Ni'var -- for those of you caught up on #StarTrekDiscovery -- is a Vulcan term which was created by writer Dorothy Jones Heydt for the 1960’s-era fanzine "Spockanalia."
Introduced in the song "The Territory of Rigel," the term literally means “two-form” and is meant to describe the comparing and contrasting of two things (or two aspects of one thing) -- an excellent choice for the planet's name.
As part of 1976’s "Star Trek: The New Voyages" story collection, Leonard Nimoy wrote: “...'Ni Var' is a Vulcan term dealing with the dualities of things: two who are one, two diversities that are a unity, two halves that come together to make a whole.”
The Discovery gets a host of 32nd century upgrades: enough to justify a new registry number (NCC-1031-A!) to signify the major changes — as well as to potentially hide the ship’s time-travel history (banned by the Temporal Accords).
There is all-new hull armor and external lighting, deflector plating, changes to the hull configuration itself (removing the support struts between the outer rings in the saucer, angling and cutting gaps into the ‘wings’), new impulse engines…
…and the biggest change of all, brand-new warp nacelles that are physically separated from the Discovery's hull, like some of the other wild new 32nd century starship designs we've seen in recent episodes.
We've always thought of Starfleet and the Federation as this wonderful, utopian society, and the events leading up to #StarTrekPicard have brought up a lot of "Starfleet would never..." comments in online discussion.
In the words of that FNN reporter, "Let's explore that."
Starfleet would never sanction the death of an alien race....
...except when they ordered Picard to exterminate the Borg at any opportunity. ("Descent")
The Federation would never abandon a people in need due to political pressure...
...except when they did just that to the colonists in the Cardassian DMZ, leading to the formation of the Maquis. ("Journey's End," "The Maquis," etc.)
Before digital position-tracking technology existed, the #StarTrek production team would film certain VFX sequences using widescreen photography, allowing them to 'lock down' a camera in a fixed position - and then converte the shot to fit standard 4x3 televisions in post.
This is not something that could be used for a full-series conversion to get "TNG in Widescreen," as the vast majority of the series was specifically framed and shot for standard presentation.
How the visual effects shots were created using this method:
As technology progressed, the team would move to motion-control photography (and more complicated tech as well), but this lock-down method was used in the early days of #StarTrek DS9 occasionally as well, like this shot twinning @4TerryFarrell in "If Wishes Were Horses."
