ScreenCrush: The Podcast! - DR. ERIN MACDONALD Talks Working on Star Trek and Real Food Replicators- Crossover Universe Podcast

Episode Date: August 3, 2025

Doctor Erin MacDonald, rockstar astrophysicist and Star Trek technical advisor, sits down to talk with us about all things Star Trek. We cover the original series, Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and her experience working on shows like Discovery, Lower Decks, Prodigy, and Strange New Worlds.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Is there a technology that has been introduced in Star Trek that you think, you know, we're close to achieving in actual life? Oh! One I do think we're getting close to and may happen in our lifetime, I would say is the food replicating system. Ooh! What? Hey, welcome to the ScreenCrush crossover universe podcast. I am here with my co-host, Heather Antos. And welcome my favorite co-host Ryan Airy to the ScreenCrush crossover universe. How the heck are you?

Heather, I'm great. Okay. So we've got a really exciting guest on today. We do. Who I cannot wait to hear this person talk astrophysics and nerd out about Star Trek. I have so many annoying questions for her. But first, you and I haven't talked or spoken

or acknowledged each other's existence for about two weeks. I know. I've been covering Superman and Fantastic Four, and what have you been up to? I just got back from San Diego Comic-Con, where time stands still, and yet it feels like an eternity has passed.

You hosted, we talked about this a few weeks ago, you hosted a ton of panels at Comic-Con. Were you at, and obviously I didn't go, we didn't even cover that much from it because normally like we get our views from people who weren't really doing stuff there. Were you at the Star Trek panels, the big ones? Finally enough, I was able to get my Hall H pass

for the Star Trek panel, but we weren't sure before Con if Paramount would be able to secure an extra one for me. So I ended up having a lunch during it. So I missed the panel. I was really bummed to not be able to attend. Oh, it's too bad. I know, but one of my really good friends, Robbie Thompson, is an executive producer

on Stranger Worlds, and literally when they dropped the teaser for season four, he like texted it to me. Oh, that's awesome. And I wish, gosh, I wish someone was filming me when I watched it because my like vocal reaction was just pure chaos. Well, Star Trek, okay, so a lot of our viewers, we don't normally get to cover Star Trek on Spring Crush.

I love Star Trek, right? I'm a big, big Trekkie, Trekker, whatever we're calling ourselves these days. And I love Strange New Worlds. Did they recently say they're gonna limit it at four seasons? Five. Did I hear that right? Five. Five, yeah.

So season four just wrapped filming, but they're doing a shortened season five season with... Like Discovery did. Yeah, I believe it's gonna be six episodes, and that is all the spoilers I can say. I, again, I know you probably know stuff that I don't. My theory is that they're going to end the series with Pike's accident, and then we're gonna see,

well, you can tell me this. Kirk in Star Trek did the five-year mission, right? And it was cut off at year three. We got the animated series, which is, let's face it, it should be canon at year four. And in various novels, they did year five, but you did the definitive before you got to IDW. IDW has a definitive year five.

Wasn't there a five-year mission before the five-year mission we know about, like with Kirk and the crew that we know? I'm not sure exactly what is canon. I don't know if it's a full five years. I think it might be two years, two or three years. I don't know exactly off the top of my head, what is current canon?

Gotcha, gotcha. Because everything's canon until it's not, as you like to say. Exactly. My current theory is that, because they've slowly introduced all of the cast, all the original characters, I really hope that if we're going to wrap up

Strange New Worlds, it then becomes a new Star Trek series with the original crew, kind of like what they were doing with JJ Abrams. But... That would be really cool. I mean, they have the set, right, of the Enterprise. They have it. It's just there. And you know what else? Look, they have the set, right, of the Enterprise. They have it.

It's just there. And you know what else? Look, look, OK, OK, OK. I, of course, love Star Trek. Not a major fan of those old scientists, the original series, just because, you know, William Shatner's ego, everything's got to revolve around Kirk all the time.

And I think that newer shows that are more focused on the ensemble are stronger. That being said, hell, if they want to even show us the adventures that happened in between those weeks, I guess what I really want to see are maybe somebody from that crew interacting with the Deep Space Nine time travelers during the Troubles episode. I don't know, like I love the people they have recast.

Scotty's an actual Scotsman. Everybody's so good. If you don't watch Star Trek, actually, Strange New Worlds is a great place to start. It's so good. Yeah, I agree. It's absolutely good and brilliant. And I think it captures that perfect balance of feels

fresh and modern, but still nostalgic. I often say Strange New Worlds is what TOS wish it had the budget to be. Yeah. Oh, it's just goofy as hell too. It's so goofy. I mean, in a great way. Yeah. Like, there's a Muppet episode this season they've advertised. Season four, but yeah, yeah. It's in season four. Yeah. They've always done that in a really careful, measured way, I think, that still fits within the universe. They have the musical episode. We have the full-on musical episode in season two. They have the crossover episode with Lower Decks. I mean, they have a lot of fun.

And speaking of someone who has a lot of fun with Star Trek, should we introduce our guest? Is it time already? Gosh, how the time flies. Yeah, who are we talking to today? So today we are talking to the one and only Dr. Erin MacDonald. Dr. Erin MacDonald is a tried and true actual astrophysicist, aerospace engineer, and science fiction consultant.

