Never this drastic. A line flub or some bit of conflicting dating is one thing. This is a mountain of contradictions, sold to me as "no, trust us, they're not". There are four lights, no matter how much they say there's five.
Poll Do you consider Discovery to truly be in the Prime Timeline at this point?
- Thread starter Annorax849
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Never this drastic. A line flub or some bit of conflicting dating is one thing. This is a mountain of contradictions, sold to me as "no, trust us, they're not". There are four lights, no matter how much they say there's five.
The rights holders are the only ones who get to determine this. It's literally theirs to determine. The number and frequency of inconsistencies has no bearing on whether it's in the Prime Timeline or not. The Prime Timeline -- consistency, continuity, canon, etc. -- are marketing terms.
DSC is what a totally different group of people have reimagined Trek to be in 2018, cherry picking some bits of the lore they liked, like the Defiant in the Mirror Universe and totally ignoring things, like the Klingon Augments.
In other words, in DSC's world, things are a little different. Which means it's not the same world as The Original Series.
Every version of Star Trek has done this. From TAS to DISCO. So every one is either "different world" or they're the same "world" just changed to meet modern expectations and technologies.
I like Discovery for the most part. I do think it's Prime in terms of internal story continuity and the timeline of events in the Trek universe that happen between ENT and TOS. I just think the creators often don't know their ass from a hole in the ground when it comes to the aesthetics of the show and what they think a modern audience will believe is "cool" and acceptable. So they've taken a very schizophrenic approach to how the series looks, with some props and ships being close imitations of the originals on TOS while other aspects looking like they came out of the Kelvin Timeline films even though many of those things didn't remotely exist in the Prime Timeline. Other aspects and features they make up out of whole cloth and just hope the fans don't get angry enough to knock down the studio gates and torch the entire lot.
They're trying to have their cake and eat it, too. And you can't do that for long and keep anybody happy.
They're trying to have their cake and eat it, too. And you can't do that for long and keep anybody happy.
Except perhaps for Enterprise, it's never been changed to this extent.
Although it is worth noting that some have indeed been saying the same for every incarnation since TAS.
Maybe they simply haven't finished filling in all the blanks. I just cannot see how they can be saying, "We are Prime" without knowing Klingons should have hair, or allow that D7 abomination to make production.
Somethings haven't been revealed yet, is the optimistic outlook I am holding to for now. If it never happens it won't be the end of the world for me, I've lived through this kind shit before.
Somethings haven't been revealed yet, is the optimistic outlook I am holding to for now. If it never happens it won't be the end of the world for me, I've lived through this kind shit before.
TNG isn't in the Prime Timeline because Picard was bald.
Not referencing something explicitly is not the same thing as totally ignoring it.
The story was intended to show why Klingons went from all-bumpy headed in ENT to all-smooth in TOS. Then along comes DSC, set inbetween with all-bumpy rebooted Klingons. Does not compute.
And yet all it did was show some Klingons becoming smooth-headed. And a cure was developed in the very next episode. And that episode ends (more or less) on a joke about plastic surgery. There are three possible "outs" introduced in "Divergence" alone, not to mention any potential "outs" introduced in non-canon sources (such as "Judgement Rites"' implication that the Klingons engaged in multiple waves of genetic manipulation), let alone one Discovery may introduce in the future.
The only reason it doesn't compute is because you refuse to look at all of the data.
Well, the very first episode told us the story started in May of 2256, so that pretty much nailed down which Kirk and Spock we were talking about.
And I'll give you possible to reconcile, with some heavy-duty rationalizations. But "very very easy"? No way.
We can blame JJ Abrams for that. Before 2009, when Trek explicitly embraced alternate versions of its own continuity, the question never would have come up. After that, it was an entirely reasonable thing to "carry on" about wanting it clarified.
This is a profoundly unsatisfying answer, as you surely know. The only thing here that's genuinely a legalism determined by the rights holders is "canon," as has been discussed to death. On the other hand, no one can point at an obvious inconsistency and say "that's consistent!" as a valid statement, no matter what one owns. Matters of continuity (and timelines) are about how things work within the fictional reality, not here in the real world. And for any fictional property that has a fandom, that sort of thing has always been open to interpretation — an intersubjective construct, dominated by the fandom. (Heck, it's even true for the ur-source of the word "canon," the Bible itself. Otherwise the Protestant Reformation would never have happened!...)
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There may be yet another story. I'm starting to dig the idea that Klingon's entire body looks change about as fast as starfleet uniforms.
There is one good thing to come out of all this. One important issue I'm sure has kept us all awake at night for close to 25 years. Ever since the last season of TNG.
Who hasn't wondered what Deanna Troi saw in Worf... and I guess now we know.
Who hasn't wondered what Deanna Troi saw in Worf... and I guess now we know.
Fans may debate the inconsistencies and how different shows tie together or fail to tie together. And while sometimes that can be fun and interesting (sometimes), it's also, ultimately, an entirely futile exercise that is utterly meaningless. One can complain about how, say, Discovery doesn't have aesthetic ties to TOS, and that's all well and good, but when we start talking about things like "canon" and "timelines" in defined terms, then we're talking about how the show is marketed. Canon and timelines exist regardless of consistency -- they are defined and determined by CBS as a marketing strategy. That may be unsatisfying but that's just the reality. And it's why I frankly don't care about whether each show ties together anymore. It really doesn't matter at all. And because timelines and canon are just arbitrary marketing ploys, I don't find them meaningful, really, beyond that. Each show is unique and individual, despite any ties it may or may not have to the other shows. Those ties are not even commonly emphasized in TOS thru VOY, and they are grossly exaggerated by fans.
