Star Trek: Discovery - The Enterprise War

[Damian]

In a sense, every new incarnation of Star Trek is a "reboot" -- a new interpretation of the universe, a new way of telling the stories. That's just how creativity works -- different people approaching the same subject will treat it differently. So every Trek series is a distinct take on the reality.

I just found with Discovery there's so many. I can let a few things go. But it becomes cumulative after a while. I've found after watching the first season of Discovery that very little of it fits in the prime continuity they say it belongs in. It's like taking a square peg and trying to force it in a round hole. When I look at what I've seen of Discovery up to this point, I have a hard time seeing it as anything other than a complete reboot. It's not just production values, but plotwise and the technology Discovery has (making it seem to me at least to be more advanced than the Enterprise-E, which before this I believe is the most advanced ship we've seen on screen, except maybe the Relativity from Voyager, and the Enterprise-J from Enterprise, though in that case we see very little).

I mean, you're talking about individual inconsistencies. I'm just thinking of the entirety of the first season of Discovery, taken all together, I find it fits very poorly with the established continuity.

 

[Kemaiku]

It's the page-one rewrite of Spock's backstory that separates DSC from TOS and the rest for me. Change it so Spock was raised with a human sister and every time Spock struggles to understand a human or their actions is rendered bizarre.

Or more understable, since his father went out one day and brought a human home and said "See Spock? this is what I want you to be" at least, to him. We know from TOS/TAS/'09 he had a horrible childhood with other Vulcans, and his own father now turns out to have brought home a new fully human kid. It looks like he hated them both for it and only ever expressed himself to Amanda at all after that.

 

[Damian]

I assume that's still true. Lorca is just determined to get home, and went to the risk of killing an entire starship crew, forcing Starfleet to build Discovery and power the spore drive, he was never in his right mind.

I mean, he kept an 8 foot killer monster in his bedroom.

But wouldn't you think Stamets would tell Lorca that intraship beaming is highly discouraged, even dangerous? Or pretty much any of the rest of the crew familiar with the transporter? And there's still the reason. Couldn't he just walk to where he needed to go? I saw no storyline reason why they had to beam to the location. In the episode where Lorca introduces Burnham to the spore drive, there was no reason I couldn't see that he couldn't escort her to engineering on foot.

 

[Kemaiku]

But wouldn't you think Stamets would tell Lorca that intraship beaming is highly discouraged, even dangerous? Or pretty much any of the rest of the crew familiar with the transporter? And there's still the reason. Couldn't he just walk to where he needed to go? I saw no storyline reason why they had to beam to the location. In the episode where Lorca introduces Burnham to the spore drive, there was no reason I couldn't see that he couldn't escort her to engineering on foot.

I guess that hinges on Stamets even knowing? 6 months to build something that big means Starfleet had help from every division, and plenty of ways to hide things inside. Stamets (as well as the rest of the crew/audience) might still discover things that weren't exactly regulation.

He was paranoid, sleeping with a phaser under his pillow. Kept lethal illegal weapons within reach most of the day, kept people standing rather than sitting to keep an eye on them. I wouldn't be surprised if the bulky design of the ship is to hide secret corridors when he didn't risk the transporter.

We see him use it once, and the crew have never done it since he died. I think they've pulled the computers programming allowing it (or I hope they have).

 

[Damian]

I guess that hinges on Stamets even knowing? 6 months to build something that big means Starfleet had help from every division, and plenty of ways to hide things inside. Stamets (as well as the rest of the crew/audience) might still discover things that weren't exactly regulation.

He was paranoid, sleeping with a phaser under his pillow. Kept lethal illegal weapons within reach most of the day, kept people standing rather than sitting to keep an eye on them. I wouldn't be surprised if the bulky design of the ship is to hide secret corridors when he didn't risk the transporter.

We see him use it once, and the crew have never done it since he died. I think they've pulled the computers programming allowing it (or I hope they have).

Maybe some of that's true, but it's a lot of assumptions.

I don't hate Discovery, in fact, I liked a lot of it. I just found about halfway through the first season it was easier for me to like if I stopped trying to fit it in the original continuity, if I thought of it as a reboot. It sort of freed me to treat the show on it's own merits and not try to think of it as part of the greater whole.

