Your opinion on SNWs Gorn

[Yistaan]

Sisko: Look, of course I want to meet Kirk. I'd like to shake his hand, ask him about fighting the Gorn.

Dax: You do know that a LOT more people fought the Gorn than just Kirk right? Emony literally died and the Dax symbiont was transferred to Audrid after Emony got infested with Gorn eggs.

Sisko: ...

 

[Noname Given]

Okay, but TNG's first episode says World War Three happened in the late 21st century. Clearly a change from TOS saying it was in the nineties. Now that we have an explanation for the switch, it might as well be used to explain that discrepancy.

Eugenics War <> WW IiI, but Eugenics War ultimately lead to WW IiI.

 

[HotRod]

Eugenics War <> WW IiI, but Eugenics War ultimately lead to WW IiI.

Multiple sources pin them as the same thing.

 

[Noname Given]

You keep saying this. And it's true. We don't know how they reproduce. We don't know that they all look like this Gorn. We don't know if there are factions, or an Empire, or if this is some kind of refugee ship.

But you know what we KNOW? We have never met them before.

So with one episode you really only have one "fact" to avoid. That's easy, right?

Just like the Federation never met the Borg before TNG's Q Who (where Data even unequivocally states there are no records of this type of species)...

So yeah, 7 of 9 shouldn't exist...but in Trek canon, she does.

Star Trek's entire continuity has never been even close to consistent since the first Trek pilot in 1965 - and no the Berman era was no better in this regard either.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

In Q Who they're clearly learning about the Borg for the first time (even though Guinan could've told Starfleet about them a century ago), but I don't recall them outright saying 'we've never heard of anything like this'.

Seven's backstory has her parents going rogue to chase rumours, like someone on an expedition to hunt for Bigfoot. It's not great that people were already aware of the Borg so early, but the writers did make an effort to try to make it fit.

Star Trek's entire continuity has actually been pretty consistent, and when it hasn't... it deserved to be called out for its mistakes. "It's been bad before so why are you bothered about it being bad now?" isn't a great argument in my opinion.

 

[fireproof78]

Star Trek's entire continuity has never been even close to consistent since the first Trek pilot in 1965 - and no the Berman era was no better in this regard either.

I think the biggest difference for many is that in as much time as those episodes have aired viewers have created papering over inconsistencies.

Newer Trek hasn't been given that opportunity.

 

[Tallguy]

The difference with the Borg and the Gorn is that different characters encountered the Borg. (Why didn't Guinan's folk tip the Fed off about the mechanical army ants? Always been a very good question.)

And that was kind of where they were trying to go with the first Gorn appearance. Pike treated them like tall tales. And La'an has noted that the survivors were vanishingly few. I've posted the interview with one of the writers of the first Gorn episode that they were trying very hard to keep Arena as a first contact episode. That went out the window with the next episode.

But now when we watch Arena we now know that Uhura, Spock, Chapel (who is not in the episode), and Scott have all gotten up close and personal with these folk. And the Federation has had notable encounters with them, especially the Enterprise. And Kirk has no clue.

And you know who knew who the Borg were when she saw them? Guinan! You know who recognized the Borg artifacts from a year previous from along the Neutral Zone? Data!

 

[Mudd]

Into Darkness is Kelvin 9/11 Truther garbage. "What Into Darkness has said is unimportant, and we do not hear its words."

That's one way of interpreting it, based presumably on some familiarity with the personal beliefs of one of the writers.

What it was more generally about, IMO, was the Federation's surrender of its principles in the aftermath of the destruction of Vulcan, which was a fair analogy to what many folks thought happened in the United States following the Twin Towers attacks on 9/11: heightened domestic surveillance and intrusive security, the Patriot Act, instigation of foreign wars based on poor intelligence and bad reasoning, extreme rendition, torture of prisoners, violations of due process.

STID is perhaps the only Star Trek film with the balls to embrace Trek's vaunted reputation for "commenting on issues in current society."

 

[Tallguy]

That's one way of interpreting it, based presumably on some familiarity with the personal beliefs of one of the writers.

I had no idea of his specific views when I saw the film. I thought it was pretty transparent.

STID is perhaps the only Star Trek film with the balls to embrace Trek's vaunted reputation for "commenting on issues in current society."

I will grant you that. Of course "crazy" often has a lot of balls.

 

[Mudd]

There will always be those who mean to do us harm. To stop them, we risk awakening the same evil within ourselves. Our first instinct is to seek revenge when those we love are taken from us. But that's not who we are.

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A government plot to instigate or take advantage of a terrorist attack, ala Truther conspiracies, isn't the initial inciting incident of the STID plot - the government's defense response to a terrorist attack (the destruction of Vulcan) is.

 

[fireproof78]

But now when we watch Arena we now know that Uhura, Spock, Chapel (who is not in the episode), and Scott have all gotten up close and personal with these folk. And the Federation has had notable encounters with them, especially the Enterprise. And Kirk has no clue.

And Kirk needs to know? It's not like they know who the aliens are until Kirk is on the planet and by then any crew information is useless.

