Controversies between fans based on misunderstandings
- Thread starter alpha_leonis
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The IDIC thing is a paradox, given how hidebound the Vulcans often seem about their own traditions, but they're hardly the only civilization that has certain contradictions built into their society, or that doesn't always live up up to their own ideals.
(Note also how the Klingons, despite their professed love of "honor," are not above cloaked ships, assassinations, poisonings, etc. Few civilizations are 100% consistent in their beliefs and actions. Heck, the USA is still struggling with that whole "all men are created equal" thing.)
Vulcans seem to play lip service to the idea of diversity when it comes to dealing with other races, but also have very strong ideas about how Vulcans are supposed to behave.
To give credit where it's due, the Vulcans have never been interested in imposing their way on other races and worlds. They are not evangelical when it comes to the teachings of Surak, even if they can be a bit judgmental at times.
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QFT.
QFT.
Historically accurate, but I like to think that the idea has transcended its crass, commercial roots at this point.
As with all of Star Trek, it's about making money . . . and quality science fiction.
It is? I missed that too. I will be re-watching it in about three months and will pay closer attention now that you've mentioned this.
This one still pops up around these parts to this very day.
I agree it's a weird one. I was confused too at the time (I was 11, I could afford to be confused 
), but the adult me finds it very obvious that Tom just wanted Miles to bugger off as-soon-as-possible so that his cover wouldn't get blown, and that Miles is clearly as baffled and confused by the exchange as we are. It would've only taken one off-the-cuff remark from O'Brien along the lines of "Hey, remember that time with the Selay and the Anticans?" or something similar for Tom Riker to be found out, so Tom clearly decided to cut off the possibility before it could ever happen in the first place.I do think maybe Tom could've been less brusque about it, though. It is somewhat surprising that the Chief doesn't call him out on his odd behaviour, but I guess Miles was thrown for a loop by the exchange. I can imagine him walking out into the airlock, pausing for a minute, thinking "Hang on, *what*?", then shaking his head and moving on.
The whole "Australia was the last hold out for joining the United Earth / last country to join, in 2150" thing. I hate it when that gets misinterpreted in timelines and novels. I winced when I read it in ENT: The Good That Men Do.
It was a hypothetical example!
Dr Crusher- "Well, think about Earth. What if one of the old nation states, say Australia, had decided not to join the World Government in twenty one fifty? Would that have disqualified us as a Federation member?"
(TNG: Attached)
Do the words "what if" and "say..." not mean anything to some people?
It was a hypothetical example!
Dr Crusher- "Well, think about Earth. What if one of the old nation states, say Australia, had decided not to join the World Government in twenty one fifty? Would that have disqualified us as a Federation member?"
(TNG: Attached)
Do the words "what if" and "say..." not mean anything to some people?
It does establish beyond doubt that Australia (along with at least one other nation) had not joined the United Earth by 2150, as well as that Australia (along with that other nation or nations) did join the United Earth in 2150, as well as that no nation remained outside the UE after 2150. So nobody saying "Australia was a holdout" is actually wrong as such - the unknown factor there is whether any nation had joined the UE prior to 2150 and therefore set standards against which Australia appeared to be a holdout.
There does exist a probe launched by the United Earth Space Probe Agency a hundred years before 2150 already (VOY "Friendship One"), so it does seem that some nations got together before Australia joined. Or then the name was a pure marketing gimmick...
So no, Janeway would not have considered the Bajoran wormhole a viable route even if her ship had ended up seventy-five lightyears off its Gamma end rather than seventy-five thousand...
Timo Saloniemi
There does exist a probe launched by the United Earth Space Probe Agency a hundred years before 2150 already (VOY "Friendship One"), so it does seem that some nations got together before Australia joined. Or then the name was a pure marketing gimmick...
Janeway's ship made a prolonged pit stop at the space station guarding the wormhole. Janeway herself wasn't spending that time at Quark's; it's very, very difficult to explain why she would not have been spending it with Commander Sisko, the man who just a few stardates earlier had destroyed the entire wormhole out of fear of the Dominion. Only in his dreams, sure, but he clearly would do it again at the drop of a hat, this time for real, if the Dominion made aggressive moves. And the Dominion at that point had a history of nothing but aggressive moves.