She is an educator who loves to give talks about STEM through pop culture, consults with science fiction creators, has her own production company called Space Time Productions. And most importantly, I think, is like Neil deGrasse Tyson, but way cooler. All right, so let's bring her on here. Hello, Dr. Aaron. I don't think you can get a cooler than, better intro than, cooler than Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Congratulations on that. Yeah, I deeply appreciate that. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I'm really happy to be here. Oh, God, it's an honor to meet you. And so Heather, like we said earlier, a lot of people who normally watch

ScreenCrush aren't necessarily, I think we have a lot of crossover, people don't come here for Star Trek. So before we get rolling, let's just talk about, if you don't care, what Dr. Aaron McDonald has done in this universe for us. Yeah, so, Aaron, you have credits on Discovery, Lower Decks, Pocahontas, Prodigy, Strange New World. You wrote the children's book, First Book of Space. You wrote on

the Star Trek Adventures, a second core rule book. Explain your job. What does a science consultant do? rule book. Explain your job. What does a science consultant do? Star Trek has always had a history of science advisors in the franchise all the way back to Gene Roddenberry in the 60s. You would hire or ask buddies who worked at aerospace companies kind of how the science was working on the shows. And then that carried through all through the 90s through TMG, through Space Nine, Voyager, Enterprise. And then when they started Discovery, they had a lot of science fiction writers and some of them had some backgrounds.

But when they kind of soft rebooted Discovery for season three, they wanted to hire some scientists to help with the storyline that was called The Burn. So this was very much like a four-hire job, just a temporary thing to do. But what worked great with it is that they had all these other shows that were greenlit that they were getting underway. So we realized it was mutually beneficial to just have an in-house science advisor and a science consultant to be able to help

the writers and maintain consistency across all of these shows that we're running at once. Because even though we've had like TNG and Deep Space Nine overlapped and Voyager and Deep Space Nine overlapped a little bit, we've never had so many shows just concurrently. And so that's kind of what my role is, is just I'm available to the shows as much or as little as they want to use me and to try to maintain all of this consistency across the franchise. That's wild. I mean, that's pretty incredible to get to do. I mean, that is one of the things that Star Trek historically has always kind of had over

other science fiction media is, you know, it's not 100% accurate all the time. It's fiction. But it has always, you know, been very proud of the fact that it is as accurate as we can get it. Which is pretty incredible. Are there times, you know, when working on these shows that, you know, I'm sure you have producers and writers where that's cute that you're giving us the science note, but the story must come first. Yeah, I think, you know, that is still my job too. Like I'm also a writer, as you mentioned.

And so I do respect the idea that really it's the hierarchy is like story and characters, and then the science comes next. And a lot of times part of my job is just advising when to not explain things and just to let it be and let things happen. It's about finding that balance. And I think to being successful as a science consultant, a lot of that is having a yes and and approach to try to help the writers achieve what they want to achieve without being a stifling presence. So it's like finding what we can do, but then also just knowing where the limits are and helping people find that line. And it's really a collaborative process.

We're trying for a lot. Gaff, when to hold back, when the note does matter. I know in the past you've mentioned that in particular, the Strange New World's musical episode was one where it's like, the audience is smart enough, we don't need to explain to the T why everyone is singing. Right, right. Well, that was a really fun one too, because when they first came to me with the idea,

my response was very much like, just let it happen, don't explain it. And part of the conversation that we had was that they really wanted, you know, we've had other shows and other franchises do musical episodes, but they wanted it to really be a Star Trek musical episode, which required some sort of scientific explanation.

And so, yeah, I mean, we worked and we kind of dug through some multiverse things and at least came up with an explanation that isn't implausible, if it were. Like, the ready room scene where Spock is explaining what's going on goes on for, like, three minutes. Like, it's probably the longest explanation scene I've ever worked on on a Star Trek show. Now, can I ask, I'm just curious in terms of how it works

in writing an episode. So how often do the writers come to you or the rest of the team and say, hey, we've got this situation where we need Spock to get stuck or the characters to get stuck in this situation, they're in a nebula? And how often does it go the other way? And you say, actually, if they're in a nebula,

this would happen, and then that spurs creativity on the writer's room side. So it depends on the show. A lot of them, it just, again, depends on what my relationship with them is. So some of the shows, I think especially Strange to Worlds, they'll kind of go with their storylines and then come to me. And exactly like you said, like, we want Spock stuck somewhere.

We need this to happen. Can we just make sure that the science makes sense? But then on shows like, you know, Lower Decks and Discovery, I would say as well, especially in the later seasons, after I worked with them for a while, it was very much like having me in the room during the season arc building.

Oh, that's fun. And just being able to let me bounce ideas and pitch concepts. And so kind of making it a little bit more collaborative, which again is totally up to every Joe as a science advisor. Even if you see, you know, someone was a science advisor in a series, it's always worth asking you like,

to what extent? Cause that can be so many different things. And so, so yeah, I, you know, personally, just as a writer, being able to what extent, because that can mean so many different things. And so, yeah, I, you know, personally, just as a writer, being able to exercise that, being able to be part of the TV process is really special for me. I think, you know, my science advisement for that Strange New World's episode will always be, well, you have Broadway star Celia Rose Gooding,

of course you're doing a musical episode. Exactly, exactly. That's the right approach. have Broadway star Celia Rose Gooding, of course you're doing a musical episode. Exactly, exactly. That's the right approach. Correct. I wanna go to Prodigy, cause that show to me is truly, truly special. It's really the first time Star Trek really leaned into the idea of introducing the franchise to children.

Kids grew up watching TOS, Next Gen, and like all these other things and fell in love with it. But it is a bit, you know, talking about diplomacy and... Mining rights. Yeah, like it's very mature and esoteric for kids to latch onto outside of that alien looks cool, right?

And I know, you know, when you started getting into Star Trek, like Janeway was one of your favorite characters and you actually got to write Janeway, you know, for teaching children in prodigy. Like, what was that like? Unbelievable. Like that, that for me was just, uh, that is honestly when it kind of hit me of where I wanted to take my career path because as a astrophysicist working in Hollywood, being the science advisor for Star Trek is kind of like the top job.

