What's in YOUR 'head canon'?

[Nerys Myk]

Two more pieces of headcanon:

I assumed that the Excelsior did not fail in it's experiment, but because Scotty sabotaged the ship, they all thought their transwarp experiments failed and gave up.

In order to make ENT more likeable, I have the fan theory that the Temporal Cold War future presented in that series is not the actual future of Star Trek and the future people are not actually from the mainstream Star Trek future. Instead, they are from an alternate/the original future, and by interfering in the past, they erased their history and created the timeline of the mainstream Star Trek universe. That way, they are not screwing up Star Trek history and changing things in all the convoluted ways time travel does, and ENT does not exist just in the context of the TNG era.

The screw ups to Star Trek history must be in your head canon too.

 

[Emperor Norton]

The screw ups to Star Trek history must be in your head canon too.

Star Trek is good for creativity, because you have to come up with a theory to explain every inconsistency. I know canon fixes like some people know football statistics.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Star Trek is good for creativity, because you have to come up with a theory to explain every inconsistency. I know canon fixes like some people know football statistics.

I'm a good fixer too. But I'm better at making the canon work.

 

[Emperor Norton]

I also had a headcanon which real canon kinda crushed. That being that TMP took placed in 2279, for the obvious reason of 1979 and TOS just being 300 years after the actual date. It honestly does not make sense for TMP to take place in 2273, let alone 2271 or whatever they were originally thinking. People aged ten years and they look it. And there's other reasons. You could add another 5 year mission for Kirk (and I assumed TAS took place in 2273 and 2274) and everyone gets to wear the TOS uniforms instead of the horror of beige and drab blue.

 

[ian128K]

I have a whole thing about what 'Balance of Terror' was about and how it relates to Klingon ships being used by the Romulans in 'The Enterprise Incident'. It goes like this:

The Romulan ship in 'Balance of Terror' was a test platform, yes, but not for the cloaking device. Despite the scene where Spock talks about how selective bending of light is possible, my thoughts are that the Federation was familiar with cloaking technology, but I figure that the countermeasures they had developed for the Romulans' prior generation of cloak (which was the one encountered during the Romulan War, since they had not had contact with Romulans since then) were effective enough that they didn't even consider those old Romulan ships cloaked at all by the end of the war. For all practical purposes, they were visible on sensors and targetable no matter whether or not the cloak was engaged.

During the intervening years, however, the Romulans did develop newer cloaking technology and it was widespread throughout their fleet. In fact (in my mind) they had used it previously (but not too long ago; maybe a year prior to the episode at most) to conduct raids into Klingon space for the purposes of capturing Klingon battlecruisers. (More on this in a moment.)

Instead, in my head, the Bird of Prey was only out there to test the plasma torpedo. They wanted to see how effective it would be against Starfleet installations, and the border outposts fitted the bill quite well. (And, indeed, the weapon proved quite effective.) The way I see it, the Romulans' plan was to, if the plasma torpedo was deemed serviceable, use it in conjunction with the Klingon ships they had captured. The idea would be that the plasma torpedo-equipped Birds of Prey, cloaked, would accompany squads of captured Klingon battlecruisers and they would go to various planets and starbases in Federation space. The Klingon ships would begin an assault, and the Federation outposts would send a distress signal stating that they're under attack by Klingon vessels. Once the distress signal went out, the Bird of Prey decloaks and uses its plasma torpedoes to utterly destroy the outpost(s).

This would lead the Federation to believe that they were under unprovoked attack by the Klingon Empire. As such, the Federation would have no choice but to declare war against the Klingons, and a bitter war would ensue between the two. Meanwhile, the Romulans sit back and watch while their two biggest rivals slug it out in in a long, bloody war. After awhile, the war will have weakened both so much that the Romulans can then mount proper invasions, cleaning up and claiming victory over both the Federation and the Klingons.

And think about it, that's the kind of thing that fits the Romulans' modus operandi to a tee. It's very similar to the kind of strategy they employed in the run up to the Romulan War, as seen towards the end of Enterprise season 4. And even Garak thinks that the level of duplicity he and Sisko tried to convince the Romulans that the Dominion were guilty of is "exactly what the Romulans would have done in their place."

