this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2023
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Risa
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Come on'n get your jamaharon on! There are no real rules—just don't break the weather control network.
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Gotta admit that introducing big fancy transwarp highway in a prequel wasn't the most clever move... Especially considering Voyager...
It requires incredibly specific tech, a ship that has been designed for it, and generic engineering which is outlawed by starfleet. It is also insanely classified and had black badges posted on board.
Whether it's a prequel or not is kinda irrelevant. Secrets are secrets.
Discovery also had hologram communication technology that I guess was also a secret? Starfleet went back to flatscreens for everything and didn't use holograms again until the 24th century.
If it was just one thing, okay, but there were such numerous inconsistencies, it was like the writers and designers did not care about trek, they were writing a sci-fi show with the trek name slapped on top.
It's totally possible to respect the heritage of old sci-fi - look at The Mandalorian and Andor - maintaining consistency with the old retro sci-fi aesthetic actually elevates them above what a modern redesign would have done.
In "The Undiscovered Country" we see the Klingons are watching the Federation President's discussion with Azetbur using a grainy hologram. If they're able to receive a holographic signal, that implies that the Federation is transmitting one. Hell, even in the TOS episode, "Return of the Archons" when confronted with the holographic projection of Landru, Kirk and Spock recognize it for what it is right away, but the things they remark upon are the fact that there's no visible projectors, and Kirk says it's "Beautiful."
I don't think it's too much of a stretch based on what we've see to say that Starfleet decided that holographic projections were too low fidelity compared to viewscreens.
Hell, it even happens again. As you note, they made another attempt at holographic communication in the 24th century, which we see in DS9 the Defiant is kitted out with the new holo-communicator, allowing a fully realized, high fidelity, holodeck quality real time holographic communication. And where else have we seen it? We never see the Enterprise E use that technology; In "Nemesis" Shinzon is able to broadcast a hologram of himself from the Scimitar to Picard's ready room, but he claims it's through the use of his own holo-emitters. We've never seen it in LDecks, PRO, or PIC, all of which take place after DS9.
So yeah, Starfleet went back to flat screens for everything.
You don't have to go very far. There's an episode on Discovery where Pike just goes and say something like "Enough with the problems with holograms! From now on the Enterprise will have only flat screens!"
You’re not wrong, but I do feel like that’s an over correction. They might as well have had text flashing at the bottom of the screen which read, “Sorry for the holograms, we didn’t realize how angry some of you would get.”
This will forever be a problem every time they set a Star Trek before TOS.
I felt the same way with ENT: it looked too advanced. Of course now I know that's a non-issue, especially after Kelvin.
It looks much more like a joke. A more veiled version of the Lower Decks people referring to the Kirk's Enterprise as TOS.
And, honestly, I can't understand an implicit "sorry" there at all. It sounds much more like "fuck the purists, our ship is going to look good".