There is a big difference between a well thought out and consistent "intelligent show" that people have been asking for and the sloppy, shallow, plot hole ridden show that CBS delivered. Hopefully they step back next season and actually bother to craft the stories instead of just slinging them off the top of their heads the way this season seems to do. It has nothing to do with outright stating things as such, it just requires conveying the right impressions, something they apparently fell short of.
Name said plot holes that make the show "ridden" with them. Because I can't think of any, and most of the supposed plot holes I've seen mentioned thus far, aren't, since they were explained. Such as
-Why did Maddox leave synth world and send Dahj and Soji to Earth/The Artifact?
-Who did the attacks on Mars?
-What do you mean Seven of Nine is TRIBBLE?
Not the first time a deleted scene would have explained a certain plot hole.
I really hate how people misuse the term plothole.
A plothole, by definition, is something that goes against the consistency, or established logic, of a narrative. Seeing Narek get obliterated into ash by a phaser rifle set to kill, only to have him come back the next episode perfectly fine, and with no mention of how he does so, is a plot hole.
Them not explaining where Narek went after we last saw him isn't a plot hole, its just an unexplained event.
Pretty much nothing in that video you posted is a plot hole, regardless of if the deleted scenes happened to exist or not.
Actually that definition is not correct, there are more than just narrative plot holes. In fact, there are generally considered to be five: narrative, McGuffin, character, logic, and deus ex machina. From what I have read PIC seems to hit all five at some point or another (no way to be certain of course working with second-hand sources). And plot holes do not have to be big active glaring things like somtaawkhar's hypothetical Narek example to qualify as a plot hole, they can actually be rather subtle and they do not have to even be internal inconsistencies, especially in a world shared by multiple series and movies.
To be fair, almost all movies and series do to some extent, but some handle it better than others and what I have heard of PIC makes me think they did not handle them well.
As for specific examples, the Wired article qultuq already linked to brings up a lot of those, and there are even more. For convenience here is the link again:
One that they did not address in that article (possibly because it seems to be mainly in the novelization more than the filmed part) was the supernova, which would fall into the logic plothole type, and it would not be a plothole as such if they were not using the starmap they did (just incredibly poor writing). The problem is that in order for the supernova to do the damage described to the RSE, the RSE would have had to be set up as a sphere with Romulus in the center and everything radiating out in shells like the model of an atom, yet the map they use shows the RSE as a long ellipsoid with Romulus at one end, pretty much jammed up against the Federation.
There is simply no way the supernova could do significant damage to anything but the capital system itself and maybe one or two major colony worlds without also taking out significant Federation worlds as well (in fact Romulus is closer to Earth than it is to the center of RSE territory along the long axis). And the Romulans would need to start out with more than that to be considered one of the major powers of the quadrant.
Also, character backstory that is not properly seeded before the reveal is a form of plot hole, and there have been plenty of people talking about how PIC does that with several characters, along with bungling Chekov's Gun moments that lead to lost or glossed over threads, poorly handled deus ex machina solutions and other things that fall into the five types.
A standard supernova would have an EMP travelling at light speed with a massive ejection of material travelling at a fraction of the speed of light. By the time that we figure out a supernova is happening, it would be too late for us to do anything about the EMP and it would wipe out most of our electronics. However, an EMP would likely not affect the Federation and would have years to prepare for the Supernova. The material travelling at a fraction of light speed would devastate the Earth if it doesn't destroy it for us, but the Federation has some methods of preparing for it.
However, the Romulan Supernova is not a typical supernova and STO used Iconians to explain its eccentricities. So it is pointless to use what we know about supernovas to explain the Romulan Supernova.
> @starkaos said: > (Quote) > > A standard supernova would have an EMP travelling at light speed with a massive ejection of material travelling at a fraction of the speed of light. By the time that we figure out a supernova is happening, it would be too late for us to do anything about the EMP and it would wipe out most of our electronics. However, an EMP would likely not affect the Federation and would have years to prepare for the Supernova. The material travelling at a fraction of light speed would devastate the Earth if it doesn't destroy it for us, but the Federation has some methods of preparing for it. > > However, the Romulan Supernova is not a typical supernova and STO used Iconians to explain its eccentricities. So it is pointless to use what we know about supernovas to explain the Romulan Supernova.
Also I’m reading the prequel book and the data on the supernova was given to the Federation by the Romulans. They weren’t able to study it on their own until later and that’s when they realized it was gonna be sooner than they thought
Your pain runs deep.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
It occurred to me (a little late in the head brain) that Picard dying and becoming a bioandroid and remembering dying etc is payoff for Q's final words to him in AGT.
I do not know if anyone notice but the Vessels in Star Trek Picard Season Final Et In Arcadia Ego Part 2 looks like Vessels Straight out of Star Trek Online some looking like Avenger Class and Multipurpose Cruiser I think it was kinda cool and the Uniforms looks vary much like the 2400's Uniforms too just some minor details changed I think they a Treating Online as Cannon from what I am seeing in Star Trek Picard
I do not know if anyone notice but the Vessels in Star Trek Picard Season Final Et In Arcadia Ego Part 2 looks like Vessels Straight out of Star Trek Online some looking like Avenger Class and Multipurpose Cruiser I think it was kinda cool and the Uniforms looks vary much like the 2400's Uniforms too just some minor details changed I think they a Treating Online as Cannon from what I am seeing in Star Trek Picard
No. They really don't. The show ignores STOs entire backstory
^ 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 do not know if anyone notice but the Vessels in Star Trek Picard Season Final Et In Arcadia Ego Part 2 looks like Vessels Straight out of Star Trek Online some looking like Avenger Class and Multipurpose Cruiser I think it was kinda cool and the Uniforms looks vary much like the 2400's Uniforms too just some minor details changed I think they a Treating Online as Cannon from what I am seeing in Star Trek Picard
No. They really don't. The show ignores STOs entire backstory
In fact, there are generally considered to be five: narrative, McGuffin, character, logic, and deus ex machina.
All of which are covered in the definition I originally provided. So you said I want wrong, only to write out a longer version of what I had just said.
There is simply no way the supernova could do significant damage to anything but the capital system itself and maybe one or two major colony worlds
Star Trek has already long established that the loss of the homeworld = the destruction of said civilization
-The Iconians
-The T'Kon
-The Makers(of the Mudd Androids)
To name a few. And both the T'Kon and the "Makers" both suffered the EXACT same situation as the Romulans, where the star of the home system went nova, and both utterly collapsed despite having far LARGER empires then the Romulans.
Also, character backstory that is not properly seeded before the reveal is a form of plot hole, and there have been plenty of people talking about how PIC does that with several characters, along with bungling Chekov's Gun moments that lead to lost or glossed over threads, poorly handled deus ex machina solutions and other things that fall into the five types.
Chekov's Gun is a literary technique, one that is not needed to be followed, and generally isn't by most writing unless its a very bare bones story. Not everything mentioned has to lead to something, there is a thing called world building, where characters and dialog give out more information beyond the most minimal needed, in order to address things that would logically be going on, even if they aren't important to the story at hand.
And again
NAME
SOME
Ok, lets give you the benefit of the doubt and say that you meant your definition to cover all five despite sounding like you were only giving the definition of narrative plot holes. That still leaves your definition a bit short because it still only counts active plot holes and not oversight ones and the like.
As for the incredibly lazy and idiotic "destroyed homeworld" thing, that is itself a logic plothole that Trek fell into way back in TNG. If Washington DC and maybe a burg or two near it was nuked do you think the US would magically evaporate? An empire is not like a single city-state, it is like a big country like the US. As for the examples you gave:
The Iconians were said to have been driven back to their homeworld (which is a bit iffy itself considering the gates, it would be like herding cats) before it was bombed into a cinder.
