Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

[Jokerz79]

It's possible that Khan did have offspring before his exile. I don't think it's ever implied that Marla was necessarily his first life/love. It's possible Khan's children weren't considered as guilty as he and his followers were, and were allowed to remain on Earth, or had their own colony ships seperate from Botany Bay. It'll probably be explained later.

My issue isn't Khan having offspring it's with Spock having served with her and she being a member of the crew and this wasn't brought up in Space Seed. Example if ENT had Khan's Granddaughter or Great Granddaughter as one of the augments I'd have no issue.

[Powerboy]

My issue isn't Khan having offspring it's with Spock having served with her and she being a member of the crew and this wasn't brought up in Space Seed. Example if ENT had Khan's Granddaughter or Great Granddaughter as one of the augments I'd have no issue.

Speaking of Khan, there's a very intentional continuity change right there. In "Space Seed", Khan and his genetic cohorts were specifically said to be a product of selective breeding. But in "Wrath of Khan", that was retconned to be genetic engineering. We also have DS9 and Voyager both pushing the rise of Khan and his departure from Earth to well after the year 1996.

But that's technical details. The idea that Spock served with a descendant of Khan and yet Spock doesn't even think it worth mentioning in "Space Seed"?

That's getting into Star Wars prequel level stuff where you would expect something in the prequel to have a payoff in something that happens later chronologically IF you accept something as legitimately a prequel.

[G. Boney]

Wrong episode sorry haven't watch TOS in a while. But M'Benga being CMO is still a contradiction to TOS because one why was he demoted? Now they can explain this later but no one not Spock, Chapel, or McCoy on TOS ever treated M'Benga like he had ever been CMO of the Ship.

I've never seen the two episodes (according to google) of TOS that M'Benga appeared in. The question I'm asking is would mentioning his past as CMO be important to what was going on in those episodes? Was he supposed to be a crew member viewers just so happened not to see constantly (Like Barclay in TNG), or was he someone who beamed aboard for those particular episodes?

[nx01a]

Enterprise's Mirror universe two parter which used TOS style sets and outfits is a bit harder to explain though, as although the Defiant was in the mirror universe it came from the future TOS prime timeline.

I'm not sure I understand.
The Defiant being a contemporary of the Enterprise 1701 was why it looked exactly the same and had all the same uniforms aboard.

[C_Miller]

Speaking of Khan, there's a very intentional continuity change right there. In "Space Seed", Khan and his genetic cohorts were specifically said to be a product of selective breeding. But in "Wrath of Khan", that was retconned to be genetic engineering. We also have DS9 and Voyager both pushing the rise of Khan and his departure from Earth to well after the year 1996.

But that's technical details. The idea that Spock served with a descendant of Khan and yet Spock doesn't even think it worth mentioning in "Space Seed"?

That's getting into Star Wars prequel level stuff where you would expect something in the prequel to have a payoff in something that happens later chronologically IF you accept something as legitimately a prequel.

I have to admit, La'an's ancestry is the only part that I really struggle with. Though much of that comes from my contempt for the constant need to circle back to Khan. Frankly retconning the lack of knowledge of Khan from Space Seed probably makes the most sense at this point considering how much of a watershed moment the Eugenics Wars have been treated as in the Trek Universe in the decades since Space Seed.

I will say though, the belief in the coherence of the Star Trek universe is pretty suspect to begin with. There is very little internal consistency within TOS, so at a certain point every subsequent series picks and chooses what it wants to be a part of canon.

[Powerboy]

I have to admit, La'an's ancestry is the only part that I really struggle with. Though much of that comes from my contempt for the constant need to circle back to Khan. Frankly retconning the lack of knowledge of Khan from Space Seed probably makes the most sense at this point considering how much of a watershed moment the Eugenics Wars have been treated as in the Trek Universe in the decades since Space Seed.

I will say though, the belief in the coherence of the Star Trek universe is pretty suspect to begin with. There is very little internal consistency within TOS, so at a certain point every subsequent series picks and chooses what it wants to be a part of canon.

In Space Seed, I also seem to recall that records of Khan's time were sketchy but later ST lore indicates it was remembered as an overwhelmingly significant part of history and everybody knew who Khan was. It was strange that even the Abrams movies kind of treated the revelation that the man standing before them was Khan Noonien Singh with the sound of crickets chirping, with Spock Prime having to explain who he was after they knew the name.

This is a bit verbatim from the Cage but...

Pike: "I just can't get used to having a woman on the Bridge."

Does anybody really have a problem with retconning out those social attitudes, as if women in the active duty military was a brand new idea?

I think we all pick and choose what continuity we want them to keep and what we want them to dump.

[BeastieRunner]

I don't see Spock serving with La'an as much of an issue in terms of continuity.

1). It would be 100% Spock to never mention something like that unless it was pertinent to the situation.

