I think I actually understand that.
Spoilers Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1x10 - "A Quality of Mercy"
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I think I actually understand that.
The question I have is does that really solve the problem? Even if they declare "THIS IS THE NEWEST TIMELINE!" (echoing) people will still stack up their toys and compare them and demand they align with each other in every other way.
I see it potentially causing even more issues than we already have. Might just be me. Regardless, the powers that be know that Star Trek, the original, is the touchstone. Anson Mount has stated it as such, Welsey, Peck and Gooding all acknowledge the weight of taking this on. It's a fine balance to strike but I think, interestingly enough, CBS is steering in to history while acknowledging that the future has moved forward.
How well it works will vary from person to person. The fact that we keep watching it and bitching about it is perhaps the most amusing thing to me because CBS still gets money from our whining and bitching about timelines.
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To please whom?
Most of us aren't annoyed by any differences between this show and other Trek shows. I'm frankly relieved by most of them.
Also, the notion that Picard and Lower Decks are meaningfully continuing the nonexistent "TOS/TNG" timeline is pretty much a joke itself.
That is exactly what a multiverse is. And there is specific precedence for Trek having this exact kind of multiverse, in TNG's "Parallels". All alternatives are possible because each moment in time has an infinite variety of outcomes (given all the "choices" occurring simultaneously in one universe), so within the physics constraints of that universe all eventualities are possible. Some variants are closer to the Prime universe and thus a story told in them would be sufficiently close that you may not notice more than a tiny change, but others are different enough that "anything goes". If a writer is writing a story in the multiverse, they are free to pick any sufficiently similar or different reality for their setting.
Now, if you want a series of missions that are loosely related in similar-Trek-ish universes, that is fine. But that is a different type of Trek show, even more different than Bryan Fuller's original idea for Discovery. More akin to "Black Mirror" where anything and everything that needs to be different to tell the story you want to tell is different. But that isn't what Star Trek has ever been (outside of one-offs like "Parallels") and not something Trek is ever likely to be. Even the Kelvin Timeline is just one separate branch of the multiverse that, once established, hasn't skipped around any further.
What Akiva said is that they will stick with canon, using "body english" where necessary to reinterpret things where they aren't explicit, or where there is wiggle room. What he is saying is that they won't let an earlier interpretation of an ambiguous event be their only guide as to what is and isn't allowed if they have a good story to tell that needs a slightly different approach. This "body english" allows Spock to have an adopted half-sister (or a brother), or allows Chapel to have met T'Pring (when she was simply Spock's fiance) despite the one glance in "Amok Time" from Chapel that could mean many things (including "since when did you get married?" - since even then T'Pring wasn't actually Spock's wife). Akiva (and the other show runners) aren't saying they are writing in different universes when they use this body English, and CBS isn't peddling anything.
To add to what USSGlenn said, there are rules to any creative art, and in fact, those rules (i.e., constraints) are what give a lot of art extra power or impact. Think of any bloated, open-ended, blank-check production (for example, Cameron's "Avatar" or "Stranger Things season 4") and you will see examples where the lack of rules (or constraints) can hamper the final product to different degrees. I personally find Avatar to be largely a boring, pointless (if pretty) endeavor; and while I enjoyed Stranger Things season 4 as much as the other seasons, it definitely could have been much shorter without losing much/anything of value.
Now the key issue is what kind of rules do you want to impose? Trek has short seasons (currently, 10 episodes up to maybe 15), with episodes of generally 22 minutes (for the "half hour" shows), or between 35 and 65 minutes for the "hour-long shows", with budgets up to about $8 million each (Discovery season 1, if I remember right); they generally have ensemble casts of 4-8 mains; with a varying number of reoccurring characters (very few in TOS, to dozens for DS9); stories follow western/American storytelling methods and generally promote western concepts of morality, inclusivity, etc.; actors have been majority white males and white females but that has been changing; genders, sexualities, and physical/mental depictions have generally been average/cis/normative/without differences, but this too has been changing. And they generally all take place (minus the Kelvin timeline movies) in a single continuity of the Prime timeline where characters, historical events, and technologies are largely continuous (minus intentional updates to some things like Klingon makeup starting with the TOS movies, or the ship designs and technology visuals starting with DIS). These are the "rules" of Star Trek shows; some can be bent, some will be broken, but most are needed to have a Trek show. And for most Trek fans, continuity/canon is one of the rules that is key to what Trek is and should be only bent at most.
Now, I wouldn't be opposed to a cool anthology Trek show, provided they had some good idea for the overall meta-context/story. I could even see some cool, arty version of Trek that doesn't tell contemporary "television stories" - though I don't know if CBS would see the financial reasons to support it, but who knows. To think of it, "Short Treks" was probably as close as we are going to get to an artsy Trek, "Calypso" being the most different. And that only came about as a filler for between the other shows to make use of the standing sets and crew.
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Agreed. It's not like the creation of the Kelvin timeline was smooth and simply accepted by all parties as just another timeline without argument or protest.
