That which cannot be explained

[Shazam!]

Trek fans are brilliant at inventing explanations for errors in continuity (the Scotty in Relics wondering if Kirk had sent the Enterprise out to rescue him kind of error), but what defies explanation? What causes even the most inventive and imaginative Trek fan to throw their arms up in defeat?

 

[Deranged Nasat]

Klingons have no tear ducts, yet Kahless cries in the mythology. Ah, but it's mythology, you say? Yet Kahless predated Klingon alien contact. What understanding of tears as an emotional response could the Klingons have had?

That's the Deranged Nasat's continuity violation for the day! Most can be resolved, as you say, but this one stumps me, unless perhaps the myth was reinterrpreted following alien contact, but why would the Klingons de-Klingonise their own hero-founder by attributing non-Klingon responses to him?

 

[Bertie]

#1 for me is any attempt to make sense of money and the economy (this guy at EAS made the best attempt that I know of).

Making matters worse is that any attempt to discuss the issue bogs down really, really fast with the injection of people's real world political opinions (no one is willing to take the canon on its own in-universe terms on this subject).

 

[sbk1234]

The change in color of Klingon blood from bright pink (Pink, mind you!) to human-looking red. No, these were not hybrids or anything. They were full-blooded Klingons.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

The change in color of Klingon blood from bright pink (Pink, mind you!) to human-looking red. No, these were not hybrids or anything. They were full-blooded Klingons.

Hmmm, something in the atmosphere of the stricken Klingon vessel due to a failing life-support system? Interacting with the blood to alter its colour? A stretch, I admit, but maybe workable?

 

[Chrisisall]

Making matters worse is that any attempt to discuss the issue bogs down really, really fast with the injection of people's real world political opinions

You're only saying that cause you're a commieLib pinko socialist!!!

You're totally correct. This kind of thing can't be discussed rationally for more than 10 posts before it degenerates into pigeon holing & labeling rants.

My # 1 peeve is that they were having a difficult time finding a lifeless place in the galaxy to test Genesis on. That was laughably idiotic.

 

[Mysterion]

Klingons have no tear ducts, yet Kahless cries in the mythology. Ah, but it's mythology, you say? Yet Kahless predated Klingon alien contact. What understanding of tears as an emotional response could the Klingons have had?

That's the Deranged Nasat's continuity violation for the day! Most can be resolved, as you say, but this one stumps me, unless perhaps the myth was reinterrpreted following alien contact, but why would the Klingons de-Klingonise their own hero-founder by attributing non-Klingon responses to him?

Easier explanation: Scotty was wrong and Klingons do have tear-ducts.

 

[Anticitizen]

"At the beginning of this voyage, Chekov has expected it to be boring, but short and easy. How difficult could it be to find a planet with no life? Now, several months later, he felt as if he were trapped in a journey that was boring, unending, and impossible. Lifeless planets abounded, but lifeless worlds of the right size, orbiting the proper sort of star, within the star's biosphere, in a star system otherwise uninhabited; such planets were not so easy to discover. They had inspected fifteen promisingly barren worlds, but each in its turn had somehow violated the strict parameters of the experimental conditions."

From the novelization, which ain't canon of course, but serves as an answer well enough.

For my part, I'd say that the year 1996 went by without eugenics wars bring waged is hard to explain

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

Making matters worse is that any attempt to discuss the issue bogs down really, really fast with the injection of people's real world political opinions

You're only saying that cause you're a commieLib pinko socialist!!!

You're totally correct. This kind of thing can't be discussed rationally for more than 10 posts before it degenerates into pigeon holing & labeling rants.

My # 1 peeve is that they were having a difficult time finding a lifeless place in the galaxy to test Genesis on. That was laughably idiotic.

Ah, but that one is easy.
Of course, it`s not difficult to find a life less rock somewhere.
But I think they were looking for a lifeless planet, that was in the habitable zone anyway, so the created life wouldn't die right away again. If you do a 3 minute terraforming project you want to do long term research afterwards.
Considering that in the Trek Milky Way any planet remotely capable of developing life did so I believe it was difficult to find a suitable planet.

Edit: Anticitizen beat me to it.