It felt like I realized that my goal in life had shifted from wanting to become Captain Janeway to wanting to create the Captain Janeways of the future. And that's really like what was so special for me. Again, almost it was like she was able to be a mentor for me again, you know, in a way. Directing my career path. And so, yeah, it's Prodigy was just an extremely special show to work on, for sure. How, how, in the writer's room, I'm sure, you know, keeping in mind the age of the audience had to be top of mind all the time, right? You know, talking, and astrophysics is not exactly the most child-friendly topic. You know, when it came to that level of, you know, consultation in

your job, like, how did you shift your framework and balance specifically for that age range? Well, I think what was lucky and why it was such a successful relationship was because I had experience working in science museums, and I have taught and explained very difficult concepts to all ages. And it's amazing how many times you'll get like a eight-year-old who just learned about black holes and wants to know everything about them. And so you have to figure out like,

how do I explain this in a way that continues to be interesting and keep them engaged and know when I've lost them. And so all of that skillset, you're just constantly just thinking about your target audience. But again, I give credit, a lot of credit to the writers that they also, they know the right level.

And so for me, it's just taking what they come up with and then just adjusting the dialogue slightly to make sure that it makes sense. But it's actually too why we ended up putting in our temporal mechanics 101 explanation in season two. You know, we realized that, like, there was so much time travel, and a lot of kids maybe haven't even watched back

to the future at this point. I mean... Yeah, of time travel and what that implication is. But you're so right. You're so right. You know, one thing I admire about Prodigy, too, when you guys are conveying the science things to kids, is it's very basic, but energy is color-coded in a way that you didn't necessarily get, say, in TNG.

And when I think of TNG, they call it science battle, right? The actors, when they, like, Brent Spiner would read a paragraph this long and have no idea what it meant. The energy was just always the Star Trek energy, but on Prodigy, they always made a point to really visually convey, even if I'm sure this isn't actually plausible, the different spectrums of light don't apply in space in that way, but I love that because it was so easy for kids of any age to watch.

Yeah, absolutely. I think they were so creative with things. And even, you know, I always tell people who kind of maybe gave the first two episodes of Prodigy a try, the first kind of two-parter, and was like, well, it's a little too action-packed, it's a little too much for me. Like, you've got to stick with it to episode three, because that's when they're trapped in a gravity well

around a binary star system. Right. We were able to just show stuff that is real in space and make it look beautiful and make it look interesting and make it a problem for the kids to solve. It was just such a good vessel to teach science to kids. Yeah, RIP, man. I freaking love that show. I know that show had so much heart.

I mean, Ryan and I talk about the problems with streaming platforms all the time, but I think when they moved Prodigy to Netflix, that was the best thing for that show, was getting to put it on a platform where kids actually can watch it because as much as I love Paramount Plus and all the stuff on it, it's not like the top three streaming platform, especially for kids. But it should be, cause Nickelodeon, no, sorry, I'm about to start talking about streaming platforms and we should be talking about Star Trek.

I have a question. And I have a question about universal translators that's bugged me for years. And if you can't answer it, that's okay. But I feel like I'm getting to ask like that SNL sketch where the nerds interview William Shatner at the comic book convention. Universal translators, I get the concept.

How do they sync up the alien's lips to match the words in English? That's a great question. And I would say it is more of an interpretation of the viewer who's listening to the person talking. If anyone watches dubbed things on the internet, you fill in the blanks yourself a little bit. And so I think it's just a,

it's an interpretation of the viewer a couple different levels. We'll go with that. Okay, so it's subjective and that's not very scientific. Fine. Yeah. I always, I've always tried to have like a pre, a pre-cochrane, like a current real world explanation for these things and then like a post-cochrane explanation for these. I love that term so much.

That is great. Pre-cochrane, post-cochrane. What? Thank you for the answer. That is some. Pre-Cocker and post-Cocker. Thank you for the answer. That is some inside baseball if there ever was one. But dovetailing off of that, Star Trek has introduced so much of the most iconic technology into science fiction media from, you know, cloaking tuck to transporters, phasers, right? All of this stuff, you know, alien-human hybrids,

like Spock. Is there a technology that has been introduced in Star Trek or that you've studied in Star Trek that you think, you know, we're close to achieving in actual life or you could see, you know? Because it is all scientifically possible in a way, but. Yeah, absolutely. I think even if you go watch the original series,

there has been so much technology, like you said, that we've now achieved, even just this conversation that we're having technical difficulties aside. That still is that vision of the future that they had in the 60s where Kirk would Zoom call McCoy in the med bay to talk to him. And so one, I do think we are getting close to and may happen in our lifetime.

I would say is the food replicating system. Like that, that really is. Ooh. What? Like we have two fields of research and technologies that are both advancing at a huge rate that when combined is the food replicator. And that's 3D printing technology and synthetic food research. And so like 3D print, you know, 10 years ago, I would never have told you that I could own,

afford or have room for a 3D printer in my house. And I have three now. And then also in addition to that, we had things, I don't know if you're aware of this, but like the Impossible Burger or Beyond Meat or all of those. Yeah, a big advancement in that and why they became so much more like real meat as it were was the discovery of a protein that made red meat taste the way it does. And so like we're starting to discover a lot of these things that can actually replicate food at a synthetic level and while all this 3D printing technology is happening.

