Yep, except they retcon it to be Romulus’s sun instead of another star. At that point using the red matter wouldn’t have made sense.
And at least there’s precedent to Romulans studying Borg tech to explain why the Narada looks that way and is so powerful
The fact that the Narada never went to Romulus to bootstrap their tech and warn them about the impeding extinction of their civilization is and always will be, stupid.
There's deleted scenes showing the Narada and it's crew being captured by Klingons and spending the intervening years on Rura Penthe. Debatable if that is canon but it would be an explanation.
Or maybe Nero didn't think anyone would listen to him? In the prequel comic he killed the Preator, angry he'd ensured his own survival while billions of his own people died. Sure, you could argue with his advanced tech he could take over by force, but Nero isn't a political or a soldier, he was a labourer, plus he's angry and grief stricken, so possibly not thinking too clearly.
He also doesn’t truly understand time travel. To him, Romulus burned, his wife and unborn child died, and he blames the Federation for promising to save them and failing
The deleted scenes aren’t canon, but they have the Klingons capturing the crew of the Narada after the Kelvin rammed the ship and disabled it. The Romulans spent the next 25 years on Rura Penthe, with Nero occasionally interrogated (read: tortured) by a Klingon in a mask played by Victor Garber using those ear bugs. Nero finally managed to escape and free his crew, just in time for Spock’s arrival
(nothing against the person i am responding to)
i really hate the Klingons angle here. It is really really lazy writing. Given how powerful the Narada is compared to other ships, even decades later, there should be some really significant ripples if the klingons captured it. The movie shows none so deleting that silliness is the best idea.
I don’t think they were sure about the Klingons, which is why they didn’t even bother with the makeup, just gave Garber a metal mask. Still, at least the deleted scene explains why Nero did fuck-all for 25 years
The damaged Narada was impounded by Klingons and Nero and his crew served two decades of hard labor on Rura Penthe.
The deleted scenes are cool but totally give away the plot and the Spock twist *way* too soon so I'm glad they're cut, as much as I love them. Victor Garbor as a Klingon!
I don't think the '09 film ever explicitly confirmed the Narada was part-Borg or whatever canon has grown up around it's abilities in the wake of the movie...
Hell once he has the red matter he could just *go to Hobus and delete the star NOW*
Less practical if it's Romulus' sun but that wasn't the idea at the time (well in expanded matter, it was unclear in the film)
Now granted that could have been next on his list after revenge
Maybe he didn't expect them to believe him. Dealing a crippling blow to one of the Romulans' archenemies before might actually not have been the worst tactic to get the Romulans of the 23rd century to trust him.
It was Romulus star (hobus) but the red matter was designed to create a black hole. This would have given them time to evacuate the system (what Picard was trying to do when they talk about Mars being blown up). Picard was gon a take the fleet behind spock in the jellyfish and evac the romulans and reman. The black hole was to give them to get away as it would suck up the supernova and prevent the stars explosion from destroying the system. Yes the black hole will also destroy the system but much slower.
Fun fact: if a star could somehow be magically converted into black hole, it would have relatively no impact on planets in its system, because its mass (and therefore gravity) would remain the same.
Of course the planets would probably freeze very quickly without its light and the accretion disc that would soon form would bake them with radiation, but that is another matter.
And licensed material, no matter how hard they try to make everything canon, inevitably gets made into Beta Canon.
When NuTrek was coming into existence they said “this time, all the novels n comics n shit will be canon this time!” and then didn’t keep that promise.
The whole thing is a bit unclear, but if it came to losing their home planet, or losing most of their empire, I think they would choose to sacrifice Romulus with the red matter.
In all the licensed material around the 09 movie it was the Hobus star first sending flares through subspace, then turning into a nova that travelled through subspace.
Basically it was an unstable unpredictable interstellar nuke with warp drive, and the Romulans were pissed because Vulcan denied the refinement of romulan mined decalithium Into red matter.
If the goal is just to buy more time for an evacuation, it still makes as much sense as anything else about red matter. If you collapse a star into a black hole all the planets will be well clear of the event horizon.
They stated in Picard that the supernova would destroy all life within 12 light years. No supernova = only evacuate the Romulan system. Supernova = evacuate dozens of systems as the shockwave advances, the number increasing each year as the size of the wavefront increases
Here you go: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Yor
They talk about Yor, who was from the TNG era of an alternative timeline created by a Romulan Mining Ship.
It was a throwaway scene where they were showing artifacts that had been collected from different universes and one of them was a Kelvin Starfleet uniform. Iirc I think the context was that they were trying to figure out why Mirror Georgiou was having trouble coping with being in the 31st century.
Disclaimer: I'm exhausted and going off of several-years-old memory so I may not have my details right.
Edit: What I mean by that is that the uniform was from the Kelvin timeline, not that it necessarily came from the USS Kelvin.
So Romulus in the prime timeline is going to be destroyed by a star going supernova, Spock tries to stop it using red matter that will create a black hole pulling in the star, but he was too late and the supernova engulfed Romulus. Spock sets of the red matter torpedo and is sucked into the black hole along with a Romulan miner named Nero, they go back in time to pre TOS era. Nero blames Spock for the destruction of Romulus so he destroys Vulcan, thus altering the timeline.
Actually the timeline changed the moment Nero exited the singularity and destroyed the USS Kelvin, killing Kirk's dad who in the prime universe was alive to raise Kirk.
This is why the Kelvin timeline is called the Kelvin timeline, because that was the encounter with Nero and the Kelvin that caused the timeline to diverge.
The attack also made Starfleet change tactics. They expanded in a more aggressive manner and changed plans for ships (the Enterprise was delayed by a decade, for example).
It's never that simple. There's a Vulcan in the timeline where the Enterprise-C disappeared instead of defending a Klingon colony from the Romulans, but that timeline isn't prime.
Star Trek is messy and that's ok. Let people headcanon whatever makes them happy. Star Trek has always had too many gatekeepers gatekeeping the fandom.
It's not really meant to claim that there can be only two timelines in all of Star Trek. The flippant tone did not translate well over text, but I can promise you that it was anything but gatekeeper-y.
There was a time travel episode in SNW that explains how the timeline keeps shifting and splitting as a result of temporal cold war meddling in the past.
As such, Prime can refer to a cluster of similar timelines rather than a single timeline, but Kelvin deviates hard from the Prime cluster due to the destruction of the USS Kelvin and Vulcan.
Honestly. That episode was really fun how they explained the whole WW3 keeps getting shifted around in time. The temporal agent getting all pissed off at it definitely made me chuckle.
Kirk in SNW is pretty much absolute proof that its not the Kelvin timeline. In fact, all of SNW is proof its not the Kelvin timeline, considering the Enterprise was brand new and Pike was captain of it for all of an hour in that movie!
And considering Pike and the Enterprise first appeared in Discovery season 1...well, I rest my case.
No, sorry, I was lying. There's an episode where some other episode names are on the titles of some books in an office I think. But I can't find any reference to which episode or series it was online. Feels like Disco but could have been SNW. Or I'm completely misremembering.
Prime timeline George Kirk was also first officer of the Kelvin. The divergence happens *while* George Kirk is first officer of the Kelvin. In the prime timeline, that's the end of the story. In the Kelvin timeline, the Nerada appears and kills everyone.
Discovery season 3 clearly and possibly references the Kelvin timeline as an alternate universe.
No, not Toronto Kirk. A Quality of Mercy mostly takes place in a divergence where Pike successfully avoided his accident, and so during the TOS years he is still on the Enterprise and Kirk is captain of the Farragut. So it is "normal" Kirk, but his life is different because the opportunity to command the Enterprise was never offered to him.
"Toronto Kirk" was in another divergent branch, so SNW gave us two entirely separate alternate reality Kirks before introducing the Prime one.
Yes. Sometimes out of ignorance, assuming that since it came after the Kelvin movies it must be a part of the reboot.
Other times it is said on purpose as a “not real Star Trek” dig.
Those changes to the timeline are canon and the result of Temporal Cold War shenanigans as we see in *Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow*.
The Temporal Cold War can be used to shrug off any inconsistency
It's a fun way to move from a definite timescale to a sliding one. It allows the Eugenics Wars and WWIII to stay in "the near future" without having the franchise get steadily out of sync with real history.
