Star Trek transporters question

[WebLurker]

True. Also, unless we get an absolutely mind-boggling advancement in science and tech in the next two years, the tech of "Picard" in 2024 is going to be magnitudes beyond real life.

I suppose the Project Khan file is vague enough that it could still fit the pre-PIC model (which I guess would be the best way to handle it, since neither side is forced to accept the retcon or stick with older canon as they prefer). Still really weird, eps. given, for how much new Trek creators cherrypick what pieces of canon they want to comply with and what they want to ignore, the really big stuff has generally been left intact.

[thwhtGuardian]

Why does the show need to change its own history just because real life went differently?



The episode took place in 1996, the year the war ended. They did avoid mentioning the war, but there wasn't anything in the episode that would contradict the war, either. Heck, in the episode itself, one of the props is a photo of a DY-100 ship blasting off, creating a direct tie to the Eugenics Wars story.



Haven't had a chance to see PIC yet, so had to look that up. I've been trying to train myself to understand that current Star Trek ignores canon and continuity, but I'm really starting to get sick of all the revisionism. The logic behind it doesn't even make sense (the time manipulation in ENT created the timeline TOS took place in) and the Eugenics Wars being a '90s event is too established to uproot at this point. Also, it's really rich that they want to break canon with the Eugenics Wars because "it didn't happen in real life," while basing their show on the sanctuary districts, which are just as fictional and have already been shown to have not happened in real life.

They have to move it because the whole concept of the TV show was that this "could be" our future (which is why you're time manipulation from Enterprise bit doesn't really work)but if it references fictional events that never actually occured in real life then you either have to ignore them or move them forward in the timeline or else you're throwing the concept out the window. And the Eugenics's war's date was never what was important about it, so changing it doesn't ruin it.

And that applies to the santuary districts as well, though I'd say we're closer to those being a thing then we are to a Eugenics war or WWIII.

At the end of the day, you just have to accept that Star Trek is just a TV show and it's going to have errors. In the 60's the 1990's sounded comfortably far away to the audience, but not so far away as to make events placed there sound like fantasy. On top of that you have to realize the immense technological advancements that happened in the lives of Gene Roddenbury and the audience he was writing for. In the 60's there were people who literally saw the most common form of transportation go from horse and buggy to cars that could go 100mph, steam powered trains go to comercial airflight...and then we put people in space. All before their very eyes in a single life time. So the idea that things would keep advancing at that kind of pace didn't seem that far fetched, they really believed that the way things were going their grandkids might actually be living on the moon or mars.

Reality proved different though, it didn't slow down persay as there have been just as many technological wonders since the 60's as there were before. They're just not as grand as the jumps forward that were imagined. And because of that many pieces of Sci-Fi from that era have prooved to be anachronistic now, which is mostly fine for books as they are what they are but if you're going to adapt them for modern audiences then you have to blur those instances where the predictions didn't come true because the audience has to believe the whole thing "could be" real and if there are big neon signs pointing to inconsistancies then that illsusion doesn't work.

[WebLurker]

They have to move it because the whole concept of the TV show was that this "could be" our future (which is why you're time manipulation from Enterprise bit doesn't really work)but if it references fictional events that never actually occured in real life then you either have to ignore them or move them forward in the timeline or else you're throwing the concept out the window. And the Eugenics's war's date was never what was important about it, so changing it doesn't ruin it.

And that applies to the santuary districts as well, though I'd say we're closer to those being a thing then we are to a Eugenics war or WWIII.

First off, can you at least follow why the revisionism would bug some people?

If the retcon doesn't bother you, fine. It is fiction and wouldn't the first time something was changed. However, there are two problems, I see. First of all, as noted, there's the double standard of how this one piece of past lore is being retconned because it doesn't align with real history, despite the show heavily using another peace of the same kind of lore and giving it as pass (long story short, why the heck are they so concerned about the Eugenics Wars making Star Trek an alternate future when, by using the sanctuary districts, they've factually rendered it an alternate universe anyways?). TLDL, the argument for erasing the Eugenics Wars is inconsistent with the very premise of the show they're making.

