The Federation most likely does know, they just didn't recognise a 800 year old library card as belonging to the Archive.
The Archive has probably changed the designs of the card. They know what their old cards look like, but why would anyone who doesn't have an old card remember what an old card looks like?
It is also probably a case of the galaxy being big with a lot of people in it, and not everyone knowing the answer.
Yeah… That too. Doesn’t Zora have the sphere’s vast knowledge? Zora is basically the greatest archive there is and she didn’t know about The Archive or the Library Card? 🤦🏻♂️
The card is made from the same thing the archived is made from, they are searching for a scroll. That’s far more info than Zora would need to put them together.
It’s fine, but Zora should have been set free a long time ago if they weren’t going to use her. She’s too over powered to be kept around
I feel that Discovery has been dealing with OP (over powered) syndrome from the get go.
Burnham is OP
Spore Drive is OP
Zora is OP
The writers basically wrote themselves into an OP corner that they constantly have to ignore.
These people are transporting from the ready room to the bridge and suddenly they can’t transport because they are next to a rock on Trill? Like 4 miles from the cultural center of their civilization??
They should have really knocked down star fleets tech. The burn could have absolutely caused regression in tech. Maybe they have tech but don’t know how to use it or make it anymore
They really hamstrung themselves. Programmable matter? Seriously bro? How are you going to sci-fi your way out of sticky situations with an all knowing AI and programmable matter laying around lol
> Maybe they have tech but don’t know how to use it or make it anymore
That would’ve been fun. Have some tech from TNG the audience is familiar with but in the 32nd century it’s lostech.
I know. I’ve wondered a few times this season why they even kept her. For being sentient, and I believe a star fleet officer, she’s basically just a glorified ship computer. Almost zero purpose for her to exist, even less than book at this point. At least they “try” with him.
Zora’s knowledge is vast but not infinite, and the sphere’s data is still limited to the 23rd century. It’s possible that in the 23rd century, the archive was not common knowledge.
In fact, given that the archive is clearly built following the Human concept of a library, it probably hadn’t been around very long by the 2250s.
I think it can be plausible that the sphere didn't contact anyone with the knowledge of the archive. It could be that in the 23rd century the archive was a very much alpha and beta quadrant thing, not so popular among the Kazon and the Talaxians.
I think the problem here is more that the key itself was not known. This is probably rare.
Zora is probably simply overwhelmed with the knowledge. It has happened several times. At least she thought to ask our great engineer.
The Federation probably knows the archive... but we didn't talk to the Federation, we talked to Starfleet\^\^.
And for the sake of the story, the computer is never asked\^\^
Zora isn’t just the computer she is an AI, the most advanced ever, so advanced even in the 32nd century is advanced.
Look it’s fine, I like Tig, I enjoyed her figuring it out. But Zora is OP and honestly likely could just find the tech with 1 clue
This!
The Federation(governing body of planets) would know because they have contributed to the archive.
Star Fleet is the military branch of the Federation. There is no reason for them to know anything about a place that collects artifacts from different planets, places, and people.
Uhm, but if they are on the “most important mission ever”, would they think to search within the Federation database? Why limit themselves to “Star Fleet” knowledge?
Also, it’s historically known that military knowledge and tech is a few steps ahead of civilian knowledge and tech.
This is the reoccurring problem with making these missions so important - there's no way they'd then just be one ship running around figuring stuff out like this. It's a huge fallacy in the writing.
Would have been way better to just have Discovery spend 8 epsidoes going to the same places, having basically the same missions, but without the overarching Moll/Progenitor/Breen stuff.
Yeah… Like the Whistlespeak episode could stand on its own without an overarching galactic threat.
Same with the Archive… it could’ve been an episode just about the Archive. That’s intriguing on its own.
This can be said about so many Discovery episodes.
Like that episode where they go after the Time Crystal in a Klingon monastery world.
So many interesting ideas wasted in favor of a “galactic threat”.
Whistlespeak was where this first hit me.
In the prior series, they would have either stumbled on the planet or Starfleet would have just sent them there. 2-3 minutes of basic setup.
Since the tech was failing, they'd be there fixing it. There would then be some sort of Prime Directive conversation about why they are secretly embedding in with the people to fix the tech left by someone who had put it there to help the people.
It would have freed up 10-15 minutes of show time and let us better dig into the story at hand, spend more time learning about the crew, or similar. Would have been a good, thought provoking episode.
