What's in YOUR 'head canon'?

[USS Meredith]

One of mine, and you might see this more as a sort of "filling the gaps of canon" kinda thing, is to just deem overpowered things as "unstable." It works like a charm - watch:

Why do they still use starships after both Scotty (transwarp beaming) and the Dominion invent basically range-less transport methods? Simple: because the methods are unstable.
Where's the conflict if everybody has industrial replicators? Well, they're not ideal replacements for genuine handiwork - after all, they're unstable.
And why doesn't everybody use augment blood if it's a miracle cure for death? Because it's risky! Do you have any idea what that blood could do to you? Kirk got lucky - that crap's unstable!

It's a bit like that teleport thing they do in Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts - apparently it's a risky method of travel that you're supposed to avoid doing, but our main characters with their plot armor can do it as much as they like. And I'm surprisingly cool with that.

 

[Voth commando1]

Since when did the dominion have range less transporters? If they did they wouldn't have needed the wormhole.

The whole transwarp beaming thing seems like a 25/26th century natural progression of Fed technology and given enough time travel shenanigans seems okay.

I'm curious I wonder if the federation found a way to adapt tech used from the radiation-in episodes the Terratin incident and One Small Ship allowing shrinkage on demand.

It would allow all sorts of scientific research to be conducted, and yay Section 31 shrink ray specops.

 

[GabyBee]

Something I've often thought about when RPing in a Star Trek setting are what Earth-based holidays survive into the 24th Century. We have a pretty solid example of Thanksgiving being celebrated by culturally "American" Federation citizens (Sisko), but to my knowledge there has never been an on-screen portrayal of Christmas.

But within my own head-canon I tend to view Christmas as sort of an Earth-wide celebration similar in style to what people in the U.S. celebrate for Thanksgiving, with the religious connotations being eliminated (as they have similarly been eliminated in 21st Century Thanksgiving traditions).

 

[Forbin]

Helen Noel mentioned the Christmas Party in Dagger of the Mind.
Kirk mentioned Thanksgiving in Charlie X

 

[USS Meredith]

Since when did the dominion have range less transporters? If they did they wouldn't have needed the wormhole.

Sorry, my error - they invented a transport that could go through shields.

 

[GabyBee]

Helen Noel mentioned the Christmas Party in Dagger of the Mind.

Right, but have we ever seen on-screen what Christmas looks like in the Federation? Janeway also mentions to Chakotay at one point words to the effect of "it looks like Christmas morning in here" after receiving gifts from a species they had made first contact with.

 

[Nyotarules]

Maybe all humans celebrate Dhwali or Ead as well as Christmas.
In my head canon humans in the Sol system and in the Human Diaspora are not solely cultural Anglo Saxons or Westerners.

 

[GabyBee]

Maybe humans all celebrate Dhwali or Ead as well as Christmas.
In my head canon humans in the Sol system and in the Human Diaspora are not cultural Anglo Saxons or Westerners.

I also have this head-canon debate often. I think based on what we've seen of background characters, as well as the manner in which starships tend to be named, Earth-based cultures that have survived into the 24th Century are "Western" aka European/American Anglo-Saxon-esque, Hispanic/Iberian, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Indian, and Arab. Off-world there are also pockets of Native American cultures that have left Earth in order to preserve their identity (supremely and tragically ironic), as well as Irish.

 

[Nyotarules]

Which reflects the Eurocentricity/White privilege of the writers. Also reflected that most aliens they meet are mainly Caucasians. There are billions of humans in the ST galaxy, the Star Trek we see is just a snapshot. If aliens were to view early American tv they would believe people with brown skin only existed to do one thing or did not exist at all, which would not be a reflection of reality. So I doubt global domination of one culture based on the humans shown in the background, and if it did occur there is no reason it cannot be a Chinese, Arabic, Asian or African one, except most of the ST writers are not from that ethnic background and neither are most of their target audience.

 

[GabyBee]

Forgot to mention that the 'African Confederation' is established by on-screen LCARS data in the form of Geordi's personnel file. So a rather singular "African" culture does supposedly exist on Earth in the 24th Century, which... yeah, kinda doesn't speak well of the Eurocentricity thing.

 

[B.J.]

....but to my knowledge there has never been an on-screen portrayal of Christmas.

What about in Generations? Granted it's Picard's Nexus-induced fantasy, but I'd imagine it's not far off from reality, given his reaction.

 

[Nerys Myk]

What about in Generations? Granted it's Picard's Nexus-induced fantasy, but I'd imagine it's not far off from reality, given his reaction.

Only with less children.

 

[GabyBee]

What about in Generations? Granted it's Picard's Nexus-induced fantasy, but I'd imagine it's not far off from reality, given his reaction.

I've always interpreted that as Picard's fantasy of living in a Charles Dickens holo-novel. Especially given the costuming of his "family"

 

[Nyotarules]

I've always interpreted that as Picard's fantasy of living in a Charles Dickens holo-novel. Especially given the costuming of his "family"

Maybe French fashions had a 'Dickens' phase lol

 

[Voth commando1]

Right, but have we ever seen on-screen what Christmas looks like in the Federation? Janeway also mentions to Chakotay at one point words to the effect of "it looks like Christmas morning in here" after receiving gifts from a species they had made first contact with.

In Death Wish Q makes Voyager into an ornament-it was some self aware marketing but still the crew doesn't react in a way saying "what Christmas hasn't been celebrated for two centuries!" Or something.

So presumably Christmas still exists in the 24th century and I imagine it wouldn't be that difficult to produce/imitate trees and ornaments.

As for the religious connotations I imagine given how supposedly educated and sophisticated 24th century humans are they would at least acknowledge its origins. Even if they weren't particularly religious.

If they were(don't want to debate Religion in Trek) nothing would stop them from setting up nativity scenes and reading from the Book of Matthew as well.

 

[GabyBee]

Maybe French fashions had a 'Dickens' phase lol

As a Spaniard I am allergic to anything French.

 

[Tenacity]

... with the religious connotations being eliminated (as they have similarly been eliminated in 21st Century Thanksgiving traditions).

Thanksgiving without the thanks? Not in my family (ymmv).

My head canon would see the Federation with no official holidays, you would celebrate the holiday's of your particular culture and religion. Taking your allotted "holiday time" as you see fit, scheduling with your boss of course.

We sort of have something like this now in America. I arrange to have Easter off, so I can have Easter dinner with my extended family (I work swing shift). Muslim coworkers take Eid al-Fitr. many Black coworkers where I work are gone on Rev. King's birthday.

In Charlie X, Kirk arranged a special meal for the crew on Thanksgiving not because all of them observed it, but because the ship's Captain does, Kirk was sharing.

 

[Nyotarules]

The only galaxy wide Federation holiday will be 'Federation day', I think it was observed on ST VOY.

P.S So only your black colleagues take MLK day off even tho its a national holiday....interesting.

 

[GabyBee]

Janeway also mentioned at one point that First Contact Day was "celebrated", but her only real memory of it was having the day off from school.

 

[Nyotarules]

I would be surprised if it was not a global Sol holiday in universe. It changed humanity forever.