2). It has yet to be shown that La'an will do anything that is pertinent to Space Seed other than just being a relative. It's like modern people being related to somebody of yesteryear like Thomas Jefferson. It's usually just a talking point or random fact they bring up.

3). It just comes across as quick and dirty background filler/MO to me. Nothing that helps anyone but the audience understand the character.

[C_Miller]

I don't see Spock serving with La'an as much of an issue in terms of continuity.

1). It would be 100% Spock to never mention something like that unless it was pertinent to the situation.

2). It has yet to be shown that La'an will do anything that is pertinent to Space Seed other than just being a relative. It's like modern people being related to somebody of yesteryear like Thomas Jefferson. It's usually just a talking point or random fact they bring up.

3). It just comes across as quick and dirty background filler/MO to me. Nothing that helps anyone but the audience understand the character.

That's a good point, especially the first two. I'm distantly related to Abraham Lincoln, but I doubt even my best friends would bring that up if they some how ran into a cryogenically frozen Abraham Lincoln just randomly showed up.

[Jokerz79]

I don't see Spock serving with La'an as much of an issue in terms of continuity.

1). It would be 100% Spock to never mention something like that unless it was pertinent to the situation.

2). It has yet to be shown that La'an will do anything that is pertinent to Space Seed other than just being a relative. It's like modern people being related to somebody of yesteryear like Thomas Jefferson. It's usually just a talking point or random fact they bring up.

3). It just comes across as quick and dirty background filler/MO to me. Nothing that helps anyone but the audience understand the character.

La'an studies her ancestor Khan as a child her own dialogue in SNO.

There's not much good to say about Into Darkness, But Spock had the common sense to ask Spock Prime about Khan. Yet now I'm suppose to believe Spock Prime when suspicious of Khan in Space Seed and he was never called La'an for info? Now she could be dead or missing. But still Kirk, Chapel, or Spock never mentions La'an the former COS of Enterprise in Space Seed. Powerboy mentioned the Prequels and yeah this Vader building 3CPO level of stupid.

I'm enjoying SNO, but can't treat as Canon to TOS and understand fans who can't make the leap.

[thwhtGuardian]

La'an studies her ancestor Khan as a child her own dialogue in SNO.

There's not much good to say about Into Darkness, But Spock had the common sense to ask Spock Prime about Khan. Yet now I'm suppose to believe Spock Prime when suspicious of Khan in Space Seed and he was never called La'an for info? Now she could be dead or missing. But still Kirk, Chapel, or Spock never mentions La'an the former COS of Enterprise in Space Seed. Powerboy mentioned the Prequels and yeah this Vader building 3CPO level of stupid.

I'm enjoying SNO, but can't treat as Canon to TOS and understand fans who can't make the leap.

This is another one I don't get, Spock didn't call La'an in Space Seed because La'an wasn't created then. If you want to view it more holistically you can easily create a dozen head canon reasons for why she wasn't mentioned, or you can accept that they're telling new stories using older pieces and enjoy it how it is now intended. Either way is valid and easy to do, especially as we're on a comic book forum so I'm assuming we're all pretty familiar with regularly having to do a fair bit of mental gymnastics to make stories "count" after all these years of stories with new writers, continuity reboots and re-imaginings.

You can get annoyed that the Joker isn't being punished for seemingly culling nearly half of Gotham's population by now with the way each writer seems to want to up the craziness in order to one up the last writer in making the new "definitive" Joker story or you can realize that expecting that level of continuity is a recipe for madness and just enjoy(or not) each story on its own individual merits. And it's the same here, you can get bothered that they've created a new descendant of Khan that was never mentioned before or you can accept that the writers have a story they want to tell and put a new twist on eugenics and society but they don't want to necessarily involve Khan directly so they've come up with a new character that gives them the ability to tell that kind of story.

So if you want to make all the stories "count" and flow to you with your own head cannon? Awesome, I love doing that too, in fact I've created complex reading orders for Batman, Superman, Thor and the Hulk using issues spanning their entire publishing histories to weave my own continuities. And, if the only way you personally can make it work is by relegating some stories to an alternate reality? Hey, if that helps you enjoy it better all the power to you.

What I don't get though is thinking it's a serious flaw just because it doesn't work for you, when wonky continuity is a known and familiar genre trope.

[BeastieRunner]

La'an studied the history, something Spock clearly knew more about. It's akin to saying I studied American Civil War History and then expected to be an expert on it when it was just one class. Spock is the walking encyclopedia.

So unless La'an is gifted with a plot point related to her ancestry that would have impacted Space Seed, I don't really see that as a detriment to continuity.

There are other things more impactful to continuty IMHO but Star Trek is not very rigid with continuity in the past when it interferes with telling a good story.