Secondly, I wouldn't be so sure that shifting it around doesn't "ruin" anything. The Star Trek timeline has been built on the assumptions of these past pieces of history for decades now and quite a few of the blank spaces have been filled in, with little to no room to push things forward. This isn't a comic book floating timeline, where everything is kept vague and timeline references are in relation to events, but one where hard dates have been set and used to build the scaffolding of the franchise's universe. For example, when we get to 2063, should the Powers That Be retcon First Contact to actually taking place 2093, just so we can pretend that the story "always" took place in the near future? The problem is that ENT based itself very heavily on that film, including it taking place in 2063. Eventually, if we keep pushing things forward, First Contact will be essentially taking place during ENT, despite how impossible that is to work. And how long until ENT starts intruding on DSC and TOS's era? Trying to retcon to real-world history in the long run will destroy the intent of the stories and how they fit together, defeating the purpose of them being part of the same continuity in the first place.

At the end of the day, you just have to accept that Star Trek is just a TV show and it's going to have errors. In the 60's the 1990's sounded comfortably far away to the audience, but not so far away as to make events placed there sound like fantasy. On top of that you have to realize the immense technological advancements that happened in the lives of Gene Roddenbury and the audience he was writing for. In the 60's there were people who literally saw the most common form of transportation go from horse and buggy to cars that could go 100mph, steam powered trains go to comercial airflight...and then we put people in space. All before their very eyes in a single life time. So the idea that things would keep advancing at that kind of pace didn't seem that far fetched, they really believed that the way things were going their grandkids might actually be living on the moon or mars.

Reality proved different though, it didn't slow down persay as there have been just as many technological wonders since the 60's as there were before. They're just not as grand as the jumps forward that were imagined. And because of that many pieces of Sci-Fi from that era have prooved to be anachronistic now, which is mostly fine for books as they are what they are but if you're going to adapt them for modern audiences then you have to blur those instances where the predictions didn't come true because the audience has to believe the whole thing "could be" real and if there are big neon signs pointing to inconsistancies then that illsusion doesn't work.

Funny how Jules Verne and Ray Bradbury are still read today despite their predictions of the future being invalidated a long time ago. Or how the Jurassic Park movies are still going strong despite the series no longer taking place in our world and depending on an alternate past. Like I said, I do not understand the obsession that Star Trek must remain "our" future and how it's lessened if it's not. In any event, Star Trek ceased to be our future a long time ago. Heck, most of the material r.e. the Eugenics Wars, from details to consistent confirmation of it's status as a '90s event, was made long after 1996 (even Star Trek Into Darkness didn't retcon that).

Disagree with me if you will, but does it at least make sense why some people don't care for the revisionism of new Trek and see the cost of retconning to stay true to real life not to be worth the cost of the how it will mangle the worldbuilding and chronology of the franchise (esp. since Star Trek was never designed for this and has heavily integrated its alternate history into the source code)?

[ChrisIII]

Interesting thing is that PICARD does reference the sanctuary districts a few times, which happened in the same year in DS9's "Past Tense".

[Powerboy]

I had forgotten that the DS9 Sanctuary Districts were in the 2020s. I kept thinking they were further ahead than that. While I understand that ST started with the idea that it was our future, I think it's reached the breaking point on that.

For me, it helps that I don't take prequels seriously (though I like them). I take TOS, TNG, DS9 and Yoyager as canon. Attempts to rewrite history generally fail for me, depending on how significant I think a piece of history is. In fairness, I don't count "Picard" as canon either. In fact, I count "Star Trek Continues" before I'd count Picard.

But, to the greater point. as WebLurker said, if ST was a vague timeline not locked to specific dates like Marvel Comics, and you could just stretch how long into the future something was indefinitely, that would be different. But things are too locked into a chronology.

Picard puts Khan after 2024. Strange New Worlds seems to put the Eugenics War after January, 2021. But DS9, sticking to the original chronology, seems to put the aftermath of the Eugenics War and Khan in the 2020s.

