Theory for TOS Enterprise and Disco Enterprise differences

[fireproof78]

CBS put out the 25%. That is how much they wanted it changed. It has no legal standing, but it is relevant because of who inserted it in the discussion.

No, they did not. And has no legal bearing. CBS could change the Enterprise for licensing and that alone, and they would be well within their right.

ETA: To be clear, the legal parameters are not always clear. But, this 25% nonsense is just muddying the waters of the discussion.

 

[Tuskin38]

Actually, no, they didn't.

John Eaves initially said they did, but then he back-walked it. There's no actual evidence that the "25%" was ever a legal thing.

Eaves has since mentioned the 25% difference again on Facebook, and he also showed a piece of Enterprise concept art at a convention that had 25% Different written on it in red. All after CBS responded.

He's just stopped calling it a legal requirement.

According to whom? When? This has never been made explicit, nor could it be, logically.

The critical difference between canon and continuity raises its head again here. What has been depicted in canon over the years is not a single, internally consistent timeline. (Let's leave the specifics aside for now; they've all been discussed around there at length.) What has been labeled as Prime is one version of that timeline, the one from which Old!Spock left 2387 for 2233.

Does "Prime" include some version of TOS events? It seems reasonable to infer so, given statements by Old!Spock. Are those events exactly as we saw them in canon on screen? The only way to answer that would be through a (re)presentation of the TOS era on screen, now, that is explicitly labeled as "Prime." That's what DSC says it is, now... and yet, hmm, it seems substantially different from the original version in several ways.

Old Spock had a photo of the Enterprise Bridge Crew from the TOS Movies. You see it in Beyond.

 

[yotsuya]

Yes, I believe John Eaves said that he was told to change everything by 25% for legal reasons. 25% has no legal standing. The legal standing is something must be different enough to not be confused. There is no percentage tied to that. Eaves was force to recant that when CBS denied his claim (though I am almost positive someone did tell him that, possibly to ensure things were sufficiently changed). I have so far failed to find anything that gives CBS continued rights to the starship or prop designs From TOS through Voyager, other than the drawings - which don't carry over to the 3D objects. US law doesn't specifically cover fictional objects, only real world objects. As real world objects, the designs are not covered unless patented and patents expire. Where you get in trouble is using the easily trademarked names.

 

[Tuskin38]

Yes it doesn't have legal standing, I know. That doesn't mean someone didn't tell him to do it for reasons.

Edit: Oh you said that

Eaves might have just misunderstood what they meant.

I think what CBS was primarily responding to was Eaves statement that he thought it had to do with the split of rights between CBS and Paramount, he thought that CBS didn't own the rights to the TOS Connie.

 

[lawman]

Eaves has since mentioned the 25% difference again on Facebook, and he also showed a piece of Enterprise concept art at a convention that had 25% Different written on it in red.

Bully for him. And has anyone ever asked him to explain what a "25% difference" in a visual design actually means?

Old Spock had a photo of the Enterprise Bridge Crew from the TOS Movies. You see it in Beyond.

True. That's evidence that in the "Prime" timeline, the crew and the Enterprise-A looked as we remember them circa STV:TFF. It reveals nothing about the TOS era (or any other moment in history).

 

[Tuskin38]

Bully for him. And has anyone ever asked him to explain what a "25% difference" in a visual design actually means?

Licencing.

 

[lawman]

No, that's not what I was asking. I understand why someone might want things to look different for the purpose of maximizing licensing revenue.

What I want to know is, has Eaves ever explained how you would determine if one design is "25%" different from another? Most aspects of design aren't really quantifiable, after all.

(If I were the art director for a show, and some bean-counter from the corporate side came by and told me the designs had to be "25% different" from some previous version, that's the very first thing I would ask him: "what the hell does that mean?" It's certainly not self-explanatory!...)

 

[Alan Roi]

It's not their plan that succeeded... Burnham had to talk them down from that plan. Otherwise the Klingon homeworld would have been destroyed. That was a key element of the finale.

Besides which, ex post results do not provide ethical justification for a prior set of actions, even in a purely consequentialist approach to ethics, because it's impossible to prove that alternative actions might not have achieved similar or better results.


