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

[Rahul]

If you don't WANT to suspend your disbelief, you won't. Simple as that. But that's a decision you make hours if not days before the title sequence even rolls, yes?

Yeah, no. What a stupid comment. Breaking of suspension of disbelief is something that absolutely happens during watching, and is NOT a conscience decision beforehand. Usually it happens during bad films, or even only bad moments. 'The Last Jedi' broke the suspension of disbelief of many people, exactly while it played. Not before, not afterwards. And certainly not as part of some fans "deciding" it's going to break their suspension beforehand. Just straight in the middle of it, because what was put on screen was so egregious to some people, it simply put many (fans who wanted to be fooled in the first place) straight out of the movie.

Of course it didn't affect everybody. But many. And insinuate people planned to have their illusion shattered is just... what...? I mean ....what?

 

[KennyB]

Wow.........this is still a thing?

 

[cooleddie74]

I'd have brought enough popcorn for everybody but the guy working the concession stand had cranial ridges and hates the way the TOS Enterprise looks so I had to take a stand and come back empty-handed.

 

[Phoenix219]

You know what?
All those years later. I still HATE this. It's the ONE truly awful thing from a production standpoint I hate in the TOS movies the most. The revamp in TMP? Is truly unlikely, but they at least adressed it in-universe on-screen. The new Earth spacedock in STIII? Well, they just didn't show it before. The new Enterprise bridge between ST:IV and ST:V? Annoying but nothing severe, since they only showed it for a few seconds. But this? I still hate it. I can see why the did it. But I still think it should have been handled vastly different. It breaks my personal suspension of disbelief.

Coincidentally? I am a person that hates the DIS-redesign of the klingons with a passion, and hope they just do away with it in the future, to be forever forgotten and never mentioned again. To be replaced with "real" klingons for all later appereances. The same way we forget about this, up until we get annoyed by it again when we rewatch it/stumble upon it on the Internet.

Maybe they are flying the ship from auxiliary control? They had trouble adapting to the Klingon bridge stations due to culturual differences, and found that Star Fleets style of doing things more closely matched up to the non-standard / alternate Klingon systems on their auxiliary deck.



It still pains me that all of this could have been avoided with 2-3 throwaway shots of "old school" Klingon's in the background, a line of dialogue where the "purist" Klingon's trash the 22nd century designs of the D7 as stagnant, and one of the factors leading into their "Remain Klingon!" idealogy being the human-centric Augment virus destroying them from the inside, while the Feds creep their borders on the outside.

 

[fireproof78]

It still pains me that all of this could have been avoided with 2-3 throwaway shots of "old school" Klingon's in the background, a line of dialogue where the "purist" Klingon's trash the 22nd century designs of the D7 as stagnant, and one of the factors leading into their "Remain Klingon!" idealogy being the human-centric Augment virus destroying them from the inside, while the Feds creep their borders on the outside.

Still possible. And not that far outside the realm of imagination so it doesn't bother me at all.

 

[Refuge]

'Discovery' went out of its way to give us these Klingons, they were the feature bad guys. We were shown about as much variation as there was supposed to be from the various Discovery version 'Houses'. The variation? Skin tone, that was it. If Discovery magic ups some smoother faced, hairy Klingons on the side, it will be a joke

 

[fireproof78]

'Discovery' went out of its way to give us these Klingons, they were the feature bad guys. We were shown about as much variation as there was supposed to be from the various Discovery version 'Houses'. The variation? Skin tone, that was it. If Discovery magic ups some smoother faced, hairy Klingons on the side, it will be a joke

 

[cooleddie74]

I always thought that "Remain Klingon" did in fact partially refer to the Augment Klingons being a scourge in the eyes of many in their society and their appearance and the resulting sense of dishonor many other Klingons would have from interacting with them would lead - at least in part - those like T'Kuvma to rally likeminded members of his race in a drive for genetic and cultural purity. The Augments look too much like Earther scum and remind many in the Empire too closely of their Federation enemies.

 

[Discofan]

I think it only makes sense that if the Klingons have suffered for so long of the absence of ridges that in reaction they would (surgically) make them more pronounced than normal, plus the shaving of their hair could be part of a new trend that later became obsolete, Chang could have been the last remnant of that trend.

 

[Refuge]

I think it only makes sense that if the Klingons have suffered for so long of the absence of ridges that in reaction they would (surgically) make them more pronounced than normal, plus the shaving of their hair could be part of a new trend that later became obsolete, Chang could have been the last remnant of that trend.

Did they shave? There is zero suggestion of this in Discovery.

 

[WebLurker]

Did they shave? There is zero suggestion of this in Discovery.

No (so far as I know), but is is a simple way to reconcile the discrepancies between the DSC Klingons and the ones in the rest of the franchise.

