What are your Trek anomalies?

[Deja Q]

The Genesis device was created independently - it was later revised to involve Starfleet as being the creators of it. Worse, a planet was not terraformed by the device. The Genesis device used the Reliant as the impetus when it detonated. No wonder this "protomatter" caused instability to the newly made planet; the device was used in totally atypical and unintended circumstances. David's guilt was a non-sequitur due to this continuity altering. And later the technology concept was ignored entirely. Why? The Klingons had the information to make another and could sell it to anyone else anyway.

Star Trek II makes a lot more sense if the Romulans were used. (Trek II changed the enemy to the Klingons at last moment due to budget restrictions, so footage from Trek TMP had to be substituted...)

Star Trek VI (23rd century) features a Klingon ship that can fire while cloaked. Looked pretty good. What happened since?

"Descent" introduces transwarp conduit and the Federation has many an opportunity to use it. How come Janeway never took advantage of this; continuity skewed?

"Relics" has Scotty saying Kirk sent out people to have him found. "Generations" (the movie) has Scotty seeing Kirk's apparent death.

"The Enemy" features a bizarre situation: A captured Romulan needs compatible blood plasma. Vulcans are the same species that conditioned their society different over the ages. Why none of the Enterprise Vulcans could be used to donate blood is odd. Odder is how a Klingon COULD give such blood, as the plot was shoehorned to make it work. (it's otherwise a terrific story...)

"I, Borg" has Picard and Guinan turning in favor of the Borg. Guinan, for a while, knew better because - with an enemy - if you give it some sympathy it will use that moment to kill you. Even Picard knew better for a while... And in "Descent", Starfleet yells at him and tells him that the moral thing to do isn't always the right thing to do; of which Picard seems to clock the fact and tell idiot Crusher the same thing. Indeed, Picard's own actions created the psycho Borg. Why isn't he demoted?

"Descent" also proves that the Borg, one big-ass collective, can't be wholly connected at once. This is why the Borg in the Delta quadrant are still their usual selves. Of course, "Descent" still operates on the pre-Queen philosophy as well...

"First Contact" (movie) features a Borg Queen. This flies in the face of established continuity. Still, all things considered it's a good change - and superbly acted by Alice Krieg, so I'll let this one pass. :D (even though there's no sense of suspense as we all know the Feds will win in the end... time travel has that effect on Trek. We know they will win.)

And the Enterprise Borg episode flies in the face of the first encounter with the Borg, rendering numerous TNG and Voyager episodes lambasting Q for introducing the Borg to the Feds silly. (Q still did the right thing; for the Feds would have been obliterated otherwise.)

And does "Endgame" (Voyager) imply ALL Borg are wiped out? (I doubt it,somehow.)

[Technowitch]

1. Most of these are simple continuity errors

...introduced by the fact that the Trek universe 'canon' has become irretrievably corrupt over the years, and also by the very Borg-like assimilatory nature of Star Trek itself.

It's insanely common in TV and movie series for a totally radical concept, event, or tragedy to take place -- and never be noticed, commented upon, or even have any lasting effects in future episodes. I was actually often surprised when there were a few occasions where a prior episode was noted for anything more than, "Oh, yes, and we have the Borg to deal with now."

As near as I can tell, the writers and producers of Trek screwed up in two very major ways. One was the attempt to create a virtually unstoppable foe in the Borg. So they adapt to everything? You mean to tell me they're so incredibly stupid they can't adapt to an AI hacking into their systems and forcing them into an unnecessary regeneration cycle, resulting in catastrophic self-destruction?! I mean, criminies, that makes them even less adaptable than your average GOP neocon.

But that aside, the writers kept trying to use this foe -- even to the point of grafting a queen onto the collective, even though that totally ruined the whole "there is no unitary leader" concept. Hell, even Locutus was supposed to be little more than a voice, and a means of accessing Star Fleet tactics.

The other way they screwed up was in their ever increasing reliance on time travel as a plot device. By the way, you want to know about the whole Enterprise series thing? The implication was that in going back in time, with the Enterprise-E crew helping Cochraine launch his mission, that whole set of events created an alternate timeline. One in which Borg wreckage was left in the arctic. There was some comment or other that the Enterprise-era Borg signal would eventually be received in the Delta quadrant sometime in the 24th century and responded to. Thus, by the TNG timeframe, a Borg cube was already on its way to Alpha quadrant. Q simply did us all a huge favor by warning us a year earlier than we'd have found out on our own that the Borg were coming.

