When did canon become such a hot-button issue?

[Christopher]

You just write "he put on his uniform" and leave it to the reader's imagination.

Seriously, it's kinda like writing Saavik. Do you specifically describe her as looking like Kirstie Alley or as Robin Curtis, or do you just write "Saavik beamed down to the planet" and let the reader visualize her as they choose?

There are a couple of scenes in my upcoming novel The Captain's Oath (about Kirk's rarely acknowledged first command before the Enterprise) where I mention a character talking to someone's "image" over subspace communications but avoid specifying whether it's a viewscreen image or a hologram, leaving it to the readers to decide for themselves. Although I wrote it before season 2 of DSC came out and kind of settled the viewscreen-vs-holo issue.

 

[Greg Cox]

There are a couple of scenes in my upcoming novel The Captain's Oath (about Kirk's rarely acknowledged first command before the Enterprise) where I mention a character talking to someone's "image" over subspace communications but avoid specifying whether it's a viewscreen image or a hologram, leaving it to the readers to decide for themselves. Although I wrote it before season 2 of DSC came out and kind of settled the viewscreen-vs-holo issue.

Exactly. It's possible to finesse such details without throwing the baby out with the bathwater and insisting that any visual discrepancy means you're dealing with a whole new continuity or whatever.

 

[BillJ]

Darrin Stevens is Darrin Stevens, even if he looks a little different in the later episodes.

But it isn’t just Darrin that is going to look different, it will be everything and everyone. I simply don’t want to do those mental gymnastics. So I treat them as different timelines. Simple. YMMV.

EDIT: It also gives me the illusion something unexpected can happen.

 

[Christopher]

Right. Alternate timelines are a plot device within certain stories. They are not an external fix for inconsistencies in stories unrelated to the trope. You might as well invoke some other random trope -- it's different because a vast secret conspiracy changed everything! It's different because Q snapped his fingers and rewrote reality! It's different because that episode was really a virtual reality! -- but those are all non sequiturs as far as the actual needs of the narrative are concerned. Within the narrative, it's not different. The two stories are meant to share a reality even if the respective tellings interpret some facets of that reality differently.

 

[Greg Cox]

But it isn’t just Darrin that is going to look different, it will be everything and everyone. I simply don’t want to do those mental gymnastics. So I treat them as different timelines. Simple. YMMV.

I grew up on old movies and comic books. I've trained for those gymnastics my entire life.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I grew up on old movies and comic books. I've trained for those gymnastics my entire life.

Me too. I'm at the Olympic level in mental gymnastic. (Going for the gold!)

 

[Boris Skrbic]

Well, if anything it’s different because Benny Russell’s stories were adapted.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Darrin Stevens is Darrin Stevens, even if he looks a little different in the later episodes.

Witchcraft.

 

[fireproof78]

Or we just accept that they're all part of the same "timeline" and chalk up any visual discrepancies to, well, the fact that they were made by different people half a century apart. As I always say, not everything requires an "in-universe" explanation involving altered timelines or whatever. Sometimes the real-world explanation is good enough when watching, you know, a fictional TV program.

Like I've said before, it's no different than recasting a character. You don't need to explain that they had plastic surgery or genetic modifications or whatever. You just accept the new actor as the same character because that's how movies and TV work. Same with updated sets, props, special effects, etc.

Precisely so. Especially when a show is based upon current understanding of technology.

I grew up on old movies and comic books. I've trained for those gymnastics my entire life.

Me too. I'm at the Olympic level in mental gymnastic. (Going for the gold!)

Same here. I don't need the information given to me when I can find my way just fine

 

[Boris Skrbic]

But that can be made difficult by the nature of a tie-in product. For instance, there is precedent for publishing interior and exterior blueprints of the Enterprise, so now the solution would be what, making sure a TOS tie-in product details 2254, 2265-69, but conveniently says nothing specific about 2257/58, whereas a DSC tie-in product would cover only that period, because the past and the future would be speculation? The goal is not to break technical immersion by going to from the first pilot to DSC, then back to the second pilot without an explanation of line changes, so I can see disambiguation such as Enterprise (Star Trek: Discovery) evolving, even if it doesn‘t use words such as “universe” or “timeline”.

