Spoilers Discovery and the Novelverse - TV show discussion thread

[Tim Thomason]

Can't we just ignore the "women on the bridge" line? It wasn't even in the aired version ("The Menagerie"), so it's arguable whether it even counts as canon. And there are plenty of other sexist lines in TOS that we ignore or gloss over today.




Does it matter? It's a bit player in the background. It's not a story point. It has zero impact on the actual narrative. So it's hardly a "bombshell."

None of this matters. It's all fun and games. I like the idea of an alien Colt and what it means going forward, even if others want to ignore it or gloss over it as non-consequential.

The "women on the bridge" comment was a joke. Most of what I type is jokes. I find the whole situation entertaining, and express that entertainment through a series of subtle jokes, half-serious statements, and disassociated remarks.

It's not meant to be another long ad hoc diatribe of what iz cannon. It's a fun side note of trivia buried deep in the credits, so deep that it took the most fanatical a week and a day to discover, that is the very opposite of a ""bombshell"".

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Does it matter? It's a bit player in the background. It's not a story point. It has zero impact on the actual narrative. So it's hardly a "bombshell."

It's just one more piece of ammunition for those who claim that DSC doesn't take place in the prime timeline.

Unfortunately, this one actually sounds plausible. Colt is obviously human, we've all seen it in TOS. So if Colt is now an alien, then how can DSC be prime?

 

[Christopher]

Unfortunately, this one actually sounds plausible. Colt is obviously human, we've all seen it in TOS. So if Colt is now an alien, then how can DSC be prime?

Because fiction is just a story being told, and it doesn't follow the same rules as reality. You can change something in a story after the fact and still pretend it's the same story; the new version just overwrites the old version. The current Marvel Universe in the comics where Tony Stark got his injuries in Afghanistan is treated as the same reality as the '60s Marvel Universe where Stark got his injuries in Vietnam. The later TNG where Data doesn't feel emotions or use contractions is treated as the same reality as season-1 TNG where he did both. The Planet of the Apes movies where Taylor was said to have fallen through a time warp pretended to be the same reality as the first film, in which the astronauts explicitly were in cryogenic suspension for 2000 years. The details are changed but the pretense of continuity remains, because this is all just pretend anyway, and rewriting and changing one's mind are fundamental parts of the creative process.

The only thing that's required for two stories to be in the same reality is that they pretend they are, even when they disagree on details. Because "realities" in fiction are nothing more than story devices to begin with. If you can buy the fiction that the story took place at all, if you can suspend disbelief about the obvious false claim that we can see events centuries in the future, then you can buy the fiction that a previous story happened differently than we were told the first time. It's only an "alternate universe" if the story says it is, because the story's needs are what shape the reality within it, not the other way around.

Besides, as I and others have been saying, there are numerous creative ways to reconcile this without needing alternate realities. This could be a different character also named Colt. It could be that Colt was transformed in some way in the 4 years since "The Cage" (if Airiam could be a transformed human, then why not?). For that matter, it's never explicitly stated in "The Cage" that Colt is human, just implied because she's chosen as potential breeding stock for the Talosians' attempt to create a human population. But then, maybe they determined that her species was genetically compatible with humans and that her attraction to Pike was more important. As for why she looked different, well, Robin Curtis looked different from Kirstie Alley, and Anson Mount looks different from Jeffrey Hunter. Visual depictions can be disregarded.

 

[F. King Daniel]

It's just one more piece of ammunition for those who claim that DSC doesn't take place in the prime timeline.

Unfortunately, this one actually sounds plausible. Colt is obviously human, we've all seen it in TOS. So if Colt is now an alien, then how can DSC be prime?

Because their idea of continuity =/= ours. Their idea is pretty much the X-Men films, where Trask goes from a big black military man in The Last Stand to a diminutive white scientist in Days of Future Past, or Sabretooth suddenly sprouting an entirely new look and becoming Wolverine's brother in Origins: Wolverine.

Personally, I see it as a seperate thing from TOS but they want their retconned, rewritten universe to be the original... and officially it will be.

 

[Christopher]

Personally, I see it as a seperate thing from TOS but they want their retconned, rewritten universe to be the original... and officially it will be.

Again: There were people who said that about TMP 40 years ago. Fiction is a process.

 

[The Wormhole]

I would've preferred they switched the names of Mann and Colt.

I remember last week when I first noticed Colt listed in the credits I wondered "where was she? Was she the blond headed English woman?" Which at the time I made jokes about how were they going to explain her lack of accent in The Cage. But now, damn I wish they had made Mann Colt instead. Colt turning into an English blonde is a lot easier to accept than her turning into a damn alien.

