WMG / Star Trek: The Original Series

The computer engineers on Cygnet XIV are quietly laughing their heads off behind the Enterprise crew's back.

• In the episode "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, because they "felt it lacked personality". Much to the annoyance of Captain Kirk, naturally, and providing some comic relief for the audience.
  
  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 unsurprising 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.

In "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" Kirk is bluffing about his intention to blow up the ship.

• "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.
  • Also, note that he balked at blowing up the Enterprise during a previous episode, "By Any Other Name" — and that would have been to destroy an actual existential threat to the Federation. It's highly unlikely that he'd really destroy the ship and kill its crew just to prevent it being (temporarily) hijacked.

The Red Shirts are immortal.

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

Vulcan vision operates on blindsight.

• In "Operation: Annihilate!", a procedure to rid Spock of a parasite works, but makes him blind. He doesn't announce this to the others until after standing up and bumping into a table. The Doylist explanation is probably that this is how you Show, Don't Tell his new blindness to the audience, but from a Watsonian perspective it doesn't make much sense, especially because throughout this episode Spock is quite forthcoming about his medical situation (which McCoy and Kirk really need to know).
  
  One way to explain it: he had previously had blindsight, whereby you don't experience sight consciously, but your mind nonetheless correctly receives and interprets at least some visual data from your eyes — for example, you can still catch a thrown ball that you have no direct sense of seeing. If we further speculate that his Bizarre Alien Biology allows for a particularly sophisticated form of the condition, blindsighted Spock with could perfectly well describe things he sees, and for nearly all purposes would seem just like a normally-sighted crew member; he just wouldn't know what it's like to be a sighted human. (In any case, at the end it turns out that Vulcans do have a very distinct optical system anyway, which enables him to recover from his blindness.)

Carol Marcus is the "little blonde lab technician"... and Ruth.

• Gary Mitchell set Kirk up with Carol Marcus when they were at the Academy, giving Carol pointers on how to reel Kirk in. As the relationship became more serious, neither Carol or Mitchell had the heart to tell Kirk about the deception. After becoming pregnant with David, Carol quietly broke off the affair, since (as she stated in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan) she didn't want her son "gallivanting around the cosmos like his father." When they first met, Kirk mistakenly called her by her first (or middle) name, Ruth, and it became his pet name for her. Dr. Marcus was the old flame he saw on the Shore Leave planet.
• Ruth was an older woman, (at least somewhat older than the young cadet Kirk), so either she can’t be Carol Marcus, or else somebody was lying.

Gary Seven is from the same race/clan/what-have-you as Sapphire and Steel

• In fact, he mentions two associates who previously lived in his office; perhaps they were Sapphire and Steel themselves.

The Vians in The Empath were the other civilization

• It's implied (and stated more specifically in the Novelization) that there were two planets and the Vians were choosing which one to save. However nothing actually indicates they were outsiders that were trying to make a difficult choice.
  
  If there were two civilizations, and they *were* the other, older civilization, making it a choice between them or this relatively younger civilization, their desire for a possibly insanely high standard is rather more sympathetic.

The homeless man who got vaporized originally got Edith Keeler killed.

• In the timeline before Bones travelled back, Edith was struck and killed by the car. The first change caused when Bones went back was the homeless guy accidentally killing himself with the phaser. In the original timeline, Edith was probably killed crossing the street to speak with that homeless man to invite him to the shelter for dinner.

Mirror, Mirror caused McCoy's mind-meld allergy

• Mirror Spock forced McCoy into a mind meld to learn the truth about the four 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.
  • I distinctly remember reading at least one fanfic just like this. It was rather fluffy - Spock realised the problem and got Bones to seek help (by which I mean "dragged him to Vulcan to a specialist").

Khan Noonien Singh was not created in India.

• 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 hodgepodge of genetics. As we see in the reboot timeline, Khan's race could be anything.

Robots are not used by the Federation because of Kodos

• The reboot movie shows a robotic police officer chase young Jim Kirk. This is a major change to the Trek setting, as robots had never been depicted as having been used on Earth, the colonies or by Starfleet. Data, a borderline Artificial Human built in the mid-24th Century, is the first (and only) actual humanoid robotic entity shown to be working in any capacity in Federation society. So why the difference between timelines?
  
  A possible answer lies in Kirk's backstory. When he was 13 and living on the Tarsus IV colony a major famine struck. The colonial governor, Kodos, ordered 4,000 people executed according to Eugenic guidelines in order to free up food supplies for those he deemed genetically worthy. The emphasis is on Kodos as having orchestrated the massacre, but no mention is made of any supporters (e.g. a political party like the Nazis) or a militia carrying out his orders. Maybe there weren't any? Maybe the colony's security force was made up entirely of robots, who obeyed Kodos' orders unquestioningly.
  
