When Will the Novels Catch Up the Events Preceding the Reboot?

^Correct, although it's never been made clear how certain situations (V'Ger) were addressed in Spock's absence, given that he played such a pivotal role in those events. IIRC, the prologue for The Chimes at Madnight is set in 2274, which would place it at least several months after V'Ger.

--Sran

 

I will amend my post to reflect that.

I have to wonder, though, in Chapter 1 of The Chimes at Midnight, Thelin doesn't show any recognition whatsoever when Sarek explains that David Marcus reminds him of the Hellguard evacuees and of Spock. Too bad Geoff Trowbridge is no longer active on this board. It would sure be useful to get some author insight from him.

 

Someone asked this at Shore Leave last year, and Dayton Ward basically said that no one had any idea what the plan was, but that he felt it was good that after The Fall the chronological pace was slowing down so the novels wouldn't reach it very soon. He said nothing at all about any contractual issues or any particular difficulties, just that no one had a plan for it.

 

Unless you are referring to the cancelled novels that were to be set between 2009 and Into Darkness, the recent novels have used bits and pieces from those movies, albeit, adapted to fit into the Gene Roddenberry universe, since the Enterprise novels take place before the split, while the other books past the split have mentioned bits and pieces about species that we only saw in the movies.

But I'm pretty sure that the movie also made it pretty clear that Romulus and Remus were destroyed, which was the main reason behind Nero's anger. Christopher Pike even mentions that in 2256 Romulus was still around, and that Nero must've been mistaken that Romulus was destroyed, but then Nero says that he saw his wife and daughter and Romulus die.

 

As far as I understand it, the novels must (contractually) adhere to on screen canon, so the supernova happens, and Spock is lost. However, Bad Robot will not license any further fiction from their movies, so the novels cannot reference that.

It's straightforward enough leading up to the event - stories about Spock, reunification etc. can proceed right up to the point Fosters novelisation takes over and covers the events in the prime continuity from the start of the film.

I'm really not sure how they will carry on after that however. How do you write in a Trek universe where Romulus and it's system has been destroyed and the populations and characters killed or evacuated without referring to the events of the film ?

Even having the Romulan government on another planet following a disaster is referring indirectly to the events of the film.

 

Forget the made-up science for a bit - The reason is because us long-term fans were over the moon to see *our* Spock again and if the books were suddenly to say "oh that was some other dude" I would be afraid the collective eye-roll would pull the moon out of orbit.

 

I'm not sure what you're getting at here. Romulus was destroyed in 2387. Nero captured Pike in 2256--before the date of Romulus' destruction. Pike wouldn't have known about an event that hadn't happened yet; therefore, there would be no reason for him to believe Nero's story.

There are ways of phrasing things creatively enough to avoid crossing any legal lines. In any event, it's not as though everything in the Star Trek universe revolves around Romulus; plenty of novels dealing with other subjects could still be written.

--Sran

 

That's not Bad Robot's call. Paramount owns the Trek license for the movies, and overall, CBS owns the Trek copyright. Bad Robot is just a production company on the films, not the licensor.

But considering that IDW and other tie-in companies are able to create stories in between the movies (i.e the company behind the Star Trek video game) its most likely a choice by Pocket not to spend anymore money.

Also in the movie Nero mentions seeing Romulus destroyed (in 2387), but then Pike mentions that Romulus still exists (in 2256) and tries to tell Nero that he was mental..

 

Not sure that how that is relevant? As pointed out above - from Pike's point of view none of that has happened - however the movie does not set this up as a point of debate or make this ambiguous. Indeed, Later Spock explicitly states that "The supernova destroyed Romulus".

 

Good grief... is someone actually trying to argue that a character's lack of knowledge about something that wouldn't happen for another 130 years is proof that it didn't happen? So, if I wrote a story in which Napoleon didn't know World War II was going to happen, would that mean it didn't happen?

 

JJ and Co. nixed the four JJverse novels that had already been written for release after the first film. They clearly have the say on what gets released. They also 'approved' the release of the comics so had control there too.

 

I'm pretty sure that's not what happened. CBS has the final say over the tie-ins. In fact, there was a report a few years ago -- though I don't know if it's true -- alleging that Bad Robot tried to get CBS to stop publishing non-Abramsverse tie-ins altogether (to avoid confusing the readers, or something) but was refused. Which would mean that Bad Robot does not have the say there, if it's true. Even if that particular story isn't true, Bad Robot and Paramount Pictures are merely licensing the property from CBS, so it doesn't seem likely that they could override CBS.

There are conflicting stories and claims, and even I (who wrote one of the novels) don't know who specifically was responsible for the novels' cancellation or what the reasons were. There are a lot of fans out there who believe they know the reason, but all they really have is conjecture.

They have a copyright on tie-ins based on their movies, which they share with CBS, who owns the property as a whole including the new movies. So I'd say that Bad Robot would have approval over Abramsverse tie-ins, yes, but CBS has the ultimate control over all of it.

 

To be honest, I'm not sure what he was arguing but thought it worth addressing because the implication of his statement was ludicrous. In any case, I don't necessarily believe that Romulus' destruction has to be hashed out in every detail in order for readers of future novels to believe that it happened in the primary universe.

