Poll Severe issues with the immense amount of inconsistencies in the Lore ...

[A'Tun-Te]

Hail all:

Since the dawn of Star Trek, I have this massive boulder in my stomach, growing by the moment, and it became so unbearable to me, I just needed to vent this off, and I want in the mean time to see how you folks thought of this.
So, please bear with my as I pen down a few letters ...

Thank you.
A'Tun-Te

Since day one (not kidding: check for yourself), since the actual very first episode (NO, not Where one (Wo)Man (equal rights to all!!! :P ) has Limped Behind, no :P ), but the two earlier (Wagon Train and The Cage) which was the original idea, but that got shot of in cold "kirk-style", due to ... believe it or not ... "too intellectual".

Well, seeing that Mark Groening (in his own words) said:
"I based Homer on the intellect of the general American male.", and he was sincere there, I can believe this ... But only is he was sincere in that (then again, seeing how men and women act these days (GLOBALLY speaking, not US!!!).
Still, the later "Kirk" period, to me, was quite a downer due to pure "brainless PEWPEWPEW cowboys" using violence over anything else.
This made, obviously, the original series totally invaluable to me, if it was not for ... "Da Spock", with whom I instantly felt a "deep, logical connection", at least ONE individual with a tad of brain.
Bones was appreciated due to his hilarious sarcasm and constant sneers.
None other had the slightest of interest to me (This got radically changed to me, when TNG launched.
Damn, that Picard, what a man!!! (Well played, sir Patrick Steward!!!), and what a crew!).
However ... as per what I wanted to say from the start, the whole is just buried in constant inconsistencies from the get-go (seeing what the original plan was), and this inconsistency just kept plaguing the whole saga.

Besides the inconsistencies, the creators made darn sure to make rain "fall upwards" (read: be as illogical as possible: See the Borg Queen (nice example!):
Borg are individuals deprived of emotion, and the "self" (which is overridden by "Borg", and "imprisoned in the brain" so that "Borg" can do as it needs.
But then, in "First Contact" (that name alone already is an error, but well ... ), this ... thing ... this ... BAAAAD thing ... happened ...
One of THE MOST ANTI-BORGISH HAPPENINGS occured in the form of ... a "Borg Queen thingie anomaly"?
A "Drone" ... but with an individuality, and emotional?
SUUUUURE, that's so believable.
What happened with "overrun individuality" and "totally removed emotions"?
Not to mention, the stuff she does ... .
And sexy as hell???? (sue me, I am into all that is tech.)
That alone is so not Borg, that it is too stupid to believe.
Look at Seven before her -through brainwashing corrupted and forced upon her- abduction.
Not quite a Playboy model, as Borg, was she. :P

And this is just one example.
The "Lore" or Canon Knowledge is beyond bedridden with both inconsistencies and illogicallities.
Take these Discovery series:
A whole ship (creation and all, as if the Devil DID manage to undo creation)!!! vanished from the records (seeing this vessel was never mentioned afore)?
Sure.
It's technology "Top Secreted"?
Yeah, sure, who cares for this technologies, even if that gives you an advantage unseen in a hostile universe.
THE advantage, actually, if used properly.
Not to mention, the Borg suddenly originates there?(1)

"Cappie" Jane-PLEASE be a-way, Kathryn killing the Borg in "Endgame", KNOWING that EACH DRONE was still an individual, that could have been released from it's "brain prison", just like Seven was, or Hugh, or, or, so many there ... (just look at the Picard series), making her THE worst terrorist/Xenocidic criminal ever (seeing thousands of assimilated species that could have been restored, being ended right there)(1) which ALSO conflicts with the entire Borg Origin story as was assumed afore.
"How so?", you ask?
Well, let me explain, using dead simple logic:
Borg have assimilated thousands of species, right?
I mean ... this has been said many a time during TNG and Voyager.
It is (was???) widely accepted as Lore and Canon.

But, totally expectedly, an issue arose here as well, of dang course ... .
Unless there were thousands of planets, all being filled with intellect life, and this in a row, of SUCH advancements, the Borg got interested in them, and assimilated them, since that is how it works for the Borg.
... this simply cannot be ... .
Think for a second:
Space is somewhat a big place, rite?
And we assume, some planets are uninhabited, especially with intellectual life, rite?
Well, make your own calculations now:
It does not add up.
No matter how one takes it, it does not.
So, what happened to Mr. Section 31, is totally, 100% unrelated.
OR we are with Discovery in a different Mirrorverse/different Universe/alternate reality/a Daystallion (The Nightmare but over wake time, a sort of hallucination)(as they do seem awake???).