  After the horror of this event, the Federation decided to ban all robots. Robot cops such as had existed during Kirk's early childhood were scrapped en masse. There was subsequently no willingness to allow such machines any role in society. This would account for why Data was considered such a major technological breakthrough. It wasn't just that he was a hyper-capable machine — he was also fully sapient! Equipped with things like Ethical Subroutines and the capability of making value judgments independently of orders he was given, he was seen as the first acceptable robot in a century.

The more famous he is, the more arrogant James T. Kirk becomes.

• He's just one of those people that doesn't handle fame well. During the Original Series he was confident and a little over-bearing and just beginning to come into his fame as a Starship Captain. During the Original Movies, he was fully famous and much more abrasive. The Reboot has him famous from birth and an arrogant little prickass.

Between World War III and the start of the Original Series, personal computing and many other digital technologies were Lost Technology and had to be slowly reinvented.

• This explains why Kirk's Enterprise appeared to use floppy disks and punch cards. Earth had to reinvent much of its advanced computing technology after World War III, and did so based on only partially complete records from the 20th and early 21st centuries, explaining the haphazard combination of primitive digital and apparently analog computer technology in Kirk's era. Duotronic computers, invented by Richard Daystrom, were really just a reinvention of personal computers similar to those used in the late 20th/early 21st century, but with more memory, storage capacity, and a higher-energy power supply. By the time of the TOS movies and early Next Generation, the Federation has pretty much reinvented all the computer technology that had been lost in World War III, with help from alien allies like the Vulcans and Benzites whose computer technology was always superior to Earth's.
  • Obviously this is contradicted by Enterprise but personally this Trekkie doesn't consider anything after Deep Space Nine and the movie First Contact to be canon, except maybe the general outline of the series Voyager.

Kirk considers "Tiberius" an Embarrassing Middle Name.

• There must be some reason he always introduces himself as "James T. Kirk," and he seems to be officially known in Starfleet by that name. Clearly, General Chang purposely threw his middle name at him in Star Trek VI just to be mean.
  • Kirk's father from the 2009 movie agrees.

Wouldn't Spock being half human give him better self control?

• The reason Vulcans practice such extreme stoicism is because their nature is wildly passionate. At their wildest in Pon Farr, a normal human is a Nice Guy and model of self control without any training. So wouldn't Spock having his violent Vulcan urges "watered down" with human genes make it easier to practice self control, perhaps even ditching it at times?
  • His human half is a two-edged sword. Yes, Vulcans are more passionate by nature; but their brain structures are also more suited to self-control, both physical and mental (mentioned in Canon here and there). Spock has a diluted form of both—his emotions are less overpowering, but the Vulcan disciplines to control them work imperfectly.
    • All Genes Are Codominant

The Nomad Probe From TOS Is The Original Borg

• Nomad's stated goal at the time it was on board the Enterprise was to seek out perfect life forms and destroy all those that fell short of this goal. Assuming Nomad survived destruction when it was removed from the ship, it is possible that after considering the flawed nature of "The Kirk" it determined its previous goal of simply destroying imperfect life was, in itself, flawed and altered its goal to be the conversion of all imperfect life forms into more efficient and perfect ones. This eventually gave rise to the Borg.
  • The Borg have been around in the Delta Quadrant since 1484. Nomad was launched from Earth in 2002.
    • This is a universe with Time Travel. Nomad would have likely determined it prudent to get as far away from Starfleet as possible, given they'd just nearly destroyed it. Where better to hide than history?

Kirk is too phenomenally lucky/charismatic/charming/intuitive to be fully human. His grandfather was (the sci-fi equivalent of) an incubus.

• Think about it. It explains everything, from his being The Kirk to how he manages to charm or intuit his way out of all manner of hazardous situations every week without fail.
  • Shat did costar in a Leslie Stevens film called Incubus in 1966.

V'Ger is from the planet featured in the TOS episode "I, Mudd".

• It's a planet of machines which can create Ridiculously Human Robots, right?

V'Ger was created by the Borg.

• The Borg discovered the Voyager probe, modified it, and sent it back to find and report on its creators. It investigated, then assimilated the bald chick and returned to Borg space. She was made into the Borg Queen, who is outright lying when she claims to rule the Borg. She is simply a mouthpiece to communicate with and manipulate people from the Federation, just like Locutus.
  • The V'Ger-Borg connection is hinted at in the novel Star Trek: The Return but fans want proof from a more canonical source.
  • In Star Trek Online, the Borg Unimatrix 0047 is very similar to V'Ger, at least in appearance.

James Kirk is a descendant of Horatio Hornblower

• I swear to god I read this somewhere, but I can't remember where. At any rate, given how well both of them were at captaining, it's not implausible.
  • You're probably recalling that Nicholas Meyer, director of STII and STVI, described Kirk as "Horatio Hornblower in space," signalling a somewhat different take than Roddenberry's pitch of "Wagon Train to the stars." Roddenberry's pitch also mentioned Hornblower in reference to the character who would, in different variations, become both Pike and Kirk.

