We talked about this. I’ve deleted some posts. If one of your us one of those posts. Any further harassment by the people involved will result in their removal. This is a step I truly hate to take. We are Star Trek fans and better than this.
8 Likes
Sorry, but you also fallen in the trap I’ve mentioned. You say that the tech of DIS is too advanced for that era. With tech? The proto holodeck for example? That kind of technology was already shown in a TAS episode. (Remember, TAS is canon!) The 3D printer that created Burnham’s uniform? Well, we have 3D printers now for years and we know that food synthesizers were quite common during TOS (as were protein resequencers in ENT). So it should not impossible to have a technology which allows the fast creation of clothing. It is not a full blown replicator. It is just a glorified 3D printer. BTW we do really not know when the first replicator (in the Federation) was build. We only know that the first replicator on a starship (!) appeared earliest in the last years of the 23rd century, but we also know that at least one replicator was discovered by the NX-01.
This are only two cases. And all other cases on ‘too advanced’ technology in DIS or ENT can be explained the same way. By gathering all the facts. (Memory Alpha is a very good help for this.) And do not forget to apply Occam’s razor: “the simplest solution is most likely the right one”.
The post? Or its writer? 
Joke aside, we really should be better than this but we all know that many Star Trek fans are much worse than this. I’ve mentioned here several times that every new Star Trek series was initially hated by fans, but the hatred both DIS and the season finale of PIC received is really something new… 
1 Like
The hatred is due to a number of factors. let’s not lie people where pretty rough on TNG when it came out too, but when TNG came out trek fans where limited to letters to fanzines and writing for a small audiance on a BBS. the internet wasn’t really a thing, until around the time ENT came out, and it got a lot of hate online. (I might note people made a lot of the same “it doesn’t look like TOS tech” arguements they now make about discovery) but enven in the days of ENT there where limits. for one thing you needed to type your arguement out, an unhinged rant was clearly just that and tended not to carry too far.
now the internet is fully matured, and it’s easy for ANYONE to post their opinion, with webcams and streaming being so easy to do you don’t even need to be literate. Thus it’s dead easy for a subliterate manchild to spew their bile out over the internet and their words to be taken as gospel truth. In addition, with youtube’s monetization, more clicks brings more money, and controversy brings clicks. being told “star trek Picards got it’s issues, but over all I found it middling to decent fair” doesn’t bring clicks.
“STAR TREK PICARD IS A DUMPSTER FIRE AND BETRAYS THE FRANCHISE!” brings clicks, if only out of curiosity.
Now I’m not saying new trek doesn;t have the odd issue, but I am saying those issues are exaggerated, and tend to paper over the fact that trek’s never been perfect (I tried watching the TNG episode Journey’s end awhile back and actually was unable to finish it, it was so horriably RACIST) because controversy is easy, and sells.
2 Likes
@BrianDavion Saying the JJVerse isn’t personal canon doesn’t mean I hate it. On a side note I have to point the personal qualifier out otherwise I’ll get told I’m trying to tell everyone else what is and isn’t canon - which I never did. Anyway, I don’t hate the JJVerse. My problem was more the fact the stories didn’t resonate in the right way with me. It didn’t help that Into Darkness was a rehash of TWOK, just with Kirk and Spock’s roles swapped at the climax. I don’t believe any of the films were truly Star Trek, but I know they reinvigorated the franchise, which no matter how you look at it is a good thing.
Ignoring it in personal canon preserves my sanity. 
Now, I admit that I was pretty rough on TNG back in 1986, prior to the show’s release. I honestly didn’t think I would like it and wanted to show it by wearing one of the “Trek Classic: We Don’t Need Another Generation” t-shirts styled like the Coca-Cola logo that were in vogue at that point in time. And then I watched it. For the most part it was a worthy successor, though the episode “Code of Honor” was totally racist. The other series had their warts, as all series do, but I accepted them as part of the family.
Years later, we have Discovery and Picard. Know what? I don’t have a problem with either of them. Star Trek is back, and I like what I see. Neither are perfect, and I don’t expect them to be. But things like resolving canon inconsistencies are all part of the fun, especially for someone who has spent most of their life as a fan of the franchise. I simply don’t understand why some fans have to take fandom so seriously, especially the ones who were in diapers back when TWOK was in the theaters. When I see a person on Reddit gatekeeping Discovery’s showrunner because Discovery uses a portion of the original Star Trek theme, it sickens me to the point I want to just disconnect.
