[TeMPOraL]

> when rewatching older Trek shows it is also a bit infuriating how nothing really has an impact

TNG: You get e.g. changes in political relationships between major powers in the Alpha/Beta quadrant, several recurring themes (e.g. Ferengi, Q, Borg), and continuous character development. However, this show does much better job at exploring the Star Trek universe breadth-first, rather than over time.

DS9: Had one of the most epic story arcs in all sci-fi television, that spanned multiple seasons. In a way, this is IMO a golden standard for how to do this: most episodes were still relatively independent of each other, but the long story arcs were also visible and pushed forward.

VOY: Different to DS9, with one overarching plot (coming home) that got pushed forward most episodes, despite individual episodes being mostly watchable in random order. They've figured out a way to have things have accumulating impact without strong serialization.

> Last season of TNG they introduced the fact that warp was damaging subspace. That fact was forgotten just a few episodes later.

True, plenty of dropped arcs in TNG in particular. But often for the better, like in the "damaging subspace" aspect - that one was easy to explain away (fixing warp engines) and was a bad metaphor for ecological anyway; conceptually interesting, but would hinder subsequent stories more than help.

[ben_w]

> VOY: Different to DS9, with one overarching plot (coming home) that got pushed forward most episodes, despite individual episodes being mostly watchable in random order. They've figured out a way to have things have accumulating impact without strong serialization.

I wouldn't say they had any noticeable accumulating impact.

Kim was always an ensign, system damage never accumulated without a possibility of repair, they fired 123 of their non-replaceable supply of 38 photon torpedoes, the limited power reserves were quickly forgotten, …

Unless you mean they had a few call-back episodes, pretty much the only long-term changes were the doctor's portable holo-emitter, the Delta Flier, Seven replacing Kes, and Janeway's various haircuts.

> True, plenty of dropped arcs in TNG in particular. But often for the better, like in the "damaging subspace" aspect - that one was easy to explain away (fixing warp engines) and was a bad metaphor for ecological anyway; conceptually interesting, but would hinder subsequent stories more than help.

That and beta-cannon is this engine fix is why Voyager's warp engines moved.

The Doylist reason is of course "moving bits look cool".

[deltoidmaximus]

The wildest dropped Arc were the absolutely horrifying mind control parasites. But like that the warp core speed limit I see why, you'd have to change the whole tone of the show if you wanted to keep them as a consistent threat.

[olyjohn]

To be fair, there were a couple of times where they mentioned being allowed to exceed warp speed limits for an emergency. Otherwise, they were usually traveling under Warp 6.