Paul Stamets – Penny Drop Discovery vs Researcher

I’ve been tepidly watching Star Trek Discovery from time to time. Mostly from a misplaced belief that I ought to be able to continue to say “I have watched all the Star Treks”… partly from that Train Wreck Effect… You just can’t look away when one is happening.

For those unfamiliar with it, some folks have called this Star Trek Plagiarism as they copied several main theme elements from a video game. (Will be interesting to see how the “sue happy” S.T. owners handle their plagiarism…) In that video game a tardigrade is key to traveling the universe on a mycelial network. Star Drek has an entirely different plot line: A Giant Tardigrade is key to traveling the universe on a mycelial network and one of the crew learns to do it…

Some background on the plagiarism claim:
https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2018/09/11/understanding-the-star-trek-discovery-plagiarism-allegations/

The key crewman who does this is Paul Stamets:

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Paul_Stamets

“At the quantum level, there is no difference between biology and physics. No difference at all. And you talk about spores. What are they? They are the progenitors of panspermia. They are the building blocks of energy across the universe. Physics and biology? No; physics as biology.”
– Paul Stamets to Michael Burnham, 2256 (“Context Is for Kings”)

Lieutenant Commander Paul Stamets was a male Human astromycologist and Starfleet officer who lived during the mid-23rd century. He became part of the team that discovered the Mycelial network and helped develop the revolutionary spore drive propulsion system. In that capacity he served as the spore drive specialist of the USS Discovery in 2256. (DIS: “Context Is for Kings”, “Choose Your Pain”)

As the Discovery’s spore drive specialist, he was the first to make the spore drive viable for traversing great distances by using himself as an organic navigation computer, making the ship an invaluable asset in the 2256 war with the Klingon Empire. His frequent exposures to the mycelial plane led him to exist partially outside the universe’s normal flow of time.

He’s also a Gay Guy in a “committed relationship” (shown way too many times on the show IMHO, so not a “kiddies show”) but his “spouse” gets killed off and he ends up in despair and emotionally broken. (It’s a theme for them, emotionally broken… no well balanced high achievers for these writers.)

So also, a while back, I posted some videos from a mushroom specialist about how they are helping in cancer cures. His name? Paul Stamets…

I think I hear some homage going on by the Magic Mushroom lovers writing Star Drek Plagiarism…

Here’s part 1 of 5, a 25 minute talk by Paul Stamets about Psilocybin and Amanita mushrooms. (You can find the rest of them at Youtube or they will likely pop up as the next link anyway)

I’ve not watched the whole series. I did run into one later part that I watched all the way through. In it he talks about collecting mushrooms in the Pacific Northwest, trying an Amanita, and being very very stoned on it. The story is funny as it had “onset” later than expected and after heading out to go collecting, making getting home a challenge…

Here’s the wiki bio:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Stamets

In Conclusion

So clearly someone doing the writing is familiar with the mushroom growing subculture and the whole “mycelia everywhere” in the biome mantra of Paul Stamets and decided to center their world around it, and give him some “props” in the process. Maybe that also helps to explain the lack of creativity of stealing ideas from a video game, and then having most of your plot devices used just to promote the Leftist SJW Agenda.

Also the rather scattered story lines, lack of any attention to the preceding canon of Trek, overuse of camera motion (sea sick anyone?…), lots and lots of flash-bang-boom-splat and Kingons that lisp because their dental appliances (to make their teeth really scary…) get in the way?

For those not watching the show:

It has a bunch of “Strong Female Leads” by design, and almost no Straight White Male characters. The SWMs that do show up usually get killed off, and often have trouble taking advice from women but eventually see the light and submit… The main character is a young Black Woman who commits treason, then gets posted to THE most exclusive ship in the fleet as an officer (yeah, right…) and is key to everything, pretty much. She, it turns out, is the foster sister of Spock (who we never ever heard of before…).

In the last episode I watched, Spock is accused of killing 3 people to get out of the insane asylum he “checked himself into”. We “learn” that he has been emotionally traumatized his whole life (by his sister’s rejection of emotional bonding and by “visions” he’s had of some pseudo-angel) and is an emotional basket case. (Say, what do you think of completely destroying the character of a key Trek persona? He may be a Vulcan, but he’s a Straight White (pale green?) one; so gotta take swings at that…)

There’s a point where “edgy” turns into “Springtime For Hitler and Germany!”…
(The Producers)

Also note that the Kingons have been made unrecognizably ugly and their Klingon doesn’t sound right as their mouths are stuffed with fake fangs. The Kingons are supposed to represent Trump Supporters (stated by the folks making this “show”) as they make the show a commentary on current affairs. I’d not know that if they hadn’t told me; since their story lines are incomprehensible and the characters are broken… All of them filled with various failings and fears and all SJW-ish needing a shrink because someone stirred their coffee counter clockwise. (/sarc;) Waaaaaaaay too much time spent on gay marriage relationships and no Real Men ™ with Real Women ™ allowed…

But the special effects are nice… (Gotta have something good to say about it.)

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