Backstory

[Marsden]

GSchnitzer and Warped9 and some other threads have got me thinking about something specific I've wanted to ask for a long time:


What was the "official" backstory at the time of Star Trek. This would include any animated backstory but not from TMP onward. I'm curious about it. I know there were many changes. I'm not too interested in the "cannon" version because that was changed and changed again. Anything from First Contact and Enterprise would definitely be out of the scope of what I'm looking for, although anyone can post anything they like, of course, but I want to stick to what Star Trek fans in say, 1977 would have known about the Federation and it's universe.

How was the Federation founded? Who was in it?

Did they conquer the Vulcainians?
Please mentioned any changed premises like that, I'm interested in all of them.

Another thing, does anyone know who wrote the "Space the final frontier.....gone before!" from the begining? I'm assuming GR but that's an assumption.
Do you think he meant the Enterprise via Kirk was told "go out there and explore for 5 years and then come back" or that they lasted 5 years and this is a retrospective of those 5 years before they were done or destroyed or just reassigned to other ships.


I think this last one is probably going to annoy someone, it's been assumed for so long that Enterprise had at least one "five year mission" and maybe 2 or more, but I not so sure that's what was in mind at all when it was written. Anything from GR wanted the show to stay on the air five years to anything else is fine with me. I'm thinking that may have been a goal, not too many shows stayed on longer than that anyway and he may not have wanted to stay with it any longer. I think only after nothing else panned out did he really come back to it to stay.

One of the reasons I'm wondering about it all being past tense is some of the very first episodes had past tense log entries. But unknown to us a totally new and unusual disease has been brought aboard. We were unaware each memeber of the landing party saw a different Nancy Crater.
Unknown to any of us during this time, a duplicate of me, some strange alter ego, had been created by the transporter malfunction.

Then the tone changed and things were more as they were happening.
This is the second day of the seven left to us. We've found nothing. Enterprise is standing by with labs and computers ready to assist us.
Starship Enterprise diverted from scheduled course. Purpose, to confirm discover by Doctor Thomas Leighton of an extraordinary new synthetic food which would totally end the threat of famine on Cygnia Minor, a nearby Earth colony.

 

[EnriqueH]

Roddenberry wrote the "Space the Final Frontier" along with...

Someone refresh my memory.

Was it Bob Justman or someone else? I know Coon came in a little later, but I want to say he was on board when it came time to shoot the thing.

Roddenberry was definitely involved in writing it, that's for sure.

 

[Harvey]

Roddenberry wrote the "Space the Final Frontier" along with...

http://www.lettersofnote.com/2011/12/space-final-frontier.html

It was written with the input of Gene Roddenberry, Bob Justman, and John D.F. Black. Roddenberry wrote the final draft.

 

[Warped9]

A decent book for this sort of thing was/is Bjo Trimble's Star Trek Concordance, first printed in the '70s I believe, but since updated. The original edition concerned itself strictly with TOS and TAS. It was something of a quite detailed encyclopedia for Star Trek although it didn't concern itself much with chronology. It didn't set out to establish exactly when TOS happened like later publications because it was never established onscreen.

There were a lot of things not really nailed down by the time of TMP. There were things accepted by fans that had not really been established onscreen. There were professional and fan publications that sought to nail some things down but, of course, none of that counted as official.

When you watch TOS there are subtexts that seem to suggest things while not being clearly spelled out. Going by TOS alone one gets the idea the UFP isn't that old and perhaps not more than a few decades. Another subtext was that ships about a century or so before TOS were primitive and rudimentary by TOS standards--certainly not like what was seen in ENT. The friction between the Federation and the Klingons also seems to be only a few decades old rather than a century as claimed by TNG and ENT.

 

[johnnybear]

ENT was an alternative universe I always thought so don't count it among the normal Treks! If it contradicts TOS it ain't worth bothering about!
JB

 

[CorporalCaptain]

If it wasn't aired, it wasn't really nailed down in any absolute sense. Heck, even what had been aired sometimes got revised as the show progressed (disuse of the term "Vulcanians" is one example among many).

Not even the Writers Guide was adhered to unfailingly. However, the Writers Guide and The Making of Star Trek are two good sources that outline what they were going for. Beyond that, I think that during the period of TOS and TAS, Gene Roddenberry operated by the principle that he'll know what's in the Star Trek universe when he sees it, and he felt free to change his mind.

