- Location
- USA
I'm pretty sure if we want to geek out over the Enterprise, we're supposed to be doing it for Strange New Worlds. After all, it's the original Enterprise. The ORIGINAL, dangit.
...Except no one seems to like that show as much as Picard.
...Except no one seems to like that show as much as Picard.
- Location
- Scotland
I'm going to go out on a limb and say future shows will establish that none of that happened and, indeed, was unlike to have been a problem beyond the intimidate aftermath. These shows and Picard especially, while they have their moments, don't seem to care to consequences. Like, there hasn't even been a mention that a faction of borg joined the Federation last season which you'd think would be rather relevant to current circumstances. It's the spectacle of the moment. The season long story arcs get to have internal continuity but consequences stop and start at episodes 1 and 10. It's a bit like how the MCU had the blip as this big emotional moment and then spent the years since trying to ignore and write around it. The spectacle of the moment is what matters to the writers, not what happens after.
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The Narrator
Disembodied Voice
- Location
- Somewhere Offscreen
Shaw mentioned it when he was drunk and angry and talking about Wolf 359 in holo-Ten Forward a few episodes ago, saying that no matter what that business on the Stargazer was, the "real Borg" are still out there.
The Last One
Here because reasons
This is far from the first time that Starfleet has been massively compromised, though. Remember when the chief of starfleet conspired with both Klingons and Romulans to preserve the MIC? Or the worms that were in control of Starfleet HQ? That time the Admiral in charge of defence against the Dominion turned out to be a Changeling?
Starfleet and the Federation have shown themselves to be pretty resilient and pretty good at keeping the public trust.
The transporter is simply too useful to discard. They'll implement some new safety features to stop this particular issue and life goes on.
The Narrator
Disembodied Voice
- Location
- Somewhere Offscreen
That didn't happen, AFAIK. The Admiral in charge of defending Earth against Changeling infiltration faked terrorist attacks to try to seize control of the Federation through a military coup.
The Last One
Here because reasons
I just looked up the Wiki and apparently it's both. Leyton did try to conduct a coup but we also saw a Changeling imitating Admiral Leyton.
LordInsane
Loyalist to the Alvarian Merchant's Guild
- Location
- Bohuslän, Occupied Norway
Cartwright wasn't actually chief of Starfleet; the commander-in-chief during TUC was named Bill and was never shown to be anything other than supportive of the peace negotiations (and while Cartwright was clearly a highly-placed admiral, he and Colonel West were the only Starfleet officers above the rank of lieutenant to be shown to be involved).
The Narrator
Disembodied Voice
- Location
- Somewhere Offscreen
That did happen in that episode, but only for like one scene before Odo noticed him. He didn't get the chance to do anything while impersonating Leyton, and it didn't become public knowledge.
The Last One
Here because reasons
Thanks, I was drawing on memory for the list.
It's been a while since my DS9 re-watch but wasn't there a strong implication that the Changeling could have gotten access to all sorts of secrets in that form? Either way, though, you've still got a compromised Starfleet that attempted to take over the Federation but both institutions survived the incident.
The Narrator
Disembodied Voice
- Location
- Somewhere Offscreen
It was definitely a concern, and caused them to implement even more
- Location
- Oblivion
People don't just stop using a technology just because someone found a vulnerability in it.
They patch the vulnerability.
We're going to get a whole new generation of idiots in the fandom screaming that transporters kill & clone users because of this aren't we?
Zap Rowsdower
Ex-cultist vagrant
- Location
- Bright lights, big city
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I mean... they kinda do. Its one of those "try not to think about it please" problems that the show needs to not call attention to to work
Except this is not just a technological issue. It's also a cultural issue that may well lead to a Butlerian Jihad style backlash against Teleporters.
Star trek tech is magic. Transporters are magical teleporters.
- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
They've been magically separating people into good and evil versions since TOS!
theorion
Vorlon Ambassador
- Location
- Vorlon
Episode 5 too!
- Location
- USA
Didn't the last season of Discovery show that even 1000 years into the future, they're still using teleporters? So I don't think anything particularly significant came out of it.
