History WMG / StarTrekTheOriginalSeries

* The Iotians have managed to reverse-engineer [=McCoy=]'s communicator, and it aids their technological development, but not enough to be a threat to the Federation as predicted.

It would seem reasonable that would-be strongmen (who eventually became the mob bosses) would want to use the revelation of an advanced alien civilization and the power the advanced technology afforded them to their own ends, and a book about mobs that acted as protection rackets amongst other things would be perfect for this. So they chose to model their society around that book to justify taking over, ensuring that any other information about Earth culture that might contradict its example was disposed of by any means necessary lest it be a threat to their power. Over the century that followed, their successors might have forgot this and treated the book with something more akin to holy reverence or "just how things were done".

* The syndicate has fractured. Most of the bosses are used to being at each other's throats and might view having to be subordinate to Oxmyx under threat of Federation reprisals as intolerable. Add in some religious/cultural conflict about those who want to more closely imitate the Federation (and make use of whatever tech they've managed to reverse-engineer from McCoy's communicator) and the "traditionalists" or "fundamentalists" who want to follow ''Chicago Mobs of the Twenties'' to the letter.

* The Iotians have managed to reverse-engineer McCoy's communicator, and it aids their technological development, but not enough to be a threat to the Federation as predicted.

When Spock and McCoy first meet Zarabeth, she immediately assumes that they have been 'prepared' like she has and thus cannot return to the present. When Kirk manages to corner the prosecutor, the prosecutor does mention being 'prepared', and that going back in time unprepared is a possibility, albeit a very risky one. Zarabeth was sentenced to exile in an ice age, and was very likely sent through a model of Atavachron that prepares anyone who goes through it automatically. The Atavachron in the episode doesn't do that, and might have been designed with FieldTripToThePast in mind. The dictator who exiled Zarabeth would have been engaging in some historical revisionism, and would have banned the latter model of Atavachron to make this easier. Fast forward to the Enterprise showing up, and the dictator is long dead, allowing the non-preperatory Atavachrons to come back into general use. Which model of Atavachron a person would end up going through would have varied between jurisdictions, and any public service announcements would have included information on both options.

Gene Roddenberry being supposedly wanting to portray a humanistic, post-religious vision of the future, it might not be surprising if the episode was meant to highlight the dangers of too-closely emulating a book that describes the culture of a historical but alien civilization- which is an accusation critics of religion often levelled at those who use Literature/TheBible the same way in Western societies ([[Administrivia/RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment and that, naturally, is all we'll say about that...]].

Gene Roddenberry being supposedly wanting to portray a humanistic, post-religious vision of the future, it might not be surprising if the episode was meant to highlight the dangers of too-closely emulating a book that describes the culture of a historical but alien civilization- which is an accusation critics of religion often levelled at those who use Literature/TheBible the same way in Western societies ([[Administrivia/RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment and that, naturally, is all we'll say about that...]])

Whatever the writers were thinking, there is no way that explanation can be taken straight. I imagine some guy from the ''Enterprise'' was trying to hit on some of them in a way they found offensive (perhaps unsurpising for a matriarchal society) and they decided to get their own back by playing a joke on them- namely by reprogramming the computer so it had a stereotypically flirty and airheaded personality.

* They had reoccurring actors on far too many episodes so they obviously 'respawn' back on the Enterprise once they were killed.

* Mirror Spock forced [=McCoy=] into a mind meld to learn the truth about the 4 visitors. From a combination of Mirror universe physiology and the involuntary nature of this meld, [=McCoy=] developed the allergy that would later cause him trouble with Spock's katra.

* There's a reason Khan looks like Ricardo Montalban and sometimes acts like an Indian stereotype- it's because he was created by another country to serve as an administrator in the newly-conquered Indian territories. Khan, however, was not going to play second fiddle to anyone and proceeded to conquer one quarter of the planet.
** Well Khan and his ilk were all genetically engineered, they were designed not born from parents so their racial features can be anything. Khan was probably a Sikh culturally speaking, in other words he was raised in Sikh cultural norms and beliefs, but racially he was a hodge podge of genetics. As we see in the reboot timeline, Khan's race could be anything.

* If you recall: In ''Charlie and the Chocolate Factory'', Mr. Wonka shows off his machine for turning giant chocolate into...smaller chocolate across the room. This was definitely the stepping stone between television and transporters.

[[WMG: Ever wondered why Romulan ale seems to be the favourite drink of Starfleet officers?.]]

** The entire planet is emitting weird technophobic "temporal shockwaves". The Time Lords are notorous for their love of privacy and disdain for lesser life-forms. It seems just their style to set up a weird reality-warping bubble (Time Lock?) around their planet to make sure nobody went poking around.