 

[Gonzo]

I'd have brought enough popcorn for everybody but the guy working the concession stand had cranial ridges and hates the way the TOS Enterprise looks so I had to take a stand and come back empty-handed.

I don't really see how the question posed in this thread matters either way.

Everyone will have their own view on the Klingons, their ships, technologies and the new Enterprise anyway regardless of it being prime or not.

 

[Rahul]

I think what comes to light, and what is arguibly hard to stomach for many, is that Star Trek doesn't HAVE a "true" prime timeline anymore. The 'old' canon, starting from TOS up until Nemesis and ENT formed one, cohesive continuity (although prone to many continuity 'errors' and contradictions). But that simply isn't the case anymore.

IMO one main reason for it is that we don't have a cohesive production leadership anymore - no more single entity overlooking the entire franchise, since the franchise is splitted between television and movie entities (belonging to different companies, CBS and Paramount).

It's a bit like the situation with Marvels MCU und the X-Men. Rights issues creating an artificial split into a single intelectual property. As a result, everything "new" in Trek will be split in different "branches" of various and contradicting canonicity.

At this point, it's clear the Kelvin movies take place in an alternate reality from the prime timeline. But what becomes less and less clear is if the parts that those movies depicted as "prime" - the destruction of Romulus, old Spock, the Kelvin - actually are part of the "main" prime timeline, and not just the Paramount-branch of the timeline.

In the same way, ENT clearly took place in the DISCO-universe, and TOS will probably as well. But the other way round is less clear - TOS and TNG probably aren't compatible with what happened on DIS so far. It's the "CBS-branch" of the timeline so to speak.

The result is, we have one, "old" prime time: TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT and the first 10 movies. Everything else is just different branches of this timeline. Both the Kelvin and the Franklin are part of one prime-timeline-branch, and the Discovery (and Shenzhou) are part of another prime-timeline branch. But both - the Kelvin and the Discovery - aren't part of the SAME branch.

 

[Rahul]

Basically we have now:

1. Prime Timeline
   • Prime A) Old continuity only
   • Prime B) Kelvin, red matter, "prime" Spock from Kelvin movies + old continuity
   • Prime C) Disco-verse + old continuity
2. Kelvin Timeline

 

[Graham]

It still pains me that all of this could have been avoided with 2-3 throwaway shots of "old school" Klingon's in the background, a line of dialogue where the "purist" Klingon's trash the 22nd century designs of the D7 as stagnant, and one of the factors leading into their "Remain Klingon!" idealogy being the human-centric Augment virus destroying them from the inside, while the Feds creep their borders on the outside.

They're never going to do anything like that. To do so they'd need to be of a mind that they should make their series fit in with the rest of Trek, and that is something that they very obviously don't give a crap about.

 

[Graham]

In the same way, ENT clearly took place in the DISCO-universe, and TOS will probably as well.

Really?

Seems to me that the TOS/TNG/DS9/VOY/ENT/movies hung together in one continuity pretty well - and that rather obviously, DiscoTrek exists apart from any of them.

If anything, you might just possibly regard it as being a prequel in the Kelvin timeline.

 

[Tuskin38]

Plus Enterprise had a direct connection to TNG

 

[Rahul]

Really?

Seems to me that the TOS/TNG/DS9/VOY/ENT/movies hung together in one continuity pretty well - and that rather obviously, DiscoTrek exists apart from any of them.

If anything, you might just possibly regard it as being a prequel in the Kelvin timeline.

The Kelvin-prime-verse variant and the Discoverse-prime-variant are at this point clearly seperated, not just from a visual standpoint, but also from a story/shared history standpoint: In the Kelvin timeline, there was no war with the Klingons before Kirk (as was said in Into Darkness).

But both refer to events of the "original", old continuity. That's why I say they are both different "branches" of it. Both clearly originating and extending from the original timeline, but none a definite continuation, rather just two different, diverging "variants" of how the prime universe could continue.

 

[cooleddie74]

Tell that to the fans who think that ENT only exists because of a changed timeline in First Contact.

 

[Graham]

The Kelvin-prime-verse variant and the Discoverse-prime-variant are at this point clearly seperated, not just from a visual standpoint, but also from a story/shared history standpoint: In the Kelvin timeline, there was no war with the Klingons before Kirk (as was said in Into Darkness).

I can't find anything from Into Darkness that states that there has not been any war with the Klingons up to this point.

I dunno whether DiscoTrek can really be considered a Kelvin prequel. I like the idea, since DT clearly draws so much influence from the Kelvin timeline - it seems like it wants to be part of it. But I'd have to sit down and look at the dates and evidence to see if that idea really worked.