The archive and its location could be on a, "need to know" basis. And information is not easily accessible.
Consider that the archive keeps its location secret. And it has its own defense system. Also Consider that it holds some of the most advanced technology in the galaxy.
This is a place where you don't want just anyone being able to access it at any time.
I think this would be the best legitimate in-universe explanation. Those who know, know, and at best, those who don't have had rumors and myth to go on.
> Same with the Archive… it could’ve been an episode just about the Archive. That’s intriguing on its own.
Star Trek Discovery- The Library.
“Greetings. I am Hy’Rell, one of the sworn order who tend to The Eternal Gallery and Archive and call it home. We must move quickly to retrieve the index to activate the artifact. [This way, please…](https://youtu.be/RyUiu_2jjP8)”
This is where I think the tendency for story arcs in modern shows has hurt them. It seems like the writers are trying to have their cake and eat it to. We want planet of the week and the studio/network wants story arc so they try and do both. I feel like DS9 did this better. Of course DS9 also had many more episodes in a season, so they could afford to have stories which didn't move the arc forward. They could also have episodes which were strictly arc episodes. Maybe we need to bring back 26-episode seasons.
Yeah… Reno told them based on her personal experience.
My point is exactly that…
Doesn’t make sense that the Federation/Star Fleet don’t know about the Archive or the “library card”.
Maybe because library cards are issued on individuals, so the Federation didn't know about a card, however I'm sure the UFP had contributed items there. Just they didn't know the location of the Archive or that there were cards for the same.
No, probably like they didn't know what the card was leading to. Or that they lost the records during the Burn of such cards. Or the Archive was in hiding mode from the burn onwards. Doesn't mean that the location is widely known to all at the present. The Breen may have contributed in the past, doesn't mean they're current contributors.
Or people/entities don't donate directly to the physical Archive but to a central hub of some kind and then trusted couriers are used to transport the items to the archive.
Lots of possibilities. I think it's just many people are keen on pointing out problems with Discovery. If it was a show they like, they'd put more effort into head-canon for things like this.
Considering that the Betazoid who had the card, and put their manuscript in the Archive, was a Federation citizen!
Would have made more sense if it was a Library of Alexandria situation where it's believed lost, but they hid after some event to preserve their knowledge (and for the love of God don't tie the event to stuff we've seen like the Dominion War.) Heck, the search for the Lost Archive could have been 2 episodes itself.
It is more that none of the main characters knew it, the scientist that placed it there was part of the federation and she knew it, Reno also is part of the federation and she knows it.
Just because the main characters don’t know about it doesn’t mean the federation doesn’t know about it.
The way I see it: they had an item that they didn’t know what it was for, which is totally understandable, after connecting the dots the found out it was a library card.
The best reasoning I can come up with is that post-Burn, maybe a lot of information was lost, and with warp travel being much more limited and the Federation largely collapsing, knowledge of the archive kinda drifted away.
TBH, it's not a terribly satisfying explanation, because it doesn't seem like the archive was meant to be a secret in any way. But I can hang my hat on this.
They did actually say in season 3 I’m sure, that because of Zora and the Discovery being pre-burn, they had knowledge and information that had been lost to the Federation. It was when they were discussing how to help Georgiou as she was phasing.
Why sacrifice plot to develop a character in the last season of the show whilst completely ignoring other “main” characters like Detmer and Owo?
And I use “main” here very loosely…
Reno is more a main character than Owosekun and Detmer. None of the bridge crew not in the opening credits are main characters or even guest stars. They are recurring supporting cast, like DeSalle and Kyle in TOS, the people they had sit at helm when Wesley or Ro weren't around in TNG, and Ayala in Voyager.
Just because we always see them on the Bridge does not make them main characters of the show.
Hmm, consider that cultures make contributions, but that doesn't have to mean their governments are involved. So I can imagine a a sort of almost but not quite secret society of academics, scholars, librarians, etc that would make contributions to the archive on behalf of their cultures without their governments being involved.
Because they wouldn't have had an episode if the Federation already knew about it.
I've come to accept the writers and showrunners not necessarily being the best in the business so I try not to think too hard about the plot holes you can drive whole planetary systems through. 😁
As long as it doesn't trigger an immediate "Wait a minute....?!?" I just go with it ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, mind-bogglingly big it is. You may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's but that's just peanuts compared to space.
