What Is A Pathway Drive? – TheShockNews

On this planet of “Star Trek,” entry to warp drive expertise is so central to area journey and the United Federation of Planets’ core mission that the event of a warp drive is the cultural milestone the Federation makes use of to find out whether or not species are prepared for first contact. Federation warp expertise depends upon dilithium crystals — a finite useful resource used to manage the antimatter and matter reactors that energy a ship’s warp drive. Someday throughout the thirty second century, the pathway drive is developed to assist scale back the Federation’s dependence on dilithium within the wake of the Burn, the cataclysmic simultaneous explosion of each warp core within the galaxy when each dilithium crystal all of a sudden went inert.

Whereas updating Discovery captain Michael Burnam (Sonequa Martin-Inexperienced) within the “Star Trek: Discovery” episode “Kobayashi Maru,” Federation President Laira Rillak (Chelah Horsdal) tells the Starfleet officer that the pathway drive is simply one of many prototypical applied sciences the Federation is pursuing alongside a “next-generation spore drive.” Rillak emphasizes, “There are nonetheless fairly just a few hurdles to beat, however different applied sciences, just like the pathway drive prototype, have been transferring ahead properly. Plans are to put in it in Voyager for testing, and I’m evaluating my shortlist for the captaincy.” However regardless of this teaser, little info is given about how the expertise works at first, leaving it one of many greatest unanswered questions from “Star Trek: Discovery” Season 4.

Though “Star Trek” by no means provides a breakdown of the science behind the drive, Season 5 does allow us to see the brand new expertise in motion, together with just a few hints at the way it would possibly work. As demonstrated in “Lagrange Level,” the pathway drive will be put in even on smaller vessels just like the shuttlecraft UFP-99. It may also be used alongside warp expertise, with ships simply transitioning between the 2 drives.

Except for Nhan (Rachael Ancheril) mentioning that the pathway drive must be calibrated earlier than use in “Life, Itself” and the truth that it doesn’t require dilithium to run the brand new FTL propulsion system, only a few particulars concerning the expertise’s workings are given in “Star Trek: Discovery.” However even when “Discovery” did little to elucidate the nuts and bolts behind the pathway drive, there’s nonetheless time for the franchise to elucidate the brand new tech. Like “Discovery,” Paramount’s “Star Trek: Starfleet Academy” will probably be set within the thirty second century, which implies there will probably be loads of future alternatives to work out the small print and break them down for Starfleet cadets.

As one Redditor posited, the expertise might even be linked to a long-abandoned program mentioned within the Season 3 episode “Unification III.” The expertise comes up as Admiral Vance (Oded Fehr) is filling Burnham and Saru (Doug Jones) in on a number of the particulars they missed out on by leaping almost a millennium ahead in Federation historical past. Vance tells Burnham that even earlier than the Burn, the Federation had confronted a dilithium scarcity and requested its member planets to develop a greater propulsion system.

Ni’Var — the race as soon as often called the Vulcans — developed SB-19, which labored equally to the spore drive and proved to be probably the most promising different program, but it surely shortly drew issues over whether or not it was secure. The Federation refused to let Ni’Var shutter this system, and so, believing their expertise might have brought on the Burn, Ni’Var left the Federation, taking their tech with them. For the reason that Burn in the end had one other trigger, it’s doable this system was finally reopened and could also be linked to the pathway drive.