Yes, that’s what I’m referring to. And a least as far as I remember, it does. It’s not obvious and not addressed at all, but instantaneous travel between two points in space (if you don’t take a shorcut through an addtional dimension, e.g. something we could call w if the three space dimension we’re familiar with are x,y,z) is equivalent to time travel. The same is true for FTL travel, which Star Trek solves by warping space time, which also works.
Perhaps the mycelial network is basically an extra space-time dimension, but at least the way I remember it being explained that wasn’t really the case.
But that’s anyway a relatively technical points and Star Trek, as much as I love it, was never really about the technical things.
MudMan@kbin.social 10 months ago
Wait, no they both do. Normal warp does. FTL as a concept does.
Hey, props to them for embracing it immediately and doing time travel nonsense right away.
Stamets@startrek.website 10 months ago
But it doesn’t. That’s the thing. Warp Drive might (but only when utilized in specific fashion, it doesn’t violate causality simply by existing) but the Spore Drive never has. The temporal shenanigans that happened with the Discovery wasn’t caused by the spore drive. It was caused by a time crystal/Red Angel suit.
Causality is things affecting other things. One event happens which triggers another and there is an outcome. That can continue on indefinitely, but causality is the inherent link between cause and effect. At no point does the spore drive in Discovery pre-empt this. There’s no causality paradox or anything similar that happens in Discovery that is caused by that Spore Drive. The closest is when Disco travels forward in time by a couple of months in Season 1. The warp drive only breaks that as well when you start introducing time travel into it, using that warp drive to specifically cause temporal fuckery.
MudMan@kbin.social 10 months ago
Don't make me break out the spacetime diagram, young man. Because I WILL break out the spacetime diagram.
Anyway, doesn't matter. Star Trek has messed with time travel since TOS season 1. And that was after they started introducing magic men with god powers, which they did in episode 3. It makes zero sense to get nerdy about it. That's my point here.
Stamets@startrek.website 10 months ago
Break it out. I have no issue admitting when I’m wrong. I just genuinely do not see what y’all are talking about in saying that faster than live travel, simply by existing, manages to violate the order of cause and effect.
MrPoopyButthole@lemmy.world 10 months ago
I think MudMan is correctly pointing out that to travel any slower than light speed through space causes time dilation since space is actually space-time.
There is a trade-off between how fast you travel proportional to the speed of light and how much time a stationary observer percieves to have passed compared to you who is travelling.
When you travel faster than the speed of light, all time and causality breaks down. This is not the case with how the writers of Star Trek wrote warp drive mechanics, this is our best understanding of the actual universe. Einsteins theory of relativity.
Fun fact: Light itself (or its quantized unit: the photon) travels at the speed of light and therefore experiences no time. If a photon is emitted from a star across the universe and travels millions of light years before eventually being absorbed by your eye, from our stationary reference point, the light has been travelling for millions of years, but for the photon it was instantaneous. Zero time passed for the photon. This is the idea of time dilation.
Stamets@startrek.website 10 months ago
I’m not awake enough yet to comprehend this but will respond soon. Sorry!
MrPoopyButthole@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Hey now, that’s way too much actual science theory for a sci-fi franchise 😁