 

[Kaziarl]

"At the beginning of this voyage, Chekov has expected it to be boring, but short and easy. How difficult could it be to find a planet with no life? Now, several months later, he felt as if he were trapped in a journey that was boring, unending, and impossible. Lifeless planets abounded, but lifeless worlds of the right size, orbiting the proper sort of star, within the star's biosphere, in a star system otherwise uninhabited; such planets were not so easy to discover. They had inspected fifteen promisingly barren worlds, but each in its turn had somehow violated the strict parameters of the experimental conditions."

From the novelization, which ain't canon of course, but serves as an answer well enough.

For my part, I'd say that the year 1996 went by without eugenics wars bring waged is hard to explain

Thats cause we learned our lesson from what our future decedents experienced... Right?

 

[Anticitizen]

There are plenty of continuity violations in the TNG movies... there's a series of youtube videos titled 'tng movie mistakes'. One of my favorites was Troi laughing when kissing Riker, and saying 'I've never kissed you with a beard before!' followed my a several-minute-long montage of clips from the show featuring Troi kissing a bearded Riker. You'd think Sirtis would've spoken up at some point during filming... unless kissing Frakes was that forgettable.

 

[Royal Fizzbin]

For my part, I'd say that the year 1996 went by without eugenics wars bring waged is hard to explain

My notion is that the Eugenics Wars actually did happen but are strictly classified and huge steps were taken to conceal their existence, MIB-style, so as to avoid a worldwide panic. Many leaders of Asian nations at the time were not actually in power, but inventions of worldwide intelligence agencies in order to hide the fact that Khan had actually built an empire. Khan ruled most of Asia through much of that decade but the world, even the very citizens he governed, were kept unaware of that fact. In fact, a large portion of the casualties were not incurred in battle but rather assassinations of knowing persons who threatened to spill the beans, orchestrated by the CIA, SIS, et al.

Of course, all this will either become declassified or be uncovered sometime in the next 60 years or so. This is all my crazy way to make it all fit.

I've not actually read the Eugenics Wars books either, so maybe I contradict every page of them. I don't know.

 

[Mysterion]

For my part, I'd say that the year 1996 went by without eugenics wars bring waged is hard to explain

Easier explanation: our timeline where ST was a TV series in the '60s isn't the same timeline where the events of St take place in the 23rd century.

 

[Chrisisall]

From the novelization, which ain't canon of course, but serves as an answer well enough.

Okaaaay, very good!
Now explain Khan's doo. I didn't see any big giant stashes of hairspray on the Botany Bay.

 

[Theodore Jay Miller]

The change in color of Klingon blood from bright pink (Pink, mind you!) to human-looking red. No, these were not hybrids or anything. They were full-blooded Klingons.

Humans vary in skin color, caused by the amount of melanin in the skin, and also have different blood types. Similarly, Klingons vary in blood color; there are more or less of certain substances in the blood of Klingons from different areas of their planet. And depending how much of these substances is present, the blood can range from bright pink to red.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

Klingons have no tear ducts, yet Kahless cries in the mythology. Ah, but it's mythology, you say? Yet Kahless predated Klingon alien contact. What understanding of tears as an emotional response could the Klingons have had?

That's the Deranged Nasat's continuity violation for the day! Most can be resolved, as you say, but this one stumps me, unless perhaps the myth was reinterrpreted following alien contact, but why would the Klingons de-Klingonise their own hero-founder by attributing non-Klingon responses to him?

Easier explanation: Scotty was wrong and Klingons do have tear-ducts.

Question Scotty? I'm not sure I have the right...

 

[Shazam!]

Easier explanation: our timeline where ST was a TV series in the '60s isn't the same timeline where the events of St take place in the 23rd century.

Yeah, but didn't Voyager go back to normal 1996?

 

[Royal Fizzbin]

Quick answer: any time there's a previously established premise that is violated, the violation takes place in a different timeline than the established premise (e.g. "Relics" takes place in yet another timeline where Kirk didn't die that particular day and was still alive when Scotty boarded the Jenolan). There are infinite timelines, so any particular chain of events is possible in one of them.

Boy, Orci and Kurtzman just gave all future Star Trek writers a magic bullet if they choose.

 

[barnaclelapse]

I never understood how they made the whole economy work. That's the big one that pops into my head.

I never really let continuity errors bug me though.

 

[captcalhoun]

it was Valeris who said Klingons have no tear-ducts, not Scotty.

as for things that can't be explained: Threshold's ideas of evolution are inexplicable.