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I’ve always thought this was kinda weird. They’re in space, and it’s shown time and time again that Starfleet vessels are highly compartmentalised. If they just shut down the artificial gravity within the tubes crew could move through them far faster than they could climb, which I’d think would be useful given that most of the time we see them used it’s in an emergency where time is off the essence. Sometimes they’re used for maintenance too, but they could just turn it on in those instances.

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country came out December 6, 1991 (three weeks or so prior to the collapse of the USSR) with its focus on the "battle for peace" between the Federation and the Klingons. This is both the final TOS movie and the second to be released after the start of TNG in 1987 (Final Frontier being the first in 1989). The Khitomer Accords definitively establish that there is peace between the Klingons and the Federation in the period between TOS and TNG, and is also notable for incorporating a few bits from TNG into the mix as well (Colonel Worf, and Khitomer as having been established as the site of a Klingon massacre in TNG S1 in 1988, which makes it planet chosen by the TUC writers to be the peace treaty location somewhat curious). And obviously there is also "Unification" that is TNG's tie-in to TUC, and builds off its legacy of diplomacy (incidentally, I've always wondered what a hypothetical TNG tie-in to Star Trek V would have been.)

But if TUC seems to have firmly solidified the peaceful "future" (from the TOS vantage point) of the Klingons and Federation, earlier seasons of TNG seem to have indicated a much rockier history.

In "The Emissary" (S2, airing just two weeks post-Star Trek V), there is the Klingon sleeper ship launched 75 years earlier, explicitly termed as being when the Federation and Klingons were at war. 75 years earlier would be just after Star Trek V, the then most recent TOS-era story (and also uses the Klingon ship model from TMP, though that was certainly budget reasons than anything else).

Then there's Riker and Worf's conversation in "The Enemy" (S3, post-Star Trek V 1989), where Riker talks about how peace between the Federation and Klingons is something that happened "a few years ago" and says "Think how many died on both sides in that war. Would you and I be here now like this if we hadn't been able to let go of the anger and the blame?"

And then a few episodes later in S3 is "Yesterday's Enterprise," where of course the big plot point is that the Federation and the Klingons go to war shortly after the events of the Enterprise-C vanishing 22 years earlier, but even before the alternate timeline war, Castillo tells Tasha that "We were negotiating a peace treaty" at the time, which seems to imply a high degree of hostility at the least, and implicitly some kind of armed conflict having occurred prior to the start of the post-Narendra III war.

Obviously, after TUC aired the nature of the relationship between the Klingons and Federation is set down a bit more firmly and the idea of a war in this period vanishes. But what makes these war references stranger is that the TNG bible mentions the Klingons having joined the Federation since TOS. Obviously that idea was also discarded, but it makes it seem like the idea of a Federation-Klingon war only developed after the debut of TNG.

Was this idea of a war in this period ever addressed in any of the various spinoff sources, fan theories, etc. during that earlier 1988-91 period of TNG?

The Kobayashi Maru test is famously a no-win scenario, intended to see how cadets handle an unwinnable situation. The usual discourse is about the morality of a test that is impossible to win, is Kirk right not to believe in a no-win scenario, is it correct to always seek a solution even when it seems impossible etc. Or sometimes the discussion is on the search for loopholes and solutions to an unsolvable scenario (Tractor beam the ship without crossing the border).

But that's missing the point. There ARE ways to fail the Kobayashi Maru test. To borrow a phrase from Red Dwarf, you could hide under the scanner table having a humiliating panic attack. You could hail the Klingon ships and declare war on the Klingon empire including forged orders from Starfleet Command calling the general's mother a targ so the war escalates beyond your ship. You could send a fake distress call to Starfleet Command saying the Klingons have crossed the border to attack you unprovoked then self-destruct your ship, also leading to a war. You could warp out of the system immediately and delete all record of the distress call from your ship's records. You could set the ship to self-destruct and flee in an escape pod before you even get the distress signal, the equivalent of deliberately failing a level in a computer game because you're bored.

There might not be a perfect outcome where you can rescue all the civilians without being attacked by the Klingons or causing a diplomatic incident. But there's absolutely ways to fail the test. Some outcomes are better than others and how you handle the scenario with dignity and composure is important even if there is no perfect solution.

The question becomes, what is a failing grade? Lieutenant Saavik crossed the Neutral Zone immediately without exploring other options, didn't question how or why a civilian ship was inside the Neutral Zone (i.e. maybe it's a setup?). After violating the treaty she didn't try to hail the Klingons until they'd already closed to combat range and were jamming comms, wasted time asking engineering for a damage report instead of ordering the helm to get the hell out of there. Maybe if they'd raised shields before crossing the border the Enterprise wouldn't have been destroyed. Starfleet are going to receive a very angry email from the Klingon High Council demanding an explanation for why the federation Flagship violated the treaty, good thing Saavik launched a message buoy with their mission logs and sent a subspace message explaining their reason for violating the neutral zone. Right? Because Lieutenant Saavik planned ahead the diplomatic incident won't be too severe and there won't be any retaliation or escalation? Oh she didn't take those steps to prevent a diplomatic incident? She lost the ship, killed her crew, didn't save the civilians AND caused a major diplomatic incident? I'd call that a failing grade.

I think a passing grade might be as simple as sitting on this side of the border and trying to contact both Starfleet and the Klingons while the Kobayashi Maru's reactor explodes. You didn't save the civilians but you didn't lose the ship on a fool's errand and didn't lead to a war. It's not pretty but sometimes you can't save the civilians, there ARE no-win scenarios and handling them gracefully is a valuable skill to learn.

When the Federation gave up cloaking technology it seemed a massive tactical disadvantage but in broader strategic terms it was a genius move. Up till now there's been a three-way balance of power, Federation, Romulan and Klingon. The Klingons and the Romulans have even made brief alliances, while neither power was willing to strike a deal with the Federation. Then comes Praxis and the Klingons withdraw, leaving the Federation and Romulans facing each other across the Neutral Zone. Tensions quickly mount, leading to the Tomad-Incident. At this point the Federation agrees to not develop cloaking technology. The brilliance of this is revealed by understanding Romulan psychology. The Romulans know Starfleet is perfectly capable of developing cloaking technology (if they so choose), which makes the Neutral Zone useless. But by giving up the technology the Federation offers a guarantee of a secure border. The Romulans no longer have to worry about Starfleet sneaking cloaked ships into their space. But the same cannot be said of the Klingons. Even in their diminished state they still have cloaks, which means the Romulan/Klingon border cannot be secured. The results speak for themselves, Neranda III, Khitomer, and presumably the Klingons are doing the same in Romulan space. The two powers who do have cloaks cannot ever trust the other and are locked into a state of mistrust and conflict, while the power without cloaks gets to sit back and watch its chief rivals waste time, resources and lives in an unresolvable feud. Giving up the ability to cloak bought the Federation 80 years of uninterrupted peace. A diplomatic masterstroke.

