Entertainment
Star Trek Just Ruined Its Best Alien Race, And The Explanation Makes No Sense
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
The fourth episode of Starfleet Academy, “Vox In Excelsio,” made some huge changes to the most famous alien race in all of Star Trek: The Klingons. The biggest change (and beware some spoilers the size of a warp core, this is your only warning!) is that the Klingon homeworld of Qu’onos has been completely destroyed because the Burn (introduced back in Discovery, Season 3) caused all of the planet’s dilithium reactors to explode. However, based on everything we know about dilithium from over 60 years of franchise history, this should have been completely impossible!
First, some context: since the days of Star Trek: The Original Series, we’ve seen starships traveling the galaxy thanks to the dilithium crystals that power their warp cores. After the crew of the USS Discovery jumped to the 32nd century, they discovered that both interstellar travel and the Federation had been devastated by an event called the Burn. The Burn caused dilithium throughout the galaxy to go inert, and this caused countless starships to explode because these crystals regulate the matter/antimatter reaction necessary to achieve warp speed.
Avoiding The Mistakes Of The Future, Today
Once the crystals went inert, the matter and antimatter collided in any ship with an active warp drive. This instantly caused the last thing any Starfleet captain wants to deal with: a warp core breach. Because of this, the Federation is still rebuilding by the end of Star Trek: Discovery, and Starfleet Academy is all about training the next generation of cadets who will make the galaxy a safer place as various planets and space empires continue recovering.
That brings us to the most recent episode of Starfleet Academy, “Vox Excelsius,” in which a reporter casually mentions that the Klingon homeworld of Qo’noS has previously been destroyed by the Burn. How did this work, mechanically speaking? The only explanation we get (aside from a dismissed conspiracy theory that “they blew it up themselves”) is that “the Burn caused dilithium reactors on Qo’noS and other worlds to explode.”
What The Experts Have To Say
At first glance, this probably makes sense. After all, we know that the Burn affected dilithium in a way that made starships throughout the galaxy explode. Dilithium is both mined and stored on various planets, so the reporter’s breezy comment might make you think that the dilithium simply exploded with enough force to either destroy the Klingon homeworld outright or render it completely uninhabitable.
However, the starships destroyed by the Burn were only lost because the dilithium going inert caused instant warp breaches. While Starfleet Academy doesn’t really explain what a “dilithium reactor” is, it’s fair to assume that the Klingon homeworld was not attempting to travel anywhere at warp speed. The reactor is presumably meant to be a power source for Qo’noS, but at no point in Star Trek history has matter/antimatter been used to power anything other than warp drive.
Therefore, it’s only logical (Spock would be so proud) to determine that Paramount ruined the Klingons because the writers forgot how the Burn worked, which was established in the show that Starfleet Academy spun off from. This isn’t a case of the writers forgetting some obscure factoid introduced in The Original Series or even The Next Generation. Instead, they are ignoring a major story element that was introduced just a few years ago, a mistake made even worse by the other logical problems of this bizarre plot point.
Almost All Klingons Died For No Reason
For example, even though the Klingons are canonically stupid, why would they rely on dilithium as a power source? Even if we were to expect the idea (that flies in the face of established lore) that dilithium works as a planetary power source, Discovery previously established that dilithium had started becoming super scarce years before the Burn happened, which is why the Federation was researching alternative methods of achieving warp speed without dilithium crystals. Facing that same dilithium shortage, the Klingons could have easily traded out their dilithium reactors to power planets with fusion or solar power, both of which the Federation was relying on nearly a millennium ago.
Now, before the Star Trek fanboys come for me, I’ll concede that Starfleet Academy might explain all of this away in a future episode. Maybe we’ll get a technobabble explanation as to how dilithium reactors work, or we’ll get an in-universe reason why the Klingons never switched to another, more convenient power source once dilithium got insanely scarce. Heck, we might even get an explanation as to why the Klingons had these reactors on every single planet of their empire, something which seems like it would be overkill for smaller, more remote colonies.
Right now, though, none of this makes any sense, which is effectively bad news for Star Trek as a whole. The writers just ruined the franchise’s most iconic race, and they did so with a plot point that proves even they weren’t watching Discovery. You should act accordingly, when this kind of narrative stupidity causes you to unsubscribe from Paramount+, don’t forget to write in “exploding warp reactors” as the reason you are leaving.
Don’t think the Skydance Corporation will believe it? Trust me: if they bought Paramount, these guys will buy anything.