Debate continues to this day as to whether the original use of atomic weapons on Japan was justified. FWIW, I'm in the camp that thinks it wasn't. Beyond that, though, Patton wanted to use them in Korea. LeMay wanted to use them in the Cuban Missile Crisis. Various generals including Westmoreland (and presidential candidate Goldwater) wanted to use them in Vietnam. (And other less-famous examples abound.) Yet it's clear that none of those conflicts had stakes as high as World War II... and using nukes would only have raised the stakes. It's fortunate that the post-WWII taboo against using nukes prevailed (oh, look... a principle!), but there was never any guarantee that it wouldn't be violated.

L'rell got the Klingon Leadership to end the war by threatening to blow up the planet if they didn't do what they were told. So yeah, blowing up the planet was still on the table if they didn't comply. It was stated that the Klingons respected those with greater firepower as a fundamental aspect of their culture, and they did so.

Its also impossible to prove alternative actions might have achieved similar or better results. And your basic assumption there is is that the Federation didn't at any point try anything else less drastic to end the war and preserve the Federation, which seems a reach. Why wouldn't they have exhausted all means before taking desperate actions? That is also impossible to disprove Or is it just your argument requires that they didn't for it to hold water?

Want isn't the same thing as did, as you point out. Whether it was principles or not, No nukes have been used by anyone in war since WWII, not even in ways that would not directly increase the risk of WWIII between superpowers. It suggests as I did with the Roman Empire, that temporarily ignoring principles as a last resort does not make them irretrievable. As with an alcoholic sober for 10 years who is provoked into returning to the bottle for one night or a weekend or even a month doesn't mean they are now a permanent lost cause and can only be viewed as circling the drain.

 

[Tuskin38]

No, that's not what I was asking. I understand why someone might want things to look different for the purpose of maximizing licensing revenue.

What I want to know is, has Eaves ever explained how you would determine if one design is "25%" different from another? Most aspects of design aren't really quantifiable, after all.

That would be a question for the person who told him to do it, not him.
He sends the designs up the chain for approval, so I assume whoever he answers to would know the answer.

 

[lawman]

your basic assumption there is is that the Federation didn't at any point try anything else less drastic to end the war and preserve the Federation, which seems a reach. Why wouldn't they have exhausted all means before taking desperate actions?

For that, we have to blame the writers. They never gave us a clear, strategically credible account of what was actually happening in the war (on either side). All they did was paint themselves into a corner by contriving to raise the stakes, and then squeak out of it by way of a further contrivance that comes across as wildly implausible, even if one doesn't find it morally objectionable.

 

[lawman]

That would be a question for the person who told [Eaves] to do it, not him.

Yes, it would. Did he ever ask that question? If so, what was he told? If not, why was he so remarkably incurious in the face of something that made no literal sense?

 

[Alan Roi]

For that, we have to blame the writers. They never gave us a clear, strategically credible account of what was actually happening in the war (on either side). All they did was paint themselves into a corner by contriving to raise the stakes, and then squeak out of it by way of a further contrivance that comes across as wildly implausible, even if one doesn't find it morally objectionable.

IMO, it was plausible based on how the narrative was constructed. if you wanted a different narrative construction, then sure, I can see how you would consider it implausible. But then, most stories can seem implausible of one isn't interested in accepting their narratives.

 

[Tuskin38]

Yes, it would. Did he ever ask that question? If so, what was he told? If not, why was he so remarkably incurious in the face of something that made no literal sense?

Because he's just doing what he was told.

 

[Donker]

According to whom? When? This has never been made explicit, nor could it be, logically.

CBS on Startrek.com.

Though I always hold that it's dumb to think that IP holders have control over "canon" when canon is purely a fan concept (What fans deem worthy of discussion about Trek is the only way canon matters in any way) and the Trek fandom seems to be the only place where people seem to think the IP holder has complete control over what fans consider "canon" as that is somehow magically written into IP right law now apparently (Star Wars fandom routinely mocks and ignores Disney's "Canon" like "Lightsabers are red because they are sad" and Harry Potter fandom tens to just conveniently ignore when JK Rowling is like "Harry was actually a Zionist activist for Israel and hated Jeremy Corbyn the hamas sympathiser and Herminoe was always a cute black girl just ignore the book!")

 

[lawman]

IMO, it was plausible based on how the narrative was constructed. if you wanted a different narrative construction, then sure, I can see how you would consider it implausible. But then, most stories can seem implausible of one isn't interested in accepting their narratives.