The Tkon were the poster child of that particular stupid "the life of the king is the life of the people" plot hole. Not much to say in the writer's favor on that except maybe the Tkon were somehow tied to their home star's lifespan by space magic, sort of like the Companion from "Metamorphosis" but with longer range. Either way, TNG dropped the ball big time on that one and it came off sounding like something from a kiddie serial (minus the V8 powered rocketships) though the episode itself was not bad for TNG despite that flaw.
The Makers were from Andromeda and pushed an exploratory expedition all the way to this galaxy, that had to be expensive. We really do not know what happened to them except for the nova, it is possible that they fell into chaos or they may have just turned their resources to a massive orderly evacuation or a number of other possibilities and the expedition lost its funding or whatever. All Mudd's androids really knew is that they did not come back because of it, and for all we the viewers know that may be for a reason as simple as that after recovering they did not feel it was worth the effort to recover automated probes sent they to another galaxy or whatever.
And the homeworld thing is not even universal in Star Trek anyway, look the Klingons and Praxis. Sure, it was a moon and only flash-fried half the planet (and probably EMPed the rest) but the idea is the same as a nova. The Klingons did not magically disappear, their economy collapsed. And that was in a movie where being brief often takes precedence over making sense but they still took the time to think it through (or they just stole the idea from Tom Clancy, but if so at least they stole from the best).
And yes, Chekov's Gun is a literary technique, what did you think this was about if not writing? Chekov's Gun is essentially a rule of thumb about introducing elements to a story, and like all the others it can be broken in good ways or bad ways. Some of the bad ways introduce plot holes the same way bad editing can.
As for examples, I have given some already, along with repeating a link to an article with more. And yes, some of them could technically be some other writing problem but still have enough of one or more of the five types to be considered a plot hole.
There is a big difference between a well thought out and consistent "intelligent show" that people have been asking for and the sloppy, shallow, plot hole ridden show that CBS delivered. Hopefully they step back next season and actually bother to craft the stories instead of just slinging them off the top of their heads the way this season seems to do. It has nothing to do with outright stating things as such, it just requires conveying the right impressions, something they apparently fell short of.
Name said plot holes that make the show "ridden" with them. Because I can't think of any, and most of the supposed plot holes I've seen mentioned thus far, aren't, since they were explained. Such as
-Why did Maddox leave synth world and send Dahj and Soji to Earth/The Artifact?
-Who did the attacks on Mars?
-What do you mean Seven of Nine is TRIBBLE?
Not the first time a deleted scene would have explained a certain plot hole.
I really hate how people misuse the term plothole.
A plothole, by definition, is something that goes against the consistency, or established logic, of a narrative. Seeing Narek get obliterated into ash by a phaser rifle set to kill, only to have him come back the next episode perfectly fine, and with no mention of how he does so, is a plot hole.
Them not explaining where Narek went after we last saw him isn't a plot hole, its just an unexplained event.
Pretty much nothing in that video you posted is a plot hole, regardless of if the deleted scenes happened to exist or not.
Actually that definition is not correct, there are more than just narrative plot holes. In fact, there are generally considered to be five: narrative, McGuffin, character, logic, and deus ex machina. From what I have read PIC seems to hit all five at some point or another (no way to be certain of course working with second-hand sources). And plot holes do not have to be big active glaring things like somtaawkhar's hypothetical Narek example to qualify as a plot hole, they can actually be rather subtle and they do not have to even be internal inconsistencies, especially in a world shared by multiple series and movies.
To be fair, almost all movies and series do to some extent, but some handle it better than others and what I have heard of PIC makes me think they did not handle them well.
As for specific examples, the Wired article qultuq already linked to brings up a lot of those, and there are even more. For convenience here is the link again:
One that they did not address in that article (possibly because it seems to be mainly in the novelization more than the filmed part) was the supernova, which would fall into the logic plothole type, and it would not be a plothole as such if they were not using the starmap they did (just incredibly poor writing). The problem is that in order for the supernova to do the damage described to the RSE, the RSE would have had to be set up as a sphere with Romulus in the center and everything radiating out in shells like the model of an atom, yet the map they use shows the RSE as a long ellipsoid with Romulus at one end, pretty much jammed up against the Federation.
There is simply no way the supernova could do significant damage to anything but the capital system itself and maybe one or two major colony worlds without also taking out significant Federation worlds as well (in fact Romulus is closer to Earth than it is to the center of RSE territory along the long axis). And the Romulans would need to start out with more than that to be considered one of the major powers of the quadrant.
Also, character backstory that is not properly seeded before the reveal is a form of plot hole, and there have been plenty of people talking about how PIC does that with several characters, along with bungling Chekov's Gun moments that lead to lost or glossed over threads, poorly handled deus ex machina solutions and other things that fall into the five types.
A standard supernova would have an EMP travelling at light speed with a massive ejection of material travelling at a fraction of the speed of light. By the time that we figure out a supernova is happening, it would be too late for us to do anything about the EMP and it would wipe out most of our electronics. However, an EMP would likely not affect the Federation and would have years to prepare for the Supernova. The material travelling at a fraction of light speed would devastate the Earth if it doesn't destroy it for us, but the Federation has some methods of preparing for it.
However, the Romulan Supernova is not a typical supernova and STO used Iconians to explain its eccentricities. So it is pointless to use what we know about supernovas to explain the Romulan Supernova.
The Romulan supernova's eccentricities are irrelevant to the coverage problem. Yes, subspace disturbances are possible and travel at FTL speeds per the Praxis disaster. In fact the writers would be well within the realm of plausibility if they said the supernova somehow disturbed the quantum membrane and caused a massive nadion discharge which essentially proximity-blast phasered Romulus and everything else in its path (that would even have the handy trait of starting out travelling very rapidly but slowing as it lost energy).
The problem comes in because the CBS take on it is that the supernova destroyed the RSE literally, by way of its expanding shock wave smashing all of its major worlds or whatever, yet the map they use (and in fact most of the maps, going all the way back to "Balance of Terror") shows that the supernova could not possibly cover a significant amount of Romulan space without destroying a large swath of the Federation as well. The cartography is clear, they are just too close to Earth for it to work they say it does, or at least without it being almost as big a disaster for the Federation as it is for the Romulans. The fact that it had the effect described in PIC without that damage to the Federation (especially Earth and Bolarus) is what makes it a huge gaping plot hole.
Why they did not go with the far more plausible reason STO uses for the fall of the RSE, (namely that it took out enough of the praetoriate to cause a power vacuum and the empire tore itself apart in internal factional squabbles), is a mystery though it is typical of the poor plot decisions and other sloppiness Trek has suffered from under Kurtzman. It makes me wonder why they bothered to take a look at STO's lore at all, though I suspect it may have been more a way of making sure they were NOT doing what STO did rather than as a way of synchronizing them.
Why they did not go with the far more plausible reason STO uses for the fall of the RSE, (namely that it took out enough of the praetoriate to cause a power vacuum and the empire tore itself apart in internal factional squabbles), is a mystery though it is typical of the poor plot decisions and other sloppiness Trek has suffered from under Kurtzman. It makes me wonder why they bothered to take a look at STO's lore at all, though I suspect it may have been more a way of making sure they were NOT doing what STO did rather than as a way of synchronizing them.
Aside from the Zhat Vash, Qowat Milat, and a bit of Romulan mythology, we know about as much as we did on the Romulans now compared to before Picard was first launched. However, it looks like there is a power vacuum for the Romulans since the warlord in charge of Vashti had an antique Romulan Bird of Prey. The only significant Romulan military we saw was under the control of the Zhat Vash in the Season Finale.
In fact, there are generally considered to be five: narrative, McGuffin, character, logic, and deus ex machina.
All of which are covered in the definition I originally provided. So you said I want wrong, only to write out a longer version of what I had just said.
