Stamets’ Name In Star Trek: Discovery Explains The Real-Life Science Behind The Spore Drive

Star Trek: Discovery‘s spore drive may be a work of science-fiction, but the name of Anthony Rapp’s character reveals more thought has gone into the bizarre form of propulsion than it seems. Rapp’s presence in the Star Trek: Discovery season 5 cast may very well have resulted in him playing Paul Stamets for the final time, although the franchise does have a long history of bringing characters back via time travel and other overused sci-fi TV tropes. That being said, his Star Trek return may not be necessary, Discovery ended pretty satisfyingly for the main cast.

Rapp played Commander Paul Stamets throughout all five seasons of Star Trek: Discovery, with his unique arc becoming one of the most compelling parts of the show from day one. The story behind Paul Stamets’ name reveals a lot about where his journey was headed even before the first episode had aired. The figure on which Rapp’s character was loosely based heavily influenced the direction of the show and what happened to the USS Discovery’s crew, allies, and enemies.

Anthony Rapp’s Star Trek: Discovery Character Shares A Name With A Real Mycologist

The Real Paul Stamets is also a mushroom specialist

Mushrooms feature unusually heavily in Star Trek: Discovery, which can take some getting used to. The role of Anthony Rapp’s character on board the USS Discovery is as the ship’s mycologist. His experience and research don’t just help him maintain Discovery’s spore drive – he also helped design the technology that lets the ship jump instantly from one location to another, sometimes covering huge distances in the process. The entire process seems very bizarre, but Star Trek: Discovery grounded the invention by giving Rapp’s character the exact same name as a real-world mycologist: Paul Stamets.

The real Stamets is an amateur mycologist, so his fictional Star Trek: Discovery counterpart is far more qualified. That being said, the real Stamets is respected in his field, very well-versed in various types of mushrooms, and a major proponent of their use in a medicinal manner. His entrepreneurial spirit combined with his love of mycology led to Stamets founding a company named Fungi Perfecti in 1980 – which is still active today. According to the Fungi Perfecti website, Stamets has been, “teaching mushroom seminars for over 30 years.”

Star Trek: Discovery’s Mycelial Network & Spore Drive Are Based On Real Science

The USS Discovery’s mushroom-based propulsion system isn’t entirely fictional

Although they don’t all interact in exactly the same way as they do in Star Trek: Discovery, all the buzzwords like “spores,” “tardigrade,” and “mycelial network,” aren’t fictional. Spores act in pretty much the same way in the real world as they do in Discovery, but the concept of an alien tardigrade is where Star Trek starts to veer from the path. Tardigrades do exist, but they haven’t yet been proven to exist anywhere other than Earth.

2:46

Related

Star Trek: Discovery Ends With 1 Last Spore Drive Mystery

There’s one more question that the Star Trek: Discovery series finale left unanswered about the USS Discovery’s spore drive.

Star Trek: Discovery‘s mycelial network also hugely bends the truth of its real-life counterpart. Said system is how mushrooms connect and communicate with each other underground. It has the same general idea in Discovery, but it doesn’t exist in space, and therefore can’t be navigated like it is in the show. However, Star Trek: Discovery‘s attention to detail and use of actual scientific concepts is still impressive.

Source: Fungi Perfecti

Star Trek: Discovery is an entry in the legendary Sci-Fi franchise, set ten years before the original Star Trek series events. The show centers around Commander Michael Burnham, assigned to the USS Discovery, where the crew attempts to prevent a Klingon war while traveling through the vast reaches of space.

Cast

Sonequa Martin-Green , Rekha Sharma , Rainn Wilson , Maulik Pancholy , Doug Jones , James Frain , Anthony Rapp , Michelle Yeoh , Chris Obi , Jason Isaacs , Shazad Latif

Release Date

September 24, 2017

Seasons

4

Showrunner

Alex Kurtzman

Expand