What's the worst canon decision in the history of Trek?

When I said 'full reboot,' I was referring to story elements as well as window dressing.

 

What was changed as opposed to added?

 

Making Discovery.

 

Multiple instances of Starfleet knowing about things that the TOS/TNG/DS9 crew didn't or discovered on their own years after DSC, such as the Mirror Universe, tribbles, Section 31 being a secret organization that no one was aware of, etc.

 

Can you site dialog that shows the Mirror Universe and tribbles were unknown in the 2260s? Seems to me that Cyrano Jones knew about tribbles. Just because I've never seen something doesn't mean the entire universe has never seen it.
As for Section 31. Reed was aware of it a Century prior to DISCO and share that with Archer.
And in the 24th Century

 

I don't need to cite dialogue. The context of TOS and DS9 was that these things were not known to the Starfleet officers that were directly affected by it. That's all that matters story-wise.

 

But those Starfleet officers are not omniscient, and in the context of TOS and DS9 they are not presented as such. They can encounter things that are new to only them. Cyrano Jones has been hawking tribbles for awhile. He was trying to sell them to the bartender and more than likely a few people before he arrived on K7. He didn't go in the tribble business the day he arrived.

Sisko's statement clearly shows that Command doesn't speak of Section 31 with "outsiders" below a certain paygrade.

 

Definitely agree about Section 31. In both DS9 and Enterprise Section 31 is a top secret organization that almost nobody in Starfleet outside some upper echelon officers is even aware of. In Discovery way too many people are aware of them. Section 31 was designed to operate in the shadows. Being out in the open with starbases and ships of their own completely blows that out of the water. How do you do the things Section 31 does when everyone knows about you. Christ, even some Klingons know about them. Some secret.

Spore drive was a big bugaboo for me as well. I know there were issues with it. But it's a drive system that can instantaneously transport you anywhere in the galaxy (maybe further). Are you telling me Starfleet would just up and abandon it and not try to perfect it or make it safe? Not to mention I can't believe the Klingons and later the Romulans wouldn't do everything they could to steal the secrets of Spore drive (and they likely wouldn't have any ethical compunctions about using it). Hell, if I were the Klingons and Romulans I'd have entire sections of my military devoted to that very goal, stealing the secret of Spore drive. Now, granted, at the end of Season 2 they tried to cover their tracks a little bit by making it all top secret. But I just have a hard time buying with all the people that knew about it that it just disappeared, literally never to be heard of again.

Yes, some Star Trek tech has come and gone (levitating shoes anyone)--but those are once and done plot devices. You never see or hear form them again. Spore drive was a huge part of Discovery's back story. You can't just poo-poo it away as a one time thing.

All that being said, it's one primary reason I wish Discovery was set in the future, post-Nemesis some time. Then none of that would be an issue. They wouldn't need to explain anything because it would all be future technology--and maybe by that later date Section 31 was more common knowledge (perhaps because of something Dr. Bashir had done since he was trying to expose them). But as someone else noted, by setting it about 10 years pre-original series, they really boxed themselves in with a lot of things, esp. since they stated this was in the prime-timeline, and not some alternate timeline or reboot.

While there was plenty I liked about Discovery, those were 2 things that really bothered me about it, probably more than anything else. And I do think that's story based, not set design based (I have some bugaboos about production design too--but that's sort of a separate issue).

 

But they are only "one time things" when viewed as fiction. In-universe they are part of the fabric of the reality of that universe. You can't play the canon card and at the same time dismiss parts of canon that are inconvenient.

 

Well, in the case of levitating boots from TFF, we just never see them again. And they are not what I would call critical technology. It doesn't fundamentally change the balance of power in the quadrant. It's not groundbreaking or revolutionary like Spore Drive. I mean, Spore Drive makes Warp Drive look like driving a horse and carriage. It's something that just can't be pushed under a rug somewhere (though they did just that)

 

The spore drive ended up being classified and the Discovery whisked 1,000 years into the future because that was the clumsiest best idea Kurtzman could come up with to maintain consistency with the rest of Star Trek as to why no one ever heard of the spore drive before.

