Arm the decanonizer!

[Ithekro]

(sacasm history begins)
You must have missed that speech President Clinton had on the state of affairs about that Kahn fella. Guess we were too distracted by if he was having sexual relations or lying about various business dealings and dead partners or something like that.

Americans just didn't reall care in the 90s. The aftermath of the Eugenics War though? That one's been a mess since 9/11.

(/sarcasm history)

 

[eyeresist]

ENT: Temporal Cold War Arc - None of it made sense. And not in the "Because time travel is complicated." sense. It just doesn't make sense in general. It was one of those plot elements that was never really thought through before it was implemented -- which is especially bad in this case because it was an entire story arc rather than an isolated episode.

I agree there was no sign that the TCW had ever been thought through or planned ahead. In fact, to call it a "story arc" is inaccurate; it was just a thing that popped up occasionally (I dunno, do TNG fans complain about the sporadic appearances of the Borg?). The only TCW ep that was really nonsensical was Cold Front, when the Suliban baddy is trying to save the Enterprise and goody Daniels is trying to stop him, with no explanation given. Thankfully, the TCW was finished fairly decently in Storm Front.

 

[fireproof78]

ENT: Temporal Cold War Arc - None of it made sense. And not in the "Because time travel is complicated." sense. It just doesn't make sense in general. It was one of those plot elements that was never really thought through before it was implemented -- which is especially bad in this case because it was an entire story arc rather than an isolated episode.

I agree there was no sign that the TCW had ever been thought through or planned ahead. In fact, to call it a "story arc" is inaccurate; it was just a thing that popped up occasionally (I dunno, do TNG fans complain about the sporadic appearances of the Borg?). The only TCW ep that was really nonsensical was Cold Front, when the Suliban baddy is trying to save the Enterprise and goody Daniels is trying to stop him, with no explanation given. Thankfully, the TCW was finished fairly decently in Storm Front.

Exactly so. The TCW is a great concept, but had no follow through that made it engaging at all. It is so unremarkable, that if you list episodes where it is important, I'll typically have passed those over for ones that involve more exploration or politics.

The problem is, there is not distinct sides, or what either side wants. If the Suliban leader guy wants them to win, what happens? Bad things...I think. Same thing with Daniels' side. Who cares if they win?

If the TCW popped up from time to time indicating the the actions of the ENT crew were impacting the war, and that both sides were actively trying to prevent that, it might be interesting. But, it just ended up being a pointless plot point.

 

[Ithekro]

It is basically time travel stories written from the point of view of the people being visited by the time travelers, just that the time travelers keep coming back.

Be like a Doctor Who series writen from the point of view of the Brigader after the Fourth Doctor left UNIT to travel again. You'd get his normal life, then suddenely a different alien would show up in the same blue box and you know something bad is going to happen. Which one is it this month? The short guy with all the question marks? The other short Doctor who you met in the London Underground a long time ago with the Yeti? One of those young ones? Some old guy who doesn't know who you are, but says he's the Doctor?

 

[eyeresist]

The TCW is a great concept, but had no follow through that made it engaging at all. It is so unremarkable, that if you list episodes where it is important, I'll typically have passed those over for ones that involve more exploration or politics.

I thought "Detained" was a good one, which did actually touch on exploration and politics. Shame they didn't follow it up.

 

[Mytran]

there shouldn't be mystical barrier to the centre of the galaxy aside from the event horizon of a supermassive blackhole.

I took "center of the galaxy" to mean a general region, and not a pin point. It's like saying "mid-west America," it's an area, not a spot.

Yeah, it's the Galaque Sea; a highly turbulent region of space that no probe or ship has ever returned from. Located not far from the Nimbus system it is the perfect prison for malevolent god entities. I suppose confusion with the Terran word "Galaxy" is easy enough to see, but rest assured - they are not the same place

Remember people - Shatner originally wanted the Enterprise to travel to the centre of the UNIVERSE to meet God!

 

[DCR]

The only thing I really want removed is the last episode of ENT. Both Trip's death and the Riker/Troi nonsense.

 

[Darkwing]

Make ENT a different universe.
Make Kruge's ship a stolen Romulan BoP, as the earlier drafts had it.
Eliminate all the "no money" and "not a military" nonsense.
Remove the "acting ensign" bit. Picard pulled strings, without Beverly's request, get her son onboard as soon as he graduated and commissioned. He still feels guilt over Jack, after all.
No 'Spock's Brain'.
Spread 'The Child' and 'Deja Q' over their entire season, along with some other eps.
Maybe more to come.

 

[Darkwing]

Because they don't use money in the 23rd Century. So how could Scotty buy a boat?

considering that Kirk mentions how much money Starfleet spent educating Spock, they DID use money in the 23rd century. Now, a century later, maybe they did finally do away with money, or maybe in both cases, they used electronic currencies, and simply view it differently. Kirk sees e-credits as money (but obviously not the same currency as 1987 US dollars), Picard sees e-credits as not-money.
So Scotty could easily have bought a boat.

