By Chris Snellgrove
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The newest episode of Starfleet Academy (“Come, Let’s Away”) was a wonderful return to type for the franchise, giving us a cool plot that revolved round our cadets managing to restart an previous Starfleet vessel, the USS Myazaki. The vessel is now derelict as a result of it was utilizing an experimental new type of propulsion generally known as a singularity drive, which brought on a collection of cascading malfunctions. Nonetheless, the episode didn’t actually handle how this know-how was completely different from the standard warp drive, and this reignited a traditional query throughout the fandom: why have been the Romulans affected by the occasions of the Burn?
This all goes again to Star Trek: The Subsequent Erathe place episodes like “Face of the Enemy” revealed that the Romulans energy their starships with a quantum singularity drive. Principally, as an alternative of a standard warp drive, they use an artificially-made black gap to journey the galaxy at faster-than-light speeds. As cool as that’s, TNG by no means actually elaborated on how this was purported to work, and followers usually forgot about this till the third season of Star Trek: Discovery.
When Good Tech Goes Dangerous
After the Discovery traveled to the thirty second century, they discovered that the Federation was a decimated model of its former self. The principle purpose for this was the Burn, an occasion wherein dilithium all through the galaxy went immediately inert. Lively dilithium retains matter and antimatter from colliding in starships (amongst different issues), so as soon as it went inert, numerous starships exploded as a result of instantaneous warp core breaches.
Even earlier than the Burn, dilithium was turning into scarce, so the Federation started experimenting with different types of propulsion. One such various was the Pathway drive, which ultimately turned a regular various to each warp drive and Discovery’s spore drive. The Starfleet Academy episode “Come, Let’s Away” launched the truth that the Federation was working by itself singularity drive, which reignited a query Discovery followers have been asking for years: why have been the Romulans affected by the Burn within the first place?
What Did The Romulans Know?
Discovery gave a type of glad ending to the Romulans, exhibiting that they lastly reunified with the Vulcans (Spock’s mission is lastly achieved!) after many millennia. However the present additionally made it clear that the Romulans have been simply as affected by the Burn because the Federation and (as we came upon later) the Klingon Empire. This understandably confused followers as a result of The Subsequent Era established that Romulans use singularity drives quite than warp drives, which suggests that they don’t use dilithium and may due to this fact have been protected from the Burn.
Followers proceed to debate whether or not the Romulans depend on dilithium or not for a lot of causes, together with the truth that TNG didn’t inform us all that a lot in regards to the singularity drive. It’s solely doable they use dilithium however in several methods; for instance, it could be used to include the singularity. Plus, we all know from Star Trek: Nemesis that Romulans mine dilithium, and whereas they might merely be utilizing it for different functions (just like the Klingons utilizing it to energy planets), this truth implies it’s nonetheless someway vital to Romulan interstellar journey.
Bringing Outdated Controversies Again On-line
Now, although, the Starfleet Academy episode “Come, Let’s Away” has reignited this thriller. Beforehand, followers have been keen to simply accept (kind of) that the Burn affected the Romulans as a result of they will need to have someway used dilithium in methods the Federation didn’t learn about. Due to this fact, the singularity drive could be simply as susceptible to the Burn as a standard warp drive.
Nonetheless, the Federation engaged on their very own singularity drive as a warp drive various implies that this know-how would work in a post-Burn galaxy. That leads us to one thing of a lore paradox: if singularity drives are proof against the Burn, why have been the Romulans affected within the first place? But when singularity drives are not proof against the Burn (and, due to this fact, nonetheless depend on dilithium), why is the Federation bothering to analysis this know-how within the first place?
To this point, it doesn’t appear like we’ll get solutions anytime quickly, and that’s fantastic: in “Come, Let’s Away,” the singularity drive is extra of a MacGuffin to maintain the plot transferring than some main new addition to Star Trek lore. Plus, it’s a part of arguably one of the best episode of Starfleet Academyone which balances romance, motion, and stress to nice impact. Given the selection between whistling previous previous lore or destroying previous lore (like sending virtually each Klingon to hell in an offscreen disaster), it’s truthful to say that almost all followers will fortunately study to whistle!