What did the Enterprise-C look like in the real TNG universe?

[Start Wreck]

The one thing we know as a fact from our witness Guinan is that the Enterprise-C that returned to “our” universe is not the one we saw in “Yesterday’s Enterprise”. It comes from an alternate universe or timeline where Picard asked or ordered Tasha Yar to travel to the past

You're playing fast and loose with the terms "known fact" there. We absolutely do not know that as a fact, or even a well-supported supposition; this is an exceedingly convoluted piece of extrapolation based on throwaway dialogue.

You can, of course, choose to believe whatever you like, but you might as well make it easier for yourself and just say "Q made the ship look different and changed everyone's memories so they didn't notice" (aka. "a wizard did it"), rather than tying yourself in knots by inferring meaning in snippets of dialogue and suggesting authorial intent where there was none.

 

[Robert Comsol]

You're playing fast and loose with the terms "known fact" there. We absolutely do not know that as a fact, or even a well-supported supposition; this is an exceedingly convoluted piece of extrapolation based on throwaway dialogue.

But we do know that as a fact because Guinan explicitly states (in "Redemption II") that [another] Picard

• sent Tasha Yar aboard an Enterprise-C into the past
• is responsible "for this whole situation".

In contrast, we do know as a fact from "Yesterday's Enterprise" that it was Guinan who

• gave Tasha strange looks so she would finally ask what's wrong and ask Picard to allow her to travel into the past (so that Guinan, in a manner of speaking, "sent" her there or "made her go")
• is responsible "for this whole situation" (Tasha travelling to the past, being captured, giving birth to Sela and being executed), but most definitely not the "universe at war" Picard

I mean, it's already one thing to accuse a sleepwalker (which Picard here basically is) of actions he couldn't possibly remember, but to accuse such an individual of actions the only one truly responsible for is the accuser (!!!) is outrageous and totally inconsistent for the character of Guinan as portrayed in TNG (with friends like this who needs enemies? ).

Alternately, we could dismiss the onscreen in-universe information (and inevitable conclusions we can draw from these like the ones I presented further up) and discredit this information as “throwaway dialogue”?

I would like to remind that both director (David Carson) and screenplay writer (Ron Moore) of “Yesterday’s Enterprise” and “Redemption II” were the same.

It’s been well documented that the screenplay writers of “Yesterday’s Enterprise” were not happy being rushed writing the script and the many plotholes of “Yesterday’s Enterprise” are the somewhat inevitable result of that.

With “Redemption II” part of the mission objective was to bring Denise Crosby in again to now play the half Romulan daughter of Tasha Yar. But I think Ron Moore (and David Carson?) realized that with the screenplay for “Yesterday’s Enterprise” they had written themselves into a corner.

In Part IV of the treatise I tried to illustrate how unlikely it must have been that Tasha was not imprisoned and tortured in a high security facility of Romulan intelligence:

According to the changed premise of “Redemption, Part II” Tasha Yar “was among those few who survived. They were all to have been executed after the interrogation.” I think it stands to reason that these interrogations were conducted by the Tal Shiar and they found out that the ship had come from the future (too many witnesses among her survivors) and Tasha’s uniform would have undoubtedly revealed her to be a human from that future with extensive knowledge of the yet-to-come next 22 years and in particular the “future” Galaxy Class design.

The way I see it we are looking at these scenarios / in-universe explanations:

• There was nothing to worry about because when the Enterprise-C crossed the threshold her “universe at war” uniform somehow transformed into a uniform of 2344
• Tasha realized that fatal oversight prior to crossing the threshold, got undressed, grabbed Castillo’s phaser and vaporized her uniform and combadge (they were still about to engage the Romulans, not the Ferengi). [Although this image does exist in our reality, I guess it would be inappropriate to illustrate it here] Tasha’s daughter Sela would later state “a Romulan general saw her and became enamoured with her”. No more questions.
• The Romulans didn’t care and just thought that Tasha Yar had a fancy tailor
• … maybe the other Picard should have been listening to the other Riker, his own instincts (“Every instinct tells me this is wrong, it is dangerous, it is futile”) and Igor Novikov instead of Guinan…
• This Enterprise-C went back in time, but got diverted into a similar parallel universe “at war” where it got destroyed but where its actions saved a lot of people so that in total the war in that parallel universe cost less than 40 billion lives and La Forge and Guinan could have a nice conversation about Tasha at the end of a day (while the scene apparently takes place in “our” universe, Geordi’s “universe at war” sleeves retain an interesting touch of ambiguity)

