Talk:Old Britain

On-Screen Reference?

When is it referenced that Great Britain is still a major world power on-screen? I don't remember ever hearing about it, or there ever being an episode set in Britain. zsingaya 14:45, 2 Aug 2005 (UTC)

In "Our Man Bashir" Julian Bashir said "I work for one of the nation states of this era - Great Britain." --Tough Little Ship 14:48, 2 Aug 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, but I'm sure that the reference was meant to mean Great Britain of the past, not Star Trek present. I think this page could do with some references to characters who've been from GB, like Miles O'Brien, Beverly Crusher's ancestors, Malcolm Reed to name a few... in fact, why does Doctor Bashir sound so English? His father seems to sound like he's from London, with his odd cockney accent, but Julian speaks very proper English! zsingaya 14:50, 2 Aug 2005 (UTC)

This page seems a bit isolated really, as any links from Reed will go to England, and links from Crusher will go to Scotland. Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland are also not in GB, so I'll revert the edits. Tough Little Ship 14:53, 2 Aug 2005 (UTC)

Indeed, this page seems a bit useless... couldn't we simply move the reference to the holoprogram to the United Kingdom page? zsingaya 14:55, 2 Aug 2005 (UTC)

Now let me post too :p : Shouldn't this be rather a redirect to United Kingdom, because Great Britain actually refers to the island not the state, and the star-trek-canon source points obviously to the state and not the island -- Kobi - (Talk) 14:56, 2 Aug 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, a redirect would be better. Tough Little Ship 14:57, 2 Aug 2005 (UTC)

We'd need to adjust the UK page, to include something about it being called Great Britain, in the past. Does the UK page have links to the countries in the UK? zsingaya 15:02, 2 Aug 2005 (UTC)

This page is obsolete. The other article under the same title is much more accurate. – The preceding unsigned comment was added by 131.251.0.53 .

Content

Oh come on man, nobody is letting me add even the tinyest tidbits of info, even saying that Wales is part of Great Britain (unlike the other reverts I'm getting on N.I, wales is physically part of the island). I mean have a thought for Welsh trekkies. They'll come on here and see "among the countries..." and their nation relegated to the background material! Who am I hurting by stating that Wales is part of Great Britain? So much hair splitting on here, I'm just tring to add things I know about (since I live in the UK) and nobody is letting them stick for god's sake. Saying Wales is part of Great Britain is hardly a heinous crime. Yrksvillan 17:12, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

It is not splitting hairs, it is sticking to a strict canon policy. --OuroborosCobra ^talk 17:13, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

So can you please, just for my benefit since clearly I don't understand, tell me where in the Canon it says that we should not mention Wales? Wales is part of the UK. Unless it is specifically mentioned somewhere in Star Trek that it isn't, then what's the problem?? Yrksvillan 17:16, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Canon does not have to say "do not mention Wales". Our policy is that if Wales is not mentioned in canon, and it is not, then we do not add it to the canon portion of our articles. Don't like it? Fine, you are entitled to your own opinion, but you still have to follow the rules here. Wales is mentioned in the background section of the article, just not the canon section. --OuroborosCobra ^talk 17:18, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Jesus man, why are you so hostile? I don't know who has changed my Great Britain article, but canon or not, there are innaccuracies. For example, you've added in the BACKGROUND section that other countries that comprise Great Britain are Wales and Northern Ireland. This is exactly the sort of misconception I was clearing up and you've reverted it. Northern Ireland was not, is not, never had been a part of Great Britain. It is part of the United Kingdom. I changed the article to say that Wales England and Scotland are part of the GEOGRAPHICAL island of Great Britain. Wether or not they are part of the political entity of the United Kingdom is a different matter, but please, my information was not incorrect. Yrksvillan 17:23, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I am not being hostile, I am trying to explain to you a policy that many, not all, of your edits are ignoring. --OuroborosCobra ^talk 17:26, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Ok well will you now allow me to re-add the fact that Great Britain is in fact the largest of the British isles, not a political entity. Yrksvillan 17:29, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Sadly, no. This is one area where the writers screwed up, and therefore we have as canon the screw up. From the episode "Our Man Bashir":

