What happened in the Star Trek universe when 1996 came around? They changed it so 1996 was no longer what Trek said it was. They pushed all the late 20th century chaos to the 21st century.
Like that little change in the Star Trek universe, we see changes in the technological advances in Enterprise. In order to maintain continuities between TOS and ENT, aspects of 2151 would seem less advanced then 2001. Lets look at TOS:
Communicators three times the size of Cell Phones today.
Brightly colored 'retro' uniforms.
Boxy, sharp edged interior design.
No plasmascreen/touchscreen interfaces. All switches and dials.
All of these were 'futuristic' for 1969. For 2001, these are all silly. Star Trek was envisioned as our future, not an alternate reality, so a lot had to be changed for the 2150's. 150 years from now, will our ships be bland and apparently made of one bent piece of metal, or will there be more hull lines and windows, similar to today's ISS?
Its just something to think about. Star Trek itself is inaccurate, so why keep continuity with something that is inaccurate? Why not keep continuity with existence, which is what the show is based on.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
Because, if a show isn't internally consistent, it doesn't seem like a single entity, but rather a fragmented anthology of unrelated stories...?
Posted by Siegfried (Member # 29) on :
Well, I think the general idea being pushed around is that at some point our universe diverged from the Star Trek universe. After all, there was no Edith Keeler in the 1930s leading a demostration against the United States entering World War II. So some time earlier we diverged and they got Edith Keeler, Gary Seven going back to 1960s Earth, Colonel Christopher, the Eugenics Wars, DY-class sleeper ships, the cryogenic space capsule from TNG "Neutral Zone," and a bunch of other stuff.
Of course, Star Trek has been kinda lazy about explaining the later half of the 20th century and the first half of the 21st century. To my mind, it seems a mishmash of wars and civil unrest. You have the Eugenics War, World War III, the Bell Riots, etc.
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
I have no problems with 23rd-century communicators being larger than cellphones. Look at today's cellphones as comparedto the early ones. Maybe transtator technology simply couldn't get any smaller. Similarly, maybe at the time,. they couldn't figure out how to make touch-screen transtator circuitry. Not everything is a given
Posted by Stingray (Member # 621) on :
There's a new book out by Greg Cox called Eugenics Wars which supposedly combines the Eugenics Wars/Khan with current day politics and that Seven guy from that TOS episode. Haven't gotten around to reading it yet, but it's said to have done a decent job in explaining why we don't/didn't see any evidence of it.
Also, if Enterprise makes any reference to ISS or ISS being this great step of exploration, I'm going to shoot myself. I always thought Star Trek could make a better statement of space exploration by pretending as if they went by TOS's (and the 60s) assumption of what the turn of the century was going to be like. It would drive the point home much better if we were speeding off to Mars or Jupiter in 2001 instead of proclaiming what a great victory the ISS was (which it isn't and never will be).
Posted by Mr. Christopher (Member # 71) on :
I'm currently reading the aforementioned Eugenics Wars book. It's pretty interesting, and as of yet it doesn't explain the Eugenics Wars yet. I'm close to the end of the book, and Khan is still a teenager.
Posted by Ryan McReynolds (Member # 28) on :
The actual Wars won't start until volume two. I read volume one... great book.