What is THE Worst continuity error in Trek history..?!

[Mr. Laser Beam]

If Valiant is only capable of warp 1 then it would have to be a sleeper ship. Warp 1 = speed of light and nearest star from Earth is 5 light years away. It would take 500 years at warp 1 to reach 500 light years from Earth. Going by the old (non-canon) warp factor cubed = multiple of light speed then a warp 2 ship goes 8 time the speed of light and can make a 500 light year journey in 63 years.

If Valiant was an impulse or warp 1 ship then it's mission would have been close to Earth. You don't send a ship on a 500 year mission in the 21st or early 22nd centuries. That's a waste of resources. A warp 2 ship is going to go further from home, but still stay relatively close for the same reason. The faster the ship goes, the greater range from Earth it will have due to practical necessities.

I shouldn't have to remind you that we have no idea what kind of ship the Valiant was, what its mission may have been, or what its maximum speed was.. It may well be that the Valiant WAS supposed to max out at Warp 1 and was just built for an extended tour around the solar system (remember, it was launched only 2 years after the Phoenix as shown in ST:FC).

We already know that the Valiant was grabbed by a spatial anomaly and flung outside the galaxy, so this is absolutely consistent with existing continuity.

 

[Shawnster]

It wasn't mentioned, there for it doesn't exist. (Canon 101) And if they had it, they would have used it. Writers include such details for a reasons. Reasons that inform the plot. They mention impulse engines to show the ship was more
primitive than the Enterprise.

No. That's not how canon works. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Now, that statement is Canon 101.

By your logic, McCoy never had great-grandparents and the TOS Enterprise never had restrooms nor airlock doors.

 

[Shawnster]

I shouldn't have to remind you that we have no idea what kind of ship the Valiant was, what its mission may have been, or what its maximum speed was.. It may well be that the Valiant WAS supposed to max out at Warp 1 and was just built for an extended tour around the solar system (remember, it was launched only 2 years after the Phoenix as shown in ST:FC).

We already know that the Valiant was grabbed by a spatial anomaly and flung outside the galaxy, so this is absolutely consistent with existing continuity.

You're right. A warp 1 ship built for a tour around the solar system is quite acceptable. In that case, the Valiant was pulled massively off course. I believe that is the whole point of the conversation. It's highly unlikely the Valiant was 500 light years from Earth before being pulled off course if it was only a warp 1 ship. Or even a warp 2 ship, for that matter.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Early warp ships in Trek are a clusterfuck, and it's compounded by the even bigger clusterfuck of time/speed/distance calculations in Trek. For a people still in a post-WWIII wasteland, building Valiant, Constenoga, Bonaventure and other early warp starships is highly unlikely. Valiant reached the edge of the galaxy, something Kirk's Enterprise never should have reached within the five year mission, let alone at the start of it going by the unofficial warp factor cubed formula.

Best to just nod and accept that these things somehow happened, IMO. It is fiction, after all.

 

[BillJ]

Early warp ships in Trek are a clusterfuck, and it's compounded by the even bigger clusterfuck of time/speed/distance calculations in Trek. For a people still in a post-WWIII wasteland, building Valiant, Constenoga, Bonaventure and other early warp starships is highly unlikely. Valiant reached the edge of the galaxy, something Kirk's Enterprise never should have reached within the five year mission, let alone at the start of it going by the unofficial warp factor cubed formula.

Best to just nod and accept that these things somehow happened, IMO. It is fiction, after all.

Well, it really isn't TOS that is wrong (Kirk's Enterprise reaches the galactic barrier on three different occasions, twice under its own power). It is the later shows that recalibrated things to make the ships seem slower. Plus, putting on my Trek geek hat, World War III was likely much more limited in TOS as Spock only lists 37 million as dying in the conflict vs. First Contact's six hundred million.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Sure they are. Wasn't saying he wasn't. I was saying he's not credited as science officer, he's credited as a bridge officer - at least on Memory Alpha. Was he credited as science officer somewhere else?

