Spoilers New Picard TV Series and Litverse Continuity (may contain TV show spoilers)

[Damian]

I thought Enterprise actually did do a pretty good job of giving us stuff that was futuristic today, but still believable as being 100 years before TOS.

That's what I liked about Enterprise myself. They managed to find that balance between future and past. That's where I say I am flexible. I was really curious when Enterprise was first announced how they would handle that. How could they make a show that was 100 years pre-original series and make it believably futuristic from today. But kudos to the Enterprise team, by and large they pulled it off.

I always wished Discovery had found that same balance. I think they went a bit too far on the futuristic side and sacrificed the prequel element a bit too much. The current show runners do seem to be trying to shift that balance back a bit more. And I give them credit for making the attempt, even if sometimes it seems a bit clunky.

 

[Jinn]

Not on screen, but it’s clearly not the same size as the one in TOS, because if it was it would be nearly 1/3 the length of the Discovery. It looks about 2/3 the length, so 442m seems accurate.

Does Discovery have a canon size?

 

[BillJ]

They don't really replace the TOS stuff, it's just that it will look that way in Discovery related stuff. The tie-ins are still continuing to use the TOS versions in TOS stories, if it was really meant to replace the original designs in the canon, then everything from that point would have to use those designs, but that is not what has happened.

They're trying to have it both ways in the tie-ins. Likely because TOS books sell well enough not to be messed with.

 

[Tuskin38]

Does Discovery have a canon size?

It does not.

Yes. Discovery’s 1701 is 442 metres in length, and is proportionately bigger in parts on top of that too. TOS’s 1701 is 288 metres in length and slimmer.

None of those lengths are stated on screen, so they're not canon.

 

[CaptainXaviOfEarth]

It does not.

None of those lengths are stated on screen, so they're not canon.

Regardless, TOS 1701 is smaller than the new one. There’s no way to reconcile those changes or explain it in a tie-in. It’s a straight up retcon.

 

[CaptainXaviOfEarth]

Does Discovery have a canon size?

Not officially stated in the show, but Eaglemoss and absolutely everything else uses Pixomondo’s CGI renders and they are by this thread’s logic deemed canon because they’re used on screen, and so the Discovery is 750.5m in length and the Enterprise is 442.06m in length.

 

[BillJ]

Not officially stated in the show, but Eaglemoss and absolutely everything else uses Pixomondo’s CGI renders and they are by this thread’s logic deemed canon because they’re used on screen, and so the Discovery is 750.5m in length and the Enterprise is 442.06m in length.

That isn't how it works. Unless someone uses those dimensions in dialogue on the show, they simply aren't canon.

 

[Tuskin38]

Regardless, TOS 1701 is smaller than the new one.

Nope. Not on screen.

 

[David cgc]

I feel like this kind of legalistic rivet-counting about canon with regard to technical details is self-contradictory. We see people through the windows of ships on DSC all the time. Nobody is going to say that it's possible that Burnham is actually two feet tall and the Discovery is 250 meters long, and just because none of us are going to the trouble of doing an old-fashioned pixel-counting to deduce the size of the ships (because they've just told us what it is) doesn't mean their size isn't apparent from on-screen material, and, thus, "canon."

You could make the argument that there's no canon size for the TOS version of the ship (except there is, because the diagram in "The Enterprise Incident" has a marked scale) and, in fact, deducing the size of the shuttlecraft (interior or exterior) compared to Kirk and Spock, then the size of the shuttlebay compared to the shuttlecraft, and the size of the ship compared to the shuttlebay gives you a size larger than the DSC version but, again, I don't see the point, because the argument is somehow that the two ships could "really" look the same even though they look different to the audience, because the sizes could be the same in some kind of weird quantum superposition where if we don't know what each size is precisely, we can't know they aren't the same (which I'm pretty sure isn't how logic works).

 

[CaptainXaviOfEarth]

Nope. Not on screen.

Yeah okay, is this the new hot conspiracy?

They’re not pulling length info from out their collective fat asses, this stuff is talked about in-depth, especially in the Eaglemoss magazines themselves, and the visuals in all of this are the CGI models taken from the show itself.