 

[loghaD]

On a nitpicky note:

As a Klingon-speaker, I'd like to wipe out a lot of the bad grammar.
A lot of the Klingon dialogue heard in Star Trek is really just gibberish, and I don't really mind that because I can just chalk that up to linguistic diversity; it makes perfect sense for a vast and ancient empire to house more than one language.
However, I'm annoyed by lines that are clearly intended to be in tlhIngan Hol, but were clearly written by somebody with no real understanding of the language; those are really difficult to retcon, so I end up removing them from my headcanon.
An infamous example comes from Worf's R'uustai with Jeremy Aster, during which he says SoS jIH batlh SoH. Translating the words one by one, you get "Mother I honor you.", but when you take the grammar into consideration, it means "I'm a mother. You are honor." or "You are the honor of mother's monitor."

On a less nitpicky note:

I'd like to remove many of the more patriarchal elements of Klingon culture. Most importantly, I'd like to go into the episode DS9: "The House of Quark" and remove the whole thing about women needing special dispensation to serve on the Klingon High Council.

This is not because I feel that the Klingon Empire needs to be perfectly egalitarian and live up to our 21st century human view of a perfect society. In fact, I'm all in favor of them being specist, colonialist aristocrats who are all about conquest and survival of the fittest.

The reason I wish they were less patriarchal is because I feel that it feeds into an arbitrary and human view of gender roles. Klingon culture is big on warfare, violence and tests of endurance, with a side of getting drunk, singing songs and breaking stuff.
We sort of expect such a culture to favor men, because in many human cultures these are regarded as typically masculine traits. However, Klingons are not human, and therefore their view of masculinity and femininity need not match ours.
It would be nice to have show off a stereotypically macho culture in which men and women participate equally, not because the Klingons take a particularly active interest in social equality, but simply because the idea of excluding women has ever really occurred to them. It would be one way in which Star Trek could highlight how arbitrary many of our preconceptions about gender are.

Y'know, kind of like TNG: "Angel One". But hopefully less awful.

 

[SpocksOddSocks]

^I'm not really up on my Klingon, but I do like your suggestions of gender roles in the Klingon culture. If they had a longer standing history if gender equality than humanity, it would also give them something to look down on us for aside from just having a "softer culture"*.

Although I quite like Angel One.... aside from the unreallistic ease at which the Elected one's mind was changed about how to handle the situation at the end.

*Edit for clarification - I mean a reason that would be accepted by human culture as opposed to one that would only be accepted by a warrior culture.

 

[Unimatrix Q]

Sir, the decanonizer is armed and ready” The crew man in front of you tells you as his colleague is working on the control panel that operates the mighty machine that fills most of the room and that can cut through time and space, removing, objects, people, and even ideas completely from existence and out of everyone's mind but yours.

“Excellent” You respond as you pat the crew member on the shoulder, “Now it is time to come to go back in Star Trek's lore and correct history to make it work the way it should have.

You take place in front of the machine and start operating the joysticks that control the emitter of the device and target it at Star Trek.
“Take this!” You yell as you press the fire buttons on the joystick, making the machine fire.


Heh, silly little introduction but I do so love an entertaining opening. But anyway image if you as a Star Trek fan get the chance to go back and change parts of any of the shows or movies which you felt had a detrimental effect on that story or even the Star Trek universe in general.
This doesn't just have to be single idea within a story, it can even be a story (episode or movie) itself if you feel it is a complete waste. I'll go first.


I would really like to eliminate the Borg Queen from First Contact and subsequent Voyager as I feel that the introduction of the Queen helped dismantle the concept behind the Borg Collective.

Despite what the cyborgs have gone through since TNG I still love the Borg as one of Star Trek's biggest antagonist as they were so much the 'other' compared to humans and most of the ST species.Their ideology, their culture, their mentality, here was something really menacing that did not stick to most antagonist trademarks. They weren't out to do evil for the sake of evil (though I can not help but not completely eliminate ego or power hunger), heck they even think what they are doing is improving the quality of life for all the beings it assimilates, taking away the chaos in their lives and replacing it with order and structure.

But then we got the Borg Queen in First Contact. I actually liked the character at first I admit and really did see it as a sort of shell the mind of the entire Collective was running through, creating a visage of individuality. But even in First Contact it sadly quickly went to the deep end like trying to seduce Data (the Borg considered him obsolete in the new order, didn't they?), being annoyed at Picard for forgetting her and so on.

And this crap continued in Voyager in which the Borg Queen became less of a spokesperson and more their unofficial leader who developed an idiotic interest in Seven of Nine and a grudge against Janeway and the Voyager crew.

By eliminating the Borg Queen I feel a lot of idiotic-ness can be removed. Yeah some episodes would have to be seriously revised as it sometimes partly revolved around the character but I think it would be for the better. For one, no special interest in Seven (why would the Collective care about re assimilating one individual). And would we really miss such 'gems' as Unimatrix Zero and of course Endgame?

