Here we are, yet again. I was under the impression I wouldn’t have to write anything until December, but I was rudely reminded that it was just a dream.
For this article, I decided to look at the plot holes and other blunders that bug me in Star Trek. There are plenty to choose from, but these are the ones that really grind my gears.
To start, we have everyone’s favorite idiot, Rom. Or was he? How did Rom go from being a bumbling buffoon to a top tier engineer? At one point in the first season, Odo mentions that he couldn’t even fix a replicator, then a few seasons later he’s developing the minefield and basically becomes Ferengi O’Brien.
Voyager’s torpedoes/supplies. From the start of Voyager when the barista decides to strand them in the delta quadrant, a big point was brought up on how they have a fixed amount of un-replaceable photon torpedoes and bi-neural gel packs. I believe it’s mentioned that they have 38 torpedoes to start. I don’t have the will to re-watch the whole series and count, but there is no way they only shot 38 throughout the show. There were battles that they shot off 5-6 alone. So how did they replace the un-replaceable torpedoes? Also, the bio-neural gel packs failed constantly throughout the show, and it was mentioned they could not be replicated. In the beginning they mentioned a limited amount, especially on the episode that they get infected with cheese. After that, we never heard from them again.
The probe in Star Trek: Attack of the Whales. This oversized tootsie roll is an ancient, advanced alien technology, but can’t somehow fathom that a species could go extinct? Could it not speak to the sentient species on the planet literally trying to talk to it and ask what happened to Shamu? Instead, it goes all killer weather machine until Kirk has to go all Superman and fly backwards through time to bring back some whales, and his new sex toy.
Section 31. Why can’t it exist publicly? Most of the other races in Star Trek have some sort of intelligence agency. The Tal Shiar, the Obsidian Order. They are known parts of their respective empires. So why the secrecy and pretending? We know that the CIA, FSB, Mossad, MI-6 all exist. We may not know what they’re doing, but we know they exist. Pretending they don’t is just dumb.
Klingons. Why do they keep changing the damn Klingons. From now on, TNG/DS9/Voyager Klingons are the real Klingons. Not the ones from TOS that look like humans, or the ones from Disco that look like dinosaurs and speak at 1/10 speed. And yes, I know they tried to explain the ridge-less Klingons using an Enterprise episode, but it’s not enough.
And lastly, the mac-daddy of them all. The Xindi. The entire Xindi story arc was ridiculous. First, let’s start with the Xindi themselves. Somehow even Xindus seems farfetched. I cannot think of a single other planet in the Star Trek universe that has more than two sentient species develop on the planet. Were expected to believe that on Xindus SIX species evolved on the same planet, and evolved far enough to all develop space travel before they K-O’d themselves? Next come the time traveling rainbow cloud crew warn them of this impending threat to their species. Now, if my goal is to wipe out a planet, warning said planet of my impending attack is not high up on my to-do list. Why send a probe to just destroy just Florida? Then on top of that not having some sort of self-destruct feature on the probe so we don’t have a body or pieces of the probe. Why not just build the weapon and get it all done at once? Then, once the Enterprise enters the expanse, the Xindi have about a million chances to destroy it, but instead leave it alone and let it destroy all their stuff, and even steal a prototype. Great tactics there… Also, I believe they said it took like 3 weeks at warp 5 to get to the expanse, yet after the weapon was launched from the expanse it took about 6 minutes to get to Earth. I know they have their vortexes, but c’mon. Although I will say that season did give me one of my favorite episodes, Northstar, so I guess it wasn’t all bad.
There are plenty more I’m sure we can all come up with, but these seem to be the ones that stood out to me.
MCPO Dan Zaltsberg – Chief of the Boat