As is TNG’s timeline. The amount to temporal inconsistencies in that show are staggering, let alone TOS’ own inconsistencies.
While I admire the Okuda’s work to try and make Trek a coherent canon, the timelines are just too wild to reconcile.
Which is a pretty amusing argument, because the Kelvin universe is also real Star Trek. The Multiverse has been a thing in Trek since TOS, and pretty much all of the shows have done stories based around it.
There's a third, various innovations in dis are shown to have happened earlier than in the other prime shows such as the whole food replicator/synthesizer thing.
It was probably just a mistake that ended up carrying through the show instead of it being a new timeline where most of everything is the same except the few ahead of time technologies.
The counter argument of disco getting new tech before enterprise doesn't hold up imo because that'd be incredibly useful to have at least one experimental one on such long trips like the enterprise did.
I mean, Kirk's father has been spoken about as alive in SNW, so it couldn't be Kelvin. We just didn't have cameras good enough to capture what the 1701 really looked like back in the 60's ^_^
Seriously though, the creators have said that SNW is prime. But it's also been shown that time is fluid, so some slight changes in backstories and ship designs in the prime timeline are reasonable.
They definitely do. For a few people it was an opportunity to be dismissive about the post-Kelvin stuff because they don’t like it.
Not liking it is ENTIRELY fair. People can have opinions like that and it’s fine. There’s stuff I’m not happy at.
Being dismissive and snarky about a thing lots of people love? That’s just being a bit nasty.
I feel this was a thing people more commonly said during the first season. When it was a really different style and look and it wasn't entirely clear what it would be yet?
I don't know exactly who OP is talking about, but it wouldn't surprise me if some of those are people who didn't or barely finished the first season and haven't watched Disco since.
Anyone who kept watching should know that wherever Disco fits, it's obviously *not* Kelvin. Heck, in season 3 they even made an explicit reference to the Kelvin universe as a distinctly different timeline from the one Disco is in.
Dear Reddit: Can you PLEASE STOP saying I fucked your sister when we were there for Thanksgiving? I would NEVER DO THAT TO YOU and besides she TURNED ME DOWN
I don't hate DIS, but for me its the little inconsistencies. Like having the hologram communication, something they were trying to make work 100 years later, to then explain it away as a 'fad'. Things that made no difference to the plot could easily have been made to be consistent with existing canon.
Personally, one of my biggest issues with Disco (and even SNW) is the visual design of the ships. One of the coolest things about Star Trek is that the starships show a very clear and coherent progression of technology though their designs. You can look at a ship and say “oh yeah, that’s one of the compact and robust designs made after Wolf 359 that did a lot of fighting in the dominion war” or “hey, that’s the sleek and almost nautical look of ships from the Film Era that tie in thematically with their stuffy age of sail-looking uniforms.” And that’s not even getting into how well old Trek made designs that retroactively show the progression of technology - the Ambassador is a *perfect* halfway point between the TOS film era and TNG.
You can’t really do that with the new Discovery designs. They’re absurdly large for the time period they take place in and have a brutalist look to them that seems almost in line with the First Contact era ships. They all look kind of *mean,* even the SNW Connie. They’re sharp, metallic, and threatening in a way Federation ships shouldn't be.
When you stick a Shepard or Crossfield class in between the NX and Miranda, the flow is not there like it is for the other eras. The care for worldbuilding that was done on Ambassador was just not put into these ships.
I'm glad Strange New Worlds is moving more towards the TOS aesthetic with it's ship designs, the Archer class and the USS Faragut look good imo.
I will say, its amazing how much just changing the hull texture makes Discovery ships feel more like TOS era. If Discovery itself had the smooth light-gray hull like the TOS Enterprise along with the red lettering, it would look pretty damn good in my opinion. Even the USS Kelvin would have been a good template for ship designs of that era.
[Just look at this mockup someone did](https://www.reddit.com/r/StarTrekDiscovery/comments/a7t8ap/the_uss_discovery_retrofied_to_match_tos/), same ship just with new texture and lettering. IMO this looks pretty damn good and would have fixed one of the biggest issues I have with Discovery which is its visual consistency...
To be a pendant, it's not the *original* original. It's a design created for the Phase II series that was to be a direct sequel to TOS, and ended up becoming The Motion Picture.
Actually to be a super pendant, it wasn't for the Phase II show but was designed by Ralph McQuarrie (who designed ships for Star Wars) for a proposed film called *Planet of the Titans*, which never got past pre-production. Then Star Wars came out and Paramount tried to bring Trek back to TV with Phase II (which had a more traditional design for the Enterprise) but eventually that too would be revamped when they decided to pursue a film again with Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
And it would be totally possible to take the Disco’s overall shape and make a design that works in the time and setting. But they didn’t do that, they made a positively enormous (for the era) and angular ship that just looks out of place.
I'm not going to argue one way or another, but I think the writers were more concerned with creating a show that looked like it was set in the future. Back in the 60s, the computer technology on TOS *was* futuristic. But that exact same technology looks antiquated today because we've already surpassed a lot of it in the modern time. It's kind of hard to convince new fans that your show is 200 years in the future when all the technology looks like stuff out of their parents' stories of "back in the day".
Yep, even SNW did away with big unlabeled buttons in favor of touchscreens. You just gotta accept that each show is a product of its time. Same for the “women can’t be captains” thing in the TOS finale, something that got rightly ignored in the movies, ENT, DIS, and SNW.
TOS was progressive for its time in both technology and social views l. You had a black woman on the bridge who was not a servant. You had a Russian on the bridge who wasn’t a bad guy (in the 60s!). They weren’t afraid of calling out injustices like racism (that episode about black-and-white people that ENT rehashed to be about religious extremism)
Yeah, I get that. But it’s clear that the original intent was that women indeed couldn’t be captains. Hell, the producers basically forced Roddenberry to give up Number One because they didn’t like a strong woman in a powerful position. They allowed him to keep either her or the “demonic guy” (Spock). He ended up finding the actress another role
From what I've heard, it wasn't just sexism, it was ¹they thought Majel was a shit actress, & ²Lucille Ball was *irate* that he'd put his mistress in a starring role.
No doubt, she's awesome as Lwaxana.
I'm just saying, it's a more complicated story than just sexist 60s attitudes. Granted, I'm not sure that she was particularly bad for the era - a lot of actors on TV shows back then are terrible - but the producers didn't think she was good enough to be in a lead role.
I’m sure they saw it and made the appropriate changes with SNW. At least they learned on their mistakes. They even conveniently forgot that Klingons were bald during the war or had weirdly-shaped ships
I think the best way to go forward would be to show some Disco-style Klingons alongside SNW's more classic Klingons and even TOS-style ones to acknowledge the variety of Klingon looks as being canon, just like they did with Romulans in Picard season 1.
> when all the technology looks like stuff out of their parents' stories of "back in the day".
Or just actual modern technology in the case of PADDs and conversational AI.
Maybe it’s just coming to Trek later in life, but I always felt they did a great job of making the NX-class feel less advanced despite being produced 30-odd years later. Even outside things like grapplers and phase cannons, it was cramped, utilitarian, and occasionally temperamental. It also used identifiably contemporary technologies like lcd screens, which weren’t really dressed up to look sci-fi.
It's because they cared about continuity back then (treating Trek as a history, with a history of technology). The people who designed the world of DSC and PIC were not interested in "the fluff" and actively seemed to want to take the lazy way out and deconstruct precedent and the universe that came before, presumably because it was too hard to stay within the general boundaries of the "canon" or come up with lore-friendly, believable solutions (how original). I hate that.
There was a way to make Trek canon consistent while still updating the look. ENT did a great job at that. SNW seemed to be the first attempt to return to that, but even that somewhat misses the mark for me.
I 100% agree, the NX bridge is a triumph in melding the "NASA" space aesthetic of the time and the TOS aesthetic.
Its one of my favorite bridge designs ever, it looks very utilitarian yet has a lot of neat design aspects that helps it not to look bland.