Now, I have severe Asperger's and ADHD, things to me need to be clear, straightforward, logical, consistent.
Funny, this is PRECISELY also what a series (whatever it is about matters not, this is common normal to be expected stuff) should be.

I am totally lost in the whole that is Star Trek (I renamed it into Bad Trip Trek because of it: it all is that messed up, Lore/Canon-wise, it feels like a bad trip to me) is/was.
Hell, even CANON is just screwed up (few "official" websites say that a Borg Scout ship (Like the one where Hugh was found) is 200m x 200m x 200m, mass being 2'500'000 METRIC TONNES, with a crew of around 200.
Know, an adult Cube sits around 100.000.000 metric tonnes, being it 3'000m x 3'000m x 3'000m in size ... while the Scout ship is, in fact, 20m x 20m x 20m, with a crew of 5 to 6 Drones.
Even sites that have the size and crew correct, STILL give 2'500'000 metric tonnes (thus 2'500'000'000Kg) up for this tiny vessel.
Probably made out of Neutron Star dust?

And all these ... almost said something quite not appropriate, as I am so angered (already revealing what all this does to me) ... "mistakes" infuriate me.

How hard is it to "stick to the story", make a straight line (Story-/Lore-wise) and follow that line?
It is by far the easiest thing to do, since, well, it is just that: STRAIGHT forward.
No needless turns, no needless loopings or corkscrews, no stunt-piloting, just straight onwards.
But no, let's especially not do this, shall we. :S
Logic eludes me.

I want to just go back in time, delete all that is NBC and Star Trek from the "Where One (Wo)Man has Limped Behind", approve the first proposed series, leaving Pike in command, and redo the whole, but this time without the illogicallities and inconsistencies.
Allowing rain to fall down, since, apparently, that seems to be what rain does, according to science.

All I want is a logical, rational, consistent story line.
I do not want to see Spock suddenly purple with yellow blood, or Picard with (what the HELL were they thinking???) a wig, like they tried to do!!! *Uber-Extreme-Picard-Facepalm to the power of itself*
I SERIOUSLY doubt the mental health of the directors/writers to be even remotely "sane" (whatever sane means in this world).

Poll:

 

[BillJ]

I treat it all as a multiverse, but, at the end of the day, I just want to be entertained.

 

[1001001]

Um….no?

 

[The Wormhole]

TLDR, but I assume this is another Canon Thread? I'll see myself out now.

 

[NCC-73515]

only when it's new, there's no good reason for it, and could've easily been avoided

 

[Oddish]

If you're going to be a Trekkie, you have to be a bit flexible about lore and canon. Though being on the autism spectrum myself, I know that can be hard.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

I'm forgiving with inconsistencies if the people involved were doing the best they could with what they had to work with. If I feel like they're changing stuff just to suit their own artistic impulses then that bothers me.

I mean it's all just make believe, but I find that I like stuff better when I care about it and I care about it more when I'm immersed in it. My suspension of disbelief is already doing a lot of hard work dealing with the FTL drives, the universal translator and the actors with makeup on their foreheads, it doesn't need to be dealing with blatant contradictions on top of that.

 

[DonIago]

The poll really needs a "Sometimes" option. But I also wouldn't say it has tons of inconsistencies.

 

[gweeps]

I treat it all as a multiverse, but, at the end of the day, I just want to be entertained.

Exactly. The first twenty years of Star Trek didn't have much to keep in order and the next twenty added a huge amount, so it's understandable some things get fuzzy or retconned. Since then, well, there's been an attempt to gather certain threads together more tightly. Not to say there hasn't been attention paid to continuity between TNG and Enterprise...

I am entertained and enlightened, and that should be all I really care about.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

I couldn't care less is the short answer. The longer answer is, I used to care when I was in my twenties and TV show canon was a big thing to me. As I get older, I find my priorities shift. They are all just stories and I can enjoy them, or not. Life is too short to be overly concerned about something like Star Trek canon.