• BASHIR: "Yes. I work for one of the nation-states of this era -- Great Britain"

He specifically calls it a nation-state, therefore it is a political entity in canon Star Trek. --OuroborosCobra ^talk 17:38, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Right, but what we don't know is if the UK has transition to a new Great Britain entity, or wether it is simply a continuation of a common misconception. If we assume that the UK is officially name Great Britain in the 24th Century, as per Bashir, we can assume (since he's English) that it includes England and at least one other country, or the nations would simply keep their individual names. Man this is a complicated one. Can I assume, since Scotland is mentioned on the Great Britain page, that there is a mention of Scotland as part of the now POLITICAL entity of Great Britain somewhere in canon? Yrksvillan 17:41, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Furthermore, Welsh Rarebit (I've never EVER heard it referred to as Welsh Rabbit) is described as being a 'British' dish. If this is sourced from an actual episode, is that suggesting that Wales remains in 'Great Britain' as I shall refer to it from now on? Yrksvillan 17:49, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

We also have London being referred to as the capital of the UK. Though this was true for a large part of ST history, given Bashir refers to Great Britain as now being a nation state, that too either needs changing, or an addition that states that although we don't know exactly what happened, we know that it would be in GB by the 24th C and not the UK. Yrksvillan 17:58, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

United Kingdom

Is there a canonical source that suggests the UK was part of the European Alliance? Those familiar with 20th century Earth history are aware of the hesitant relationship the UK has with the then European Union. Tfleming 00:24, 27 Dec 2005 (UTC)

Wales weep not?

I can't think of one, so I wouldn't be surprised if there isn't, but is there a canon reference to Wales or Welsh people/places? I doubt it, but it's a case of national pride! Igotbit 17:52, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

As far as I know, there was no canon reference to Wales in Trek. If there was, a citation is needed. -- Renegade54 21:31, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Welsh rarebit is the closest we come, but that's really really stretching it. --Alan del Beccio 21:34, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

heh... yep, really stretching it for sure. Kinda like the only mention of France being French fries. :) -- Renegade54 21:37, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Also, and this comes directly from the Star Trek Concordance, Scotty is heard singing in Welsh in two episodes of TAS:

• "Welsh ballad: Scotty dreamily sings in Welsh when he is supposed to be commanding the ship "The Lorelei Signal". Scotty hums the same tune when under the influence of Mudd's love potion "Mudd's Passion"."

That's the exact paragraph from the Concordance. --Jörg 11:32, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Irish

This was removed by 81.108.91.90:

• "[[James Joyce|Joyce, James]] <!-- Irish born in Dublin 1882 when the whole Ireland was still part of UK (1801-1922) -->"

I put him with the UK citizens as he belonged to Ireland that at the time was entirely part of UK (1801-1922). So can't we consider him as a UK citizen ? - Philoust123 10:40, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

United Kingdom not canon?

Without wanting to open up a can of worms, but the terms "United Kingdom" or "UK" were never used in Star Trek. The characters always speak of Great Britain and British. I know they actually mean the UK (at least when it comes to references to Great Britain before 2024) but what if nomenclature changes in the future? Dunno, someone please find a reference to the UK somewhere. --Jörg 17:12, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

This is likely due to, as is being talked about since people are reverting my edits, a misconception. The United Kingdom is/was a political entity comprising many of the British Isles, and the Northern part of the island of Ireland. Great Britain is a GEOGRAPHICAL term used to refer to the largest of the British Isles. Northern Ireland has never been in Great Britian, it's part of the GEOGRAPHICAL island of Ireland. Yrksvillan 17:28, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