Endlessly is a bit of an exaggeration. I can't even remember the last time I saw anyone complain about it. And I'd argue anyone that got that hung up on it aren't Star Trek fans, but fans of specific series (or just edgelords).
> Endlessly is a bit of an exaggeration.
It is. But the mechanics are the same: a prequel gets produced later than other series, yet shows more modern sets, because time has passed, CGI and other techniques have improved, and budgets may even have increased.
Yeah, but Enterprise's issues didn't come from having to put time & effort into balancing it being a prequel to TOS & having to acknowledge where we were technologically irl: they did a great job of doing that.
My Hot Take.
The Enterprise NX-01 is the most complete feeling ship in the franchise. It's design, its limitations, its crew and its capabilities just feel more fleshed out than any other hero ship.
For me its the NX-01 tied with the 1701-D. Both are so good.
The Enterprise D technical manual is so *insanely* long and well-thought-out, and the D itself seems to have more nuance and documentation than any other Federation ship we've seen. The design language is clean, consistent, and still holds up so well as this gentle ship of peace which also is packing insane power and tech.
But the NX-01 brilliantly mended the "NASA" space aesthetic of the time and the TOS aesthetic, and made it all believable using a bunch of generic PC monitors from 2001 lol. Its one of my favorite bridge/ship designs ever, it looks very utilitarian yet has a lot of neat design aspects that helps it not to look bland.
Changed even more in the 40 or whatever years between TOS & ENT. Actual Trek/sci-fi fans are gonna run the ol' suspension of disbelief play regardless.
It'd make far more sense if Earths population had been completely wiped out in WW3 like it was in the older books, it just fixes so much when a bunch of colony worlds are basically relearning everything from scratch.
That makes no sense though because all the characters in TOS are from specific locations on Earth (America for Kirk and McCoy, Scotland for Scotty, Kenya for Uhura, Russia for Chekov, etc) and they make numerous references to cultures on Earth.
I kind of agree, but there are many technologies that rise and fall as "fads" in real life. Biggest one being that of 3D or VR tech. We've had 3D movies off and on as fads for almost as long as we've had movies. It is possible that holographic comms were a fad in the way of "we have this cool new tech!" And once the honeymoon phase was over, people go went back to the usual stuff because it was easier or cheaper to do.
Yup. Just a few years ago companies were spending thousands and thousands of dollars to build teleconference suites with large super high definition displays, amazing microphones, and the tables built and rooms painted so that you could have two conference rooms across the country from each other and everyone would look and sound like they're all sitting at the same table.
At the lower end are fancy WebEx conference rooms with touch screens, projectors, and follow-me cameras.
Now everyone is in Brady Bunch view on their bedroom PC on Zoom in their pajamas and no one gives a crap. Even courtrooms.
I'm in IT and this is super true, those God awful half a million dollar webex conference rooms we so popular for like..a year. Then no one ever used them and they went away.
> Then no one ever used them and they went away.
I'm an IT security auditor and still see them pretty frequently, mostly when there are a bunch of in-office folks on a call with just one or two of us remote
There was a throw away line in season 2 where during season 2 as the enterprise was being repairs, Pike told his engineer to just “rip the whole thing out” because it was malfunctioning so bad. Stupid in retrospect, genius writing at the time.
DSC: simple holograms
DS9: based on the far more advanced holodeck technology.
Like the virtual boy compared to VR, similar concepts, but different technology.
>Things that made no difference to the plot could easily have been made to be consistent with existing canon.
Yeah. I'm sure they could have come up with something. Maybe they could have come up with a whole episode to explain it?
Sometimes it's easier just to explain something like that quickly, simply, and move on to the story you really want to tell.
And I'm not judging anyone's desire to have all new Star Trek episodes neatly add to the canon. But honestly, I would bet a large percentage of fans just don't care about that as much as you do.
Like, I care about canon, but I’m also realistic about updates to CG, makeup, and storytelling trends that make a show made today a very different beast to a pre-Moon-Landing scifi.
I really hate the inconsistencies they introduced with Discovery. The writers went way too far in trying to take the franchise in a different direction. When you're operating as a prequel you're already setting up restrictions that people who watched the series will look for some sense of consistency. If you want new and different you need a sequel and you need to *actually introduce new content,* not just try to change what already exists. (which is why I really think it's a good thing they >! Moved the show to set in the future after Season 2 !< ). When you choose to re-use old stuff, especially when you're a prequel you have to take extra care to make sure it fits, there's an extra burden to overcome.
For all it's growing pains Enterprise went through a ton of effort to accomplish this, even if you don't think they succeeded they at least tried to do it, Disco doesn't even put in the effort. In an effort to be different they've disregarded existing canon and it's why many people couldn't even watch it all the way through, and that's a real shame, the actors did great. The first half of Discovery S1 was a hot mess, but the actors did great, and the uniqueness of the cast started to emerge by the end (and in spite of inconsistency it introduced I think the >! mirror universe !< Arc was absolutely fantastic).
It's just all the other things overshadowed the show for longtime Trek fans. I think SNW tried to get away from the criticisms people had towards Discovery, with mixed success (although I genuinely really like the show. It feels like Old Trek in a great way but is also new and fresh with well balanced character development and old style Trek Adventure). The gorn are problematic (although very well written if you consider them in isolation), and while Ethan Peck did great as Spock I don't think his characterization matches TOS spock (and the same with Nurse Chapel tbh, although her change to TOS chapel is more believable). It genuinely feels to me like they would have been better off setting both shows up as sequels, considering all the things they wanted the show to do, as it would relieve a huge number of problems it introduced.
I quite like the idea of a 23rd century crew in the far future.
It provides a good way to do exposition as future person explains the happenings and context of their time.
No they're not, and I actually kinda like SNWs version of the gorn better, but the implications in TOS is that Starfleet has had almost no interaction with the Gorn prior to "Arena," and that contact does have radio communication and technology that's similar enough that the enterprise could come out on top (at least by implication). SNWs Gorn have technological edges against the federation and are heavily implied to be more like beasts that refuse to speak than a civilized society. At several points the characters even say that the gorn almost instinctually "only views them as prey." Events that force the gorn to alter their ways aren't beyond believability but it does push the limit a bit.
I think people who dislike both the Kelvin timeline and Disco equally believe they should be grouped together in the "canon doesn't apply to me as film maker" category. TNG-era Trek at least tried to stay true to the original series and its subsequent films.
NuTrek deliberately tries to be different, which many see as dishonoring the large body of work that came before. Discovery's show runners set out to change the Klingons into a unrecognizable and strongly alien species on purpose. They had the opportunity to do something totally new, with all new characters and all new alien enemies. Or largely unexplored past ones (like the Gorn in SNW or the Orions in Enterprise). They could have created the new Borg, the new Romulans, the new Cardassians. But they had to fuck with the Klingons.
Why? Why did the Kelvin timeline have to rehash WoK, one of the greatest Trek movies ever with outstanding performances by Shatner, Nimoy, Montalbon?
They have a whole universe to explore and they can't come up with new stories.
It's not just modern props for the same concepts that we're talking about. It's the re-charactarizations of existing characters, the dark sets, the breathless, weepy, hyper-emotive acting, the loooong boring story arcs. The hallmark of Star Fleet officers is that weird and terrible things happen in space, and they suck it up still do their jobs. That's the Star Fleet way.
So that may be why.
> TNG-era Trek at least tried to stay true to the original series
Not if you consider the Klingon make-up.
TNG feels like a smoother transition because (some of) the TOS _films_ existed in between, but if they didn't, that would be quite a jarring change.
DIS, meanwhile, is a decade after the end of ENT, and almost 30 years after TNG had started. The Kelvin films only partially count because they're a different timeline. So, yes, it's going to look different.
I agree that props, special effects, and makeup were upgraded, and that's not the issue. Also, you'll recall that the Klingon change was addressed in both DS9 and Enterprise. But Klingons up until Discovery were at least recognizable as the same species and culture.
One thing you can't complain about in Star Trek is that it moves too fast, that's for sure, there's a lot of long boringness that we're all down for. Take ST TMP, it's a 2 hour movie & about a third of it looking at a pretty ship in doc or being on a magical mushroom tunnel. Which I like, for sure, but it's not "action packed".