Prune juice
If we accept the idea that different tone, writing style, worldview, aesthetics etc makes for a different parallel universe, then Star Trek's 'prime' timeline is already a multiverse. The many worlds theory of Star Trek as I see it:
1. The TOSverse - ST:TOS, ST:TAS - primary coloured, sharp angled sets, episodic, vague and changeable on background details, we are a small fleet of identical ships on a Wagon Train to the Stars type exploratory mission. Sixties fashions, sexism and sledgehammer metaphors abound. The late 20th Century of this universe is a spacefaring and dangerous place, wracked by war. Most aliens look human but some have some basic additions like body paint and antenna. Parallel history planets are everywhere as are planets ruled by God machines. Some are both.
2. The Motionless Universe - ST:TMP - we are now in a grey, brown and beige parallel world where the Enterprise is different, we are Earth based and the UFP and Starfleet have solidified into a kind of future UN of the Stars, the tone is completely different, slow paced, long lingering reaction shots, the Klingons are totally different, and Spock is like a brand new character.
3. The Marooniverse - ST:II-VI - A lot has changed again - beige and grey are out and bright red and the famous 'off' colours are in with a complex rank and division system we'll never see before or since. Now we are Horatio Hornblower riding a submarine in space. Lots of ship classes about. Anachronistic retro spaceship universe, with pockets, big tricorders, 'right full rudder' and ship's cooks, labels on everything, and the truest military Starfleet has ever been. The Klingons have changed once more. The Vulcans have immortal souls like for realz. Other aliens also look a lot more... alien.
4. The 24th Centuriverse - TNG, DS9, VOY, the TNG movies - We are in a shiny new future with a whole new look, skintight catsuit costumes and a pretentious utopian vision which slowly fades from the writing as this universe progresses. We don't have countries, money, flags, or a sense of humour, and our society has stoically refused to be changed by the revolutionary invention of the replicator. Writing is quite stilted and precise, and there is little conflict between characters. The 20th Century of this universe more closely resembles ours, but the 21st is a time of great destruction and governmental collapse, leading to First Contact and humanity reaching to the stars and to our own glorious humanist salvation. If there's one thing the humans of this universe are sure of, it's that they've left all the bad stuff like war and disease behind them. Except they seem to constantly start wars and contract weird diseases.
5. The Discoverse - DSC - This universe is blue. Very blue. Loves blue almost as much as the second one loved beige. Humans have some pretty high and mighty ideas but don't seem to actually live up to them all that much. Space is dangerous and violent, and yet contains only a handful of people. The tone now is 'EPIC AF' and the writing grandiose and expository. Big sets, big plots, and a different type of character than the other universes. Oh, and the Klingons have changed again. Did I mention the blue?
As for ENT, for all the stick it gets for being the red headed stepchild, fits broadly well as a prequel to any of the above universes, and indeed the Kelvin timeline, but probably sits least well in the TOSverse. It is best suited perhaps in the 24th Centuriverse, which it seems the most direct prequel to.
So exactly like TNG, then, really. That show too took what it liked from the original, threw in some stuff from its contemporary movie series which didn't actually fit in all that well, redesigned other stuff indiscriminately, and made up some aspects and features from whole cloth, some that should have changed the whole setting but didn't, and others that don't really fit with what went before or the new setting as a whole but will be broadly ignored.
Cart before the horse. Trek 2009 could have just presented a different version of TOS without explanation, but knowing what fans are like, JJ decided to explicitly explain it in the movie to try to keep the hoards at bay. He didn't cause the issue, he was trying to deal with it.
Not heavy duty at all. It's pretty easy.
Not really. Canon is a matter of saying what's "officially" part of the product, as opposed to a licensed tie-in or an alternate version or a pastiche or a knock-off... same as it ever was, from the Bible to Sherlock Holmes to Tarzan to Star Wars and on and on. That's a meaningful distinction, artistically but more importantly legally. Within the canon, though, I'd say that it's the actual creative folks who make Star Trek (writers, designers, actors, etc.) who establish what's what in terms of continuity, and they presumably have motivations distinct from (and more important than) what's easiest to sell. You seem to be implying that the marketing department is driving the creative train, and there's no real justification for that.
Well, okay, it doesn't matter to you. It obviously does matter to me, and to a lot of other fans. The larger Trek continuity is a big factor in my enjoyment of any particular show.
I suppose there's an irreducible subjectivity here. FWIW, I've seen speculative explanations batted around in these forums over the season for a lot of different things, including...
- The look of the Klingons
- The look of the Klingon ships
- The look of the Starfleet ships
- The Starfleet uniforms
- The ease of intraship beaming
- The widespread use of a cloaking device
- The Treknological implications of the spore drive
- The use of Vulcan telepathy at interstellar distances
- The egregiously contrived way Voq-Tyler was said to have been created
- The tech level of the Mirror Universe
- The changed appearance of the Enterprise
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