History Fridge / StarTrek

* Whatever happened to that cloaking device that the TOS crew steals from the Romulans in one episode? Scotty manages to use it to cloak the Enterprise so I'm assuming it shouldn't be too hard for him or other Federation engineers to make copies of that device and install them in other Federation ships. However, the fact that the Enterprise has the ability to cloak and that the crew stole a cloaking device that can be reverse engineered is never mentioned again throughout the entire franchise. Even though there are countless films and TV episodes where it would be incredibly helpful for the main characters to have a cloaking device, especially since they are constantly at odds with other species who possess cloaking technology.

* At first, ''Franchise/StarTrek'' appears to violate tactical logic by lacking any true examples of a SpaceFighter, a standard among rival SpaceOpera settings ''StarWars'', ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|Reimagined}}'', ''Series/BabylonFive'', ''Series/{{Farscape}}'', ''{{Stargate}}'', ''Series/{{Andromeda}}'', etc. After all, small, maneuverable fighter crafts can target a larger opponent's [[AttackItsWeakPoint vulnerable points]] in ways a bigger ship can't. Then you realize DeflectorShields mean ships don't ''have'' weak points! The only way to defeat an opponent is by mustering enough force to overload their shields, making small ships all but useless in direct combat.

!!The Franchise

[[AC:FridgeBrilliance]]
* Some FridgeHorror about the transporters. They take a person and change him into energy, transmit his code along an energy beam, and reconstitute him in a different place. So it vaporizes you, leaves the original you just floating around in the air, and reconstitutes a copy of you from the atoms in the area where it transports you to. Anyone who's been through a transporter has been destroyed, and what's walking around now is a copy. Almost everyone in the Star Trek universe is a copy of a person, the original of which was destroyed. And therefore, the human soul either does not exist or most people have no soul anymore. (Credit here to David Wong and ''Literature/ThisBookIsFullOfSpiders.'')
* The verity of aliens and the "evolution" in Star Trek is always mocked, and it was just "hay, add some spots" because of costs, and the need for sexy aliens, however it works scientifically, as the eye was evolved 3 separate times on earth so it makes sense that the basic bi-pedal form has taken hold on most minshara - class planets as it is the most effective way of surviving to civilization the superficial differences visually can be explained by slight variations in the non-essential parts of the chromosome.
* At first, ''Franchise/StarTrek'' appears to violate tactical logic by lacking any true examples of a SpaceFighter, a standard among rival SpaceOpera settings ''StarWars'', ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|Reimagined}}'', ''Series/BabylonFive'', ''Series/{{Farscape}}'', ''{{Stargate}}'', ''Series/{{Andromeda}}'', etc. After all, small, maneuverable fighter crafts can target a larger opponent's [[AttackItsWeakPoint vulnerable points]] in ways a bigger ship can't. Then you realize DeflectorShields mean ships don't ''have'' weak points! The only way to defeat an opponent is by mustering enough force to overload their shields, making small ships all but useless in direct combat.
** It's probably over-stating it to say energy shields are decisive in rendering starfighters ineffective (although they certainly effect the role starfights play in combat and how they are designed). Shields can be redirected to protect an area under the heaviest threat, leaving other areas partially or completely vulnerable. This can allow a heavier combatant to lay down fire against one section of the ship, drawing the defender's shields, while a fast maneuverable ship performs a flanking attack on the defender's exposed section. Remember too that energy shields are standard equipment for most ships in Star Wars, where starfighters play a big role in combat. Also, on ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'', we do see a number of smaller craft perform the role of starfighters during fleet engagements, though they're generally larger than an X-Wing or a Viper (and this isn't counting the Bajoran and Maquis resistance fighters, which were pretty much classic sci-fi starfighters). The absence of traditional starfighters from ''Star Trek'' can probably be attributed to the accuracy of weaponry, particularly phasers and disrupters. Being little just means you have less armor and a smaller powerplant with which to generate shields and power weapons, so the "fighters" of Star Trek are larger than those in franchises where less precise weaponary is the norm.
*** The ''Defiant'' misses more than any other Starfleet vessel on the show, this is probably due to the limited arc of her forward phasers. If you watch the battle between the ''Defiant'' and the ''USS Lakota'' in ''Paradise Lost'', you'll see that ''Defiant'' misses her target several times, but the ''Lakota'' doesn't miss even once.
** Tell me what's easier to hit: 1 massive ship, or 1000 tiny ships attacking from all directions? In WWII, big ships did not have weak spots either, yet they still used bombers and torpedo planes to attack them. One German battleship took a huge number of hits just to get it to start sinking, and that took days to finish.
*** But ships are slowed down by water drag while aircraft are free from it. [[SpaceIsAnOcean Despite what most science fiction implies]], that doesn't apply in space. So a better analogy would be speedboats versus a battleship.
**** Real life: Taffey. In WW2, a destroyer group engaged the Japanese fleet and the Yamato to stall them long enough for the real Enterprise and her air wing.
*** Star Trek ships have been demonstrated to be far more maneuverable than ships in other franchises. The Enterprise-E is 700 meters long, and yet can maneuver quite well for a ship of its size. In addition, phasers can be deadly accurate, as the Enterprise-D was able to eliminate a squadron of fighter craft in about two seconds, without even so much as flinching.
*** The comment about WWII big ships not having week spots is absolutely incorrect. Ships like the Bismark had an armor belt around the ship. Anything above or below this belt was considerably weaker. That was the reason dive bombers and torpedo planes were used, they were able to hit above and below the armor belt to damage the deck and hull respectively. The critical shot that doomed the Bismark to be scuttled was a torpedo strike (from a torpedo plane) jamming the rudder (a weak spot) causing the ship to effectively go round in circles. I imagine that the limiting factor of fighters in the TOS was due to their inability to mount a warp drive on ships that small at that time. Without warp drive, fighters could only be used locally within a system, or off a carrier type vessel that would be vulnerable to attacks from starships and unable to effect a speedy withdrawal w/o abandoning their fighters.
*** Weakness is also relative. It's entirely possible that at that time it wasn't possible to fit a shuttle-sized craft with powerful enough weapons (or the [[RequiredSecondaryPowers support systems]] for those weapons) to get through a very large ship's very strong defences at ''any'' points. Remember the ''Defiant'' was mainly notable for being grossly overpowered for its frame, and doesn't appear to be engineered to the same [[FailsafeFailure "high" standard]] as other Federation ships. Type-X phaser arrays are absolutely huge, and torpedo bays can cover an entire deck.
*** Lets be honest as to the real world reason for a lack of fighter: The original series was A) on a ridiculously minimal budget and B) Star Trek first aired a good decade before Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica popularized the concept of a ''Space Aircraft Carrier.'' Come the latter series with bigger budgets and fighting the influence of these big franchises (which now also had Stargate and ''its'' fighters to contend with) the obvious answer was to keep the show firmly set in its roots. The amount of people that would of accused Trek of plagiarism if the Enterprise-E suddenly started launching their equivalent of X-Wings against the Borg Cube would still be going on today. It is also worth noting that the only canonical ship that I can think of that carried fighters was Shinzon's Warbird in Nemesis. Whether it was overconfidence or not is arguable but even when the battle was turning sour did he not think of launching them - proof perhaps that even a weakened Sovereign Class could swat them away like flies.
*** If you're arguing that groups of smaller, combat-oriented ships can overwhelm larger, cruiser-types, then we've already seen that: both the Klingon Birds of Prey and the Jem'Hadar attack ships remain consistent threats throughout the series, able to threaten ships like the Galaxy class or Romulan Warbirds. But if you're saying that a bunch of shuttlecraft-sized ships can be fielded in large enough numbers to be useful, that's doubtful. This [[http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacegunexotic.php page]] and this [[http://www.rocketpunk-manifesto.com/2007/08/space-fighters-not.html page]] has a good explanation as to why fighters are impractical in space.
* At first, the absence of any form of data corruption attacks in Star Trek struck me as a kind of {{Zeerust}} element that had crept into the show over time: computer viruses were entirely unknown in the 1960's, but the casual viewer today might wonder why someone doesn't try to hack the ''Enterprise'' (or the ''Enterprise'' crew try to hack a Klingon ship, etc.) But in reality any race advanced enough to build starships with AI-capable computers ''and'' has reason to fear its neighbors likely also has strong enough security to render these attacks either ineffective or easily reversed (by contrast, take the reboot of ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|Reimagined}}'', where the Cylon attack on the humans hinged around their being able to exploit a backdoor in the Colonial defense network created by one of their agents. The mothballed Galactica's lack of a modern computer network is the only reason it survives). Oddly enough, this has the result of TOS appearing to have ''stronger'' computer security than its successors (particularly in episodes where the ship/Data/etc. get hacked by an outside entity). --Tropers/{{Snarf}}
*** There is some hacking in Star Trek, but it usually involves either a more advanced alien race, or physical access to the computer they want to mess with. In normal battle situations, the computers probably just refuse to execute any code being transmitted by an enemy ship. --Tropers/DrLunar
*** Let's not forget the use of a (rather flimsy) prefix code that allowed Spock to hack into the Reliants command console to lower it's shields.
** Phasers are (except in the new movie, due to the change from beam and the implied two-mode limitation) a perfect parallel to the Federation's tendencies for ship design: ''very'' multipurpose (Starfleet's ships tend to be made for exploration, but due to the nature of the Star Trek universe that ends up meaning ships that can do a lot of things decently, with crews that can do a lot of things decently. Phasers, over the course of the franchise, are shown to be able to be used for everything from cutting to heating, in addition to the multiple settings actually intended for combat).

