By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
Star Trek fans these days often complain about the continuity problems caused by shows like Discovery and Strange New Worlds, but such complaints aren’t really new. In fact, various plot points about Enterprise kicked off a wave of fan anger about continuity changes, and those complaints continued with the release of the Kelvinverse films. Historically, fans have blamed the writers for these issues, but it turns out that all of Star Trek’s biggest continuity problems may have been caused by Captain Picard during the events of First Contact.
Star Trek: First Contact Did It
As you’ll recall, Star Trek: First Contact had continuity concerns built directly into its narrative thanks to a plot about the Borg traveling back to 21st-century Earth and ruining the timeline as we know it. Captain Picard followed the Borg into the past and defeated them while others in his crew helped Zefram Cochrane complete humanity’s historic first warp-speed flight. This flight caught the attention of nearby Vulcans and brought Earth into the wider galaxy, but while the movie implies that Picard completely fixed history, later continuity problems prove that he might have made things worse.
Before we go any further, it’s important to focus on some of the Star Trek continuity problems that fans have focused on since Enterprise began airing in 2001. That show retconned the Vulcan mind meld into being something only certain Vulcans can do and that their society frowned on, which clashed with everything we knew about this from The Original Series. Other continuity problems come from the show’s awkward insistence on having episodes with the Ferengi and the Borg, two races that seemingly nobody in Starfleet had ever heard of before Picard’s misadventures in The Next Generation.
It’s Not Nero’s Fault
The later Star Trek reboot films tried to sidestep continuity issues by explaining that this was a different universe in which the Romulan Nero traveled to the past, altering history forever. But that still doesn’t explain why Chekhov’s age is different, why Khan has a different ethnicity and healing blood, or even why Sulu is now openly gay. While it’s possible to explain other changes like Starfleet’s increased ship size as a result of Nero’s timey-wimey attack on the Federation, none of these particular changes can really be attributed to that, but one theory holds that all of this might inadvertently have been caused by Picard.
Not all of the timeline changes to the Star Trek continuity in the Kelvinverse films make sense as a result of Nero’s attack, and none of Enterprise’s continuity problems make much sense at all. However, some fans have noted that, while rescuing humanity from the Borg, Picard made major timeline changes in the year 2063. It’s entirely possible that this would explain the seeming continuity changes in Enterprise (which starts in the year 2151) and Star Trek (2009), which takes place in the year 2255.
Picard And The Butterfly Effect
Obviously, this Star Trek theory isn’t perfect, but it might explain many of the continuity changes that audiences gripe about. Think of it like the butterfly effect: even small changes Picard made in the past could have major impacts on the future. First Contact came out five years before Enterprise and 13 years before the first Kelvinverse movie, so it would make a kind of meta sense that we are now seeing a timeline that has been permanently altered by Picard’s shenanigans, with every new onscreen adventure affected by Picard’s earlier actions.
This theory would explain the later issues with the Star Trek: Discovery continuity that ranged from changes to the Klingons’ appearance to Spock suddenly having a brilliant Mary Sue sister we’ve never heard of. Interestingly, Strange New Worlds implicitly supports this theory thanks to an episode that confirmed that major details like Khan’s date of birth have been changed due to the constant interference of time travelers.
Now, it’s one thing to have a fun Star Trek theory, but it’s another thing for fans to accept this as the reason behind all these major continuity changes. For better or for worse, though, fans need to brace for even more change. Given that the next Trek film will be an origin movie seemingly rehashing first contact with aliens and humanity joining the United Federation of Planets–events we have literally already seen onscreen–it looks like Trek’s continuity won’t ever be fully consistent with its decades of established lore.
Oh, well. Maybe next time Captain Picard travels to the past, he can focus on making his franchise make sense. Or just making it interesting again. Honestly, we’d settle for that!
