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

[Christopher]

Unless I am misremembering, the main guest figure of the second DTI novel (the one focusing on the TOS era) was Admiral Delgado, who is described as having a salt-and-pepper goatee. And being interested in time travel. :-) It was quite the lovely reference.

Oh, yes, I'd forgotten that. From my annotations:

"Antonio Delgado is named in honor of Roger Delgado and Anthony Ainley, the two main actors to play the archvillain the Master in Doctor Who. This is not meant to imply that Delgado is especially villainous; it was originally just a placeholder name for my notes and outline, but I never got around to changing it. Nor is he based on either of those actors; my mental model for the character was Hector Elizondo."

 

[David Mack]

Okay, but the point is not about whether people remember them, it's about whether the objective physical existence of those events is undone so that they "never happened." What I'm saying is that physics and logic require that any event that happens happens, and cannot be retroactively unhappened. The most that can occur is that their quantum information is erased after the fact so that people forget them, which creates the illusion that their timelines were retroactively unmade and "never happened" to begin with. I'm not saying nobody in the books remembered them; I'm saying that even if nobody had remembered them, they would still have physically happened and could not have been unmade. The timelines could have been destroyed, yes, but only going forward from the moment of destruction. Visit them at a point in time before the destruction, and they would still be there. It can't be retroactive.

In other words, the fantasy conceit of many stories is that if time travelers from, say, 2100 go back to 1950 and change history, then the original history from 1950 to 2100 completely ceases to exist and never happened at all. But that's a contradiction in terms, because any change (and ceasing to exist is the ultimate change) requires a version before the change and a version after it, and a point in time cannot come after itself. One version of a given period of time cannot "replace" or "overwrite" another, but can only coexist alongside it. So instead, the original events of 1950-2100 are still there in parallel with the new timeline, coexisting for the duration of that 150-year period, but once 2100 is reached, the original timeline vanishes going forward and is forgotten. So it may look to a time-traveling observer as if it were retroactively erased, but in fact it cannot have been.

So I'm saying that if readers are concerned that the events of the trilogy mean that the Novelverse's events never happened, they can take solace in the idea that they still did happen even if the timeline came to an end.

As usual, you missed the point. The point of objection was your statement, presented as if it were objective fact, that:

The authors of Coda chose to disregard this for their own narrative purposes

This is a major misrepresentation of our intentions and our actions. We did not disregard those things, we addressed them in our text. THIS is what I'm objecting to — your impugning of our motives and intentions.

 

[Zarm]

In addition, the novel’s final chapter is meant to convey that echoes of the First Splinter (and many others) live on in every quantum temporal variation of Jean-Luc Picard himself, as he was at the "fulcrum point in time" when the First Splinter was undone.

Ah, is that what that signified? I see that now; I'm afraid the significance of that chapter eluded me when reading it.

Oh, none of it matters because it came to an end? EVERYTHING comes to an end. Our universe's most likely conclusion is an eternity of entropic heat death. Nothing we do will matter in the scope of that.

Well, as I said, that comes down to a matter of philosophy. And I freely admit my own worldview biases me- as someone who believes in an eternal soul and afterlife, I don't believe that everything will truly end- that the things we do will one day come to nothing. If I did believe that there was nothing beyond this life- that one day we and everyone and everything we affect and which carry any memory of us will simply cease to exist- then I would consider this life, everything you do, I do, and everyone else, has ever done to indeed be fundamentally pointless, because the time will come in when there will be no us to have actually experienced it anymore; it will be functionally as if we had never been, and any good (or bad) we did will have similarly ceased to be as all the other 'us'es it ever influenced will similarly have ceased and any experiences good or bad that our actions caused will have ceased with them... and I do find that quite existentially futile and pointless.

Obviously, others, within their own belief system, do not. I mean no criticism of their differing beliefs, only explain where I am coming from.

And that is probably where the issue lies for me. Because I agree with you- afterlife or not, in life, everything does end. I believe that everything we do will carry on a legacy beyond that; others don't. Either way, though, either worldview- whether you find meaning in what we do now regardless of end, or believe meaning exists because whatever we do now has consequences that will outlast the material universe... in either case, in order to have meaning, a person has to make decisions, do things in the now.

