Voyager S5 E26 Equinox
this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2023
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Come on'n get your jamaharon on! There are no real rules—just don't break the weather control network.
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Starship running on mushrooms? Yeah, why not
The mushrooms are some omnipresent thing connecting all space and time together and giving some special super powers somehow? The force stolen you have. Integration of science fantasy into science fiction unasked for was.
Counterpoint:
Q
Countercounterpoint:
The Q know about the mycelial network, likely because they created it for their own purposes. That's how they can seem to transport anywhere in the universe. Quinn essentially admitted as much when he said that their "magic" is simply very advanced technology. A mycelial network permeating subspace would be right up their alley.
Q to Stamets: "Who do you think put mushrooms on your planet?"
Complete and utter nonsense that is an outright fabrication. What you're describing does not exist in Discovery. You're collapsing 3-4 different things into one while misunderstanding every single one of them.
~~No they're not. Nothing in Discovery is omnipresent. The closest thing is Carl which that can be argued.~~
I misread this as omniscient. The Network is slightly omnipresent but it's not sentient and makes no decision. It's merely a root system/highway. It also doesn't exist in ALL places. It only exists where life exists. The network does not have root structures in intergalactic space, as an example.
That's accurate. The Mycelial Network (the fungal root structure that permeates an extra layer of space, similar to subspace and transwarp) does connect all of time and space.
No one has super special powers. The closest is Stamets but that's because of genetic engineering. DNA from a unique species of tardigrade was taken and incorporated into Stamets' own DNA. Now he has the ability to see time a little differently due to that DNA and he has the ability to navigate the Mycelial Network. End of 'special super powers'.
From what I can tell, you took the Mycelial Network, the Tardigrade, Stamets Ability, and the jahSepp (which are a sentient race of fungus that live within the mycelial network and breakdown organic material the same way that fungus does on Earth) and then collapsed them into all one giant mess.
That's not the force and it's nowhere even close to it.
I'm sorry my guy but Stamets literally has a throwaway line in S1 saying that if the mycelial network is destroyed it will "kill all life in the multiverse"
It doesn't just connect space and time it connects different universes. Why do you think Lorca was so interested in Discovery, it was the tech that was able to get him back to his original universe.
There's nothing to be sorry for as the only thing of mine that you're negating is the 'omnipresent' thing and that's only because I misread it as omniscient. Even then you're not negating it fully as Season 4 specifically shows that the mycelial network doesn't exist outside of the galactic boundaries. It only exists where life exists.
Everything else stands.
Love ya Stamets, you big shroomhead
Mushrooms are cool. They defy reality here on earth. Makes sense they'd do it in space.
So what I’m getting from your post is that everything they said is accurate
That's a you problem, not a reality problem.
Seems more like a you problem tbh
Yawn. Low effort troll is low effort.
Blocked. Got better things to do than acknowledge your existence.
Ok guy who says something exists everywhere and isn’t omnipresent, and that there’s no superpowers except for the one guy with superpowers
Don't mind Stamets, he doesn't like people talking badly about Discovery
I think he'll be doing a lot of not liking. That said, it's nice he sees something in it.
I’m not sure how I even did that?
I'm confused how something could connect all of time and space together without being omnipresent. It seems to me that the network is omnipresent by definition, because it exists everywhere.
I misread it as omniscient. My bad there.
The root system isn't omnipresent though. It only exists where life exists. The root system doesn't permeate in regions of dead space or intergalactic space. If there's nothing for life to grow on then the network doesn't exist there.
That's true, it spans the entire multiverse but only within one galaxy. It's odd, but it's cool that the network is so deeply tied to the Milky Way, just in every reality.
It makes me wonder what the network is actually feeding off of. Life? Some sort of nebulous "energy"?
Not something that they need to (or should) answer, but it's just so cool to think about the mystery of it. I love fungi, and I love the mycelial network as this truly cosmic-scale organism living in subspace, holding the multiverse together. It's beautiful.
The network doesn't seem to feed off of anything but is instead symbiotic in a way, the way that mushrooms are on earth. They're just a part of the life/death/rebirth cycle.
They've never conclusively stated that the network only works in milky way though. Intergalactic space was a no go but they've never tried jumping to another galaxy yet. Be crazy if they did in season 5...
