I am thinking up an entirely self-promotional novella about my Vulcan origins. It takes place during the movie era when Sulu is a Captain. Aside from TUC is there any indication in novels or popular fan lit of who the crew was, and where any of the TOS characters were? I'm not asking you to do my research for me, and will be wiling to buy and read the original sources if you can point me in the right directions.
Try Memory Beta. http://startrek.wikia.com/wiki/USS_Excelsior_%28NCC-2000%29#USS_Excelsior_personnel There is an excellent book Forged in Fire by Andy Mangels and Mike Martin.
you may want to watch the Voyager episode in which the Excelsior crew was shown in a little more detail than in TUC tuvok was on the excelsior prior to that movie and shortly resigned, i dont remember what was said about how long he was on after that event
Sulu's Excelsior is also featured in The Captain's Daughter by Peter David. The Captain Sulu Adventures audiobooks are also available these days in in iPod and MP3 formats. Go to http://www.audible.com and search for "George Takei" to find them quickly.
Here's my $0.02: Using the books as well as the episodes, the Number One roster under Sulu is as follows: Commander Meredith Cutler: For Forged in Fire, and a brief time after. Commander Chekov: Briefly in 2290 (War Dragons), than returned to stay sometime after Captain's Daughter, probably around 2294. For an unspecified length of time, Lt. Valtaine's brother, Masoud Valtaine, served as first officer --sometime after War Dragons, up to before Captain's Daughter. He was noted to have left because "the crew never warmed up to him". Trivia note: Masaoud was the man we saw at the end of TUC, even though Dimitri died beforehand! Shortly after TUC, when Cmdr. Valtaine was on leave, a Vulcan, Commander Sencus, briefly served as first officer (Fearful Summons). During and sometime after Captain's Daughter, there was a female first officer whose name currently escapes me.... She probably served as number one until Chekov. As for the rest of the crew... the Memory Beta team has this down. Nonetheless, (and my apologies to Beta...) they mistakenly ignore the existence of Masoud, and incorrectly put Dimitri Valtaine on the list of first officers, even though his characterization in "Flashback" does not fit the characterization of Masoud in the novels.
It was one of the first Trek novels I read so I had no benchmark for it, and I quite enjoyed it. Obviously I know better, now.
Um... didn't Fearful Summons come out before "Flashback" ? Did the book actually say Masoud was Valtane's brother? If not, isn't it simply more reasonable to assume that Dimitri survived transferring the memory virus just as Janeway and Tuvok did?
This whole Masoud-being-Dmitri's-brother thing is something Limborg just made up. The Fearful Summons says that Valtane's first name is "Masoud" because "Flashback" had not yet established "Dmitri".
Not if the book says "Masoud", and the episode says "Dimitri". And actually, the old Encyclopedia DOES offer the possibility that the one we see at the end of TUC is Dimitri's brother. And also, notice the characterization of Masoud, described in Captain's Daughter and portrayed in the TUC and Generations novelizations. He's described as being cold and rigid, at times Vulcan-like. In fact, he left, according to Sulu, because "The crew never warmed up to him." In "Flashback", Dimitri seems pretty easygoing, even chiding Tuvok for not "loosening up a little". Of course, none of the authors of the old Excelsior books knew that Valtaine, or any of the crew, would appear again to be developed further. Still, the simplest way to rationalize these contradictions, IMHO, would be to say that "Masoud" is Dimitri's older brother. By the way... in Fearful Summons, Masoud is said to be on leave. Perhaps he was mourning his brother's death?
Guilty as charged, Mr. Mollmann --although I was partially inspired by the suggestion from the Encyclopedia. Memory Beta chooses the alternate explanation --that Tuvok's memory was corrupted. However, this does not take into account the off characterization in the earlier books --and the different name.
Not to be mean or anything but I think it's being taken into account as having been overwritten by the canon. The the first Starfleet Academy book, written by Peter David, first showed us Worf's brother "Simon", but when he shows up later in an episode his name is Nikolai. Are we to think Worf has two brothers then because their characterizations are different between the book and the episode? Also the name Masoud never appears in The Captain's Daughter.
Memory Beta's policy is to note and list discrepencies not to resolve or "explain" them (though, being a Wiki, compliance with policy isn't always 100%). In this case, since "Massoud" clearly referred to the same character later named as Dimitri, the name discrepancy was noted.
Not really. We can just say that he changed his name, for one reason or other. Or maybe one name was his nickname. After all, C.S. Lewis was "Jack" to his friends.... And actually, I think the characterization was pretty consistent. In David's book, the discipline and workload of Starfleet drives Simon/Nikolai nuts. By the time of the episode, he's decided to seek his own, insubordinate path. Yes it does. Just before Sulu takes the shuttle down to Askelon, Anik (That's her name! Thanks, guys!) says something like, "I'm glad I got this job, sir. When your previous number one transferred..." Sulu nods, "Masoud was a great officer, but the crew never warmed up to him." Noted and logged. Meanwhile, it is up to us writers to explain away, amen?
My copy agrees with foravalon's rendering of the text -- Valtane, not Masoud. And it's a first printing. I can't imagine there would've been any reason why anyone would've changed it to make it consistent with The Fearful Summons. Indeed, there's no reason I'm aware of why the text would've ever been re-edited in any way, just reprinted.