| 1 | [[WMG: The holodecks don't actually have safety protocols]] |
| 2 | They were supposed to have them per specifications, but they were never installed. So most of the time, the holodeck isn't malfunctioning at all. |
| 3 | |
| 4 | [[WMG: Starfleet gives additional command authority to Flagship captains]] |
| 5 | While the Enterprises have the honorary title of "flagship of the Federation," it's likely that the entire Galaxy class, as well as some others, like the later Sovereign class, are considered "Flagships." Modern naval definitions consider any vessel carrying an Admiral to be a flagship and Galaxy classes carry dedicated Admiral quarters indicating they are intended for this purpose. When an Admiral is not aboard, or at least in hailing distance, the commanding officer has the same level of authority that an admiral normally carries, effectively making them Brevet Admirals. This is why Captain Jelicho was placed in command of the Enterprise to negotiate with the Cardassians in Chain of Command, so that he would have the necessary authority for these negotiations. The practical purpose for Captains of Flagships having additional authority is for first contact and other negotiations with other species and governments (Picard is frequently seen negotiating on behalf of the entire Federation) as well as to take command of nearby forces in an emergency such as an invasion. In Chain of Command it's actually stated that the Enterprise would command the defenses centering around Minas Corva in the event of a Cardassian invasion. Apparently the Federation keeps a flagship on both the Cardassian and Romulan borders at all times for this purpose as the Enterprise spends an awful lot of time patrolling the border for what is supposed to be a deep space exploration vessel. Also, in TNG: Preemptive Strike the Enterprise is patrolling the border, and just a few episodes later in [=DS9=]: The Jem'hedar the Odyssey has now assumed this station, likely not a coincidence. It is possible that commanders of Deep Space stations have similar authority given what is seen in [=DS9=]. |
| 6 | |
| 7 | [[WMG: How come the El-Aurians never told Star Fleet about the Borg]] |
| 8 | (Note: this is WMG based on the series and movies alone, no EU) |
| 9 | As far as we can tell Guinan didn't even spill all her info on the Borg when they freaking met the Borg face to face. But not only Guinan. At Wolf 359 at no time is there any mention of an El- Aurian Borg consultant. I know that there weren't many left, but still ALL of them kept clammed up about the Borg even after Wolf 359! Why? Seems a pretty big piece of information to hold back, and keep holding backeven as the Borg are tear assing through the Federation! To answer this you have to take into account the other question still lingering: How does Guinan know Q, and what is the animosity between them? Here is my theory: A small number of El-Aurians survived the Borg attack and fled across space in a small rag tag fleet. That fleet was not going to make it, their deaths were inevitable. Then along came Q. Investigating the Borg, looking at the flotsam and jetsam of the assimilation process. In this case that flotsam and jetsam being the el-Aurian refugees dying in space. Q spoke directly to Guinan. Not offering help, just to find out more about her. He tried to read her mind, but discovered that she could actually resist his mind probe. That impressed him. She begged him to save her people and he made her a deal: The first condition is that none of their people could ever divulge any information of the Borg or the Q upon penalty of Q snapping his fingers and bringing them all back to this moment to meet their final end, and two, it would be up to Guinan to save them by passing a test, oh not a test of his making no, but a test of her own making. He snaps his fingers and Guinan is in the Nexus. By fighting her way out of the Nexus she was able to pull the El-Aurian refugee ships to any point in space and time, and she chose a point where there was a ship close enough to save them, the Enterprise-B. |
| 10 | |
| 11 | [[WMG: Troi's seeming incompetence at her job is due to a linguistic mix-up]] |
| 12 | After one too many incidents of Troi being TheLoad, Picard had Data do some investigation into determining how someone with her supposed academic background could be so incompetent. Data's research turned up some interesting facts. Because Betazoids are telepathic, the Universal Translator and Federation linguists had some difficulty translating their language, as much of the context of it was exchanged entirely as thoughts. |
| 13 | |
| 14 | It turns out that what they mistranslated as "psychologist" was actually the Betazoid word for "cosmetologist"! After all, both professions involve sitting people down and helping them with problems with their heads. Picard had wondered why, during their first "counseling" session, Deanna had been adamant about giving him an apricot facial scrub and spending most of the time talking about the benefits of hair implants. He had assumed it was just some kind of Betazoid relaxation technique. |
| 15 | |
| 16 | By the time they figured this out, it would have just been too embarrassing for everyone involved to rectify the problem. So Picard went and hired a Really700YearsOld bartender to provide better advice to the crew and allowed Deanna to just float around offering the occasional [[TheEmpath pointless empathic insight]]. |
| 17 | |
| 18 | [[WMG: It was learning about the Phase that caused Riker to put his relationship with Troi on hold]] |
| 19 | As we learn in "Manhunt", Betazoid women in middle-age experience [[AllWomenAreLustful "the Phase"]], which causes their sex drives to ''quadruple''! When Deanna told [[AllMenArePerverts Riker]] about this, his perception of her shifted from "hot young chick" to "future cougar". Figuring that the best was yet to come, Riker decided that he had time to pursue his career (as well as other alien babes[=/=]hermaphrodites) for a few decades. Once ''he'' had reached middle-age, and was hopefully a captain, he could then pick up where he left off with Deanna just in time for her turn into sexual powerhouse! This is why he remained noticeably possessive towards her even during all those years when they were both pursuing other relationships. His plans for her were long-term, and while they could both fool around in the meantime, he was reluctant to permanently lose her before [[{{Pun}} the big score]]. |
| 20 | |
| 21 | [[WMG: It was the queen not an overload that destroyed the cube in Best of Both Worlds.]] |
| 22 | This one writes itself: The queen can destroy whole cubes with a blink of an eye and she monitors the collective for cascade failures. She is sort of the IT person for the entire collective. So when Data hacked the network the queen blinked and she started the overload which blew up the cube. |
| 23 | |
| 24 | [[WMG: The Enterprise stopped to rescue the survivors of Wolf 359]] |
| 25 | |
| 26 | Since it'd be kind of a dick move to leave the escape pods floating in the debris field, Riker stops pursuing the Borg ship long enough to allow the survivors of the battle to board the Enterprise. Dr. Crusher sets up a triage hospital in one of the cargo bays, and sends most of her medical staff to tend to them, which is why we don't see them in sickbay after Picard is rescued from the Borg ship. During all of this, Commander Shelby becomes acquainted with Ben Sisko, and tells him about her previous job designing anti-Borg weaponry, inspiring him to build the Defiant. |
| 27 | |
| 28 | [[WMG: Less of a WMG and more of a Wild Mass Challenge to all WMG-ers here.]] |
| 29 | So in TNG we see the Enteprise go on several diplomatic missions, many of them uniting worlds at war. We also Lwaxanna Troi and Riker's dad involved in a few, Odan the Trill, etc. |
| 30 | |
| 31 | Has anyone, or can any one "map out" the political situation of all this, what's REALLY going on? |
| 32 | * I'm a big believer that the TNG era is shaped by the parasite conspiracy. So after Picard and Riker bust the conspiracy Troi is all over the damned place trying to diplomatically secure the borders of the now weakened Federation. |
| 33 | |
| 34 | First off we are going to need a list of diplomatic missions and who was the ambassador. Go! |
| 35 | |
| 36 | |
| 37 | [[WMG: Ro Laren was originally supposed to be a lesbian.]] |
| 38 | |
| 39 | From [[http://www.wired.com/2013/05/star-trek-lgbt-gay-characters/ this article]]: |
| 40 | * "In 1991, Roddenberry told the press that he planned to add an LGBT character to the TNG cast that season, but when he died suddenly a few months after the interview, his promise vaporized." |
| 41 | |
| 42 | Since Roddenberry died around the time "Unification" aired, that would put the aforementioned interview around the season 4/5 hiatus. Ensign Ro was introduced in early Season 5, exactly at the same time Roddenberry had declared he would introduce this new LGBT character. |
| 43 | |
| 44 | A few other things to note: |
| 45 | * Ro's first appearance after Roddenberry's death was in the episode "Conundrum," where she was sexually involved with Commander Riker. At this point, the producers (who did not agree with Roddenberry's desire to have a gay character on the show) may have wanted to explicitly establish that Ro was not a lesbian and thus prevent any further "damage" from being done. |
| 46 | * Ro's habit of wearing her earring on the left ear as opposed to the traditional right (even in her introduction, Keeve and Orta were both wearing it on the right) has yet to be explained. Similar hint-dropping has been practiced by the LGBT community fairly often (gay men wearing earrings, for one), and keeping things secret would make sense in a highly religious society like Bajor. |
| 47 | * Ronald D. Moore was involved with TNG back then. Perhaps making [[Series/BattlestarGalactica2003 Admiral Cain]] a lesbian was an ActorAllusion? |
| 48 | [[WMG: On the deviousness of Lwaxana Troi.]] |
| 49 | |
| 50 | 1) Somewhere else on here I postulated that Lwaxana Troi is actually in charge of Section 31, or at least the official Federation politician who deals with 31 behind closed doors, but I looked at the timeline and realized I got it a little wrong. So, I don't think Troi infected Odo with the virus that hurt the link, that doesn't match up. However I postulate that it was HER idea. That's why when she came onto ''[[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine [=DS9=]]]'' she got so cozy with Odo. She was doing recon and that time he turned into his liquid state she probably got more biometric data on him as well. During all of this she also did develop a true affection for him, since she knew that he was going to be used in such a horrific manner. I do contend though that it was always Lwaxana's plan that they would infect the Dominion and then force their surrender, she never intended genocide. |
| 51 | |
| 52 | 2) But that seems so out of character you say...or does it. Let's look at this as well: So it has always been important to Lwaxana that her daughter marry the right man for purposes of aristocratic marriage politics. We know that Troi had an arranged marriage, but we don't know when that marriage was arranged. We also know that Troi and Riker had an affair when he was stationed on Betazed. We also know that before being on Betazed Riker was on the Pegasus and we all know how that went. Then when on Betazed he suddenly got a promotion to some other ship on a deep space mission. SO - Troi arranges a marriage for her daughter. Then Troi is in on the cover up for the Pegasus project, but it goes blooey. She helps to basically promote Riker out of the way to keep it all hush-hush by sending him to the cush and easy post on Betazed. But while there he starts sleeping with Troi screwing up Lwaxana's plans for Troi's arranged marriage. So Lwaxanna makes a few discreet communications and suddenly Riker is posted on a deep space mission far, far away from her daughter. |
| 53 | |
| 54 | Anyone else have conspiratorial evidence to back me up on the fact that Lwaxanna is a devious and dangerous chessmaster extraordinaire? |
| 55 | |
| 56 | 3) In "Manhunt", Lwaxana intercepts the ''Enterprise'' in a Starfleet-operated shuttle, having suddenly been appointed an ambassador and going to the same conference to which the ''Enterprise'' is transporting Antedean delegates. She [[ObfuscatingStupidity proceeds to flit around pretending to be an airhead and comically pursuing Picard]]. Despite the fact that she is known to be a very advanced telepath, she seems utterly clueless about everyone she meets. Until the last few minutes of the episode, during which she casually exposes the Antedeans as terrorists before departing. This clearly indicates that either she ''has'' been reading the minds of everyone around her the entire time she was on the ship, or else she already suspected the Antedeans and wanted to personally confirm what they were up to. That she doesn't reveal their plans until the last possible moment hints that she was giving Picard & Company the chance to spot the terrorists on their own, and only said something because they had failed to do so. She makes a seemingly cute and innocuous remark about saving everyone's careers that is actually a little disturbing when you think about it. Then she beams down to the Pacifica conference, where she will presumably be plundering the minds of every single attendee as part of her intelligence-gathering. |
| 57 | |
| 58 | 4) As an aside, one might wonder at the membership of Betazed in the Federation. Their ''entire species'' is one vast security breach! Betazoids can not only read minds, they can do so across very long distances. In space it is thousands of kilometers at least, and whether this is in any way reduced when on the surface of a heavily-inhabited planet is unclear. At best, a Betazoid could sit in a cafe in San Francisco reading the minds of Starfleet admirals inside HQ! So why does nobody seem paranoid about them? Enlightened society...blah, blah, blah...just doesn't cut it. But Section 31 gains a very obvious benefit from the Betazoids, an entire planet full of long-range telepaths. Interestingly, there aren't a lot of Betazoids in Starfleet, but their species is treated as having some prestige within the Federation. Lwaxana Troi is a member of the Betazoid aristocracy. She could be posing as a flighty dilettante, spending her leisure time on diplomacy while using her carefully-cultivated ManicPixieDreamGirl image to prevent anyone from suspecting just how on top of things she really is, and at the same time making sure that her people are respected and yet taken for granted. The Dominion going after Betazed might have been about more than just soft targets and strategic locations... |
| 59 | |
| 60 | [[WMG: The Talarians were allies of the Cardassians during the Cardassian-Federation War of the 2350s and 60s.]] |
| 61 | My theory is that the Cardassians used them like proxies or possibly as a distraction; they might still be allies or not, but the "Galen Border Conflicts" mentioned in "Suddenly Human" were an extension of the Cardassian Wars that involved the Talarians and Starfleet. |
| 62 | The Tzenkethi too might have had some mutual defense arrangement with the Cardassians; Garak was on Tzenketh at some point in his career, he mentions in the Two Parter where he and Worf are held in a Dominion prison camp, so the Cardassians and the Tzenkethi may have considered the Federation a mutual enemy. All these conflicts seem to take place around the same time as the first Cardassian War. |
| 63 | * There are already too many border conflicts from the just-pre-TNG era. It makes a lot more sense if the Cardassians were the primary aggressors with the Talarians and Tzenkethi as allies. Also, the Talarians with their outdated weapons would hardly provoke a war with the Federation (and probably the Klingons by extension) unless they had the more powerful Cardassians on their side. |
| 64 | * It was called the Cardassian Union, perhaps the Union was a form of alliance between them all, wherein the Cardassian were still the dominant power. The Union fell apart due to the pressures of the border war. A tense peace was made with the Tzenkethi and Talarians, however the Cardassians continued to fight until the Peace Treaty was signed. |
| 65 | |
| 66 | [[WMG: The Talarians from "Suddenly Human" are distant cousins of the Klingons, the result of hybridization with a more human-looking alien species.]] |
| 67 | They have a similarly martial culture with enough distinctions from Klingon culture that it stands on their own; they resemble humans with Klingon ridges on their scalps instead of their foreheads. At some point in the past, Klingons (who are implied to have warp drive before humans) must have interbred with a species of HumanAliens. They developed their own great Houses, including the House of Talar, a great warrior, and eventually evolved into the "totally NOT Klingon" ProudWarriorRace Talarians. |
| 68 | * The Klingon renegades in "Heart of Glory" were aboard a Talarian freighter when the Enterprise found them; they may well have been trying to leave the Klingon Empire for the more anti-Federation but still partly Klingon Talarians. |
| 69 | |
| 70 | [[WMG: ''Series/MaxHeadroom'', and all the ''Film/MadMax'' films take place during the Post-Atomic Horror]] |
| 71 | "Encounter at Farpoint" showed the Eastern version of Post-Apocalyptic, Pre-Federation Earth (Q's court of horrors, filled with jeering radiation-scarred spectators and drug-addicted soldiers). ''Max Headroom'' was set in the western world, probably the US or Canada, in the same time period: mutants, cybernetic and genetic engineering, oppressive corporations and controversial media... sounds like an American post-apocalypse to me. And Film/MadMax? Well, that was how it played out in Australia. |
| 72 | Alternatively ''Max Headroom'' takes place right before the Eugenics Wars, and most of the ''Film/MadMax'' trilogy is set during the Post-Atomic Horror. |
| 73 | |
| 74 | [[WMG: The first Borg encountered by the Next Generation crew were El-Aurian drones assimilated from Guinan's species]] |
| 75 | It would make sense if El-Auria is somewhere between official Borg territory and System J-25 where the TNG crew first encountered the Borg. It also explains why later Borg that were assimilated from Alpha Quadrant species are more diverse looking, retaining some if not all of their superficial appearance, such as Cardassian and Klingon drones we've seen in ''First Contact'' and ''Voyager''. |
| 76 | * In Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS4E17NightTerrors Guinan is still mostly lucid while the rest of the crew is losing it due to their loss of REM sleep. Perhaps the El-Aurians have some special neural processes that the Borg were interested in. Maybe that's why they are a race of "listeners". |
| 77 | |
| 78 | [[WMG: The Borg interest in assimilating people is cyclical.]] |
| 79 | In "Q Who," we're told that the Borg's raison d'etre is to [[MegaManning capture technology by force to constantly improve themselves.]] If they just assimilated everyone, they would have problems with resources (regen energy shortages, equipment etc.) due to the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Diminishing_Marginal_Utility law of diminishing marginal utility]]...but since they don't breed, when drones die en masse for whatever reason or [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness need to be "phased out"]] they need a way to maintain the optimum number to keep things running and get further to their objective. It's possible that the 2370s were just a phase where they needed to increase their numbers. The converse is that when they encountered other species that they simply killed off (making them think they were only after tech, since they couldn't see the future), they were gaining technology in preparation for a major population expansion. |
| 80 | * They can breed. That is, they show - multiple times, starting from their introduction - the usage of technology to artificially grow organics, who then are fully assimilated when they are physically old enough. |
| 81 | * "Canonically" they can't breed, because Voyager said they can't in one of its weirder moments, and new canon supposedly overwrites old. In this case most fans ignore the ...revelation... because 1) it contradicts ''stuff that actually happened on screen'' and 2) it's ridiculous. (So yeah, they can breed.) |
| 82 | ** It's said they do not reproduce 'in this fashion'. They can breed, they just don't use that specific method. |
| 83 | * Assimilation is probably significantly more efficient than procreation because you get a mostly adult population that doesn't have to be kept in storage for years before it becomes useful. Presumably the Borg have access to assimilated cloning technology and the option of leaving the reproductive organs of their drones intact but elect not to because they consider it unnecessary |
| 84 | ** Given the Queen and her many incarnations, the Borg probably have the technology to replicate or clone adult body parts as required and do a full or partial mind transfer when the new body is ready (but it still sucks to be an unimportant drone who won't get a personality backup). Assimilation is going to be most useful when a very small Borg population (e.g. one drone) needs to take over an enemy vessel and hasn't got a huge stash of raw materials from which to create more drones from scratch. |
| 85 | * Any discontinuity involving the Borg can be attributed to their mandate to adapt to new targets... until shown in a flashback predating its introduction. I always thought Transwarp was a recent acquisition as of "Descent" and "First Contact" but then "Voyager" showed they had been using Transwarp for years, back when the Hansens were studying them. But adaptation means more than thinking of using force fields after five of your drones go down. That's Ant Hive-level behavior. The Borg are supposed to be a hive, but they're also supposed to be intelligent. |
| 86 | * How much intelligence they display depends on how much focus the hive mind puts on the actions of those particular drones. The vast majority of the drones just operate on basic programmed instincts, like white blood cells. If something happens that these basic instincts can't deal with, like an ominpotent being flings the target ship away, then the hive mind might take notice, think on it for a few seconds and think up a new approach and download that new approach to the cube nearest the offending incident. |
| 87 | * Despite having a Transwarp Conduit near the Brunali homeworld, the Borg never bothered to systematically assimilate the entire species. Instead they seemed to periodically swing by and cherry pick some Brunali before continuing on their way. This does imply that the Borg only bother assimilating beings into the Collective on an as-needed basis. When the Borg assimilated the Hansen's, they would have ascertained that physiologically humans were an unremarkable species. Thus they would not have felt an urgent need rush off to the Alpha Quadrant to assimilate them all. But as they processed what they learned about the Federation, they decided that an advanced, multi-species civilization was much, much more interesting. Also, there was a mystery: the Borg were unaware that Q transported the ''Enterprise'' to its first encounter with one of their cubes, and they likewise did not know that he was what whisked the ''Enterprise'' away again just as they were about to assimilate it. From their perspective, this might have looked as if the Federation possessed some special technology that they wanted to learn more about. |
| 88 | * the Borg collective is HUGE, VAST. In normal operating procedures it may still take decades if not longer for new assimilations to download to every cube. In special cases the hive mind can send specific downloads to specific cubes when that cube encounters something it cannot overcome. However when the mission is done those new assimilations may in fact be re-called by the collective so they can be physically sent over to another drone somewhere else that needs it more. |
| 89 | |
| 90 | [[WMG: At some point between TNG and ''Star Trek: First Contact'', the Borg assimilated nanotechnology.]] |