* Though probably just a product of confused writers, some of the oddities in the ''Voyager'' characters do make perfect sense. Maybe midway through the series, Chakotay is suddenly always counseling Janeway about the consequences of her plans, and is distrustful of Seven of Nine; this all being after Seska's betrayal. Seven's attraction to Chakotay in later seasons seemed sudden to a lot of viewers, her only explanation being, "The Commander has... admirable qualities." Seven, at this point, is trying hard to become as human as she can, and who's the most un-Borg person on the ship? Chakotay. It's only a shame the writers didn't explore these ideas more deeply in the actual show.
* ''Star Trek'' writers don't seem to get evolution, always portraying it wrongly. But, although IRL it would be wrong, evolution in star trek is merely consistent. All potential evolution lines are hardwired into a species' DNA, with the actual circumstances determining how it ends up. This realization actually makes every plot involving evolution make sense.
* The Borg are often criticized for attacking the Federation with only one cube (and trying it twice), while at the same time doing things against humanity that they do not do against other species (messing around with time travel, trying to "seduce" people like Locutus of Borg and Seven of Nine to rejoin the Collective, etc.) However, the Borg are not actually interested in humanity. Like the Kazon, humanity is described as inferior and its technology pales before the Collective's. However, the Borg ARE interested in Q. Q first brought them into the line of sight of a Borg cube, and saved them right as they were about to be assimilated. The Borg want to know more about Q (since being semi-omnipotent puts you pretty high on the Collective wishlist) but at the same time they know they can't fight Q directly and thus want to cut their losses by only sending one cube at a time. The Borg, in a sense, are right that doing things like traveling through time and picking specific human representatives attract Q's attention, if the game ''Star Trek: Borg'' is to be believed. - Tropers/{{Freiberg}}
** There's an alternate possibility, one that can amp up the FridgeHorror of the matter. The Borg can't innovate. It's one of their biggest flaws. Their advancement depends on the advancement of the species that they assimilate, the knowledge that they gain in the process of assimilation. They send a single cube against Earth not because they're actively attempting to assimilate the Federation at this time, but because they're FORCING the Federation to develop new ideas and technologies and use them against them. Once they reach a point where the Borg can handle anything the Federation throws at them, they'll finish the job and be all the stronger for it, with the new technologies, theories, and ideas that the Federation has developed to counter the Borg.
*** The Borg innovate all the time, it's how their "adaptation" works. They're often shown using traditional scanning and analysis techniques. (Seriously, the idea that the Borg ''have'' to assimilate to gain knowledge is one of the most spectacularly incoherent things ''Voyager'' ever threw out; you pretty much have to ignore it if you want them to make sense.)
** Then again, there is definitely a HumansAreSpecial vibe throughout the franchise. Q mentioned that one day in the distant future, humanity would surpass the Q Continuum. One of Soval's lines in ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' (one of the last before his death) mentions how humans can be as warlike and emotional as the Klingons or Andorians one moment, and then turn around and use cold hard logic the next. The Bajoran Prophets, a race of omnipotent energy beings that exist outside of normal time, specifically created a human to serve as their emissary to a completely different race. The Borg realize this quality of humans, which is why they sent a cube thousands of light years outside their territory, twice, in order to assimilate this quality. Problem is, assimilating the physical body doesn't assimilate the humanity. That has a great deal to do with why the Borg Queen tries to get a fully individual human to work for her.
** Several theories about the Borg's creation from licensed non-canon works mention the crew of an ENT era ship being integrated into a neural network and becoming the first drones, while others mention the V'Ger entity being involved in the Borg's creation. According to these, humans might actually be the origin species of the Borg.
* So why, despite being warned by Kes in ''Before and After'', do the Voyager crew completely forget about the Krenim by the time of ''Year of Hell?'' Simple. Anorax did it. It is stated that he had been manipulating time for over 200 years; and had probably altered it a good dozen times between the two episodes. The Voyager that took centre stage during ''Before and After'' is a completely different ship to the one featured in ''Year of Hell.'' This also explains the disappearance of Species 8472 and Seven of Nine.
* A little bit of FridgeHorror in the backstory of ''Franchise/StarTrek'': There was a Third World War, and it was devastating on a global scale, killing half a billion people and ending most formal governments on the planet. And it's a "future" war. It hasn't happened yet. As optimistic as the Trek universe is, it still predicts a horrible end to everything we know and love, and further it seems to imply that it ''needs'' to happen. The post-apocalyptic dark age is the kick in the pants the human race needs to start building a better society. Things do get better, but they have to get a lot worse first...and everything about 21st-century society has to ''die'' for it to work.
** Then again, in the history of the Trek verse, we've all already lived through the Eugenics Wars, so maybe that Third World War should be taken with a grain of salt.
*** Well... the Eugenics wars were actually retconned as to being in the twenty first century and not the twentieth. Episodes such ''Futures End'' where there was no sign of war or Botany Bay level spacecraft, ''The Augments'' where Archer and Soong pretty much state that it was ''a hundred years ago'' and of course we have all the discussions between the genetically engineered Bashir and his co-workers. There is a very popular fan theory that believes the Eugenics Wars and the Third World War was actually the same thing - after all; doesn't it stand to reason that the world powers would have been using SuperSoldiers to fight a nuclear war considering the technology essentially exists today?
**** I don't know when, but I'm almost completely certain (note:almost) that somewhere in-canon, in actual spoken dialog, it is explicitly stated that the third world war WAS the war between Khan and his Eugenics derived kindred, a.k.a. The Eugenics Wars.
* ''StarTrekTheAnimatedSeries''
** In "The Slaver Weapon" the titular weapon is retrieved from a [[SealedEvilInACan stasis box]] along with a picture of an unknown alien Spock and Sulu presume to be one of the long-vanished Slavers. Sulu later speculates that the versatile nature of the weapon, combined with its complete lack of visible controls and self-destruct ability, makes it an ideal weapon for a spy. Although the Standards and Practices of 1970's children's television would never have permitted saying so in the script, [[FridgeBrilliance the presentation of both the weapon and picture in the same box]] suggest that it was an ''assassin's'' weapon, and the picture that of the assassin's target.
* Fridge Horror: When the holodeck is first introduced, it is made explicitly clear that its characters are not sentient: Troi and other telepaths cannot sense them [[FridgeLogic (then again, she also can't sense Data).]] Moriarty is the first exception, and he is presumed to be unique. But by the time the Doctor is introduced on ''[[Series/StarTrekVoyager Voyager]]'' and Vic Fontaine on ''[[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Deep Space Nine]],'' it is clear that ''all'' holodeck characters are sentient, or at least will become sentient if they're left running long enough. That means that all over the Federation, ordinary people are constantly creating, murdering, editing, resurrecting, and duplicating sentient beings with no more moral consideration than you'd give to a sheet of paper out of a printer. And that's just people with ''clean'' fantasies, and not porn and [[{{Gorn}} gorn]]-filled ones. The ''[[Series/StarTrekVoyager Voyager]]'' episode "Author, Author" finally starts to address this, but does it in the most tepid way possible and treats the whole thing almost as a joke. All the [[FantasticAesop Fantastic Aesops]] about Data's rights become meaningless when you realize the Federation is ''filled'' with A.I.'s, and nearly all of them are considered as disposable as Kleenex.
** That's the sentient/nonsentient distinction (as well as programming blocks in the case of holodeck characters that the doctor lacks, so holodeck characters normally can't see/hear the archway, or if someone in the holodeck gets called on the comm system, which the [=EMH=]s lack due to being intended to replace actual crewmembers). The doctor in the first episode couldn't really be considered sentient when first activated, while leaving a holodeck running for ages has its own problems, as seen in Voyager. It's the same as the exocomps seen in TNG - if given enough time/opportunity they may, but they aren't by definition.
** But are the simulations in the holodeck distinct individuals, or merely avatars of the holodeck computer? Voyager's Doctor was on an independent system from the holodeck, one dedicated to medical emergencies, so in a way the only difference between him and Data is the presence of a physical body. Moriarity in TNG could be explained as a programming glitch (albeit one that was eventually locked away into his own storage medium--effectively a pocket universe for him). The others--just subroutines, and the computer itself could terminate them if bandwidth becomes scarce.
** It's discovered on ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' that the holographic lounge singer Vic has a puzzle written into its programming as a "surprise" for his user. After a given amount of operating time, holographic gangsters will kill Vic unless his user intervenes. When Bashir tries to get this disabled he is basically laughed at, even though Vic is ''clearly'' sentient by this point (he can even turn his own program on when deactivated). It's made ''crystal'' clear that Vic has no rights as a sentient being ''whatsoever.''
*** [=DS9=] is a unique case, in that the Federation is working with ex-Cardassian hardware. How the Cardassians treat their AIs is probably no different than how they treat each other.
** It doesn't necessarily follow that every holodeck character is sentient, or potentially sentient. The Doctor and Vic were both described as unusually sophisticated programs.
* Why would a ProudWarriorRace who put HonourBeforeReason use the primarily defensive Bat'leth as their weapon of choice? There's no honour in winning a battle through luck, therefore they use a weapon designed to make a fight last and so give a better chance of the outcome being fair!