There is simply no way the supernova could do significant damage to anything but the capital system itself and maybe one or two major colony worlds
Star Trek has already long established that the loss of the homeworld = the destruction of said civilization
-The Iconians
-The T'Kon
-The Makers(of the Mudd Androids)
To name a few. And both the T'Kon and the "Makers" both suffered the EXACT same situation as the Romulans, where the star of the home system went nova, and both utterly collapsed despite having far LARGER empires then the Romulans.
Also, character backstory that is not properly seeded before the reveal is a form of plot hole, and there have been plenty of people talking about how PIC does that with several characters, along with bungling Chekov's Gun moments that lead to lost or glossed over threads, poorly handled deus ex machina solutions and other things that fall into the five types.
Chekov's Gun is a literary technique, one that is not needed to be followed, and generally isn't by most writing unless its a very bare bones story. Not everything mentioned has to lead to something, there is a thing called world building, where characters and dialog give out more information beyond the most minimal needed, in order to address things that would logically be going on, even if they aren't important to the story at hand.
And again
NAME
SOME
Ok, lets give you the benefit of the doubt and say that you meant your definition to cover all five despite sounding like you were only giving the definition of narrative plot holes. That still leaves your definition a bit short because it still only counts active plot holes and not oversight ones and the like.
As for the incredibly lazy and idiotic "destroyed homeworld" thing, that is itself a logic plothole that Trek fell into way back in TNG. If Washington DC and maybe a burg or two near it was nuked do you think the US would magically evaporate? An empire is not like a single city-state, it is like a big country like the US. As for the examples you gave:
The Iconians were said to have been driven back to their homeworld (which is a bit iffy itself considering the gates, it would be like herding cats) before it was bombed into a cinder.
The Tkon were the poster child of that particular stupid "the life of the king is the life of the people" plot hole. Not much to say in the writer's favor on that except maybe the Tkon were somehow tied to their home star's lifespan by space magic, sort of like the Companion from "Metamorphosis" but with longer range. Either way, TNG dropped the ball big time on that one and it came off sounding like something from a kiddie serial (minus the V8 powered rocketships) though the episode itself was not bad for TNG despite that flaw.
The Makers were from Andromeda and pushed an exploratory expedition all the way to this galaxy, that had to be expensive. We really do not know what happened to them except for the nova, it is possible that they fell into chaos or they may have just turned their resources to a massive orderly evacuation or a number of other possibilities and the expedition lost its funding or whatever. All Mudd's androids really knew is that they did not come back because of it, and for all we the viewers know that may be for a reason as simple as that after recovering they did not feel it was worth the effort to recover automated probes sent they to another galaxy or whatever.
And the homeworld thing is not even universal in Star Trek anyway, look the Klingons and Praxis. Sure, it was a moon and only flash-fried half the planet (and probably EMPed the rest) but the idea is the same as a nova. The Klingons did not magically disappear, their economy collapsed. And that was in a movie where being brief often takes precedence over making sense but they still took the time to think it through (or they just stole the idea from Tom Clancy, but if so at least they stole from the best).
And yes, Chekov's Gun is a literary technique, what did you think this was about if not writing? Chekov's Gun is essentially a rule of thumb about introducing elements to a story, and like all the others it can be broken in good ways or bad ways. Some of the bad ways introduce plot holes the same way bad editing can.
As for examples, I have given some already, along with repeating a link to an article with more. And yes, some of them could technically be some other writing problem but still have enough of one or more of the five types to be considered a plot hole.
There is a big difference between a well thought out and consistent "intelligent show" that people have been asking for and the sloppy, shallow, plot hole ridden show that CBS delivered. Hopefully they step back next season and actually bother to craft the stories instead of just slinging them off the top of their heads the way this season seems to do. It has nothing to do with outright stating things as such, it just requires conveying the right impressions, something they apparently fell short of.
Name said plot holes that make the show "ridden" with them. Because I can't think of any, and most of the supposed plot holes I've seen mentioned thus far, aren't, since they were explained. Such as
-Why did Maddox leave synth world and send Dahj and Soji to Earth/The Artifact?
-Who did the attacks on Mars?
-What do you mean Seven of Nine is TRIBBLE?
Not the first time a deleted scene would have explained a certain plot hole.
I really hate how people misuse the term plothole.
A plothole, by definition, is something that goes against the consistency, or established logic, of a narrative. Seeing Narek get obliterated into ash by a phaser rifle set to kill, only to have him come back the next episode perfectly fine, and with no mention of how he does so, is a plot hole.
Them not explaining where Narek went after we last saw him isn't a plot hole, its just an unexplained event.
Pretty much nothing in that video you posted is a plot hole, regardless of if the deleted scenes happened to exist or not.
Actually that definition is not correct, there are more than just narrative plot holes. In fact, there are generally considered to be five: narrative, McGuffin, character, logic, and deus ex machina. From what I have read PIC seems to hit all five at some point or another (no way to be certain of course working with second-hand sources). And plot holes do not have to be big active glaring things like somtaawkhar's hypothetical Narek example to qualify as a plot hole, they can actually be rather subtle and they do not have to even be internal inconsistencies, especially in a world shared by multiple series and movies.
To be fair, almost all movies and series do to some extent, but some handle it better than others and what I have heard of PIC makes me think they did not handle them well.
As for specific examples, the Wired article qultuq already linked to brings up a lot of those, and there are even more. For convenience here is the link again:
One that they did not address in that article (possibly because it seems to be mainly in the novelization more than the filmed part) was the supernova, which would fall into the logic plothole type, and it would not be a plothole as such if they were not using the starmap they did (just incredibly poor writing). The problem is that in order for the supernova to do the damage described to the RSE, the RSE would have had to be set up as a sphere with Romulus in the center and everything radiating out in shells like the model of an atom, yet the map they use shows the RSE as a long ellipsoid with Romulus at one end, pretty much jammed up against the Federation.
There is simply no way the supernova could do significant damage to anything but the capital system itself and maybe one or two major colony worlds without also taking out significant Federation worlds as well (in fact Romulus is closer to Earth than it is to the center of RSE territory along the long axis). And the Romulans would need to start out with more than that to be considered one of the major powers of the quadrant.
Also, character backstory that is not properly seeded before the reveal is a form of plot hole, and there have been plenty of people talking about how PIC does that with several characters, along with bungling Chekov's Gun moments that lead to lost or glossed over threads, poorly handled deus ex machina solutions and other things that fall into the five types.
A standard supernova would have an EMP travelling at light speed with a massive ejection of material travelling at a fraction of the speed of light. By the time that we figure out a supernova is happening, it would be too late for us to do anything about the EMP and it would wipe out most of our electronics. However, an EMP would likely not affect the Federation and would have years to prepare for the Supernova. The material travelling at a fraction of light speed would devastate the Earth if it doesn't destroy it for us, but the Federation has some methods of preparing for it.
However, the Romulan Supernova is not a typical supernova and STO used Iconians to explain its eccentricities. So it is pointless to use what we know about supernovas to explain the Romulan Supernova.
The Romulan supernova's eccentricities are irrelevant to the coverage problem. Yes, subspace disturbances are possible and travel at FTL speeds per the Praxis disaster. In fact the writers would be well within the realm of plausibility if they said the supernova somehow disturbed the quantum membrane and caused a massive nadion discharge which essentially proximity-blast phasered Romulus and everything else in its path (that would even have the handy trait of starting out travelling very rapidly but slowing as it lost energy).
