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3 times Star Trek broke both real and show-made rules of time and space

By Chad Porto

Actor William Shatner, who has been around space as the "Start Trek" skipper, watches the Apollo 11 telecast with Gail Frank, manager of the Tappan Zee Playhouse, in his camper during his appearance in a traveling production of "There's a Girl in My Soup" at Nyack, N.Y. July 15, 1969Shatner 071569 D6195 Img276
Actor William Shatner, who has been around space as the "Start Trek" skipper, watches the Apollo 11 telecast with Gail Frank, manager of the Tappan Zee Playhouse, in his camper during his appearance in a traveling production of "There's a Girl in My Soup" at Nyack, N.Y. July 15, 1969Shatner 071569 D6195 Img276 /
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Star Trek didn’t just break the real rules of time and space but their own made-up ones.

Star Trek was once described as science-fantasy and not science-fiction due to its constant breaking of the rules of reality and to an extent, that’s still true. When you have omnipotent space gods and randy space ghosts, you can see why some would describe it as more science-fantasy and less science-fiction. The inconsistencies don’t help either, and the constant retconning only further proves that the series has had its own issues respecting not just real-world science but also their own in-universe science.

For all of its consistencies, it sure is inconsistent to boot. That’s bound to happen, to be fair. The series is nearly 60 years old, and when you have 11+ television shows, and 13+ movies, all with different creative visions, you’re going to contradict yourself a lot.

Star Trek is great, don’t get us wrong, but they broke their own rules a time or two too often and these are just three that we know of.

3 times Star Trek broke the rules about space travel

The Galactic Barrier

This one is pretty simple. The Galactic Barrier doesn’t actually exist, and the need for one to be created makes little sense. For a series that was so steeped in reality and possibility, to create such an unnecessary item still baffles the mind.

Warp 10

Warp 10 deserves to be on a poster of the dumbest ideas Gene Roddenberry ever concocted. At Warp 10, the ship hits infinite velocity, yet at Warp 9.9., nothing. Seems like such a small margin between the two speeds. Breaking Warp 10 turns you into a salamander monster, hitting Warp 9.9 just makes you late for dinner in the Alpha Quadrant. Capping the warp limit was dumb, but what was even dumber was Roddenberry not consistent with his own rule. The Nomad Probe was traveling faster than Warp 10 in the original series episode The Changeling, and of course, the series finale of The Next Generation saw them hit Warp 13.

The size of the galaxy

The size of the galaxy, and more specifically how fast it takes to get places is often a mind-numbing continuity error to try and figure out.  In the original series episode Where No Man Has Gone Before and later in the film Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, the Enterprise and Enterprise-A were able to get to the Galactic Barrier and the Center of the Galaxy in little to no time at all. Yet, it would’ve taken Voyager 75 years to get back from mid-way in the Delta Quadrant. Consistency! It’s not always constant.

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