Scotty in the 24th century

Discussion in 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' started by Whill, Jul 4, 2010.

  1. Whill

    Whill Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    I didn't know whether to put this is the movie forum or here, so I just chose here. I accept both the TV episode "Relics" and the later movie Generations in my personal Trek canon. Since Generations came out, I am not aware that there have any been any official explanation as to why Scotty thought it was Kirk who had come to rescue him chronologically after Kirk apparently died on the Enterprise-B.

    The only thing I thought up was that first of all, Scotty had a really hard time accepting Kirk's "death." Maybe that's why he gave up his dream of retiring with a boat on Earth and went on a journey far away from any reminders of Kirk in his retirement. Then maybe also the slight transporter pattern degredation effected his memories a bit when he was finally rematerialized.

    So has anyone come up with any retcons to explain it?
     
  2. JoeFromEarth

    JoeFromEarth Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    I think it was just the stress from being in the transporter for so long. Some of his neural pathways must've deteriorated in the transporter buffer, or some techno babble like that.
     
  3. Trekker4747

    Trekker4747 Boldly going... Premium Member

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    There's three possible explantions:

    1. The "meta" explantaion. Obviously the writers had not yet written Generations yet so they didn't "know" that Kirk was dead.

    2. The "techno-babble" explanation. Geordi says that Scotty's pattern had only degraded by some fraction of a percent. It's possible that that fraction of a percent was the "memory" of Kirk dying. It's unlikely and an extreme coincidence, but it's "possible" in the techo-babble sense.

    3. The "colloquialism" explanation. Scotty could've been speaking in a figurative manner, saying that his chances of being recovered were so extreme and unlikely that it'd take Kirk coming back alive, reocvering the Enterprise and hunting him down for Scotty to be discovered and recovered.
     
  4. T'Girl

    T'Girl Vice Admiral Admiral

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    The experience's of Barclay in Realm of Fear shows that during unusual long transports the occupant in the matter stream has some awareness of their surrounding. While Scotty wouldn't have aged, he would have experienced the passage of time in some vague metaphoric fashion while in the pattern buffer. When Scotty first rematerialized he was simply confused for several seconds.
     
  5. jwb

    jwb Lieutenant Red Shirt

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    Confused and excited to be alive would be my explanation.
     
  6. The Wormhole

    The Wormhole Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Geordi did say there was signal degradation before they beamed Scotty out. This could presumably have effected his memories, thus he forgot Kirk was belived dead.
     
  7. TheKeeper

    TheKeeper Commander Red Shirt

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    1 may be the real world explanaion, but I like 3 as the best retcon for it. Seems like a very Scotty thing to say. :techman:
     
  8. Shatinator

    Shatinator Commander Red Shirt

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    It seems to me that everyone is dancing around the elephant in the room, or to put it another way the simplist answers is the correct one. Kirk is alive. Or will be, it just has not happened for us yet.

    -Ths Shatinator
     
  9. scotpens

    scotpens Professional Geek Premium Member

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    That mixed metaphor conjures up a most interesting image! :lol:
     
  10. T'Girl

    T'Girl Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I'm truly loving the Shatinator's explanation, when Scotty left for his retirement James Kirk was "back" and Scotty knew him to be alive.

    Very Shatnerverse.
     
  11. Whill

    Whill Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    The real-world situation is not an explanation, but rather the cause for the seeming in-universe discontinuity. You are correct that it is obvious, which is why I didn't mention it the first time. I thought everyone here is already aware that "Relics" aired a few years before the release of Generations but takes place afterwards. (So it is the movie that seemingly violated continuity. And the Generations writers said they were aware of the dialogue in "Relics", but included Scotty anyway for "love of the character". What Nimoy revealed is that he and De Kelley were asked to appear in Generations, and they declined. So they gave Spock's part to Scotty and McCoy's part to Checkov.)

