Starfleet Academy Accidentally Revisits Star Trek’s Biggest Mystery: Discovery
By Chris Snellgrove | Published
The latest episode of Starfleet Academy (“Come, Let’s Go”) was a brilliant return to form for the franchise, giving us a cool plot that revolved around our cadets taking control of the reboot of an old Starfleet ship, the USS Myazaki. The ship is now decommissioned because it was using a new type of probe known as a single drive, which caused a series of serious problems. However, the episode did not mention how this technology differs from the traditional warp drive, and this brought back an old question within the fandom: why were the Romulans affected by the events of the Burn?
All of this goes back Star Trek: The Next Generationwhere episodes like “Face of the Enemy” reveal that the Romulans power their stars with a quantum singularity drive. Basically, instead of a traditional warp drive, they use an artificial black hole to travel through the galaxy at speeds faster than light. While that’s cool, TNG didn’t elaborate on how this was supposed to work, and fans generally forgot about it until the third season. Star Trek: Discovery.
When Good Technology Goes Bad
After Discovery traveled to the 32nd century, they discovered that the Federation was a shrunken version of its former self. The main reason for this was the Burn, an event in which the dilithium in the entire galaxy suddenly entered. Active dilithium keeps matter and antimatter from colliding in star types (among other things), so when it did enter, countless stars exploded due to warp core breaking quickly.
Even before the Burn, dilithium was rare, so the Federation began experimenting with other forms of propulsion. One such drive was the Pathway drive, which eventually became the standard drive for both the warp drive and Discovery’s spore drive. I Starfleet Academy The episode “Come, Let’s Go” introduced the fact that the Federation was operating independently, which rekindled a question Discovery fans have been asking for years: why were the Romulans involved in the Burn in the first place?
What Did The Romulans Know?
Adoption he gave a sort of happy ending to the Romulans, showing them finally reuniting with the Vulcans (Spock’s mission accomplished at last!) after thousands of years. But the show also made it clear that the Romulans were just as affected by the heat as the Federation and (as we later found out) the Klingon Empire. This confuses the fans because The Next Generation it was discovered that the Romulans use unique drives rather than warp drives, which means they don’t use dilithium and should be safe from the Burn.
Fans continue to debate whether or not the Romulans rely on dilithium for many reasons, including the fact that TNG didn’t tell us all that much about the unity drive. It is entirely possible that they use dilithium but in different ways; for example, it may be used to contain the singular. And, we know from Star Trek: Nemesis that the Romulans mine dilithium, and while it may be used for other purposes (such as the Klingons using it to power planets), this fact suggests that it is still somehow important to Romulan interstellar travel.
Bringing Back Old Arguments Online
Now, however, the Starfleet Academy episode “Come, Let’s Go” has solved the mystery. In the past, fans were willing to accept (more or less) that the Burn affected the Romulans because they must have somehow been using dilithium in ways the Federation didn’t know about. Therefore, a unity drive can be as vulnerable to Burn as a traditional warp drive.
However, the Federation works with its single drive as an alternative to the warp drive means that this technology would be work in the post-Burn galaxy. That leads us to something puzzling: if individual drives are immune to the Burn, why are the Romulans affected in the first place? But if you drive one not immune to the Burn (and, therefore, still dependent on dilithium), why did the Federation bother researching this technology in the first place?
So far, it doesn’t look like we’ll get any answers anytime soon, and that’s okay: in “Come, Let’s Go,” the unity drive is more of a MacGuffin to keep the plot moving than some new addition to Star Trek lore. Also, it’s arguably the best part of the episode Starfleet Academywhich balances romance, action, and tension to good effect. Given the choice between blowing the whistle on the past or destroying an old myth (like sending almost every Klingon to hell in an off-screen disaster), it’s fair to say that many fans will happily learn to whistle!