[WebLurker]

I had forgotten that the DS9 Sanctuary Districts were in the 2020s. I kept thinking they were further ahead than that. While I understand that ST started with the idea that it was our future, I think it's reached the breaking point on that.

Well, whatever one may think of the revisionism r.e the Eugenics Wars, it is cool that they took a concept from a one-off episode and actually used it again. Kinda forgot how much I missed those deep cuts after the new Trek shows have mostly done their own thing.

For me, it helps that I don't take prequels seriously (though I like them). I take TOS, TNG, DS9 and Yoyager as canon. Attempts to rewrite history generally fail for me, depending on how significant I think a piece of history is. In fairness, I don't count "Picard" as canon either. In fact, I count "Star Trek Continues" before I'd count Picard.

I'm one of those weird ENT lovers, actually, so I don't have a problem with it, canon-wise (if anything, it's the most consistent prequel to date).

I take them as canon overall (that's kind of the point) and I have enjoyed what I've seen of the new shows (not Prodigy or SNW yet). However, I do find I need to ignore how they do or do not fit into the larger franchise to not be bugged by all the retcons and continuity errors in the moment. What I'm trying to accept is that Star Trek canon is broken, the shows cannot (and will not) fit together like they used to, so just take them for what they are on their own terms for entertainment purposes. Maybe that's the same as you do, but I guess I'm willing to accept the overall timeline from all the shows and movies, just understanding that the details are a mess.

Picard puts Khan after 2024. Strange New Worlds seems to put the Eugenics War after January, 2021. But DS9, sticking to the original chronology, seems to put the aftermath of the Eugenics War and Khan in the 2020s.

Wait, both of the current shows tried to retcon the Eugenics Wars but can't even agree on where they want to stick it? Wow.

2024 would practically make the Eugenics Wars overlap with WWIII (started in 2026), which doesn't work even if you ignore the holes that removing it from its factual placement in 1993 - 1996 creates.

DS9 was actually an accident (based on a character describing the wars as happening 200 years before): Ronald D. Moore, who wrote the episode in question, explained in an interview: "This is my personal screw-up. When I was writing that speech, I was thinking about Khan and somehow his dialog from "Wrath" started floating through my brain: "On Earth… 200 years ago… I was a Prince…" The number 200 just stuck in my head and I put it in the script without making the necessary adjustment for the fact that "Wrath" took place almost a hundred years prior to "Dr. Bashir." I wrote it, I get the blame."

I suppose there is some irony that the original Khan episode and movie placed the Eugenics Wars 200 years before TOS, which was retconned to 300 when TOS was formally pegged in place, and now, the show runners want to change it all over again. All things considered, maybe Star Trek needed a hard reboot if the Powers That Be really don't want to have to deal with the canon baggage that comes with the original continuity?

(It's hardly an official source, but it looks like Memory Alpha is assuming that the Eugenics Wars retcon is just a flareup long after the original '90s war we know from "Space Seed" and the rest still happened. We'll have to see if any of the future shows make it impossible to reconcile things by erasing the '90s version entirely, but I think this's a perfectly acceptable way to handle it.)

[Powerboy]

Well, whatever one may think of the revisionism r.e the Eugenics Wars, it is cool that they took a concept from a one-off episode and actually used it again. Kinda forgot how much I missed those deep cuts after the new Trek shows have mostly done their own thing.



I'm one of those weird ENT lovers, actually, so I don't have a problem with it, canon-wise (if anything, it's the most consistent prequel to date).

I take them as canon overall (that's kind of the point) and I have enjoyed what I've seen of the new shows (not Prodigy or SNW yet). However, I do find I need to ignore how they do or do not fit into the larger franchise to not be bugged by all the retcons and continuity errors in the moment. What I'm trying to accept is that Star Trek canon is broken, the shows cannot (and will not) fit together like they used to, so just take them for what they are on their own terms for entertainment purposes. Maybe that's the same as you do, but I guess I'm willing to accept the overall timeline from all the shows and movies, just understanding that the details are a mess.



