Is this a faithful prequel to TOS?

[fireproof78]

Which, to me, was pretty much the nail in the coffin of the argument it's a different timeline and further cemented the argument that it's all prime timeline. Yes, to us, the audience of the fictional universe, it looks different and modernized. But in-universe, it's all the same and everything is as it should be.

I clapped at that moment.

The beauty of fiction is that what we think can change. I mean, I grew up with the Technical Manual and looking at all the Trek encyclopedias, and fact files, plus model kits, Mr. Scott's Guide, and the Concordance. I looked at deck plans and ship concepts and such.

It's fun information to have but the general setting for Trek is based upon the basic ideas of a ship in space going on missions, and how the characters interacted with each other.

The details are just that: details. Some changes require more squinting but I'm hardly going to toss everything because of visual changes as the purpose of the tech remains the same.

Treating it as a separate timeline just strikes me as work.

 

[Daedalus]

Seriously? You can buy ALL the visual contradictions in the Elder Scrolls lore (have you even played Elder Scrolls Arena?) but can't handle Strange New Worlds? No offense but that feels like a double standard to me. Heck, the IDW comics basically said that Pike's Enterprise was refitted into Kirk's Enterprise, which is more plausible than the something something "Dragon Break and Warp of the West" handwaves that Elder Scrolls offers for their contradictions.

Uriel Septim doesn't even look the same from one game to the next! The names of Uriel's sons and Arthago in later games don't match up with the names in Daggerfall! The layouts for towns and dungeons that are supposed to be the same between Elder Scrolls Online, Arena, and other games are completely incompatible, far more so than anything Strange New Worlds couldn't explain away.

And yes, I know what I'm talking about because I finished every Elder Scrolls PC game except Battlespire (yes even Redguard and the main quest of Elder Scrolls Online), and I only didn't beat Battlespire because of a game breaking bug. If you are hung up on the cosmetic differences between SNW and the rest of Trek but accept the far more severe contradictions in Elder Scrolls, that feels like a double standard to me.

I don't think I even need to get started on Elder Scrolls: Castles or Elder Scrolls: Blades

I can't say I have a problem with that happening. I don't think others would like it, though.

The beauty of fiction is that what we think can change. I mean, I grew up with the Technical Manual and looking at all the Trek encyclopedias, and fact files, plus model kits, Mr. Scott's Guide, and the Concordance. I looked at deck plans and ship concepts and such.

It's fun information to have but the general setting for Trek is based upon the basic ideas of a ship in space going on missions, and how the characters interacted with each other.

The details are just that: details. Some changes require more squinting but I'm hardly going to toss everything because of visual changes as the purpose of the tech remains the same.

Treating it as a separate timeline just strikes me as work.

I would much prefer it to be one timeline that just works with a heavy dose of ignorance. But it would just be nice to reach a general consensus, which I understand is like asking water to not be wet.

Which, to me, was pretty much the nail in the coffin of the argument it's a different timeline and further cemented the argument that it's all prime timeline. Yes, to us, the audience of the fictional universe, it looks different and modernized. But in-universe, it's all the same and everything is as it should be.

I clapped at that moment.

Well, I also noticed that Boimler mistakes M'Benga's tricoder for a classic TS-122 but is corrected and told its a TS-120. I like to believe that's a nod to the classic TOS version we're all familiar with, something that technically hasn't been invented at that point.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

Seriously? You can buy ALL the visual contradictions in the Elder Scrolls lore (have you even played Elder Scrolls Arena?) but can't handle Strange New Worlds? No offense but that feels like a double standard to me. Heck, the IDW comics basically said that Pike's Enterprise was refitted into Kirk's Enterprise, which is more plausible than the something something "Dragon Break and Warp of the West" handwaves that Elder Scrolls offers for their contradictions.

I'm not holding Elder Scrolls up as an example of how to do it right, it was just a name that jumped into my head to complete the list of three things. I mean I did check it while playing the games, but I didn't go *that* deep.