So I think in our lifetime, we're gonna get a 3D printed burger patty. Oh my gosh. It might take eight hours and it might be horrible. Well. But it takes steps, right? It's incremental. And I do think like-

That's the reason- My mind is blown. Like- Yeah, the reason I'm so surprised by that is cause that technology is like foundational to the utopia in Star Trek. Like the reason they can be without money is cause, I mean, you said food and not objects,

which obviously is different, but that's incredible. Yeah. Truly wild. Ryan, what would you, how would you abuse the food replicator? What would be your... I'd be like Deanna Troi, be chocolate sundaes all day long,

but it doesn't sound like you're talking about that. Sounds like dairy is not a part of the mix. So, no, I think, but you know what? If an eight-hour burger tastes as good as like meat that takes eight hours to make in a slow cooker, I'm sure it'll be somewhat delicious with a lot of ketchup on it. Yeah, exactly.

We'll make it work, but it's exciting and all this technology just takes time and it takes steps. And we also do have to get to like the post-capitalism stage of things before we can reach that utopia, but the food replicator is a good start. We're just one World War away. So I always say that, we have to get to World War III before we get to Star Trek.

I say that all the time. And I love how they keep pushing back the dates, because the original series was very much like, the war was in this year. We passed that year. So now when they travel in strange new worlds, when they travel back in time, they were like, well, historical records from this era are very spotty.

Because I think that was Picard season three. They were like, the EMP wiped everything out. So we don'tty. I think that was Picard season three. They were like the EMP wiped everything out. So we don't know. I have the reverse of Heather's question. She asked what was the most plausible. I want to know what the most implausible thing in Star Trek is, as far as not like a granular

in this episode, but in general in the world. Unfortunately, it is transporter technology. The biggest issue is that it very explicitly violates current known laws of ethics, uh, that being the high certainty principle where you can never know exactly where these like subatomic particles, where they are, um, the more you know about where they are, the less information you have about them. Otherwise a lot of quantum physics type stuff. And in Star Trek, what's great is that the transporter

has a Heisenberg compensator, we assume compensates for the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, but we haven't figured that out yet. And there's no clear path to do that, yeah. That's an amazing out. I have a follow-up, Heather, I'm sorry. I know you have a lot of questions. No, no, I love this, I love this. I have a follow-up. Heather, I'm sorry. I know you have a lot of questions. No, no. I love this. I love this. I have a follow-up about the teleporters.

Excuse me. I have a question. I'm getting flashbacks to Comic-Con. I'm getting flashbacks to Comic-Con. Yeah. It's like I'm a Booth barnacle on you right now. No. So, all right. Here's my question. And I think they've established this partially in universe, but the transporter technology is also, that raises a lot of questions. Like in TNG and Lower Decks, we have two instances of characters who are replicated.

I believe the way the technology works in the shows and movies is, they don't transport your atoms, they reconfigure your atoms on the other side. Is that correct? It's interesting you say that because Star Trek has explicit episodes that explain both ways.

Okay. So the issue is that the one that comes to mind, again, could be dismissed post-Cochrane as like an early version of transporter technology, but the episode where Hoshi, Sato, and Enterprise like refuses to get in the transporter, and the way she describes it is that idea of it breaking you down and then moving your particles and then rebuilding

you out of those particles. Like you said, the two Rikers, the two Boimlers, that more comes from the idea that it breaks down your particles, maps what the particles are and where they go, and then rebuilds you out of other matter somewhere else. Okay, so my question is then, if that happens, isn't the person dying every time they're transported and is the person at the end still them? Regardless, it's a pretty horrifying death machine.

You know what I mean? I think so too. I'm also like, God, now you have me on this transporter-like thing because, and this gets into the astrophysics of it all, I'm going to get super nerdy here because if- Oh, well, you're on the wrong podcast for that. I know, I know. But if, God, this is so impossible for transporters to exist because you're talking about all the minutiae and this is like pretending that a ship isn't moving

and a planet isn't moving. But now you bring into, say a ship is moving or you have gravitational pull of a planet or the velocity spin of a planet and that's gonna be different no matter where you are, or if you're beaming from one ship to another. Oh my God, I think my brain just broke by trying to like, I did math on this once for a panel at DragonCon where it wasn't so much time.

It wasn't so much transporting as it was time travel, but it could be the same thing. So it was like, just imagine you time travel one second into the future, but you kept your whole back to the same, you stay in the same spot. You basically end up in low Earth orbit. Like you're basically just reenacting gravity at that point. Like, because with the rotating, moving around the sun, our solar system moving through the galaxy,

our galaxy moving through space, you know, it's hundreds of kilometers every second. So you're just in space. Or if because time travel is tied to the fourth dimension and the fourth dimension is, you know, an object of gravitational pull bending space time, to time travel, would you have to, maybe you would have to be attached,

is time travel possible? I guess that's what I'm getting around to. Heathered to the fabric of our universe and how you build the time machine to keep you tethered to the coordinates that you want to maintain. But we have the technology for like warp drive and we understand something about wormholes in the future. Like we hope we have a better understanding of space time such that this doesn't become an issue. Speaking of tech that is like, I would say possible, but maybe not necessarily achievable in our lifetime.

You mentioned you were brought on specifically in Discovery Season 3 where they really broke down the burn. And I happen to be doing a comic right now that's a little bit about the burn called The Last Starship. Here's my mini plug. In the comic, we're exploring that period post-burn when the Federation is trying to save itself after all the dilithium across the galaxy explodes. And, you know, dilithium often in Star Trek language is colloquially, like, people think of it as fuel, but it's very much not fuel. Right.

Oh. See, yeah. But it's, it's the, it is what powers the ships. It is what gets them to, to, you know, move and go to warp and all of these things. But it's not like fuel like gasoline as we know it, you know, it's, I mean, you know better than I am, but it's kind of like an anti-matter, matter type, like fusion situation, right?

