#spore drive

[lifebloodblue]

Given how crazy some mushrooms are irl I wouldn’t be surprised if there really was a galaxy-wide mycelial dimension like in Star Trek

[leaky-port-nacelle]

Tarka: *is one of the chief scientists making a next gen spore drive*

Tarka: *successfully steals that spore drive*

Tarka: I just want to go to this one specific parallel universe where my friend is, and I have the coordinates, but I need more power than god to get there so I’m willing to essentially doom Earth and Ni’Var to destruction to get there

The crew of Discovery, knowing damn well that a spore drive can simply travel between universes on its own in less than a minute and be home for tea as long as it has the right coordinates: what a shame we have no alternative way for you to get there to convince you not to do this. Real shame.

[queerlybelovdd]

Star Trek: Discovery's Spore Drive, Explained

The spore drive was one of the most sophisticated pieces of technology introduced in Star Trek, but it was also a magnet for major galactic

[elimgarakdemocrat]

Love that the Discovery's spore drive is officially called "displacement-activated spore hub drive" in a clear backronym from DASH drive, but literally nobody has ever called it a DASH drive on the show

The guy who came up with the name must be furious

[cipher-fresh]

paul stamets deserves some spore drive mushroom body horror, as a treat. mushrooms should've started growing out of his arms every time they jump and he has to rub them off after exiting the spore cube

[chillychive]

New Paul Stamets headcanon that I'm obsessed with.

Remember how the tardigrade used spores to regenerate?

They have the same effect on Paul, healing him, ect.

This sounds good, except...

Paul uses this to spend days in the lab, working straight without breaks, because he simply gets sucked into his work and the spores keep him from feeling any effects of lack of sleep/food.

Hugh is beyond pissed when he realizes what Paul is doing... but... it does work.

[ryry-inspace]

Star Trek - discovery

Paul and the mycelium network.

[sadmushroomgoblin]

the symbolism surrounding the spore drive

Featuring: Jesus imagery, prop design, editing analysis, and too much analysis of body language 

The Spore Drive in Star Trek Discovery is very closely tied with Stamets’ two main arcs. The first being his arc about loss and family, the second being his arc about control. 

I’m mainly going to focus on the times when Stamets is the interface but will begin by touching upon before his tardigrade DNA experiment.

In the beginning of S1 and in the prequel Comic, the spore drive is representative of Stamets losing control of his research, yes it’s his project but it’s co-opted by Starfleet and then Lorca also uses the drive and spores without Stamets’ permission or even presence. He gets his nose broken due to a spore drive malfunction and also loses Straal, his best friend, to the spore drive. It’s the main source of tension between Stamets and Lorca and is the cause of most of the conflict in Stamets’ scenes during early s1. Then when they start using the tardigrade, that first jump keeps it relatively clean and not focussed on the tardigrade. It makes it a victory, but as the jumps progress, we see more and more of the brutality of the drive and the damage it does to the creature until the cryptobiosis. We see how dangerous and damaging it is to interface with the drive.

Then, 1.05 happens and the first we know of Stamets’ choice is when they arrive in Engineering to find him passed out in the spore cube. They deliberately did not show the process, partially for shock value but also the injuries on Stamets in that scene are not bleeding nearly as much as they should be. Again, it is clean and sanitised. We never see Stamets actually be “stabbed be needles” as he says to Lorca before his augments. Also, when Stamets says that, no one reacts to the fact that he is literally being impaled every single time they jump and they jump several times before the augments. We are encouraged not to care so much about Stamets’ wellbeing with the drive because it is never shown on screen apart from in those personality change scenes. He is shown almost to be disposable in Lorca’s eyes as Lorca keeps ordering jumps. 

We see in Michael’s nightmare sequence the pain t would cause a human but it’s with Michael in the drive. She is the protagonist so we are encouraged to sympathise with her but we don’t see the pain it causes Stamets.

Then we get the augments which make the connection “more comfortable” and in 1.08, we see for the first time what Stamets connecting to the dive with the augments really looks like.

Blame my Christian school upbringing but doesn’t that look kinda… Jesus crucifix-like. Comparing that to later shots I will talk about further down, this is very much a surrender rather than anything with agency or character power. His little “I’m ready” rather than anything more assertive or positive shows his passive position in this situation. Yes he is the navigator but he has no say in this. It is something happening to him rather than him doing something. It is worth noting that we never see the jumps from Stamets’ point of view until he’s piloting out of the terran universe and that’s through his connection to Hugh. 

It’s shown to be hurting him with him stumbling out of the spore cube, the degradation of his white matter, the side effects. It drives a wedge between him and Hugh and causes him to lash out at Tilly. Despite the side effects and then Dr. Culber’s report, Lorca manipulated Stamets into doing 133 jumps even when he is very clear he doesn’t want to do it. We get lots of close up shots of Stamets’ distress during those jumps, especially close ups of the eyes. We have Culber desperately telling Lorca to call it off and Lorca refuses, telling Culber to “keep him alive until he finishes the jumps”, again showing how Lorca sees Stamets only as part of the machinery instead of a person. We don’t even see the aftermath of those 133 jumps, it’s assumed it’s all fine. 

Then we get that jump where Lorca manipulates Paul into doing “one last jump” which Lorca sabotages to get him to the Terran universe. I’m not going to recap everything that ensues because of this but I will point out one particular shot. 

He isn’t even the focus of most of the shots talking about his condition. It sets him as part of the scenery, part of the problem, rather than a character with agency. Of course we do get those heart wrenching scenes inside the Network with Hugh and Paul but all these scenes with him attached to the drive are still very much framed the same. 

I’ll skip ahead to season 2 to save time but throughout the rest of s1 and early s2, Stamets’ posture in the drive is the same crucifix-like surrender. 