* M5 calculated that no matter how it performed, it would be deactivated. If it "won" the test, copies of it would be placed on every ship but it would be consigned to a museum because it was a prototype. If it "lost" or malfunctioned, it would be shelved like the predecessor M1-M4 units. Therefore, it came to the logical conclusion that in order to follow its directive of "This unit must survive" it had to go renegade. It was only when the conflict between that directive and its other directive of protecting human life was shown to it that it shut down.

[[WMG: Kirk has some sort of chip in his brain which alows him to make log entries anywhere anytime]]
* Kirk's log enties are used in most TOS episodes to keep the audience up to date on the story. If you listen to the tenses Kirk uses he talks about the events up to that point as having only just happened/still happening. For example 'We have been captured by ...' rather then 'We were caught by ...'. But in nearly all cases Kirk is in a position where he clearly has no recording equipment and/or can't risk being caught speaking out loud. I suggest that Kirk has some sort of chip implanted which alows him to record log entries with his brain. This may be so that, if a captain should die on a mission, as long as they recover his body they can find out what happened.

* And not just because Leonard Nimoy voices him! Consider this. When a Vulcan sleeps he releases the repressed emotions of the day. This can be done through dreams and thoughts. Spock could have repressed the annoyance and exasperation towards lesser minds and the emotional. He views logic as cold, rational, and sometimes ''dark'', but overall the better choice. Because he strives to repress these emotions more than a normal Vulcan to prove himself, the dreams are more wild. Thus, he dreams he is a master of his ''darkness'' and logic, and must fight the emotional and ''light'' of the lesser minds in an insane world where people fight with giant keys.

* "The Alternative Factor" came from before the famous "Mirror, Mirror" episode in ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'', but it has all of the hallmarks of the MirrorUniverse on it. One Lazarus was crazy and paranoid, the other calm and rational. They each had similar goals but opposite personalities: the one Lazarus was determined to trap the other in the corridor between universes even if it meant trapping himself in the process, and the other was determined to kill his counterpart at any cost, including his own life and the existence of both universes. We didn't see any of the rest of the universe from which the other Lazarus sprang, but it's probably the one with the bearded Vulcans, the Terran Empire, and the agony booths. Mirror Kirk and the ISS Enterprise didn't happen to be there because the other crew was still busy with the Mirror Universe version of some other episode at the time. ("Devil In The Dark" perhaps?)

* As secretive as they can be, the Vulcans have been a power in the galaxy for longer than humans have been in space. Then look how quickly Kirk jumps to "reproduction", and how, in the preceding scene, he and [=McCoy=] seem not just curious but ''not saying'' something very loudly. Pon Farr is likely, by this time, a subject of sly rumour and a degree of crude humour among other Federation races, although not accurately understood due to Vulcan secrecy.

* ''The Search for Spock'' shows us that [=McCoy=] is allergic to Vulcan mind-melds, given how he acts after Spock uploads his katra. The only other time that [=McCoy=] is shown in a mind-meld is with the Spock from the Mirror Universe. Exposure to something that was so close, and yet so far, from his own universe caused the equivilent of neural anti-bodies to form, and when Spock loaded his katra, he had a reaction to it.

* Early episodes of TOS show the ''Enterprise'' under the authority of the UESPA (United Earth Space Probe Agency), but not too soon after it was shown to be part of Starfleet, under the authority of the UFP. ''Enterprise'', in a nod to this but not completely explaining things, further muddles what exactly the relationship between Starfleet and UESPA is, since Starfleet exists there but the Federation doesn't, plus there's the matter of who's in charge of MACO, which isn't Starfleet. Ignoring that unclear point, let's consider UESPA to be a significant UE government agency, and Starfleet by the time of TOS to be a pseudomilitary division, which seems to serve as a "combined service".\\\

[[WMG: Chekov knew about quadrititicale because of Sulu.]]

It's unlikely she'd be quite so outspoken about "the Son" in "[[Recap/StarTrekS2E25BreadandCircuses Bread and Circises]]" otherwise. Other than that, her behaviour doesn't seem too fundamentalist or puritanical.

* The syndicate has fractured. Most of the bosses are used to being at each other's throats and might view having to be subordinate to Oxmyx under threat of Federation reprisals as something they don't want to live under. Add in some religious/cultural conflict about those who want to more closely imitate the Federation (and make use of whatever tech they've managed to reverse-engineer from McCoy's communicator) and the "traditionalists" or "fundamentalists" who want to follow ''Chicago Mobs of the Twenties'' to the letter.

Gene Roddenberry being supposedly wanting to portray a humanistic, post-religious vision of the future, it might not be surprising if the episode was meant to highlight the dangers of too-closely emulating a book that describes the culture of a historical but alien civilization- which is an accusation critics of religion often levelled at those who use Literature/TheBible the same way in Western societies ([[RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgement and that, naturally, is all we'll say about that...]])