The problem comes in because the CBS take on it is that the supernova destroyed the RSE literally, by way of its expanding shock wave smashing all of its major worlds or whatever, yet the map they use (and in fact most of the maps, going all the way back to "Balance of Terror") shows that the supernova could not possibly cover a significant amount of Romulan space without destroying a large swath of the Federation as well. The cartography is clear, they are just too close to Earth for it to work they say it does, or at least without it being almost as big a disaster for the Federation as it is for the Romulans. The fact that it had the effect described in PIC without that damage to the Federation (especially Earth and Bolarus) is what makes it a huge gaping plot hole.
Why they did not go with the far more plausible reason STO uses for the fall of the RSE, (namely that it took out enough of the praetoriate to cause a power vacuum and the empire tore itself apart in internal factional squabbles), is a mystery though it is typical of the poor plot decisions and other sloppiness Trek has suffered from under Kurtzman. It makes me wonder why they bothered to take a look at STO's lore at all, though I suspect it may have been more a way of making sure they were NOT doing what STO did rather than as a way of synchronizing them.
The supernova did not take out a significant part of Romulan space. The Supernova threaten Romulus and 15 Romulan colony worlds that had similar populations.
We dont know what the true nature of the Romulan government is. I suspect that it is as you suggest. The RSE splintered and shrank. It became a collection of states. We only know of the Romulan Free State. Think of how the Austria-Hungary Empire was broken into smaller countries after WW1.
Your pain runs deep.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
The Romulan Star Empire is/was a highly centralized, highly militarized empire. Eliminating its capital world would have been more than sufficient cause for any number of nascent rebellions, from the Reunificationists to some local warlord, to rise against what had been the might of the Romulan fleet, coordinated by Central Command and the Tal'Shiar.
See, for example, what the Soviet Union commonly assumed would happen if Moscow were destroyed in war, even if the other "republics" were untouched. (Or, for that matter, what actually happened when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.)
If there is plot holes in Picard, it would be how easy it was for the Federation to implement the Synth Ban due to how loyal Data was and how easily Picard lost his Admiral rank due to Picard saving the Federation a few times. Commodore Oh wouldn't have enough power to kick out Picard and force a Synth Ban on the Federation.
This is the same organization that banned genetic engineering based on the actions of a few several centuries ago. When Bashir was instrumental in helping to win the Dominion War that ban wasn’t recalled.
Picard didn’t lose his commission. He resigned. Leaving/rejoining Star Fleet seems to be as easy as just saying “ I’m out” or “I’m back”.
Commodore Oh didn’t kick Picard out.
There is a slight difference between the genetic engineering ban and the synth ban. The genetic engineering ban was the result of a bunch of genetically engineered humans trying to take over Earth and a few hundred years in the future had a good genetically engineered human. Genetic engineering was still allowed in the Federation to fix genetic problems like Down Syndrome, Cystic Fibrosis, and Sickle Cell Anemia. The synth ban had a good synthetic and a couple of decades later had a rebellion with a bunch of mediocre synths that didn't have the mental capacity to rebel without external help.
I don’t think they’re allowed to fix genetic defects. Wasn’t that the whole issue with Bashir? His parents were trying to fix a defect. His dad went to prison over that.
All the Federation knew at that point was...the synthetics rebelled and destroyed UP. They didn’t know they got TRIBBLE. For all they know the synths could have evolved into sentience.
To add to that, it was Oh/Nedar who was behind this all this time. So the rebellion, the ban and not officially finding out the synths were TRIBBLE were all planned since the beginning.
As I mentioned earlier, put one *censored* in charge and they can easily sway the entire organization they now control over time. As several ST shows showed (TNG with the Conspiracy arc, DS9 with the Changeling infiltrators), it's even rather easy to manipulate the Federation. Heck, it seems that when someone questions your behavior and motive if you're looking like an important figure, all you have to say is "that's a stupid question!", and you get what you want.
And Oh was apparently in charge of Starfleet Security for at least 9 years (when she arranged for Sutra's twin to be killed). Plenty of time to progressively push a whole Federation towards a more and more isolationist, xenophobic stance, especially after the devastating Dominion War (the lead writer said he wanted to be more explicit about how the DW was one of the big reasons for the change of the Federation but this was veto'ed by the executives).
Again, like how it has and is still happening -with the approval of a part of the whole population- in our real world. Except you can shorten "that's a stupid question!" to "fake news!".
EDIT: Excuse me, since when does one put "the action of hijacking a piece of software" in the profanity filter?
Did the profanity filter get TRIBBLE by the Romulans?
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I do not know if anyone notice but the Vessels in Star Trek Picard Season Final Et In Arcadia Ego Part 2 looks like Vessels Straight out of Star Trek Online some looking like Avenger Class and Multipurpose Cruiser I think it was kinda cool and the Uniforms looks vary much like the 2400's Uniforms too just some minor details changed I think they a Treating Online as Cannon from what I am seeing in Star Trek Picard
No. They really don't. The show ignores STOs entire backstory
As it should be.
Even when STO's backstory, ultimately, makes more sense? The supernova deal with the JJ-Trek "Countdown" comics and the STO timeline made absolutely more sense than this rather disjointed mess we got in Picard. I've heard it expressed by some - including at least one person who has appeared in past Trek - that if Picard had the writers that TNG and DS9 had, it would have been a lot better. The writing... in a number of cases, both in this series and in Discovery, it reminds me of a guy who saw me in a Trek uniform (late DS9-era admiral's jacket) at a convention a couple years back who proceeded to blab at me for ten minutes about his Romulan empress fan fiction; I vaguely remember that he established her as being the daughter of Spock and the Romulan commander from "The Enterprise Incident".
What "disjointed mess"? The supernova was mentioned briefly, as something everyone knew about; sure, it destroying a planet of a system light-years away was definitely strange, but when treaties forbid you from even going to investigate the mess, you're not going to include "wow, this sure was weird and in violation of the laws of physics" every single time you do a news story about the rescue efforts, especially when the focus of the story is supposed to be on the destruction of the Martian colonies and the Utopia Planitia shipyard and how that led the most famous captain in the Fleet to retire, not on Romulus or the Romulans in particular.
You may recall that even in STO, nobody brought it up until the beginning of the Romulan Mystery arc, and even then the line of questioning was dropped until it was time for the player to investigate. Was that "disjointed" as well?
What "disjointed mess"? The supernova was mentioned briefly, as something everyone knew about; sure, it destroying a planet of a system light-years away was definitely strange, but when treaties forbid you from even going to investigate the mess, you're not going to include "wow, this sure was weird and in violation of the laws of physics" every single time you do a news story about the rescue efforts, especially when the focus of the story is supposed to be on the destruction of the Martian colonies and the Utopia Planitia shipyard and how that led the most famous captain in the Fleet to retire, not on Romulus or the Romulans in particular.
You may recall that even in STO, nobody brought it up until the beginning of the Romulan Mystery arc, and even then the line of questioning was dropped until it was time for the player to investigate. Was that "disjointed" as well?
In the case of STO, the Hobus supernova was one thing among many and the Romulans were putting up a false front of business as usual, so things like the increasing agitation in the Klingon empire made a reasonable distraction so it does not seem weird that the Federation did not do more.
And then later the Klingons actively go to war with the Federation and the RSE quietly sitting behind its neutral zone fence in the corner tearing itself apart internally became little more than something to keep half an eye on while they dealt with the Klingons and all the other fires that were "spontaneously" springing up even before that war and needed attention before they had the chance to grow out of control. Federation intelligence, sensitized as it was to infiltration after the incidents in TNG and DS9, was probably going crazy chasing leads in all directions for instance.
PIC, on the other hand, makes no effort whatsoever to establish that the alpha/beta (and to an extent gamma) quadrants have anything at all going on except the supernova, the failed evacuation, and the "synth rebellion", so the same lack of Federation involvement (beyond banning synths) after Mars stands out like a sore thumb. It is like a bad novel adaptation where the screenwriter tried to follow a single thread of a complex story but failed to account for the other threads impact and stripped away too much so plausibility suffered (there are a lot of movies and other series which suffer from that so it is not something unique to CBS or Star Trek).