 

[Nerys Myk]

The beauty of fiction is that what we think can change. I mean, I grew up with the Technical Manual and looking at all the Trek encyclopedias, and fact files, plus model kits, Mr. Scott's Guide, and the Concordance. I looked at deck plans and ship concepts and such.

It's fun information to have but the general setting for Trek is based upon the basic ideas of a ship in space going on missions, and how the characters interacted with each other.

The details are just that: details. Some changes require more squinting but I'm hardly going to toss everything because of visual changes as the purpose of the tech remains the same.

Treating it as a separate timeline just strikes me as work.

Yeah, I go back to diagrams in TMOST and the Franz Joseph stuff. The OG Trek Tech. But I roll with the changes.

 

[Turtletrekker]

"The cumulative 4 minutes they let Christine Chapel have a personality" in the original series...

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For what it's worth, in these 4 minutes filled with sass and personality, I can see Jess Bush's Christine Chapel very deep down. They are the same character.

 

[Michael]

"The culmative 4 minutes that they allowed Christine chapel to have a personality" in the original series...

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For what it's worth, in these 4 minutes filled with sass and personality, I can see Jess Bush's Christine Chapel very deep down. They are the same character.

Ooh, that’s brilliant! And I can totally see that too. Thanks for posting this!

 

[Phoenix219]

They should point out the differences and let the viewers decide what that means.

Yes, implying the trekverse was actually different from what we saw in TOS/TNG before the "interference" we saw with the sulibans and the future guy, and the sphere builders.... What it was like...we will never know. For all we know, Picard, the D and the Voyager's journey through the Delta Quadrant never happened the first time around.

It's the other way around, it's the reason that the nx was never included in discussions about the Enterprise... It was destroyed early and was unimportant. The 22nd century described even in TNG is very different than what we saw depicted on Enterprise. Enterprise exists after the activation of a Time war and after Borg parts were left in the past and after interference from the future started changing things. The original TOS timeline was before any of these events happened. ENT takes place after first contact and time war butterflies.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Ooh, that’s brilliant! And I can totally see that too. Thanks for posting this!

One thing I love about that video in hindsight, because the people who made the video couldn't have possibly have known what was to come, is that there are scenes with M'Benga included in the footage. Knowing their past history together puts M'Benga's teasing Christine about holding Spock's hand on an entirely new level emotionally.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

I look at SNW as a "broad strokes" sort of prequel to TOS. Yeah, it doesn't really jibe with TOS a lot of the time, but I try not to let it bother me too much. I just assume that it's all taking place in a similar but different parallel universe to TOS whenever they go far afield from what TOS showed us.

 

[fireproof78]

would much prefer it to be one timeline that just works with a heavy dose of ignorance. But

Hardly.

It works by not treating everything as literal and recognizing the limits of a production design.

 

[Admiral Jean-Luc Picard]

It's the other way around, it's the reason that the nx was never included in discussions about the Enterprise... It was destroyed early and was unimportant. The 22nd century described even in TNG is very different than what we saw depicted on Enterprise. Enterprise exists after the activation of a Time war and after Borg parts were left in the past and after interference from the future started changing things. The original TOS timeline was before any of these events happened. ENT takes place after first contact and time war butterflies.

#1 Maybe the Enterprise originally had a different name, but Riker and friends from the future influenced history and led to the NX-01 being named Enterprise in honor of Cochrane's friends?

#2 Regarding the S1 episode "Cold Front," it's also possible that Silik saved the Enterprise, because it wasn't supposed to be destroyed. The early launch to return the Klingon to his homeworld could have lead to a series of events that lead to the Enterprise's premature destruction. Future Guy's like, my bad, Silik, go fix that. Ya know?

 

[fireproof78]

Maybe the Enterprise originally had a different name, but Riker and friends from the future influenced history and led to the NX-01 being named Enterprise in honor of Cochrane's friends?

