Star Trek Retcons

[thesadpanda]

A lot of people seem worried that the new movie is outside of the official Star Trek continuity but I don't think anything like that exists. Star Trek's official continuity has changed plenty of times! The shows blatantly contradicted each other whenever they felt like it, but Trekkies seem to ignore it.

1) "Space Seed" refers to the Eugenics Wars as the last world war. Eugenics wars and World War III are used interchangably in Classic Trek. Then "Encounter at Farpoint" establishes a nuclear war in the 21st century and suddenly WWIII and the Eugenics Wars are different.

2) Early Classic Trek episodes refer to Earth ships, Earth bases, Earth outposts. The agency the Enterprise works for is the United Earth Space Probe Agency. Then in "Court Martial" UESPA becomes Starfleet and in "A Taste of Armageddon" Earth is replaced with Federation.

3) In "The Host" Trills were bumpy-headed aliens, the symbionts carried all of the personality and the Federation didn't know enough about them to know they were joined. In DS9 Trills are spotted, they've been in contact with the Federation since at least the 23rd century, their joined nature is well known and the personalities of host and symbiont blend. No effort is made to explain "The Host," which is apparently out of continuity.

Other good examples? Help me out here.

 

[Forbin]

I don't recall the Eugenics War and WWIII being considered the same thing. WWIII is mentioned a couple of times in TOS as an independent event.

The EUSPA/Starfleet thing we can excuse as a young series trying to figure out where it's going, and there's plenty of room to rationalize EUSPA as an agency within Starfleet that later got absorbed into the larger organization.

And it does seem that the Federation was mostly Earth-centric in those early days. Earth-based, Earth-run. I have no problem with that. Then by TNG's time, the other member words had larger roles.

The Trills were definitely a big retcon, though. Thank Terry Farrel's gorgeous face for that. Nobody wanted to cover that natural wonder with latex.

 

[jgdst]

Well the Eugenics Wars is certainly an interesting one. They're referred to in TOS and DS9 as having taken place. Voyager visits Earth, allegedly at the time of the Eugenics Wars, and there's no obvious evidence that it's taking place. Enterprise then states that the wars did take place, but have placed fighting in Africa.

The whole Klingon first contact issue comes up a fair bit. Picard says it was "disastrous", whereas Enterprise portrays it as rather sedate as far as Earth's involvement goes. No human casualties, no starships destroyed, just Archer getting himself into the Temporal Cold War.

Although I don't really take any issue with it, the events of Doctor Bashir, I Presume felt like a big retcon to me. After Bashir's character didn't really have anything to do or anywhere to go once he stopped being naive and over-excited, it came as a rather unconvincing bolt out of the blue to have him be genetically engineered all along. Thanks to some intelligent writing though, it never became overused like Borg nanoprobes, and was handled quite well.

That reminds me... The Borg. Up until Q Who, the Federation has never even dreamed of the Borg, never mind seen one. Voyager comes along with Dark Frontier (following on from Scorpion) and decides that the Hansens were hunting the borg down over 10 years before Picard had even seen them. And in a vessel that was clearly designed post Voyager/First Contact. Hmmm

 

[Butters]

Female captains in Star Fleet, The Yamato Registry, Vulcan Moons?

Do these count?

 

[Timo]

Well the Eugenics Wars is certainly an interesting one. They're referred to in TOS and DS9 as having taken place. Voyager visits Earth, allegedly at the time of the Eugenics Wars, and there's no obvious evidence that it's taking place. Enterprise then states that the wars did take place, but have placed fighting in Africa.

Uh, the original "Space Seed" already established the facts in a way that was consistent with both VOY and ENT: the TOS episode said that the wars were over by 1996, and that the supermen had reigned in southeast Asia, not in the western world.

The slight inconsistency is that Spock in "Space Seed" says the 1992-96 wars were "the last of your so-called world wars", while other, later Trek claims that WWIII in the 21st century was the last world war. But we could chalk that up to a peculiar Vulcan interpretation of Earth history. After all, one could perfectly well argue that Earth's last real world war began in 1870 and ended in 1975 or 1988.

