A 'records were lost' excuse gets harder to believe as technology improves, though. Like, how would modern day records get destroyed? You'd have to start with planet-covering EMPs and/or a massive computer virus, then build from there. Also everyone who knows how to read and write dies.
The only way to make it plausible is to really go in on the level and scale of destruction, which ends up elaborating on the details you want to keep to a minimum in the first place.
I think Futurama covered it best: All digital records from that time were erased by the second coming of Jesus.
My point isn't that the obsessive fans beg for the details, it's that once you dangle it out there, pretty much everyone wants to know more on some level. Some of them are in charge of making the thing. We wondered what the Clone Wars were that Obi-Wan fought in, we kept hearing about the Time War that wiped out the Daleks except for all the ones it didn't.
I don't think that's true. I think most people don't care. And I think especially not the writers for the most part. And it's not something you need to or should cater to. Maybe it comes up in more detail as part of the story but the story is the point, not the history.
Also it's shockingly easy for a lot of stuff to get destroyed these days. A lot of the kind of records and correspondence we study in history no longer exists in formats that will last a long time or potentially even be readable. And there's not exactly a ton of interest these days in it's preservation from most people.
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That_GuyI don't wanna be that guyRegistered Userregular
A 'records were lost' excuse gets harder to believe as technology improves, though. Like, how would modern day records get destroyed? You'd have to start with planet-covering EMPs and/or a massive computer virus, then build from there. Also everyone who knows how to read and write dies.
The only way to make it plausible is to really go in on the level and scale of destruction, which ends up elaborating on the details you want to keep to a minimum in the first place.
I think Futurama covered it best: All digital records from that time were erased by the second coming of Jesus.
My point isn't that the obsessive fans beg for the details, it's that once you dangle it out there, pretty much everyone wants to know more on some level. Some of them are in charge of making the thing. We wondered what the Clone Wars were that Obi-Wan fought in, we kept hearing about the Time War that wiped out the Daleks except for all the ones it didn't.
I think it is more most records were lost. You get stories and tales. And some incomplete records.
Considering WWIII is a nuclear war this all plausible.
While all the records of the time before WW3 were lost, the time traveling historians from the TOS era filled in the largest gaps. The events of "Assignment Earth" established that the Federation was sending ships backward in time to observe important historical events. So they probably have great records for events like the launch of Apollo 11 but not much for the Friday after.
I just finished Discovery Season 4! I would never have believed how much my opinion on this show would change over the years.
I think they did a lot better job using the characters to drive stuff forward. They really used all of them to push the story forward. Book and Burnham's story especially really felt great start to finish. I was so happy when they didn't kill Book off at the last second.
The DMA plot line held up a lot better than their previous season arcs as well. Species 10-C were amazing in action. I was annoyed by the action scenes interrupting the establishing of communication, but I might be in a minority on this. Actions scenes don't do anything for me, but a good Darmok episode lights me up. It really tied in well to the general themes of the season. I was afraid they were going to go with a hostie species towards the end. Just more Star Fleet finding new life and connecting with it. So good!
I will say I think I need to stop getting attached to characters. It has not worked out well for me so far. Adira, Gray, and Tilly were the 3 I was most excited for through season 4. That... did not work out great for me. At least one is still around? They are my favorite of the three as well so hopefully we will see more of them next season. Just stop writing my favorite characters out of the series! Is it too much to ask?!
Saying the records of pre war were lost open up more problems than just ignoring the existing problems, earth still had enough functional scientific institutes to launch spacecraft and tree satellites after WW3 and trek characters constantly know incredible details of the past
I just finished Discovery Season 4! I would never have believed how much my opinion on this show would change over the years.
I think they did a lot better job using the characters to drive stuff forward. They really used all of them to push the story forward. Book and Burnham's story especially really felt great start to finish. I was so happy when they didn't kill Book off at the last second.
The DMA plot line held up a lot better than their previous season arcs as well. Species 10-C were amazing in action. I was annoyed by the action scenes interrupting the establishing of communication, but I might be in a minority on this. Actions scenes don't do anything for me, but a good Darmok episode lights me up. It really tied in well to the general themes of the season. I was afraid they were going to go with a hostie species towards the end. Just more Star Fleet finding new life and connecting with it. So good!
