Star Trek and Cannon... darned confusing!

Or "nano."

 

ORLY?
Cage Viewscreen:
https://scifanatic-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/wnmhgb/old_viewscreen_starfield.jpg
Viewscreen during the rest of TOS run:
https://scifanatic-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/daydove/tos043_02.jpg

The Cage Bridge:
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/gallery/caps/enterprise-bridge-thecage.jpg
Bridge used for the remainder of TOS run:
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/LleeMp9aJH8/hqdefault.jpg
I could go on with a myrid of examples, from the Communicators, Phasers, etc.

My point? No - they DON'T look virtually identical, but after decades of seeing the various episodes and films, you've reconciled with the differences and picked out small commonalities. The above are not 'virtually identical'.

 

I say that TOS looks cool, and it looks futuristic, but it doesn't necessarily look cool and futuristic.

A large part of the cool look of TOS is because it is visually pleasing to me and probably to most of the rest of us.

The uniforms look cool because of their design and their colors. And their designs and colors are not necessarily futuristic designs and colors - those designs and colors certainly don't have to be considered futuristic. We know that costumes with those designs and colors could have been made as early as the 1960s because such costumes really were made during the 1960s. TOS uniforms look like costumes that could have been and actually were made 50 years ago, but that doesn't stop them from looking good.

The interiors of the TOS Enterprise look a lot cooler and prettier than those of real 1960s military and commercial sea ships because the walls were "painted with light" in many different cool shades. And such colorful interior design was certainly possible way back 50 years ago in the 1960s. We know it was possible 50 years ago because it was done in the filming of TOS. So the colorful walls of the TOS Enterprise interiors do not necessarily look futuristic since we know they were possible with 1960s technology, but they look really good.

Eating little brightly colored cubes of food may be cool looking but it doesn't exactly look very futuristic. I myself have done so in the past. For example, I have eaten little cubes of cheese, which are usually cream colored and not bright, I admit. I have eaten fruit cocktails with little cubes of various colored fruit. I have seen fruit salads with cut up fruits. Cubes cut from various melons would be green, or bright pink, or orange, etc.

Anyone in the present day can make a piece of toast, dip it in orange juice, or beet juice, or something else colorful, and then cut it up into little cubes that would be brightly colored and taste fairly good. Meat can be cut up into little pieces including little cube pieces.

Pills are made of inert materials that are suffused with medicines and often also with coloring to distinguish them from other types of pills. And I take a vitamin pill every day, which is a form of nutrition.

Of course a lot of TOS stuff is both cool and futuristic. Hand phasers, for example, were both very futuristic and very cool in the 1960s. And after 50 years of progress toward developing hand held ray guns, phasers are still cool because they are still very futuristic.

 

Wait a sec, I thought we were to ignore behind-the-scenes comments, like the ones when Klingons were biologically bald because their ridges were sensory palettes?

Data is said to be the first android in Starfleet. Discovery shows us a crash test dummy wearing a Starfleet uniform and looking very much like an android.

No Nemesis-style forcefields immediately sealing hull breaches mid battle, first seen on the Enterprise-E during Nemesis and then the USS Shenzhou.

Yeah probably. And hopefully the Picard Show will be technobabble-free.

 

Same set, with new paint and minor differences. Virtually identical.

 

The tech has been around since ENT, used in various applications on TOS and TAS, including (but not limited to) life support belts, penal colony shield, the projections of Apollo, and cell doors. It is not an unreasonable extrapolation of an existing technology.

 

How does she look like a Star Trek android? All other androids in Star Trek have been nearly indistinguishable from humans.

I personally take them as fact until they're contradicted by the show.

 

Forcefields in TOS had large apparatus surrounding brig doors, or machines on walls in ENT. In TNG era tech, they magically spring to life wherever needed. The only other time we see a hull breach sealed by forcefield mid-battle as in "Battle of the Binary Stars" is in Star Trek Nemesis or "Year of Hell". Atmospheric forcefields did not exist in the Trekverse until The Motion Picture. Otherwise, why would the classic Enterprise need to decompress and recompress the shuttlebay?

Yet when it came to the Klingons you were saying to ignore all BTS sources, even before the season 2 hair retcon.

 

No, I was under the mistaken impression that someone from the team said they were not genetically bald during Season 1.

 

I love how the dedication plaque is missing on the wall to the right of the Turbolift on the bridge from "The Cage".

 

Life support belts operated on the same principle in TAS. The tech is there in that era.

 

Genuine question because my memory is shit; did the classic Enterprise ever have a hull breach in TOS or TAS that would be in need of sealing?

 

Then why did the Enterprise shuttlebay decompress to admit or launch a shuttle?

Also, TAS was a decade after Discovery.

 

I think the first time it would be useful would be Wrath of Khan. Instead we get the iconic big door coming down to seal the breach.

 

Doesn't change the fact that the technology existed. I highly doubt that TAS suddenly sprung in to being like magic.

As for the decompression part, perhaps the forcefield emitters were too strong to allow a physical object through. I'd have to rewatch to see exactly how each behaves, but it doesn't change the fact that the technology already existed, and simply was adapted to fit particular purposes, i.e. need of the plot.

 

Of course, should we see the Discoprise launch a shuttle, it's version of the ship will have the same atmospheric forcefields the Discovery and Shenzhou have, making more obvious the discrepancy.

 

Actually, the Enterprise B had them in Generations.

 

Not as drunk as you'd be if you played the same game reading these message boards.

 

I have a feeling that Picard Show isn't going to focus on technology and space adventure.

 

It will? I guess I need to rethink everything! /s

Ok, sarcasm aside I am trying to figure out why this one discrepancy is so damning. Star Trek has them, Discovery is not unusual. The tech jumps in Trek range from a few years to a century. This is part of the malleability that Greg Cox talked about in terms of fictional tech.

As I said before, I can rationalize away a lot of things, but some simply will be. That's Star Trek, discrepancies and all.