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The franchise’s commitment to “the rule of cool” has sometimes meant that logic takes a backseat to drama. It’s why we forgive things like Data’s emotion chip turning on and off like a light switch or Klingon foreheads evolving without explanation. But for long-time Trekkies, a few of these story gaps have never stopped being annoying, even on the 100th rewatch. Leaving out the obvious inconsistencies like the seriousness of the Prime Directive, here are five weird little Trek plot holes that linger like a tribble you can’t get out of the air ducts.
5) Star Trek: The Next Generation, “All Good Things”
The finale of The Next Generation is widely considered one of Trek’s best hours, but fans also have a bone to pick. The episode’s central plot revolves around a temporal anomaly that grows backward through time, threatening all life in the galaxy. Data explains that it could only have been created by the same ship, the Enterprise, using an inverse tachyon pulse in three separate time periods. The problem is that the Pasteur, not the Enterprise, creates the tachyon pulse in the future timeline, meaning the entire explanation collapses.
Reportedly, the inconsistency was first noticed by producer Rick Berman’s own son after the episode aired. Even worse, the timeline logic implies that the anomaly should have been nearly gone by the time the Pasteur arrived in the Devron system. The writers missed a golden opportunity to make that part of the mystery. Instead, it’s just another Star Trek paradox that doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. Also, future Riker’s ship somehow hits warp 11 without turning the crew into salamanders. So maybe they switched back to the Imperial warp scale for the finale?
4) Star Trek: Voyager, “Ashes to Ashes”
This Voyager episode brings back an offscreen crew member, Ensign Lyndsay Ballard, who supposedly died years earlier in Season 2. Her body was sent into space, where it was found by a race called the Kobali, aliens who reanimate corpses as part of their reproduction process. Years later, Ballard suddenly regains her memories, steals a Kobali shuttle, and manages to track down Voyager after only two days of travel. Between Seasons 2 and 6, Voyager had crossed countless light-years, found shortcuts, and made serious progress toward Earth, but this alien shuttle somehow covered the distance.
What’s also frustrating is that no one suggests trying to reverse-engineer the Kobali tech to make Voyager faster. Janeway brushes it aside, without considering the implications or advantages. While the idea might’ve worked better as a TNG or DS9 episode, it undermines Voyager’s narrative engine: the struggle to get home. You can’t introduce a shuttle that outpaces the ship and then act like it doesn’t matter. And don’t even get started on the random Talaxian colony that shows up three episodes before the finale.