I will say I think I need to stop getting attached to characters. It has not worked out well for me so far. Adira, Gray, and Tilly were the 3 I was most excited for through season 4. That... did not work out great for me. At least one is still around? They are my favorite of the three as well so hopefully we will see more of them next season. Just stop writing my favorite characters out of the series! Is it too much to ask?!
Onto SNW next! So much Star Trek, so little time.
I felt like Season 4 needed one more episode in the end, so the action stuff could be separated more from the other stuff (which was far more interesting). It felt a little rushed to reach the conclusion of the season. But yeah, the main arc was far more interesting this time around.
I don't think that's true. I think most people don't care. And I think especially not the writers for the most part. And it's not something you need to or should cater to. Maybe it comes up in more detail as part of the story but the story is the point, not the history.
Mm....probably.
Maybe it's like Terminator and Terminator Salvation. We all thought we wanted a Future War movie, but in the end....that movie is a lot different than what Terminator and Terminator 2 were about.
Although....I still want a competent Future War movie....
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That_GuyI don't wanna be that guyRegistered Userregular
Saying the records of pre war were lost open up more problems than just ignoring the existing problems, earth still had enough functional scientific institutes to launch spacecraft and tree satellites after WW3 and trek characters constantly know incredible details of the past
There is no evidence of this shown on screen. Zefram Cochrane built his ship out of leftover nukes and parts replicated on The Enterprise. There is no reason to think that Cochrane had any institutional training. There's no reason to think that anything outside of the E parts were brand new.
What makes you think there were still universities and functional industry after WW3?
I just finished Discovery Season 4! I would never have believed how much my opinion on this show would change over the years.
I think they did a lot better job using the characters to drive stuff forward. They really used all of them to push the story forward. Book and Burnham's story especially really felt great start to finish. I was so happy when they didn't kill Book off at the last second.
The DMA plot line held up a lot better than their previous season arcs as well. Species 10-C were amazing in action. I was annoyed by the action scenes interrupting the establishing of communication, but I might be in a minority on this. Actions scenes don't do anything for me, but a good Darmok episode lights me up. It really tied in well to the general themes of the season. I was afraid they were going to go with a hostie species towards the end. Just more Star Fleet finding new life and connecting with it. So good!
I will say I think I need to stop getting attached to characters. It has not worked out well for me so far. Adira, Gray, and Tilly were the 3 I was most excited for through season 4. That... did not work out great for me. At least one is still around? They are my favorite of the three as well so hopefully we will see more of them next season. Just stop writing my favorite characters out of the series! Is it too much to ask?!
Onto SNW next! So much Star Trek, so little time.
I felt like Season 4 needed one more episode in the end, so the action stuff could be separated more from the other stuff (which was far more interesting). It felt a little rushed to reach the conclusion of the season. But yeah, the main arc was far more interesting this time around.
Yeah I think that could have helped a lot. The action stuff informed the interesting stuff in an cool way that was undercut by it distracting from the better parts of the episode.
Saying the records of pre war were lost open up more problems than just ignoring the existing problems, earth still had enough functional scientific institutes to launch spacecraft and tree satellites after WW3 and trek characters constantly know incredible details of the past
There is no evidence of this shown on screen. Zefram Cochrane built his ship out of leftover nukes and parts replicated on The Enterprise. There is no reason to think that Cochrane had any institutional training. There's no reason to think that anything outside of the E parts were brand new.
What makes you think there were still universities and functional industry after WW3?
because they launched a giant domed forest into earth orbit?
The majority of data storage devices on earth surviving WW3, Starfleet captains fire off sayings of ancient cultures constantly or refer to very specific things that happened in history. Pike can call up CNN footage without any issue
saying "The records are lost" breaks the canon of the current series in an effort to fix a canon issue that really isn't a canon issue, because this series is not Star Trek: The Original Series and I feel like most people don't really care that the timeline is a moving target based on when the series is made
What domed forest? In Enterprise, a century later with Vulcan assistance, the largest stations in the solar system were open docks, and Mars and the moon were limited to tube module habitats. The Jupiter Station we see in Voyager is not the same one from Enterprise, and Earth Space Dock wouldn't be built for nearly another century.
