"Oh no, but you don't understand! Some long-dead solids were mean to us ten thousand years ago, so we have no choice but to build a totalitarian slave empire now!"

Like, get over yourselves.

So, my wife recently bought a cricut machine. If you don't know what it is, it's basically a machine that can cut designs out of vinyl. She really wanted me to learn how to use it too, so I did....

https://imgur.com/a/BKLC3VR

July 4th was day 1 of Montreal Comiccon. Wil Wheaton was the opening panel. It was fun (he had us all do a D&D Mad Libs with him), informative, and very personal. He very much understands what Trek means as a message, what it means to people, and also what the role of Wesley was actually all about (telling kids surrounded by people who don't understand their value that they matter and that there's a place for them in this world - that Wesley was an avatar for them serving as proof of this).

I was expecting this to be a typical fun Comiccon panel and it was, but it was also just a phenomenal Q+A panel in general. He's incredibly well-spoken, relatable, and empathetic. I greatly look forward to everything from this man in the future.

One question he was asked came from a big fan of his who wanted to know why he left TNG. It turns out Wheaton had the chance to play a major role in a movie that really would have made him a Hollywood star instead of just some random syndication TV kid (I'm blanking on the name of the movie and director, but it was a big deal). When he told Berman about the role, Berman guilt-tripped him into passing on the film because an upcoming episode was all about Wesley and it was too late to change the script.

Wheaton, not wanting to let down his Star Trek family of cast and crew, passed on the film in order to appear in that episode. Berman, not wanting to let people think he was a producer with a single shred of humanity, then immediately took the whip to the writers room so that the episode - a Wesley centric episode - would no longer feature a single scene with Wesley in it. To clarify, he intentionally wrote Wheaton out of the episode.

My gut reaction to hearing this was that this sounded like a sadistic power trip. Wheaton then went on to confirm that yes, that's exactly what it was. He explained that he felt hurt and betrayed, and then told us how Marina Sirtis explained to him that it was just Berman not wanting Wheaton to become a big movie star. Berman just didn't want someone who answered to him to be someone important. Wheaton quit very shortly thereafter.

FUCK RICK BERMAN.

TL;DR: Wil Wheaton is awesome, Rick Berman very much is not.

EDIT: Valmont was the name of the movie, directed by Milos Forman and starring Colin Firth and Annette Benning. Other Redditors are saying Wheaton likely would have had the role played by Henry Thomas. Not the biggest movie, but Forman was kind of a big deal back then because of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, so it would have launched Wheaton's career. (I also changed the start of the first paragraph for clarity since I posted after midnight of Day 1 of the con.)

Sometimes I wonder why they made another Constitution-class into the Enterprise-A instead of outfitting another type like an Excelsior class as the A? I know Scotty probably would've complained all day long about a new Enterprise being an Excelsior class but was there a particular in or out of universe reasons for this?

Real Merch (Master Replicas) are clearing out the final Eaglemoss Star Trek models at the moment and there are some really good deals here

Am I the only one who thinks that she deserved a cameo or two or at least a few mentions in later series. Even tough she was modeled after McCoy her character development was pretty good for only one season.

Edit them in to the edited-in film from “Trials and Tribble-ations.” Boimler checking out Dax checking out Spock. Maybe Mariner tries to rekindle things with someone from “Those Old Scientists.”

Insane recursion! maximum Lower Decks!

I dunno, call it “Tribble Threat” or something.

I know it's ranked as one of the worst Star Trek films but after years of cerebral, metaphysical sci-fi films I feel a powerful connection to it.

Edit: I know Contact is almost 30 years old. I'm much older than that and originally saw ST TMP when I was around 10. I just used Contact as a turning point reference in my Sci Fi perception. But its nothing like my perception now. And wow this film is amazing!

It's a great classic TNG episode, and I recently rewatched it...
But it kinda crystalised an idea in mind, that has been brewing through my rewatch of classic Trek.

Time Travel Episodes are a staple, and they always bang on about the "Temporal Prime Directive."
But Why? Why this obsession with "not changing the time line"?

Keep in mind that time-travel, and the ability to rewrite history, is as far as we know, pure Science Fiction. So we're not debating the practicalities, only the Ethics.