This is the official /r/DaystromInstitute reaction thread for "Whistlespeak". Rules #1 and #2 are not enforced in reaction threads.

Over the years, and especially during the streaming era, Star Trek has been marked by much more variety in visual styles than other cinematic universes. Very early on, the original cast productions had three different "looks" (TOS, TAS, and the films). The three TNG-era shows had more consistency among themselves, but were still very different from any of the original cast "looks." And of course the streaming era has used multiple, very different visual styles across the shows -- even giving us two radically different animation styles in series that are meant to be covering roughly the same time period.

This approach contrasts with Star Wars or Marvel, which both stay very visually consistent across their productions. Marvel has been able to do this very easily since the MCU has existed for a relatively short period of time. Star Wars lucked out that it had a blockbuster budget to start out and its technology has no connection to "real world" developments. By contrast, Star Trek has been very long-lived and subjected to very different budgetary restraints in different periods. More seriously, its claim to be "our" future means that the relationship between Trek and contemporary technology is always going to be a problem. The TOS sets already looked pretty dated by the time TMP came out. You can punt on the issue by continuing to move forward in the timeline with every new production, but the stubborn fact is that TOS technology does not look futuristic or even functional to us anymore.

I believe that, especially in the streaming era, the producers are very intentionally making a virtue of necessity here. Instead of trying to make in-universe sense of the diversity of visual styles, they are consciously embracing it. The result is much more like a comic book universe than a typical cinematic universe.

To get at what I mean, we might start by asking: what does Batman really look like? Obviously this question is absurd. Over the many decades, he has been drawn dozens upon dozens of different ways by countless artists. No explanation of these "changes" is necessary because we know artists have different styles. Even if they sometimes pay tribute to earlier eras by imitating the style, they do it in a contemporary way. For instance, there is a series running now based on the "Golden Age" Batman of the 30s, and the art is evocative of those early comics without slavishly imitating them. Another is based on the 1989 Tim Burton movie and also imitates its visual style.

No one is confused or upset by this variety of portrayals of Batman (though one might wonder whether the world needs quite so much Batman product month after month). In fact, it's part of the fun! The artwork in comics isn't a dispensable vehicle for the characters or stories, it's part of the creative process. And the same is true of the production values of a TV show -- the people who design the sets and costumes and make-up are creative artists, every bit as much as the writers and actors. Why shouldn't we benefit from their variety of perspectives, just as comic book readers enjoy a variety of art styles? Why not imagine the familiar Enterprise, for example, in many different ways and enjoy how different artists try to pay tribute to the original while appealing to contemporary tastes?

Some fans might lament this intentional embrace of variety in visual style and prefer productions that minimize or even try to explain away differing production values -- like the infamous arc on ENT that "explains" the Klingon ridges. But it's hard to imagine Star Trek attracting the best creative talent available if everything is inflexibly locked into place. And it's hard to imagine it staying relevant if we're not allowed to reimagine the Star Trek universe -- and especially its founding moment -- in ways that make as much sense to us now as they did to the original audience then.

In short, the more flexible and varied approach to Star Trek visuals isn't evidence of sloppiness or betrayal -- it is a conscious choice, rooted in Star Trek's history, and in line with the way visuals are handled in the longest-running commercial fictional universes (comic books). There's a lot about the streaming era that I wish had been handled differently, but this is the one area where I think they are unambiguously on the right path.

A single gram of water contains 1x10^23 atoms. Storing the pattern for an entire steak seems like a spectacular waste of resources. The data crystals necessary would probably be larger than the steak. Patterns would have to be compressed to save space.

Food has a lot of redundant information that isn't actually necessary. Let's bake a cake and discuss how each stage could be compressed.

The flour:

Storing millions of slightly differently shaped flour particles is unnecessary. Store one of copy paste it repeatedly.

Wheat seeds have compounds that aren't doing much for the finished product. Gluten for example is important for making bread chewy, but not for cakes. Get rid of it. None of the tiny bits of wheat husk leftover from processing need to exist either.

The egg:

Google tells me there are about 100,000 different types of protein in the human body. An egg is simpler than a person, but still incredibly complex. The baby chicken won't be using those so replace all proteins with whatever one tastes the most eggy.

The cake only really needs fat and protein for the batter to work. We could just copy paste a single fatty acid and a single protein and use that for everything.

The sugar:

Table sugar is 99.7% sucrose, with the rest being impurities like sulfur dioxide and silica. No need for any of that impurity nonsense.

The milk:

Lactose, hormones, bacteria and heavy metals should be first on the chopping block since they can be unhealthy.

Milk is made of globules of fat suspended in water. Store the template of a single blob and get copy pasting.

The vanilla:

Vanilla extract is typically stored in alcohol since the flavor compounds are not water soluble. A replicator could distribute these directly in the cake skipping the alcohol step.

Of the presumably tens of thousands of chemicals in a vanilla bean, only 20 make up the main vanilla flavor. Skip the rest.

How this affects flavor:

Surely there are more than two compounds in an egg that give it flavor. Gluten taste very slightly nutty. Non-uniform proteins or flour particles might not stick together properly. We could have made a terrible cake.

I went with an extreme example to illiterate my point. Replicated food in Star Trek is likely compressed at the chemical level to save on storage space. That could impact the taste of replicated food if done too aggressively or haphazardly.

Watching VOY 2x11 "Maneuvers" and Kazon First Maje Culluh used a stolen transporter to sucker-punch a rival into open space. Fast, efficient, and hard to defend against. It is routinely established that transporters can beam to or from an alien ship so long as their shields are down. I expect transporter technologies from other species are equally powerful. If so, why aren't transporter assassinations more common? Why don't federation ships immediately raise shields whenever they encounter an unknown vessel?

Much has been made of the choices made in the representation of the Discovery crew, especially their portrayal as overly emotional - however, in the context of their actual experiences - it makes sense.

The crew have gone through several Captains in 5 years. Traditionally, Starfleet captains command immense respect and loyalty. They are mentors, confidants, and even role models. Their crew often admires them, feels intimidated by them, and even cherishes personal advice from them.