What domed forest? In Enterprise, a century later with Vulcan assistance, the largest stations in the solar system were open docks, and Mars and the moon were limited to tube module habitats. The Jupiter Station we see in Voyager is not the same one from Enterprise, and Earth Space Dock wouldn't be built for nearly another century.
In Strange New Worlds, they basically say that Earth launched seed packets or some such sci fi garble nonsense into space to preserve it while we blew ourselves to hell. These grew into literal forests in space in domes that Starfleet then build their first starbase around.
Which is pretty insane and also means Tilly marveling over the arcology ship in Discovery now looks stupid in retrospect.
Taken in isolation of SNW, though, it was cool.
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Anson Mount makes me willing to ignore / overlook a bunch of stuff. I didn't even think about the domed forests possibly contradicting other shows or prior known facts.
Granted, I'm not hardcore enough to even notice that to begin with.
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I noticed but really don't care. The idea itself and what it represents is more import than any story inconsistencies.
Hopefully that's what's going through the heads of the writers.
If you must create a canon explanation, you can just say the forests were moved elsewhere by the time the earlier series/movies showed space around Earth. Or it was just on the other side.
Had to go back and rewatch because I'm sure that's what he said and yes, Pike says that Starbase One's biodomes were built around the seed ships, not that they were the seed ships.
We've seen a number of pre-war seed ships and colony ships, mostly in screen images and not directly, but the DY-500 was only the middle tier and had decks dedicated to livestock and crop planting and a couple of them could comfortably fit inside those domes. There were at least three more models in the DY series larger than the 500.
The domes are of very recent construction, as they were added to Starbase One since the Klingon War seen in Discovery season 1.
Saying the records of pre war were lost open up more problems than just ignoring the existing problems, earth still had enough functional scientific institutes to launch spacecraft and tree satellites after WW3 and trek characters constantly know incredible details of the past
There is no evidence of this shown on screen. Zefram Cochrane built his ship out of leftover nukes and parts replicated on The Enterprise. There is no reason to think that Cochrane had any institutional training. There's no reason to think that anything outside of the E parts were brand new.
What makes you think there were still universities and functional industry after WW3?
Something I just considered, maybe records exist, but the records are massively compromised. Not in terms of lost data, but competing contradictory data.
What's the result of the 2020 elections? How did Covid19 originate? Is JFK still alive and ready to lead conservatives in an ideaological war against progressives at the age of 105?
We live in a world with at least two primary infospheres within the US, more if you include other sources (Russia and the war in Ukraine, China and it's war on Uighurs, Taiwan, Winnie the Pooh.
Even if nothing was fragmented, it'd still be hard to pull the truth, from an outside observer, decades or centuries distant.
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daveNYCWhy universe hate Waspinator?Registered Userregular
Saying the records of pre war were lost open up more problems than just ignoring the existing problems, earth still had enough functional scientific institutes to launch spacecraft and tree satellites after WW3 and trek characters constantly know incredible details of the past
There is no evidence of this shown on screen. Zefram Cochrane built his ship out of leftover nukes and parts replicated on The Enterprise. There is no reason to think that Cochrane had any institutional training. There's no reason to think that anything outside of the E parts were brand new.
What makes you think there were still universities and functional industry after WW3?
There had to be at least a fair amount of industry and technical expertise for Cochrane to build his ship. Even if the warp drive itself was a pure eureka moment with the design popping into his head fully formed, the rest of the ship, life support, maneuvering thrusters, controls, power source, whatever the landing system was, mounting it on the ICBM, etc. That's not trivial stuff that can be slapped together and most of that isn't stuff that could be scrounged off of the next silo over. Unless First Contact is a closed-loop where the Borg needed to attack so the Enterprise would go back and hook Cochrane up with all the gubbins so that he wouldn't die when one of the warp nacelles didn't deploy because it had vacuum welded in place.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
Cochrane was a professor before the war if I remember right. He wasn't just a random dude making a space ship out of no knowledge. And there were more engineers in the design system not just him.
Also First Contact seems like a time loop per Enterprise because he talks about the Borg in a commencement speech.
But its time travel who knows.
We also know he gets it working in the Terran universe. They just kill the Vulcans and take their ship.
The collapse of society post-war probably wasn't uniform. Boseman, Montana looked rough, sure, but it wasn't exactly Walking Dead or Max Max levels of post-apocalyptic. Some people in some places likely continued industry and academia, though at greatly reduced capacity.
