Untangling the various Trek Universes

"Look and feel" changes aren't really enough to hang a separate universe on. That kind of thing is inevitable in a long-running series.

 

Mostly I agree with this assessment. Nick Meyer's Trek is his own Trek reboot, completely different from Roddenberry's Trek, but still a valid interpretation. I'll never understand the need for some fans to reconcile all the variants of Trek into one cohesive whole (though clearly I'm in the minority). Each interpretation of Trek is best enjoyed on its own merits. Meyer's military Starfleet stands in stark contrast to Roddenberry's non-military Starfleet (and Roddenberry's own ideas about the show changed over the years).

 

Personally, I think they're all alternate universes after "The Cage." That's the One True Canon!

 

Yet how do you explain all the crossovers if the reboots are "comletely separate"? I agree 100% that the goalposts keep being moved (something I actually enjoy, it thows everything prior into a new light and makes rewatching old episodes and movies more fun), but in-universe, as nonsensical as it can be sometimes, it's all meant to be one big history.

 

If I wrote "Hamlet, Part II," I would be beholden to the events of the original play Shakespeare wrote, but no one would consider my play to be any real part of Shakespeare's canon. Following the events of the original has to do with the internal consistency of my play, and almost nothing to do with the original. No one, reading the original play, is going to give my play a second thought, nor should they. And someone else would be free to write their own sequel to "Hamlet" and not be tied to referring back to my play.

The Berman-era TV sequels, created by and large by other people, are derivative works of the original Star Trek, and are certainly a valid interpretation, but other iterations of Trek should feel free to contradict the Berman-era shows.

 

This.

 

But ENT was referenced in TNG in the ENT episode "These Are The Voyages..." Sure, the episode may have sucked, but that episode was pretty much another TNG episode. Therefore, ENT and TNG took place in the same timeline.

 

A better example would have been TNG's Gambit, which does reference the Vulcan Civil War depicted in the The Forge/Awakening/Kir'shara arc of season 4.