It's time for Star Trek to embrace the multiverse...

[ChrisIII]

Second season of Discovery pretty much attempted to fix some of the TOS discontinuity from the first season-The Klingon's look and their ships, for example, are explained away early on; the Enterprise not using hologram technology as well.

[CosmiComic]

Tbh, I didn't even see the point of setting Discovery back in the TOS era.

[superduperman]

I'm not necessarily advocating a hard reboot. I'm more saying that each series be it's own universe. Discovery is not connected to TOS. TOS is not connected to TNG. TNG is not connected to Picard. I think this makes things work better than saying everything is under the same tent.

[Castle]

I'm not necessarily advocating a hard reboot. I'm more saying that each series be it's own universe. Discovery is not connected to TOS. TOS is not connected to TNG. TNG is not connected to Picard. I think this makes things work better than saying everything is under the same tent.

it could be because they dont know how to do a hard trek reboot without using the TOS Characters because Kirk, Spock, Uhura, Scotty, Bones, Sulu, Nurse Chapel , Chekov and Janice Rand are just so iconic and maybe the most popular trek characters ever even if TNG was more successful in tv ratings.

[Captain Craig]

Nah, I disagree with large parts of the OG post.

It has been a hot minute since I watched Enterprise so I don't recall much in the way of "explaining things" away.

As for Discovery it at least uses the backdrop of "secret experimental" program as cover. That and its call registry seems to hint strongly of Section 31 so I'm willing to go with it. Plus the ship ends up in the future and the tech couldn't be repeated so it was abandoned in what we know as proper Trek canon.

To address some points in the OG post lets see what they do with Brave New World. After all, that Enterprise IS THE ENTERPRISE that started it all. Will it have push buttons? Will it seem low tech?
It will be hard-pressed for it to be designed as one thing for Pike and another for Kirk. Who would retrofit in a backward manner? If so why? All Constitution ships "rolled back". We saw a few other Constitution ships on TOS after all. Same bridge layout/design.

Then if we ever get Georgiou's Section 31 show(as hinted to in Disco S3, told to us by Producers) that also takes place pre-TOS alongside ST:BNW how will that show look? I'm guessing a bit more advanced, again, due to the secret covert ops they will be doing. We shall see.

Main STU, Mirror U and Kelvin-U are the three main 'verses I'm content with for now. No embracing urgently needed.

[CosmiComic]

I feel like not having series like ToS and TNG being in the same series could take away from the concept of building upon the previous series which ST is known for. IMO the problem is constantly going back to the ToS era

[Castle]

He had a brother too.


Star Trek already has a multiverse. Just like Dr Who that has NEVER explained how all that stuff can happen in one universe.


If we are going to question stuff-where are the questions for Robotech and Power Rangers?

Robotech was three different tv shows with one that never took place on Earth (Southern Cross).

Power Rangers where does Time Force, Mystic Force, SPD, RPM & Dino Charge fit. Most of them if not all had to take place in different realities.

While the comic book is filling in gaps of the mystery Rangers forms that Mega Force used. While still ignoring others.

Yeah, it has already. There is the mirror universe, and the universe from Yesterday's Enterprise and the other universes from the episode cantered around Worf's Birthday, I think he and Troi were married in one of those universe.

[ChrisIII]

Also there's a few episodes here and there where the story revolves around an event that changes history and they have to 'fix it' and only they can do it because they're in a sort of temporal wake and it's everything else that's screwed up, kind of like Marvel's AGE OF APOCALYPSE, although I suppose these alternate timelines might 'live on' some how (Again, like AOA seemed to).

CITY ON THE EDGE OF FOREVER of course is an example; FIRST CONTACT, DS9's Past Tense etc.


There's also fan theories that Star Trek IV (Chekhov leaving the Federation technology behind) and the TNG crew's intervention in First Contact somehow altered the timeline resulting in the more advanced look.

[WebLurker]

Also there's a few episodes here and there where the story revolves around an event that changes history and they have to 'fix it' and only they can do it because they're in a sort of temporal wake and it's everything else that's screwed up, kind of like Marvel's AGE OF APOCALYPSE, although I suppose these alternate timelines might 'live on' some how (Again, like AOA seemed to).

Considering that "Parallels" (TNG) establishes that there are quantum realities for every singe possible outcome of everything, it would stand to reason that there are quantum realties out there where the characters failed to fix things.

CITY ON THE EDGE OF FOREVER of course is an example; FIRST CONTACT, DS9's Past Tense etc.

In those cases, it seems like the idea is that the final result is a "repaired" timeline where things might not be 100% the same, but the broad strokes are close enough that the timeline is functionally the same. In the case of First Contact, that was a predestination paradox, per "Regeneration" (ENT). (In fact, in "Relativity" [VOY], Seven of Nine actually cites the First Contact incident as an example of a time travel paradox.)

