Interesting you should mention Voyager, since it implies in "Future's End" that the crash of the timeship in 1967 and Henry Starling's exploitation of its technology was what delayed the Eugenics wars a decade or two by shifting the focus of research into other disciplines. Instead of the string of exceptionally bloody brush wars leading up to WWIII that TOS brushed on it is possible that timeship paradox caused them to be crunched together into one big and even bloodier war (600 million in a lump instead of about 67 million spread between the eugenics wars (30M) and WWIII (37M)).
That's not hinted at all. The retcon was already made in TVH where no impending WWIII was mentioned and then in DS9 where they added the corect 100 years onto TOS' figures.
Why would the Enterprise crew mention the Eugenics War or World War III in 1986 when it had absolutely nothing to do with their mission of grabbing a whale?
The DS9 mention was a mistake according to Ronald D. Moore and it would have put the Eugenics Wars after Enterprise which makes absolutely no sense especially with the Augment story arc. Two hundred years before DS9 is 2173 not 2073.
BENNETT: I don't think so. Two hundred years ago we tried to improve the species through DNA resequencing, and what did we get for our trouble? The Eugenics Wars. For every Julian Bashir that can be created, there's a Khan Singh waiting in the wings. A superhuman whose ambition and thirst for power have been enhanced along with his intellect. The law against genetic engineering provides a firewall against such men and it's my job to keep that firewall intact. I've made my offer. Do you accept?
RICHARD: Yes.
In contrast to the Eugenics Wars having previously been established as taking place in the 1990s, "Doctor Bashir, I Presume", set in 2373, references the Eugenics Wars as having occurred two centuries prior to the episode, placing the Wars in the late 22nd century. As Ronald D. Moore later admitted, this statement was a production error, a line he had taken from The Wrath of Khan, but he had accidentally forgotten to account for the episode being set a century later than the film. (AOL chat, 1997) Confessed Moore, "It was simply a mistake. The date of the Eugenics Wars is something that we have been studiously trying not to pin ourselves down about, because obviously they aren't happening around as we speak [....] What looked like the distant future in 1967 is not so distant any more. I don't blame them for not having the foresight to see that in 30 years this would become important in the series." A production staffer from Star Trek: Voyager suggested the date had deliberately been changed on DS9 to account for the Eugenics Wars having not been mentioned in the "Future's End" two-parter. Moore flatly rejected that theory and responded, "We never talked to Voyager about it."
The preceding conversation is an excellent example of why I despise Star Trek's "a line spoken on screen is the Word of God, whereas hundreds of pages of well-connected text in a book is nothing" canon paradigm.
The preceding conversation is an excellent example of why I despise Star Trek's "a line spoken on screen is the Word of God, whereas hundreds of pages of well-connected text in a book is nothing" canon paradigm.
Which is I want a Eugenics Wars TV series or a Gary Seven TV series with one or two seasons focusing on the Eugenics Wars based on the first Eugenics Wars novel. Some Star Trek novels are extremely good or has some interesting ideas while others are pure trash. Unfortunately, we have to rely on "a line spoken on screen is The Word of God" since novels are non-canon.
The preceding conversation is an excellent example of why I despise Star Trek's "a line spoken on screen is the Word of God, whereas hundreds of pages of well-connected text in a book is nothing" canon paradigm.
The canon thing of only the various series and movies is because Desilu/Paramount were only involved in the Hollywood end of it and did not want to ride herd on third party sources the way some others do (like for instance Lucas with the Star Wars extended universe before Disney closed it all off).
On the other hand, it is not quite the "dialog is the word of god" thing that some think it is either, that is an exaggeration of the actual canon (which grew out the widening schism between Roddenberry and Paramount as much as anything else) and specifically only states that the various series and movies as a whole are canon and any novels and other third party works are not canon although parts may be canonized by later inclusion in canon works. The key is actually stuff in which Roddenberry and/or Paramount had direct involvement in (and even then, for years TAS was considered only semi-canon).
That said, Paramount did (for a short time) experiment a little around the edges with lower semi-canon levels in closely managed licensed works, such as the deal they had with FASA where everything single thing the game company published for the Star Trek game had to be approved as canon-ready by Paramount before it was published, and was, in essence, owned by both companies (though Paramount apparently did not want to test whether that last part would hold up and avoided using it in anything but indirect references and details on screens people were not meant to actually read or look at too closely).
Of course, that assumes that CBS does not throw out the traditional Trek canon entirely and put in one of their own (which would probably get them strung up from a tree somewhere....).
The preceding conversation is an excellent example of why I despise Star Trek's "a line spoken on screen is the Word of God, whereas hundreds of pages of well-connected text in a book is nothing" canon paradigm.
Which is I want a Eugenics Wars TV series or a Gary Seven TV series with one or two seasons focusing on the Eugenics Wars based on the first Eugenics Wars novel. Some Star Trek novels are extremely good or has some interesting ideas while others are pure trash. Unfortunately, we have to rely on "a line spoken on screen is The Word of God" since novels are non-canon.
Well, the actual canon policy is no longer public so people get carried away with selective interpretations of the old one
Why would the Enterprise crew mention the Eugenics War or World War III in 1986 when it had absolutely nothing to do with their mission of grabbing a whale?
Uum, you do know Khan effectively killed Spock right? You have seen TWoK right? You'd think that Khan and the like running about on Earth would be of at least a tiny bit of concern when picking up whales.