The Enterprise on TOS has a Cast full of bi, but no one wants to tell anyone else

• Why? Well, Kirk has his reputation as a playboy and a macho, successful starship captain, and doesn't want to ruin his reputation. Spock has his logic and his emotional control, of course, and McCoy, being the most in tune with emotions, realizes that the former two like each other, and therefore doesn't want to reveal his true feelings. Uhura, because she is not as high in rank, is simply afraid of discrimination.
  • Or alternately, that it's a cast full of Bi but no one feels the need to talk about it, as it's just a non-issue at that point. The one time Stamets (ten years before TOS's first season) mentions his sexuality directly is when he's challenged on it by a person from the Mirror Universe.

Spock is a distant descendant of the first Robin.

• His mother is named Amanda Grayson.
  • More proof - Gotham City exists in the universe of Star Trek.

Spock is a direct descendant of Sherlock Holmes.

• This is from the earliest days of ST fandom. Metaphysical theses were written in support of it.
  • In the sixth movie, Spock invokes the line about eliminating the improbable and claims it was invented by an ancestor...
  • I just assumed he was related to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, seeing as he was the one who wrote Sherlock Holmes.
    • No, it could still work. As the above WMG says, Gotham City is in the Star Trek universe, making it part of the DC Universe. Sherlock Holmes also exists in the DC Universe, so there you go. This also brings in Fridge Brilliance regarding the X-Men crossovers. It's simply the same DC/Marvel crossovers that always happen!

Spock is a distant descendant of Gabriel 'Sylar' Gray

Emory Erickson based transporters on Willy Wonka's technology.

• 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.

Sarek is part Romulan.

• He is unusually emotional for a Vulcan (had a child with a princess he never married, later married a human, and married a second human when she died. Also, see his behavior in The Search for Spock.) In TOS, there is a Romulan commander who looks suspiciously like Sarek himself. Sarek is related to the commander, although he probably doesn't know it.
  • This might also explain why Spock seems to almost be overcompensating on the emotionless-logical front. None of the other Vulcans we see in TOS seem quite so uptight, so maybe he's making up for the fact that he's not just half human, he's also part Romulan (and thus only 1/4 Vulcan). Sarek himself really is outright emotional in Star Trek III, and of course he freely admits that his 'logic is uncertain' where his son is concerned.

Spock is an Aspie.

• Each of his parents just chalked up his weirdness to the other parent's species.
  • Maybe aspies are descendants of Mestral from Carbon Creek.

Ever wondered why Romulan ale seems to be the favorite drink of Starfleet officers?.

• Because bottles of said beverage were a common war loot during the Earth-Romulan war!
  
  Especially at the end of the war, when the Romulans were already retreading, the highlight of many Coalition (the Federation's predecessor - see ENT) victory parties were the bottles with that tasty alcoholic drink in it, which the fleeing Romulans had left behind. (The Romulans did take great care in destroying every bit of critical data and technology before they retreated from a conquered planet - but drinks were apparently considered a not all too important "technology".)
  
  The fondness of Coalition/Federation members for the Romulan ale (as it was simply called by the humans because the Rihannsu name for this stuff was unknown) lived on after the end of the war until the 24th century.

The Guardian of Forever was created by the Time Lords, and the planet is Gallifrey.

• Think about it:
  • The inexplicably donut-shaped time travel device bears a striking resemblance to a worn-down Eye of Harmony.
  • It certainly sounds snooty enough to have been created by a Time Lord. (The Guardian of Forever of Rassillon, perhaps?)
  • It says that it is both machine and alive, much like a TARDIS and (presumably) other Gallifreyan high technology. Also, Spock as much as says that the Guardian does Time and Relative Dimensions.
  • The entire planet is emitting weird technophobic "temporal shockwaves". The Time Lords are notorious 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.
  • The entire planet (or, what we saw of it) seems to be covered in the ruins of what appears to be a grand civilization.
  • The Guardian claimed that it had been in working condition long before the Sol system was even formed.
  • It produces quick, easy time travel with no ill effects.
• I think it's safe to presume that the Vortex planet is the remains of a "burnt" Gallifrey post-Time War, and the self-proclaimed "Guardian of Forever" (Eye of Harmony) is the last remaining functioning repository of Time Lord knowledge, who has taken upon itself the task of protecting the planet from any further harm.
  • The Q would then be the descendants of the Time Lords, and their plot in the final TNG episode "All Good Things..." was to alter the timeline to remove the Star Wars continuity from Star Trek's future without wiping the galaxy of life. Three ships- the earlier and later versions destroyed, and the middle one remaining- an appropriate metaphor? This also explains the Q continuum's interest and disdain for humanity- they are the founders of what will become the Galactic Republic, and its dominant race.
    • Except that all three Enterprises were destroyed.
    • The visual metaphor runs out of steam after that point, unless it also refers the end of the show, or TNG's timeline also being altered- The Borg Queen survives Wolf 359 mentioning "three-dimensional terms" in the second TNG movie.