But really what it all boils down to is "The writers did it."

The writers wanted Borg to show up in Enterprise, so they tried to find a reasonably plausible way to fit it into the movies and other series... unfortunately, it does violate a number of previously established facts and statements.

Likewise when the Ferengi showed up and looted the Enterprise NX-01.

BTW, that was Trek III where the enemy was a rogue Klingon captain, as played by Christopher Lloyd. And no, they didn't use footage from any prior film to make it go. That was the first time they showed a Klingon warbird of that particular size and configuration. Prior to that, they used Amar-class ships, the ones with the long necks and trapezoid heads.

Trek VI and its cloaked ship firing... Yep. Supposedly killer technology, and nobody else uses it. Frankly, I think the whole cloaking thing was itself another mistake. Stealthed ships, sure, makes perfect sense. Maybe even light-bending tech. But sheer invisibility? Even sensors? Hell, we can detect black holes by their effects on their surroundings. An invisible ship moving through space is still going to displace interstellar dust -- track their friggin' wake, Einstein!

Transwarp tech: Um, because it would ruin the whole "we're trapped decades away from home" meme.

Relics... plain old sloppiness there. I think the TNG folks were just all googly over landing Scotty for their show and forgot to write a story that made any sense whatsoever. Okay, so the galaxy's foremost engineer sticks himself in a transporter buffer for 75 years. That I can buy. It was cool. Every single thing that happened after that was utter dreck. Like, hello? Enterprise-D has its own SHIP'S FRIGGIN' COUNSELOR! Why wasn't Troi in there helping our fish-out-of-time adjust to his new surroundings? Oh right... Marina was busy, so they wrote around her and made it all about Scotty and Geordi. And a Dyson sphere obviously built by Halliburton.

The Enemy. Agreed. Zero sense there. Descent was just plain stupid "hey, let's bring Lore back again!"

Finally, as for Endgame? Ah, my son, you forget the utmost Trek rule of all: No main character or villain is EVER killed off 100% irretrievably.

[ThoughtCriminal]

2. Since they have alternate universes

I guess any plot is possible.

What universe are WE in? Apparently, the one where Spock will have a beard.

[Technowitch]

3. Judging from the way we behave as a species?

Yeah, we're definitely still the types who rush the Vulcan first-contact shuttle and slaughter everybody.

[Solon]

4. I agree with everything but the idea of Cloaking...

I would say the cloaking device involved phasing the ship outside of space=time, probably time itself actually, like half a second before anyone could detect it, this would render such a ship invisible to those in "current" space time. This is actually supported by Star Trek Canon, the Episode of TNG where they were talking about Riker's previous ship and the mysterious accident that occured that killed most of the crew. His former Captain became an Admiral, and ordered Riker to help him cover up the crime that the Federation was experimenting with a Cloaking Device in violation of the Khitomer treaty. The reason for the accident was that the Cloaking device was new, phasing the ship out of Space in addition to time, unfortunately, the ship materialized accidently, in the middle of an asteroid, with catastrophic consequences. It couldn't produce a stable cloaking field.

So, that's that, also, another thing, if we use the Cloaking tech is similar to stealth, the "Cloaking while firing" experiment that the Klingons had may have been rendered moot by simply developing better sensors. During the Movie, Undiscovered country, it seemed like on the section of the ship where they firing took place was visible, instead of a full decloaking. By the time of the TNG era, that type of tech was probably obselete. This also explains why cloaked ships couldn't fire while cloaked, they probably couldn't interact with the enviroment in direct ways, like targeting or firing weapons, passive interaction was possible, like engine exhaust being detectable if not made properly, other emissions. A partial, incomplete, decloaking, would allow the ship to fire while reducing its detectability, rendering it invisible to all that don't look specifically for it.