As I said earlier, I think it's possible to make a general statement about an incident in Romulan space that would suffice--in the event that legal restrictions preclude a discussion of the Hobus supernova or Spock's disappearance.

 

I'm not really sure licensing restrictions would preclude mentioning something from outside the license -- just telling a story about it. For instance, in my Marvel novels, I was free to reference other superheroes all I wanted, so long as they didn't actually appear as characters. For instance, in my X-Men novel, I initially had a guest appearance by Spider-Man in one scene, and I was required to rewrite the scene without him, but I was still able to mention that he was doing stuff nearby. Now, that's not quite the same, since Pocket had the license to all the characters overall, just not more than one character or team per book. But it's probably similar.

There are also Trek precedents. Marvel's 1980 comic didn't have the license to TOS, just TMP, so it couldn't do episode sequels or bring back characters who weren't in the movie, but it still worked in a lot of TOS references and even snuck two or three minor characters in. And IDW had Phlox appear in a panel of Klingons: Blood Will Tell despite not having an Enterprise license, plus Tuvok showed up The Last Generation despite IDW not having a Voyager license. Before that, Malibu had only a DS9 license, but they were able to do stories that referred back to TOS and TNG, had Ro Laren show up in one issue, etc.

Granted, I'm just guessing here. I don't actually know what the specific rules are in this case. But it does seem to me that lacking a license to tell stories in a given series doesn't usually mean you're forbidden to mention it at all.

 

Thanks Christopher !

It's kind of reassuring to know that decent chunk of the Trekverse isn't about to become off limits !

 

If the speculation that Pocket Books does not have a license to do anything related to the reboot films is correct, and that this is the factor stopping them from going past the 24th century events depicted in Star Trek XI, I wonder if they might consider purchasing a very narrow license just giving them the ability to reference the 24th century events depicted in the movie only. One would think just getting the rights to reference those events would be much cheaper than actually getting reboot related fiction rights (i.e. A license to actually write novels about the Enterprise of the last two movies and that universe), or that they might even get permission tossed in at license renewal time if they pushed it. The value of the licenses Pocket Books is paying for are worth considerably less if they can't do a continuing TNG or DS9 past a certain point.

CBS is being petty if they are really tossing a roadblock like that in Pocket Books' way. Nothing written about the 24th century in the original timeline is going to effect the new timeline the movies are focused on, even if they theoretically were considered canon, which the novels never have been and probably never will be.

Honestly, if I were Pocket Books, I'd either insist on a license that incorporated the ability to go beyond the destruction of Romulus, or, lacking that, I'd just start going past it chronologically with those events not happening and get in not-so-subtle passive aggressive digs at the reboot where possible within the context of the novels (i.e. Implying that the new movies are a fake timeline). But I'm not a very diplomatic guy.

Don't get me wrong, I like the new movies and the approach they are taking. I just think Pocket Books should be allowed to use the few events established as happening in the 24th century by the first movie in their TNG and DS9 lines. Failing that, create an alternate future.

As I said, it's been six years. I've got to think the fans are starting to notice. And they can really only slow down the pace of the 24th century novels so much before the relaunch stuff starts to get really, really boring until it grinds inevitably to the events of the movie that they can't show. Then what? Stand-alone books set within the time period of the television series (Not that those are bad to do on occasion, but the continuing story of the relaunch is much more interesting)?

The books affect fan expectations of the movies less than ever. I know historically there was a concern that if the books showed, say, Captain Picard doing a certain thing or a certain new crew member joining the crew, that audiences would expect the movies to reflect that even though only the stuff shown on-screen is canon. However, the books are explicitly set in a different timeline than the movies now. If, and this is a big if, the movies ever want to use any of the 24th century characters in some sort of time travel plot, the characters they'd be using would be the ones stemming from the future of the new history Kirk's Enterprise is creating. Fans would all understand that characters would be significantly different than any books, and even the old shows and movies, set in the original time line, just as the original series characters in the new movies are different from the 60s TV show and the first 6 Star Trek movies.

 

Never really got that. Firstly, the whole point of the reboot is that it wasn't for the fans, and secondly, the people who are obsessed enough to care would surely be more upset by something that potentially erases the prime universe than a simple reboot. Personally, I'm not particularly bothered either way, though I would have preferred they could have arrived at a plot that didn't destroy Romulus.

Come to think of it, what exactly does "original Spock" even mean? There was a Spock somewhere on Romulus during the events of Nemesis. From that point on, Everett tells us that the universal wave function will evolve into countless weakly-interacting components, each with their own 'version' of Spock. 2009 Spock and post-Nemesis literature Spock could belong to different quantum realities, and they, along with a zillion other Spocks we've never seen, would all be equally justified in saying they're the "original Spock" if "original Spock" just means "the Spock that was around in the last visual incarnation of ST prior to 2009".

Well we've got The Good that Men Do overwriting These are the Voyages already, and that other long running science fiction series managed to effectively retcon the destruction of an important planet, so even if we want to pretend there's only one single timeline that continued on from Nemesis, there are ways to ignore the events of 2009-Trek if one really wanted to.

