Poll Is this 32nd century a keeper?

[DigificWriter]

I don't usually disagree with you, @Christopher, but I think you're mistaken when you try to downplay DSC Season 3's relationship to Calypso and what that story is ultimately going to mean for the story of the USS Discovery and her crew.

As I noted previously, I feel very confident that the DSC writing staff and production staff had already written Such Sweet Sorrow Parts 1 and 2 by the time Michael Chabon wrote Calypso based on what information we can glean from the production schedules for both Calypso and DSC Season 2.

I also feel very confident in saying that I don't believe that Calypso's events will ever have any direct impact on the future storytelling direction of DSC itself beyond being the eventual 'end point' for the story of the USS Discovery itself.

IOW, Calypso's events happen at a point far, far in the future from when DSC is going to be set for however many seasons it ends up lasting, and only after the series ends or as it is ending will we end up seeing or hearing about something that ties into Calyspo directly.

 

[Noname Given]

I hope the show stays in the 32nd century. The one thing that concerns me is that they're signaling Calypso will happen, which implies that Discovery will need to be left for 1,000 years per Calypso. I hope they don't zip forward another 1,000 years, but it does suggest time travel will be involved somehow. I'd rather it be a matter of, for example, sending the ship back so that it can be properly evolved when they need it in the present or something.

Nah - "Calypso" is now an alternate timeline fragment (One of the many Burnham's mother created and experienced while using the Red Angel suit.)

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ And Craft doesn't exactly have to be a reliable narrator, does he?

 

[Nerys Myk]

Each era of Trek should have its own time otherwise things get a bit silly like having Ferengi and Borg in ENT

I don't get the rending of cloth over this one. So what if they showed up ENT?

 

[fireproof78]

I don't get the rending of cloth over this one. So what if they showed up ENT?

Borg was ok. Ferengi was embarrassing.

 

[Lord Garth]

I think Discovery is going to stick to the cover story of having been "out there" for 1,000 years. They'll tell Starfleet Command, but they won't tell anyone else. Zora will take it a step further and tell Craft she's been waiting in the nebula for 1,000 years.

In an era when time-travel is illegal, Starfleet Command wouldn't want people thinking Discovery, potentially their great salvation, travelled through time.

This is my actual opinion of what I think will happen. The more I think about it, the more comfortable I am saying it. I think this is the least convoluted way to tie "Calypso" into the third season of DSC. "But they don't need to tie "Calypso" in!" You really believe they won't? They will. Even if how I think they'll do it is wrong, I don't think I'm wrong in saying they'll tie the two together in some way.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Borg was ok. Ferengi was embarrassing.

I enjoyed it. It was a comedic episode.

 

[TimeIsAPredator]

I don't get the rending of cloth over this one. So what if they showed up ENT?

Well I you are going to make a prequel show don't have aliens that other shows have very specific first contact episodes about. When Picard meets the Borg and Ferengi how come he doesn't say "hey we know all about them captain Archer met them it's in the Starfleet database"

That's a sacrifice you just have to make if you want to do a prequel

 

[Agony_Boothb]

Well I you are going to make a prequel show don't have aliens that other shows have very specific first contact episodes about. When Picard meets the Borg and Ferengi how come he doesn't say "hey we know all about them captain Archer met them it's in the Starfleet database"

That's a sacrifice you just have to make if you want to do a prequel

The Federation knowing about the Borg before the events of 'Q who' was already retconned by Voyager and possibly Generations (if the El Aurians, were forthcoming about what made them refugees).

 

[TimeIsAPredator]

The Federation knowing about the Borg before the events of 'Q who' was already retconned by Voyager and possibly Generations (if the El Aurians, were forthcoming about what made them refugees).

When was it retconned in Voyager. Did the Hansen's report about them back to Starfleet?

 

[Christopher]

The Federation knowing about the Borg before the events of 'Q who' was already retconned by Voyager and possibly Generations (if the El Aurians, were forthcoming about what made them refugees).

Indeed, "Q Who" never explicitly said the Federation had no prior knowledge of the Borg, only that they were new to Picard and the Enterprise crew. For all we know, in between scenes, Picard and Data checked the computer banks and found there were rumors and legends recorded about the Borg going back generations, but Picard decided to ask Guinan about them anyway because she had more direct experience and it's always better to consult a primary source when available.

People forget that the "con" in "retcon" means continuity, not contradiction. Retroactive continuity, in the literal sense, is something that's added later on but fits in smoothly with prior information as if it had been true all along. The ideal retcon is one that creates no conflict or inconsistency, that merely recontextualizes the information we had. That's basically true in this case.

 

[TimeIsAPredator]

Indeed, "Q Who" never explicitly said the Federation had no prior knowledge of the Borg, only that they were new to Picard and the Enterprise crew. For all we know, in between scenes, Picard and Data checked the computer banks and found there were rumors and legends recorded about the Borg going back generations, but Picard decided to ask Guinan about them anyway because she had more direct experience and it's always better to consult a primary source when available.

People forget that the "con" in "retcon" means continuity, not contradiction. Retroactive continuity, in the literal sense, is something that's added later on but fits in smoothly with prior information as if it had been true all along. The ideal retcon is one that creates no conflict or inconsistency, that merely recontextualizes the information we had. That's basically true in this case.

Ok possibly all that is true but let's be honest here it was obvious Q sent Picard to show him some unknown threat that the Federation had no clue about

I'm all for mental gymnastics I use them all the time with Trek but I think ENT took it too far too often. The whole augment virus was awful too but I'm not blaming ENT for starting that just re animating it and would have much preferred we just ignored the different Klingons and used our imagination

 

[Agony_Boothb]

When was it retconned in Voyager. Did the Hansen's report about them back to Starfleet?