Besides, just like Stealth, which is based on Radar absorbing and reflecting materials, a space cloaking technology would be similar, space isn't dense, and even interplanetary dust is perhaps only a few molecules or so per cubic foot. Given that, even TNG era sensors would probably have a hard time detecting things at that level of resolution. Using a light bending technology would render most things invisible, to the visible in addition to any other wavelength of light, in fact, cloaking technology of that sort is exactly what the military is working on right now, for both air and ground forces. Though right now, they are concentrating on what they call "active camoflage" for ground forces, basically having tanks and even soldiers match the backgound EXACTLY, even as it changes.

[Ready4Change]

5. Stealth and detection are advancing technologies.

Whatever can be hidden with technology will eventually be detected by new technology.

Our current stealth tech will be rendered visible, through something like detection of the heat friction on the leading edges of stealthed planes, or the slightly warmed or turbulent air in their wake.

Take cloaking via bending light. All well and good if you only detect ships using light. However, what if you start looking for the energy signatures of the techniques you USE to bend light? Currently, to significantly bend light, you need a deep gravity well. If your ship picks up a gravitational field popping in and out of existence nearby, you'd get suspiscious of a cloaked ship mighty quick.

If cloaking works by slipping out of our time/space, then you're going to need to create a rift in time space through which to slip. That takes an energy expenditure, and no energy expenditure is without waste. That waste will be detectible, once people know what to look for.

Sure motes of particles are few and far between. But, if a ship under impulse power is moving at any useful speed at all, it will have to displace those motes, or the constant micro collisions will grind away at the ship, eventually causing serious harm. Someone will learn to see those motes getting shoved about.

In short, anything you do to hide can eventually be figured out and rendered detectible. The trick is to keep innovating, keep ahead of your foes detection abilities.

[ContraBass Black]

23. In one episode of Voyager, they easily detect and disable

A very old cloaked Klingon ship.

[kay1864]

9. I think HypnoToad DID mean Trek II...

(sorry for coming to this party so late. I just now discovered the SF forum!)

In the Kobayashi Maru scenario, we see recycled TMP footage of Klingon cruisers. Kind of a mental clash with the term "Neutral Zone", which we associate with Romulans.

(although I guess it could be the Organian Neutral Zone, but few remember that...)

[Deja Q]

13. Thanks!

:)

That's correct; and I forgot about the Organian treaty as well. :D (reading up on Trek III's origins by the writers; the Romulans were to be the enemies... Trek II has a similar flub, though I did forget how, in TOS season 3, it's said Romulans started using Klingon design (an alliance?) )

[kay1864]

18. Well I cheated on the Organian Treaty

I read it on Wiki (Kobayashi Maru), and IMHO it's a retcon anyway.

Yep, they could have legitimately called them Romulans--but that would have been a mental clash for most fans as well.

Still, one of the best opening scenes (if not *the* best) ever. Plus it made some of us think, "Oh, so that's the Spock death that's been rumored"--then they zap us at the end.

*****************

Wish like hell that they'd left in the deleted scene "She's half Romulan, Jim" that Spock delivered about Saavik. Several wondered why Kirstie Alley's Saavik was so emotional, and that would have explained it.

And *then*, in Search for Spock, Robin Curtis was uber-Vulcan, because director Nimoy kept telling her "drier, drier". But he was the one who had delivered the line!

I guess actors don't remember what they said two years earlier. You'd think someone would have reminded him though.

I asked Robin Curtis about this at a con, and she didn't know why either. Wasn't the first time she'd been asked that question though.

[Orsino]

6. Here's one answer.

""Relics" has Scotty saying Kirk sent out people to have him found. "Generations" (the movie) has Scotty seeing Kirk's apparent death."

Simple continuity error, sure. But Scotty had seen Kirk "die," or cheat death at the last second, dozens of times before. He's excused for thinking, seconds after being yanked out of a transporter, that Jim Kirk might return again to save the day.

[ikri]

7. Cloaking and Voyager

There's an anomaly that has always struck me about this.

In TNG and DS9, especially in DS9, we're told repeatedly that the Federation has a treaty with the other major powers that restricts the use of cloaking technology in the alpha quadrant. In DS9 the Federation even has to beg the Romulans for a cloak generator for the Defiant that can only be used in the gamma quadrant due to the treaty restriction.

This throws up a problem with Voyager. They're trapped 70,000 light years from Earth, they're not likely to hit the outer edges of the alpha quadrant for decades. So during their trip across the delta quadrant how come no one on the crew ever brings up the idea of hooking up a cloaking device? They've got to traverse some seriously hostile territory on their way, surely a cloak (especially the Federation's own cloak technology) would have made the trip a hell of a lot easier.

