Timeliner Reclamation Projects

Discussion in 'Trek Literature' started by GHS, Jul 26, 2009.

  1. GHS

    GHS Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    If Pocket books (with the authors' consent) were to make an effort to revise some of the older classic Trek novels to make them consisent with the modern day Trek television series, which of these could be "corrected" with a few dozen wording changes, and which novels are too contradictory at their core to bother even attempting it?

    Final Reflection

    Final Frontier

    Best Destiny

    Federation

    Spock's World

    Rihannsu books I and II

    From what I remember, Federation would probably work, if you accept a big change in Zephram Cochrane's personality after First Contact.

    Final Frontier seems like it's out, since its central concept is starships being introduced for the first time.

    Final Reflection would not work for a number of reasons (differing history of the transporter invention, length of contact between Federation and Klingons, plus the characters don't seem as much Klingon as Cardassian, by modern day standards)
     
  2. teacherkarl

    teacherkarl Lieutenant Junior Grade Red Shirt

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    Whoa, I haven't read Spock's World, Final Frontier, or Best Destiny in about 20 years, and have no specific recollections about them.

    Haven't read the other ones...so, in fact, I really have nothing to add at all!
     
  3. Jbarney

    Jbarney Captain Captain

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    My guess would be that such a project just does not need to happen. I agree with the premise that it would be really cool to make everything fit into one universe, but it does not seem as though this is the direction things are moving. Believe me, I've tried to fit everything in.

    At this point in time I think the major project left hanging out there would be to see how many different trek universes have branched off from the original on screen universe. Massive project, but possible for some group of inspired fans.
     
  4. Hartzilla2007

    Hartzilla2007 Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Not to mention George Kirk already being a command officer around a decade before the novel would take place after adjusting the dates as established in Star Trek (2009)

    Actually a good chunk of treklit today takes place in a shared universe.
     
  5. shanejayell

    shanejayell Captain Captain

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    Well, the latest movie is a totally different time line anyway....
     
  6. Hartzilla2007

    Hartzilla2007 Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Actually it's only a totally different time line AFTER Nero's giant sqiud ship shows up, everything before that is still in the Prime Universe.
     
  7. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    But the movie begins with the arrival of Nero's ship, so yes, the whole movie is in the new timeline.

    If there were a reason to reprint an old Trek novel and it were possible to make a few small tweaks to bring it into line with current canon, that would be reasonable; there's precedent in other books where authors take advantage of reissues to correct textual or factual errors or make other revisions. But if a book's interpretation of the universe is substantially different from modern canon, I think it would be wrong to force major changes upon it just for the sake of consistency. If a story is built upon an alternative interpretation of the Trek universe, that's part of its identity as a creative work and should be allowed to stand. Those alternative interpretations are part of the history of Star Trek as a creative undertaking, and they shouldn't be glossed over out of misguided revisionism. Star Trek has always been and always will be an evolving creation. The assumptions we make about it today will probably be just as invalid 20 years from now as the assumptions of 20 years ago are today. There will never be a single, indisputable "right" version of what the Trek universe is.

    So if we forced works from the past to conform to the current viewpoint, that would just be superimposing one temporary stage of this perpetually evolving creation onto an earlier temporary stage. It wouldn't make the books any more "correct" or any better as stories -- it would just arbitrarily vandalize the creations of the past. Rewriting the past to fit the assumptions of the present is an odious notion. Should we rewrite Jules Verne's novels to correct the scientific inaccuracies? Should we rewrite Shakespeare with modern grammar and usage? There was a Mr. Bowdler who was so famous for rewriting Shakespeare to cut out the "offensive" bits that he actually got his name turned into a verb, but today his efforts are rightly regarded as a crime against literature. If it's wrong to censor fiction for adult content or other "improper" ideas, then it's certainly wrong to censor Trek fiction for "improper" continuity. And let's be honest, that's basically what's being proposed here: censoring content that's considered objectionable on continuity grounds.
     
  8. Hartzilla2007

    Hartzilla2007 Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Yes but George was already Robau's first officer before the movie begins and since the timeline change doesn't occur until after that the Kelvin stuff also took place in the Prime Universe.

    Those are some very good points.
     
  9. GHS

    GHS Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    It would not only be wrong, it would be a pain in the neck for the editor to do.

    Star Trek editors regularly make changes to manuscripts for the purpose of making the time period consistent with what's come before, or to add popular characters, to or add references to episodes or other novels. These are examples of editing for purposes other than improving the writing quality. In other cases, such as in the case of Probe (and other Trek books), there have been total rewrites undertaken against the author's wishes. These were supposedly to address flaws in the quality of the manuscript, which may or may not may make them more justified than the marketing/fanboy motiviations in the prior examples.

    However, in this hypothetical situation, the changes are being done with the authors' cooperation.