Yeah. So the way I describe it is, so we have matter, anti-matter, which is a thing like in our world, like we have protons, anti protons, electrons, positrons, when they meet their anti counterpart, they annihilate each other and turn into energy. And that's real physics. Annihilate. I love that word. That's that's that energy for like a warp drive. That's what they're capturing. And then that's the energy that's being used to bend space-time. What dilithium provides, and the analogy I give, is it's like a control rod, like in

a nuclear power plant, right? You have these control rods that sort of mitigate the processes that are happening to keep them from getting out of control. And that's like that primary purpose on a starship is to mitigate and tamp down, to make sure that you don't get like a runaway matter, anti-matter, you know, out. We lose containment, right? And that's what happened in the burn is that the dilithium kind of annihilated itself. And then all the starships that were at work that were utilizing their matter anti-matter

engines, they allmatter engines, they all basically went critical. That they all like had this positive feedback loop and then they all just exploded because there was no functioning dilithium to keep those processes under control. That's kind of how, that's how I see it and I explained it. I never understood how the burn cascaded through the entire universe. Can you refresh my memory on that? Because I always thought dilithium was a singular, like here's a piece of dilithium. Is it all connected together? It is, it is. And I mean, I could send you my four page explanation for all of this. Three lines of dialogue and discovery, which is how it

works and that's totally fine. But Dilithium, the way we extended it for this storyline was the concept that it is tangible, it is real, it is something you can hold, but it has subatomic components that tap into a stub space. So that sort of live outside of our universe. And then when they hit that resonant frequency with the burn, when that happened, that resonant frequency shattered the dilithium, but it also propagated through subspace faster than the speed of light and tapped into all of, because it was at this

specific frequency that hit dilithium specifically. And so that's how it was able to propagate, not instantaneously, but faster than the speed of light and then render all of the active dilithium in our local galaxy. So, yeah. I understand, yeah, thank you. We don't have to get into like complex planes and subspace and all of that, but if you just think about our universe as like a trampoline, subspace is the area above

and below the trampoline. And like we have subspace buoys, the limit of the speed of light is because we're on the trampoline, but if you are able to exist outside of it or through it, then you can break that faster than like barrier, which is what we could have. How much basis for that is there in the real world?

Because when I asked you the most implausible thing earlier, I thought for sure you were gonna say interstellar travel. So does subspace exist? Is it theoretical? Can I go to a different planet? It's theoretical. Yeah, this is the old, I don't want to live on this planet anymore. Yeah, I get it. So yes, space-time is a thing. We have gotten to the point where we had directly observed the motion of the fabric of our own

universe. That was through gravitational waves. So the ripple of our universe, exploding, we have detected, we have measured many times now, which is objectively cool. The next step is to continue to learn more about it. So that's where you're talking about this theoretical realm. What does exist outside of our fabric? How would we even touch it, tap into it? That's the realm that we don't know, but mathematically there's a lot of foundations for these. My theory and the one that I've used for Star Trek

is that you think about our sheet of space time, our universe as like the real plane, and I'm saying that in like a mathematical term. And then the area outside of that is like the imaginary plane, if anyone remembers the square root of minus one equals i, sorry for the trauma. But that imaginary plane, mathematically you can start really playing with these concepts and make sure that it all checks out based on what we know. That's kind of how astrophysics theory works and that's the realm we're in when we're talking about

that. So the math of warp drive and traveling faster than light does actually check out. People have published papers on the mathematics of warp drive technology without breaking the laws of physics. We just don't know how to get there yet. So because the universal speed limit is the speed of light, the only way to travel faster than the speed of light, I'm guessing is either a wormhole, like the event horizon metaphor with a piece of paper,

or you just simply exit this universe and go into hub subspace, hyperspace, whatever we're gonna call it. You just simply exit this universe. You just simply... You simply, yeah. Oh, and you know, I know, wait, I know how to do that. I wrote it down on my notebook. One does not simply exit this universe. I told you guys this a long time ago.

Right. Ah, excellent, Heather. Excellent. That's, that's some good news. I want to shift to something a little bit more fun, technology of the Star Trek universe. And this was something that I believe was introduced. Was it introduced TNG or Deep Space Nine? I can't remember now, but the holodeck, everyone's favorite.

So the holodeck was introduced technically. There was a version of it in the animated series. That's true. That's true. Officially introduced in the first episode of TNG. Yes, it was the first episode of TNG. Yes. I feel like that's also one that we're getting very close to.

I mean, we have the volume, right? We talk about it all the time with its use on shows like Star I feel like that's also one that we're getting very close to. I mean, we have the volume, right? We talk about it all the time with its use on shows like Star Wars. I know, like Star Trek, you guys have your AR wall. Aside from having actual physical objects pop up in the room and people that you can interact with, like, we are able to have a room that is all screens that can project on them anything you want.

And react, because it uses gaming technology. We would probably have to wear glasses to simulate the camera movement. Yeah. Well, we actually came up with some explanations for that in Prodigy. We tried to explain it, because again, like you said, Prodigy was great because it really,

it was like, and here's the episode where we introduce how the holodeck works. And that's where Rock Talk was going through and she talks about how there's like a motion plate underneath the holodeck that moves when they move. Yeah, yeah. Oh, but it's all a trick of the eye and emotion things. The tactile stuff, I think is a little bit harder to conceptualize, but again, it's just this idea of playing with light and you're playing with matter and how those are able to interact and how much you can fool the brain, right? Because

we kind of assume that in the future we know as much about the brain now as we do then. And like, and, but we've gotten to the point where we can transport and somehow replicate the soul and memories and all of that. So I'm assuming we know a lot more about ways that we can trick the brain in the future as well to think you're touching. Well, I mean, you have like VR, right? Like you have the VR stuff and you have like, what is it?

