Good point! Though those uniforms were, I believe, used on Kirk's enterprise - that's 'TV canon'. They also appear on countless book/comic covers to indicate that it's before the meat and potatoes of the TOS era and that it's still relatively early in Kirk's captaincy.
Spoilers Discovery and the Novelverse - TV show discussion thread
- Thread starter F. King Daniel
- Start date
Not at all, because those uniforms wouldn't look any good in a modern TV show, which is what this is. Roddenberry himself considered Star Trek essentially a dramatization of the "actual" events, just the best approximation of the future that 1960s Desilu/Paramount resources were capable of (within the limits of time constraints and executive meddling), and he didn't hesitate to replace it with a better-looking approximation when he had the means and budget to do so, which is why virtually everything looked different in TMP. This is not real life, it is art, and that means it can be changed and improved.
It's the same thinking behind the Kelvin Timeline uniforms and the design of phasers in both Kelvin and DSC. To the vast majority of the TV audience, the iconic 23rd-century uniforms are the bright, black-collared ones from TOS, while the pilot turtlenecks are an obscure footnote at best. The goal of the costume and prop designers is to evoke the more familiar, iconic designs, the ones that resonate better with the mass audience and frankly look better.
Besides, even if you stick to a strictly in-universe perpsective, Starfleet uniforms change with such absurd frequency and randomness sometimes that it's not that implausible that the turtleneck uniform style could've been in use in 2254, been dropped by 2256, and then had a brief comeback by 2265.
"Canon" does not mean every last detail. The canon is the overall, collective body of work, and any ongoing canon changes its details over time, which is why we don't talk about the adventures of James R. Kirk and his part-Vulcanian first officer aboard the lithium crystal-powered UESPA vessel Enterprise.
Is there even such a thing? I doubt it.
Plus, as we’ve seen before in onscreen Trek, multiple characters from one species can possess multiple accents, the same as humanity in real life. For a creator to posit that a planet- (or interstellar-) spanning race only speaks in one mode is pretty lazy, monolithic worldbuilding, really.
It doesn't look too bad at first glance. DH seems to have shown minimal to no interaction between Pike and Burnham or Saru, so it's not too implausible that they'd feel the need to introduce themselves and awkwardly talk around their shared relationship with Spock. It's been a little more or a little less than two year since DH (depending on if you're counting from Spock's perspective or Burnham's), so her statement that it had been years since she spoke to Spock also slips through. We'll have to see, though. It definitely doesn't feel like they're taking the backstory into account (and not in, like, a transparent sales pitch for the book way. I mean they aren't doing it in a "This is in the writers' bible" way, like Picard's time on the Stargazer being mentioned in TNG). At this point, I'm not expecting Spock and Michael's reunion to incorporate the idea they've met as adults, or any scene with Saru and Number One to build on their professional relationship (never mind Saru's adorable little crush on her). At least now if I'm surprised, it'll be "pleasantly."
It's the same logic. The only bald person we saw in Star Trek was Deltan, so this new (mostly) bald person must be Deltan. The only Deltan we saw in Star Trek had an accent, so all Deltans must have the same accent.
There have been plenty of bald people in Trek, going back to the Talosians and Balok. Also Ben Childress, Ruk, Marplon, Korob, Hengist, Jojo Krako, the Vians, Krodak, Dr. Sevrin, and probably others.
Plus, of course, there's a big difference between normal male-pattern baldness and the Deltans' total lack of any hair besides eyelashes.
And we don't even know if that's true. Ilia is the only Deltan we've ever met - just because she was bald doesn't mean ALL Deltans are.
Memory-Alpha claims we've seen several since Ilia.
https://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Deltan_unnamed_000#Unnamed_000
I'm not sure why they think they're Deltans.
M
marlboro
Guest
I was just making a little joke about fans nitpicky questions.
Fan #1: "How can he be French when he has an English accent?"
Fan #2: "How can he be bald in the 24th century? He must be Deltan."
