Star Trek Vanguard: The Finale Thread (SPOILERS)

[T'Bonz]

I am just catching up on it now, and have book 8 on order. I've been reading a book a day and am HOOKED.

Really loving this series, which has interesting characters who make it worthwhile to stay up way too late at night reading the books in which they're contained.

I'm a big fan of T'Prynne and Fisher, and Quinn makes me laugh.

[Ian Keldon]

CommodoreNero wrote:

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What really drew me to this series was how truly real, it felt. There's always been a bit of an antiseptic unreality attached to Star Trek and how it really never feels like it could grow out of our world. The Vanguard characters really seem like real people. How they speak, what they do, how they interact... It all seems perfectly realized.

And, I would love to see a movie version, if only to see Ms. Karume cast.

Agreed.

I think OCs feel more "real" because novel OCs aren't subject to "keeping it canon". They don't have to conform to characters built according to the needs and rules of television or movies, which have unspoken (and often spoken) limitations placed upon them by the studios.

[shanejayell]

And of course OCs can die. Unlike Kirk etc etc....

[Christopher]

shanejayell wrote:

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And of course OCs can die. Unlike Kirk etc etc....

Yeah, because the books would never be allowed to kill off a canonical character like Janeway or Shakaar or Mr. Homn or... hey, wait a minute...

[Ian Keldon]

Christopher wrote:

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Yeah, because the books would never be allowed to kill off a canonical character like Janeway or Shakaar or Mr. Homn or... hey, wait a minute...

Shakaar and Mr Homn are walk-ons at best.

Janeway is one I'll give you, but she's the exception to the rule. Characters from "dead" franchises are not as immune as "active" ones

If you're writing Kirk, or Spock, or McCoy and so on you know you can't kill, cripple or otherwise hurt them nor can you permanently marry them off, retire or otherwise make changes in their status quo.

[Christopher]

Ian Keldon wrote:

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Shakaar and Mr Homn are walk-ons at best.

I guess you didn't follow the link to the thread about the many canonical characters who've been killed off in Trek Lit, including other fairly big ones. And no, Shakaar was not a "walk-on," he was a major guest star in three episodes (one of them named for him), was referenced in multiple others, was a pivotal figure in Kira's past, and was the ruler of his entire planet.

Janeway is one I'll give you, but she's the exception to the rule. Characters from "dead" franchises are not as immune as "active" ones

The last time any Prime-universe series was "active" was -- wow -- nearly seven years ago now. Everything is equally inactive except the Abramsverse, which has no presence at Pocket except in the young-adult books.

So no, Janeway is not the exception to the rule, she's the illustration that the old rules no longer apply. CBS Licensing is no longer watching over the books and saying we can't make this major change or that major change. Except where the Abramsverse is concerned, the novels these days pretty much have carte blanche; as long as we don't contradict canon, there's no problem with making major changes, because there aren't going to be any new films or shows in the Prime timeline in the foreseeable future.

If you're writing Kirk, or Spock, or McCoy and so on you know you can't kill, cripple or otherwise hurt them nor can you permanently marry them off, retire or otherwise make changes in their status quo.

Depends on the book. If you follow that link I posted previously, and don't mind spoilers, you'll find that two novels have depicted the deaths of lead TOS characters, though only one is in the main Pocket continuity. And Spock was permanently married to Saavik in the novels years ago, although that's in keeping with canon because "Sarek" established that Picard had met Sarek at his son's wedding.

[Ian Keldon]

Christopher wrote:

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I guess you didn't follow the link to the thread about the many canonical characters who've been killed off in Trek Lit, including other fairly big ones. And no, Shakaar was not a "walk-on," he was a major guest star in three episodes (one of them named for him), was referenced in multiple others, was a pivotal figure in Kira's past, and was the ruler of his entire planet.

Sorry, Christopher, but I'm not buying it. As a character, he's at best a "recurring guest star", not a series lead. The only mention I saw in the thread you linked that was a series lead (title character) was McCoy, and I'm presuming it was "old McCoy" from the 24th century. Killing McCoy (or Spock, et al) in the 23rd century (and having it 'stick' might be another story.