Yeah, multiverse is being latched onto by tv and movie productions because it is the new buzzword, just like "universe" was the thing 5-10 years ago thanks to Marvel and the MCU.
As for continuity across multiple decades: they aren't all TV series, but I think Star Wars (1977) matches up pretty well visually with Rogue One (2016) (and probably will with Andor (2022)). Not as sure with Mandalorian and Boba Fett (as I have only seen pieces of them). Now, if by "match up" you don't just mean visually, I am sure there are many canon issues with them where things just don't align perfectly: I think Darth being at the battle of Scarif and actually watching Leia's corvette escape does not match with the dialog in episode IV at all.
It's a multiverse to the extent multiple series all take place in the same universe and continuity even though they're often produced decades apart. 
I'm just going through my seven stages of grief, and I've reached 'anger & bargaining'. The rational side of my brain has already decided to quit the series, wait a few years, see how it all works out in the end and then laugh at how minor everything I was worked up about really is.
Well, people are always bitching about "head canon"...this is just another example of that.
Do you have some links where I can read those interviews that state that? The ones I've read are mostly about them dealing with Roddenberry or toeing the party line about its all canon.
Well they certainly are different productions.
Well there is the time-travel in "The Naked Time" where Kirk and crew opt *not* to go thru the events over Psi2000 and thus avert their future of crashing into the planet. Were they supposed to have died? Would Pike have done worse in this episode? (Pike was fine in "Quality of Mercy" episode as the alt-Kirk screwed up the comet battle.)
And you have at the end of the Voyager series future-Janeway coming back in time and bringing home Voyager years earlier and also preventing the deaths of several her crew and also bringing forward advanced anti-Borg tech. Do her actions lead to the future depicted in the Picard, Lower Decks and future-Discovery series? Maybe? As far as I know, future-Janeway's timeline was only marred by her guilt to cause her to alter the timeline and not some terrible future.
In Kelvin-verse there were some changes already in play before Nero appears and attacks the Kelvin but in that timeline or alternate universe old-Spock opts to *not* intervene and restore the timeline and save Vulcan even though he would know that isn't how the prime timeline should proceed.
Although arguably in Discovery, Pike grabbing that time crystal is what sets his accident future in motion. Anything he does to try and get out of it will cause the time crystal mafia to punish Spock instead and right now he's seeing his life and the 2 cadets that die are a better trade than the millions/billions that are killed if Spock dies. It's a good thing he doesn't go even further into the future to see old-Spock not save millions or billions on Kelvin-Vulcan. Hmm... maybe fate still demanded a large body count from Pike-Spock in the end?
YMMV.
Read the section on Gene Roddenberry and Star Trek Canon:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_canon
Gene had such amusing attitudes later in life about what he accepted as canon. 
A lot like George Lucas, say, stamping his feet over something in one of the movies or animated series but losing most of the arguments.
A lot like George Lucas, say, stamping his feet over something in one of the movies or animated series but losing most of the arguments.Thanks! I just read through it and other than people dealing with Roddenberry's declaring canon/not-canon while he was still alive there are no quotes or interviews of later production folks that you name-checked in admitting that they broke canon in favor of telling a story. The closest I see is Ron Moore saying that he didn't consider the Tech Manuals canon...
Considering one of GR's famous edicts for the TNG writing staff was: "If you haven't watched episodes of the origin al STAR TREK, dont..." <--- Please.
Sure, that is GR. But again, what about the other producers that you name checked? Did they ever state that they broke canon when it suited the story and which article records that? So far, only Goldsman has been up front about it.
The majority of them WORKED under GR during the TNG era.
But did they ever admit to breaking canon when it suited the story and in which interview or article was it? It would stand to reason that if these producers were open about not following canon we'd have less arguments of episodes not lining up with previous episodes and discussions referencing that publicized knowledge.
Trials and Tribbleations presumably broken canon given there were now DS9 folks in the fight and lineup. It was an explicit if unimportant change. It may not have mattered in the big picture but the Timecops certainly cared.
So long as it's in the service of telling a good story, I don't give a rat's ass about anything matching up to "canon" or some fictitious timeline.
If Kirk becomes Pike's Number One in season two, then so be it. Decker to Pike's Kirk. Sounds fun.
If Kirk becomes Pike's Number One in season two, then so be it. Decker to Pike's Kirk. Sounds fun.
Personally one of the things I find compelling about the Star Trek universe is its singularity. Without that to keep me coming back and wanting to see how this universe I’m invested in is evolving, new shows would have to compete against the greatest shows currently on television to keep my attention.
As long as the show feels like the “Spirit” of Star Trek, any inconsistencies can be explained by the “Perspectives of different historians chronicling this fictional universe” conceit.
As long as the show feels like the “Spirit” of Star Trek, any inconsistencies can be explained by the “Perspectives of different historians chronicling this fictional universe” conceit.
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