I do wonder about the original Lorca. I have a feeling we haven't seen the last of Lorca (well, we've seen the last of mirror-Lorca). And the end of the novel Drastic Measures gives an indication he's still out there somewhere. I have to think there's some plan to maybe bring in the 'real' Lorca at some point. I liked the actor that portrayed Lorca and I loved his portrayal in "Drastic Measures" and would love to see that Lorca make an appearance on the show.

 

[Kemaiku]

Maybe some of that's true, but it's a lot of assumptions.

I don't hate Discovery, in fact, I liked a lot of it. I just found about halfway through the first season it was easier for me to like if I stopped trying to fit it in the original continuity, if I thought of it as a reboot. It sort of freed me to treat the show on it's own merits and not try to think of it as part of the greater whole.

I do wonder about the original Lorca. I have a feeling we haven't seen the last of Lorca (well, we've seen the last of mirror-Lorca). And the end of the novel Drastic Measures gives an indication he's still out there somewhere. I have to think there's some plan to maybe bring in the 'real' Lorca at some point. I liked the actor that portrayed Lorca and I loved his portrayal in "Drastic Measures" and would love to see that Lorca make an appearance on the show.

Speculation is all we have on the inner workings of the ship before we saw her in episode 3 though, unfortuantely.

I...do not like the show, for the most part. I didn't watch the second half of season 1 apart from the MU stuff and have only got back to seeing it in season 2. I didn't think it was the Prime universe and I'm still weary about calling it that. It could stil turn out to be an altered version via the Picard series, showing the 2233/2387 split from both sides.

I'm sure they could bring him back if they wanted to. He'd be in pretty bad shape for the amount of time he's spent in the evil half of things.

 

[Christopher]

It's the page-one rewrite of Spock's backstory that separates DSC from TOS and the rest for me. Change it so Spock was raised with a human sister and every time Spock struggles to understand a human or their actions is rendered bizarre.

Umm, aren't you forgetting his human mother? If Michael's presence makes it bizarre, wouldn't Amanda's do the same? Not to mention having an emotionally expressive brother in Sybok.

Keep in mind that by the time TOS happens, Spock has been serving alongside humans in Pike's crew for 13 years, and presumably spent at least 4 years before that living and working alongside humans at the Academy. So his "bewilderment" at human behavior after nearly two decades among them is clearly not ignorance, but performance -- he chooses to "fail to understand" as a way of keeping himself apart from humans, refusing to engage with them on their emotional and idiomatic terms.

If anything, having a human sibling growing up fits with that perfectly. After all, sibling rivalry is very common. My big sister and I had a very adversarial relationship as kids. If anything, a childhood sibling rivalry with a human sister could've been Spock's practice for his adult rivalry with McCoy.

I just found with Discovery there's so many. I can let a few things go. But it becomes cumulative after a while. I've found after watching the first season of Discovery that very little of it fits in the prime continuity they say it belongs in.

People said the same thing about the TOS movies, about TNG, about Enterprise. Of course the newest incarnation is going to feel different from the versions we're used to, because we haven't had time to get used to it. But eventually fandom adjusts.

Look, I agree with you -- I wish DSC's interpretation weren't quite so radically different. But there are a lot of prior Trek productions whose interpretations I wish had been different, like many of the movies. Trek is an imperfect and inconsistent creation. That's nothing new.

 

[Tuskin38]

It's the page-one rewrite of Spock's backstory that separates DSC from TOS and the rest for me. Change it so Spock was raised with a human sister and every time Spock struggles to understand a human or their actions is rendered bizarre.

What about his Human mother?

 

[F. King Daniel]

What about his Human mother?

Spock's mother is human. His father is Vulcan. He's a child of two worlds... and now they've screwed up the balance with a human sister.

Also, his relationship with his mother is somewhat different to that with his friends or siblings.

 

[Stevil2001]

I sure am glad that yet another Treklit thread has become the same set of participants re-litigating the same Discovery continuity issues yet again. There should be a dedicated section of the forum where I can read this whenever I want.

 

[Damian]

Spock's mother is human. His father is Vulcan. He's a child of two worlds... and now they've screwed up the balance with a human sister.

Also, his relationship with his mother is somewhat different to that with his friends or siblings.