Discovery retconned the 1701 to be 442m long.

 

[Tuskin38]

Yeah okay, is this the new hot conspiracy?

They’re not pulling length info from out their collective fat asses, this stuff is talked about in-depth, especially in the Eaglemoss magazines themselves, and the visuals in all of this are the CGI models taken from the show itself.

Discovery retconned the 1701 to be 442m long.

If it's not said on screen it isn't canon. Those are the rules.

Yes, BTS info gives a length, but until said length is displayed/said on screen, it isn't canon.

 

[CaptainXaviOfEarth]

If it's not said on screen it isn't canon. Those are the rules.

Yes, BTS info gives a length, but until said length is displayed/said on screen, it isn't canon.

So are you actually denying 1701 changed size along with design, because it’s not directly addressed on screen? Even though we can see with our own two eyes the difference?

 

[BillJ]

You could make the argument that there's no canon size for the TOS version of the ship (except there is, because the diagram in "The Enterprise Incident" has a marked scale)...

Getting into tricky business here. Are the in-jokes on the Enterprise-D MSD also canon? The rubber ducks and hamsters on wheels?

So are you actually denying 1701 changed size along with design, because it’s not directly addressed on screen? Even though we can see with our own two eyes the difference?

We can see from our own two eyes that everything has changed, but that doesn't make a bit of difference from a continuity standpoint. Personally, I shunt Discovery off into an alternate timeline. But the official word from TPTB is that it is all the same.

 

[Greg Cox]

When has the exact dimensions of the Enterprise ever been a plot point? Onscreen, it's a big shiny object in space. The only time its size is relevant is when its impressively dwarfed by something else. "Whoa, V'Gr is BIG!"

I honestly can't think of one story where it mattered whether the ship was 442 meters long or 288.

"Damnit, Sulu. We're running out of time. Get us out of here!"

"It's not possible, Captain! Maybe if we were only 288 meters in length we could slip through this Tholian Web, but at exactly 442 meters? No chance!"

 

[Tuskin38]

Even though we can see with our own two eyes the difference?

They never put the DSC Enterprise side by side with the TOS Enterprise in the show, so there is no size reference.

There is a screen in DSC Season 2 Episode 1 that has some lengths listed on it. Though they're all copied from the FJ Tech Manual, so it doesn't really work with the new design.

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/images/f/f4/Enterprise's_file.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20190723091302&path-prefix=en

 

[Greg Cox]

So are you actually denying 1701 changed size along with design, because it’s not directly addressed on screen? Even though we can see with our own two eyes the difference?

We can see with our own eyes that Saavik is now being played a different actress. Doesn't mean she's not the same character or that we're supposed to assume that Saavik got plastic surgery or something.

See also Pike, Spock, Number One, etc.

Watching stories on stage and screen requires a willing suspension of disbelief. That's just how it works.

 

[CaptainXaviOfEarth]

They never put the DSC Enterprise side by side with the TOS Enterprise in the show, so there is no size reference.

I don’t think they ever will, because the new design has replaced the old one.

 

[JD]

Not really. It's the version we'll see in Discovery and it's related stuff, but we'll still be getting the original in TOS related stuff. They've been doing TOS books and comics since Discovery season 2, and they've all continued to use the original version.
Why does it even matter? The size of the ship has never really had an impact on any of the stories we've gotten over the years.

 

[Tuskin38]

I don’t think they ever will, because the new design has replaced the old one.

Books and other merchandise marketed as TOS still use the TOS designs. It isn’t gone.

Also a recent mission in the Star Trek Online MMO had both designs side by side.

 

[CaptainXaviOfEarth]

Books and other merchandise marketed as TOS still use the TOS designs. It isn’t gone.

Yeah, anything that’s specifically “The Original Series” branded has the original 60s design and uniforms.

I meant I don’t think we’ll ever see the Discovery onscreen with the old Enterprise.

I’ll go one further - I don’t think we’ll ever see the old Enterprise or uniforms on screen again. The new designs are a permanent retcon going forward, from the upcoming Star Trek Universe tabletop to Prodigy.