Spoilers Canon, Continuity, and Pike's Accident

[Dukhat]

Personally, I fight against the idea that it's an alternate timeline because one of the biggest reasons I like the show is because it is the same characters that I fell in love with decades ago.

Strange New Worlds actually helps me appreciate the characters even more than I already did by filling in their backstories and giving them far more character than TOS ever could have gave them in the 60's.

Uhura didn't exactly get much character development back in the day. But now, thanks to SNW, I can appreciate and look back at her personal journey to get where we saw her in TOS. Same with Spock, Chapel, etc.

Strange New Worlds has done nothing but improve The Original Series characters and setting. To remove it from the prime timeline would be doing those characters a great disservice.

I completely understand your viewpoint. I see things a little differently. I feel like, despite my absolute love of TOS, that it is quite dated and that because it's a product of its time, that there's no need to 'update' it or 'improve' it with some 50-years new future production that claims to say it takes place in the same continuity even though there are quite jarring fundamental differences between the two productions. It's like saying that the Christopher Nolan Batman films take place in the same continuity as the Adam West '60's TV show. No one in their right mind would think that was the case, even if suddenly Nolan were to say that it was so.

With that said, I like SNW and agree that they are making these characters much better than they originally were. But I simply don't see them as the same characters as their TOS counterparts, just like I don't see TOS BSG Adama as the same guy as nuBSG Adama, because they blatantly aren't, because nuBSG is a reboot. But nuBSG also took the old characters and made them better in the reboot format, and that's pretty much how I feel about SNW. It's a reboot, despite what CBS/Paramount is toting. YMMV.

 

[HotRod]

I completely understand your viewpoint. I see things a little differently. I feel like, despite my absolute love of TOS, that it is quite dated and that because it's a product of its time, that there's no need to 'update' it or 'improve' it with some 50-years new future production that claims to say it takes place in the same continuity even though there are quite jarring fundamental differences between the two productions. It's like saying that the Christopher Nolan Batman films take place in the same continuity as the Adam West '60's TV show. No one in their right mind would think that was the case, even if suddenly Nolan were to say that it was so.

With that said, I like SNW and agree that they are making these characters much better than they originally were. But I simply don't see them as the same characters as their TOS counterparts, just like I don't see TOS BSG Adama as the same guy as nuBSG Adama, because they blatantly aren't, because nuBSG is a reboot. But nuBSG also took the old characters and made them better in the reboot format, and that's pretty much how I feel about SNW. It's a reboot, despite what CBS/Paramount is toting. YMMV.

At this point, I don't think anybody is changing anyones mind on the matter. It just seems to be something we all decide to argue about every few weeks.

 

[Commander Troi]

Ornithopters

Yay Da Vinci!

 

[Tallguy]

The difficulty of the "new timeline" argument, pro or anti, is that functionally the two approaches haven't been that different.

JJ of course wanted to be let completely off the continuity hook so he crafted a reboot in such a way that let him still have Leonard Nimoy as Spock but would keep him from being assailed with "all of my 40 years of Star Trek is GONE now!" Cake having and eating. Except they still changed things where they should have stayed the same because: Writers!

Now we have the Disco shows. "Same" timeline, but they don't want to have to say that World War III happened in the 1990's. (Because we talk about the Eugenics Wars more than any Star Trek in over 50 years.) So far that is the ONLY thing that they are saying actually CHANGED. And whether it makes sense or not they are saying that nothing else has changed. Spock and Chapel aren't different because of the timeline change. The sets don't look different because of the TLC. The Gorn aren't a known threat earlier than they should be in this show because of the TLC. The Gorn are a known threat because continuity is apparently too constricting and keeping track of a single episode is a lot of work.

So... Ok? Let's do it! It's a different timeline! Huzzah! Does that make you less engaged now because it doesn't link with literal TOS? Or do you now watch with a new thrill of anticipation that anything can happen and we're no longer tied to the shackles of 1966-2005?

The one thing that people seem to be wondering "will they or won't they?" is Pike's accident. Which TWO shows have now gone out of their way to claim is immutable.

Or... No! It's still "the same" timeline! And anything can still happen because it's being created by TV show writers.

 

[fireproof78]

The Gorn are a known threat because continuity is apparently too constricting and keeping track of a single episode is a lot of work.

I still have yet to see the idea that the Gorn were a complete unknown. So...it's so constricting that I don't see the constriction. All we have is Kirk going "It's apparently called a Gorn." That's it!

Does that make you less engaged now because it doesn't link with literal TOS?

