You didn’t answer my other question.
Whoops, sorry. I watch them TNG, DSN, then VOY. It would be interesting to try an exacting chronological rewatch. But becasue the stories take place in such wildly different location and different crews a linear chronological watch might be more confusing. But it might work.
How's this for DS9:
"It was the dawn of the third age of Bajor– immediately after the Cardassian occupation.
The re-purposing of an abandoned Cardassian ore processing station was a dream given form. Its goal: to prevent another occupation, by establishing a Federation/Bajoran starbase, where Bajoran and non-Bajoran alike can work out their differences peacefully. It's a port of call – home away from home – for diplomats, hustlers, entrepreneurs, and wanderers.
Citizens of multiple worlds, wrapped in two million, five hundred thousand tons of spinning metal . . . all alone in the night.
It can be a dangerous place, but it's our last best hope for peace.
This is the story of the building of the Federation/Bajor alliance. The year is 2369. The name of the place is Deep Space Nine."
"This is the dawning of the third age of Bajor, the third age of Baajooor."
The trouble with that approach, when applied to TV shows, is that they tend to evolve over time. The TOS, or the TNG or indeed almost any series, that became famous and well loved, are not the same as they started out. Lots of things are refined in the costumes, sets, world building, as they go along that form part of the world we know as theirs. To do a prequel that is entirely consistent with your idea of being written beforehand, you have to forego all that and go back to your pilot, your first draft, and chuck away all the progress you've made since then. That's what I mean when I say that I can't see a prequel ever satisfying you. Your interpretation of 'consistent' is just too rigid.
I think your statement here is spot on. For me to be satisfied with a
Star Trek prequel all the "early installment weirdness" would be the state of things. They would be called Vulcanians, they would have hand lasers, they would call it "Time Warp Factor 5," in an emergency they could blast out of orbit with "rockets," and Spock would crack a smile occasionally. Anything else is not going to let me have my suspension of disbelief. Because "The Cage," for example, should be considered a snap shot of the Star Trek universe at that time. Just as ST, TNG, DSN, VOY are all snap shots of the Star Trek Universe at those times. Instead,
Discovery's approach seems to be taking this amorphous idea of "Star Trek" and all its accoutrements, and then using that as the foundation for their series. What that does is just make the "early installment weirdness" stand out in opposition to the Standard Acceptable Franchise.
So no, unless prequel is able to dot all it's "i"s and cross all its "t"s, and look and feel like it actually was a previous part of the story, then I won't be satisfied. Rogue One came pretty damn close, but missed the mark on many points.
