rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,689Community Moderator
When I was referring to "tropical" I was more referring to the equator region of Andoria. On Earth that is basically the Tropics. Don't know what Andorians call that region on Andoria.
I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
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> @redeyedraven said:
> ENT on the other hand felt completely wrong from the start. I don't really mind the looks or anything, but at the time I wanted the story to go forward, not backward. Also, ENT has the WORST continuity-errors in all of Trek.
>
> Fortunately, "These Are The Voyages" tells us that it was all just a holo-novel.
What continuity problems are you specifically referring too? I know there were elements of ENT that seemed to have come out of nowhere (hello Xindi, Sullivan and Denobulan) but I wasn’t aware of anything that specifically overwrites established Trek?
I’m sorry to say too, but that last episode (as dire as it was) didn’t mean the whole show was just a holo-novel.
> @rattler2 said:
> I view it as possibly a different ethnic group of Tellarites. Same with the TOS Andorians.
> I know Andoria's a giant snowball, but I was basically stating regions, not actual weather. Throwing out a theory.
I like your way of thinking. Andoria is actually just a moon, it would make sense to think there’s other planets that Andorrans would have conquered where the climate is more tropical.
In theory, while being a planet-sized moon orbiting a gas giant would tend to flatten equatorial-to-poles temperature ratios somewhat, the fact that the moon would often go into the gas giant's shadow could cause the whole thing to have significant temperature fluctuations, and that in turn could encourage different adaptations with corresponding visual differences.
Or the gas giant could even be warm instead of cold if it is big enough, and that could cause the same latitude temperature differences a normal Earthlike planet has. It is even possible that the gas giant used to be a lot warmer so life developed under more earthlike conditions and had to adapt to survive as the average temperature slowly fell.
Also, the Hoth-like "ice planet" thing is an ENT invention (well, technically it was done in some of the third-party novels first but it was canonized in ENT). TOS only mentioned that they came from a colder planet than Earth, which does not necessarily mean a total snowball, so the fact that they can walk around in plain clothing in terrestrial conditions is not a problem as far as the TOS part goes anyway.
Style wise, some of the TOS aliens were very loosely based on common UFO mythology of the time, a cultural reference that has changed a bit over time, and which the newer series producers and/or makeup design people may not even be familiar with, and Andorians are one of them.
The Talosians are the best example though, not only is their weird DSC lumpy makeup about as far away as you can get from the "Grays" the Talosians were supposed to suggest, there was even talk about "finally showing male Talosians" when the fact is the ones in "The Cage" were males, they were just played by small-boned actresses (like Peter Pan is often done on stage) because before CGI the only other options would have been stop-motion Claymation style or hand-drawn cartoon figures like some of the Disney stuff which would have been too silly to even consider. Unfortunately, for me the DSC Talosians with the bridges of their noses stretching over the tops of their heads and their "Doctor Smith" faces they look more like something from Orville so it is hard to take the episode seriously, I kept expecting blatant potty jokes.
The Andorians were a reference to the "too smooth and too pale or oddly shaded skin" but mostly human looking aliens like the Men In Black (supposedly, their way too retro hats and wraparound shades are to hide their antennae and overly large eyes) or to a lesser degree the tall skinny aliens that hang out with the Grays. If TOS didn't exist and they were to do Andorians today using those references instead of modifying the TOS ones they would probably come out with something more like the big-eyed female doctor in the Kelvin prelude with antennae added. TOS did not have the resources to get too fancy so they troweled on the powder to smooth the actor's skin and bring out their eyes and made them blue-skinned instead.
ENT did have the most continuity problems of the original Paramount series, but that was at least as much by design as by error since the central theme of the show was dealing with the temporal cold war and the distortions it brought to the timeline. I found that rather irritating at first like a lot of other Trek fans since I reflexively tried to fit it with the previous shows, but the character depth and other good parts of the series made up for it enough to be interesting, and seen from the temporal war view it does make sense in a way.
rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,689Community Moderator
I really don't see how Enterprise messed anything up continuity wise.
We saw technology we are familiar with developed, we got a full on in universe reason for the TOS style Klingons that actually made more sense than either "we don't talk about it" or magic Jedi handwave of "imagine they always looked like this".
I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite colored text = mod mode
I really don't see how Enterprise messed anything up continuity wise.
BUT SPOCK SAID IN TOS THAT THE ROMULAN WAR WAS FOUGHT BY THROWING NUKES ACROSS THE NEUTRAL ZONE AND SHIPS WERE SO PRIMITIVE THEY COULDN'T TAKE CAPTIVES!
Aka, Spock was wrong.... again.
Often-wrong Spock.