Wait, both of the current shows tried to retcon the Eugenics Wars but can't even agree on where they want to stick it? Wow.

2024 would practically make the Eugenics Wars overlap with WWIII (started in 2026), which doesn't work even if you ignore the holes that removing it from its factual placement in 1993 - 1996 creates.

DS9 was actually an accident (based on a character describing the wars as happening 200 years before): Ronald D. Moore, who wrote the episode in question, explained in an interview: "This is my personal screw-up. When I was writing that speech, I was thinking about Khan and somehow his dialog from "Wrath" started floating through my brain: "On EarthÂ… 200 years agoÂ… I was a PrinceÂ…" The number 200 just stuck in my head and I put it in the script without making the necessary adjustment for the fact that "Wrath" took place almost a hundred years prior to "Dr. Bashir." I wrote it, I get the blame."

I suppose there is some irony that the original Khan episode and movie placed the Eugenics Wars 200 years before TOS, which was retconned to 300 when TOS was formally pegged in place, and now, the show runners want to change it all over again. All things considered, maybe Star Trek needed a hard reboot if the Powers That Be really don't want to have to deal with the canon baggage that comes with the original continuity?

(It's hardly an official source, but it looks like Memory Alpha is assuming that the Eugenics Wars retcon is just a flareup long after the original '90s war we know from "Space Seed" and the rest still happened. We'll have to see if any of the future shows make it impossible to reconcile things by erasing the '90s version entirely, but I think this's a perfectly acceptable way to handle it.)

When I say I don't take the prequels as canon, I mean that I take them as a slight or not so slight alternate reality.

I think I got this idea from Arthur C. Clarke. In his preface to the novel "2010", he explained that he did not take his own novel as a sequel to his other novel, "2001" but as an alternate reality sequel.

In "2001", it was Dr. Floyd who ordered H.A.L. to lie to the astronauts. But, Dr. Floyd was going to be the main character in "2010", played by Roy Scheider. So, the Powers That Be didn't want him to be this underhanded guy who was as much politician as scientist. They asked Clarke to rewrite it so that Floyd did not know about H>A>L> being reprogrammed.

Clarke did it. But, for him, that it was being rewritten to say it didn't happen the way it happened made it not a true sequel. He said that, for him, it is an alternate reality sequel, not to the "2001" that was on theater screens in 1968 (and in a novel) but a sequel to the "2001" that might have been on theater screens in 1968 in another reality where it happened differently.

Obviously, continuity mattered to him- a lot!

But, I find it useful for purposes of enjoying these prequels on their own merits and evaluating them on their own merits because the most invalid form of critique imaginable is to say something is bad based on some outside standard rather than on its own merits. I suppose one could think of each Star Trek as a series of books in the same story or as chapters in a book. In that case, I suppose Chapter 6 contradicting half of what happened in Chapter One would be a valid criticism.

But, I just think of things like Discovery and SNW as- to paraphrase Clarke- prequels not to the Star Trek that was on television screens in the 1960s but to an alternate reality version of Star Trek that was on screens in the 1960s in some alternate reality.

Now, mind you, this is a good thing in many ways. The Star Trek that was on television in our reality included women on the bridge and in command positions as a new thing men were uncomfortable with. It presented women, generally, as telephone operators, coffee servers and nurses, but never ever doctors.

I imagine a TOS that omitted those things or at least explained them. I loved how Star Trek Continues acknowledged those things, and then explained how the far future fell back into that and started coming out of it again.

Also, let's be honest. In TOS, they deserve extreme credit for breaking a lot of barriers and having an integrated crew. It was a fantastic first step. But, it was for future shows to make those minority characters major characters and not token characters in the background.

So, I don't have a problem with an alternate reality that isn't necessarily exactly canon being something I like better. I also can understand why they don't just remake TOS as a series and be done with it. They'd probably do what the movies did and throw out everything that ever happened in the show. No "City on the Edge of Forever", no "Naked Time", no "Devil in the Dark", and on and on. It would be gutted of everything that made it great because the alternative would be to just rehash all the stories with a, hopefully no more than minor, twist.