Yorktown.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

#1 Maybe the Enterprise originally had a different name, but Riker and friends from the future influenced history and led to the NX-01 being named Enterprise in honor of Cochrane's friends?

I've always believed, and still do, that First Contact is a closed timeline. A predestination paradox.

FC was always supposed to happen, and there was never a timeline where it did not. Riker and Geordi were always part of the Phoenix's crew. The Borg attack on 2053 was always a part of history.

You can't prove it wasn't, anyway.

As for SNW: Hell yeah, it's a faithful prequel! More so than DSC, I might add.

And regarding changes to the timeline: You also can't prove that TOS itself wasn't the result of temporal incursions...indeed, it can be argued that in a world where the Temporal Cold War exists, there is no original timeline. So TOS is no more "original" than the rest.

 

[Tuskin38]

I've always believed, and still do, that First Contact is a closed timeline. A predestination paradox.

And the shows themselves support this.

 

[Admiral Jean-Luc Picard]

I've always believed, and still do, that First Contact is a closed timeline. A predestination paradox.

FC was always supposed to happen, and there was never a timeline where it did not. Riker and Geordi were always part of the Phoenix's crew. The Borg attack on 2053 was always a part of history.

You can't prove it wasn't, anyway.

As for SNW: Hell yeah, it's a faithful prequel! More so than DSC, I might add.

And regarding changes to the timeline: You also can't prove that TOS itself wasn't the result of temporal incursions...indeed, it can be argued that in a world where the Temporal Cold War exists, there is no original timeline. So TOS is no more "original" than the rest.

How do you explain the Borgified Earth timeline? How can that timeline exist from 2063 out to 2373 (310 years) just to poof away, because the Ent-E went back in time? I always saw the film is featuring 3 timelines.

Timeline A: No one shows up from the future back in 2063.

Timeline B: The Borg arrive in 2063, stop First Contact, and assimilate Earth, and who knows how many words in proximity. 310 years later, the "temporal wake" from the previous timeline along with the Enterprise-E "bleed through." The Enterprise-E follows the Sphere back in time.

Timeline C: The events of the movie play out as we see, and the franchise continues in a "mostly" restored future. One might imagine the Enterprise crew would learn the NX-01 is now named Enterprise, and Picard might learn of Archer's Borg encounter. Oopsies.

Just before the Ent-E went back in time, it'd have been cool to see some Borg cubes approach the temporal wake to stop the Enterprise, only to be too late.

 

[Dukhat]

Which, to me, was pretty much the nail in the coffin of the argument it's a different timeline and further cemented the argument that it's all prime timeline. Yes, to us, the audience of the fictional universe, it looks different and modernized. But in-universe, it's all the same and everything is as it should be.

I clapped at that moment.

I had a similar reaction, of a sort. I was hoping that it would be a situation where Boimler and Mariner would constantly be pointing out differences, mainly for the sake of humor, because, you know...things look completely different from TOS. When I realized where they were actually going with it, I gave the episode a bit of thought after the fact. And I came to this conclusion:

Boimler, Mariner, and the rest of Lower Decks aren't actually cartoons. We know this now because we saw the real-life Boimler and Mariner, and we are supposed to take it at face value that they are real actual flesh-and-blood people, not that they came from a universe where everything is a cartoon, and they just switched back and forth from cartoon people to real people by going through that portal. This is further cemented by the fact that we then saw the SNW crew as cartoons later, when we know that they are in fact real people.

Where am I going with this? What we see in LDS is just a 'fictional interpretation' or a ‘dramatic retelling’ of what the real-life crew of the Cerritos actually look like and act like (because the real-life portrayals of Jack Quaid and Tawny Newsome were quite different from what we see in that cartoon.) So logically, SNW is also just a fictional interpretation/dramatic retelling of what we actually saw in TOS (TOS being the actual way things looked, which has been backed up by almost every other Trek series and film to date) because Boimler and Mariner didn't bat an eye about anything looking different. Yes, there are still other fundamental differences between DSC/SNW and TOS that can't be explained by just saying it's a 'visual reboot' or whatnot. But as far as the the visuals are concerned, what I see in SNW is akin to what Gene saw in TOS when he produced TMP. It's all just artistic license, and a dramatization of the actual events.