You could argue Sybok restores that balance, well sort of. I wonder if anything will be mentioned of Sybok on the show.

I'll admit I was a bit put off by the sudden appearance of a never before seen or heard of adoptive human sister of Spock. Perhaps the show will ultimately explain why she has been largely excised from the family's memory down the road (like Sybok was) but for now it's a disconnect.

People said the same thing about the TOS movies, about TNG, about Enterprise. Of course the newest incarnation is going to feel different from the versions we're used to, because we haven't had time to get used to it. But eventually fandom adjusts.

But it's even more than that. It gets right down to many of the storylines. The story itself doesn't seem to fit in the larger universe. With the movies, to TNG, to Enterprise, there is a general storyline you can follow. Yes, there are inconsistencies, but the overall thread from Enterprise to Voyager (framing it in a timeline) makes sense for the most part. Try to put Discovery in that timeline and it shatters everything around it, at least for my perspective. Now I've said before I'll keep an open mind for the future. I'm not ruling out the possibility that there's some future plot line or arc that has that 'a-ha' moment that puts it all together. But up to now it doesn't appear to fit the way they said it should.

 

[Tuskin38]

and now they've screwed up the balance with a human sister.

Not really.

The story itself doesn't seem to fit in the larger universe.

I can't see why it doesn't.

 

[Christopher]

I'll admit I was a bit put off by the sudden appearance of a never before seen or heard of adoptive human sister of Spock.

Imagine how people in 1982 felt about David Marcus.

But it's even more than that. It gets right down to many of the storylines. The story itself doesn't seem to fit in the larger universe.

Of course it doesn't, because it's new. Anything new is going to seem different from people's pre-existing model of things. That's what newness is for, to give us something that we didn't already have.

With the movies, to TNG, to Enterprise, there is a general storyline you can follow. Yes, there are inconsistencies, but the overall thread from Enterprise to Voyager (framing it in a timeline) makes sense for the most part.

Oh, that's hilarious to hear. Search back far enough on this forum and you'll see plenty of people from 2000-2005 complaining that Enterprise didn't fit at all into the existing Trek continuity, that it conflicted irreconcilably with established Trek history and continuity and had to be an alternate universe. And you'll probably find posts from me predicting that 10-15 years later, they'd be blithely accepting Enterprise as an integral part of the whole and complaining about the next new thing that couldn't possibly fit. Thank you for proving me right.

 

[Damian]

Oh, that's hilarious to hear. Search back far enough on this forum and you'll see plenty of people from 2000-2005 complaining that Enterprise didn't fit at all into the existing Trek continuity, that it conflicted irreconcilably with established Trek history and continuity and had to be an alternate universe. And you'll probably find posts from me predicting that 10-15 years later, they'd be blithely accepting Enterprise as an integral part of the whole and complaining about the next new thing that couldn't possibly fit. Thank you for proving me right.

But I never actually felt that way about Enterprise. Oh, that's not to say it was perfect. I didn't care for how the Vulcans were initially portrayed for instance. And I thought the Romulans didn't have a cloaking device until the original series. But overall I felt it was a reasonable portrayal of future history 100 years prior to the original series based on all that came before. And I appreciated that the designers went the extra mile to try to make the NX-01 less advanced then the 1701 and still try to be futuristic. That earned them a little leeway in my book.

I see almost none of that in Discovery. I just don't feel like it could possibly be 10 years prior to the original series. On the contrary, everything about it feels like it would be more at home 30 or 40 years post-Nemesis.

I can't prove any of that of course. I didn't even know this site existed back then. I'll admit that with each show it took about a season for me to really get into it. But that had nothing to do with continuity, but mostly with the fact that the first seasons of shows like TNG, DS9 and even Enterprise were a bit uneven.

This is the first time I can say personally that I felt like I couldn't place the show in the timeframe they were placing it in. The Abrams movies would apply to, except those are in a separate timeline, so I can dismiss any discontinuities based on the altered timeline. There is no such device with Discovery.

 

[Damian]

Imagine how people in 1982 felt about David Marcus

True, but not an exact parallel as David did not have a sibling on the show for years. Sybok they explained because he was a black sheep. It was pretty clear in TFF why we have not heard of him before. TWOK explained to my satisfaction why we never heard of David before. And Discovery may yet explain why Burnham ends up being Syboked by the Sarek household.

