After Romulus

[JD]

Christopher wrote:

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And currently IDW only has TOS and TNG (and Abramsverse) licenses so they can't do a DS9, VGR, or ENT comic (though they have slipped in references or characters from those on occasion).

Did they let the DS9 contract lapse after their one DS9 miniseries didn't do well?

[Christopher]

^Apparently.

[E-DUB]

My fear is that once that date is reached, they'll have to stop publishing Trek books entirely as that timeline will no longer exist.

[JoeZhang]

rfmcdpei wrote:

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The Powers That Be may well want to avoid contradicting the various tie-in comics and instead focus on the scene away from the events directly depicted. The evacuation of Vulcan, chaos elsewhere in Romulan space, and like affairs may be shown.

I cannot remember an evacuation of Vulcan in the tie-in material? Really all that needs to be mentioned is that the planet went boom! The reasons why can stay unknown.

[JWolf]

DonIago wrote:

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I suppose there could always be a DTI novel that references the fact that in an alternate timeline Romulus was destroyed.

If that happened, that would totally spoil Star Trek. I'm sorry, but it happened in the prime universe. Not some alternate universe. So the books should be depicting the destruction of Romulus. While Pocket's main Trek line is not allowed to play in the alternate universe, this is not an event that took place in some alternate universe. The books don't have to pander to Countdown. But Romulus getting destroyed is something that has to happen.

[King Daniel]

JWolf wrote:

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If that happened, that would totally spoil Star Trek. I'm sorry, but it happened in the prime universe. Not some alternate universe. So the books should be depicting the destruction of Romulus. While Pocket's main Trek line is not allowed to play in the alternate universe, this is not an event that took place in some alternate universe. The books don't have to pander to Countdown. But Romulus getting destroyed is something that has to happen.

Indeed. I'm fine with alternate continuites etc. but one of my favourite things about Trek tie-ins is how they keep having to adapt to fit the TV/film continuity. Whether it's DC comics' big reset in "The Doomsday Bug" to set up The Voyage Home, or the more subtle things like early post-DS9 Andorians finding the station uncomfortably cold having to be fudged when Enterprise visited Andoria, which they envisioned as an icy moon, it's an element of Trek that fascinates me.

I'd survive if the 2387 supernova was only vaguely alluded to in passing (which is what I suspect will happen), but I would be annoyed if the novelverse ignored events of the movie althogether (which is unlikely since they've already included several easter egg references to it)

[Ronald Held]

No reason not to acknowledgeethe destruction of several beta quadrant systems without mentioning Nero.

[Mr. Laser Beam]

E-DUB wrote:

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My fear is that once that date is reached, they'll have to stop publishing Trek books entirely as that timeline will no longer exist.

Which is of course not the case. Remember, in Countdown the timeline continued even after Nero and Spock vanished. No one knows where they went. But the prime timeline continues. No reason why it can't.

[Mage]

Mr. Laser Beam wrote:

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Which is of course not the case. Remember, in Countdown the timeline continued even after Nero and Spock vanished. No one knows where they went. But the prime timeline continues. No reason why it can't.

Exactly. It's established in Star Trek XI that THEY are the alternate timeline. So, if Pocket is legally allowed to do novels featuring the Hobus Nova and the destruction of Romulus, they can do novels set after that dealing with the effects that it will have on the late 24th century.

[Freman]

I agree with JWolf.

[RPJOB]

Mage wrote:

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Exactly. It's established in Star Trek XI that THEY are the alternate timeline. So, if Pocket is legally allowed to do novels featuring the Hobus Nova and the destruction of Romulus, they can do novels set after that dealing with the effects that it will have on the late 24th century.

There's nothing in the movie that explicitly states that the prime universe is still there. An alternate universe can also be one that is changed from what was previously there. They know SOMETHING has changed but don't know if it was over-written like in COTEOF or a new branch off an existing timeline.

It can be taken either way.

[Freman]

Pretty sure they said in the movie that the timeline split off from the original one, not overwrote it.

Regardless, the Powers That Be have stated multiple times that the original timeline is still intact, so it is.

[King Daniel]

I'm pretty sure E-DUB was joking. I thought it was pretty funny. Could you imagine it?

...and then, it's engines straining futileley against the instense gravimetric forces, Ambassador Spock's ship was sucked into the black ho--

*last few pages left blank for dramatic effect*











Anywho, for those of you taking it seriously, Watching the Clock firmly established that the novelverse will survive beyond the prime-verse events JJ's first Trek movie.

[Christopher]

I'll never understand fans who think the original timeline was overwritten. I think some people forget that this is all just made up. The rules are whatever the storytellers want them to be. And no storyteller is going to want to say that the Star Trek we've been fans of for 45 years has somehow "ceased to exist." The whole reason Abrams & co. created the alternate timeline in the first place was because they wanted to leave the old timeline intact and unaltered. (Also because they're using plausible, informed physics in which different timelines always coexist rather than overwriting each other.)

Not to mention that, since it is all just a bunch of stories anyway, those stories aren't going anywhere. As long as you can still watch the episodes and movies and read the old books, nothing's been "erased."

[RPJOB]

I'm speaking of the prime universe being overwritten from the point of view of the characters Christopher. I'm simply pointing out that there's nothing in the phasing used in the movie that says definitively one way or the other. No ret-con would be needed if, for whatever reason, TPTB decided that the prime universe was overwritten as it was in City on the Edge of Forever or First Contact. In those cases it was restored but we aren't sure one way or the other of that is the case this time. As we'll probably never see the canon version of the prime universe again it doesn't matter if it has been overwritten or not. You choose to say that it wasn't. I prefer to think that it's possible that it was. Not that it was, just that it's possible.