What's the worst non-canon decision in the history of Trek?

[The Wormhole]

Geordi did mention dolphins on board in The Perfect Mate, which at least implied the existence of a Cetacean Ops in the Prime timeline.

I always felt that one was a bit problematic. If these dolphins are indeed Cetacean Ops, than it means that people are allowed to go to Cetacean Ops for no reason but to gawk at the dolphins as they do their jobs. Which sounds unbelievably messed up. These dolphins are members of the crew doing jobs specific to the function of the ship. Yet, people who otherwise have no business being there are allowed to go hang out and gawk at the dolphins as they do their jobs? Geordi wouldn't tolerate someone showing up in engineering just to gawk at everyone doing their jobs there. Dr. Crusher wouldn't tolerate someone hanging out in sickbay who wasn't staff or in need of medical attention. Picard or Riker wouldn't tolerate anyone on the bridge who had no business being there. So why is behavior that's frowned on everywhere else on the ship allowed in Cetacean Ops?

It's only gotten worse with Lower Decks actually stating people on the Cerritos go for swims in Cetacean Ops for recreation.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ I'm sure if the dolphins objected to any of this, Starfleet would take steps to accommodate them.

 

[Stevil2001]

Dolphins are exhibitionists. That's actually the whole reason they go into space, so they can be seen. Have you ever seen one wearing clothes?

 

[TheAlmanac]

More in the Blackfish sense that a ship not specifically designed to allow them freedom of movement would be a hellish existence rather than Starfleet wouldn't have aquatic members. There's a reason that poor dolphin in Johnny Mnemonic is a drug addict. He's all cooped up in an aquarium.

Ideally (or, at least, somewhat less problematically), a starship would have dedicated "water corridors" like the ones on seaQuest DSV where cetacean (and Xindi-Aquatic and so forth) crewmembers could have free (or, at least, somewhat less restrictive) access.

 

[Charles Phipps]

Ishan Anjar being a Bajoran collaborator with the Cardassians and having a fake identity. I feel like that was a weird "get out of portraying the Federation badly" versus an actually nativist politician who oversteps the line.

 

[DGCatAniSiri]

Ishan Anjar being a Bajoran collaborator with the Cardassians and having a fake identity. I feel like that was a weird "get out of portraying the Federation badly" versus an actually nativist politician who oversteps the line.

Personally, I’m okay with that one specific example, but I’d have liked more examination of the fallout of the Dominion War and subsequent crises creating a Starfleet that defaults to military responses, the fleet that was perfectly willing to just accept him without question, exploring the questions of who and what Starfleet IS in the wake of so much combat that there are roughly twenty years worth of officers forged through combat, rather than exploration.

One of those stories we lose out on getting because of the Litverse wrapping up.

 

[Tuskin38]

Except:

1) The impossibly big turboshaft interiors were introduced at the start of season 2 while the ship was still in the 23rd century.

Someone measured the interior in Season 2 by eyeball and the estimated size based of the turbolifts and it does barely fit in the secondary hull. But the Season 3 one appears to be way bigger than Season 2's.

A diagram from a Season 2 artbook had a big space in the secondary hull labelled as a 'Systems Hub', I assume that was the art team trying to justify it

https://twitter.com/Captain_Revo/status/1330249231567876100

 

[Therin of Andor]

Conversely, the only things we know it digitized received special emphasis in the presentation. Epsilon IX wasn't floating around with all the planets and moons and things, it was a grainy image inside the big mouth thing. Ilia was a massive statue.

This is covered in the novelization.

"Enormous golden spheres rotating slowly ahead. Unreal. Spock fought a sense of vertigo. Was he seeing or was he feeling these things? Spock shut his eyes and, yes, they were still there and other shapes, too, and somehow they were all telling him things."

When Spock saw stars, he wondered how he could be seeing them inside the alien vessel.

"Illusion? He did not think so. This was reality he was experiencing, but it was reality at some level that his own limited mind could not comprehend. Just as a Stone Age mind could not have comprehended holocom images."

The layers of information imprinted on Spock's mind, such as one of the Klingon ships, the Enterprise security guard (not in the final print, of course), a wall of "exhibits" and glimpses of the Planet of Living Machines.

 

[JD]

Maybe cetacean ops has a holographic system so the dolphins have miles of open water to swin in.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I always felt that one was a bit problematic. If these dolphins are indeed Cetacean Ops, than it means that people are allowed to go to Cetacean Ops for no reason but to gawk at the dolphins as they do their jobs. Which sounds unbelievably messed up.