That is fine, and all correct, but again, sorry to sound like a broken record here, if the United Kingdom was never named in canon, it would not get its own article. I am not trying to be hostile, just pointing out the issue that Jörg was bringing up. --OuroborosCobra ^talk 17:30, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Ok that's fine. Can we then explain why in the United Kingdom article it refers to it as being, among other things, comprised of "Northern Ireland" until the reunification in 2025 (which is also wrong since it was 2024 wasn't it). This is clearly an issue that needs resolving, because we have this article stating historical type things, but as Jorg says, the UK was never mentioned in canon, only Great Britain. We could assume that this was a misconception that simply carried on til the 24th C or, well, not, but either way, there are serious inconsitencies in the way the UK, Ireland and Great Britain are covered. Can we agree on that? Yrksvillan 17:33, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it definitely needs resovling, but the article itself may be soon deleted anyways. --OuroborosCobra ^{<style="color:#00FF00;">talk} 17:36, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Ok, so how can I help to contribute to this without incurring anyone's wrath? Which version of events are we to use? Yrksvillan 17:37, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I'd suggest to merge this with Great Britain; by my (admittedly non-British) logic a United Kingdom without Northern Ireland is Great Britain.

Edit: I'm now putting this up for merge. I just watched "Our Man Bashir" for example, and Bashir specifically says he works for the nationstate called Great Britain; for all we know the United Kingdom never existed, or to be precise Great Britain (the nationstate which was created in 1707) never renamed itself to United Kingdom in 1801.Kennelly 02:15, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I have merged the histories and information of UK and GB, but now it's up to somebody else to correct the information presented on the page. There's a difference between GB and the UK, but I'm not a geographical/political/historical expert – even less so where foreign countries are concerned – so someone else has to go through and weed out what's meant for GB and what's meant for the UK, etc. or whatever. Good luck! --From Andoria with Love 11:41, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

For some reason TNG: "All Good Things..." has UK linked in it's "references" section. Any idea why? --Alan del Beccio 09:38, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Firstly, British Isles clarifies the proper meanings of the various names. Secondly, since Ireland was unified in 2024 the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland essentially ceases to exist, going back to being the Kingdom of Great Britain at that time. So when a Star Trek character uses the term Great Britain for the nation, they are not using a colloquialism, but the proper name since 2024. —MJBurrage • TALK • 01:12, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Great Britain isn't the islands! Great Britain is the MAIN island. a better term would be the "British Isles". Which includes parts of Island and Manx (AKA isle of Man) which arn't counted as part of Great Britain cos that's the island. it's true. The IslandS would be the British Isles.

PS. The US ALWAYS says Britain + British.Forerunner 13:50, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Canon and Reality

I think it's odd not to admit that reality informs our view of canon. Is it ever actually stated that Cambridge University is in Great Britain, or that Mary Shelley was British? Are we sure that Dover isn't on the French side of the English Channel? I suspect that we could basically dismember this article, and many like it, if we took a very literal view.

Alternatively, we could accept that Star Trek is a show aimed at a Human audience, with certain references to our reality. So when Data tells us that Ireland was reunified by force in 2024, I think it's acceptable to infer that part of Ireland was British-ruled until that time. Bashir's "Great Britain" is obviously a common name, not a profound comment on the UK. I don't insist on using the term "United Kingdom" in the article, but I dislike how the text goes out of its way to say that Ireland was never part of the same political structure as England and Scotland. Mars Defense Perimeter 06:09, February 17, 2011 (UTC)

Links

These pages have a mention to the UK in universe. Since the practice is that there is no UK in the Star Trek universe, since it was never mentioned directly on screen, all of these should be changed to either Great Britain or England. Since I'm not sure which ones should point to where, I've temporary recreated the redirect "United Kingdom" so as to create the list. - Archduk3 06:10, December 19, 2011 (UTC)

Island

Great Britain is not a country, it is an island, which simply forms the main part of the United Kingdom. Rob Elkton (talk) 09:24, May 26, 2013 (UTC)

