A Canon Discussion
- Thread starter Nedersong
- Start date
Actually, you could still be completely insane.
There are times when turning away from continuity totally works for me:
ENT Andorians' antennae move!
The makeup/prosthetics for ENT Tellarites was a vast improvement.
His name was Richard Arnold. He did exactly that job from the beginnings of TNG through till Gene Roddenberry's death. Just as the ST authors Margaret Wander Bonanno, Brad Ferguson, Peter David, Vonda McIntyre and Jean Lorrah what he did to their manuscripts by insisting on changes to their ST licensed tie-ins. Richard made many similar suggestions to the screenwriters of TNG, ST V and ST VI.
And fans often hate him for what he did in the name of trivia, canon and continuity.
But you mention fan stuff. Paramount/CBS can't legally get anyone to read unsolicited fan stuff for them. That opens up the invitation - for every fan writer - to sue whenever a canonical episode coincidentally matches their fanfic.
By the way, current CBS Consumer Products' Paula Block was a fan from the early days of ST fandom. She's been in the job since the 80s.
Yes, they could cloak since TOS' Balance of Terror, where it came as a total surprise to Kirk and Spock. The Enterprise episode took place 100 years BEFORE Balance of Terror. Ya see the problem?
Anyhoo, that's just an example.
It's been a while since I've seen the episode but wasn't there a discussion between Kirk, Spock, and Stiles about how long its been (80 years?) since anyone has had contact with the Romulans and that no one has even seen a Romulan before (hence the surprise from the crew when the Romulan commander looks like a vulcan)?
I think they even said that the last contact was not only non-visual but was during a war that used atomic weapons. So ENT completely threw continuity/canon out the window. Personally I think that them contacting the Romulans at all is more egregious than the potentially early form of cloaking device.
Or maybe I just have my memory/time line mixed up.
I personally prefer the Powershot G9 Canon, myself... oh, wait... we aren't talking about cameras here are we?
In Balance of Terror, they say it had been 100 years since the Romulan War. There had been no ship-to-ship visual communication with the Romulans, so neither side knew what the other looked like. There had been no contact with the Romulans since.
One may infer that, since the existance - even the possibility - of a cloak was a total surprise to Kirk and Spock, that no such thing had ever bbeen seen before, ever.
And yes, that means Enterprise ignored the shit out of continuity, not only with the Romulans, but with the Suliban and their cloaking ability as well.
A toaste to you! I agree whole heartedly. There is so much negativity. Canon is important to a certain point, but to further the Trek universe new ground must be broken. Let's face it, '60's tech left much to be desired and I lived through it. Gene Roddenberry made many changes to Trek with TNG. To keep from upsetting the loyal fans he bumped the time line. That way he could make changes without too much damage to the original show and all of it's limitations.
He has a daughter he never gets to meet in my abandoned trilogy The Kirk Family Chronicles.
Coryn. A hybrid with Deela of Scalos who can accelerate at will. She escapes from Scalos as it destroys itself.
Since I probably will never return to the project, here's her introduction:
Her lungs were on fire. The stifling air of the entire planet felt like boiling water in her chest, and its heat was beginning to burn her eyes.
Where blue-green skies had once lent tranquility to the lush countryside, an angry red-orange now reflected the ongoing cataclysm.
The only chance to escape would mean breaking the promise to her mother, a promise she had broken only once before. She felt her heartbeat accelerate first.
Swirling clouds of ash began to slow, the rivers of molten lava became easier to avoid.
Silhouetted against the red sphere of the planet’s sun was the craft. It was only moments away from being devoured by Mount Taerlynn’s imminent collapse. But for the time being, that moment was stretched into three or four minutes.
She dodged the seemingly frozen flame consuming the very tree she once played in as a child. At last, the hatch to the ship. As she entered, she felt the craft slowly lean toward the enlarging crater that was once a peaceful mountain top.
Though the site was temporarily motionless, her feet were beginning to blister, even through the thick soles of her contoured boots. The floor of the craft was beginning to heat up as well. She hurried.
Despite her years of training, the dials and consoles suddenly seemed foreign. Perhaps desperation was taking its toll. But reflex replaced fear and she switched on the power. Rael had so perfectly built the craft that it was difficult to tell if the engine was on.
The young blonde activated her viewing screen. As her heartbeat slowed, the smoke began to swirl again, flames began to dance, and the craft felt as if it were going to fall at any moment.
She lifted off. As soon as the ship was a foot off the ground, the entire embankment crumbled. The resulting displacement rocked the craft, but the pilot held it steady. Rael had taught her well.
As she rose above the desolation, she could see the remnants of the capital city. Amid all the destruction were the last five graves. Among them, her mother’s.
Coryn was the last of her race—the only one to escape the planet’s century-old self-destruction. One by one, the other inhabitants had either been poisoned by the fouled waters and contaminated vegetation, or killed by the randomly exploding volcanoes and the resulting tidal waves.
All that remained were charred remnants of a glorious past civilzation. A few magnificent structures remained intact, but Coryn knew they would not be there much longer. She swerved to avoid a flaming projectile ejected from Mount Taerlynn. She watched it fly into the night sky. How like a comet it looked. Perhaps it, too, was seeking its way into the heavens. The illumination slowly faded and Coryn lost sight of it.