The DS9 mention was a mistake according to Ronald D. Moore and it would have put the Eugenics Wars after Enterprise which makes absolutely no sense especially with the Augment story arc. Two hundred years before DS9 is 2173 not 2073.
Moor can say whatever he wants for his own headcanon. The show makes it clear that the line of 300 years in DS9 is not a mistake as it fits absolutely every single piece of evidence from the entire franchise including TOS assise from the incorrect date given in Space Seed. His opinion on his own headcanon is worth as much as yours.
The preceding conversation is an excellent example of why I despise Star Trek's "a line spoken on screen is the Word of God, whereas hundreds of pages of well-connected text in a book is nothing" canon paradigm.
Take it up with CBS then. Canon is a franchise protection metaconcept and cares nothing for your personal favourite books.
The canon thing of only the various series and movies is because Desilu/Paramount were only involved in the Hollywood end of it and did not want to ride herd on third party sources the way some others do (like for instance Lucas with the Star Wars extended universe before Disney closed it all off).
Yeah, that's the reason for any canon. It's a device for keeping direct oversight of works.
On the other hand, it is not quite the "dialog is the word of god" thing that some think it is either, that is an exaggeration of the actual canon (which grew out the widening schism between Roddenberry and Paramount as much as anything else) and specifically only states that the various series and movies as a whole are canon and any novels and other third party works are not canon although parts may be canonized by later inclusion in canon works.
Leaving aside the lazy and inaccurate use of the term 'word of god' (which is actually used to refer to things not onscreen) that's the same thing. If the dialogue is from a film or a TV episode then it's canon. That's it.
The key is actually stuff in which Roddenberry and/or Paramount had direct involvement in (and even then, for years TAS was considered only semi-canon).
The key is if it's a TV show or film by CBS or Paramount. It's not the level of involvement of anybody.
Of course, that assumes that CBS does not throw out the traditional Trek canon entirely and put in one of their own (which would probably get them strung up from a tree somewhere....).
TV shows and films only is CBS' canon policy. I'd assume it's since been widened to include the Short Treks but they've not actually said.
You know full well CBS owns the franchise in its entirety and have done for a while. The quote everybody keeps using is directly from by Paula Block, the person in charge of CBS' licensing.
[Well, the actual canon policy is no longer public so people get carried away with selective interpretations of the old one
Which is as irrelevant as it always has been whenever you bring it up. Canon is a legal thing and a creative thing, it's nothing to do with viewers. IT's not there for you so why would it make a difference if you can see it or not? And, again, like all rules it remains unless it's been supplanted.
It's also impossible to selectively interpret 'TV and films only'.
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though. JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
The DS9 mention was a mistake according to Ronald D. Moore and it would have put the Eugenics Wars after Enterprise which makes absolutely no sense especially with the Augment story arc. Two hundred years before DS9 is 2173 not 2073.
Moor can say whatever he wants for his own headcanon. The show makes it clear that the line of 300 years in DS9 is not a mistake as it fits absolutely every single piece of evidence from the entire franchise including TOS assise from the incorrect date given in Space Seed. His opinion on his own headcanon is worth as much as yours.
Except that the line in DS9 was 200 years not 300 years. In the Doctor Bashir, I Presume episode which I quoted previously it states:
BENNETT: I don't think so. Two hundred years ago we tried to improve the species through DNA resequencing, and what did we get for our trouble? The Eugenics Wars. For every Julian Bashir that can be created, there's a Khan Singh waiting in the wings. A superhuman whose ambition and thirst for power have been enhanced along with his intellect. The law against genetic engineering provides a firewall against such men and it's my job to keep that firewall intact. I've made my offer. Do you accept?
RICHARD: Yes.
So it is not Moore's personal headcanon when pointing out his mistake that would put the Eugenics Wars after the formation of the Federation in the 22nd Century.
Then there is this bit of evidence from the Borderlands episode of Enterprise that puts the Augments in the 20th Century not the 21st Century.
SOONG: Malik. He was the rebellious one. Reminded me of myself when I was his age. I came to think of them as my own children.
PHLOX: It must've been difficult for you to leave them behind.
SOONG: I knew they'd survive.
PHLOX: This is extremely sophisticated work for twentieth century Earth.
SOONG: Well, I made some modifications of my own.
PHLOX: Really? What kind of modifications?
SOONG: I prefer to let my work speak for itself.
PHLOX: I think it already has.
SOONG: I didn't realise you shared humanity's reactionary attitude toward this field of medicine.
PHLOX: On the contrary, we've used genetic engineering on Denobula for over two centuries, to generally positive effect.
SOONG: But you don't approve of what I've done.
PHLOX: You tried to redesign your species. The first time that was attempted on Earth, the result was thirty million deaths.
[Well, the actual canon policy is no longer public so people get carried away with selective interpretations of the old one
Which is as irrelevant as it always has been whenever you bring it up. Canon is a legal thing and a creative thing, it's nothing to do with viewers. IT's not there for you so why would it make a difference if you can see it or not? And, again, like all rules it remains unless it's been supplanted.
It's also impossible to selectively interpret 'TV and films only'.
Since when was CBS's policy actually that short or simple? Answer: That phrase is your personal head canon as to the intent behind the CBS canon policy.