The last time any Prime-universe series was "active" was -- wow -- nearly seven years ago now. Everything is equally inactive except the Abramsverse, which has no presence at Pocket except in the young-adult books.

So we can expect a book showing the death of, say, one or more of the TOS characters BEFORE their scheduled demises when, exactly?

So no, Janeway is not the exception to the rule, she's the illustration that the old rules no longer apply. CBS Licensing is no longer watching over the books and saying we can't make this major change or that major change. Except where the Abramsverse is concerned, the novels these days pretty much have carte blanche; as long as we don't contradict canon, there's no problem with making major changes, because there aren't going to be any new films or shows in the Prime timeline in the foreseeable future.

There, you just admitted it. You can't "contradict canon". So they have "script immunity" for any point save going forward from Nemesis on. That makes, for example, the TOS line featuring the Enterprise and her crew virtually locked in as far as storytelling goes.

Not so with OC characters, which was the point I was originally making. You can do virtually anything you want with OCs, since they have no inbuilt expectation of "script immunity" on the readers' part.

[Turtletrekker]

What about poor Scotty?

[Christopher]

Ian Keldon wrote:

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The only mention I saw in the thread you linked that was a series lead (title character) was McCoy, and I'm presuming it was "old McCoy" from the 24th century. Killing McCoy (or Spock, et al) in the 23rd century (and having it 'stick' might be another story.

Well, obviously not, because we know he's still alive in "Encounter at Farpoint."

So we can expect a book showing the death of, say, one or more of the TOS characters BEFORE their scheduled demises when, exactly?
...
There, you just admitted it. You can't "contradict canon". So they have "script immunity" for any point save going forward from Nemesis on. That makes, for example, the TOS line featuring the Enterprise and her crew virtually locked in as far as storytelling goes.

There's nothing to "admit," because it's hardly a secret. Every tie-in in every franchise is obligated to stay consistent with that franchise's established canon. You might as well say I "admitted" that gravity makes things fall down or that water is wet. The only way you'll get a character death that contradicts established canon is in something overtly marked as an alternate universe, such as under the Myriad Universes banner.

But the point is that it's irrelevant to the current novels, because just about everything we do these days is set after the ends of the various series. That's why Janeway isn't an exception. The books have been free to make major changes in the lives of canonical TNG, DS9, VGR, and ENT characters, and if a story came along that featured the death of Picard or Kira or the like, it would probably have no more difficulty getting approved than the story of Janeway's death.

If anything, the exception is the TOS setting that you're mistakenly treating as the rule. TOS is the only series in which the current books are usually set during the canonical run. Everything else has been advanced beyond the endpoint of what canon says about the characters' fates, so we have free rein with the majority of Trek characters.

[shanejayell]

I also assume it's easier to knock off OCs because it doesn'y interfere with other writers plans. If Chris wants Ben Sisko to die in a blaze of glory but David also has a Sisko novel in the works, Sisko ain't dying. *lol*

[David Mack]

^ Part of the problem is this obsession with killing off characters. There's more to life than death; there are more interesting ways to alter the status quo of characters' lives and their fictional universe than destroying them.

[Christopher]

What Dave said. Death is not the only meaningful way to change a character; it's just the most bluntly obvious way. Using it as some kind of benchmark for creative freedom is superficial and lazy.

I mean, in the novels in recent years, Riker and Troi have had a daughter, and Picard and Crusher have married and had a son. Those are profound, life-changing events, just as much as a death, but far more positive. So why doesn't that get just as much attention as what happened to Janeway?

[shanejayell]

David Mack wrote:

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^ Part of the problem is this obsession with killing off characters. There's more to life than death; there are more interesting ways to alter the status quo of characters' lives and their fictional universe than destroying them.

This from the guy who wrote Star Trek Destiny?



Getting (sorta) back on topic, I do think the possibility of character deaths has made the series more exciting than some other Trek works.

[Hartzilla2007]

Well its been a wild ride can't wait to see how it all ends.

[Sci]

shanejayell wrote:

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This from the guy who wrote Star Trek Destiny?

I'm not sure what's funny. He didn't say that death is not an interesting way to alter the status quo of a character's life, just that there are other ways that can be more interesting. He was saying, in other words, that killing a character off is only one tool in writing an interesting story about them, not the be-all, end-all.