Hmm, I guess I wish they'd just go Post-Voyager and stop rehashing the history.

[thwhtGuardian]

First off, can you at least follow why the revisionism would bug some people?

If the retcon doesn't bother you, fine. It is fiction and wouldn't the first time something was changed. However, there are two problems, I see. First of all, as noted, there's the double standard of how this one piece of past lore is being retconned because it doesn't align with real history, despite the show heavily using another peace of the same kind of lore and giving it as pass (long story short, why the heck are they so concerned about the Eugenics Wars making Star Trek an alternate future when, by using the sanctuary districts, they've factually rendered it an alternate universe anyways?). TLDL, the argument for erasing the Eugenics Wars is inconsistent with the very premise of the show they're making.

Secondly, I wouldn't be so sure that shifting it around doesn't "ruin" anything. The Star Trek timeline has been built on the assumptions of these past pieces of history for decades now and quite a few of the blank spaces have been filled in, with little to no room to push things forward. This isn't a comic book floating timeline, where everything is kept vague and timeline references are in relation to events, but one where hard dates have been set and used to build the scaffolding of the franchise's universe. For example, when we get to 2063, should the Powers That Be retcon First Contact to actually taking place 2093, just so we can pretend that the story "always" took place in the near future? The problem is that ENT based itself very heavily on that film, including it taking place in 2063. Eventually, if we keep pushing things forward, First Contact will be essentially taking place during ENT, despite how impossible that is to work. And how long until ENT starts intruding on DSC and TOS's era? Trying to retcon to real-world history in the long run will destroy the intent of the stories and how they fit together, defeating the purpose of them being part of the same continuity in the first place.



Funny how Jules Verne and Ray Bradbury are still read today despite their predictions of the future being invalidated a long time ago. Or how the Jurassic Park movies are still going strong despite the series no longer taking place in our world and depending on an alternate past. Like I said, I do not understand the obsession that Star Trek must remain "our" future and how it's lessened if it's not. In any event, Star Trek ceased to be our future a long time ago. Heck, most of the material r.e. the Eugenics Wars, from details to consistent confirmation of it's status as a '90s event, was made long after 1996 (even Star Trek Into Darkness didn't retcon that).

Disagree with me if you will, but does it at least make sense why some people don't care for the revisionism of new Trek and see the cost of retconning to stay true to real life not to be worth the cost of the how it will mangle the worldbuilding and chronology of the franchise (esp. since Star Trek was never designed for this and has heavily integrated its alternate history into the source code)?

It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, no, especially in this case as we've never seen the Eugenics war on screen so it doesn't hurt anything to just ignore the original date given and bump everything forward to say like 2050. It serves the same purpose, it's far enough in the future that it gives you room to extrapolate current events morphing into something worse and yet close enough that it feels threatening and real. That was the whole reason it was placed in the 1990's originally.

And as I said, the books themselves are fine, no need to go revising the original...but you'll notice when they are adapted they're either period pieces where the anacronistic bits can be played off with a wink and a nod as being "quaint" or if they are presented as still being "our" future like the 2018 version of Fahrenheit 451 the anacronistic bits get updated. It's not fantastic enough that there are wall to wall tv's anymore, though not something we actually do today our flat screen TV's have reached a level where you could concievably do it and so instead of pretending that's futuristic they went with holgrams projected into the room which IS futuristic for a modern audience and still achieves the same feel.

That's how science fiction is supposed to work. It's supposed to give you a look into the future.

[WebLurker]

When I say I don't take the prequels as canon, I mean that I take them as a slight or not so slight alternate reality.

I think I got this idea from Arthur C. Clarke. In his preface to the novel "2010", he explained that he did not take his own novel as a sequel to his other novel, "2001" but as an alternate reality sequel.

In "2001", it was Dr. Floyd who ordered H.A.L. to lie to the astronauts. But, Dr. Floyd was going to be the main character in "2010", played by Roy Scheider. So, the Powers That Be didn't want him to be this underhanded guy who was as much politician as scientist. They asked Clarke to rewrite it so that Floyd did not know about H>A>L> being reprogrammed.