And really... "legal"? The only "legal" rule is the IP holder decides what is canon. Thing is the CBS canon policy doesn't exist for YOUR benefit or that of fans, it exists as a guide for the writers. That is why the current one isn't public. It's available to those who have reason to use it. You aren't one of them. Like you said, "it's nothing to do with viewers". Sure it may remain in effect until replaced, but it HAS been replaced, it's just that it hasn't been replaced with anything public. Like you said: "It's not there for you".
I'm pretty sure CBS sees this train of discussion as utterly meaningless. The canon policy doesn't exist to settle internet arguments.
Thirdly the production staff stated that Short treks were canon before the first 4 came out, just like they announced The Lower Decks is canon a few days ago.
You should have lead with that as it's the only point that would make your statement true. In this case I'm happy to accept it. LDs was never in doubt as it's a TV show.
I'm pretty sure CBS sees this train of discussion as utterly meaningless. The canon policy doesn't exist to settle internet arguments.
Irrelevant. CBS' opinion of what other people do with canon doesn't matter unless they intend to make money from it or otherwise do financial damage to the franchise or IP. It's the only framework that exists to create a common ground for reference material so it is the only source that can be used in internet arguments.
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though. JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
I'm pretty sure CBS sees this train of discussion as utterly meaningless. The canon policy doesn't exist to settle internet arguments.
Irrelevant. CBS' opinion of what other people do with canon doesn't matter unless they intend to make money from it or otherwise do financial damage to the franchise or IP. It's the only framework that exists to create a common ground for reference material so it is the only source that can be used in internet arguments.
Really? by your own admission what you use is simply the most recent publicly available version. And that was from before the KT movies and Disco got made. The current canon policy is simply not public knowledge. How can it be used for anything when we don't know what it is?
The DS9 mention was a mistake according to Ronald D. Moore and it would have put the Eugenics Wars after Enterprise which makes absolutely no sense especially with the Augment story arc. Two hundred years before DS9 is 2173 not 2073.
Moor can say whatever he wants for his own headcanon. The show makes it clear that the line of 300 years in DS9 is not a mistake as it fits absolutely every single piece of evidence from the entire franchise including TOS assise from the incorrect date given in Space Seed. His opinion on his own headcanon is worth as much as yours.
It is not "head canon", Star Trek has always set the eugenics wars as happening before the invention of warp drive, not after as it would be if they happened after ENT (Starkaos is right, they did mistakenly say 200 years, not 300, which would place it between ENT and TOS), and furthermore, in ENT they make reference to them as being in the past, not their future. And before ENT, VOY gave a good (though possibly too subtle considering the confusion it seems to have generated) reason for the eugenics wars getting pushed back instead of happening in the 1990s as stated in previously made series.
The key is actually stuff in which Roddenberry and/or Paramount had direct involvement in (and even then, for years TAS was considered only semi-canon).
The key is if it's a TV show or film by CBS or Paramount. It's not the level of involvement of anybody.
The reason I stressed direct involvement was to differentiate it from licensing. Paramount licensed a number of books and comics which are not considered canon for instance.
Fundamentally, the problem with canon in Star Trek is that people think there is some fully comprehensive, consistent view of the Star Trek universe and its history. But unfortunately, continuity errors happen, aspects were forgotten, some things were intended to be forgotten, other things were implied but later contradicted and then the contradiction was contradicted. So it is not really useful. There is no single "canon" point of view that makes it all come together perfectly coherently, without contradictions and inconsistencies.
The only truth that you can be certain about in Star Trek is the one in the episode you're watching right now in the moment, and it might no longer be true if you watch another episode.
If a future episode writer for a future series comes up with an idea that was already contradicted later and nothing and no one stops him, that is what will happen in that episode, even if it doesn't mesh with the rest. You can't really define a magical canon that salvages all that.
And ultimately, that's okay. There are so many Star Trek stories... You won't be able to remember them all at the same time anyway.
---
Why did this turn into yet another canon discussion?
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Fundamentally, the problem with canon in Star Trek is that people think there is some fully comprehensive, consistent view of the Star Trek universe and its history. But unfortunately, continuity errors happen, aspects were forgotten, some things were intended to be forgotten, other things were implied but later contradicted and then the contradiction was contradicted. So it is not really useful. There is no single "canon" point of view that makes it all come together perfectly coherently, without contradictions and inconsistencies.
The only truth that you can be certain about in Star Trek is the one in the episode you're watching right now in the moment, and it might no longer be true if you watch another episode.
If a future episode writer for a future series comes up with an idea that was already contradicted later and nothing and no one stops him, that is what will happen in that episode, even if it doesn't mesh with the rest. You can't really define a magical canon that salvages all that.
And ultimately, that's okay. There are so many Star Trek stories... You won't be able to remember them all at the same time anyway.
---
Why did this turn into yet another canon discussion?
Also in Star Trek we have temporal paradoxes that can rewrite continuity.
I would like a retrofuturistic star trek tv show which would take its inspiration from TOS. i'm not a fan of TOS, I wasn't excited by the TOS expansion. But after rewatching TOS, and modified my TOS toon to be really TOS, and done again the TOS missions; i must say that i like very much the unique atmosphere of this era.
I would like a retrofuturistic star trek tv show which would take its inspiration from TOS. i'm not a fan of TOS, I wasn't excited by the TOS expansion. But after rewatching TOS, and modified my TOS toon to be really TOS, and done again the TOS missions; i must say that i like very much the unique atmosphere of this era.