Cochrane did the theoretical work for FTL travel, but it the actual technology existed before the war. Kinda like how we had the tools to create nuclear weapons in 1920s, we just had to figure out how.
A 'records were lost' excuse gets harder to believe as technology improves, though. Like, how would modern day records get destroyed? You'd have to start with planet-covering EMPs and/or a massive computer virus, then build from there. Also everyone who knows how to read and write dies.
The only way to make it plausible is to really go in on the level and scale of destruction, which ends up elaborating on the details you want to keep to a minimum in the first place.
I think Futurama covered it best: All digital records from that time were erased by the second coming of Jesus.
My point isn't that the obsessive fans beg for the details, it's that once you dangle it out there, pretty much everyone wants to know more on some level. Some of them are in charge of making the thing. We wondered what the Clone Wars were that Obi-Wan fought in, we kept hearing about the Time War that wiped out the Daleks except for all the ones it didn't.
You would be shocked and terrified at the state of digital preservation. Let alone during a large nuclear conflict causing EMPs to flare off everywhere.
The records of the time being a scrambled mess of mostly known events with no particular order honestly checks out.
As does the fact that Trek characters still quote classical literature and history: Those are significantly more preserved and also don't have massive servers of fake news and contradicting 'facts' as modern history almost certainly tries to establish on social media.
As far as a contrivance to allow for Calvin Balling 'how do we get here?' as a question the scrambled, hard to interpret records have only gotten more easy to believe with our increased reliance on computer storage and social networks, not less.
Let's be honest, there's a very simple and obvious reason why Picard in TNG never quotes anyone from the 2000s, and I'm perfectly happy for them to never bother to explain it.
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
Just finished DS9. What an absolutely wonderful show. I'm sad to see it end. I guess I need to move onto Voyager but I know the quality kind of dips from here.
TNG and DS9 are just so fucking good that everything else pales in comparison.
Just finished DS9. What an absolutely wonderful show. I'm sad to see it end. I guess I need to move onto Voyager but I know the quality kind of dips from here.
TNG and DS9 are just so fucking good that everything else pales in comparison.
Not sure if you've watched it already, but if you haven't, Voyager is definitely worth a watch. I watched it last year in it's entirety, having previously gotten less than half way through.
It gets off to an uneven start, and does a couple characters dirty, but it's nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be.
The hits outweigh the misses, and at the end, I do not regret having invested the time. There's enough episodes that rank above the Star Trek median, even if they don't reach the highs of those two series, that you won't want to miss.
Sure, there are some stinkers, but I'll go on record as saying some TNG episodes were worse (Tasha Gets Force Married And Duels To The Death, and the Beverly Bangs A Ghost, are worse than Salamander Time, IMO)
Someone in my STO fleet recently watched VOY for the first time. They struggled with the first season, and then someone else provided a curated list of the better episodes.
Just finished DS9. What an absolutely wonderful show. I'm sad to see it end. I guess I need to move onto Voyager but I know the quality kind of dips from here.
TNG and DS9 are just so fucking good that everything else pales in comparison.
Not sure if you've watched it already, but if you haven't, Voyager is definitely worth a watch. I watched it last year in it's entirety, having previously gotten less than half way through.
It gets off to an uneven start, and does a couple characters dirty, but it's nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be.
The hits outweigh the misses, and at the end, I do not regret having invested the time. There's enough episodes that rank above the Star Trek median, even if they don't reach the highs of those two series, that you won't want to miss.
Sure, there are some stinkers, but I'll go on record as saying some TNG episodes were worse (Tasha Gets Force Married And Duels To The Death, and the Beverly Bangs A Ghost, are worse than Salamander Time, IMO)
Voyager is absolutely up for me to watch. I think I'm going to take a short break from Trek for a minute. Watching TNG then DS9 is a whole lot of show haha.
It was my comfort throughout the pandemic. It'll be weird for me to associate covid with TNG and DS9 but it's honestly how I managed to not lose my mind during all the death.
Honestly, Voyager's biggest problem is following up TNG and DS9. It's average was just lower than those, overall was acceptable. It's high moments were RIGHT THERE with DS9 and TNG's high. I would easily put Year of Hell up against Into the Pale Moonlight or Best of Both Worlds.