This issue has been discussed above, and a brief explanation is given in the Background section, but to put it quickly, both "Great Britain" and "Old Britain" were used in canon, (Bashir said in "Our Man Bashir" "I work for one of the nation states of this era - Great Britain.") while "United Kingdom" was not. 31dot (talk) 11:56, May 26, 2013 (UTC)

OK, so what about other articles, then? For example, the article on 'Gestapo' gives their full name as Geheime Staatspolizei, but I can't think of anywhere where that's mentioned in canon. If that fact is allowed to be part of the main article, then why should it be any different for this one?Rob Elkton (talk) 09:21, May 30, 2013 (UTC)

Gestapo is an abbreviation; Great Britain is not an abbreviation. Further, as I already stated, we have a line from canon stating that "Great Britain" was the name of the nation. 31dot (talk) 09:36, May 30, 2013 (UTC)

References

The PNA-inaccurate is presumably in reference to the above content, regarding the merge and removal of the UK. To assist those in fixing this page, I've compiled the following list with all relevant dialog references:

"A British Tar"

• Star Trek: Insurrection

Battle of Britain

• DS9: "Homefront", "Bar Association", "Accession"

British (current redirect, possibly its own article)

• TNG: "The Last Outpost", "The Big Goodbye"
• DS9: "Change of Heart"
• VOY: "Year of Hell", "The Killing Game"
• ENT: "Shuttlepod One", "Dead Stop"

"Briton"

• ENT: "Storm Front"

Great Britain

• DS9: "Our Man Bashir"

"Old Britain"

• TOS: "The Trouble with Tribbles"

Any other relevant terms to consider (outside of England/English, Welsh rarebit (Welsh) which already have their own articles)? --Alan del Beccio 22:41, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

In addition, the term "United Kingdom" likely appears on this image, but is illegible to my eyes. I hope it doesn't appear on any other images.--Tim Thomason 23:53, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I kind of think that it is of particular interest that Spock refers to it as "Old Britain" in "Trouble With..." stating: "John Burke was the chief astronomer at the Royal Academy in Old Britain." From my research, this is the most recent (chronological) reference to the Britain, with the other, Bashir's reference in "Our Man...", being a historical reference that referred to "Great Britain" as "one of the nation-states of this era" which might suggest it is no longer called that in his era. --Alan del Beccio 01:45, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

United Kingdom reference found

There is a canonical reference to the United Kingdom. Should there be an article for this nation-state?Throwback (talk) 00:07, July 24, 2014 (UTC)

Going to need to see the actual reference, per the many, many above discussions. - Archduk3 00:14, July 24, 2014 (UTC)

United Kingdom reference found, again

Marina S. Despina from London, UK (top left). It's just "UK", but we always write out acronyms so that should be enough, right? I think this is enough to move the page, unless there's any other objections. -- Capricorn (talk) 22:46, October 3, 2014 (UTC)

I'm actually thinking it might make more sense to rename this "Old Britain" and just mention that, generally, the same area was also referred to as "Great Britain" and the "United Kingdom". Presumably the "Old Britain" reference trumps the "Great Britain" one, and most likely the rest as well, and a case could be made, and if I remember correctly was above, that the UK stopped existing after the Irish Unification of 2024.

Either way, there are articles still linking to the UK redirect that most likely shouldn't. - Archduk3 23:44, October 3, 2014 (UTC)

