In-universe changes between launch of E-B and launch of E-D

The last time we saw characters from TOS was in GEN, beginning in the year 2293. The first time we see characters from TNG was in TNG's series premier "Encounter at Farpoint" in 2363. What were some of the changes in the Trek universe between those two eras during those 70 years?

Some that immediately come to mind:
1) Friendship with the Klingons, esp after the E-C was lost at Narendra III.
2) Decades-long silence from the Romulans due to them tied up with "more important matters." ...What ever did they mean by that?
3) First contact possibly and war with the Cardassians.
4) First contact possibly and war with the Talarians.
5) First contact with the Ferengi, or was that in "The Last Outpost"?
6) First contact probably with the Jarada.
7) First contact possibly with the Breen.
8) The annexation of Bajor.
9) Invention of the holodeck.
10) Children aboard Federation starships, including the Miranda Class Saratoga.
11) Replicators
12) Site-to-site transporters
13) The disappearance of hand-held communicators.
14) Phaser strips.

 

I'm sure somewhere in tng there was an attack/war with the Tholians. I could be wrong but I think it was rikers father who mentions it. cant remember the episode.

not sure if this counts but the warp scale was recalibrated

 

There was a Tholian conflict, whatever that means. Also, the was with the Tzenkethi.

Regarding first contact with the Cardassians, I think that came much earlier. I think it's mentioned somewhere that a Cardassian poet had lived on Vulcan much earlier, and there was a Cardassian drink available at the bar in XI.

 

Depends on how one defines first contact, I think. When the Wadi met some Vulcans in the Gamma Quadrant and pointed them in the direction of Quark's, Sisko still considered it a first contact momen when those Wadi stepped through his airlock and shook his hand. So perhaps FC customarily extends to "until they met official reps of the UFP" or even "until they met me"?

Nothing explicit was said about when the Cardassians or the Breen or the Talarians or the Jarada were first met. On the issue of the Ferengi, our TNG heroes were aware of the species in the pilot episode already, but Picard claimed that the meeting in "The Last Outpost" would be "Starfleet's first look at a life form which, discounting rumor, [they] know almost nothing about". Does this mean "real" first contact? Or did the Ferengi approach the UFP through telemarketing first?

Of course, we know the Ferengi are secretive folks who only seem to open trade relations once they no longer dare get the other party's wealth through outright piracy. Archer met some Ferengi in the 2150s already, but there's no telling how many humans these pirates had met previously... Such incidents probably shouldn't count as "real" first contact any more than the Roswell incident, because the two sides would not learn much about each other in these chance meetings.

One might argue that only familiarity breeds enough contempt to sparkle a war; thus, all the "old" conflicts in TNG would be old enough to have begun in the E-B era already. But sometimes species do hit off at first sight...

On the issue of new technologies, there are surprisingly few. Even holodecks probably existed in some form or another during TOS (we saw a pretty good one in TAS), and the move from turret to strip phasers might be mere fine-tuning. Really, I'm at loss to point out even a single piece of significant tech that would assuredly have arisen after the E-B era.

Timo Saloniemi

 

The development of isolinear technology.

 

*The Borg start to make their presence known near the Federation and rumours start to circulate.
*The Romulans and Klingons alliance completely breaks down and they seem to randomly attack each other from time to time.
*The Warp speed scale is redone so that Warp 10 becoming the theoretical highest possible warp speed.
*Women are allowed to captain starships.
*The Feds enter a treaty that bans them from using or developing cloaking technology.
*Starfleet changes the colours around so that red is command and yellow/gold is operations.
*Possibly the extinction of the Tribble species. It might have occurred before this period.

 

The Romulans and Klingons apparently were at each other's throats as early as 2273, if we believe Kor's bragging in "Blood Oath". They appeared to be arch-enemies in ST6 as well.

Also, there were female starship captains in ST4 and captains and admirals in ST6, thus before the time period specific to this thread. Whether there ever existed a period where there were no female starship captains is debatable.

The dating of the cloaking ban is also debatable. We know cloaking in the 2360s is in violation of a treaty that has kept peace since 2311 or so, but we don't know if said treaty was signed on that date or earlier, and we don't know if it was the first treaty to ban Starfleet from cloaking.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Like anything on the net, Memory Alpha isn't always accurate but...

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Kyle_Riker
The Tholian attack is shown here as taking place in 2335, 8 years before "Encounter at Farpoint". The context or repercussions we don't know.