 

[dupersuper]

I prefer it to be consistent, but when it's not I'll just patch it together with some plausible head canon and keep going.

 

[Ghel]

Unless it's REALLY egregious, I don't have a problem with most inconsistencies. In fact, even though the books are considered "non-canon," I tend to think of those as "real" as well unless/until they are directly contradicted by a show.
I would also say that with multiple series, it is almost inevitable that there are going to be contradictions. I cannot expect the writers of any given series to watch all of the hundreds of hours of Star Trek since the 1960s simply to write an interesting new story. This would also be true of any long running group of series like Dr. Who, Stargate, or Star Wars.
Finally, many contradictions are in the form of dialogue (ex, Picard stating we never saw the Ferengi before and then they show up in Enterprise). I find this type of continuity error relative easy to head-canon away in most cases, since even in real life, people tend to confidently make statements that turn out to be wrong.

 

[ED-209]

I just tell myself Q did it.

 

[F. King Daniel]

No because it's a television show.

 

[dupersuper]

Finally, many contradictions are in the form of dialogue (ex, Picard stating we never saw the Ferengi before and then they show up in Enterprise). I find this type of continuity error relative easy to head-canon away in most cases, since even in real life, people tend to confidently make statements that turn out to be wrong.

I wouldn't call that one an error. They made sure there was no visual record of the Ferengi.

 

[Alexander Corrino]

Short answer: I’m not bothered by what some people refer to as “canon violations”. I’m a JLP slash fan fic writer, which means I basically THRIVE on expanding canon in a way that makes sense and on the whole idea of explaining inconsistencies.

 

[1001001]

 

[Qonundrum]

After a while, it gets so big that it becomes a mess. Each new step compounds the issue, increasingly exponentially.

Adding in prequels (e.g. ENT) often doesn't fill in gaps and often makes them even more convoluted.

Either way, if one really likes it then it's not going to be much of a hamper in the big scheme of things, which leads to:

Sometimes canon is violated to tell something new and interesting that makes up for the "transgression". But the shiny new thing has to be done really well. And audiences aren't always going to agree... art is invariably subjective and responses are obviously across the map.

Also, are audiences too squeamish to try something new if the name of the thing isn't a familiar one? (In which case, how did television ever get made?)

Also, is a new brand name really too risky to try reusing older shows' themes with? "Firefly" is very clearly a mixture of The Dirty Dozen, Dirty Harry, The Great Escape, Blake's 7, Star Wars... and Blake's 7 was clearly a mixture of The Great Escape, Dirty Harry, Star Trek, etc (its first season was developed very shortly before Star Wars was released, and no Star Wars movie played with alien invasions, something B7 did...) "Sapphire and Steel" has the antihero archetype of Steel, who's pretty much a sanitized version of Dirty Harry melded with Mr Spock. Ditto for Kerr Avon from Blake's 7, so it's not just situational themes but even character archetypes as well.

At the same time, many audiences want more of a franchise and the inevitable result are sequels or even remakes if someone feels there's a better way to retell the same characters and/or basic show setup/situation.

But what do I know, I simply adore LOWER DECKS and I've found PICARD season 2 to be a surprising joy to watch for most of the time and all nitpicks considered. I hope the season wraps up well.

 

[NCC-73515]

I cannot expect the writers of any given series to watch all of the hundreds of hours of Star Trek since the 1960s simply to write an interesting new story. This would also be true of any long running group of series like Dr. Who, Stargate, or Star Wars.

That was a valid reason until MA, Chakoteya, or simply just Google came along

I can easily dismiss contradictions in what characters have said, like first never having met someone, and then later they show them meeting before, or that there are x ships, and later it turns out there are more, or that a ship is 786 m long, and someone later figures out it's 796 m. Why? Because characters can of course make mistakes, misremember, get confused, misspeak, haven't slept last night, haven't had their coffee yet.
But (avoidable, unnecessary) visual contradictions can't be explained away like that, because visual information by its very nature is presented as solid fact.

 

[fireproof78]

I cannot expect the writers of any given series to watch all of the hundreds of hours of Star Trek since the 1960s simply to write an interesting new story.

I do not either and I will not allow apparent incongruences to detract from my enjoyment. That is missing the larger story for nitpicking details that are not adding enjoyment to match them beat for beat.