Chekhov is the officer who beams down to investigate the life sign that turns out to be Khan and crew. Since Chekhov is the first officer, wouldn't it make more sense (not plot wise, but interior logic wise) if Beach was the science officer that it would be him who went with Tyrell, while first officer Chekhov remained in command?

I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm saying I honestly don't know and there is evidence that goes both ways.

On the question of Chekov being science officer on the Reliant, my understanding that he was originally just science officer in the script. He was "promoted" to first officer via voiceover at the urging of Walter Koenig. So that is probably the source of your confusion. During shooting, he was the science officer. By the time the movie was released, he was the first officer.

 

[Nerys Myk]

No. That's not how canon works. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Now, that statement is Canon 101.

By your logic, McCoy never had great-grandparents and the TOS Enterprise never had restrooms nor airlock doors.

Not really. Giiven what we know of human biology the former seems unlikely and latter is a matter of hygiene. Two very real things.OTOH, the drive systems of fictional Starships are made up by the writers not evolution and are limited to what's on screen. So it's a false comparison

But hey it's SciFi, so McCoy's grandparents might be the product of Genetic Engineering and not have true biological fathers. Fecal matter and urine might be transported the body. But neither has been mentioned on screen so it remains unknown. Unlike the very real statement that the Valiant operated only under impulse power.

Canon and continuity isn't our fannish guesswork to fil in the gaps. It's what's presented on screen. It's that simple.

 

[Tenacity]

Where's the Ficus Sector?

Okay, you have two "lost" colonies, how close to Earth can they be and still have remained lost after two and a half centuries? The two colonies were both class M planets in adjacent star systems half a light year apart. If only a dozen or so light years from Earth, would they not have been surveyed/scanned relatively soon after Humanity did obtain faster starships?

But if the Mariposa colony ship were capable in the 2120's of much higher than warp 2 speeds and reaching planets hundreds of light years away, then those planets would be less likely to be found by exploring starships.

And, with a few exceptions the television Enterprise D was away from Earth out in the outer marches.

The wormhole

What wormhole?

What's the furthest away it can be using "old impulse engines"?

Would early warp engines even work in a magnetic space storm?

It's highly unlikely the Valiant was 500 light years from Earth before being pulled off course if it was only a warp 1 ship. Or even a warp 2 ship, for that matter.

On the other hand, if the Valiant was capable of the same speed as Friendship One, then the distance could have been covered in a few years.

The warp technology was available at that time.

 

[MAGolding]

What's the furthest away it can be using "old impulse engines"?

Where's the Ficus Sector? How far away is it from Earth? Where is the Epsilon IX* sector? How far away is it from Earth? How many light years did the Enterprise travel between Stardate 42779.1 and Stardate 42823.2? The pulsar in the Samaritan Snare the pulsar is new so it can't be one known today.

*In Star Trek: The Motion Picture The Epsilon IX station was destroyed by V'Ger when it was 53.4 hours away from Earth. The Encylopedia speculates the station was in the Epsilon IX sector.

According to post # 12, dated 01-05-2017 in the thread "Time and Space in the Motion Picture" the Epsilon IX station should be either 1.5053092 to 1.749922 light years from Earth, 2.8795512 to 3.3474784 light years from Earth, or 5.129462 to 10.559478 light years from Earth. If correct there should not be an Epsilon IX sector and station Epsilon IX should probably be located in sector 001.

http://www.trekbbs.com/threads/time-and-space-in-the-motion-picture.285569/#post-11877597

 

[Nerys Myk]

I was told there would be no math.

 

[Sakonna]

Setting aside Voyager's determined commitment to anti-continuity, I think there is literally only one continuity error in Trek that seriously annoys me, and it's TNG Trill to DS9 Trill. TNG Trill look different, they can't transport, the symbiont fully suppress the host, the crew knows absolutely nothing about this how the Trill work -- beyond the concept of a joined species and the name, there is not one other point of connection between TNG Trill and DS9 Trill.