    What I'm asking is which of the following books you think A) require a few small tweaks or B) contain a substantially different interpretation of the universe:

    Final Reflection

    Final Frontier

    Best Destiny

    Federation

    Spock's World

    Rihannsu books I and II
     
  10. F. King Daniel

    F. King Daniel Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    IMO rewriting the books would be utterly pointless.

    I love stuff like Final Frontier (and personally see it at what George Kirk 'would have done next' had Nero not arrived, despite a few inconsitancies) and Final Reflection and think rewriting them to appease a small group of OCD Trekkers would be a waste of time and money better spent on new adventures.

    Truth told, it should have been stuff like Enterprise that "conformed" to Final Frontier's pre-TOS take on things, not the other way around.

    I asked a while ago if all the little (and large) inconsitancies in Trek really ruined it for anyone and the majority said "no".

    I perosnally see Trek as more of a mythology then a strict "canon", where different interpretations of that mythology are equally "valid". I also don't see a need for it all to line-up perfectly.
    The fact that modern Trek books reference incompatible stuff like the Kinshaya (from Final Reflection and the Typon Pact) gives me the impression the writers feel similarly.
     
  11. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    All of those are substantially different interpretations, and that's an inseparable part of their charm. They represent the core ideas of Star Trek as filtered through the imaginations of four very distinct creators or creator teams, and each of those authors' sub-universes has its own characteristic voice and charm. They're not just cookie-cutter stories marching in lockstep, but works that reflect the unique imaginations and viewpoints of their authors, as well as reflecting the state of the Trek universe and fanbase at the time these books were written. And that's the way they should be. They should be appreciated as the unique creations that they are. Rewriting them to be consistent with modern canon would just homogenize them and strip them of their identity.
     
  12. Jbarney

    Jbarney Captain Captain

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    The point about energy being put into new projects is valid. Christopher's long term take on the universe is also key. The creative team in charge today may not be the same 5-10 years out, and further contradictions are bound to work their way in at some point as trek progresses.

    Perhaps its about time we started thinking of it as the trek "multi-verse" rather than the trek universe. The movie fully embraced this concept. Some of the comics and novels fit well with the onscreen material in the "prime" universe, others don't. Doesn't mean they are "right" or "wrong", just a different branch of the trek multiverse.

    Christ, after twenty-years of arguing everything had to fit into one timeline I can't believe I just typed those words.
     
  13. Cicero

    Cicero Admiral Admiral

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    I don't think Federation would be hurt by altering a few dates, which, IIRC, were all that made it incompatible with First Contact.
     
  14. GHS

    GHS Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    I didn't get past the first half of Best Destiny, but I don't think it was facing the same hurdles as Final Frontier. I think there were still lines about April's Enterprise being the first starship, but I believe that's the only inconsistency I ran into.
     
  15. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    Oh, they're profoundly different. The book's Cochrane is a hugely different character. The history of Earth is drastically different. In the book, Cochrane goes to Vulcan to make first contact, not the other way around. It's not just "a few dates." As with real history, the dates are merely a superficial aspect of a much deeper, more complex process. The whole flow of 21st-century history in the novel is fundamentally different from what the screen has given us.

    And that's a good thing. Star Trek is a work of fiction, a creative exercise. It's good that different creators have gotten to imagine different versions of particular events. It gives us variety, a range of ideas. It would be less interesting if every event in Trek history were told in only one way, because then we would've been deprived of some imaginative, entertaining stories. It's good that we have multiple tellings of Batman's origin, of Spider-Man's origin, of Jason's quest for the Golden Fleece, of King Arthur's rise and fall, of Dr. Frankenstein's creation of a monster, etc. And it's good that we have multiple tellings of equally legendary events like Cochrane's creation of warp drive, Kirk's first mission aboard the Enterprise, and so on. Each one deserves to be appreciated as its own distinct whole, not treated as though there's something "wrong" with it that needs to be "fixed" just because it's different from something else.
     
  16. Cicero

    Cicero Admiral Admiral

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    Perhaps a few additional minor details, then. (I don't even remember Cochrane's meeting with the Vulcans.) I disagree that the book's Cochrane is a notably different character from the one we saw in First Contact (or the one seen on TOS). I first read the book after the movie was released, and they seemed entirely consistent to me (if one accepts that many of Cochrane's problems in the movie were the result of his fear of first, testing his creation, and second, his suddenly revealed future as a great man.

    I don't agree with you at all, but perhaps that's because I see Star Trek books as extensions of the show, not entities unto themselves. And, to be frank, I don't care particularly about the creative expressions of their authors. Those relevant to your experience as a writer, but not to mine as a reader. I don't enjoy works on a metatextual level; for me, it's either Star Trek or not (perhaps this is why I was taken aback by The Entropy Effect being considered a classic Star Trek novel).
     
  17. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    If you don't care about creative expression, then why do you enjoy fiction at all? I mean, that's what fiction is! This isn't a bloody documentary. Every single bit of Star Trek is the creative expression of one author or another. The whole thing is an amalgam of various different creative expressions, and even the creative expressions that define the unwieldy beast called "canon" are often wildly inconsistent with one another. Star Trek is not and never will be a singular, monolithic thing. It's just been too many different things already.