So no, Janeway would not have considered the Bajoran wormhole a viable route even if her ship had ended up seventy-five lightyears off its Gamma end rather than seventy-five thousand...
Timo Saloniemi
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I don't see a problem with the Doctor not knowing what the Dominion is in 2374. Starfleet only made formal first contact with the Dominion in late 2370, and "Caretaker" took place in early or mid 2371. I don't think most Starfleet personnel gave much thought to updating the specific databases of the new EMHs.
Is there some kind of controversy over whether Voyager departed in "Caretaker" with or without knowledge of the destruction of the Enterprise-D? I vaguely recall reading about this somewhere, but maybe it's just my imagination.
There's the issue of ST:GEN having a higher stardate than "Caretaker", yet the movie premiering before the episode. Make of that what you want: the fate of the E-D doesn't really affect the VOY episodes one way or the other, so either order of events is fine.
Yet while the E-D issue is vague, the Dominion one isn't...
The airdates of the episodes should create no controversy: "The Search, pt II" where Sisko destroyed the wormhole was aired in October 3rd, 1994, while "Caretaker" aired in January 16th, 1995.
The stardates are no issue, either. The wormhole blows half a dozen stardate-free episodes before SD 48423 ("Meridian) while the Voyager sails in 48315. It would be quite extraordinary for the stardate of "The Search II" to be higher than 48300 when every other season starts out with XX0YY or at most XX1YY.
What confuses matters slightly is the Star Trek Chronology book, which insists on airdates in mixing DS9 and VOY, except when it doesn't. But even this book places "Caretaker" well after "The Search" - in fact more so than would be proper by stardate order.
Timo Saloniemi
Yet while the E-D issue is vague, the Dominion one isn't...
The airdates of the episodes should create no controversy: "The Search, pt II" where Sisko destroyed the wormhole was aired in October 3rd, 1994, while "Caretaker" aired in January 16th, 1995.
The stardates are no issue, either. The wormhole blows half a dozen stardate-free episodes before SD 48423 ("Meridian) while the Voyager sails in 48315. It would be quite extraordinary for the stardate of "The Search II" to be higher than 48300 when every other season starts out with XX0YY or at most XX1YY.
What confuses matters slightly is the Star Trek Chronology book, which insists on airdates in mixing DS9 and VOY, except when it doesn't. But even this book places "Caretaker" well after "The Search" - in fact more so than would be proper by stardate order.
Timo Saloniemi
No, actually, it only posits a hypothetical question and uses Australia as an example.
Doesn't work. Australia absolutely must be a viable example there. As in, Australia was one of the nations deciding on whether to join in 2150, and while everybody knows it joined, things might have gone differently. (In the sense that Hitler might have decided to surrender. That is, fat chance, but possible in theory.)
There is little doubt there that 2150 was the crux moment by which Earth became united in the sense mentioned in UFP membership requirements (there might have been a second and a third stage to that process in theory, too, Australia's 2150 joining only being a qualifying round). There is no doubt that Australia hadn't joined by then yet.
Think it through: if Crusher wanted to claim that Australia was a late decider when it in fact wasn't, she wouldn't have included a fictional year there, as the whole scenario would be a fairy tale to begin with. Clearly, 2150 is in fact a year of significance, and clearly, issues of joining were decided then for nations including Australia - otherwise, some other nation or some other year would have been chosen for the fiction.
"Hypothetical" is different from "nonsensical". Crusher came us some welcome facts there.
Timo Saloniemi
There is little doubt there that 2150 was the crux moment by which Earth became united in the sense mentioned in UFP membership requirements (there might have been a second and a third stage to that process in theory, too, Australia's 2150 joining only being a qualifying round). There is no doubt that Australia hadn't joined by then yet.