The Hansens got clearance from the Federation Council of Exobiology to conduct the mission.

 

[TimeIsAPredator]

The Hansens got clearance from the Federation Council of Exobiology to conduct the mission.

God I do hate what Voyager done to the Borg. Took away all the fear and mystery

 

[Agony_Boothb]

Indeed, "Q Who" never explicitly said the Federation had no prior knowledge of the Borg, only that they were new to Picard and the Enterprise crew. For all we know, in between scenes, Picard and Data checked the computer banks and found there were rumors and legends recorded about the Borg going back generations, but Picard decided to ask Guinan about them anyway because she had more direct experience and it's always better to consult a primary source when available.

People forget that the "con" in "retcon" means continuity, not contradiction. Retroactive continuity, in the literal sense, is something that's added later on but fits in smoothly with prior information as if it had been true all along. The ideal retcon is one that creates no conflict or inconsistency, that merely recontextualizes the information we had. That's basically true in this case.

I could see the Federation and by extension Starfleet wanting to keep the Borg a secret until they knew more about them. This also doesn't invalidate Q facilitating the first confrontation with Borg. For all we know Starfleet keeping the Borg top secret whilst also not actively preparing for their eventual arrival, might have been the impetus for Q to use his favourite human, Picard to give humanity it's wake up call.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Well I you are going to make a prequel show don't have aliens that other shows have very specific first contact episodes about. When Picard meets the Borg and Ferengi how come he doesn't say "hey we know all about them captain Archer met them it's in the Starfleet database"

That's a sacrifice you just have to make if you want to do a prequel

That ship sailed in Generations and Voyager, which implied and showed the Borg were a known commodity. Ditto for the Ferengi in the very episode that featured them.

 

[Christopher]

I could see the Federation and by extension Starfleet wanting to keep the Borg a secret until they knew more about them.

You don't even have to go that far. The Federation is huge. It's hundreds of whole planets. It's impossible for any one person, or even every one starship crew, to know everything that happens in such an immense volume. This was a point Poul Anderson made in a lot of his fiction about the Polesotechnic League/Terran Empire (yes, he used that name before the Mirror Universe did) -- that a whole interstellar civilization is far too vast for anyone to have knowledge about more than a fraction of what goes on within it. Something that has a major impact in one part of the civilization could be completely unknown in other parts, because there's just too much stuff to keep track of and people only pay attention to the parts that are relevant to their own lives and communities.

After all, the Borg were just rumors and legends when the Hansens studied them. There's no need to classify a legend. It was just fringe stuff that was only really talked about by people who were into that sort of thing -- scholars, hobbyists, conspiracy theorists, etc. It would've been one of a thousand old space legends that most people never bothered paying much attention to.


The Anderson model also allows reconciling other continuity errors in Trek, like how first-season Picard had never heard of the Tkon Empire when later Picard was established as an expert in archaeology. It's just too big a galaxy for even an expert to have heard of every extinct civilization. And then there's the big one -- how the Federation could have been at war with Cardassia up until a year before season 4 (per "The Wounded") when seasons 1-2 showed a peacetime Starfleet wherein the very concept of war games was a fringe notion that Picard considered obsolete and unnecessary (per "Peak Performance"). It can be reconciled if the Federation is so gigantic that a war that feels huge and devastating to the border worlds themselves has effectively no impact on the rest of the vast nation. (Although I prefer the idea that the actual fighting had fizzled out years earlier and it was only a technical state of war in the absence of a treaty, like how the US has officially been at war with North Korea for the past 70 years even though we only fought for the first 3.)

 

[somebuddyX]

It's probably the real future for now. Some other Trek series in the future could come along and say it's an alternate future though.

 

[plynch]

I agree, Christopher, that retconning should make something fit in the continuity, retroactively.

I hate it when people say "X retconned away Y," meaning making it invalid. Explaining the Klingon forehead differences with an augment virus was a retcon, because later installments explained the continuity of discrepancies we had seen earlier, yes?

 

[Christopher]

It's probably the real future for now. Some other Trek series in the future could come along and say it's an alternate future though.

I very much doubt they would. It's always been the tradition of the makers of new Trek series to treat all past Trek as canonical, no matter how much some fans want them to say otherwise. After all, that's the simplest approach, the one that will be least confusing to the casual audience that isn't initiated into fandom's nitpicky canon/continuity debates and would just naturally expect everything to go together. Even the Kelvin films couldn't break with that continuity altogether and convolutedly established their universe as an alternate timeline branched off from the original without replacing it.

(The animated series was an exception this once, because it was less well-known and its ownership was unclear, and certain people in the production weren't fond of it. But those days are past, as anyone who's seen Lower Decks can see. It's now fully accepted as part of a whole.)

Besides, so far, this season is as good as Discovery has ever been. If it keeps up this level of quality, it will be celebrated by future audiences, and future creators will have no desire to contradict it. As a rule, the only works of series fiction that get decanonized by later installments are the unpopular, unsuccessful ones -- ST V, "Threshold," Highlander II, the less successful Friday the 13th or Terminator sequels, etc.

Explaining the Klingon forehead differences with an augment virus was a retcon, because later installments explained the continuity of discrepancies we had seen earlier, yes?

Yes. It's right there in the name -- retroactive continuity, meaning continuity established after the fact, rather than a discontinuity created after the fact. So if a past discontinuity is reconciled by later information, that is retroactive continuity in the truest sense.