Clarke did it. But, for him, that it was being rewritten to say it didn't happen the way it happened made it not a true sequel. He said that, for him, it is an alternate reality sequel, not to the "2001" that was on theater screens in 1968 (and in a novel) but a sequel to the "2001" that might have been on theater screens in 1968 in another reality where it happened differently.

Obviously, continuity mattered to him- a lot!

But, I find it useful for purposes of enjoying these prequels on their own merits and evaluating them on their own merits because the most invalid form of critique imaginable is to say something is bad based on some outside standard rather than on its own merits. I suppose one could think of each Star Trek as a series of books in the same story or as chapters in a book. In that case, I suppose Chapter 6 contradicting half of what happened in Chapter One would be a valid criticism.

But, I just think of things like Discovery and SNW as- to paraphrase Clarke- prequels not to the Star Trek that was on television screens in the 1960s but to an alternate reality version of Star Trek that was on screens in the 1960s in some alternate reality.

Now, mind you, this is a good thing in many ways. The Star Trek that was on television in our reality included women on the bridge and in command positions as a new thing men were uncomfortable with. It presented women, generally, as telephone operators, coffee servers and nurses, but never ever doctors.

I imagine a TOS that omitted those things or at least explained them. I loved how Star Trek Continues acknowledged those things, and then explained how the far future fell back into that and started coming out of it again.

Also, let's be honest. In TOS, they deserve extreme credit for breaking a lot of barriers and having an integrated crew. It was a fantastic first step. But, it was for future shows to make those minority characters major characters and not token characters in the background.

So, I don't have a problem with an alternate reality that isn't necessarily exactly canon being something I like better. I also can understand why they don't just remake TOS as a series and be done with it. They'd probably do what the movies did and throw out everything that ever happened in the show. No "City on the Edge of Forever", no "Naked Time", no "Devil in the Dark", and on and on. It would be gutted of everything that made it great because the alternative would be to just rehash all the stories with a, hopefully no more than minor, twist.

Hmm, I guess I wish they'd just go Post-Voyager and stop rehashing the history.

Okay.

I guess I'm starting to see new Trek as being along the lines of TAS; canon, but not reliable when it contradicts the other TV shows and movies.

It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, no, especially in this case as we've never seen the Eugenics war on screen so it doesn't hurt anything to just ignore the original date given and bump everything forward to say like 2050. It serves the same purpose, it's far enough in the future that it gives you room to extrapolate current events morphing into something worse and yet close enough that it feels threatening. That was the whole reason it was placed in the 1990's originally.

As stated before, everything's so interlocked, there isn't room to move things around. What happens when you definitively run out of room to keep pushing things forward and a couple centuries worth of backstory is suddenly stuffed within a couple of years of ENT? Also, the question still remains why the sanctuary districts were okay for PIC but the Eugenics Wars were not, despite being exactly the same kind of thing (an ostensibly future event that will make Star Trek not our future when real life goes past the timestamps)?

Also, it it's so important to keep the Eugenics Wars in the future, then why did the shows made after the '90s faithfully keep up the original model?

And as I said, the books themselves are fine, no need to go revising the original...but you'll notice when they are adapted they're either period pieces where the anacronistic bits can be played off with a wink and a nod as being "quaint" or if they are presented as still being "our" future like the 2018 version of Fahrenheit 451 the anacronistic bits get updated. It's not fantastic enough that there are wall to wall tv's anymore, though not something we actually do today our flat screen TV's have reached a level where you could concievably do it and so instead of pretending that's futuristic they went with holgrams projected into the room which IS futuristic for a modern audience and still achieves the same feel.

PIC and SNW aren't being made as adaptations of the source material, but continuations of said source material, one, that as outlined above, has made it clear that the Eugenics Wars is a past event of the '90s.

That's how science fiction is supposed to work. It's supposed to give you a look into the future.

