Season 3 of Star Trek: Discovery ended on 07Jan2021, and there were a number of loose ends that left me with questions. I have been rewatching season 3 and taking notes so that I can share with you the questions that I have. Hopefully these questions will have answers in season 4.

This is part one, covering points that came up during episodes 1-5.

Space:

In “That Hope Is You, Part 1” (3x01), Book mentions a natural wormhole. I am wondering what natural wormhole, as there aren’t any in the Alpha or Beta quadrants that we know about. At least, there are no wormholes that we know about, especially since Arridor and Kol destabilized the Barzan Wormhole. On a similar note, how did the Gorn destabilize 21 lightyears of subspace? Did they use the Omega Molecule? The Burn certainly set off a chain reaction of interesting consequences.

Resources:

What happened to the tritanium supplies? Is it still around and is just unused, or has all the tritanium run out? Book said, “Your rocket girl outfit scanned for tritanium alloy. Hasn't been anything like that in years.” Perhaps they use neutronium instead? In “Die Trying” (3x05), Nilsson’s scans at Federation Headquarters indicated that some of the ships are made of neutronium-alloy fibers. If it’s unused because of the use of neutronium, that makes sense. If it’s running out like dilithium, then how did it become so scarce?

Speaking of rare elements, how limited are benamite supplies? In “Timeless” (VOY 5x06), they don’t discuss how rare it is - just that it’s difficult to synthesize and that it takes a long time to do so. And is trilithium too unstable to use? Or is there just not enough dilithium and paralithium to make it? Do Romulan ships and Hirogen stations use dilithium? Instead of antimatter or fusion, they use artificial quantum singularities as a power source - does that need to be controlled with dilithium similar to how matter/antimatter reactions are controlled?

How was the galaxy starting to run out of dilithium, anyway? Especially since the Federation started recrystallizing their used dilithium. And has science really been unable to figure out how to grow more dilithium? I really want answers to all of these questions. Note: I’m intentionally not asking about lithium, as that was intentionally changed to dilithium in the 60s.

And why is United Earth hoarding dilithium? Solar and fusion are plenty to power in-system ships. It’s not like Earth ships were going anywhere.

Politics & Interpersonal Relationships:

Why are the Andorians and Orions working together? Why the Emerald Chain? And who at The Mercantile told the guards to let Burnam in?

In “Far From Home” (3x02), Saru kept calling Georgiou “commander” when she was a captain in season 2. What is up with that? Also, is Reno now the chief engineer? They never discuss who the ChEng is. Or who the rest of the senior staff is, for that matter (bridge crew doesn’t necessarily mean senior officers).

With the crew changes, will we get a ship’s counselor? Especially with the trauma that the entire crew has been dealing with, and the PTSD symptoms that Detmer has been experiencing, Discovery could use a licensed therapist. Also, I hope that Nhan comes back (plus, I want to know her first name).

Something that I’m curious about, but isn’t an actual plotline that I need picked up or anything - in “Forget Me Not” (3x04), Tilly’s haiku references vomiting on a Tellarite ambassador (it was an actual diplomatic crisis). Was that a reference to when George H. W. Bush vomited on Kiichi Miyazaw?

Ships & Technology:

As for technology, how do the portable transporters know where to transport people? How do they prevent telefragging? Why are they still using the spore drive all willy-nilly? It was established that using it damaged the mycelial network - they have to keep the jahSepp safe as well. And will we see May Ahearn again?

What happened to the generation ship that Adira and Gray were living on? It was severely damaged, yes - but was it eventually repaired? Where is it now? And speaking of ships, as there’s a Voyager-J, is there another ship named Enterprise?

Final Thoughts:

Another thing that isn’t something that I need picked up but I still want to question is why Burnam thought that it was odd for the same melody to be on different worlds. After all, The Burn only happened 120 years earlier, and before that the Federation was well-connected. Why wouldn’t a song that’s perhaps 200 years old still be part of the cultural zeitgeist? We still listen to and adapt songs from even longer ago than that - if we lost all communications with the rest of the world tomorrow, we’d still have the music that was already imported and shared over and again.

With all that being said, I really enjoyed season 3 overall. I also have high hopes for season 4. The first episode is scheduled to premiere on November 18th, 2021!

Please comment with your thoughts - did you have the same questions that you want answered? Do you have other things that you want to see? Feel free to comment and discuss!

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