Although, the eugenics-war and nuclear winter after WWIII which did happen in the ST-universe probably meant that ST's humanity's internet, Smartphones and 4k-/8k-flatscreens didn't really bore fruit the way they do for us, but yeah - they couldn't foresee those techs.
That klingon that crashlanded on Earth and was returned to Qo'nos without negative consequence is a problem though. If that actually happened in ST, Picard would have been a liar, too
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,689Community Moderator
BUT SPOCK SAID IN TOS THAT THE ROMULAN WAR WAS FOUGHT BY THROWING NUKES ACROSS THE NEUTRAL ZONE AND SHIPS WERE SO PRIMITIVE THEY COULDN'T TAKE CAPTIVES!
Its possible that Spatial Torpedos were nuclear based, and there's actually a mission in the game Star Trek Legacy that could rectify the lack of nukes, as you have to use fusion powered mining stations to disable large portions of the Romulan fleet. But its not the distructive power that was being used... it was the EMP. Starfleet ships were EM shielded. The Romulan ships... weren't. So detonating those mining stations disabled many Romulan ships. And Romulans probably decided to not allow any of their people to be captured.
That klingon that crashlanded on Earth and was returned to Qo'nos without negative consequence is a problem though. If that actually happened in ST, Picard would have been a liar, too
I wouldn't say that there were no negative consequences. Tensions between Earth and Qo'nos had always been high, and Klingons were generally antagonistic towards Starfleet in those early years too. After they returned the Klingon, Hoshi actually refused to translate what they said to Archer, only stating "You don't want to know". Doesn't sound like it was positive to me.
I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite colored text = mod mode
Anyway in that episode Picard stated that "a disastrous first contact with the klingon empire lead to nearly 2 centuries of unrelenting hostility" nothing in that says that first contact wasn't a crash landing on Earth, and the time frame fits just fine.
That statement is exactly what I mean. It may be interpretation, but Picard made it sound like the first contact between humans and klingons didn't go nearly as smooth as ENT made it look.
I wouldn't say that there were no negative consequences.
They didn't kill Archer or destroy NX-01 on the spot though, which would have been the more era-appropriate klingon way of saying 'we hate you guys and your haircuts, you better stay away'. It would have been a clear message about... unrelenting hostilities to come.
When a new piece of canon disagrees with an older piece of canon it is a retcon, not an error. It was not an error when TWOK declared Khan the result of genetic engineering and not selective breeding like Space Seed said. It was not an error when season 1 TNG's declaration that Klingons had joined the Federation was wiped away a season later. Etc etc. Retcons, not errors.
The idea of moment by moment "retcons" to cover continuity gaffs does not hold water any better than people in the software industry flippantly saying "they are not bugs, they are sudden unannounced unpopular features". A continuity mistake is a mistake, period (though sometimes they can come up with explanations after the fact that are actually feasible to lessen the impact).
For example, in one (and only one) Voyager episode, despite all the evidence to the contrary, Paris states that it is impossible to make a turn in warp. Was that a retcon? Did Paramount suddenly decide that all of those episodes where ships turned in warp were suddenly depreciated? Then later that it was all good again and ships could turn in warp? No, it was a mistake where the writer apparently did not know about or forgot all the times ships have turned in warp, but that "no turns" nonsense was essential to that script so they let it ride. In fact, Voyager itself turns in warp both before and after that if you listen to the dialog and the sound of the engines.
Retcons are mainly to fill in gaps in the "history" of a show which sometimes means changing a minor (and usually at least slightly ambiguous) detail if it is in the way too much, not making major changes, and in those rare instances when they do change important things it changes them from then on. Something anomalous done once and never again is not a retcon.
Anyway, since this thread is not about what constitutes a retcon I will leave it at that.
As for Andorians, they evolved on an ice planet, being on a tropical planet for too long would be fatal, at least of Trek had ever bothered with scientific accuracy.
Well Star Trek is Science Fiction. There's an element of factual science we, the viewer, need to leave behind. From a factual science perspective, any Andorian abroad a Federation vessel would be walking around in bathing suits, whereas any Human on an Andorian vessel (ENT) would be wrapped up in thermals, wearing gloves and an eskimo coat.
I really don't see how Enterprise messed anything up continuity wise.
We saw technology we are familiar with developed, we got a full on in universe reason for the TOS style Klingons that actually made more sense than either "we don't talk about it" or magic Jedi handwave of "imagine they always looked like this".
To me Enterprise fits in just fine.
Shame we didn't quite get that for the DSC-era Klingons. Otherwise though, I'm tempted to agree with you. Enterprise didn't ruin anything, not really. It may have covered historic events and introduced species that have never since been heard of or mentioned, but it didn't introduce catastrophic inconsistencies.
