Star Trek: How Was Warp Achieved When Dilithium Is Not Found On Earth?

gamerant.com:

Over the last few years, Paramount has been creating more and more iterations into the Star Trek franchise, with recent additions such as Strange New Worlds and Picard but also the slightly longer-running Discovery, which started in 2017. The latter show has been met with various mixed reviews. Some have praised the show for taking a grittier stance on the franchise, while others criticize its lack of continuity and for breaking away from what original creator Gene Roddenberry wanted for the shows.

One such continuity issue is that according to Discovery, warp engines require the use of Dilithium crystals to work. But as these are not naturally found on Earth, how was Zefram Cochrane, creator of Earth's first warp engine, able to make one way back in 2063?

Star Trek: The Unexplored Pieces Of The Timeline

With the introduction of the event known as ‘The Burn’ into the Star Trek timeline, the show repeatedly pressed the necessity of Dilithium to make warp travel possible. ‘The Burn’ was a disastrous event that took place in the year 3069, where the majority of the universe's supply of Dilithium became inert, resulting in the widespread destabilization of every active warp core. The destabilization caused the deaths of millions across the universe, and almost forced the Federation to collapse in on itself. While exploring the impacts of The Burn and its aftermath are interesting, the claim Discovery makes about Dilithium is what’s important here. It single-handedly brings into question how Cochrane was able to make a warp core without it.

The unfortunate answer to this question is that Discovery were simply hoping nobody would remember this, and that Dilithium is just one method of creating warp plasma. At its heart, Discovery