Voyager S5 E26 Equinox
this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2023
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Risa
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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?"
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.
Love ya Stamets, you big shroomhead
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.
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.
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~~
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.
"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.
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.
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."
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.