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What story elements would you remove or just forget exist from canon?

C

Citiprime

Fleet Captain
Fleet Captain
Which storylines do you find either too problematic or stupid to the overall Star Trek franchise, and would remove entirely if it was up to you?

  • The Voth - The idea that a spacefaring dinosaur society existed on Earth pre-humanity, and left behind absolutely no evidence of their existence was one of the stupidest additions to canon by Voyager. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. That dinosaur society never launched satellites into Earth orbit or left anything in the fossil record?

  • The Ancient Humanoid Explanation - TNG's explanation for why so many sentient Star Trek species are humanoid, and can crossbreed with each other, is explained in "The Chase" as being the result of an ancient humanoid species seeding the primordial soup of many worlds, including Earth, directing natural selection towards a humanoid organism. This arguably makes evolution within the Star Trek universe more akin to "intelligent design," except instead of a "God" doing the string pulling it was ancient astronauts.

  • Transwarp Beaming - This was one of JJ Abrams's famous plot shortcuts for the Kelvin Universe, which arguably makes warp drive meaningless. If Khan can beam from Earth to Quo'Nos, why exactly does Starfleet need starships?

  • 20th Century Genetic Engineering Cured Death - If Khan's blood can bring a dead Kirk back to life and cure his radiation sickness, then why would anyone have to worry about dying anymore if there's a supply of augments that could be used to develop magic blood?

  • Discovery's Klingon War - It's not the idea of a Federation-Klingon war but the way it was handled (leaving aside the controversy over the changed Klingon appearance, the Klingons themselves were depicted more akin to Voyager's Kazon than Klingons) and the ultimate resolution of a bomb at the heart of the planet and control through blackmail that seemed lacking.

  • Time Travel as a Story Idea - I wish the writers would give time travel a pause for a while. Those stories tend to all fit the same formula. Crew must go back in time to fix the flow of the timeline. They fix it but not exactly the way they hoped. Return to the present to find small ironic changes, and the world is more or less saved. It's so cliched.
 
Last edited:
Citiprime said:
Which storylines do you find either too problematic or stupid to the overall <i>Star Trek</i> franchise, and would remove entirely if it was up to you?

  • The Voth - The idea that a spacefaring dinosaur society existed on Earth pre-humanity, and left behind absolutely no evidence of their existence was one of the stupidest additions to canon by Voyager. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. That dinosaur society never launched satellites into Earth orbit or left anything in the fossil record?

  • The Ancient Humanoid Explanation - TNG's explanation for why so many sentient Star Trek species are humanoid, and can crossbreed with each other, is explained in "The Chase" as being the result of an ancient humanoid species seeding the primordial soup of many worlds, including Earth, directing natural selection towards a humanoid organism. This arguably makes evolution within the Star Trek universe more akin to "intelligent design," except instead of a "God" doing the string pulling it was ancient astronauts.

  • Transwarp Beaming - This was one of JJ Abrams's famous plot shortcuts for the Kelvin Universe, which arguably makes warp drive meaningless. If Khan can beam from Earth to Quo'Nos, why exactly does Starfleet need starships?

  • 20th Century Genetic Engineering Cured Death - If Khan's blood can bring a dead Kirk back to life and cure his radiation sickness, then why would anyone have to worry about dying anymore if there's a supply of augments that could be used to develop magic blood?

  • Discovery's Klingon War - It's not the idea of a Federation-Klingon war but the way it was handled (leaving aside the controversy over the changed Klingon appearance, the Klingons themselves were depicted more akin to Voyager's Kazon than Klingons) and the ultimate resolution of a bomb at the heart of the planet and control through blackmail that seemed lacking.

  • Time Travel as a Story Idea - I wish the writers would give time travel a pause for a while. Those stories tend to all fit the same formula. Crew must go back in time to fix the flow of the timeline. They fix it but not exactly the way they hoped. Return to the present to find small ironic changes, and the world is more or less saved. It's so cliched.
Click to expand...

I agree about the Voth. I really dislike the idea of them descending from Hadrosaurs...no. As for humanoids, I wouldn't blame TNG. TOS started it.

Mutai Sho-Rin said:
Moved from Enterprise.
Click to expand...

You mean remove Enterprise? Some might like that.
 
Mr. Laser Beam said:
Section 31.
Click to expand...
At first I liked that DS9 didn't cop out, because it would have been easy to have written Section 31 as a reactionary group that had been created out of the Dominion War and the Founder threat. But the fact that they write them as having always existed, and a foundational element of Starfleet's nature has been something that every writer after DS9 has used to either go: "see, Roddenberry's ideas about a Federation utopia are undermined because there was a secret police keeping it in place while people like Picard stood on their soap boxes" or they've made Section 31 into idiots the protagonists have to overcome to achieve their goals.

What made Section 31 compelling in DS9 is that there are moments where Sloan has a point, and Bashir's idealism is well-placed and admirable, but in the end naive.

For example, DS9's "Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges" pivots around the very real-world politics idea of whether Section 31 and Admiral Ross are right to install a Federation asset into a position of power by framing an honest Romulan woman who has been a fair and decent partner cooperating with the Federation.

You can argue with their methods, but Ross is absolutely right in believing that a "patriot" is going to make a decision based on what's best for her people, and not necessarily what's best for the Federation or the rest of the Alpha quadrant. With billions of people dying in the Dominion War, do you really want to take the chance that the Romulan Star Empire (i.e., a government that has never been trustworthy at any point in Trek canon) is not going to cut a favorable deal and turn on you if the opportunity occurred?

