• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Spoilers Strange New Worlds Episode 7 - Those Old Scientists

Grade The Episode


  • Total voters
    319
First Contact wasn't a crossover, though. The Defiant in that movie was just a device to bring Worf into the story because Michael Dorn didn't want to miss out on making another TNG movie with his friends. So yes, it would be very bad form for them to destroy the Defiant and screw up DS9 just because they thought it was neat. That would be just as bad as if the DS9 crew decided to blow up the Enterprise instead of the USS Odyssey at the end of "The Jem'Hadar" just because they thought it would be cool.

Deciding to not break the toys that aren't yours to begin with isn't bad storytelling, it's just good manners.
All the toys belonged to the studio, not to the people they hired as producers.
 
It would have given headaches to Behr and Moore over at DS9 to replace the Defiant had she been destroyed in FC but they'd have replaced her. Berman and the studio oversaw all of that and had the ship been sacrificed for dramatic effect it wouldn't have been the end of the world for DS9, which was on the cusp of launching its Dominion War arc. Some new ship and probably even more impressive than the Defiant in one or more respects would have been drawn up in the writers' room and turned into the new plaything for Sisko and his officers.
 
It would have given headaches to Behr and Moore over at DS9 to replace the Defiant had she been destroyed in FC but they'd have replaced her. Berman and the studio oversaw all of that and had the ship been sacrificed for dramatic effect it wouldn't have been the end of the world for DS9, which was on the cusp of launching its Dominion War arc. Some new ship and probably even more impressive than the Defiant in one or more respects would have been drawn up in the writers' room and turned into the new plaything for Sisko and his officers.

I believe based on stardates that First Contact takes place after "Children of Time" but before "Empok Nor". Hard to say if it happens before or after "Blaze of Glory", though the Defiant having her systems checked out after the temporal shenanigans of "Children of Time" would be a good excuse for her being conveniently in the vicinity of Earth with no other main crew apart from Worf at the time of the Battle of Sector 001.

I remember an interview with Ira Stephen Behr in the old UK Star Trek Magazine where he said that "if he had his druthers" DS9 would just ignore the Defiant being damaged in First Contact.
 
The fan fiction, "We Have Engaged the Borg: An Oral History of the Battle of Wolf 359" puts forth the suggestion that Starfleet put a conscious effort to not put veterans of Wolf 359 into another battle with the Borg due to their massive trauma. Thus Sisko sitting the Battle out and Picard being told to stay away. Worf was on the Enterprise, which arrived too late for the Battle itself.
 
I believe based on stardates that First Contact takes place after "Children of Time" but before "Empok Nor". Hard to say if it happens before or after "Blaze of Glory", though the Defiant having her systems checked out after the temporal shenanigans of "Children of Time" would be a good excuse for her being conveniently in the vicinity of Earth with no other main crew apart from Worf at the time of the Battle of Sector 001.

I remember an interview with Ira Stephen Behr in the old UK Star Trek Magazine where he said that "if he had his druthers" DS9 would just ignore the Defiant being damaged in First Contact.
Considering In Purgatory's Shadow makes a direct reference to the Borg attack in First Contact, I'd say it's a pretty good guess the movie takes place before that episode, regardless what the stardates say.
 
From Memory-Alpha

Minor details in the script, even as shooting was under way, continued to evolve. Early drafts were vague regarding the fate of the Defiant, DS9's resident warship. Having read the script, Deep Space Nine producer Ira Steven Behr's only note was an objection to the apparent destruction of the Defiant. The writers added the clarification "adrift but salvageable" and no mention of the ship's near annihilation was made in the TV series.

Sadly their source is broken.
 
