Clarifications in the Star Trek Universe

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

This is the thread where little tidbits and preconceptions can be corrected. I was originally going to put this in Star Trek Movies forum, but I'm sure that there are things we can clarify from throughout the shows too.

I'll start:
The whale tank on the Bird of Prey (ST4) is NOT made of transparent aluminum. It is made of plexiglass. The only way Scotty could acquire the plexiglass to make a tank is to offer the formula for transparent aluminum. There is no way that Nichol's could actually develop it so quickly

 

[Nardpuncher]

I always thought there was a blooper in The Motion Picture because Kirk beams onto that orbitting station, meets Scotty and says "Why aren't the Enterprise transporters working?" while he points to the transporter pad with his thumb. I thought Shatner had made a mistake and thought he was on the Enterprise set already...and that he considered the slow time it seemed to take to beam up (it did seem like 10 seconds) as a problem with the transporter.

 

[Dane_Whitman]

Some fans believe that an alternate timeline was created in ST: First Contact. However, in the Voyager episode Relativity, it is established that the events of FC are part of a pre-destination paradox. The Borg were meant to go into the past and it was always part of history.

DUCANE: Let's see how much you've assimilated. The Dali paradox.
SEVEN: Also known as the Melting Clock Effect. It refers to a temporal fissure which slows the passage of time to a gradual halt.
DUCANE: The Pogo Paradox.
SEVEN: A causality loop in which interference to prevent an event actually triggers the same event.
DUCANE: Excellent. Can you give me an example?
SEVEN: The Borg once travelled back in time to stop Zefram Cochrane from breaking the warp barrier. They succeeded, but that in turn led the Starship Enterprise to intervene. They assisted Cochrane with the flight the Borg was trying to prevent. Causal loop complete.
DUCANE: So, in a way, the Federation owes its existence to the Borg.

 

[Anwar]

Spock was not the first Vulcan in Starfleet. Nothing in the series ever implies this, in fact there is information stating that there are other Vulcans such as the entirely Vulcan crew of the USS Intrepid, which would imply that the senior officers of that vessel would have been in Starfleet longer than him.

 

[The Wormhole]

Some fans believe that an alternate timeline was created in ST: First Contact. However, in the Voyager episode Relativity, it is established that the events of FC are part of a pre-destination paradox. The Borg were meant to go into the past and it was always part of history.

DUCANE: Let's see how much you've assimilated. The Dali paradox.
SEVEN: Also known as the Melting Clock Effect. It refers to a temporal fissure which slows the passage of time to a gradual halt.
DUCANE: The Pogo Paradox.
SEVEN: A causality loop in which interference to prevent an event actually triggers the same event.
DUCANE: Excellent. Can you give me an example?
SEVEN: The Borg once travelled back in time to stop Zefram Cochrane from breaking the warp barrier. They succeeded, but that in turn led the Starship Enterprise to intervene. They assisted Cochrane with the flight the Borg was trying to prevent. Causal loop complete.
DUCANE: So, in a way, the Federation owes its existence to the Borg.

While you are correct that it First Contact did not create an alternate timeline, you also can't blame some fans for thinking this. After all, Brannon Braga tried using this as an excuse to explain away all the continuity errors in Enterprise when they began to be too numerous to overlook.

 

[Forbin]

Though Kirk smooched his way across the galaxy, he didn't have sex with every alien chick he bumped into. The only ones we can say for sure in the series were Miramanee and Elaan, and Carol Marcus of course, as revealed later in ST:II.

 

[JiNX-01]

Though Kirk smooched his way across the galaxy, he didn't have sex with every alien chick he bumped into. The only ones we can say for sure in the series were Miramanee and Elaan, and Carol Marcus of course, as revealed later in ST:II.

And Deela in Wink of an Eye. Kirk was putting on his boots and socks in one scene...
I'm also pretty sure he did Drusilla in Bread and Circuses.

 

[Anwar]

Didn't he have sex with Lenore Karidian?

 

[Xerxes1979]

Find me a screen cap so that we can guess the thickness of the finished product as it is being installed in the bays.


SCOTTY
Ah, what else indeed? Let me put it
another way: how thick would a piece
of your plexiglass need to be at 60
feet by 10 feet to withstand the
pressure of 18,000 cubic feet of
water?

NICHOLS
That's easy: 6 inches. We carrystuff that big in stock

SCOTTY
Yes, I noticed. Now suppose -- just suppose -- I could show you a way to
manufacture a wall that would do the same job but was only an inch thick.
would that be worth something to you, eh?