Whereas, to my mind, erasing a timeline so that it never came to be means that, in essence, those people (or versions of them, in the case of legacy characters) now never existed. They never made those choices, did those things that mattered (in either worldview), because they simply never existed to do things and make choices to begin with.

And that's the difference, to me, between 'this universe ends' and 'this universe never began.' It's the same- to my view- as the difference between Kirk's death in Star Trek: Generations, and Kirk being prevented from ever having been born in the Of Gods and Men fan-film. Both end Kirk's story, both mean he is not around anymore- but one is fundamentally different from the other (and far less satisfying).


Now, that said, the notion that other traces do still remain- one that escaped me on the original reading- that the splinter timeline wasn't simply entirely unmade so that it never existed to begin with, does change things, a bit; I'll have to sit with that a while and consider.

And, again, no offense was intended in the exposition of these ideas.

But that is why- perceiving that 'unmaking' to be the case- it struck me far differently merely than an 'everything ends' ending.

 

[JD]

Unless I am misremembering, the main guest figure of the second DTI novel (the one focusing on the TOS era) was Admiral Delgado, who is described as having a salt-and-pepper goatee. And being interested in time travel. :-) It was quite the lovely reference.

I'm assuming that's a reference to something?

 

[David cgc]

I'm assuming that's a reference to something?

Roger Delgado (and his trademark beard) was the first actor who played the renegade time-traveler the Master on Doctor Who.

 

[JD]

Oh yeah, I've seen a bunch of his episodes, but I had forgotten that was the actor's name.

 

[Christopher]

As usual, you missed the point. The point of objection was your statement, presented as if it were objective fact, that:

This is a major misrepresentation of our intentions and our actions. We did not disregard those things, we addressed them in our text. THIS is what I'm objecting to — your impugning of our motives and intentions.

Not impugning, since it was your prerogative to take the story in a different direction if it suited your needs. We're all just borrowing the toys, after all. I'm just saying that if the trilogy depicted timelines being erased so that they had never existed at all, as the posters in this thread are stating it did, then that differs from the model I put forth in DTI.

 

[DSG2k]

There's a lot of overlap between scientists and science fiction authors, since they mutually influence one another and they're often the same people. So you can't really separate the two in terms of their attitudes.

I'm sure more than a few astronomers would twitch at that. In any case, the example you provided was of a particular non-astronomer's opinion.

Like I said, the asteroids were originally called planets too, but then we learned enough about them to realize it was better to create a separate category for them.

Planetary / exo-geology folk would just as soon put them all back. You also indicate favoring that idea, but that's just a mess. If any natural object floating in space is a planet, then the term is meaningless. Jupiter and a dust grain are too different to be lumped into an undifferentiated set.

Pluto was called a planet when it was the only one of its kind, but now that we know it's one of dozens of its class,

It is the only one of its class. It is over twice as wide as Orcus, composed of denser material, and is the only such body within Neptune orbit.

Ad hominem attack is not legitimate argument.

The commentary and background obviously wasn't the argument, but if you're a fan of the guy then disregard.

But that's not how science works. Science is about formulating general laws that can be used to predict and categorize new discoveries. A unique attribute of one object doesn't tell us anything useful about objects in general, so it has no scientific value.

What? Classifying things by their unique attributes and whether or not they're shared with other things is precisely how science works.

Lumping Pluto, Mars, even Ceres into the same batch with a literal iceball isn't science-minded in the slightest, sorry.

A simple definition would be that a planet is a gravitationally round mass of a certain density orbiting a stellar body, and one that is not too externally similar to a belt of bodies with which it orbits.

This leaves asteroids as asteroids unless they have a meaningful atmosphere, leaves Brown's warrior princesses as Plutoids, and leaves Pluto a planet, especially if there were language about worlds that orbit within major planet orbits. A carve-out of the definition can exist for rogue planets, but that can be left as vernacular. KBO/Oort iceballs and lumpy asteroidal pseudosphere Ceres don't need to be planets.

From a planetary sciences perspective this may seem wanting (atmosphere-schmatmosphere), but it matches the basic and long-held understanding of basically everyone else not named Mike Brown.

Trans-Neptunian objects of 838 kilometers & above (based on brightness potential) were already called Plutoids. That figure is approximately the same value as what it takes for a rocky body to achieve hydrostatic equilibrium (self-gravitational roundness), but having a density figure along with roundness removes the iceballs.