No.

Or do you now watch with a new thrill of anticipation that anything can happen and we're no longer tied to the shackles of 1966-2005?

Also, no.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

McCoy reacts as anyone in real life would, he expects whales to be just animals, so the movie explains they had secretly evolved on Earth, if it did not, if it treated smart whales as normal, the audience would be left confused.

Wrong. The idea that at least certain marine mammals are intelligent is an ongoing topic of scientific research, and it has been since decades before STIV came out.

How intelligent are whales and dolphins? - Whale and Dolphin Conservation

Over millions of years, the bodies, brains, sensory systems and intelligence of whales and dolphins have evolved for living rich and varied lives in water.

uk.whales.org

An Ocean of Intelligence | Save Our Seas Magazine

In the 1960s, Jane Goodall helped change the way we viewed intelligence and sentience in chimpanzees. Her research triggered a core question: if chimpanzees have complex inner lives, what about other animals? Haley Pope explores pioneering research that shows marine organisms also possess and...

saveourseasmagazine.com

Whale-SETI: Groundbreaking Encounter with Humpback Whales Reveals Potential for Non-Human Intelligence Communication

December 12, 2023, Mountain View, CA -- A team of scientists from the SETI Institute, University of California Davis and the Alaska Whale Foundation, had a close encounter with a non-human (aquatic) intelligence. The Whale-SETI team has been studying humpback whale communication systems in an...

www.seti.org

 

[Dukhat]

So... Ok? Let's do it! It's a different timeline! Huzzah! Does that make you less engaged now because it doesn't link with literal TOS? Or do you now watch with a new thrill of anticipation that anything can happen and we're no longer tied to the shackles of 1966-2005?

I simply find that I enjoy the Discoverse more when I don't feel the need to shoehorn it into an already established continuity that it visually and fundamentally doesn't work with. I would probably be more forgiving had the Discoverse taken place during the Lost Era after TUC and before TNG.

 

[Mudd]

Science fiction is a subgenre of fantasy.

 

[Tallguy]

Science fiction is a subgenre of fantasy.

OooooOOOOooooooo!

Classifying Star Wars: Fantasy? Science Fiction? Speculative Fiction? Space Opera?

Inspired by a conversation from the SNW subforum the debate raged about what makes Star Wars more science fiction than fantasy, and vice versa. I found this quote from Lucas on the subject: Which apparently was not enough to satisfy the debate. So, where do people land on Star Wars? I do not...

www.trekbbs.com

I simply find that I enjoy the Discoverse more when I don't feel the need to shoehorn it into an already established continuity that it visually and fundamentally doesn't work with. I would probably be more forgiving had the Discoverse taken place during the Lost Era after TUC and before TNG.

How much do you think Disco now jibes with SNW? It's certainly less unified than, say, TNG / DS9 / VOY at this point.

 

[Daedalus]

How much do you think Disco now jibes with SNW? It's certainly less unified than, say, TNG / DS9 / VOY at this point

This is a good point, really. In Under the Cloak of War, even the flashback klingons were shown to be different to all the Klingons shown in DSC, and dressed like they had been in the episode The broken circle.

In TNG/DS9/VOY you could happily interchange the Klingons without anyone noticing.

The gap is definitely windening between the two shows.

 

[Michael]

In TNG/DS9/VOY you could happily interchange the Klingons without anyone noticing.

That may be (although I would argue that first season TNG Worf certainly looks significantly different from how he looked after season two). But could you say the same about the consistency of the Trill makeup? Or Ktarians? And are Bolian’s generally bald or can they have hair? Or what about other inconsistencies? Did Starfleet first learn about the Borg’s existence when Picard met them in 2365 (“Q Who?”)? Or did the Hansens already investigate them in 2354? Or should they have already known about them since when the El-Aurian’s fled their invasion in the 23rd century?

None of these ever really bothered me, but they were certainly inconsistencies. They have always been a part of Trek and I don’t feel like the inconsistencies in the Klingon makeup between Discovery and Strange New Worlds are that different.

 

[The Wormhole]

although I would argue that first season TNG Worf certainly looks significantly different from how he looked after season two

Indeed, and according to Ron Moore, there were serious conversations in the TNG offices about whether they should replicate Worf's S1 look for the past scenes in AGT. In the end they decided not to mostly for simplicity sake, they already had to do two different makeup jobs on Worf for that episode, the present day one and the aged look for the future. Plus doing aged looks for everyone else in the future scenes. Doing a third look for Worf was felt to be more work that it'd be worth.