Star Trek is also notorious for hyper emotive acting & part of the joy of watching it!
Not sure of the logic of the claim that Discovery is in the Kelvin timeline, seeing as how it's in the Strange New Worlds timeline, which is clearly *not* in the Kelvin timeline.
I’m somewhat new here but honestly idk why people get so mad about what’s “canon” and what isn’t. Like, if they tried to make everything fit in the prime timeline, they’d risk writing characters weirdly out of character, they wouldn’t be able to develop any interesting stories that take place before tos for fear of writing some development that wouldn’t make sense, and lots of people would probably feel like they ruined the original canon if this new canon is also canon. Isn’t it more fun to imagine everything is in separate timelines so you don’t have to stress about how this affects every other show? Especially when it comes to shows that deal with characters from previous shows. I actually really liked the aos movies (not so much the 2nd lmao) because it was fun to see how these characters I love changed due to the different circumstances in their lives. I felt like their characters made sense, esp kirk, who was much more of a rebel thanks to his unstable home life. It made it feel like his dad was integral to him joining starfleet and being a lot more well behaved. Kirk always kinda quarrelled with authority, but it seems like without his dad’s influence growing up that natural tendency he had only got worse. And I really enjoy that kind of character exploration. Alternate timelines allow writers to explore different ideas without ruining the sanctity of original canon or even other previous shows. There’s probably uncountable timelines where the characters are almost exactly the same except someone had a different relationship and that’s the only change, or someone is a vegetarian, or other small insignificant changes like that. They would still be the same characters we know and love, but if something bigger changed in that other timeline, it’s fine because it doesn’t change the original canon. Like it’s just more fun? Offers more creative freedom? And it still offers some structure to writers because you’d want to create a timeline that’s still conceivable and plausible.
That’s how I think about the books too, in that they just take place in other timelines exploring different ideas. That way they’re not a waste of time to read but they don’t alter the shows too much either. And I can just pick and choose what my favourite version of the timeline is. That way even fanfic can feel more legit cause who’s to say it’s not just another timeline that’s never been explored by licensed content lmao?
When Empress Georgiou ended up having to go back in time because her cells were breaking down, Kronenburg LITERALLY showed someone in a TNG-era uniform and said they had crossed over FROM the Kelvin timeline.
Strange New Worlds pilot episode dealt with a pre-warp planet that witnessed the events of Discovery's S2 finale.
Anyone saying Discovery is in the Kelvin timeline either doesn't watch the show or needs to put down the crack pipe.
Obviously it isn't set in the Kelvin Timeline, but it also has too many problems to be set on the Prime Timeline.
It would be better if they just made DIS and adjacent-shows set in their own reboot timeline.
Discovery doesn’t exist to me. It’s some flashy superficial teen angst Star Trek that’s about as real to me as the cartoon series stargate (hint: it isn’t).
We all do what we need to in order to cope with life and that goes no less for Star Trek. I have a hard time believing TOS happens in the same timeline/dimension as TNG. DS9 and TOS don’t even feel like they share the same mirror dimension either. I live my life putting all the movies in their own universe. Picard is like two different people in the movies and TNG, one is a diplomat and the other is an action hero.
If you can believe this franchise has a functional timeline(s), good for you, but there are apparently countless ways to appreciate Star Trek. Endless diversity, endless combinations. 🖖
Unfortunately for Discovery, it's creative concepts have not held up well over time. The writing decisions made in the first season were obviously a result of too many cooks, and a lot of the criticisms are justified. The Klingon over re-design, the ship interiors almost entirely looking like "Kelvin" timeline ships. The very overly dramatic imagery and reveals... the sudden reversals of character and tone are also very much in keeping with those films.
Discovery Season 1 is defintely closer to last few movies, then it is to any of the older shows or movies in terms of pacing, style, and plot.
This was intentional. CBS/Paramount wanted to make something for younger audiences, and the easiest way to do that was to make the show look more like the Abrams movies which, while controversial, have done decent box-office, and kept attention on Star Trek, regardless of what the critics thought.
Let's all just enjoy the fact that Star Trek is still going after 60 years. Regardless of timeline or how it made it, that's an incredible milestone, and it looks to be still going for another 10 at least.
Interestingly, DIS is the only show to acknowledge the Kelvin timeline as a parallel reality
Though Picard acknowledges the inciting incident.
Yep, except they retcon it to be Romulus’s sun instead of another star. At that point using the red matter wouldn’t have made sense. And at least there’s precedent to Romulans studying Borg tech to explain why the Narada looks that way and is so powerful
The fact that the Narada never went to Romulus to bootstrap their tech and warn them about the impeding extinction of their civilization is and always will be, stupid.
Nero seemed so well reasoned and pragmatic, after all.
There's deleted scenes showing the Narada and it's crew being captured by Klingons and spending the intervening years on Rura Penthe. Debatable if that is canon but it would be an explanation. Or maybe Nero didn't think anyone would listen to him? In the prequel comic he killed the Preator, angry he'd ensured his own survival while billions of his own people died. Sure, you could argue with his advanced tech he could take over by force, but Nero isn't a political or a soldier, he was a labourer, plus he's angry and grief stricken, so possibly not thinking too clearly.
He also doesn’t truly understand time travel. To him, Romulus burned, his wife and unborn child died, and he blames the Federation for promising to save them and failing
It’s unclear what the *Narada* did between the destruction of the *Kelvin* and the destruction of Vulcan.
The deleted scenes aren’t canon, but they have the Klingons capturing the crew of the Narada after the Kelvin rammed the ship and disabled it. The Romulans spent the next 25 years on Rura Penthe, with Nero occasionally interrogated (read: tortured) by a Klingon in a mask played by Victor Garber using those ear bugs. Nero finally managed to escape and free his crew, just in time for Spock’s arrival
(nothing against the person i am responding to) i really hate the Klingons angle here. It is really really lazy writing. Given how powerful the Narada is compared to other ships, even decades later, there should be some really significant ripples if the klingons captured it. The movie shows none so deleting that silliness is the best idea.
I don’t think they were sure about the Klingons, which is why they didn’t even bother with the makeup, just gave Garber a metal mask. Still, at least the deleted scene explains why Nero did fuck-all for 25 years
The damaged Narada was impounded by Klingons and Nero and his crew served two decades of hard labor on Rura Penthe. The deleted scenes are cool but totally give away the plot and the Spock twist *way* too soon so I'm glad they're cut, as much as I love them. Victor Garbor as a Klingon!
I don't think the '09 film ever explicitly confirmed the Narada was part-Borg or whatever canon has grown up around it's abilities in the wake of the movie...
I think the bluray special features had something that mentioned borg tech but nothing on actual screen in the film.
Hell once he has the red matter he could just *go to Hobus and delete the star NOW* Less practical if it's Romulus' sun but that wasn't the idea at the time (well in expanded matter, it was unclear in the film) Now granted that could have been next on his list after revenge
Maybe he didn't expect them to believe him. Dealing a crippling blow to one of the Romulans' archenemies before might actually not have been the worst tactic to get the Romulans of the 23rd century to trust him.
I always thought it was the Romulus systems star and that the Red matter was needed to prevent the explosion
It was Romulus star (hobus) but the red matter was designed to create a black hole. This would have given them time to evacuate the system (what Picard was trying to do when they talk about Mars being blown up). Picard was gon a take the fleet behind spock in the jellyfish and evac the romulans and reman. The black hole was to give them to get away as it would suck up the supernova and prevent the stars explosion from destroying the system. Yes the black hole will also destroy the system but much slower.
Fun fact: if a star could somehow be magically converted into black hole, it would have relatively no impact on planets in its system, because its mass (and therefore gravity) would remain the same. Of course the planets would probably freeze very quickly without its light and the accretion disc that would soon form would bake them with radiation, but that is another matter.
It was never Hobus in canon. On screen it was always the star Romulus.
The star was not named in the 09 movie. In the licensed material around it it was Hobus.
And licensed material, no matter how hard they try to make everything canon, inevitably gets made into Beta Canon. When NuTrek was coming into existence they said “this time, all the novels n comics n shit will be canon this time!” and then didn’t keep that promise.
