NüTrek: Supplemental

I have things to say about NüTrek and Star Trek in general, obviously. So, in this special supplemental episode I address some of the things we didn't get to in our previous installments. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Gentlemen, let's broaden our minds.
Are they in the proper approachpattern for today?
Negative All weapons Now.
Charge the lightning field.

(00:23):
Charge the lightning field.
Co-captain's Log Supplemental.
Due to my predilections, andJake admirably reining me in, we
didn't address lingering issuespertaining to Discovery and its
status within Star Trek canon.
Trust me, this wasn't anoversight as much as it was
editing, but I always wanted totalk about it.

(00:45):
I mean, sure, if you want tosay that certain elements of how
Discovery have to be updated orjust Star Trek in general have
to be updated to keep up withmodern sensibilities and
technologies, that's fine.
We tend to forget that theEnterprise computer used to
print out data on paper in theearly days of the original
series they had data tapes.
Or that the pad, the personalaccess display device which we

(01:10):
know now today as tablets of TNGon, could only hold like one
PDF at a time.
Those need updated.
Sure, I get that.
All those things are justthings we have to live with if
we want to update the show orthe franchise.
Hell, that's what they did inthe motion picture when they
gave Kleon's cranial ridges inthe first.
All those things are justthings we have to live with if
we want to update the show orthe franchise.

(01:30):
Hell, that's what they did inthe motion picture when they
gave Cleon's cranial ridges inthe first place.
But when you fundamentallychange things that can't be
shaken off or that change plotsof whole episodes or movies in
the future, you've gone off therails of modernizing Holographic
communications, for instance.
We addressed that a little bit.
Those would have fundamentallychanged a lot of storytelling
later in Trek If you could doall of that even before the
original series.
Are you going to tell me theycan't get Moriarty off the

(01:51):
holodeck or need a new inventionfor the EMH to leave Voyager
sickbay?
The whole holodeck thing seemsa little less impressive really.
Continuity obviously is vital toTrek fans.
It's who we are.
It's intrinsically tied intoTrek storytelling.
There are good reasons for that.
Some of the lingering canonissues boil down to some really

(02:12):
basic ones, including and I hateto use aesthetic as a reason,
but take the Delta logo, justfollow me.
In the original series eachstarship had its own badge.
The Delta was just theEnterprise's.
It was later adopted byStarfleet due to the
Enterprise's many heroic acts.

(02:33):
In Abrams' Star Trek, the USSKelvin is shown to use the same
insignia.
Now that's the first bigproblem.
If you want to say that theKelvin had it before the
Enterprise and the PrimeUniverse and that in the Kelvin
timeline Starfleet adopts it inhonor of that ship's destruction
, okay, sure, whatever it's leftunsaid, we can kind of live

(02:54):
with that, I guess.
But what is the excuse indiscovery, and more than that,
if Nero went back in time likethe Enterprise C went forward
and created a new universe, thenwhat happened at that point in
time in the Prime Universe?
The incident had to happen inboth or there would have been no
split.
If it came back in one and notthe other, then the Kelvin

(03:16):
timeline would have alreadyexisted.
And some of that you can justhand wave.
Sure, we always grant thatcaveat.
On the other hand, in theanimated series episode called
Practical Joker, some of theEnterprise's crew gets trapped
inside the holographic rec room.
It wasn't as fancy or asadvanced as the TNG holodeck,

(03:37):
but that technology does existin Trek lore almost 15 years
before TNG.
And yes, no matter what you wantto say, the animated series is
in canon.
That's where we get Kirk'smiddle name and a bunch of stuff
about Spock and some of thealien species.
They don't want to think so.
Sometimes they do, but it is incanon.
The real problem, as I saidbefore, is that of the ship's

(04:03):
insignia.
The Delta logo we associatewith Star Trek was, until the
motion picture, exclusively thatof the Enterprise.
And before you try and throwout the argument that it's just
one of those things we can justoverlook because it was only in
the original series, take pause.
The writers and producers havegone out of their way to mention
that even the most disputedcanonical series, enterprise, is

(04:25):
part of their source, tomention that even the most
disputed canonical seriesEnterprise is part of their
source material.
It's in canon.
It is supposedly working withestablished history, but that's
where they kind of tripped up.
No pun intended for fans ofEnterprise.
See, in the original seriesepisode the Tholian Web, the USS
Defiant not that defiant ismysteriously phasing in and out

(04:45):
of our reality.
When the Enterprise away teamgoes on board, they discover the
crew dead, scattered about theship.
After some high drama, the shipdisappears completely into some
rift and is never said exactlywhere it went, until the fourth
season Enterprise episode, arcIn a Mirror Darkly, which takes
place in the Mirror Mirroruniverse.

(05:05):
Oh man, we talked about that alot before.
In that episode, the Terranempirical ship Enterprise
discovers the Defiant adriftfresh from the Prime Universe.
Again, the away team discoversthe crew dead immediately in the
exact same positions as in theTholian Web.
It's the same scene right downto the insignias on their

(05:28):
uniforms.
Yes, enterprise solved a TOSmystery and uncharacteristically
cemented details of originalseries canon in one fell swoop.
The only way to explain thisdiscrepancy would be to say that
all of Starfleet suddenly wentaway from the Delta logo, except
for the Enterprise.
They changed the insignia ofexisting starships for a brief

(05:51):
period, then went back to theDelta in subsequent years.
If they say that, would itreally seem like a satisfying
organic retcon or a desperatetacked-on excuse?
I know what I would say.
Unfortunately, or well, perhapsto their credit, those in
charge of the franchiseaddressed this in the real world

(06:12):
.
The official Paramount runStarTrekcom even crafted an
article to explain thisso-called discrepancy.
They claimed that Starfleetnever went away from the Delta,
but cited actual plot holes,unexplained gaps and yada, yada,
yada that we talked about inearlier episodes to make the
argument that other insigniawere only used for specific

(06:32):
circumstances, like beingstationed on a starbase, for
example.
I don't really buy it, but thistime they did actually put in
the work.
That having been said, add thatto the Starfleet Academy
spinoff and it's clear that theyare adamant about Discovery
being in canon.
And in my opinion and this is anew take, something I put

(06:56):
together recently I think thestrategy is a reset.
I think that what they want todo is start at the beginning of
the Federation and Starfleet,without being a prequel, without
having to do the things thatthey did in Enterprise and
Discovery.
I think they're trying to do ahard and soft reboot in a

(07:16):
different time.
Whether that's a good idea ornot, only time will tell.
But I will say this Afterre-watching Star Trek Picard,
just give me that wanderingRonan Worf show and then I might
be happy, because Worf is andthis is a conversation, I think,
for a later day taken allmetrics, the best Star Trek

(07:37):
character.
Fight me if you want to.
I can back this up.
I will listen to the debates, Ihave no issue with that, but I
think Worf may be the best StarTrek character of all, and
that's coming from a man namedafter James Tiberius Kirk.
Don't forget, ladies andgentlemen, to pay your tabs.

(07:57):
Pay your bartenders, pay yourKJs, your waitstaff, your
podcasters, clean up afteryourselves to some sort of
reasonable degree, and don'tforget to support your local
comic shops and retailers.
And from Dispatch Ajax, jakeand I would both like to say
Godspeed, fur Wizards, please goaway.