 

TOS gave us

• Three different forms of advanced androids.
• A "pill" that grants the user psychic powers
• Multiple forms of time travel
• A liquid that gives you super speed.
• Tech that multiples warp speed to new levels.

And that's just off the top of my head.

 

You're not wrong there.

 

Too funny.

Reminds me of the moderators over on the Enterprise board whenever a "I Hate 'These Are the Voyages'" thread pops up there. Pretty much the same reaction.

They could probably just create a permanent "TATV Sucks" board

Speaking of which, we could probably add TATV to worse canon decisions....that'd be like a two-fer

P.S.--at least if tomorrow my profile disappears I'll know why

 

Posssibly Admiral Dougherty is from the Martian Colonies or some other planet with a long year. And possibly the Romulans acqured Warp drive about 127 of those longer years ago and Dougherty roundedthe time down to 100 of those years instead of using Earth years and saying it was 230 odd years earlier.

 

Burnham being Spock's sister. It didn't feel earned and it feels like they are trying to use Spock to prop up the character. Also they should have went retro-futuristic instead of just Kelvinverse with the lights turned off for Discovery. The Mandalorian shows how you can use old style stuff that is decades old and dress it up to feel like it works in the modern day world aesthetics. Jason

 

The more I read comments like this and the more I think about it... They would have been better starting in the 32nd century and then there would simply be no issue. Burnham gains little by being Spock's sister, the Spore Drive would have been fine and even the Klingons appearance could have been hand waved away somehow.

 

While I am also of the camp of the Romulans having warp far before humanity, a STL-FTL war could be done if 1) Romulan holdings were expansive and very developed, 2) warp was incredibly slow at the time (and honestly, warp is slow) and 3) the Romulans have Subspace detection, or maybe wormholes the UE would have to destroy, or something. If we allow them to churn out massive local fleets and they can somewhat detect a Earth fleet coming in, the war could be more equal.

Sure, FTL-warp micro-tactics would win the day, eventually, but if a STL Romulan Empire was encroaching back on Vulcan or Earth and was repulsed, it would be a sort of slow 'Island Hopping' sort of deal. And who knows? Do we know who was the aggressor in the war? Could had been the UE getting too finnicky and greedy and then retroactively declaring their 'pacification' of Romulan systems up to the DMZ as a 'defensive' war.

Picard's quote does not imply that he thinks or is stating that the Romulans got warp drive a century ago, not to me. More like someone made the same dressing down of the Romulan polity, a century ago, which I'm sure they did. "We can handle the Romulans" more than "warp drive makes the Romulans a thing now" but I do see the connection - and, again, we can just say maybe 'warp' in this case is referring to Antimatter-Matter reactors, while the Romulan ships used 'Impulse' before; both can get a ship to FTL but AM/M reactors are probably more efficient.

 

Agreed, and I say this as someone who pretty much enjoys DSC. When the show started out, I discussed several seemingly continuity errors with friends, such as the Spore Drive. I always was like "guys, wait, this is just the first season, they will find a way to make it fit into the canon", and well, that's what they did at the end of season 2 with the Discovery disappearing into the 32nd century. The Spore Drive never was a huge issue for me, still, I wonder what was ever the point of it. I think the show would have worked perfectly with the Discovery having a normal warp drive instead. Some plot points would have been different, but I also don't feel the show gained that much by having the Spore Drive thing in it.

As for Burnham being Spock's sister and thus being also connected to his parents... well, I must say it gave me some kind of warm ST feelings to have Sarek as a character in the show and Spock in the second season was great in my opinion. But in the end it mostly was only for the sake of establishing those connections to the classic ST, they didn't make that much out of Burnham being Spock's sister, that's true. In other terms, the character Burnham would also have worked quite well without that connection.

 

Worst canon decision? Having a canon.