• 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!

100 AU from Earth

40 years ago, we thought the Eugenics Wars and World War III were the same conflict; "Space Seed" explicitly said as much. But TNG retconned WWIII to the mid-21st century, so it became a separate event from the 1990s' Eugenics Wars.
Or much more sensible explanation: TNG retconned Eugenics War AKA WWIII into mid-21st century (which is also closer to '200 hundred years ago' stated in TOS and TWOK.)

(Sorry for the derail.)
 
Last edited:
Or much more sensible explanation: TNG retconned Eugenics War AKA WWIII into mid-21st century (which is also closer to '200 hundred years ago' stated in TOS and TWOK.)

Except that the depiction of WWIII in "Farpoint" and First Contact doesn't have anything in common with the Eugenics Wars. If anything, it's closer to the nuclear apocalypse in Roddenberry's Genesis II and Planet Earth pilots. Roddenberry wasn't as attached to past continuity as many Trek fans are; he was fine with rewriting it as he went, and at ignoring other writers' ideas (like Carey Wilber's Eugenics Wars) in favor of his own.

Anyway, the references to the Eugenics Wars in Enterprise and Into Darkness still put it in the 20th century. In "Borderland," Phlox said the genetic engineering was "extremely sophisticated work for 20th-century Earth," and Into Darkness (set in 2259) referred to Khan as 300 years old. Which is why I said we now have to treat the EW and WWIII as separate.
 
Except that the depiction of WWIII in "Farpoint" and First Contact doesn't have anything in common with the Eugenics Wars. If anything, it's closer to the nuclear apocalypse in Roddenberry's Genesis II and Planet Earth pilots. Roddenberry wasn't as attached to past continuity as many Trek fans are; he was fine with rewriting it as he went, and at ignoring other writers' ideas (like Carey Wilber's Eugenics Wars) in favor of his own.
Very little about EW was actually said in TOS. I have no trouble thinking it to be same as the WWIII described in TNG.
Anyway, the references to the Eugenics Wars in Enterprise and Into Darkness still put it in the 20th century. In "Borderland," Phlox said the genetic engineering was "extremely sophisticated work for 20th-century Earth," and Into Darkness (set in 2259) referred to Khan as 300 years old. Which is why I said we now have to treat the EW and WWIII as separate.
Or not. All facts can't be reconciled anyway. Personally I prefer to think that TOS was right about WWIII and EW being the same, and TNG was right about timing of that conflict. That way Star Trek can still roughly be set in our future. Besides, In my headcanon the two Star Trek series that are clearly superior of the rest shall have the primacy.
 
I had the impression they had people on staff to be the official gatekeepers of Startrek lore and facts... you would have thought they would have caught something as basic as that... I think it's great (fantastic even!) that they're using AUs and Lightyears.. but a little bit more attention to detail would be nice. It's just... irritating to think they spend so much on making a show but forget to dot those "i"s and cross those "t"s.

On a happier note.. Andorians! :)
 
Indeed, there's so much cloud coverage there that this actually being Earth (studio universe) does not cause it to actually be Earth (Trek universe).

Indeed, the holo-globe of Qo'noS appears with South America front-and-center, and the moon they use as their spore-farm is Pluto, but with clouds.

Season two, we explore the backstory of "Miri" as Discovery investigates a rash of duplicated planets and moons appearing throughout space.
 
I had the impression they had people on staff to be the official gatekeepers of Startrek lore and facts...

That may help with the writing process, but the VFX design is a different department. Besides, official Trek lore has never been astronomically accurate. That goes back to the very beginning -- "The Cage" had the Enterprise heading to Vega Colony to treat their injuries from the Rigel VII mission, but the distance from Rigel to Vega is larger than the distance from Rigel to Earth.
 
It is just a major error. Very unlikely a planet nine would be at 100 AU! Muchless be warm enough for standing bodies of water.
 
I mean, it must have been Stamets, right, as he said the words? But could he be taken to be meaning something sensible, and flubbing something minor there, instead of completely fumbling the very numbers themselves?

Timo I agree with this and honestly I don't know why this isn't suggested more often. We've got people inventing new planets rather than take the obvious explanation which is Stamets misspoke. Russell T. Davies bought this up a lot when people would take him up on continuity points in Doctor Who. He said this is the sole preserve of sci-fi, a genre where everything anyone says MUST be taken as gospel truth. If someone on Coronation Street said you take the eastbound to get to Manchester, you wouldn't assume that, in the Coronation Street universe, Manchester is east of London. You'd think that character messed up or was lying. Stamets has, in a very short space of time, had the stress of 300 jumps, had his partner killed, has been lost in a mycelial universe, has learned that his entire species hangs under the threat of domination by an alien force. The people around him would immediately assume if he flubbed: as "Well, it's, uh, 100 AUs from Earth and over a light-year from our current position." was a result of stress. This seems to be the most obvious solution.
 
And yeah, that one image definitely puts me in mind of the Ungava/Nunavik region of Québec...
 
Stamets misspoke and no one at the briefing bothered to correct him. Suuuure. :guffaw:
Have you heard some of the other explanations? That there is another planet in our solar system, 100 AU out, with the same continents structures as Earth? What is more plausible, that, or that everyone just kind of mentally glossed over Stamets' error? Or pulled him up on it later, out of camera, to which he muttered: "Right, right, one AU, yes, obviously. The love of my life is dead and I just bumped into his murderer in the corridor just now so how about you leave me the hell alone."
 
Also, who is doing the Okudagram work on DSC? Do we have names from IMDB?
Interested in this as well. I know industry leaders OOOii did ST09 and STID but not sure about DSC. The UI work in DSC is top notch work.
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top