I think that the idea of a Romulan general simply taking Tasha under his wing and away from the Tal Shiar (in “our” universe) rather sounds like a fairy-tale than an authentic story. Tasha’s return to our universe must have been meticulously prepared to provide her with a cover that wouldn’t blow the minute the first survivor was interrogated and none of what we saw in “Yesterday’s Enterprise” did remotely suggest that.

I’m not aware that Ron Moore was a stupid or incompetent screenplay writer and having access to the full script of YE and more time to prepare for “Redemption II” than YE I’d say there is a high probability that in order to have Tasha give birth to a daughter (and not rot in a Romulan detention cell with all the Federation technology information in her head) he realized that the only workable scenario was something like this (“Explanation A” from Part IV with modifications):

The story of “Yesterday’s Enterprise” took part in an “parallel” timeline (David Carson) / universe, but the space phenomenon affected and connected several parallel universes and events simultaneously. In another “present”, however, the assisting teams of the “D” were dressed and equipped with mid 24th Century technology pretending to be from the same time. Captain Picard persuaded Captain Garrett of the necessity to return to the battle (i.e. distract the Romulan warbirds long enough to enable Klingon survivors to escape and tell the true story of what happened at Narendra III). In addition, this Picard ordered (“sent”) his tactical officer, Tasha Yar, to join the crew of the Enterprise-C (to make sure history would happen as it was supposed to). The ship’s records were modified to pass her as an official member of the crew (she had already been dressed in a corresponding uniform all that time), because the sudden disappearance of the Enterprise-C could have looked to the Romulans as if the Enterprise-C had activated some yet unknown Federation cloaking device. It had to be expected that prisoners would be taken! The ship returned and eventually Tasha was among the captives but her cover story held up. “They were all to have been executed after the interrogation, but a Romulan general saw her and became enamoured with her. So a deal was struck. Their lives would be spared if she became his consort.”


I dare to say that this is the only credible scenario to make the new Sela story presented in “Redemption II” somehow work, hence Ron Moore made Guinan say that “Picard sent Tasha to the past and is responsible for the whole situation”, a subtle suggestion for fans (such as myself) who might have otherwise complained that things between “Yesterday’s Enterprise” and “Redemption, II” didn’t add up.

Of course, “Redemption II” somehow relocated events in “Yesterday’s Enterprise” into an alternate universe or parallel timeline, but on the positive side re-established Andrew Probert’s Enterprise-C on the conference lounge wall of the Enterprise-D as canon, because there was no more solid evidence, to possibly arrive at the conclusion that it is not (and before I excise a visual onscreen design from canon, I better have solid evidence to have the moral and technical justification to do so).

You can, of course, choose to believe whatever you like, but you might as well make it easier for yourself and just say "Q made the ship look different and changed everyone's memories so they didn't notice" (aka. "a wizard did it"), rather than tying yourself in knots by inferring meaning in snippets of dialogue and suggesting authorial intent where there was none.

I think what I presented thus far in this thread is objectively “a theory based on observable facts with speculation regarding the unknown ones” and not “facts twisted to conform to a biased belief”.

The remarkable hypocrisy in this (and parallel threads) would really be this: While many have no problem that Andrew Probert’s Enterprise-C has been erased, overwritten or obsoleted by Rick Sternbach’s Enterprise-C, the same people do not acknowledge that the premise of “Yesterday’s Enterprise” (then, just an altered timeline in “our” universe) had been erased, overwritten or obsoleted by “Redemption II” (now, a parallel time line aka universe instead).

