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It seems there is a reason for the visual reboot and the producers aren't being honest about it.

Well, as loathe as I am to side with CBS and Paramount these days on their official word and corporate line, canon is what the studio says it is. Frankly I think much of TAS is goofy fluff but if Paramount says that the animated series from the 1970s is now part of the official canon and continuity then it probably is. We can selectively choose to ignore storylines and not watch them, but they're still canon.

There's wiggle room within the canon to debate what a certain line of dialogue means in retrospect or where events fit into a larger timeline ("The time barrier being broken" sometime prior to the events of "The Cage(TOS)," for instance, can easily be retconned to mean a significant improvement in warp drive technology made since the year 2236 and the crash of the S.S. Columbia), but canon is canon.

Now, whether a company is being completely honest about a series' status within a certain timeline and continuity...that's yet another issue, and that fits within the world of copyrights and IP ownership and who's allowed to do what with what property. I would have a lot more respect for CBS if they just came out and said that this is a straight up visual reboot of the TOS era that still retains the old storyline continuity and chronology, but we're not going to get that from these people. They clearly don't know up from down at that studio.
 
I don't think that any retconning is necessary to handle the line in "The Cage" about the time barrier being broken. That's something that can easily be standalone, referring to something never mentioned again AFAIK. In other words, the implied improvement in warp drive can simply be just that, some improvement that's gee whiz for the engineers.

What is an actual issue, though still incredibly minor, is the use of "time warp factor" instead of simply "warp factor." AFAIK, the first pilot is the only place that uses "time warp factor." In the context of everything else, it comes off as an improper term. Best probably that DISCO's Pike never use it; nothing is lost.
 
"The Alternative Factor(TOS)" mentions it when the Starfleet Commodore contacts Kirk over subspace and tells him that the massive gravitational and spatial ripples being caused by Lazarus and his interdimensional gateway are creating "time warp distortions" in addition to other potentially dangerous side effects. It's the last time I'm aware of that the term is mentioned in the Trek canon.
 
"The Alternative Factor(TOS)" mentions it when the Starfleet Commodore contacts Kirk over subspace and tells him that the massive gravitational and spatial ripples being caused by Lazarus and his interdimensional gateway are creating "time warp distortions" in addition to other potentially dangerous side effects. It's the last time I'm aware of that the term is mentioned in the Trek canon.
They don't use the term "time warp factor," though.
 
True, but it's heavily implied that it's still called "time warp drive" or "time warp propulsion" that late into Season 1. Which had already been contradicted numerous times since "The Cage" with Kirk and other members of Starfleet simply calling it "warp drive." Clearly the series was still building its own mythology during that first season and couldn't even decide in which century or era it took place as evidenced by the times the show seemed to take place in the 22nd, 23rd or even 28th century.
 
How is it difficult to grasp? They used the term "time warp distortion," which refers to the ship's propulsion and an effect that would interfere with it. Call it inconsistent writing and a really bad episode, but if nothing else the writer and producers of that episode wanted to preserve the term "time warp" to refer to how the Enterprise and other ships in the Federation traveled through space. It wasn't a nonsense term that came out of nowhere, it had been used before in the original pilot.

Thankfully they abandoned the term after that episode and we never again heard it spoken, but it's clear that at least in that one episode the term referred to propulsion and a distortion that was a hazard to starships, otherwise why would the Commodore bother to mention it to Kirk? It's one of those artifacts from the first season of TOS that's best to just ignore or mentally retcon away. :)
 
How is it difficult to grasp? They used the term "time warp distortion," which refers to the ship's propulsion and an effect that would interfere with it. Call it inconsistent writing and a really bad episode, but if nothing else the writer and producers of that episode wanted to preserve the term "time warp" to refer to how the Enterprise and other ships in the Federation traveled through space. It wasn't a nonsense term that came out of nowhere, it had been used before in the original pilot.

Thankfully they abandoned the term after that episode and we never again heard it spoken, but it's clear that at least in that one episode the term referred to propulsion and a distortion that was a hazard to starships, otherwise why would the Commodore bother to mention it to Kirk? It's one of those artifacts from the first season of TOS that's best to just ignore or mentally retcon away. :)
Well, it's an inference that this is in fact referring to the ship's propulsion. Granted, it could be, and I see what you're saying; the line always stuck out as odd to me anyway.

If I'm following you, this singular line of dialog, together with the usage in "The Cage," seems to be the only basis for your assertion that the full name of the warp drive was really or also considered "time warp drive" behind the scenes. It may well have been, and it may well have been intended that this line of dialog refer to the effect that Lazarus's door had on warp drive. I don't really know one way or another. Behind the scenes info that I'm not aware of could shed more light. I was just trying to get a handle on whether it was all coming from just here. Sounds like you're saying it is.

BARSTOW [on viewscreen]: You may not be aware of its scope. It occurred in every quadrant of the galaxy and far beyond. Complete disruption of normal magnetic and gravimetric fields, timewarp distortion, possible radiation variations. And all of them centring on the general area which you are now patrolling. The question is, are these natural phenomena or are they mechanically created, and if they are, by whom? For what purpose? Your guess, Captain.

http://www.chakoteya.net/StarTrek/20.htm

As to what else it could mean, it could just mean that events were occurring out of normal temporal order, what with the universe going crazy.
 
Funnily enough, the DS9/ ST: Section 31 novel Control combines elements from both these points...
Bottom line being, Human societies eventually succumb to their baser instincts without some surreptitious nudging in the right direction.

That novel has basically made me give up on Trek lit. Am hanging in there, read the last Voyager, but I can see me totally giving up because of that novel. The ds9 corner has been on life support anyway, but it’s all just spiralling.
 
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