How can these episodes (from TNG, DS9, and ENT) be canon any longer?

[MAGolding]

...That's why Picard in "Relics" doesn't find it weird that the old TOS bridge looks less advanced than the NX-01 from many years later. The Q have messed with people's minds to not notice those things on a conscious level.

Jason

It is just about impossible for a Star Trek starship bridge to look more or less advanced than another Star Trek starship bridge.

Decades or centuries in the future, and probably long before there are any FTL people will control vehicles lke submarines, planes, and interplanetary spaceships by sitting on chairs and putting mind reading helmets to tapinto their thoughts and make the vehicle do what they desire it to.

All of the control interfaces seen in space operas like Star Trek, Star Wars, Stargate, are crude and primitive compared to the actual control interfaces which should become available before FTL starships are even built.

Therefore, in the fictional universe of Star Trek, the designers of starship bridges and control systems have chose to use controls that are much less advanced than they could have chosen to use. Since all the bridges of various Star Trek starships are very retro and primitive compared to what they could have been, there is no point in discussing the relative advancement or backwardness of individual bridges.

So how advanced a starship is should be judged by te the abiltities of the warp drive, impulse drive, transporters, replicators, sensors, shields, phasers, photon torpedoes, etc., etc., etc., and not by the backward looking designs of the various bridges.

 

[Vger23]

Given the title of the thread, why did you freely decide to enter the thread at all?

Umm...so that I could poke fun and make a hilarious comment at the expense of those who feel differently than I?

 

[fireproof78]

I was going to read all this, but then I decided that smashing my genitals repeatedly with a meat tenderizer would be preferable.

I have a bench vise too if you want to stick your toes in to it while you're at it. Two for one

Greg, why don't you just pretend that the bridge we saw in season two of Discovery looks like the one depicted in TOS, TNG and ENT?

That works, too. Story-wise, it's the same ship.

Same here.

I just meant that, in terms of the plot, it's supposed to be same ship. And, honestly, they're not replacing a sports car with a school bus. Story-wise, it's still a Federation starship called the U.S.S. Enterprise. It's got a saucer and nacelles. It has a warp drive and photon torpedoes and consoles that explode when the ship is under attack. Sounds like the Enterprise to me.

Again, it's like Dracula's castle. As long as it's a spooky Gothic pile, with turrets and gargoyles and wolves howling in the distance, it doesn't really matter if the drawbridge or the dining room is exactly where it was two movies ago. You still get the same dramatic effect. It doesn't change the story one bit.

Same with the Enterprise.

Exactly. Storywise the ship is the same, the characters are the same and the history is the same.

Thank you Greg!

 

[at Quark's]

So in hindsight, TNG's parallels was kind of prophetic after all, with fans trying to determine if the universe has shifted once again and whether they can find a universe they feel at home in

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

In my eyes it would be like remaking Magnum P.I., and replacing the original Magnum's Ferrari 308 GTSi with a Thomas Saf-T-Liner school bus. And then insisting that they were the same vehicle.

That's a bit of a stretch, personally I'd characterise it as "remakes Magnum PI and replaces the 308 two seater with a 488 2+2 hardtop". Although I might be prepared to go was far as a "KITT becomes a Shelby Mustang rather than a Pontiac TransAm" kinda thing.

 

[KennyB]

I have to admit that what you've posted makes no sense to me.

This is why we can't have nice things...........Greg's castle analogy is once of the best I've seen.

 

[Lance]

As others have said, canon and continuity are different things. A piece of Star Trek only has to be consistent within itself -- that's continuity -- not with other pieces of Star Trek. And regardless of continuity inconsistencies, *all* of it is canon. The canon is the body of work, it's unrelated to continuity, *everything* put out by the studio under the banner is canon regardless of whether the uniforms match up or the set design is inconsistent.

Anyone with a genuine beef about continuity issues, well, it's a legitimate opinion. But it does decanonize anything, because 'canon' is not mutable. Everything is inside the canon, whether we like it or not.

My only suggestion to anyone who is unhappy with aspects of anything, is just to employ the 'literary interpretation thesis'. Like that passage from Admiral Kirk quoted from the novelization of The Motion Picture in this very thread, instead of seeing Star Trek canon as one contiguous series of events as if a documentary of the future, instead see them all as interpretations of a narrative, told with different emphasis by an unseen storyteller. Free your mind from thoughts of things not being consistent. Or else, set everything in their own parallels-esque splinter universe. Simply because we seen events unfold a certain way on The Next Generation does not mean that Picard will interpret those events the same way. And that's perfectly ok. Both are still canon.

 

[Lance]

The novelization of TMP, includes a preface by Admiral Kirk, in which he laments that the accounts of his heroics were overstated.

None of what we are seeing on the screen is 100 percent what "really" happened in this pretend universe.

You're welcome.

This. Oh so much. This post deserves more likes.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

They should give Picard an afro and a Brooklyn accent in the new series just so certain fans can declare that Patrick Stewart is no longer canon.

 

[fireproof78]

They should give Picard an afro and a Brooklyn accent in the new series just so certain fans can declare that Patrick Stewart is no longer canon.

It wouldn't even take that much.

 

[Brennyren]

They should give Picard an afro and a Brooklyn accent in the new series just so certain fans can declare that Patrick Stewart is no longer canon.

[pedant]Patrick Stewart was never canon. Jean-Luc Picard is canon.[/pedant]

I'll show myself out....

 

[KennyB]

Everything after The Cage isn't canon anymore..........

 

[The Wormhole]

I hear that only the episodes where Kirk wears his green wraparound tunic are canon now.

But what about the episodes where he wore both the green wraparound and standard tunic? How do those apply? Are only the scenes where he's in the green wraparound canon and the rest can be dumped? Or are the whole episodes some sort of nebulous canon that will forever haunt internet forums in endless unsatisfactory debate, like the is Starfleet military matter?

This is important and requires immediate discussion.

 

[Lance]

But what about the episodes where he wore both the green wraparound and standard tunic? How do those apply? Are only the scenes where he's in the green wraparound canon and the rest can be dumped? Or are the whole episodes some sort of nebulous canon that will forever haunt internet forums in endless unsatisfactory debate, like the is Starfleet military matter?

This is important and requires immediate discussion.

 

[BillJ]

I think if most folks are okay with deciding what they do and don’t believe in things like the Bible, we’ll survive some folks treating Discovery as non-canon or an alternate timeline.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

But what about the episodes where he wore both the green wraparound and standard tunic? How do those apply?

Canon.

Are only the scenes where he's in the green wraparound canon and the rest can be dumped?

No, canon in their entirety.

Or are the whole episodes some sort of nebulous canon that will forever haunt internet forums in endless unsatisfactory debate, like the is Starfleet military matter?

Nah. All canon.

This is important and requires immediate discussion.

Then I'm glad we had this talk.

 

[The Wormhole]

Good to know, I'm glad that's sorted.

 

[Greg Cox]

I think if most folks are okay with deciding what they do and don’t believe in things like the Bible, we’ll survive some folks treating Discovery as non-canon or an alternate timeline.

The problem is, alas, is that too many fans do seem treat as "canon" as though it were the Bible, and from a fundamentalist point of view no less!

 

[Tim Thomason]

Okay, now point out a inconsistency within TOS that is a profound as the inconsistences between TOS and Discovery.

It's just not on the same scale of "inconsistency."

TOS couldn't keep the century straight.

 

[Tenacity]

TOS couldn't keep the century straight.

Well they didn't come right out and state it until the card at the beginning of TWOK.