What about TOS do you consider "retrofuturistic"? It had nothing of the retrofuturistic style in the show, just futurism. Just the fact the show was made in the 1960s which were a long time ago does not change the style. Retrofuturism used entirely different shapes and textures that are closer to a 1950s art deco style with antennas, atoms, other atomic and rocket nonsense slapped on top of it, and has a completely different feel from the futurism that Trek designs were based on.
TOS used a mostly "googie" futuristic style, which depended on parabolic curves instead of circles, trapezoidal cantilevered shapes with often blunted edges instead of squares, and a generally sweeping smooth semi-organic look. In fact, the famous asymmetric delta insignia is a typical "sharp" arrow in the googie roadsign lexicon shown point up. Googie has an upbeat futuristic look which is why Jefferies used it for Trek in the first place, but current Hollywood has grown too cynical to accept the look anymore for the most part.
Unfortunately, some of the googie style design had to be toned down or dropped in TOS due to expediency (they only had straight wood to build the bulk of the sets with) so the oblate spheroid bridge with its ring platform holding curved control stations and extruding seats for those stations had to be turned into the familiar octagonish shape, and some other similar changes (the central platform on the bridge is more or less the same though the captain's chair is a lot more angular than the original design for instance) in various parts of the ship.
In fact, the original shuttlecraft were supposed to look nothing at all like the Galileo type shuttles seen in the show, Jefferies's design called for larger shuttles that looked a bit like the front section of the Pralim flight deck cruiser with complex curved wings on the sides but budget and time constraints left them with the flying van like one they could quickly and cheaply throw together instead.
Anyway, I like the TOS esthetics in the game too though they have so little of it. If you have not done the "Spectres" arc yet I would highly recommend it (it used to be a mission set for around level thirty, but for some odd reason they moved it up to level 65 and stuck it in the "available" tab instead of the episodes tab.
I would like a retrofuturistic star trek tv show which would take its inspiration from TOS. i'm not a fan of TOS, I wasn't excited by the TOS expansion. But after rewatching TOS, and modified my TOS toon to be really TOS, and done again the TOS missions; i must say that i like very much the unique atmosphere of this era.
What about TOS do you consider "retrofuturistic"? It had nothing of the retrofuturistic style in the show, just futurism. Just the fact the show was made in the 1960s which were a long time ago does not change the style. Retrofuturism used entirely different shapes and textures that are closer to a 1950s art deco style with antennas, atoms, other atomic and rocket nonsense slapped on top of it, and has a completely different feel from the futurism that Trek designs were based on.
A show that airs in the 2020s that uses the style of TOS would be retrofuturistic. TOS would not be retrofuturistic because the creators of TOS believed that is how the future might look like. Fallout is a good example of retrofuturism due to it being a video game series created by people in the late 20th Century and early 21st Century providing their interpretation of what people in the 1950s might consider the future to be.
There is no particular style to retrofuturism. All that matters in retrofuturism is "the future as seen from the past". So a TV series created in the 21st Century and set in the 23rd Century, but has a Victorian style or 80s style would be retrofuturism.
In fact, the art style used in the Fallout series is called "Zeerust". It's based on what SF from the '30s to the '50s used to say about Da Future - mostly extending the existing Art Deco stylings and making buildings and cars bigger. It tends to be strongly affected by Time Marches On, as the future almost never looks the way it was imagined. (Batman: the Animated Series and Superman: the Animated Series both have strong Zeerust touches as well. Imagine anyone actually building anything like the computer terminal Kent and Lane write their stories on in that show?)
TOS tried very hard to be futuristic, which is why I don't have an issue with the visual stylings in, say, DSC - the actual TOS visuals are now bordering on Zeerust, while DSC rebuilds the same things while taking into account what we know now that we didn't know then. And I'd really prefer any future Trek series, even another one in the TOS era, to be more like DSC than TOS, visually speaking.
What about TOS do you consider "retrofuturistic"? It had nothing of the retrofuturistic style in the show, just futurism. Just the fact the show was made in the 1960s which were a long time ago does not change the style. Retrofuturism used entirely different shapes and textures that are closer to a 1950s art deco style with antennas, atoms, other atomic and rocket nonsense slapped on top of it, and has a completely different feel from the futurism that Trek designs were based on.
TOS used a mostly "googie" futuristic style, which depended on parabolic curves instead of circles, trapezoidal cantilevered shapes with often blunted edges instead of squares, and a generally sweeping smooth semi-organic look. In fact, the famous asymmetric delta insignia is a typical "sharp" arrow in the googie roadsign lexicon shown point up. Googie has an upbeat futuristic look which is why Jefferies used it for Trek in the first place, but current Hollywood has grown too cynical to accept the look anymore for the most part.
Unfortunately, some of the googie style design had to be toned down or dropped in TOS due to expediency (they only had straight wood to build the bulk of the sets with) so the oblate spheroid bridge with its ring platform holding curved control stations and extruding seats for those stations had to be turned into the familiar octagonish shape, and some other similar changes (the central platform on the bridge is more or less the same though the captain's chair is a lot more angular than the original design for instance) in various parts of the ship.
In fact, the original shuttlecraft were supposed to look nothing at all like the Galileo type shuttles seen in the show, Jefferies's design called for larger shuttles that looked a bit like the front section of the Pralim flight deck cruiser with complex curved wings on the sides but budget and time constraints left them with the flying van like one they could quickly and cheaply throw together instead.
