that SB-19 would have struggled to make the concept work hundreds of years later. This was already proven, working technology within Star Trek’s Prime Timeline.

Had Starfleet invested in transwarp beaming on a large scale, it’s possible that the range of the technology could have been extended, its power consumption reduced, and a vast interplanetary network of transwarp beaming stations created that would have relieved at least some of the pressure on dilithium-powered starships. With that pressure reduced and the desperation on the Federation’s part to source new dilithium lessening as a result, the chances of the KSF Khi’eth crashing in the Verubin Nebula, setting in motion the unlikely chain of events that led to the Burn, seems greatly diminished.

In short, using transporters in this way could have avoided the Burn entirely.

Now let’s consider the biggest counter-argument to this idea: how power generation works in Star Trek.

It stands to reason that a transporter takes up a lot of power. In Discovery’s premiere episode, a particular design of transporter in use on the USS Shenzhou was considered outdated by Michael Burnham specifically because of its high power consumption. It logically follows that the larger the mass of the objects being transported, the more power is required. It also stands to reason that transporting over longer distances would likewise require a larger expenditure of power. This might even jump exponentially.

Sarek and Michael Burnham in the USS Shenzhou’s transporter room.

Relatively few Star Trek stories have been set on planets, so we don’t know very much about how planetary power generation works. But assuming that, in order to power the technologies and mod-cons of the 24th Century, planets require comparable levels of power per person to a starship, it’s possible that planetary power grids (such as the one on Earth that was sabotaged by Admiral Leyton in the Deep Space Nine episodes Homefront and Paradise Lost) use a similar matter-antimatter reaction in order to generate enough power for the needs of the population. And what does a matter-antimatter reaction need to be safe and stable? Dilithium crystals.

Transporters based on starships would also have this limitation – as everything on board a starship seems to be powered by a controlled matter-antimatter reaction. Perhaps, then, transporters have the same basic limitation as warp drive: a reliance on dilithium for power. This counter-argument could be used to explain why transporters and transwarp beaming weren’t able to be used as a viable replacement for even a small amount of Starfleet’s interstellar traffic in the years prior to the Burn.

It seems as though transporter technology would use *a lot* of power.

I still think this is an interesting idea, though! Star Trek has thrown a lot of technobabble concepts our way over the years, so it’s inevitable that almost any new storyline can bring with it questions like “why didn’t they try to do X?” or “why didn’t someone think of using Y?” That’s just the nature of this kind of franchise.

On this occasion we’ve jumped headfirst into a theory based on a few lines of dialogue and interpretations of things shown on screen in unconnected parts of Star Trek’s broader canon. I didn’t do that to imply that there’s somehow an egregious “plot hole” in the way Discovery’s third season explained the dilithium shortage or the Burn; really this has just been an excuse to spend a bit more time in the Star Trek galaxy. This isn’t something to take too seriously – no fan theory is – and as already mentioned I can think of at least one solid counter-argument to the idea of Starfleet setting up a kind of transwarp beaming network to ease its reliance on warp drive.

I hope this theory was a bit of fun, though! Stay tuned for more in this short series about the Burn, because transporters and transwarp beaming aren’t the only ways that Starfleet could’ve potentially avoided the disaster and its consequences. And if you want to see my breakdown and analysis on how well the Burn did (and didn’t) work as a narrative in Discovery Season 3, take a look at this article.

Until next time!

Star Trek: Discovery Season 3 is available to stream now on Paramount+ in the United States and on Netflix in the UK and internationally. The Star Trek franchise – including Discovery and all other properties mentioned above – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.

Star Trek: Discovery Season 3 theory – warp drive

Wed 14.10.20Sun 20.11.22Dennis

Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Discovery, including Seasons 1-2 and the trailers for Season 3. Further spoilers may be present for other iterations of the Star Trek franchise.

As the premiere episode of Star Trek: Discovery’s third season gets nearer I seem to be coming up with more and more theories! This time we’re going to consider one possible effect of the Burn in detail. I hinted at this when I considered what the Burn could be, but this time I’m going to expand on that, and in addition perhaps add a couple more potential causes for the galactic cataclysm.

Here’s how the theory goes: the Burn has made warp drive useless across the galaxy, meaning no one – including Starfleet – is currently able to travel faster-than-light.