And yet steampunk is a thing, not to mention how a lot of sci-fi stories are about the present, even if dressed up in the future. Star Trek is not our future, and trying to force it to be will only make things worse.

[thwhtGuardian]

Okay.

I guess I'm starting to see new Trek as being along the lines of TAS; canon, but not reliable when it contradicts the other TV shows and movies.



As stated before, everything's so interlocked, there isn't room to move things around. What happens when you definitively run out of room to keep pushing things forward and a couple centuries worth of backstory is suddenly stuffed within a couple of years of ENT? Also, the question still remains why the sanctuary districts were okay for PIC but the Eugenics Wars were not, despite being exactly the same kind of thing (an ostensibly future event that will make Star Trek not our future when real life goes past the timestamps)?

Also, it it's so important to keep the Eugenics Wars in the future, then why did the shows made after the '90s faithfully keep up the original model?



PIC and SNW aren't being made as adaptations of the source material, but continuations of said source material, one, that as outlined above, has made it clear that the Eugenics Wars is a past event of the '90s.



And yet steampunk is a thing, not to mention how a lot of sci-fi stories are about the present, even if dressed up in the future. Star Trek is not our future, and trying to force it to be will only make things worse.

Everything can be moved forward...it's literally set in the future. If we move the Eugenics war into our not too distant future, it's no big deal to then move WWIII a little while after that and then first contact a little later than that and so on and so on. The dates aren't actually real, so there's no reason to keep that fidelity. What does it really change if we pretend that Kirk and Spock set out on their original 5 year mission in the 24th century rather than the 23rd? Especially as that wasn't even a set in stone thing until we got to the films?

As for steampunk, that's done like I said with a wink and a nod which is very different from the spirit of Star Trek.

And I think you need to watch Picard again, because I don't think there were explicitly Sanctuary districts there, just the hint they were going that way with the visual simularity between the homles camp and the Santuary district from DS9 so it's not clear if that hasn't been bumped forward too. And like I said, unlike the Eugenics wars the concept of walling off the poor and homeless sadly doesn't seem that far fetched in this political climate and still could believeably happen in this decade.

[WebLurker]

Everything can be moved forward...it's literally set in the future. If we move the Eugenics war into our not too distant future, it's no big deal to then move WWIII a little while after that and then first contact a little later than that and so on and so on. The dates aren't actually real, so there's no reason to keep that fidelity. What does it really change if we pretend that Kirk and Spock set out on their original 5 year mission in the 24th century rather than the 23rd? Especially as that wasn't even a set in stone thing until we got to the films?

If we did that, the franchise would loose all coherent sense. Too many stories and events have been timestamped with real dates to change stuff. Every time we hear a year or event, mentioned, it would be wrong (not to mention distorting the stories as they were intended to be presented). This isn't a floating timeline anymore than its our future. The franchise may have started out with a vague timeframe, but everything got locked down years ago, and the current state of the franchise is all that matters in this scenario. (Even if we did accept this model of ignoring the dates just to keep things constantly shifting farther into the future, that's not what new Trek is doing. The Powers That Be are upholding the overall set timeline, that TOS is 2360s, TNG/DS9, etc. are 2360s, and so on. They're just trying to rip one piece of the timeline out and stick it somewhere else within the framework.)

As for steampunk, that's done like I said with a wink and a nod which is very different from the spirit of Star Trek.

You're missing the point; we can care about worlds even if they have significant differences from our own. Besides, it's perfectly in line with Star Trek to keep it's "invalidated" history. Excusing the Eugenics Wars having always been a '90s event, "Future's End" (VOY) included a reference to the fictional '60s-era Brush Wars first established in "A Private Little War" (TOS) and a photo of a DY-100 ship from "Space Seed" (TOS). All that was before ENT and Into Darkness continued the affirmation that the Eugenics

And I think you need to watch Picard again, because I don't think there were explicitly Sanctuary districts there, just the hint they were going that way with the visual simularity between the homles camp and the Santuary district from DS9 so it's not clear if that hasn't been bumped forward too.

