Episode 8.8

Despite having skipped a few dull episodes, Alan thinks he probably understands what caused the ‘Burn’: the civilisation-ending galaxy-wide loss of dilithium. A deeply irritating orphaned Kelpian youngling stubbed his toe on a bowl of freshly picked dilithium crystals while wearing a telepathic transmat helmet. The resultant magnified curse echoed out across space-time, destroying every other piece of dilithium. (Alan did tell the scriptwriters that he’d have a hard time making this sound convincing.) 

To test this theory, and to see whether there might be a small silver lining, Alan is going to reconstruct events himself, directing his ire at the never-ending-seeming residue of the Saucer’s Christmas sprouts, hopefully saving everyone forever from that annual sprouty curse.