In other words, all the evidence I'm aware of points to the idea that backstory proper was made up on the fly, as needed by the episodes under consideration. The Writers Guide was only that: a guide, not a rulebook, but one important to set the tone and outline parameters.

 

[Lance]

One thing Roddenberry liked was the idea of the ship having a pre-history, ie that it wasn't a "new ship" and that she'd had crew and skippers before Kirk and even before Pike. I'm not sure he ever absolutely nailed down what that pre-history was, beyond telling convention goers that Captain April was the ship's original skipper, but it was still nice that they allowed for a pre-history.

But yeah, the real answer is much of it was done on the fly. Things like the Romulan wars and the whole thing with the Klingons was essentially made up and then added to. Originally we had Earth bases, then UESPA, then Starfleet and the UFP. Certainly much of the backstory were nailed down by the second and third seasons, but more besides was added by TMP and TWOK. Certain concepts that had been 'fan canon' for years didn't even get officially confirmed until the 2009 movie.

 

[Warped9]

The prehistory was made up on-the-fly. April was the first Captain simply because that was the character's original name which was later changed to Pike and then Kirk. "The Cage" wasn't considered prehistory until they had the idea of using the footage for a two-parter to help them out of a production jam and save some money, as well as recoup what had been spent on the first pilot. Otherwise we might never have seen anything of the first pilot until years or decades later if ever.

At that point April was still a forgotten idea until TAS offered them a chance to use the name to suggest he was there before Pike. The whole prehistory idea was GR retconning long after the fact. It had never been planned out that way initially.

 

[FalTorPan]

A decent book for this sort of thing was/is Bjo Trimble's Star Trek Concordance, first printed in the '70s I believe, but since updated. The original edition concerned itself strictly with TOS and TAS. It was something of a quite detailed encyclopedia for Star Trek although it didn't concern itself much with chronology. It didn't set out to establish exactly when TOS happened like later publications because it was never established onscreen.

There were a lot of things not really nailed down by the time of TMP. There were things accepted by fans that had not really been established onscreen. There were professional and fan publications that sought to nail some things down but, of course, none of that counted as official.

When you watch TOS there are subtexts that seem to suggest things while not being clearly spelled out. Going by TOS alone one gets the idea the UFP isn't that old and perhaps not more than a few decades. Another subtext was that ships about a century or so before TOS were primitive and rudimentary by TOS standards--certainly not like what was seen in ENT. The friction between the Federation and the Klingons also seems to be only a few decades old rather than a century as claimed by TNG and ENT.

I also like reading some fans' attempts to build chronologies before TNG, etc., came along. Walter Irwin and G. B. Love's Best of Trek book series includes a few of them.

 

[Marsden]

Thanks for the insights. The reason I put official in quotes is more to say I don't necessarily care if it is still official or even ever was. I think the fans really filled in a lot of gaps and before Star Trek was big money the owners didn't care but when cash started to get serious then a lot of things just didn't count anymore.
Then there was an attitude of a lot of the people actually making TNG, including GR, kind of acting like the original Star Trek really wasn't any good and the animated didn't even exist. That was a really sad thing to do but I think it was mostly financially motivated.

Does anyone remember this back story for the founding of the Federation:

Earth sent a non warp ship that arrived at Alpha Centauri, they discovered Humans living there as well. They decided to cooperate and met Zefram Cochrane who had theories about a warp drive but didn't have the industrial base to actually make it work. So he was from Alpha Centauri and did discover the space warp but didn't necessarily build the first ship himself. The Alpha Centaurians already knew the Tellerites and the Vulcans and the four races discussed joining together. The Vulcans had some problems with the Andorian Empire but with the involvement of the Humans they resolved the problems and all five founded the Federation. And since each had colonies on other worlds the Federation started out with a lot more than just 5 planets. I'm not sure where I read this, could be FASA or one of those other books like Worlds of the Federation, but it's in my memory from years ago.

Another thing (one I personally dislike) is the so called Earth Romulan war. As we've already discussed, the Federation wasn't invented at the time Balance of Terror was written and to me it seems obvious that once the Federation was supposed to be there all along that it was really a Federation Romulan war but many people and later sources keep clinging to the idea that the war was fought by Earth alone. Does that make any sense to anyone? It doesn't to me. The notion that the core Federation worlds might be close enough to reach without warp sounds possible but Romulus and the Klingon homeworld too? That really seems off to me.

