I wish that McMahon hadn’t done that in Lower Decks and had left TNG Parallels as a one-off.

The thing is that the infinitely expanding manifold of temporal multiverses is a thought experiment in physics that doesn’t really have widespread support in physics. It also is inconsistent with how temporal mechanics are applied throughout the rest of the history of the franchise.

What SNW provides in Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow is articulated even more clearly in Prodigy is closer to modern physics theory and is also the only way to make sense of creative choices that Gene Roddenberry dictates for the TNG Pilot ‘Encounter at Farpoint.’

When Roddenberry dictated that TNG would set World War III in the mid 21st century he also dictated that TNG and TOS are in the same timeline. That’s only possible if the franchise goes with the robust River of Time version of the physics that SNW and Prodigy articulated.

That is, there can be major forks or branchings at critical events but the smaller perturbations do not in themselves create new timelines. A Mirror Universe or Kelvin universe can be created but they are limited in number and not infinitely dividing at each and every minor decision point.

Instead, as long as key major events happen and they happen in the same order, then a timeline is preserved. Otherwise, our heros’ actions in saving the continuity WOULD NOT MATTER in any number of episodes and movies because the timeline where they fail would also exist.

So, as long as Cochrane’s ship gets to demonstrate the warp drive at the right moment such that First Contact occurs, then the Prime Timeline is preserved. There are not two parallel ones with and without the Enterprise crew onboard with him or one where the Borg were successful in stopping human contact with Vulcans.

Likewise, there isn’t a TOS version of the timeline where World War III took place at the end of the 20th century after the 1990s Eugenics War. Instead, that event has shifted back and forth in time as the Romulans have attempted to impede human development with temporal incursions and Federation temporal agents have worked to counter them.

I’ve done it through DDG on my phone. Still get weird thumbnail.

When I can get on desktop, I can try again but it really makes me wonder about CBR.

Even with the now corrected link, it still wants to show the image from the ad.

I stripped the tracking code from the end but the other image won’t clear.

Corrected it. I initially seemed to have picked up the ad instead of the actual interview.

I’m not sure why anyone ever thought it would be?

Other than the naysayers who were looking not to like it and had to be ‘shown otherwise.’

Even Prodigy ended up an ‘all ages’ show.

Not saying you’re one of them, it’s unfortunate that the new shows seem to have to push against negative labels and narratives that are brigaded before the first casting announcements.

In this case, despite the idea of an Academy show kicking around since the 1970s, it was fairly clear that no senior network/streamer executive were ever going greenlight it until someone came up with a concept that was more than a college soap in the Star Trek universe.

What I didn’t expect was for the other perennial ‘failed to make it to pilot’ franchise idea of a hospital show also got rolled into it. That’s one that Roddenberry first tried to spin off with M’Benga in the second season of TOS.

Prof. Sam Lawler, cited in the article as a critic/skeptic, is very active on Mastodon @sundogplanets@mastodon.social and interesting to follow.

I’m finally getting back to this.

Had a work push and then a virus. I really find I have even less attention for listening and podcasts when I’m ill.

One thing that I’ve figured out is that the audio quality varies widely depending on the service one is getting podcasts from or the delivery app.

The base recording is excellent and the sound effects are there. Some of the players have so much noise that you’d never realize that.

In any event, I tried out different players and found that Cassidy’s delivery was much less mumbly on better audio players regardless of being on the same device.

Something to consider when getting podcasts even through open source players.

We can disagree on that.

I will never love TMP but I will never claim it’s not Star Trek.

I agree. These folks have no perspective or are dishonest with themselves.

I can acknowledge that it can be jarring, and it can take time to accept a major visual design update.

I felt that in 1979 as I sat in the theatre watching Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

I had no heads up whatsoever that the Klingon design had changed. I was completely confused in the opening scenes with the Klingons. I couldn’t figure out what species they were.

But I got over it. Quickly.

I still think TMP is disappointing, long boring movie that rehashes the Nomad plot from TOS. The Klingon redesign wasn’t its problem though.

It seems more that Larry Ellison is giving his adult children amounts of money to invest to learn how to run businesses.

Amounts that for most others would be an inheritance in themselves are less than a year’s interest on Larry’s overall fortune.

David and his sister both started out with a certain amount.

His sister’s firm got into financial difficulties so Larry appointed a co head and hasn’t invested more.

David made his investment in creating Skydance profitable and so his father is investing more.

It’s a better solution than Trump taking his cut of the inheritance and bankrupting it, and then getting full control and bankrupting again.

That’s not to say even so that Larry isn’t taking advantage of the CBS part of the purchase to reshape its news to his own vision.

Celia’s hair for the panel suggests they’re evolving Uhura’s style in season five towards the one in TOS.

Which is interesting because Celia really wanted to avoid wigs and keep a natural hairstyle.

I’m wondering what kind of hair Jess will have for Chappel in the final season.

There are a bunch of the perennial brigading naysayers on other platforms already venting that this young Klingon is too skinny/lanky.

Seems that they never saw Tony Todd as Kurn or considered that TALL is an important Klingon physical characteristic.

This comes across as gatekeeping…

— from the perspective of someone who’s been watching Trek since the 1960s and has seen the same old ‘ahem, not Trek, it’s stealing from …’ chestnuts since TAS was announced, I am alway surprised how little older fans recognize that Trek has ALWAYS adapted other media (movies, television, radio plays, Shakespeare!) into its episodes.

Sigh.

I’m also thinking about the massive CRA data breach for electronic filers - it’s not a decade since that happened.

Uhm, didn’t physicist David Keith of Harvard, better know for his work on carbon capture, do something like this in the early 1990s in building the early atom interferometers?

He didn’t pursue the development as the applications were military at that time but my recollection was that he created a lab bench sized generator.

They’re making sure they’ll hit the February sweeps for advertiser data (which weirdly remain a thing in the streaming era).

Perhaps the new ownership are going to give the franchise more of a chance to thrive.

Never any notes on the SNW costumes.

The global trailer is available an an embed on the official site.

https://www.startrek.com/en-ca/news/starfleet-academy-reveals-trailer-premiere

The Starfleet Academy trailer doesn’t seem to be available on YouTube in Canada yet and isn’t on StarTrek.com.

Sigh.

Or, at the YouTube links provided in other posts here.

Thanks @ValueSubtracted@startrek.website