Mistakes that pull you out of a story

[Timo]

I think the first thing that comes to mind on this is "The Valiant", placing it literally 200 years before "Where No Man Has Gone Before" (thus working out to only 2 years after the flight of the Phoenix), when giving it a little leeway for rounding could place it up to two or three decades later. No need for such a tight timetable.

Actually, the Valiant thing is an example where the hands of the Okudas were tied: Kirk specifically says that the ship has been missing for "over" two centuries. In fact, there's already creative license there in the Okuda interpretation as they choose (out of grave necessity) to suggest that the ship was lost almost immediately after she was launched - not necessarily the intent of Sam Peeples.

...there are multiple instances of ships beinig given classes and registries that are entirely conjectural in the encyclopaedia and it's not noted for one

To be sure, most of these are a case of Okuda sitting on two chairs. On one hand, he's documenting Trek. On the other, he's inventing these ship identities for the show itself, and inserting them in Okudagrams on the sets.

The Constitution registries are (poor) conjecture that is somewhat confusingly indicated, but almost all of the other registries and class identities were actually confirmed in elements of TNG set dressing.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Christopher]

no, it's really not. there are multiple instances of ships beinig given classes and registries that are entirely conjectural in the encyclopaedia and it's not noted for one

In the "Starships" entry in the Encyclopedia, there is a list of ship registry numbers and classes, and it does indeed say at the bottom that many are conjectural. I specifically checked that before I wrote my previous entry.

that's precisely my point though. WAY too many people take the encyclopaedia as Holy Writ - like i used to - and don't realise that it's not any more 'right' than me claiming the USS Intrepid from "Immunity Syndrome" is a 'Akula' class starship when it was never seen on-screen

Then that's the fault of those people for failing to read carefully enough -- and for failing to understand that this is meant as entertainment and there's nothing really at stake that's worth getting angry about. You have absolutely no right to blame the authors for their readers' misconceptions.

Actually, the Valiant thing is an example where the hands of the Okudas were tied: Kirk specifically says that the ship has been missing for "over" two centuries.

But in TMP, Decker said Voyager 6 had disappeared "over three hundred years" before, yet they still set the movie in 2271, only 294 years after Voyager 1 and 2 were launched. So clearly they weren't rigidly bound by characters' estimates of elapsed time. After all, an off-the-cuff statement that a character makes from memory is not a reliable source of information about the actual date of an event.

 

[Stevil2001]

I remember editing articles on the Xindi on Memory Alpha. In "The Xindi", T'Pol estimates the Xindi homeworld was destroyed approximately 120 years ago. In "The Shipment", Gralik states that the Xindi Civil War was a century long. I got into a dispute with someone who insisted that meant the Xindi Civil War lasted from exactly 1933 to exactly 2033.

 

[EmperorKalan]

I remember editing articles on the Xindi on Memory Alpha. In "The Xindi", T'Pol estimates the Xindi homeworld was destroyed approximately 120 years ago. In "The Shipment", Gralik states that the Xindi Civil War was a century long. I got into a dispute with someone who insisted that meant the Xindi Civil War lasted from exactly 1933 to exactly 2033.

I've had similar reactions to pointing out that only the name of the Daedelus class, and only one member of the class, the Essex, are canon (i.e., sourced to on-screen references), and that the "ball and cylinders" ship was an unidentified model in Sisko's office. Linking them was a matter of production in-joke and Okuda conjecture. (These conversations usually involved the design of the NX-01.)

 

[foravalon]

I understand people make mistakes but in Forged in Fire, during Sulu's hearing back on Earth there are a male lieutenant and a female ensign in the room who suddenly change sexes. The ensign walks into a room blows a bosun's whistle as a female, and the Lt. walks in and sits down as a male, then when the ensign stands up it's a guy.

Isn't there a crewperson on the Excelsior that does that? Cycle through male and female phases? I'm quite sure there was. Are we told this sex-changer is human?

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

That was totally on my list! It was the second foible from Forged in Fire that really caught my attention. And for the record, no, the species of the Bosun's-whistle bearer and the court reporter were not mentioned, they were only initially described as a male lieutenant court reporter and "an impossibly young female ensign with the bosun's whistle". Then later as the male ensign with the bosun's whistle, and the female ensign who remained in her seat and continued reporting the happenings of the court.

So you are correct, they could very well be of the same race as Lieutenant P’mu’la Hopmana, the variable-gendered Thelusian. Perhaps it was

Spoiler: a potentially sex-altering catalyst

Kamarag bursting into the room,

that triggered the change. The court reporter was so freaked out that s/he also demoted hirself in the process.

Good call!

The other futz in that book was the weird reference to the Great Qu'vat Plague of 1462, which didn't match the calendar date of jack-squat, Klingon or Terran. If it was a typo, what a strange and particular kind.


Another one that always got me was from Vulcan's Forge.

From page 126:

Spock rummaged through the medical supplies they had taken from the shuttle... yes. He tookout a small, thin scalpel and a tiny vial of a sterilizing solution.

David grimaced. "You sure you can use that? Too bad you
can't just use an obsidian blade, all the shards lying around
here."

"I could not achieve a sharp enough point."

"Right, right, and the stuff's brittle as glass--it is glass.
Volcanic glass...

...then, 4 pages later!:

Spock, determinedly hiding his reaction, needed the
brief walk to give him time to compose himself. Were all
Terrans such efficient predators? Only that morning, he had
shed David Rabin's blood, felt the other youth flinch under
an improvised obsidian blade, mortally vulnerable. Now,
the victim had turned into a hunter.

Maybe it was some of that crazy-gas the book mentions later on that had gotten to young Spock a little early.

 

[BrotherBenny]

Another one that always got me was from Vulcan's Forge.

From page 126:

Spock rummaged through the medical supplies they had taken from the shuttle... yes. He tookout a small, thin scalpel and a tiny vial of a sterilizing solution.

David grimaced. "You sure you can use that? Too bad you
can't just use an obsidian blade, all the shards lying around
here."

"I could not achieve a sharp enough point."

"Right, right, and the stuff's brittle as glass--it is glass.
Volcanic glass...

...then, 4 pages later!:

Spock, determinedly hiding his reaction, needed the
brief walk to give him time to compose himself. Were all
Terrans such efficient predators? Only that morning, he had
shed David Rabin's blood, felt the other youth flinch under
an improvised obsidian blade, mortally vulnerable. Now,
the victim had turned into a hunter.

Maybe it was some of that crazy-gas the book mentions later on that had gotten to young Spock a little early.

I noticed that, and since when has their been obsidian glass in the Forge. We certainly didn't see any in Enterprise. It was almost like that reference was shoved in there (square peg, round hole, anyone?) to bridge the years between Vulcan and the planet Obsidian.

 

[Christopher]

^^Vulcan's Forge was written before ENT was created, so the book certainly wasn't beholden to an interpretation that didn't exist yet. And why wouldn't there be obsidian somewhere in the Forge?

 

[BrotherBenny]

^^Vulcan's Forge was written before ENT was created, so the book certainly wasn't beholden to an interpretation that didn't exist yet. And why wouldn't there be obsidian somewhere in the Forge?

Point taken. But if obsidian glass was all that common, as it should be in a volcanic region, then ENT should have shown something. And yes, I am aware that we didn't see much of the Forge and nothing at all of the Womb of Fire, so I suppose it can be chalked down to the fact the obsidian is more prevalent there than elsewhere.