Worldbuilding in Season 1

[Tribble Threat]

He was a geophysicist. But I'm talking about the worldbuilding at the time, and it's fair to assume the original writer did not intend that Jaeger was off by over 100%. That writer probably intended Star Trek to occur somewhere around the 28th century. Some other writers had different ideas about when Star Trek takes place, and one of those ideas caught on. I happen to like the 28th century idea best. I also like the idea mentioned on this thread that Vulcans got to space 200 years after humans did, and the only human foods Spock can eat are asparagus and cabbage. I say those are awesome, and they would have implications down the road. If people can't eat most food that didn't evolve on their own planet, that would have made Neelix's job much harder.


Some writers clearly had the idea that the Enterprise crew works for Earth. And in that case, I prefer the idea that caught on, that there's a federation of many species who collaborate.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Exactly my thoughts too - Jaeger is a geophysicist, not a historian. Where's McGivers when you need her?

Painting.

 

[drt]

I really liked how the Squire of Gothos implied that Star Trek takes place about 800 years in the future. And I seem to recall another episode that implied the same thing. I wish that was what caught on. It seems more plausible to me that it would take several centuries for us to go that much faster than light. And it would make it easier to believe that many of the people they meet who are identical to humans but have funny names, cultures, and clothes -- are all actual humans, whose cultures are different because they've been on these planets for centuries. I find that more interesting than convergent evolution.

Yeah, honestly that would have made more sense and still allowed them to use backlot sets and costumes from other productions. But I think once Roddenberry got the convergent evolution idea he couldn’t let it go.

As it stands now, we have to cram a lot of development into those 250 years, even setting the show in the late 25th century would have given things a lot more room to breathe.

 

[Ssosmcin]

As it stands now, we have to cram a lot of development into those 250 years, even setting the show in the late 25th century would have given things a lot more room to breathe.

We crammed a metric ton of development in 100 years. Other than world peace and warp drive, the rest of humanity is pretty recognizable in the time of the original series.