!!The Series

* ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'':
** In the original ''Series/{{Star Trek|TheOriginalSeries}}'' episode "Metamorphosis", Zefram Cochrane's reaction to seeing the Federation commissioner essentially amounted to "Hey hot girl, let's jump in bed together!" At first, I viewed it as a typical example of the show's 1960s mindset... but then I remembered Cochrane's characterization in ''Film/StarTrekFirstContact'' as a libidinous party animal. Okay, there's no way that was done on purpose, but it ''does'' make more sense if you view it that way. -- Insert Witty Name Here
*** Young healthy male marooned on planet for decades + newly marooned female = Hormone explosion. Doesn't really take lot of analysis to see why he'd be all over her. She's the first live female he's seen in decades.
** In fact, after seeing him in ''First Contact'', one might even start thinking that when we see him in "Metamorphosis" 150 years later, he seems to have mellowed out a bit. Back in the 21st century, Troi was complaining about how she'd gotten roped into drinking with Cochrane and spent a lot of time fending off all of his drunken efforts to grope her. 150+ years later in Kirk's time, he's obviously excited to see the lady commissioner, sure, but now he's sober, keeping his hands to himself, and asking her politely.
** In the episode ''Where No Man Has Gone Before'', Kirk's best friend Gary Mitchell is zapped by an energy barrier which amplifies his ESP abilities. What i've failed to realize for twenty years is that Gary starts the episode with jet black hair and ends with distinct grey streaks. Remember, he is already stated to possess heightened ESP abilities which technically make it part of his biology - his ESP is powered ''by his own lifeforce!'' On repeated viewing, this actually increases Kirk's dilemma; if he chooses to keep Mitchell alive instead of kill or abandon him, Kirk would almost certainly recover his friend's sanity due to losing his powers through the passage of time - as long as he runs the risk of Mitchell destroying the ship first...

* For ''years'', I never realized that the President in ''Film/StarTrekVITheUndiscoveredCountry'' was blind. Suddenly, the opaque pair of glasses he wears when looking at the Operation Retrieve plans make sense: they're an early form of the VISOR. Also, when Kirk dives over the podium and knocks him out of the way of assassin fire, he'd have no idea who did it -- which is why Kirk says to him: "Kirk. ''Enterprise''."
** That one was actually more or less confirmed by [[WordOfGod Michael & Denise Okuda]] in the DVD text commentary for that movie -- he was at least intended to be blind originally.

** When I first watched the ''[[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries Original Series]]'' episode "Galileo Seven", I was simply appalled by how the humans treat Spock throughout this episode. A shuttle carrying 7 men crashes on an unknown planet, with no way to return to the Enterprise that's waiting in orbit. Spock is the commanding officer of the mission, and throughout the episode uses logic as his guide to solving what appears to be an extremely dangerous situation with very little chance of survival. The humans, however, dispute his every move, constantly admonishing him for his lack of emotions. For instance, he assumes that the hostile creatures on the planet will be scared off by their display of phaser power. He also refuses to spend time burying a fallen RedShirt. The humans get increasingly annoyed at this, naturally. The episode even ends with everyone (including Kirk) poking fun at Spock's logical way. This goes on for the entire episode. Now, if you examine the episode objectively, putting aside any assumptions regarding whether Spock is doing the right thing, it quickly becomes clear that Spock is actually functioning exceptionally well at the task of getting them out of a very deadly situation alive: 5 of 7 crewmen eventually escape what for all intents and purposes is a no-win scenario. Spock makes one mistake: misjudging the alien monsters' reaction to the phasers, but it was one that anyone could've made: the aliens behaved irrationally, but was there any real reason to assume they would (or wouldn't, for that matter)? Spock's discharging of the shuttle's fuel at the end to create a flare was the only logical solution once they realized the Enterprise was gone. The humans keep suggesting that that decision was spock showing "despair" - an emotion - but really that's just their own interpretation. It doesn't hold much water when you think what else anyone could have possibly done in the same situation. Taking a risk does not mean you're desperate, especially when not taking that risk would be even ''less likely'' to provide positive results. In short, Spock was really doing the most logical actions ''throughout the entire episode'' and overall this saved his men! Now, bear with me, because I haven't even started talking about the Fridge Brilliance here. If we take the above, and add back the factor of the human crewmembers constantly picking on Spock and criticizing every decision he makes (not to mention the terrible "ha ha Spock went soft" bit at the end), it becomes apparent that the lesson of the episode is [[HumansAreBastards that humans are a**holes]] and that logic is the best tool a commander can have in life-or-death situations. The humans are simply incapable of understanding what Spock did for them ''precisely by sticking to logic'' the entire way through. Instead they slam him every time he does not behave as they would expect a ''human'' commander (read: Kirk) to behave. This is without even mentioning the fact that Kirk himself would probably have made the same exact decisions as Spock made, only naturally he wouldn't have to work through so much opposition. In fact, Kirk rarely takes any time to bury his Red Shirts - certainly not when surrounded by a tribe of gigantic hostile creatures. Kirk wouldn't hesitate to leave a man behind on the planet if it meant saving everybody else, he certainly did that on more than one occasion in other episodes. Therefore the question about this episode becomes totally different: why would the writer portray the humans like this? Was he trying to make a message about how logic isn't always the answer? If that is the case, then everything clearly backfires once you make a thorough inspection as above and realize that Spock was handling everything with pure logic and succeeded as well as could possibly be expected. Was the writer so at a loss on how to get this point across that the resulting episode actually teaches the completely opposite lesson (i.e. that logic is the answer and humans are bastards)? No, I actually think it's the ''exact opposite of that''. The writer (one Oliver Crawford) actually wanted to portray Spock as the coolest SOB in the galaxy, and point out how useful it is to think logically. That's why Spock's decisions are so flawless that he basically wins the scenario single-handedly, and under constant duress from his own men. But if the writer would've just done this at face value, Spock would've easily become the CreatorsPet of the episode, coming off as a smarter-than-thou know-it-all, and instantly gaining the audience's disrespect - since after all we are humans too, and instinctively treat Spock as a weirdo alien who needs to be kept in check so that he doesn't start sacrificing his men for some "logical greater good". No, instead Crawford used ReversePsychology. He let Spock do everything right, but he kept him sympathetic by having the humans constantly question him regardless. So while watching, the audience is not even aware of what they're seeing. They think the message is that logic is not always the answer, because that's what the humans in the episode keep saying, and are never actually TOLD that the lesson of the episode is the opposite of that. So the audience maintains one belief about the point of the episode, but the actual message that comes across is different, whether you notice it or otherwise. Hence Spock comes across as just-sympathetic-enough ("Awww, he caved and did the emotional thing at the end..."), but whether you realize it or not the episode still conveys the message that you can truly depend on logic as your most powerful tool. It's ingenious... If true. --Tropers/{{Headrock}}
*** Also consider that the fact it wasn't just logic v. emotion it was human v. vulcan. The original troper points out that Kirk probably would have made the same decisions yet not had to put up with as much crap from it. This stems from the misconception that vulcans don't feel emotion and therefore incapable of understanding humans. One of the many indications that even in the 23rd century, bigotry is still alive and well.
*** Although in two of the non-canon novels the one member of the party who was most critical of Spock was eventually brought before a court-martial hearing called by Scotty for his insubordination (which, really, is what ''should'' happen) his fate in the series proper is left unresolved. KarmaHoudini anyone?

* ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'':
** Consider the opening song to ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise''. People say that it doesn't sound like a Star Trek theme song - it's the wrong genre, it has words, etc., etc... Consider, though, that [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8TVrUa2GpE&feature=related "Where My Heart Will Take Me"]] is set ''at the beginning''; for the Trek universe, it was '''the original''' genre, and the themes everyone's more familiar with came later... after the Federation was created, ''and the society being portrayed had changed''. As for the lyrics, they (fairly blatantly) describe humanity's determination to advance, expand, and move forward.
*** For additional brilliance, consider that it was originally a song from PatchAdams, only ''one line'' was changed to make it the theme to ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'', and that same song would make a perfect TengenToppaGurrenLagann AMV theme.
** Similar to the above, many people were more than a little put off by the fact that Klingons in Enterprise had their ridges, with (initially) no explanation of why they suddenly gain and lose them over a period of only a few hundred years. Eventually, Enterprise explained what happened to cause the loss of ridges: While experimenting with the Augmentation procedures used on people like Khan, the human augment DNA made them look more human-like. It mixed with a virus and spread throughout the population, and eventually they found a cure for it and were able to change back to their normal "ridged" look. Now, one known side effect of the Augmentation procedure is a drastic increase in violence and bizarrely aggressive behavior. Apply this to the Klingons, and what's known about them throughout TNG and beyond: Klingons in the TNG era respect honor as a warrior above all else, and try to uphold that in all things. Klingons in the TOS era are ruthless and deceptive, employing tactics that are far from honorable. No onscreen explanation for their prior behavior is ever given. However, by thinking about this with the augmentation in mind, it becomes obvious: the only period in the whole canon where the Federation and Klingons are really at war (the short time in ''Deep Space Nine'' excepted) is during the TOS era - the very era where the entire population is afflicted with a condition that makes them unnecessarily aggressive. Now, note how in the TOS movies, the Klingons are starting to get their ridges back: at the exact same time, they're also starting to actively seek peace with the Federation. Coincidence? Likely, but when you put it all together it makes perfect sense, and wonderfully explains the transition from AlwaysChaoticEvil to ProudWarriorRace through obvious canon means.
** I always tried to be forgiving to ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'', partially because of my love of ''Franchise/StarTrek'' and because I felt it was better than most others shows on television anyway. But one episode I found hard to justify, "Regeneration" with the Borg making an appearance 200 years before they should have. The episode itself I found to be rather good, actually, despite the chronological issues and other anachronistic details. The Borg hadn't been that frightening since ''Film/StarTrekFirstContact'' (no Borg Queen to humanize them), and in fact ties directly into that movie. It even has a sly StableTimeLoop thrown in. But when I started to think over the skewed Borg chronology depicted in ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'', I realized that Enterprise was trying to make more sense of the logistics behind their very first appearance in ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration''. In that episode, Guinan had to inform the crew of who the Borg were, being that she was a refugee from a Borg attack. Wouldn't TheFederation have at least some knowledge of their existence, especially since they were harboring refugees? While the "Regeneration" episode didn't explain everything, it did acknowledge that there was some info on them and was likely classified until the Enterprise-D made official first contact with a Borg Cube. -- Tropers/KJMackley
*** It's explicitly stated in ''Voyager'' that there were at least rumors of the Borg before Enterprise-D encountered them. Seven's parents went looking for them about a decade before official first contact. Also in the first episode with the Borg, they mention that a planet attacked by the Borg looks just like the remains of Federation and Romulan outposts that were destroyed along the Neutral Zone. Which implies the Borg were already making moves into the Federation's neighborhood. So yeah, the ''Enterprise'' Borg episode actually fits surprisingly well. --Tropers/DrLunar

* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'':
** In the ''TNG'' episode "Samaritan Snare", Picard recounts to Wesley how he got into a fight with Nausicaans, only to get stabbed through the heart. He remembers looking at his wound and laughing for some reason. SFDebris theorizes that it's because when Q lets Picard relive that scenario during "Tapestry" (after making himself worse off earlier), he's laughing because he knows everything's in order once again. Even if he's going to die in the future, he's going to die as a person who actually did something with his life.
** The first time I saw ''Datalore'', I dismissed part of the plot as just "[[CreatorsPet Wesley]] is right but gets [[CassandraTruth ignored]] because he's a kid". I saw it again recently and realized that there's a lot more going on. The first time Wesley gets yelled at, they do listen to ''what'' he says (Riker goes to check his theory, and finds some evidence that he's wrong); the reason he gets hassled is that ''how'' he said it was unacceptably rude--not a small deal in a quasimilitary organization like Starfleet. The second time (the infamous "Shut up, Wesley!" scene), if you look closely at Picard's face (and consider that right after that scene, he [[spoiler: sends security to arrest "Data", who--as Wesley realized first--has been replaced by his evil twin]]), you can see that he's figuring everything out for himself. Meanwhile, this annoying kid is talking and talking while he's trying to think and not telling him anything he doesn't know. "Shut up, Wesley" is not an instance of AdultsAreUseless--it's an instance of StopHelpingMe.
** Just now re-watching the season three episode "The Price", it dawned on me that Troi, upon asking the computer for a nutritionally void comfort-food sundae before reading a series of letters from her overbearing mother, receives a snarky, passive-aggressive talking-to from the computer in response. The computer is voiced by Majel Barrett, who also plays Troi's mom. Perfect.
*** There was one instance where Troi's Mother actually [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall wonders aloud]] about the computer's voice.
** Here's a wacky fan theory that some of the writers have actually commented on its unlikeliness (but likewise never refuted it outright): In the episode "Yesterday's Enterprise", there is a highly militarized version of Starfleet in a losing war with the Klingons. Then it hit me: "Yesterday's Enterprise" actually takes place in the Mirror Universe! At the end of the TOS episode "Mirror, Mirror", Kirk leaves goatee-Spock with the objective of overthrowing the Terran Empire and setting up a more Federation-like government, which in [=DS9=] we find out leads to the Terrans being overthrown by the Klingons and Cardassians (although the Klingons are considered the major partner in the alliance). What the viewers are seeing is what the post-Spock reformed Empire was like prior to being overrun by the Klingons.

* ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine''
** Captain Sisko, at the end of the last episode of ''Deep Space Nine'', [[spoiler: left his treasured baseball in his old office at the station. He never leaves the station permanently unless he takes his baseball with him. Oh yeah. He'll be back someday. ;)]]
** "In the Hands of the Prophets" was always {{Anvilicious}}. What made it anvilicious most of all was that the religious zealot (Winn) almost immediately [[JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope jumped to terrorism]] to solve the problem. This became brilliant when I realized something: it's really just the hammer and nail problem. For 50 years, the Bajorans had been solving ''all'' of their problems with terrorism; that's all entire generations of them ''knew''. And it ''worked''; the Cardassians left. So peace breaks out, and how do they propose to fix a relatively minor dispute? Terrorism. It also explains why the coup attempt seems to come at the end of the season seemed to come off so well. - Tropers/{{Korval}}
** You don't really need the apocrypha of ''[[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Deep Space Nine]]'' to know that Mila is Garak's mother; if anything, their first interactions on-screen confirmed it in my mind. Considering Tain never acknowledged Garak as his own son until he was dying, it's the only explanation for why Garak grew up in Tain's house... then again, Garak could just be a child of another household servant, but Mila is the only one he has ever displayed fondness for, so I think Mila being his mother would be the best explanation.
*** This also explains exactly why Garak being Tain's son has been such a closely guarded secret. It was established earlier that any Cardassian who has been exposed as having an affair is looked upon quite disfavorably, so any word about Garak being the product of an affair between Tain and his housekeeper would bring all of Tain's various enemies down on him pretty quickly. Plus, there was that bit in "The Die Is Cast" where Tain wants to have Mila killed along with his rivals during his rise to power because she knows dangerous things that could undermine him.
*** Well, affairs and out-of-wedlock are usually different things, which brings us to something else we saw in the show. If Garak was publicly known to be an illegitimate child what would his status be? He was already in the situation of being publicly unacknowledged by his father and, if Mila was his mother (and even Odo implies he suspects it with the "I can believe there's one [person who would regard Garak with affection]" which obviously alludes to the idea that the only person who could ever love some people would be their mother), then he'd be publicly unacknowledged by his mother as well. That's very close to making him an orphan (two parents who can't publicly acknowledge him). Now watch the episode "Cardassians" where we learn orphans have no status in Cardassian society (the implication being they're actually treated better in Bajoran orphanages than they ever would be on Cardassia). Look at Garak's reaction when he spots the Cardassian orphans watching him. He looks like he's just been punched in the stomach and then he all but flees the place, even his attitude towards the Bajoran in charge of the centre has changed. He's utterly shaken. When Bashir later stops the runabout to confront him, Garak automatically thinks the plight of the orphans is haunting Bashir. As it turns out, that's not on Bashir's mind at all... but it must have been on Garak's still for him to jump to that conclusion. Given his parentage and the secrets surrounding it, it's a miracle he wasn't an abandoned child with the according "orphan" status. With hindsight there's an almost "there but for the grace of God..." sense to this. At the very least, the subject of the orphans did seem to hit a nerve for him.
*** As far as I can recall, there never was any implication that Tain had a wife or family other than Mila and Garak, so it was probably less an "extramarital affair" and more that having any kind of family ties--even unofficial ones--would put Tain's position at risk, since his enemies could exploit them.
** In the episode, "The Assignment" it would seem strange that the prophets would not have expected the Pah Wraith's return and surprise attack - them being timeless, able to see anywhen at once, would have surely seen it coming from the beginning of time and taken precautions against it. But of course because [[spoiler:the attack failed]], it's possible they never did or never will find out about it - if they were looking out of the wormhole it would just look like [=DS9=] [[spoiler:zapping a shuttlecraft with something]] - so it's possible they simply don't know about the [[spoiler: attempt.]]
*** Alternatively, not being stuck in linear time, the ones living in the wormhole were entirely aware of how the episode would end, and [[spoiler:didn't feel any intervention was necessary]].
** Look at how mirror Bashier acts: he's an aggressive idiot who is constantly unable to grasp the full scope of both his actions and any of the major events around him. Now originally I thought that this was just another Mirrior re-imagined character but consider that Prime Bashier was genetically altered to become a genius and suddenly Mirror Bashier's actions suddenly becomes clearer: this is what the ''real'' Bashier would have become without the surgery.
* Looking back it is interesting how many little references there are to Bashir being genetically engineered that, whilst probably unintentional, do add to the series somewhat. One example is as early as season 2 episode 11 ''Rivals'' where he casually reveals to O'Brien that he once faced a Vulcan in a Racquetball final - and won. Keep in mind Vulcans are at least three times as strong and fast as a human and suddenly that excuse that he more or less had a lucky shot suddenly seems ever so slightly suspect.

