I'm with you on this, but, as Christopher noted, that's not gonna happen.
I sometimes think it would've been better if TNG had stuck with what was apparently Roddenberry's original intention of being a soft reboot, a distinct continuity with only some elements in common with TOS, instead of building stronger continuity ties after GR was gone and firming up the idea of it all as a single whole. It would've been much easier to avoid having to reconcile with TOS's increasingly dated elements, and easier to do subsequent reboots without upsetting the fanbase, since they would've gotten used to the idea of the franchise having multiple continuities.
With regards to the differing bits of info about Khan and other aspects of late twentieth, early twenty-first century history, I find the Temporal Cold War to be useful. (Even though I really disliked a lot of that storyline in ENT.) I look at it as we get different bits of the history as they "happened" at various points in the Temporal Cold War.
I was never fond of that idea, since the intent of ENT's creators was that it would lead into the 23rd and 24th centuries we knew, rather than an alternate version. But "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" canonized the idea that the TCW has altered the 20th-21st centuries, at least, so it's the reality we have to deal with now. The conceit is still that the altered timeline converges to basically the same 23rd-24th century, with the same events happening in essentially the same way (even such small details as Pike being fleet captain when he first meets Jim Kirk), but I'm willing to consider that the timeline alteration has adjusted some minor elements of the 23rd century, e.g. the tech being more advanced in certain ways.
i am not sure it's helpful to newbies to learn one origin and then go back and learn at least one other, and in the series *this* series is supposed to lead up to. and then have others that just keep sliding around.
There is no "supposed to." Entertainment isn't a mandatory experience. There's no requirement for everyone to become equally expert in the entire continuity. People can just watch the new stuff if they want and not worry about the old. As for those people who get invested enough to explore the rest of the franchise, they'd have the mindset that would allow them to keep track of its complex continuity, so there's no problem. (And "Tomorrow..." did explicitly acknowledge that the timeline had been changed, so nobody who actually pays attention is going to be confused by that.)
The whole point of a shared universe or multi-series franchise is to attract as large an audience as possible, both casual viewers who only want to see one series and more dedicated viewers willing to invest in the whole. Requiring everyone to have the same experience would limit the audience size. But it's more important to grab the novice and casual viewers, because they can't invest in the larger whole if they don't come on board to begin with, so that initial entry needs to be as easy as possible.
it's an interesting conundrum. while i've never really properly written out any of the stories within it, i have a sci fi universe of my own and while the bulk of it is centuries in the future, a few formative bits do
take place in this century (some of them would already be past, per timelines i jotted down 15 or 20 years ago). if i ever do properly put the narratives to paper, do i move those events, or keep them and accept that people might get put off they don't match reality?
I have that issue with my Troubleshooter series, whose worldbuilding is predicated on space mining and colonization taking off in the 2030s-40s. So far, it's still reconcilable -- and indeed the increasing mess the world is getting into lines up quite well with how I depicted the first half of the 21st century on Earth -- but eventually it's likely to stop fitting so well. I often wish I'd set it a few decades further ahead to begin with.
if nothing else, not tying it to real world events might help prevent offputting author political tracts, such as has been discussed earlier in the thread...
There's little point to science fiction if it doesn't have something to say about the real world. Authors have every right to make political statements in their work, and there's no reason to expect any given reader to agree with them all. My own work is strongly political and progressive, much as
Star Trek itself has usually been. So it would be hypocritical of me to object to authors with other political views expressing them in their work, even if I disagree with those views. (As I do in the case of a number of writers whose work I enjoy despite their politics, including Diane Carey, Poul Anderson, Larry Niven, etc.)