Zap Rowsdower
Ex-cultist vagrant
- Location
- Bright lights, big city
- Pronouns
- He/Him
If you accept that future as the inevitable future rather than a Bad Future to be prevented by butterfly effects of time travel to come, sure. "The burn is the future" kinda renders any "saving the federation" as pointless if you do accept it as the canon future.
- Location
- USA
I'm pretty much approaching it from a Star Wars perspective: The Republic is inevitably doomed, so trying to save it is pointless, but I still can enjoy the High Republic stories or the Old Republic MMORPG or the Clone Wars TV show reruns in the meantime. Same with Star Trek and the fixed collapse of the Federation.
Star Trek TMP has the transporter kill two people, and then THE EXACT SAME DAY Kirk is amused by McCoy not wanting to beam up with the explaination of wanting to see how it scrambles the other people beaming up's molecules.
To the point that they've replaced turbo lifts
But that is 900+ and at least one civilisational collapse of the Gederation in the future. The disaster in 2401 could still set transporter use back generations before its readopted
All that said, odds however this gets resolved probably elevates the Enterprise lineage from 'venerated hero ship' to 'likely to get a literal in-universe cargo cult'
They've addressed this several times. They... do not kill anyone, or at least, not in normal operation.
Transporters are like modern air travel. By far the safest way to travel... but... when something does happen, it's bad.
Trek probably will have the 32nd century universe persist as the "Prime Timeline". It doesn't have to, surely things could be changed.
If they WANTED to, there's already a built-in escape clause for it. The 29th-31st centuries should be persistent given their nature. They have technology that should make it actually impossible to overwrite their timeline and are actively locked in a war to preserve it. By the 32nd century, time travel tech is "destroyed" and "banned"... and being at a later point in time that the 31st century, there's no time cops policing it... they need to protect the timestream previous to their time. What happens after is irrelevant.
So. Any potential timeline change that could take place just pre-Burn could alter that entire future. Discovery won't do that because it's so far wedged up it's own ass and they've now established the nuFederation as the Bestest Ever because of Burnham Christ. Might have been more interesting and even maybe more on brand to have the show end with Burnham literally being the savior of the galaxy and preventing the Burn from ever occurring.
Regardless, it's so far into the future and nuTrek is obsessed with revisiting the 23rd century as much as it possibly can that there's enough time to play with in the interim. Realistically, we know the heroes will save the day in the end anyway. The grand scheme was never in peril, we always know our heroes will save the day, it's just the details of how.
(That being said, as much as I generally despise Discovery... I wouldn't be mad if we got something exploring more in the Burn years. The "Space Post-Apocalypse" idea was really cool and i'd sad they spent like an hour on it. I would be totally down for a show or something following around a Courier doing things.)
Thread tax to say something specifically about Picard...
I've seen some gripes elsewhere about LaForge being able to rebuild the Enterprise but like... I don't see the problem. He's already said it's taken him like 20 years and for a good chunk of that time he's been in charge of the Fleet Museum... that is an institution specifically intended to restore/display/maintain famous old ships. The E-D was the first ship LaForge was chief engineer on... he has a personal interest in rebuilding it. I don't think it's outlandish in the slightest. Keeping it actually operational is just utilizing some pull... the other ships have apparently all been decommissioned and taken off line. He used his pull to go ahead and make this restore operational.
Somebody pointed out too that the bridge isn't in the Generations configuration so it's breaking continuity but like... that's irrelevant. LaForge has spent two decades restoring the ship from a very rough place. Rather than restoring to a form it existed in for a short time before it's destruction, he restored it to its most common configuration. If I got a classic 60's car and somebody had rigged up a CD player in it, i'd probably yank it out and put back whatever was originally there too.
LordInsane
Loyalist to the Alvarian Merchant's Guild
- Location
- Bohuslän, Occupied Norway
I figure (to make sense of them being able to run the E-D) he also rigged up automation systems good enough for a chimpanzee and two trainees to run her even if he didn't actually say so.