I hinted the possible involvement of Q in Part V of the treatise (the “Klingon-Federation War” was a fabrication of Q in an early draft for “Déjà Q” two episodes earlier), but I doubt that he would have deliberately changed the Enterprise-C (other than to use the Sternbach design as a requisite for his stage).

While I couldn’t exclude him being behind “Yesterday’s Enterprise” (a retaliation scenario for Guinan’s attack on him), I think Ron Moore’s suggestion of an alternate universe works sufficiently well without the actual need to invoke Q ex machina.

(Although one of my closer Trek friends told me that he liked the Q explanation best to make sense of the farrago in “Yesterday’s Enterprise”. Well, the bumbling Picard we see in this episode does almost look like some Q fun at the expense of “our” Picard ).

Bob

 

[F. King Daniel]

You're treating what was said in "Redemption II" as gospel, when it was entirely based on Guinan's extra-temporal sense. She was interpreting as best as she could, but it was intentionally inaccurate. Remember also that Guinan wasn't there when Tasha was assigned to the -C. She wouldn't know it was Tasha's request.

 

[Start Wreck]

Alternately, we could dismiss the onscreen in-universe information (and inevitable conclusions we can draw from these like the ones I presented further up) and discredit this information as “throwaway dialogue”?

Dismiss or just take it as it was given. The fact that Guinan says Picard ordered Tasha to go, rather than "allowed" her to go, is just splitting hairs. The simplest explanation is either:
1) Guinan is mistaken / misremembering
2) It's a matter of interpretation, the captain is responsible for Tasha being there regardless of whose idea it was, because he's the captain.

Both of these explanations are infinitely better than the idea that there is an alternative universe involved in which the Enterprise-C is a different shape. It's most certainly not an "inevitable conclusion" unless you have confirmation bias.

So, believe what you like, it's all good fun, but don't call things "known facts" that are anything but!

 

[Robert Comsol]

You're treating what was said in "Redemption II" as gospel, when it was entirely based on Guinan's extra-temporal sense.

Yes, I thought it was the hard and fast rule here at the BBS that we treat onscreen information, dialogue and the obvious conclusions we can derive from that as gospel. Guinan's statement is based on her special capability to somehow connect with her counterparts in other realities and we've seen in "Yesterday's Enterprise" how efficiently and reliably this works

• Somehow this, this is all wrong. This is not the way it's supposed to be
• You. Your uniform. The Bridge
• Families. There should be children on this ship
• We weren't meant to know each other at all. At least, that's what I sense when I look at you. Tasha, you're not supposed to be here
• I do know it was an empty death. A death without purpose.

The last one is especially remarkable, because that could have been only something "our" Guinan heard in a conversation! It becomes obvious at the end of the episode that "our" Guinan knows little about Tasha because she specifically asks Geordi to tell her about Tasha (apparently a feedback from the Guinan in the alternate reality).

So if anyone comes now trying to discredit her reliability to make such accurate statements, there'd better be some evidence to back this up (instead of wishful thinking)

She was interpreting as best as she could, but it was intentionally inaccurate. Remember also that Guinan wasn't there when Tasha was assigned to the -C. She wouldn't know it was Tasha's request.

Why was it "intentionally inaccurate"? Are you suggesting Guinan was collaborating with the Romulans to deliberately make Picard feel bad somehow?
Well, I didn't see Tasha step into a transport chamber, dematerialize and rematerialize aboard the Enterprise-C, so do I assume now she miraculously transported herself to the Bridge of the Enterprise-C in an unusual manner?

They discussed the transfer of command to Lt. Castillo in the conference lounge with a "few hours" of work remaining to prep the Enterprise-C. Next Tasha escorted him to the transporter room, then she went to Ten Forward, then she went to Picard's ready room.
When she showed up on the Bridge of the "C" there was still one hour left of preparations.
This was not "24" where events occur in real time, and since Tasha had plenty of time left and manners (e.g. saying twice goodbye to Richard) it stands to reason that at least she told her friend Guinan ("We've known each other too long") goodbye, too, and about Picard's decision to allow her to leave the Enterprise-D. Just because that farewell scene wasn't featured in the episode doesn't mean this very likely event didn't take place.