* In ''First Contact'', Many fans have commented on the absurdity of Data gaining an almost ''Terminator'' level of bullet resistance to a hail of machine gun fire when in the series, he nearly suffered critical damage from an arrow. But in a similar way to Geordi replacing his VISOR due to the half dozen times it was used against him, Data was genre savvy enough to retrofit himself with steel plating. If you look at everything he has sustained over the years, it is incredible to think he didn't take this decision earlier. In addition to the arrow incident, there was the time he was nearly destroyed by a pre-warp civilization he had accidentally irradiated, the time he was nearly destroyed by a colony he was trying to evacuate, the time an insane art-collector kidnapped him and repeatedly threatened him with with a disruptor... it would also explain why he displayed such never before seen agility against the Son'a officers trying to attack him at the start of ''Insurrection''... Data had replaced his slower and weaker original legs with some capable of falling thirty feet (an accomplishment Geordi doubted he could achieve in the first series of TNG when faced with a far shorter drop).
** This would also explain why Data acts as an inflation device in ''Insurrection,'' despite having preciously described as sinking to the bottom of a lake in "Descent, Part II."
** Many fans have also commented how the Defiant, a ship designed to fight Borg, was missing every ''Deep Space Nine'' regular except for Worf, despite the fact that Sisko was probably itching for some payback for the death of his wife. But actually if you check the stardates, Sisko's current activity was pursuing the Maquis traitor Eddington throughout the Badlands, which not only removed him from the fight, but a large part of his senior staff also. One of the rare occasions that the Star Trek script writers actually did their continuity homework...
*** It's also quite possible that Starfleet opted to do to Sisko what they did with Picard - declare his 'emotional integrity' compromised because of what he lost at Wolf 359 and not allow him to join the fight.
*** Being busy hunting Eddington would also explain why Chief O'Brien wasn't there. Too bad he didn't at least get a cameo, though.

* The Baku may be refugees from another part of the galaxy but they colonized the planet Baku in 2066 which was before the Federation was even formed in 2161. The movie doesn't show any specific member species of the Federation asserting their claim of the planet Baku, implying that when it was unclaimed at the time of settlement (or at least any species that has anything to do with the Federation). This does cast some doubt on the argument that the Baku are just squatters on the Federation's territory taking their stuff. The discussion on needs of the few vs the needs of the many still applies though.