| 91 | It completely changed the basis of their technology, re-assimilating drones and spacecraft from the ground up. All Borg technology became nanotechnology. It brought many advantages: instant assimilation, self-healing cubes, etc, but it also made their technology more exploitable by the Federation, who already had nanotechnology (indeed, developed it before the Borg did). Why? because nanotechnology is too versatile and too easy to reverse-engineer (it basically reverse-engineers itself). The crew of ''Voyager'' reverse-engineering Borg technology hastened their VillainDecay. Soon, the Borg were no longer the uber-advanced race they once were before they became dependent on nanotech. Instead they became just another RubberForeheadAlien roughly on par with the Federation. |
| 92 | * A (''very'') minor correction: the Borg already had self-healing ships when they were encountered by the 'D. |
| 93 | * True, but they didn't appear to possess nanotech until ''First Contact''. The cubes were just designed to heal themselves by some other process before that. |
| 94 | * Behind the scenes, many aspects of the Borg were drastically redesigned for ''First Contact'' to take advantage of the significantly larger production budget of a feature film (the costumes and makeup on the drones became much more elaborate and detailed, for example). It's possible that the Borg always had the nanotech, but the show's limited special effects budget didn't allow it to be shown onscreen. |
| 95 | |
| 96 | [[WMG:All of the Wesley episodes occur in the holodeck]] |
| 97 | He is just some regular kid, who uses the holodeck to make himself feel important and smart. |
| 98 | * Alternatively, all of the Wesley episodes are based on real missions, but Wesley inserts himself into them using the holodeck to make himself feel important and smart. |
| 99 | * He could even actually be a freaking genius kid and not a single bit of this theory would break. |
| 100 | |
| 101 | [[WMG: In Yesterday's Enterprise, when alt-Picard tells Captain Garrett that the war is going very badly for the Federation, he's lying to manipulate her into agreeing to go.]] |
| 102 | |
| 103 | [[WMG:One of the Enterprise-Ds in the episode ''Parallels'' comes from the future of [[Film/StarTrek2009 the 2009 film]]]] |
| 104 | Obviously, this was one of the many alternate quantum realities Worf experienced. |
| 105 | * This is almost certain. There ''has'' to be an Enterprise-D in that timeline, or else ''Film/StarTrekFirstContact'' wouldn't happen the right way. |
| 106 | ** It was probably the one where the Borg had overtaken the Alpha quadrant, because the 2009 Film's universe in general is such a CrapsackWorld. |
| 107 | *** Crapsack as it may be, the Federation in the new timeline is also substantially more badass and capable. |
| 108 | *** If by "badass & capable" you mean getting the crap kicked out of the ENTIRE FLEET by one ship from the future, and all of your current captains injured or killed to the point where you're promoting a 4th year cadet directly to Captain. The 2009 reboot film's Starfleet is constantly victim of "The Worf Effect" simply to show the strength of Nero/Khan/USS Vengeance/Krall, and to make the Enterprise as the ONLY ship available. I think calling the 2009 Reboot Starfleet "badass & capable" a misnomer, at best. |
| 109 | ** But if the Borg overtook the Alpha Quadrant, there would be no Federation at all in the 2009 film's universe. No, the 2009 film's universe is definitely the last universe the "prime" Worf ended up in. |
| 110 | *** Except that you're ignoring the fact that the Borg only attacked Earth after meeting the Enterprise-D during the events of "Q Who." If there is no Enterprise-D in the alternate universe, there is no Enterprise-D for Q to send to the Borg, there is no reason for the Borg to seek out Earth for assimilation, and the events of First Contact never happen. Your proof is no longer self-sustaining. |
| 111 | *** Not true. The dying Borg in the Enterprise episode "Regeneration" sent directions on how to get to Earth deep in to the Delta Quadrant. We could still be attacked, it will just take a while. |
| 112 | *** Also, V'Ger discovered humanity decades before there was an Enterprise-D, and it's heavily implied (even outright stated in the novel "The Return") that he was repaired and sent by the Borg. It was likely in contact with them for the entirety of Star Trek: TMP, which explains how it knew just how to assimilate Illia. |
| 113 | *** No, the Borg were already on their way to the Federation. In season 1 episode "Neutral Zone" the Enteprise found several colonies had been scooped up by an unknown force. In season 2 episode "Q Who" Q launches the Enterprise over hill and dale and discover planets where cities had been scooped up in the exact same way. Implying the Borg had already made it as far as the Neutral Zone. Yes Q introduced humanity to the Borg, but what he REALLY did with that was give humanity a chance to PREPARE for the Borg. So no Enterprise D means the Federation is unprepared when the Borg arrive and gets assimilated immediately by the Wolf 359 Cube...however, of course the issue here is about alternate Enterprise Ds Worf encountered, so if there is a timeline with no Enterprise D Worf didn't encounter it. Just correcting the factually incorrect assessment that the Borg only attacked the Federation because of Enterprise D. |
| 114 | * Star Trek time behavior changes on a per-episode/plot basis, but the current idea is like that of Back to the Future pt 2 - that any changes cause a new temporal dimension to occur but do not undo the actual previous changes. This, for example, is how in Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine the Defiant crashlanded on a planet, created a minor civilization which then caused the defiant to NOT crashland. The grandfather paradox doesn't exist because time isn't cyclical. Thus, First Contact happened as depicted but Nero's jump to the past caused a new timeline which did not undo the previous time alterations. In this new timeline, there's every possibility that the Borg never will try to undo First contact in the first place. Anyways, Captain Braxton will somehow work it out. |
| 115 | ** According to WordOfGod, the 2009 film explicitly uses the same rules for alternate realities as ''Parallels''. That being said there's nothing to suggest for sure that the Borg would have made the same decisions in the 2009 timeline that they did in the Prime timeline, Enterprise D or no. |
| 116 | |
| 117 | [[WMG:Riker uses his Q powers quite often to solve the weekly problem.]] |
| 118 | This is why he doesn't want to leave the Enterprise; if he did, then they would have catastrophic failures. |
| 119 | |
| 120 | Hey, once nigh-omnipotence is granted to someone, no one can forcibly take it away -- it has to be freely surrendered. And Riker is the sort of fellow who can beat androids and empaths at poker; he could easily bluff Q during the time he was one -- meaning that he could still be one.... |
| 121 | |
| 122 | It is possible that he is not 100% aware that he has Q-powers, making him a Haruhi-class RealityWarper. Once again, his poker instincts protect him from detection. |
| 123 | |
| 124 | * You say that omnipotence can't be forcibly taken away, but this is provably untrue, as it happens to members of the Q continuum multiple times, including Q, Q, and Q-Junior. If a fully grown Q can have his powers stripped, why would Riker, who only had them for a bit, be able to resist? |
| 125 | |
| 126 | [[WMG:Q & Picard are lovers.]] |
| 127 | Between Q's entrance in "Deja Q" and the bedroom scene in "[=Tapestry=]", this is nearly obvious. Also, this is the excuse on why Q only decides to "judge humanity" through testing Picard, instead of judging the more warlike races such as the Klingons and Cardassians. |
| 128 | * Well, it may not be canon, but Q is certainly... interested in Picard. One can only imagine what you could do with an AlternateUniverse. (Say, one where he never met Janeway.) |
| 129 | ** [[MisterSeahorse DO NOT WANT]] |
| 130 | * John de Lancie (for non-Trekkers, the actor who played Q) [[WordOfGod confirmed]] that Q was in love with Picard. The jury is still out on Picard's side. |
| 131 | ** Let's keep the RuleThirtyFour to a minimum here. We're talking about Patrick Stewart, not Ian [=McKellen=]. |
| 132 | *** Who's bringing the actor's sexualities into it? John de Lancie didn't say anything about himself, just Q. |
| 133 | *** With Q, I'm not sure if "sexuality" is the right word for it, given that he's an {{Energy Being|s}} who could look like Creator/MarilynMonroe just as easily as John de Lancie and be just as true to his own [lack of] appearance. |
| 134 | *** He even says in one episode he wished he had originally appeared as a woman. |
| 135 | |
| 136 | [[WMG:Picard and Dathon, in the holodeck.]] |
| 137 | Mirab, his sails unfurled. Shaka, when the walls fell. |
| 138 | * Darmok and Jalad, on the ocean. |
| 139 | ** In Winter. |
| 140 | *** Uphill. Both ways. |
| 141 | *** That's what ''she'' said. |
| 142 | *** Their stomachs, contented. |
| 143 | *** Sharnak, in shadow. |
| 144 | *** The serpent, in the grass. |
| 145 | *** The knife, in blood. |
| 146 | *** In my pants. |
| 147 | *** Lunch, on the floor. Thanks ever so. |
| 148 | *** [[TabletopGame/{{Clue}} Professor Plum, in the conservatory, with the knife.]] |
| 149 | *** [[NoKillLikeOverkill I did it, in the hall, with the revolver. Take them away, Chief]]. [[HaveIMentionedIAmHeterosexualToday I'm gonna go home and sleep with my wife.]] |
| 150 | *** No tickee, no shirtee. |
| 151 | *** [[Series/DoctorWho The Doctor. With Rose Tyler. In the Tardis.]] |
| 152 | *** [[BlatantLies Pinocchio, his nose long.]] |
| 153 | ** [[BerserkButton Zinda, his face black, his eyes red!]] |
| 154 | *** [[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Dovahkiin, her voice loud, her bowstring taut?]] |
| 155 | ** [[Recap/StarTrekS1E3WhereNoManHasGoneBefore Peter Parker, when the spider bit him. Trixie with the amulet. Obi-Wan and Anakin at Mustafar.]] |
| 156 | ** If this episode was ever [[Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000 MST3K'd]], it would go like this: |
| 157 | *** Dathon: "Darmock and Jalad at Tanagra." |
| 158 | *** Crow (as Picard): "Big dumb guy, his ass kicked." |
| 159 | * [[PsychicPowers Radar, before the choppers come]]. [[TheFettered Hawkeye, his heart troubled]]. [[ReallyGetsAround Trapper, in the store room, with Ginger]]. [[ObfuscatingInsanity Klinger, wearing heels]]. [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin BJ, missing Peg]]. [[DefrostingIceQueen Margaret, charmed]]. [[InsaneAdmiral Flagg, abusing authority.]] Frank, his face red. [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} Blake, his thoughts elsewhere]]. [[TheCavalry Potter, on horseback.]] |
| 160 | ** [[ChuckCunninghamSyndrome Spearchucker, forgotten.]] |
| 161 | ** [=MacArthur=], returning! (Redemption) |
| 162 | ** The Camp, at ceasefire. (Joy) |
| 163 | ** [[Series/DoctorWho Adric, over Yucatán]]. (Thinking you failed when you really succeeded, with connotations of [[spoiler:death]]) |
| 164 | ** [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyTheMovie2017 Derpy, when the orb hit]]. (Non-lethal self-sacrifice) |
| 165 | ** Literature/TheCatsOfUlthar. (KarmicDeath) |
| 166 | ** Music/LudwigVanBeethoven, [[DeafComposer his hearing gone]]. (Overcoming a seemingly insuperable obstacle) |
| 167 | ** David and Goliath at Elah. (Underdog prevails) |
| 168 | ** The passengers on Flight 93.({{Heroic Bystander}}s, with connotations of death) |
| 169 | ** [[Theatre/TheBirds The soothsayer, in Nephelokokkygia]]. (An obvious phony suitably dealt with) |
| 170 | ** [[TheTrickster Anansi]], working hard. (OOCIsSeriousBusiness meets TheCon) |
| 171 | |
| 172 | [[WMG:Tamarians are hardcore alien Tropers who have [[JustForFun/TVTropesWillRuinYourVocabulary forgotten how to speak normally]].]] |
| 173 | At some time in Tamarian history, the Tamarian people created the equivalent of the Tropes & Idioms Wiki. It became so popular that all the Tamarians ending up speaking in tropes. As generations passed, even the way their brains worked began to change. As a result, they now can only think in Tropese. |
| 174 | * In that case, why no verbs? |
| 175 | ** Mirab, his grammar imperfect. Jalad, his tense horrific. Syn'ttaxx, in shadow. |
| 176 | ** Administrivia/AllBlueEntry: AntiquatedLinguistics. AdaptationDecay. JustForFun/TVTropesWillRuinYourVocabulary. FutureSlang. NoBackwardsCompatibilityInTheFuture. |
| 177 | * "Star Trek: Frontiers", a FanFiction virtual post-TNG era series ''(now in hiatus + its server was, sadly, cancelled)'' indeed [[strike:explicates]] explicated a similar theory. In one episode, the Enterprise-H crew encounters a detached Tamarian colony which came into contact with the 20th century American LiveActionTV. They speak only in metaphors referring to those shows. Can you guess which metaphors the Enterprise crew immediately recognized? |
| 178 | * Tamarians have warp drive. How coould that possibly happen? Professor Werner von Jalad explains his project to the Tamarian University grants comite "Mirab with his sails unfurled; only bigger, InSpace." They might have a mythological word for "bigger", but they wont have a mythological word for "InSpace". |
| 179 | ** Why not? [[InSpace we do.]] |
| 180 | *** "Icarus in the cool morning","Gunnar with no bowstring" OR "Munchausen and the underpants" "Grettir hidden by his hood". Professor Jalad wants to say InSpace, but for Real. Myths about space flight + the literary format of Literature/TheIcelandicSagas (Gunnar and Literature/{{Grettir|s Saga}}) is that they are historical records. Saga reference = Tamarian for "BUT real" |
| 181 | *** We do because we have proper language, which can express new abstract concepts. The Tamarians can't do that, since they can only express thoughts and ideas through historic metaphor. They have devolved to be linguistically non-humanoid, and are basically smart parrots with warp capability. |
| 182 | * Hmm. So I guess that the episode, in our language, would be this: [[TheCaptain Dathon of the Tamarians]] does a BatmanGambit, with the intent of creating FireForgedFriends with [[Creator/PatrickStewart Picard]] via BackToBackBadasses. PoorCommunicationKills, and [[WorthyOpponent Dathon]] is KilledOffForReal after [[TakeUpMySword passing on his sword]]. Picard returns, and, after telling the Tamarian [[NumberTwo First Officer]] YouAreInCommandNow, makes the a note in his CaptainsLog. |
| 183 | * It would appear that the Tamarian equivalent of TV Tropes never instigated the Administrivia/NoNewStockPhrases rule, then. |
| 184 | * We aren't hearing the ACTUAL Tamaranian speech. We're hearing the mangled results of the Universal Translator trying to translate it and failing. It is basically a literal word-by-word translation of their actual language, which I assume is more detailed than just Shaka, when the walls fell. |
| 185 | ** I don't know, a lot of idioms in English are equally as long/short. Hell, Chinese has thousands of them literally called four-word-formed-phrases. |
| 186 | |
| 187 | [[WMG: Deanna Troi has clairvoyance]] |
| 188 | In the novel ''Contamination'', She supposedly had a nightmare of asphyxiating on some kind of yellow gas, after waking up someone had died the exact way. this leads to the fact that She can only use this when asleep. |
| 189 | ** Or maybe she just has better mind reading abilities than she can consciously control, and she unintentionally went into the mind of the unfortunate soul as he was dying. She IS half Betazoid after all. |
| 190 | ** You know, Troi having much greater mental abilities than she is aware of ''would'' kind of explain why many of the plots that revolve around her telepathy tend to forget all of the other crew members onboard ''Enterprise'' from telepathic species. |
| 191 | ** Interestingly, season three of ''Picard'' establishes that Deanna ''does'' possess greater potential than she exhibited on ''TNG.'' She was able to use EmotionControl to suppress Will's grief over the death of their son. She also performs the first ever onscreen Betazoid mind meld. Which is different from the Vulcan version in that she is able to join the person she is melding with (in this case, Crusher's son Jack) inside of a mindscape and even open a closed "door" inside his mind that revealed something that he was (rightfully) nervous about. |
| 192 | |
| 193 | [[WMG: B4 will eventually "evolve" into Data.]] |
| 194 | The ending of ''Film/StarTrekNemesis'' makes it practically WordOfGod. It's possible he may undergo a physical change, so Return!Data can be played by [[TheOtherDarrin another actor]] in further movies. |
| 195 | * Amalgamation: The knowledge and experiences of Data combined with the base personality and experience (what little there is) of B4 will merge into a separate individual who is comprised of both Data and the original B4. |
| 196 | * According to the site for the new VideoGame/StarTrekOnline game, this is true in that continuity. Hooray for [=WMGs=]! |
| 197 | ** Hooray? Look, it's great to have Data back and all, but did it have to happen at the expense of who B4 might have become? Neither the writers nor the surviving characters considered the ''morality'' of overwriting one person's brain with another. That holds even if the first person was incapable of personal growth. (Please don't overwrite the Kenner autistics...) This is ''Franchise/StarTrek''! Morality has been one of its major themes from the beginning! |
| 198 | *** That's "Hooray, WMG got one right!" rather than "Hooray, Data crossed the MoralEventHorizon by [[GrandTheftMe stealing his brother's body]]." |
| 199 | *** B-4 pulled a HeroicSacrifice by re-routing the "suicide" program that Data had written to overwrite his own engram out of B-4's memory banks so it would kill him instead of Data. B-4's last words to his brother? "Dying is easy. Comedy is hard." |
| 200 | * Confirmed in the Star Trek Countdown comic. |
| 201 | ** Countdown is confirmed non-canon by its own writers. |
| 202 | * The hint at the end of Nemesis is that B-4 is humming a tune to himself that Data sang at the start of the film. There's an episode of ''Voyager'' where the holographic doctor gets rebooted and no one knows whether he'll get all his memory and personality developments back - then, as the episode ends, he's humming a tune to himself that he sang at the start of the episode. Of course, he's [[UnexplainedRecovery back to normal in time for the next episode]]. Data's chances are good. |
| 203 | |
| 204 | [[WMG:Data had several cats.]] |
| 205 | Spot's gender and breed changed between episodes because it died. Data was still learning things like small talk and figures of speech, so he would probably be bad at taking care of pets. |
| 206 | * [[AndCallHimGeorge He had a little friend once... but he don't move no more.]] |
| 207 | * English is hard. Taking care of a cat is not. |
| 208 | |
| 209 | [[WMG: Spot's gender and breed changed between episodes because it wasn't a cat.]] |
| 210 | * It was a changeling. |
| 211 | ** Specifically, the changeling equivalent to [[WesternAnimation/Ben10UltimateAlien Ship]]. |
| 212 | * Or Spot was a Time Lord. |
| 213 | * Spot was a Flerkin. |
| 214 | |
| 215 | [[WMG: Data got Spot out of his personal replicator.]] |
| 216 | It appears that replicators, the holodecks, and the transporters all work on the same principle -- they all assemble complex objects from base matter constituents. Transporters can create living creatures. So can holodecks for certain values of living -- ask Moriarty. Why can't a replicator? |
| 217 | ** Transporters create a living organism being transported as much as a car creates its driver. As in not at all. It just moves it, by turning it into energy and sending it at the speed of light to another location. Yes, it disassembles and reassembles but it's not ''creating'' anything ''new''. |
| 218 | *** Ask [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Riker Thomas Riker]] how he feels about your theory. |
| 219 | * Legal restrictions and limitations in ''how'' complex things it can create. |
| 220 | * Data would be able to hack the system and get around the CopyProtection. He's done it with things more sensitive than his personal replicator when the imperative was strong enough. And he starts keeping cats after the system has burned him and his "species." If Spot had appeared in {{canon}} ''before'' Lal died, then the legal argument would have merit -- but the cats came after. Data ''wanted'' to be a parental figure, and the system denied him that. Thus, he keeps unlicensed cats, and the rest of the senior crew look the other way because he's usually one of the nicest people onboard. |
| 221 | * [[WordOfGod According to the ''Next Generation Technical Manual'']], life forms can't be replicated because, to make data storage practical, the replicators work at a much lower resolution than the transporters do. This is fine for dead or nonliving materials, but "single-bit molecular errors could have severely detrimental effects on living DNA molecules and neural activity. Cumulative effects have been shown to closely resemble radiation-induced damage." |
| 222 | ** So you can try and create lifeforms, probably even fully sentient beings, with transporters and replicators but what you create would most likely materialize as a living cancerous mass, or something that would make the Elephant Man look like Brad Pitt (too soon?). From a technological stand point it would be easy to create these mishappen happless things, so a program would have to be added to the replicator/transporter/holodeck operating systems to dissallow this. Out there somewhere in the Federation is some sick f&ck who has probably overidden this safety and creates this accursed things. Some of these sick bastards may do it out of sadism, some out of the drive to create life but with callous disregard or twisted concern for the mishappen failures. Some of them may be done by children fooling around, sort of the high tech version of children pulling wings of flies for fun. This would probably be considered one of the most abhorrent crimes in the Federation. There'd be that weird creepy kid down the way who replicates unviable lifeforms from his replicator, and the smart young kid who may have tried to replicate a pet and produced some gross non-viable lifeform and their disgusted parents had to teach the kid why this is wrong. |
| 223 | * Life forms have been replicated in the transporter -- accidentally, but it happens. It happened to Riker... |
| 224 | * Okay, replicator files are highly compressed, and transporter files are uncompressed. Still, the ship officially has exactly one independent computer -- two if you count Data. We know there's a ''lot'' of space in the ship computer. Data has been shown to hack the ship computer. As long as the living DNA stays living, damage to it isn't a big problem -- Data isn't breeding cats, just replicating them. And it only has to be done once per cat. He can arrange to have ''one'' high-quality file in his replicator |
| 225 | ** Minor correction: ''Enterprise-D'' has three independent main computers; two in the saucer and one for the engineering section, and each alone are capable of handling all shipboard functions. Data's personal computer in his quarters, which is implied to be rather powerful, is explicitly stated to be an independent system as well in ''Genesis''. It should also be noted that La Forge was once able to transport an away team of three to a planet surface by "networking some tricorders together" in ''Brothers''. |
| 226 | * In "Dead Stop" we see technology that seems to be the precursor of, if not the very technology that is, the replicator. That technology was not able to create an actual living being, even though it could replicate a human body in perfect detail. So it is safe to assume that Next Gen replicators would have that same limitation. Transporters work because they are moving the actual living matter, not reassembling the body using inert raw atomic components. Only on some rare occasions has a transporter malfunction managed to create a living duplicate of someone such as the time it made two Kirks and the time it made two Rikers. |
