Poll Do you consider Discovery to truly be in the Prime Timeline at this point?
- Thread starter Annorax849
- Start date
Spike? Is that a transporter accident merging Pike and Spock?
Fun fact: in the Terra Prime two-parter in Enterprise the miners under the Moon's surface at the Orpheus Mining Colony used a similar-looking laser cannon to drill into the walls and remove minerals.
No, that's The Nashville Spockwork.
I believe ENT - VOY are canon, as are the 10 films. Discovery is it's own alternate timeline, as were the JJA films.
Why?
USS Defiant and TOS uniforms in "IAMD".
Riker and Troi experience Archer's last mission aboard Enterprise, and THE Enterprise is shown at finale's end.
Scotty calls up the NCC1701 bridge, sits in the Captain's chair, while Picard verifies he saw it or other Constitution class ship at a museum.
DS9 "Trials and Tribulations" the NCC 1701 and uniforms have the same visual look as TOS.
Klingons are said to be both ridged and human looking due to the Augment virus at this point.
Ship design, Klingon culture and tech are not supported by prior series.
Why did Voq need all that surgery I find implausible when human appearing Klingons were around at this point? Voq could have easily been an Augmented Klingon trying to unite the Houses and it would have worked to show the Discovery writers paid attention to canon!
Why did Discovery need to throw so much SFX on the screen with their "Klingons" when the TMP - VOY Klingons makeup was so much better! All Discovery has done is name dropping, shown Harry Mudd, and an Enterprise-not quite Enterprise.
Why?
USS Defiant and TOS uniforms in "IAMD".
Riker and Troi experience Archer's last mission aboard Enterprise, and THE Enterprise is shown at finale's end.
Scotty calls up the NCC1701 bridge, sits in the Captain's chair, while Picard verifies he saw it or other Constitution class ship at a museum.
DS9 "Trials and Tribulations" the NCC 1701 and uniforms have the same visual look as TOS.
Klingons are said to be both ridged and human looking due to the Augment virus at this point.
Ship design, Klingon culture and tech are not supported by prior series.
Why did Voq need all that surgery I find implausible when human appearing Klingons were around at this point? Voq could have easily been an Augmented Klingon trying to unite the Houses and it would have worked to show the Discovery writers paid attention to canon!
Why did Discovery need to throw so much SFX on the screen with their "Klingons" when the TMP - VOY Klingons makeup was so much better! All Discovery has done is name dropping, shown Harry Mudd, and an Enterprise-not quite Enterprise.
Prime insomuch as it has been altered by temporal Cold Wars as depicted in Enteprise. Everything subsequent to Enterprise is the new form of Prime timeline. 1966 TOS through VOY was one version of Prime timeline. Everything subsequent to Discovery is now the "new" Prime. Therefore, we now have Prime A - TOS-VOY, "Prime" B - ENT, DISC--beyond, Kelvin - JJ films
Red, Blue and Green, right?
And Landry is the captain.
It is still PRIME!!!
Really feels like that's only being honored in the breach, though.
I don't think so. The Powers That Be have been consistent that ENT is in the same timeline as the rest of the shows and movies that are said to make up the prime universe. ENT set up the TNG/VOY Borg shows well after the Temporal Cold War was started ("Regeneration" [ENT]). "These Are the Voyages..." (ENT) firmly tied ENT to the prime universe with Riker and Troi viewing recreations of the NX-01's last mission in between scenes of "The Pegasus" (TNG). The Abrams movies, which ostensibly branch off from the prime universe in 2233 made extensive use of ENT in the backstories, meaning that they would have to be a part of the prime universe for that to work.
So yeah, ENT is part of the prime universe like TOS/TAS/TNG/DS9/VOY/DSC (ostensibly)/movies 1 - 10. There's no good reason to believe otherwise, it's what the filmmakers have stated is the intent, and all the evidence in canon supports that conclusion.
And yet, whilst broadly agreeing with your point, we have the internet fueling a drive towards making humanity a monolithic culture as we speak. By the same token, certain forms in design remain constant. Why are iPads and the like not oval? Or circular? Because thousands of years ago we scratched into stone tablets, and years later we decided TVs were a certain shape. Catamarans and hydrofoils are in the minority when it comes to ocean going transport, a boat is pretty much boat shaped (largely for its hydrodynamics, but ultimately, a boat is a boat.) in the same way that four wheels is pretty much the standard for a car... three wheelers never take off, more than four is rare outside of a truck. Spherical wheels never catch on either. Books are a global constant pretty much, despite there being much more variance in the form early on. Part of that is good logical design, part of it manufacturing pressures, but a fair chunk of it by this point is simply design tradition. Ereaders emulate a page turn more often than they do a scroll, despite it being an older form. Tradition often trumps innovation, and we have two broad monoliths in human cultural discussion..usually divided into East and West for ideological reasons. (And the influence of the U.S.)