Wait, the United Federation of Planets is (in some estimates) as much as 8000 lightyears across, had recently concluded a pretty major war with the major power of the Gamma Quadrant, and is surrounded by hostile powers ranging from the Klingons to the Tzenkethi - and you need to be told there's more than one thing happening in the galaxy??
Wait, the United Federation of Planets is (in some estimates) as much as 8000 lightyears across, had recently concluded a pretty major war with the major power of the Gamma Quadrant, and is surrounded by hostile powers ranging from the Klingons to the Tzenkethi - and you need to be told there's more than one thing happening in the galaxy??
It is effective world building. Star Trek has always been bad at this. If it is not relevant to the current story, then it is ignored.
Wait, the United Federation of Planets is (in some estimates) as much as 8000 lightyears across, had recently concluded a pretty major war with the major power of the Gamma Quadrant, and is surrounded by hostile powers ranging from the Klingons to the Tzenkethi - and you need to be told there's more than one thing happening in the galaxy??
Minor nitpick: Unless something has changed between DS9 and Nemesis, the Klingons were Federation allies. But again, that goes to the point of world building - this series covers a very limited frame of reference (which is understandable) and events with almost no context (which is not). There are incredible glaring holes in the backstory that the showrunners not only make no effort to explain, but make no effort to hide. Then again, perhaps we should not be surprised, given that from JJ onward, none of this was meant for the existing fandom, who would actually be able to point things like this out.
> @phoenixc#0738 said: > (Quote) > > In the case of STO, the Hobus supernova was one thing among many and the Romulans were putting up a false front of business as usual, so things like the increasing agitation in the Klingon empire made a reasonable distraction so it does not seem weird that the Federation did not do more. > > And then later the Klingons actively go to war with the Federation and the RSE quietly sitting behind its neutral zone fence in the corner tearing itself apart internally became little more than something to keep half an eye on while they dealt with the Klingons and all the other fires that were "spontaneously" springing up even before that war and needed attention before they had the chance to grow out of control. Federation intelligence, sensitized as it was to infiltration after the incidents in TNG and DS9, was probably going crazy chasing leads in all directions for instance. > > PIC, on the other hand, makes no effort whatsoever to establish that the alpha/beta (and to an extent gamma) quadrants have anything at all going on except the supernova, the failed evacuation, and the "synth rebellion", so the same lack of Federation involvement (beyond banning synths) after Mars stands out like a sore thumb. It is like a bad novel adaptation where the screenwriter tried to follow a single thread of a complex story but failed to account for the other threads impact and stripped away too much so plausibility suffered (there are a lot of movies and other series which suffer from that so it is not something unique to CBS or Star Trek).
This is false. Anything not related to the story does need to be there. Just because you want to know what the Klingons and Ferengi are doing during the events of the story isn’t a failing of the writers or plot holes. That’s like claiming The Dark Knight is a poorly written movie because it didn’t tell us what The Flash was doing during the events of the movie.
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Wait, the United Federation of Planets is (in some estimates) as much as 8000 lightyears across, had recently concluded a pretty major war with the major power of the Gamma Quadrant, and is surrounded by hostile powers ranging from the Klingons to the Tzenkethi - and you need to be told there's more than one thing happening in the galaxy??
Minor nitpick: Unless something has changed between DS9 and Nemesis, the Klingons were Federation allies.
The Klingons are "allies". Remember how "allied" they were during much of DS9? Hell, during fairly large parts of TNG? Just because they're not openly at war with the Federation as a whole doesn't mean that some "rogue" Houses aren't raiding border worlds.
> @phoenixc#0738 said:
> (Quote)
>
> In the case of STO, the Hobus supernova was one thing among many and the Romulans were putting up a false front of business as usual, so things like the increasing agitation in the Klingon empire made a reasonable distraction so it does not seem weird that the Federation did not do more.
>
> And then later the Klingons actively go to war with the Federation and the RSE quietly sitting behind its neutral zone fence in the corner tearing itself apart internally became little more than something to keep half an eye on while they dealt with the Klingons and all the other fires that were "spontaneously" springing up even before that war and needed attention before they had the chance to grow out of control. Federation intelligence, sensitized as it was to infiltration after the incidents in TNG and DS9, was probably going crazy chasing leads in all directions for instance.
>
> PIC, on the other hand, makes no effort whatsoever to establish that the alpha/beta (and to an extent gamma) quadrants have anything at all going on except the supernova, the failed evacuation, and the "synth rebellion", so the same lack of Federation involvement (beyond banning synths) after Mars stands out like a sore thumb. It is like a bad novel adaptation where the screenwriter tried to follow a single thread of a complex story but failed to account for the other threads impact and stripped away too much so plausibility suffered (there are a lot of movies and other series which suffer from that so it is not something unique to CBS or Star Trek).
This is false. Anything not related to the story does need to be there. Just because you want to know what the Klingons and Ferengi are doing during the events of the story isn’t a failing of the writers or plot holes. That’s like claiming The Dark Knight is a poorly written movie because it didn’t tell us what The Flash was doing during the events of the movie.
Those are silly exaggerated examples that totally miss the point. Sure, those things do not have to be in foreground, or even the background, but something has to be there to give the illusion that the story is set in a real place and is not just the main storyline hanging out in limbo by itself.
Making a fictional setting seem vibrant and real is actually more important than the main storylines themselves, and DSC fell a bit flat in that, and apparently PIC did not do any better (and maybe even worse).
> @phoenixc#0738 said:
> (Quote)
>
> In the case of STO, the Hobus supernova was one thing among many and the Romulans were putting up a false front of business as usual, so things like the increasing agitation in the Klingon empire made a reasonable distraction so it does not seem weird that the Federation did not do more.
>
> And then later the Klingons actively go to war with the Federation and the RSE quietly sitting behind its neutral zone fence in the corner tearing itself apart internally became little more than something to keep half an eye on while they dealt with the Klingons and all the other fires that were "spontaneously" springing up even before that war and needed attention before they had the chance to grow out of control. Federation intelligence, sensitized as it was to infiltration after the incidents in TNG and DS9, was probably going crazy chasing leads in all directions for instance.
>
> PIC, on the other hand, makes no effort whatsoever to establish that the alpha/beta (and to an extent gamma) quadrants have anything at all going on except the supernova, the failed evacuation, and the "synth rebellion", so the same lack of Federation involvement (beyond banning synths) after Mars stands out like a sore thumb. It is like a bad novel adaptation where the screenwriter tried to follow a single thread of a complex story but failed to account for the other threads impact and stripped away too much so plausibility suffered (there are a lot of movies and other series which suffer from that so it is not something unique to CBS or Star Trek).
This is false. Anything not related to the story does need to be there. Just because you want to know what the Klingons and Ferengi are doing during the events of the story isn’t a failing of the writers or plot holes. That’s like claiming The Dark Knight is a poorly written movie because it didn’t tell us what The Flash was doing during the events of the movie.
Those are silly exaggerated examples that totally miss the point. Sure, those things do not have to be in foreground, or even the background, but something has to be there to give the illusion that the story is set in a real place and is not just the main storyline hanging out in limbo by itself.
Making a fictional setting seem vibrant and real is actually more important than the main storylines themselves, and DSC fell a bit flat in that, and apparently PIC did not do any better (and maybe even worse).
except you don't need to explain everything. I dunno how old you are, but consider Star Wars, we went over TWENTY FIVE YEARS only knowing the clone wars was some conflict Obi-wan and anakin skywalker fought in. it was mentioned once, ONCE and never mentioned again until attack of the clones came out.
I get it, some people are used to "knowing everything about star trek" and don't enjoy being back in a situation where we don't know everything.
that's... just how things go.