And I'll be honest: That realization didn't make me clap, but it did make me appreciate the idea that I can ignore what my eyes show me when I see that awful Eavesprise, or those stupid looking Klingons and their stupid looking ships, or the Gorn being xenomorph ripoffs, and I now have the realization that they in fact didn't look like that at all.

 

[Turtletrekker]

How do you explain the Borgified Earth timeline? How can that timeline exist from 2063 out to 2373 (310 years) just to poof away, because the Ent-E went back in time? I always saw the film is featuring 3 timelines.

Timeline A: No one shows up from the future back in 2063.

Timeline B: The Borg arrive in 2063, stop First Contact, and assimilate Earth, and who knows how many words in proximity. 310 years later, the "temporal wake" from the previous timeline along with the Enterprise-E "bleed through." The Enterprise-E follows the Sphere back in time.

Timeline C: The events of the movie play out as we see, and the franchise continues in a "mostly" restored future. One might imagine the Enterprise crew would learn the NX-01 is now named Enterprise, and Picard might learn of Archer's Borg encounter. Oopsies.

Just before the Ent-E went back in time, it'd have been cool to see some Borg cubes approach the temporal wake to stop the Enterprise, only to be too late.

Nope. The closed loop timeline theory is proven by the Enterprise episode Regeneration. The wreckage of the Borg vessel is discovered on Earth of the Prime timeline, not some alternate universe.

 

[Admiral Jean-Luc Picard]

Nope. The closed loop timeline theory is proven by the Enterprise episode Regeneration. The wreckage of the Borg vessel is discovered on Earth of the Prime timeline, not some alternate universe.

I dunno if I buy this. Lemme explain. In TNG's 1st season, there was weird shit going on that provoked the Romulans to come out of xenophobic exile and proclaim, "We're back." The Borg show up in S2. One cube had been sniffing around for quite some time. Presumably, trying to decide who if anyone was worth assimilating. Q flung the Enterprise-D into the cube's path, and DING DING DING, got the Borg's attention all right. Presumably, the cube in "The Best of Both Worlds" was the same ship, now ready to bonkers and assimilate the Federation. Knowing the Federation is quite powerful, hoping Borgified-Picard as Locutus of Borg would make it look friendly and fun, I guess?

If it was a message from the past just catching up to them, I feel like the "checking shit out" part would not have happened, and it would have been just direct confrontation out of the blue.

I think the writers of "Regeneration" were not aware or forgot about the Borg foreshadowing that was come-and-go in TNG S1-2.

 

[Turtletrekker]

That's complicating things far more than necessary. Clearly, CLEARLY, the intent was that the cube journeyed from the 24th century to the 21st century, where it was discovered in the 22nd century and sent a message back to the 24th century. Time loop.

And what you call "checking shit out", others might more accurately call "reconnaissance" and "testing defences", which is a pretty standard thing to do for any power or agency planning an invasion.

And even if it were otherwise, it would hardly be the first time the Borg have been ret-coned in one way or another.

 

[Tuskin38]

I think the writers of "Regeneration" were not aware or forgot about the Borg foreshadowing that was come-and-go in TNG S1-2.

The signal sent by the Assimilated ship in Enterprise is probably the reason why the Borg are already in the area in TNG Season 1.

T'Pol said the signal would take 200 years to reach its destination, it's possible it was corrupted or cut off before all the information could be included.

Q flung the Enterprise-D into the cube's path, and DING DING DING, got the Borg's attention all right.

The Cube the Enterprise is sent to is not the same one sniffing around the Neutral Zone. Q flings them 7k LY away to meet the Cube in Q Who. The nearest Starbase was 2 years away a max warp.