 

This reminds me of how it's been pointed out that the Defiant set used in ENT - "In a Mirror, Darkly" has some minor cosmetic differences with the appearance of the Defiant in TOS - "The Tholian Web". Given that the interphasic rift could have theoretically connected more than just 2 quantum realities, it could be possible that more than 1 Defiant went through the rift. We could use this to justify having both ENT - "In a Mirror, Darkly" and SCE - Interphase in the novelverse. But I doubt the TV and movie producers would ever overtly use this. Cause then there would be no novelty in using the long-known by the audience Defiant as a plot point in ENT.

It is not most accurate to describe The Good That Men Do as "overwriting" "These Are the Voyages...". The Good That Men Do had to build around what was shown onscreen. If "These Are the Voyages..." was not canon, then the novels could simply show Trip alive and acting normally as chief engineer of the Enterprise in 2161. But they can't. They have to acknowledge the holoprogram that Riker viewed.

 

Well yes, but just like the events of the 22nd century in These are the Voyages..., the events of the 24th century in Star Trek (2009) aren't shown to the audience directly, but rather related through a potentially fallible messenger. My point is you can effectively "overwrite" intended canon without actually contradicting canon.

 

As I said, I don't think that a lack of license precludes even mentioning the events, just directly depicting them. Although this is all conjectural.

Whoa, that's a big "if" to base such an accusation on. I can't stress enough -- whatever theories anyone in the general public has about the reasons for the lack of Abramsverse novels, they're pure guesswork. And nobody deserves to be accused of anything based on guesswork.

I should point that CBS owns Pocket Books. The relationship there is anything but antagonistic. CBS's licensing department has never been anything but supportive and generous toward Pocket, at least in the 2000s. So you're really off-base here.

As it happens, the Deep Space Nine relaunch took eight years in real time to get through a single in-story year. People didn't find that boring. If anything, the post-NEM books have been racing forward surprisingly fast, jumping over huge swaths of time to get from 2379 to 2386 as quickly as they have. If things are slowing down now, that's a return to a more normal narrative pace.

Of course it was. Nobody makes a movie for only one audience. The desire is to get as many people into the theater as possible, so you want the movie to have a broad appeal. In the case of rebooting or remaking an existing series, the ideal is to find a balance between being accessible/inviting to a new audience and being satisfying/nostalgic for the old audience. After all, alienating the old audience won't help your word of mouth. (This is why the Battlestar Galactica reboot, which largely discarded or deconstructed just about everything from the original series, still threw in a bunch of nostalgic Easter eggs for the fans of the original, like using its theme as the Colonial anthem or featuring classic Cylon Centurion and Raider designs in flashbacks. You want to get both the old and new audiences.)

You're thinking in extremes and ignoring the middle ground. Not everyone who has an emotional stake in classic Trek is "obsessed." The people who are obsessive about it were past winning over to begin with. But the extremists never represent the only point of view, or even the majority one; they just make the most noise and drown out everyone else so that it seems like they're the only game in town.

And anyone who thinks the new continuity could "erase" the old one isn't thinking clearly. It's not like the creators of fiction are bound by the in-story laws of temporal physics. They invent those laws to serve their storytelling needs. And nobody is going to say that the old Trek continuity has been "erased." There is nobody who wants that, so nobody would ever do it. That's just silly paranoia from fans who've forgotten that Star Trek is about letting yourself be governed by optimism rather than fear.

The other thing to keep in mind is that at least two members of Abrams's "Supreme Court" -- Roberto Orci and Damon Lindelof, iirc -- are devoted Trek fans themselves, while the others are more outsiders or casual fans. So they wanted to balance their own personal preferences as much as the potential preferences of the audience. They wanted to connect to the classic universe because they love the classic universe and wanted to be a part of it, even while giving themselves a blank-slate continuity so that they'd be free to tell new stories. They were trying to get the best of both worlds.

Which is basically sophistry, because you could say the same about any moment in the history of the franchise -- that, say, the Spock in "The Cage" diverged into millions of alternative versions by the time Kirk took command of the Enterprise. But that doesn't matter. Just as each of us only experiences one continuous reality in life, so the creators of a work of fiction intend their characters to be the same continuous ones from week to week, even if their universe does include alternate timelines.

The filmmakers' decision was not about quantum theory; that was just the excuse. The reason for their decision was emotional. They loved Leonard Nimoy as Spock, they knew the fans loved Leonard Nimoy as Spock, and so they made the entirely wise choice to use him as the bridge between the old and the new, the one who passed the torch and gave it legitimacy. Forget the in-story time-travel conceits and look at it in real-world terms, the terms of how you win over an audience to something new. The new movies included Nimoy for the same reason "Encounter at Farpoint" had a McCoy cameo, Generations had Kirk, "Emissary" had Picard, "Caretaker" had Quark, and "Broken Bow" had James Cromwell appearing as Zefram Cochrane. It really shouldn't be hard to understand why they did it. It's about audience affinity -- and the filmmakers' affinity -- for an actor and a role.