The Valtane Enigma

[The Wormhole]

And the reason his ears were temporarily bobbed in ST:VI because he was on or had just come off of a mission for Starfleet Intelligence that required him to not appear Vulcan.

So that was Tuvok on the Enterprise-B in ST VII?

Bob

No, that wasn't Tuvok. I don't know what USS Triumphant is talking about, Tuvok's page on Memory Beta (the wiki for non canon stuff like the novels) makes no mention to Tuvok being on an intelligence mission requiring him to look human.

Kang had already appeared in DS9 sporting the TNG Klingon look. I guess he had the reconstructive surgury mentioned in Enterprise, or had the humanizing effects of the Augment virus reversed.

What I mean is that TNG-era Klingons have a distinct look different from TOS movie Klingons. The makeup for the movie klingons is different from the TNG-era makeup. For one thing, the Klingons of the movies (except for perhaps TMP, I can't remember) have perfectly human noses, whereas TNG-era Klingons have hooked noses.

Yes, I'm being pedantic, and it's beside the point.

Meh, that's hardly the fault of the Voyager episode. They stayed consistent with how Kang looked when he was on DS9.

 

[USS Triumphant]

And the reason his ears were temporarily bobbed in ST:VI because he was on or had just come off of a mission for Starfleet Intelligence that required him to not appear Vulcan.

So that was Tuvok on the Enterprise-B in ST VII?

Bob

No, that wasn't Tuvok. I don't know what USS Triumphant is talking about, Tuvok's page on Memory Beta (the wiki for non canon stuff like the novels) makes no mention to Tuvok being on an intelligence mission requiring him to look human.

Dang. Now I'm going to have to skim my Voyager novels and find it.

Nope, not worth it. Voyager. :blech: I'll just go ahead and say I was mistaken, which is possible, and also easier to deal with.

 

[Skywalker]

I just liked how Worf said "We don't talk about it" and left it at that. Enterprise going out of it's way to explain it just makes it even more silly.

I disagree. I think DS9 took the easy road, while the solution ENT came up with was actually pretty clever--and also confirmed both Bashir and O'Brien's guesses; it was both a virus and genetic engineering.

DS9 could have avoided the whole thing entirely if they'd just put Michael Dorn in TOS-era Klingon makeup while Worf was in the 23rd century.

 

[Hober Mallow]

I just liked how Worf said "We don't talk about it" and left it at that. Enterprise going out of it's way to explain it just makes it even more silly.

I disagree. I think DS9 took the easy road, while the solution ENT came up with was actually pretty clever--and also confirmed both Bashir and O'Brien's guesses; it was both a virus and genetic engineering.

I preferred DS9 simply acknowledging it because they had to and then writing it off as a joke over the ENT uber-anal fanwank. Did we need a follow-up episode to explain why ENT-era Klingons and TNG-era Klingons had hooked noses but the TOS movie-era Klingons in-between didn't? Or an episode about how the Trill went from bumpy-headed to spotty? It's ridiculous. Exactly how many episodes did ENT devote to a makeup inconsistency?

DS9 could have avoided the whole thing entirely if they'd just put Michael Dorn in TOS-era Klingon makeup while Worf was in the 23rd century.

I have to admit, that would have been pretty funny.

 

[R. Star]

Yeah, having Worf just transfer to a flat head, without anyone noticing, would've been funny on it's own too. Though I'm just fine with the way it happened. Either way, I can't say I care for Enterprise's "explanation" of it. It's just one of those mysteries that disappoints you if you solve it whereas if you leave it a mystery, there's a novelty to it still.

 

[JarodRussell]

DS9 could have avoided the whole thing entirely if they'd just put Michael Dorn in TOS-era Klingon makeup while Worf was in the 23rd century.

I have to admit, that would have been pretty funny.

And the characters don't notice. It would have been the best choice.

That ENT episode was indeed uber-anal.

 

[Lance]

Computer technology in Trek's time is probably the ultimate "cloud". The technology available to Federation citizens is - indeed, must be - absolutely off the charts, so to speak, and certainly beyond anything we could conceive today. I don't see how they could NOT have all information available at all times, in all computers, everywhere. It's almost inevitable, really.

I suspect the only reason we saw people using computer tapes in TOS is because that's what 60's viewers expected to see...they certainly didn't know anything about cloud computing back then. A "real" 23rd century would surely not need to transfer any information from anywhere to anywhere.

One thing that always fascinates me about watching Star Trek in retrospect is how well the tech actually manages to hold up. Admittedly the panels of TOS (and TNG too) do have an asthetic look which sometimes fails the tests of time, my last review of TOS seen me looking admirably at Mister Spock's little plastic data tapes as actually being a surprisingly accurate prediction of today's ubiquitous USB flash memory cards.

On the broader issue of Voyager having access to even the minutest details in their databanks, it is something which always annoyed me too. Surely it would have been more dramatically interesting..... if, perhaps, a little harder for the folks in the writer's room, who couldn't just fall back on the lazy plot device of asking the computer in order to provide exposition.... if Voyager's distance from Federation space meant it could no longer access that kind of information? There might be situations where the computer has got the answer, but others where the usual route (calling on external information, perhaps via Memory Alpha or a cloud service) is obviously unavailable, so the crew are forced to think on their feet and make decisions based on instinct and intuition, without being able to fall back on solutions discovered by previous starships.