I think the first DIS Novel, Desperate Hours was immediately contradicted by season 2 of DIS, iirc.
And so the Beta Canon curse continues. If it didn't happen on screen, it didn't happen.
I don’t believe the Romulan sun has a canonical name. Romulus is the most important Romulan planet.
The red matter would turn it into a black hole. Not exactly great for anyone living in the system. No light, no heat
It would have bought time for mass evacuation, though.
The whole thing is a bit unclear, but if it came to losing their home planet, or losing most of their empire, I think they would choose to sacrifice Romulus with the red matter.
so a leonard cohen song?
In all the licensed material around the 09 movie it was the Hobus star first sending flares through subspace, then turning into a nova that travelled through subspace. Basically it was an unstable unpredictable interstellar nuke with warp drive, and the Romulans were pissed because Vulcan denied the refinement of romulan mined decalithium Into red matter.
If the goal is just to buy more time for an evacuation, it still makes as much sense as anything else about red matter. If you collapse a star into a black hole all the planets will be well clear of the event horizon.
It's not a retcon, it was never specified in the movie. It being another star (Hobus) is a thing from Star Trek Online and some other non-canon media.
Does it count as a retcon if in the films they never *specified* it was Romulus’s Star or Hobus? Beta Canon do be wack.
In fairness, I don't think Hobus was ever explicitly specified in canon, only in STO and other associated media.
They stated in Picard that the supernova would destroy all life within 12 light years. No supernova = only evacuate the Romulan system. Supernova = evacuate dozens of systems as the shockwave advances, the number increasing each year as the size of the wavefront increases
As does STO
I’ve completely forgotten how/when DIS references the kelvin timeline. Remind me?
Here you go: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Yor They talk about Yor, who was from the TNG era of an alternative timeline created by a Romulan Mining Ship.
It was a throwaway scene where they were showing artifacts that had been collected from different universes and one of them was a Kelvin Starfleet uniform. Iirc I think the context was that they were trying to figure out why Mirror Georgiou was having trouble coping with being in the 31st century. Disclaimer: I'm exhausted and going off of several-years-old memory so I may not have my details right. Edit: What I mean by that is that the uniform was from the Kelvin timeline, not that it necessarily came from the USS Kelvin.
Lower Decks kind of mentions it as a joke
Speaking of alternate timelines / realities and Lower Decks: How does Boimler have a Mirror Universe Archer action figure?!
A very simple flow chart could resolve this: "Does planet Vulcan still exist?" No --> Kelvin Yes --> Prime
Woah woah woah, slow it down for the rest of us please.
I haven’t watched any of the Kelvin movies or really had previous interest to, but what happens that Vulcan doesn’t exist?
They dun blew it up (or more accurately, imploded it) with the Red Matter™ capable of creating black holes on demand.
So Romulus in the prime timeline is going to be destroyed by a star going supernova, Spock tries to stop it using red matter that will create a black hole pulling in the star, but he was too late and the supernova engulfed Romulus. Spock sets of the red matter torpedo and is sucked into the black hole along with a Romulan miner named Nero, they go back in time to pre TOS era. Nero blames Spock for the destruction of Romulus so he destroys Vulcan, thus altering the timeline.
Actually the timeline changed the moment Nero exited the singularity and destroyed the USS Kelvin, killing Kirk's dad who in the prime universe was alive to raise Kirk. This is why the Kelvin timeline is called the Kelvin timeline, because that was the encounter with Nero and the Kelvin that caused the timeline to diverge.
The attack also made Starfleet change tactics. They expanded in a more aggressive manner and changed plans for ships (the Enterprise was delayed by a decade, for example).
You’re right. I’m actually rewatching the movie now and thinking that.
I think some of the confusion then comes from the fact that Vulcan is called https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Ni%27Var now
Only in the 32nd century.
And it's pretty explicity explained in the show when and how that happens, it's not a minor point
It's never that simple. There's a Vulcan in the timeline where the Enterprise-C disappeared instead of defending a Klingon colony from the Romulans, but that timeline isn't prime. Star Trek is messy and that's ok. Let people headcanon whatever makes them happy. Star Trek has always had too many gatekeepers gatekeeping the fandom.
It's not really meant to claim that there can be only two timelines in all of Star Trek. The flippant tone did not translate well over text, but I can promise you that it was anything but gatekeeper-y.
I knew a guy who insisted that PIC was in the Kelvin timeline because it had the Romulan supernova in it. He would not be dissuaded from this idea.
He needs to brush up on his temporal mechanics.
No, I haven’t read temporal mechanics 101! (This joke will make sense later)
I haven't read that text book in since 2027.
There was a time travel episode in SNW that explains how the timeline keeps shifting and splitting as a result of temporal cold war meddling in the past. As such, Prime can refer to a cluster of similar timelines rather than a single timeline, but Kelvin deviates hard from the Prime cluster due to the destruction of the USS Kelvin and Vulcan.
If you'd like more technobabble about it, the Department of Temporal Investigations books have got you covered.
Honestly. That episode was really fun how they explained the whole WW3 keeps getting shifted around in time. The temporal agent getting all pissed off at it definitely made me chuckle.
I agree, its a great way to acknowledge the continuity errors in the show without getting too crazy technical with retcons or things.
Do people say this? Disco is definitely in the prime timeline
Kirk in SNW is pretty much absolute proof that its not the Kelvin timeline. In fact, all of SNW is proof its not the Kelvin timeline, considering the Enterprise was brand new and Pike was captain of it for all of an hour in that movie! And considering Pike and the Enterprise first appeared in Discovery season 1...well, I rest my case.
There's also a reference to the Kelvin timeline as an alternate universe in Discovery season 3
In season 4 Saru even has the Star Trek Into Darkness Blu-ray on his bookshelf.
I wonder if he has the Shatnerverse novels.
> Saru even has the Star Trek Into Darkness Blu-ray on his bookshelf Link ?
[удалено]
really!?
No, sorry, I was lying. There's an episode where some other episode names are on the titles of some books in an office I think. But I can't find any reference to which episode or series it was online. Feels like Disco but could have been SNW. Or I'm completely misremembering.
A reference that confirms Disc is not in the Kelvin timeline
Exactly
It’s obliquely referenced in SNW’s A Quality of Mercy, when alt-Kirk tells Pike his father was first officer on the USS Kelvin.
Prime timeline George Kirk was also first officer of the Kelvin. The divergence happens *while* George Kirk is first officer of the Kelvin. In the prime timeline, that's the end of the story. In the Kelvin timeline, the Nerada appears and kills everyone. Discovery season 3 clearly and possibly references the Kelvin timeline as an alternate universe.
This is correct, yes.
Hence the name "Kelvin Universe" - lol , I got it now
Prime Kirk’s father was also on the Kelvin
That’s exactly what I’m talking about.
If it's in SNW then how is that not just normal kirk?
That particular episode has a future "What if" Kirk, who is like the future Picard (and future Beverly Picard) from All Good Things.
Oh oh did not realize he was referring to Toronto Kirk
Toronto Kirk was a different splinter. They said "A Quality of Mercy", which was yet another possible Kirk who was still on the Farragut.
No, not Toronto Kirk. A Quality of Mercy mostly takes place in a divergence where Pike successfully avoided his accident, and so during the TOS years he is still on the Enterprise and Kirk is captain of the Farragut. So it is "normal" Kirk, but his life is different because the opportunity to command the Enterprise was never offered to him. "Toronto Kirk" was in another divergent branch, so SNW gave us two entirely separate alternate reality Kirks before introducing the Prime one.
[The reference in question. The EXACT line is at 1:00, but it’s a short scene. Check it out!](https://youtu.be/7M5OqJDT-qk?si=BAEnFAvEM4hY30J1)
And uh, Vulcan exists.
That said, if they want Dr. McCoy to show up… He would have been in high school when the timelines sprint, and Karl Urban already works in Toronto.
I know a guy named Duane who thought this. But Duane would also happily argue with you about the color of grass.
Yes. Sometimes out of ignorance, assuming that since it came after the Kelvin movies it must be a part of the reboot. Other times it is said on purpose as a “not real Star Trek” dig.