M5 was not insane.

• M-5 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 M-1 to M-4 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.
  • The only irrational action it took was, when that conflict was revealed to it, attempting to commit suicide rather than surrender—this likely was derived from Daystrom's visible lack of emotional control, as, despite its assertion, the death penalty for murder is not still present on most Federation worlds.

Kirk just made shit up in TOS, and the episodes are based off his logs

• Based off a brief aside from one of the novels. Kirk got bored out of his mind scanning uninhabited planets, and just put down whatever cool-sounding bullshit he could think of. "And then I met Klingons! What did they look like? Um, they looked like humans! With darker skin! And huge eyebrows! Yeah! And I kicked their butts! And made out with a spacebabe! Two spacebabes! And then they stole Spock's brain!"
  • There are some references to TOS in other series that only make very a hell of a lot of sense if Kirk had some not-so-formal memoirs, most notably the game of "Fizzbin" which was itself pure Kirk BS-fu.
    • You have heard of Zapp Brannigan? Yes, that Zapp Brannigan.

Pon Farr is not natural.

• Instead, it is a result of Vulcan mental self-control, which is really a form of a very strong emotional repression. All seven years, the repressed emotional content returns, which is then called Pon Farr. This is why Vulcans are so secretive about it. It's sort of a flaw in their philosophy and their self-image. It's like how more emotionally repressed people are more likely to suffer from depression. (Subsequently, at least theoretically Romulans shouldn't suffer from Pon Farr. Are there any examples of Romulan Pon Farr in canon?)
  • No, there are no mentions of Romulan Pon Farr in any episode or movie.

Pon Farr is natural.

• At any other time, Vulcans are able to control their emotions, but it becomes too much to manage when their natural mating cycle takes hold. Romulans also experience Pon Farr, but for six years out of every seven, they are essentially asexual. This explains the complete equality of the sexes witnessed in all aspects of Romulan culture going back as early as the original series.
  • Hinted at in Star Trek III with the attack of insanity the rapidly regenerating, mindless Spock seems to have on reaching puberty. However, DC Fontana and other creators have suggested that Romulans and married Vulcans are not asexual outside the seven-year cycle, but are able to constrain their interest to appropriate times and places rather than finding it as distracting as humans do.

Charlie X will grow up to become Charles Xavier.

• This theory mostly came about because of the name similarity, but it still works.

Chekov's "Russian inwentions" are completely made up.

• He just likes to screw with everybody. Seriously. Watch the first time he says that Russia invented something, he's got this little smirk like, "Hehe, they actually think that I think that's true!"

The Mirror Universe was created during the events of The City on the Edge of Forever

• When McCoy saved Edith, causing Hitler to win WWII and take over the world, the changes rippled further in time, to the mindset that led to the shooting of the Vulcan emissary in 2063, and further to the creation of the Terran Empire that has persisted in the mirror universe throughout Trek history. Both universes have since remained intertwined, allowing occasional crossovers under certain conditions. Consider:
  • Spock mentions that the Guardian can move them through time AND dimensions
  • The Guardian says that if they succeed, "it will be as if none of you ever went at all."
  • Put these two together and it suddenly seems as if the Guardian has not necessarily rectified the timeline; it's merely moved them into a universe where everything is as it was before. However, the other universe may still exist.
  • Moreover, they were briefly in the mirror universe just after it was created by McCoy. When the Enterprise disappears from above the Guardian's planet, it's not that it was never built; it's that it's halfway across the galaxy, destroying some innocents while Spock tends his beard.
    • In "In A Mirror, Darkly," Mirror Phlox surveys the difference between Earth literature in the two universes and finds differences stretching back centuries (though he states that Shakespeare is essentially the same). The implication is thus that the universes have been diverging since much earlier than the Depression.
    • Mirror Phlox's survey of the literature may be accurate, but the implication that the divergence came earlier does not necessarily follow. Fascists and Communists have a well-known history of censorship and historical revisionism that, for the Nazis especially, included fictional works as well. If all the literature from Mirror Phlox's universe comes from Nazi-authorized editions, one can well imagine why he thinks the characters from the other universe's literature seem overly "weak and compassionate" compared to those from his own. Moreover, other than maybe The Merchant of Venice, the Nazis probably wouldn't have felt the need to revise much of anything in Shakespeare's plays.
  • Further proof: notice that the salutes used in the Mirror universe are a combination of the ancient Roman salute and the Nazi salute. Maybe victorious Hitler, in what would prove to be a trend for the Terran Empire command structures, ultimately succumbed to infighting and a mutiny from Mussolini, who admired both the ancient Roman Empire and Hitler's new German one. Later leaders may have altered the salute depending on whether they admired Hitler or Mussolini more.
    • Further alteration of the symbols suggests further infighting in decades that followed. In Archer's time, the Terran Empire is symbolized by a mashed-up sphere showing the continents from both hemispheres of Earth with a sword stuck through it. By Kirk's time, the picture is of only the Western hemisphere with the sword stuck through it.
    • What this all means? Mussolini's revolt led to a World War III something like the Eugenics Wars in which a united North American Empire ultimately prevailed over Mussolini's New Roman Empire, and then decided to annex and rehabilitate the Eastern hemisphere, incorporating it into the united Terran Empire with the whole world included in the logo as a gesture of good will.
    • Later, when Empress Hoshi Sato made her bid for the throne, most of the Western hemisphere surrendered and submitted, but the proud heirs of Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini fought bitterly against her, forcing her to target their cities with the Defiant's phasers and photon torpedoes and lay waste to much of their hemisphere until they surrendered. After that, she altered the logo and cut their hemisphere out of it as a symbol of her disdain for them. It would not be restored until the time of a certain bearded Vulcan named Spock...