    I see that others have thought along the same lines as you and I. Scotty clearly remembers the events leading up to his beaming himself and the crewman in the transporter so there weren't any overall memory issues. I lump the confusion/disorientation explanation in with this one because they are all temporary. With all these solutions I assume that Scotty eventually remembered Kirk's apparent death in 2293.

    Thank you for offering another possible solution, but that one doesn't work for me. It may work for others though.

    Ah, no, we are not dancing around that. We all know that here, but the characters in the story don't necessarily know that. Again we are talking about what the characters know, not what we know. Scotty presumably wouldn't think that Kirk had survived in the Nexus. I imagine that most people would discount the experiences of those who had contact with the Nexus as mere hallucinations, citing that there is no evidence that the Nexux contained any sort of reality within it.

    However, as another possible explanation, it is not entirely unreasonable that Scotty may have actually believed Kirk had somehow survived his apparent demise, especially if Scotty had talked to any of the survivors that experienced the Nexus before being ripped away from it (like Guinan and Soren) before leaving for the Norpin colony. Maybe in his denial of accepting Kirk's death, Scotty chose to believe that Kirk survived in the Nexus, and perhaps even that he might return some day. Of course, when he was rescued by the Enterprise-D, he would be told that there has been no known return of Kirk, much to his disappointment. And I imagine that after Scotty later heard that Picard had rescued Kirk from the Nexus to sacrifice his life to save millions, Scotty might have finally come to accept Kirk's death (considering there was a body this time).
     
  12. Shatnertage

    Shatnertage Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    ^^^It's also possible that Scotty, having seen Kirk cheat death time and again, refused to believe that his captain was really dead, without knowing anything about the Nexus. Maybe he let himself believe that Kirk had been pulled into a wormhole, materialized on the other side of the galaxy, and was working his way home. Or, like other people said, it was just an emotional response to hearing "Enterprise."

    Good episode, either way.
     
  13. MeanJoePhaser

    MeanJoePhaser Admiral

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    I thought this was thread about this:

    [yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ga1vPaWNmQ[/yt]
     
  14. Whill

    Whill Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    Thank you for that! I really needed a laugh. That was a delightfully nostalgic way of taking me back to my childhood of watching Buck Rogers, in a fun way without making me actually watch Buck Rogers again.
     
  15. Mojochi

    Mojochi Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    That would imply some kind of sarcasm or irony in his remark, & Scotty is nothing if not easily interpreted, & everything about the tone, expression & body language of his reaction, points to it being genuine
    I can't buy that Kirk left the Nexus, prior to the wreck of the Jenolan, & then returned, such that Picard could retrieve him from there, in the 24 century. This, of course, after having been reunited with his comrades like Scotty. Soren seems like a pretty resourceful guy, & he couldn't find a way back in, during that time frame. It took destroying star systems to get him there

    There is only two (in universe) explanations
    1. Scotty must know that Kirk was trapped in the Nexus, because an investigation into Kirk's death/disappearance was conducted, & they figured out he was in there (perhaps even interviewing people like Guinan & Soren, about their experience there) But there was nothing anyone could do about it, until Picard got him out, & Knowing James Kirk as Scotty does, he probably figured old Jimbo got himself out of there long before mounting a rescue operation to find his lost chief engineer. Essentially, Scotty has faith that nothing could keep Kirk bottled up, in a temporal anomaly, and just assumes he's not in there anymore

    2. Highly selective, temporary transporter exposure induced disorientation

    I prefer the first theory
     
  16. Ward Fowler

    Ward Fowler Commodore Commodore

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    Yep. Good post. That sums it up. I'm going with transporter fugue myself.
     
  17. Shatnertage

    Shatnertage Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    That's hysterical. Thanks for posting it.
     
  18. Praxius

    Praxius Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Never mind.....
     
  19. Sharla

    Sharla Ensign Newbie

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    I don't know. Has anyone grabbed a mouse and asked the "Computer?" lol
     
  20. Hober Mallow

    Hober Mallow Commodore Commodore

    Incidentally, my favorite part of the episode is seeing the TOS transporter effect one last time.