Poll Do you consider Discovery to truly be in the Prime Timeline at this point?

[Ceridwen]

Enterprise introduced cloaking technology a century before "Balance of Terror". "The Enterprise Incident" then reintroduced cloaking technology; Spock and Kirk (wrongly) act as if it is a brand new development despite both actually being in the episode where they previously (wrongly) acted as if it is a brand new development.

It's that damn 23rd century beaming technology, scrambling their memories. BONES WAS RIGHT ALL ALONG.

 

[fireproof78]

A production error. You'd think that over the course of three seasons, someone would have mentioned this 'production error' before they kept making more uniforms.

Charlie X
The Menagerie
Court Martial
The Doomsday Machine
The Omega Glory
The Ultimate Computer

Maybe Enterprise would correct that mistake and, OH!

In A Mirror, Darkly Part 1

They even acknowledge different badges in that show! It's almost like different badges for every ship was an intended design choice and not some 'production error'. I've seen production errors before, but I've never seen them this creative or consistent.

And, yet, a memo from one of the producers confirms this. So, yes, it does fall under "production error."

Secondly, in "Charlie X" the crew were merchant service, not Starfleet regulars.

Court Martial is the Starfleet Command emblem, as with the Ultimate Computer and Menagerie.

We also see delta insignia officers mocking Kirk in "Court Martial" for his failure, so they are not Enterprise officers.

Yes, it is inconsistent. Just like the rest of Star Trek.

 

[Jeyl]

ETA: According to the "Star Trek Concordance" the BT cloaking device rendered ships invisible visually but not completely invisible to sensors. Clearly this cloak was a variant that Kirk and Spock had not seen before.

So cloaking technology that makes ships invisible to both sight and sensors is a common thing, but Spock concludes that cloaking technology that only works with on a visual level is a charming 'theory'. That's like saying Black and White TV is theoretically possible after we've had color TV for 10 years.

 

[fireproof78]

So cloaking technology that makes ships invisible to both sight and sensors is a common thing, but Spock concludes that cloaking technology that only works with on a visual level is a charming 'theory'. That's like saying Black and White TV is theoretically possible after we've had color TV for 10 years.

And yet ENT had cloak, as @Ceridwen mentions. Again, the Trek history has not been that consistent, and has changed over the years.

If it really bothers a person so much, treat it as a reboot. It would be better and we wouldn't have this slavish need to maintain every facet of prior episodes.

 

[Jeyl]

It would be better and we wouldn't have this slavish need to maintain every facet of prior episodes.

I prefer stories where if something important happens, it matters. I only take the handling of cloaking technology in Balance of Terror seriously because the episode itself takes it seriously. The Enterprise is facing an enemy using technology that they're not familiar with nor did they think was practically possible. The crew facing off against an unknown is what makes that episode work. When you have this same technology used before the events of this episode, you are robbing this story of it's dramatic impact because the crew should know what they're dealing with.

Inconsistencies should not be used as justifications to ignore what's come before. If nothing should matter, than the show should stop depicting things as though they do.

 

[MakeshiftPython]

I prefer stories where if something important happens, it matters. I only take the handling of cloaking technology in Balance of Terror seriously because the episode itself takes it seriously. The Enterprise is facing an enemy using technology that they're not familiar with nor did they think was practically possible. The crew facing off against an unknown is what makes that episode work. When you have this same technology used before the events of this episode, you are robbing this story of it's dramatic impact because the crew should know what they're dealing with.

Inconsistencies should not be used as justifications to ignore what's come before. If nothing should matter, than the show should stop depicting things as though they do.

It's only an issue if you make it as such.

"Balance of Terror" isn't "robbed" of anything. Let's not be so dramatic.

 

[Jeyl]

It's only an issue if you make it as such.

Because bringing up issues has never been beneficial?

 

[MakeshiftPython]

Because bringing up issues has never been beneficial?

Viewscreen windows doesn't exactly hurt my suspension of disbelief.

 

[cultcross]

I prefer stories where if something important happens, it matters. I only take the handling of cloaking technology in Balance of Terror seriously because the episode itself takes it seriously. The Enterprise is facing an enemy using technology that they're not familiar with nor did they think was practically possible. The crew facing off against an unknown is what makes that episode work. When you have this same technology used before the events of this episode, you are robbing this story of it's dramatic impact because the crew should know what they're dealing with.

They still are facing the unknown. The Kirk and Spock in Balance of Terror aren't affected by a plot point in a TV show made 50 years later, they are part of a story that is unchanged and essentially unchangeable. They are fighting an alien commander, their equal in strategy and resolve, and who has a device at his disposal the technical specifics of which are left ambiguous but which makes things more difficult for our heroes. They also discover that the aliens look like their first officer, breeding bigotry in the crew.
Nothing they put on TV now will change any of that, or my enjoyment of a very strong TOS episode, any more than the Romulans not having brow ridges did, or internal inconsistencies between TOS episodes affect my enjoyment of them, or Khan recognising Chekov affects my love for STII. In a 700+ episode canon spanning half a century, things will change. It's easier to take each new entry on its own merits.

 

[Ceridwen]

Especially since Discovery broke the Klingon cloak, the fact that Kirk is now facing an enemy that is still invisible despite all the post-war upgrades to his ship keeps everything intact unless you actively want it to be broken.

 

[cultcross]

Especially since Discovery broke the Klingon cloak, the fact that Kirk is now facing an enemy that is still invisible despite all the post-war upgrades to his ship keeps everything intact unless you actively want it to be broken.

Indeed, you can choose to handwave away the discrepancies between Trek productions with fanon, ignore them, imagine a multiverse reality of Star Trek or do whatever you like, really. My preference is that you do so consistently (i.e. if Discovery is an alternate timeline then so is TMP) but you don't of course have to do even that. The fact remains that things happening in new Star Trek cannot undo, ruin or rob older episodes long since in the can. They can only set the direction for this particular incarnation of Star Trek.