So where did it all go wrong? Simple: the Bird of Prey got caught in 'Balance of Terror' and the Romulans lost the element of surprise, which they needed for the entire plan to work. After that, the Romulans decided to make their captured Klingon ships part of their regular fleet, equipping them with Romulan weapons and equipment and even painting the bottoms of their hulls with the traditional bird pattern, which is why we see them as such in 'The Enterprise Incident', and why Starfleet Intelligence even reports that Romulan ships have recently started using Klingon ships. ("Intelligence reports Romulans now using Klingon design.")

 

[Emperor Norton]

Copypasta from elsewhere I posed:

I do have the pet theory that the Borg go through phases of expansion and near extinction, but so long as just one drone survives they can and do expand out again. It would explain why the Vaadwaur only mentioned them as in a handful of systems by the 15th century, while Guinan called them extremely ancient. And why the Borg's memory of the past is so fragmentary. They keep going through apocalypse level events, which they survive by the fittest, becoming even better. It would also explain the Queen; the last survivor of the previous iteration of the Borg, forced to become an individual while all Borg.

 

[golddragon71]

Khan Trilogy Books One and Two by Greg Cox
Khan's early years and Rise to power
Vulcan's glory
Spock and Scotty both start on the Enterprise around the same time.
Spock has relationship with T'Pris who is murdered (Spock has no further relationships while in the service)
Kirk's Autobiography formative/academy years intact.
The Cage
Kirk's Autobiography Kirk's early Starfleet career Meeting Gary Mitchell, carol Marcus, Ben Finney Leonard McCoy etc...
Enterprise the first Adventure by Vonda N McUntyre (except references to Jim's father being dead)
Kirk's autobiography Mitchell is assigned First officer status on the Enterprise
Strangers in the Sky by Margaret Wander Bonano
Kirk, Spock Dehner Mitchell and Kelso trapped in Mid Twenty-First Century to witness/participate in true first Contact between humans and Vulcans kept secret until Book comes out prior to events in Wrath of Khan 9This mission precedes First Contact in Next Gen Film by twenty years. Alterations made to "Official First Contact occur due to repeated Time travel missions resulting in distortion of history)
Where No Man has Gone Before
Kirk Autobigraphy Mitchell, Kelso and Dehner Die, Piper retires, McCoy signs on full Time Kirk Passes over Ben Finney for First officer and chooses Spock instead.
Star Trek seasons 1-3 plus Animated Series
Yesterday's Son by A.C. Crispin
Spock and McCoy realize the events in All our yesterdays resulted in Spock fathering a child. Trio go back to rescue Zar and bring him forward. Zar returns to homeworld and time to preserve history after mission against romulans on Guardian of forever's planet
Kirk's autobiography. events between TOS and TMP
Star Trek the Motion Picture.
New Five year Mission detailed mostly in Marvel Trek series
Kobayashi Maru by Julia Ecklar
Kirk, Sulu Chekov and Scotty all tell their stories about dealing with the No-Win Scenario Wargame during their time in the Academy. (Kirk's solution involved reprogramming the computer so that the Klingons reacted to his name as iif he was the greatest ship captain in starfleet history)
Spock's World by Diane Duane
Kirk's autobiography Kirk becomes Admiral Spock teaches at Starfleet with Enterprise as teaching vessel
Time For Yesterday by A.C. Crsipin
Guardian of forever begins behaving erratically, Zar is brought forward in time to assist in solving problem before going back in time to Win major historic Battle (with Help from Spock
Strangers frm the Sky
Kirk and Spock start having nightmares about tragic alternate outcome of unofficial First Contact between Earth and Vulcan. Mind meld proves both were present at event and had memories suppressed.
Star Trek II the Wrath of Khan (Events as depicted)
Star Trek DC Comics
Star Trek III the search for spock (Events as depicted
Star Trek DC Comics Continues
Star Trek IV the Voyage Home (Events as Depicted)
Khan Trilogy book 3 by Greg Cox
Kirk learns about events involving Khan between Space Seed episode and Star Trek II the Wrath of Khan
Star Trek DC Comics series I concludes
Star Trek V The Final Frontier(Events as Depicted)
Star Trek DC Comics second Run begins
Kirk placed on trial by Klingons and Nasgul
Kirk's autobiography Sulu finally gets Captain promotion and is given the Excelsior, Spock leaves Enterprise to start peace negotiations with Klingon Chancellor Gorkon
Star Trek VI (Events as Depicted)
Star Trek DC Comis Second Run concludes
Kirk's autobiography concludes Kirk retires
Star Trek Generations Kirk is lost in the Nexus Saving the Enterprise A

 

[Doom Shepherd]

There were no other Andromedans preparing to invade our galaxy, the ship that was sent was actually their equivalent of the Golgafrinchan Ark Fleet Ship B, carrying only Kelvans that the others just wanted to get rid of.