(image)
Anyway, I like the TOS esthetics in the game too though they have so little of it. If you have not done the "Spectres" arc yet I would highly recommend it (it used to be a mission set for around level thirty, but for some odd reason they moved it up to level 65 and stuck it in the "available" tab instead of the episodes tab.
Oh I love that shuttlecraft design. It could have been a connection between the Tellarite ship of ENT and designs in Starfleet based on it.
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
I would like a retrofuturistic star trek tv show which would take its inspiration from TOS. i'm not a fan of TOS, I wasn't excited by the TOS expansion. But after rewatching TOS, and modified my TOS toon to be really TOS, and done again the TOS missions; i must say that i like very much the unique atmosphere of this era.
What about TOS do you consider "retrofuturistic"? It had nothing of the retrofuturistic style in the show, just futurism. Just the fact the show was made in the 1960s which were a long time ago does not change the style. Retrofuturism used entirely different shapes and textures that are closer to a 1950s art deco style with antennas, atoms, other atomic and rocket nonsense slapped on top of it, and has a completely different feel from the futurism that Trek designs were based on.
A show that airs in the 2020s that uses the style of TOS would be retrofuturistic. TOS would not be retrofuturistic because the creators of TOS believed that is how the future might look like. Fallout is a good example of retrofuturism due to it being a video game series created by people in the late 20th Century and early 21st Century providing their interpretation of what people in the 1950s might consider the future to be.
There is no particular style to retrofuturism. All that matters in retrofuturism is "the future as seen from the past". So a TV series created in the 21st Century and set in the 23rd Century, but has a Victorian style or 80s style would be retrofuturism.
That is only partially correct, the situation with TOS has to do more with long term familiarity (especially along with the huge difference in production values between then and now) than with anything actually "retro". That hypothetical TV series would only be retrofuturistic if CBS made an active effort to inject a false sense of the 1960s into it or played up the optimism in an ironic, cynical way.
That low-key cynicism is as vital to retrofuturism as the anachronistic elements, it is the core of the actual "style" of the movement. At its most basic level it boils down to the cognitive dissonance betwen the optimism and the realization that applied science usually does not live up to its promise very quickly, if at all, that started gaining traction in the mid 1960s and was firmly in place by the '70s. That is why retrofuturism almost always draws from pre-1960 sources.
The trick is, you cannot project the 1960s look, or even the typical 1960s ideas about what the future would look like, into the future and end up with Star Trek because Roddenberry and Jefferies were very careful to avoid doing that themselves. You can call Lost in Space retrofuturistic because it did use the early 1960s view of the future with their modified Gemini style space suits, lasers with cooling rings, the jetpack, the robot, the style of both sets of costumes, and the rest, but Star Trek was based on an entirely different aesthetic and only picked up the visual shorthands of the era that were necessary for people to understand what they were looking at without burning dialog time to explain it (Roddenberry was a huge fan of the "show, don't tell" writing philosophy).
Doing a remake of something that is closely based on the original aesthetics is not automatically "retro" even if the original was made decades ago, though some hold up better than others especially when an effort is made to make it as timeless as possible (that goes for TOS just as much as the classic Wizard of Oz movie and a few others).
And since everyone seems to point to the female uniforms as "retro" lets just get that out of the way right now. TOS did have miniskirts and miniskirts were iconic in the 1960s (though they were invented way before, and were used in the 1920s too for instance), but they were not '60s Mod style by any means (Theiss deliberately steered away from that). In fact they were closer to today's velvet minis than they were to the Mod minis so they are not actually retro (and as I said previously they were there mostly as a visual shorthand to get the idea across that the female crew were not forced into the traditional secondary roles they were in for so long). If anything, DSC using Nehru collared double-knit leisure suit derivatives bedazzled with little metallic deltas would be the "retro" uniforms instead.
Likewise, TOS communicators are not "retro" either because they are not "oversized flip phones" or cell phones at all, they are closer to high-end, high power military grade satellite phones with video and datalink capabilities along with a completely internal translator function, and for that they are still impressively compact and powerful.
The same goes for the bulky field computers like those you see Bones using at times which were not just computers but also sophisticated (if limited compared to a full lab) biochemical analyzers and synthesizers (watch Bones using one closely and you will see him putting samples in and taking vials out). A lot of the technology in TOS was like that in fact (for instance, the "bulky PADDs" people laugh at and compare to '90s PDAs were more like high end tablet computers today with built in hardcopy printers (and yes, the "hero" version of the prop had a roll of "metallic" paper in it that could be run out just like the one on the science station in The Cage though they decided not to bother with it after the pilot was filmed).
The DSC Enterprise bridge proves that the original aesthetic still works in fact, the differences are relatively minor and mostly production value and budget differences (and they have too many static simple buttons in grids instead of the multi-vector sensitive jewel buttons, but that is not a biggie and could be passed off as old 2250s technology). If they ditched the fugly parodies of the ugly double-knit third season TOS uniforms in favor of more fashionable long-knap velvet tunics and minidresses, and got rid of some of the cold glare in favor of the original "sourceless" style light the ship was supposed to have, the bridge at least would be ready for a faithful to the original concept TOS remake.