| 227 | ** I would wager this is why you can't use transporters to clone people. You could copy someone's pattern but when you loaded inert raw atomic components the body would be a perfect replica of the original, but it would just be inert matter and not alive at all. |
| 228 | *** Except transporters clone people on multiple ocassions. See Evil Kirk and Thomas Riker, |
| 229 | * The Kirk and Riker duplicates were alive probably because they were made from 50% living matter and 50% inert matter which provided enough living matter to jump start life in the rest. |
| 230 | ** So maybe to create true viable clones you need to 'seed' them with some living matter from the original. Considering living people can eat food to regain lost mass, this means you could harvest transporter clones off people. |
| 231 | |
| 232 | [[WMG: Spot is a robot that changes its form a lot.]] |
| 233 | Hey, we only meet Spot after Lal dies. The Federation isn't interested in non-sentient, impractical machines. Of course, Spot is sentient, but no one needs to know that... |
| 234 | * Have we all forgotten about the season 7 episode "Genesis", where some pesky virus causes everyone on the Enterprise to [[EvolutionaryLevels de-evolve]]? Riker turns into a caveman, Worf into a proto-Klingon bipedal crustacean, and Spot turns into... an iguana. Yeah. |
| 235 | ** [[MechanicalEvolution Spot de-evolves]] into [[ItRunsOnNonsensoleum a remote controlled car with a rubber iguana model glued to the top.]] |
| 236 | |
| 237 | [[WMG: Spot is a Franchise/{{Pokemon}}.]] |
| 238 | |
| 239 | Unfortunately s/he was exposed to a [=MissingNo=], and so s/he evolves into other things at random. Including iguanas. |
| 240 | ** It should be noted that due to a programming oversight, for a while it was possible for Azurill to change gender when it evolved into Marill. Maybe that's what happened here! |
| 241 | |
| 242 | [[WMG: At some point between "Phantasms" and "Genesis," the entire crew came down with a weird sort of alien sex-change virus.]] |
| 243 | Dr. Crusher was able to cure them without incident, but she didn't get around to curing Spot because s/he wasn't as important as the sentient crewmembers. We didn't get to see that episode because it's not the sort of thing that is suitable for a mainstream network television audience -- or even a mainstream syndicated television audience. |
| 244 | |
| 245 | [[WMG: Cats in Star Trek [[TheNthDoctor regenerate]] the same way [[Series/DoctorWho Time Lords]] do.]] |
| 246 | But unlike Time Lords, they can only do it eight times, so they literally have [[{{Pun}} nine lives]]. Spot has seven left. |
| 247 | * [[Series/StarTrekVoyager Seven of Nine, you say?]] |
| 248 | * That would explain the catsuits. |
| 249 | |
| 250 | [[WMG: Data and Lore are the same person.]] |
| 251 | ...for most of the series, at least. This theory was explored in one of the ''Strange New Worlds'' endorsed FanFiction anthologies. |
| 252 | |
| 253 | After being beamed into space in the episode ''Datalore'', Lore was never seen again. Data continued to live on for centuries until long after the extinction of the human race and probably a few other species, too. He created an entire race of androids but was ultimately unable to recapture the essence of a world where the former extinct species had existed, leaving him disillusioned about this whole thing. This whole thing ends with a temporal jump which places him conveniently within reach of a Pakled trading ship (the 'fortunate encounter' Lore mentioned in "Brothers"). Data resigns himself to the unchangeability of fate (as is his habit) and 'becomes' his own brother. This also explains why Soong couldn't tell that the "Data" he was giving an emotion chip to in ''Brothers'' was Lore in disguise: if it had been the real Lore from ''Datalore'', wouldn't there already be an emotion chip ''in'' there? |
| 254 | |
| 255 | Canon has pretty much Jossed this, what with ''Nemesis'' and all; but damn, that was a good story. |
| 256 | * Since this theory involves TimeTravel from the far future, {{canon}} ''cannot'' joss this. Franchise/StarTrek usually has ontological inertia. |
| 257 | * Possible, given the WMG above talking about B4 "evolving" into Data. |
| 258 | ** There has also been a fan theory tossed around that states that B4 himself is Lore, and that someone dumbed him down prior to ''Film/StarTrekNemesis''. I don't think this is very likely personally, but it ''would'' explain away a few of the weirder inconsistencies. |
| 259 | * 'Lore' didn't have an emotion chip already because he didn't need one, his positronic matrix was complex enough to allow for emotions on its own. Unfortunately it was also complex enough to allow psychotic tendencies to manifest. |
| 260 | |
| 261 | Didn't "Juliana" remember building lore? |
| 262 | |
| 263 | [[WMG: All or most of The Next Generation (and possibly anything else with the same characters) is a SchrodingersButterfly effect from the Holodeck.]] |
| 264 | Any time the Holodeck generated real beings or did things like giving [[Literature/SherlockHolmes Moriarty]] consciousness, it was impossible - ''from the point of view of one in the real world.'' It makes perfect sense if Computer made a copy of the Enterprise and any places they had shore leave the first time anyone tried to exit the Holodeck. Someone's instructions just gave it too much free reign. |
| 265 | |
| 266 | |
| 267 | [[WMG:The interphase cloak never made it back to the Romulans]] |
| 268 | The cloaking device from "The Pegasus" worked fine, but we never see Romulans using them in later ''Deep Space Nine''. Obviously, Pressman was right about having friends in Starfleet Command. They made sure the device was conveniently destroyed or replaced with a non-working replica. |
| 269 | * Pressman wouldn't need specific friends. Do you think Section 31 would allow that technology to fall into Romulan hands? There was an entire episode about the Romulans working on a Phase Cloak (that failed); there's no way Section 31 is going to let them have one that does work. |
| 270 | ** But wasn't the episode's premise showing that it did NOT work? (assuming the 1701-D was just lucky at the end) |
| 271 | *** 1701-D was not just lucky. The device worked fine. Geordi had the expertise to use it properly, the engineers on the Pegasus did not. Laforge: "Commander, we've routed the impulse engines through the plasma conduits, but you'll have to watch the intercooler levels. If they get too high, we'll blow the entire relay system." |
| 272 | *** Even if it didn't, there is always the chance that the Federation version was a better prototype than what the Romulans had or could have shown them where they made mistakes. |
| 273 | *** It worked. Think what happened to Geordi and Ro in "The Next Phase"; that's what a Phased Cloaking Device is supposed to do to a ship. And only a working prototype could embed a ship inside solid rock the way the ''Pegasus'' was embedded - it just slipped back into normal space in the wrong place. Remember, they had to use the cloak to get the ''Pegasus'' back out! |
| 274 | *** The only reason it failed was that the majority of the crew who had mutinied against Pressman attempted to disable the phase-cloak device after Pressman and Riker were forced off the ship; they screwed up and didn't know how it worked - hence the accident. |
| 275 | *** So if they had successfully disabled the cloak where they were, they still would have rephased in solid rock. Dumbasses (the crew, not you guys). The cloak must have had a glitch/hiccup, or just failed. |
| 276 | * Confirmed in the ''[[Literature/StarTrekNewFrontier New Frontier]]'' [[ExpandedUniverse continuity]]; Starfleet Special Operations (basically, Section 31) sends Mackensie Calhoun to destroy it. |
| 277 | * The only thing the Romulans learned at the end of "The Pegasus" was that the Federation phase cloak prototype worked. That's it. Nobody was mentioned as actually giving them the technology, and the prototype was kept in Federation hands anyway. |
| 278 | |
| 279 | [[WMG: The bluegills of "Conspiracy" are offshoots of the Trill symbionts.]] |
| 280 | This theory was advanced in the Post-''[[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Deep Space Nine]]'' novels. Instead of having a beneficial relationship with their hosts, the bluegills invade and take over. |
| 281 | * This is the case in some fanfiction, but Star Trek Online jossed it. According to STO, these critters were made by the Iconians. |
| 282 | * At one point, Jadzia mentioned that Trill symbionts could overtake the mind of their hosts unless those were psychologically prepared in a specific way. And it darn near happened to Ezri when the Federation had her on a mission that required her to access a past life of Dax that had committed cold-blooded murder. |
| 283 | ** That also explains Riker being taken over, but does not explain why the lady was still the same person. The TNG trills must have also been an offshoot that prefers empty hosts. |
| 284 | *** We didn't really see enough of the final host to see what whether she'd been merged or just possessed. That would explain the makeup differences, though. |
| 285 | |
| 286 | [[WMG: Bluegills are [[Series/StargateSG1 Goa'uld]].]] |
| 287 | And Trill could be Goa'uld, too - remember, there was an offshoot of Goa'uld, the Tok'ra, who were truly symbiotic. |
| 288 | |
| 289 | [[WMG: Bluegills are evolved [[Literature/{{Animorphs}} Yeerks]] who hopped through a dimensional rift]] |
| 290 | Not possible, as Star Trek is explicitly mentioned as a fictional series within the Animorphs universe. |
| 291 | |
| 292 | [[WMG: Bluegills are a scouting force for the [[TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}} Tyranids]].]] |
| 293 | And they'll eventually fight the Borg. |
| 294 | |
| 295 | [[WMG: Bluegills were a scouting force for the Borg.]] |
| 296 | Soften up resistance and species are easy to assimilate. Or they figured that the Federation's defeat of the critters means they are worthy to be assimilated. Or they could have just been a one off. Given their failure, the Borg figured that it's easier just to send a cube. |
| 297 | * It's worth noting this was actually the writers' original intention, as well as for the Borg to have been an insectoid collective, rather than Cyborgs, as the concept was eventually redeveloped. But yeah, this is WhatMightHaveBeen. |
| 298 | |
| 299 | [[WMG: Everything since "Brothers" is Data's delusion]] |
| 300 | A good eye and good freeze-frame will reveal that the password Data gives the computer when locking down the Enterprise is not what appears on the screen. The computer misheard Data for some reason, and Data is therefore unable to unlock it. They're still in orbit around Soong's planet to this day. The guilt of this (especially as it certainly lead to the death of the sick boy) drove Data into a positronic psychosis, and everything since then has been a timeline he's invented in his own mind as a better alternative. His final death in ''Nemesis'' is actually a psychological metaphor for Data's damaged positronic matrix finally collapsing under the strain. |
| 301 | * While this doesn't address Data directly, the ''Enterprise'' crew would simply have to manually jettison an emergency beacon, wait for another starship to respond and tow them to a Starbase to have the computer system (including Data's lockout code) completely purged and the core software reloaded (similar to what the ''Defiant'' had to do in "For The Uniform"). |
| 302 | ** Yes, but the help came too late to save the boy and thus, Data. The entire breakdown took only a short time outside his head, but [[YearInsideHourOutside seemed like years to him]]. |
| 303 | * If that were the case, then how do you explain episodes like "The Inner Light," "Frame of Mind," "Eye of the Beholder," "Dark Page," "Tapestry," "All Good Things," etc., where Data is not only unaware of but also logically incapable of witnessing the episode's action? And there are many ways for the Enterprise crew to deal with this problem. The only logically consistent explanation (if we are assuming that everything we see on screen is exactly what happened) is that what was faulty was the computer's display routine. |
| 304 | * Or maybe Data, being incredibly intelligent, careful and fully versed on all the Enterprise's systems, intentionally reprogrammed the computer to display incorrect characters, since due to the questionable wisdom of the original designers the code was displayed ''in clear text'' (Why...?), and Data was not taking the chance that the crew who was actively working to stop him by that point had not found a way to get a peek at the bridge. His code could even be coded again through reprogramming the computer so even if they had both the visual and verbal record, they still could not break in. With everything else he was doing to secure the ship being so thorough and his mind working a billion times faster than any human's, this isn't really a stretch. |
| 305 | |
| 306 | [[WMG: The Borg are not trying to assimilate the Federation -- yet.]] |
| 307 | When they attack, they send only one ship to destroy most of Starfleet's local defenses and then get Locutus to give the Enterprise a reasonable way to get victory at the last second. ("Sleep, Data. Sleep.") They're trying to get Starfleet to invent new technologies so, when they do assimilate the Federation, they'll have better stuff to take. |
| 308 | * Man, that's ''one'' hell of a {{plan}} ! Maybe that's how the Borg generally deal with the uncreativity that results from their specific version of a HiveMind: They not only assimilate the technologies of other species, but they ''push'' other species to invent new technologies so they don't have to do it by themselves! |
| 309 | ** One episode of Voyager involved a race the Borg were systematically harvesting in this way whenever they got to the default Star Trek tech level. |
| 310 | * Holy crap, could that mean that Picard's a [[DeepCoverAgent sleeper]]? We're never given any canon explanation for why he can hear the Borg in ''Film/StarTrekFirstContact'', and the Queen seems to be very aware that Picard's connection to the collective still exists; she even exploits it prior to the film's climax. |
| 311 | ** Seven of Nine was remote-contacted by the Queen in "Dark Frontier". It's possible the Queen can do this with any former Borg. |
| 312 | *** Ah, but you'll recall that in the very same episode, the Queen states that the Collective allowed Seven to be abducted by ''Voyager'' to gather information about humanity. While she was probably lying to manipulate Seven, there's an undeniably eery similarity between the two cases. |
| 313 | ** There's also "I Borg," where Hugh immediately identifies Picard as Locutus, even though Picard doesn't outwardly appear Borg in any way. |
| 314 | |
| 315 | |
| 316 | [[WMG: Q's warning against antagonizing the Borg comes from fear]] |
| 317 | It is implied that Guinan has the ability to resist Q. Perhaps others of her species share this ability. If that got shared amongst the Borg, then the Borg could use it to assimilate a Q. And ''that'' would be bad. |
| 318 | * The question is, would they then assimilate everything or, having nigh-omnipotence dropped in their lap, would they have finally achieved the perfection they aim for? |
| 319 | ** And in obtaining that perfection, they will become the Q. Maybe when Q arranged the first contact, he was laughing inside that Picard can't win against them even when they were "primitives." The fear might be of destroying their own ancestors. |
| 320 | *** This wouldn't work, as the first iteration of that loop could never have happened. Who would they have assimilated before the Q existed? And the Borg only get more powerful by assimilation. |
| 321 | *** Either the other godlike entities we see in TOS, or just the Q. Stable time loops are a thing after all, and the Q are definitely advanced enough to set one up. Assimilate the Q, become the Q, set up timeloop so that you can assimilate the Q, and loop. |
| 322 | * Um, Guinan's home planet was taken by the Borg shortly before the beginning of ''Film/StarTrekGenerations''. (The only reason the Federation didn't learn about the Borg then was that those El-Aurians they retrieved were too shellshocked from exiting the Nexus to express it in a timely fashion.) So, if the Borg can gain the ability to assimilate Q that way, then they already have. Fortunately, the average Q can teleport. |
| 323 | ** The average Q can teleport...or totally erase the Borg from existence. |
| 324 | * Q warns his son not to provoke the Borg. |
| 325 | ** Because the Q detest having to clean up messes. One Borg cube nearly brought down the Federation! Drop one anywhere near less powerful civilizations and those civilizations would all be assimilated in no time. Since the Q generally feel obligated to maintain the status quo, they do not want their members unleashing troublesome species like the Borg into places where they do not belong. |
| 326 | * Well if a single Q were ''careless'' enough to get assimilated that would spell doom for the entire universe. One Q-Borg would transform the entire collective into Q-Borg, then overpower the Q Continuum and turn them into Q-Borg, then move onto assimilating everything in the Universe and turning that into Q-Borg. |
| 327 | * It is highly doubtful that the Borg could successfully conquer the Q. Species 8472, another extradimensional race that was nowhere near as powerful as many of the EnergyBeings running loose in the ''Star Trek'' universe (including the Q), were nonetheless successfully shredding their way through the Collective and would likely have defeated it in time. Likewise, the technologically advanced Voth have lived in the Delta Quadrant for ''millions'' of years and there is no evidence that the Borg have been able to successfully assimilate them or their technology. The Borg seem to have hit a plateau, where they have assimilated most of the advanced species that they ''can'', and the more powerful ones are beyond even their ability to defeat. |
| 328 | * Not so much fear of assimilation than it is being scanned. When Nero's ship in Trek 2009 was scanned by the USS Kelvin, the data they got from just that scan catapults Starfleet from the kind of technology we see in the Prime TOS timeline to the larger and more militarized kind of ships and weapons seen in Trek 2009. If the Borg successfully scanned a Q they could learn innumerable things, maybe new ways to upgrade themselves, or new, more powerful ways to assimilate others; thus the Q would want to limit their exposure as much as possible. Sure, they could snap their fingers and blink the info out of existence or go back in time to unmake the scan from happening, but that requires even more interference with the status quo and putting themselves at further risk of being scanned in more detail. |
| 329 | ** Unlikely. Q shows no reluctance to be in the presence of the Borg. In fact, in "Q Who" he has absolutely no problem with popping into main engineering while a Borg drone is standing right there! The Borg probably cannot get any more information out of trying to scan the Q than Starfleet can. |
| 330 | |
| 331 | [[WMG: Deanna Troi is not actually empathic]] |
| 332 | As a human-Betazoid hybrid, Deanna Troi doesn't have any telepathic/empathic powers. She just has a human-like knack for reading facial expressions, and on her homeworld this was mistaken for an ability to telepathically read emotions. Her human father tried to correct this notion, but he died while Deanna was just 7, and Deanna's overbearing mother refused to believe that her daughter lacked any Betazoid abilities. Other Betazoids might have suspected, but they chose not to say anything since Deanna's mother was a powerful aristocrat who held high office with the government. |
| 333 | * But she can detect telepathic forces around her, like Q's and the genetically altered child in "Natural Selection", and the grief of the alien in "Encounter at Farpoint" drove her to her knees when she sensed it. |
| 334 | * Is there ''any'' proof for this, or is this just a random guess? The events of ''The Loss'' show pretty clearly that she lacks the ability to read people's emotions just from conversation or their facial expressions. How do you reconcile that with this theory? |
| 335 | ** IRL, some humans visually perceive auras, which seem to carry information about others' emotional state. A plausible explanation is that this is a form of synaesthesia, where some cognitive process that perceives (via ordinary physical means) emotional states, has crosstalk with color perception, resulting in anomalous perceptions of emotion as color. This even aligns with evidence from spider monkeys suggesting that the development of color vision in primates has something to do with emotional perception -- color vision allows the detection of subtle changes in skin tension and bloodflow that betrays emotional states. Troi's affliction in "The Loss" may be a loss of the means by which she can consciously access what is otherwise unconsciously processed. This sort of thing also has precedent in neurology; some patients blinded by neurological injury exhibit "blindsight," showing by their behavior that some visual information is being processed, but they have no conscious experience of vision. By analogy everyone has blindsight for emotions, but empaths have conscious awareness of their emotional processing. |
| 336 | * Deanna has shown that she can communicate telepathically with other telepaths. So there is obviously something there. |
| 337 | |
| 338 | [[WMG: Deanna does not properly exercise her telepathic abilities]] |
| 339 | Deanna's underdeveloped telepathic abilities are the result of the fact that she does nothing to train them. Spock, despite being only half-Vulcan, was very adept at mind melding. But we also saw him regularly engaging in Vulcan meditative practices. This constant regimen of mental discipline helped him develop his abilities fully. In "Ménage à Troi" we even see Lwaxana meditating at one point. But we never see Deanna doing anything like that. In "Manhunt", Lwaxana criticizes Deanna on this specifically, insisting that she has "allowed your mental powers to rust". Rather than deny it, Deanna insists that it is "Only to avoid confusion. Humans constantly think one thing, then say another". Deanna's argument however implies that rather than learning to filter thoughts more effectively, she has deliberately allowed her powers to atrophy instead. It may also represent a kind of rebellion against her Betazoid mother, and identification with her deceased human father. She tries to rely more on her skills in Psychology (with debatable amounts of success) rather than her psychic powers. |
| 340 | |
| 341 | [[WMG: Betazoids do not have the skills in telepathy and empathy they claim to have]] |
| 342 | Think about it. Deanna states the obvious. Lwaxana is oblivious to how people feel about her. That guy who was obsessed with Tin Man could have been making it all up or could have been crazy -- or rather, crazier. |
| 343 | |
| 344 | Add to that the inconsistency about whether Ferengi can be read and the sheer ridiculousness of ''mental waves traveling over subspace,'' and one gets the idea that the Betazoids are being humored, just like Vulcans are when they claim they don't lie. |
| 345 | |
| 346 | We will note that Deanna Troi has a psychology degree. Even human psychologists are supposed to be able to read feelings and motives ''without'' having insider access into anyone else's mind. If Deanna is really "empathic", then her psychology degree is worth less than whatever it's written on. |
| 347 | |
| 348 | * The idea that an entire race is undergoing a mass delusion is an interesting one. |
| 349 | ** And How... |
| 350 | * To say that Troi's degree would be useless if she were "really" empathic would be assuming that we know everything about how the human brain works, which has not happened even in the 24th century. (See "Shades of Grey.") Whenever Deanna is mistaken, it's usually because she's ''mis''reading, rather than not reading; she could be making exactly the same mistakes we do even with the extra information available to her. Her psychology degree gives her an advantage when it comes to understanding her own abilities. Being able to read a mind doesn't mean you understand what you're "seeing", and just because you get someone going "I feel angry" in your head, and can probably pinpoint the source of that anger, doesn't mean you're going to understand everything exactly. The human brain is a complicated thing, and many people aren't even AWARE of some of their own thoughts. See Post Repression of Memories -- there are episodes with Deanna and Lwaxana dealing with that. |