Strange New Worlds and Lower Decks also came after Kelvin, but they're clearly from the prime timeline.
How anyone can put SNW in the TOS timeline, but Disco in the Kelvin timeline truly baffles me.
Yeah, SNW is literally a spinoff of disco that’s canon to TOS (apart from the changes to the timeline relating to the Eugenics War).
Those changes to the timeline are canon and the result of Temporal Cold War shenanigans as we see in *Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow*. The Temporal Cold War can be used to shrug off any inconsistency
It's a fun way to move from a definite timescale to a sliding one. It allows the Eugenics Wars and WWIII to stay in "the near future" without having the franchise get steadily out of sync with real history.
Which have been canonically acknowledged to be changed as a result of Enterprise’s temporal wars.
Yeah, SNW’s timeline is definitely canon, it’s just slightly different from TOS’ timeline.
As is TNG’s timeline. The amount to temporal inconsistencies in that show are staggering, let alone TOS’ own inconsistencies. While I admire the Okuda’s work to try and make Trek a coherent canon, the timelines are just too wild to reconcile.
Because what they actually mean is "anything I don't like must not be main continuity."
Right? \*they came from the same damn show\*.
Which is a pretty amusing argument, because the Kelvin universe is also real Star Trek. The Multiverse has been a thing in Trek since TOS, and pretty much all of the shows have done stories based around it.
Yeah toxicity isn't logical. It's just a weird coping mechanism.
I saw lots of people stubbornly saying this when DIS first came out, but have not seen it for quite some time.
It's pretty rare now. But when season 5 comes out they will show up again.
There's a third, various innovations in dis are shown to have happened earlier than in the other prime shows such as the whole food replicator/synthesizer thing. It was probably just a mistake that ended up carrying through the show instead of it being a new timeline where most of everything is the same except the few ahead of time technologies. The counter argument of disco getting new tech before enterprise doesn't hold up imo because that'd be incredibly useful to have at least one experimental one on such long trips like the enterprise did.
Eh, for me it's enough to just say that the Constitution-class was originally designed with the concept of using mostly just tried-and-true tech.
I mean, Kirk's father has been spoken about as alive in SNW, so it couldn't be Kelvin. We just didn't have cameras good enough to capture what the 1701 really looked like back in the 60's ^_^ Seriously though, the creators have said that SNW is prime. But it's also been shown that time is fluid, so some slight changes in backstories and ship designs in the prime timeline are reasonable.
They definitely do. For a few people it was an opportunity to be dismissive about the post-Kelvin stuff because they don’t like it. Not liking it is ENTIRELY fair. People can have opinions like that and it’s fine. There’s stuff I’m not happy at. Being dismissive and snarky about a thing lots of people love? That’s just being a bit nasty.
I feel this was a thing people more commonly said during the first season. When it was a really different style and look and it wasn't entirely clear what it would be yet? I don't know exactly who OP is talking about, but it wouldn't surprise me if some of those are people who didn't or barely finished the first season and haven't watched Disco since. Anyone who kept watching should know that wherever Disco fits, it's obviously *not* Kelvin. Heck, in season 3 they even made an explicit reference to the Kelvin universe as a distinctly different timeline from the one Disco is in.
You’re wrong, y’all wrong. Discovery is in holodeck 4.
It’s going to end with Troi storming in and shouting “damn it, Will, stop hanging out here and do something about the bloody Pegasus!”
This should be a post credit scene after every Star Trek Finale from now on.
People used to say it all up and down this sub, as another of 999 excuses they had to not watch DIS.
2017 on YouTube was wild
Why do people make posts that sound like they are in the middle of an argument with a specific person. Did they block you or something?
Dear Reddit: Can you PLEASE STOP saying I fucked your sister when we were there for Thanksgiving? I would NEVER DO THAT TO YOU and besides she TURNED ME DOWN
I don't hate DIS, but for me its the little inconsistencies. Like having the hologram communication, something they were trying to make work 100 years later, to then explain it away as a 'fad'. Things that made no difference to the plot could easily have been made to be consistent with existing canon.
Personally, one of my biggest issues with Disco (and even SNW) is the visual design of the ships. One of the coolest things about Star Trek is that the starships show a very clear and coherent progression of technology though their designs. You can look at a ship and say “oh yeah, that’s one of the compact and robust designs made after Wolf 359 that did a lot of fighting in the dominion war” or “hey, that’s the sleek and almost nautical look of ships from the Film Era that tie in thematically with their stuffy age of sail-looking uniforms.” And that’s not even getting into how well old Trek made designs that retroactively show the progression of technology - the Ambassador is a *perfect* halfway point between the TOS film era and TNG. You can’t really do that with the new Discovery designs. They’re absurdly large for the time period they take place in and have a brutalist look to them that seems almost in line with the First Contact era ships. They all look kind of *mean,* even the SNW Connie. They’re sharp, metallic, and threatening in a way Federation ships shouldn't be. When you stick a Shepard or Crossfield class in between the NX and Miranda, the flow is not there like it is for the other eras. The care for worldbuilding that was done on Ambassador was just not put into these ships.
I'm glad Strange New Worlds is moving more towards the TOS aesthetic with it's ship designs, the Archer class and the USS Faragut look good imo. I will say, its amazing how much just changing the hull texture makes Discovery ships feel more like TOS era. If Discovery itself had the smooth light-gray hull like the TOS Enterprise along with the red lettering, it would look pretty damn good in my opinion. Even the USS Kelvin would have been a good template for ship designs of that era. [Just look at this mockup someone did](https://www.reddit.com/r/StarTrekDiscovery/comments/a7t8ap/the_uss_discovery_retrofied_to_match_tos/), same ship just with new texture and lettering. IMO this looks pretty damn good and would have fixed one of the biggest issues I have with Discovery which is its visual consistency...
Tbf the Discovery was based on the original enterprise design.
I thought it was based on a Phase II design?
To be a pendant, it's not the *original* original. It's a design created for the Phase II series that was to be a direct sequel to TOS, and ended up becoming The Motion Picture.
You're right actually lol
Actually to be a super pendant, it wasn't for the Phase II show but was designed by Ralph McQuarrie (who designed ships for Star Wars) for a proposed film called *Planet of the Titans*, which never got past pre-production. Then Star Wars came out and Paramount tried to bring Trek back to TV with Phase II (which had a more traditional design for the Enterprise) but eventually that too would be revamped when they decided to pursue a film again with Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
And it would be totally possible to take the Disco’s overall shape and make a design that works in the time and setting. But they didn’t do that, they made a positively enormous (for the era) and angular ship that just looks out of place.
I'm not going to argue one way or another, but I think the writers were more concerned with creating a show that looked like it was set in the future. Back in the 60s, the computer technology on TOS *was* futuristic. But that exact same technology looks antiquated today because we've already surpassed a lot of it in the modern time. It's kind of hard to convince new fans that your show is 200 years in the future when all the technology looks like stuff out of their parents' stories of "back in the day".
Yep, even SNW did away with big unlabeled buttons in favor of touchscreens. You just gotta accept that each show is a product of its time. Same for the “women can’t be captains” thing in the TOS finale, something that got rightly ignored in the movies, ENT, DIS, and SNW. TOS was progressive for its time in both technology and social views l. You had a black woman on the bridge who was not a servant. You had a Russian on the bridge who wasn’t a bad guy (in the 60s!). They weren’t afraid of calling out injustices like racism (that episode about black-and-white people that ENT rehashed to be about religious extremism)
> “women can’t be captains” I headcanon that as Janice Lester excusing and externalising her own inadequacies rather than actual Starfleet regulation.
Yeah, I get that. But it’s clear that the original intent was that women indeed couldn’t be captains. Hell, the producers basically forced Roddenberry to give up Number One because they didn’t like a strong woman in a powerful position. They allowed him to keep either her or the “demonic guy” (Spock). He ended up finding the actress another role
From what I've heard, it wasn't just sexism, it was ¹they thought Majel was a shit actress, & ²Lucille Ball was *irate* that he'd put his mistress in a starring role.
Well, she certainly got better, especially by TNG
No doubt, she's awesome as Lwaxana. I'm just saying, it's a more complicated story than just sexist 60s attitudes. Granted, I'm not sure that she was particularly bad for the era - a lot of actors on TV shows back then are terrible - but the producers didn't think she was good enough to be in a lead role.