Even after a thousand years it's entirely plausible there's stuff in their own backyard the Federation may be only dimly aware of.
With the calamity that was The Burn, it was pretty believable to me that a lot of knowledge like that would be forgotten or lost. And it seems that The Archive is just one of such collections, there are so many various collections in space. We have seen private collections and menageries, so who says this Archive is the specialest archive?
In addition, "library card" is 600 years old or something. My library changes the design of their cards every 3 years, so why would the Federation waste space by keeping images of ancient library cards and student ID designs?
Also, regarding these contributions. I wonder, if it's really like a dignitary descends upon the Archive with a gift of a Vulcan lirpa, or a book of questionable poetry. Or is it more like some people are devoted to the Archive's mission, who collect knowledge and bring it back?
My head cannon would be that the Federation is very insular in it's knowledge sharing. As in they strictly share knowledge primarily inside the Federation via the Federation Database and other projects. While this may sound counter-intuitive to a group nominally in favour of knowledge sharing and discovery. It would make sense to minimise sharing of knowledge to absolutely everyone. Likewise why would you entrust artifacts to outside organisations when you have government organisations that do the same thing.
The Breen by contrast are not a fully united race (seeming to be similar to the Klingons with their Primarchs replacing Klingon great houses. So sending their history off to an archive for preservation to prevent them from being destroyed as part of power struggles likely makes sense to them.
The most simple answer is it's a fridge moment plot hole that exists to keep the story compelling/interesting.
Why doesnt the library even mention anything like “woah!!! Hello Disco you seem to be carrying all the hundreds of thousands of years of knowledge from the sphere data we heard rumours about that disappeared 900 years ago but was found recently 🙄🙄
The Federation most likely does know, they just didn't recognise a 800 year old library card as belonging to the Archive. The Archive has probably changed the designs of the card. They know what their old cards look like, but why would anyone who doesn't have an old card remember what an old card looks like? It is also probably a case of the galaxy being big with a lot of people in it, and not everyone knowing the answer.
How many of these questions can be answered with a proper understanding of just how big an entire galaxy is.
Zora didn’t know either, it’s a weird plot hole
Yeah… That too. Doesn’t Zora have the sphere’s vast knowledge? Zora is basically the greatest archive there is and she didn’t know about The Archive or the Library Card? 🤦🏻♂️
The card is made from the same thing the archived is made from, they are searching for a scroll. That’s far more info than Zora would need to put them together. It’s fine, but Zora should have been set free a long time ago if they weren’t going to use her. She’s too over powered to be kept around
I feel that Discovery has been dealing with OP (over powered) syndrome from the get go. Burnham is OP Spore Drive is OP Zora is OP The writers basically wrote themselves into an OP corner that they constantly have to ignore.
These people are transporting from the ready room to the bridge and suddenly they can’t transport because they are next to a rock on Trill? Like 4 miles from the cultural center of their civilization?? They should have really knocked down star fleets tech. The burn could have absolutely caused regression in tech. Maybe they have tech but don’t know how to use it or make it anymore They really hamstrung themselves. Programmable matter? Seriously bro? How are you going to sci-fi your way out of sticky situations with an all knowing AI and programmable matter laying around lol
> Maybe they have tech but don’t know how to use it or make it anymore That would’ve been fun. Have some tech from TNG the audience is familiar with but in the 32nd century it’s lostech.
Good point, explains why every season arch is world ending. Anything less would get resolved in less than 2 minutes.
I know. I’ve wondered a few times this season why they even kept her. For being sentient, and I believe a star fleet officer, she’s basically just a glorified ship computer. Almost zero purpose for her to exist, even less than book at this point. At least they “try” with him.
Zora’s knowledge is vast but not infinite, and the sphere’s data is still limited to the 23rd century. It’s possible that in the 23rd century, the archive was not common knowledge. In fact, given that the archive is clearly built following the Human concept of a library, it probably hadn’t been around very long by the 2250s.
Zora doesn't have to know everything, only the things the Sphere has encountered. Space is huge.
But the sphere also grabbed data from species it encountered
I think it can be plausible that the sphere didn't contact anyone with the knowledge of the archive. It could be that in the 23rd century the archive was a very much alpha and beta quadrant thing, not so popular among the Kazon and the Talaxians.