| 351 | * There ''are'' several episodes that make a big deal out of the telepathy, and none of them are 100 percent convincing. Lawxana's repressed memories episode can be explained away by the similarity of Hedril to Kestra, which would be enough to freak any parent out, and a technology which allows people to get inside another's dreams, which exists in the Delta Quadrant and thus might get invented here as well. Tam Elbrun ''could'' have been faking the torture he had to live with everyday. That was one freaked-out guy, but he seemed to know exactly what was happening and why he was freaked out. As for Lwaxana... she's just teasing people. |
| 352 | ** Maybe Elbrun was the only Betazoid who really was telepathic, and was driven mad with irritation by everyone claiming they knew how he felt. |
| 353 | * This also fits the rest of Trek. We don't see telepaths play a major role in any other series, and empathy is limited to Vulcan-level. It's just that the Betazoids all believe they're telepathic. Picard and Riker fell for it; most of Starfleet and the Federation (barring the woman in "The Drumhead") humour them. The Betazoid murderer in ''Voyager,'' Suder, is fittingly a Betazoid version of a StrawAtheist -- he says he's never had telepathy! |
| 354 | * While it's true that most of the cases of Betazoid empathy could be chalked up to them just being really good at reading expressions and whatnot, there are a few episodes that might be hard to explain: |
| 355 | ** "The Survivors" - Kevin puts music in Troi's head so she can't sense what he is; |
| 356 | ** In "Ménage à Troi" Deanna and Lwaxana are able to communicate mentally even through doors and walls, with no ability to actually see each other. |
| 357 | ** Troi's forewarning of Q's arrival in "Encounter at Farpoint" (not to mention an incident or two in the rest of the two-parter), of the explosives in "The Bonding," and of Roga Danar's... distress in "The Hunted" |
| 358 | ** The entire plots of "The Loss," "Eye of the Beholder," and to some extent "Night Terrors" |
| 359 | ** Also, Dr. Crusher in a couple episodes ("Dark Page" and "Eye of the Beholder" mentions the specific chemical used in Betazoid telepathy. |
| 360 | |
| 361 | |
| 362 | [[WMG: Deanna Troi's accent ''is'' from her mother, or at least her world.]] |
| 363 | * This one is similar to the one concerning Sarek's two actors. Deanna is actually speaking English, as her second (at least) language, with an actual Betazoid accent. Her mother, on the other hand, uses a UniversalTranslator, and/or has taught herself to sound more like a native speaker over time, possibly even with the aid of translator output. |
| 364 | * Having spent time with a fair number of hearing impaired people, I hear Deanna's accent as "deafy". I wonder if she is moderately hearing impaired, or in fact, if most Betazeds are, compared to other humanoid species. (From their point of view, humans might have freakishly good hearing in the vocal registers.) Full Betazeds might be able to compensate either by projecting what the words are supposed to sound like, or just by being able to use their ability to listen to what humans think they sound like. |
| 365 | |
| 366 | [[WMG: The ''USS Hera'' was taken by the Caretaker.]] |
| 367 | * They never met ''Voyager'' because Captain [=LaForge=] decided to make for New Bajor rather than Earth, and take the Wormhole the rest of the way. |
| 368 | ** Too bad the writers didn't remember the loss of the ''Hera'' when they wrote the two-parter "Equinox". |
| 369 | ** [[ControlFreak Janeway]] runs across another female Starfleet captain? One who commands a higher class of starship than ''Voyager''? Can you say: "CatFight in the Delta Quadrant"? |
| 370 | [[WhatCouldHaveBeen Oh well...]] |
| 371 | |
| 372 | [[WMG:Everything since ''Film/StarTrekGenerations'' is a Nexus-generated figment of Jean-Luc Picard's imagination.]] |
| 373 | The Nexus is a ribbon of energy that lets beings that fall into it get their every wish. Picard's first, seemingly superficial, greatest wish is to be married with children of his own. He knows this is not real, so he offers up his next greatest wish: To prevent Soren from doing what he did. The Nexus offers him an ally and the back in time "exit". In reality, Picard remains trapped in the Nexus, and the Enterprise-D was lost with all hands during the destruction of the Veridian Star System. The series cut was approximately when Ben Sisko was promoted to Captain. Every Trek episode made since then, and all movies made since then, are products of the Nexus. |
| 374 | * If the Nexus is supposed to bring only joy, why would it make Picard sit through Voyager, Enterprise, Insurrection and Nemesis? Ugh. |
| 375 | ** As long as Picard's experiencing joy, it doesn't matter. Picard wouldn't need to sit through Voyager, it wasn't his ship. He had a lovey-dovey relationship in Insurrection, so that was joy to him. Enterprise takes place pre-Kirk, so Picard doesn't need to sit through that either. |
| 376 | ** ''Enterprise'' was just a game that Riker was playing anyway. |
| 377 | ** Picard had deep-seated jealousy towards Data for remaining "fully functional" throughout his lifespan. That's why he sat through Data's death in Nemesis. |
| 378 | *** Or that he wasn't cast as Data... no, wait... what? |
| 379 | * WebSite/SFDebris offered an alternate theory: Picard, is an elderly man dressed in mostly black who's been sitting in the hot desert sun for several hours. Picard isn't in the Nexis, he's suffering delusions brought on by severe heat stroke and dehydration. Everything after ''Generation'' is an ''Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge'' scenario. |
| 380 | |
| 381 | [[WMG: Alexander is half Q.]] |
| 382 | K'Ehleyr was actually the Lady Q. She pretended to be a Klingon for a lifetime as a lark. Alexander got some of her powers. He is able to go from Worf's adopted parent's house to the Klingon Empire without explanation, aging as he does so. Is able to convince his father that he doesn't have to be a warrior, and in at least one alternate future was able to time travel. It's so obvious! |
| 383 | |
| 384 | [[WMG: Wesley is Picard's illegitimate son.]] |
| 385 | This is an old one, but there is evidence for it throughout the three character arcs of Picard, Crusher, and Wesley. Picard admitted on several occasions that he had been in love with Beverly since before Jack was killed. Beverly in turn has implied that these feelings were not totally unrequited. Wesley has always displayed an extreme level of [[HeroWorshipper hero worship]] towards Picard since the premiere of the series that goes far beyond what is to be expected of a teenager meeting a respected authority figure. |
| 386 | |
| 387 | Here's the theory: |
| 388 | |
| 389 | * Beverly has always known, probably discovering the fact through routine medical scans while she was carrying. Considering her profession and acknowledged level of competence, it is not unlikely that she performed these tests herself and therefore kept it to herself. |
| 390 | * Wesley discovered the truth for himself at some before being going to the Enterprise, explaining his undue fixation on Picard. |
| 391 | * Picard learned of it later on in the series from Beverly, thus causing his shift from seeing Wesley as an unavoidable annoyance to doing everything in his power to push Wesley toward a career in Starfleet. |
| 392 | ** Or Picard was just pushing him toward a career in Starfleet to [[PutOnABus get the Wesley off of his ship]]. |
| 393 | ** The change in Picard's attitude toward Wesley has a canon explanation. In "Where No One Has Gone Before", The Traveler secretly told Picard that Wesley had hidden potential beyond normal human ability and asked him to help Wesley develop more. |
| 394 | ** Yeah, his attitude shift was partially due to the Traveler, but I think Picard knew all along. In the very first scene where Picard meets Wesley, Picard struggles to say something and all he can get out is "I knew your father." So Picard feels like he's obligated to tolerate Wesley above and beyond any obligation to his mother. Look at him even before the Traveler comes into the picture: he could just say "keep that kid away from me," and he seems to want to, but he never really sincerely gives that order. Then after the Traveler reveals that he's a prodigy, Picard's shift wasn't just "oh, he might be a teen prodigy, how quaint," which would be in-character, it was "he's a teen prodigy and I have an obligation to help him get a career," which doesn't necessarily follow on a logical level, unless Picard already felt like he was in some way obliged. I personally feel like this theory is as canon as it could be without being explicitly stated. That is, I think the writers definitely intended for this to be true. |
| 395 | * Related to this, some fans have speculated that [[UriahGambit Picard arranged for Jack to be killed]]. WordOfGod has tried to refute this, [[WhatTheHellHero for obvious reasons]]. |
| 396 | ** That's pretty much what Evil!Picard did in the MirrorUniverse novel ''Dark Mirror". Original!Picard was understandably horrified by ths. |
| 397 | |
| 398 | [[WMG: The "virus" proposed to be given to Hugh wouldn't have worked.]] |
| 399 | |
| 400 | Though this theory is mostly due the fact that I don't want to think that Picard inadvertently caused all of the deaths, assimilations, and other destruction caused by the Borg after the events of "I, Borg" by being soft-hearted. It is much easier to simply think that the Borg would have survived; though perhaps the virus would have taken out the cube sent to pick up Hugh, the collective would have realized the trick quickly and adapted to it. Additionally, they may have thought of the paradoxical shape as "an irrelevant waste of time" and deleted it along with all of the other memories Hugh had picked up throughout the course of the episode. |
| 401 | * This makes more sense in retrospect, now that we (and the writers) know about the Borg Queen. Where a Collective might not have caught onto something like that, she would probably have been able to notice it as a problem and stop it before it got out of hand. This also helps explain why Hugh's individuality didn't cause the entire Collective to unravel. |
| 402 | * Plus, even if the entire collective crashed trying to solve the paradox, they may have an automatic restarting system that restores the collective from a backup prior to acquiring the paradox file. |
| 403 | ** The Borg are equipped with Paradox-Absorbing Crumple Zones? |
| 404 | * Also, don't forget, in two episodes of Voyager (Collective and Infinite Regress), the Borg will cut off/destroy drones and vessels with imperfections. Soon as they found that cube in Hugh, he'd have been gone quicker than you can say "Resistance is Futile". |
| 405 | ** Hence why Hugh's individuality only caused the one group of rogue Borg to split off from the Collective. |
| 406 | * It is likely that Starfleet was overestimating the real-time connectivity of the various components in the Collective. In reality, they appear to use store & forward synchronization for widely-distributed nodes, such as cubes operating in remote locations or regions of space where communications are temporarily blocked. For example, it is doubtful that Data's "sleep" command in the "The Best of Both Worlds - Part II" actually put the ''entire'' Collective into regeneration cycle, but rather just the one cube. The Collective seems to check the system health of its various nodes, and if some logic bomb were spreading through some of them then all it would need to do is shutdown the link to those nodes. This is why Admiral Janeway needed to go and face the Queen directly at the Primary Unicomplex in order to infect her with the neurolytic pathogen in "Endgame", instead of just infecting any random drone somewhere. |
| 407 | |
| 408 | [[WMG: Armus from "Skin of Evil" is a Founder from ''[[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Deep Space Nine]]'']] |
| 409 | |
| 410 | I've had this theory for some time that Armus, that oil-slick looking thing that [[DroppedABridgeOnHim killed off]] Tasha Yar in "Skin of Evil", is a failed Founder from ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine''. When the ''Enterprise'' crew first encounters Armus, he describes himself as "a [[TitleDrop skin of evil]], left here by a race of Titans who believed if they rid themselves of me, they would free the bonds of destructiveness." The Founders certainly thought of themselves as the most perfect lifeforms in the universe. And anything that did not fit their standards of perfection was cast aside. Armus, like the Founders, has a basic form that is puddle-like, although he cannot assume a humanoid form like the Founders, they seem similar enough to make this guess. |
| 411 | * Odo had difficulty compared to the rest of the Founders assuming a humanoid form (he had trouble with facial characteristics) so this theory is valid. Perhaps Armus has more difficulty with the humanoid form. |
| 412 | * Maybe Armus was one of the infant changelings sent out to explore the galaxy, only he remembered everything and resented what the Great Link did to him. |
| 413 | ** Or, infant-Armus wound up on a planet of people who didn't know what he was, and tried to take advantage of this alien life form, with their experiment to purge themselves of "evil." |
| 414 | ** Odo did encounter a fellow infant changeling, Laas, with powers beyond what any of the Founders seemed to have, such as transforming into energy or flying though space at warp speeds. |
| 415 | * Maybe he was a Founder criminal. Maybe he killed another Founder, and was severed from the Great Link, but instead of giving him humanoid form he was deformed and crippled, resulting in the oil-slick with rudimentary shapeshifting skills. His other powers developed over time. |
| 416 | ** The problem with that is that the founders say that no founder has ever harmed another founder before Odo. However, it does leave it open to Armus being some sort of diseased founder like a cancerous mass or something that was ejected. |
| 417 | * Going back to the original "Race of Titans" quote, remember that the Founders were originally solid before "evolving" to a more advanced state. Perhaps Armus was some sort of residue left over when the Founders ascended to changelinghood? |
| 418 | ** Or an earlier evolutionary step. |
| 419 | |
| 420 | [[WMG:Wesley was a Q.]] |
| 421 | This would explain all the [[RealityWarper reality warping]] and "always-right" crap, and how he froze time (or whatever) just before he left. |
| 422 | * For some (most) of us, this would also fall under FridgeHorror and NightmareFuel. |
| 423 | |
| 424 | [[WMG: The Ferengi in season one are not members of the Ferengi Alliance.]] |
| 425 | They are a group of pirates or mercenaries exiled from Ferengenar for being idiots who jumped around like monkeys and not being cunning enough to turn a real profit, relying on petty theft instead. If real Ferengi were to make first contact with the Federation, they'd be trying to ingratiate themselves with powerful trade partners, not antagonizing them for no reason. Daimon Bok turned down potentially enormous opportunities for profit for the sake of revenge - this would be reason enough for a competent Grand Nagus to ban or exile him. |
| 426 | * This troper heard somewhere that the Ferengi acted this way around humans as a trick. When the Grand Nagus learned that humans didn't use money or any kind of barter system, he thought that meant humans were, by Ferengi standards, insane. Ergo, the Ferengi were instructed to act just as insane around those crazy, non-money-using humans. |
| 427 | ** This Troper proposes a far simpler solution: everything they were doing was part of a scheme for profit. They acted the way they did because it was part of their plan for profit. |
| 428 | |
| 429 | [[WMG:The Traveler is a JustForFun/TimeLord.]] |
| 430 | No, he never regenerates, nor do we see his TARDIS (its chameleon circuit is working fine). But he has a Time Lord-esque name, and he recruits Wesley as a companion to travel time and space. The Traveler is similar to the Doctor, but he obviously has much higher standards for companions, grooming Wesley over several years. |
| 431 | * Kosinski, the engineer accompanied by the Traveler in his first appearance, was likely his previous companion. |
| 432 | * Why isn't this canon? |
| 433 | |
| 434 | [[WMG:The Traveler somehow zapped the ship into V'ger.]] |
| 435 | The ship winds up somewhere where aliens are manifesting themselves in the ship, and there was somewhat of a resemblance to the V'ger cloud. This could have been that they were zapped there again, and V'ger recognized they were humans, and not a threat. The manifestations were just its way of trying to communicate with more humans. |
| 436 | |
| 437 | [[WMG: Soren from "The Outcast" was faking her brainwashing.]] |
| 438 | Riker and Worf planned to rescue Soren from the J'Naii's "psychotectic treatment," which was supposed to happen the next day. But when Riker gets to the planet it seems the "treatment" had already happened and Soren isn't "female" or in love with Riker anymore. Soren was faking this in order to protect Riker. She knew enough about the Federation that Riker was sacrificing his career in Starfleet by breaking the Prime Directive, and saw that as too big a sacrifice. Also, Soren probably didn't want to cause an "interplanetary incident" or too much trouble. Perhaps the other J'Naii saw her talk to Riker and assume Soren had come to "her" senses. |
| 439 | |
| 440 | [[WMG: Troi's CaptainObvious-status is deliberate.]] |
| 441 | She is stating the obvious to indicate that the person or persons in question ''are not just acting'', which could be a rather important thing to know. If they ''are'' shown to be acting after that, that indicates they are special in some (generally mental) way, which, again, is important to know. After all, several of the times she states the obvious, she does so about someone not actually there in person, but rather on a viewscreen, which would make it easier to miss cues that something is off about how a person acts. |
| 442 | * That or she was assigned to the Enterprise because Picard was terrible at telling how other people were feeling, and Troi was the empathic daughter of a somewhat annoying ambassador. Hmmm, how do we solve this problem? |
| 443 | * Or she can't reliably tell what is or isn't obvious to everybody else, so she errs on the side of stating the obvious. Wasn't not stating something he thought was obvious part of what got Tam Elbrun in trouble? |
| 444 | |
| 445 | [[WMG:Data's trouble with metaphors is due to a quirk in his programming.]] |
| 446 | Basically: He treats synonyms as synonymous. So, after replacing words with synonymous ones and realizing it doesn't work, he figures that the metaphor must have been something a person made up, rather than a well-known phrase. This still allows for people understanding--people make up figures of speech all the time that don't become common enough to be idioms. Were this quirk discovered and repaired, he would be able to learn metaphors the same way Vulcans do: one at a time. Until such a time, it's so much a part of him that no one really notices anymore. |
| 447 | |
| 448 | Alternatively: It was intentionally put there to push Data out of the UncannyValley, as before his language skills were a little ''too'' good. |
| 449 | |
| 450 | [[WMG: The [=PADD=]s are descended from the [=iPad=].]] |
| 451 | Apple became a Starfleet contractor in the intervening 3 centuries (and chilled out on restricting independent app development). |
| 452 | * And would Motorola have also become a Starfleet contractor? [[http://techtickerblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/motorola-logo.jpg The Motorola logo]] looks an awful lot like the [[http://kleigh.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/starfleet-logo1.gif Starfleet logo]]... |
| 453 | ** The Motorola Logo at this point is inspired somewhat by the starfleet logo. |
| 454 | |
| 455 | [[WMG: Picard speaks French, not Federation Standard.]] |
| 456 | The reason Picard sounds like he's from Yorkshire rather than France is because he speaks a dialect of French. The Universal Translators pick this up and add an equivalent dialect to his translated dialogue. |
| 457 | * Possible. Northern France and Northern England are surprisingly similar places. |
| 458 | ** [[AliensOfLondon ...lots of countries have a North?]] |
| 459 | * Patrick Stewart may be from Yorkshire, but Picard's accent certainly isn't. It's very proper RP English. |
| 460 | * This would explain many things - Worf speaks Klingon which is properly translated, rather than English with a Russian accent because of his parents (he was adopted, Klingon is his first language). Troi has an accent while her mother doesn't because Troi actually learned English either through her father or as part of her Counselor training - her mother is simply speaking Betazoid. Etc. |
| 461 | ** A quite plausible theory that fits the facts on the show, but there's nothing at all unrealistic about a French person speaking English with an British accent. In fact, right now many French people who speak English speak it with a British accent, since that's the nearest English-speaking country - especially those who grew up bilingual and thus don't have much, if any, of a French accent while speaking English. |
| 462 | |
| 463 | [[WMG: Picard has a British accent due to a TranslationConvention]] |
| 464 | * By the 24th Century, Earth has a single language that evolved organically into something we 21st-Century Humans wouldn't recognize. "French" and "English" don't exist as distinct languages any more. The show is merely translating dialogue into modern-day English for the benefit of us viewers, and regional accents are being extrapolated based on lifestyle choices and/or social status. Picard is not speaking English with an RP British accent; he's speaking "Humanese" with an upper-class, well-educated accent (whatever that may actually sound like). |
| 465 | ** The Universal Translator works on the audience. |
| 466 | |
| 467 | [[WMG: Picard is Anglo-French]] |
| 468 | * With the opening of the Channel Tunnel, it became possible for British people with the means to do so to get homes in France and commute to London, or to retire in France. What's to say a northerner didn't marry into a French family and start a trend of anglicizing their accents? |
| 469 | |
| 470 | [[WMG: There really ''were'' five lights.]] |
| 471 | * Picard was brainwashed so thoroughly, they even managed to brain wash him into thinking he had defeated the brainwashing. Fortunately, the guy running the show fell out of favor at exactly the same time, so nothing came of it. |
| 472 | |
| 473 | ''How dare you, sir~ THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS!, although at the end...'' |
| 474 | |
| 475 | ** It would have been pretty trival for Gul Macet to simply add a fifth light outside our (the viewers') field of view and turn it on when Picard wasn't looking to make him question his sanity as one last attempt to break him. |
| 476 | |
| 477 | [[WMG: Dr. Pulaski's cold attitude toward Data stems from a more general technophobia]] |
| 478 | I was reading Pulaski's entry on TheScrappy page, and most of it had to do with this (including [[ItIsDehumanizing calling Data "it"]]). Think of it though...she also has transporter phobia, is a strong believer in more primitive medical practices (prescribing things like chicken soup for flu cases), and so on. Consider too that Data was an abnormality - completely human-like androids were still a rare thing. Her attitude might actually have been [[FairForItsDay fair for its time]]. (And she did warm up to him more later in the season.) |
| 479 | |
