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FGHIK Since: Aug, 2013
#8926: Feb 13th 2021 at 9:25:33 PM

I mean, the Dominion very conspicuously used genetically engineered species to do things when the Founders could have very easy designed robots who wouldn't be able to even consider rebelling.

To be fair, robots and genetically engineered lifeforms seem about equally likely to rebel in the Star Trek verse.

Zendervai Since: Oct, 2009
#8927: Feb 13th 2021 at 9:48:14 PM

Yeah, but it'd be pretty in character for the Changelings to go for the option that doesn't have a gigantic extradimensional threat potentially attached to it.

The_MJP Flip you Kansas City from Utah, cause nothin' bad ever happens in Utah. Since: Jul, 2020
Flip you Kansas City
#8928: Feb 23rd 2021 at 9:47:24 AM

I thought Everything made by kurtzman wasn't cannon

Taichibana-san are you really a traitor?
DeadlyAssassin Last of the Stellarians from Helsinki Since: Sep, 2014 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
Last of the Stellarians
#8929: Feb 23rd 2021 at 10:06:49 AM

Of course the new shows are officially part of the main continuity, why wouldn't they be? (Now whether or not one personally accepts that is obviously a different story)

Children of Dievas - my webcomic about the Northern Crusades
The_MJP Flip you Kansas City from Utah, cause nothin' bad ever happens in Utah. Since: Jul, 2020
Flip you Kansas City
#8930: Feb 23rd 2021 at 11:07:43 AM

[up]cause the fandom said so

Taichibana-san are you really a traitor?
TParadox Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: The captain of her heart
#8931: Feb 23rd 2021 at 11:08:19 AM

The AOS movies went out of their way to say that they're an alternate timeline equally as canon as the Mirror Universe.

The Relaunch novels are concluding with a three book finale as their tight continuity isn't compatible with what ST: Picard established. I liked Picard fine but I liked what I read of the Relaunch line better.

Edited by TParadox on Feb 23rd 2021 at 1:10:21 PM

Fresh-eyed movie blog
DeadlyAssassin Last of the Stellarians from Helsinki Since: Sep, 2014 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
Last of the Stellarians
#8932: Feb 23rd 2021 at 11:11:08 AM

[up][up] like I said, if one personally accepts so. Also, don't mistake that line of thought to be even remotely universal in the fandom.

Children of Dievas - my webcomic about the Northern Crusades
The_MJP Flip you Kansas City from Utah, cause nothin' bad ever happens in Utah. Since: Jul, 2020
Flip you Kansas City
#8933: Feb 23rd 2021 at 11:15:17 AM

But midnights edge told me it was

Taichibana-san are you really a traitor?
The_MJP Flip you Kansas City from Utah, cause nothin' bad ever happens in Utah. Since: Jul, 2020
Flip you Kansas City
#8934: Feb 23rd 2021 at 11:28:43 AM

Also how come we never got a show set in the TOS movie era

Taichibana-san are you really a traitor?
Zendervai Since: Oct, 2009
#8935: Feb 23rd 2021 at 11:53:53 AM

Midnight's Edge is really not an unbiased source. Like, at all. In any way.

They're allowed to not like Discovery or Picard, but they've been claiming that Discovery has been cancelled since before it started running (we're four seasons in with the fourth in active production, I think the stuff about "CBS hated the pilot and cancelled it" doesn't hold any water) and a lot of the stuff they come out with is unsubstantiated at best, and turns out to be completely wrong more often than not.

CBS considers Discovery and Picard to be canon, some of the fans deciding that they aren't doesn't exactly cancel out CBS or Paramount.

And in terms of why there's never been a show set during the TOS movies, it's probably budget and lack of interest. TNG was running at the same time and there aren't really any characters you can use as the basis of a spinoff since the movies are really closely focused in on the TOS cast.