Anything's possible I guess, but I don't see any particular reason the uk would be disbanded after 2024. United Kingdom is short for United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. After 2024 the simplest thing to do would be to stop saying "and Northern Ireland". If I'm right about which previous discussion you're refering to, I think it was operating on a missconception: without Northern Ireland the union would still be an United Kingdom, there's still three countries in GB even if they're lumped together as "GB" in the name. In fact it was called the United Kingdom of Great Britain before Ireland was added (and that was without even counting Wales).
Not to say that I'm categorically against "Old Britain" (just anything but GB please; it's been an absolute horror constituting an island for a country and then trying to write the article as if it all makes sense) - but Great Britain still seems better. There's uncertainty about the future evolution of all countries we have articles on, but just having those articles and using common sense works good enough so that in itself I don't think is a strong reason not to go with UK. And the trouble with Old Britain is that it's very vague, it sounds like something no longer a thing, like ancient Rome. The Royal navy was presumably once part of Old Britain, but when Stuart Reed served, did he still serve Old Britain? And what about the Royal Children's Hospital which existed (in an alternate timeline) just a decade before Spock talked about Old Britain? -- Capricorn (talk) 01:41, October 4, 2014 (UTC)

I'm under the impression that the "United Kingdom of Great Britain" was commonly referred to as just "Great Britain" until Ireland was added, which might be part of why people assume that the common name might change back, though I tend to agree that it wouldn't since language doesn't really go backward like that.

I'm also not really opposed to any of the names for the page itself, just so long as we keep the incoming links and references on the page consistent with what was said/implied. Deciding what name applies where/when will most likely involve using some RW info, and the only way I see to avoid doing that is to use the nebulous "Old Britain" name. For example: The Royal navy was presumably once part of the nation-state that occupied the area that would, by the mid 23rd century, be known as Old Britain. I'm not suggesting that is the best choice by any means, just that it seems to be the one that most complies with certain MA policies and guidelines. That said, entertaining, informative, and readable should probably take precedent here, just so long as our assumptions are marked with bg notes. - Archduk3 04:13, October 5, 2014 (UTC)

It seems to me that if you strictly ban RW info that doesn't leave you with "Old Britain", but rather with all the terms, GB, UK and Old Britain being of equal weight. The Royal Navy didn't just serve Britain after all, it served the whole empire including not only northern ireland but also India. The Britain in Old Britan is not the hegemonic "core" around which all the rest revolves, it is just the one region among many where the queen happens to live. The strictly non-RW info option would be to split the info into three articles and not imply any kind of connection between them, which isn't exactly an ideal option I think everyone would agree.
"Great Britain" and "United Kingdom" are both terms that while not the complete name are commonly used as shorthand, but between these technically not quite 100% correct terms GB makes a lot less sense, as evidenced by the repeated instances of people taking to this talk page to lecture us. Also from personal experience its a total pain wording information about the country so it can fit in an article caled GB without that article feeling like it was written by ignorant people for whom all those terms are interchangeable. Though of course that has nothing to do with canon, just convenience, like how all info on Italian people and stuff has conveniently been placed at Italy even though when Leonardo lived there was no such country and for all we know nor is there such country in the future.
Sorry, this has been a lot more complicated then I anticipated. I hope I'm not comming across more antagonistic then intended, or exceedingly nitpicky. Really I just wanted to quickly and easily resolve the previous discussion that seemed to have settled on UK making more sense then GB except for the fact that UK didn't seem to be canon. In any case, don't worry about linking, I'll be more then happy to take care of that if a change happens. -- Capricorn (talk) 21:34, October 9, 2014 (UTC)

Well, no one else has weighted in, and we haven't reached a clear consensus. But I'm in favor of renaming the page to "United Kingdom", and if I read Archduk3's comments right they're not opposed to that either, even if they somewhat prefer "Old Britain". Maybe that ought to be enough for a rename to UK, even if that's pretty weak as far as consensus goes. So in a final attempt to move this forward, let me just formally propose that we move the page, and if anyone is against it, speak out. That includes you, Archduk3, if you think I'm not doing fair by your concerns with this. If no one speaks up in a week or so, I'm going to move the page. If anyone opposes and there's no further discussion from that, then we can consider this discussion ended, inconclusively. -- Capricorn (talk) 15:20, October 19, 2014 (UTC)