A 'records were lost' excuse gets harder to believe as technology improves, though. Like, how would modern day records get destroyed? You'd have to start with planet-covering EMPs and/or a massive computer virus, then build from there. Also everyone who knows how to read and write dies.
The only way to make it plausible is to really go in on the level and scale of destruction, which ends up elaborating on the details you want to keep to a minimum in the first place.
I think Futurama covered it best: All digital records from that time were erased by the second coming of Jesus.
My point isn't that the obsessive fans beg for the details, it's that once you dangle it out there, pretty much everyone wants to know more on some level. Some of them are in charge of making the thing. We wondered what the Clone Wars were that Obi-Wan fought in, we kept hearing about the Time War that wiped out the Daleks except for all the ones it didn't.
You would be shocked and terrified at the state of digital preservation. Let alone during a large nuclear conflict causing EMPs to flare off everywhere.
The records of the time being a scrambled mess of mostly known events with no particular order honestly checks out.
As does the fact that Trek characters still quote classical literature and history: Those are significantly more preserved and also don't have massive servers of fake news and contradicting 'facts' as modern history almost certainly tries to establish on social media.
As far as a contrivance to allow for Calvin Balling 'how do we get here?' as a question the scrambled, hard to interpret records have only gotten more easy to believe with our increased reliance on computer storage and social networks, not less.
but billions of people lived through world war 3, and were still alive when United Earth came about after Humanity made first contact
I'm with klemming on this one, there was no weird erasure of culture or knowledge (I mean countless stories of individuals' lives were wiped away, for sure, but broad strokes), writers just literally couldn't see the future and for whatever reason they have decided to keep Star Trek's canon moving forward re: the events of whenever the show was made like "this could be our future"
For a show about humanity having an optimistic future after the darkest timeline passes, this is a good decision.
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That_GuyI don't wanna be that guyRegistered Userregular
My biggest frustration with Voyager was one of my biggest frustrations with TV at the time. Everything just went back to the status quo at the end of the episode, even if there is no fucking reason it should. This was parodied to great effect in an episode of Family Guy of all shows but it was endemic to the time right before prestige TV took over. Tuvix is far and ahead the worst example of this. They straight up murdered my boy and no one ever mentioned him again.
Finally trying out The Orville and I want to like it, but it might just not be for me. I have a really hard time with cringe humor and awkwardness, and so far it’s made it unpleasant to watch. The undercover Krill episode followed by downvote world might have done it for me.
The Moclan baby one was tough for different reasons.
Question for the thread: should I keep going in the hope it becomes more Trek with humor and not “oblivious people do/say dumb things and are protected by plot armor because it’s just a joke man stop being so serious about it” in space?
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That_GuyI don't wanna be that guyRegistered Userregular
Finally trying out The Orville and I want to like it, but it might just not be for me. I have a really hard time with cringe humor and awkwardness, and so far it’s made it unpleasant to watch. The undercover Krill episode followed by downvote world might have done it for me.
The Moclan baby one was tough for different reasons.
Question for the thread: should I keep going in the hope it becomes more Trek with humor and not “oblivious people do/say dumb things and are protected by plot armor because it’s just a joke man stop being so serious about it” in space?
The 2nd season is a lot better. The first season isn't that long so I'd say just stick with it.
Honestly, Voyager's biggest problem is following up TNG and DS9. It's average was just lower than those, overall was acceptable. It's high moments were RIGHT THERE with DS9 and TNG's high. I would easily put Year of Hell up against Into the Pale Moonlight or Best of Both Worlds.
It's still light years ahead of Enterprise.
I can't agree there. Voyager never manages to reach the highs of DS9 or TNG. It's got some good episodes but they are never as good as the good ones on those shows and the average overall is lower. Voyager is fundamentally like a blander more mediocre version of TNG. It's like TNG if S7 was the best it ever got or something. It's not as bad as The Internets sometimes claim but it's just never great and never feels like it starts firing on all cylinders.
Enterprise is of course infinitely worse. It's just amazingly bland and boring with basically no highlights.
Honestly, Voyager's biggest problem is following up TNG and DS9. It's average was just lower than those, overall was acceptable. It's high moments were RIGHT THERE with DS9 and TNG's high. I would easily put Year of Hell up against Into the Pale Moonlight or Best of Both Worlds.
