The Prophets move in mysterious ways!
News Spock has already been cast
- Thread starter Red Panda
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MUST...TRY...CAN'T...RESIST...
"James R. Kirk" is probably the single best example of a deliberately contradictory retcon, yes. Also "lithium crystals" and "hand lasers," both changed because of concerns about the implications of using real-world subtances/tech with known properties to do fantastical sci-fi magic and stuff.
"Vulcanian" isn't a contradiction any more than "Terran"/"Earther"/"Earth(wo)man" are with respect to humans, and was likewise used in at least two episodes alongside "Vulcan"—namely "This Side Of Paradise" and "Errand Of Mercy" (TOS).
"Space Command" and "UESPA" aren't contradictions and haven't really been overtly retconned, AFAIK. They both pop up in specific contexts in episodes where "Starfleet" is also used. So they are meant to be distinct in some way, even if we can't discern all the particulars. The latter even goes on to be referenced in VGR and ENT! (And that's even without counting illegible dedication plaques full of in-jokes...in-jokes like the ones I do realize you're making here, I swear! You can even test me with a psycho-tricorder to be sure!)
"General Order Seven/Four" is certainly a blatant contradiction, but it was a simple error, not an intentional retcon. (Just an interesting bit of trivia here, I know this discussion covers both types of situation.) What happened was that the regulation in "The Menagerie" (TOS) was actually scripted as "General Order Four" and was only changed to "General Order Seven" very late, possibly even during shooting. Thus, when they referred back to that script for continuity purposes in writing "Turnabout Intruder" (TOS), they thought they were being consistent. As Herb Solow would put it: "I understand that you science fiction people with your technical jargon have a word to describe this happening. It is known as a 'mistake.'"
OH, THE ANALITY!
...and THE WOMEN!
-MMoM
[P.S.--I'm sorry I wasn't able to stop myself there, but it was just too hard. As hard as cast rodinium...or diamond...or tritanium...or whatever the hardest known substance actually is.]
You forgot (From TOS S1 - "The Menagerie") - "The Time Barrier's been broken..." <--- Yeah, if that was the case, the incident's in both TOS S1 - "The Naked Now" (near the end of the episode going back in time 3 days) and TOS S1 "Tomorrow Is Yesterday" (where at first Scotty is saying "What do we do? We've nowhere to go in this time..." and Spock has to come up with a new untried formula/procedure to return them to their own time) wouldn't have been so extraordinary
I think everyone is missing the obvious. The next Spock will be played by... Gilbert Gottfried.
Why would the First Federation have a death penalty? Balok was just testing us.
She was raised in the Vulcan culture. So she's culturally Vulcan. You're more than the place where you're born.Burnham is a Human living on Vulcan.
Sisko is a Human living on Bajor.
(with the caveat title of EMISSARY, given to him by the Bajoran people)
Just like I'd be an American living in Europe if I moved there or a Haole if I moved from NY to Hawaii.
Knowing more about "being" a Vulcan still doesn't make one a Vulcan when one is born on another planet of a different alien species.
That's just "geography" and biology. Culture is another thing all together.Knowing more about "being" a Vulcan still doesn't make one a Vulcan when one is born on another planet of a different alien species.
Oh yeah. That's just... just... pants. Never mind. Bobcat Goldthwait might be available, though. If not, there's always Eddie Izzard.
Sure, perhaps, although I have to admit it's never been clear to me exactly what that "time barrier" bit was intended to mean in the first place. It's very ambiguous. Did they rather mean what we now think of as the Warp Barrier, meaning it got retconned in "Metamorphosis" (TOS) instead? Or something else, and it hasn't been at all? Maybe just the attainment of sustainable (space-time) Warp Factor 7—the speed at which the Enterprise initially traveled to Talos—thus allowing significantly quicker access to areas previously distant?
Or perhaps Kirk's full name is actually James Tiberius Robau Kirk, making neither middle initial contradictory to the other?
