Evidence of SNW being a possible alternate timeline from TOS

[BillJ]

All I see is old characters being shoehorned into series from desperate writers who lack originality.

I have a lot of issues with the writing, but these folks don't work in a vacuum. They are getting their marching orders from far higher up the chain. The folks who don't care about creativity, just the bottom line.

I imagine that is how we ended up with Khan's great granddaughter.

 

[Campe]

The writers definitely have their own masters to serve.

 

[Yistaan]

Usually one franchise is told by the studios to copy some other franchise. Trek has been copying SW for a while now, but even SW isn't doing so hot these days. DC brought in Gunn to copy the bad pre-cancellation Whedon humor in the Marvel films and Supergirl just flopped. Marvel itself isn't doing so hot but maybe Spider-Man next week will turn things around.

The writers serve the studios who usually just copy the leader of the pack. With the franchises all kind of floundering in recent years, the studios suddenly realize maybe they have to be original.

 

[fireproof78]

The studios serve two masters: fans demanding new and original and yet familiar and comfortable otherwise they won't tune in.

 

[ichab]

As stated above from someone else, books and merchandise veer heavily towards TOS and TNG, primarily TOS.

People who read novels are a tiny fraction of the viewing audience.

Look at the Avengers: Doomsday trailer that came out this morning, focusing largely on the Fox X-Men and Downey Jr., Hemsworth and Evans being the major driving point.

Why? Because nostalgia sells. And it works. I am both excited and annoyed by what I’m seeing from that movie.

Not the same thing. They arent recasting Tony Stark, Thor and Steve Rogers eg:everyone that fans fell in love with. Also, they are basing this movie off a storyline from the comics that hasnt been told onscreen yet. That story involves all Marvel characters. They arent retelling the same story with a different cast.

At the end of the day, I think we want the same thing. We just have different reasons.

Agreed. We also have no idea which way its going so its all speculation until something official has been announced.

 

[BillJ]

People who read novels are a tiny fraction of the viewing audience.

The merchandising arm is much larger than just the novels.

 

[Campe]

Not the same thing. They arent recasting Tony Stark, Thor and Steve Rogers eg:everyone that fans fell in love with. Also, they are basing this movie off a storyline from the comics that hasnt been told onscreen yet. That story involves all Marvel characters. They arent retelling the same story with a different cast.

Thor is still a known quantity in the MCU. But, Tony Stark is dead. Steve Rogers got his happy ending. Yet, here they are both actors back again in a story. One plays a new character. The other, the same character from the past. I admit the reasoning behind both appearances might be completely organic to the story, but on its face seems to be playing to the, “Well, we haven’t had a lot of hits since Endgame, so let’s back up Brinks trucks to both Downey and Evan’s’ houses and see what happens. Because they’ve done great for audiences in the past!” Feels very nostalgia-based to me.

Again, I could be completely wrong. It’s just how it comes off. And admittedly, at the same time, I’m excited for what it MIGHT be.

 

[ichab]

Thor is still a known quantity in the MCU. But, Tony Stark is dead. Steve Rogers got his happy ending. Yet, here they are both actors back again in a story. One plays a new character. The other, the same character from the past. I admit the reasoning behind both appearances might be completely organic to the story, but on its face seems to be playing to the, “Well, we haven’t had a lot of hits since Endgame, so let’s back up Brinks trucks to both Downey and Evan’s’ houses and see what happens. Because they’ve done great for audiences in the past!” Feels very nostalgia-based to me.

Again, I could be completely wrong. It’s just how it comes off. And admittedly, at the same time, I’m excited for what it MIGHT be.

We arent talking characters that have been gone for twenty years. Its been like 7 years since Endgame. Ive seen sequals take longer than that, like what Patinsons Batmans will be by the time 2 comes out. Plus its the same actors who all still look young. Not in the same ballpark as characters that havent been played by the original crew of actors who made them famous since the early 90s.

Ask yourself this: if all those MCU roles were recast for Avengers: Doom, do you honestly think there would be any hype for that movie?

 

[Campe]

We arent talking characters that have been gone for twenty years. Its been like 7 years since Endgame. Ive seen sequals take longer than that, like what Patinsons Batmans will be by the time 2 comes out. Plus its the same actors who all still look young. Not in the same ballpark as characters that havent been played by the original crew of actors who made them famous since the early 90s.

Ask yourself this: if all those MCU roles were recast for Avengers: Doom, do you honestly think there would be any hype for that movie?

I’m not talking about recasting. I’m talking about desperate use of previous actors and characters whose stories are done. Why? Because it tugs on the nostalgia strings and will put butts back in the seat because of the steep drop off of interest in the MCU since Endgame.

But let’s have this conversation about how recasting works in the MCU post-Secret Wars.

 

[FederationHistorian]

is the TOS we all watched the alternate timeline

Maybe TOS is an in-universe theatrical production of Kirk’s adventures.

Sure, but all it was was a single mention of a date. We've literally had episodes of Star Trek that take place in 1996 Los Angeles, the early 2000s in Indiana, the early 2000s in Detroit, and the early 2020s in San Francisco and L.A. None of them showed a nuclear apocalypse or a bunch of genetically engineered supermen running around.

Voyager visited Earth in 1996 when the war should have been in full swing. None of the characters seem surprised to see LA standing and full of life and no one mentions the war at all. The crew of DS9 visit earth in 2024 and there is no evidence that the war is happening and again, no one mentions it.

TOS explicitly made it extremely clear that the 1990s Eugenics War was in Asia & North Africa. Not sure why anyone would expect that war to be in America. Or why it would even be considered widespread, mainstream knowledge when Voyager visited Earth, considering its also known that figures like Gary Seven were running around Earth as early as the late 1960s trying to stop WWIII.

