I am watching "Where No Man Has Gone Before" (1.03) and have noticed something that later Star Trek shows such as Star Trek: Voyager contradicts. At one point pretty early in the episode, Kirk instructs Mitchell to leave the galaxy at warp factor one. Later shows clearly indicate that leaving the galaxy would not be possible (not even at warp factor ten let alone at warp factor one). The whole premise of Star Trek: Voyager, for example, is that the crew gets stranded in a different quadrant of the galaxy, and the journey home is expected to take about seventy-five years. I am sure that there are other instances of this kind of writing error happening throughout the franchise, as well, but I am pointing this one out because I just caught it. It's so frustrating that the writers weren't more careful than that.
A Goof in the STAR TREK Franchise
- Thread starter RegalTrekkie
- Start date
I wouldn't be so hard on the writers about that one -- TOS was just starting to establish its identity, and really every show (Trek or otherwise) will have things that seem inconsistent with their earlier episodes. TOS is further unique in that it spawned a giant franchise, so there's greater differences than being concerned with a lone TV show.
With that said, I'm not sure when Roddenberry decided that the show should be a couple hundred years in the future (and thus try to make technological advancements seem realistic with that time frame) and/or when he decided that Trek should primarily be set in one galaxy. Later episodes tend to be a tad more consistent, but then the spinoffs and movies really cemented those consistencies as (mostly) hard rules.
Were do they state that leaving the Galaxy would be impossible? And what does Voyager being in a different quadrant have to do with leaving the Galaxy?
Welcome to the board.
But...wrong.
You're proceeding from a false assumption. Your argument is like saying I can't leave the US in an hour because an airplane can't travel from Salt Lake City to Atlanta within an hour, forgetting that said plane could fly east from Atlanta out and over the coast and leave enter international airspace fairly quickly. Out where out Sun is the plane of the galactic disc is only about 3,000 light years thick. you can leave the "galaxy" pretty easily up going galactic north or south instead out along the plane of the disc. As Spock might say say, your "pattern indicates two dimensions thinking."
But...wrong.
You're proceeding from a false assumption. Your argument is like saying I can't leave the US in an hour because an airplane can't travel from Salt Lake City to Atlanta within an hour, forgetting that said plane could fly east from Atlanta out and over the coast and leave enter international airspace fairly quickly. Out where out Sun is the plane of the galactic disc is only about 3,000 light years thick. you can leave the "galaxy" pretty easily up going galactic north or south instead out along the plane of the disc. As Spock might say say, your "pattern indicates two dimensions thinking."
If that's the case, then why does the barrier look more like it would along the plane of the disc? I would think a barrier on the top or bottom would look more like an endless plane.
Take a look at the videos in my sig
(although if you really found that frustrating, they might totally ruin Trek for you)
Welcome to the board.
But...wrong.
You're proceeding from a false assumption. Your argument is like saying I can't leave the US in an hour because an airplane can't travel from Salt Lake City to Atlanta within an hour, forgetting that said plane could fly east from Atlanta out and over the coast and leave enter international airspace fairly quickly. Out where out Sun is the plane of the galactic disc is only about 3,000 light years thick. you can leave the "galaxy" pretty easily up going galactic north or south instead out along the plane of the disc. As Spock might say say, your "pattern indicates two dimensions thinking."
It's explicitly referred to as the "rim of the galaxy" when they return in "By Any Other Name".
Besides, several other time/distance examples in TOS, TAS, STV, STFC, ENT and STID render Voyager's premise moot. It's just one of those things - they wanted a crossing the galaxy to take a lifetime, so they changed it and pretended the prior examples didn't exist.
Very often in TOS, you can see a lack of science knowledge in the writing. For example, there's a pretty big blooper in "All Our Yesterdays" when Spock says his home planet is "millions of light years away." That's wrong, and we rationalize it by saying Spock was out of his gourd at the time and speaking in hyperbole.
The TNG era brought in a new generation of science-literate advisers who were actual staff members, and not just some guy at NASA who traded occasional snail-mails with Roddenberry. That's why the Voyager writers had a much better handle on the true scale of things. The real-world galaxy is much bigger than anybody filming "Classic Cast Trek" ever realized.
Star Trek from the 1990s onward did have some big science howlers (like the magical Nexus in Generations), but those were usually knowing acts of dramatic liberty rather than uninformed accidents.
The TNG era brought in a new generation of science-literate advisers who were actual staff members, and not just some guy at NASA who traded occasional snail-mails with Roddenberry. That's why the Voyager writers had a much better handle on the true scale of things. The real-world galaxy is much bigger than anybody filming "Classic Cast Trek" ever realized.
Star Trek from the 1990s onward did have some big science howlers (like the magical Nexus in Generations), but those were usually knowing acts of dramatic liberty rather than uninformed accidents.
"Galaxy edge" in WNMHGB.
None of it makes sense anyway. If you wanted to head to Andromeda that last thing you'd do is fly through the galactic plane to the "rim", because that's the wrong direction. It's inane...by any other name.
Not correct.
De Forest Research reviewed the scripts for all kind of issues, including science gaffes, and typically caught them, but the production didn't always heed their recommendations and sometimes script revisions didn't get sent to them.
If Wikipedia is correct, the thin disk of the Milky Way is 1000 light years thick.
