Shore Leave

Did any of the authors/editors make any mention about the fate of Romulas? Will the books ignore what happens in Nu Star Trek and continue on or work it into upcoming stories?

Chronologically we're getting very close to that event!

 

I was hoping that we could just ignore it, but more than likely it will become a thing.

The only real concern I have is that now that Nan Bacco's been deep-sixed is that we've only got Garak, Martok, Gell Kamemor, Sozzerozs, & Rom holding Galactic politics together. And of those, Gell Kamemor is the closest to Bacco in style. I'm still shocked by what happened considering her mention of being so important to future history, but I guess she laid the groundwork for all of those other Galactic Empires to eventually partner/ally with the Federation in the future.

 

There's no choice whatsoever.

Contractually, tie-ins must follow on screen canon.

 

Touché.


I've said this before though, I decided upon this avatar because of Daniel Craig's impressive soup catcher, the caption in the fake magazine is just icing on the cake.



I wouldn't use the avatar as an "official" photograph to represent myself and as I said, some of those photos, especially one comes across as downright dodgy!

 

One, this is not social media and if I ever did anything to need a negative news story, they wouldn't find anything here.

Two, I don't have the photo on any of the locations that I do use for social media. I've used the avatar on and off for years, I like it, others have told me that they like it and to be honest, if someone doesn't, it's really not my problem.

 

Actually yes, that was asked at one of the panels I attended, with David, Dayton, Kevin, Kirsten, and Christopher there (if I remember correctly).

They said that every time that topic has come up, they've pretty much all said "let's not talk about that yet". There's potentially an issue where all of the nuTrek licensing is handled by different people than the Trek Prime licensing, with almost no crossover, so using the supernova and Spock's storyline from the film might be more complicated than we think. So: the situation is not as clear-cut as we've often posted about on here.

Regarding the rapid advancement of time, Dayton did mention he'd been talking with Margaret Clark about slowing down the pace of stories. He sort of made that point as a transition from one topic to another, so I don't know if he was saying she'd agreed or just that they'd discussed it, but it does look like the pace is slowing. The January 2015 book (The Missing) seems to follow right after the January 2014 book (the finale of The Fall), and that's been unusual the last few years. Usually, it's been about one Trek year per calendar year.

(In case you're curious about that: The books in 2009 all took place in 2381. The Typhon Pact miniseries, from 2010, took place in 2382. In 2011, the books stayed in 2382 or earlier, but then in 2012, Plagues/Raise took us through 2383, and Cold Equations was 2384. Then, 2013, The Fall jumped all the way to the end of 2385, for some reason.)

But over the next couple years, it does look like, potentially, the line is slowing down a bit; certainly, for the first time in a while, 2014 doesn't contain any big events that move the timeline forward by a year. The only book that's been published so far this year that moved the timeline forward was Light Fantastic, which took place immediately after The Fall, still in 2385.

 

Thanks for the information, Thrawn. It's definitely appreciated.

Personally, while it would be nice to take a slower and more immersive approach for a while (the DS9 relaunch is so successful partly because it fills in the entire year at a regular pace), I hope that we don't end up dragging feet in an effort not to get to 2387. Being prevented from pushing forward by uncertainty as to how to approach Hobus is no better than leaping forward out of a sense that it has to be dealt with as soon as possible. I guess I don't want the 2387 question to unduly influence decisions regarding the Trek lit line either way.

 

Thrawn's recollection of the panel discussion meshes pretty well with my own, except I think he's being optimistic about the chances of resolving the licensing issue with Paramount/Bad Robot. I recall someone (Dayton?) using the phrase "never the twain shall meet." I surmise that whatever license allowed Simon Spotlight to publish the YA Starfleet Academy novels has expired.

I actually asked the other panelists about the swift pace -- I've long found it odd that the books were rushing forward when it was necessary to avoid dealing with the 2387 events of the film -- and they mentioned that they were planning to slow it down now. Not only because of the licensing issue, but because the characters are getting older; as of 2385, Picard is 80 years old, which isn't so bad for a 24th-century human, but still getting up there. Granted, that kind of leaves the books stuck in 2386 and part of '87 (we don't know when in the year the supernova happened) for the foreseeable future. But that's doable; the DS9 post-finale novels took five years to get through 2376. And Voyager is still back in late '81 or early '82.

 

Well, as a fan it would not bother me in the least to ignore NuTrek and the whole 2387 thing. I have enjoyed the movies but there is enough difference in them that to me they do not belong as part of official Star Trek lore. I see them as I see the Shatnerverse.

 

^Well, how you see them has no bearing on what the official licensors are able to do or would choose to do. Any one fan's personal tastes aside, the films are actual canon as much as any other show (and note that every Trek show has its detractors and that has never had any bearing on their canon status). So I doubt Pocket could just pretend the movie never happened.

By analogy, Tokyopop Comics only had the license to do TOS and TNG comics, but that didn't mean they were free to contradict DS9, VGR, or ENT. Trek tie-ins need to respect screen canon, even if they can't openly use all of it.

Although the suggestion was made at the panel that the books could establish themselves as an alternate timeline from the one the movie's Spock Prime came from. But since screen content defines canon, that would require declaring the books a secondary timeline, essentially one big Myriad Universes saga. And it was just a hypothetical suggestion, so it doesn't mean they're actually going to do that.

 

^ Oh I agree, it was all just my opinion. Given that the screen canon contradicts itself does allow for one to dream.....

 

This is all welcome news to me. I've been unhappy about the rapid pace of the books chronology since the end of Destiny. If the authors and Margaret now have a reason to slow down, I think it will end up effecting the storylines and character development in a positive way. And if this licencing issue drags on for too long, I would absolutely love for some books to go back and fill in some of that skipped over time since Destiny. And this would be the perfect opportunity to tell the Ascendants storyline. Not to mention the opportunity for Voyager's slower (better) pace to create less of a difference

 

I agree. It feels like we fast-forwarded through a lot of time where some Titan or Aventine adventures would've been welcome.

 

I like the idea of slowing down too. I found it odd that they placed The Fall in the last 1/4 of 2385, when so much of 2384, as well as the beginning of 2385, hadn't been touched yet. Hopefully we'll get a tale or two set in that time to help fill it out.

Voyager's pace has been great! At first I wanted it to move faster and stay current with the other 24th century books, but now I look at the slower pace as a virtue. Hopefully Kirsten doesn't get to 2385 and beyond for a few more years at least

 

I think slowing down is a good idea, there is a lot to explore in this universe right now. Lets focus on the series again, DS9, TNG, Titan, Aventine and Voy. Each one of these has things I want to know about, especially DS9 which I hope to see Sisko connected to again somehow.

 

You should come by more often T'Bonz!

 

It might not be a bad idea to do that, though -- to preemptively declare the "Destiny continuity" (for want of a better name) to be an alternate timeline to the canonical Prime Timeline, if there's ever a concern about the ability to continue telling stories in that continuity if future canonical productions contradict or invalidate that continuity. It would, for instance, allow the Destiny continuity to continue having new stories told even afterwards -- thus avoiding the fate of the Star Wars Expanded Universe post-Episode VII.

As for licensing problems with the Hobus storyline...

... even if Pocket can't do that story itself, surely it would be possible to do stories depicting the immediate ramifications of the fall of Romulus?

 

I think they were constrained by what earlier books had established about the time it would take to build the new DS9.