 

[Balok's Decoy]

It's only an issue if you make it as such.

"Balance of Terror" isn't "robbed" of anything. Let's not be so dramatic.

Exactly. Just because a new show contradicts the old show doesn't lessen the quality or impact of the old show. The old show is still just as good. Nothing about it changed. It's a great episode. This is the same mentality as "they're ruining my childhood!" No, you can always just enjoy the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or Ghostbusters. They are exactly the same as before.

 

[F. King Daniel]

It's only an issue if you make it as such.

"Balance of Terror" isn't "robbed" of anything. Let's not be so dramatic.

If you come to it in chronological order after ENT and DSC, there would be a lot of head scratching and confusion over the obvious discontinuity, which could impact one's enjoyment.

So yes, if you insist it's the same continuity, BoT is harmed somewhat by it's characters being retroactively made out foolish.

 

[Ceridwen]

Yes, this hypothetical person who is watching Star Trek all alone without anyone to talk to will be confused about it. They will also be confused by the fact that they encounter a cloaking device for the first time again in "The Enterprise Incident". They will also be confused by Kirk's changing middle name. They will also be confused by the completely muddled world building (Does Kirk report to the Earth Starfleet, the Federation, or UESPA? Is Spock half-Vulcan or half-Vulcanian? Did "one of his ancestors" marry an Earth woman, or was that his father? Are we 200, 300, or 700 years after the 20th century again?).

 

[Balok's Decoy]

If you come to it in chronological order after ENT and DSC, there would be a lot of head scratching and confusion over the obvious discontinuity, which could impact one's enjoyment.

So yes, if you insist it's the same continuity, BoT is harmed somewhat by it's characters being retroactively made out foolish.

Or a new viewer could just use common sense and acknowledge that even though TOS comes later in the timeline than DSC, the former predates the latter by 50 years.

 

[lawman]

Black Mirror's episode, much like Orville, is intended as a deliberate parody. One darker in tone than the other, but both intended as a lopsided, comic look at the 80s/90s Trek aesthetic. No sci-fi that intends to be taken seriously on its own merits looks like either 60s Trek, or the blandly lit sterility of the TNG era anymore, and DSC is trying to be that - a show that takes itself seriously as a new fresh product, not a parody or a fan film.

Have you actually watched The Orville? It's not a parody. Yes, the show has a minor strain of sitcom-y humor (which is thankfully diminishing over time), and the visual aesthetic very obviously evokes TNG, but the show takes its storytelling quite seriously — arguably more so than DSC.

The same was true of the Kelvinverse films too, for what its worth. Keep the same basic elements and redesign them for a production being made now. ... What the Kelvin movies represent is a TOS update, simply put. TOS by the standards of 2009 big screen blockbuster.

I'd argue that the Abrams films didn't take themselves very seriously at all. A lot of story beats were deliberately tongue-in-cheek. (Especially the characterization of Kirk, sad to say.) And unfortunately the "standards of [a] 2009 big screen blockbuster" were not standards that made the "update" any kind of improvement over TOS.

And if that plot point wasn't there, would it have looked any different? And the basis of that 'alternate reality' hardly explains much of the difference that we see. It is just a fan-pleasing crutch on which to lean an update and redesign. Exactly as Discovery represents small screen sci-fi for 2018.

ST09 was a reboot. Even if it hadn't included the time-travel element to rationalize it, countless other elements of the story (from Kirk's career path to the fate of Vulcan, among the obvious ones) would have marked it clearly and unequivocally as a reboot. DSC, we have been told repeatedly, is not a reboot, but part of the same shared universe. The parameters are different.

Inconsistencies should not be used as justifications to ignore what's come before.

Excellent point, succinctly stated. An audience's willingness to forgive accidental contradictions shouldn't be taken as license to commit deliberate contradictions.

Yes, this hypothetical person who is watching Star Trek all alone without anyone to talk to will be confused about it. They will also be confused by the fact that they encounter a cloaking device for the first time again in "The Enterprise Incident". They will also be confused by Kirk's changing middle name. They will also be confused by the completely muddled world building (Does Kirk report to the Earth Starfleet, the Federation, or UESPA? Is Spock half-Vulcan or half-Vulcanian? Did "one of his ancestors" marry an Earth woman, or was that his father? Are we 200, 300, or 700 years after the 20th century again?).

Most of the examples you note are trivial, and forgivable as the kind of "early installment weirdness" almost every show faces as it finds its footing. Note also my response to Jeyl just above.

 

[Ceridwen]

Most of the stuff people have been complaining about is trivial. Why is it only trivial when it's in one show, but not when it's in two different shows? And how long does "early installment weirdness" apply? Some of my examples are from the third year of the show, are they still "early installments" because it's still the original series? Since this is the first year of Discovery, doesn't "early installment weirdness" come back into effect?

Just trying to understand the rules.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Especially since Discovery broke the Klingon cloak, the fact that Kirk is now facing an enemy that is still invisible despite all the post-war upgrades to his ship keeps everything intact unless you actively want it to be broken.

I don't know if it was ever in specific dialog, but you can overcome a tech, then the other side changes it, improves it, etc. so they regain that advantage.

Does anyone really see the Klingons or Romulans throwing up their hands and saying "oh well, they figured it out, let's give up and become botanists" when it comes to their #1 thing?

The cloaking tech "inconsistency" isn't even an issue.

 

[Balok's Decoy]

Have you actually watched The Orville?

Oh brother.... lmfao

 

[Balok's Decoy]

Just trying to understand the rules.

There are none.