[BeastieRunner]

This is another one I don't get, Spock didn't call La'an in Space Seed because La'an wasn't created then. If you want to view it more holistically you can easily create a dozen head canon reasons for why she wasn't mentioned, or you can accept that they're telling new stories using older pieces and enjoy it how it is now intended. Either way is valid and easy to do, especially as we're on a comic book forum so I'm assuming we're all pretty familiar with regularly having to do a fair bit of mental gymnastics to make stories "count" after all these years of stories with new writers, continuity reboots and re-imaginings.

You can get annoyed that the Joker isn't being punished for seemingly culling nearly half of Gotham's population by now with the way each writer seems to want to up the craziness in order to one up the last writer in making the new "definitive" Joker story or you can realize that expecting that level of continuity is a recipe for madness and just enjoy(or not) each story on its own individual merits. And it's the same here, you can get bothered that they've created a new descendant of Khan that was never mentioned before or you can accept that the writers have a story they want to tell and put a new twist on eugenics and society but they don't want to necessarily involve Khan directly so they've come up with a new character that gives them the ability to tell that kind of story.

So if you want to make all the stories "count" and flow to you with your own head cannon? Awesome, I love doing that too. And, if the only way you personally can make it work is by relegating some stories to an alternate reality? Hey, if that helps you enjoy it better all the power to you.

What I don't get though is thinking it's a serious flaw just because it doesn't work for you, when wonky continuity is a known and familiar genre trope.

That is a good point, too.

Star Trek, Star Wars, Marvel, DC, etc. have been around 40-50-60 plus years.

Continuity is going to get funky for fans of those.

[Jokerz79]

I get the concept of "Hey shut your brain off and enjoy it" and I do for some stuff, but this is Star Trek we use to be the smart kids in the room who didn't need to do that because our franchise didn't require us too.

I like SNW, But it's sad to be part of a fandom that once demanded thought provoking stories to be like "Don't think about just enjoy".

She could had been an Augment and not related Khan.

DISCO never needed to be set in the 2250's originally.

Every time Kurtzman reaches for memberberries he steps on a landmine when it comes to Canon.

[thwhtGuardian]

I get the concept of "Hey shut your brain off and enjoy it" and I do for some stuff, but this is Star Trek we use to be the smart kids in the room who didn't need to do that because our franchise didn't require us too.

I like SNW, But it's sad to be part of a fandom that once demanded thought provoking stories to be like "Don't think about just enjoy".

She could had been an Augment and not related Khan.

DISCO never needed to be set in the 2250's originally.

Every time Kurtzman reaches for memberberries he steps on a landmine when it comes to Canon.

You don't have to shut your brain off to enjoy this though, you just have to realize it's a tv show that's main purpose is to entertain and not a historic document. And there's nothing less smart about that either, in fact it's actually more intelligent to realize that after so long it simply isn't going to all line up perfectly all the time and still be able to enjoy what it's doing when it's doing it well.

If you have to create your own head cannon to explain away discrepancies and enjoy it more, cool. If you can just realize it's a tv show and entertaining the general audience and telling the story they want to tell right now is legitimate, that's cool too.

Other than those two options, like demanding a strict real life continuity though? That just reads as taking it too seriously, especially when the other options are not only easier but are well known paths for anyone with more than a passing knowledge of long running genre fiction.

[Jokerz79]

You don't have to shut your brain off to enjoy this though, you just have to realize it's a tv show that's main purpose is to entertain and not a historic document. And there's nothing less smart about that either, in fact it's actually more intelligent to realize that after so long it simply isn't going to all line up perfectly all the time and still be able to enjoy what it's doing when it's doing it well.

If you have to create your own head cannon to explain away discrepancies and enjoy it more, cool. If you can just realize it's a tv show and entertaining the general audience and telling the story they want to tell right now is legitimate, that's cool too.

Other than those two options, like demanding a strict real life continuity though? That just reads as taking it too seriously, especially when the other options are not only easier but are well known paths for anyone with more than a passing knowledge of long running genre fiction.

Before Kurtzman there was only 2 major continuity issues.

The look of the Klingons changing from TOS to TMP and the existence of the NX Class Enterprise. To their credit they poked fun at the Klingon issue and ENT actually corrected it. All the rest were hiccups small things you could forgive because during TOS they were finding their footing and later like you pointed out there was a lot of canon and mistakes happen.

When I look at TNG Relics, DS9 Troubles & Tribulations, VOY Flashback, and ENT's Into the Mirror Darkly I see the love the show runners and crew had for what was created before instead of using that legacy as a prop.

But then again maybe it's just me. Given on my 14th Birthday April 23rd 1993 my older sister bought me a book it had come out early in the month and I spent all day reading it. It was Star Trek Chronology History of the Future and I still have it, it means a lot to me as does Star Trek's past both real and fictional.