 

[Emperor Norton]

A biggie for me is assuming people misspoke or were incorrect when they said things. I understand it would throw canon into disarray if we did not assume everything said was written in stone, but we never assume anyone is flawed or said the wrong thing. Morrow was clearly wrong when he said the Enterprise was 20 years old; it was 40. Can we not just assume after that scene, he thought "whoops" before going home. I assume this as a possibility for anything on film, even outside of Star Trek. Dialogue is not necessarily perfect. Writers tend to think of it as perfect exposition, but if humans are flawed, I assume what they say can be flawed as well.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Instead, in my head, the Bird of Prey was only out there to test the plasma torpedo. They wanted to see how effective it would be against Starfleet installations, and the border outposts fitted the bill quite well. (And, indeed, the weapon proved quite effective.)

Pretty sure that's real canon, too.

HANSEN [OC]: Outposts two, three, and eight are gone. Unknown weapon. Completely destroyed, even though we were alerted. Had our deflector shield on maximum. Hit by enormous power. First attack blew our deflector shield. If they hit us again with our deflector shield gone. Do you read me, Enterprise?

COMMANDER: I think you do. No need to tell you what happens when we reach home with proof of the Earthmen's weakness. And we will have proof. The Earth commander will follow. He must. When he attacks, we will destroy him. Our gift to the homeland, another war.
CENTURION: If we are the strong, isn't this the signal for war?

 

[Shawnster]

The Sheliak either are or are related to the Excalibans

 

[Emperor Norton]

I hve the theory that there are something like three design factions at Starfleet, vying for influence on uniform changes. And depending on the timeline, one wins out over the others in some area, whether it is the uniform or combadge or whatever it may be. Which explains why uniforms are different and components are different from alternate timeline to alternate timeline.

 

[Tenacity]

Instead, in my head, the Bird of Prey was only out there to test the plasma torpedo.

In my head, there were a number of Romulan ships in the attack, the one we saw was the flagship, each Romulan ship attacked a single outpost and then returned home, the flagship made the last attack.

I hve the theory that there are something like three design factions at Starfleet, vying for influence

Look at the different warp nacelle designs, the Enterprise Refit, the Vulcan sled, the Merchantman, the Grissom.

 

[Finn]

In order to make ENT more likeable, I have the fan theory that the Temporal Cold War future presented in that series is not the actual future of Star Trek and the future people are not actually from the mainstream Star Trek future. Instead, they are from an alternate/the original future, and by interfering in the past, they erased their history and created the timeline of the mainstream Star Trek universe. That way, they are not screwing up Star Trek history and changing things in all the convoluted ways time travel does, and ENT does not exist just in the context of the TNG era.

I think the producers said this during Enterprise's run and that it was generally accepted that the "timeline changes" were creating the 24th Century we know.

 

[MAGolding]

A biggie for me is assuming people misspoke or were incorrect when they said things. I understand it would throw canon into disarray if we did not assume everything said was written in stone, but we never assume anyone is flawed or said the wrong thing. Morrow was clearly wrong when he said the Enterprise was 20 years old; it was 40. Can we not just assume after that scene, he thought "whoops" before going home. I assume this as a possibility for anything on film, even outside of Star Trek. Dialogue is not necessarily perfect. Writers tend to think of it as perfect exposition, but if humans are flawed, I assume what they say can be flawed as well.

IMHO real people, such as Star Trek writers, are flawed, but fictional characters are not flawed when it comes to describing their world. Real people are educated for most of their pre adult lives at the cost of gazillions of dollars by government and private groups in order to understand their society, while we have only a few hints about the settings of works of fiction. Thus every single mention should be as accurate as possible.