The point of the creation of the dwarf planet category was that we needed it to characterize Eris, Haumea, Quaoar, and all the other objects that had certain attributes in common.

That already existed.

 

[Christopher]

I'm sure more than a few astronomers would twitch at that. In any case, the example you provided was of a particular non-astronomer's opinion.

Key word, "example." Just because it was the most convenient one to cite doesn't mean it was the only one.

Planetary / exo-geology folk would just as soon put them all back. You also indicate favoring that idea, but that's just a mess. If any natural object floating in space is a planet, then the term is meaningless. Jupiter and a dust grain are too different to be lumped into an undifferentiated set.

Where are you getting "undifferentiated?" Planetary scientists already recognize gas giant planets, ice giant planets, superterrestrial planets, and terrestrial planets, as well as variants like carbon planets. There are multiple subclasses by size and type, just as there are subclasses of stars and galaxies by size and type. Science is all about differentiating things. Since those subclasses already exist alongside the dwarf planet class, it would be simplicity itself to say "dwarf planets are planets too" and remove the artificial controversy that arose from the paradoxical choice to claim that something with "planet" right there in the name is somehow not a planet.

It is the only one of its class. It is over twice as wide as Orcus, composed of denser material, and is the only such body within Neptune orbit.

You're starting with the conclusion you want and cherrypicking parameters that "prove" it. That is incompetent and backward reasoning, anathema to how science works.

The commentary and background obviously wasn't the argument, but if you're a fan of the guy then disregard.

"Fan?" Emotion and personal sentiments have no place in a scientific discussion. This isn't celebrity gossip.

 

[Zarm]

If any natural object floating in space is a planet, then the term is meaningless. Jupiter and a dust grain are too different to be lumped into an undifferentiated set.

While I get your point in principle, it is worth noting that in Japanese, that's pretty much how it works; a single word for all stellar objects (though I believe subsequent differentiating terms have since been created). It makes translating Japanese sci-fi difficult, because one has to sus out whether 'planet' 'star' etc. is the actual conceptual intent of the all-purpose word.

(Not disagreeing with you, just sort of 'interesting trivia note about that...')

 

[Paul Weaver]

It is the only one of its class. It is over twice as wide as Orcus, composed of denser material, and is the only such body within Neptune orbit.

Isn't Eris the same size as Pluto and denser? Which just leaves you with "a planet is a round object bigger than Ceres, not orbiting a larger gravitational body, with a perihelion lower than Neptune's apheliion".

That feels a bit arbitrary.

 

[Enterprise1701]

While I get your point in principle, it is worth noting that in Japanese, that's pretty much how it works; a single word for all stellar objects (though I believe subsequent differentiating terms have since been created). It makes translating Japanese sci-fi difficult, because one has to sus out whether 'planet' 'star' etc. is the actual conceptual intent of the all-purpose word.

(Not disagreeing with you, just sort of 'interesting trivia note about that...')

The funny part is how one of the founding members of the United Federation of Planets, Andor, is actually based on a moon! A big moon, presumably, but a moon of a planet of a star nonetheless.

 

[Zarm]

The funny part is how one of the founding members of the United Federation of Planets, Andor, is actually based on a moon! A big moon, presumably, but a moon of a planet of a star nonetheless.

The United Federation of Planets (And Moons).

 

[Christopher]

Isn't Eris the same size as Pluto and denser? Which just leaves you with "a planet is a round object bigger than Ceres, not orbiting a larger gravitational body, with a perihelion lower than Neptune's apheliion".

That feels a bit arbitrary.

A definition of "planet" based on location would be pointless, because it wouldn't be generalizable to exoplanets. As I said before, the mistake people keep making is in thinking this is only about Pluto. If it had been, there would've been no need to change things. The dwarf planet category was created to characterize all the other bodies we were finding like Eris and Haumea, and it just happened that the definition that encompassed those objects also encompassed Ceres and Pluto (and a few other asteroids like Vesta are borderline candidates).

Indeed, another motivation behind the 2006 definition process was that there was no formal scientific definition of the word "planet," since it was just a holdover term from antiquity. A clearer definition of what was and wasn't a planet was needed so future astronomers would have a guideline for classifying extrasolar objects. Although I still question the logic of asserting that a dwarf planet was not a planet, when every other instance of "dwarf X" in astronomical nomenclature is considered a subcategory of "X" rather than a non-"X."