All of Trek, be that films, series, books, other media (etc) has an element of inconsistency, changes, retcons etc. It's all part of telling a story and keeping it fresh. No single show or film is perfect. Heck, the Excelsior had Transwarp, but never fought the Borg. Various shuttles on VOY managed to navigate their way to an invisible Shuttlebay 2. Starfleet officers don't have currency, yet they can eat at Quarks.
That klingon that crashlanded on Earth and was returned to Qo'nos without negative consequence is a problem though. If that actually happened in ST, Picard would have been a liar, too
I wouldn't say that there were no negative consequences. Tensions between Earth and Qo'nos had always been high, and Klingons were generally antagonistic towards Starfleet in those early years too. After they returned the Klingon, Hoshi actually refused to translate what they said to Archer, only stating "You don't want to know". Doesn't sound like it was positive to me.
As I recall in the episode First Contact, not the film, the one where the actress who played Lilith in Cheers and Frasier made Riker have sex with her to get her help to escape. Anyway in that episode Picard stated that "a disastrous first contact with the klingon empire lead to nearly 2 centuries of unrelenting hostility" nothing in that says that first contact wasn't a crash landing on Earth, and the time frame fits just fine.
Why is that Klingon a problem? Regarding those Klingon words spoken to Archer, whilst I doubt they were nice, I didn't think they were ever meant in a hostile manner. I'd always assumed the then chancellor said something that Hoshi simply found gory; maybe he suggested, or implied that he and Archer would feast on the hearts of the dead if they met again? We simply don't know.
Furthermore, the reference Picard made about their/our first encounter with the Klingons, who is he referencing? Humanity? Starfleet? The Federation? Archer didn't know what a Klingon was, but Admiral Forest did (I believe?) and I'm sure there were other humans who'd have met them at some point, so was the first recorded interaction between a Human and a Klingon the one Picard was referencing? Was he referencing something between Starfleet and the Klingon Empire or was he referencing something that happened after the Federation had formed?
Forrest was told what Klingons were by the Vulcans.
I did wonder as much. Maybe then, Picard was simply referencing the farm incident; a farmer shot a Klingon who went home and told his people that human farmers shoot on sight, thus ensuring two years of violence.
Comments
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In theory, while being a planet-sized moon orbiting a gas giant would tend to flatten equatorial-to-poles temperature ratios somewhat, the fact that the moon would often go into the gas giant's shadow could cause the whole thing to have significant temperature fluctuations, and that in turn could encourage different adaptations with corresponding visual differences.
Or the gas giant could even be warm instead of cold if it is big enough, and that could cause the same latitude temperature differences a normal Earthlike planet has. It is even possible that the gas giant used to be a lot warmer so life developed under more earthlike conditions and had to adapt to survive as the average temperature slowly fell.
Also, the Hoth-like "ice planet" thing is an ENT invention (well, technically it was done in some of the third-party novels first but it was canonized in ENT). TOS only mentioned that they came from a colder planet than Earth, which does not necessarily mean a total snowball, so the fact that they can walk around in plain clothing in terrestrial conditions is not a problem as far as the TOS part goes anyway.
Style wise, some of the TOS aliens were very loosely based on common UFO mythology of the time, a cultural reference that has changed a bit over time, and which the newer series producers and/or makeup design people may not even be familiar with, and Andorians are one of them.
The Talosians are the best example though, not only is their weird DSC lumpy makeup about as far away as you can get from the "Grays" the Talosians were supposed to suggest, there was even talk about "finally showing male Talosians" when the fact is the ones in "The Cage" were males, they were just played by small-boned actresses (like Peter Pan is often done on stage) because before CGI the only other options would have been stop-motion Claymation style or hand-drawn cartoon figures like some of the Disney stuff which would have been too silly to even consider. Unfortunately, for me the DSC Talosians with the bridges of their noses stretching over the tops of their heads and their "Doctor Smith" faces they look more like something from Orville so it is hard to take the episode seriously, I kept expecting blatant potty jokes.
The Andorians were a reference to the "too smooth and too pale or oddly shaded skin" but mostly human looking aliens like the Men In Black (supposedly, their way too retro hats and wraparound shades are to hide their antennae and overly large eyes) or to a lesser degree the tall skinny aliens that hang out with the Grays. If TOS didn't exist and they were to do Andorians today using those references instead of modifying the TOS ones they would probably come out with something more like the big-eyed female doctor in the Kelvin prelude with antennae added. TOS did not have the resources to get too fancy so they troweled on the powder to smooth the actor's skin and bring out their eyes and made them blue-skinned instead.