Alternately, we could dismiss the onscreen in-universe information (and inevitable conclusions we can draw from these like the ones I presented further up) and discredit this information as “throwaway dialogue”?

Dismiss or just take it as it was given. The fact that Guinan says Picard ordered Tasha to go, rather than "allowed" her to go, is just splitting hairs.

It's a quote from onscreen canon (delivered first by Guinan and next by Sela so general audiences would understand what happened and maybe get [Ronald D. Moore's] message). I'm afraid it's you and King Daniel who are splitting hairs because you don't like to accept it at face value.

The simplest explanation is either:
1) Guinan is mistaken / misremembering
2) It's a matter of interpretation, the captain is responsible for Tasha being there regardless of whose idea it was, because he's the captain.

1) is refuted by the accuracy and reliability of Guinan's statements in "Yesterday's Enterprise", establishing her capabilities, 2) is refuted by the simple fact that Guinan is Picard's friend and/or family, and not his superior officer (You are apparently thinking way too much in militaristic terms here, but that applies for a majority of Trek BBS members as far as I can tell). In a military hierarchy the captain is responsible for the actions and conduct of his crew, in normal life every individual is responsible for his own actions and in this particular case (YE) it was Guinan who is responsible, not Picard! This is not a matter of interpretation but objective observation everyone who has seen "Yesterday's Enterprise" will have to agree.

Both of these explanations are infinitely better than the idea that there is an alternative universe involved in which the Enterprise-C is a different shape.

This is the one thing I have been totally unable to grasp in these discusions.

While I present a rationalization and evidence which does not violate established canon but on the contrary resolves what seemed to be a contradiction (the incompatible appearances of both Enterprise-C) and shows that both are canon, a lot of people are somewhat incapable of dealing with it and prefer to have only one, although they could have two (I guess, you guys must all hate "Second Chances" - Two guys with different biographies and beards but the same name and identity...how awful).
In some parallel universes the Enterprise-C is the Probert design, in others it's the Sternbach design and yet in some others it's probably a Nebula or yet another class of starship.

If you are really looking for a simple explanation, I refer to Ronald D. Moore's mission statement for "Yesterday's Enterprise": "We brought Denise back to kill off Tasha Yar a second time. It was a great opportunity to send the character off in a big heroic sacrifice because nobody was really happy with the way she left the series in the first season. Nobody on the show really liked it, the fans didn't like it, I'm not sure even she really liked it. So 'Yesterday's Enterprise' was a chance to kill her right."

Of course, to bring Denise Crosby back as Tasha's daughter Sela in "Redemption II" required to betray this statement and Tasha's "new" death (being executed after an unsuccessful escape attempt with her daughter) is even emptier and more meaningless than her first death in "Skin of Evil" (at least there she died in the line of duty).

By relocating "Yesterday's Enterprise" into an alternate universe (because of Guinan's and Sela's aforementioned statements) he enabled Tasha to at least have this one meaningful death in one of the alternate universes...and he elegantly avoided to come up with explanations how the Romulans could possibly ignore Tasha's strategic value following the Battle of Narendra III and her capture (which nobody here at the Trek BBS dared to comment on or felt up to provide the necessary rationalizations).

Bob

 

[Start Wreck]

It's a quote from onscreen canon (delivered first by Guinan and next by Sela so general audiences would understand what happened and maybe get [Ronald D. Moore's] message). I'm afraid it's you and King Daniel who are splitting hairs because you don't like to accept it at face value.

I disagree with your assertion of what constitutes "face value" in this instance.

1) is refuted by the accuracy and reliability of Guinan's statements in "Yesterday's Enterprise", establishing her capabilities

A logically flawed statement. If somebody is shown to be right about something, it doesn't follow that they must always be right about everything. A parallel Guinan having fairly accurate knowledge about parallel Tasha in no way proves that another parallel Guinan must have accurate knowledge about a similar subject.