There's also fan theories that Star Trek IV (Chekhov leaving the Federation technology behind) and the TNG crew's intervention in First Contact somehow altered the timeline resulting in the more advanced look.

Hadn't heard the one about Voyage Home (although I'd wonder if the Eugenics Wars would reset the clock on that). I do know that one of the RPGs suggested that the time travel incident in "Future's End, Parts I and II" (VOY) (where the premise was that the real life computer revolution of the '90s was a guy reverse engineering a time machine from the future) that the part of the predestination paradox of that was the developments that lead to the building of Khan's sleeper ship.

As noted before, First Contact was a predestination paradox story by design, so it was always going to lead back into the setting up TOS and all that as it originally was. (In fact, ENT spent its last season paving the way for TOS, down to even showing some TOS-like tech in the finale).

[Castle]

Also there's a few episodes here and there where the story revolves around an event that changes history and they have to 'fix it' and only they can do it because they're in a sort of temporal wake and it's everything else that's screwed up, kind of like Marvel's AGE OF APOCALYPSE, although I suppose these alternate timelines might 'live on' some how (Again, like AOA seemed to).

CITY ON THE EDGE OF FOREVER of course is an example; FIRST CONTACT, DS9's Past Tense etc.


There's also fan theories that Star Trek IV (Chekhov leaving the Federation technology behind) and the TNG crew's intervention in First Contact somehow altered the timeline resulting in the more advanced look.

The AOA timeline was great, probably the most iconic X-Men and Marvel story of the 1990s but Star trek right now don't have the team to make their version of AOA. Honestly AOA Star Trek was already done with Yesterday Enterprise.

[AndrewCrossett]

I think the original continuum of TOS-->TNG-->DS9-->Voyager worked just fine. The trouble really didn't start until they came out with Discovery and told us it took place in approximately the same time frame as TOS.

You can deal with that by putting modern Trek shows in their own continuum if you want, or you can deal with it by repeating to yourself it's just a show, I should really just relax, and not care.

[BeastieRunner]

Haven't they already embraced their multiple timelines?

I want to say several movies and shows deal with those issues ...

[Powerboy]

I'm not necessarily advocating a hard reboot. I'm more saying that each series be it's own universe. Discovery is not connected to TOS. TOS is not connected to TNG. TNG is not connected to Picard. I think this makes things work better than saying everything is under the same tent.

I think it would be difficult to disconnect Picard from TNG.

I personally subscribe to the idea that "Enterprise" was the forerunner of the new movies, not of TOS. In other words, that E and the movies are in the same reality.

But there's no doubt we have reached the point long since when we either have to drop the illusion that Star Trek is our future or start doing soft reboots.

Aside from the stuff like the technology and the social attitudes, there's less subtle stuff. Either Khan and his genetic super beings took over the Earth and then escaped in ships using Cryogenic technology in 1996 or they did not.

If they did, Star Trek is clearly not our future, technologically or historically. OR it has to keep getting pushed further and further into the future. That already causes it to overlap with other future events that have to be pushed further ahead. It won't matter in our lifetimes and I seriously doubt Star Trek is still going to be a thing in the real 22nd or 23rd century. But, eventually, even the main stories will have to be pushed further into the future.

I would agree that one good solution is just to stop doing stories set in "the past" and stop making references to it. Just move on to stories after TNG, DS9 and Voyager and let us see the future even beyond that.

[ChrisIII]

The Eugenics Wars novels came up with the concept of the EW being a sort of 'hidden' conflict that people at the time were mostly unaware of, although several real-world events were woven into them, but said to be the work of Khan and co. Kind of like the Assassins' Creed series or how a lot of conspiracy theories go, that there's some shadow war going on shaping world events but the general public is unaware of it.


Think there's a few possible futures as well thrown in there; Enterprise experimented with that. (The Temporal cold war)

I think DS9 had one where future O'brien had to stop past O'brien or something like that, can't quite remember how it went though but it has both O'briens going "I hate temporal mechanics".

There's also I guess sort of a time thing with feral teen Molly in that one episode, she wiped her own existence by returning her younger self but was still remembered I think.

The DS9 Tribble episode I guess sort of semi-altered the timeline slightly, although the TOS characters didn't really notice anything.


I think Chechov's stuff was referenced in the Eugenics wars trilogy of books, along with the transparent aluminum guy.

[AndrewCrossett]

I would agree that one good solution is just to stop doing stories set in "the past" and stop making references to it. Just move on to stories after TNG, DS9 and Voyager and let us see the future even beyond that.

Yeah, moving forward rather than back is always a good policy.