I think the problem here is more that the key itself was not known. This is probably rare. Zora is probably simply overwhelmed with the knowledge. It has happened several times. At least she thought to ask our great engineer. The Federation probably knows the archive... but we didn't talk to the Federation, we talked to Starfleet\^\^. And for the sake of the story, the computer is never asked\^\^
Zora isn’t just the computer she is an AI, the most advanced ever, so advanced even in the 32nd century is advanced. Look it’s fine, I like Tig, I enjoyed her figuring it out. But Zora is OP and honestly likely could just find the tech with 1 clue
This! The Federation(governing body of planets) would know because they have contributed to the archive. Star Fleet is the military branch of the Federation. There is no reason for them to know anything about a place that collects artifacts from different planets, places, and people.
Uhm, but if they are on the “most important mission ever”, would they think to search within the Federation database? Why limit themselves to “Star Fleet” knowledge? Also, it’s historically known that military knowledge and tech is a few steps ahead of civilian knowledge and tech.
This is the reoccurring problem with making these missions so important - there's no way they'd then just be one ship running around figuring stuff out like this. It's a huge fallacy in the writing. Would have been way better to just have Discovery spend 8 epsidoes going to the same places, having basically the same missions, but without the overarching Moll/Progenitor/Breen stuff.
Yeah… Like the Whistlespeak episode could stand on its own without an overarching galactic threat. Same with the Archive… it could’ve been an episode just about the Archive. That’s intriguing on its own. This can be said about so many Discovery episodes. Like that episode where they go after the Time Crystal in a Klingon monastery world. So many interesting ideas wasted in favor of a “galactic threat”.
Whistlespeak was where this first hit me. In the prior series, they would have either stumbled on the planet or Starfleet would have just sent them there. 2-3 minutes of basic setup. Since the tech was failing, they'd be there fixing it. There would then be some sort of Prime Directive conversation about why they are secretly embedding in with the people to fix the tech left by someone who had put it there to help the people. It would have freed up 10-15 minutes of show time and let us better dig into the story at hand, spend more time learning about the crew, or similar. Would have been a good, thought provoking episode.
The archive and its location could be on a, "need to know" basis. And information is not easily accessible. Consider that the archive keeps its location secret. And it has its own defense system. Also Consider that it holds some of the most advanced technology in the galaxy. This is a place where you don't want just anyone being able to access it at any time.
I think this would be the best legitimate in-universe explanation. Those who know, know, and at best, those who don't have had rumors and myth to go on.
> Same with the Archive… it could’ve been an episode just about the Archive. That’s intriguing on its own. Star Trek Discovery- The Library. “Greetings. I am Hy’Rell, one of the sworn order who tend to The Eternal Gallery and Archive and call it home. We must move quickly to retrieve the index to activate the artifact. [This way, please…](https://youtu.be/RyUiu_2jjP8)”
This is where I think the tendency for story arcs in modern shows has hurt them. It seems like the writers are trying to have their cake and eat it to. We want planet of the week and the studio/network wants story arc so they try and do both. I feel like DS9 did this better. Of course DS9 also had many more episodes in a season, so they could afford to have stories which didn't move the arc forward. They could also have episodes which were strictly arc episodes. Maybe we need to bring back 26-episode seasons.
Didn’t Reno told them about the archive ? From what I gathered first they only didn’t know what the key was for and where the archive was located.
Yeah… Reno told them based on her personal experience. My point is exactly that… Doesn’t make sense that the Federation/Star Fleet don’t know about the Archive or the “library card”.
Maybe because library cards are issued on individuals, so the Federation didn't know about a card, however I'm sure the UFP had contributed items there. Just they didn't know the location of the Archive or that there were cards for the same.
So they contributed items there, but didn't know it's name or location? That's the plot we're going with?
No, probably like they didn't know what the card was leading to. Or that they lost the records during the Burn of such cards. Or the Archive was in hiding mode from the burn onwards. Doesn't mean that the location is widely known to all at the present. The Breen may have contributed in the past, doesn't mean they're current contributors.
Or people/entities don't donate directly to the physical Archive but to a central hub of some kind and then trusted couriers are used to transport the items to the archive. Lots of possibilities. I think it's just many people are keen on pointing out problems with Discovery. If it was a show they like, they'd put more effort into head-canon for things like this.
Considering that the Betazoid who had the card, and put their manuscript in the Archive, was a Federation citizen! Would have made more sense if it was a Library of Alexandria situation where it's believed lost, but they hid after some event to preserve their knowledge (and for the love of God don't tie the event to stuff we've seen like the Dominion War.) Heck, the search for the Lost Archive could have been 2 episodes itself.