Now, consider the Discovery's unique situation. They've served under not one, but several captains in a short time. These weren't just any commanders; they included an evil doppelganger from the Mirror Universe and a morally ambiguous version of their original captain. The person that got their original Captain killed, albeit inadvertently, is their current Captain - after being branded a traitor and sentenced to punishment. This certainly has a lasting psychological impact on the crew.

The crew was originally on a "black ops" mission, and thus would have been seperated from regular interactions with other Starfleet crews. They are awe-struck by interaction with Captain Pike. Due to their ever changing leadership and other isolation, they never learned how to mature into the types of officers as seen on TNG, DS9, VOY, or event ENT/TOS.

Then of course, they travelled into the far future, with not only everyone they ever knew being dead, the Federation was apparently destroyed at the time. They should all have PTSD at a minimum.

Here's the twist: despite their emotional displays, sometimes reckless behavior, and a penchant for dramatics, the Discovery crew gets results. They saved a version of the Federation a millennium in the future, and they possess the unparalleled Spore Drive technology that remains unreplicated. They have defeated numerous opponents in the future timeline. This begs the question: why change a (seemingly) winning formula? This unconventional success could reinforce their emotional approach, creating a self-fulfilling cycle.

Do you think that they could use their pheromones on the lgbtq+ community? Specifically, if it would or would not work on gay men and women or even people who are a-sexual.

For example, we see a lot where someone, who is likely communicating in their own language that is translated via the Universal Translator, says a word or phrase in either their native tongue or a different language. I'm curious how the Universal Translator would know the speaker's intent to say the word or phrase in another language rather than have it translated automatically for the person they are speaking to.

I can't think of a specific example off the top of my head, but I know that it happens. Just curious what your head canon might be on how that might function.

(to add, I am not referring to when the Universal Translator misses a word or can't translate a word)

This is the official /r/DaystromInstitute reaction thread for "Mirrors". Rules #1 and #2 are not enforced in reaction threads.

Episode Recap

In Things Past, the four crew members in the post title are returning from a peace conference on Bajor. We do not see what happens, but as the runabout is approaching the station the four lose consciousness. We see Bashir examine them on the runabout before they "wake up" apparently on Terok Nor and wearing typical Bajoran clothes. Following a very brief scene there, we see the four of them lying on tables in the infirmary with visors / coverings over their heads wearing their uniforms.

The upshot is that we learn a dark secret about Odo: he failed to adequately investigate an assassination attempt on Dukat and as a result three innocent Bajorans were executed. The very end of the episode is a painful and awkward conversation between Odo and Kira. Just before that Bashir explains that the hallucinations were the result of the four of them "being locked in a version of the Great Link": the runabout had passed through a plasma storm which activated residual morphogenic enzymes in Odo's brain "initiating a telepathic response."

##Analysis

Sometimes there is a single piece of compelling evidence that makes me believe a theory. In this case, however, it's more that there are many small pieces that I just think fit together extremely well to suggest that the explanation we get from "Bashir" is untrue or only partly true.

(1) We know that the Dominion has the technology to cause people to experience a complex and interactive simulated reality because they do exactly that in The Search: Part 2. Of course, in order to do this the subjects have to be hooked up to a machine... that looks like a flat table with a visor with some computers nearby -- basically the set-up we find these four in.

(2) We know that in the end, The Founders desperately wanted to bring Odo back into The Link. In Favor the Bold, The Changeling Leader says that bringing Odo back to The Link mattered "more than the Alpha quadrant itself." We also know from Heart of Stone that the Changeling Leader was aware of Odo's feelings for Kira, viewed them as an obstacle to bringing Odo back, and took steps to end the relationship:

ODO: But why did you lead us here? Why replace Kira?

FOUNDER: I needed to understand why you chose to live with the Solids rather than your own people. I suspected it had something to do with Major Kira. Now I'm certain of it.

ODO: So your plan was to let me think she died. You thought that would take away my link to the Solids.

FOUNDER: Then you would return to us

(3) Since Things Past happens after Broken Link, Odo has already been in The Great Link and had his thoughts and feelings thoroughly examined. It's likely that the Founders were aware of what had happened on Terok Nor and how it haunted Odo. Given the way that the Dominion formed extensive "psychographic profiles" on important adversary figures (To The Death) they surely would have understood Kira's extremely strong feelings about the Occupation and her tendency to view that issue in relatively black-and-white terms. (See, e.g., Rocks and Shoals: KIRA: "We used to have a saying in the Resistance: 'If you're not fighting them you're helping them.'")

(4) The timeline of the Bashir Changeling is obviously a perennial topic of discussion, and people who have looked very carefully at it suggest that, basically, there's no very neat explanation that fits all available facts without significant creativity on the part of the theorizer. I'm not going to re-hash that here, if you'd like a close look at it you can read the quote at the end of the [Memory Alpha article on the Bashir Changeling](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Julian_Bashir_(Changeling\)) I will say that the most common viewpoint is that he had to have been replaced some time before Rapture based on the change in uniforms, but even that has been questioned.

(5) If Bashir was indeed replaced before Rapture, then this implies that it was the Changeling who helped nurse the "Changeling infant" back to health before it joins with Odo, making him a Changeling again in The Begotten. This remarkable set of coincidences has led some to speculate that in fact the Dominion orchestrated the events of The Begotten in order to essentially "parole" Odo. I can't put it better than /u/Chairboy did 10 years ago:

I have always assumed that the 'infant Changeling' was a ruse. I walked away from that episode with the belief that it was the final part of Odo's 'rehabilitation' but was actually intended to be a vector to bring Odo back to fluidity. It was never intended to live on its own but instead to be a method for them to 'cure' him if he showed compassion for his own kind.

Remember, he was being punished specifically for killing another Changeling, but more in general the Founder's concern seemed to be that he was rejecting who he was. By forcing him to become a 'solid' then allowing him to recover his changing ability after an appropriate time and the right circumstances, they were able to punish, rehabilitate, and put him through a parole process without risking further Founder lives. He was imprisoned in his own body, learned how limiting the Solid existence was (well, that may have been their intention), then only received the 'gift' of transmutation back when he physically consoled the proto-lifeform.

I never believed that it was actually one of the 100 or even a stand-alone creature, I believe it was a tool from the Founders. What are the odds that just touching the corpse of another shapeshifter would fix him up so perfectly if it wasn't on purpose?

I agree completely with that analysis, and I would suggest that Things Past is a logical precursor to those efforts: when "Bashir" tells Odo that the hallucination was caused by residual morphogenic enzymes, he's telling a half-truth: Odo really does have residual morphogenic enzymes, and he does have some latent potential to Link. The Changeling tells him this to plant the seed in his mind that maybe he hasn't reached the point of no going back.

