[Star Trek like] number of planets and sapients

[maximara]

Originally Posted by doctorevilbrain

The Prime Directive universe is not Star Trek! Just because Steve Jackson games publishes that game doesn't make it Star Trek. You have to decide which universe you are talking about. There are major differences in the two. Star Trek doesn't have constant war.

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

Remember, Star Fleet Technical Manual isn't canon. It is overruled by every ST franchise show after TAS. In particular, canon treatment of Klingons, Vulcans, and Romulans is very different from SFTM and ST: PD.

The stats in GURPS Prime Directive for personal equipment aren't bad, but other than that the game has little to do with Star Trek.

"The Star Fleet Universe used the then canonal Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology and Y(year) counting from the first contact of Humans and Vulcans to follow the tradition of making exactly where in the future Star Trek was set fuzzy. However, that book put the five year mission of Enterprise as taking place 2207-2212 (Y155 to Y160) which is no longer canon (it now being 2265-2270).

The reality is the Star Fleet Universe timeline has many issues making totally it incompatible with the current canonal one but per the canon that existed in 1979 and the fan stuff added later it makes perfect sense.

As a result one can only go by what appeared in the Original Series, the Animated Series, Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology, Franz Joseph Star Trek Star Fleet Technical Manual and supplemental fan information for the canon of this setting. Everything else is off the table." - GURPSwiki

For many fans, the "true" Star Trek canon is what appears in official life action material and nothing else. This view reveals how much Star Trek canon is a clusterFUBAR:

*"Space Seed" vs "The Squire of Gothos": Star Trek takes place in the late 22nd to early 23rd century...or is it around the 2780s?

*"Space Seed" vs "Star Trek the Motion picture": The 20th century is about 200 years ago...or is it 300 years ago?

*"Space Seed" vs ''Wrath of Khan'': Khan is the product of selective breeding...or is it genetic engineering?

*"Space Seed" vs TNG (including Star Trek: First Contact) vs "Doctor Bashir, I Presume" (DS9): WWIII aka The Eugenics Wars happened 1992-1996... or it is in the mid 21st century? Mid 22nd century perhaps?

*"Unnatural Selection" (TNG) vs everything else afterword: Human genetic engineering is perfectly legal in the Federation. Oh wait a minute it isn't.

*''Enterprise'' vs everything else beforehand: Continuity? What continuity with that "Temporal Cold War" going on.

*''Star Trek'' (2009) vs everything else: Star Trek time travel works under Plastic Time rules not Many Worlds Theory. Stop calling parallel universe travel time travel.

*''Discovery'' vs TOS and "Relics" (TNG): What happened? Pike and Kirk got some archaic starship or one where the engineers were really into that retro 1960s style?

TL;DR - Star Trek canon is a joke.

[doctorevilbrain]

Keiko's mom had her in her sixties? Where did you get that idea? The spaceflight chronology book isn't canon either.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by doctorevilbrain

Keiko's mom had her in her sixties? Where did you get that idea? The spaceflight chronology book isn't canon either.

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

Remember, Star Fleet Technical Manual isn't canon. It is overruled by every ST franchise show after TAS. In particular, canon treatment of Klingons, Vulcans, and Romulans is very different from SFTM and ST: PD.

The stats in GURPS Prime Directive for personal equipment aren't bad, but other than that the game has little to do with Star Trek.

First, at the time they were published Spaceflight Chronology and Star Trek Star Fleet Technical Manual were canonal. "At the time this book was published, The Spaceflight Chronology was the second officially licensed reference book, intended for publication to the general public, that delved into the history of the Star Trek universe from an in-universe perspective, the first one being Star Trek Star Fleet Technical Manual." Also Star Trek Star Fleet Technical Manual was considered canonal clear into its last printing in 2005. Deal with it.

Second, if like many fans only what is shown is considered canon then Star Trek canon is a totally botched up mess with regards to the timeline.

Third, Official Star Trek canon is very inconstant with regards to its canon with retcons that make earlier statements nonsensical.