MA:RESOURCE states that what is spoken takes precedence over what is seen, so I'm inclined to support "Old Britain". There are also years listed on this "UK" entry in the image which I cannot read; if the years were before when Spock said that, I would also lean towards supporting "Old Britain". Another question; do we know if Spock said "Old Britain" or "old Britain"? If it was the latter then this could remain here. All of that said, I am not outright opposed to moving this given that it does have a rationale, and I assume the other mentions would be kept and redirected. So either way, it's OK with me. 31dot (talk) 20:29, October 19, 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia link to Wales

How is adding a Wikipedia link to Wales to the canon portion of the article (thus stating that in canon Wales was stated to be part of the UK, or even mentioned), a compromise that at all meets MA canon policies? I'm really tempted to remove it. --OuroborosCobra ^talk 05:49, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Because something was not mentioned means it does not exist, it just means we don't create a link or page for it. --Alan del Beccio 05:56, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Funny, I thought we catalouged what was in canon, and left a Wikipedia link to the subject (not sub-subjects) to tell the rest of the real world. How about we add something about Typhoid fever to Osama Bin Laden? --OuroborosCobra ^talk 05:59, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I kinda have an issue with this, too... in it's current state, it says, matter-of-factly, that Wales and Northern Ireland are part of GB, although no such thing was ever expressed in canon, nor were those countries mentioned. Linking them off-site only solves part of the problem; we're still mentioning them as though they were mentioned in canon. --From Andoria with Love 06:37, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

It's funny, I'm not even back a whole week and I am already a contestant in America's favorite show, the harassing talk page game of sarcasm. Quite frankly, Memory Alpha shouldn't be the encyclopedia of stupid ignorance, especially in the case of one little link which is hardly some cumbersome, off topic, or referencing irrelevant information that I would otherwise expect to have set a discussion of this proportion off. It is merely acknowledging one part of the larger chunk, rather than leaving the reader to ponder what's in that big black void of nothingness between England and Scotland. --Alan del Beccio 06:38, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Scotland and Wales don't even border each other, so there would be no "big black void of nothingness". The purpose of MA is not to catalog real life, it is to catalog what was in Trek. Wales was not in Trek. --OuroborosCobra ^talk 06:56, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Nice with the false accusation of harassment, by the way. I was merely giving an example of why we DON'T do this. --OuroborosCobra ^talk 06:58, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

I would just like to point out that Great Britain is not the only article to treat links in this way. Watt, USA, and Samoa (among many others, I'm sure) all use (or used, in the latter case) terms not used in canon; in the case of Watt and Samoa, the terms are (or were) linking to their pages on Wikipedia. In addition, there are many articles which give brief definitions which are not necessarily mentioned in canon. This is no different, really; the definition of Great Britain is an island nation-state comprised of England, Scotland, and Wales. Granted, the edit made to this article did strike me as odd, but since it's been pointed out that it has been the practice all along, perhaps it should be brought up in a forum whether or not to allow such terms? I personally don't see a problem with them, so long as there's some way to identify them as not having been mentioned in canon (like linking them to WP... or not linking them at all). --From Andoria with Love 14:06, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Let's, for a moment, ignore the Wikipedia link, and focus on the inclusion of the word "Wales" itself. Nowhere in our policies does it state that we should make MA read as ignorant as we possibly can.

In fact, our goal is to make articles useful for readers: "The most important goal, however, is to make the article readable and informative. Towards that end, you should do whatever you feel is necessary to make the article meet those standards."

How is it even close to useful to completely make an article devoid of one of the most important features of its composition? No red links were made, no frivolous articles were created in support of the link, so what's the issue? (Please note that following is written as an apt, yet figurative example or interpretation that can very easily be true, as it seems that the "black void of nothingness" reference was quickly misinterpreted and subsequently overlooked.) In a non-evasive way, linking Wales to WP completes the circuit without a three paragraph background note at the other end of the article explaining why something is not here.