A quibble: I wish that modern 23rd-century Trek did fewer "call-forwards." It's not quite as bad as Enterprise deciding to bring in the Ferengi, but come on -- Uhura is studying the Cardassian and Bajoran languages? Bajor will be considered way the fuck out in the boonies 100 years later, so in SNW's time it seems like first contact with Bajor and Cardassia should still be years in the future. Same goes for Setlik II, since Setlik III has to be close enough to Cardassian space for the massacre to make sense

Nothing I recall ever indicated Bajor and Cardassia weren't known to the Federation during the TOS era. Iirc a Cardassian poet was living in exile on Vulcan during this era
 
And the Organians in "Observer Effect(ENT)" had already encountered a Cardassian vessel and its crew so the Cardassians can't be that far removed from known space in the TOS Era and thus isolated from anyone and everyone who matters.
 
And the Organians in "Observer Effect(ENT)" had already encountered a Cardassian vessel and its crew so the Cardassians can't be that far removed from known space in the TOS Era and thus isolated from anyone and everyone who matters.
But to be fair they also had the ENT characters encounter Ferengi too.:vulcan:
 
But to be fair they also had the ENT characters encounter Ferengi too.:vulcan:
Which would only be a problem if they had said “Hello hoomans. We are the Ferengi. Would you like to write that down? It’s F-E-R-E-N-GI. Also take a picture and put it in your scrap book”. Both of Picard’s early encounter with the Ferengi had them obscuring their identity. At the same time Picard and the Bandi were well aware that there was a species known as “Ferengi”.
 
Last edited:
Yep. To be brutally frank the inclusion of the Ferengi in Season 1 of ENT was just a Rick Berman attempt to cash in on using a species from a later series and add fanwank and it doesn't work remotely as well as the Borg drones would in Season 2's "Regeneration," but at least they kept their species' indentity a secret and nothing Ulis and his pirates did to the NX-01 interferes with established canon for when the Ferengi first made themselves known to the Federation.

I mean, the Borg themselves were a race never before heard of outside of Guinan's people until 2365 until they, well, they weren't anymore. I can live with four or five Ferengi pirates in a private ship hijacking the NX-01 after all these years of official first contacts being retconned or recontextualized. It was dumb fanwank but we've seen a lot worse and with weaker audience response.
 
In all fairness Ferengi were explicitly stated to be making first contact during TNG season 1. Nothing said when 1st contact with the Cardassians or Bajorans (or Trills or Bolians) actually occurred and what little we did know means towards all of them being known during Kirk's era
 
I've been moving home so am late, but wanted to chime in with my minor thoughts.

This is the sort of episode that pushes me to the edge, as I know I'm an old school Trek fan.

I like diversions. I love the animated episode of Farscape. I love the humour of Trek when it does it. I keep on telling myself this as I watch it. This is no worse than Lwaxana, Ferengi, Q, Madam Q (god I love Madam Q) et al.

Firstly I didn't get into the Trek animation. I stopped within 10 minutes as it was just shouting constantly.

So fans of that may get much more enjoyment. I have less mileage.

But for about half the episode it was okay. It was a bit like Rasmussen. A bit of Q. I can't dislike this humour. Overall I was finding the episode okay, not amazing.

They even acknowledged at one point about the animation being louder and faster, which I respect.

When the woman arrived my tolerance was far lower. She makes me want to tip my TV out of the window.

It's an okaaaaay episode. I don't hate it. There are worse. I will never love it. So just consider it a draw.

But a concern I have had and continue to have is that this cast is being second fiddle to... 'the Trek universe' if we want to call it that. Kirk keeps turning up. Pike knows his fate. The others are becoming affected by time travel shenanigans.

Let these characters BE. They must not be characters, not bound by the in-universe and ex-universe expectations. Let them breathe and exist and explore and do their jobs and just BE.

Because you have one of the best casts ever assembled in Trek, and they are binding them with this tapestry of expectation. And coupled with all the fan-wankery that I hated Picard for surfacing this week, our cast are so much better than this.
 
Mariner might (or might not) be fun to watch in a show. But she's the Lower Decker I'd least want to work with. And I think that's on purpose.
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top