I would like a retrofuturistic star trek tv show which would take its inspiration from TOS. i'm not a fan of TOS, I wasn't excited by the TOS expansion. But after rewatching TOS, and modified my TOS toon to be really TOS, and done again the TOS missions; i must say that i like very much the unique atmosphere of this era.
What about TOS do you consider "retrofuturistic"? It had nothing of the retrofuturistic style in the show, just futurism. Just the fact the show was made in the 1960s which were a long time ago does not change the style. Retrofuturism used entirely different shapes and textures that are closer to a 1950s art deco style with antennas, atoms, other atomic and rocket nonsense slapped on top of it, and has a completely different feel from the futurism that Trek designs were based on.
A show that airs in the 2020s that uses the style of TOS would be retrofuturistic. TOS would not be retrofuturistic because the creators of TOS believed that is how the future might look like. Fallout is a good example of retrofuturism due to it being a video game series created by people in the late 20th Century and early 21st Century providing their interpretation of what people in the 1950s might consider the future to be.
There is no particular style to retrofuturism. All that matters in retrofuturism is "the future as seen from the past". So a TV series created in the 21st Century and set in the 23rd Century, but has a Victorian style or 80s style would be retrofuturism.
For me, they sort of focus around certain established characters in the Trek universe already.
Captain Ezri Dax of the USS Aventine (Destiny novels put to the screen).
Section 31 focused around Sloan and the TNG/DS9/Voy timeline.
TOS Mirror series focused around the USS Defiant.
A series focused around the Relativity principles (traveling through time to correct/alter the timeline with the Wells class).
Enterprise J
And... The only one CBS seems to have gotten right so far. Captain Pike. Here's hoping we see some of the Defiant in that show too.
Edit: I forgot the most important one. Captain Barclay, the Animated Series.
A series focused around the Relativity principles (traveling through time to correct/alter the timeline with the Wells class)
It's called Doctor Who. Been around for quite a while. I'm particularly fond of the Eccleston and Whitaker runs as the Doctor, although Smith and Baker are fun (and Capaldi was an interesting callback in attitude to the First Doctor, Hartnell, although with a more modern sensibility).
A series focused around the Relativity principles (traveling through time to correct/alter the timeline with the Wells class)
It's called Doctor Who. Been around for quite a while. I'm particularly fond of the Eccleston and Whitaker runs as the Doctor, although Smith and Baker are fun (and Capaldi was an interesting callback in attitude to the First Doctor, Hartnell, although with a more modern sensibility).
I don't care much for the new series outside of Capaldi's run. Besides, the Wells class looks a lot nicer than the outside of the TARDIS. :P
Comments
Why would the Enterprise crew mention the Eugenics War or World War III in 1986 when it had absolutely nothing to do with their mission of grabbing a whale?
The DS9 mention was a mistake according to Ronald D. Moore and it would have put the Eugenics Wars after Enterprise which makes absolutely no sense especially with the Augment story arc. Two hundred years before DS9 is 2173 not 2073.
Which is I want a Eugenics Wars TV series or a Gary Seven TV series with one or two seasons focusing on the Eugenics Wars based on the first Eugenics Wars novel. Some Star Trek novels are extremely good or has some interesting ideas while others are pure trash. Unfortunately, we have to rely on "a line spoken on screen is The Word of God" since novels are non-canon.
The canon thing of only the various series and movies is because Desilu/Paramount were only involved in the Hollywood end of it and did not want to ride herd on third party sources the way some others do (like for instance Lucas with the Star Wars extended universe before Disney closed it all off).
On the other hand, it is not quite the "dialog is the word of god" thing that some think it is either, that is an exaggeration of the actual canon (which grew out the widening schism between Roddenberry and Paramount as much as anything else) and specifically only states that the various series and movies as a whole are canon and any novels and other third party works are not canon although parts may be canonized by later inclusion in canon works. The key is actually stuff in which Roddenberry and/or Paramount had direct involvement in (and even then, for years TAS was considered only semi-canon).
That said, Paramount did (for a short time) experiment a little around the edges with lower semi-canon levels in closely managed licensed works, such as the deal they had with FASA where everything single thing the game company published for the Star Trek game had to be approved as canon-ready by Paramount before it was published, and was, in essence, owned by both companies (though Paramount apparently did not want to test whether that last part would hold up and avoided using it in anything but indirect references and details on screens people were not meant to actually read or look at too closely).
Of course, that assumes that CBS does not throw out the traditional Trek canon entirely and put in one of their own (which would probably get them strung up from a tree somewhere....).
Could they be said to have been canon-balized?
"Facepalms" That joke is so bad Spock just raised both eyebrows
My character Tsin'xing
Uum, you do know Khan effectively killed Spock right? You have seen TWoK right? You'd think that Khan and the like running about on Earth would be of at least a tiny bit of concern when picking up whales.
Moor can say whatever he wants for his own headcanon. The show makes it clear that the line of 300 years in DS9 is not a mistake as it fits absolutely every single piece of evidence from the entire franchise including TOS assise from the incorrect date given in Space Seed. His opinion on his own headcanon is worth as much as yours.
Take it up with CBS then. Canon is a franchise protection metaconcept and cares nothing for your personal favourite books.
Yeah, that's the reason for any canon. It's a device for keeping direct oversight of works.