Well, the question still remains of "symbiotizing what"? Fungi on earth range from saprophages, which decompose dead matter into nutrients, to mycorrhizae, which form symbiotic relationships with plants which produce nutrients. In either case, they're feeding off of things, it's just the source that varies. All living things need to gain energy somehow.
The mycelial network is spooky and probably feeds off something more abstract, since sci-fi and all that. That said, maybe it's in some sort of symbiotic relationship with the multiverse itself? There's so much energy in a galaxy, let alone a multiverse worth of galaxies, that it's not hard to imagine a fungal network feeding off just a tiny fraction of that energy. And interstellar space has relatively low energy, so it makes sense the network wouldn't build hyphae there.
You're right that they never said it only works in the Milky Way, I had just assumed that since it peters out at the border of the galaxy that it ends there. And if it resumes in another galaxy, it seems like it would be discontinuous and thus a separate organism. But I suppose if you imagine it as a wholly separate subspace realm, with hyphae that connect out wherever there is sufficient "energy" of whatever sort it feeds off of, it makes sense. And jumping to another galaxy could be a cool twist indeed!
~~I would give anything to be an astromycologist~~
Life as a whole or the multiverse itself as you mentioned. The show made that pretty clear in saying that wherever the network goes, life goes, and if the network dies then life itself dies.
Well, in Season 1 we saw a bunch of the calculations and analyzing that was done of the network while they were jumping. The hyphae do seem to connect in a non-linear fashion if they're able to connect with an alternate dimension. Lorca also did point out that the calculations were showing multiple universes. So I wouldn't be surprised if it just sort of... bypasses intergalactic space somehow by folding in a way that's not intuitive to us.
Also nah, don't need to strike that out buddy. I'd give anything to be one too <3
Like I tell my kid who is constantly asking "how" whenever we watch Star Trek^1, it's best not to think too hard about all that lol. I mean, I don't love the Tuvix episode for the science...
1 Somehow this never happens when watching anime 🤔
Which is kind of weird given that DNA is carbon, hydrogen, etc, moving and forming bonds based on physics. It's why folding at home can simulate proteins.
So anything DNA does can be simulated on a computer.
But it couldn't. The network requires a living link. Computers were used for the first couple episodes and they were beyong unreliable.
"Living" is a chemical process. Since Stamets was able to transfer the DNA into himself, he had identified the segments that coded the particular proteins.
Proteins that could not be adequately replicated by a computer while also being accepted by the network. Again. Literally in the first few episodes.
A computer simply couldn't properly interface with the network.
Yeah, but that requires a strange alternate future where computers are simultaneously both faster than today's computers and also not any faster.
And yes the simulation needs a compatible physical interface.
I'm not sure why you're ignoring what I'm saying.
The speed of the computers is irrelevant. The network required a living organic link. Simulations, while being fast enough, were rejected by the network.
Simulations did not work. I have no idea why you're so hung up on this when they did it and it failed repeatedly.
And you are ignoring my first post that said it's just atoms moving and bonding. "Living" is only a chemical process. I believe it was Robert Hook who when looking at a living cell under the first microscope powerful enough, commented on his disappointment that "cells were just machinery"
Yes their simulation failed because somehow there computers aren't any faster than today's computers.
The writers knew it didn't make any sense which is why they lampshaded it-
Stamets: "At the quantum level, there is no difference between biology and physics. No difference at all."
No. I'm not ignoring anything. Your points don't make sense. You keep saying "but simulations could do it" despite the show emphatically saying that the simulations kept repeatedly failing. Whether or not cells are machinery is irrelevant. The network required a living construct to engage with. You can keep trying to use real science on that all you want but the Mycelial Network doesn't exist. You don't get to try and force technological limitations on it as we understand them TODAY when the tech is hundreds of years in the future and based on something completely different.
I'm not engaging with this conversation any further. You're arguing in bad faith and i'm not interested. Goodbye.
Which I already said is odd because it means their computers aren't any faster than today's computers. If Disco was set in 2025, I could understand why they couldn't simulate protein folding with enough accuracy. But this is set in the future where they can record every atom with such perfection (Heisenberg compensator) that every atom in a person's DNA is routinely read, transported across thousands of miles and reconstructed perfectly.
You’re arguing in bad faith I had already addressed every point that you repeated. The only one ignoring what I wrote is you.
Don't take Trek so seriously. It's just a show. It's ok to point out holes.