(6) At the same time, I think we should doubt in the extreme the explanation that a "telepathic reaction" was responsible for the hallucination. It's definitely stated that solids "will never know the joy of the Link." In other words, even if Odo has some residual morphogenic enzymes, since when can solids such as Sisko, Garak, and Dax link with Changelings? This is simply a cover story the Bashir Changeling invents to conceal what is really happening.

(7) We know from Extreme Measures that the real genetically-enhanced Bashir is smart enough and has the capability to do something like link up three humanoid brains and enter into a simulated, shared, collective artificial reality. Not only that, but he seemed to whip it up pretty quick. And yet, the Bashir in Things Past is completely stumped as to what might be going on? To me, this is further evidence that he is not stumped at all, but rather knows exactly what is happening.

In the fifth season premier, we learned that research into the Spore Drive has fallen to the wayside in favor of an alternate propulsion method known as the Pathway Drive. Stamets is understandably annoyed by this, and his mini-rant strongly implies that the main problem was the pilot issue (which he believes he could have fixed eventually). Unfortunately, last season began with the destruction of an entire planet full of non-genetically modified potential pilots, but Book's species is surely not the only one with the aptitude -- as soon as he succeeded in piloting the spore drive at the end of Season 3, I wondered if Spock could be slotted in, or Deanna, or any number of other characters or species. In short, the official explanation for shutting it down in the 23rd century seemed to be the genetic modification taboo, but by the 32nd century, we know that isn't necessarily the issue.

So what prompted the search for alternatives? I would suggest that their experience of Book "going rogue" with the next-generation spore drive convinced them that developing the technology wasn't worth the risk. The tactical advantage of instantaneous travel is less appealing if it carries with it the chance of losing control of the vessel entirely. Obviously any crew member can disobey orders, but the impact is always going to be much more limited -- with the spore drive, a single crew member could jump the ship into the core of a star if they wanted to. What if the Romulans embed a spy who becomes a spore drive pilot? What if the Borg inject all the spore drive pilots with some kind of weird virus through the transporter, or whatever? There are a million vulnerabilities -- including the problem of how to deal with a couple really traumatized guys who take the fate of the galaxy into their own hands.

And if Starfleet does this math, surely other, less progressive powers (i.e., all of them) are going to make the calculation much faster. Would the militaristic, hierarchy-obsessed powers be willing to tolerate handing that kind of uncontrollable power to a subordinate? (Even the captain is ultimately a subordinate to someone.)

If this explanation is correct, it also functions as an implicit retcon of one of the biggest dangling chads from the early seasons of Discovery -- if this technology is possible, why was it only discovered by Stamets out of the entire galaxy? And the answer would be that maybe it was and maybe it wasn't, but if it was, the powers that be eventually mothballed it because the need for a sentient pilot implied an unacceptable risk. Only in the desperate circumstances of the Klingon War -- and implicitly, only under the exceptionally ruthless command of Lorca -- was the technology ever normalized at all.

Whether this actually makes sense or not, I leave as an exercise for the reader.

For years, I always wondered why Dukat had it so hard for Kira when she outright tells him if he were the last being in reality he still wouldn't have a chance and I had an epiphany during my last rewatch of the series. Now, I realize the writers probably never connected these dots themselves but...

In S3E9 "Destiny", we learn from O'Brien's experience that in Cardassian courting rituals, irritability expresses a desire to mate and there's absolutely no one more irritated by Dukat's mere presence than Kira. From Dukat's perspective, the Major is absolutely obsessed with him, wants him more than anyone he's ever met, is practically throwing herself at him with threats of violence and he eats it up. No matter what he does, what atrocities he commits, her blatant disgust reveals how attracted she is to him and he can't get enough of it because she never gives in all the way, never submits to him, always leads him on and teases him with that look of disdain before stomping away.

It may be head-canon, but I can't watch any interaction between these characters and not see it through this lens.

Starfleet seems to have had a lot of success with support ships based on their "flagship" classes, but I don't recall ever seeing one based on the Excelsior, and haven't been able to find one anywhere. That seems odd to me, given how wildly successful the class was and how long it was in service; I would have thought Starfleet would want to apply the technological leap (great experiment notwithstanding) that the Excelsior represents to its fleet of support ships.

Is there one that I'm just missing, or a reason why one was never created (in-universe or otherwise)? I guess it's possible there was just nothing wrong with the Miranda, despite it already being 20 years old when the Excelsior was introduced and really representative of a previous generation of design.

Hey I've been working on my own Science Fiction Universe and while working on Starship ideas I started to wonder how the bridge operations on actual starship would differ from those found in various SF franchises, and since ST is one of my favourites I'm curious how a real starship bridge would potentially differ from a Federation Starfleet vessels. Apparently the bridge operation is inspired by real US Navy bridges but is moderately divergent and rooted in the WWII era due to Rodenberry's own experiences; I also imagine the nature of space travel, especially for interstellar voyages with FTL technology would have to change the command structure somewhat.

So I'm asking, how does the bridge's of Starfleet vessels , in terms of both staff and consoles, differ from either the real navy or a scientifically viable starships?

Thanks in advance

During the era of Earth's 4th century, the inhabitants of Vulcan engaged in a series of horrific self-destructive wars, devastating themselves with nuclear and telepathic weapons to a point which would take them over a thousand years to fully recover. In the wake of this apocalyptic conflagration, those who are poetically described as marching beneath the raptor's wings and opposed the rise of Surak's philosophy of logic left the planet, striking out into the galaxy to claim a new home. During their travels, this initial group would fragment into multiple groups such as the Debrune, although the most successful branch settled Romulus/Remus and became the Romulans we all know and love.

There isn't much suggesting how advanced Vulcan civilization was when it nuked itself, but it would certainly have been capable of constructing interstellar vessels long before they destroyed themselves. The monastery at P'Jem was constructed "three thousand years" before the 22nd century, which if taken as a straight estimate would date it to approximately 850 BCE, a full 1,100 years before the Time of Awakening, almost two hundred years longer than the roughly 900 years separating the Federation's founding and the Burn. The identity of P'Jem's system is never canonically stated, although in Beta Canon it is listed as being Luyten's Star, so I'll go with that for lack of anything else. Assuming Wolfram Alpha is accurate, the distance between 40 Eridani and Luyten's Star is 12.65 light-years, which considering was close enough to support the foundation of a revered monastery, could make the 16.44 light-year distance to Earth achievable.