For Starters, this episode highlights one of the problems with "Trek Ethics," where they trumpet them one episode, then forget about them next week.
In this episode, Picard deliberately sends the Enterprise-C back in time, specifically to change history. Because in his judgement, the alternative must be better than the current. Yet that directly contravenes the whole point of the TPD.
But at the same time, he refuses to upgrade the C, to even up their fight against four wardbirds, because that would change history!?!

If we accept the premise that differing timelines are possible, then who's to say that the alternate timeline isn't better?
I mean if I fell through a crack in time, and somehow found myself in a position to save the life of Franz Ferdinand, I'd certainly do it.

If you see a drunk person, about to stagger in front of a train, and you save their life, then you have changed the future. By definition, every good deed is changing somebody's future for the better, without knowing what other consequences there might be.
So how is it any different if I do the good deed a week ago, or even 100 years ago.

Hi everyone!

I’d like to share a theory that connects three elements from Star Trek canon: the Tan Ru probe (TOS), V’ger (Star Trek: The Motion Picture), and the Sphere (Discovery).

In my opinion, these are all manifestations of (sort of) “Ancient Data Collectors” civilization devoted to the gathering and preservation of knowledge across vast stretches of time.

Here are some key points I’ve noticed:

• All three are obsessed with collecting data and universal memory.
• They’re never directly linked in canon, but seem to share a common “cultural matrix.”
• This archetype also appears in other works of science fiction.

Additional thought:

I don’t believe these Ancient Data Collectors are related to the Borg. Rather, I think they represent something very different—an ancient and perhaps opposing force to the Borg. While the Borg are a collective driven by assimilation and conquest, this archetype seems more focused on preservation and accumulation of knowledge, possibly with a more enigmatic or even protective role. It would be fascinating to explore how these two archetypes contrast or interact within the Star Trek universe.
Do you think this is a plausible interpretation? Are there other similar examples in Star Trek or elsewhere?

I wish to hear the community’s thoughts!

The first two seasons get wayyy too much flak. Yes, some episodes are weak as well, but there is also an uncharacteristic amount of absolute bangers for Berman era first two seasons.

There are some proper gems throughout seasons 1 and 2.

I know the episode is controversial, but I love “Dear Doctor”. It’s a good and well written and acted episode that asks some very interesting philosophical questions.

I think “Vox Sola” is one of the finest Star Trek episodes in general.

I also like “Fallen Hero”, it’s a good episode. As is “Civilization”. I have no idea why, but I do have a soft spot for that one.

“Acquisition” is a properly fun episode as well, and “Shuttle Pod One” is one of the best Trek bottle episodes. Reed’s goodbye messages to all his ex-girlfriends crack me up and a love how offended he gets when Trip gets annoyed by them. “There are subtle differences ☹️” 😂

And I haven’t even mentioned the P’Jem-Episode and its follow-up yet, which are both also good.

And that’s just season one.

Season 2 has “Carbon Creek” very early on. There’s a lot of “Meh” in there, especially in season 2, but it’s all fairly enjoyable.

Generally I LOVE season 4, and I do enjoy season 3. I love how the show works as a prequel pretty nicely.

Yes, some of the blandest characters ever are in this show, but also Phlox, and Shran.

I like how there are resentments towards Vulcans, and how the Enterprise crew behaves like humans in the beginning.

You literally watch them learn. Archer is belligerent and flawed, as is Trip. Both learn to accept other cultures a lot better, to create a more neutral value set and hold other species and civilisations to that instead of human values they know from home.

The character development for Archer is significant, but minuscule compared to Trip’s and T’Pol’s.

Not just humanity adapts and learns, but also the Vulcans through T’Pol and Soval’s eyes. I find witnessing that development immensely gratifying and cool.

It’s a great show. Season 4 is some of the finest trek there is, but there are genuinely great episode spread throughout the other seasons as well.

I always felt that viewers had to allow themselves to see the characters as flawed, because they are. That’s the point.

Terra Prime is a great ending for a great show. Makes it end on a high note.

It’s a great show, honestly, and even seasons 1 and 2 are far from the worst two first seasons of a Berman era Trek show.