It's not as if I've included the breakdown of the islands entire geographic make-up, population census, and history for the past 10,000 years; I just added 1 simple little word, a pertinent fact if you will, along with a useful link and suddenly MA is under the duress of a whole new fish stink issue.

Whether one chooses to believe it or not, as stated above, it is necessary (and sometimes easier) to use a WP link to a term that defines the basics of a subject, as part of establishing context, without making our site look as if it was devoid of any natural intelligence. It is not "creating canon," it is diverting the topic off to someplace else that can explain what canon does not allow, without making the reader have to sift through multiple links to get from point A to point B.

If one's argument is "well it's not canon." Then what is? It's fool's logic to believe that this is "creating canon", anymore than it is to use internal articles to supplement each other when it was never established that those two terms go together. We certainly don't have any problem coming out from behind ignorance when it comes to abusing that.

Since throwing the example of Typhoid Fever and Osama Bin Laden into this conversation is completely irrelevant to this discussion, and certainly not apples to apples, let's instead look at Scandinavia, as it is essentially comprised of topic and link usage comparable to those used in the above discussion.

Just because we conveniently have links to other references mentioned on that page, Europe, Norway, Iceland, Sweden, Denmark, it is somehow OK to use them to establish context, even if it was never established in dialog, nay, canon, that all of terms went together, like they do in the "real world". If the "issue" here truly about "creating canon," then I should be able to click on any of those above mentioned links and find the same episode cited to those articles as I should to Scandinavia. But as many of you can see, that is not the case, nor should be the case for even referencing Wales here. --Alan del Beccio 19:26, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Compromise, people. I agree with the statement that we shouldn't be more ignorant than necessary. Mentioning Wales if we know that it is a part of Great Britain right now doesn't seem like non-canonical overkill to me (unless it turns out to be because some clown starts to add that sort of information to every paragraph of every article we have in the next five minutes. Don't even think about that).

However, I absolutely don't see the necessity of having an off-site link about that topic, and even less if it is an inline link. Anyone who is interested in real-life Wales while reading an article about Trek Great Britain (for whatever reasons that I don't quite see at the moment), will surely be able to either find that article through the external GB link at the bottom of the page, or use a search engine of his choice for that purpose.

Add to that the fact that this external link is not recognizable as such and takes readers off-site that we probably want to keep here, and I see even less reason for keeping it. In fact, didn't we discuss not using that sort of links in the main article text already? I'm going to remove that link, but keep the mentioning of "Wales" itself. -- Cid Highwind 10:12, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Crikey. I can't help but feel a little responsable, and all I did was almost ask about cheese on toast? Igotbit 23:44, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

British actors

The present list is quite scrappy, and there are some startling omissions. I'm sure that many more British actors have appeared, but these are the ones that I have noticed as missing from the current list:

John Abbott (Ayleborne, TOS: "Errand of Mercy") Joan Collins (Edith Keeler, TOS: "COTEOF"), Ben Cross (Sarek, Star Trek (2008)) John Franklyn-Robbins (Macias, TNG: "Preemptive Strike"), Tom Hardy (Shinzon, Star Trek: Nemesis), Stephen Hawking (himself, TNG: "Descent"), Barrie Ingham (Danilo Odell, TNG: "Up the Long Ladder"), Jill Ireland (Leila Kalomi, TOS: "This Side of Paradise"), Jeremy Kemp (Robert Picard, TNG: "Family"), Basil Langton (Caretaker, VOY: "Caretaker") Christopher Neame (Unferth, VOY: "Heroes and Demons"; ENT: "Storm Front") John Neville (Isaac Newton, TNG: "Descent"), Simon Pegg (Montgomery Scott, Star Trek (2008)), Olaf Pooley (Cleric, VOY: "Blink of an Eye"), Maurice Roeves (Romulan captain, TNG: "The Chase"), Alan Scarfe (Adm. Mendak, TNG: "Data's Day"; Tokath, TNG: "Birthright"; Angris, VOY: "Resistance"), Alexander Siddig (Julian Bashir, DS9), who is of English/Sudanese parentage but was brought up in Britain. Guy Siner (Stuart Reed, ENT: "Silent Enemy"), John Warburton (Centurion, TOS: "Balance of Terror") John Winston (Lt. Kyle, TOS).

