Random Star Trek discussion

I’m going to say it, right here, right now. I’m glad Voyager was not as dark as NuBSG. I’m glad WB forced Moore to be more “lite”. NuBSG was a better program to put the darkness in and Voyager is still Trek in that it’s optimistic and looking for a bright future.

Coulda kept it Trek-optimistic without waving away lasting consequences with a magic reset button every week. That show, like Enterprise, was a study in wasted potential.

Now we've solved that problem by starting with no potential at all and digging steadily downward.

Yeah, at the very least the CGI model of Voyager should have changed every few episodes as they picked up new tech and had repairs done with alien materials, especially after Seven came aboard.

They really needed to hire a guy like JMS to sketch out a five year plan for the series. I understand the desire to not just rely on nostalgia, but it's almost criminal that a prequel series about a ship that's supposedly pivotal to major historical events was allowed to just make shit up as it went along.

I liked Enterprise, too. AND the song. Although, I liked the original better.

Yes, both series had a lot of wasted potential, but so did the other three series.

OK, I'll bite: in what ways did TOS, TNG and DS9 waste their potential?

Voyager should have sputtered over the finish line with mismatched nacelles and obvious patches all over the hull. Janeway missing an eye and at least one prosthetic limb.

One thing I appreciate about about Star Trek Online is my captains freedom to swap out their standard faction gear for whatever better stuff they pick up during missions, up to and including their ship. Voyager should have been just like that up, to and including taking on more volunteer crew members from alien species.

It's bizarre to me that it took four seasons to even begin to touch upon the less explored parts of TOS lore. Even as a brand new Trek fan with no in-depth knowledge of the franchise, the Andorian conflict was one of my favorite things in season 1.

That even a hack like Rick Berman was so against the Future Guy/ TCW bullshit that he gave it the very barest amount of screentime mandated by UPN speaks to what a horridly stupid idea it was. I have never cared to guess who Future Guy was.

I can accept there being so many "one and done" alien species on Enterprise since every other series did that too, but yeah.

In the novels it was

and in STO it's

I really wish they'd make Future Guy pay off in Discovery.
They're totally in the right timeframe to do that.
He doesn't so much time travel as time hologram, so maybe that's his loophole around the ban.

I have the sneaking suspicion he--or she!--may end up being lampooned in Lower Decks, which is exactly what that shit deserves

It is messed up that both with Enterprise and Discovery they couldn't figure out good ways to deepen the backstory of the TOS and pre-TOS period and essentially retcon things for subpar plots.

Disco never should have been placed where it was in the timeline. I appreciate everything the show is doing to bring the franchise into the 21st century but that was a hurdle it's never going to clear with the fans. The less said about her connection to Spock, the better.

And given UPN had it's sticky mitts on Enterprise and forced that TCW to allow a foot in the door to travel back to other parts of the franchise, it's a wonder the show wasn't worse. I mean, it got me into the franchise, sure, but I can't blame other fans for noping out 20 years ago.

I'll at least give them credit (mostly Discovery) for explaining the composition of the Klingon forces Kirk encountered during TOS, in that they were specifically members of the Klingon Defence Force and not representing any house, and that they were all victims or descendants of the victims of the Augment virus, which is likely why they ended up fighting for the Empire and not the honour and advancement of their own houses. When Kirk meets Kruge in TSFS, that's the first time he encounters a traditional Klingon captain onscreen.

I hope Bakula comes back as holo-Archer on Lower Decks, and they use that opportunity to fix Enterprise's glitches.

Who changed baby/toddler Spock when he was on the Genesis planet?

Wolves

It's not like he was able to feed himself as a baby either, so I'm guessing he was surviving off excess protomatter energy and didn't need to poop?

Y'know those germs that evolved into pink leeches that evolved into that worm thing that Kruge fought?

One of those evolved all the way into one of those green milk sea cow things from Last Jedi.

And it licked Spocks bum for food.

There you go.

. . . Thanks?