"Only the reference books (tech manuals, encyclopedia, etc...) and two books by Jeri Taylor are considered canon outside the TV show and movies." - Harry Lang, Senior Director of Viacom Consumer Products Interactive division, posts on StarTrek.com forum, January 2005.

"The tech manuals are written by ST production staff, same as the Encyclopedia (Mike Okuda). Since their contents report on what is canon, they are technically canon." - Harry Lang, Senior Director of Viacom Consumer Products Interactive division, posts on StarTrek.com forum, January 2005.

Since all the tech manuals (including Star Trek Star Fleet Technical Manual) are canonal (AFAIK nothing has changed in the 15 years since Harry Lang's posts) we have something to work with regards to how the devices work providing critical information needed to place them in the GURPS TL scale (or off of it with TL^)

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by doctorevilbrain

Keiko's mom had her in her sixties? Where did you get that idea? The spaceflight chronology book isn't canon either.

From Memory Alpha:

Chief Miles O'Brien accompanies his wife Keiko O'Brien to Earth to visit her mother for her 100th birthday.

Unless Keiko isn't the age of her actor at the time, the math would suggest her mother had her in her 60s.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by TGLS

From Memory Alpha:

Unless Keiko isn't the age of her actor at the time, the math would suggest her mother had her in her 60s.

Keiko isn't the age of her actor at the time - Occam's Razor.

[doctorevilbrain]

As far as I know, only the episodes and movies are considered canon. Now the animated are considered canon too. I don't believe that the Jeri Taylor novels are considered canon now.

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by maximara

Keiko isn't the age of her actor at the time - Occam's Razor.

It still becomes problematic because three years later Keiko has another child, which is hardly considered a concern. So any way you cut it, at least one of them is having a child in her fifties (which is pretty rare). Or you cut the knot and say Keiko was adopted. Or it's just a badly thought out replacement for a funeral.

[Anaraxes]

Miles is 40 when their first child is born. Keiko is likely close to that age.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by doctorevilbrain

As far as I know, only the episodes and movies are considered canon. Now the animated are considered canon too. I don't believe that the Jeri Taylor novels are considered canon now.

As I said before with the Plastic Time nature of the Star Trek you can't really say anything once considered canon isn't canon anymore. In fact, Enterprise's Temporal Cold War (which is still canon) explains all the inconstancies in the Star Trek universe - they are the result of that war.

So everything that was once canon is still canon but of a particular timeline. So we are like the Sphere-Builders but have no control over the snippets of several timelines we see. This fully explains how TOS can occur in 2207-2212, 2265-2270, and somewhere in the 2780s; they are in different timelines.

[Infornific]

Originally Posted by maximara

"The Star Fleet Universe used the then canonal Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology and Y(year) counting from the first contact of Humans and Vulcans to follow the tradition of making exactly where in the future Star Trek was set fuzzy. However, that book put the five year mission of Enterprise as taking place 2207-2212 (Y155 to Y160) which is no longer canon (it now being 2265-2270).

The reality is the Star Fleet Universe timeline has many issues making totally it incompatible with the current canonal one but per the canon that existed in 1979 and the fan stuff added later it makes perfect sense.

At the risk of being pedantic, the Spaceflight Chronology and original Star Fleet Battles came out the same year and while their timelines are similar for obvious reasons there are significant discrepancies beyond the fact that the Spaceflight Chronology had specific years. Wikipedia has a comparison here. Add 2058 to the Starfleet Universe timeline and compare to the results to the Spaceflight Chronology. Also note contradictions in technology for the Chronology vs the Technical Manual.

Confusing matters further, there really wasn't much of an official canon because Paramount didn't care. So Starfleet Battles rapidly became its own thing focused on space battles. It's in the name after all. There was at most a decade when you could even pretend it was part of mainstream canon. Meanwhile for everyone else continuity was up for grabs and might or might not include the Chronology, the old Technical Manual or in one case Hokas and 1950s & 1960s TV Westerns. The original series took place anywhere from the early 23rd century to the 25th century. It was only when TNG came around that they started cracking down on continuity and assigning official dates. Which also meant killing off a lot of fanon. Some of us still miss John Ford's Klingons.