That said, where does everyone think homeless Eugenics War veterans would end up? Maybe a Sanctuary District...

Also, Janeway, or anyone else in VOY, never mentions how her ancestors were living in Indiana a few years before that area becomes a warzone and eventually the site of a nuclear apocalypse, as depicted in DIS.

Specifically TWOK refers to 200 years before Terrell was born, and he wasn't born yesterday. So you can get another 50 years or so.

Notes from MA suggest Terrell was intended to be 45. Which puts the 21st century Eugenics War as early as 2040, coinciding with the death of television, the death of baseball, and several years before the LA earthquake. And whatever version of 2048 O'Brien suggested was rougher than the actual events of the prime timeline.

In my mind SNW is definitely an alternate timeline from TOS. There are just too many contractions that drive me nuts otherwise, like:

- Starfleet encountering the Gorn, Trelane, and the Metrons years before TOS.
- Spock's vastly different characterization, to the point of him having romantic relationships with not one but TWO of his shipmates and publicly talking about them in a documentary by someone he barely knows.
- Chapel having a completely different (but better, IMO) personality.
- Kirk, Spock, and Scotty all knowing and working with a descendant of Khan's years before "Space Seed."
- Uhura, Chapel, and the rest of the Enterprise crew being familiar with T'Pring in SNW when they'd obviously never met in "Amok Time."
- Kirk sharing several adventures with Pike and his crew before "The Menagerie," as opposed to just meeting him once before.
- M'Benga somehow going from CMO of the Enterprise in SNW to just a staff doctor in TOS.
- The Enterprise of the 2250s having an experimental holodeck that is nearly indistinguishable from TNG's holodecks.
- Kirk's brother Sam serving aboard the Enterprise, not to mention him going by the name "Sam," a name only Kirk called him by in TOS.

Not to mention all the other contradictions that SNW carried over from DSC, like the crew encountering Harry Mudd year before Kirk, the Klingon War, Spock having an adoptive sister we've never heard of before, and Pike knowing about his fate years before it happens (another change that I've enjoyed).

There's also trivial stuff that contradicts minor bits of trivia in TOS or TAS, like Spock never mind melding with a human before "Dagger of the Mind," there never being a mutiny on a Starfleet ship, or Robert April being a Black Admiral instead of a Caucasian Commodore, but honestly, those don't bug me too much.

But yeah, those are a LOT of inconsistences to swallow.

For me, it depends on the episode. Some SNW episodes slot in nicely between The Cage and the rest of TOS. Others don't.

How is Spock's line about mind melds with humans any different from the Trill suddenly being able to use transporters?

This presumes that these are inconsistencies to begin with, instead of lore that has yet to be explained.

Maybe the Kirk that Spock melded with in SNW is a salt vampire that goes by James R. Kirk?

As for the Trill, maybe there was a transporter accident with a joined Trill during the Lost Era the Trill remember, or the transporter was a scapegoat for what really happened. Maybe the Trill didn’t want the symbiont flagged by the transporters bioscanners. Maybe it was a rumor started by a quack doctor? Many possibilities, and not an inconsistency.

On DS9, in their first Mirror Universe episode, the Alliance had cloaks. In the last Mirror Universe episode on DS9, the entire story was predicated upon the Alliance not having cloaks.

Since neither mirror Jadzia or mirror Tuvok are seen again by the final DS9 episode, maybe they went on a successful mission to disable all the Alliance cloaks.

 

[HotRod]

TOS explicitly made it extremely clear that the 1990s Eugenics War was in Asia & North Africa.

TOS also pretty explicitly made it extremely clear that the Eugenics Wars were World War III. Also, if a recall, they made no such mention of the war being limited to Asia through to the Middle East, it was only said that Khan ruled that part of the world.

This presumes that these are inconsistencies to begin with

Because it is. Just because they haven't figured out a clever way to retcon it, doesn't mean it's not an inconsistency.

 

[cooleddie74]

TOS said Khan's empire was in South Asia and the Middle East, but there were also several dozen other countries where Augments seized power. ENT confirmed that at least some battles took place in North Africa (Archer's great-grandfather was serving in an American military unit there).

 

[Henoch]

SPOCK: There is that possibility, Captain. His age would be correct. In 1993, a group of these young supermen did seize power simultaneously in over forty nations.
KIRK: Well, they were hardly supermen. They were aggressive, arrogant. They began to battle among themselves.
SPOCK: Because the scientists overlooked one fact. Superior ability breeds superior ambition.
KIRK: Interesting, if true. They created a group of Alexanders, Napoleons.
SPOCK: I have collected some names and made some counts. By my estimate, there were some eighty or ninety of these young supermen unaccounted for when they were finally defeated.
KIRK: That fact isn't in the history texts.
SPOCK: Would you reveal to war-weary populations that some eighty Napoleons might still be alive?

KIRK: Name, Khan, as we know him today. (Spock changes the picture) Name, Khan Noonien Singh.
SPOCK: From 1992 through 1996, absolute ruler of more than a quarter of your world. From Asia through the Middle East.
MCCOY: The last of the tyrants to be overthrown.

SPOCK: No such vessel listed. Records of that period are fragmentary, however. The mid-1990s was the era of your last so-called World War.
MCCOY: The Eugenics Wars.

TOS history: In 1993, Khan plus a group of young supermen seized power in Asia and the Middle East in 40 nations (implies ~40 supermen leaders?), but shortly afterward, they fought among themselves (with nuclear weapons?) leaving war-weary populations. After 3 years, 84 of them escape Earth in 1996 (implies they were hunted to death by all of Earth with no safe havens.) YMMV