Star Trek: 10 Times Canon Got In The Way

Force of Nature. An episode that many a fan would like to add to the "Remove from Canon" list that is headed up with Threshold.

Yet why would Trekkies want to erase this from the past with more haste and less grace than Annorax resetting the timeline? Mainly because the warp five speed limit seemed like a good idea at the time but quickly became a huge problem for storytelling.

The effect of speeds about warp five were deemed hazardous with only special missions being given permission to stick on the blue lights and siren so that the Enterprise didn't get flashed by intergalactic speed cameras.

Yet as soon as it was introduced, it became apparent how restrictive it was. Voyager's folding engines were suggested to be designed to combat the issue however after only a handful of episodes it was Never Spoken of Again. This is a wonderful example where the prospect of changing things up within canon actually backfired completely, forcing a less than conspicuous change to level the status quo (not that Status Quo) for not just the end of TNG's final season but also for every single series that came after it chronologically.

Funnily Discovery did away with warp speeds completely for its third season with the Burn so in a sense it was inevitable!