So at most, our sun is 500 light years from the top or bottom edge. If you can go at 1000 times the speed of light, it's six months' travel to "leave the galaxy."
In WNM, Kirk apparently stopped just before the edge to take a Polaroid, and then said "Ahead warp factor one." Relatively speaking, that means ahead slow.
Just FYI, Rigel is on the order of 900 light years from Earth.
I thought this thread would be about James R. Kirk.
Ha, I rationalize nothing. I just ignore that stuff and enjoy the stories. I wouldn't hire Star Trek writers to teach me astrology, nor would I ask astrologists to write for Star Trek. For a 60's TV show on hideous deadlines, I think they did well enough. But that's just me. Then again, I also give Irwin Allen a pass, so I'm a basically forgiving person.
I think you mean astronomy. I'm not getting a strong science vibe from the bridge of the Seaview.
Well I don't think that WNMHGB has the error. Its the first episode. It establishes the precedence. Warp Factor 1 could be 100 light years a day for all we know (at that stage). 30 years later in VOY they define the max Voyager can travel is 1000 light years per year. Are people saying the TOS writers should have been aware of that?
Or is it the VOY writers you have a problem with? To me the VOY writers wanted the journey to take 75 years and they just set the rules to suit them. That was the whole premise of their series. I can't see the problem with that. Its not that big a stretch to marry the speeds in WNMHGB to that of VOY if you use fanboy logic.
We don't know where the Enterprise was when it made its trip to the 'edge of the galaxy'. For all we know it could have spent 6 months getting there. In "The Paradise Syndrome" the Enterprise was at least 3 months away from help.
And the Enterprise was pretty far from help too in WNMHGB.
And I see a lot of techno-babble, holo-deck 'science' in the series after TOS as well. Not just the Nexus. The episodes where people de-evolved and were restored back to normal, where they deaged and were able to reage or reduce in age using the transporter. All those episodes where Q or the Traveller or the Prophets or the holodeck performed miracles were not 'real science'.
Not that that's what we want. Episodes that are strictly scientific would be extremely boring.
Or is it the VOY writers you have a problem with? To me the VOY writers wanted the journey to take 75 years and they just set the rules to suit them. That was the whole premise of their series. I can't see the problem with that. Its not that big a stretch to marry the speeds in WNMHGB to that of VOY if you use fanboy logic.
We don't know where the Enterprise was when it made its trip to the 'edge of the galaxy'. For all we know it could have spent 6 months getting there. In "The Paradise Syndrome" the Enterprise was at least 3 months away from help.
And the Enterprise was pretty far from help too in WNMHGB.
And I see a lot of techno-babble, holo-deck 'science' in the series after TOS as well. Not just the Nexus. The episodes where people de-evolved and were restored back to normal, where they deaged and were able to reage or reduce in age using the transporter. All those episodes where Q or the Traveller or the Prophets or the holodeck performed miracles were not 'real science'.
Not that that's what we want. Episodes that are strictly scientific would be extremely boring.
YATI, and OLD Star Trek fan term:
Yet Another Trek Inconsistency
Star Trek (starting with TOS and going into TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT, et. al.) was NOT designed to be 'hard' science fiction with everything firmly rooted in factual science. It's a TV show meant to entertain. Yes, every series has had scientific advisors/consultants informing the producers about science/astronomy, and giving them info on whether something may or may not be plausible, etc; but in the end, STORY (and what they want to do to entertain) has ALWAYS trumped 'scientific accuracy' in Star Trek from TOS until today.
As for ship speeds/travel time; Star Trek ships have always traveled at the 'speed of plot' (IE there always where they need to be at the time the story's plot needs them to be there.)
The 'Star Trek Universe' (tm) has never been 100% consistent and was never envisioned to be 100% consistent. Story has always trumped consistency/canon in Star Trek.
The fun for a lot o fans is to try to rationalize away these inconsistencies with ridiculous justifications/explainations
Yet Another Trek Inconsistency
Star Trek (starting with TOS and going into TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT, et. al.) was NOT designed to be 'hard' science fiction with everything firmly rooted in factual science. It's a TV show meant to entertain. Yes, every series has had scientific advisors/consultants informing the producers about science/astronomy, and giving them info on whether something may or may not be plausible, etc; but in the end, STORY (and what they want to do to entertain) has ALWAYS trumped 'scientific accuracy' in Star Trek from TOS until today.
As for ship speeds/travel time; Star Trek ships have always traveled at the 'speed of plot' (IE there always where they need to be at the time the story's plot needs them to be there.)
The 'Star Trek Universe' (tm) has never been 100% consistent and was never envisioned to be 100% consistent. Story has always trumped consistency/canon in Star Trek.
The fun for a lot o fans is to try to rationalize away these inconsistencies with ridiculous justifications/explainations
The fun for a lot o fans is to try to rationalize away these inconsistencies with ridiculous justifications/explainations
I once encountered a poster on another board who tried to reconcile the original Highlander II with the rest of the franchise, despite the movie's own producers saying it was so bad, it wasn't canon. The mental gymnastics were horrific but amazing.
This poster kept repeating, "Am I the only one who..." And the response every time was, "Yes, yes you are."
No one's ever going to let me forget that are they?
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