 

[Greg Cox]

Oh, god, now we're talking "technical immersion"?

One more time, the "explanation" is that they are TV shows and don't need to be 100% visually consistent with episodes made fifty-plus years ago, because we're all grown-ups who understand that it's not 1966 anymore.

Since when was the "goal" to avoid breaking "technical immersion" at all costs? Why does that matter so much?

I thought the goal was to have a successful Star Trek show that appeals to modern audiences as well as us lifelong Trekkies.

 

[Boris Skrbic]

But if you’re drawing up fictional, in-universe blueprints, you can’t have DSC style pop up after the first pilot, then go away in time for the second pilot. They’re a tie-in product, so ideally they would imagine what the parent show would do, which is maintain continuity of production design forwards and backwards also. Therefore, one style for a DSC tie-in, another for a TOS tie-in.

 

[WebLurker]

Agreed. Enterprise is from a timeline created by First Contact and Discovery is just fan fiction.

One only needs to see CBS's stamp of approval to know that DSC is not fan fiction.

ENT is factually not an alternate timeline, much less one that branched off from First Contact, since that movie never created an alternate timeline in the first place:

"Regeneration" (ENT) was designed as both a sequel to First Contact and a prequel to "Q Who" (TNG) and all the other Borg stories set in the 24th century, to the point that the creators have gone on record that they were part of the same timeline via a predestination paradox. Besides, "Relativity" (VOY) states in black and white that this is one single time loop: "The Borg once travelled back in time to stop Zefram Cochrane from breaking the warp barrier. They succeeded, but that in turn led the starship Enterprise to intervene. They assisted Cochrane with the flight the Borg was trying to prevent. Causal loop complete."

(There's also the little problem that the Abrams' movies, which branch off before the First Contact time warp got started, clearly show that ENT "always" existed in the past, which would only be the case if all was one timeline.)

I really don't get the obsession of making ENT an alternate timeline, given that that's not how the show was written, there was too much setup leading into the "original" timeline in the first place, and there's no reason to, at the end of the day.

Seriously, it's kinda like writing Saavik. Do you specifically describe her as looking like Kirstie Alley or as Robin Curtis, or do you just write "Saavik beamed down to the planet" and let the reader visualize her as they choose?

I confess: the last time I wrote Saavik, both Alley and Curtis flitted before my mind's eye from moment to moment. I didn't feel a need to consistently visualize one over the other when writing that book. Saavik is Saavik, regardless of what she looked like in one particular movie instead another.

Funny, it seems like practically all the novels (cover art, narration, etc.) always uses Curtis's likeness. Fair enough, but since I was one of those people who default to Alley's likeness when thinking about the character, it's kinda annoying. (There's a fan site for the current Star Trek RPG that, when making Saavik NPC stats, specifically made two versions, one with a photo of each actress in the role, specifically because of this question.)

 

[Boris Skrbic]

I’d visualize her as Curtis in everything set after TWOK and produced with knowledge of the recasting, otherwise Alley.

 

[Nerys Myk]

But if you’re drawing up fictional, in-universe blueprints, you can’t have DSC style pop up after the first pilot, then go away in time for the second pilot. They’re a tie-in product, so ideally they would imagine what the parent show would do, which is maintain continuity of production design forwards and backwards also. Therefore, one style for a DSC tie-in, another for a TOS tie-in.

None of them will be "in-universe" unless they're planning to use them on the show. Even then, they might change the next time a "blue print" is needed on screen. A tie-in product is just that. Something ties into the franchise. That can be any version of the "technology".

 

[Boris Skrbic]

Of course they’d be in-universe (drawn up and written from the POV of Starfleet engineers), just not canon. In order to move seamlessly between 2254, 2257 and 2265, you’d need to decide to evolve or devolve DSC or TOS styles, but not both without creating a hole. If DSC’s producers needed to show Kirk’s time, they would recast the remaining crew and bring the redesigned ship even closer to TOS. If they needed to spend time in 2254, a few minor changes might be made in that direction. A tie-in should follow suit.