Let's flash back top the first ten episodes of TNG and how much we knew about the galaxy in that?
first of all, when TNG came out, our grand total of trek canon was TOS, TAS, and Star treks 1-4.
The first ten episodes where..
Encounter at Farpoint
The Naked Now
Code of Honor
Where no one has gone before
Lonely Among us
Justice
The Battle
Hide and Q
we didn't see the romulans or the Klingons in this, in fact Worf being on the bridge had a lot of implications given the last time we saw a Klingon it blew up the original enterprise in trek.. and now one was on the enterprise? what was the story there. we didn't hear about for another ten episodes when Heart of Glory aired.
and we didn;t learn about the klingon empire in all one big chunk, it came slowly over 2 bloody series. star trek is a TV drama, it's not a RPG booklet.
the world will be built as nesscary, in fact doing too much world building unnesscarily is actually a BAD thing as it can limit the writers because it would tie their hands.
> @phoenixc#0738 said:
> (Quote)
>
> In the case of STO, the Hobus supernova was one thing among many and the Romulans were putting up a false front of business as usual, so things like the increasing agitation in the Klingon empire made a reasonable distraction so it does not seem weird that the Federation did not do more.
>
> And then later the Klingons actively go to war with the Federation and the RSE quietly sitting behind its neutral zone fence in the corner tearing itself apart internally became little more than something to keep half an eye on while they dealt with the Klingons and all the other fires that were "spontaneously" springing up even before that war and needed attention before they had the chance to grow out of control. Federation intelligence, sensitized as it was to infiltration after the incidents in TNG and DS9, was probably going crazy chasing leads in all directions for instance.
>
> PIC, on the other hand, makes no effort whatsoever to establish that the alpha/beta (and to an extent gamma) quadrants have anything at all going on except the supernova, the failed evacuation, and the "synth rebellion", so the same lack of Federation involvement (beyond banning synths) after Mars stands out like a sore thumb. It is like a bad novel adaptation where the screenwriter tried to follow a single thread of a complex story but failed to account for the other threads impact and stripped away too much so plausibility suffered (there are a lot of movies and other series which suffer from that so it is not something unique to CBS or Star Trek).
This is false. Anything not related to the story does need to be there. Just because you want to know what the Klingons and Ferengi are doing during the events of the story isn’t a failing of the writers or plot holes. That’s like claiming The Dark Knight is a poorly written movie because it didn’t tell us what The Flash was doing during the events of the movie.
Those are silly exaggerated examples that totally miss the point. Sure, those things do not have to be in foreground, or even the background, but something has to be there to give the illusion that the story is set in a real place and is not just the main storyline hanging out in limbo by itself.
Making a fictional setting seem vibrant and real is actually more important than the main storylines themselves, and DSC fell a bit flat in that, and apparently PIC did not do any better (and maybe even worse).
except you don't need to explain everything. I dunno how old you are, but consider Star Wars, we went over TWENTY FIVE YEARS only knowing the clone wars was some conflict Obi-wan and anakin skywalker fought in. it was mentioned once, ONCE and never mentioned again until attack of the clones came out.
I get it, some people are used to "knowing everything about star trek" and don't enjoy being back in a situation where we don't know everything.
that's... just how things go.
Let's flash back top the first ten episodes of TNG and how much we knew about the galaxy in that?
first of all, when TNG came out, our grand total of trek canon was TOS, TAS, and Star treks 1-4.
The first ten episodes where..
Encounter at Farpoint
The Naked Now
Code of Honor
Where no one has gone before
Lonely Among us
Justice
The Battle
Hide and Q
we didn't see the romulans or the Klingons in this, in fact Worf being on the bridge had a lot of implications given the last time we saw a Klingon it blew up the original enterprise in trek.. and now one was on the enterprise? what was the story there. we didn't hear about for another ten episodes when Heart of Glory aired.
and we didn;t learn about the klingon empire in all one big chunk, it came slowly over 2 bloody series. star trek is a TV drama, it's not a RPG booklet.
the world will be built as nesscary, in fact doing too much world building unnesscarily is actually a BAD thing as it can limit the writers because it would tie their hands.
That is not the point either. I did not say they should have included dossiers on the various old factions or any other infodump as some kind of fanservice. What I said was that they needed something to make it seem they were in a real place where more than one thing happens at a time. That is especially important to pay attention to in a narrow-format serial since it is probably the greatest weakness of that storytelling style.
They don't have to go haring off on tangents, give long expositions, or anything else that takes significant time away from the main story, just adding a few people busy in the background in a few key scenes (mostly in HQ locations or a brief "off camera emergency" interruption of a videocall and the like) and a few oblique references in throwaway dialog to other things going on would do if they did it right. The weird part is that Chabon is usually very good at doing that layered, living world feeling yet PIC seems to be mostly lacking it.
I get it, some people are used to "knowing everything about star trek" and don't enjoy being back in a situation where we don't know everything.
As if we know all of the things now...
Let's flash back top the first ten episodes of TNG and how much we knew about the galaxy in that?
first of all, when TNG came out, our grand total of trek canon was TOS, TAS, and Star treks 1-4.
The first ten episodes where..
Encounter at Farpoint
Wait what? The Cnidarians are a race capable of doing THAT??!? How did the Bandi capture them??? Also what do the Cnidarians actually want?
The Naked Now
When Yar and Data start talking about Yar's past, she mentions that the world she grew up on was utterly horrible and basically run by criminals. Why does a Human colony live in conditions that make Mad Max seem safe???
Code of Honor
How is it that the Ligonians(a non Federation race) have the only known vaccine for Anchilles fever(which is currently affecting a Federation colony)?
Where no one has gone before
So, there's an entire race of people like the Traveler? Also he makes a cryptic comment about how his race has a different concept of time than the Feds do... Wait.. WHEN is he from then?
Lonely Among us
Soo.. sentient, non-corporeal, and potentially very dangerous species... Why were they never seen again? Also.. the cloud they live in can travel at Warp???
Justice
Where did the Edo Guardian come from, and why? Their society feels very... "Truman Show" in that the computer tells them all what to do. Are they it's creation? Also why did the Feds make contact with this race?
The Battle
Thoughtmakers are illegal, but something common enough that Kazago recognizes it on sight. Who invented them and why? It's seemingly exotic tech to Feds but not Ferengi?
Hide and Q
Why was Q there? He leaves because the OTHER Q drag him off the ship kicking and screaming... whaattt???!!?!??
I feel as though I understand Star Trek less than before I compiled that list. O_o'
The magical faster than light Romulan supernova from Star Trek Online makes more sense than Picard, because otherwise Spock's plan to turn the supernova into a black hole would be nonsensical if he were destroying Romulus' sun. Even Chabon has admitted this is an inconsistency they are now aware of, as I pointed it out on his instagram and he responded with #TrekImponderables .
Thankfully, the mention of the "Romulan sun" in the Picard premiere was so passing that they could just write it off as the character generalizing any star in Romulan space as the "Romulan sun".
If they discuss the supernova further in canon, they'll either have to go with STO's magical FTL Hobus supernova or, I'm guessing, they'll say the Romulan system was a binary system with only one sun of two going supernova, thus Spock turning that sun into a black hole wouldn't doom Romulus.
The magical faster than light Romulan supernova from Star Trek Online makes more sense than Picard, because otherwise Spock's plan to turn the supernova into a black hole would be nonsensical if he were destroying Romulus' sun. Even Chabon has admitted this is an inconsistency they are now aware of, as I pointed it out on his instagram and he responded with #TrekImponderables .
Thankfully, the mention of the "Romulan sun" in the Picard premiere was so passing that they could just write it off as the character generalizing any star in Romulan space as the "Romulan sun".