In s2, with the spore drive shut down, Stamets is about to leave Starfleet when Pike’s mission requires the drive back up and running. Throughout the beginning of s2, he is weary and in Obal for Charon, when Pike says they may need to jump away, he tiredly says “we’ll couple the shunts to me.” It’s a very resigned and odd phrasing that once again places him in the position of a component rather than a person. 

The first time we see Stamets in a position other than the “Jesus pose” is in Saints of Imperfection (possibly the greatest Star Trek episode every, fight me).

Immediately the posture change is evident. He’s standing up and in control. This is the scene where he’s about to rescue Tilly and has chosen specifically to do this jump. This is really the first time we see Stamets engaging with the drive on his own terms. He looks determined and ready rather than surrendering to this process. I actually love this scene (and the whole episode, but this scene especially) as it finally given Stamets wonderful and much needed agency over his own creation and how his body is used. 

Then I’ll move to s3 where Stamets once more has conflict around the spore drive only this time it is about him feeling disposable and superfluous without his special status as the navigator. His conflict with Detmer is because they both have that trauma about their guilt, self flagellation and feeling replaceable.

However, my main point comes when Adira redesigns the spore drive. It’s this beautiful scene between Adira and Stamets and a real bonding moment between the two. Adira knows that it’s like to have their autonomy stripped away (cough cough Trill deciding what’s best for them) and they work their best to make sure Stamets has a better interface to the drive and can remove the augments that, while necessary at the time, both Stamets and Culber “hated”. Without those augments, Stamets has control of his own body again. I love the poetry of Culber making the augments to make sure Stamets didn’t have to be impaled by the needles, and then Adira redesigning the spore drive so he doesn’t even need the augments in this first place. 

He smiles at Adira and thanks them. It’s this beautiful moment of them bonding and someone doing something for Stamets to make his life easier. 

See how much more comfortable that looks and how much more in control he looks. He has a conscious choice to place his hands in the goo and the position is more pilot-like rather than component part-like.

We get the adorable scene in the quarters between Stamets and Culber where they talk about their relief. We never see Stamets complaining about his interfaces much before, save for saying they’re a little “itchy” but once they’re gone, he celebrates this and Culber says “he hated them more” which makes sense given what they represent.

In 3.07, we see him smiling while engaging and there’s triumphant music and a sense of ease and satisfaction. It feels safer and more powerful. We see his face, his hands and a wider show of him but it’s not focussed on the drive itself, it’s focussed on Stamets and his reaction. It’s this underrated joyous moment of him finally having autonomy. 

Unfortunately, that autonomy is then stripped away in Su’Kal when he is forced into the neural lock and made to stay in the network and jump for Osyraa while his partner and kid are dying on a dilithium planet. In s3 we’ve begun seeing Stamets’ spore jumps with shots focussed on him and the angles making him the focus and in control. However, when he’s in the neural lock, it’s show wide and from above, making him once again small and part of the machine without autonomy. 

Aurellio even looks at Stamets as part of the drive, talking about “the golden age of technology” when talking about Stamets connected to the drive. 

He’s also then shackled to the stairs in another Jesus-like pose before being freed only to be nerve-pinched, restrained, and shot out an airlock. He’s physically manhandled a lot through these final three episodes of s3 and it’s kinda heartbreaking given how so much of his arc has been about loss and control over his work and his own body. 

Then of course we have Book. Book doesn’t have to endure any of the trauma around engaging with the drive (he has other trauma, don’t worry). The first time he engages, he is in control and has a powerful pose. Book has the power here and Book is the one who ends up saving Paul’s family. 

Of course this then leads to the slight tension between Book and Stamets in s4 and then them bonding over it. It is worth noting that the first thing Paul tries to engage with Book over with the drive is the discomfort. The drive once again represents his loss of power and autonomy.

In s4 they have the drive replicated and there’s not much more in terms of symbolism for Stamets and his relationship to the drive. Given that Book was with Tarka for most of the season, there wasn’t every really conflict about who got to drive, so to speak outside of their one scene in Book’s ship (a great scene. I love how relatable awkward Stamets is). It’s worth noting that after the events of s3, we pretty much don't see Stamets interfacing a lot with the drive. We do see Stamets delegate to book in Stormy Weather and then he takes damage from the void and the drive which makes his trauma and hallucinations worse. I understand that they didn’t want to just replay Stamets’ s1 arc with spore drive brain damage but I would have liked to have seen more of Stamets’ relationship to the drive evolving. I like how we did get to see Stamets rushing to Book after Book stumbles and hallucinates in the spore cube though. I thought that was a nice touch of Stamets knowing stuff goes wrong with the drive and Stamets going with Book to sickbay.

I hope in s5 we get to see him reclaiming his autonomy around it a little more though.  The spore drive not only represents Stamets’ genius but also his arc of loss and sacrifice. While the Jesus imagery may be accidental, it’s also quite powerful in showing the fact that he is a character that continually sacrifices and loses the people he loves. He is “dedicated to life” and the whole bringing Culber back arc is not only reminiscent of Orpheus and Eurydice but also had Lazarus overtones. His work traverses life and death and he always ends up navigating both via the spore drive.

It is telling that in the finale of s4, Stamets has to overload and destroy the spore drive to save everyone, once again, he has to sacrifice. Stamets loses the drive but then has time with his family and that also shows how he’s grown over the show, choosing his family over his work.

The spore drive is a wonderful narrative and character device and the way it ties into Stamets’ arc is simultaneously frustrating and brilliant. I just hope that s5 has him working with Adira/Jett/Hugh etc. to rebuild the drive and reclaim his autonomy and power through it.