When Star Trek writers goof we have to assume that Star Trek characters don't and everything they say is accurate and true - from a certain point of view, of course.

For example, sometimes some characters may use years of different lengths. For example the Star Trek films of the '80s are said to be 15 years after the first season of TOS by Khan and Kirk and 20 years after it by Caitlin Dar, so perhaps she used years of a shorter length. And maybe Morrow used very long years when he said the Enterprise was 20 years old instead of 40.

That's a little bit of my head cannon - except when they are lying for some purpose, everything that Star Trek characters say is accurate and true - from a certain point of view, of course.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I think the producers said this during Enterprise's run and that it was generally accepted that the "timeline changes" were creating the 24th Century we know.

No, none of the producers or writers have ever said or hinted at that.

 

[Tenacity]

And maybe Morrow used very long years when he said the Enterprise was 20 years old instead of 40.

My figuring is that the 20 year figure wasn't Morrow talking about the Enterprise's original construction, but some other event, perhaps a reconstruction even more profound than the TMP "refit."

20 years would have been about 4 or 5 year before the first season of TOS. Between the time of The Cage and TOS the size of the crew more than doubled, "really packed them in."

Something happen with the ship ... to the ship.

 

[KelisThePoet]

IMHO real people, such as Star Trek writers, are flawed, but fictional characters are not flawed when it comes to describing their world. Real people are educated for most of their pre adult lives at the cost of gazillions of dollars by government and private groups in order to understand their society, while we have only a few hints about the settings of works of fiction.

That kind of education doesn't prevent misspeaking, nor does it change the fact that human memory is fallible and the human mind can only hold so much information. In the real world, experts in their field are not usually walking, talking fact machines, even in that field. Rather they are the people who have been trained to think like historians, lawyers, doctors, etc., thus know how to look up, find and process the information they don't know when they need that information for a specific task.

 

[Rahul]

A biggie for me is assuming people misspoke or were incorrect when they said things. I understand it would throw canon into disarray if we did not assume everything said was written in stone, but we never assume anyone is flawed or said the wrong thing. Morrow was clearly wrong when he said the Enterprise was 20 years old; it was 40. Can we not just assume after that scene, he thought "whoops" before going home. I assume this as a possibility for anything on film, even outside of Star Trek. Dialogue is not necessarily perfect. Writers tend to think of it as perfect exposition, but if humans are flawed, I assume what they say can be flawed as well.

THIS! Very much this.
For me there are basically two different levels of "canon":

1) Things we actually see
2) Things characters say that happened

Category 1) for me is important. People can't beam through shields. Violations there are plot holes. For 2) I give much more leeway. This is correct for as long as contradicting information comes in play. I have no problems with ret-cons here.
If a character in TOS says "women aren't allowed to be starship captains", "there was an Augment war in 1996", Spock holding a broken thing "this is the stronges substance we know" or something like that, I usually take that with a big grain of salt, because the characters might just have been wrong there.

 

[Vger23]

In my head canon, Sybok's "great intelligence" is responsible for filling a number of the existing plot holes in TFF

1. His enhanced intelligence and telepathic abilities are what allowed the creature at the center of the galaxy to reach out, find his mind, and plant the ideas in there that God existed on Sha Ka Ree.

2. Sybok has spent years figuring out a proper shield modulation so that the Enterprise can safely traverse the barrier. This is why he specifically requests a Federation starship when he is holding the hostages on Nimbus III. Klaa's shipis able to detect the specific shield changes while they are in pursuit of the Enterprise, also allowing them to pass through. I believe this is basically covered in the novelization in a very similar way

3. Similarly, he spent potentially decades of his life working on creating a transwarp tunnel or other similar artificial anomaly to allow the Enterprise to reach the center of the galaxy in a truncated time.

4. Sybok does not actually believe that God lives on Sha Ka Ree. Rather, he believes that God will manifest itself to anyone who is capable of breaching the barrier. The planet is a kind of shrine where the worthy (those passing the trial of the barrier) communicate with the almighty.

5. Going back to my first point, ultimately the being at the center of the galaxy has spent a fair amount of Sybok's life gradually altering his mind telepathically and putting these thoughts in there to lead to him taking these otherwise irrational actions. It is in fact why he abandoned logic and embraced emotion