Star Trek: Discovery
Summary
It ’s reliable : Commander Paul Stamets ( Anthony Rapp ) , the discoverer of the spore drive onStar Trek : Discovery , has tardigrade DNA . Discovery ’s displacement - activate spore hub drive is a classified actuation system unique toStar Trek : Discovery , and analternative to the warping drivethat ’s usually see onStar Trek ’s starships . Rather than warp space - meter to move quicker than sluttish , the spore drive actively displaces the USS Discovery from normal infinite into another plane of existence , the mycelial sheet . During a jump , or"black alert " , Discovery travels along the mycelial connection , an interconnected body structure that branches through distance - clip organically .
Spore drives were installed on two Crossfield - class starship in the 23rd 100 , with Stamets assigned to the USS Discovery and Stamets ' inquiry partner , Straal ( Saad Siddiqui ) , attribute to the USS Glenn . Discovery operated its spore drive with domesticate spores , but was only capable of short jumps , whereas the USS Glenn could make much longer jumps . A disaster aboard the Glenn inStar Trek : Discoveryseason 1 , episode 3 , " Context is for Kings " , prove thata failure to navigate with complete precision through the mycelial connection could leave in distance - prison term twisting through organic matter , causing fatal"helical trauma . “The only subsister was a immense tardigrade , which attacked Discovery ’s away squad , and was brought aboard the USS Discovery .
Broadway veteran Anthony Rapp represent astromycologist Paul Stamets , one of Star Trek ’s first LGBTQ+ main characters , on Star Trek : Discovery .
Why Commander Paul Stamets Has Tardigrade DNA In Star Trek: Discovery
It’s better than making the tardigrade be Discovery’s navigator.
Commander Paul Stamets ' tardigrade DNA is crucial to navigate the mycelial connection that the USS Discovery ’s spore cause habit to jump through blank . Star Trek : Discoveryseason 1 ’s Captain Gabriel Lorca ( Jason Isaacs ) appreciated the savage nature of the raging tardigrade , nicknamed " Ripper " , and demand that Specialist Michael Burnham ( Sonequa Martin - Green ) make Ripper into a artillery . Burnham ’s workaround to Lorca ’s request was working with Stamets to find thatRipper the tardigradehad a symbiotic family relationship with the spores , and could severally sail the mycelial meshing to make longer bound , like the USS Glenn had done . However , the jumps were terrible for Ripper , who could n’t consent to being used as a pecker .
Tardigrade DNA gave Stamets the power to co - subsist with the mycelial meshwork itself .
Paul Stamets ' answer was to combine Ripper ’s tardigrade deoxyribonucleic acid into his own , soStamets could navigate the mycelial meshwork straight , alternatively of subject Ripper to a lifetime of pain as the spore drive ’s unwilling navigator . Tardigrade DNA gave Stamets the ability to co - be with the mycelial web itself , a aspiration come on-key forStar Trek : Discovery ’s astromycologist , but it make out at a high cost . The bother that Ripper felt was neurological harm that Paul also sustained when navigating the mycelial connection . Although Stamets took the painful sensation on willingly , reprise picture to foresighted jumps along the web pushed Stamets ' mind to the limits , and warped Stamets ' perception of reality .
Genetic engineering science was criminalize by the United Federation of Planets followingStar Trek ’s Eugenics Wars , but the USS Discovery ’s spore movement was one of Starfleet ’s only advantages in the Klingon War , so the Federation gave Stamets a wartime pass for tampering with his own DNA .
Why Commander Stamets’ Tardigrade DNA Lets Him Live Outside Of Time
Reality is all gooey in the mycelial network.
Star Trek : Discovery ’s Commander Paul Stametsis no longer bound by the constraint of metre , thanks to the tardigrade DNA that let Stamets navigate the USS Discovery through the mycelial meshing , which exists outside normal space - time . Because Stamets ' tardigrade DNA biologically link up Stamets to the mycelial net , Stamets ' own perception of prison term and space is more line up with the quantum nature of the mycelial sheet . Paul Stamets is mindful when something is n’t correct with time ; when Discovery is take in in a clip grommet inStar Trek : Discoveryseason 1 , episode 7 , " thaumaturgy to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad " , Stamets is the only mortal who can break it .
Stamets ' power to exist outside of sentence made him crucial to solvingStar Trek : Discoveryseason 5 , installment 4 , " confront the Strange ’s " metre loop .
Commander Stamets ' connection to the mycelial internet can go even further , spay Stamets ' relationship with space - fourth dimension . When repeated jumps push the USS Discovery nearer toStar Trek ’s Mirror Universe , Stamets obnubilate the two timeline and becomes entangled with Mirror Stamets ' memories . Stamets ' memory of his husband , Dr. Hugh Culber ( Wilson Cruz ) , subsist physically within the mycelial web after Culber’sDiscoveryseason 1 death , allow Paul to uprise Hugh inStar Trek : Discoveryseason 2 . Once just a navigational necessity onStar Trek : Discovery , Commander Paul Stamets ' tardigrade DNA makes Stamets naturally cognisant of the flow of time and space , and able-bodied to spot abnormalcy within it .
Star Trek : Discovery is streaming on Paramount+ .
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