Of course it doesn't, because it's new. Anything new is going to seem different from people's pre-existing model of things. That's what newness is for, to give us something that we didn't already have.

I don't have a problem with that. It's when the showrunners do pretzel twists trying to convince us it should fit pretty nicely in the existing continuity when it really doesn't. Now in a perfect worlds, sure, it would be nice to have a relatively clean timeline. But if they just came out and said it's a reboot, then they wouldn't need to try to explain why it all should fit, they wouldn't tick off some fans, and then they could pick and choose what they'd like to retain from the existing continuity and just say anything that doesn't fit is because it's a reboot. To me at least it seems they really wanted to reboot Star Trek in their own image and I can't fathom why they wanted to go to all the trouble of trying to make it fit in the existing continuity.

Right now I see it as a reboot. We'll see how long I can look at it that way. It's funny in a way because like I noted before I don't hate it. Hell, I've even been reading the novels (so far the Tilly novel is a good read BTW). But I hate trying to fit it in a continuity that to me anyway doesn't fit in almost every conceivable way.

 

[Tuskin38]

True, but not an exact parallel as David did not have a sibling on the show for years. Sybok they explained because he was a black sheep. It was pretty clear in TFF why we have not heard of him before. TWOK explained to my satisfaction why we never heard of David before. And Discovery may yet explain why Burnham ends up being Syboked by the Sarek household.



I don't have a problem with that. It's when the showrunners do pretzel twists trying to convince us it should fit pretty nicely in the existing continuity when it really doesn't. Now in a perfect worlds, sure, it would be nice to have a relatively clean timeline. But if they just came out and said it's a reboot, then they wouldn't need to try to explain why it all should fit, they wouldn't tick off some fans, and then they could pick and choose what they'd like to retain from the existing continuity and just say anything that doesn't fit is because it's a reboot. To me at least it seems they really wanted to reboot Star Trek in their own image and I can't fathom why they wanted to go to all the trouble of trying to make it fit in the existing continuity.

Right now I see it as a reboot. We'll see how long I can look at it that way. It's funny in a way because like I noted before I don't hate it. Hell, I've even been reading the novels (so far the Tilly novel is a good read BTW). But I hate trying to fit it in a continuity that to me anyway doesn't fit in almost every conceivable way.

Other than the visuals, it fits fine, the lore, the history, the events they mention.

 

[Christopher]

But I never actually felt that way about Enterprise.

But many people did. That's my point. The newest version of Trek always seems irreconcilable to some people, because it's different from their existing mental model of Trek. But over time, the new thing becomes part of the overall model. Fandom adjusts, and the initial perception that it's irreconcilable fades. This always happens. And it will happen this time too. Star Trek is not immutable. Our perception of it now is drastically different than it was in the 1980s. It has changed before, and it will change again.

True, but not an exact parallel as David did not have a sibling on the show for years. Sybok they explained because he was a black sheep. It was pretty clear in TFF why we have not heard of him before. TWOK explained to my satisfaction why we never heard of David before. And Discovery may yet explain why Burnham ends up being Syboked by the Sarek household.

Why does it need explanation? Spock never mentioned a single dadblamed one of his family members to his crewmates until they actually showed up on the ship. He never mentioned his father was the Vulcan Ambassador. He never mentioned he was engaged to be married. So why the hell is it even remotely surprising that he never mentioned his sister?? It would be more out of character if he had mentioned her! It bewilders me that anyone thinks this is an issue.

I don't have a problem with that. It's when the showrunners do pretzel twists trying to convince us it should fit pretty nicely in the existing continuity when it really doesn't.

None of it really does. The movies don't fit with TOS. TNG doesn't fit with TOS. They just pretend to fit, and we choose to pretend along with them. The "existing continuity" is a hodgepodge of contradictions that we've just learned to handwave away or disregard.