Today, with our telescopes largely confined to Earth and its Lagrange points, we are capable of discovering and spectrographically analyzing the atmospheres of planets hundreds of light-years away. In the 800s BCE, the Vulcans were crossing interstellar space with crewed ships and constructing a monastery within the general vicinity of Andoria. If they were capable of that, they very easily would have been able to tell that there was a frigid yet "habitable" moon in a neighboring system to their monastery, and a more habitable planet orbiting a yellow dwarf not much further from their own world. Considering the timeframe, there could easily have been Vulcan probes surveying Earth from orbit and snapping images of the Roman Empire at its peak about three centuries before the Time of Awakening, which considering the very Roman nature of the Romulans is an amusing parallel. Also there things such as this as part of the whole satyr thing if we want to push things a bit further considering the comparatively emotional and unrestrained state of the Vulcans during this time, but I digress.

To summarize, the Vulcans were more than capable of interstellar travel and of visiting worlds like Andoria and Earth in the centuries leading up to the Time of Awakening, as evidenced by the construction of P'Jem nearly a millennium before the BCE/CE division in the Gregorian calendar. If the Vulcans had restrained themselves from openly making contact with ancient Earth and merely observed from orbit, that coupled with the sheer apocalyptic destruction of the ensuing wars easily would've erased almost all records of it occurring. Even if some had visited Earth directly, the limited nature of any contacts and the passage of time would've allowed it to recede into the mists of myth.

It also brings up other interesting questions:

• Did the Vulcans ever visit the Andorian system, despite their moon easily being written off as "uninhabitable"?

• How far could these ancient Vulcan ships have traveled, with them likely having been purely sublight? The longer lifespans of Vulcans would certainly make interstellar travel less daunting.

• Why did the Romulans travel as far as they did, and what if they'd chosen to settle closer, say on a nearby yellow dwarf's planet which had a declining empire which would closely resemble theirs in the millennia to come? This post was actually going to be this hypothetical before my introduction took over the entire thing.

In Season 4 of Discovery, we hear it explained how Starfleet had analyzed what they thought were all possible sources of the Dark Matter Anomaly (DMA).

The Q were ruled out because they hadn't had contact with the Federation since circa 2590, and something like the DMA wasn't really seen as the Q's style anyway.

There were apparently some survivors of the Iconians found between the 24th and 32nd century, because remnants of the Iconians were ruled out, as were surviving members of the Nacene (apparently the Caretaker and Suspira weren't the last of their kind) and the Metrons.

. . .but they never mention the Voth.

What we saw of the Voth in VOY "Distant Origin" seemed to depict them as being on a technological scale similar to the Iconians or Nacene, with ability to travel far around the galaxy casually, their city-ships being so technologically advanced that they could capture and defeat Voyager as effortlessly as Voyager taking on a pre-industrial civilization, and generally their technology being towards the top-end of what we saw from aliens in Star Trek that weren't depicted as outright "godlike". In fact, the Nacene seemed less advanced than the Voth.

Since it's clear that the Federation by the 32nd century has travelled around the whole Milky Way galaxy, the fact the Voth generally keep to the Delta Quadrant (despite having technology that would let them go anywhere in the galaxy in fairly little time) would mean the Federation would have run into them again besides Voyager's encounter with them

If the Voth were still around in that era, they should have been discussed as a possible source of the DMA. Given the massive power and scale of Voth technology, an effect like that would not be unthinkable to them.

. . .unless they were confirmed to be gone, so they wouldn't be considered a possible source.

Perhaps Janeway and company planted the seeds of revolution in their visit, maybe even laid the foundation for the fall of Voth civilization by putting ideas out there that the sacred Doctrine their civilization was built on was wrong, and the Voth were destroyed in a Civil War at some point between 2373 and 3190?

This is the official /r/DaystromInstitute reaction thread for "Face the Strange". Rules #1 and #2 are not enforced in reaction threads.

I've recently watched Season 2 of Picard and the alternate Confederation of Earth is shown to have conquered most of the Alpha Quadrant having defeated the Borg, Romulans and Klingons and is fighting the Dominion in the Gamma Quadrant. The Confederation of Earth is importantly an openly fascist and xenophobic state with slogans such as "only safe galaxy is a human galaxy", practices slavery of non-humans, deploys weapons of mass destruction and engages in genocide. It goes without saying that it is an aggressive state expanding through conquest. The implication of this all is that a Fascist humanity could have conquered and established hegemony over the Alpha Quadrant.

Thematically, however I find this very problematic. Trek has already showed us another Fascist power in the form of the Cardassian Empire. Like the Confederation of Earth, it isn't beyond enslaving alien races (Bajoran occupation), is openly xenophobic (down to the level of designing weapons systems that target only non-Cardassians) and also an aggressive/militaristic species. The problem is that unlike the Confederation of Earth, the Cardassian Empire is the weakest of the Alpha Quadrant great powers, was no match for the Klingons and the Federation (in the case of the Federation, going to a total war footing which for the Federation was merely a border war) and decided to bandwagon with the Dominion in order to take over the Alpha Quadrant because clearly they couldn't do it themselves.

So my issue with S2 of Picard is that it implies that Fascism is an efficient way that can propel humanity to hegemony of the Alpha Quadrant, essentially humanity could be dominant if only they weren't held back by pesky democratic values or morals. But when the Cardassians do Fascism, they are weaker than every other major power. That's inconsistent. Realistically the Confederation of Earth should have only been on the level of the Cardassian Empire and not the hyperpower dominating the Alpha Quadrant. At the very least the Confederation of Earth should have been showed to be surrounded from all sides and at worst in the process of being grinded into dust by a coalition of other great powers just like Nazi Germany because of its aggression. Another distrubing implication (of which I'm sure many have discussed before) is that S2 of Picard also implies that Fascism works, promoting the myth of Fascist efficiency. Things like democracy etc are holding us back. Only if we went full Fascist can we be safe and achieve great things. But nonetheless Trek already showed us that Fascism doesn't work (the Cardassian Empire) so I'm confused as to why they went with showing us that it can.

Briefly restated, the problem with the MU has always been that it doesn't make sense as a divergent timeline. A truly divergent timeline would grow farther and farther from the PU, starting from the point of divergence. Instead, the MU always closely correlates with the current contents of the PU. MU inhabitants are some variant of PU inhabitants, and the current state of the MU always seems to mirror the current state of the PU in some inverted manner.

My theory is that the MU isn't a divergent timeline. It's a by-product.

In Rivals: DS9, the El-Aurian con artist Martus Mazur obtains a device that alters the laws of probability. The device literally makes him lucky. However, the device can't create luck out of nothing. In the process of providing its owner with luck, it imbalances probability across the station.

