Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

[Cybersnark]

This episode did more with the Temporal Cold War than Enterprise did throughout its entire run.

And yeah, as I've been saying for years, we are now in the post-continuity era of Star Trek. It's best to treat every show as being in its own sub-continuity until further notice. Sure, they're "connected," in the same way that Prime, Rescue Bots, RiD15, and WfC were all connected.

 

[Lobjob]

But also, the lead of the show has a pretty gruesome future to look forward to. The show has always hinged on this kind of thing, but the temporal mechanics that anchor pike's fate may also be able to save him if time is wibbly wobbly. I love that we don't totally know the past of this show or its future, despite it being a prequel. It keeps it fresh, in a way Enterprise probably wanted to.

But like, with a temporal war(s) happening all across time and space, anything is possible. Give it to me.

 

[MrBlud]

He know he’s saved though. He winds up with Vina. I can’t imagine they’ll change *that*

 

[Copper Bezel]

Plus we had a season finale the entire point of which was to emphasize that Pike has accepted that his future won't be changed. Going back on that later through some other means wouldn't be a timeline problem, it'd be thematically discordant and a step backward for the character.

 

[Dake]

I don't believe that. Him finding peace with that eventuality doesn't preclude a change. That being said, it will be really tough to explain a healthy Pike at Kirk's trial in a few years.

 

[Lobjob]

Nothing is also stopping him but being "saved" further after Talos.

Nothing is also stopping something terrible from happening to him sooner in the timeline either.

Wibbly wobbley timey wimey.

 

[Dvandom]

I just loved the sheer frustration of an agent being stuck in Toronto for THIRTY YEARS because of timeshifting crap.

---Dave, notes this ep really needed a B plot to break up the "suddenly several days later" transitions.

 

[Dake]

I do wonder from a practical stand-point

Spoiler

Did they cross the boarder in their stolen car? They arrived at the "Department" in a Vermont taxi, so how did they get there from Toronto?

 

[Thefakelink]

I do wonder from a practical stand-point

Spoiler

Did they cross the boarder in their stolen car? They arrived at the "Department" in a Vermont taxi, so how did they get there from Toronto?

I thought the same thing. There was a quick throwaway line about bribing a border guard. To me this was the most unrealistic plot point.

 

[TM2-Megatron]

I thought the same thing. There was a quick throwaway line about bribing a border guard. To me this was the most unrealistic plot point.

Yeah, honestly, of all the things in this episode that was what I had the hardest time swallowing, too. Pre-9/11, you could just stroll across the border without even having a passport, but the good old days of people trusting each other are long gone. And bribes won't work, unless every single officer at the crossing is in on it. They never work alone.

I understand why they wanted to make it someplace people had actually heard of, but honestly it would've been more practical for Pelia's bunker to be somewhere in Northern Ontario, like Sudbury or something.

 

[Dake]

As to time line/canon shenanigans, here's the official answer...

Basically what I and some others said.

 

[Lobjob]

Which, even though I'm willing to just roll with it, is itself silly. Star Trek isn't real. Its history does not have to keep course correcting for our own. Parallel universes exist. The multiverse exists (of which star trek was an early encourager) so star trek can still be aspirational but not our exact future.

Now if they give me some wild temporal war stories where i see Admiral Archer whoop some ass alongside Captain Seven of Nine and Kira Nerys, I will let it slide even further but still.

Its silly.

 

[Dake]

That's his point though: they wanted to keep the optimism of the show. Roddenberry's goal was to show a hopeful future when WE (not some nebulous alternative multiversal us) moved beyond all the horrible things humanity had done up to that point (Pelia's whole "socialist Utopia" comment).

So one could also say hey, it's good news that we made it through the nineties without a WWIII or Eugenics war. The can was still just kicked down the road, but we made it further than they first thought AND looking back on it from the future realized that horrible event gave humanity the kick to actually get better.

 

[Copper Bezel]

Yeah, but it's by the same token that I can't get over that Romulans shot our JFK. And I think I would have been happier with a gentle retcon that didn't call a bunch of attention to itself, without needing to justify itself in time travel lore. The usual suspects on YouTube would have claimed that because SNW changed the dates for Khan, it wasn't really in the Prime timeline, but they're going to do that anyway.

I really liked how the first episode of the series traveled to the unknown alien planet of Nearth in 2016 BD and Pike gave a speech how unlike in Star Trek, we (er, they, really!) didn't have to wait until World War III to correct course and make a better world. I feel like that showed a level of self-awareness about the messages of Star Trek and the optimism it embodies that notably did not make the optimism of Star Trek dependent on minutiae of lore.

 

[MrBlud]

It’s just too much canonical hassle to justify hopelessly self indulgent “trips to the modern day” that aren’t even that good.

Of course, it’s a well accepted part of Star Trek these days from being in every classic series (save TNG, the 1800s don’t count), a Movie, and a season long arc.

 

[Copper Bezel]

I certainly like Dake's explanation better. But I do think it's notable that this episode and the Picard season were at least somewhat concerned with the progress and sociology of present-day Earth and how it gets to become the Earth we know in the future. Neither is the transcendentally good "Past Tense", but they are closer to that set of concerns than First Contact, where the goal is to save Earth's ... first contact, or any of the other time travel stories involving the present, which all have to do with preventing Earth's total destruction. These hammy visits to the present day are, at least, concerned with how our present becomes the Star Trek future, so Dake's interpretation can't be completely wrong.

I would love to see the visits to the present stop completely, because the fun and lore of First Contact and the power and sincerity of "Past Tense", and even the pure humor of "Trials and Tribble-ations" and "Little Green Men", are not to be found anywhere in in all of this Galactica 1980 nonsense. I am also desperately tired of seeing alternate future Starfleet badges, even if "The Visitor" did the impossible and got the badges right by later canon.

 

[Monique]

I do love her just leaving a handgun in a childs bedroom. Like just imagine she goes back and the temporal agency is like "girl, girl what did you do? he shot himself like 20 seconds after you left wtf girl"

 

[MrBlud]

She figured she could since the room said “Khan” instead of “Khan not”

 

[The Predaking]

I watched the second episode last night, and it was great! I loved how the admirals let her just go back to work, based on a technicality because they knew it was the right thing to do. I also don't like that they impose their genetic rules over other civilizations. Like if you want to impose that no Terrans can have genetic modifications, then fine, but these people aren't human, and that rule shouldn't apply to them.

 

[Dvandom]

I mean, security had been alerted and they weren't all shot to death, one of them would've checked on the kid before any messing about with firearms could happen.

---Dave