If I look at TOS in a bubble, I always wondered if the Federation was suppose to be a relatively new body?
They just turned the concept on it's head. Nothing particularly "PC" or "retro-women-lib" about it. It's a time honored fiction trope.
Regarding Orions, they'd be like any other non-UFP species. So long as one had a letter of recommendation from a command-level Starfleet officer and passed the entrance exam then they could attend the Academy--Starfleet wouldn't discriminate due to their cultural stereotype. There is nothing to say that only females are sold as slaves, males could face just as much abuse and degradation as their womenfolk; whilst female Orions could also hold positions of power. Seeing one Animal Woman in "The Cage" doesn't set the standard for the entire species. As for Vulcans, they do have emotions but go through intense and rigerous training from childhood in order to identify and deconstruct them, before learning multiple techniques to control and suppress them. Their strive for control isn't done in a day and requires frequent meditation and continuous vigilance in order to maintain their calm exterior.
Except you're forgetting a few notes about Kolinahr (which you'd probably reject offhand anyway since they're...In the novelization of ST-TMP and original novels!)... Basically, FEW Vulcans have attempted Kolinahr and even Fewer have mastered the doctrine... Basically, it's for freaky Vulcan nutcases with mental/emotional problems... Vulcan OCD types... So that's why you don't see a Million Vulcans every year huddled together at Gol... "Normal" Vulcans have mastered their emotions and aren't put-ons like the crowds in ST XI...or that screwy T'Pol who chooses to inject herself with a poisonous substance "to experience emotions" and takes up, with all people, Trip Tucker! And let's remember that Spock's half-human and has to fight those emotions... If he's Half human, you can imagine what a proper Full-blooded Vulcan would be like in comparison...
No, I'm upset because the make-believe stuff in Enterprise and ST XI contradicts the stuff in TOS, TAS, TNG, DSN, and/or novels and zines... Those two foremost items are the worst of the lot with more liberties taken than anywhere else in the Trek Universe... And I can fight to the death with tooth and claw to prove it too, but it just wouldn't be appropriate here in this thread... And I'm not alone in my opinion... You see, Star Trek fans how grown weak and malleable over the decades... They've slowly seen and accepted changes in their universe so often that they're used to it... TPTB come along and rip the carpet out from under them by "de-canonizing" FASA, for example, and they accept that... TPTB kill off Spock, 1701, David, 1701-A, Spock's brother...you-name-it...and they accept that without putting up a fight... Finally, they destroy the whole universe/timeline in ST XI, and the dumb tribble-brains SMILE and say WOW! Wasn't That AWESOME! And they voted it as THE BEST STAR TREK MOVIE OF THE 11 FILMS (Don't believe me? Checkout that INMDB site!)... At least Star WARS fans put up a little fight when Lucas made Greedo shoot first... They spoke out about it... At least Star WARS fans Demanded that the prequel films follow the Expanded Universe info more or less (less on Bobba Fett, but more on everything else like the frigging name Coruscant, the name Palpatine, etc...FROM THE BOOKS!)... Trek fans got stuck with KRONOS for the Klingon homeworld--not Klinzhai, not Kazh, but out-of-the-bloody-blue KRONOS! Trek fans will sit back and swallow any turd so long as TPTB SAY it's "Canon" or "Official" or channelled through the powdery ashes of the dead Bird...
That's the same thing. You're upset because one set of make-believe stuff contradicts another set if make believe stuff that you like better. The solution is easy, ignore the make-believe stuff you don't like and get over it.
Not when the make-believe stuff is more logically thought-out, plausible, and neatly compiled...AND supported by lots of other spinoff make-believe stuff over the course of decades... It then kind of becomes difficult to dismiss or forget about the make-believe stuff, and you become infuriated by how it was pissed on, often carelessly because TPTB didn't give a damn one way or another... So I pin the mistake on them! There are many examples to go around too, not just E and XI... Just picking stuff out of the blue: characters running around in ST VI wearing the wrong rank pins... Are we supposed to believe that they're wearing the wrong uniforms, are being addressed (rankwise) incorrectly, or that Star Fleet instituted a new uniform rank pin designation change? Likewise in "Where No Man Has Gone Before" in relation to "The Cage" and the rest of the series--the Sciences and Services insignias are Swapped! This stuff is documented in tech books... They got it wrong, who are you going to believe? And what of Lt. Tuvok's rank in V, especially during the first season?
Silly me. I like to get lost in the stories, not what costume jewelry the characters are wearing. Like it or not, mistakes happen.
Exactly. And yes, it is entertaining to try and rationalize such mistakes and pretend the whole thing is actually consistent. And often there are more than one way to rationalize mistakes/inconsistancies, but that doesn't make one rationalization "wrong" and one "right." Personally, I'm a huge fan of fan-interpretations and expansions on the Trek canon. But not even all fan works agree with each other. Just like not all canon works agree with each other. In the end its all make believe. There is no wrong answer in make-believe.
Just one randomly picked example... You see, after you watch the episodes and movies a million times, the Next time around you Look for these little tidbits...and try to logically explain them if you can... Take Captain Kirk's old command con chair, the right side panel... What do the buttons do? Well, in "Court Martial" we got a good look at it: initiate a Yellow Alert, initiate a Red Alert, and Ion Pod Jettison (going from top to bottom)... But they're not always used as such, at times the top or bottom button is used as an intercom key... The solution is found in Michael McMaster's bridge blueprints in that there are "overlays" (as on Sulu's helm panel) and the control labels space alongside each button is computer-generated and changes as different functions are called up...
Speak for yourself. I've seen ST VI more times than I can count, but would never have noticed Colonel West had the "wrong" pins if someone hadn't pointed it out to me. When I'm watching a movie/TV show I enjoy I don't generally go looking for nits to pick.
I've likely seen The Original Series, The Next Generation and the Movie series as many time as you have Lenny. It just doesn't destroy my enjoyment of the stories if something is visually/chronologically out of whack. Minefield wasn't a shitty episode because it didn't quite gel with Balance of Terror. It was a shitty episode because the story was stupid.
It was a shitty episode for Both reasons... And the discontinuity was only compounded by later episodes/novels which referenced it and built upon its discontinuity framework... It's one of countless E problems I have and why I can't swallow that series as being in the same exact timeline as TOS I grew up with...
That's because you're not a certified Treknical nucase like me... To Really enjoy something, you've got to get down into the details...and rip into them...and stick your head in there...take it all in...eat it up...swallow it... OK, now that I've got that out of my system, I'm feeling Much better now... But it really wasn't just Colonel West...
Interesting... Interesting... I actually read something similar in an old Best of Trek book... Like the Preservers grafting their DNA into the Vulcan species... We normally perceive Romulans as being "weaker" than Vulcans because, well, they settled on Romulus which has a lower gravity than Vulcan and, of course, they weakened in their long voyage there from Vulcan (losing their telepathic skills among other things)... So we end up with Captain Kirk in "The Enterprise Incident" Easily taking out a couple guards with a quick punch and slap here and there...