2) is refuted by the simple fact that Guinan is Picard's friend and/or family, and not his superior officer (You are apparently thinking way too much in militaristic terms here, but that applies for a majority of Trek BBS members as far as I can tell). In a military hierarchy the captain is responsible for the actions and conduct of his crew, in normal life every individual is responsible for his own actions and in this particular case (YE) it was Guinan who is responsible, not Picard! This is not a matter of interpretation but objective observation everyone who has seen "Yesterday's Enterprise" will have to agree.

You've possibly misunderstood me, so I'll rephrase. Guinan says Picard is "responsible" for Tasha being on the Ent-C, that he ordered her to go there. You say this is incorrect, but I say this is a question of interpretation. Because Picard was Tasha's commanding officer, Guinan's statement that he "ordered" her can be seen as quite correct. Whether she requested it first or not, Tasha's orders would have been to go the Ent-C. There would have been a crew transfer process, this would technically be "an order". Picard allowing it to happen on his watch makes him the responsible party for the repercussions. So the statement isn't wrong, it's just a question of how you interpret it.

Obviously, it's not an elegant piece of retconning, and it could have been avoided, but it's preferable to the alternative in this case. Except it's not preferable to you because you are intent on clinging to the idea that the Enterprise-C design is different. That's what it comes to: your preferences and desires are fueling your "evidence". These are not conclusions that are naturally and logically reached, they are grasping at straws to justify a preference. It's a classic example of confirmation bias.

Be honest: would you be making these same conclusions if you disliked the Probert design?

 

[BillJ]

...and the obvious conclusions we can derive from that as gospel.

Nope. Because five different people can come up with five different "obvious conclusions".

 

[Mytran]

If you are really looking for a simple explanation, I refer to Ronald D. Moore's mission statement for "Yesterday's Enterprise": "We brought Denise back to kill off Tasha Yar a second time. It was a great opportunity to send the character off in a big heroic sacrifice because nobody was really happy with the way she left the series in the first season. Nobody on the show really liked it, the fans didn't like it, I'm not sure even she really liked it. So 'Yesterday's Enterprise' was a chance to kill her right."

Of course, to bring Denise Crosby back as Tasha's daughter Sela in "Redemption II" required to betray this statement and Tasha's "new" death (being executed after an unsuccessful escape attempt with her daughter) is even emptier and more meaningless than her first death in "Skin of Evil" (at least there she died in the line of duty).

That's the sad truth of the matter - YE by itself is a fairly self-contained time loop. Assuming a classic "our universe changes" approach; at the end the Enterprise-C is securely 19 years in the past and although we (the viewers) see Tasha boldly ride off into certain death, is it just as possible that once that ship passed through the time vortex, EVERYTHING got reset. There certainly seems to be no indication of 24 hours passing (or however long it was that Ent-C spent getting repaired), as Picard and crew are still starring at the viewscreen. It's as if no time passed at all and if that is true then all the Ent-D's and Ent-C's actions and sacrifices were cancelled out the second the Ent-C returned to her own time; history literally was reset. YE becomes a "what if" story in the vain of DC Comics' "imaginary tales - The Death Of Superman!". Tasha Yar would have gone back in time and sacrificed herself, no doubt about that. But ultimately she didn't, because history was restored to its original form - where Tasha Yar died at Vagra II.

And then comes Redemption and a whole barrel of retcon!

By relocating "Yesterday's Enterprise" into an alternate universe (because of Guinan's and Sela's aforementioned statements) he enabled Tasha to at least have this one meaningful death in one of the alternate universes...and he elegantly avoided to come up with explanations how the Romulans could possibly ignore Tasha's strategic value following the Battle of Narendra III and her capture (which nobody here at the Trek BBS dared to comment on or felt up to provide the necessary rationalizations).