It's still light years ahead of Enterprise.
I can't agree there. Voyager never manages to reach the highs of DS9 or TNG. It's got some good episodes but they are never as good as the good ones on those shows and the average overall is lower. Voyager is fundamentally like a blander more mediocre version of TNG. It's like TNG if S7 was the best it ever got or something. It's not as bad as The Internets sometimes claim but it's just never great and never feels like it starts firing on all cylinders.
Enterprise is of course infinitely worse. It's just amazingly bland and boring with basically no highlights.
I'm unlikely to change your mind, but the bolded part I disagree vehemently with. It's a lot less consistent about quality than the previous shows, but like I said, it's best episodes are every bit as good as TNG/DS9. In addition to year of Hell above, I'd add Equinox, a lot of the Doctor centric storylines (I'd put these up against most of the Data episodes).
Sometimes I like DS9, other times I do not. It's hit or miss for me, where I either love or hate most of the other shows. It feels too cynical at times, and Sisko bothers me when he barks and growls, but I love his portrayal as a father to Jake and partner to Cassidy.
Oh man I'm the opposite. I love Sisko but when I first started it after TNG I wasn't sure. After Picard I was taken aback by how gruff he was. But the more I spent time with him the more I liked him. I love his passion.
The whole prophet thing was great too. I initially hated the Bajorans because it just felt like a play on the Puritans and it made my eye roll but then they kept developing it further into what it ended up being and I was shocked at how much I liked it.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
Voyager has characters that improve, but the storytelling never gets better and instead just keeps trying to crank up the drama dial. The quality of the first season versus the last isn't better, it's just got more and bigger things going on.
Leaving us with an ending situation where somehow the Borg queen views Janeway as some kind of arch-nemesis instead of just a moderate thorn in her side, collapsing stars, time travel, and interstellar teleportation all rolled into one.
Honestly, Voyager's biggest problem is following up TNG and DS9. It's average was just lower than those, overall was acceptable. It's high moments were RIGHT THERE with DS9 and TNG's high. I would easily put Year of Hell up against Into the Pale Moonlight or Best of Both Worlds.
It's still light years ahead of Enterprise.
I can't agree there. Voyager never manages to reach the highs of DS9 or TNG. It's got some good episodes but they are never as good as the good ones on those shows and the average overall is lower. Voyager is fundamentally like a blander more mediocre version of TNG. It's like TNG if S7 was the best it ever got or something. It's not as bad as The Internets sometimes claim but it's just never great and never feels like it starts firing on all cylinders.
Enterprise is of course infinitely worse. It's just amazingly bland and boring with basically no highlights.
I'm unlikely to change your mind, but the bolded part I disagree vehemently with. It's a lot less consistent about quality than the previous shows, but like I said, it's best episodes are every bit as good as TNG/DS9. In addition to year of Hell above, I'd add Equinox, a lot of the Doctor centric storylines (I'd put these up against most of the Data episodes).
I don't think Year of Hell comes even close to the great episodes of TNG or DS9. It's fundamentally a reset button episode from the get-go and everyone knows that. It's basically a collection of shocking twists we know are going to mean nothing and so it lacks real impact. It doesn't really showcase a great performance or a great narrative or great character work. It's fun and it's one of the better Voyager episodes but that last bit is kinda the problem.
I love a few characters on it but at least half the cast is bland as shit and so while you can have a good Doctor episode it's all hanging on 1 or 2 people and everyone else is just kinda there. Picardo can't carry this shit himself.
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I don't think that's true. I think most people don't care. And I think especially not the writers for the most part. And it's not something you need to or should cater to. Maybe it comes up in more detail as part of the story but the story is the point, not the history.
Also it's shockingly easy for a lot of stuff to get destroyed these days. A lot of the kind of records and correspondence we study in history no longer exists in formats that will last a long time or potentially even be readable. And there's not exactly a ton of interest these days in it's preservation from most people.
While all the records of the time before WW3 were lost, the time traveling historians from the TOS era filled in the largest gaps. The events of "Assignment Earth" established that the Federation was sending ships backward in time to observe important historical events. So they probably have great records for events like the launch of Apollo 11 but not much for the Friday after.