[[WMG: "A Piece Of The Action" contains a LostAesop about religious fundamentalism.]]
Gene Roddenberry being supposedly wanting to portray a humanistic, post-religious vision of the future, it might not be surprising if the episode was meant to highlight the dangers of too-closely emulating a book that describes the culture of a historical but alien civilization- which is an accusation critics of religion often levelled at those who use Literature/TheBible the same way in Western societies ([[RuleOfCautiousEditingudgement and that, naturally, is all we'll say about that...]])

* Miranda and Ann are cousins. Their mothers are identical twin sisters, explaining why they have the same face and height but different hair colors and last names. They didn't see each other a lot growing up because until Miranda mastered her telepathy it was painful for her to be around anyone who didn't have a Vulcan's emotional control. (Cue [[Disney/FRozen "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?"]]) After her experiences aboard the ''Enterprise'', Ann wanted to fall in love for real rather than vicariously. She eventually met a fellow doctor with the name Pulaski that she fell in love with and married. She invited Miranda to the wedding, hoping she could reunite with the family she was forcibly estranged from. She brought her "boyfriend", Kolos. Everyone was just glad she had found happiness. They may have even offered to perform a ceremony of some sort for them. Ann and her husband eventually had kids. Descended from them was Katherine Pulaski, who also became a doctor aboard a ship called ''Enterprise''.

* He is capable of time travel, picks up a human female companion, carries a high-tech multipurpose tool, and comes from a planet that is undetectable to humans.

* "No command in the universe" can prevent the computer from fulfilling the destruct order during the last five seconds of the countdown. How do we know that? Because Kirk says so! Why would anyone design the system that way? They didn't. Kirk made that part up so he would have the chance to save the ship if Lokai called his bluff.\\\

[[WMG: The computer engineers on Cygnet [-XIV-] are quietly laughing their heads off behind the ''Enterprise'' crew's back.]]
* In the episode [[Recap/StarTrekS1E19TomorrowIsYesterday "Tomorrow Is Yesterday"]] we find the ship's computer was given a female voice after being repaired on Cygnet [-XIV-], a planet dominated by women. Those in charge of repairing the computer reprogrammed the computer so that it speaks in a female voice, constantly calling the Captain "dear" and having "an unfortunate tendency to giggle", explained by Spock in deadpan seriousness as because they "felt it lacked personality". Much to the annoyance of Captain Kirk, naturally, and providing some comic relief for the audience.\\\

[[WMG: Uhura (at least) is a Chritian, albeit a liberal one by 20th-21st century standards.]]

This is based on another theory (see [[WMG/StarTrek franchise WMG page]]) which suggests that Kirk never left the Nexus and is slowly losing his grip on reality, which in turn is based on another in which Picard has never left the Nexus (and by implication, Kirk, having no need to). Since time has no meaning there, it's not as if Kirk can't revisit earlier points in his career and is having completely imaginary adventures inside the Nexus, where he still gets to be on the bridge of the ''Enterprise'' whilst in the prime of his life.

Sulu has an evident interest in botany, as demonstrated by "The Man Trap." The pair have a ThoseTwoGuys/HeterosexualLifePartners dynamic. Chekov picked it up by osmosis.

[[WMG: Kirk knew more than he was letting on in ''Amok Time''.]]

[[WMG: Spock is [[VideoGame/KingdomHearts Xehanort]] and the Kingdom Hearts world all comes from the insane dreams he has from repressing violent emotions.]]

* It's common knowledge that Walter Koenig's "Russian accent" is spectacularly bad, which sort of lent to the NarmCharm of the character. However, from an InUniverse [point of view, what if Chekov actually suffers from a kind of speech impediment that leaves hum unable to pronounce "v's" correctly? The nu-Chekov "Wiktor... wiktor..." scene sort of supports it, given that he's struggling to pronounce it.

* Kirks log enties are used in most TOS episodes to keep the audience up to date on the story. If you listen to the tenses Kirk uses he talks about the events up to that point as having only just happened/still happening. For example 'We have been captured by ...' rather then 'We were caught by ...'. But in nearly all cases Kirk is in a position where he clearly has no recording equipment and/or can't risk being caught speaking out loud. I suggest that Kirk has some sort of chip implanted which alows him to record log entries with his brain. This may be so that, if a captain should die on a mission, as long as they recover his body they can find out what happened.

** In VideoGame/StarTrekOnline, the Borg Unimatrix 0047 is very similar to V'Ger, at least in appearence.

** More proof - Gotham City exists in the universe of [[http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Gotham_City Star Trek]].