 

[Christopher]

Oh, god, now we're talking "technical immersion"?

One more time, the "explanation" is that they are TV shows and don't need to be 100% visually consistent with episodes made fifty-plus years ago, because we're all grown-ups who understand that it's not 1966 anymore.

Since when was the "goal" to avoid breaking "technical immersion" at all costs? Why does that matter so much?

Here's an apposite post from Adam-Troy Castro on Facebook (which is 3 years old but popped up today due to that anniversary thing they do):

https://www.facebook.com/adamtroycastro/posts/10209296603954686

So what if it requires my active participation, to keep the illusion going? The story works. I am willing to participate.
...
I watch plays. They never rebuild Willy Loman's house on stage. They give you a simple wooden frame, tell you it's a house, and let the shadows and the performances do the rest. In short order, it becomes a house. In plays, two wooden chairs can be the characters sitting together in a car. Then the actors can visibly move them into another configuration, and they become a corporate office. Yes, I just saw them move the chairs, themselves. I can make the logical leap. I can apply this to movies, especially old movies, trying to achieve certain effects without the technology.

When fanboys complain about pixel counts in the latest sfx blockbuster, complaining about the rendering and the work of thousands of man-hours, that achieves a result which may offend them by being less than *absolutely* perfect, I get sad. Honestly.

If you want to get immersed in a story, that's what your own imagination is for. If we can look at words on pieces of paper and fill in an entire world of images and sounds and actions with our imaginations, then it should be much easier to look at an imperfect onscreen dramatization and fill in the gaps with our imaginations.

 

[Boris Skrbic]

I’m specifically talking about immersive in-universe technical manuals and blueprints here, which have been perfectly valid ST hobby products going back to FJ. Blueprints have things like corridors which are X meters long and need to fit into Y meters of ship, in this case 442 as opposed to the original 289.

DSC designers chose to discofy the Enterprise for 2257/8, so if the original didn’t work for them in those years, it’s not like they’d magically restore the exact original architecture for 2254 or 2265, respectively, merely think about changes from their new base design. A DSC tie-in product therefore needs to depict forward and backward continuity of design, same as a TOS tie-in product would with those original shapes.

As noted by Greg and Christopher, novelists can absolutely choose to leave production design to the imagination or think of it as redundant information, but there are other products which have to make that sharp choice, and disambiguation such as Star Trek: Discovery or “Discovery universe” may evolve eventually, assuming the show doesn’t become irrelevant to the 23rd century following S3, with focus returning on TOS and its own tie-in products. I just can’t see the original detailed design overwritten forever, eg. in size comparison charts or displays of ships named Enterprise.

 

[fireproof78]

I’m specifically talking about immersive in-universe technical manuals and blueprints here, which have been perfectly valid ST hobby products going back to FJ. Blueprints have things like corridors which are X meters long and need to fit into Y meters of ship, in this case 442 as opposed to the original 289.

Literally has nothing to do with canon though. Even if this is a valid hobby, it has little (if any) bearing on what is produced on screens. Fans and authors are more than welcome to explore these things in great and magnificent detail and I welcome all of them.

But, I don't, for a minute, see the current Trek writers as being beholden to any of this hobby products. And, with FJ's manual, Gene Roddenberry deliberately distanced himself from that publication.

There is much to be said regarding fan investment in these types of materials but none of them are canon in any meaningful way.

 

[Christopher]

But, I don't, for a minute, see the current Trek writers as being beholden to any of this hobby products. And, with FJ's manual, Gene Roddenberry deliberately distanced himself from that publication.

There is much to be said regarding fan investment in these types of materials but none of them are canon in any meaningful way.

Of course not. After all, professional artists and fan artists are the same -- they both want to create their own stuff. Fans design starships because they think it's cool to design starships. And guess what -- so do the pros. They want to design their own starships, not just crib someone else's. Because creators gotta create.

Fans today are too obsessed with the "reality" of fiction, with cataloguing its details as if they were encyclopedic facts, and in doing so, they forget that fiction is made by people who want to imagine and invent and play with ideas.