More importantly, Trek cultures are monolithic because of one of the structural traditions in Trek, with the allegorical underpinnings that we’re present from day one.
Also, appearance has nothing to do with culture in more sane parts of the world, culturally my group of peers were very very similar, even if we ranged right across the phenotypes of the entire world. The Klingons are still pretty much the same cultural monolith, someone just cocked the design work this time out the gate. Piece of cake to fix that mind you, and bring some coherence back to the aesthetics of Trek.
In terms of these changes in DSC, good, bad and flipping ugly, well, they are wrinkles and depend very much on how it’s handled going forward.
because there a people, like me, who don't believe the Klingon make-up in the 90s was better.
DISCO Klingons feel more strange and alien than 90s Klingons ever did. Costume and make-up design is a big part of that, the intensive use of Klingon instead of English another. All of this helps with the immersion, the believabilty of those actors in masks as alien life forms, culturally and biologically different than us. DISCO does that better with their Klingons than 90s Trek ever did with any alien culture
The accuracy of the holoprogram in TATV is debatable and could depict pre-temporal cold war changes. The rewriting of the Prime timeline starts in Season 1 of Enterprise.
If anything, it's overcompensating by trying to be too Star Trek, as evidenced by the omnipresent Starfleet arrowhead everywhere, along the ribbing pattern on the uniform jackets, on the boots, the pillows, I'm sure their underwear also sports an arrowhead or three.Wait, I thought the problem was its not Star Trek?
No accounting for taste.
Still, you can't really argue (although people keep trying) that it's analogous to 1979... the makeup techniques and budget aren't really any better than they were 30 years ago, and the changes weren't motivated by what any of Trek's original creators might have wanted or envisioned.Interestingly, I agree with you about this part...
...the difference is, I think it leads to an opposite conclusion. It comes across as less believable, and interferes with immersion in the story. "Strange and alien" is not the same as "convincing," and for the purposes of the narrative, the Klingons simply did not need to be so conspicuously different. (Consider, after all, that like most aliens in Trek and indeed most other SF, at least part of their purpose is to serve as an allegory for some aspect of humanity.)
No accounting for taste.
Interestingly, I agree with you about this part...
...the difference is, I think it leads to an opposite conclusion. It comes across as less believable, and interferes with immersion in the story. "Strange and alien" is not the same as "convincing," and for the purposes of the narrative, the Klingons simply did not need to be so conspicuously different. (Consider, after all, that like most aliens in Trek and indeed most other SF, at least part of their purpose is to serve as an allegory for some aspect of humanity.)
I disagree with the last part. Sci-fi in general and Star Trek in particular has gotten dull and stale with its portrayal of aliens as basically just monolithic human analogies in masks.
While nowhere near perfect, the Klingons here struck me as truly alien.
I'm not sure that was for better or worse, but I would have been fairly unimpressed if we were dealing with a bunch of TNG Klingons in DSC. Totally dated and yawn-inducing.
Well, I've never thought the Berman-era Klingons looked "dated," but I'll agree that they were mostly yawn-inducing. To me, TNG's and DS9's dips into Klingon politics and culture made for some of the least interesting episodes.
Thing is, that's more of an argument against using the Klingons at all (much less a war with them) as part of DSC's inaugural season. If the goal was to confront the Federation with something more "strange and alien," what would have been the problem with calling this new creation something new, and identifying it as a previously unseen race?
That would've eliminated all the continuity issues, and let viewers judge them on their own merits. What was gained storywise by calling them Klingon, but then depicting them differently from every Klingon we've ever seen?
(Granted, I would have still been unhappy with them "on their own merits." I'm in the camp that finds the makeup, ships, and costuming ugly and unconvincing, and it's obviously pointlessly difficult to act through. As others have pointed out, G'Kar on Babylon 5 20+ years ago was convincingly and realistically alien, but still allowed Andreas Katsulas to deliver a powerful performance.)
Thing is, that's more of an argument against using the Klingons at all (much less a war with them) as part of DSC's inaugural season. If the goal was to confront the Federation with something more "strange and alien," what would have been the problem with calling this new creation something new, and identifying it as a previously unseen race?
That would've eliminated all the continuity issues, and let viewers judge them on their own merits. What was gained storywise by calling them Klingon, but then depicting them differently from every Klingon we've ever seen?
(Granted, I would have still been unhappy with them "on their own merits." I'm in the camp that finds the makeup, ships, and costuming ugly and unconvincing, and it's obviously pointlessly difficult to act through. As others have pointed out, G'Kar on Babylon 5 20+ years ago was convincingly and realistically alien, but still allowed Andreas Katsulas to deliver a powerful performance.)
Last edited:
I agree with this entirely. I never, for one moment was interested in the originally stated premise of the show (war with the Klingons).
Going back to that announcement I was groaning and rolling my eyes.
It's amazing I enjoyed the show as much as I did in spite of that. From day one, the premise was flawed and unlikable by my tastes.
Similar threads