In order to understand this theory, we need a basic refresher course in how warp drive works in Star Trek! In short, warp drive uses dilithium crystals to create and modulate a matter-antimatter reaction. The combination of matter and antimatter yields massive amounts of energy, allowing starships to generate a subspace field and travel faster-than-light. Subspace is part of the makeup of the universe, but its exact nature has never been fully explained. However, subspace is essential not only for warp drive but for communications – subspace radio being one way the Federation is able to communicate over large distances without delays.

Engineers working on a dilithium crystal aboard the Enterprise-D.

Subspace, warp drive, and associated concepts have no real-world analogue and thus are subject to change depending on what an individual writer needs for an episode. The fundamentals are suitably vague, but for our purposes all we need to know is that without access to subspace there’s no warp drive and no FTL communications.

Any disruption to subspace would have massive ramifications for the Federation and the wider galaxy. While we have seen other races using different methods of propulsion and communication, the specifics have never been explained and thus may well involve subspace. The Borg’s transwarp, the Romulans’ singularity engines, and even Voyager’s slipstream technology could all be susceptible to the same limitations, even if they appear to be different on the surface.

If the Burn is relatively recent, perhaps occurring a few years before Burnham and Discovery arrive, it makes sense to say that the Federation could still be fractured. But if, as has been hinted, the Burn is an event decades or more in the past, the expectation has to be that they’d have been back on their feet. Even if it took years or decades, the Federation – and the galaxy’s other races – should have been able to rebuild, or at least begin that process. Perhaps they have, and we’ve seen what look to be Starfleet officers and maybe a Starfleet ship or facility in the trailers which could hint at that. But if Booker is right, and the Federation has mostly collapsed, aside from wondering how it happened, the big question is why nobody has been able to put it back together.

Burnham and Booker in the second Season 3 trailer.

The answer could be twofold: a lack of transportation and a lack of communication. Disconnected from Earth, Starfleet, and the rest of the Federation in a galaxy where subspace has been destroyed, disappeared, or where it cannot be accessed, the individual worlds and colonies may have no choice but to stand alone. Some of these worlds may not even be aware of what transpired – they may have simply woken up one morning without faster-than-light spacecraft and communications. However, we have seen hints that the Burn may have been a violent event, and the name itself conjures up evocative images of catastrophic fires and explosions.

Without warp drive and subspace communications, it would be impossible to rebuild the Federation. Planets that weren’t damaged or affected by whatever caused the Burn may have found other technologies they had still worked, but without supplies from other areas – such as replacement parts – there’s a question-mark over how long any one world could last on its own. The Federation may have been spread widely even in the 24th Century, but it was also an interconnected bloc where resources were shared between member worlds. At least some of those worlds would struggle on their own, and this could lead to the kind of hand-to-mouth, impoverished existence we saw hints at in the trailers.

The lack of warp drive, communications, and any way to travel faster-than-light would, from an in-universe standpoint, explain why the USS Discovery is relevant in the 32nd Century. Even a crippled Federation should have technology that far outpaces the centuries-old USS Discovery, and the show has to find a way to make the ship and crew useful. It could simply be the case that a lack of starships means the Federation needs every vessel it can find, but I don’t consider that a great explanation, not if 32nd Century craft could outrun, outmanoeuvre, and outgun the USS Discovery.

Finding a good explanation for how a 930-year-old vessel could still be useful is a storytelling challenge!

In a galaxy without warp drive and subspace, the mycelial network and the USS Discovery may be the only way to travel and communicate with the Federation’s spread out worlds and colonies. It was interesting that in the two trailers we saw the spore drive engaged several times – but we never saw any starship go to warp – neither the USS Discovery nor vessels native to this time period.

The loss of warp drive, if that is something that has happened, is surely related to the Burn. That may simply be the name that the Federation and its now-separated parts use to describe some event that rendered subspace and warp drive unusable. However, there are possible explanations for what could have caused this based on past Star Trek stories. Some of these are rather obscure, and thus perhaps less likely, but as we’ve seen in Lower Decks over the last few weeks, the creative team behind Star Trek hasn’t been shy about bringing back aliens we only saw once!