Think it through: if Crusher wanted to claim that Australia was a late decider when it in fact wasn't, she wouldn't have included a fictional year there, as the whole scenario would be a fairy tale to begin with. Clearly, 2150 is in fact a year of significance, and clearly, issues of joining were decided then for nations including Australia - otherwise, some other nation or some other year would have been chosen for the fiction.
"Hypothetical" is different from "nonsensical". Crusher came us some welcome facts there.
Timo Saloniemi
I watched that episode just last night (I'm a big Picard/Beverly fan so I love that one) and it felt very much like Beverly was just throwing out a hypothetical example and that Australia was chosen randomly. The year of 2150 does seem important and I'd think would be the year that Earth formed their united government.
...So does it sound likely that Beverly would pick for her hypothetical example a nation that had in fact joined in 2098 already?
The situation she describes is no doubt a possible one, even if not a likely one. She wouldn't deliberately choose Australia if that nation went against the parameters of her scenario - not when there obviously are plenty of other hypotheticals to choose from. Why undermine your argument by choosing a hypothesis others can tear apart before even getting to the beef?
Timo Saloniemi
The situation she describes is no doubt a possible one, even if not a likely one. She wouldn't deliberately choose Australia if that nation went against the parameters of her scenario - not when there obviously are plenty of other hypotheticals to choose from. Why undermine your argument by choosing a hypothesis others can tear apart before even getting to the beef?
Timo Saloniemi
This one still pops up around these parts to this very day.
I do think maybe Tom could've been less brusque about it, though. It is somewhat surprising that the Chief doesn't call him out on his odd behaviour, but I guess Miles was thrown for a loop by the exchange. I can imagine him walking out into the airlock, pausing for a minute, thinking "Hang on, *what*?", then shaking his head and moving on.
Not really esp. with Kira being there. I suspect that had Tom Riker been alone O'Brien would have said something.
I guess being atypically harsh was a vital ingredient in Tom's trick: it both confused O'Brien and made it clear that any inquiry into the subject would turn into a nasty argument. And O'Brien has always been deferential to officers...
Tom could have tried it the opposite way, too: "Scram it, O'Brien, you are a disgrace!" but followed with a wink-wink, hint-hint, nudge-nudge towards Kira. Miles would have gotten that hint, too, and left the two alone, feigning indignation or submission or whatever he thought appropriate. But I guess Tom got taken by surprise (as running into O'Brien on the course of the mission was just a possibility, not an inevitability), and picked the other approach because it came easier to him in that state of mind.
Timo Saloniemi
Tom could have tried it the opposite way, too: "Scram it, O'Brien, you are a disgrace!" but followed with a wink-wink, hint-hint, nudge-nudge towards Kira. Miles would have gotten that hint, too, and left the two alone, feigning indignation or submission or whatever he thought appropriate. But I guess Tom got taken by surprise (as running into O'Brien on the course of the mission was just a possibility, not an inevitability), and picked the other approach because it came easier to him in that state of mind.
Timo Saloniemi
Anything involving alternate timelines, from the insistence that ENT was an AU to TOS, to the similar one that the '09 movie's timeline was alternate even before Nero appears in 2233 - and always "backed up" by insignificant continuity nitpicks, which exist throughout all Treks in equal measure and thus aren't proof at all.
The size of the reboot Enterprise. That some fans insisted it was the same size as the original, even though the moviemakers were on record that they upscaled it (from 300m to 725), is bizarre and bewildering.
The size of the reboot Enterprise. That some fans insisted it was the same size as the original, even though the moviemakers were on record that they upscaled it (from 300m to 725), is bizarre and bewildering.
Yes it does. She just picked the first name that popped in her head. As far as we know the Aussies could be among the first.
And besides, it's logically impossible to have a UNITED Earth if there are any countries that are not part of it.
Not at all, United Earth in some form dated back to the year 2063, and possible before that. The "acquisition" of nation members might have been a protracted process of multiple decades. But the entire time the organization would have been called "United Earth."
If when all was said and done, the organization lack a few nations who would never join (or even a couple of dozen) it doubtful they would have change the name.
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