Fan #3: "But he doesn't even have a Deltan accent!"
Or maybe you guys knew that and just wanted to discuss the depilated denizens of Delta IV.
Fan #1: "How can he be French when he has an English accent?"
Fan #2: "How can he be bald in the 24th century? He must be Deltan."
Fan #3: "But he doesn't even have a Deltan accent!"
Or maybe you guys knew that and just wanted to discuss the depilated denizens of Delta IV.
Wait, maybe that’s why Picard refused to have jamaha’ron on Risa. His oath of celibacy would be a matter of record, right?
But then, he did believe there was a possibility Jason Vigo could have been his son. Meaning he and Miranda Vigo must have done things that go against that oath of celibacy.
Though I guess he could have just made a donation to the Stargazer's sperm bank, and he thought Miranda impregnated herself that way.
As pointed out in the Burning Dreams discussion thread, some new revelations about Captain Pike’s father in tonight’s episode that are...somewhat difficult to reconcile with that novel, but perhaps not necessarily impossible. Might either Charlie Pike or Heston Prescott have taught comparative religion “offscreen” at some point? Both were in Starfleet at various points in scientific capacities, IIRC. And Pike might’ve been referring to a very specific side-interest or one-time vocation of his father’s, directly related to his immediate conversation with Burnham in that scene, which didn’t rule out other life-experiences either, looking back on it now.
On the plus side, we got a ton of new information on World War III (with actual historical video footage!) and what went on in the year 2053, and not only was it largely compatible with The Lost Era: The Sundered, but also with the short stories from the Strange New Worlds 9 anthology dealing with that era (“Mestral” and “The Immortality Blues”), which depicted U.S. infantry soldiers fighting a ground war on North American soil during the outbreak of World War III.
And finally, we got some new hard dates for when Sylvia Tilly attended middle school, which can now help us calculate or at the very least narrow down an approximate year-placement for much of her high school days from the novel The Way to the Stars.
On the plus side, we got a ton of new information on World War III (with actual historical video footage!) and what went on in the year 2053, and not only was it largely compatible with The Lost Era: The Sundered, but also with the short stories from the Strange New Worlds 9 anthology dealing with that era (“Mestral” and “The Immortality Blues”), which depicted U.S. infantry soldiers fighting a ground war on North American soil during the outbreak of World War III.
And finally, we got some new hard dates for when Sylvia Tilly attended middle school, which can now help us calculate or at the very least narrow down an approximate year-placement for much of her high school days from the novel The Way to the Stars.
Last edited:
One more thing: did anyone get a good look at the calendar on the church basement-wall in the episode? Would have to go back and recheck later, but I was trying to scope out the year on it — I’m assuming it was from 2053 (when the WWIII refugees were abducted), but I had a hard time making it out, even at max video-resolution settings. It’ll probably be crystal clear on the eventual Blu-Ray.
Last edited:
Yeah, I couldn't get a clear look at the calendar either. I am also under the impression it was likely 2053.
Maybe they followed the precedent of "The City on the Edge of Forever" and used a calendar page that doesn't correspond to any actual month in the year in question.
It was a Ships of the Line calendar.
Also possible.
An old 2014 calendar is the most likely option as it would have same January 1 and layout (though public holidays would be different) and might still be in circulation. In fact, the SotL calendar for 2014 is on ebay and amazon at the moment (at a premium!).
M
marlboro
Guest
I finally watched an episode of Discovery last night. They posted season 2 episode 1 on Youtube, and someone here on the forums was nice enough to post a link. It was surprisingly terrible. I know some of the reviews for the show were mixed, so I tempered my expectations, but I wasn't prepared for just how bad it was.
I'll still be at Books-a-Million day one for the new Pike book though. I've got faith in JJM to do the character justice.
I'll still be at Books-a-Million day one for the new Pike book though. I've got faith in JJM to do the character justice.
Wow that was the only negative review of that episode I’ve seen anywhere. I loved it.