I mean, the novels already did that with the mention of Captain Shelby in DS9, how the writers had said they thought it was the same Shelby from BoBW after having given the novels permission to put her in the cast of New Feontier.

I doubt Ron Moore (who inserted the Captain Shelby reference into DS9) was in anyway involved with allowing the Pocket or Peter David to use Shelby in New Frontier.

Does it matter? It's a bit player in the background. It's not a story point. It has zero impact on the actual narrative. So it's hardly a "bombshell."

It may not matter, but given the great lengths the show went to in creating a faithful to TOS Enterprise to the point of blatantly contradicting much of the Starfleet lineage and aesthetic already established in Disco, turning Colt into an alien seems a very odd choice to make.

 

[Christopher]

It may not matter, but given the great lengths the show went to in creating a faithful to TOS Enterprise to the point of blatantly contradicting much of the Starfleet lineage and aesthetic already established in Disco, turning Colt into an alien seems a very odd choice to make.

Which is why I wonder if maybe it's a miscommunication somewhere and fandom is just overreacting as usual.

 

[The Wormhole]

Hell of a miscommunication. If that is indeed Nicole Dickinson playing the alien, which it likely is, they actively chose to give her character the name associated with a character from The Cage. She's even listed in the credits as "Yeoman Colt" despite not doing any yeoman-specific duties, but rather being just another bridge officer.

But then I guess it's no worse than the D-7 fiasco last year. Maybe if we ever do see the Enterprise again Colt will suddenly be human again.

 

[David cgc]

I doubt Ron Moore (who inserted the Captain Shelby reference into DS9) was in anyway involved with allowing the Pocket or Peter David to use Shelby in New Frontier.

That's not how RDM told it.

 

[The Wormhole]

Well, shit me. I stand corrected.

 

[Christopher]

Maybe if we ever do see the Enterprise again Colt will suddenly be human again.

Exactly. These things aren't carved in stone. Creativity is a process of trying and revising things, and in series fiction, much of that process happens onstage as well as backstage. (Sometimes literally. Plays are often rewritten after their premieres in response to audience reaction. The Marx Brothers took some of their movie scripts on tour as stage plays in order to audience-test them and revise them before shooting.)

 

[Markonian]

So, Una asks Detmer to relay information “in English”.

The novels portray Una with a Vulcan-like intellect. I guess she could have a snappy phase in the late 50s, and ask Detmer for a less scientific explanation for the maneuver for her own sake, but for that of the overhearing bridge crew.

 

[Jinn]

I wonder if Colt is an alien or a human in The Enterprise War.

 

[F. King Daniel]

So, Una asks Detmer to relay information “in English”.

The novels portray Una with a Vulcan-like intellect. I guess she could have a snappy phase in the late 50s, and ask Detmer for a less scientific explanation for the maneuver for her own sake, but for that of the overhearing bridge crew.

That bit annoyed me slightly since they both would have gone to the same academy and learned all the same tactics and teminology.

 

[thribs]

Yeah. She was answering for coordinates and she gave them to her. I don’t see what’s so complicated about that for her to get confused.

 

[Avro Arrow]

Colt is obviously human, we've all seen it in TOS. So if Colt is now an alien, then how can DSC be prime?

She's still human, she just developed an interest in extreme body modification.

 

[JD]

I'm thinking the Colt thing must just be a mistake, because not only is she suddenly an alien, but she's also in a blue uniform and every other Yeoman we ever saw in the red/blue/gold era was in a red uniform, and we saw her operating a bridge station, which I don't think we ever saw a Yeoman do in TOS. So there's a lot more evidence that it's not Colt, or at least not the same Colt we saw in The Cage/The Menagerie.
It will be interesting to see if @JJMiller discusses any of this in The Enterprise War.

 

[F. King Daniel]

 

[WebLurker]

I'm thinking the Colt thing must just be a mistake, because not only is she suddenly an alien, but she's also in a blue uniform and every other Yeoman we ever saw in the red/blue/gold era was in a red uniform, and we saw her operating a bridge station, which I don't think we ever saw a Yeoman do in TOS. So there's a lot more evidence that it's not Colt, or at least not the same Colt we saw in The Cage/The Menagerie.
It will be interesting to see if @JJMiller discusses any of this in The Enterprise War.

Saw the pics on Memory Alpha. So far, the article is treating the two like the same character despite that being impossible. (I'm starting to loose whatever goodwill I had in regards to the DSC filmmakers not screwing up the big stuff.)

Has alien Colt been actually identified by name onscreen? If not, then we can just take them as two different characters by default.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Has alien Colt been actually identified by name onscreen?

No.