I think not using Vulcanian is barely worth mentioning as a change, it's just a syntax. Some times they pronouced Klingon like cling gon or cling on but they also say clin gin a few times, especially in Trouble with Tribbles. I don't see it as a change, though.

 

[Warped9]

I believe it was the Spaceflight Chronology that first introduced the idea of humans encountering life on Alpha Centauri.

The book Strangers From The Sky had the Vulcans being the first race humans encountered and the backstory makes it look like the Vulcans were waiting for the right time to introduce themselves. Even with that the setting still had Earth reaching out into interstellar space on their own without Vulcan grandfathering as was seen in ENT, an element of ENT that really grated on my nerves.

 

[Marsden]

That was one of the reasons after First Contact came out I hated it. Now I've let go and it's ok as it's own movie, but at the time it really annoyed the $&!# out of me.

 

[Warped9]

FC drives me nuts on so many levels.

 

[T'Girl]

How was the Federation founded? Who was in it?

It does sound like something important happen, something different, about the time Kirk graduated from the academy. If it didn't form the Federation, it seems like it brought it together in a way it wasn't before. This involve Axanar.

The Federation as we know it was really a creation of DC Fontana, and not Roddenberry.

Did they conquer the Vulcainians?

Spock said that the Vulcan people have never been conquered, however McCoy said Spock's father's people (a smaller group?) had been.

Do you think he meant the Enterprise via Kirk was told "go out there and explore for 5 years and then come back"

My impression it didn't involve a "and then come back" aspect. Kirk and the Enterprise weren't going to basically disappear for five years, but rather they were going to be given five years where exploration and science was the primary job, although they would be patrolling and engaged in defense too.

One of the reasons I'm wondering about it all being past tense is some of the very first episodes had past tense log entries.

In the cases of the "Log Supplemental" they could have been recorded later, maybe even years later. Kirk going back and inserting information that was unknown at the time.

Another subtext was that ships about a century or so before TOS were primitive and rudimentary by TOS standards--certainly not like what was seen in ENT.

I think that when Spock referred to starships of a century before being primitive, he was using that term to describe starships exactly like the NX-01.

Originally we had Earth bases, then UESPA, then Starfleet and the UFP.

And even after Starfleet was created, the show still used UESPA. After the Federation came into existence we heard about Earth and Earth bases.

Of course they were still founding Earth colonies in the first season of TNG.

 

[Warped9]

Another subtext was that ships about a century or so before TOS were primitive and rudimentary by TOS standards--certainly not like what was seen in ENT.

I think that when Spock referred to starships of a century before being primitive, he was using that term to describe starships exactly like the NX-01.

Did you see the NX-01 using primitive atomic weapons? No, you didn't.

ENT was a retcon pure and simple.

 

[Shawnster]

Another subtext was that ships about a century or so before TOS were primitive and rudimentary by TOS standards--certainly not like what was seen in ENT.

I think that when Spock referred to starships of a century before being primitive, he was using that term to describe starships exactly like the NX-01.

Did you see the NX-01 using primitive atomic weapons? No, you didn't.

ENT was a retcon pure and simple.

A retcon they tried to make "too modern." One of my many complaints about ENT. "Phase"r pistols, "Photon"ic torpedoes. They could have made the torpedoes nukes or "atomic weapons" and laser pistols would have sufficed.

 

[Kemaiku]

The idea was that First Contact had altered the events that originally occured. Mostly through Zefram, whose life had been quite severely altered by that.

So what happened orignally may have been somewhat similar in historical terms (minus the Xindi arc as that was time incursion) but may have differed in a lot of those smaller details.

 

[EnriqueH]

An Enterprise phrase that drove me nuts was "Polarize the hull plating." as opposed to "Raise shields".

Which is more impactful?

 

[T'Girl]

Did you see the NX-01 using primitive atomic weapons? No, you didn't.

Did you see the NX-01 during the Romulan War? No, you didn't.

I think they stopped pissing around with what they were using and started shooting nukes at the Romulans.

 

[Nerys Myk]

ENT was an alternative universe I always thought so don't count it among the normal Treks! If it contradicts TOS it ain't worth bothering about!
JB

TOS contradicts TOS. Does that mean its not worth bothering with?

I've feeling the other modern Trek contradict TOS too.