But that cuts directly against the Roddenberry ethos that humans should have "grown" to be better than that.
 
Citiprime said:
Which storylines do you find either too problematic or stupid to the overall <i>Star Trek</i> franchise, and would remove entirely if it was up to you?

  • The Voth - The idea that a spacefaring dinosaur society existed on Earth pre-humanity, and left behind absolutely no evidence of their existence was one of the stupidest additions to canon by Voyager. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. That dinosaur society never launched satellites into Earth orbit or left anything in the fossil record?

  • The Ancient Humanoid Explanation - TNG's explanation for why so many sentient Star Trek species are humanoid, and can crossbreed with each other, is explained in "The Chase" as being the result of an ancient humanoid species seeding the primordial soup of many worlds, including Earth, directing natural selection towards a humanoid organism. This arguably makes evolution within the Star Trek universe more akin to "intelligent design," except instead of a "God" doing the string pulling it was ancient astronauts.

  • Transwarp Beaming - This was one of JJ Abrams's famous plot shortcuts for the Kelvin Universe, which arguably makes warp drive meaningless. If Khan can beam from Earth to Quo'Nos, why exactly does Starfleet need starships?

  • 20th Century Genetic Engineering Cured Death - If Khan's blood can bring a dead Kirk back to life and cure his radiation sickness, then why would anyone have to worry about dying anymore if there's a supply of augments that could be used to develop magic blood?

  • Discovery's Klingon War - It's not the idea of a Federation-Klingon war but the way it was handled (leaving aside the controversy over the changed Klingon appearance, the Klingons themselves were depicted more akin to Voyager's Kazon than Klingons) and the ultimate resolution of a bomb at the heart of the planet and control through blackmail that seemed lacking.

  • Time Travel as a Story Idea - I wish the writers would give time travel a pause for a while. Those stories tend to all fit the same formula. Crew must go back in time to fix the flow of the timeline. They fix it but not exactly the way they hoped. Return to the present to find small ironic changes, and the world is more or less saved. It's so cliched.
Click to expand...

I actually really liked the Voth and "DISTANT ORIGIN" was a standout episode, espevially during VGR's early years. And it was explained in the episode that with all the earthquakes, tectonic shifts, etc., any evidence of the Voth is buried under massive amount of earth or in the far depths of the oceans. Considering how deep both are, I buy that.

Regarding "The Chase" aliens, it's a more reasonable explanation than some all-knowing 'benevolent' god that doesn't bother to show itself existing and creating people.

The Kelvinverse things you mention (Khan's super blood cure and transwarp beaming) were stupid beyond measure. Among the MANY things wrong with the two Abrams directed movies.

The Klingon War in DISCO was just one of the things that the series handled badly.

I COMPLETELY agree about leaving time travel alone for a while.
 
^That Voth explanation was BS. Our continents were pretty much formed by the time Hadrosaurs showed up. not that much evidence would have been destroyed yet. If they had to do it, I'd have gone with something from Carboniferous times or earlier.
 
The funny thing is scientists today have shown that stem cells from blood can reverse cancer damage, so the “magic blood” as it was shown to work in STID is already more real than transporters and faster-than-light travel ever will be.
 
drt said:
The funny thing is scientists today have shown that stem cells from blood can reverse cancer damage, so the “magic blood” as it was shown to work in STID is already more real than transporters and faster-than-light travel ever will be.
Click to expand...
Exactly.

On topic I would review time travel as quickly as possible.
 
Star Trek is really dumb. And I mean that lovingly. There's sound in space, the ship is a silly shape that makes zero sense (otherwise other aliens would make something other than bird shapes, no?), they seem to think space has an up and a down and all aliens are human with silly bumps on their heads and often nonsensical and deeply impractical whacky alien values.

Start with that and dinosaur aliens, transwarp beaming and the rest all fits in pretty well. Spock had his brain stolen to lead a society of women, ffs.
 
I'd dump the whole "Warp 10 shuttle" business from canon. Salamanders and all.

Also, I think the "sentient hologram" thing should be at least modified heavily. Why is Data any kind of accomplishment when you can fit dozens of artificial lifeforms with emotions in a ship's memory bank?

And get rid of "Nemesis", aside from the wedding.

Probably more later, after I've thought some more...
 
drt said:
The funny thing is scientists today have shown that stem cells from blood can reverse cancer damage, so the “magic blood” as it was shown to work in STID is already more real than transporters and faster-than-light travel ever will be.
Click to expand...
Have they ever given it to someone who was dead? ;)
 
Oddish said:
And get rid of "Nemesis", aside from the wedding.
Click to expand...

Agreed. I would also only keep one other thing... Worf's line, "The Romulans fought with honor." Given how he is about honor, that's quite a huge bit of character growth for someone who hated them so immensely that he refused to give a blood transfusion to a dying Romulan. That is definitely, what I feel, the best thing that occured in NEMESIS.
 
Any "magical resurrection" or "magical rejuvenation" method that isn't regularly replicated. This includes but may not be limited to "Unnatural Selection", "Rascals", and/or "Mortal Coil".

And establish some rules that make sense about memory modification. As opposed to "Bashir can't erase the prison torture memories because Chief O'Brien must suffer".
 
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