 

[Daedalus]

That may be (although I would argue that first season TNG Worf certainly looks significantly different from how he looked after season two). But could you say the same about the consistency of the Trill makeup? Or Ktarians? And are Bolian’s generally bald or can they have hair? Or what about other inconsistencies? Did Starfleet first learn about the Borg’s existence when Picard met them in 2365 (“Q Who?”)? Or did the Hansens already investigate them in 2354? Or should they have already known about them since when the El-Aurian’s fled their invasion in the 23rd century?

None of these ever really bothered me, but they were certainly inconsistencies. They have always been a part of Trek and I don’t feel like the inconsistencies in the Klingon makeup between Discovery and Strange New Worlds are that different.

I'll agree that early Worf was unique, but it wasn't like the Klingons in Heart of Glory wore a unique style of uniform never to be seen again. SNW Klingons look way more like TNG Klingons in terms of make-up, it's not even close.

Henry Alonso Myers was more influenced by the TOS Movies than anything.

STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS Producers Explain Why the Classic Klingons Are Back

In season two of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, the Klingons look a lot more familiar than they did in Star Trek: Discovery.

nerdist.com

 

[Dukhat]

How much do you think Disco now jibes with SNW? It's certainly less unified than, say, TNG / DS9 / VOY at this point.

Good question. While there are significant continuity issues between the two shows, such as the aforementioned Klingon makeup, the use of SNW uniforms in flashbacks when the DSC uniforms should have been used, etc., honestly, those things are relatively minor and forgivable. To me, the issue is more that I get the sense that the SNW producers are trying to distance themselves from DSC as best they can without going the dreaded 'reboot' route. I think they acknowledge that the visual disconnect of DSC to TOS was a mistake, and that they are trying to get things back on the right track in terms of the visuals. It's not going to completely emulate the '60's aesthetic, but it doesn't have to. It can still look believable and also evoke that older aesthetic. There are things that were established in DSC that they still seem to have the unfortunate need to continue, but the impression I get is that they want SNW to be more of a standalone show, and that one does not have to watch DSC to understand SNW. Very little to none of the plot points of DSC carried over to SNW.

 

[fireproof78]

That may be (although I would argue that first season TNG Worf certainly looks significantly different from how he looked after season two). But could you say the same about the consistency of the Trill makeup? Or Ktarians? And are Bolian’s generally bald or can they have hair? Or what about other inconsistencies? Did Starfleet first learn about the Borg’s existence when Picard met them in 2365 (“Q Who?”)? Or did the Hansens already investigate them in 2354? Or should they have already known about them since when the El-Aurian’s fled their invasion in the 23rd century?

None of these ever really bothered me, but they were certainly inconsistencies. They have always been a part of Trek and I don’t feel like the inconsistencies in the Klingon makeup between Discovery and Strange New Worlds are that different.

Exactly so. Hell, just look at the variation of Klingons in TUC! How many different foreheads did we see?

 

[Commander Troi]

How much do you think Disco now jibes with SNW? It's certainly less unified than, say, TNG / DS9 / VOY at this point.

Now? Since the jump to the 32nd century, DIS no longer needs to jibe with SNW.

Before the jump? I didn't find it that disconnected. The overall "feel" of the shows was enough for me to see them in the same continuity, even with the little inconsistencies.

 

[Dar70]

Exactly so. Hell, just look at the variation of Klingons in TUC! How many different foreheads did we see?

Yeah but forehead variation have been a thing for a long time. But everyone is forgetting that Discovery klingons had four nostrils, bald and elongated heads etc....tbf Disco season 2 tried to rectify their mistake and then SNW brought the regular nostril and hair Klingons back...

 

[Frontis]

The thing is, the DISCO Klingons also differ in character, personality and behaviour.
They are too serious and depressing for me.
Probably would need some Blood Wine to get in better mood

 

[fireproof78]

The thing is, the DISCO Klingons also differ in character, personality and behaviour.
They are too serious and depressing for me.
Probably would need some Blood Wine to get in better mood

Because all Klingons act the same?

I prefer serious Klingons to the honor spouting garbage from TNG.

 

[Yistaan]

Speaking of Klingons, the delay of at least 40 years for the Eugenics Wars in the current Trek timeline gives wiggle room to say that the Augment and Augment virus arcs of Enterprise didn't happen in current Trek (they happened in a 1990s Eugenics Wars timeline) and thus current Trek's timeline never had Augment virus Klingons, allowing Trek to ignore them indefinitely from now on.