The episode "Assimilation" has a sanctuary district (in fact, the episode takes place in the same year that the DS9 episode that invented them does). So, not bumped forward and the question of why it's okay to have a fictionalized 2020s but not a fictionalized 1990s remains.

And like I said, unlike the Eugenics wars the concept of walling off the poor and homeless sadly doesn't seem that far fetched in this political climate and still could believeably happen in this decade.

Whether or not one is more likely to really happen is irrelevant to whether or not it should be disregarded as something that never came to pass in real life when the fictional universe said it did.

[thwhtGuardian]

If we did that, the franchise would loose all coherent sense. Too many stories and events have been timestamped with real dates to change stuff. Every time we hear a year or event, mentioned, it would be wrong (not to mention distorting the stories as they were intended to be presented). This isn't a floating timeline anymore than its our future. The franchise may have started out with a vague timeframe, but everything got locked down years ago, and the current state of the franchise is all that matters in this scenario. (Even if we did accept this model of ignoring the dates just to keep things constantly shifting farther into the future, that's not what new Trek is doing. The Powers That Be are upholding the overall set timeline, that TOS is 2360s, TNG/DS9, etc. are 2360s, and so on. They're just trying to rip one piece of the timeline out and stick it somewhere else within the framework.)



You're missing the point; we can care about worlds even if they have significant differences from our own. Besides, it's perfectly in line with Star Trek to keep it's "invalidated" history. Excusing the Eugenics Wars having always been a '90s event, "Future's End" (VOY) included a reference to the fictional '60s-era Brush Wars first established in "A Private Little War" (TOS) and a photo of a DY-100 ship from "Space Seed" (TOS). All that was before ENT and Into Darkness continued the affirmation that the Eugenics



The episode "Assimilation" has a sanctuary district (in fact, the episode takes place in the same year that the DS9 episode that invented them does). So, not bumped forward and the question of why it's okay to have a fictionalized 2020s but not a fictionalized 1990s remains.



Whether or not one is more likely to really happen is irrelevant to whether or not it should be disregarded as something that never came to pass in real life when the fictional universe said it did.

It doesn't have an actual sanctuary district, it has imagry simmilar to the episode from DS9.

And the dates aren't actual dates...they are completely made up, this isn't a historical piece. I could see being a sticler for dates on say a show about the Revolutionary war, those are actual historic moments with known dates....but a show about an imaginary future? What does the date really matter there? It doesn't really matter to the plot at all, they merely signify that one show or film occurs after another and as has already been pointed out it wasn't even consistent until a decade after the fact.

These complaints are making less and less sense.

[WebLurker]

It doesn't have an actual sanctuary district, it has imagry simmilar to the episode from DS9.

No, there's a sign for one as a piece of the set (on the right in yellow). One of the episodes even has an Easter egg reference to the character Chris Brynner. So, yes, the districts are in PIC.

And the dates aren't actual dates...they are completely made up, this isn't a historical piece. I could see being a sticler for dates on say a show about the Revolutionary war, those are actual historic moments with known dates....but a show about an imaginary future? What does the date really matter there? It doesn't really matter to the plot at all, they merely signify that one show or film occurs after another...

And it often does matter to the plot, such as in time travel stories, anything where the franchise relates itself to the present day, etc.

...and as has already been pointed out it wasn't even consistent until a decade after the fact.

And, as already pointed out, that changed to a consistent model for most of the franchise's lifespan.

These complaints are making less and less sense.

You seriously can't understand why someone would want the show to stay consistent with its internal worldbuilding? Frankly, you're the one making less sense to me.

[ChrisIII]

TNG has a few other references to the DY series, although I think they're mostly on blink and you'll miss it viewscreeens/okudagrams. So apparently they were fairly common pre-Federation colony ships.

Regarding the 2001/2010 comparison this also happened in the Jurassic Park novels; Ian Malcolm is pretty much very dead by the end of the original novel, and even if he wasn't completely he was still on the island when it is firebombed.

But in part because of the success of the character in the movie adaptation, Ian is alive but I think with a cane in the sequel novel, Lost World.