** It has confused many as to why the USS Kelvin looked so different to anything else in the Prime Timeline, but then I realized the obvious fact; the Kelvin was a concept craft. In the original universe the altered uniforms, the window on the bridge, the shuttlecraft that looked far more advanced than the Galileo class from the prime 1701 Enterprise - all of which were either dead ends or deemed impractical or expensive for the Prime Universe. This happens in real life with sports cars; many manufacturers release one of the kind cars that showcase exactly what they can do if money and resources were no object. So what changed? economics. If you compare the Prime and Alternate Federation, it's clear the Prime Universe has far less money/resources than the alternate universe. Maybe one of the survivors of the Kelvin would leave Starfleet and go on to become a great businessman, maybe it was the cold war with the Klingons... regardless in the new timeline, the Kelvin was considered the birth of a new, more advanced breed of starship. Alternatively, the Federation changed the uniforms and viewscreen to the Kelvin concept variant as a mark of respect for the fallen.
** A simpler explanation: The destruction of the Kelvin, if it is such a concept craft, must have made Starfleet crap its pants about what could wield such power, leading to Starfleet investing much more into hardening their ships for combat than exploration. It's not the first time we've seen such destruction leading to beefier ships: Wolf-359 led to the much more powerful ships you see in First Contact, [=DS9=], and so on.
*** This explains how the Enterprise was able to pull a BigDamnHeroes moment and intercept the Narada's torpedo barrage towards Spock's ship. Starfleet improved the point defense systems of its ships after noticing Kelvin's weaknesses during its battle.
*** The USS Defiant was designed and built for the expressed purpose of kicking the Borg's collective behinds.
** While I liked how each of the core crew members were given moments to shine, it still seemed that Sulu had been gypped by only getting one good scene- the fight on the drill. Then I realized: if Sulu hadn't left the parking brake on, the Enterprise would have gotten to Vulcan at the same time as the other ships. Kirk wouldn't have had enough time to warn Pike and Spock that it was a trap. The Enterprise would have been annihilated with the rest of the fleet, due to not having enough time to raise the shields and go on full alert. Without the Enterprise, Nero would have easily destroyed Earth with the Red Matter. By leaving the parking brake on, Sulu ''unwittingly saved all of Starfleet.''
** The Federation is made up of species from over 100 planets but the Enterprise's computer can't understand a Russian accent?
*** Maybe it ''could'' understand Chekov if he just spoke ''Russian'', but because he's speaking English in a particularly heavy Russian accent, the computer is presumably having a hard time trying to figure which language he's actually trying to speak?!
** When Spock shows Scotty the equation 'he' worked out for whatever-it-was, Scotty exclaims "it never occurred to me to think of space as the thing that's moving". Translation: a leading researcher into faster-than-light travel etc has never come across even the most basic ideas of relativity.
*** [[{{Rifftrax}} "Aha, I'd forgotten to use numbers!"]]
* FridgeBrilliance: Like many Trek aliens, Nero uses a fairly formal mode of speech...except once. When Pike first speaks to him, he introduces himself by rank and full name. Nero's reply: "Hi Chris". It can be jarring until you realise that it's the perfect way to disrespect Pike. He's ignored his rank, addressed him in a casual manner inappropriate for the situation and used an abbreviation of his name without his approval, all in two words.
* More FridgeBrilliance: Remember the vaccine side effects scene? Well, I have done a bit of research on vaccines and if you compare the disease symptoms to the side effects of the vaccines there are some parallels.
* FridgeHorror: That moment where Spock and Uhura are kissing in the transport bay? They're saying goodbye because Spock is treating it as a ''suicide mission''. After the loss of Vulcan and Kirk breaking his BerserkButton, Spock's ready to take the Narada out because he's got nothing else for lose but his own life, even though the film plays it out otherwise.
* I had a general dislike for many parts of ''Film/StarTrekFirstContact'' (such as The Borg Queen... okay, that's about it, but I REALLY hated the Borg Queen). Watching Sci-Fi Debris' review for "Q Who", however, paints a truly bizarre picture, as the being who once put humanity on trial for barbarism is the one who sets the Borg on humanity. Picard's talk about how humanity was evolved and better can be seen as a prompting for their introduction to the Borg by Q. Because a few years later, Picard would lose his humanity to the Borg... but once free, he harbors a blinding hatred of the Borg. In the end, we see Picard become Captain Ahab with the Borg as his White Whale. And to quote Sci-Fi Debris, "Somewhere, Q is laughing." - Sines
* What I hated about ''Film/StarTrekGenerations'' when I first watched it was how it kept targeting Kirk for death. The first time (with him being blown into the Nexus while he's realigning the deflector shields to save the Enterprise-B) was relieved later in the film only to have him die 10 minutes later, and it really frustrated me how they treated one of the most loved characters in the history of SciFi. Now skip ahead several years later to 2009, and the new ''Film/StarTrek'' comes out, showing how even in an altered timeline, Kirk still finds his way to the Captain's chair. That was when something clicked in my head.
** ''The Motion Picture'': Kirk has been promoted to Admiral, but goes on a mission where the one person who will be Captain after it's over is killed off, leaving Kirk in command.
** ''The Wrath of Khan'': Spock is Captain of the Enterprise, and Kirk is merely meant to be inspecting the new trainees; cue HeroicSacrifice by the Vulcan and Kirk having to take the ship back home.
** ''The Search for Spock'': The Enterprise is scheduled to be turned to scrap, and all crew members are on shore leave until their new assignments are decided. Kirk finds out that there's a chance to bring Spock back from the dead, and along with his old crew, steals it.
** ''The Voyage Home'': After saving the world from an alien probe, Kirk is demoted to Captain, and placed in command of a new starship. Its name - Enterprise-A.
** ''The Final Frontier'': Kirk is trying to enjoy his free time whilst the new Enterprise is being sorted out to make it spaceworthy, when suddenly a hostage situation occurs and the Enterprise's crew has to sort it out, and the next half hour or so is centered around how Kirk tries to take back his ship from Sybok.
** ''The Undiscovered Country'': The Enterprise is up once more for decommissioning, with one last mission to perform. However Kirk and [=McCoy=] are arrested and charged with murdering a Klingon Ambassador, and thus sent to the most terrifying prison in the galaxy. And somehow - despite all odds, the two of them escape and go on with the rest of the crew and that of the Excelsior, go on to save the day.
** And then we come to ''Generations'': Kirk, Scotty, and Chekov come aboard the new Enterprise-B moments before it finds itself caught in an energy ribbon trying to save some refugees. Someone has to go realign the deflector array to create a way out of the energy ribbon, and Captain Harriman says that he'll go whilst Kirk stays on the bridge in command. Kirk objects, saying he'll go on the basis that it's Harriman's ship, and its role as Captain to stay in it. This is the important bit. All his life after first commanding the Enterprise, fate has continually found ways to get him back in the Captain's chair, and he's gone along with it, seeing it as his place. However, by the point in his life where he says [[ScrewDestiny "No." to being in the chair]], fate then tries to kill him for it. It failed aboard the Enterprise-B because of the energy ribbon transporting him to the Nexus, and once he leaves it, death shortly follows after him once more, and Kirk dies. The film was more than just passing the torch onto a new generation, it was a tribute to Kirk, in that being Captain of a ship named 'Enterprise' was, is, and always will be his destiny - his life. The day he leaves that Captain's chair forever is the end of his life, and that of an era. --Meraxa
*** hskshjahjsvja. Woah. Mind = ''blown''.
** This theory is somewhat proven by ''Into Darkness'', at least about fate wanting Kirk to be the captain of Enterprise. When Kirk was demoted to first mate, and Pike was reestablished as captain, poor old guy lived less than day, then the ship returned to Jim.
* By the fourth season of TNG, Riker was actively turning down a promotion to captain and his own command, yet somehow he stays a Commander and First Officer for almost a decade after ''Generations''. It seems like ignoring continuity to keep him around for the movies, until you remember that Riker was in command of the Enterprise-D when it was destroyed. Losing the Federation's flag ship is the sort of thing that sets your career back a decade or two.
** A bit harsh though. Saves Earth and maybe the entire Federation from the Borg that destroyed 39 Starfleet ships in "Best of Both Worlds", no promotion. Loses one ship, stays Commander for 10 years.
*** Which is why he wasn't reduced in rank, and received a posting to the new Enterprise. Also, you have to consider he made several blunders during the battle in ''Generations'' and he had at least one powerful enemy in Starfleet Command (Captain Jellico, who may well have been an admiral by that time). So, the end result is a wash for Riker and he ends up waiting eight years to get his own command.
*** He's turning down promotions because he LIKES his role as First Officer. Think back to the pilot. Riker states flat out the Captain's job is to stay on the ship and command from there, as he's too important for away missions. Using that philosophy, Riker gets to be Kirk -- running around on alien worlds, making out with alien chicks, getting in phaser fights in caves, etc. If he took a promotion, he'd be stuck on the bridge while HIS XO got to run around, doing all the fun stuff.
*** The end of ''Generations'' makes no secret of Riker's ambitions: "I always thought I'd have a crack at that chair one day." "That chair" being the captain's chair from the destroyed Enterprise-D, which he's ''looking at'' as he says this. He figures it'll be easier for him to get there from the seat on Picard's right instead of from the Captain's chair on another ship.
** It occurred to me that the last time Riker accepted a promotion, which took him elsewhere was on Betazed, and he left Deanna Troi behind, something he expresses regret for. Now that they're on the same ship, he doesn't want to take a promotion because he doesn't want to repeat his mistake. When does he take the promotion? Only after he and Troi are wed.
** I'd also point out that three of those command offers came out before word of the Pegasus incident got out, which, as Picard said, would probably hurt Riker's reputation. Admittedly, however, with all the attrition that surely happened during the Dominion War, he probably still should've been made a captain.
* For years, Trekkies (or Trekkers if you're that butthurt about it) have been at odds over which is the best ''Franchise/StarTrek'' movie: ''[[Film/StarTrekIITheWrathOfKhan The Wrath of Khan]]'', ''[[Film/StarTrekIVTheVoyageHome The Voyage Home]]'', or ''[[Film/StarTrekFirstContact First Contact]]''. This Troper just realized that they are not at odds at all. All three of those movies, although primarily sci-fi, are part of a different subgenre: ''[[Film/StarTrekIITheWrathOfKhan The Wrath of Khan]]'' is a submarine warfare drama, ''[[Film/StarTrekIVTheVoyageHome The Voyage Home]]'' is a comedy, and ''[[Film/StarTrekFirstContact First Contact]]'' is a horror movie.
** In addition, ''[[Film/StarTrekVITheUndiscoveredCountry The Undiscovered Country]]'', which could also contend for the title, is a political thriller.
** ''[[Film/StarTrekFirstContact First Contact]]'' is not just any kind of horror movie, to be specific it's a vampire movie. (Look at how the Borg assimilate people by using two spikes in the neck (vampire bite), and their resting cubicles where they remain at rest (upright coffin?) --Biodroid
*** The Borg also have a distinct resemblance to zombies--drones are mindless former individuals who have no drive other than to consume. The First Contact redesign of the Borg intentionally gave drones the appearance of rotting from the inside.
*** Ironically, that's quite true to the original idea of vampires. The idea of vampires as intelligent, or even human-like, is a relatively recent invention. Historical vampire-type folk legends are closer to evil undead abominations that hunger for blood or revenge.
* ''Star Trek IV'' and ''Star Trek The Motion Picture'' have ''the same plot''! Something very alien and way too powerful for any meaningful confrontation is coming to destroy the Earth, and it's all caused by something humanity did thoughtlessly around the beginning of the twenty-first century. Kirk and crew figure out that it's asking for something (Whales; its creator), and solve the problem by forking it over, which makes the Big Powerful Alien Thing go away.
* Also, ''Star Trek The Motion Picture'' is the justification for the Clean, Professional, Roddenbery-Style clean future: what it shows us is a universe that is BIG AND SCARY AND WANTS TO KILL YOU. The leading things which endanger people are:
** Commuting to work (The Vulcan Science Officer)
** Putting the CoolShip in gear (The wormhole that nearly destroys the Enterprise)
** Just standing around doing nothing when a powerful computer scans you (Ilia)
** Saying hi to a centuries-old NASA probe that wants its mommy (Decker)
* Basically, the message of this movie is "In space, entirely mundane things can kill you without warning, and without even really meaning to, so if we've got a snowball's chance, we're going to have to keep it clean and do things by the book".
** After the new Star Trek movie came out, I realized what the main difference is between ''Franchise/StarTrek'' and ''StarWars''. Star Wars is a fantasy story of war and political intrigue. Star Trek is an adventure story about the many dangers of exploring the unknown. Short of both taking place in space, they have almost nothing in common between them.
*** Which movie were you watching? JJTrek is clearly a Star Wars ripoff from start to finish. They even say so in interviews...
*** AllOfThem. I'm addressing the major themes of the franchises. Even the newest movie was more of that, as opposed to the ''StarWars'' emphasis on political intrigue and personal redemption.