| 480 | [[WMG: Pulaski was sent to test Data.]] |
| 481 | Starfleet wanted to make sure that Data would not [[VideoGame/MegaManX go maverick]] under any circumstances, so they sent the most abrasive bitch they could find to continually provoke him past the point that a human would bust her across the mouth. That explains why she didn't wind up in the 'fleet equivalent of Captain's Mast her first day, or any other day. Data passed. |
| 482 | |
| 483 | [[WMG: The Tamarians have a HiveMind.]] |
| 484 | This is why all members of their culture have an inherent understanding of the mythology behind their metaphoric language that [[NoBackwardsCompatibilityInTheFuture lacks any easy way to communicate the myths themselves.]] As a result of the HiveMind, young Tamarians are born knowing the myths, which would permit this sort of language to develop. |
| 485 | * Or they learn the language the same way we do--how does a child learn what a rock is? Or success? Or failure? They don't, nor do they know the words that are normally used to define these words. They learn by observing how the words are used, and in what situation. So, Tamarrian kids learn the same way--and THEN are taught the myths themselves. |
| 486 | ** It's more likely that they use visual techniques of storytelling, rather than a verbal method. The Tamarrians learn everything visually, and each meaningful phrase is associated in their minds with the associated image - "Shaka, when the walls fell" evokes a mental image for them of that event in their mythology, which they only know as "Shaka, when the walls fell". Note that the spontaneous creation of a new phrase, "Picard and Dathon, at El-Adrel", suggests that they still retain the ability to construct new phrases and sentences, but that they are simply incapable of creating new mental images - as such, unless provided with a specific situation, such as Picard and Dathon being at El-Adrel during the episode, they are simply unable to create any meaningful mental image from a phrase. In short, they must learn the myths first, and then the phrases that refer to them. |
| 487 | * I would like to know how they deal with names for things better though, especially when they developed technology and needed lots of new nouns for all the thousands of bits of technology a star faring race must have. |
| 488 | |
| 489 | [[WMG: The USS ''Bozeman'', from "Cause and Effect", was NOT part of the ''Enterprise''-D time loop.]] |
| 490 | In reality, the USS ''Bozeman'' got stuck in a time warp anomaly that sent them into the future. But they ended up emerging at the exact point and time that the ''Enterprise''-D was located. Since that happened where the space-time continuum was in flux, the ''Enterprise''-D was knocked into the time loop. Just because it was the cause of it, doesn't mean the ''Bozeman'' was actually PART of the time loop. It also explains why nobody on the ''Bozeman'' was aware of a time loop. |
| 491 | |
| 492 | [[WMG: Sonya Gomez was kicked off the ''Enterprise'' shortly after that hot chocolate incident.]] |
| 493 | ''Totally'' not canon, but let's face it, that was a horrible first impression. |
| 494 | ** Especially for the job position of ''engineer'' (aboard Starfleet's flag ship) |
| 495 | |
| 496 | [[WMG: In all of Creator/PatrickStewart's movies, his character is really Captain Picard messing around in the holodeck.]] |
| 497 | Same goes for the acting careers of the rest of the ''Next Generation'' cast. So ''Film/IndependenceDay'', for example, is just a holodeck adventure Data had one day. |
| 498 | * This would explain ''so much'' about WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}}. |
| 499 | ** That's actually a rather disturbing thought considering Troi, Riker and Data would be playing |
| 500 | Demona, Xanatos and Puck. |
| 501 | *** I think you mean "awesome." |
| 502 | |
| 503 | [[WMG: Data ''has'' emotions.]] |
| 504 | They just aren't human emotions. In the episodes, it's clear that he reacts emotionally to the events around him, but his way of expressing those reactions is much more subtle or completely different than humans' way. He's been trying so hard to find human emotion that he hasn't taken the time to explore his own android-emotion. |
| 505 | * This would explain how he develops interests and sets himself goals. He does enjoy working with people and actually misses Tasha Yar when she is gone. He just is not aware of his emotions. He probably has emotions, but lacks illogical reflexes and quirks normally attached with them, like laughter accompanies happiness. But he feels he is happier serving aboard the Enterprise than just apathetically lying down. |
| 506 | * It also makes more sense to assume that having emotions is a normal consequence of Soong-type positronic brain design, since Lore, [[spoiler:Juliana]], etc. have them, while Data is a re-engineered version of Lore with the emotions ''removed''. So he would probably have emotional undercurrents suppressed by whatever modifications were made to the Lore design (and later, filtered through the emotion chip in a safe way). It's also mentioned several times that the Soong-type android use an artificial neural network as the basis of their AI; in the real world, emotional behaviour of ''some'' kind (unlikely to be similar in any way to what humans experience) is a necessary consequence of this design since it builds decisions on past experiences. |
| 507 | |
| 508 | [[WMG: Geordi identifies more with technology than with other people.]] |
| 509 | This is a direct result of growing up with cybernetic enhancements. It explains his engineering prowess, as well as why he has a much easier time interacting with androids, sapient holograms, and disconnected Borg drones than he does with, for example, Human females. |
| 510 | |
| 511 | [[WMG: After the death of his brother and nephew in ''Star Trek: Generations'', Picard has had extensive difficulty in coming to terms with said deaths, going through several stages of grief.]] |
| 512 | |
| 513 | Even Kübler-Ross herself admitted that not everyone goes through the five stages the same way or even all of them, and the Picard of the movies experiences them thus: |
| 514 | |
| 515 | ''Film/StarTrekGenerations'' - Despair. He is more visibly depressed in this movie than at any other point in the movies or in the series before it. |
| 516 | |
| 517 | ''Film/StarTrekFirstContact'' - Anger. Since his brother and nephew played a large part in his rehabilitation after being liberated from The Borg, encountering them again after the death of Robert and René brought forth anger over their death, perhaps subconsciously, and caused Picard to regress back into deep-seated resentment toward The Borg. |
| 518 | |
| 519 | Film/StarTrekInsurrection - Bargaining. Picard encounters a race of immortal aliens, befriending an intelligent child, and becoming close to the mother of said child. Perhaps, again on a subconscious level, he had taken the place of his brother. When the truth of what the Son'a and Starfleet are up to comes to light, and after trying repeatedly to convince the Admiral to reconsider what they were doing to the planet and its people, he violates direct orders from a superior officer and the Federation Council. He acts not only in exactly the opposite manner to how he had acted during a similar incident years earlier, but the course of action he chooses to take is fairly similar to the actions of Wesley Crusher during that same incident. He had previously reprimanded Crusher for these actions rather severely. All of this, in addition to going directly against the idea of the needs of the many outweighing those of the few, leads to the possibility that Picard was rather zealously defending these two people who reminded him of his deceased brother's family situation, doing whatever he possibly could to ensure the safety of the stand-in family he had just located. |
| 520 | |
| 521 | Film/StarTrekNemesis - Denial. Picard starts trying, desperately, to stop reminding himself of his own misery and takes an interest in mid-life crisis-ish things like riding around in a dune buggy. He also clings to the idea that Shinzon might not be evil for way longer than any consideration Shinzon merited. |
| 522 | * This might have also been a result of Picard viewing Shinzon as the only family he has left. |
| 523 | |
| 524 | Naturally, at the end of each movie, some form of Acceptance begins to manifest, but by the next, Picard has regressed into another stage of grief. |
| 525 | |
| 526 | At any rate, this is the best explanation I can come up with for Picard's extensive CharacterDerailment in the Star Trek TNG Movies... |
| 527 | |
| 528 | [[WMG: Sela was a clone.]] |
| 529 | Sela looks ''[[IdenticalGrandson exactly]]'' like Tasha Yar, and doesn't show signs of inheriting any genetic traits from her supposed father. Film/StarTrekNemesis shows the Romulans had a program for cloning Starfleet officers for the purpose of replacing them. Her back story is that when Sela was 4 (too young to remember), her mother tried to escape Romulus, but Sela didn't want to leave her father or her home and cried out, getting Yar killed. In other words, she grew up being told that she betrayed her human mother for her Romulan father and home - a perfect story to instill loyalty. Sela was only allowed to make her existence known after Tasha Yar was killed, ruining the original plan of replacing her. |
| 530 | * Except people remember plenty of things from when they were 4. Especially something traumatic like that. |
| 531 | * What about her ears? Remember, some romulans have the brow ridge, some don't. Half-vulcans can easily pass for humans so why not half-romulans? |
| 532 | ** Half-Vulcans look like full Vulcans, as shown many times over in TOS. |
| 533 | *** We've only seen three half-Vulcans in all of Trek (and one was actually a clone), so I don't think we can assume ''all'' half-Vulcans look Vulcan. |
| 534 | |
| 535 | [[WMG: Data is using ObfuscatingStupidity]] |
| 536 | Data has an oddly variable intelligence level. While normally brilliant and with a perfect memory, he nevertheless: |
| 537 | * Loses to Troi at chess. This would mean Data is less advanced than Deep Blue. |
| 538 | * Loses to another humanoid at a game of strategy and reflexes, and in a rematch is only able to tie him. |
| 539 | * Is consistently unable to understand metaphors. Apparently they no longer have slang dictionaries in the future. Note that other than the Tamarians, a newly encountered race, the Universal Translator '''can''' handle metaphors. |
| 540 | * Can never remember that Captain Picard doesn't want to know the time estimate to the nearest second. |
| 541 | |
| 542 | On the other hand, there are occasions Data shows himself to be more capable than he usually acts when affected by an outside agency. |
| 543 | * When affected by a subliminal message from a himself in a previous time loop (long story), Data demonstrates he is capable of tracking every card in a deck and shuffling them in such a way as to produce any hands he wants. Data claims to be surprised by this. How he could have not known he could do this is not explained. |
| 544 | ** Perhaps it's not so much he didn't know he could, he didn't know he was doing it then. My theory - whenever he plays his "Poker" subroutine specifically avoids checking his memory of previous deck states when he is shuffling and while the hand is being played. This means while he would know what cards were where, he would specifically ignore that information, rendering each card a mystery. This would allow for his subconscious to stack the deck as it would know what cards were where, which it wouldn't if he was doing something similar to deleting his memory files for previous deck states. There's also the question of how, considering his eyesight, he wouldn't be able to pick up on small creases or folds of the cards and recognize them by their specific signature, similar to how Geordi can see the cards with his VISOR but chooses not to. |
| 545 | * "Brothers": In response to a retrieval signal from his creator, Data commandeers the ''Enterprise'', takes over the computers, and alters its course. The rest of the crew proves completely outmatched trying to stop him, and even hours after Data leaves the ship, the crew never manages to regain control of it until Data returns it to them. |
| 546 | |
| 547 | ** Note that losing to Kolrami isn't that ridiculous, given how little we know about the game. Even today there are a lot of board games where a computer program cannot beat a human, including some for which that will probably remain the case for a long time. |
| 548 | ** Also, computers like Deep Blue were specifically designed and built to play chess and nothing else. Canon says that positronic matrices are meant to mimic the brain (in ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'', Dr. Bashir replaced half a Bajoran brain with one) and so it's possible that while he's great at doing calculations, the combination of having to sit around and wait for what he'd consider a "slow" opponent, coupled with an interface designed for human(oid) users, might have handicapped him significantly. If he'd been able to plug his brain directly into the game, the results might have been different. |
| 549 | ** Most likely, his ethical subroutines prevent him from cheating in these games, forcing himself to hold back from using his full abilities in situations that are not life threatening. Since he is confused by his loss to Kolrani, odds are he doesn't even realize that he is doing it. |
| 550 | |
| 551 | [[WMG: Data used to suffer periodic bouts of DoesNotKnowHisOwnStrength.]] |
| 552 | You have to wonder why his restricts himself to PunyEarthlings level most of the time. Perhaps he used to have trouble not knocking doors loose or accidentally injuring people, so he stays WillfullyWeak most of the time to avoid ever doing it again. |
| 553 | * Because he's trying to mimic humans. There have been instances where someone or something has circumvented his code and used all his strength. Recall when his "grandfather" loaded his consciousness into Data, he was easily able to break a woman's hand. |
| 554 | |
| 555 | [[WMG: Pulaski went rogue.]] |
| 556 | Funny how the doctor who invented a ''memory-erasing technique'' vanished between seasons and was never mentioned again. Makes you wonder what Federation secrets disappeared with her. |
| 557 | * Alternatively, she got recruited by Section 31. |
| 558 | * Another theory: given her constant insubordination towards Picard, her racist/speciest attitude towards the ship's 3rd in command, and her general disdain for modern medical procedures, there's every chance that she was simply kicked out of Starfleet. |
| 559 | |
| 560 | [[WMG: Picard and Crusher slept together immediately before the last scene in "Attached".]] |
| 561 | Nothing in their closing conversation excludes this possibility, and at least one reference seems to support it. Crusher mentions having listened in on Picard's dreams, and previously we saw that their psychic link caused them pain when they got more than a dozen feet or so apart. Possibly that side effect vanished after they removed the psi implants but the psychic link faded more quickly, but it seems just as likely that they decided the only prudent decision would be to share a room. Thereupon the intimacy of the link got the better of them, and the finishing conversation is between two people who have impulsively consummated their passions and are now discussing whether to pursue a relationship or not. |
| 562 | * Alternatively, their "sleeping together" was entirely platonic in the ''physical'' sense, but not at all in the ''mental'' sense. When Crusher spoke of "listening in" on Picard's dreams, she was being tactfully euphemistic about how erotic they were and the degree to which she was participating... especially since they were ''her'' dreams too. People aren't much in control of themselves while asleep, and considering the involuntary mental link, it would be fairer to say Crusher was ''sharing'' dreams with Picard. |
| 563 | |
| 564 | [[WMG: In the Q's trial against humanity, Q is actually the human race's defense attorney]] |
| 565 | Q wants humanity to survive, as he can see how humanity has grown from a savage race to something much better over a short time. Since the continuum has a trial against humanity, Q chose to "use" Picard and his crew to prove that humanity was worthy of life in space. Q acting like an antagonist is simply because he knows how to motivate the captain. |
| 566 | ** Watch 'All Good Things...' again. Q's final conversation with Picard is essentially Picard going 'The whole of these past SEVEN YEARS were the trial, and you were helping us along. Thank you.' with Q responding 'Yeah, but only because I thought you deserved the help. Now go explore.' Your WMG is almost made explicit truth! |
| 567 | ** Not "almost". Q specifically says that the Continuum had sentenced humanity to death. It was only at his demand that Picard was put in the position to stop the paradox and save the species, proving our fitness for survival. He all but admits that he is a guardian angel for our planet, albeit a {{Jerkass}} one. |
| 568 | |
| 569 | [[WMG: Nagilum is a Q]] |
| 570 | Maybe not the Q we're used to, but he's still a Q. As explicitly stated in the final episode, humanity has been on trial. Now add to what Nagilum tells Picard that he thinks of the people on the Enterprise. It's pretty much the same as what the Q's trial humanity for. Add to that, the ability to create a NegativeSpaceWedgie, and fuck with, well, reality and take any form it wishes. |
| 571 | ** Alternatively he's a rogue Q, or similar being, and the NegativeSpaceWedgie is his prison. The Q imprisoned Quinn in an asteroid. And in the novels the "God" Being that Kirk encounters in the center of the universe is an omnipotent Q-like entity that the Continuum imprisoned there because he was utterly insane, and utter insanity crossed with omnipotence makes for a very dangerous entity. |
| 572 | |
| 573 | [[WMG: Nagilum is a Douwd]] |
| 574 | Unlike "Kevin Uxbridge", Nagilum is utterly alien. He uses the void to hide from the Q who style themselves as SpacePolice. |
| 575 | He's not a JerkAss, his BlueAndOrangeMorality is from his sheer boredome of being an immortal being floating in space. Unlike "Kevin", Nagilum looks down on other lifeforms because it's first contact was with the Klingons - he's part of their legends about a void that eats starships. Picard and company were different enough that he wanted to "study" them somemore and then got frustrated that they chose to self-destruct like the Klingons. |
| 576 | |
| 577 | |
| 578 | [[WMG: The iPad is descended from the PADD.]] |
| 579 | Someone dropped their PADD on one of their jaunts to the early 21st century. Whoops. |
| 580 | * It's possible in this scenario Apple has had one in their R&D lab for quite a while: one of the early attempts at replicating it was the Apple Newton. TechnologyLevels hadn't quite caught up for it to work well by that point, though. |
| 581 | |
| 582 | [[WMG: The Q Continuum put Humanity on trial for their arrogance in creating the Prime Directive, a self-righteous policy that has led to the needless deaths of billions.]] |
| 583 | * Whether a self-righteous policy of non-intervention leads to ''more'' unnecessary deaths than a self-righteous policy of intervention is highly up to debate though. Also, the Q themselves seem to have something like non-intervention policies, although they're less rigid than the Prime Directive. However, your guess would explain why the Q didn't trial the Klingons or Romulans in a similar way. |
| 584 | * The ''fact'' that the Federation interprets the Prime Directive ''very'' flexibly depending on their own interests also comes into play. For example, in the TOS episode "Errand of Mercy", the Federation's motives in "helping" the Organians have more to do with their planet being strategically placed on the Klingon border, and thus being a valuable base, than a genuine desire to assist the Organians. Indeed, Kirk does everything he can to escalate the situation when the Organians, in accordance with their own cultural values, are much too passive for his taste in the face of Klingon occupation. Kirk flat-out tries to bribe them with technology, provokes violent responses from the Klingons via acts of insurgency that could lead to a massacre of the Organians and even openly berates them for their pacifistic behavior. Being a massive hypocrite, when it turns out that the Organians are {{Sufficiently Advanced Alien}}s powerful enough to literally put a stop to the entire war, Kirk turns around and is outraged that ''they'' are now ''interfering'' in the Federation's right to self-determination! The Prime Directive meant nothing to him because it was wartime, yet he was offended that a more advanced race would not keep their noses out of ''his'' civilization's affairs! At least the Klingons were honest up front about their intentions (conquest) and what they were willing to do in order to accomplish it. Q would later take great pleasure in pointing out human hypocrisy, and I doubt the Organian incident escaped the Continuum's notice. |
| 585 | [[WMG: The Q have a true form and real names that humans wouldn't comprehend,]] |
| 586 | The true form of a Q is a creature with a goat head, snake tail with puff of fluff at the end, long snake like body covered in eagle feathers, a Pegasus left wing, a bat right wing, a deer left leg, an alligator right leg, an eagle left arm, a lion right arm, a long neck with donkey or pony hair, a goat left horn, a right antler, a snake tongue, a large fang, and yellow eyes with different sized red pupils. Mere humans just wouldn't comprehend seeing a creature like this so they make themselves look like humans around them. Q had in the past ruled a world of ponies who couldn't comprehend his appearance so they took him as the most unredeemable evil thing ever, so two pony sisters turned him to stone with a spell so strong it takes over 1000 years for even a Q to escape(even though that's not a very long time for an immortal), and after he did he attempted to rule again before being turned back into stone, then sent back to the Continuum, and then messing with humans but this time appearing as one of them so the past doesn't repeat itself. Also each Q does have a real name, but is named after a feeling or concept or something like that, which they feel won't make sense to humans, so they each go by Q to them. But their true names do make sense to ponies, so they knew him by his real name: [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic Discord.]] |
| 587 | |
| 588 | Either that or Discord was just another alias of Q. In ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' it was mentioned that a Gamma Quadrant civilization knew him as the God of Lies, and he has had dealings with a lot of different species before. |
| 589 | |
| 590 | [[WMG: Riker tried to lose the trial in "The Measure of a Man"]] |
| 591 | Think about it for a second. Riker makes weak arguments that Picard easily should be able to tear apart, while sounding passionate about it. The argument about Data's strength doesn't hold water (Picard turns it down) and neither does the "turning Data off" (think Vulcan nerve pinch). As for the removal of hands, wouldn't it be the same as [=LaForge=]'s VISOR? |
| 592 | Did Riker want Data to win? Beyond a doubt he did. All he had to do was put up weak arguments that Picard should easily tear apart. |
| 593 | ** Weak to the viewer, maybe, but the characters themselves seem moved enough by Riker's arguments to Joss this. Picard even tells Guinan that Riker almost convinced ''him''. |
| 594 | ** It's possible that Riker was trying to give Picard an easy win while looking like he was setting up a slam-dunk, and Picard missed it because of his discomfort with the situation, his past history with the Starfleet JAG officer, his worries about Data's chances of victory/survival, along with still having to oversee the daily functionings of the ''Enterprise-D.'' |
| 595 | |
| 596 | [[WMG: Lal can come BackFromTheDead.]] |
