TOS s2e15 “The Trouble with Tribbles”
It’s any wonder there wasn’t a second Klingon/Federation major conflict prior to the Dominion’s presence after Scotty transported the mass of tribbles from the Enterprise onto the outgoing Bird of Prey right before warping away. But hey, gotta end it on a light-hearted moment.
I thought that was canon.
It wouldn’t be the first time the creators adopted a fan theory and made it canon.
A fan told Arthur C. Clarke that the ratio of the sides of the 2001 monolith was 1 : 4 : 9, the squares of the first three numbers. Clarke liked it so much he added it to his next book.
Furthermore. Originally the monolith was supposed to be a glowing gem. They’d drawn dozens of storyboards with the gem, but they couldn’t make it look right. The covered all the gems in the storyboards with black tape, a visual TBD. Someone looked at the black rectangles and had an idea…