Abrams chronology and canon questions

^I think I heard recently that The Fall takes us into 2385.

 

Ah, so two years left. It's like a ticking clock of doom isn't it?

 

That is the face of a Reman laughing at me. But no, seriously, ever since the Titan books I've been mostly waiting for a chance for the Romulans to be shut up. It'd be nice to see them actually changed as a race.

 

This same issue came up in the ongoing comic thread and I feel I need to ask: why is this a problem?

When I read CiD, I thought, "Oh, Harry Mudd has a daughter in this timeline and she's part-Bajoran." I didn't take issue with this and saw no reason to doubt it. However multiple posters have expressed a vehement opposition to this idea, questioning the implications of her nose ridges and her exact relationship to Harry.

Please bear in mind that I have no objections to people not accepting her as Bajoran or Harry's daughter in their own personal continuities. To each their own.

I would just like to hear some people's reasoning behind this stance.

Is it too early in the timeline for encounters with Bajorans? I thought the Cardassian name drop in the '09 film opened the door for an earlier introduction of Bajor to the nuTrek universe, but maybe I'm wrong.

Do the opposers feel that it should have been Harry in the comic and not his daughter? My thinking is that the film writers wanted to leave the door open for them to possibly introduce Harry Mudd in some future sequel if they so desired so they came up with the idea of using his daughter for the name recognition and made her Bajoran just to add a little alien flavor. They probably chose Bajoran because nose ridges would be easy to identify for old school Trek fans (CiD's primary readership demographic).

I've read the argument that her being Bajoran doesn't service the story in any way. True enough, I suppose, but the same could be said about the Doctor's bow tie in Doctor Who. Sometimes details are added just because they're a cool thing to toss into the mix, to paraphrase the great Walter Bishop, and I think the Mudd girl's nose ridges are just that -- a cool little detail that hints at a much larger Trek universe just beyond the edge of the page.

But again, I am very curious to hear an opposing viewpoint on this issue if anyone has the time or inclination. Thanks to any that respond.

 

All things considered, it seems likely that when the "Mudd incident" was mentioned in the movie, it is meant to be a reference to Harry Mudd. Hell, the shis even resembles the blip seen in the original version of Mudd's Women.

It all comes down it being unnecessary. Why didn't they just use Harry Mudd? Hell, if they wanted a woman, they could have just given him a sex change. Instead we have a Bajoran woman implied to be his daughter for no apparent reason.

Although I guess it's possible IDW may revisit the character and perhaps work Harry into the story. After Darkness does feature Captain April's return, sort of. Maybe we'll get some answers after all.

 

My main reason for skepticism is that Roger C. Carmel was a year and a half younger than William Shatner, though he looked older. Harry would've had to be substantially older than his portrayer in order to have an adult daughter at a time when Kirk's nearly 26. I could buy that Harry was in his early 40s when we met him in 2266, about a decade older than his portrayer, but that would put him in his upper 30s at the time of Countdown to Darkness. It's not out of the question that someone that age could have an adult daughter, if he'd been under 20 when he conceived her, but that's kind of pushing the limits of probability.

For what it's worth, though, an early draft of "Mudd's Women" put Harry's age at 47 (decades before that number became a recurring Trek meme!).

A certain recent TOS novel,

Spoiler: TOS novel

Allegiance in Exile, depicts the Enterprise making first contact with the Bajorans near the end of the 5-year mission.

Mudd would've had to encounter them nearly 3 decades sooner.

 

That's the official first contact between the Federation and Bajor, right? 23rd century Bajor was an active starfaring power of some note; it's not inconceivable that a lone human on the frontier might have run into them.

There's still plenty of space for individuals from the Federation to come into contact with the Bajorans without making official contact on behalf of the Federation. I see no conflict.

 

Maybe this is one of the many changes brought about by the destruction of the Kelvin. I could see Starfleet exploring farther, and faster after the destruction of the Kelvin, and run into the Bajorans earlier.

 

I think the main issue is that the Star Trek universe is filling in very quickly and people don't believe it is IMPOSSIBLY HUGE. I've always felt that there's nothing preventing Kirk or whoever from finding a vast Federation-sized entity right next to the Romulans no one has ever seen or heard of before because that's what space is like (at least in Star Trek).

Others are really annoyed at the fact Enterprise steamrolled around the Trek universe so the Klingons were found very early and so was virtually everyone else, which really confused a lot of people who expected space to be a great unknown. Nevermind the Vulcans sharing star charts.

Also, is she Bajoran? Are the Bajorans the only wrinkle-nose aliens?

 

Nothing is expressly stated about her Bajoran-ness or otherwise. We only get a reference to a father of ill-repute and her name, Mudd. In addition to the nose ridges, in her first appearance on-panel, we can see what could be construed as a Bajoran earring.

 

This is a fair point. Carmel does look to be deep into his forties in TOS, but as you pointed out, the new film takes place even earlier than his original appearance. An adult-ish daughter does seem unlikely but maybe Bajor's sun hyper-ages children with human DNA (like it did to Molly O'Brien when she was brought to DS9) or perhaps Miss Mudd fell into that time vortex and came out 18 years old (again, like poor Molly did in Time's Orphan).

 

Harry Mudd was 47 in Mudd's Women (according to the shooting script), which makes him 39-40 circa Countdown to Darkness. We'll say 'Harriet' is 18-20, which makes Harry around the same age when she was born. So it is plausible.

 

They are not beigger contradicion's than the ones between the SW movies and the rest of SW. Mike Johnson said on Fictional Frontiers that they basically have a council coordinating things.

 

Except we're talking about a civilian here. As stated, there's nothing precluding civilians from exploring too and maybe getting to a particular region of space before Starfleet manages to (since space is so darn big).

There are a few other races with similar nose-bridge features, like Ornarans, Brekkians, and Tandarans. But Mudd's particular nose ridges did look more Bajoran than anything else.

Actually Molly's accelerated aging happened while she was still on the Enterprise. Hana Hatae debuted in the role in TNG: "Rascals," at a point when Molly should've been just over a year old but was suddenly old enough to form complete sentences. (The actress herself was 4 at the time, though Molly was said to be 3 in DS9: "The Nagus" later that same season.)