Kirk has some sort of chip in his brain which allows him to make log entries anywhere anytime

• Kirk's log entries 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 allows 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.

Gary Seven was a Time Lord.

• He is capable of time travel, picks up a human female companion, carries a high-tech multipurpose tool, carries an identification card that somehow shows people exactly the most plausible excuse for his being there, and comes from a planet that is undetectable to humans.
  • His last name is clearly a play on his current regeneration.
  • He identifies himself as a human from the 20th century, who was altered by alien experimentation. Of course, we never really get confirmation that "Time Lord" is synonymous with "Gallifreyan", so it's hard to say with certainty that you can't have a Time Lord of human origin.
  • He could even be the Second Doctor in his Season 6B days, having been provided with a temporary alternate form ^note  which Romana demonstrates is possible in Destiny of the Daleks by the High Council to undertake missions for them without risk of recognition.

Spock is Xehanort and the Kingdom Hearts world all comes from the insane dreams he has from repressing violent emotions.

• 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.
  • Seems legit.

Lazarus from "The Alternative Factor" was at war with his counterpart from the Mirror Universe.

• "The Alternative Factor" came from before the famous "Mirror, Mirror" episode in Star Trek: The Original Series, but it has all of the hallmarks of the Mirror Universe 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?)

The Doomsday Machine from the TOS episode of the same name was constructed to be a Borg-killer.

• One way or another, it didn't work, its creating civilization got assimilated or wiped out, and the Machine was left to wander off through the galaxy, chopping up planets. This idea has been explored in various Trek books and comics.

Edith Keeler was a latent esper.

• In TOS: "Where No Man Has Gone Before," we learned that humans are capable of ESP, and Starfleet regularly tests for it. Some, like Gary Mitchell, are capable of a very high score and possess latent abilities yet to fully express themselves.
  
  Edith Keeler showed an uncanny insight into future events such as harnessing the power of the atom, in a time when that wasn't a common prediction. When she initially met Kirk and Spock, she intuitively discerned a lie, and seemed to intuitively know they weren't from there, that they were from somewhere else, and she was not shocked when Kirk made crazy revelations about future events.

Kirk knew more than he was letting on in "Amok Time".

• 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 rumor and a degree of crude humor among other Federation races, although not accurately understood due to Vulcan secrecy.

Kirk figured out what Spock meant by how embarrassed he was.

• As mentioned on the Fridge page, few topics in biology are as notoriously embarrassing to discuss as reproduction. Given that Spock says Vulcans don't even discuss it among themselves, how would it become even a rumor among outsiders? Presumably the few who were involved (as Spock mentions) were sworn to secrecy. Kirk made an educated guess based on Spock's words and humiliated reaction.

McCoy's mind-meld allergy was caused by Mirror Spock

• 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 equivalent of neural antibodies to form, and when Spock loaded his katra, he had a reaction to it.
  • Spock also mind-melded with him in "Spectre of the Gun" and he was fine afterward.

Starfleet was transferred to the Federation behind the scenes early during Kirk's five-year mission—and because of 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 pseudo-military division, which seems to serve as a "combined service".
  
  Now Kirk's encounters with godlike beings may or may not have been precedented in previous exploratory missions, but the rapid succession of incidents so early in his mission (Charlie Evans and Gary Mitchell being humans, even) was a wakeup call for the Federation to step its galactic game—it could no longer afford to assert its influence while relying primarily on a United Earth military-ish force to do it. Fortunately, Earth was willing to have Starfleet absorbed into the Federation itself as it had been the de facto UFP defense/exploratory service for some time, having even permitted alien crew and having pulled some strings around alien powers since the very first starship Enterprise. Sub-WMGs:
  • Inheriting the tradition and control structure of Starfleet almost intact, it remained predominantly human out of sheer inertia, despite that the UFP is comprised of innumerable constituents of many species—perhaps it was primarily the populous and so recently warlike humans that were most willing to risk providing so many of themselves serve. Perhaps it's that other planets retain their own fleets (Vulcan seems to).
  • This may also explain why Starfleet vessels well into the 24th century retain the traditionally human disc-and-nacelle paradigm, too. For all we know, Starfleet by then is still commissioning starships and starship designs from the UESPA, built at various facilities in the Solar System. Such ships might not even be comfortable to less similar species.
  • Kirk was not what a UFP flagship captain was ever supposed to be, but the Federation had to take him; he was grandfathered in from the United Earth tradition established by Archer, where captains were more inclined to shoot from the hip. Given its choice, the Federation would rather pick captains more like Picard.
  • Whatever the strategy's merits, it seems to have worked. The Federation regularly negotiates agreeable terms with demigods, and the cataclysmic threats to the Federation still beeline for Earth because to them, it still seems like it's the humans' fault (and this is a recipe for failure, statistically speaking—take a page out of the Dominion's playbook and try hitting a less militaristic planet!).