Possibility #1: The subspace-dwelling aliens from The Next Generation Season 6 episode Schisms.

In Schisms, the crew of the Enterprise-D are abducted by aliens. These aliens were supposedly native to subspace, and performed experiments on the Starfleet crew. La Forge would confirm, towards the end of the episode, that these unnamed aliens were unable to survive in normal space – but were attempting to create a “pocket” of their native environment in one of the Enterprise-D’s cargo bays.

Though Riker (and a redshirt) were able to escape the aliens’ domain at the climax of the story, they sent a probe of some kind through the rift between realms before it closed, and even if Starfleet managed to avoid attracting their attention again, perhaps they now know of the “normal” universe and planned to attack or invade.

Possibility #2: A weapon of last resort.

Could a weapon of last resort against a faction like the Borg have cause the Burn?

This is something I considered in my closer look at the Burn, but if the Federation were under attack by a faction like the Borg or Species 8472, they may have been backed into a corner where the only option was to use some kind of weapon of mass destruction. If the Federation were to use such a weapon, one side-effect could be the destruction of subspace and/or the loss of warp drive.

We’ll look in just a moment at the omega particle (from the Voyager episode The Omega Directive) but a weapon based on this technology could be one culprit. There aren’t many factions we know of within Star Trek capable of launching an all-out assault on the Federation that might’ve made this kind of weapon necessary. The Borg are one, and perhaps the super-synths from Star Trek: Picard are one too.

This could be an interesting storyline, as though the Burn wouldn’t directly be the Federation’s fault, and may have even saved millions of lives, they would still bear a degree of responsibility.

Possibility #3: The omega particle from the Voyager Season 4 episode The Omega Directive.

Captain Janeway and Tuvok discover the omega particles.

As mentioned above, the omega molecule or omega particle could be a culprit. Omega was a molecule that could, in theory, generate vast amounts of power, but a single omega explosion could render subspace – and warp drive – totally unusable across a vast area. In Voyager, Janeway and Seven of Nine were able to destroy the omega particles they found. But those events took place centuries before Discovery’s third season.

In the intervening centuries, there’s nothing to suggest that the Federation wouldn’t have wanted to try again. Perhaps a scientist felt that they could control omega better, but an accident led to disaster. Or perhaps the Federation was successful in using omega particle-based technology on a widespread scale… only for some unpredictable event to occur.

Possibility #4: Warp drive itself ruined subspace, as seen in The Next Generation Season 7 episode Force of Nature.

The damage to subspace on the viewscreen of the Enterprise-D.

Toward the end of The Next Generation’s run, Star Trek was still an episodic franchise. We hadn’t yet gotten to the longer story arcs of Deep Space Nine’s Dominion War, which makes Force of Nature somewhat of an outlier. It attempted to use warp drive as an analogy for issues in the real world – specifically the use of fossil fuels causing global warming. Two scientists make a claim that warp drive is damaging subspace, and one ends up dying to prove their case. The episode ends with Starfleet agreeing to a speed limit to reduce the damage while they looked for a longer-term solution.

Aside from a couple of later referenced to a speed limit, however, this story was never resolved on-screen. Fans have speculated that later warp engines, such as the design used aboard the USS Voyager, had found a way around this problem. But that is unconfirmed at best, and even if it were true, there could still be problems.

Of all the four possibilities, this feels the least-likely, but there’s potential for Discovery to pick up Force of Nature’s climate change analogy.

So that’s it. A theory and a few possible causes that would reference past iterations of Star Trek.

Does this scene from the second Season 3 trailer depict the Burn?

Until now, Discovery has only had the lore established in Enterprise and The Cage to draw upon due to its place in the timeline. The show largely ignored Enterprise, but Season 2 obviously referenced The Cage in many ways. However, now the show has jumped forward in time there’s the possibility for all sorts of references and callbacks to events of past Star Trek shows.

I’m sure that we’ll get some references spread throughout Season 3. Whether I’m right or not about warp drive, though… that remains to be seen! If you’re in the United States you’ll get to find out literally tomorrow!

Star Trek: Discovery Season 3 premieres on the 15th of October 2020 on CBS All Access in the United States, and on the 16th of October on Netflix in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. The Star Trek franchise – including Discovery and all other titles referenced above – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.