Some people experience incredibly good luck, such as Miles being able to hit every shot. At the same time, others experience only bad luck. Eventually, the toll for all of Martus bad luck has to be paid, and the entire station is almost destroyed. Martus himself suffers a wild swing in luck as soon as the devices are destroyed.

If Martus, a 24th-century El-Aurian, could obtain such a device, I think it's obvious that a race such as the Q would have similar abilities. We know, for a fact, that they can alter even universal constants.

My proposal is that the PU is the result of Q (or some other powerful group) stacking the deck in the PU. Think about how many times Spock says the odds of the Enterprise crew surviving are infinitesimally small, but they somehow survive anyway. How many statistically improbable wins have we seen the Federation pull off in the PU? No one can beat the odds that many times.

Some powerful force has to be altering probability in the PU to create the 24th timeline we're seeing. This is why the MU is always crapsack world. Their universe exists as a perpetual counterbalance.

Going further, I hypothesize that the MU inhabitants eventually discovered this fact and realized there was only one way their universe would prosper. The PU Federation had to be destroyed.

So the MU infiltrated the PU with agents and instigated what we now know of as the Temporal Cold War with the ultimate goal of not only altering the history of the PU but of their universe. If the MU could prevent the foundation of the Federation, the relationship would be reversed. Their timeline would be the winner. We know from Kovich that there were MU soldiers fighting in the Temporal Cold War.

But the Temporal Cold War failed. The Federation managed to preserve its history. So the MU's next plan was the Burn. Based on their own no doubt Mengeleish knowledge of Kelpian physiology, they must have realized the potential if they could just get a pregnant Kelpian close enough to a large source of dilithium.

Having finally achieved their goal of destroying the idyllic PU, they used advanced technology to move the two universes apart so that the influence of the PU on their own universe was diminished and there would be no further incursions.

Quark doesn't pay for rent or utilities. He doesn't have repair bills. He makes most of what he serves from replicators, which means his food and drink costs are a fraction of what they would be, and means that he needs way way fewer employees working fewer hours. The federation is taking care of the vast majority of his overhead costs and all for the low low price of bending his elbow every once in a while

He has staff but a fraction of what he'd need to run such an establishment in the real world and he pays them terribly and he doesn't pay them at all if there's not enough work for them. so if it slow at the bar he is paying his employees vastly less (or nothing at all if he closes)

on top of this he has the only holo suites on the station, and the only gambling establishment (minus that one episode)

I just don't understand how the bar is barely making a profit (and sometimes isn't even)

restaurants have poor success rates because of how high their overhead costs are and how low the profit margins are. but with this kind of setup, his profit margins should be ridiculously huge. especially given how much alcohol he sells

not to mention he's running a casino that should be extremely profitable and the holosuites basically cost him nothing and are the primary entertainment (and porn) source on the station

it's like the adult version of a lemonade stand where someone else (your parents) provide all the supplies and overhead and probably some of the labour and then you walk away with all the sales as pure profits because you weren't the one footing the expenses

EDIT: a couple of quick points most people don't seem to know or remember:

1 - federation employees DO pay him
he's not got any significant contingent of people not paying. we have countless episodes in which we actually see federation employees paying him with latinum or hear them discuss payment. he incredibly rarely offers them anything for free. no idea how federation credits convert to latinum but they definitely pay

2 - most of his menu is replicated.
yes he does serve genuine products that have cost and transportation needs, but this is a minority of what he sells and he constantly bills these things as luxury goods. we not only hear his customers ordering replicated foods and drinks all the time, but when his replicators break down he does not have a way to serve people. in fact he nearly got everyone killed one time by breaking in to the crew quarters and using their replicators and producing his entire menu out of the crew quarters because it was taking too long for O'Brian to get to his replicators. this is also I assume how he's able to use significant amounts of his storage space for his other ventures

3 - holosuite programs seem to be bought, not rented
this isn't 100% but based on his and other comments, it seems like these are one time purchases, not rentals. countless characters own their own holosuite programmes, when someone commissions a custom one they discuss payment in terms of a one time deal for owning the holosuite rod, etc. even if they were rented, other people find running holosuites profitable when they are also paying massive energy and repair costs. but seems very unlikely to be rented

as far as I can tell, his only real recurring costs are:

• paying the dabo girls
• paying his waiters
• whatever limited luxury goods he imports for selling

any comparable business would have the same costs but would also be paying:

• rent
• electricity and other utilities. the electricity overhead is especially massive, I'm assuming in part because of the holosuites
• repair costs

If they didn't use replicators then they would also have considerable food and beverage costs in addition to the additional staff costs necessary (various chefs and cooks, more bartenders, etc)

Beyond the obvious ones, I mean. Being genocidal is a pretty big moral failing.

But, I’ve long been fascinated by the female Changeling’s statement “To become a thing is to know a thing. To assume its form is to begin to understand its existence.” There’s a deep philosophical truth here: every object has its own unique existence and, therefore, perspective. We can never understand the existence of, say, a rock because we can never be a rock. We can never occupy the place in the universe a rock does, so we can have only a partial, limited, and qualitatively incomplete understanding of what it “means” to be a rock. We cannot understand a rock, but Changelings can.

Being able to exist as another object opens up all kinds of philosophical questions from ontology to phenomenology. Changelings can literally assume the entire physical existence of a rock; it’s established in dialogue that if you scan Odo while he’s a rock, you’ll only read a rock. So on a very basic and deep level, Odo is a rock when he assumes its form. And Odo regularly comments on the exhilaration he feels taking different forms. One has to assume this is at least in part due to the variety of unique experiences and insights afforded by existing as other beings for a time.

So, equipped with this unique ability to literally assume an entirely different existence, the Founders use it instead to reject and dominate the rest of the galaxy (or try to, at least). They have this amazing capacity to perceive the universe as others do and connect with and understand them on a level far beyond anything “solids” are capable of and they totally squander it. They are starkly at odds with the ur-Humanoids that seeded their bodily form into primordial genomes throughout the galaxy to foster mutual respect and a sense of commonality through a shared physical form.

I add this betrayal of their potential as mediators of great peace and understanding to the long list of crimes the Founders are guilty of.

Being the nerd I am this is something I've thought about a lot. It feels like the Warp 5 speed limit is something that "should" have a lot of impact on the plot of the show but for some reason has NEVER been addressed properly.

Firstly lets break down the two parts of the Speed Limit as simply as we can:

1. All Federation Vessels MUST travel at no faster than Warp 5 - Unless given emergency clearance. We see this clearance given in a few episodes. This Speed Limit is in affect throughout ALL of Federation Space.