It just blew my mind the first time I did one of these when I was 13, but those, like those roller coaster rides, like it's just like a pod you're in, but it makes it feel like you're going in a loop and it makes it feel like you're going, you know, 70 miles an hour down, you know, down the steep, steep hill and it terrified the shit out of me when I was a kid. To this day, I will not, I love roller coasters,

but I won't go into one of those again, because it just like, I don't know, it did something to my brain. I can imagine 13-year-old Heather and one of those at Chuck E. Cheese, and you just hearing you scream from inside, this isn't fun! No, no!

It was actually, what was it? It was Disney Zone or whatever in Chicago. It was like this all virtual Disney theme park that lasted for like three years or something before it closed down. I can't remember exactly what it was called. I think I watched the Defunctland about that. Which by the way, neither Disney nor Defunctland

are paying us to provide any endorsements in this video. Well, the park is closed, so I don't know why they would be paying me to endorse it. That would be weird. No, I remember they closed because they scared the shit out of a 13-year-old kid on a roller coaster pod. I remember reading about that. That's what I said in the episode.

You understand. So, are we gonna, maybe this won't be something we can put in every home, but how plausible is this technology for recreational purposes? Well, I mean, I think similarly to like how 3d printing technology has advanced so much I do think that the idea like VR technology has advanced a lot But it's still a work in progress and we're getting to that point

You know some people do have pretty elaborate VR setups But you basically need a whole empty room to be able to have that set up properly to enjoy it. And so I think this idea of like haptic suits or some sort of thing that's the dispensation of touching things, of feeling things, I think that the ring out's bulky, it's heavy, it's expensive, so the technology just needs to improve.

But I do think, well, I think we'll get there. It just might not look like what we think it's gonna look like. Yeah, and I like that Lower Decks brought up something really important with the Holodeck, which is that it has biofilters, and we'll leave it there. Heather, let's just go with the next question before we get too deep into that.

Speaking of what we think is there, or what's not really there, but could be there, cloaking device, that's another big thing. You know, the Romulans, right? The Romulans and their cloaking devices. And I'm sure intelligence agencies and military agencies know far more about cloaking devices than I ever will to make it, you

know, untrackable. But I'm sure that's definitely got to be some science stuff that you guys have to work on in the show. One of the things I really like about it is, you know, cloaking technology that like we have now a lot that is just how do you fool the technology that we have to detect things. So we detect things by seeing light reflected off of it or light that's emitted from it. We give off heat, you know, like predator. Right. So like if we saw an infrared, you would you don't need any light reflected off a body to see them. You would just see them.

And so if you are in space and you have a spaceship and you want to cloak yourself from all the possible scans that they can do, basically the entire electromagnetic spectrum, the problem is, is that you're going to start cooking your ship real fast because you need to emit energy to not overheat, which is what I. And that is fairly consistent, even though they don't explicitly say it. We know that ships can't just run around cloaked, that they only last for a short period of time after de-cloak.

And so the reason for that is because you are shielding yourself from all forms of reflection or emission, any heat you're giving off, you're trapping inside, anything hitting you, you're absorbing it, you're not letting it reflect, and so you can't keep it on for very long because you'll cook on the inside. Is that also why cloaked ships can't have their shields up? I mean, yeah, I would think, yeah, because there's some form. However they interfere, you could take it two ways. That one is like if the shield is up, maybe that emits some sort of energy that could be detected, or it just exists outside of the cloaking technology rendering it diffumped.

So you just wouldn't even use it in the first place. Yeah, I guess from a plot standpoint, it would be terrible if they could do both at the same time. You know, the Romulans are always have always been one of the most interesting cultures, interesting species in Star Trek to me. This whole espionage, militaristic, quote unquote, evil planet of people. And there is a specific event in Romulan history that I'd love to hear you talk about, and that is the destruction of Romulus by the supernova of its star.

Is it Hobus? Hobus? I don't remember. And before it went full supernova, Spock tried to prevent it into like a single singularity, like kind of self-contained. How does one contain a supernova? Is this technology like theoretically real? Could someone theoretically contain a supernova? Is this technology like theoretically real? Could someone theoretically contain a supernova?

And wouldn't they have seen the supernova coming for thousands of years? Yes, yes, and yes. So, okay, so. Okay, great. Okay, done, no. Good. The supernova idea, yes, you would see coming.

And what's interesting about that is that the only stars that are gonna go supernova, which is basically when it can't, it reaches the end of its life, it's not pushing out with any energy anymore. And it's so massive, it collapses in on itself. That's only going to happen to really, really massive stars that don't necessarily live as long like our sun isn't going to go supernova. It will run out of fuel, but the outer layers will kind of slough

off because there's not all this gravity pressure from how massive it is. And so they would have seen it coming, but it probably would have already changed the dynamics of the solar system a lot. For example, when our sun reaches the end of its life, it's going to become a red giant, which is what the Romulus star would have done too. And like it will be around the radius of Earth, like it's going to be huge. And so we could move to Titan, but again, that would change the dynamics of our solar system. So that's one piece. However, like astrological astronomical timescales are very hard to predict. So some people may know that like Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice is a red star in-

Oh no, now Ryan has to marry Beetlejuice. No. No. No. No. No. It's in a Ryan's shoulder and you can, if you can see that constellation at night,

you can actually see that it's red. And that is because it is near the end of its life but it could explode now or it could explode in a hundred years in 10 000 years and so we can't predict down to like a day when a star is going to go supernova just because of the time scales we're talking now the red matter idea isn't so much that you're containing like a supernova. It is material with a big asterisk next to it because it is fine nor does it have any scientific explanation. It's mass. It's mass and it's red.

