Controversies between fans based on misunderstandings

Are you actually dismissing "what if" scenarios on a Star Trek board where any and every decision made by writers, actors, producers and characters are subject to fanciful second guessing by fans?

 

Plus, they just bought all that lovely stationary

Well, not only that, but "What if" scenarios in general are common place in many academic discussions. There's a whole genre of books all about "What if" history, such as Harry Turttletove, and his large series of books dealing with the Confederacy remaining separate and its role in WW2, among other scenarios.

As for for fan misunderstandings, pretty much the whole Abrams alternate timeline one. Obviously, there is room for interpretation, but I just do not understand the doom and gloom, end of all Trek as we know it, opinion, when the writers went out of their way to establish it was an alternate timeline.

You don't have to like, but I don't it deserves the hate storm of controversy that it gets either.

 

Well here's my point:

The way the "post-atomic horror" of Star Trek was presented to us, it seems humanity was taken to the brink of annihilation, only to then be wrestled back from all of that by the twin fortuitous circumstances of Cochrane's warp flight, and it's unintended consequence of bringing the Vulcans to our world.

All of that happens in Arizona, USA.

If the planet as a whole has become something of a wasteland (and it'd have to have been a pretty big bang to make that happen), and has maybe seperated into isolated enclaves even across a vast land-mass like the United States, then Australia has got a natural geographical isolation that makes it one big enclave from the whole rest of the world.

(I speak from experience *as* as Australian: this is almost the truth even in today's world. )

So, assuming all the other countries have blown themselves to smithereens, or even that Australia has taken itself down with them, chances are pretty good that in any case when the northern hemisphere countries all come a-knockin' on our door, saying "Gee, we're sorry about all that post-atomic horror stuff, but we've got this swell idea now for a United Earth, we've managed to sign up most of the planet but we want to know if Australia is on board?", there's at least a 50/50 chance whatever is left of Australia's parliament is going to take their sweet time before saying 'Yes'.

As an Australian, I've never once questioned Dr. Crusher's apparent statement that Australia was one of the last governments to sign up to "United Earth". I can buy that 100%.

 

Wait-there's a real Australia? That wasn't made up for Star Trek?

So, can the next Fallout game bet set in a not nuked out Australia, and they are trying to reconnect with the rest of the world?

 

The outback already looks like a post-atomic wasteland.

 

Er, because people pose what-if scenarios all the time?

 

^ This. He's also claimed that "Day of the Dove" is definitive proof that Chekov had a brother named Pyotr, instead definitive proof that he's an only child.

This naming convention was more of a general rule than anything else, as Stonn in "Amok Time" didn't fit the pattern. And it pretty much went away for good once the male Savik became the female Saavik when STII was rewritten.

 

When Pon Farr comes around, all bets are off!

Sadly, Vulcan ceremonial garb tends to the ridiculous. See also TSFS. I think it's a hangover from Flash Gordon.

 

Yes. It's the word "say" that makes it clear her choice was largely random.

I could pose the question "What if a TrekBBS moderator, say Misfit Toy, decided to ban every single member and change the board's color scheme to Pepto Pink," but that wouldn't necessarily mean I think he's the most likely to do it.

In fact, everyone knows Frontline is the most likely to pull a stunt like that.

 

Australia must always be portrayed as a post-apocalyptic environment. That has been the law since "The Road Warrior."

Before that, Australia was the only place capable of escaping the horrors of a nuclear war. But was plagued with depressed people giving up the will to live anyway. At least those people "On the Beach."

 

Yes, but does it have insects that can kill...you... in, you know what, never mind.

Also, apparently other people were thinking a similar thing (at least in concept)

 

I see Beverly's choice of 'Australia' in that example to be 'A country everybody in the US will easily recognize and has a generally positive attitude toward without it being the US'.

If they pick the US they'd be reinforcing perceived 20th century pecking orders in a culture that is supposed to have moved beyond them, in the same conversation that derogatorily refers to countries as 'The old nation states'. If they pick a country Americans don't recognize or don't like, it evokes negative emotion in the audience in a scene that's supposed to be light.

Pop culture portrayals of Australia can be pretty funny. "I'll have a coffee." "Got it. One beer."

 

I never looked at these as "controversies" per se, actually I have always felt that rationalizing or explaining the descrepencies that invariably occur in a fictional universe is a big part of the fun of being a Trek fan - I even go as far as trying to fit in the incidents in the various novels and comics with the "canon" stuff! I've always enjoyed the back and forth between fans (as long as it remained good natured) trying to make all this stuff fit together. You get some really creative explainations!

 

I didn't much care for it myself. White Vulcans, Asian vulcans, and now Black Vulcans. They have exactly the same types humans do? And Bajorans, too? Too little imagination!

 

Beverly may have chosen Australia on the spur of the moment, but I wonder if her random choice determined the year she then mentioned?

She might have said ...

What if one of the old nation states, say Japan, had decided not to join the World Government in 2123?

Or,

What if one of the old nation states, say India, had decided not to join the World Government in 2097?

It took the United Nations decades to reach it's current nation count. And Earth did not assist in the creation of the UFP until the year 2161. UE could have been adding nations right up to the wire.

What if one of the old nation states, say Brazil, had decided not to join the World Government in 2161?

******

And separately, is Beverly's statement the sole source of where the year 2150 comes from for the final formation of United Earth, or was the date mentioned in other episodes?

 

I was young! I needed the money!!

 

That's a weird thing to complain about. What's the alternative?

 

^Well since their blood is copper based and Spock had that heavy eyeshadow to imply that...Vulcans in varying shades of green I presume?
Personally I would like to see a bit more variation in the hair color. Why can't we have blonde or ginger Vulcans/Klingons/Romulans as well? Or completely different hair colours? Didn't that one female senator in Nemesis have purple hair?

Or what are the variations among Andorians? Do they jut come in varying shades of cyan/blue? Goes it go into greenish blue/purple? We have seen them with white and pale blonde hair, are their black haired Andorians? Blue haired?

 

^^There was a green skinned Andorian on TNG. Then there's the pale-skinned Aenar on Enterprise. Though actually a subspecies, that still makes them a type of Andorian.

 

There's no way they would have had actual green skinned Vulcans in TOS...Nimoy would never have gone for it. And Mark Lenard certainly would not have.