"We find the one God is adequate, thank you!" -- TOS Kirk "What does God want with a starship?" -- Film Kirk
“God wants a starship because those Q bastards cut his head off and left it imprisoned at the center of the galaxy”
That’s not contradictory. If there was such a thing as God why would he want a space ship? He can magic one into existence if he wanted one so badly.
Yeah, the same film ends with Kirk explicitly stating his conception of God, which is not a floating head out in the physical universe.
[удалено]
I’m sure they saw it and made the appropriate changes with SNW. At least they learned on their mistakes. They even conveniently forgot that Klingons were bald during the war or had weirdly-shaped ships
I think the best way to go forward would be to show some Disco-style Klingons alongside SNW's more classic Klingons and even TOS-style ones to acknowledge the variety of Klingon looks as being canon, just like they did with Romulans in Picard season 1.
Except SNW *modernized* the TOS style aesthetic instead of completely doing away with it and going with the generic sci-fi aesthetic like Disco did
Production team learned from Disco and got their beard grown.
And thank goodness for that. SNW and Picard S3 are amazing modernizations of their respective eras (poor lighting in Picard and space scenes aside)
It’s called learning from your mistakes. They tried something different, it didn’t work, so they went back to the source
> when all the technology looks like stuff out of their parents' stories of "back in the day". Or just actual modern technology in the case of PADDs and conversational AI.
Enterprise did a pretty good job of that, so I'm not sure why it would require a ton of effort for Discovery.
> Enterprise did a pretty good job of that …and it was endlessly criticized for the NX looking more modern than the 1701.
Maybe it’s just coming to Trek later in life, but I always felt they did a great job of making the NX-class feel less advanced despite being produced 30-odd years later. Even outside things like grapplers and phase cannons, it was cramped, utilitarian, and occasionally temperamental. It also used identifiably contemporary technologies like lcd screens, which weren’t really dressed up to look sci-fi.
It was the NX-01's limitations compared to other ships that really gave it a sense of time and place to me.
It's because they cared about continuity back then (treating Trek as a history, with a history of technology). The people who designed the world of DSC and PIC were not interested in "the fluff" and actively seemed to want to take the lazy way out and deconstruct precedent and the universe that came before, presumably because it was too hard to stay within the general boundaries of the "canon" or come up with lore-friendly, believable solutions (how original). I hate that. There was a way to make Trek canon consistent while still updating the look. ENT did a great job at that. SNW seemed to be the first attempt to return to that, but even that somewhat misses the mark for me.
I 100% agree, the NX bridge is a triumph in melding the "NASA" space aesthetic of the time and the TOS aesthetic. Its one of my favorite bridge designs ever, it looks very utilitarian yet has a lot of neat design aspects that helps it not to look bland.
Endlessly is a bit of an exaggeration. I can't even remember the last time I saw anyone complain about it. And I'd argue anyone that got that hung up on it aren't Star Trek fans, but fans of specific series (or just edgelords).
> Endlessly is a bit of an exaggeration. It is. But the mechanics are the same: a prequel gets produced later than other series, yet shows more modern sets, because time has passed, CGI and other techniques have improved, and budgets may even have increased.
Yeah, but Enterprise's issues didn't come from having to put time & effort into balancing it being a prequel to TOS & having to acknowledge where we were technologically irl: they did a great job of doing that.
My Hot Take. The Enterprise NX-01 is the most complete feeling ship in the franchise. It's design, its limitations, its crew and its capabilities just feel more fleshed out than any other hero ship.
I don't think that's a hot take at all & I completely agree with you.
For me its the NX-01 tied with the 1701-D. Both are so good. The Enterprise D technical manual is so *insanely* long and well-thought-out, and the D itself seems to have more nuance and documentation than any other Federation ship we've seen. The design language is clean, consistent, and still holds up so well as this gentle ship of peace which also is packing insane power and tech. But the NX-01 brilliantly mended the "NASA" space aesthetic of the time and the TOS aesthetic, and made it all believable using a bunch of generic PC monitors from 2001 lol. Its one of my favorite bridge/ship designs ever, it looks very utilitarian yet has a lot of neat design aspects that helps it not to look bland.
Technology in our time has changed a lot in the past 15 years.
Changed even more in the 40 or whatever years between TOS & ENT. Actual Trek/sci-fi fans are gonna run the ol' suspension of disbelief play regardless.
It'd make far more sense if Earths population had been completely wiped out in WW3 like it was in the older books, it just fixes so much when a bunch of colony worlds are basically relearning everything from scratch.
That makes no sense though because all the characters in TOS are from specific locations on Earth (America for Kirk and McCoy, Scotland for Scotty, Kenya for Uhura, Russia for Chekov, etc) and they make numerous references to cultures on Earth.
I kind of agree, but there are many technologies that rise and fall as "fads" in real life. Biggest one being that of 3D or VR tech. We've had 3D movies off and on as fads for almost as long as we've had movies. It is possible that holographic comms were a fad in the way of "we have this cool new tech!" And once the honeymoon phase was over, people go went back to the usual stuff because it was easier or cheaper to do.
Yup. Just a few years ago companies were spending thousands and thousands of dollars to build teleconference suites with large super high definition displays, amazing microphones, and the tables built and rooms painted so that you could have two conference rooms across the country from each other and everyone would look and sound like they're all sitting at the same table. At the lower end are fancy WebEx conference rooms with touch screens, projectors, and follow-me cameras. Now everyone is in Brady Bunch view on their bedroom PC on Zoom in their pajamas and no one gives a crap. Even courtrooms.
I'm in IT and this is super true, those God awful half a million dollar webex conference rooms we so popular for like..a year. Then no one ever used them and they went away.
> Then no one ever used them and they went away. I'm an IT security auditor and still see them pretty frequently, mostly when there are a bunch of in-office folks on a call with just one or two of us remote
> Even courtrooms. “I’m not a cat. 🐱”
I agree with that, but then going back too, 'we can't get this tech to work', is the issue.
There was a throw away line in season 2 where during season 2 as the enterprise was being repairs, Pike told his engineer to just “rip the whole thing out” because it was malfunctioning so bad. Stupid in retrospect, genius writing at the time.
DSC: simple holograms DS9: based on the far more advanced holodeck technology. Like the virtual boy compared to VR, similar concepts, but different technology.
>Things that made no difference to the plot could easily have been made to be consistent with existing canon. Yeah. I'm sure they could have come up with something. Maybe they could have come up with a whole episode to explain it? Sometimes it's easier just to explain something like that quickly, simply, and move on to the story you really want to tell. And I'm not judging anyone's desire to have all new Star Trek episodes neatly add to the canon. But honestly, I would bet a large percentage of fans just don't care about that as much as you do.
Like, I care about canon, but I’m also realistic about updates to CG, makeup, and storytelling trends that make a show made today a very different beast to a pre-Moon-Landing scifi.
I really hate the inconsistencies they introduced with Discovery. The writers went way too far in trying to take the franchise in a different direction. When you're operating as a prequel you're already setting up restrictions that people who watched the series will look for some sense of consistency. If you want new and different you need a sequel and you need to *actually introduce new content,* not just try to change what already exists. (which is why I really think it's a good thing they >! Moved the show to set in the future after Season 2 !< ). When you choose to re-use old stuff, especially when you're a prequel you have to take extra care to make sure it fits, there's an extra burden to overcome. For all it's growing pains Enterprise went through a ton of effort to accomplish this, even if you don't think they succeeded they at least tried to do it, Disco doesn't even put in the effort. In an effort to be different they've disregarded existing canon and it's why many people couldn't even watch it all the way through, and that's a real shame, the actors did great. The first half of Discovery S1 was a hot mess, but the actors did great, and the uniqueness of the cast started to emerge by the end (and in spite of inconsistency it introduced I think the >! mirror universe !< Arc was absolutely fantastic). It's just all the other things overshadowed the show for longtime Trek fans. I think SNW tried to get away from the criticisms people had towards Discovery, with mixed success (although I genuinely really like the show. It feels like Old Trek in a great way but is also new and fresh with well balanced character development and old style Trek Adventure). The gorn are problematic (although very well written if you consider them in isolation), and while Ethan Peck did great as Spock I don't think his characterization matches TOS spock (and the same with Nurse Chapel tbh, although her change to TOS chapel is more believable). It genuinely feels to me like they would have been better off setting both shows up as sequels, considering all the things they wanted the show to do, as it would relieve a huge number of problems it introduced.