But its function is to essentially create a massive gravity well. So that's where we saw when they drop it in, it creates a black hole, it eats Vulcan, you know, in the film, like all of that. So you have this amount of matter, which apparently is only a tiny amount to contain an entire planet. But when it's ignited, activated, when energy passes through it, whatever, it simulates a deep, deep gravity well. That's the idea, but there's a lot of unknowns

and unexplained things that are happening. And one of my TBD math projects that I need to do is to scale up in the film how much like a single drop destroys an entire planet versus how much they actually have on that ship. Because I'm pretty sure if you ignited all of that, it would actually annihilate the whole galaxy. I'm pretty sure. Totally.

Well, that I mean, you know what, if they did that, that is one way to solve the problem. There's a lot of fun science things that we're playing with there, but those are sort of the vague concepts behind it. Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. We're getting to the end of time, but before we get to hear me out, I have one science astrophysics question for you that I would love to know. I know you've mentioned previous in other interviews that you've done, you're pretty

good about turning the brain off when it comes to watching other sci-fi where things might not be as accurate as Star Trek is. But is there a most egregious inaccuracy that haunts you that you've seen on TV or video games or whatever? There's two that immediately come to mind. One was more out of the fact that I worked as an aerospace engineer, and so understanding how big spaces and where orbits are. The two films are, oh God, what was it? Geostar and Gravity both really abuse how far away things are in space. Oh, okay. Being able to move from one thing to another.

That, that's just my brain really, really struggles to suspend its disbelief with that. And then the last one I have a hard time calling out because, but it did break my heart, was in the Netflix Voltron legendary Defenders show. Hard sci-fi right here. Hard sci-fi. Oh, man. The idea that you can't enjoy that show because of your background and your, yeah. I, okay, the reason is, is that my expectations were low. And then as they discussed the way they travel through space and all of the time travel, and it's the only like major TV franchise show thing that I've seen actually talk about time dilation when they travel to another place.

Yeah. They started to raise the bar as I was watching it. And then near the end of like, it was the first or second season, I think, they confused our galaxy and our solar system. Oh, I was so excited. Like they walk like, what do you mean? Like confusing our get like they interchanged it. Yeah, they basically they were like, we've made it home like to our I think to our It was like our solar our star system the Milky Way galaxy

And then like what was shown on the screen versus what they were saying were completely off It was like our solar's yeah Like I was so sad because like their understanding of space-time physics was so close. Just one simple oh yeah I cried so yeah it's it's just the stuff that's again science fiction what I like to say is like heavy metal music like there's a wide huge spectrum of content and when you meet other fans you've got to figure out where you're falling on that and as as a science advisor, too, I want to figure out where the show is landing. And as a fan, I need to figure out where the show is like, you're going to be a really hard sci fi show like The Expanse or like, you know, even Star Trek, I would

say some of the Star Trek episodes fall into that you can't make basic errors. But if I'm going to go watch Geostorm, honestly, I know what I'm signing up for. But in Voltron, I haven't seen this new Voltron, but do they still have giant robot cats that they use to form a giant robot man with the sword who fights? Yeah, great. Okay, all right.

But you were disappointed that wasn't realistic. It's... Because I'm watching Voltron. Oh, and I'm excited. Okay, okay, okay, all right, all right. All right, that works. I tried to be realistic. Because I'm watching Voltron. Okay, okay, okay, okay, all right, all right. That works. Try to explain it. But they're under quantum physics, space-time general relativity.

Just geography. Their geography was off. Yeah, just a little bit. Is it called geography when you're dealing with space? Or is geography just the earth? Actually, I'm not trying to... I don't know. I want to know the answer. I don't know with that.

The analogy, depending on the scale you're talking about, but probably cosmology is more probable. Cosmology. I thought cosmology was just about makeup. That's cosmetology. That's not a joke. I am understanding that now. As soon as you say cosmology, a lot of my life flashed before my eyes and I thought that's why I flunked out of vocational school. I bought the wrong books, I was at the wrong class

and everybody made fun of me. Let's do Hear Me Out. We have takes, theories, stuff we wanna talk about and you're forced to listen on a segment we call Hear Me Out. All right, so this is one that has bugged me ever since this movie has come out. And I'm glad that we have Aaron McDonald here to explain whether I'm right or wrong.

So this movie came out called Interstellar. You may have heard of it. I knew you were going to bring up Interstellar. Oh, man. So you may have heard of it. It was highly lauded for its accuracy and astrophysics. It was a big part of the promotion using, I think it was Neil deGrasse Tyson as he consulted with Nolan. No, it was Kip Thorne from Caltech. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. Thank you for that.

And they hate each other, by the way. They're bitter rivals. No, I don't take them that up. I just like to imagine they hate each other. Anyways. So in this movie, if you haven't seen it, sorry, spoilers for a movie that's been out for like 15 years, but we have to escape Earth because climate change has fully taken over and everything is on fire and dying and Matthew McConaughey is this, you know, brilliant astro-scientist that is going to help them, you know, find the best planet for survival. And in it, you know, the scientists have discovered three possible planets that we can go to.