    And I'm not talking about anything metatextual. The qualities I'm talking about are integral parts of the texts themselves as they were written. Rewrite them to conform to modern continuity and you change the text into a very different text. It's just not the same story. Enjoying the spirit and flavor of the story as it's written is entirely, profoundly relevant to my experience as a reader. It's as a reader that I enjoy the diversity of these books, and I'd be less satisfied as a reader if they were bowdlerized and homogenized and stripped of the things that make them feel the way they do.

    If anything, you're the one who's defining things in metatextual terms, because you're the one saying that texts should be altered to conform to the contents of entirely different texts.
     
  18. Sci

    Sci Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    More like, every single detail, ever. In Federation, Cochrane invents warp drive long before World War III and freely distributes the design throughout Earth and its colony worlds; he is a prominent citizen who is targeted by the international Optimum movement, which itself is responsible for World War III.

    In First Contact, Cochrane is a brilliant but cynical alcoholic motivated by self-interest who doesn't invent warp drive until long after World War III was fought between the United States & its allies and something called the Eastern Coalition (which screenwriter Brannon Braga noted in the FC commentary was originally going to just be called China, and which the novel The Sundered later established to include most of Asia in accordance with Braga's comment) and reduced most of the United States to an anarchic landscape. Earth has no presence outside Earth orbit, if that.

    But there's no evidence that Cochrane's problems in the film were the result of his fear of flying the Phoenix; it's very clear that Cochrane was a hard-drinkin', womanizing, greedy cynic who later changed to become more optimistic after First Contact opened his eyes to, well, the wonder of the world and the potential of humanity. (I've always felt that Cochrane in First Contact was actually based on Gene Roddenberry, actually -- a man with many flaws who nonetheless came to achieve greatness and believe in a better world.)
     
  19. Hartzilla2007

    Hartzilla2007 Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Federation - Cochrane makes first warpflight BEFORE World War III

    First Contact - Cochrane makes first warpflight AFTER World War III

    Federation - World War III doesn't happen untill a considerable amount of time until Cochrane has moved to Alpha Centarui.

    First Contact - World War III has ALREADY HAPPENED.

    Federation - Green ruled a good chunck of the Earth before World War III and this contributed to the war.

    TV Trek - Green didn't show up until the aftermath of WWW III

    I wouldn't consider miss placing the time of a major conflict that killed 6 billion and when a crazy Hitler like dictator show minor details

    Federation in one of it's last 21st century flashbacks has and elderly Cochrane holding I Vulcan artifact which implies that first contact with the Vulcans had occured between Cochrane's Eurpoean run in with the crazy Optimal Movement guy and then.

    First Contact and Enterprise show that Vulcan had been on Earth way before that would have occured.

     
  20. Cicero

    Cicero Admiral Admiral

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    I'm interested in what's created, but am unconcerned with it as a form of expression (except either when writing, or when specifically trying to understand a person, in which case the story is less interesting than the expression).

    Setting aside its non-filmed tie-ins, Star Trek seems essentially cohesive to me. There are errors here and there, and small pieces that don't add up, but they are small pieces of a generally coherent whole, and not particularly important.

    I wouldn't argue that something should be entirely re-written to fit modern dictates (the Rihannsu novels, for instance, would not fit particularly well with modern Star Trek, but are excellent), but that details not important to the story could be changed slightly to better fit. In Federation, specifically, a great deal of the content of the novel fits very easily into modern Star Trek's version of mid 21st Century events. There's no reason to assume that Earth was immediately peaceful after the Vulcans arrived - Enterprise even slightly suggests otherwise in one episode. There's not even reason to conclude that Earth suffered only one nuclear exchange during the period surrounding the Third World War. We know that the United States survived, and it appears that Britain did (though the Royal Navy is never specified as the British Royal Navy; technically, it could even be the French La Royale), but we don't know much else about what happened during those years.

    As a reader, I don't consider the diversity of books I read, just as I don't consider that of persons I meet, places I travel - really of anything I encounter. I enjoy each work as what it is, but don't so much consider that as immerse myself in it.

    It's interesting that it sounds like you read with a parallel unimmersed train while you read stories - like you consider their context and history within the real world while reading them for story enjoyment. I've noticed a similiar affinity for non-immersive aspects in your writing (which has, unfortunately, often drawn me out of feeling connected to the stories). It's a very different approach to mine, and one that offers a significantly different experience for the reader. I tend to read stories either in real-world mode or immersed mode (occasionally taking a break from the latter when something in a book provokes an interesting thought about the real world); when reading them in immersed mode, I consider stories as though they're actual accounts of events in other places and times.

    I refering specifically to your experience as a reader, in which outside information about the book is relevant to your enjoyment of the story. I wouldn't consider this situation at all while reading a novel for enjoyment.