The Original Series is an in-universe show based on Starfleet's archives, with Kirk and his crew being both real persons and Composite Characters

• For narrative ease, the series' in-universe producers forced the writers to have the Enterprise live adventures that had actually happened to other Constitution-class cruisers, with Kirk and his crew in place of the captains and crews who lived those adventures. Why Kirk? Because the Enterprise was stationed near the Romulan and Klingon borders, and he acquired widespread fame by stopping the Romulan incursion narrated in "Balance of Terror" and brokering the Organian Peace Treaty as told in "Errands of Mercy".

Lester and Kirk meant different things with their 'It isn't fair' exchange in Turnabout Intruder.

• Lester: Your world of starship captains doesn't admit women. It isn't fair.
  Kirk: No, it isn't.
  • This theory is simply that Lester, being insane, had convinced herself that Starfleet didn't allow female captains, while Kirk, neither insane nor at that point quite aware that Lester is, thought she referred to his inability to carry on a relationship with her after he became captain and so agreed with her.

Miranda Jones, Ann Mulhall and Katherine Pulaski are all related.

• 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 "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.

Kirk discovered Betazed

• Let's face it, J.T.K. seemingly had psychic powers of his own, which unfailingly led him to planets where he could get some hot score. Betazed is an entire planet of telepaths where every middle-aged woman enters a "Phase" during which her sex drive quadruples (or more). The Enterprise was probably cruising around that sector, seeking new life and new civilizations, when Kirk abruptly started writhing in the captain's chair as his mind was overwhelmed by the telepathic emanations pouring off the millions of Betazoid women currently in the Phase. Pulling himself together, perhaps with some mind melding assistance from Spock (who subsequently locked himself in his quarters for a week), Kirk kicked Sulu out of his position at the helm and frantically set course for Betazed at maximum warp. Kirk's *ahem* "diplomacy" so impressed the Betazoid (women) that they eagerly joined the Federation, and even generations later it would be fashionable for Betazoid women to marry Starfleet officers. It is worth noting that the extremely useful Betazoids are absent from TOS and its associated movies, but well-established in the Federation by the TNG timeframe. Some brave captain had to have made First Contact, and the planet seems uniquely suited to Kirk's, er, special talents.

Sarek had a human fetish

• Seriously. He had a kid with a Vulcan woman, but didn't actually marry her. Both his wives were human women. At the very least, he had a type.
  • Point of fact: was his relationship beyond having a child with the Vulcan woman specified one way or the other? It may well have been his arranged marriage.

The actual operation of Starfleet is temporarily suspended during season 1 of TOS

• Some captain in Starfleet committed a major war crime about a year prior to the beginning of the series. It might have been Garth of Izar or possibly the first Enterprise captain, April. So the courts order the entire Starfleet Command shut down while they investigate. All the ships still in space fell under the jurisdiction of their home planet's space program, which explains why the Enterprise was operating under the "United Earth Space Probe" in the first season. Also, the Enterprise had about half the crew pulled for legal proceedings back home, so they are operating with a skeleton crew, and due to the non-existent military budget, they are making do with non-standard uniforms and weapons. Also, anything Kirk should have been hanged for in season 1 is explained by him having to file reports not to Starfleet but to some single-story office building of the UESPA, who get their paperwork in a tangle.
  • Also, the all-Vulcan crews mentioned later are a result of Starfleet ships falling under Vulcan jurisdiction, and the different patches for different ships are a relic of each ship potentially being under the jurisdiction of a different planet or a different organization.
  • Needless to say they are back up and running by the time of, say, the Menagerie or whatever episode first mentions Starfleet.

Spock was offered the Enterprise before Kirk

• I mean come on, he'd been serving on the Enterprise, as part of the command team, for more than a decade by the time Kirk took command, and yet had somehow only received one promotion. My guess is he was offered Command and politely refused. Of course that doesn't explain why he wasn't made a commander.
  • Spock was never promoted because he was never captain material and Starfleet recognized this. Spock was a great officer, but he exceled when having regulations and orders to follow, he was not so good at leading. With all due respect to his accomplishments every time Spock led it always resulted in some disaster, Star Trek VI, when he goes to meet Pardek, when he tries to save Romulus from the super nova.
    • While the Enterprise was a training vessel at the time, Spock was the captain of the ship in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. So somebody with authority thought he was captain material. He is addessed as captain in rank.