| 597 | At the end of "The Child", Data mentioned that he uploaded her into himself before her death from positronic brain failure. In ''[[ExpandedUniverse Countdown]]'', Data was preserved in the form of the "Data Matrix", and came back in B-4 as described above. B-4 was backed up in his own "B-4 Matrix" prior to his own HeroicSacrifice. Given that matrixes seem to be the form that backups take, there should logically be a "Lal Matrix" in there somewhere. Additionally, computers of the time have been shown to support a sapient intelligence (see [[Series/StarTrekVoyager the Doctor]] and Moriarty). Given these facts, Data should be able to create a Holo-Lal and Holo-B4 using the same system. She'll probably be happy to meet "Uncle B-4". |
| 598 | |
| 599 | |
| 600 | [[WMG: Taking the UniversalTranslator down would be supremely disastrous...]] |
| 601 | ...because none of the senior staff of the Enterprise speak the same language. 400 years have passed between the modern day and the time of the series, and the amount of linguistic drift that can occur in 400 years is more than enough to create full languages out of simple dialects. Some of the senior staff might speak mutually intelligible languages, but they need the UniversalTranslator to conduct everyday business. Related to the above WMG above about Picard speaking French, here are the languages that the senior staff speaks: |
| 602 | * Picard speaks Frainc-Comtou, an already distinct dialect of French that is likely to pick up influences from its Swiss and Alsatian neighbours by the 24th century. |
| 603 | * Riker speaks Alaskan, an Anglic language more closely related to Canadian languages than to American languages. |
| 604 | * Data speaks many languages, but his first language is probably Thetese, an Anglic language closely related to Hong Kong dialects. |
| 605 | ** Arguably, Data would be the element that prevents tragedy in this situation, as he likely knows all the native languages for every crewmember and can thus translate until the program is working again. |
| 606 | * These days Worf probably speaks Klingon, but the language he uses with his parents is probably a language descended from Russian. |
| 607 | * Tasha Yar is canonically Ukrainian - and probably speaks, depending on where she's from, either Ukrainian or Russian. |
| 608 | * The Crushers speak Copernican, an Anglic language with strong Celtic influences descended from Scottish dialects. |
| 609 | ** Beverly Crusher, at least, has identified the language she speaks on-screen (in the finale): it's English. |
| 610 | * Geordi [=LaForge=] speaks an African language descended from French. |
| 611 | * Katherine Pulaski speaks Huronese, an Anglic language spoken in the US Inland North. |
| 612 | * Deanna Troi speaks Betazoid. |
| 613 | *** Troi more likely speaks the native language of her father, as the Betazeds are primarliy telepathic and thus rarely use vocal communication amongst themselves (or amongst other species, as Lwaxanna has shown time and again). Deanna did once comment that her maternal grandfather used to say that speaking "was for offworlders or people who didn't know any better". Odds are, her thoughts are heard in the native language of the person she is communicating with, allowing her to circumvent the translator if need be. |
| 614 | ** The popular counterpoint to this (which as far as I know is also unconfirmed by canon) is that the Universal Translator is turned off most of the time, because everyone learned some English/Chinese/Vulcan hybrid language at the Academy. |
| 615 | *** The thing is, linguistic drift tends to happen due to geographic isolation, such as how different regions of China have separate dialects, and Britain and the US have slightly different (due to less time separated) styles of English. The growth of the connected world, particularly the Internet, has slowed linguistic drift. In Trek's era, they have nearly-instant (for the scale) communications. The various dialects of colonies probably blend into a language of the top one or two languages hybridized together. |
| 616 | * It could be even worse. What if universal translators are relied on to excess, such that every person, in infancy, develops their own idiosyncratic language that the translator turns into a consensus language everyone understands. OK, it's crack in this universe, but maybe in Farscape, with those translator microbes... |
| 617 | |
| 618 | [[WMG:The reason the Enterprise was sent to patrol the Neutral Zone rather than face the Borg in ''Film/StarTrekFirstContact'' was because someone (or a group) in Starfleet wanted the Federation to be assimilated]] |
| 619 | He/She/They believed in the Borg's philosophy. Taking advantage of the Federation's invasion, they ordered the Enterprise, the strongest ship in the fleet, out of the way in order so that they could be assimilated. |
| 620 | |
| 621 | [[WMG: Q is a Time Lord]] |
| 622 | Think about it. |
| 623 | * I know that the Time Lord thing is kind of a meme on here, but Q is both able to regenerate (he's omnipotent in our universe) and is extremely both strong and durable (because he's omnipotent). |
| 624 | * Q isn't a Time Lord, he's a TARDIS. He can change shape to blend in, ridiculously powerful and pretty impossible. |
| 625 | ** Either way, that means he was probably trying to recruit a member of the crew as a Companion: first Riker (giving him Q powers in hopes of luring him along), then Picard (offering him whatever he wants, knowing that Picard has a fascination with alien archeology), then finally leaving the ship alone after Vash goes with him. And, as time has shown, she eventually got tired of travelling with him and got herself stuck a good ways from home. |
| 626 | |
| 627 | [[WMG: Picard had picked up some knowledge about Bajoran traditions before ''Ensign Ro'']] |
| 628 | During the initial earring discussion, Picard seems oddly unmoved to someone citing cultural traditions for a man who let his chief of security get away with wearing a much more intrusive baldric, and his counselor not wearing a Starfleet uniform at all. The thing is, Ro Laren ''isn't'' quite following Bajoran traditions with her earring: she wears it on her left ear, instead of her right (the novels' explanation is that she does it to connect to Bajoran traditions while at the same time indicating she doesn't actually believe in the Prophets). Picard is the sort of person that would notice that -- if Ro (from Picard's perspective at the time) doesn't bother following Bajoran traditions, why should he give her an exemption for them? |
| 629 | |
| 630 | Well, first of all it was Riker NOT Picard who had a problem with Ro's earring. Second, Picard doesn't seem to be very knowledgeable about Bajoran customs since he doesn't even know that for Bajoran's the family name comes first. That's why she's called Ensign Ro and not Ensign Laren. Third, if earlier speculation is correct Ro wears her Earring on the left as a subtle clue to her being gay which would make Rikers actions appear to be homophobic. But most likely Riker's just being a jerk to Ro because of her reputation as can be seen by the end of the episode when she puts her Earring back in and nothing is ever said about it again. So much for regulations. |
| 631 | |
| 632 | * Picard is the [[CulturedWarrior sort of person who would know this]], but exceptions for traditional accoutrements are likely a case-by-case favour. Worf is allowed his baldric and (sometimes) loose hair because Picard knows and trusts him; conversely, he is making a point to Ro that she cannot push him on grounds of tradition or anything else. Once again it was Rker NOT Picard who had a problem with Ro wearing the earring. "Pushing" him around? Where are you coming up with this stuff ? Picard and Ro never discussed her earring until the end of the episode when she puts it on and Picard just smiled at her. |
| 633 | * More likely, Picard rejected her initial offer because of her past. Worf has demonstrated on countless occasions his dedication to his duty and his willingness to follow orders he disagrees with. In return, all he asks is for permission to wear a traditional item from his culture. Ro, on the other hand, was court martialed for getting 8 people killed by disobeying orders and, upon receiving a last chance to redeem herself, immediately walks in making demands about a uniform exception. Picard rejects her demand until she proves herself and that she is willing to follow the rules before letting her break one. Picard REJECTED nothing and Ro DEMANDED nothing. It was RIKER who told her to remove the earring as soon as she stepped off the transporter pad and she complied without voicing any complaint. Did any of you people actually watch the episode before you started started spitting all this vitriol at Ro? |
| 634 | * In the US Navy, any ship captain has the authority to wave or modify uniform regulations at their discretion. Given that Starfleet is roughly based on the Navy, they likely have the same rule. Worf was a model officer who had earned the right to modify his uniform. Ro wasn't. It's that simple. |
| 635 | ** ''Chain of Command'' actually explicitly says Starfleet captains have authority to allow subordinates to forgo wearing a uniform (which is only logical; even without the US Navy example it is easier for Starfleet to have commanding officers be able to give exceptions large or small than for uniform regulations to cover every single potential exception motivated on reasonable cultural grounds or even outright physical capability for Federation members), so yes. The question would be solely about Picard's motivations -- though Worf having earned the right is very likely a big part regardless of what else might be part. |
| 636 | * Worth noting here that there's a very good practical reason to disallow loose jewelry, and long hair for that matter, aboard ship. It can get caught in things, causing accidents. Worf's baldric isn't as likely to do that and he works primarily on the bridge of the ship anyway.Except that many people on board, including Worf later on in the series, have long hair. And Ro was also a Bridge officer. |
| 637 | |
| 638 | [[WMG: Starfleet lets Riker avoid promotion as a way to keep a handle on Picard.]] |
| 639 | In "The Best of Both Worlds", it's mentioned that Riker had thrice turned down the promotion to captain, and was starting to get some serious pressure from both his superiors and his comrades to move on. After [=TBoBW=], this pressure goes away. Why? Because Starfleet needs Riker to keep an eye on Picard, who's both the captain of the Federation's flagship and has just undergone a horrifying trauma. As we see in "First Contact" that Starfleet is still leery about Picard in certain respects, and that's ''years'' after Wolf 359. |
| 640 | |
| 641 | [[WMG: Worf is suicidal even by Klingon standards, hence the WorfEffect.]] |
| 642 | Since when [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXrlhN9rPoc is rushing in barehanded against every threat in the universe a good tactic?]] Granted Worf uses his phaser a lot, but when that doesn't work he just goes berserk and gets his ass handed to him. Why? Because his previous supervisor got exactly what all Klingons dream of, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9G3g8OSPBw a battlefield death]], and Worf is jealous as hell. This is a guy who pushes himself to be the most Klingon of Klingons, with Prime-Worf winning the bat'leth tournament in ''Parallels'' and getting cheated out of it in nearby realities. He's got a serious inferiority complex, as seen when he interacts with other Klingons, and a cultural/species identity crisis as seen when he interacts with his adoptive human parents. He wants so badly to be a "real" Klingon it's eating him up inside, and thus he takes the already self-destructive motto "It's a good day to die" far more seriously than average. So every time he rushes in to try face a new enemy he's hoping he'll finally get that RedShirt death he's been praying for. |
| 643 | |
| 644 | [[WMG: The real reason for Picard's {{Face Palm}}s]] |
| 645 | When he was younger, whenever he got annoyed or irritated, Picard would actually pull his hair. He did it so much that he became bald, and with no more hair, he simply {{Face Palm}}s instead. |
| 646 | |
| 647 | [[WMG: Why they didn't use HappyBirthdayToYou at Worf's birthday]] |
| 648 | The Klingon word for "happiness" is better translated as [[Franchise/ConanTheBarbarian "To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women!"]] |
| 649 | |
| 650 | [[WMG: The "virus" given to Hugh caused the formation of the Borg Queen]] |
| 651 | Initially, the Queens acted as a mere figurehead for the Collective, with no personality aside from what the Collective needed to express. Then, Hugh comes along and spreads individuality throughout the Collective. This affects the Queen, who uses her newfound personality to impose ''her'' control over the Collective, rather than the other way around. This leads to a radical restructuring of Borg activities, resulting in the Borg's ''in-universe'' VillainDecay. |
| 652 | |
| 653 | [and/or] |
| 654 | |
| 655 | Hugh said that his reassimilation initially caused chaos within the Collective. However, they were able to overcome this after a short period of time. What the Collective did was "adapt" to this new threat by creating the Queen, an individual mind capable of analyzing and rejecting this unknown item that was an obvious threat. This also explains the BadassDecay that the Collective shows: by having the Queen calling the shots rather than the whole, they are more prone to making errors (like trying to invade and assimilate a dimension they knew nothing about). To ensure that her control was complete, she would likely have edited the memories of the Collective to convince them that they had always had a Queen. Thus, Picard 'remembers' her from his assimilation because of his residual connection to the Collective. Using that trace connection, she was able to insert herself into his memories of the events. |
| 656 | |
| 657 | [[WMG: The Q Continuum was formed from survivors of an encounter with the galactic barrier]] |
| 658 | When a ship passes through the galactic barrier, certain members of the crew are shown to become imbued with ESP. A ship with a large enough population, like a colony ship, would likely have a significant population that would be affected by the barrier. The change that Mitchell and Dehner underwent continually made them more powerful, but the change was interrupted by their deaths. Had they continued, they would have reached a point where they would no longer need to recharge or have physical bodies. If a large ship had this happen, then the survivors, becoming as Gods, would likely band together into a Continuum. |
| 659 | * why does it need to be a large population? for all we know there could be 3 Q, or 1 with time travel duplicates. |
| 660 | * The Q have shown that there is a decent sized populace amongst them. Aside from Q, we have seen Q (the one that restored Q's powers), Q (his wife), Q (who renamed himself Quinn after becoming human), Q and Q (the unseen parents of Amanda Rogers, not to mention Amanda herself), and q (the offspring of Q and Q). Aside from those Q who had attention brought to them, there are enough Q to fight a shooting war, with mounting casualties on both sides. That implies a reasonable population. |
| 661 | ** OOOORRRRR it is one individual with time duplicates, basically it lives out the entire length of the history of the universe learning such and such lessons and developing such and such personality and then it loops back and starts again, learning new things and developing new personality. Each individual represents a different level of it's personal development, the civil war is basically like a person who has conflicting thoughts, just each thought is itself a powerful individual. This is why Q wanted to mate and produce a child, that child would be something completely new and give the chance for the creation of a new personality (Amanda Rogers not withstanding). |
| 662 | |
| 663 | [[WMG: Geordi needed his visor, opposed to artificial or cloned eyes, because of a severe physical internal deformity]] |
| 664 | Geordi's visor broadcasts in a vision spectrum far from normal human eyesight. In First Contact, hen he gets new artificial eyes, they still communicate information beyond human eyesight BUT he can at least now see the same things normal humans see. In fact, it was made a plot point as far back as the second episode that he could not see normal colors. |
| 665 | |
| 666 | The reason he could not simply get artificial or even cloned eyes? His brain/optic nerves/etc were severely deformed at birth to the point that no surgery could have accounted for that and the visor was his only means of sight. His brain may have been unable to handle normal eyesight. It is the 24th century, there'd be no reason for him to see in such a primitive spectrum otherwise. |
| 667 | |
| 668 | This changed when Lore and Data began their experiment on him in season 7, using Borg technology to stimulate internal nerve growth. This procedure may have caused a part of his brain to begin growing, repairing itself enough to the point he was suddenly able to accept better artificial eyes. |
| 669 | |
| 670 | [[WMG: Q introduced humanity to the Borg in a plan to destroy the collective.]] |
| 671 | It's known now that the Borg were aware of the Federation before the official first contact, and initiated the encounter in "Q Who" so the Federation would begin preparing for the confrontation. The first invasion was successfully repelled, ending with Picard obtaining information on Borg weaknesses which were eventually used to defeat them again in First Contact. Sisko also went on to design the Defiant as a result of the battle, a ship designed to fight the Borg, and eventually proved vital in defeating the Dominion and preserving the Federation; more are known to have since been built. |
| 672 | |
| 673 | The reason he never just sent Voyager back to the alpha quadrant in his first appearance was because he was trying to cause the results of their later encounters with the Borg. In "Scorpion", the Borg were severely crippled, but Voyager also stopped 8472, weakening the collective and providing Voyager with Seven, an expert in their technology and capabilities, information which eventually made it back to Starfleet. In the finale, Voyager destroyed one of their hubs, the queen, and the unicomplex, a few episodes after Q refused to simply send them home for poorly justified reasons. |
| 674 | |
| 675 | |
| 676 | [[WMG: Lal's cascade failure was because she had no fail-safe switch to handle fear.]] |
| 677 | Think about Data's first emotion in ''Film/StarTrekGenerations''. He feels fear at the fact that he can't stop laughing, then goes into HeroicSafeMode. Later, when Geordi is kidnapped, Picard has to talk Data into accepting the fact that he is afraid. Later in ''Film/StarTrekFirstContact'', Data does it again when he turns his emotion chip off while hunting the Borg with Picard. |
| 678 | |
| 679 | Lal has no problem accepting feelings such as love (she tells her father that she loves him) or loneliness (she asks Data why he continues to strive to be human when there is no hope of succeeding), but it is the fear being taken away from her father that causes her cascade failure. Fear of possibly never seeing him again, fear of being surrounded with people who only see her as a "thing". It is not having emotions that cause the cascade failure, but one particular emotion -- fear. And there is no suggestion that Data ever programmed her with such a fail-safe. Perhaps if one day Data decides to try again, with knowledge gained from his own experiences with fear, he will be more successful with Lal's future sibling. |
| 680 | |
| 681 | [[WMG: Picard knows WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic.]] |
| 682 | In his childhood and/or studies of turn-of-the-millennium Earth culture, he saw some of the episodes (though there are probably some [[MissingEpisode lost]] due to WWIII). In ''Q Who'', he unconsciously connected Q's voice and mannerisms with Discord's and called him "next of kin to chaos". |
| 683 | |
| 684 | [[WMG: The forgotten plot line which ties Next Gen, [=DS9=] and Voyager together into one vast epic sweeping story line.]] |
| 685 | An important but completely overlooked by the fans and by the writers of the show was the parasite invasion plot from the 1st season. However this plot sets up so much of what becomes of Star Trek as we know it. The entire franchise flows from this 4gotten plot line. I think it being forgotten was for the best because it wasn't neccesary for the story arc I'm getting way to outlay. |
| 686 | |
| 687 | So the Parasites took over all of the upper echelons of Star Fleet, taking out the admirals and taking over the best captains. Then they moved star fleet operations around in such a way that “starfleets left hand did not know what its right hand was doing.” Then Picard and Riker destroyed the head parasite and all of the others dropped dead. That means after this incident the best of Starfleet was killed off, and the entire fleet and infrastructure was all out of whack, and the Federation was thrown into who knows how much confusion and paranoia over the fact that they had been taken over by aliens. So the parasites are stopped and the Enterprise flies off, end of episode. But here would have been the consequences. |
| 688 | 1) The Federation council would have had to catch up with what just happened. During that time Starfleet would have been in serious dissaray and the Federation vulnerable. Not only that the Parasites were sabotaging Star Fleets own efforts to win the Cardassian war, so that instead of the war being ended easily as it should have been, it has become a quagmire and a cluster fuck where they sent unwanted captains and crew to die. With the Parasites gone, the war was now going even worse for the Federation. |
| 689 | 2) In this vacuum of security, behind the scenes, quietly and secretly Section 31 would step up to defend the Federation. Not only would 31 step up, 31 would be shocked, SHOCKED, that this even happened on their watch. The Federation was almost infiltrated and destroyed right under their noses. 31 would swear by all that is holy they would NEVER let this happen again no matter what, by any means necessary because it is now proven to them that without them and their tactics the Federation is vulnerable. |
| 690 | 3) worried about the Klingons and/or Romulans taking advantage of the gap in Star Fleet's defenses Section 31 helps works behind the scenes to poison the Klingon Chancellor and manipulate the Duras family into position to launch a civil war, and infiltrating the Romulans with operatives who will later help the Romulans be manipulated into wars the Federation wants them to fight. |
| 691 | 4) After months and months of figuring shit out the Federation Council finally gets to re-staffing the upper echelons of Star Fleet. The best of the admirals were killed off, leaving only the shitty admirals who have to run the place, so the Council has to promote a slew of captains...however most of the really qualified captains were also killed off by the parasites. So the only people they have to promote aren't ready for the big desk. So Star Fleet ends up with nothing but the shitty admirals, and underqualified admirals to run everything. This explains ALOT! Even so those admirals have the task of re-organizing Star Fleet back into something that makes sense since the Parasites had flung Star Fleet all over the place. The new, underqualified Admirals, who need to pull back their forces sign a crappy peace treaty with Cardassia just to get this war over so they can re-organize the Federation defenses. |
| 692 | 5) After two years FINALLY they get Star Fleet back together again and the Federation in a secure position...just in time for the Battle of Wolf 359. Back to square one. The federation is in even less a position to enforce the Cardassian Treaty. Section 31 is more active. |
| 693 | 6) Star Fleet is trying to re-organize and rebuild once more. As part of that organization they send Benjamin Sisko to Deep Space 9...where he discovers the wormhole...and the Dominion. |
| 694 | 7) the rest is history. |