If Sela's mother did indeed come from an alternate universe, it would at least explain where her physical matter came from (unless spontaneously generated by a temporal anomaly?), as well as addressing many of the continuity clashes between the two tales. And it doesn't say much for the Tal Shiar that Tasha managed to elude their notice so effectively. And not one of the Ent-C's crew mentioned their little jaunt into the future? Guinan's and Sela's testimonies may be highly subjective, but even taken at face value there are still many unanswered questions.

 

[Jerikka Dawn]

The simplest explanation is either:
1) Guinan is mistaken / misremembering
2) It's a matter of interpretation, the captain is responsible for Tasha being there regardless of whose idea it was, because he's the captain.

1) is refuted by the accuracy and reliability of Guinan's statements in "Yesterday's Enterprise", establishing her capabilities, 2) is refuted by the simple fact that Guinan is Picard's friend and/or family, and not his superior officer (You are apparently thinking way too much in militaristic terms here, but that applies for a majority of Trek BBS members as far as I can tell). In a military hierarchy the captain is responsible for the actions and conduct of his crew, in normal life every individual is responsible for his own actions and in this particular case (YE) it was Guinan who is responsible, not Picard! This is not a matter of interpretation but objective observation everyone who has seen "Yesterday's Enterprise" will have to agree.

It doesn't matter who's idea it was, Tasha was ordered there.

CASTILLO
This isn't a joke, Tasha. We're
going back in the rift -- into
battle -- and we're not coming
back.

TASHA
I know the mission. These are
my orders, Lieutenant.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Why was it " intentionally inaccurate"? Are you suggesting Guinan was collaborating with the Romulans to deliberately make Picard feel bad somehow?

You misunderstand. I meant the writers intentionally had the characters (well, Guinan) draw slightly inaccurate conclusions. We know her sense isn't perfect, that it's dealt in feelings not facts. Tasha ended up in the past, and Guinan assuming Picard sent her there rather than that she volunteered is an understandable mistake.

 

[Kemaiku]

“Like in the episode Yesterday’s Enterprise”

[/thread]

 

[Mytran]

Why was it " intentionally inaccurate"? Are you suggesting Guinan was collaborating with the Romulans to deliberately make Picard feel bad somehow?

You misunderstand. I meant the writers intentionally had the characters (well, Guinan) draw slightly inaccurate conclusions. We know her sense isn't perfect, that it's dealt in feelings not facts. Tasha ended up in the past, and Guinan assuming Picard sent her there rather than that she volunteered is an understandable mistake.

After rewatching the scene today, I think Guinan (yet again!) has a lot to answer for. She goes from "I think you sent her there" to emphatically stating it as so within the space of about 30 seconds - "you are responsible for this whole situation". Picard just sits there with a shocked look on his face, struggling to take this all in. Even though he wasn't present for any of the events she accused him of, he has to take responsibility for them? Interestingly, not one of the characters in Redemption mentions time tunnels, alternate histories or parallel universes as an explanation for Tasha's jaunt into the past. So what is Picard to make of all this? Historically, the existence of parallel realities is known about to Starfleet (Mirror, Mirror). So, wouldn't this be a natural conclusion for our captain to come to? If not the Mirror Universe per se, then Sela's mother would probably originate from somewhere a similar source. From the episode Parallels:

DATA: For any event, there is an infinite number of possible outcomes. Our choices determine which outcomes will follow. But there is a theory in quantum physics that all possibilities that can happen, do happen in alternate quantum realities.

Data doesn't present this theory as something newly discovered (unlike the tomographic imaging scanner in All Good Things) so there's no reason to think it wouldn't be available to Picard a couple of years prior. So despite the guilt and accusations piled upon him, I think Picard's final statement to Sela sums his viewpoint up nicely:

Doubts? I'm full of them. But nothing in my experience can persuade me that what you have told me is true.

 

[Robert Comsol]

Whether she requested it first or not, Tasha's orders would have been to go the Ent-C. There would have been a crew transfer process, this would technically be "an order". Picard allowing it to happen on his watch makes him the responsible party for the repercussions. So the statement isn't wrong, it's just a question of how you interpret it.