The DMA plot line held up a lot better than their previous season arcs as well. Species 10-C were amazing in action. I was annoyed by the action scenes interrupting the establishing of communication, but I might be in a minority on this. Actions scenes don't do anything for me, but a good Darmok episode lights me up. It really tied in well to the general themes of the season. I was afraid they were going to go with a hostie species towards the end. Just more Star Fleet finding new life and connecting with it. So good!
I will say I think I need to stop getting attached to characters. It has not worked out well for me so far. Adira, Gray, and Tilly were the 3 I was most excited for through season 4. That... did not work out great for me. At least one is still around? They are my favorite of the three as well so hopefully we will see more of them next season. Just stop writing my favorite characters out of the series! Is it too much to ask?!
Onto SNW next! So much Star Trek, so little time.
Maybe it's like Terminator and Terminator Salvation. We all thought we wanted a Future War movie, but in the end....that movie is a lot different than what Terminator and Terminator 2 were about.
Although....I still want a competent Future War movie....
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There is no evidence of this shown on screen. Zefram Cochrane built his ship out of leftover nukes and parts replicated on The Enterprise. There is no reason to think that Cochrane had any institutional training. There's no reason to think that anything outside of the E parts were brand new.
What makes you think there were still universities and functional industry after WW3?
Yeah I think that could have helped a lot. The action stuff informed the interesting stuff in an cool way that was undercut by it distracting from the better parts of the episode.
because they launched a giant domed forest into earth orbit?
The majority of data storage devices on earth surviving WW3, Starfleet captains fire off sayings of ancient cultures constantly or refer to very specific things that happened in history. Pike can call up CNN footage without any issue
saying "The records are lost" breaks the canon of the current series in an effort to fix a canon issue that really isn't a canon issue, because this series is not Star Trek: The Original Series and I feel like most people don't really care that the timeline is a moving target based on when the series is made
In Strange New Worlds, they basically say that Earth launched seed packets or some such sci fi garble nonsense into space to preserve it while we blew ourselves to hell. These grew into literal forests in space in domes that Starfleet then build their first starbase around.
Which is pretty insane and also means Tilly marveling over the arcology ship in Discovery now looks stupid in retrospect.
Taken in isolation of SNW, though, it was cool.
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
Granted, I'm not hardcore enough to even notice that to begin with.
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
If you must create a canon explanation, you can just say the forests were moved elsewhere by the time the earlier series/movies showed space around Earth. Or it was just on the other side.
We've seen a number of pre-war seed ships and colony ships, mostly in screen images and not directly, but the DY-500 was only the middle tier and had decks dedicated to livestock and crop planting and a couple of them could comfortably fit inside those domes. There were at least three more models in the DY series larger than the 500.
The domes are of very recent construction, as they were added to Starbase One since the Klingon War seen in Discovery season 1.
Something I just considered, maybe records exist, but the records are massively compromised. Not in terms of lost data, but competing contradictory data.
What's the result of the 2020 elections? How did Covid19 originate? Is JFK still alive and ready to lead conservatives in an ideaological war against progressives at the age of 105?
We live in a world with at least two primary infospheres within the US, more if you include other sources (Russia and the war in Ukraine, China and it's war on Uighurs, Taiwan, Winnie the Pooh.
Even if nothing was fragmented, it'd still be hard to pull the truth, from an outside observer, decades or centuries distant.
There had to be at least a fair amount of industry and technical expertise for Cochrane to build his ship. Even if the warp drive itself was a pure eureka moment with the design popping into his head fully formed, the rest of the ship, life support, maneuvering thrusters, controls, power source, whatever the landing system was, mounting it on the ICBM, etc. That's not trivial stuff that can be slapped together and most of that isn't stuff that could be scrounged off of the next silo over. Unless First Contact is a closed-loop where the Borg needed to attack so the Enterprise would go back and hook Cochrane up with all the gubbins so that he wouldn't die when one of the warp nacelles didn't deploy because it had vacuum welded in place.
Also First Contact seems like a time loop per Enterprise because he talks about the Borg in a commencement speech.
But its time travel who knows.
We also know he gets it working in the Terran universe. They just kill the Vulcans and take their ship.