| 695 | * AND after the Dominion War - Chinzon destroyed the Romulan Senate, which killed all of 31s operatives in the Romulan Government. Afraid of, and seeing a newly patriotic Romulan senate coming back to power 31 learned a trick from the Dominion and used a protomatter bomb to detonate a star near Romulus. Spock attempted to use red matter to open a black hole to swallow the resultant super nova...and got sucked into the black hole along with the mining ship Narrada. |
| 696 | * In season 1 the episode order was "Conspiracy" and then "The Neutral Zone". So after the Parasites were destroyed and it came to light that the Federation had been gutted then the Romulans, thinking them weak, became more aggressive. They also began working with the Duras family resulting in all the Klingon drama. |
| 697 | * There is the criticism that the use of Section 31 undermines the utopian vision of humanity that was at the core of Star Trek, however if you view it through the lense above you can see what happens is that as Star Fleet looses power Section 31 rises in power through illicit means. So it gives us the interpretation that it is Star Fleet and its ideals that hold 31, and the dark side of humanity, in place. |
| 698 | |
| 699 | [[WMG: Starfleet's Peacenik Period is the reason why no Starfleet Andorians show up in ''TNG'']] |
| 700 | First, it's indicated that non-human members of the Federation can and sometimes does run parallel organizations to Starfleet (for instance, Vulcan still runs a separate fleet, as shown in ''Unification''), so it is entirely possible that there the Andorian Imperial Guard is still an extant and active (if given less authority and importance than before the Federation) organization during the 2360s-70s period. Secondly, Andorians are a ProudWarriorRace, and thirdly, Starfleet had gone ''very'' far into '[[MildlyMilitary we're not a military organization!]]' by TNG, to extremes like having children aboard and having respected, high-ranking officers openly disparaging the idea of wargames. Is it any wonder that the Andorians would gravitate towards their own military in such an environment? |
| 701 | |
| 702 | [[WMG: Families are so dysfunctional in Next Gen because they are the children/grandchildren of a disenfranchised hippie generation]] |
| 703 | In TNG we see that family relations in the Federation tend to be very, very dysfunctional. I would list them but it's easier to list the characters in TNG who have functional family upbringing....Geordi, that's it, and we don't even actually see his family we just hear him say he had a great time growing up...though his parents were stationed far apart in Star Fleet. So in this enlightened future why would all these people have crap family lives? In TOS episode the Way to Eden we are introduced to a space hippie counter culture. As is exposited in the episode the space hippies the Enterprise encounters are extremists seeking an Eden planet, but based on comments from the crew we are also exposited that this is a much larger movement back in the Federation. People fed up with the programmed, homogenized culture of the Federation. In the episode the leader of the space hippie movement dies and his followers realize their Eden is a poisonous planet, so they return to Earth. They return to Earth let down by their leader, let down by their own beliefs. They give up on their space hippie dreams and go along with the homogenized programming, a broken and cynical generation who end up making terrible parents. So their kids, raised in homes of bitter, cynical people run away to join Star Fleet. |
| 704 | * Well now, that would depend. The Hippies were a ''reactionary'' movement to the growing terror of the Cold War, rather than just something that developed on their own. We learn fairly late in TNG that the Federation apparently fought a fairly serious war with the Cardassians during the 2350's that wasn't even mentioned in later seasons. Then you have people like Deanna and Wesley, both of whose fathers were literal RedShirt[=s=] who died on Starfleet missions. Tasha grew up on a colony, Turkana IV, which had seceded from the Federation in the 2350's and degenerated into anarchy. Data's "family" issues stem from an eccentric creator and an evil twin. Riker's family was not that bad, although I don't recall them coming up much. Crusher apparently got on quite well with her family, and idolized her grandmother in particular. Worf's adoptive parents were actually excellent, and he had a good family life. Picard's main issue was his desire to follow one path of the family tradition (exploration), while his brother chose to follow the other (wine-making). Were Hippies really needed? Or was it just that there were some bad things that impacted some of the crew? |
| 705 | ** Riker didn't have any family, apart from his father who abused him (emotionally, and possibly physically, depending-how you look at it) neglected him, then abandoned him entirely when he was 15. Riker had one of the worst family upbringings out of the main characters (though not coming close to Tash's upbringing). |
| 706 | |
| 707 | [[WMG: Holodeck Four is reserved for Adult Programming.]] |
| 708 | That's the reason Riker had his IllBeInMyBunk moment there. That's where lonely crew members go. |
| 709 | |
| 710 | [[WMG: The Picard family vineyards are a Federation project.]] |
| 711 | The Star Trek universe is not a safe one; the Federation faces multiple threats, starting with Romulans and Cardassians, and escalating to the Borg, crystalline entities, and the various god-like aliens. Hell, even subspace is being eroded, putting interplanetary travel and communication at risk. And just like in our time, a lot of the ancient methods and technologies that were vital for everyday life have been forgotten. |
| 712 | |
| 713 | The Federation is trying to make sure that should the Federation fall, civilization can continue. Part of this project is researching and preserving ancient (by Federation standards) farming techniques, which is why the Picards even have a vineyard in the first place. The Picards grow the grapes and harvest the crop, and the Federation records and disseminates the results. There could be hundreds of similar projects on Earth alone, never mind places like Vulcan. |
| 714 | |
| 715 | [[WMG: The Husnock were originally at war with the Federation, before they were removed from the timeline.]] |
| 716 | In the season three episode "The Survivor," we hear of the Husnock, who murdered an entire colony before a nearby SufficientlyAdvancedAlien erased all fifty billion Husnock from existence. But no one knows of the Husnock, and no one notices that their aggressive asshole neighbors are all gone. There are no empty cities or even empty planets for others to investigate. |
| 717 | |
| 718 | What ''really'' happened was this: in the original timeline, the Husnock were a major player in that corner of the universe, and was at war with the Federation. A Husnock captain saw a target of opportunity and destroyed an enemy outpost. Unfortunately, by doing so he killed the wife of an {{Energy Being|s}} and doomed his race. The Douwd didn't just kill all Husnock in the present, but in the past as well, preventing them from ever existing. |
| 719 | * But if Kevin had the power to manipulate space and time (as opposed to just matter), then why couldn't he have returned his wife and the other colonists to life by pulling them forward from the moments before they died? Or the Husnock for that matter (he ''did'' feel guilty over the xenocide)? Q would have just snapped his fingers and brought everyone back to life. Then again,a Q would have also just turned the Husnock into Tribbles for disturbing their vacation home rather than trying to deter their attack with illusions. |
| 720 | |
| 721 | * As Quinn told us the Q aren't truly omnipotent, they have limits. So perhaps one of Kevin's limits is that once a thing is erased from existence it can't be brought back, you can at best make and animate a copy. |
| 722 | |
| 723 | [[WMG: Data isn't really [[spoiler: dead]] ]] |
| 724 | His head survived the explosion, and drifted in space until it was sucked into the atmosphere of a remote asteroid, where it is now on a pedestal being worshiped by tribbles. |
| 725 | |
| 726 | [[WMG: Ro Laren is a follower of the Pah-wraiths.]] |
| 727 | Since even in her first episode other Bajorans wore the earring on the right side this can't be a simple continuity error. The only Bajorans seen wearing earrings on the left side are the Pah-wraith cultist in ''[[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine [=DS9=]]]''. Ro also expresses cynicism about Bajoran traditions and religion. It makes sense that she would be a cultist. |
| 728 | |
| 729 | [[WMG: [=MacDuff=] wasn't ''entirely'' untruthful.]] |
| 730 | The Lysians ''do'' have some grasp of the memory/database removal and alteration technology -- enough to have developed countermeasures, which is the reason the Satarrans instead try to use it to bring in a more generally powerful third party to break the stalemate. |
| 731 | |
| 732 | [[WMG: Commander Riker is a member of Section 31.]] |
| 733 | The Pegasus, and its recovery, had to have been Section 31 operations under Pressman's command. In the episode Pressman even refers to top members of "Starfleet Security" being interested. The seven or so officers that survived the mutiny and destruction of the Pegasus were Section 31 agents, which also explains how they were able to cover up an unprecedented mutiny to the point that even Picard had trouble learning about it. Afterwards, Pressman acted as Riker's handler much as Sloan did with Bashir. Because after all, no one ever really leaves Section 31. |
| 734 | |
| 735 | [[WMG: The more militaristic "Yesterday's Enterprise" timeline is the 'real' one; it's the regular TNG timeline which is an altered reality.]] |
| 736 | Following the apparent disappearance of the Enterprise-C in 2344 and the mystery of just how the Klingon colony on Narendra III got destroyed, all sides start to blame each other: the Klingons blame the Romulans, the Romulans blame the Federation, and the Federation get angsty about what exactly happened to one of their premiere front-of-the-line ships, which has seemingly vanished into thin air without a trace. As tensions continue to rise, the reclusive Romulans play the other sides off against each other, and open conflict between Starfleet and the Klingons resumes. This accounts for the more militaristic Starfleet seen in the episode, perhaps a more direct continuation of how things stood during the TOS movie era. When the Enterprise-C finally rematerializes all those decades later, they find themselves in a war zone. Captain Picard's decision to send them back to the past, far from ''restoring'' the timeline, actually creates an ''alternate'' timeline where the Federation is at peace with the Klingons; which is the universe we've been watching since Season One of TNG. So, what "Yesterday's Enterprise" actually gives us is a glimpse into what the ''real'' post-TOS era Star Trek universe looks like, whereas what TNG usually shows us is an alternate reality. |
| 737 | |
| 738 | * This does partially make sense if, as we are told, the temporal rift is the result of the weapon exchange in 2344. Everything in TNG up to this episode should exist in this ''alternate'' timeline. But there are two points against this idea: 1) We see the ''regular'' TNG ship and crew before the Enterprise-C emerges from the rift and 2) Guinan senses that something is wrong and knows about Tasha's death in a timeline that shouldn't exist yet. The solution is that the temporal rift was deliberately created by a third party to alter the timeline. Perhaps as part of the Temporal Cold War. Possibly by the Klingon scientist from Yoyager's ''Endgame''. |
| 739 | |
| 740 | |
| 741 | [[WMG:Explanation for the ''D'deridex''-class warbird's double-hull shape]] |
| 742 | The big void in the double hull seems like a really bad idea. It's a structural weakness and a giant weapons blind spot against smaller opponents--one of the Shatnerverse novels, ''The Return'', had a ''Defiant''-class take out a D'D by flying into the center and turning around in a circle, tearing it in half. And in reality, military ship designers are going to build things that are practical--aesthetics aren't even on the top ten concerns. So what's with the big gap? |
| 743 | |
| 744 | Answer: It's for bulk cargo transport, allowing the Romulans to turn the ship into an armed freighter for certain missions. Among other things you could dock an additional crew quartering module in there big enough to carry an entire ground army. Not the 2,000 men Sela tried to conquer Vulcan with in that one episode, but something that would transport multiple infantry divisions and heavy armor support. Or you could fit a transport bay for ''Scorpion''-class fighters. |
| 745 | |
| 746 | [[WMG: Creator/JamesMcAvoy and Creator/MichaelFassbender from the ''[[Film/XMenFilmSeries X-Men]]'' movies will be the ideal Picard and Q for a hypothetical TNG movie in the future]] |
| 747 | Having those two would be a great meta casting gag. James [=McAvoy=] has already portrayed a younger Professor Xavier, a character played by Creator/PatrickStewart, so playing a younger Picard would garner casting recognition as "Picard was that guy you watched from the X-Men movies." Michael Fassbender would be a good default choice for Q because he's already shown great chemistry with [=McAvoy=] as Xavier's rival and friend; suitable for the love-hate relationship Picard had with Q. Besides, Mr. Fassbender is just a natural when it comes to body language and larger than life hand motions, it would suit Q very well. |
| 748 | |
| 749 | [[WMG: James [=McAvoy=] shaved his head bald not just to play Xavier, but as preparation for Picard]] |
| 750 | He's just keeping it secret from the fans. |
| 751 | |
| 752 | [[WMG: Thomas Riker is karmic retribution for William Riker's attitude to his cloning in "Up the Long Ladder"]] |
| 753 | Given the little speech he gave to the Prime Minister of Mariposa on how one Willam Riker is unique and special whereas multiple William Rikers would not be, it's amusingly ironic to find out in a later episode that a transporter accident left the universe with ''two'' William T. Rikers. Your mileage may vary regarding whether it fits Riker's other actions in that episode re. [[spoiler: destroying the half-formed clones the Mariposans made after kidnapping Riker and Pulaski and forcibly removing tissue samples]], however. |
| 754 | |
| 755 | Yes, yes, the transporter accident occurred ''before'' the events of "Up the Long Ladder", but the irony remains. Call it cause and effect violation, given we know that TimeTravel is possible in the ''Trek''-'verse. |
| 756 | |
| 757 | |
| 758 | [[WMG: The Romulans were using Tricobalt warheads at Narendra III.]] |
| 759 | |
| 760 | Photon torpedoes have never been seen to create any kind of rifts: temporal, subspace or otherwise. Given how common photon torpedoes are this effect really should have been seen in other contexts, but Data was clearly speculating when he said that this effect could be possible. Tricobalt warheads have been known to create subspace rifts even in relatively small barrages such as the one used to destroy the Caretaker's array. The events of Yesterday's Enterprise make more sense with a few Tricobalt warheads thrown in. |
| 761 | |
| 762 | [[WMG: The Borg have assimilated personal phaser technology, they just don't use it for ''some'' reason or another.]] |
| 763 | |
| 764 | In ''The Best of Both Worlds'' (not the Miley Cyrus version), Worf is holding his phaser when he attempts to run at a force field separating him, Shelby, Data, and Crusher from Picard/Locutus. When he gets back up and is beamed back to the Enterprise, he's not holding his phaser, and it's not holstered. |
| 765 | |
| 766 | [[WMG: Picard is descended from Charles Xavier]] |
| 767 | |
| 768 | It's more the movies only, but come on, how awesome would it be for Picard to be descended from the world's strongest telepath? |
| 769 | * That would explain why he's so much more intuitive than TheEmpath sitting right next to him! |
| 770 | |
| 771 | [[WMG: The Ancient Humanoids from The Chase actually used to look human]] |
| 772 | The episode used them as an explanation for the existence of so much humanoid life in the galaxy. However, it didn't really explain the fact that so many species look almost identical to humans. Indeed, the alien we saw had a bald head, a line down its skull and deep inset eyes. These traits are not common among the species encountered throughout the show (indeed Romulans, Klingons and Cardassians all look more like humans than they do this species). They may have just wanted to make us look humanoid, but that still doesn't explain why so many humanoids look so similar unless they were aiming for something specific. Either that member of the species had an addiction to plastic surgery or, before their species looked like they did in that episode they looked human and whatever they did to "guide" us to their form required guiding us through an "earlier" form first. |
| 773 | * They went through their own version of the Eugenics Wars, with the the modified humans winning, resulting in a rapid change to their biology. But it happened after they had already begun seeding life, resulting in life evolving to the unmodified form. The survivors decided that the project was still for the best, and recorded the message. |
| 774 | |
| 775 | [[WMG: Guinan had another Q helping her the last time she met Q]] |
| 776 | When Guinan met Q she posed as if she could somehow defend herself against him, but she never actually got to do anything. When Q became human she stabbed him with a fork but didn't use any powers against him. Given all the life threatening situations the ship has been involved in and everything that happened to her people with her doing nothing at all about it, there's no evidence that she has any powers at all. She also claimed that "some of the Q are almost respectable" which would indicate she'd had dealings with others. I'd suggest that last time she met Q, another Q (maybe the female Q who had a kid with Q) offered to use their powers to make it look like Guinan had powers comparable to a Q (in order to mess with a Q when this "mortal" kept derailing his plans). Later when she stood against Q in "Q Who?", pretending to have powers, she was just bluffing. |
| 777 | |
| 778 | [[WMG: The Enterprise will turn out not to have actually changed anything for the Mariposan society in "Up the Long Ladder"]] |
| 779 | |
| 780 | In “Up the Long Ladder” the Mariposan planet was mentioned as being complete with cities. The Bringloidi could fit in the cargo bay suggesting a much smaller population. At the end of the episode, these two groups are combined together with the instruction that the women from both groups will need to get pregnant with three different children with three different men. However, if there are so many more Mariposans than Bringloidi, the majority of children born will have Mariposan mothers. Since there are only two unique women genetically speaking, any of the children of Mariposan mothers who couldn’t reproduce with someone with a Bringloidi mother (who would be comparatively few in number) would therefore have to reproduce with a child of the other Mariposan mother. The subsequent generation descended from two Mariposan mothers, would all have the same grandmothers and so be cousins and unable to reproduce with each other. So only people with a maternal Bringloidi ancestor somewhere along the line would be a viable option for reproduction and since they’re relatively few, much of this generation couldn't reproduce. This is at the same point at which the initial cloning process was supposed to become terminal anyway. So a large part of their society is going to die out. |
| 781 | |
| 782 | At some point, the Mariposan society will realise this. They'll then just take the Bringloidi's DNA and go about their initial cloning plan. |
| 783 | |
| 784 | [[WMG: It's Maddox's fault the Federation is destroyed in that one reality shown in ''Parallels''.]] |
| 785 | |
| 786 | In the NightmareFuel reality depicted, the ''Enterprise'' (specifically its stardrive section) is on the run from the Borg, who assimilated Picard (as in the main timeline) and are in the process of consuming the quadrant. Notice that Data is conspicuously absent. In this timeline, Maddox won the case in ''The Measure of a Man'', and Data didn't simply go on the run. In attempting to reproduce him, Maddox killed Data. Without Data there to be instrumental in Picard's recovery in ''The Best of Both Worlds'', the Borg curbstomp Starfleet. NiceJobBreakingItHero. |
| 787 | |
| 788 | [[WMG: Gul Macet from "The Wounded" is part of the Cardassian Home Guard equivalent]] |
| 789 | The Cardassians, lagging behind the other great powers, can't spare their regular military from the front lines. So, they created Gul Macet's division, gave them crappier ships, and set them on the Federation border, since no one expected the peace-loving Federation to launch a first strike. The Cardassian Militia (called so in "Ensign Ro") are used to patrol safe sectors and keep an eye on the populace, while the real military is responsible for newly-captured planets. That's why all of the Cardassians in Deep Space Nine flashbacks have the sleek black armor. |
| 790 | |
| 791 | [[WMG: The Cytherians from the TNG episode the Nth Degree are God from Star Trek V...they just lightened up]] |
| 792 | * We know that in Star Trek V Sybok was contacted by something that drove him mad and made him obsess about finding God at the center of the galaxy. He has to use his advanced brain powers he gets from these visions to figure out how to get the Enterprise through the Great Barrier at the center of the galaxy. They meet God, a big floating head with amazing powers and anger issues. A generation later: Lt. Barclay is hit by something that warps his mind, gives him advanced mental abilities and he uses them to get the ship to the center of the galaxy where they meet...a big floating head with amazing powers. Just this time, the head is really chill. Sounds to me like the same thing. |
| 793 | ** No. The problem was Sybok and Kirk went down to the planet surface itself. Apparently the Cytherians are just VERY VERY xenophobic yet curious. So they called Sybok and went he, in his arrogance, beamed down the Cytherian ambassador freaked the fuck out on him. When Picard showed up this time the Cytherians figured out to just project the head to them instead of risking them coming down. |
| 794 | ** Maybe they were two different heads. Maybe the Cytherians explore space independently of each other. One of them was a real asshole, and Kirk blew him up. So the Cytherians promote a different big floating head to explore space for them who has a much friendlier philosophy and decides to check out that Federation again and see what's there this time. Which is why a generation later the next big floating head had never heard of humans before. |
| 795 | ** Portal, the portal for the Tkon Empire appeared as a giant floating head as well. Theories? |
| 796 | ** Maybe the Cytherians were from Oz and wanted to give that giant floating head trick a go. It worked like a charm on the Star Trek crew. |
| 797 | *** So Star Trek V was just a very badly done version of Wizard of Oz? |
| 798 | *** They could've replaced the Lion with a Klingon, the tin man with Spock, Dorothy with Kirk...however no one on the Enterprise needed a brain. |
| 799 | ** Maybe "God" was a super-powerful, criminally insane Cytherian? His essence was imprisoned in a receptacle and placed on the planet within the Great Barrier to keep his powers in check and prevent him from contacting anyone. Only Sybok's mind was unusual enough to catch his signal. To answer Kirk's question, God needed a starship to carry the receptacle out of the Barrier, where he could free himself from it. |
| 800 | |
| 801 | [[WMG: Dr.Paul Manheim saw the Prophets]] |
| 802 | * In the episode "We'll Always Have Paris" Professor Paul Manheim had theories of non-linear time. He eactivated an experiment taht opened a tear in time. After experiencing the tear in time he was rambling and incoherent and said he couldn't stay focused in one time. He later described it as full of colors that he couldn't describe. Then he said that there were beings in there, beings they couldn't comprehend. Sounds like the Prophets to me. |
