Is Enterprise part of your personal canon?

[F. King Daniel]

I personally don't see any harm in moving the Eugenics War forward, especially since Khan did not rule a quarter of the world in 1996, and our genetic engineering, cryogenic and interplanetary spaceship technology is nonexistant in 2010.

Even in the late '60s it was obvious that Trek's history wasn't our reality. References throughout the TOS' first two seasons alone establish a broader and more vigorous space program than what actually happened. And so if that was so different then there's no problem accepting the Eugenics Wars in the 1990s in Trek's "reality."

I think it's important to Star Trek's mainstream popularity that it remain our future. A few little minor details like the launch of a random satellite or probe are one thing, but an epic world war, cryogenics, space ships and genetic supermen are quite another.

I say Trek's vision of the future, and the future's past, should be flexible and move with the present.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I personally don't see any harm in moving the Eugenics War forward, especially since Khan did not rule a quarter of the world in 1996, and our genetic engineering, cryogenic and interplanetary spaceship technology is nonexistant in 2010.

Even in the late '60s it was obvious that Trek's history wasn't our reality. References throughout the TOS' first two seasons alone establish a broader and more vigorous space program than what actually happened. And so if that was so different then there's no problem accepting the Eugenics Wars in the 1990s in Trek's "reality."

Very few TV shows in the 60's or otherwise are in our reality, but they are meant to be in our reality ( or in Star Treks case the future of our reality). I dont think any one involved in Star Trek had an alternate reality in mind when making the show. When the Enterprise visited the 1960s is was supposed to be "the world outside our window". Same for the othr Trek show when they visited the decades those show were produced in. I firmly believe that Star Trek should always be presented as our future and with a common past.

 

[Warped9]

^^ Except that time has passed and clearly showing that the two realities--ours and Trek's--are not the same. Have you seen any genetically bred Superman mentioned in the media running around and heard of whole populations being bombed out of existence about ten or so years ago?

 

[Nerys Myk]

^^ Except that time has passed that the two realities--ours and Trek's--are not the same. Have you seen any genetically bred Superman mentioned in the media running around and heard of whole populations being bombed out of existence about ten or so years ago?

Nope that stuff will "happen" in our future. The dates used are irrelevant and should be slid up the scale to accomedate actuall history. Yes that will cause archivists, chronologists and nitpickers headaches, heart attacks and hair loss, but I can live with that. Keeping Trek viable, reachable and relatable is much more important than any "alternate reality" mumbo jumbo for the sake of a 2 second piece of dialog. Gene was right in the idea to keep the actual time period vague in most episodes. But as usual, he also forgot about that rule almost as soon as he made it.

 

[Myasishchev]

I avoided the pages with the long discussions about the existence and efficacy of "personal canon," because that sort of debate doesn't interest me, but what does interest me is how damned Enterprise and to a lesser degree Voyager are that the question is even brought up.

I mean, hardly any one ever asks if you'd prefer that the other series never happened, but people ask that about ENT and VOY all the time.

 

[Warped9]

I mean, hardly any one ever asks if you'd prefer that the other series never happened, but people ask that about ENT and VOY all the time.

Actually I have seen that question asked. In fact I recall someone stating they didn't think TOS was real Trek and shouldn't be considered part of the holy canon.

 

[Myasishchev]

Ah, but hence the qualification. There's no accounting for goofballs.

(Although significant aspects do require retconning--I watched "The Omega Glory" today, and I've never seen an intrinsically interesting story nosedive into preposterous self-parody so quickly. I figure that's not what the dude you refer to meant, though.)

 

[otherjr]

To be honest my Trek canon starts at TOS and ends with DS9, maybe that sounds totally harsh to VOY and, to a lesser extent, to ENT, but its not really a concious decision. Both those shows seemed so staged and unreal and badly written that I just cant imagine them happening. Voyager got back to earth without experiencing troubles with crew numbers, food, loss of shuttles, or damage to the ship. Yes, I know those things were sometimes mentioned in the context of an episode, but they were never really felt. I just couldnt connect with it, it didnt seem like a real situation and the characters didnt seem real either so it isnt in my canon, no (concious) fault of mine. It just stretches my suspension of belief when, say, you find a beautiful, human borg who just happens to be perfect nerd bait. Same goes for ENT, it just wasnt believable.

 

[Destructor]

Can you all please stop using the word 'canon'? Say personal continuity or imaginary headspace or something. The word canon means, by definition, something that is not personal, that is declared by a higher authority. If it's personal, it's not canon. If it's canon, it's not personal. Personal canon is a complete oxymoron.