The Gorn to me are like the Trill.

 

[Yistaan]

And Kirk needs to know? It's not like they know who the aliens are until Kirk is on the planet and by then any crew information is useless.

The Gorn to me are like the Trill.

Except April in SNW confirms the Fed are having tense talks with the Gorn and are almost at war with them. Kirk's the youngest First Officer in the fleet. For him not to know this is going on at the time is strange. Furthermore, at this point after Hemmer's death it's HIGHLY likely that all command level officers would be briefed on Gorn reproduction methods and to identify symptoms of Gorn egg infestation. Kirk, as a first officer leading away missions, would be in these briefings.

 

[fireproof78]

Except April in SNW confirms the Fed are having tense talks with the Gorn and are almost at war with them. Kirk's the youngest First Officer in the fleet. For him not to know this is going on at the time is strange. Furthermore, at this point after Hemmer's death it's HIGHLY likely that all command level officers would be briefed on Gorn reproduction methods and to identify symptoms of Gorn egg infestation. Kirk, as a first officer leading away missions, would be in these briefings.

So this is Gorn configuration he's not familiar with. It's presentation is different, not fitting what the briefings stated.

 

[Tallguy]

So this is Gorn configuration he's not familiar with. It's presentation is different, not fitting what the briefings stated.

The "configuration" (rubber suit) is the very last thing he learns. It acts (and its crew acts) pretty much like the Gorn that we have encountered in SNW.

The attack on the outpost is apparently textbook Gorn. (It's certainly how they attacked in the SNW stories we've seen. If for no other reason than the writers wanted us to associate that behavior with Arena.) Then he is told "Yes, it's a Gorn" before he ever lays eyes on any individual. The very last thing he gets is seeing the man in the rubber suit. Which is still a vicious lizard.

If he had run into a Horta or a Romulan then maybe he might have been questioning more of his briefings. But this is pretty much exactly what the Federation has been engaging with for almost a decade.

 

[Yistaan]

The "configuration" (rubber suit) is the very last thing he learns. It acts (and its crew acts) pretty much like the Gorn that we have encountered in SNW.

The attack on the outpost is apparently textbook Gorn. (It's certainly how they attacked in the SNW stories we've seen. If for no other reason than the writers wanted us to associate that behavior with Arena.) Then he is told "Yes, it's a Gorn" before he ever lays eyes on any individual. The very last thing he gets is seeing the man in the rubber suit. Which is still a vicious lizard.

If he had run into a Horta or a Romulan then maybe he might have been questioning more of his briefings. But this is pretty much exactly what the Federation has been engaging with for almost a decade.

Maybe Kirk had a senior moment. He apparently forgot he met Demora Sulu before too in Generations.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Maybe Kirk had a senior moment. He apparently forgot he met Demora Sulu before too in Generations.

No, he didn't recognize Demora because when he last saw her she was a child.

 

[fireproof78]

The "configuration" (rubber suit) is the very last thing he learns. It acts (and its crew acts) pretty much like the Gorn that we have encountered in SNW.

The attack on the outpost is apparently textbook Gorn. (It's certainly how they attacked in the SNW stories we've seen. If for no other reason than the writers wanted us to associate that behavior with Arena.) Then he is told "Yes, it's a Gorn" before he ever lays eyes on any individual. The very last thing he gets is seeing the man in the rubber suit. Which is still a vicious lizard.

If he had run into a Horta or a Romulan then maybe he might have been questioning more of his briefings. But this is pretty much exactly what the Federation has been engaging with for almost a decade.

He learns it's the Gorn right before he is taken away. So he learns that the aliens are known he has to adjust but he goes based on what's known at the time.

The Gorn were apparently not expected in the area, being an unexplored quadrant.

Should he be acting different? Because he's perhaps facing unknowns variables of the Gorn. The ship is not known, the area is unknown. Assuming it must be Gorn is not helpful.

 

[HotRod]

At this point, I just wish everyone would wait and see what the show is gonna do with the Gorn before jumping to the conclusion that TPTB don't care even the slightest bit about continuity, when they clearly do. They're clearly willing to bend the continuity a bit, as every series has. But the fact they bothered to have Pike a Fleet Captain when he met Kirk, plus other little details throughout the series, tells me that they do care about things that have been firmly established.

 

[fireproof78]

At this point, I just wish everyone would wait and see what the show is gonna do with the Gorn before jumping to the conclusion that TPTB don't care even the slightest bit about continuity, when they clearly do. They're clearly willing to bend the continuity a bit, as every series has. But the fact they bothered to have Pike a Fleet Captain when he met Kirk, plus other little details throughout the series, tells me that they do care about things that have been firmly established.

Agreed.


I'm also willing to bend with them, flex the continuity a little, and find ways to work with it rather than dismiss it out of hand for being poor continuity.

Trek is full of these and in my enjoyment of Trek I often find bending with it is more enjoyable than kicking it out of the continuity.

 

[Daedalus]

Imagine the conversations we could be having by Season 4. Curveball after curveball mightve happened, which renders the whole conversation a bit redundant. We just cant possibly know.