Again, Guinan is not a superior Starfleet officer but Picard's friend. There's no record or hint in the series that she handles things from a military perspective and her message and sour face ("sorry to be the one having to tell you this") clearly suggests that in yet another (unseen) parallel time line or universe Picard did "send" Tasha to the past and therefore "is responsible" according to the undersatanding of normal people.

The series was not made so that for the decades to follow we'll twist every bit of dialogue out of the original context which general audiences were enabled to understand.

Obviously, it's not an elegant piece of retconning, and it could have been avoided, but it's preferable to the alternative in this case.

Why is it preferable to retcon Andrew Probert's Enterprise-C design on the conference lounge wall as non-canon? (by insisting the Sternbach design is the only one "real" in our universe) It's been there for four seasons of TNG, prominently displayed above the actors and captured in many scenes.

Be honest: would you be making these same conclusions if you disliked the Probert design?

Unlike some of our "experts" (i.e. deliberate ignorance of the Romulan Star Empire crest featured in "The Enterprise Incident" and "The Neutral Zone") I'd like to think I take treknological research rather seriously and take the onscreen information into account on an unbiased basis, but with the prerogative "first come, first served".

Had it been Rick Sternbach's design on the conference lounge of the "D" he'd equally be entitled, that we first look for imaginative rationalizations before we push his design over the cliff and deem it "non-canon".

It's no secret that I do have an infatuation for Andrew Probert's design, a "continuity freak" in the most positive sense of the word and someone I consider my mentor. This apparently was a motivation that did help to examine the information from "Yesterday's Enterprise" and its changed premise because of "Redemption II" which I unfortunately overlooked in the first parts of the treatise / this thread (Hopefully someone would have noticed it eventually).

Except it's not preferable to you because you are intent on clinging to the idea that the Enterprise-C design is different. That's what it comes to: your preferences and desires are fueling your "evidence". These are not conclusions that are naturally and logically reached, they are grasping at straws to justify a preference. It's a classic example of confirmation bias.

No, it is not. From what I read here, it's that "fans" are not willing to take the (new) information from "Redemption II" into account and discredit it (so that the assumption that turned into a myth can remain some kind of "truth").

Alright, then I'll bring in my last two witnesses, the screenplay writer and director of both "Yesterday's Enterprise" and "Redemption II", Mr. Ronald D. Moore and David Carson.

Mr. Moore, I understand that the core theme of "Yesterday's Enterprise" was "meaningful death", one as a justification for the crew of the Enterprise-C to sacrifice themselves to prevent a war costing 40,000,000,000 lives, the other one for the character of Tasha Yar to ask her leave and be assured of a "meaningful death" she didn't get on Vagra II in "Skin of Evil", is that correct?

Ronald D. Moore (screenplay writer): "We brought Denise back to kill off Tasha Yar a second time. It was a great opportunity to send the character off in a big heroic sacrifice because nobody was really happy with the way she left the series in the first season. Nobody on the show really liked it, the fans didn't like it, I'm not sure even she really liked it. So 'Yesterday's Enterprise' was a chance to kill her right."

David Carson (director): “I think it was terrific to bring her back and have her die meaningfully, and give her a good reason to leave.”

Mr. Carson, this is essentially what you said in the "Alternate Lives Part I" documentary from 2008, is that correct?

[David Carson would have to reply "Yes"]

So, by 2008, Mr. Carson still felt that they had given the character of Tasha Yar a meaningful death in "Yesterday's Enterprise"?!

Sorry, this doesn't add up.

Mr. Moore and Mr. Carson collaborated for "Redemption II" and I only see a meaningless death for the character of Tasha Yar, unsuccessfully trying to escape with her daughter and being executed after having been caught. What's "meaningful" about this kind of death? (At least, on Vagra II she did in the line of active duty and on her feet but not tied down for some form of execution).