And you know, which one are we going to go to first? And these scientists decide that the best planet for survival is the one that is right next to a black hole. It is the one that is super, super close to a black hole. And then they get on this planet and shocker the gravitational effects of the black hole, you know, have these giant tsunami tidal waves that nearly, you know, kill them all. And that's the thing that has driven... I don't know anything about astro science. I don't know anything about astrophysics, but my human-pled brain would know that the

best planet for survival is not the one that is neighbors with a black hole. Am I crazy? No, you're not. And the... That bugged me too. And as you were leading up to it, I was like, I really hope this is a Black Hole planet. That this is a reality. When I saw that movie, when that happened,

when they were like, Black Hole planet, this is the one, I was like, I'm out. I can't do this movie anymore. Yeah, and because because to the gravitational time dilation that they experience where they're experiencing time much slower than the people that are outside of the black hole area. That's the real thing. And that is actually we use that every day when you use your GPS

in your phone, because GPS satellites are outside of our gravity well. So I'm faster than we do here on Earth, but it's fractions of a nanosecond. But yes, also, if you're experiencing that much gravitational time dilation, what was it like seven hours? Yeah, something like that. Yeah. Like that gravity well is so steep, I guarantee you're not coming out of that.

Like you do not have no energy. You can't use the rotational pull of a planet to push it. Like you can't. That's not OK. I feel so validated right now. I can't even begin to describe it because this has been like such a sticking point for me since the theaters. And like no shade to Kip Thorne either, because again, you don't know,

if he was a science advisor. Oh, he's not writing it, yeah. I do know, cause he's talked about it, that like a big part of him science advising was about being able to get the black hole really accurate that they see. Scientists don't have graphics budgets to just make things look pretty.

And so that I think was just, even that would just be my hyper fixation of like, oh my God, I can actually make a realistic black hole with this budget. So yeah, that's, I agree with you. Don't get me started at the space time of knocking books off the wall too and knowing that's Morse code.

Don't get me started. But that's the next podcast. That's the next podcast. That's the next podcast. My problem was always that it's easier to go to space and relocate the entire human race than it is to grow okra. They kind of like, they explain the failing crops in a way that makes it sound like magic. And like, the world's not really on fire.

I mean, I get it, but like, you're talking about 3D printing food in the next five years and they can't grow a cabbage. And okay, here's my Hear Me Out. It's a nerdy one. It's related to Star Trek. Do you remember in Star Trek 4, which in this crowd is like saying, hey, do you remember the Beatles to a music fan? So do you remember in Star Trek 4, the whole reason they have to go back in time is because this mysterious probe shows up and it's only going to talk to whales. And it's this really convenient timing for Kirk, who's about to be kicked out of Starfleet and shown in prison, that this probe shows up that just happens to require one non-federation ship to time travel that he has. I submit to you that James T. Kirk

sent that probe from the future and that Starfleet found out about it, which is one of the reasons why the temporal prime directive people hate Kirk so much. Cause once again, he was faced with a Kubiashi Maru and he just changed the parameters of the test. But he did it in a time way that basically says Star Trek is a closed loop time universe. But I think it kind of is cause remember

when they're teaching the guy how to make transparent aluminum and Scottie says, oh, he might've invented it. I bet he did because I bet they always went back in time to save him. That's my hear me out. Kurt is a war criminal. I can't comment on this because I'm currently doing a comic tie-in that kind of about the Star Trek 4.

So I'm gonna keep my mouth shut on this. No, I love it. That's my new head cannon. That's perfect. I love it. Thank you. Heather, the gauntlet is thrown. You have to beat that. And you're really well-made professional on BW. Well, it's a Lower Decks comic, so it's, you know. We'll see. We'll see.

Man, I am... Look, I know this isn't the time and place, but I am rewatching Lower Decks right now. That show is such a gift. It's so good. The episode where Boimler gets hunted by the guy who just went to brunch with the captain, like, it just hits on every level of show camp.

Amazing. So good. Yeah. Dr. Aaron, do you have a Hear Me Out? I do, but it's like a really deep, deep, deep cut. I got time. Go, please, please. So my Hear Me Out, my favorite Star Trek series is Deep Space Nine. I love it, love it, love it, love it.

And I got into a debate with a bunch of people about Kai Wen, who I think, she raises my blood pressure every time I see her, but she's one of the greatest characters to ever be on television. And the here is that the prophets intentionally ignored Kai Wen through her religious life in order to drive her to the power rates to fulfill the story arc of D Space Night.

I told you it was a deep cut. No, I'm down. I think you're right. Having just spent three years deep in the profits and power rates and with the Star Trek comic, the profits are not great. Their bonobations are not good. And the only reason I don't like this take that I have is because it makes me feel sorry for Kai Wen a little bit.

And I really don't want to, but that's, yeah. Kai Wen's one of the best characters on that show because she is, she has parallels obviously with modern day life and televangelists who use religion for their own benefit. But also you just love to hate her. She is such a great foil man. I gotta rewatch DS9 now. I love that show. Well, you're welcome.

Zachary McDonald, it was so great to have you on here. Thank you so much for joining us. Before we sign off, please let folks know where they can follow you online, learn a bit more about what you're doing and maybe come to see you speak at a con or something in the future. Yeah. So you can find my sort of personal account at DrAaron, D-R-E-R-I-N-M-A-C on Blue Sky, same on Instagram, and then I have a YouTube channel of it is sporadic, but I do put stuff there occasionally called DrA Aaron Explains the Universe. And then you can find me in person this year at DragonCon.

And I will also be on the Star Trek cruise next year. Awesome. Teaching science to people. So if you didn't know there was a Star Trek cruise there is, and it's great. But yeah, thank you both for having me. I love nerding out about this stuff and you had great fun.

Thank you. Thank you so much. So I have been here with my cohost, Heather Antos. And I've been here with my cohost, Ryan Airy. This has been ScreenCrush Crossover Universe. At all time. And guys, let us know if there's anything we should have asked Dr. Aaron down in the comments below.

And remember to subscribe to us on every single podcast platform imaginable. And, you know, hey, if it's your first time here, subscribe to the channel and ring that bell for alerts. For ScreenCrush, I'm Ryan Airy. Thank you guys.