Phew! Sorry to just list them, but I don't know how to add the links! catiline63 11:06, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Removed speculation

I removed the following speculation:

• Given the Irish Unification of 2024 (established in TNG: "The High Ground") it could be speculated that the UK would have returned to being called the Kingdom of Great Britain after that date, although more likely name would be the United Kingdom Of Great Britain.

– Cleanse ^{( talk | contribs )} 23:23, November 10, 2010 (UTC)

New link

What is the point of the external link added in the background section? That doesn't seem to be a Star Trek related map, so how is it relevant exactly? -- Capricorn (talk) 16:12, January 30, 2015 (UTC)

Update: the user who originally added this removed this without further comment as to reasoning. -- Capricorn (talk) 13:03, January 31, 2015 (UTC)

Nation state

Why is it always referred to as such? It contains several nations, not one.-RayBell (talk) 14:26, April 19, 2015 (UTC)

I realize the UK is composed of four nations, but it is usually seen as one nation on the international stage, as well as in America(point being that Americans wrote references to it). 31dot (talk) 15:10, April 19, 2015 (UTC)

I guess you could use the same argument for the (former) Soviet Union; it was always treated as one country on the international stage, but many countries made up the union. -- Renegade54 (talk) 15:13, April 19, 2015 (UTC)

You're correct, around half, possibly more Soviets were not Russians. I think there were at least a hundred peoples in the USSR besides Russians. Scots, Welsh and Irish see themselves as other nations, the English usually conflate themselves with "Britain". I'm not sure how, or if, this comes out in Star Trek.

It is a complete nonsense to call Britain or the Soviet Union nation states.-RayBell (talk) 15:18, April 19, 2015 (UTC)

(FYI, keep your indent consistent.) I don't think I would say it's complete nonsense; as defined here. 31dot (talk) 15:25, April 19, 2015 (UTC)

That particular entry, though, specifically defines the UK as a multinational state rather than a nation state. ;) -- Renegade54 (talk) 15:43, April 19, 2015 (UTC)

Point taken. :) 31dot (talk) 15:54, April 19, 2015 (UTC)

Great Britain was specifically called a nation state in Our Man Bashir so we've kinda got no choice but accept that, regarding of how things might work in reality. -- Capricorn (talk) 16:28, April 19, 2015 (UTC)

Northern Ireland

It is mentioned that Northern Ireland is apart of the United Kingdom in this article. Considering that Ireland was reunited in cannon maybe it should mention that Northern Ireland is apart of the United Kingdom in real life and not necessarily in Star Trek. -- 174.30.80.178 04:04, October 3, 2015 (UTC)

Euh, the article doesn't say NI is apart from the UK, it merely notes that NI wasn't mentioned (and thus we can't say much about its star trek status). And NI is not apart from the UK in real life currently. So it's a bit hard to see what point you are making. Could you please clarify? (also when talking about reunification, I really hope you meant canon with one "n", not an actual cannon :p) -- Capricorn (talk) 09:36, October 3, 2015 (UTC)

Page Name

Why is this at the informal description "Old Britain" and not at "Great Britain", which has actually been described as a nationstate? Both terms have been used once as far as I can see. Kennelly (talk) 23:10, March 23, 2018 (UTC)

It has been previously discussed and explained on this talk page, but the reader's digest version is that all "Great Britain" references are in historical pre-21st century context, while the "Old Britain" reference was made during the 23rd century, and is chronologically the most recent (as of pre-Star Trek). Indicating some sort of change in the nomenclature. Even Bashir referred to it as "one of the nation states of this [20th century] era, Great Britain" --Alan (talk) 18:28, December 3, 2018 (UTC)