Chekov has a speech impediment.

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

Spock's first name

• D.C. Fontana suggested Xtmprszntwfld as Spock's family name, and that's the one Spock is referring to when he says, "You couldn't pronounce it."
  
  But people are expected to have more than two names. And he is referred to as Mr. Spock, implying Spock isn't his first name. It would seem odd to refer to Mr. Jim or Mr. Pavel. So he might have at least one more name we haven't been told.
  
  Here is an interesting coincidence:

  Actor...................................Character
  De Forest Kelly...................Leonard Mc Coy
  Leonard Nimoy....................??........Spock
  What's missing in this little chart?

Spock's first name is De Forest!

Miss Jane Wyatt used to speak at conventions where she'd answer questions as herself and Amanda. Asked about Spock's name, she said firmly "Harold."

Janice Rand's hairdo was not a hairdo

• It was an alien. The earliest Star Trek episodes had stardates in the 1300s, 1500s, 1600s and 1700s. The 1400s are missing. Around stardate 1400, Janice Rand had been part of a landing party exploring a planet when one of the natives leaped onto her head, attaching itself. They hadn't realized at first it was sentient, since it looked nothing like a human being. It instead looked like a beehive hairdo. They were so non-humanoid, Mr. Spock took weeks to try to communicate with it, and Dr. McCoy was unable to successfully extract it. During the weeks they worked on the problem, the alien gradually inserted tendrils into her brain. Finally, around stardate 1500, Spock was able to make contact with it, but by that time it was either unable or unwilling to extract itself from her. But it does agree to try to avoid any harm or interference with her duties. After eight episodes the alien was still attached to Janice Rand's head, so another ship took her to a new assignment at a Starfleet research facility. By the time of The Motion Picture they had gotten the alien removed and sent back to its home planet.

The series we've seen is a holonovel-series written centuries later

• This would explain both the inconsistencies with the canon (women can't be captains, despite the second Warp 5 ship being captained by a woman, for example) and the antiquated attitudes. The writer has heard that society was more primitive in the 23rd century, but upon examining the actual records, they found that it wasn't primitive enough. So they looked further back in time 'till the sixties and incorporated attitudes from that time into their novel.
• This would also explain why there were only human-like Klingons. The writer has probably found a picture of a humanlike Klingon from that era, showed it to a Klingon, who explained that many Klingons were like that in that century. Extrapolating from this, the writers decided to only use humanlike Klingons.
• Or: The TOS we're watching is one of Tom Paris' retro TV series inspired holonovels like Captain Proton. This time he's recreating the adventures of the TOS Enterprise in the style of shows like 'Lost In Space' or 'Galaxy Quest'.

Chekov knew about quadrotriticale because of Sulu.

Sulu has an evident interest in botany, as demonstrated by "The Man Trap." The pair have a Those Two Guys/Heterosexual Life-Partners dynamic. Chekov picked it up by osmosis.

Spock knew the Vulcan neck pinch wouldn't work on the salt monster.

When the creature attacked him midway through the episode, he attempted to use it, to no effect. Therefore, when he arrived to prevent it from draining Kirk, he didn't even try to do it again, instead getting between the creature and his Captain and, when McCoy refused to intervene, smacking it both to prove it couldn't be Nancy and to keep it at bay.

All the less-consistent-with-later-canon or silly episodes (as long as they feature a heavy Kirk presence) take place inside the Nexus.

This is based on another theory (see 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 (see the WMG page for Generations) 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.

Uhura (at least) is a Christian, albeit a liberal one by 20th-21st century standards.

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

It's probable that some sort of Christianity has survived and that it pretty much what it looks like by the 23rd century. Faith is something you have, just not that big a deal most of the time.

There have been Guardians of Forever on Earth since ancient times

You can find them in the series Outlander — they're the stone formations at Craigh Na Dun, Abandawe, and other places.

Sulu is Filipino on his dad's side and Japanese on his mother's side.

The Sulu Sea is where the Philippine Islands are located. Somehow, Sulu's father's side of the family was named after the sea at some point in the distant past. (Or the other way around?) Sulu's mother was a Japanese woman who liked the name Hikaru for a boy. (It means "shining light".) In a world where you can marry someone from another planet, marrying someone from another country is probably seen as no big deal.

When "the Feds" return to Sigma Iotia II for their "cut", they'll find...

• The gangs have all turned into cosplayers. Or more properly, since they reckon they're working for the Federation now, they're going to imitate them now and start donning imitation Starfleet uniforms, which most of the bosses have seen at least one example of.
• 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.
• Chicago Mobs of the Twenties becomes the basis for a new religion, interpreted somewhat more metaphorically than before.
• 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. (Just because you have the transtator doesn't mean you can develop warp drive, after all.)