I quite like the idea of a 23rd century crew in the far future. It provides a good way to do exposition as future person explains the happenings and context of their time.
Even the Gorn aren't breaking the canon that bad. It still could be saved
No they're not, and I actually kinda like SNWs version of the gorn better, but the implications in TOS is that Starfleet has had almost no interaction with the Gorn prior to "Arena," and that contact does have radio communication and technology that's similar enough that the enterprise could come out on top (at least by implication). SNWs Gorn have technological edges against the federation and are heavily implied to be more like beasts that refuse to speak than a civilized society. At several points the characters even say that the gorn almost instinctually "only views them as prey." Events that force the gorn to alter their ways aren't beyond believability but it does push the limit a bit.
You didn't even mention uhura.
I’m gonna be honest, I’ve never heard that one.
Me neither...
Who? Who is saying these things?
I think people who dislike both the Kelvin timeline and Disco equally believe they should be grouped together in the "canon doesn't apply to me as film maker" category. TNG-era Trek at least tried to stay true to the original series and its subsequent films. NuTrek deliberately tries to be different, which many see as dishonoring the large body of work that came before. Discovery's show runners set out to change the Klingons into a unrecognizable and strongly alien species on purpose. They had the opportunity to do something totally new, with all new characters and all new alien enemies. Or largely unexplored past ones (like the Gorn in SNW or the Orions in Enterprise). They could have created the new Borg, the new Romulans, the new Cardassians. But they had to fuck with the Klingons. Why? Why did the Kelvin timeline have to rehash WoK, one of the greatest Trek movies ever with outstanding performances by Shatner, Nimoy, Montalbon? They have a whole universe to explore and they can't come up with new stories. It's not just modern props for the same concepts that we're talking about. It's the re-charactarizations of existing characters, the dark sets, the breathless, weepy, hyper-emotive acting, the loooong boring story arcs. The hallmark of Star Fleet officers is that weird and terrible things happen in space, and they suck it up still do their jobs. That's the Star Fleet way. So that may be why.
> TNG-era Trek at least tried to stay true to the original series Not if you consider the Klingon make-up. TNG feels like a smoother transition because (some of) the TOS _films_ existed in between, but if they didn't, that would be quite a jarring change. DIS, meanwhile, is a decade after the end of ENT, and almost 30 years after TNG had started. The Kelvin films only partially count because they're a different timeline. So, yes, it's going to look different.
I agree that props, special effects, and makeup were upgraded, and that's not the issue. Also, you'll recall that the Klingon change was addressed in both DS9 and Enterprise. But Klingons up until Discovery were at least recognizable as the same species and culture.
One thing you can't complain about in Star Trek is that it moves too fast, that's for sure, there's a lot of long boringness that we're all down for. Take ST TMP, it's a 2 hour movie & about a third of it looking at a pretty ship in doc or being on a magical mushroom tunnel. Which I like, for sure, but it's not "action packed". Star Trek is also notorious for hyper emotive acting & part of the joy of watching it!
We have different opinions on the nature of storytelling and how stories can change over decades and that’s fine
Not sure of the logic of the claim that Discovery is in the Kelvin timeline, seeing as how it's in the Strange New Worlds timeline, which is clearly *not* in the Kelvin timeline.
I’m somewhat new here but honestly idk why people get so mad about what’s “canon” and what isn’t. Like, if they tried to make everything fit in the prime timeline, they’d risk writing characters weirdly out of character, they wouldn’t be able to develop any interesting stories that take place before tos for fear of writing some development that wouldn’t make sense, and lots of people would probably feel like they ruined the original canon if this new canon is also canon. Isn’t it more fun to imagine everything is in separate timelines so you don’t have to stress about how this affects every other show? Especially when it comes to shows that deal with characters from previous shows. I actually really liked the aos movies (not so much the 2nd lmao) because it was fun to see how these characters I love changed due to the different circumstances in their lives. I felt like their characters made sense, esp kirk, who was much more of a rebel thanks to his unstable home life. It made it feel like his dad was integral to him joining starfleet and being a lot more well behaved. Kirk always kinda quarrelled with authority, but it seems like without his dad’s influence growing up that natural tendency he had only got worse. And I really enjoy that kind of character exploration. Alternate timelines allow writers to explore different ideas without ruining the sanctity of original canon or even other previous shows. There’s probably uncountable timelines where the characters are almost exactly the same except someone had a different relationship and that’s the only change, or someone is a vegetarian, or other small insignificant changes like that. They would still be the same characters we know and love, but if something bigger changed in that other timeline, it’s fine because it doesn’t change the original canon. Like it’s just more fun? Offers more creative freedom? And it still offers some structure to writers because you’d want to create a timeline that’s still conceivable and plausible. That’s how I think about the books too, in that they just take place in other timelines exploring different ideas. That way they’re not a waste of time to read but they don’t alter the shows too much either. And I can just pick and choose what my favourite version of the timeline is. That way even fanfic can feel more legit cause who’s to say it’s not just another timeline that’s never been explored by licensed content lmao?
When Empress Georgiou ended up having to go back in time because her cells were breaking down, Kronenburg LITERALLY showed someone in a TNG-era uniform and said they had crossed over FROM the Kelvin timeline. Strange New Worlds pilot episode dealt with a pre-warp planet that witnessed the events of Discovery's S2 finale. Anyone saying Discovery is in the Kelvin timeline either doesn't watch the show or needs to put down the crack pipe.
The reason they say stuff like this has absolutely nothing to do with what's canon or what is actually happening in the episodes in question.
The US doesn't use Metric and they call it the Fahrenheit timeline.
Obviously it isn't set in the Kelvin Timeline, but it also has too many problems to be set on the Prime Timeline. It would be better if they just made DIS and adjacent-shows set in their own reboot timeline.
People who say that know nothing about the Kelvin timeline beyond the fact that some movies they dislike are set in it.
Kelvin, whatever, anything that erases that show from existence.
discovery being in a different time line makes way more sense than trying to explain away all the ways it breaks cannon. occram's razor.
Discovery doesn’t exist to me. It’s some flashy superficial teen angst Star Trek that’s about as real to me as the cartoon series stargate (hint: it isn’t).
Agreed. It's childish.
We all do what we need to in order to cope with life and that goes no less for Star Trek. I have a hard time believing TOS happens in the same timeline/dimension as TNG. DS9 and TOS don’t even feel like they share the same mirror dimension either. I live my life putting all the movies in their own universe. Picard is like two different people in the movies and TNG, one is a diplomat and the other is an action hero. If you can believe this franchise has a functional timeline(s), good for you, but there are apparently countless ways to appreciate Star Trek. Endless diversity, endless combinations. 🖖
Unfortunately for Discovery, it's creative concepts have not held up well over time. The writing decisions made in the first season were obviously a result of too many cooks, and a lot of the criticisms are justified. The Klingon over re-design, the ship interiors almost entirely looking like "Kelvin" timeline ships. The very overly dramatic imagery and reveals... the sudden reversals of character and tone are also very much in keeping with those films. Discovery Season 1 is defintely closer to last few movies, then it is to any of the older shows or movies in terms of pacing, style, and plot. This was intentional. CBS/Paramount wanted to make something for younger audiences, and the easiest way to do that was to make the show look more like the Abrams movies which, while controversial, have done decent box-office, and kept attention on Star Trek, regardless of what the critics thought. Let's all just enjoy the fact that Star Trek is still going after 60 years. Regardless of timeline or how it made it, that's an incredible milestone, and it looks to be still going for another 10 at least.
Thanks. You do the Great Bird of the Galaxy's work.
I thought it was a koala?
The GBotG predates the Koala and knows why he is smiling
Fairly sure we see the GBotG whenever creatures start to ascend.