It annoys me so much because THE FIX IS SO EASY. If you want to change everything about a species other than the concept of being joined, JUST MAKE THEM A NEW JOINED SPECIES. If you must, someone can have a line to the effect of "Lt Dax is [New Alien Name]. They're a joined species, similar to the Trill."

 

[The Wormhole]

Setting aside Voyager's determined commitment to anti-continuity

Really? Voyager's continuity errors were no worse than other Trek's. Maybe the stuff with Seven of Nine's parents being Borg hunters is skirting things a bit, but it's not that hard to make it fit, and certainly doesn't qualify as a "commitment to anti-continuity"

TNG Trill look different, they can't transport, the symbiont fully suppress the host, the crew knows absolutely nothing about this how the Trill work -- beyond the concept of a joined species and the name, there is not one other point of connection between TNG Trill and DS9 Trill.

It annoys me so much because THE FIX IS SO EASY. If you want to change everything about a species other than the concept of being joined, JUST MAKE THEM A NEW JOINED SPECIES. If you must, someone can have a line to the effect of "Lt Dax is [New Alien Name]. They're a joined species, similar to the Trill."

The intent was to use the same make-up job on DS9 and the TNG Trill, however it was felt the TNG look didn't showcase Terry Farrell's looks that well and a new design was thought up.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ Also, Terry was actually allergic to the TNG Trill makeup, wasn't she?

 

[Sakonna]

Setting aside Voyager's determined commitment to anti-continuity

Really? Voyager's continuity errors were no worse than other Trek's. Maybe the stuff with Seven of Nine's parents being Borg hunters is skirting things a bit, but it's not that hard to make it fit, and certainly doesn't qualify as a "commitment to anti-continuity"

I agree that Voyager is comparable to the other shows with that aspect of continuity, the tying of the show into the larger Trek universe. What I meant was how they established a premise that demands a strict internal continuity that they didn't even attempt.

The earlier shows could get away with a more episodic nature because we could always handwave a between-episodes explanation for whatever reset button they needed to hit -- this character transferred to another ship, that damage was repaired at a star base, whatever. Voyager's set-up demanded the events of one episode resonate down the line, but they almost never did -- severe damage was always perfectly repaired, supposedly limited arsenals were endlessly replenished, they always have another shuttle to blow up, and so on.

I was also thinking of things like how they kept running into the same aliens when they should have left their space behind long ago, and how they would consistently lose track of which of their recurring crewmembers were alive or dead, or how they (mostly) dropped the whole Maquis/Federation tension angle after the 2nd episode.

 

[CaptainSpirk]

Why couldn't Annika Hansen have been a victim of Wolf 359 instead of the USS Raven? Hansen could have been on one of the starships that were destroyed at Wolf 359 right?

 

[The Wormhole]

I agree that Voyager is comparable to the other shows with that aspect of continuity, the tying of the show into the larger Trek universe. What I meant was how they established a premise that demands a strict internal continuity that they didn't even attempt.

The earlier shows could get away with a more episodic nature because we could always handwave a between-episodes explanation for whatever reset button they needed to hit -- this character transferred to another ship, that damage was repaired at a star base, whatever. Voyager's set-up demanded the events of one episode resonate down the line, but they almost never did -- severe damage was always perfectly repaired, supposedly limited arsenals were endlessly replenished, they always have another shuttle to blow up, and so on.

That was UPN forcing the situation on the show however. Braga wanted more serialization on the show, but UPN overruled and forced the show to be episodic. Remember, Braga originally pitched Year of Hell as a season-long story arc that would profoundly affect the show and its story direction, UPN forced him to turn that story into a two-parter that reset at the end. If there was a "commitment to be anti-continuity" it was UPN's, not the show's.

I was also thinking of things like how they kept running into the same aliens when they should have left their space behind long ago, and how they would consistently lose track of which of their recurring crewmembers were alive or dead, or how they (mostly) dropped the whole Maquis/Federation tension angle after the 2nd episode.