2. In areas of space in imminent danger of "space damage" due to warp fields, there was ban on all but the most essential travel.

The Speed Limit was initially introduced in TNG: Force of Nature (7x09). The Speed Limit was bought up again in TNG: The Pegasus (7x12) and TNG: Eye of the Beholder (7x18). Other than these episodes, however, the speed limit is never bought up again in either TNG or even DS9.

There was never an attempt on screen to explain what happened to the speed limit. I assume most people simply thought a magic fix was found. In my opinion I thing the problem arose from the speed limit being a "TNG" problem and well...TNG kinda ends after season 7.

Now there are several Beta-Canon sources that try to elaborate on the speed limit.

First is the Star Trek Voyager Season 1 Writer Bible released in 1994. The bible contains some interesting press release material. A part on the U.S.S. Voyager's engineering section states that the ships new warp drive system was more efficient than previous models and as such allowed the ship "to exceed the warp speed limit imposed in the Star Trek TNG episode 'Force of Nature', without polluting the space continuum". The Bible makes no reference to "Variable Pylons or Nacelles". This bible would have been released in the gap between TNG ending and VOY starting. This information about the speed limit is not repeated in any of VOYs other season bibles.

The next Beta-Canon source is Michael and Denise Okuda's "Star Trek Encyclopedia". Now here is where it gets confusing as the book seemingly contradicts itself a few times. The 1st edition released in 1994 suggests that Warp 5 became the "New normal cruising speed" after TNG: Force of Nature. This 1st edition was released shortly before TNG ended.

In 1999 a 3rd edition of the Encyclopedia was released with the new information that "The Starship Enterprise-D and other ships observed the “warp speed limit” for the remainder of Star Trek: The Next Generation. After that, it was assumed that Starfleet was able to develop a more “environmentally friendly” warp drive, so the speed limit was evidently lifted." (p.187). From this it would seem the authors were pretty certain the speed limit was dropped by the time TNG ends. In a different entry later on it states "A Temporary upper limit for warp speed travel was established in Force of Nature". One may interpret this wording as evidence the speed limit was always intended to be a temporary thing by the writers.

HOWEVER, the new edition also starts talking about the ever favorite "Nacelles". The entry on warp factor (p.555) states that "Later advances in Federation warp drive technology permitted the use of speeds exceeding warp 5. One of the first ships to be so equipped was the Intrepid- class U.S.S. Voyager, whose variable-geometry warp drive nacelles prevented damage to the subspace continuum". As such this supports the idea that the writers wanted to go into Voyager without any of that Speed Limit baggage and as such the engines/nacelles on certain ships are upgraded to negate this.

The Okudas elaborate on this by stating "This speed limit was abandoned a couple of years later when it was assumed that newer Federation starships (like the U.S.S. Voyager and the new Defiant) had improved, environmentally friendly warp drive systems that did not cause damage to the spatial continuum".

Now the question that is left unanswered is whether this implies the speed limit as a whole was dropped or whether the speed limit was dropped for Certain ships e.g. the U.S.S Voyager and Defiant.

Even MORE confusing is this information contradicts the earlier statement on page 187 that stated that the speed limit was lifted AFTER the end of TNG for ALL ships. (If the Okudas ever read this I'm sorry for nitpicking)

Finally we have the unpublished Voyager "Technical Manual" which states that the Variable Geometry Warp Nacelles on the U.S.S. Voyager "may no longer have a negative impact on habitable worlds, as established in TNG". This Manual was again published in 1994, likely in the gap between TNG ending and VOY starting. As such the stance of this manual is that the Speed Limit was still in affect by the time of Voyager, but ships like the U.S.S Voyager could bypass it with "Clean Nacelles". As such, this supports the information published in the Star Trek Encyclopedias (Mostly) and the Voyager Bible (Kinda).

For a while this was the final say on the topic until we reach Voyagers late season 7 episode "Renaissance Man" (7x24). Now as I haven't watched Voyager in a long long long time, I will just use the wiki as evidence. The Memory Alpha Entry on Variable geometry pylons states: "Renaissance Man" however suggested that the warp drive of the Voyager still caused the cumulative damage. In the episode, members of the Hierarchy capture Captain Janeway and demand the warp core of the Voyager in exchange for her. The Doctor comes up with a lie for the crew of the Voyager, that they had entered R'Kaal space, a species of ecological extremists he had invented, who had supposedly outlawed warp travel in their space, because conventional warp engines damage subspace. When he claims this is the reason why Voyager has to surrender its warp core, the crew makes no effort to convince the R'Kaal that their warp drive is environmentally safe".

Many people use this episode as evidence that the speed limit was still in affect by the end of Voyager or at the very least that a fix hadn't been found yet. I've always found it weird that they waited until the PENULTIMATE episode of the show to bring this topic up again and to me screams of "Um guys I've ran out of ideas....hmm does anyone remember that whole thing about banning warp travel or something". Its possible the writers (Who only ever wrote a few episodes of Voyager) weren't aware of the implications of what they were talking about. (Wouldn't be the first time). In my opinion I always just figured that whatever fix to the warp drive they came up with, didn't actually 100% make the engines environmentally friendly, just heavily negated it.

An interesting note is that due to the lack of an actual on-screen explanation, Memory-Alpha basically thinks the speed limit is potentially in affect as of the most modern Star Trek Content. Which I find unlikely.

This last mention in the penultimate episode of Voyager was the last we heard of the speed limit for about 23 years until the Lower Decks episode "Caves" (4x08). This episode seems to suggest that the whole Warp fields being damaging to subspace was a massive conspiracy planted by the Vendorians. Or maybe not, its not very clear. So make of this what you will. Maybe this a way of the writers trying to explain away why the speed limit was dropped so quickly (Potentially after the end of TNG as other sources suggest). But who knows *Throws up arms*

I just wish the writers would write one or two lines and give me peace of mind but apparently that's too hard *Cries*.

In my personal opinion the Speed Limit was dropped for SOME reason between the end of TNG and about the first episode of VOY. Perhaps with the discovery of a fix to the issue, Starfleet reversed the ban and then started retrofitting older models of ships or phasing them out when they can. Perhaps at the same time they realised it was some weird Vendorian conspiracy (Maybe)

At the same time though, I think the areas of space most at risk of damage were likely left as restricted areas unless the ships traveling through them had one of the new engines upgrades.

I am not in the camp that believes that maybe one or two of the more modern ships in the Federation were given a fix and the rest of the fleet was left to languish at Warp 4.7-5 for the rest of eternity. To me thats just silly. Especially given that the Romulans, Cardassians and whoever else are BOUND to ignore it. Thus putting them at massive advantages even in peacetime.