****
****** It's a frequent comment as to why the Narada carried such heavy ordnance, but the thing is... it was probably equipped with some ''really weak'' torpedoes that the Enterprise-E would have laughed at. You see, in ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'', Mirror Universe Archer gains access to a 23rd century Constitution-class starship... and absolutely wipes the floor with every 22nd century ship he encounters. So what happens when a 24th century ship meets a 23rd century Starfleet? ''The exact same thing''.
****** If whichever minerals the Narada had been built to mine were rare enough to be worth retrieving en masse from distant planets, rather than scooping them up in any old asteroid field, then presumably they're ''also'' valuable enough to be worth stealing. 24th century Romulan space may not be the most peaceful of neighborhoods, so including some weapons and armor on Nero's vessel might just be a way to ensure it can get home with its cargo.
****** Precisely; The Narada was presumably equipped for reasonable defense against space pirates (or predation by other empires) of the 24th century. Now imagine the arms you can buy on the commercial market today against what you could get just 100 years ago.
*** Also some FridgeHorror here: if the ''Narada'' is a goddamn mining vessel, imagine an actual '''warship''' from this time.
**** For better perspective, go back to ''Film/StarTrekNemesis'' and watch the ''Scimitar'' NoSell the ''Enterprise-E's'' best attacks and then proceed to curb stomp them to hell and back. Go play ''VideoGame/StarTrekOnline,'' where a D'deridex Battleship--the ship class directly under that of the ''Scimitar''--can nuke a Federation Cruiser built to tank into oblivion within seconds. ''These'' are the warships fielded by the Romulan Star Empire in the 24th Century. Now add a few decades of development to that.
***** The Narada -is- a mining ship. Just an experimental one that happened to be equipped with Borg tech. It outgunned three Scimitar-classes sent by the Romulan Military to stop Neros rampage after the Hobus Supernova
*
** The first time I saw the film, I was completely new to ''Franchise/StarTrek


** One thing that I wondered was why Nero was so intent on preemptive revenge, other than being a psycho-evil douche. Then I remembered: if you could travel back in time to kill an evil dictator or genocidal alien race, would you do it? It's the same thing as a time-traveling hero seeking preemptive revenge before the act! Could you kill baby Hitler? [[HitlersTimeTravelExemptionAct That's not a good idea.]]
*** So the Romulan equivalent of that trope is Kirk's Time Travel Exemption Act? Particularly since it's hinted that it made Kirk rise to power ''sooner''?
*** Technically speaking, it would be the ''Spock'' Time Travel Exemption Act (Nero's purpose was to destroy Spock, not Kirk, who had no involvement in the events that prompted Nero's RoaringRampageOfRevenge) although it does have the same effect by 1) allowing Spock to rise to power sooner as well and 2) [[spoiler: introducing a ''second'' Spock to the new timeline, one with a lifetime of experience to draw from while mentoring the younger version of himself.]]
*** The main problem with all this handwaving is, a ''supernova'' destroyed Romulus. Not Spock. Nero started out angry that Spock failed to stop it, but that somehow gets twisted into "everyone else must die to keep Romulus safe." You know, the planet that's ''still going to be wiped out by a supernova'', and now will have nobody else around to even try to help. Of course, none of this is FridgeLogic, it fits perfectly with him being AxCrazy.
** Any Trek fan by now knows that the NX-01 Enterprise is the only important ship that survived from the main timeline; however, logically there is still one craft that should have survived the transition... ''the Krenim Temporal Ship'' from ''Series/StarTrekVoyager''! This ship possesses temporal shields that protect it from any change in the timeline; however, the USS Voyager wiped it from the main timeline by lowering its shields and destroying its core. Thanks to Nero's incursion, wiping Voyager from history, the Krenim and their weapon should have resurrected and thanks to its newly regenerated shields, should be perfectly unaffected - allowing them to once more freely travel the Delta Quadrant, wiping out civilizations and molding the galaxy to its own design...
*** V'ger also survived, as did Nomad and the ''Botany Bay''. How the new crew will deal with those significant threats remains to be seen. And those are just the ''human-made'' vessels that predate the timeline split.
** Many people have commented on the fact that in ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'', we saw Agent Daniels and his Time Agency watching for changes in the timeline, and logically, should have immediately prevented Nero from killing Kirk's father. However, Archer not only ended the Temporal Cold War back in 1944, but effectively wiped its effects from history. Depending on how much you believe in the TimeyWimeyBall effect, this quite possibly wiped the Time Agency and its constant monitoring of history and instead left in its place a very small department that consists of things like the USS Relativity and that small time pod from TNG. Why? Something that always happens during peace time; the Federation got lazy and comfortable. The budget for chrono-monitoring was lowered and as a result, the Federation became less ''Time Lord'' and more ''Doc Brown's DeLorean'' (in fact, considering we never see Daniels again after this point is pretty good evidence that he ''was'' wiped from history). In short, Daniels and crew either weren't paying attention or simply didn't have the technology to track and defeat Nero... if this happened during the Temporal Cold War, we probably would have had an epic meeting between Kirk and Archer instead of Kirk and Old Spock...

%!!StarTrekExpandedUniverse

* The new ''Film/StarTrek'' film? There's a lot that bothers me about it, but let's just focus on that scene at the end where Scotty jettisons and detonates the warp cores. It's silly, right? The Enterprise is already at maximum warp, traveling at bajillion times the speed of light, and it's struggling against the gravitational pull to just remain stationary. Explosions don't go that fast, so it shouldn't even reach the ship. But then it dawned on me that that's all completely irrelevant in light of what Scotty does. Do you know what he does? He does a ''RocketJump'' with a ''spaceship''. [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome How cool is that?]]
** Not to mention that the ship is engulfed in the explosion and not damaged. The hull was already cracking!!!
** Another troper mentioned this on the [[Headscratchers/StarTrek2009 Headscratchers]] page. The reason why Kirk was the only one not in uniform is because he wasn't a legitimate officer of Starfleet yet. But at the end, when he graduates and becomes captain, he is seen finally wearing the familiar command gold shirt. Also in a symbolic sense, Kirk had [[CharacterDevelopment grown up]] from a wild, emotional boy to the Captain that we all know and love.
*** A more minor example from TheGunheart. Thing is, at first it bugged the hell out of me how Nero sounded. He frankly seemed less like a galactic threat and more like a truck driver... than I realized that, for all intents and purposes, he ''was'' a truck driver.
**** That's assuming the ship IS just a mining vessel and not a case of [[BlatantLies "oh that? it's a... laser drill, yeah."]]
***** Isn't drilling into rock pretty much what mining is all about? I would think that a mining vessel would be more likely to have a state-of-the-art laser drill than a military vessel.
**** The large spaces in the ship is actually ''Narada'''s cargo hold. Scotty may actually have transported Kirk and Spock into what he assumed was the cargo hold, but it may have been refitted into the ship's bridge.
***** It's possible that when George Kirk rammed the ''Kelvin'' into it, it took out the original bridge.
**** Well, compare [[http://www.army-technology.com/projects/olifant/images/olifant_tank1.jpg military vehicles]] and [[http://www.openpit.info/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/the-two-largest-tracked-vehicles-in-the-world-2.jpg heavy mining equipment]] of today. Not hard to imagine a plain old mining vessel being bigger and tougher than a military vessel.
***** Or more accurately, compare mining machines of today--plus years of retrofitting by intelligent and borderline psychopathic owners--against armored fighting vehicles of 100 years ago, when the latter were basically new. Then add another century on top of that, in a world where mining ships would need to be reasonably well armored and equipped against attack. The sports cars of 50 years ago can barely match the performance of today's econoboxes; what would you get out of a 200 year advance in technology and weapons?
**** Bigger, yes. Tougher? Why does a mining vehicle need armor, point defenses, maneuverability etc.? I wouldn't bet on that digging machine over the tank... but in Nero's case, he also has future-future technology and was already tooled up for revenge, so the bets are off really.
***** Armor - just in case they get hit by shrapnel, or it could be some advanced super-ultra-mega-light and strong new metal that they use in the future. Missiles/torpedoes/whatever the hell you call them- They might not be used for attack at all, they might be used for... softening up a crust of a planet so the drill can get through (like dynamite!) And the hole the drill makes is much larger than than a single torpedo, hence their multiple explosive warheads. Maneuverability? The faster you get into position, the faster you get the job done. In fact, there's a lot of tools and vehicles that where not designed as weapons, but can be used as weapons.