The stars above were oblivious to the events below. They were her future now, her hope. And somewhere among them, she would find him. Coryn had only a name. She didn’t even know what he looked like. Only the description her mother gave her shortly before she died.
She took one last look at her home world. It would soon be completely dead. Other space travelers would never know the truth behind the mysteries they would find there. But then, who would visit the desolate planet now?
No one.
Like Coryn, Scalos was alone.
Back OT, if the editors at Pocket had (seen and) liked it, then the continuity/canon of the novels would be changed. IF the story's good enough ...
Paula was great to work with in the Strange New Worlds anthologies. And she had some great notes for my Chapel story in the Constellations anthology which, unfortunately (and deservedly), did not make it into the final volume.
--Ted
Last edited:
Absolutely the canon is important.
I'm sick of hearing bull about fans 'stifling creativity' by insisting on the preceding material being respected and acknowledged. By wanting a universe that is internally consistent, that tells a coherent continuing story. That we are chaining the writers from writing good stories by insisting on consistency. This is a ridiculous perspective - a writer for an episodic TV series, any series, not just Trek, is employed to write creatively in a way that is consistent with the show they're writing for. If they can't do both those things, they shouldn't be doing the job. No-one thinks twice about expecting writers to write consistent and internally coherent stuff for shows like Law & Order or ER, and just because their 'canon' isn't about spaceships and aliens doesn't make it any different a concern.
Star Trek should be able to be creative and original, and maintain the consistency of the existing canon. Both. If the writers can't do this, get better writers.
I'm sick of hearing bull about fans 'stifling creativity' by insisting on the preceding material being respected and acknowledged. By wanting a universe that is internally consistent, that tells a coherent continuing story. That we are chaining the writers from writing good stories by insisting on consistency. This is a ridiculous perspective - a writer for an episodic TV series, any series, not just Trek, is employed to write creatively in a way that is consistent with the show they're writing for. If they can't do both those things, they shouldn't be doing the job. No-one thinks twice about expecting writers to write consistent and internally coherent stuff for shows like Law & Order or ER, and just because their 'canon' isn't about spaceships and aliens doesn't make it any different a concern.
Star Trek should be able to be creative and original, and maintain the consistency of the existing canon. Both. If the writers can't do this, get better writers.
The ultimate responsibility does NOT lie with the writers, but the producers. They are the final word on what gets on the air and what doesn't. (Well, they and CBS/Paramount -- depending on the format of the work).
--Ted
--Ted
G
Garrovick
Guest
Where did you see that Andorians' antennae could not move? Or was it just that movie technology didn'y exist in the 1960s, 70s and 80s so they did not move
"Canon" has nothing to do with it. The fact the Andorians had antennae is the "canon".
If you want a "canon" violation, then in ENT Andorians did not even have antennae, as an example.
Nice try though.
Yes, I see your point. It's a while since I have seen "Balance of Terror" (least that's my excuse!), but of course ENT should not have had cloaking Romulans, or any idea of what Romulans looked like.Nothing but lazy, sloppy writing and production values.
Regards
But the Suliban got their cloaks from the TCW. Pity Cotto didn't retcon the Romulans when they ended the TCW, but S1-3 of ENT just left too much of a mess.
I've considered a solution to the contradiction re: atomic weapons in the E-R wars vs. the technology available in ENT. Earth only has the two warp 5 starships which are expensive and time-consuming to build. They're Star Fleet's best ships and it's unlikely Enterprise and Columbia would be Earth's first choices for cannon fodder. They would be used to pursue alliances, establish agreements for aid, weapons and technology and ferry materiel and ordnance to colonies at risk, etc.
And it hadn't been all that long since the Xindi attack and it would take years to recover economically and materially.
So when the Romulans attack, humanity doesn't have the space fleet it needs to fight a war. It seems to me they would have to build up a fleet quickly -- inexpensive thick-hulled tin cans armed to the teeth with nukes to get out there to confront the enemy. They'd only be using the most basic communication technology, radio. And they wouldn't have sophisticated translation devices. It would certainly explain the huge loss in human life that would be felt by descendents like Stiles a century later.
As for ENT's "Romulan" episodes:
The humans didn't see the Romulans in Minefield. The cloak was less a mistake than a failure on the part of Bermaga to thoroughly familiarize themselves with the only series for which they had no responsibility: Star Trek.
No one on the NX-01 ever saw a Romulan during the Babel/United/Aenar arc, either. And the prototype in that arc was never cloaked, because Manny knew better.
At the end of the Vulcan arc we discover that V'Las was in cahoots with the Romulans, but he was obviously not going to be leaving behind any records of his treason (or might he have been a cosmetically altered Romulan sleeper agent? unfortunately, we'll never know).
Also remember that in ENT the Romulans could not cloak a full size ship. They cloaked mines and things of that general size.
That is quite a ridiculas comparison. Law and Order or ER does not have 28 combined seasons plus movies plus animited series to track. These shows don't span centuries and they did not start off with a vision of future technology that already looks dated. Even if they did, would fans of those shows worry more about the canon of technology than the quality of the stories?
But who knows, maybe the writers do it on purpose. All the distraction over canon may take the pressure away from delivering good plot and sub-plot.