Cochrane did the theoretical work for FTL travel, but it the actual technology existed before the war. Kinda like how we had the tools to create nuclear weapons in 1920s, we just had to figure out how.
You would be shocked and terrified at the state of digital preservation. Let alone during a large nuclear conflict causing EMPs to flare off everywhere.
The records of the time being a scrambled mess of mostly known events with no particular order honestly checks out.
As does the fact that Trek characters still quote classical literature and history: Those are significantly more preserved and also don't have massive servers of fake news and contradicting 'facts' as modern history almost certainly tries to establish on social media.
As far as a contrivance to allow for Calvin Balling 'how do we get here?' as a question the scrambled, hard to interpret records have only gotten more easy to believe with our increased reliance on computer storage and social networks, not less.
TNG and DS9 are just so fucking good that everything else pales in comparison.
Not sure if you've watched it already, but if you haven't, Voyager is definitely worth a watch. I watched it last year in it's entirety, having previously gotten less than half way through.
It gets off to an uneven start, and does a couple characters dirty, but it's nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be.
The hits outweigh the misses, and at the end, I do not regret having invested the time. There's enough episodes that rank above the Star Trek median, even if they don't reach the highs of those two series, that you won't want to miss.
Sure, there are some stinkers, but I'll go on record as saying some TNG episodes were worse (Tasha Gets Force Married And Duels To The Death, and the Beverly Bangs A Ghost, are worse than Salamander Time, IMO)
Voyager is absolutely up for me to watch. I think I'm going to take a short break from Trek for a minute. Watching TNG then DS9 is a whole lot of show haha.
It was my comfort throughout the pandemic. It'll be weird for me to associate covid with TNG and DS9 but it's honestly how I managed to not lose my mind during all the death.
It's still light years ahead of Enterprise.
but billions of people lived through world war 3, and were still alive when United Earth came about after Humanity made first contact
I'm with klemming on this one, there was no weird erasure of culture or knowledge (I mean countless stories of individuals' lives were wiped away, for sure, but broad strokes), writers just literally couldn't see the future and for whatever reason they have decided to keep Star Trek's canon moving forward re: the events of whenever the show was made like "this could be our future"
For a show about humanity having an optimistic future after the darkest timeline passes, this is a good decision.
The Moclan baby one was tough for different reasons.
Question for the thread: should I keep going in the hope it becomes more Trek with humor and not “oblivious people do/say dumb things and are protected by plot armor because it’s just a joke man stop being so serious about it” in space?
The 2nd season is a lot better. The first season isn't that long so I'd say just stick with it.
I can't agree there. Voyager never manages to reach the highs of DS9 or TNG. It's got some good episodes but they are never as good as the good ones on those shows and the average overall is lower. Voyager is fundamentally like a blander more mediocre version of TNG. It's like TNG if S7 was the best it ever got or something. It's not as bad as The Internets sometimes claim but it's just never great and never feels like it starts firing on all cylinders.
Enterprise is of course infinitely worse. It's just amazingly bland and boring with basically no highlights.
I'm unlikely to change your mind, but the bolded part I disagree vehemently with. It's a lot less consistent about quality than the previous shows, but like I said, it's best episodes are every bit as good as TNG/DS9. In addition to year of Hell above, I'd add Equinox, a lot of the Doctor centric storylines (I'd put these up against most of the Data episodes).
The whole prophet thing was great too. I initially hated the Bajorans because it just felt like a play on the Puritans and it made my eye roll but then they kept developing it further into what it ended up being and I was shocked at how much I liked it.
Leaving us with an ending situation where somehow the Borg queen views Janeway as some kind of arch-nemesis instead of just a moderate thorn in her side, collapsing stars, time travel, and interstellar teleportation all rolled into one.
I don't think Year of Hell comes even close to the great episodes of TNG or DS9. It's fundamentally a reset button episode from the get-go and everyone knows that. It's basically a collection of shocking twists we know are going to mean nothing and so it lacks real impact. It doesn't really showcase a great performance or a great narrative or great character work. It's fun and it's one of the better Voyager episodes but that last bit is kinda the problem.
I love a few characters on it but at least half the cast is bland as shit and so while you can have a good Doctor episode it's all hanging on 1 or 2 people and everyone else is just kinda there. Picardo can't carry this shit himself.