| 803 | |
| 804 | [[WMG: The replicator and transporter on the enterprise are far bigger than the replicator and transporter rooms]] |
| 805 | * It possible that the terminal that we see Picard ordering tea out of is only a tiny part of a really huge machine. Maybe the enterprise has a single, enormous replicator machine hidden in its walls that services the entire ship and the terminals are just outlets for it. The transporter could likewise be far larger than the transporter room, extending between the walls upwards, downwards and into the walls of the surrounding rooms. |
| 806 | ** Janeway does once say they can't trade those technologies because they were hard wired in, so that would fit. I am now taking this as fannon. |
| 807 | ** The minimum size can at least fit in the walls of a shuttle though, but those may have very limited capabilities compared to the ship board ones. |
| 808 | ** Perhaps it's not so much that the Federation builds systems into their buildings and ships so much as their buildings and ships ARE huge complex machines that have enough room inside of them for people to walk around in. |
| 809 | *** So it's not that there is a central replicator machine but more like the entire replicator mechanism is designed to form part of the super structure of a ship. Same with the transporter and of course warp engines. |
| 810 | ** Seska did once trade a replicator to the Kazon that was a small piece of equipment and they installed it on their ship. Of course it did blow up when they tried to use it and kill everybody on board, even fusing men into the bulkheads of the ship Kitty Pryde style. So the terminal isn't enough to make it work, but the terminals are damned well dangerous. |
| 811 | ** Maybe the rarely seen site to site transport device is obviously a very sophisticated and hard to manufacture technology which is why we've only seen two or three and either a) can be so small because it's a one time use only device, b) is actually not itself a transporter unit but just like a remote control activator for other transporters. |
| 812 | *** I always figured the site to site transporter works by keeping the pattern for a transporter in its buffer, so that rally what it does is transport a small transporter to your target coordinates, that transporter then transports you to it and then dissovles back into the buffer of the site to site transporter. |
| 813 | |
| 814 | [[WMG: The Cardassian Peace Treaty was so crappy because of the parasites]] |
| 815 | * When Picard and Riker stopped the parasite conspiracy it left the interior of the Federation vulnerable and the leadership of starfleet decimated. The new leadership needed to move fast to protect the now exposed interior of the Federation. The Cardassian Peace Treaty was less about protecting the border worlds and really was all about protecting the interior in a rush. Of course they couldn't tell anyone this, so to everyone else it just looks like a stupidly made treaty. To be able to pull back all their warships to the core worlds the Federation just looked at the space map, drew a line at the extent they could patrol, regardless of which planets fell on what side, and called it a treaty. The Cardassians signed because they actually gained alot of the worlds they had been fighting for anyway, plus the war was ruining their economy. |
| 816 | ** Though if Dukat gives us an insight into the Cardassian military way of thinking we can see why they military would be bitter about ending the war through this treaty because it was not a true victory. A true victory is to make your enemy see they were wrong to have opposed you in the first place, to force them to acknowledge your greatness. This didn't happen, they signed a treaty, like equals, or worse because they were not strong enough to continue the fight. |
| 817 | ** The main problem with this theory is we have years for the parasite conspiracy's unravelling, the armistice agreement between the Federation and the Cardassians and the formal full peace treaty -- 2364, 2367 and 2370. Three years seems rather sedate for doing something in a rush -- ''however'', there was another devastating blow to Starfleet early in 2367, and if we assume Starfleet hadn't quite sorted out the aftermath of the conspiracy yet... |
| 818 | |
| 819 | [[WMG: The holodecks malfunctioned so much in TNG because of a badly installed Jack In the Box]] |
| 820 | * In 'Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang' we are introduced to the concept of the jack in the box in a holodeck, a program hidden inside of a program designed to throw something unexpected against the users. Jack in the boxes are meant to be a sort of prank by holoprogrammers, and akin to a plot twist in holodeck adventure. When they installed the holodecks on the Enterprise D someone in the holodeck installation team had tried their hand at programming in a jack in the box. However their jack in the box had a glitch in it so that when it was activated the safeties shut off and other glitches would occur such as the perception filters failing. |
| 821 | ** This discredited the original holodeck technology r&d team or process. Lewis Zimmerman rose to prominence in the wake of that. He instituted new types of holo-programming (unbeknownst to everyone else he is using the sentient moriarity program as the basic holotemplate resulting in sentient, sophisticated holograms), as well as a redesign of the holodeck from the black grid to a frame work of exposed projectors. |
| 822 | *** I can see Zimmerman now, "The idiot who programmed this jack in the box didn't realize that in the new updated holodeck OS deactivating the safeties doesn't initiate the verbal warning, initiating the verbal warning deactivates the safeties." |
| 823 | ** Holodeck malfunctions might be as common to the Next Gen era as car crashes are to us today, and get treated in the same way: It's always a tragedy, and whenever it happens people call for the technology to be made safer and safer...but no one ever questions getting rid of it, it's just too common place and beloved by people to even entertain the notion of getting rid of it or restricting its access. |
| 824 | |
| 825 | [[WMG: Sudden Change of the Borg's motivation]] |
| 826 | * Picard says in "I, Borg" that the "Borg are not interested in assimilating individuals, just technology". Previous to this the Borg had indeed ignored people in favor of tech (Locutus was merely a tool towards this greater goal) but after this became obsessed with assimilating people. Picard also said in that episode that "maybe through Hugh the Borg will learn to desire individuality". Maybe Hugh did indeed cause them to desire this and on some level assimilation is a misguided attempt to gain it, after all, the Borg primarily gained new things from other races before (such as tech) by taking it through force. Matti23 |
| 827 | ** Well the Borg do adapt, which means the details of their motivations may adapt as well. Since Picard was assimilated the Borg may have altered their motivations a bit. After a few more years their motivations and methods may be slightly altered again. |
| 828 | ** Alternatively, the Borg might not have been very interested in assimilating ''humans'' at first. According to the Borg Queen in one ''Voyager'' episode, humans (species 5618) are "biologically unremarkable". This is actually true by the standards of humanoid life forms in the galaxy. They assimilated the Hanson family, as well as both Federation and Romulan colonies along the Neutral Zone. They may have found the life forms and technology unimpressive. Then, through unknown means (i.e. Q), the ''Enterprise'' gets hurled a ''long'' way from Federation space. Suddenly the Borg wonder if humans have technology they do not know about and/or are innovating at a rapid pace. Before they can dissect the ''Enterprise'' and find out, Q snatches it away and sends it back to where it started from at speeds the Borg could not even track. Suddenly humanity became a ''lot'' more interesting. |
| 829 | ** Also, the Borg need for new drones is likely variable depending on what kinds of conflicts they get themselves embroiled in. Attrition rate among the Borg, given that they are such a hostile entity, could actually be quite high if they are getting into fights with species possessing advanced technology that the Borg desire, but which also gives those species the ability to put up a serious fight. For example, the Borg attempt to assimilate species 8472 turned into a catastrophic disaster for them, resulting in the destruction of numerous vessels and at least one planet, probably more. |
| 830 | *** I was always bitter about how they retconned "baby borg" out. The Borg were interesting before they got changeded from the ultimate Space Communitarians to the Space Zombie Empire. |
| 831 | |
| 832 | [[WMG:Worf, though he doesn't know it, is the reincarnation of Kahless himself sent to reform Klingon honor by experiencing his own people from the outside looking in, and is therefore the fulfillment of Klingon prophecy.]] |
| 833 | * Just look at what the guy's done, WorfEffect notwithstanding. He's been central to Klingon politics for a decade, and he has guided it for a decade. He has killed two would-be leaders of the High Council in ritual combat -- the second time specifically to reform the Klingon Empire. He even had the opportunity to become the Supreme Chancellor himself, but was too honorable to do so.\ |
| 834 | And he's performed miracles. He taught a Jem'hadar, one of a genetically engineered killing machines with no morals or code of honor, just by being a badass {{determinator}}.\ |
| 835 | Even Martok had to exclaim that Worf had the spirit of Kahless himself. |
| 836 | ** I get the idea that Jem'Hadar have a strange sense of convoluted honour, but it's not universal and the extent varies from individual to individual. |
| 837 | ** One major problem, though, is that Worf is not from Borath, where Kahless was supposed to return from, and has no particularly special connection to Borath either. |
| 838 | |
| 839 | [[WMG: The reason the Q were so afraid of Amanda Rogers is that half-human (or other being), half-Q hybrids ''do exist''.]] |
| 840 | * These beings are in between a HigherTechSpecies and {{Sufficiently Advanced Alien}}s; they can access the power of the continuum only through constructed devices (sort of like [[spoiler:the Q weapons Voyager uses when they enter the Continuum]]), though they can use the Continuum connection in its pure form if they are desperate. As a result of not promptly finishing them off in the past, they are stuck "babysitting," as in the case of Trelane. |
| 841 | ** At one point, there was a lot of Q interbreeding with the residents of [[Series/DoctorWho Gallifrey]], resulting in beings capable of regenerating and time/dimensional travel that is dependent on a certain physical object. The TARDIS provides a link which translates Continuum energy into a usable form. |
| 842 | |
| 843 | [[WMG: Q gave Picard the powers of the Continuum, but was made human as a result.]] |
| 844 | * This is why Patrick Stewart looks almost the same as he did in ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'', while John de Lancie looks much older. |
| 845 | |
| 846 | [[WMG: After the death of Odan's host in [[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration "The Host"]], Starfleet/the Federation modified their transporter technology to enable joined Trill to safely use them]] |
| 847 | * This is why the Trill in [[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Deep Space Nine]] can use the transporters with no problem. |
| 848 | |
| 849 | [[WMG: B'elanna and K'ehlyr are both from Sherman's Planet...or Nimbus III]] |
| 850 | * Sherman's Planet was the planet mentioned in Trouble With Tribbles. It was a major world in the Klingon Neutral Zone. While it was a Federation Planet, it was also open to colonization or at least shore leave, by the Klingons. And as we wish we could 4get Nimbus III was the planet in Star Trek V settled by Federation, Klingons and Romulans. So I speculate that most human/Klingon hybrids come from one of these two planets. Also Simon Tases, from the next gen episode the Drumhead was revealed to be 1/4 Romulan NOT Vulcan, so I speculate his grandparent met on Nimbus III. |
| 851 | |
| 852 | [[WMG: Early TNG holograms were much more limited than they appeared.]] |
| 853 | * If you interact with a video game in exactly the way the developers intended you to, it can look seamless, but if you poke at the edges, the illusion becomes immediately apparent. Perhaps before holographic sentience became commonplace, those limits were still there but much broader, and the people we see interacting with holograms just knew how to avoid bumping into them. Minuet was considered unique in her ability to have a reaction to any new input regardless of context, and Picard came back from his first Dixon Hill session gushing about how much detail the world outside what was immediately relevant had. |
| 854 | |
| 855 | |
| 856 | [[WMG: The Crystalline Entity is possibly not dead but turned into several Entities]] |
| 857 | * The Crystalline Entity looks like it could be fractal in nature, that is, it is the same at any level as the whole. TL;DR if you split the Crystalline Entity into several pieces, as shown in the TNG episode "Silicon Avatar", it might not be dead but instead separated into several smaller Crystalline Entities, that are now possibly in a lot of pain, angry and very hungry. Dr. Marr may have unleashed a plague of these things rather than destroying it. |
| 858 | |
| 859 | |
| 860 | [[WMG: Picard stays on the ship because of Kirk and the other TOS starship captains.]] |
| 861 | * Kirk's habit of unorthodox, unsafe, and unauthorized activities while on away teams, combined with the unfortunate fates of many of the other ''Constitution''-class captains, prompted Starfleet to put a moratorium on captains leading teams themselves because of how valuable they were and how damaging their behaviour could be. |
| 862 | |
| 863 | [[WMG: In "Cause and Effect", Riker originally won the poker game.]] |
| 864 | * The first time we see the poker game, Dr. Crusher calls Riker's bluff and wins the game. She says she had a feeling he was bluffing. That wasn't the first time loop, and Crusher seemed particularly sensitive to the deja vu caused by the loops. Perhaps she felt that Riker was bluffing because of the time loops. |
| 865 | |
| 866 | [[WMG: Holodecks bear a Stigma in the TNG Era.]] |
| 867 | * So we know humans had trade with races possessing holodeck technology as early as Enterprise's first season. Furthermore, if you count TAS as canon, the rec rooms on Kirk's Enterprise had most of the same capabilities as an early TNG-era holodeck. So why are they treated as so revolutionary in the first few episodes of TNG that feature them? |
| 868 | It turns out, holodecks have had a very bad public image in most of the Federation systems. The first really good ones (after the rec rooms on Kirk's Enterprise) were... too good. People developed a psychosis in which they could not tell holograms from reality. Others used then for deception, and at least one cult sprang up around the idea that they could find their perfect world inside the holodeck. Furthermore, there was a persistent perception that holodecks were for [[TheInternetIsForPorn porn,]] one which we still see to this day. So they were niche toys of the rich and morally challenged. |
| 869 | |
| 870 | Eventually, the stigma wore off and, akin to the 3D film revival of the early 2010'2, Holodecks came back in style. The first new mass-market ones, such as those installed on starships, were designed not to be ''too,'' realistic: one always had the sense that one was surrounded by four walls. Collision handling was also poor, seen when Geordi managed to reveal the edge of the field by throwing something at it. Eventually, tinkering engineers made the new holodecks aboard Starfleet ships even more realistic than the first wave, and the market reluctantly followed suit. |
| 871 | |
| 872 | [[WMG: Data's friends are all humoring him in his quest for emotions.]] |
| 873 | So Data clearly has emotions the whole time. I mean, it almost doesn't need to be said. He is driven by a profound desire to be more human throughout his character arc. He seems to feel happiness, shame, romantic love (for Tasha, mostly), pride and other emotions. He even understands, to an extent, that his memories would lose their emotional meaning if they were transferred to a computer in ''The Measure of a Man.'' I'd go so far as to say the emotion chip is a placebo, and that Soong let him think he had no emotions so that he'd act logically instead of being consumed by emotions. In this way, he's almost like a Vulcan, or more precisely, like a human who was trained in Vulcan emotional control. |
| 874 | |
| 875 | Alternatively, he has emotions that his creator did not anticipate. In simulating a human mind, Soong created the capacity for emotions naturally but didn't realize it. The emotion chip is real, but it doesn't do all that much and still mostly acts as a placebo. When it's beamed into his head in ''Descent,'' and then when it's properly installed in ''Generations,'' it causes erratic effects, because it's probably a shallow simulation of emotions interacting with his very real emotions in an unpredictable way. Later, Data learns to tolerate its effects and it no longer really does anything but act as placebo. |
| 876 | |
| 877 | I generally tend to subscribe to the first theory: the emotion chip was never anything but a placebo and when it's installed Data acts how he thinks he would act with emotions, which is just a slightly exaggerated version of how he's acted all along. |
| 878 | |
| 879 | At any rate, his crewmates realized very early on that the quest to have emotions was one of the most profound drives in Data's life, and together or separately decided not to tell him that what he wanted was already part of him. |
| 880 | |
| 881 | [[WMG: Sela lied to Picard about her mother's death, and (that) Tasha Yar is in fact still alive somewhere]] |
| 882 | During Sela's story, she pauses twice, both in a manner that resemble a liar buying time to cook up their story. (She looks away from Picard the first time, and the second time crosses the room to the widow so he can't see her face at all.) Picard makes it clear that he doesn't believe her story, or at least not all of it: "Doubts? I'm full of them." |
| 883 | Sela only even mentioned her mother's death when Picard requested to talk with Tasha. |
| 884 | |
| 885 | So where is Tasha Yar? Some possibilities: |
| 886 | |
| 887 | * A high-ranking member of Romulan intelligence |
| 888 | * A member of Section 31, along with her daughter, and maybe the Romulan father. We already know that Sela is involved with sketchy covert stuff. It wouldn't be a stretch that her loyalty to the Romulan Empire is less than genuine. |
| 889 | * Tasha may have escaped the Romulans, and gone into hiding, to preserve the timeline. Sela knows this, and is keeping her mother's secret for her. |
| 890 | |
| 891 | [[WMG: Data has a sense of humour the entire time]] |
| 892 | It is centered around the fine art of trolling. He's been alive long enough (by the time the series starts) to know what is and isn't acceptable behaviour for a Starfleet bridge officer. He's also shown to be a lot more perceptive than he lets on, on account of being an android and, thus, quicker on the uptake than anyone else, at times. So, why does he play with a Chinese finger trap in the middle of a briefing or just generally screw around when he's on duty? Because he's fully aware of his special status in Starfleet and that it affords him more leeway than it would a normal officer, and he decides to run with it partly to amuse himself and partly to alleviate his immense boredom when he'd otherwise be idling for what to him would feel like days at a time waiting for the humans to do things. |
| 893 | |
| 894 | [[WMG: The Tamarians sometimes use crossover expressions for humor purposes.]] |
| 895 | For example, "Series/{{ALF}} in [[Literature/TheCatsOfUlthar Ulthar]]" would be a jocular way of saying someone's off to the Gray-Bar Hotel. |
| 896 | |
| 897 | [[WMG: Wesley got the idea to take over the ship from historical records.]] |
| 898 | It seems sort of weird that Wesley does almost exactly the same thing in ''The Naked Now'' that Riley did in ''The Naked Time''. In reality he, like Riker, had been reading the history of the older Enterprises and knew what had happened back at Psi 2000. This is why he intentionally repeats history, such as adding dessert courses before and after each meal, and (for all intents and purposes) turning off the ship's engines. |
| 899 | |
| 900 | [[WMG: Humanity was never really on trial.]] |
| 901 | Sure Q said they were, but it's Q. He's lied about the status of the trial, and was most likely lying about having been kicked out in "Q Who." More importantly we have seen that the rest of the Continuum don't actually approve of using their powers to torment other species the way Q did. We are never really given a good reason as to why the Continuum would want to destroy humanity beyond "your inferior" which is an act that contradicts them not approving Q tormenting other races. |
| 902 | |
| 903 | In essence, Q lied about the whole thing. It was all part of his game with the Enterprise and Picard. The appearant end to humanity in the show's finale was simply him testing Picard on last time before parting ways. |
| 904 | ** This is backed up by the "test" of the Farpoint Station test. Q outright tells them that something is about to happen there, which confirms their suspicions that something is wrong. When they finally have all the pieces, he tries to help them put them together (and disguises his help with insults). He finally gives up and directly tells Picard to send an away team over to the alien ship; specifically the same team that investigated the tunnels under Farpoint Station, so they could recognized the similarities. |
| 905 | |
| 906 | [[WMG: Noonien Soong's parents were in favor of Augments and eugenics.]] |
| 907 | A man with the last name '''Soong''' who names his kid '''Noonien''' in the Star Trek universe would be just like a man with the last name '''Hootler''' who names his kid '''Adolf''' in real life. |
| 908 | ** ''Enterprise'' supports this notion strongly. |
| 909 | |
| 910 | |
| 911 | [[WMG: Comm badges contain life sign monitors relaying information to the main computer at all times]] |
| 912 | |
| 913 | Ever wonder how they get casualty reports so fast after being attacked? It isn't some diligent crew member typing up injury reports, it’s the badges reporting on the status of their users. |
| 914 | |
| 915 | [[WMG: [=McCoy=], in ''Encounter at Farpoint'', was a ''retired'' admiral.]] |
| 916 | Judging by the fact he seems to be wearing civilian clothing and no comm badge/insignia. (Which would perhaps make sense given [[Film/StarTrekTheMotionPicture previous failed attempts at trying to retire from Starfleet!]]) No doubt having been associated with a couple of ships called Enterprise, he'd been invited (or allowed) on board as some kind of low-key honoured guest, to tour the facilities, and for old time's sake. |
| 917 | |
| 918 | [[WMG: Riker has always wanted the communicator badges to have built-in rank insignia, but didn't think he would have the influence in Starfleet to make it happen unless he was captain of, specifically, the ''Enterprise''.]] |
| 919 | The badge with the built-in rank insignia first appears in "Future Imperfect", where it was used in a fake future drawn from Riker's thoughts in which he is the captain of the ''Enterprise''. Therefore, the badge design likely originated in Riker's mind. It shows up again in "Parallels", used in an alternate timeline in which Riker really is the captain of the ''Enterprise''. However, in the prime timeline of the franchise, Riker ended up captain of the ''Titan'' instead, at which point he probably dropped his badge idea. |
| 920 | |
| 921 | [[WMG: The Romulans set Admiral Satie up]] |
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