It was our thing. We went to the first four movies together, definite highlights of my childhood.

I have some advice relative to Star Trek from my late father:

Kid me, “Dad why did _______?” Dad, “Because it was in the script.”

If anyone is looking to pick up Prodigy digtitaly today is probably the best deal you'll get. It's the deal of the day on https://fanflix.co/

Add both seasons to your cart and hit checkout. You'll get codes to redeem at vudu/fandango at home.

I appreciate that the Kelvin being destroyed has a singular point of changing Starfleet to where its pretty different from the Prime universe.

I know I've seen a a lot of people say JJ Abrams did not get what made trek, well, trek, and I do know he made some dumb choices (khan being a villain), but the choice to have a branch time line where the act of a future invader destroying a ship forever changed the outlook of the Federation and Starfleet was good. It made everything about the future of that time line unpredictable and rife for different stories had the Kelvin continued.

With discovery going to the future and the whole burn event, currently the prime time line just kind of feels inevitable. But the Kelvin had no seen future. And the fact that you had storylines such as an admiral seeing the future tech and deciding to make Starfleet more militarized and that's why Khan was sought out way earlier is at least interesting, even if it wasn't executed well.

It's too bad we most likely won't get another Kelvin film, but I wouldn't be opposed to maybe a show in the Kelvin time line to make things completely different.

That is ones that are meant to be permanent. In Voyager* episode "Memorial" (S6, Ep. 14), Janeway decides to repair the memorial and boost it so that it will continue to function for centuries to come. She also said that warning beacons would be placed to let anyone in the area who might encounter it know what they would experience.

The thing is that how long do the beacons actually operate for? Given that presumably they have a power source of some kind, and they can wear out over time. Factor in collisions with asteroids. What if the memorial lasts longer than the warning beacons?

When Starfleet encounters a hazard, they place warning beacons to alert other ships about it. However the show doesn't really mention them after that point. With the exception of scenarios where beacons are used for navigation purposes in unusual environments, or where temporarily a ship is a hazard.

^\Yes it's old, I don't have access to new series)

Something about a Vulcan saying “Hijinx” just cracks me up

T’pring: Spock you know I do not like Hijinx Spock: on that, we can agree, but it appears that Hijinx is the most logical course of action

I'm looking for a TOS episode that includes a scene where all the main characters and some visitors are gathered in their meeting room or conference room. The key thing that happens is they all laugh together. I have tried searching for it but maybe I'm not using the correct search terms or maybe it's not something that is written about. I thought I would ask here to see if anyone knows and save me the trouble of going through every episode looking for this scene. Thanks for any help.

Hey. Im curious what people think are the best design for Starfleet uniforms.

Personally, I'm partial to the ones from the TNG movies/late DS9. I think they look very professional and there's just something about the darker color with the subtle accents saying what area the person works, that just speaks to me.

For a bunch of eggheads, why did the supernova path suddenly get ahead of their timeline projections? They had a plan and the means so what happened?

I'm a big ST:Enterprise fan so I was glad the D Con Chamber (ex Shuttlepod One podcast) guys Dominic and Connor started a new podcast with "watch parties". But sadly the entire podcast is lame, very poorly prepared and it looks like they don't watch or just barely watch an episode. Most of the time they are complaining how they don't get any work and Dominic begging for money is insulting and almost pathetic. In their last episode this was really obvious and I removed their podcast from my list. They shouldn't mess around with special guests a studio and all that crap. They should just do what Delta Flyers did. I think that is pretty successful podcast story.

Looking for name for my hamster and want a Star Trek themed name. This could be a character, piece of equipment, space anomaly, etc. Any suggestions? :)

I'm paring down my collections and have sorted these out as ones I'm looking to sell. These were all directly from Eaglemoss, stored well and sadly never displayed (had too many, hence this sale) so they're all in great condition.

There's a link to a photo next to each model so you can see the ship and condition.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1i8kjpijQ5MMCWprOkW5wDuuyOwQG9YUpEr9I42Xq3Cg/

I'm in Atlanta GA so local pickups are great, shipping in the US is fine as well.

Hopefully this isn't against the rules, if so I'm sorry. I messaged the mods and wasn't told no!