** In the film, Red Matter is never explained at all beyond being able to make singularities and is associated with the Romulans. Nero's ship was supposedly designed to mine it. However, the Romulans use artificial singularities to power their warp drive. Putting these two facts together gives an obvious conclusion. The Romulans use Red Matter to create the artificial singularities that power their warp drives!
** I was right there with a lot of people about the Sci-fi authors not having a sense of scale with the whole 'the supernova of Romulus' sun threatened the entire galaxy' ... until I sat down and thought about it. And realized that it wasn't the actual physical damage of the supernova that was the problem. It was the Romulans themselves. Considering that in RL, we can ballpark when a sun will supernova, just how much more accurate would a society as technologically advanced as the Romulans be? They HAD to have known their sun was running out of time ... they probably just couldn't pinpoint the exact day/month. They probably had started mobilizing their society previous to this. Now, as bad as the Romulans were up to that point, imagine their ENTIRE home-planet's worth of people on spaceships, looking for a new home. This has 'oh shit' written ALL over it.
*** The supernova was strange. It travelled by subspace, so effectively at warp speed. The Romulans thought they had months/years before it reached them. They only had hours/days.
**** This is addressed in VideoGame/StarTrekOnline: The Romulans are new!BSG -esque migrants who occasionally show up as antagonists.
*** There is a second problem which threatens the galaxy that in my opinion is equal parts Fridge Brilliance and Fridge horror: The Genesis Torpedo. For those of you that haven't seen films 2, 3 and 4 allow me to give a brief explanation. The Federation has invented a tool designed to instantly terror-form any planet, however it has a devastating side-effect - any and all life currently living on the planet in question will be wiped out in a horrific fireball essentially giving it the ability to cause extinction level events thus making it potentially the most powerful WMD in the history of the galaxy. Naturally there is ''huge'' political fallout over the Federation owning such a device and several parties try to obtain it including the Klingons and Khan. So... The Red Matter. Whatever its original purpose is debatable but one thing is for sure: it is not only the most devastating weapon in the history of the Trekverse but one of the most devastating weapons in the history of fiction. '''A single drop''' is all that is required to destroy a planet. This puts it miles ahead of Species 8472, the Borg, [[DragonballZ Goku,]] [[StarWarsANewHope the Death Star]] and damn near enough anyone else you care to name. By revealing the existence of Red Matter to the galaxy in their failed attempt to save Romulus the Federation has revealed that it can now wipe the floor with every major power of consequence. Remember that this is about a decade after the Dominion war - its pain is still quite fresh. That, ladies and gentlemen, means an arms race cumulating (at least) a cold war assuming the Federation doesn't feel like giving it up. Would have made a good follow up film if they ever feel like making one in the Prime Universe continuity again.
*** Just to add something on the Red Matter, the wiki describes that its potency depends on the amount of energy it absorbs, so simply dropping it somewhere won't achieve any result. That's why it's required to be inserted into a planet's core to be effective.
** I always wondered why Uhura and [=McCoy=] are always taking the same transport as Kirk, from '''Iowa''' to San Francisco, when Uhura is from Africa and [=McCoy=] from Georgia. Then I realized that Uhura was probably in Iowa to tour the Riverside shipyard with a class (taught by Pike?) or something, and that if there was already a transport for all those cadets leaving from Iowa, [=McCoy=] probably started out in Georgia that morning and was essentially catching a connecting flight.
*** Not to mention that with the easy availability of transporters, it probably only makes sense to actually haul a transport back and forth if you're taking a LOT of people at once.
** The first time I saw the film, I was completely new to ''Franchise/StarTrek''. After getting into the Original Series and the old movies, I was struck by the subtle irony in the scene where Kirk and Spock meet for the first time. The two of them meet because Kirk cheated on the Kobayashi Maru test, which is darkly ironic given the {{Aesop}} of ''Film/StarTrekIITheWrathOfKhan''. Also, Spock tells Kirk that "A Captain cannot cheat death," but obviously Kirk did cheat death in ''Film/{{Star Trek III|The Search for Spock}}'', by saving Spock.
** Many people have complained at how Kirk gets his captaincy so soon after being a cadet at the movie's end. Then I remembered in the original canon, it was stated that Kirk was the youngest captain in Starfleet history, at least at the time of TOS. So, the more things change, the more they stay the same! - Tropers/{{Premonition45}}
*** Not younger than Ensign Mary Sue!
*** Kirk was in his 30's during TOS (roughly William Shatner's actual age, in fact). Young for a naval captain, but not terribly unreasonable--multiple episodes show that he's legitimately earned the respect of his peers (and the resentment of those who envy his success, just like RealLife). TOS Kirk also went through all the other ranks first, and wasn't a screwup at the Academy. The new Kirk by comparison is definitely in MarySue territory.
*** Not a screwup. To get through a 4 year program in 3 years requires a great deal of dedication and skill. As far as the supposed simplicity of the Kobayashi Maru hack, the hard part was in designing a cracking program that would get through the Academy's firewalls in the first place to enter the counterfeit code! And he took the test twice before even starting to resort to cheating, not to pass the test but to ''make a point about it.''
*** Also it should be pointed out, most of the cadets senior enough to be useful just got killed in the ambush at Vulcan. Star Fleet is going to be pretty damn desperate for new officers for the next few years.
*** And Kirk's quick rise to the captain's chair also gets subverted in the sequel, Into Darkness: Prime Kirk had years of service under Pike on the Enterprise that tempered his recklessness and youthful inexperience into a mature and talented captain(though he still had his moments). By the time Prime Kirk was in the chair, he had earned the respect of his peers and that allowed him to take certain liberties with the Prime Directive like he did in the series. However, Alternate Kirk rose to the chair at a much younger age without those years of experience and earned respect of his peers. So while his raw talent is enough to make him an effective commander, his immaturity and lack of respect by the Starfleet Board winds up getting him relieved of his command ''outright'' after he commits a violation of the Prime Directive that wouldn't have been out of question for Prime Kirk during TOS' run.

* Kirk's overt reaction to Spock on the bridge, and Spock's flight to Gol in the first place, in ''Film/StarTrekTheMotionPicture'' never quite made sense to me, until I heard a theory that [[HoYay Something Of A Romantic Nature]] had happened between them after the end of the five-year mission. ''That's'' what sent Spock fleeing to a place centered around purging all emotion. ''That's'' why Kirk looks like the sun has just come out for the first time in years when Spock shows up. And that scene in Sickbay, with Spock's admission of "this simple feeling"? ''That was them getting back together... for good.'' Thank you, ''TheShipsCloset''. ~@/AcrossTheStars

*** If you're arguing that groups of smaller, combat-oriented ships can overwhelm larger, cruiser-types, then we've already seen that: both the Klingon Birds of Prey and the Jem'Hadar attack ships remain consistent threats throughout the series, able to threaten ships like the Galaxy class or Romulan Warbirds. But if you're saying that a bunch of shuttlecraft-sized ships can be fielded in large enough numbers to be useful, that's doubtful. This [[http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacegunexotic.php page]] and [[http://www.rocketpunk-manifesto.com/2007/08/space-fighters-not.html page]] has a good explanation as to why fighters are impractical in space.

* The Baku may be refugees from another part of the galaxy but they colonized the planet Baku in 2066 which was before the Federation was even formed in 2161. The movie doesn't show any specific member species of the Federation asserting their claim of the planet Baku, implying that when it was unclaimed at the time of settlement(or at least any species that has anything to do with the Federation). This does cast some doubt on the argument that the Baku are just squatters on the Federation's territory taking their stuff. The discussion on needs of the few vs the needs of the many still applies though.

* The Baku may be refugees from another part of the galaxy but they colonized the planet Baku in 2066 which was before the Federation was even formed in 2161. The movie doesn't show any specific member species of the Federation asserting their claim of the planet Baku, implying that when it was unclaimed at the time of settlement(not accounting for any native lifeforms they may have had to displace). This does cast some doubt on the argument that the Baku are just squatters on the Federation's territory taking their stuff. The discussion on needs of the few vs the needs of the many still applies though.

* The Baku may be refugees from another part of the galaxy but they colonized the planet Baku in 2066 which was before the Federation was even formed in 2161. The movie doesn't show any specific member species of the Federation asserting their claim of the planet Baku, implying that when it was settled it was unclaimed (not accounting for any native lifeforms they may have had to displace). This does cast some doubt on the argument that the Baku are just squatters on the Federation's territory taking their stuff. The discussion on needs of the few vs the needs of the many still applies though.

*** [=DS9=] is a unique case, in that the Federation is working with ex-Cardassian hardware. How the Cardassians treat their AIs is probably no different than how they treat each other.

* The Star Trek Reboot timeline has changes from the original timeline that couldn't have been caused by Nero or Spock's time-travelling (e.g. the design of the Kelvin, which doesn't fit with the Federation's aesthetics from that time period.). But, actually, there is a good explanation for this: Because of the change in the timeline, the events of StarTrekIVTheVoyageHome and StarTrekFirstContact happened differently, causing the changes they caused to the timeline to be different, causing things in the timeline to change even before Nero's appearance. This, and other time-travelling could cause [[ForWantOfANail minor changes to the timeline]], which could add up and explain the differences between the original timeline and the reboot timeline.

* Some FridgeHorror about the transporters. They take a person and change him into energy, transmit his code along an energy beam, and reconstitute him in a different place. So it vaporizes you, leaves the original you just floating around in the air, and reconstitutes a copy of you from the atoms in the area where it transports you to. Anyone who's been through a transporter has been destroyed, and what's walking around now is a copy. Almost everyone in the Star Trek universe is a copy of a person, the original of which was destroyed. And therefore, the human soul either does not exist or most people have no soul anymore. (Credit here to Creator/DavidWong and ''Literature/ThisBookIsFullOfSpiders.'')

* Some FridgeHorror about the transporters. They take a person and change him into energy, transmit his code along an energy beam, and reconstitute him in a different place. So it vaporizes you, leaves the original you just floating around in the air, and reconstitutes a copy of you from the atoms in the area where it transports you to. Anyone who's been through a transporter has been destroyed, and what's walking around now is a copy. Almost everyone in the Star Trek universe is a copy of a person, the original of which was destroyed. And therefore, the human soul either does not exist or most people have no soul anymore. (Credit here to DavidWong and ''ThisBookIsFullOfSpiders.'')