They would be entitled to recreational time and part of their section of the ship would be dedicated to that, and there would be an area conducive to casual interactions with other sentient beings. The whole of Cetacean Ops wouldn't be "work only".

 

[Christopher]

They would be entitled to recreational time and part of their section of the ship would be dedicated to that, and there would be an area conducive to casual interactions with other sentient beings. The whole of Cetacean Ops wouldn't be "work only".

Excellent point. Dolphins are extremely social, playful beings. It's why we get along so well with them -- we're both social species by nature, and we need community and interaction.

Although, really, in that case you'd think you'd see dolphins participating more fully in shipboard life overall, instead of being segregated to their little corner of the ship where people have to come to them. Someone above mentioned water corridors like Darwin had in SeaQuest. There's also Hwiii's approach from Diane Duane's Dark Mirror, an antigrav hoversuit for "swimming" through the air. (I think the dolphins in Brin's Uplift series had something similar, though I haven't read it in a while.)

 

[Therin of Andor]

Although, really, in that case you'd think you'd see dolphins participating more fully in shipboard life overall...

Of course, but the budget guys would prefer that the novelists and "Lower Decks" animators tackled that situation. Look how long it took to get Andorians with moving antennae!

 

[Charles Phipps]

This is going to be a weird complaint and is by no means a reflection on the authors:

The fact we never got a Turkana IV novel about Tasha Yar's backstory. I think that place is probably one of the most fascinating in the entirety of the Federation and would have loved to have seen a description how an idealistic Federation world can just so utterly fail.

It's why I liked DRASTIC MEASURES where we get pretty much another image of a fascist coup in an otherwise Feddie world.

 

[dupersuper]

This is going to be a weird complaint and is by no means a reflection on the authors:

The fact we never got a Turkana IV novel about Tasha Yar's backstory. I think that place is probably one of the most fascinating in the entirety of the Federation and would have loved to have seen a description how an idealistic Federation world can just so utterly fail.

It's why I liked DRASTIC MEASURES where we get pretty much another image of a fascist coup in an otherwise Feddie world.

The novel Survivors went into Yar's backstory, but not Turkana IV's.

 

[Unimatrix Q]

This is going to be a weird complaint and is by no means a reflection on the authors:

The fact we never got a Turkana IV novel about Tasha Yar's backstory. I think that place is probably one of the most fascinating in the entirety of the Federation and would have loved to have seen a description how an idealistic Federation world can just so utterly fail.

It's why I liked DRASTIC MEASURES where we get pretty much another image of a fascist coup in an otherwise Feddie world.

Yep. As i already mentioned before, it was one of the greatest mistakes during the time of the now ending novelverse to never have done anything with Turkana IV and instead have this planet erased by the Borg during the Destiny arc.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

The story from an insider is that the turbolift funhouse came directly from Kurtzman himself despite protests from the art department who had already come up with their own internal layout for Disco which did not leave room for such a contraption.

Supposedly, Kurtzman's reasoning was to address why the ship is twice the size of a Constitution class but only has a fraction of the crew. But then they completely ignored that in the Q&A Short Trek by showing the Enterprise also had a turbolift funhouse of its own.

I hope we don’t see the turbolift funhouse in Strange New Worlds.

 

[Charles Phipps]

I hope we don’t see the turbolift funhouse in Strange New Worlds.

I fully expect someone to do a STRANGE NEW WORLDS novel that says, "The Boralleium-Ion energy of the Turbolift shaft had a weird vertigo-inducing effect that caused many viewers to hallucinate a vast labyrinth of steel and pipes."

 

[F. King Daniel]

I hope we don’t see the turbolift funhouse in Strange New Worlds.

Do we know if it's the same VFX guys?

To be honest I find it amusing. They're hitting us over the head with THIS STUFF DOESN'T MATTER but we never listen.

 

[Charles Phipps]

Do we know if it's the same VFX guys?

To be honest I find it amusing. They're hitting us over the head with THIS STUFF DOESN'T MATTER but we never listen.

Its a funny experience watching Deep Space Nine with my wife and having to explain so often, "The transporters were made so they didn't have to use shuttles as they were more expensive"

 

[Therin of Andor]

I fully expect someone to do a STRANGE NEW WORLDS novel that says, "The Boralleium-Ion energy of the Turbolift shaft had a weird vertigo-inducing effect that caused many viewers to hallucinate a vast labyrinth of steel and pipes."

It will have Stygian darkness, too.