Even the Federation's own engineers seem to have forgotten this loophole in the Federation's use of cloaks. Even when they get into contact with the Federation again no one bothers to bring up the fact that they could use a cloak nor does anyone offer to send the schematics for a cloaking device to the ship.

[ContraBass Black]

8. Because cloaking devices render a ship invisible

And then the viewer wouldn't get to see it cruise along majestically or roll and pitch in a battle.

[YankeyMCC]

10. Why aren't they immortal?

Didn't they cure Dr Polaski when she caught that aging disease by 'filtering' and 'correcting' her DNA based on a sample from before she was infected then processing her through the transporter?

Why not do this all the time? Everyone has a DNA sample taken at say 22 and every few years you 'filter' and 'correct' yourself through a transporter.

Of course it's never good to look to closely at SF like Trek, particularly the Trek's after TOS. There are technical inconsistencies in TOS to be sure but the 'magiclike' technology of TNG and later shows along with the often lax attention to scientific detail create IMO a more fundamental set of problems for the suspension of disbelief.

And I'm a FAN. :)

[ContraBass Black]

16. That could be explained away by transporter pattern degredation

Along with ethical issues.

[YankeyMCC]

17. Ethical issues?

Do you mean the ethics of staying alive? It's not like they have population pressure, they've got the whole galaxy pretty much plenty of room. And apparently essentially limitless resources at least in terms of food and energy.

[Orrex]

20. Up The Long Ladder

I can hardly watch any of ST:TNG's first or second seasons anymore, but I recall that a glaring inconsistency struck me the very first time I saw this episode.

Aside from the idiotic excuse to jump on the "all things Irish" bandwagon then (and often since) rampant in American pop culture, the whole problem resulted form "replicative fading," or the progressive degradation of DNA in an extended series of clones.

Immediately, I wondered why the original cloners didn't sample and archive their source DNA, thereafter proofreading subsequent cloning efforts against the "master" copy. Heck, they could easily have stored everyone's DNA digitally, so it's not as though they even had to keep the original on-hand. They could even have done this at any point along the way, arresting if not reversing the problem of fading.

While we're at it, how do transporters handle skin-mites and intestinal bacteria that are essential to human life but which don't carry the same DNA as the host. Are these exempted from biofilter processing?

[ContraBass Black]

22. People are monstrously complicated things

To assemble and disassemble.

[Orrex]

24. But we've got the genome mapped already

You'd think in the 200+ years between now and then they'd have gotten to the point of being able to map a specific person's DNA. And you wouldn't even need to store the whole sequence for each individual--just the bits that are different from one person to the next.

[Orsino]

11. Forgot the biggest one of all.

Archer's Enterprise isn't up on Picard's wall.

I was all ready to see the entire prequel series written off as an anomaly of the Temporal Cold War.

[Deja Q]

12. That whole series does nothing but (unintentionally) create gaffes.

:rofl:

[Orsino]

14. Well, I won't argue religion here.

;)

I dunno about gaffes, but I didn't mind the continuity errors so much--after all, they were only errors because other, often inferior, series got there first. I'm not sure it's my favorite Trek, but it's the one I have patience for these days.

I've been catching TOS and TNG, and oh, boy, were they stinky sometimes. I can barely watch Kirk & Co. at all now, and I'm not pleased to say that. I lived and breathed that crew growing up.

But I won't fault anyone for preferring any particular series.

[ContraBass Black]

15. Or on the wall of the original Enterprise.

[Orrex]

19. However, during battle plans in Star Trek: Nemesis

The USS Archer is one of the ships listed for deployment on a tactical starmap.

Sure, it's after the debut of ST:ENT, but I liked it as an Easter Egg.

[Orrex]

21. Question about Trek II

Star Trek II makes a lot more sense if the Romulans were used. (Trek II changed the enemy to the Klingons at last moment due to budget restrictions, so footage from Trek TMP had to be substituted...)

Wasn't Saavik a Romulan/Vulcan hybrid? How, if at all, would this have affected a simulated Romulan attack during the Kobayashi Maru?

Just a thought.