ENT did have the most continuity problems of the original Paramount series, but that was at least as much by design as by error since the central theme of the show was dealing with the temporal cold war and the distortions it brought to the timeline. I found that rather irritating at first like a lot of other Trek fans since I reflexively tried to fit it with the previous shows, but the character depth and other good parts of the series made up for it enough to be interesting, and seen from the temporal war view it does make sense in a way.
We saw technology we are familiar with developed, we got a full on in universe reason for the TOS style Klingons that actually made more sense than either "we don't talk about it" or magic Jedi handwave of "imagine they always looked like this".
To me Enterprise fits in just fine.
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite
colored text = mod mode
Often-wrong Spock.
Although, the eugenics-war and nuclear winter after WWIII which did happen in the ST-universe probably meant that ST's humanity's internet, Smartphones and 4k-/8k-flatscreens didn't really bore fruit the way they do for us, but yeah - they couldn't foresee those techs.
That klingon that crashlanded on Earth and was returned to Qo'nos without negative consequence is a problem though. If that actually happened in ST, Picard would have been a liar, too
Its possible that Spatial Torpedos were nuclear based, and there's actually a mission in the game Star Trek Legacy that could rectify the lack of nukes, as you have to use fusion powered mining stations to disable large portions of the Romulan fleet. But its not the distructive power that was being used... it was the EMP. Starfleet ships were EM shielded. The Romulan ships... weren't. So detonating those mining stations disabled many Romulan ships. And Romulans probably decided to not allow any of their people to be captured.
I wouldn't say that there were no negative consequences. Tensions between Earth and Qo'nos had always been high, and Klingons were generally antagonistic towards Starfleet in those early years too. After they returned the Klingon, Hoshi actually refused to translate what they said to Archer, only stating "You don't want to know". Doesn't sound like it was positive to me.
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite
colored text = mod mode
That statement is exactly what I mean. It may be interpretation, but Picard made it sound like the first contact between humans and klingons didn't go nearly as smooth as ENT made it look.
They didn't kill Archer or destroy NX-01 on the spot though, which would have been the more era-appropriate klingon way of saying 'we hate you guys and your haircuts, you better stay away'. It would have been a clear message about... unrelenting hostilities to come.
The idea of moment by moment "retcons" to cover continuity gaffs does not hold water any better than people in the software industry flippantly saying "they are not bugs, they are sudden unannounced unpopular features". A continuity mistake is a mistake, period (though sometimes they can come up with explanations after the fact that are actually feasible to lessen the impact).
For example, in one (and only one) Voyager episode, despite all the evidence to the contrary, Paris states that it is impossible to make a turn in warp. Was that a retcon? Did Paramount suddenly decide that all of those episodes where ships turned in warp were suddenly depreciated? Then later that it was all good again and ships could turn in warp? No, it was a mistake where the writer apparently did not know about or forgot all the times ships have turned in warp, but that "no turns" nonsense was essential to that script so they let it ride. In fact, Voyager itself turns in warp both before and after that if you listen to the dialog and the sound of the engines.
Retcons are mainly to fill in gaps in the "history" of a show which sometimes means changing a minor (and usually at least slightly ambiguous) detail if it is in the way too much, not making major changes, and in those rare instances when they do change important things it changes them from then on. Something anomalous done once and never again is not a retcon.
Anyway, since this thread is not about what constitutes a retcon I will leave it at that.
Shame we didn't quite get that for the DSC-era Klingons. Otherwise though, I'm tempted to agree with you. Enterprise didn't ruin anything, not really. It may have covered historic events and introduced species that have never since been heard of or mentioned, but it didn't introduce catastrophic inconsistencies.
All of Trek, be that films, series, books, other media (etc) has an element of inconsistency, changes, retcons etc. It's all part of telling a story and keeping it fresh. No single show or film is perfect. Heck, the Excelsior had Transwarp, but never fought the Borg. Various shuttles on VOY managed to navigate their way to an invisible Shuttlebay 2. Starfleet officers don't have currency, yet they can eat at Quarks.
Why is that Klingon a problem? Regarding those Klingon words spoken to Archer, whilst I doubt they were nice, I didn't think they were ever meant in a hostile manner. I'd always assumed the then chancellor said something that Hoshi simply found gory; maybe he suggested, or implied that he and Archer would feast on the hearts of the dead if they met again? We simply don't know.
Furthermore, the reference Picard made about their/our first encounter with the Klingons, who is he referencing? Humanity? Starfleet? The Federation? Archer didn't know what a Klingon was, but Admiral Forest did (I believe?) and I'm sure there were other humans who'd have met them at some point, so was the first recorded interaction between a Human and a Klingon the one Picard was referencing? Was he referencing something between Starfleet and the Klingon Empire or was he referencing something that happened after the Federation had formed?