It seems like gross overkill IMHO to say that "nothing like continuity exists". The Trek fictional universe is remarkably self-consistent, and even though the writers of TOS didn't pay much attention to this self-consistency, the later shows have patched up the original holes pretty well.

Also, even when "no effort is made to explain" something, you always have to add "yet". The changing Klingon foreheads were initially ignored, then turned into an in-joke, then actually explained in an episode that milked a degree of drama from the concept. Other holes have been recognized and patched, and some holes have even been retroactively and deliberately torn into the original tapestry so that a dramatic episode could be written on that (say, the issue of when first contact with the Borg, or the Ferengi, or the Vulcans really took place).

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Hartzilla2007]

- No warpdrive in the 22nd century retconted by First Contact and Enterprise.

- In Dark Frontier the Borg Queen forgot about the Borg attack in First Contact.

- The timing of the Eugenics Wars from the 1990s to sometime in the 21st century.

- The Romulan War being fought with nukes and no viewscreens to Enterprise.

- TOS Romulans to TNG Romulans

- TOS Klingons to TSFS Klingons to TNG Klingons

- the Romulans going from hostile power in TOS to TFF to apparent allies in TUC (their ambassador is in a classified Starfleet briefing) to hostile power in TNG to allies during the Dominion War to hostile power sometime before Nemesis.

- Worf at the end of What You Leave Behind to Nemesis.

- Data's emotion chip from unable to turn off to able to turn off and fused to his neural net and unable to be removed to removeable to apparently gone in Nemesis.

- Troi forgeting that she kissed Riker with a beard before.

- Q Who Borg to Best of Both Worlds Borg to First Contact Borg.

- Borg going from unstopable to easily taken out by dinky look trowleship aka Voyager. (Note I like Voyager but that was ridiculous)

- Braxton

- The first Enterprise is the NCC-1701 to the first Enterprise is the NX-01.

- Cardassian uniforms

and the list goes on.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Where was it established that there was no Warp Drive in the 22nd Century? If that's true how did the Valiant and the Horizon wind up in areas where the Enterprise had never been? Or for that matter, how did Cochrane wind up on his planetoid?

There were plenty of ships called "Enterprise" before the 1701.

 

[Cyke101]

The idea that warp drive could get you to any corner of the galaxy in a relatively short amount of time. I think in the TOS era, covering Voyager's distance of 70,000 light years would have been a cake walk.

 

[Dane_Whitman]

It seems like gross overkill IMHO to say that "nothing like continuity exists". The Trek fictional universe is remarkably self-consistent, and even though the writers of TOS didn't pay much attention to this self-consistency, the later shows have patched up the original holes pretty well.

You speak the truth, brother. With over 700 episodes and 10 movies you're bound to run into a continuity error every now and then. But rewatching the entire franchise ENT-TOS-TNG-DS9-VOY style has once again made me realise how well it all holds up.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

- The timing of the Eugenics Wars from the 1990s to sometime in the 21st century.

That was never done. There may have been a retcon, in that the Eugenics Wars are now known to be different from the actual Trek WW III, but the actual Eugenics 'time' of the war has never changed.

And here is my thought on that: There could have been differences of opinion (in a fictional context) as to what to *call* the Eugenics Wars. Some may have insisted on calling them WW III, and calling the *real* one WW IV. Ultimately, that opinion seems to have gone by the wayside. But there can be different interpretations of what to call them. For example, in our own world, some have referred to the current war on terrorism as World War III. I admit I can buy that explanation. Others refer to the *Cold War* as WW III, and this one WW IV. See where I'm getting?

- The Romulan War being fought with nukes and no viewscreens to Enterprise.

Nobody ever said there were no viewscreens. Spock said there was no visual communication, but this could simply have been that the Romulans refused all such attempts.

TOS Romulans to TNG Romulans

So the TNG version had some bumpy heads. I don't consider that a big deal.