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Federation-Tzenkethi_War
"Given that Sisko refers to "the last Federation-Tzenkethi War" in "The Adversary", it is possible that more than one war was fought between the two powers." ...Coulda been any time since 2161 really.

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Galen_border_conflicts
The Galen Border "Skirmishes" with the Talarians took place in "the late 2350's." I'm kinda glad these were only "skirmishes"...too many wars, including multiple ones with the same alien nations.


FWIW, there was an early holodeck in Shatner's The Ashes of Eden accomplished via a VR suit.

 

And

Spoiler: Captain's Logs

a later model that was good enough to fool a (drugged?) Romulan interrogator for hours upon hours

in a Peter David short story about Captain Harriman's E-B exploits.

Whether to believe in the novels or not is once again a good question. TAS did show us a holodeck in the late 2260s where one didn't need any special VR suits, and that holodeck could provide a realistic soundscape, realistic temperature changes, and supposedly a good enough simulation of swimming to pass muster. We don't know if that facility could provide realistic texturing that would feel even halfway right on the user's skin, though; perhaps the simulation was really coarse, essentially no better in detail than the animation used to portray it for the audience?

The Ashes of Eden tech sounds anachronist - it should have existed centuries before the era of that book already. A simulation that doesn't require VR suits is the thing I could accept as futuristic, and a progression that takes into account both TAS and Peter David's Captain's Logs contribution but ignores Ashes to Eden sounds more logical to me.

Timo Saloniemi

 

The Cardassian poet living on Vulcan is odd, as it is the only time contact between the Federation and Cardassians is mentioned prior to the 24th century. I choose to ignore it.

The Cardassian drink in XI is just cockfuckery and should be ignored.

 

Why? It's not as if there's any evidence anywhere for the Cardassians being a recent encounter. If anything, the stories might suggest that these were nice guys who only turned bad recently, due to facing hardships back home (and the military deciding that the hardships were a good excuse for turning nasty, and probably thus exaggerating the problems).

Also, nobody seems to find the Cardassian culture "mysterious" or "exotic", like many recently encountered cultures seem to be. If anything, Picard is more at loss with Bajoran ways than with Cardassian ones.

Timo Saloniemi

 

'the Icarus Factor', Season Two-Kyle R.'s sole appearance on TNG. He and Dr. Pulaski met at a starbase then, during or after the conflict. 'I would have married him in a cold minute' she tells either Troi or someone else.

 

I don't mind there being much earlier contact with the Cardassians. They are a major power after all.

 

Same here. I have no problem that first contact with the Cardassians occurred during the 23rd-Century, but they didn't become a problem with the Federation until the 24th-Century. Relations between nations can start off good and then go downhill much later, IMO...

 

What might cause continuity hiccups is that Cardassians seem to have good knowledge of the Ferengi in the Occupation era already, readily accepting Quark on one of their military-industrial installations - but Feds at the same time are yet to make any sort of official contact with this culture.

Sure, the Ferengi seem to prefer to start a business relationship rather one-sidedly, by anonymously robbing the business partner in deep space, and only moving to more evenly formulated business arrangements when they absolutely have to. But if the Ferengi are past the piracy stage with the Cardassians, then the longer Cardassia is in contact with the UFP, the more difficult it becomes to believe that the secret wouldn't leak.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Perhaps that can fall under the category of "rumors and second-hand reports" about the Ferengi that Picard mentioned in his log.

 

Multi-Phasic shielding, plasma weapons, positronic brains.

 

Not wearing shirts under their jackets.

 

Synthetic dilithium.

 

The Romulan BoP in TOS's "Balance of Terror" had a plasma weapon.

When was the first appearance of multi-phasic shielding? How do we know it's not just another name for regular shields?

Synthetic dilithium too?

It's my fault for setting the precedent, but lets try citing our sources.

I have a tough time with the Cardassians being known too early. On the one hand they're on the edge of the 24th century frontier in DS9, on the other, Star Trek Star Charts doesn't set the frontier all that far away. I've thought of them as new contacts as the Federation pushes ever outward, along with the Ferengi, Tzenkethi, and Breen in these new sectors of space. The Cardassian in exile on Vulcan I thought was annoying but have chosen to think of him as a rogue traveler far from home - Thrawn in the Empire. The Cardassian drink in ST I have yet to really consider other than the real-world shout-out to DS9 fans.