If they discuss the supernova further in canon, they'll either have to go with STO's magical FTL Hobus supernova or, I'm guessing, they'll say the Romulan system was a binary system with only one sun of two going supernova, thus Spock turning that sun into a black hole wouldn't doom Romulus.
It has to be a magical FTL supernova since the Romulans would have years to prepare if it was a standard supernova happening in a neighboring star system. If Alpha Centauri went supernova, we would be able to see some indications of it going supernova, but as soon as we saw the supernova we would be hit by a massive EM wave that would likely wipe out all of our electronics and some other problems. The more dire problem is the remnants of the Alpha Centauri system coming at us at relativistic velocities. The only way for it to be a standard supernova and still be a major crisis for the Romulans is if the Romulus star went supernova which still is problematic due to the relatively young age of their star.
Comments
A standard supernova would have an EMP travelling at light speed with a massive ejection of material travelling at a fraction of the speed of light. By the time that we figure out a supernova is happening, it would be too late for us to do anything about the EMP and it would wipe out most of our electronics. However, an EMP would likely not affect the Federation and would have years to prepare for the Supernova. The material travelling at a fraction of light speed would devastate the Earth if it doesn't destroy it for us, but the Federation has some methods of preparing for it.
However, the Romulan Supernova is not a typical supernova and STO used Iconians to explain its eccentricities. So it is pointless to use what we know about supernovas to explain the Romulan Supernova.
> (Quote)
>
> A standard supernova would have an EMP travelling at light speed with a massive ejection of material travelling at a fraction of the speed of light. By the time that we figure out a supernova is happening, it would be too late for us to do anything about the EMP and it would wipe out most of our electronics. However, an EMP would likely not affect the Federation and would have years to prepare for the Supernova. The material travelling at a fraction of light speed would devastate the Earth if it doesn't destroy it for us, but the Federation has some methods of preparing for it.
>
> However, the Romulan Supernova is not a typical supernova and STO used Iconians to explain its eccentricities. So it is pointless to use what we know about supernovas to explain the Romulan Supernova.
Also I’m reading the prequel book and the data on the supernova was given to the Federation by the Romulans. They weren’t able to study it on their own until later and that’s when they realized it was gonna be sooner than they thought
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No. They really don't. The show ignores STOs entire backstory
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As it should be.
Ok, lets give you the benefit of the doubt and say that you meant your definition to cover all five despite sounding like you were only giving the definition of narrative plot holes. That still leaves your definition a bit short because it still only counts active plot holes and not oversight ones and the like.
As for the incredibly lazy and idiotic "destroyed homeworld" thing, that is itself a logic plothole that Trek fell into way back in TNG. If Washington DC and maybe a burg or two near it was nuked do you think the US would magically evaporate? An empire is not like a single city-state, it is like a big country like the US. As for the examples you gave:
The Iconians were said to have been driven back to their homeworld (which is a bit iffy itself considering the gates, it would be like herding cats) before it was bombed into a cinder.
The Tkon were the poster child of that particular stupid "the life of the king is the life of the people" plot hole. Not much to say in the writer's favor on that except maybe the Tkon were somehow tied to their home star's lifespan by space magic, sort of like the Companion from "Metamorphosis" but with longer range. Either way, TNG dropped the ball big time on that one and it came off sounding like something from a kiddie serial (minus the V8 powered rocketships) though the episode itself was not bad for TNG despite that flaw.
The Makers were from Andromeda and pushed an exploratory expedition all the way to this galaxy, that had to be expensive. We really do not know what happened to them except for the nova, it is possible that they fell into chaos or they may have just turned their resources to a massive orderly evacuation or a number of other possibilities and the expedition lost its funding or whatever. All Mudd's androids really knew is that they did not come back because of it, and for all we the viewers know that may be for a reason as simple as that after recovering they did not feel it was worth the effort to recover automated probes sent they to another galaxy or whatever.
And the homeworld thing is not even universal in Star Trek anyway, look the Klingons and Praxis. Sure, it was a moon and only flash-fried half the planet (and probably EMPed the rest) but the idea is the same as a nova. The Klingons did not magically disappear, their economy collapsed. And that was in a movie where being brief often takes precedence over making sense but they still took the time to think it through (or they just stole the idea from Tom Clancy, but if so at least they stole from the best).
And yes, Chekov's Gun is a literary technique, what did you think this was about if not writing? Chekov's Gun is essentially a rule of thumb about introducing elements to a story, and like all the others it can be broken in good ways or bad ways. Some of the bad ways introduce plot holes the same way bad editing can.
As for examples, I have given some already, along with repeating a link to an article with more. And yes, some of them could technically be some other writing problem but still have enough of one or more of the five types to be considered a plot hole.
The Romulan supernova's eccentricities are irrelevant to the coverage problem. Yes, subspace disturbances are possible and travel at FTL speeds per the Praxis disaster. In fact the writers would be well within the realm of plausibility if they said the supernova somehow disturbed the quantum membrane and caused a massive nadion discharge which essentially proximity-blast phasered Romulus and everything else in its path (that would even have the handy trait of starting out travelling very rapidly but slowing as it lost energy).
The problem comes in because the CBS take on it is that the supernova destroyed the RSE literally, by way of its expanding shock wave smashing all of its major worlds or whatever, yet the map they use (and in fact most of the maps, going all the way back to "Balance of Terror") shows that the supernova could not possibly cover a significant amount of Romulan space without destroying a large swath of the Federation as well. The cartography is clear, they are just too close to Earth for it to work they say it does, or at least without it being almost as big a disaster for the Federation as it is for the Romulans. The fact that it had the effect described in PIC without that damage to the Federation (especially Earth and Bolarus) is what makes it a huge gaping plot hole.
Why they did not go with the far more plausible reason STO uses for the fall of the RSE, (namely that it took out enough of the praetoriate to cause a power vacuum and the empire tore itself apart in internal factional squabbles), is a mystery though it is typical of the poor plot decisions and other sloppiness Trek has suffered from under Kurtzman. It makes me wonder why they bothered to take a look at STO's lore at all, though I suspect it may have been more a way of making sure they were NOT doing what STO did rather than as a way of synchronizing them.
Aside from the Zhat Vash, Qowat Milat, and a bit of Romulan mythology, we know about as much as we did on the Romulans now compared to before Picard was first launched. However, it looks like there is a power vacuum for the Romulans since the warlord in charge of Vashti had an antique Romulan Bird of Prey. The only significant Romulan military we saw was under the control of the Zhat Vash in the Season Finale.
The supernova did not take out a significant part of Romulan space. The Supernova threaten Romulus and 15 Romulan colony worlds that had similar populations.
We dont know what the true nature of the Romulan government is. I suspect that it is as you suggest. The RSE splintered and shrank. It became a collection of states. We only know of the Romulan Free State. Think of how the Austria-Hungary Empire was broken into smaller countries after WW1.
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See, for example, what the Soviet Union commonly assumed would happen if Moscow were destroyed in war, even if the other "republics" were untouched. (Or, for that matter, what actually happened when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.)
As I mentioned earlier, put one *censored* in charge and they can easily sway the entire organization they now control over time. As several ST shows showed (TNG with the Conspiracy arc, DS9 with the Changeling infiltrators), it's even rather easy to manipulate the Federation. Heck, it seems that when someone questions your behavior and motive if you're looking like an important figure, all you have to say is "that's a stupid question!", and you get what you want.
And Oh was apparently in charge of Starfleet Security for at least 9 years (when she arranged for Sutra's twin to be killed). Plenty of time to progressively push a whole Federation towards a more and more isolationist, xenophobic stance, especially after the devastating Dominion War (the lead writer said he wanted to be more explicit about how the DW was one of the big reasons for the change of the Federation but this was veto'ed by the executives).