Edited by Zendervai on Feb 23rd 2021 at 2:54:54 PM

The_MJP Flip you Kansas City from Utah, cause nothin' bad ever happens in Utah. Since: Jul, 2020
Flip you Kansas City
#8936: Feb 23rd 2021 at 12:11:42 PM

I will stand by the season 3 of Discovery should have been the premise of the show from the beginning and that the visual continuity errors and dumb spore science are frustrating

Taichibana-san are you really a traitor?
TParadox Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: The captain of her heart
#8937: Feb 23rd 2021 at 3:02:08 PM

Dumb spore science is no more silly than a giant green hand, giant Abraham Lincoln In Space, a Hole in Space (a phenomenon referred to as never before seen on both TOS and then again on TNG), a mutated white blood cell turning people into their evolutionary ancestors, Mark Twain and Jack London getting swept up in aliens using a snake to eat people's life force, holographic Davinci getting kidnapped, aliens made of goo that can look like anything or anyone, Allamaraine Count To Four, a planet where everyone exists as beings of pure thought except for a few days every couple of decades, a village where everyone is a hologram programmed to keep the one old man company, a village that needs someone to tell them a story with a happy ending every year or a storm will destroy everything, a bank heist in a holographic lounge, a runabout getting shrunk to about a foot long and taking back the Defiant, Janeway saving the ship by seducing a holographic Yellow Peril pulp sci fi villain, three or four Ferengi taking over the NX Enterprise without anyone finding out what species they are, aliens that can melt through doors because somebody from the future messed with their genes...

That said, Discovery started pretty solid (best premiere episode except for maybe Emissary) and has gotten better every season.

Edited by TParadox on Feb 23rd 2021 at 5:03:00 AM

Fresh-eyed movie blog
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Goku Black
#8938: Feb 23rd 2021 at 3:03:16 PM

Star trek science doesn't exist. It's just awesome weird stuff that the People in charge make up as they go along.

"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
TParadox Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: The captain of her heart
#8939: Feb 23rd 2021 at 3:04:16 PM

Tachyons fix everything, unless time shenanigans are involved, in which case chronitons fix everything. If you've tried both and you still don't have the results you want, try gravitons.

Fresh-eyed movie blog
Zendervai Since: Oct, 2009
#8940: Feb 23rd 2021 at 4:02:56 PM

And the deflector dish can be used for basically anything.

Protagonist506 from Oregon Since: Dec, 2013 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
#8941: Feb 23rd 2021 at 5:00:15 PM

With science in Trek, to be fair:

I'd argue a lot of the stuff that happens has explanations that invoke actual science enough to imply that at least some of the writers are science fans, but either don't understand it or deliberately exaggerate it.

Basically, imagine if an actual Scientist talked to a Surfer Dude (with some sincere interest) about science. The Surfer Dude then tried to explain what they heard, then speculate on the possibilities. That's Trek for you.

"So, Science Guy says that matter and energy are really like, the same thing. Dude...if you can turn matter into energy, you could like...beam people places right? Right out, man"

So basically Michelangelo and Donatella.

Leviticus 19:34
EmeraldSource Since: Jan, 2021
#8942: Feb 23rd 2021 at 5:39:03 PM

I recall at a convention the writer/science advisor Andre Bormanis said he often got questions of "Is it theoretically possible to have random genetics mutate you into a ape/lizard/spider ancestor?" and his response was usually "Theoretically? ...sure..." Most science fiction comes from a place of some vague scientific fact, even if absurd by every other standard. That said, being somewhat consistent in the fake science and understanding its role in the story is important too.

Comics are just words and pictures. You can do anything with words and pictures.
Zendervai Since: Oct, 2009
#8943: Feb 23rd 2021 at 6:12:18 PM

Stargate is kind of the gold standard of keeping the fake science consistent. There's only two examples of the stargates acting out of character (the first time travel episode has a stargate appear, let the characters out and then it disappears when later time travel stories involve going to wherever the stargate happened to be at the time, and there's an episode that involves a wormhole somehow poisoning a star, a thing they shouldn't be able to do) both were pretty early on and they stayed almost entirely consistent after that point.

New rules were iterations on old rules and the biggest rule exception (a wormhole can stay open for only 38 minutes unless a massive amount of power is being dumped into the stargate) was established in like, the second season and stayed in place. It was to the point that in Atlantis, there were episodes where it was possible for the audience to figure out what was going on before the characters did, because the rules were so consistent.

Star Trek has a really bad problem with reusing the same solutions for radically different problems over and over, hence my crack about the deflector dish earlier.