So Enterprise IS canon, even if you personally don't consider it to be 'real' in your imaginary history of the Trek universe.

PS- if Trek is meant to be *our* future... how come everyone isn't always remarking on how much everything resembles that highly influential sci-fi show from the 1960s?

 

[Nerys Myk]

Can you all please stop using the word 'canon'? Say personal continuity or imaginary headspace or something. The word canon means, by definition, something that is not personal, that is declared by a higher authority. If it's personal, it's not canon. If it's canon, it's not personal. Personal canon is a complete oxymoron.

So Enterprise IS canon, even if you personally don't consider it to be 'real' in your imaginary history of the Trek universe.

PS- if Trek is meant to be *our* future... how come everyone isn't always remarking on how much everything resembles that highly influential sci-fi show from the 1960s?

Galaxy Quest is from the 70's.

 

[Myasishchev]

Can you all please stop using the word 'canon'? Say personal continuity or imaginary headspace or something. The word canon means, by definition, something that is not personal, that is declared by a higher authority. If it's personal, it's not canon. If it's canon, it's not personal. Personal canon is a complete oxymoron.

You make baby Martin Luther cry.

PS- if Trek is meant to be *our* future... how come everyone isn't always remarking on how much everything resembles that highly influential sci-fi show from the 1960s?

There's a pretty big difference between the Celebrity Paradox and "this is a completely different reality where any sort of nonsense goes." If I want to see alternate history, I'll read Harry Turtledove. Actually, if I ever want to see alternate history, I'll put my head in an oven. (Okay, Fatherland was cool.)

I'm actually even okay with slight variations; the problem with TOS' ridiculous zeerust regarding the time period 1970-2010 is that it posits a world wholly unlike our own, where genetic engineering is widely available enough that Augments can bomb whole populations out of existence and where we launch manned vehicles to Saturn. If the world is so ridiculously unlike ours, it automatically distances itself from the audience and becomes merely ironic.

 

[Warped9]

the problem with TOS' ridiculous zeerust regarding the time period 1970-2010 is that it posits a world wholly unlike our own, where genetic engineering is widely available enough that Augments can bomb whole populations out of existence and where we launch manned vehicles to Saturn. If the world is so ridiculously unlike ours, it automatically distances itself from the audience and becomes merely ironic.

Bullshit. Even in the '60s when TOS was being aired we could see its reality wasn't ours. In "The City On The Edge Of Forever" our heroes go back to the 1930s where Edith Keeler makes two references to a Clark Gable movie when in our reality it would still be a few years before Clark Gable would be familiar to the public. The references to a more advanced space program from the 1970s onward nails it.

The problem isn't that TOS posited a different latter 20th century and later 21st century, but that subsequent writers knowingly ignored what had been established. It was sloppy writing on TNG and DS9 and VOY and ENT. So in my book they cut themselves off from TOS' continuity to fabricate a new one of their own.

Thus in my personal continuity the spinoffs aren't connected to TOS in any way whatsoever. The TOS era as seen from TNG/DS9/VOY/ENT may have similarities, but it isn't the original TOS era we saw initially.

 

[Myasishchev]

In "The City On The Edge Of Forever" our heroes go back to the 1930s where Edith Keeler makes two references to a Clark Gable movie when in our reality it would still be a few years before Clark Gable would be familiar to the public.

If we did that every time they got some minor factoid wrong, we'd have a hard time. These were the days before Google and it is a hastily or wholly un-researched TV script, after all.

The references to a more advanced space program from the 1970s onward nails it.

Or that Gene Roddenberry and co. were wildly optimistic about the space program. Hell, they didn't even know when their own show was actually set till later. In the TOS alt-universe, were Napoleonic uniforms actually in style in the 1500s? Or does the show take place in the 2500s? According to Squire of Gothos, one of these should be the case, but it's probably neither, because they just made an error.

But if Napoleonic crap was in style in the 1400s, again I'll say this changes their history from our reality so totally that everything that occurs might as well be on Middle Earth. I'd have to research it more than I care to, but I would suspect that clothes, especially rich-person clothes, made in the early 1800s not only were different in style from those in the 1400s, but were made utilizing new materials and technologies gained from several centuries of exploration and exploitation. See why this sort of thing, taken literally, could destroy the background of the universe entirely?