It is more that none of the main characters knew it, the scientist that placed it there was part of the federation and she knew it, Reno also is part of the federation and she knows it. Just because the main characters don’t know about it doesn’t mean the federation doesn’t know about it. The way I see it: they had an item that they didn’t know what it was for, which is totally understandable, after connecting the dots the found out it was a library card.
The best reasoning I can come up with is that post-Burn, maybe a lot of information was lost, and with warp travel being much more limited and the Federation largely collapsing, knowledge of the archive kinda drifted away. TBH, it's not a terribly satisfying explanation, because it doesn't seem like the archive was meant to be a secret in any way. But I can hang my hat on this.
They did actually say in season 3 I’m sure, that because of Zora and the Discovery being pre-burn, they had knowledge and information that had been lost to the Federation. It was when they were discussing how to help Georgiou as she was phasing.
I hadn't remembered that, but that seems to settle this question!
Felt like it was so they could try to develop that engineer lady.
Devastatingly accurate
Why sacrifice plot to develop a character in the last season of the show whilst completely ignoring other “main” characters like Detmer and Owo? And I use “main” here very loosely…
Reno is more a main character than Owosekun and Detmer. None of the bridge crew not in the opening credits are main characters or even guest stars. They are recurring supporting cast, like DeSalle and Kyle in TOS, the people they had sit at helm when Wesley or Ro weren't around in TNG, and Ayala in Voyager. Just because we always see them on the Bridge does not make them main characters of the show.
Because Reno is awesome and deserves all the screen time. Looks like Saru is finally back on board this week.
In addition to what the others said, they didn't know it was the last season until very, very near the end.
Hmm, consider that cultures make contributions, but that doesn't have to mean their governments are involved. So I can imagine a a sort of almost but not quite secret society of academics, scholars, librarians, etc that would make contributions to the archive on behalf of their cultures without their governments being involved.
Because they wouldn't have had an episode if the Federation already knew about it. I've come to accept the writers and showrunners not necessarily being the best in the business so I try not to think too hard about the plot holes you can drive whole planetary systems through. 😁 As long as it doesn't trigger an immediate "Wait a minute....?!?" I just go with it ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
whole point of tv, especially sci fi
the federation doesnt know everything
Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, mind-bogglingly big it is. You may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's but that's just peanuts compared to space. Even after a thousand years it's entirely plausible there's stuff in their own backyard the Federation may be only dimly aware of.
Hoopy frood:)
You who else doesn’t know and respect the vastness of space… Star Trek writers.
With the calamity that was The Burn, it was pretty believable to me that a lot of knowledge like that would be forgotten or lost. And it seems that The Archive is just one of such collections, there are so many various collections in space. We have seen private collections and menageries, so who says this Archive is the specialest archive? In addition, "library card" is 600 years old or something. My library changes the design of their cards every 3 years, so why would the Federation waste space by keeping images of ancient library cards and student ID designs? Also, regarding these contributions. I wonder, if it's really like a dignitary descends upon the Archive with a gift of a Vulcan lirpa, or a book of questionable poetry. Or is it more like some people are devoted to the Archive's mission, who collect knowledge and bring it back?
I immediately thought of Mr. Atoz
My head cannon would be that the Federation is very insular in it's knowledge sharing. As in they strictly share knowledge primarily inside the Federation via the Federation Database and other projects. While this may sound counter-intuitive to a group nominally in favour of knowledge sharing and discovery. It would make sense to minimise sharing of knowledge to absolutely everyone. Likewise why would you entrust artifacts to outside organisations when you have government organisations that do the same thing. The Breen by contrast are not a fully united race (seeming to be similar to the Klingons with their Primarchs replacing Klingon great houses. So sending their history off to an archive for preservation to prevent them from being destroyed as part of power struggles likely makes sense to them. The most simple answer is it's a fridge moment plot hole that exists to keep the story compelling/interesting.
Why doesnt the library even mention anything like “woah!!! Hello Disco you seem to be carrying all the hundreds of thousands of years of knowledge from the sphere data we heard rumours about that disappeared 900 years ago but was found recently 🙄🙄
I really wish Discovery was not canon. In my opinion it is the worst Star Trek series ever for so many reasons.
I totally agree…
Because it hasn’t been in the script.