"A Piece Of The Action" contains a Lost Aesop 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 The Bible the same way in Western societies.

There is more than one model of Atavachron.

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 Field Trip to the Past 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.

The Horizon left other books on Earth history and culture behind on Sigma Iotia II besides Chicago Mobs of the Twenties; they were just surpressed.

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 are done".

Fizzbin actually developed into a real card game on Sigma Iota II.

If their reputation for adaptability is anything to go by. The writers even appear to have suggested it!

• Alternatively, this being a gangster planet, and the fact the mooks were obviously tricked, it ended up becoming an elaborate confidence game.

There was never a death penalty for travelling to Talos IV. It was simply another part of the illusion to get Pike there.

It's the simplest conclusion to the many inconsistencies surrounding it:

• After Pike's first trip, visit is prohibited (DIS: "If Memory Serves"), however no mention is made of capital punishment and no one acts like going there is any worse of a violation of orders than usual.
• In that same episode and TOS: "The Menagerie", the Talosians are shown to be adept at producing incredibly advanced illusions for whatever purposes they need, including the...discouragement of visitors.
• It is well established in other episodes of TOS, ENT, and DIS that United Earth and the Federation did not have capital punishment in the years before, or contemporary to, TOS: "The Menagerie". While it's not impossible to bring back the death penalty, it seems unlikely for these circumstances.
• Three years later, Janice Lester tries to take the Enterprise back to Talos IV in an odd ploy to get Kirk killed. When the crew objects, they cite General Order 4, not 7, which is a weird oversight to make when talking about something exceptional like execution.

Thus, it seems more likely that the death penalty was never in play at all. Maybe the later mistake was due to older crew misremembering the fake law, or maybe the Talosians noticed the Enterprise was coming back yet again and hastily threw up the old execution ploy but got it wrong, but hey, who cares, we still want you to go away.

Visiting Talos IV would probably make a dent in your career, but it hardly seems worth killing over.

Star Fleet covered up M-5's breakdown.

• In the entry for "The Ultimate Computer", there's a question about why Kirk wasn't immediately relieved of command until there had been a full investigation of the war games incident. The answer: Star Fleet covered it up to avoid all sorts of legal hassles. Remember, McCoy had noted that the Federation had still bought the M-5 concept, even though Daystom's earlier models had been "not entirely successful". Couple that with Daystom's increasingly apparent psychological issues, and the families of the dead crewmembers are going to wonder why the test was done with insufficient precautions taken (like having an "off" switch that could be overridden). In Star Fleet's eyes, it's better to sweep it under the rug. Just box up the M-5, send Daystom to a hospital, inform the families the crewmembers were killed in "an unfortunate accident", leave Kirk in the center seat, and conduct the most quiet and classified review possible of the incident.

Flint is a Highlander.

Highlander showed there were were several immortals. But during the Eugenics wars, World War III and the Post-Atomic Horror, many died out. Flint was one of the last who made it off world. Prior to the events of Star Trek S3 E19 "Requiem for Methuselah", Flint made sure that he had the resources to get off world as soon as that was possible. He played the markets and bought an out of the way planet. McCoy's tricorder just picked up how the Highlander immortality works - notice that Flint didn't flinch when McCoy offered his theory as to why Flint was immortal. He already knew how, he just didn't think that being away from Earth would weaken him. Also by being away from Earth, many immortals started to lose their power. Those who didn't hide like Flint likely died during the wars prior to Kirk's time.

In "Court Martial", Kirk's ex-girlfriend Shaw was purposefully trying to get him convicted.

Shaw, a prosecutor, highly recommends Kirk goes to a defense lawyer called Cogley, claiming he's great at what he does. But it very quickly becomes apparent he's, er ... no Saul Goodman. He declines to cross examine any witnesses, only calls Kirk himself to the stand, and rests for the defense without putting up much of a fight. It's only thanks to Spock's last minute intervention that Kirk is exonerated.

So, maybe Shaw wasn't quite as magnanimous over their breakup as she'd been acting like she was, and purposefully recommended a barely-competent lawyer.

The first 18 episodes never happened.

In "The Corbomite Maneuver", Kirk says the Enterprise is a United Earth ship. the U.E. is the same governing body that Archer and his crew answered to, and it's not until "Arena" (the 19th episode) that Kirk speaks of the Federation. All of this could suggest that the when the Temporal Cold War ended inbetween Kirk's missions to Beta VI and Cestus III, every mission Kirk went on before Arena were only in timelines created by the various factions, and that were all erased after Archer stopped the Na'Kuhl in 1944.

• The problem here is production order vs order episodes aired, some episodes were aired close to their production date and some much earlier or later, this involved differences in terminology, (consider terms such as Vulcanian rather than Vulcan.) As even now there is inconsistency in terminology due to age, location, experience and so on, it is really just that here as well.

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