Star Trek: 10 Times Canon Got In The Way

Decades of universe building can cause all sorts of issues when you're jumping around the timeline.

#StarTrek

[The_Kitchen_Table]

My thoughts on Scotty forgetting Kirk was dead. Kirk’s body was never found at the time of the Enterprise B incident. Perhaps Scotty never gave up hope that Jim Kirk was just missing and would somehow return.

[PureLimbic]

It's not all that surprising that Spock never mentioned Burnham. Spock didn't even bother telling anyone that one of the most well known, influential and well-respected Federation ambassadors was his father until he was standing right in front of him being greeted by Kirk in "Journey to Babel". Spock also never revealed his relation to Sybok until AFTER Kirk and co were captured by him.

[griffinsummoner]

Kirk was born in space in the Kelvin timeline because the stress of the situation sent his mother into early labor. If it wasn't for the arrival of the Narada, the USS Kelvin probably would have returned to Earth in time for him to be born planetside. The appearance of the temporal wormhole is what caused the timelines to split, which preceded Jim's birth.

[Barcalla]

you forgot about Spot. Data's cat was male, called "he" and "him" up until "Force of Nature", the fist time they say she, and has kittens in "Genesis" (it's hard to even remember this episode...). BUT... in the final season of Picard, when Data is giving his memories to Lore, Data clearly says "he". And yes, I have a cat named Spot

[kenm]

“I never lie when I got sand in my shoes, commodore” is my favorite Jordie laforge quote, I’m glad he got the rank of commodore one day

[Alanb]

Regarding Scotty and his thinking that Kirk came to rescue him in the Enterprise - I always loved a line from one of William Shatner's post-Generations novels which was said, I think, by Counselor Troi to Spock which explained it which was something along the lines of - "It wasn't what he knew, it was what he hoped". Now I don't personally consider those novels canon but it is still a valid and quite touching idea I think.

[Buddy]

The El-Aurian refugees coming to Earth in the 23rd century undoubtedly brought knowledge of the Borg, I just assumed Starfleet felt the Borg were to remote in the Delta Quadrant to be a threat and back shelved the Borg. But the Hansen's probably thought it was more interesting than Starfleet did.

[treyabraham]

My favorite trek fan theory is that all the episodes are holosuite reenactments based on the accounts of crew members. This is often why we hear them recording logs. Because of this, all canon discrepancies are due to misspoken or misremembered details of the logs or different levels of detail resolution on the holosuite program of the reenactment. Some episodes are from bootleg holosuite dealers and dont even recount real events (episodes you hate are no longer canon if it feels better that way).

[kentwobits]

My own head cannon is that the Kelvin was headed back to earth so that its first officer's son would be born in Iowa, but the ship got redirected because of the Narada.

[TheWeatherbuff]

Thank you Ellie! As my uncle used to say: "Never let the facts get in the way of a good story". Great countdown and awesome presentation as always! Love you guys! 😊

[travishomewood]

Riverside Iowa is having their annual trek fest this month and they got Chase Masterson, Leeta from DS9 will be here. June 23rd and 24th. I live in Iowa, have my whole life and have been to trek fest a few times. good stuff.

[Kureitondesu]

The Borg changes were explained between First Contact and Enterprise. They sent a message in the 22nd century to the Delta Quadrant allowing earlier incursions and Seven's parents to investigate.

[AndrewDRed]

Trek has always had a very flexible attitude to canon.
With all the time travel though, I reckon inconsistencies from episode to episode is built right into the premise.
I mean, who's to say the Romulans or Klingons aren't changing things all the time? Who's to say we see all the time travel shenanigans anyway? We may only see the times it gets put rights. What about all the other ships having time adventures? Maybe they're not as good as setting everything back on track again.

[wildshadowstar]

We never heard of Spock having *any* siblings until it was convenient for him to have a brother for Star Trek V Final Frontier. So having Burnham be his sister wasn’t too big of a deal.

[AzraelThanatos]

For the Dauntless, the thing that makes nothing to do with the normal naming scheme is that it's a NX prototype ship. Expiramental ships seem to use the lettering for major iterations of the design prior to the transition to the standard designs for the ship. Meaning that there is, probably, a Protostar with the A or B letter on it after the first one disappeared on its mission there.

Also, there are other examples of ships with the same name and different registries that don't have a letter assigned to them such as the Defiant (The one lost in TOS and discovered by the mirror universe has a registry and Siskos ship has a different registry but the same name and no letter)

[josephgraham]

If we're going to get technical, as most of us Trekkies do, at no point did Kirk ever say he was "born" in Iowa.

[adamgoss]

I seem to recall from VOY "Dark Frontier" that Starfleet had heard whispered rumors of a race called "the Borg" and an admiral hired the Hansens to research it, kind of like in Babylon 5 Earthforce had heard rumors of the Minbari but had never encountered them until they went looking for them, leading to an equally disastrous first contact. The difference between the two was that had someone else made contact with the Minbari it might not have led to a massive war, whereas the Borg are automatically everyone's enemy (unless they decide you're not distinctive enough to bother with).

[joelellis]

The Enterprise couldn't be practically salvaged to be returned to the fleet, as in return to duty. What Geordi did was over decades, and as mentioned in the 3rd season of Picard, the Enterprise-D was "outdated" by the current Starfleet metrics.
As to the "NX-01A", well, the registry in "Enterprise" was for the United Earth ship.
As to the line of Scotty saying that Jim Kirk pulled the Enterprise out of mothballs, the actual line was, "I bet Jim Kirk himself hauled the old girl out of mothballs. . ."
It's obviously a whimsical statement, as Scotty can clearly see that some time has passed since he stepped into the transporter. Nonetheless, there have been several occasions where Kirk was presumed dead, but miraculously came back from death in Scotty's time.

[RionE]

Khan was reviewing the ships records while in sickbay, he could have seen Chekhov’s profile and remembered his face. Also Chekhov could have been on leave when space seed occurred, and heard about the Botney Bay when he returned.

[CaritasGothKaraoke]

In Enterprise, Dr. Phlox has a tribble and mentions that they breed very rapidly. But in Short Treks, Edward alters tribbles to be born pregnant because they breed very slowly, limiting their use as a food source.