However, my answer really isn’t on topic. The question is “Any fairly trivial breaks from canon that make big differences to you?” and as I’ve already mentioned, my breaks from canon are anything but trivial.
For what it’s worth I put most of these spin off shows in seperate realities. Remember the TNG episode where Worf keeps jumping realities, and at the end there are millions of Enterprises from various realities?
For me TOS, the movies, TNG and DS9 form the “prime” reality. Everything else may or may not be from a different reality… Intrepid class light cruisers exist, so that part of VOY is “real”.
However, like I said several posts back… there are so many inconsistencies even within the same series that I assume we’re watching is a show ABOUT “real” events, and not watching actual events as they happen. It’s as accurate, or not, as any “military” themed movies or TV shows are today.
Lester was insane. That’s the on-screen explanation, so that’s canon. “Number One”, Pike’s first officer, was female… that’s also “canon” because it’s seen on-screen… and you don’t become XO of a vessel unless you’re qualified to command it. No character in the entire history of Trek has been crazy/wrong/ignorant of some fact? “Turnabout Intruder” was about Lester’s personal shortcomings, not about the shortcomings of women in general. An insane person who rejects the reality manifest around her because it’s the only way to explain her personal failings.
3 Likes
But there are many fans who take her words for face value and use it as an argument why ENT and DIS cannot be canon. 
In our game Orion society is not a matriarchy like how it was established in ENT. It just doesn’t make a lick of sense to me. And I figured the smarter females were “running” things anyway through manipulation.
Of course in our games the PC’s make the canon not the series.
Just because a lot of people believe something doesn’t make it right. There is a large group of people who still think the earth is flat.
4 Likes
The problem with the concept that “women can not be starship captains” all goes back to the culture of the 60s. 60s culture had it ingrained in the head that men had to be in charge and women little better than damsels in distress. It took decades for women to be seen as equally capable as a man, but there is still a ways to go there.
In the 60s such a thing would be normal whereas today it’s seen as misogynist. Regardless of the time, believers in a flat Earth were always crackpots. 
Anyway, it wasn’t until 1986 that we actually saw a woman in command of a starship (Star Trek IV, USS Saratoga), but that was a case of tokenism, especially as the captain in question was a person of color. It wasn’t until Star Trek Voyager, a decade later, when the gender equality door was blown wide open in Star Trek, with Kathryn Janeway.
Discovery having Georgiou as a captain and Cornwell as an Admiral is a good thing. It clearly establishes that women could be in charge, and proves Lester’s point of view to be the rantings of an unstable mind. On a side note, should we celebrate the fact Admiral Patar was a woman? She was after all a Vulcan logic extremist before being eliminated by Control.
@Traveller
Sorry, but you are wrong. TOS had a female captain, but she was not a member of Starfleet. The second romulan commander was female and she was clearly in command of a starship.
2 Likes
@Caranfang And she ended up being the damsel in distress, being captured by the USS Enterprise because she fell in love with Spock. Her presence doesn’t invalidate the point that female captains as shown in the TOS era were tokens. The captain of the Saratoga doubly so, because she was a person of color as well as being female.
jumps on soapbox
Now, regarding you saying “Sorry, but you are wrong” in all your posts, you really need to tone that down, as its very nature is designed to foster arguments rather than encourage discussion. “I think you’ve forgotten something here” works a hell of a lot better than “Sorry, but you are wrong.” Toxic fans tell others they are wrong. Don’t be a toxic fan. Be a fan.
jumps off soapbox
5 Likes
Sad, but true.
1 Like
The federation has atleast 1 warship design…the Akira class with fighters and high complements of torpedoes
Regarding the OP, and largely disregarding the fairly unpleasant discussion that followed, no, I don’t care about cannon in my own games, even for major changes.
I do care about it in official material, and I do use it as inspiration, but beyond that, it doesn’t matter.
Why?
Because I will not and can not memorize every little thing that’s ever happened in every episode, movie, book, game, etc. More importantly, my players are almost always completely new to Star Trek. You may not have noticed, but Star Trek is a fairly niche fandom. I very rarely meet anyone who is as into it as myself. Cannon is a burden, a barrier to access that makes Star Trek overwhelming and confusing to newbies. Worse, if a knowledgeable player is at my table and I do something that violates cannon with my game, I have no patience for one of my players interrupting a game to sneer, “Well ACKXSCHEWALLY…” I have no patience for gatekeeping superiority complexes and ego trips.