Leaving aside the lazy and inaccurate use of the term 'word of god' (which is actually used to refer to things not onscreen) that's the same thing. If the dialogue is from a film or a TV episode then it's canon. That's it.
The key is if it's a TV show or film by CBS or Paramount. It's not the level of involvement of anybody.
TV shows and films only is CBS' canon policy. I'd assume it's since been widened to include the Short Treks but they've not actually said.
You know full well CBS owns the franchise in its entirety and have done for a while. The quote everybody keeps using is directly from by Paula Block, the person in charge of CBS' licensing.
Which is as irrelevant as it always has been whenever you bring it up. Canon is a legal thing and a creative thing, it's nothing to do with viewers. IT's not there for you so why would it make a difference if you can see it or not? And, again, like all rules it remains unless it's been supplanted.
It's also impossible to selectively interpret 'TV and films only'.
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
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Except that the line in DS9 was 200 years not 300 years. In the Doctor Bashir, I Presume episode which I quoted previously it states:
So it is not Moore's personal headcanon when pointing out his mistake that would put the Eugenics Wars after the formation of the Federation in the 22nd Century.
Then there is this bit of evidence from the Borderlands episode of Enterprise that puts the Augments in the 20th Century not the 21st Century.
And really... "legal"? The only "legal" rule is the IP holder decides what is canon. Thing is the CBS canon policy doesn't exist for YOUR benefit or that of fans, it exists as a guide for the writers. That is why the current one isn't public. It's available to those who have reason to use it.
I'm pretty sure CBS sees this train of discussion as utterly meaningless. The canon policy doesn't exist to settle internet arguments.
My character Tsin'xing
Irrelevant. IPs can have many different canons running at the same time.
The statement has only ever referred to TV shows and films. The Short Treks are neither.
Irrelevant. Many of the novels tie directly into the tV shows and are not canon.
You should have lead with that as it's the only point that would make your statement true. In this case I'm happy to accept it. LDs was never in doubt as it's a TV show.
Every single time they've made reference to it with no exceptions. Why is that in question?
A definition of what CBS' policy is is not the same as their intent behind it.
Because canons separate out material along lines that usually line up with rights.
Wow really!? Thanks for that insight. It's almost like that's exactly what I said.
[Citation needed]
Irrelevant. CBS' opinion of what other people do with canon doesn't matter unless they intend to make money from it or otherwise do financial damage to the franchise or IP. It's the only framework that exists to create a common ground for reference material so it is the only source that can be used in internet arguments.
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
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My character Tsin'xing
It is not "head canon", Star Trek has always set the eugenics wars as happening before the invention of warp drive, not after as it would be if they happened after ENT (Starkaos is right, they did mistakenly say 200 years, not 300, which would place it between ENT and TOS), and furthermore, in ENT they make reference to them as being in the past, not their future. And before ENT, VOY gave a good (though possibly too subtle considering the confusion it seems to have generated) reason for the eugenics wars getting pushed back instead of happening in the 1990s as stated in previously made series.
The reason I stressed direct involvement was to differentiate it from licensing. Paramount licensed a number of books and comics which are not considered canon for instance.
The only truth that you can be certain about in Star Trek is the one in the episode you're watching right now in the moment, and it might no longer be true if you watch another episode.
If a future episode writer for a future series comes up with an idea that was already contradicted later and nothing and no one stops him, that is what will happen in that episode, even if it doesn't mesh with the rest. You can't really define a magical canon that salvages all that.
And ultimately, that's okay. There are so many Star Trek stories... You won't be able to remember them all at the same time anyway.
---
Why did this turn into yet another canon discussion?
My character Tsin'xing
What about TOS do you consider "retrofuturistic"? It had nothing of the retrofuturistic style in the show, just futurism. Just the fact the show was made in the 1960s which were a long time ago does not change the style. Retrofuturism used entirely different shapes and textures that are closer to a 1950s art deco style with antennas, atoms, other atomic and rocket nonsense slapped on top of it, and has a completely different feel from the futurism that Trek designs were based on.
TOS used a mostly "googie" futuristic style, which depended on parabolic curves instead of circles, trapezoidal cantilevered shapes with often blunted edges instead of squares, and a generally sweeping smooth semi-organic look. In fact, the famous asymmetric delta insignia is a typical "sharp" arrow in the googie roadsign lexicon shown point up. Googie has an upbeat futuristic look which is why Jefferies used it for Trek in the first place, but current Hollywood has grown too cynical to accept the look anymore for the most part.
Unfortunately, some of the googie style design had to be toned down or dropped in TOS due to expediency (they only had straight wood to build the bulk of the sets with) so the oblate spheroid bridge with its ring platform holding curved control stations and extruding seats for those stations had to be turned into the familiar octagonish shape, and some other similar changes (the central platform on the bridge is more or less the same though the captain's chair is a lot more angular than the original design for instance) in various parts of the ship.
In fact, the original shuttlecraft were supposed to look nothing at all like the Galileo type shuttles seen in the show, Jefferies's design called for larger shuttles that looked a bit like the front section of the Pralim flight deck cruiser with complex curved wings on the sides but budget and time constraints left them with the flying van like one they could quickly and cheaply throw together instead.
Anyway, I like the TOS esthetics in the game too though they have so little of it. If you have not done the "Spectres" arc yet I would highly recommend it (it used to be a mission set for around level thirty, but for some odd reason they moved it up to level 65 and stuck it in the "available" tab instead of the episodes tab.