Again, like how it has and is still happening -with the approval of a part of the whole population- in our real world. Except you can shorten "that's a stupid question!" to "fake news!".
EDIT: Excuse me, since when does one put "the action of hijacking a piece of software" in the profanity filter?
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
> Did the profanity filter get TRIBBLE by the Romulans?
It has seemed horrendously borked recently
Even when STO's backstory, ultimately, makes more sense? The supernova deal with the JJ-Trek "Countdown" comics and the STO timeline made absolutely more sense than this rather disjointed mess we got in Picard. I've heard it expressed by some - including at least one person who has appeared in past Trek - that if Picard had the writers that TNG and DS9 had, it would have been a lot better. The writing... in a number of cases, both in this series and in Discovery, it reminds me of a guy who saw me in a Trek uniform (late DS9-era admiral's jacket) at a convention a couple years back who proceeded to blab at me for ten minutes about his Romulan empress fan fiction; I vaguely remember that he established her as being the daughter of Spock and the Romulan commander from "The Enterprise Incident".
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You may recall that even in STO, nobody brought it up until the beginning of the Romulan Mystery arc, and even then the line of questioning was dropped until it was time for the player to investigate. Was that "disjointed" as well?
In the case of STO, the Hobus supernova was one thing among many and the Romulans were putting up a false front of business as usual, so things like the increasing agitation in the Klingon empire made a reasonable distraction so it does not seem weird that the Federation did not do more.
And then later the Klingons actively go to war with the Federation and the RSE quietly sitting behind its neutral zone fence in the corner tearing itself apart internally became little more than something to keep half an eye on while they dealt with the Klingons and all the other fires that were "spontaneously" springing up even before that war and needed attention before they had the chance to grow out of control. Federation intelligence, sensitized as it was to infiltration after the incidents in TNG and DS9, was probably going crazy chasing leads in all directions for instance.
PIC, on the other hand, makes no effort whatsoever to establish that the alpha/beta (and to an extent gamma) quadrants have anything at all going on except the supernova, the failed evacuation, and the "synth rebellion", so the same lack of Federation involvement (beyond banning synths) after Mars stands out like a sore thumb. It is like a bad novel adaptation where the screenwriter tried to follow a single thread of a complex story but failed to account for the other threads impact and stripped away too much so plausibility suffered (there are a lot of movies and other series which suffer from that so it is not something unique to CBS or Star Trek).
It is effective world building. Star Trek has always been bad at this. If it is not relevant to the current story, then it is ignored.
Minor nitpick: Unless something has changed between DS9 and Nemesis, the Klingons were Federation allies. But again, that goes to the point of world building - this series covers a very limited frame of reference (which is understandable) and events with almost no context (which is not). There are incredible glaring holes in the backstory that the showrunners not only make no effort to explain, but make no effort to hide. Then again, perhaps we should not be surprised, given that from JJ onward, none of this was meant for the existing fandom, who would actually be able to point things like this out.
"There's No Way Like Poway!"
Real Join Date: October 2010
> (Quote)
>
> In the case of STO, the Hobus supernova was one thing among many and the Romulans were putting up a false front of business as usual, so things like the increasing agitation in the Klingon empire made a reasonable distraction so it does not seem weird that the Federation did not do more.
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> And then later the Klingons actively go to war with the Federation and the RSE quietly sitting behind its neutral zone fence in the corner tearing itself apart internally became little more than something to keep half an eye on while they dealt with the Klingons and all the other fires that were "spontaneously" springing up even before that war and needed attention before they had the chance to grow out of control. Federation intelligence, sensitized as it was to infiltration after the incidents in TNG and DS9, was probably going crazy chasing leads in all directions for instance.
>
> PIC, on the other hand, makes no effort whatsoever to establish that the alpha/beta (and to an extent gamma) quadrants have anything at all going on except the supernova, the failed evacuation, and the "synth rebellion", so the same lack of Federation involvement (beyond banning synths) after Mars stands out like a sore thumb. It is like a bad novel adaptation where the screenwriter tried to follow a single thread of a complex story but failed to account for the other threads impact and stripped away too much so plausibility suffered (there are a lot of movies and other series which suffer from that so it is not something unique to CBS or Star Trek).
This is false. Anything not related to the story does need to be there. Just because you want to know what the Klingons and Ferengi are doing during the events of the story isn’t a failing of the writers or plot holes. That’s like claiming The Dark Knight is a poorly written movie because it didn’t tell us what The Flash was doing during the events of the movie.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
Those are silly exaggerated examples that totally miss the point. Sure, those things do not have to be in foreground, or even the background, but something has to be there to give the illusion that the story is set in a real place and is not just the main storyline hanging out in limbo by itself.
Making a fictional setting seem vibrant and real is actually more important than the main storylines themselves, and DSC fell a bit flat in that, and apparently PIC did not do any better (and maybe even worse).
except you don't need to explain everything. I dunno how old you are, but consider Star Wars, we went over TWENTY FIVE YEARS only knowing the clone wars was some conflict Obi-wan and anakin skywalker fought in. it was mentioned once, ONCE and never mentioned again until attack of the clones came out.
I get it, some people are used to "knowing everything about star trek" and don't enjoy being back in a situation where we don't know everything.
that's... just how things go.
Let's flash back top the first ten episodes of TNG and how much we knew about the galaxy in that?
first of all, when TNG came out, our grand total of trek canon was TOS, TAS, and Star treks 1-4.
The first ten episodes where..
Encounter at Farpoint
The Naked Now
Code of Honor
Where no one has gone before
Lonely Among us
Justice
The Battle
Hide and Q
we didn't see the romulans or the Klingons in this, in fact Worf being on the bridge had a lot of implications given the last time we saw a Klingon it blew up the original enterprise in trek.. and now one was on the enterprise? what was the story there. we didn't hear about for another ten episodes when Heart of Glory aired.
and we didn;t learn about the klingon empire in all one big chunk, it came slowly over 2 bloody series. star trek is a TV drama, it's not a RPG booklet.
the world will be built as nesscary, in fact doing too much world building unnesscarily is actually a BAD thing as it can limit the writers because it would tie their hands.
That is not the point either. I did not say they should have included dossiers on the various old factions or any other infodump as some kind of fanservice. What I said was that they needed something to make it seem they were in a real place where more than one thing happens at a time. That is especially important to pay attention to in a narrow-format serial since it is probably the greatest weakness of that storytelling style.
They don't have to go haring off on tangents, give long expositions, or anything else that takes significant time away from the main story, just adding a few people busy in the background in a few key scenes (mostly in HQ locations or a brief "off camera emergency" interruption of a videocall and the like) and a few oblique references in throwaway dialog to other things going on would do if they did it right. The weird part is that Chabon is usually very good at doing that layered, living world feeling yet PIC seems to be mostly lacking it.
I feel as though I understand Star Trek less than before I compiled that list. O_o'
My character Tsin'xing
Thankfully, the mention of the "Romulan sun" in the Picard premiere was so passing that they could just write it off as the character generalizing any star in Romulan space as the "Romulan sun".
If they discuss the supernova further in canon, they'll either have to go with STO's magical FTL Hobus supernova or, I'm guessing, they'll say the Romulan system was a binary system with only one sun of two going supernova, thus Spock turning that sun into a black hole wouldn't doom Romulus.
It has to be a magical FTL supernova since the Romulans would have years to prepare if it was a standard supernova happening in a neighboring star system. If Alpha Centauri went supernova, we would be able to see some indications of it going supernova, but as soon as we saw the supernova we would be hit by a massive EM wave that would likely wipe out all of our electronics and some other problems. The more dire problem is the remnants of the Alpha Centauri system coming at us at relativistic velocities. The only way for it to be a standard supernova and still be a major crisis for the Romulans is if the Romulus star went supernova which still is problematic due to the relatively young age of their star.