TOS Klingons to TSFS Klingons to TNG Klingons

Well, to be fair, the TSFS Klingons were supposed to be Romulans. The race name was changed, but the script was not. That being said, Klingons in TNG and later were entirely consistent with how they acted in that film. And I consider the ultimate explanation for the TOS Klingons to be a good one.

the Romulans going from hostile power in TOS to TFF to apparent allies in TUC (their ambassador is in a classified Starfleet briefing) to hostile power in TNG to allies during the Dominion War to hostile power sometime before Nemesis.

The balance of power can, and does, often change.

Worf at the end of What You Leave Behind to Nemesis.

Okay, *maybe* I can buy that one.

The first Enterprise is the NCC-1701 to the first Enterprise is the NX-01.

Nobody ever said the NCC-1701 was the first Enterprise. Even in TMP, it seemed obvious it was not.

 

[Johnny]

... That being said, Klingons in TNG and later were entirely consistent with how they acted in that film.

Didn't Worf's head ridges change from something I can only describe as a 'fishplatter', to something more inkeeping after the second TNG season?

 

[WillsBabe]

- Troi forgeting that she kissed Riker with a beard before.

Several times, in fact. Idiots.

 

[The Laughing Vulcan]

The Squire Of Gothos has Star Trek set some 700 years in the future.

 

[Timo]

...By a fallible superinfant.

It's amazing how TOS survived without more explicit chronological mistakes for three seasons without ever quite solidly deciding when it was supposed to happen. By ST2, it was still perfectly possible to say "in the 23rd century", and drop a reference to 2283 as a "recent" year.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Forbin]

The first Enterprise is the NCC-1701 to the first Enterprise is the NX-01.

Nobody ever said the NCC-1701 was the first Enterprise. Even in TMP, it seemed obvious it was not.

Then why does the dedication plaque on the 1701-D's bridge say "5th starship to bear the name"?

 

[jgdst]

The first Enterprise is the NCC-1701 to the first Enterprise is the NX-01.

Nobody ever said the NCC-1701 was the first Enterprise. Even in TMP, it seemed obvious it was not.

Then why does the dedication plaque on the 1701-D's bridge say "5th starship to bear the name"?

I always rationalised this to myself as being the fifth Federation starship... Granted, it's clutching at straws, but it's the only reasonable answer I can think of.

Just as the HMS Enterprise, the space shuttle Enterprise or the other paintings in the rec room (or even Archer's ready room) weren't counted in the grand lineage of the USS Enterprise, then it's possible the NX-01 doesn't fit in either.

To be fair, Enterprise's whole series was very clumsily tagged onto the pre-TOS history... I suppose you could count that as a retcon in itself.

 

[Dane_Whitman]

To be fair, Enterprise's whole series was very clumsily tagged onto the pre-TOS history... I suppose you could count that as a retcon in itself.

A 'retcon' that made more connections to TOS than any of the 24th century shows though.

 

[Timo]

I always rationalised this to myself as being the fifth Federation starship... Granted, it's clutching at straws, but it's the only reasonable answer I can think of.

Hardly straw-clutching. Why would Starfleet acknowledge foreign starships? It has only ever operated four before the E-D, even if various barbaric regimes of the past have also applied the name on their primitive machines.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Unicron]

Because it's part of the ship's history. Since the modern Starfleet is no longer based on things like nationality, it makes no sense to exclude the aircraft carrier Enterprise just because its design predated the Federation. The reality is that the producers of ENT opened a can of worms that could have easily been avoided, and should never have named their ship Enterprise.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

Where was it established that there was no Warp Drive in the 22nd Century? If that's true how did the Valiant and the Horizon wind up in areas where the Enterprise had never been? Or for that matter, how did Cochrane wind up on his planetoid?

In the TNG episode A Matter of Time when everyone was discussing what the 22nd century was like Riker said that warp coiles hadn't been invented yet.

also you can see said clip here as well as other inconsistancies

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1chtJQFQNs

There were plenty of ships called "Enterprise" before the 1701.

Sisko in Trials and Refered to kirks ship as the original Enterprise.

See it here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55NwNrkzz4s&feature=related

damn beaten to the punch.