I'll disregard the (once again) passive-aggressive condescension there, and just address the central point: I wanted a different "narrative construction," yes, in the sense that I would have preferred one that made sense. Perhaps you didn't notice (although it was discussed quite a bit when S1 was airing), but various episodes of DSC gave us wildly varying information about the war. What the Klingons' motivations were, what their offensive capabilities were, what kind of strategy and tactics they were employing, how many victories they'd had, whether those victories depended on cloaking technology, how much territory they'd occupied, how close to Earth (or other core Federation worlds) they'd gotten, what the casualty levels were like, what Starfleet's capabilities were, and what kind of defensive strategy Starfleet was employing... were all internally inconsistent, varying according to the (supposed) dramatic needs of the episode at hand.

Because [Eaves is] just doing what he was told.

But how is he doing what he was told? To repeat what I wrote a couple posts back...

If I were the art director for a show, and some bean-counter from the corporate side came by and told me the designs had to be "25% different" from some previous version, that's the very first thing I would ask him: "what the hell does that mean?" It's certainly not self-explanatory!...​

Consider a thought experiment. Let's say I'm told to come up with a ship design that's recognizable as the Enterprise, yet "25% different" from the TOS version. So I go ahead and...

• Increase the height of the bridge dome
• Remove the navigation lights atop the primary hull
  
• Rearrange, remove, and/or darken some of the windows
• Increase the diameter of the deflector dish
• Change the nacelle caps from a translucent light pattern to a solid color
• Add needle-like antennae to the front of the nacelle caps
• Change the aft end of the nacelles from spheres to grillwork
• Remove the horizontal detailing at the front end of the rectangular strip on the secondary hull...

...I think you can see where I'm going with this. Then I hand it back for approval. On what basis can either I or the person in charge argue that the changes either do or don't amount to "25%" of the design?

 

[lawman]

Nope, [Prime is] everything, including TOS.

According to whom? When? This has never been made explicit, nor could it be, logically.

CBS on Startrek.com.

Where? That's a large site. There's no listing for "Prime" in its "Database" section, nor does a search turn up any page with a definition of the term. There are lots of uses of the term (and also of "Prime universe," which is not necessarily the same thing), but nothing I can find that clarifies the kind of details of the timeline we're discussing here. Do you have a link?

 

[Donker]

Article doesn't exist anymore, but I think I might be misreading, it didn't state what was prime or otherwise, just what was "canon".

The official CBS line was:
"As a rule of thumb, the events that take place within the real action series and movies are canon, or official Star Trek facts. Story lines, characters, events, stardates, etc. that take place within the fictional novels, the Animated Series and the various comic lines are not canon."

That said this greatly differs from Roddenberry's canon and doesn't even really make sense since Trek shows retcon each other quite a bit so both events or explanations can't really be canon. (Hence why asking a IP holder to chose what is considered canon by the fandom stupid)

 

[Alan Roi]

I'll disregard the (once again) passive-aggressive condescension there, and just address the central point: I wanted a different "narrative construction," yes, in the sense that I would have preferred one that made sense. Perhaps you didn't notice (although it was discussed quite a bit when S1 was airing), but various episodes of DSC gave us wildly varying information about the war. What the Klingons' motivations were, what their offensive capabilities were, what kind of strategy and tactics they were employing, how many victories they'd had, whether those victories depended on cloaking technology, how much territory they'd occupied, how close to Earth (or other core Federation worlds) they'd gotten, what the casualty levels were like, what Starfleet's capabilities were, and what kind of defensive strategy Starfleet was employing... were all internally inconsistent, varying according to the (supposed) dramatic needs of the episode at hand.

As I recall, Discovery is a TV series, not an extended gaming session of Star Fleet Battles.

Of course we get wild varying information about the war, Disco wasn't Starfleet Strategic HQ. Individual ships get their orders, not the whole story. That is actually a realistic depiction of war and an individual ships place in it. When you aren't the ones on top, war is a pretty confusing experience that often does not make sense.

 

[Amasov]

I don't know why, but this is making me laugh harder than it should. It's just the perfect response.

 

[Tuskin38]

Though I always hold that it's dumb to think that IP holders have control over "canon" when canon is purely a fan concept

No it isn't. Canon is always in the IP holders.

Only thing fans have is head canon.