As for how conversation with the Borg in First Contact would have to be handled, well someone else on the internet came up with a pretty good idea; basically any verbal conversation switching from one drone to another as the main characters would move past them.
That is actually a lot more creepy too.

I'm absolutely with you!
For me the downfall started with the introduction of biological assimilation into the Canon! I have opened a thread about reintroducing the original borg into the novels on Literature. Would be glad if you would read it and post there!

 

[Ghost]

I'm absolutely with you!
For me the downfall started with the introduction of biological assimilation into the Canon! I have opened a thread about reintroducing the original borg into the novels on Literature. Would be glad if you would read it and post there!

I actually don't mind that addition to the Borg Collective as it made them even more terrifying as they basically consumed everything for their own use, including the actual beings of a civilization they have targeted.
What I would cut is that the Borg hold any importance to particular drones like Picard or Seven of Nine, these are just some extensions that can be easily replaced.

But yeah, before that I had the idea that the Borg Collective could have been made up of cyborgified clones that just roam the galaxy for technology and resources they can use, after they have removed all these pesky individual organics that owned it first.

 

[Unimatrix Q]

I'm absolutely with you!
For me the downfall started with the introduction of biological assimilation into the Canon! I have opened a thread about reintroducing the original borg into the novels on Literature. Would be glad if you would read it and post there!

I actually don't mind that addition to the Borg Collective as it made them even more terrifying as they basically consumed everything for their own use, including the actual beings of a civilization they have targeted.
What I would cut is that the Borg hold any importance to particular drones like Picard or Seven of Nine, these are just some extensions that can be easily replaced.

But yeah, before that I had the idea that the Borg Collective could have been made up of cyborgified clones that just roam the galaxy for technology and resources they can use, after they have removed all these pesky individual organics that owned it first.

That would have been great! And the Thing that Guinan said that the Federation Species are only primitive wildes for the Borg and that a possible consense between the Borg and the UFP is possible when the Federation is more advanced in the Future! So many lost opportunities... *sigh*

 

[dub]

The only thing I really want removed is the last episode of ENT. Both Trip's death and the Riker/Troi nonsense.

That, the "nod" to the TUC Klingon courtroom/prison planet, and the oh-so-contrived "some kind of...directive" line. Those are the main cringeworthy moments for me. I can live with the rest of the series, and actually loved S3 and the rest of S4.

 

[danielcw]

The only thing I really want removed is the last episode of ENT. Both Trip's death and the Riker/Troi nonsense.

It is just a holodeck simulation.
It can be as non-canon, as you want it to be
(I believe one novel did that)

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

I'm absolutely with you!
For me the downfall started with the introduction of biological assimilation into the Canon! I have opened a thread about reintroducing the original borg into the novels on Literature. Would be glad if you would read it and post there!

I actually don't mind that addition to the Borg Collective as it made them even more terrifying as they basically consumed everything for their own use, including the actual beings of a civilization they have targeted.
What I would cut is that the Borg hold any importance to particular drones like Picard or Seven of Nine, these are just some extensions that can be easily replaced.

But yeah, before that I had the idea that the Borg Collective could have been made up of cyborgified clones that just roam the galaxy for technology and resources they can use, after they have removed all these pesky individual organics that owned it first.

That would have been great! And the Thing that Guinan said that the Federation Species are only primitive wildes for the Borg and that a possible consense between the Borg and the UFP is possible when the Federation is more advanced in the Future! So many lost opportunities... *sigh*

EEEK!!!!!!!!!!!

Borg as allies. Noooooo

I mean what can you do with them?

 

[T'Girl]

No 'Spock's Brain'.

I would keep Spock's Brain, but I would make the women (and the men) of average intelligence and comprehension.

It would be nice to have show off a stereotypically macho culture in which men and women participate equally, not because the Klingons take a particularly active interest in social equality, but simply because the idea of excluding women has ever really occurred to them.

When showing Klingon women (going back to the 60's) hire actresses who were generally of similar size to their male counterparts. Starting with Errand of Mercy have the female warriors mixed in with the male warriors.

 

[Ghost]

EEEK!!!!!!!!!!!

Borg as allies. Noooooo

I mean what can you do with them?

Not an alliance like the Klingon - Federation alliance. More an understanding like "Hey if you invade us and try to assimilate our people or technology we come back and hurt you a lot" type of deal.

The only other alternative would have been for Starfleet and other galactic powers is to go to war with the Borg and exterminate the Collective to the last drone. And that is not really Star Trek like.

The Collective would probably 'grudgingly' (for as far as the Borg can have a grudge) accept the terms of this treaty as their continued existence depends on it. But in secret they would probably try to find a way to get around this treaty and assimilate the Federation as yet. It is just to powerful now to ignore.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

"brain what is brain?"

My favourite line