A show that airs in the 2020s that uses the style of TOS would be retrofuturistic. TOS would not be retrofuturistic because the creators of TOS believed that is how the future might look like. Fallout is a good example of retrofuturism due to it being a video game series created by people in the late 20th Century and early 21st Century providing their interpretation of what people in the 1950s might consider the future to be.
There is no particular style to retrofuturism. All that matters in retrofuturism is "the future as seen from the past". So a TV series created in the 21st Century and set in the 23rd Century, but has a Victorian style or 80s style would be retrofuturism.
TOS tried very hard to be futuristic, which is why I don't have an issue with the visual stylings in, say, DSC - the actual TOS visuals are now bordering on Zeerust, while DSC rebuilds the same things while taking into account what we know now that we didn't know then. And I'd really prefer any future Trek series, even another one in the TOS era, to be more like DSC than TOS, visually speaking.
Oh I love that shuttlecraft design. It could have been a connection between the Tellarite ship of ENT and designs in Starfleet based on it.
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That is only partially correct, the situation with TOS has to do more with long term familiarity (especially along with the huge difference in production values between then and now) than with anything actually "retro". That hypothetical TV series would only be retrofuturistic if CBS made an active effort to inject a false sense of the 1960s into it or played up the optimism in an ironic, cynical way.
That low-key cynicism is as vital to retrofuturism as the anachronistic elements, it is the core of the actual "style" of the movement. At its most basic level it boils down to the cognitive dissonance betwen the optimism and the realization that applied science usually does not live up to its promise very quickly, if at all, that started gaining traction in the mid 1960s and was firmly in place by the '70s. That is why retrofuturism almost always draws from pre-1960 sources.
The trick is, you cannot project the 1960s look, or even the typical 1960s ideas about what the future would look like, into the future and end up with Star Trek because Roddenberry and Jefferies were very careful to avoid doing that themselves. You can call Lost in Space retrofuturistic because it did use the early 1960s view of the future with their modified Gemini style space suits, lasers with cooling rings, the jetpack, the robot, the style of both sets of costumes, and the rest, but Star Trek was based on an entirely different aesthetic and only picked up the visual shorthands of the era that were necessary for people to understand what they were looking at without burning dialog time to explain it (Roddenberry was a huge fan of the "show, don't tell" writing philosophy).
Doing a remake of something that is closely based on the original aesthetics is not automatically "retro" even if the original was made decades ago, though some hold up better than others especially when an effort is made to make it as timeless as possible (that goes for TOS just as much as the classic Wizard of Oz movie and a few others).
And since everyone seems to point to the female uniforms as "retro" lets just get that out of the way right now. TOS did have miniskirts and miniskirts were iconic in the 1960s (though they were invented way before, and were used in the 1920s too for instance), but they were not '60s Mod style by any means (Theiss deliberately steered away from that). In fact they were closer to today's velvet minis than they were to the Mod minis so they are not actually retro (and as I said previously they were there mostly as a visual shorthand to get the idea across that the female crew were not forced into the traditional secondary roles they were in for so long). If anything, DSC using Nehru collared double-knit leisure suit derivatives bedazzled with little metallic deltas would be the "retro" uniforms instead.
Likewise, TOS communicators are not "retro" either because they are not "oversized flip phones" or cell phones at all, they are closer to high-end, high power military grade satellite phones with video and datalink capabilities along with a completely internal translator function, and for that they are still impressively compact and powerful.
The same goes for the bulky field computers like those you see Bones using at times which were not just computers but also sophisticated (if limited compared to a full lab) biochemical analyzers and synthesizers (watch Bones using one closely and you will see him putting samples in and taking vials out). A lot of the technology in TOS was like that in fact (for instance, the "bulky PADDs" people laugh at and compare to '90s PDAs were more like high end tablet computers today with built in hardcopy printers (and yes, the "hero" version of the prop had a roll of "metallic" paper in it that could be run out just like the one on the science station in The Cage though they decided not to bother with it after the pilot was filmed).
The DSC Enterprise bridge proves that the original aesthetic still works in fact, the differences are relatively minor and mostly production value and budget differences (and they have too many static simple buttons in grids instead of the multi-vector sensitive jewel buttons, but that is not a biggie and could be passed off as old 2250s technology). If they ditched the fugly parodies of the ugly double-knit third season TOS uniforms in favor of more fashionable long-knap velvet tunics and minidresses, and got rid of some of the cold glare in favor of the original "sourceless" style light the ship was supposed to have, the bridge at least would be ready for a faithful to the original concept TOS remake.
Response borders on the nonsensical. If you have specific points to debate, by all means, do so.
thx
Captain Ezri Dax of the USS Aventine (Destiny novels put to the screen).
Section 31 focused around Sloan and the TNG/DS9/Voy timeline.
TOS Mirror series focused around the USS Defiant.
A series focused around the Relativity principles (traveling through time to correct/alter the timeline with the Wells class).
Enterprise J
And... The only one CBS seems to have gotten right so far. Captain Pike. Here's hoping we see some of the Defiant in that show too.
Edit: I forgot the most important one. Captain Barclay, the Animated Series.
I don't care much for the new series outside of Capaldi's run. Besides, the Wells class looks a lot nicer than the outside of the TARDIS. :P
personally, I like Smith and Tennant (crazy doctors) and Jodie Whitaker.