Which aliens do you refer? The Kazon and the Vidians both stopped showing up after the second season, essentially. The Hirogen were established when they were introduced to have a presence that stretched out to the Alpha Quadrant, Species 8472 are from a different realm and enter our space courtesy of a vortex which can open anywhere, and we know from TNG the Borg control a vast amount of space. Voyager had no other recurring aliens.

Which crew members did they forget were alive or dead? The only one that comes close was Lt Valtane in Flashback, but 1) he was part of the Excelsior's crew and 2) Tuvok's faulty memory may or may not be a factor there.

As for the Starfleet/Maquis thing, that was dropped as a knee-jerk reaction to complaints from some corners that the interpersonal conflict on DS9 was "against Roddenberry."

Why couldn't Annika Hansen have been a victim of Wolf 359 instead of the USS Raven? Hansen could have been on one of the starships that were destroyed at Wolf 359 right?

Annika Hansen would have been around 17 at the time of Wolf 359. It's possible she could have been on one of the ships (she'd be the same age as Wesley Crusher). However, some complain too many Borg drones showed up on Voyager who were from Wolf 359, especially given that ship was destroyed.

 

[Sakonna]

That was UPN forcing the situation on the show however. Braga wanted more serialization on the show, but UPN overruled and forced the show to be episodic.

I believe that's true, but I'm talking about issues I had with the show as it actually exists, not which behind-the-scene decision maker was responsible for those problems.

Which aliens do you refer? The Kazon and the Vidians both stopped showing up after the second season, essentially. The Hirogen were established when they were introduced to have a presence that stretched out to the Alpha Quadrant, Species 8472 are from a different realm and enter our space courtesy of a vortex which can open anywhere, and we know from TNG the Borg control a vast amount of space.

I was OK with the logic of re-encountering the Vidiians, Species 8472, and the Borg (though dramatically I would argue they should have pulled back on the Borg and 8472, but continuity-wise it's fine). I could have bought two years of being in Kazon space, but repeatedly encountering the same specific Kazon over that length of time wasn't plausible to me. The others I was thinking of was the late encounters with the Hirogen and the Talaxians, and that colony of Ocampans they found.

I don't recall them setting that up for the Hirogen, but I could be forgetting. But even if they managed explanations for that and the Borg and 8472, for me the main point was the cumulative effect: we had a show about traveling in one direction, and they couldn't stop themselves from going back to these same wells again and again. Even if they got better with setting up the logic of re-encountering these species along their journey, it still read to me as a show that was fundamentally uninterested in it's own premise.

I actually thought the original Hirogen arc was a great example of an occasion Voyager did honor it's own premise -- it was an excellent idea to tangle with the same species for 5 consecutive episodes and then leave them behind. I wish they had tried that same structure another 2 or 3 times.

Which crew members did they forget were alive or dead?

I believe I've read an interview with some VOY writer/producer about how they thought either Carey, Samantha Wildman, or both had been killed off, and were surprised to learn they were still alive and could still be used. But I didn't find it in 5 minutes of poking around Memory Alpha, and I don't feel like spending more time on it. It's possible my memory is playing tricks on me. But it's definitely consistent with their strange pattern of recurring characters just vanishing, until we went back in time to the seasons where these characters had been appearing regularly, and there they are again!

 

[The Old Mixer]

If there was a "commitment to be anti-continuity" it was UPN's, not the show's.

I believe that's true, but I'm talking about issues I had with the show as it actually exists, not which behind-the-scene decision maker was responsible for those problems.

Indeed. If the show did it, the show has to own it, regardless of who mandated it.

it still read to me as a show that was fundamentally uninterested in it's own premise.

Thisthisthis.

 

[Hey Missy]

Weren't the Voyager writers considering adding a male same-sex couple (which would've been nice tbh) to raise Naomi as their own... until they realized her mom was actually still alive?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ AFAIK, no, there wasn't a plan for something like that.

Also we seem to be forgetting that Naomi's father was still alive. So even if that rumor was true, and Samantha had died, then he would of course take custody of Naomi upon the ship's return home. And that mythical couple would have been quite disappointed....