Indeed, there have been past Trek productions that actually were intended by their creators to be soft reboots. TMP was a soft reboot that reinvented the entire visual language of the universe and upgraded the technology. TWOK was meant to be a soft reboot that ignored TMP, and played fast and loose with the details of "Space Seed." TNG was intended by Roddenberry to be a soft reboot that cherrypicked the bits from TOS and the movies that he liked and ignored the rest. It was only later on that subsequent creators decided to stitch them all together more closely and treat them as a unified whole.

Personally, I think Trek is long overdue for a full reboot. I think that would be interesting to see, and a real reboot from scratch would be able to make far more extensive changes than what Kelvin or DSC have been able to do. But the tendency in Trek has long been toward consolidation, even of things that originally weren't intended to fit with what had come before. I don't expect that to change. No matter how different DSC seems, future Trek creators in a decade or two are probably going to treat it as part of the same whole as everything else.

Now in a perfect worlds, sure, it would be nice to have a relatively clean timeline. But if they just came out and said it's a reboot, then they wouldn't need to try to explain why it all should fit, they wouldn't tick off some fans, and then they could pick and choose what they'd like to retain from the existing continuity and just say anything that doesn't fit is because it's a reboot.

Creators worrying about what will tick off fans is a self-destructive exercise. Anything that you can possibly do will tick off some segment of the fanbase.

 

[Damian]

Star Trek is not immutable. Our perception of it now is drastically different than it was in the 1980s. It has changed before, and it will change again.

I accept that.....to a degree. It's probably one reason I didn't have significant issues with Enterprise. What I would call little things, yes. But I could see how it fit into the larger universe. TMP was explained by a refit to the ship and it being 2.5 years later. TWOK used the same sets as TMP so that was much easier to accept. TNG took place almost a century later. That makes it easy to explain things. I actually don't see all that many contradictions in the overall story thread through the years. Yes, their are specific examples of contradictions. But I can and have overlooked that. But when I look at Star Trek through Enterprise as a whole it makes some sense to me.

Each new show or movie that came along before was a reasonable fit for the time period it was in, IMO. That doesn't mean it was perfect. And I think I was pretty flexible enough to allow for that.

I've been a fan since just before TVH came out (in fact my first exposure to Star Trek was the movies, not the original TV series). I've followed each show along the way. I've been able to see each incarnation as part of the greater whole. This is the first time I can't see that.

It would be more out of character if he had mentioned her! It bewilders me that anyone thinks this is an issue.

I'll be honest, this is not a big deal for me. I pointed it out mainly as a comparison to other never before heard of characters, but it'd be pretty easy to explain away. And Discovery may even do that at some point. Actually until someone mentioned it here, I didn't give it a lot of thought. Maybe because the first Discovery novel explored that a bit, I was already pretty satisfied with the answer.

Creators worrying about what will tick off fans is a self-destructive exercise. Anything that you can possibly do will tick off some segment of the fanbase.

Well, to be honest, I sometimes think their reluctance to make this a reboot has something to do with that, but it angered fans anyway. But I agree. I mean I wouldn't make it a point to alienate my fanbase. But if you make a good enough show many fans will join the train. Hell, I've already indicated there are things I like about the show, despite my inability to see it as part of the Enterprise-Nemesis universe.

 

[Christopher]

Well, to be honest, I sometimes think their reluctance to make this a reboot has something to do with that, but it angered fans anyway.

It doesn't happen because the creators are afraid of offending "the fans" -- it happens because the creators are fans. Roddenberry was happy for TNG to be a reboot, or at least to go its own way and avoid referencing TOS much; but when TOS fans like Ron Moore et al. joined the writing staff, they brought their nostalgia into the mix and chose to tie the new more closely into the old. And Bryan Fuller and Alex Kurtzman are fans too. Fuller's original desire to do a seasonal-anthology series jumping forward through the whole timeline and filling in gaps in established continuity is a very fannish idea; I know because I always wanted to see a series of TV movies that did the same thing, and it's driven by the same impulse behind many of my gap-filling books like Ex Machina, Rise of the Federation, and The Captain's Oath, as well as things like The Lost Era. Fans like continuity, and many Trek creators are fans. But creators also have considerations that fans don't have, which is why they balance continuity with change.

 

[trampledamage]

Discuss the book please.

I'm willing to allow a wide latitude to discussions, but this is getting tiresome. Every thread about the DSC novels cannot turn into a discussion about the continuity issues on the show.