But at this point I'm just tired of writing this thing and want to see what you guys think. I would like to see this as the last word on the whole Speed Limit topic as I believe I've pretty much gathered all possible information and laid it out.

When discussions of what is the “most impressive” or desirable technology in the Trek universe come up, warp travel, replicators/transporters, and computers/androids regularly come up, but for me the Federation’s sensor technology always seemed the most mind-boggling. For example, they are shown to be able to reliably detect phenomena on the quantum level in several instances. They also seem able to counteract or compensate for fundamental limitations on how much we can know about a quantum system (Heisenberg compensators work just fine, thank you). I realize the sensors are primarily an invention of techno-babble with capabilities that, like how fast warp speed is, are entirely dictated by the needs of the plot, but it got me thinking: if we could reliably and precisely detect quantum-level phenomena, what would that enable us to do?

It would certainly open up whole new worlds in materials science (transparent aluminum anyone?), quantum computing (could we see the first AGI?), and just, like, all of chemistry (at what point do we become capable of synthesizing any conceivable compound?). I imagine medical diagnosis would be transformed (when you can scan the atomic level, resolving a cell is laughably easy), entirely new communications technology would be possible (applications of quantum entanglement?), and I’m sure we’d waste no time in developing military and weaponry applications (real-world particle weapons). We could complete particle physics. And perhaps very high resolution scanning of the structure of space time would provide the knowledge necessary to learn how to manipulate space time to enable propulsion of some sort. In short, I think there’s an argument that sensing technology opens the door for nearly all the other technology depicted in Trek.

Conversely, do limitations on what we can know about quantum systems inherently restrict the types of technologies we can develop? That is, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle exists, so no transporters? And perhaps this points to a more deeply rooted philosophical connection between the limits of knowledge and capability to change. Curious to hear other thoughts.

This is the official /r/DaystromInstitute reaction thread for "Jinaal". Rules #1 and #2 are not enforced in reaction threads.

Several times in latter Star Trek, there have been attempts to paste over plot holes created by the mere passage of time in real life. The most prominent one is, of course, the explanation of the bump-less Klingons as a factor of the augment virus, which of course was derided by many fans initially, but has now basically been accepted as canon. I came around on it, after at first considering it rather clumsy. It provided a whole world of intrigue and drama around an interesting divided caste system in the Klingon Empire.

(I would have preferred to leave it at simply different varieties of the same race, shown vividly in Discovery, which portrayed a particularly less human offshoot of Klingons, but alas--they did what they did in Enterprise, and it is internally consistent enough.)

Anyway, to the point: the oft discussed Future's End episode. What we have here, in my opinion, is a fairly elegant way to explain the divergence in the 1960's vision of computing vs. the real world and eventually what we see in modern day Trek episodes. I know this isn't a particularly insightful revelation, but I think it's one of the better "pastings" of plot holes and one the writers themselves might not have considered, although they might very well have.

Starling's adaptation of technology from the timeship, as rudimentary as it was, and done with technology and materials only available to 20th century science, led to much more advanced computing earlier. Perhaps we ourselves in the real world live in Starling's future, and you could say that everything after a certain production point in the franchise represents the future in which he advanced technology more quickly.

Without Starling, we get pretty much everything in TOS and the movies, with primitive optical displays and a vast reliance on physical engineering. Perhaps this equates further with Starfleet's general fear of advanced AI and the removal of the human element from space exploration. Making everything less automated and more visceral may very well be a conscious design choice, but also clearly inspired by the Starling-less philosophies on computing in general. Maybe the lack of Starling's interference directly leads to a more open and catastrophic Eugenics Wars? The timeline is clearly quite diverged. The nineties probably looked a lot different in the historical databanks of the original NCC-1701 or Memory Alpha as depicted in the Original Series.

Anyway, the gist of it all (again, not this is particularly novel or anything) is that I think this episode allows for many interesting ways to describe the progression of the differing tech as the franchise aged. As much as we occasionally laugh at the crazy ass ideas of Braga and Menosky, this was a cool one and is ripe for fan debate. I realize that in the real world, the computer boom is perfectly explainable without future technology, but in a television setting, it's kind of a fun idea.

I unreservedly loved when Pike learned his fate from the time crystal on Boreth. I thought it spoke so powerfully to the kind of man that he was, that he would choose to walk a path that leads to hell because in the process he saves 5 cadets. Yes 2 more cadets die in the accident, but nobody can accuse Pike of having given less than his all for them.

What was key to this story though is the uncertainty surrounding Pike's fate: Pike has no idea if it's possible to achieve a better outcome by meddling with time. Maybe what the crystal showed simply can't be changed, or maybe anything he does can only make things worse (can't cheat fate, etc). All he knows is that, on his present course, eventually he and specifically him will be in the right time and place to save those 5 young lives. Pike, unwilling to gamble on that outcome, chooses and keeps choosing to carry the burden all the way to the end. Unimaginable nobility and courage.

Alas, then "The Quality of Mercy" comes along and lifts the veil. What future-Pike tells us is that the timeline where Pike saves 5 and loses 2 cadets is mathematically optimal, because that's the timeline that avoids a Romulan war that kills millions. Two deaths vs millions: not saying that it doesn't still take courage to let oneself be exposed to delta radiation, but there's an obvious correct choice to make here.

But there's something so cold and sad about unraveling Pike's choices like this. Because what about the 5 cadets he did save in the original timeline? They don't matter anymore. Yes Pike saves them, but it's incidental because that's just what happens in the timeline that avoids the war. In the bad timeline, do the 2 extra cadets that Pike saves survive the war? It doesn't matter if they do or not, the war's what's important.

In fact, if future-Pike had shown a timeline in which the war is avoided, but all 7 of the cadets die, that would still obviously be the correct path for Pike to choose. The cadets. Don't. Matter.

I understand the terrible dilemma that Pike faced when he saw Maat alive, knowing what is to come, but surely there was a way to write a story about that which didn't turn his heroic ultimate sacrifice into an optimization problem.

The USS voyager had approximately 4-5 years of solitude in the delta quadrant before temporarily reestablishing communication with Starfleet HQ via the Hirogen relay network. Before and after this brief connection, we see the crew access the computer for information dating back at least to the early to mid 19th century, and in one instance the Doctor was able to create a convincing holographic recreation of Crell Moset, his personality, and his laboratory, as well as investigate his war crimes via records of purchases of biochemical supplies.

So, do they just load up every ship with all information ever recorded before they leave spacedock? How can ships without contact to HQ have so much data available to them whenever they so wish?