Sure, and "Immortal Coil" cleverly manages never to describe the three prototypes that Juliana had actually met, even though they were in the background of scenes in "Immortal Coil". These three prototypes may well have been barely recognizable as humanesque robotic forms. (Playmates put a little non-canonical plastic robot/android in as an accessory for their Dr Soong action figure.) In any case, we know that Julia had met three prototypes before Lore, IC mentioned Data having located them and storing them, and "Nemesis" showed that Soong had created at least one other. I imagine more work would have been spent getting just the brain right. It's rather weird how often the entire android body is put aside just because the positronic brain wasn't functioning correctly. Or, Soong could have gave himself a countdown to perfection, starting with beta test models B-4 ("before"), then B-3, B-2, B-1, and resorting to "Lore", who turned out to be a disaster and then "Data" when he'd run out of numbered designations. With so little canonical information a lot of possibilities are there. Thankfully, the revised script for "Nemesis" ditched the previous name of "B-9" ("benign").
Hey, David only said that the events of the comic wouldn't come to pass. And given the terribad "uh, b4 got enough intelligence to apparently decide to sacrifice himself to let data return", or whatever it was way countdown went about it, I should hope not. Just to keep you in a state of terrified anticipation
^ Tasha Yar and the bizarre situation on Turkana IV needs a book beyond what Jean Lorrah covered in the 80's.
Sure. That in itself doesn't preclude the possibility that he was the fourth prototype of six: B-4 did demonstrate reasonably advanced language and cognition skills, and it's imaginable that the previous three were significantly less functional. LOL!
It's worth noting that the STO history doesn't diverge overly from Treklit. The Needs of the Many, for instance, cites pressure from the Gorns' various allies--the Romulans, Tzenkethi, Breen, Tholians, and Kinshaya, i.e. the other Typhon Pact polities in the main Treklitverse--as key in preventing an early outbreak of Gorn-Klingon war. As for incorporating the events of Countdown, well, what we glimpsed there is but the tip of the iceberg. How much did we really see of the broader astropolitical background?
Sure, the folks who make STO have borrowed some concepts from Trek Lit, just as they've borrowed concepts from a lot of other sources. But they've also blatantly contradicted a lot of Trek Lit continuity, particularly where DS9 and VGR are concerned.
Which is as it should be. As for STO not diverging overly from TrekLit - I thought that the Destiny trilogy didn't happen?
Yeah, the continued presence of the Borg in ST:O is the most outstanding divergence between the continuities.
Which, you know, as much as I love and prefer the litverse, is completely understandable. They couldn't make a big-budget video game title designed to appeal to the masses (and specifically released to come shortly after the release of the Abrams film), and not only have it not include one of the franchise's most popular villains, but have it be something that happened a while back in some books that most of their players will never read. Its unfortunate, but that's marketing for ya. I greatly enjoy STO, but not for the plot. Its a sandbox that I use to fly around and blow stuff up.
^Right. The game and the novels have different needs and somewhat different audiences, so it only makes sense for them to strike different courses.
Blurbs for all three novels are now up at the Simon & Schuster website (the one for the third book went up first, a few days ago):