The problem isn't that TOS posited a different latter 20th century and later 21st century, but that subsequent writers knowingly ignored what had been established. It was sloppy writing on TNG and DS9 and VOY and ENT. So in my book they cut themselves off from TOS' continuity to fabricate a new one of their own.

Thus in my personal continuity the spinoffs aren't connected to TOS in any way whatsoever. The TOS era as seen from TNG/DS9/VOY/ENT may have similarities, but it isn't the original TOS era we saw initially.

I can split the difference on this--sure, why not?

 

[Warped9]

^^ Regardless of why GR and company established what they did the fact is they did establish it. And it was up to subsequent shows to follow it to remain consistent. They chose not to and thus created a discontinuity, an inconsistency that I can't accept.

In like fashion I imagine something like TNG happened later in TOS' continuity, but it wasn't exactly as what we saw when TNG aired.

If TOS is guilty of anything it's of becoming successful and popular in syndication when most thought it more likely the show would be quietly forgotten after a few years.

 

[Myasishchev]

So the Napoleonic Wars happened in the 1400s. I wonder how Ferdinand and Isabela dealt with that on top of the Moors.

Edit: plus, since this boils down to the Eugenics War anyway, "1990s" sans Anno Domini doesn't mean anything. It could be Saka Calendar, which would make a lot of sense given that India was evidently one epicenter. Puts it in the 2070s CE, iirc.

 

[Nerys Myk]

the problem with TOS' ridiculous zeerust regarding the time period 1970-2010 is that it posits a world wholly unlike our own, where genetic engineering is widely available enough that Augments can bomb whole populations out of existence and where we launch manned vehicles to Saturn. If the world is so ridiculously unlike ours, it automatically distances itself from the audience and becomes merely ironic.

Bullshit. Even in the '60s when TOS was being aired we could see its reality wasn't ours. In "The City On The Edge Of Forever" our heroes go back to the 1930s where Edith Keeler makes two references to a Clark Gable movie when in our reality it would still be a few years before Clark Gable would be familiar to the public. The references to a more advanced space program from the 1970s onward nails it.

The problem isn't that TOS posited a different latter 20th century and later 21st century, but that subsequent writers knowingly ignored what had been established. It was sloppy writing on TNG and DS9 and VOY and ENT. So in my book they cut themselves off from TOS' continuity to fabricate a new one of their own.

Thus in my personal continuity the spinoffs aren't connected to TOS in any way whatsoever. The TOS era as seen from TNG/DS9/VOY/ENT may have similarities, but it isn't the original TOS era we saw initially.

Come on they screwed up. It's not like they intended those as references to be an alternate reality. The picked the name of an "old" 30s Movie star out of a hat. It could have been anyone. They did not choose wisely.

You cant toss out the accusation of "sloppy writing" at the other shows when it was sloppy writing/research/continuity in TOS that created some of the problems. Though IIRC, ENT "corrected" the mistake in DS9 by placing the Eugenics Wars back in the 20th Century.

You and I are of the same Generation. We all thought the Space Program was headed toward a Trekian future in those days. We had no idea it would stall at the Moon. Again, there was no intent to posit Star Trek as an alternate reality. Thats just a rationalization to justify the stuff that does't match up or contradicts actual history.

 

[Destructor]

Thus in my personal continuity the spinoffs aren't connected to TOS in any way whatsoever. The TOS era as seen from TNG/DS9/VOY/ENT may have similarities, but it isn't the original TOS era we saw initially.

That's your right, but it's clearly not what Gene intended- he frequently said that he intended Star Trek to be set in the future of our Earth, and that TNG was a continuation of TOS.

 

[Warped9]

I seriously doubt GR and company were thinking of using the Indian calendar. People are trying to contort things to twist them into something to fit their cute-and-tidy little world where Trek fits into our reality when it simply doesn't work that way. It is what it is. And I've never had a problem accepting that Trek's reality isn't and never has been ours. It's fiction after all.

 

[Myasishchev]

Call and raise: I seriously doubt anyone who worked on TOS gave it half the thought fans do, except Roddenberry, and most of his deep thoughts occurred in the late 1970s. (Also maybe Fontana.)

 

[Shatnertage]

Yes, we definitely might be over-thinking this one.

As far as considering quality as a mark of what should be "canon," a) that's completely subjective and b) it's ridiculous. Every Trek series has its share of bad episodes and goofy scenarios; if we start pulling up weeds, we're going to end up with a pretty sparse garden.