Nah, I think you're looking at it wrong. Spock probably would have had a lot in common with a baby koala.

The whole time travel ban thing is a load of bollocks anyway, who is policing it? The Q? You'd need something godlike to do that, otherwise there'll always be some way of avoiding detection.

Plus, you've got species across the galaxy constantly discovering new tech, what if one that hasn't yet developed warp, develops time travel? Is Captain Buttchin going to snap the Prime Directive over his knee and order the USS Trunchbull over there to tell them they're naughty boys and girls?

Or have them hunt down the author of the holostory Riker used, and charge them on crimes of historical revisionism, thus de-canonising all of ENT whilst maintaining the historical existence of the characters.

I think the general consensus is you would need to develop warp tech (or some means of FTL) in order to have the theoretical and practical models necessary for time travel. But, let's say they did - they can change history all they like on their own planet. Without warp, there's very little they could do to their own history that would affect anyone else.

Now if they pop to their own future, get warp tech and bring it back... then now they ARE warp-capable and Buttchin can have a word with them.

But yes, ultimately stopping folk developing and using tech is like the nuclear arms race here on Earth. All you can do is have the bigger stockpile and make it very difficult for people to get the materials. MAD works to a point, but there are always crazies. Star Trek Online has a pretty strong advancement of the Temporal Cold War arc with players from lots of eras - the Krenim, the Vorgons, Kal Dano (the guy who built the Tox Uthat), the Na'khul, the Sphere Builders, even the Mirror Universe Terrans (25th Century)... and Daniels again.

I think it's pretty clear that the Temporal Prime Directive is about as well enforced as the original Prime Directive.

I mean, hell, the Krenim alone - and then Admiral Janeway deciding to say screw it and fuck up the timeline to get Voyager home.

I did see a recent Voyager though that dropped that idea well before the arc though. The one where Chakotay is stuck in different time slices, and encounters a pre-Delta Quadrant Janeway who is more than willing to ignore the Temporal Prime Directive to keep her crew from being lost in the future. Though she was wiped when the timeline was reset, it was a good character moment that foreshadowed Endgame.

I continously find rewatching the Trek shows there's more there than my first watch through. Hell, I even liked Enterprise the 2nd time around.

Section 31, rejoindd. in the pale moonlight sacrifice of angels my facorite episodes

Playing Devils Advocate for that, they could go all Mr Atoz and send their civilisation back in time, or that crap dinosaur show where they sent civilisation back to the Jurassic or somesuch. You've got a neverending loop so by the time the Federation is even a thing they can traverse the galaxy.

Trek's time travel has always been ropey, but that's a function of how TOS was meant to be, and in truth, most sci-fi handles it badly - in reality time travel is the ultimate weapon where the first aggressive species to have it, is also the last as they'd use it to ensure no other species ever got advanced enough to threaten them.

Always thought Dr Who missed a trick with that, the pomp of the Time Lords being a coping mechanism for being history's biggest set of murderers.

For all of VOYs flaws, it did come up with some good time travel stories.

The novels suggested that Janeway got the same pass that Kirk did after using time travel in TVH, since the only alternative was the destruction of Earth and/or the Federation.

Presumably the climax of Year of Hell reduced most of the Krenims time travel technology down to the theoretical level.

STO had them revive it but as a desperation move when they were on the verge of extinction - they managed to shift one planet and its moon out of temporal phase so the bad guys couldn't find them. They had the plans for Annorax's ship but not the resources to make it - the equally desperate Fed-Klingon-Romulan Alliance gave them the support needed to make it real but their attempts to change history worked out badly and they had to put it "near as dammit" back the way it was... except the "near as" involved erasing most of the species (Tuterian) whose survivors would go on to become the Sphere Builders, blaming the Federation for their loss. And a Krenim scientist lost his wife and unborn child to that incident (she was Tuterian) and found out about it from her temporally-shielded logs, then went Annorax on the Temporal Alliance trying to bring her back.