You’re not wrong, but I do feel like that’s an over correction. They might as well have had text flashing at the bottom of the screen which read, “Sorry for the holograms, we didn’t realize how angry some of you would get.”
I would probably be more annoyed by the Klingon cloaking devices in season one if not for the fact that ship had already sailed when ENT established that the Romulans already had that technology a hundred years before “Balance of Terror”, and oh, so did the Suliban and the XyrIllians whom the crew of the Nx-01 also encountered.
Not to mention there’s a throw away line in one episode of season one about how the sensors are picking up massive power readings but can’t actually pinpoint the ships, and in “Balance of Terror” Spock notes that the Romulans must have figured out a way to bend light around their ship without the tremendous power draw. I have to assume someone on the writing team was trying to square that circle.
But yeah, the idea of a technology existing but not being widely used doesn’t bump me at all. This is like getting mad that when you go into watch the latest Marvel movie and they’re not using Smell-O-Vision. The technology exists! Hell, I can’t remember the last movie I saw in theatre that was 3d. Obviously they still exist, but it’s not a technology that’s really taken off once the gimmick lost its lustre. Or think about how many people, especially young people, prefer to text over talking on the phone.
So yeah, I don’t think anything is cheapened by the idea that a technology exists by is not widely used, and I do think it’s silly that anyone would make that argument.
When Quark is abducted from Deep Space 9 in “House of Quark” he’s taken clear across the entire Federation and into the Klingon Empire in about a day. And then D’Ghor sends someone to the station to grab Rom and get him back to Qo’noS the next day.
Not to mention the specific spores required for the drive to connect with the mycelial network come from one specific type of fungus that exists at least partially within subspace and doesn’t seem to be all that common.
Mushrooms have significantly less mysticism associated with them
Ah yes, psychedelics are famously not associated with mysticism.
The closest comparison to the mycelial network is Yggdrasil, which is solidly in the high fantasy category rather than sci-fi.
The closest comparison is actual fungal networks that exist beneath forests supporting life through the transference of nutrients and biochemical communication, are some of the largest organisms on the planet, and are actual nonfiction science.
All that is to say, I think the mycelial network needed more time to set up than the show gave it.
I think I can agree with you to some extent there. Stamets, by virtue of being standoffish and prickly when the character is introduced, is not the best at explaining things, and the concept could have used a better explanation early on to mitigate the response I’m complaining about with this post.
I think to say that Disco has nothing that contradicts established canon is overselling it a bit. But, I will say that all Trek has violated established canon at one point or another, up to and including TOS itself, which was created by people who had no idea at the time that anyone would even remember it some 57 years later, let alone be obsessed with all this minutiae.
If we ignore visual continuity – which, as a life long comic book reader, I am more than happy to do – Disco still has some few contradictions here and there, but I will say that it actually toes the line without crossing over it too frequently fairly well, allowing it to have some interesting and new approaches to Trek.
It’s amazing, sometimes the complaint is that Disco is written like an action movie, and sometimes it’s that it’s written like a drama where the characters are overly emotional. I’m impressed that the writers have managed to create Schrodinger’s televisions show, where it’s in a quantum state of being whatever the person complaining about it needs it to be so long as they’re able to drive a narrative of it being bad.
Discovery also had hologram communication technology that I guess was also a secret? Starfleet went back to flatscreens for everything and didn’t use holograms again until the 24th century.
In “The Undiscovered Country” we see the Klingons are watching the Federation President’s discussion with Azetbur using a grainy hologram. If they’re able to receive a holographic signal, that implies that the Federation is transmitting one. Hell, even in the TOS episode, “Return of the Archons” when confronted with the holographic projection of Landru, Kirk and Spock recognize it for what it is right away, but the things they remark upon are the fact that there’s no visible projectors, and Kirk says it’s “Beautiful.”
I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch based on what we’ve see to say that Starfleet decided that holographic projections were too low fidelity compared to viewscreens.
Hell, it even happens again. As you note, they made another attempt at holographic communication in the 24th century, which we see in DS9 the Defiant is kitted out with the new holo-communicator, allowing a fully realized, high fidelity, holodeck quality real time holographic communication. And where else have we seen it? We never see the Enterprise E use that technology; In “Nemesis” Shinzon is able to broadcast a hologram of himself from the Scimitar to Picard’s ready room, but he claims it’s through the use of his own holo-emitters. We’ve never seen it in LDecks, PRO, or PIC, all of which take place after DS9.
So yeah, Starfleet went back to flat screens for everything.
JJ’s Trek films and Kelvin timeline would inject a cancer throughout Paramount’s Trek productions, namely Discovery.
JFC, this is pathetic.
Disco might not be to everyone’s taste, but to claim it’s a “cancer” is a tad bit dramatic, isn’t it. Especially when the writer goes on to praise most of the series which we never would have had if not for the success of Disco.
Not to mention the childish oversimplification of the spore drive, which has been explained on screen. Sci-fi fans really out here still complaining about “magic” mushrooms facilitating travel, but perfectly cool when it’s crystals like dilithium.