So I punch holes in it. I make room for myself to write adventures I want to experience, and room for my players to tell their own stories in the setting.
I’m not making official content, and I make sure I make it clear to my players that this is “our Star Trek”.
My current campaign is set at the very founding of Starfleet. It’s an alternate dimension where Jonathan Archer never existed, and I tweaked a bunch of stuff about how the Federation was formed so that I could tell different types of stories. I liked Enterprise, but I don’t want to lock myself and my players into slavishly bending to a narrative someone else wrote.
It’s just fiction.
I do similar things with almost every game I play in an official game setting.
D&D? This is OUR Forgetten Realms.
Traveller? This is OUR Third Inperium.
That is, of course, assuming I don’t just make up my own setting entirely from scratch. I haven’t done that with Star Trek yet, but given how obnoxious some of the comments above were, I’m tempted to do it just out of spite.
4 Likes
While breaking from cannon in my eyes can be very fun. I feel that in order to do so the GM needs to get with the players and go over and hash out the “breaks” so that all are in agreement or if the GM wants to add somthing new it really needs to be “speced” out in universe so that it can be followed by all players. It can be a frustrating experience for players and GM alike if the changes are all based on opinion or preference but it is all in the GM or players heads. Putting it all out on the table for all to be on the same page (for the most part obviously the GM needs their plot hooks) is the key to breaking cannon. Since if a game is completely based on cannon examples from the shows are your “gospel” by breaking from that “gospel” you now need to explain reasonings behind major changes and agree upon them (for the most part) with you PC’s. It is wonderful to build a universe together just be cautious as a GM not to attempt to turn only your own opinions into fact because you have the power to do so. In essence have a tabled discussion before hand about changes and the who, how and what it effects in the universe anything that cannot be agreed upon i would say should default to cannon IMHO
1 Like
In this game, the Akira can carry only two fighters in an operational state. It’s not a dedicated warship, but it is an excellent hull for building a Tactical Operations vessel.
1 Like
By its original design it was a dedicated warship that could be altered into an exploration vessel. The Akira was built to fight the Borg. The Akira like the defiant class represents a darker time in federation history where they realised that not every species can be eventually won over with diplomacy or held at bay with territory boundaries and peace treaties, some species can only be stopped by brute force and these 2 ships represent that mentality. It also all depends how you are running your campaign do you want to restrict a vessel to less than cannon or do you want players to feel that they are on that Akira class and have at their disposal all that it entails. To me the later is the best choice otherwise why choose a ship at all, they can just us a small craft like an oberth or a shuttle craft that can be crewed by minimal staff and has only basic options or with opertunity cost you can make it into squadrons of 3. Allowing you to use it more like cannon and make the players feel they are on board an actual large federation starship and bring the morality element into the equation…The question of just because we have the power to do as we please does that mean we should? With a few groups of fighters able to assist as long as the expansive shuttle bays talent is taken, and also adding a different element if it is a long running campaign the players will need to care about the pilots in those fighters and the damage if lost they will take on their reputation. Essentially making it the same as calling a NPC security detail but in space and depending on the scene adding to threat…it can also allow the GM to demostrate a potential enemies threat level by adding some red shirts out there
I can understand the frustration completely. I will just add a thought…if you are going to change everything why run a star trek game there are plenty of other space games out there. If you want to change certain aspects i can completeley understand. The “what ifs?” Is a great story hook even one that has been used in the star trek universe with the mirror verse and other alternate demensions. I dig the story line you discribed with founding of federation. While i have not read the other posts. I have played in other RPGs that were not star trek but had a deep lore felt at times that if a GM changes too much it can start to make players feel why am i playing by these rules if nothing is the same. I guess the key is how much you change, if you change to much it can make you question why you are using the star trek system and not D&D or RIFTS or Star wars system
My personal approach is “anything that takes place after the start of my game in canon, doesn’t take place unless I say so.”
Generally speaking, most things take place, but I find it freeing for the players to be able to go and do something without worrying whether it would break canon.
As standard I dont tend to include anything made after ENT/Nemisis, but that is as much as case of me being less familiar as it is whether or not I like the product.
I have thoughts about many of the topics brought up in this thread, but I feel like this thread has had plenty of derailing already. (If anyone wants to start a separate thread, I’ll see you there!)
4 Likes