Daystrom Institute

3673 readers

9 users here now

Welcome to Daystrom Institute!

Serious, in-depth discussion about Star Trek from both in-universe and real world perspectives.

Read more about how to comment at Daystrom.

Rules

1. Explain your reasoning

All threads and comments submitted to the Daystrom Institute must contain an explanation of the reasoning put forth.

2. No whinging, jokes, memes, and other shallow content.

This entire community has a “serious tag” on it. Shitposts are encouraged in Risa.

3. Be diplomatic.

Participate in a courteous, objective, and open-minded fashion. Be nice to other posters and the people who make Star Trek. Disagree respectfully and don’t gatekeep.

4. Assume good faith.

Assume good faith. Give other posters the benefit of the doubt, but report them if you genuinely believe they are trolling. Don’t whine about “politics.”

5. Tag spoilers.

Historically Daystrom has not had a spoiler policy, so you may encounter untagged spoilers here. Ultimately, avoiding online discussion until you are caught up is the only certain way to avoid spoilers.

6. Stay on-topic.

Threads must discuss Star Trek. Comments must discuss the topic raised in the original post.

Episode Guides

The /r/DaystromInstitute wiki held a number of popular Star Trek watch guides. We have rehosted them here:

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

williams_482@startrek.website

Equals@startrek.website

LibraryLass@startrek.website

khaosworks@startrek.website

Why did Richard Daystrom get a research organization named after them? (startrek.website)

submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by hopesdead@startrek.website to c/daystrominstitute@startrek.website

11 comments fedilink hide all child comments

In “The Ultimate Computer”, the duotronic M-5 computer was deemed a failure which sent its creator Richard Daystrom into a nervous breakdown. Not only did Daystrom experience psychological distress (probably the most polite way to describe it), but was responsible for a machine that killed upwards of 53 people.

Why would a person responsible for the invention of a computer that unintentionally killed (unintentionally as in, not ordered to do so) get their name enshrined? Is there anything to explain why such a troubled person that ended up killing others in a quest to eliminate the risk of human death, would inspire anyone to name an organization after them?

EDIT: I need to add some complicating facts to this. “Chose Your Pain” (DIS season 1 episode 5) gives Daystrom Institute a founding date of 2256, which is before TOS. So based on comments, likely the duotronic computer is why the name was picked.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] hopesdead@startrek.website 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Daystrom Institute is UFP, not Starfleet affiliated. Hence why those who work at Daystrom aren’t Starfleet.

[–] data1701d@startrek.website 1 points 7 hours ago

Good catch.