 

[Cyke101]

A personal but tiny irk of mine is from Sacrifice of Angels. Online battle reviews and fan discussion always cite the 2 to 1 odds, the arguably superior Dominion ships, the greater Jem'Hadar firepower but complain about the incoherent mess that was the writing behind Starfleet tactics. These analyses rarely mention that the Dominion jammed communications as soon as the battle started, complete with dialogue showing the Defiant unable to coordinate a fleet action. Jamming communications played a huge role in the battle, but was never really considered in the hindsight of many fans and reviewers.

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

I always thought there was a blooper in The Motion Picture because Kirk beams onto that orbitting station, meets Scotty and says "Why aren't the Enterprise transporters working?" while he points to the transporter pad with his thumb. I thought Shatner had made a mistake and thought he was on the Enterprise set already...and that he considered the slow time it seemed to take to beam up (it did seem like 10 seconds) as a problem with the transporter.

I have had that same problem.

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

Some fans believe that an alternate timeline was created in ST: First Contact. However, in the Voyager episode Relativity, it is established that the events of FC are part of a pre-destination paradox. The Borg were meant to go into the past and it was always part of history.

DUCANE: Let's see how much you've assimilated. The Dali paradox.
SEVEN: Also known as the Melting Clock Effect. It refers to a temporal fissure which slows the passage of time to a gradual halt.
DUCANE: The Pogo Paradox.
SEVEN: A causality loop in which interference to prevent an event actually triggers the same event.
DUCANE: Excellent. Can you give me an example?
SEVEN: The Borg once travelled back in time to stop Zefram Cochrane from breaking the warp barrier. They succeeded, but that in turn led the Starship Enterprise to intervene. They assisted Cochrane with the flight the Borg was trying to prevent. Causal loop complete.
DUCANE: So, in a way, the Federation owes its existence to the Borg.

Yeah but he had to have succeeded on his own first, otherwise the TNG crew would have had to have known that they were involved

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

Looks like 6 inches to me as opposed to one inch.

 

[captcalhoun]

Enterprise is riddled with less continuity errors than TOS. many of ENT's supposed errors are a result of fanon and unsubstantiated background info.

 

[Plum]

^^^
ENT has a freighter full of continuity crap, I feel. The Vulcans alone!

Some fans believe that an alternate timeline was created in ST: First Contact. However, in the Voyager episode Relativity, it is established that the events of FC are part of a pre-destination paradox. The Borg were meant to go into the past and it was always part of history.

DUCANE: Let's see how much you've assimilated. The Dali paradox.
SEVEN: Also known as the Melting Clock Effect. It refers to a temporal fissure which slows the passage of time to a gradual halt.
DUCANE: The Pogo Paradox.
SEVEN: A causality loop in which interference to prevent an event actually triggers the same event.
DUCANE: Excellent. Can you give me an example?
SEVEN: The Borg once travelled back in time to stop Zefram Cochrane from breaking the warp barrier. They succeeded, but that in turn led the Starship Enterprise to intervene. They assisted Cochrane with the flight the Borg was trying to prevent. Causal loop complete.
DUCANE: So, in a way, the Federation owes its existence to the Borg.

While you are correct that it First Contact did not create an alternate timeline, you also can't blame some fans for thinking this. After all, Brannon Braga tried using this as an excuse to explain away all the continuity errors in Enterprise when they began to be too numerous to overlook.

And again it's ENT that proves the timeline WAS changed... because the Borg sphere that was supposedly destroyed in First Contact was found in the arctic on an episode of ENT. Timeline screwed right there friends.

 

[Praetor]

But that sphere was there all along!

For me, it's Kirk 'seducing green women.' In TOS, Kirk only met one, Marta, from 'Whom Gods Destroy' and it was she who tried to seduce he before being spurned and trying to stab him.

Also, Spock is half-Vulcan, half-human. It's surprising how many people forget that.

 

[Anwar]

Despite what the canon fundamentalists say, the Vulcans of ENT are not a huge departure from the Vulcans of TOS+.

 

[Dane_Whitman]

^^^
ENT has a freighter full of continuity crap, I feel. The Vulcans alone!

That's not continuity crap, that's ENT crapping on your view of how the Vulcans should have been handled. IMO what ENT did with the Vulcans resulted in some interesting stories, and the Canon Police was given a perfectly good explanation in season 4's Vulcan arc.

 

[Anwar]

Yep, most of the stuff ENT messed with was fanon.

And things that they did mess with, couldn't be avoided. There's no way they could've used "atomic" weapons in the 22nd century.

 

[Praetor]

Though they didn't have to use 'phase pistols' and 'photonic torpedoes' either...