A few months after “Redemption II” had aired, this is what director David Carson (then) had to say: “I particularly liked the challenge of “Yesterday’s Enterprise” because we were creating the Enterprise in a different and parallel time line: An Enterprise at war.” (Starlog ST-TNG magazine Vol. 19, Spring 1992).

A "parallel time line" is not "our" altered time line, it's parallel to ours, and as such it is practically indistinguishable from an alternate universe.

This clearly indicates a logical premise change:

You can't have Tasha Yar die a meaningful death in (the past of) "our" universe and at the same time bear a daughter in (the past of) "our" universe and later die a meaningless death.

Either she died a meaningful death in our universe or she did NOT die a meaningful death.

Obviously the only way to resolve the problem was to relocate the (parallel) events featured in "Yesterday's Enterprise" into a parallel time line (David Carson) aka a parallel or alternate universe.

And Moore and Carson elegantly avoided to explain the various inconsistencies and oddities I've mentioned throughout this thread / treatise, necessary to explain before even coming up with the assumption that "Yesterday's Enterprise" Tasha travelled back to our universe.

Apparently Ronald D. Moore deliberately and consciously made [another] Picard sent [another] Tasha Yar to the past with the Enterprise-C which inevitably must have taken place in another (unseen) alternate universe and thus created a believable context so that Tasha could somehow give birth to her half-Romulan daughter Sela (instead of rotting in a Romulan detention cell with all the Federation technology information in her head which would have been the likelier outcome of her travelling to the past and being captured by the Romulans instead of being killed at Narendra III).

And from a story-telling perspective it’s totally irrelevant, who sent Tasha Yar back to the past and is responsible. Guinan could have just said “And I think I sent her there. I just know I did. If I’m right, then I am responsible for this whole situation”.

We are apparently looking at a (too) subtle suggestion of Ronald D. Moore that the events of "Yesterday's Enterprise" had been relocated into an alternate universe by the time of "Redemption II" which previously no one noticed.

I'd suggest we better deal with it, rather than to come up with all kinds of convoluted theories why that shouldn't be the case and stop discrediting the characters and people concerned unless you really want to read the vitriolic satire The Enterprise-"C"onspiracy I wrote over this weekend (from a strictly Cardassian point of view).

And so from February 19, 1990 (airdate of “Yesterday’s Enterprise”) until September 23, 1991 (airdate of "Redemption II") Tasha Yar had a meaningful death in the past of our universe – and the Enterprise-C of our universe apparently looked like the starship featured in “Yesterday’s Enterprise” (a remarkable cosmic symmetry and irony: these events in “our” universe were almost as short-lived as the “universe at war” itself, featured in “Yesterday’s Enterprise” ).

Bob

 

[Start Wreck]

Again, Guinan is not a superior Starfleet officer but Picard's friend. There's no record or hint in the series that she handles things from a military perspective and her message and sour face ("sorry to be the one having to tell you this") clearly suggests that in yet another (unseen) parallel time line or universe Picard did "send" Tasha to the past and therefore "is responsible" according to the undersatanding of normal people.

Well, thanks for the thinly veiled insult that I'm not a "normal" person, but I continue to not take that particular dialogue exchange in the same manner that you have.

The series was not made so that for the decades to follow we'll twist every bit of dialogue out of the original context which general audiences were enabled to understand.

It seems to me like that's what you're doing, though.

Why is it preferable to retcon Andrew Probert's Enterprise-C design on the conference lounge wall as non-canon? (by insisting the Sternbach design is the only one "real" in our universe) It's been there for four seasons of TNG, prominently displayed above the actors and captured in many scenes.

The model is canon, because it exists on screen. But it's still just a model. We've seen the Enterprise-C for real on screen, and it looks different. Therefore, out of the two possible explanations (the model is inaccurate or the ship is from a different universe where it was created in a different shape), I'm going for the simpler one, as Occam's Razor would demand.

 

[Mutai Sho-Rin]

This has become a hair-splitting pissing contest and has gone on too long. All this semantic wrangling has worn thin.

Closed.