 

[JD]

I didn't realize dwarf planets weren't considered planets, that's weird. Why include planet in their name if they're not planets? Wouldn't it have been less confusing to just come up with a whole new name then?

 

[DSG2k]

Where are you getting "undifferentiated?"

Because you want all space objects that aren't stars to be called planets. That's not what "planet" ever meant to anyone.

Any functional definition of planet should make at least a minimal effort at recognizing the word already had a connotation. It is a poor denotation that fails to capture that.

If I ask any 100 people to conjure up a mental image of a planet, most will probably think of a sunlit image of something Earth-like, others big spherical rocks, and there will be some gas giants in the mix. Floating dust grains, moons, gnarly pebble clusters, giant jagged rock chips, comets, and snowballs aren't going to have a strong showing.

You're starting with the conclusion you want and cherrypicking parameters that "prove" it. That is incompetent and backward reasoning, anathema to how science works.

That's an effort to dismiss, not a response to just some of the differences between Pluto and other bodies you're supporting that it be grouped with.

"Fan?" Emotion and personal sentiments have no place in a scientific discussion. This isn't celebrity gossip.

Big fan, then? To each their own. I was happy to leave it be, even though this isn't some rigid scientific discussion. I can only assume your continued fixation is tremendous fandom or merely an effort to score points by claiming to be more-scientifical-than-thou, as with other comments.

The point being made was that the anti-Pluto push by an actual scientist, whatever one's opinion of his character, was absolutely loaded to the hilt with personal sentiments, admittedly and explicitly. If you want to ignore that tidbit in considering the validity of the non-quorum and generally poor redefinition attempt, that's acceptable, but once accepted the continued harping is just weird.

A definition of "planet" based on location would be pointless,

Congratulations. You just declared the so-called IAU definition invalid twice:

1. A planet must orbit the Sun.
2. A planet must have cleared its neighborhood, so a perfectly good Earth opposite Jupiter in the same orbit is not a planet (or other more realistic resonances, as you like).

Both are location-based. To be clear, I don't view location as crucial for Pluto (the Neptune thing is a difference, but doesn't necessarily need to be reflected in a definition). However, you are defending a definition that is absolutely location-specific.

 

[Christopher]

I didn't realize dwarf planets weren't considered planets, that's weird. Why include planet in their name if they're not planets? Wouldn't it have been less confusing to just come up with a whole new name then?

Well, there is precedent in that asteroids are also called minor planets or planetoids. Still, yeah, it was a weird decision. I think there was some inertia making people reluctant to increase the number of recognized planets from single to double digits or potentially even triple digits. Limiting the definition of "planet" to non-dwarfs keeps it in the single digits.

But of course, that's just as unscientific as the nostalgic resistance to reassigning Pluto (and for some reason, nobody has the same objection to reassigning Ceres). We should always be open to new information. Heck, I remember a day back in grade school when I complained that an astronomy filmstrip claimed Jupiter had 13 moons, because my own astronomy books at home told me that it had only 12. I was too young and naive to recognize that a new moon could have been discovered since my books were written. Now, the list of known moons of Jupiter is up to 97, and it's probably nowhere near complete.

 

[Avro Arrow]

OK everyone, a little bit of thread drift is OK, but at this point the discussion has lost any connections to books or Star Trek, and you're just arguing about real life. If you want to continue this particular topic, please take it to the Science & Technology forum.

 

[Charles Phipps]

Killing off Si Cwan in NF and pretty much anything in the entire series from that point on. That was a huge jump the shark moment for me.

Peter David's (RIP) depression and divorce affected a lot of his work at the time. Everything became dark in Star Trek, the Hulk, and more.

But I actually understand the in-universe reasons. Si Cwan was constantly shown that being a dictator and royal of the Thallonian Empire was a terrible idea. That it was better if it just died.

Then he brought it back...and was promptly assassinated for being too nice of a guy.

 

[Charles Phipps]

Letting that DeCandido hack come up with a Federation government. What a convoluted unoriginal mess that was.....

By contrast, I think KRAD should be declared the only canon for Klingons!

All Klingons must conform to KRAD interpretations like those Romulan fans of the books.

Nothing else counts!