Hmm...perhaps diamond indeed remained the hardest known naturally-occurring substance as of "Arena" (TOS), with that context being understood from the premise initially established by the Metron that the place prepared "contains sufficient elements"—whereas cast rodinium is clearly an artificial creation—and it was only sometime between then and "Obsession" (TOS) that the twenty-times-harder tritanium is discovered? Alas, no, as tritanium is already known more than a century earlier in "Fight Or Flight" (ENT). But then, perhaps tritanium is an artificial substance as well, but one that Federation science knows not how to duplicate, leaving them to scrounge for it where it has been deposited by ancient super-advanced civilizations that developed equally powerful weapons alongside it, and melted themselves into oblivion! That's why they were so jazzed to find that fantastically rich mother lode of it on Argus X, and knew they'd better snatch it up fast! High tech giveth, high tech taketh away...finders keepers!
(@Timo, this is what you get for making @grendelsbayne your squire instead of me! I'm learning to think of this stuff without you! So there!
)-MMoM
...and, like a flash, it just dawned on me that, since it was the Axanar's ship whose hull was partly made of tritanium in "Fight Or Flight" (ENT), this could also be what the Battle of Axanar that won Garth of Izar his fame, and/or the Peace Mission there that earned Kirk his Palm Leaf decoration, were ultimately all about!
-MMoM
Does the Federation have a flag?
Yeah, I always assumed that the "time barrier" was just an awkward way to refer to warp travel, before STAR TREK got its terminology fully worked out. As in space-time barrier or something?
Never got the impression that they were talking about time-travel in that context.
Yeah. I always figured they were talking about the elimination of time dilation effects.
It's a tightrope act anyway, between keeping Talos nicely distant and allowing Vina to get there without cryosleep. Although of course even the greater Trek context allows cryosleep in interstellar applications beyond 2018. Certainly the Vina-on-ship's-manifest thing rules out generational ships.
Whether a "time barrier" is a thing to begin with is also malleable. Perhaps it's just how Tyler speaks of the chief obstacle of traveling from Earth to Talos, of it taking more time than a single grant covers and thereby hampering all interstellar research.
As for the hardest-substance thing, "naturally/unnaturally occurring" would seem to cover it all without further assumptions. Diamonds are the hardest naturals, tritanium is 21.4 times harder but artificial (and never claimed to be the hardest), and cast rhodinium is the hardest man can make.
Although diamonds would need extra qualifiers to be the hardest naturals even today. But considering what Kirk was considering, "hardest material that in nature creates macroscopic lumps applicable as ammo" would cover it all.
Timo Saloniemi
Whether a "time barrier" is a thing to begin with is also malleable. Perhaps it's just how Tyler speaks of the chief obstacle of traveling from Earth to Talos, of it taking more time than a single grant covers and thereby hampering all interstellar research.
As for the hardest-substance thing, "naturally/unnaturally occurring" would seem to cover it all without further assumptions. Diamonds are the hardest naturals, tritanium is 21.4 times harder but artificial (and never claimed to be the hardest), and cast rhodinium is the hardest man can make.
Although diamonds would need extra qualifiers to be the hardest naturals even today. But considering what Kirk was considering, "hardest material that in nature creates macroscopic lumps applicable as ammo" would cover it all.
Timo Saloniemi
You're spot on. Early Trek was all over the place on terminology, it took at least a season to settle into the standard 'vocabulary' that we all came to know and love. Personally, I think we assume characters taking about time factors and lithium crystals and space probe agencies actually mean what we are used to hearing, they just didn't quite have it nailed yet.
Context and delivery, isn't it amazing how much of a difference they make?
I always thought of "sound barrier" when I heard "time barrier." I always took it as a speed thing related to opening up higher "time warp factors."
Which makes even more sense when you remember that supersonic speed is measured in Mach numbers. That would make "time warp factors" like Mach numbers.
But from a hard-sci-fi perspective, it makes no sense for deep space interstellar travel to be even somewhat commonplace at sublight speed, yet it's an idea that seems to persist not only into "Where No Man..." but also as far as "Balance of Terror." So obviously FTL was an idea that took time to get ironed out.
Which makes even more sense when you remember that supersonic speed is measured in Mach numbers. That would make "time warp factors" like Mach numbers.
But from a hard-sci-fi perspective, it makes no sense for deep space interstellar travel to be even somewhat commonplace at sublight speed, yet it's an idea that seems to persist not only into "Where No Man..." but also as far as "Balance of Terror." So obviously FTL was an idea that took time to get ironed out.
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