Edited by Zendervai on Feb 23rd 2021 at 9:17:36 AM

ViperMagnum357 Since: Mar, 2012
#8944: Feb 23rd 2021 at 6:18:10 PM

[up]Even the star bit had some basis-gravity wells, especially stars, are shown to have unusual effects on gate travel, and the SGC DHD ignores most of the inputs and is chock full of workarounds when dialing. It is a pretty small leap to say some of those inputs would prevent certain types of unsafe connections, like a wormhole passing too deep in the gravity well of a star.

Zendervai Since: Oct, 2009
#8945: Feb 23rd 2021 at 6:26:28 PM

[up] Fair point, it's just never brought up as an issue otherwise.

WillKeaton from Alberta, Canada Since: Jun, 2010
#8946: Feb 23rd 2021 at 6:49:52 PM

The first Stargate episode with time travel had the team go back in time and arrive at the same place the Stargate was in the present, instead of where the Stargate was in the past, but it was also the only instance of a Stable Time Loop, whereas every other time travel example had the characters pop out of where the stargate was in at that point in time, and they were very clearly creating a New Timeline. But in general, the fact that it had such high internal consistency made it feel lie it was harder sci-fi.

Getting back to Trek, I had forgotten that the security officer on Lower Decks was a Bajoran, which tends to suggest that Bajor had joined ht Federation, though that's not irrefutable proof.

Edited by WillKeaton on Feb 23rd 2021 at 7:53:07 AM

smokeycut Since: Mar, 2013
#8947: Feb 23rd 2021 at 7:48:45 PM

I do like that, according to DS 9, there are multiple classifications for different kinds of time travel, meaning that the contradictions aren’t really contradictions so much as they are different things that can happen.

TParadox Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: The captain of her heart
#8948: Feb 23rd 2021 at 8:07:43 PM

Yeah, I don't really mind time travel mechanics working differently in different stories unless they have the same cause, and I can't think of anything they did with the same cause and different outcomes.

The first Department of Temporal Investigations novel (centered on the suits that debrief Sisko about the tribble incident) makes a lot about how the Mannheim Effect demonstrated to temporal physicists that time has at least three dimensions, not the two that they previously thought. And it also casually mentions that when Starfleet people refer to "temporal energy", they mean a mix of subatomic particles that usually turn up as radiation when temporal incursions happen.

Fresh-eyed movie blog
The_MJP Flip you Kansas City from Utah, cause nothin' bad ever happens in Utah. Since: Jul, 2020
Flip you Kansas City
#8949: Feb 23rd 2021 at 8:54:57 PM

Also kurtzman is making a section 31 show but isn't even considering a time travel focused trek?

Also also Didn't sf debris make a big deal about how dumb the spore drive is

Edited by The_MJP on Feb 23rd 2021 at 9:57:43 AM

Taichibana-san are you really a traitor?
Zendervai Since: Oct, 2009
#8950: Feb 23rd 2021 at 9:11:55 PM

Do note that the person who came up with the Spore Drive, apparently Bryan Fuller, left the show like, three episodes in and the rest of the writers are just kind of stuck with it.

It's not really worth harping on and it's important to note as well that while Kurtzman was an executive producer the whole time, he's the one who took showrunner level control of Discovery in season 3, the season where it got away from most of the weird continuity hiccups. Kurtzman really doesn't seem like much of a micromanager, to be honest, considering the radical tone shifts between the seasons of Discovery. You'd think he'd try to iron that out if he had a lot more direct control.

And to be fair, I absolutely get why any Trek writers would be leery about making a Trek show based around time travel.

1) The one Trek show that attempted it failed to use it in a manner that worked at all. (Enterprise. The Temporal Cold War was a cool idea but the actual execution was awful.)

2) There's already two popular shows that use a ton of time travel, Legends of Tomorrow and Doctor Who.

3) They can't use any events that have appeared in the previous shows or movies in any significant capacity because otherwise you run into the problem of why you can't see the characters in the previous iterations.

And yes, the spore drive is a weird idea that doesn't fit properly, but it's part of the show and it's here to stay. Not really worth getting worked up about it now.

Edited by Zendervai on Feb 23rd 2021 at 12:16:48 PM


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