• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

2387

Contractually, their only obligation was to pay me for my work; once that was done, it was their property to do with as they pleased, including not publishing it.
That sounds like payment is just a flat rate, rather than an advance and percentage of the sales.
 
Contractually, their only obligation was to pay me for my work; once that was done, it was their property to do with as they pleased, including not publishing it.
That sounds like payment is just a flat rate, rather than an advance and percentage of the sales.

Not my intent. I did get paid an advance on royalties, and if the book had been published and had earned out, I would've gotten further royalties. But if the book isn't published, I still get to keep the advance, since I did the work I was hired to do. I guess you could say that the advance on an unpublished book becomes effectively equivalent to a flat fee, because you won't get to see any more money from it, but it's still an advance.
 
It's worth keeping in mind that Star Trek Online takes place in it's own version of the Prime Universe over 20 years after the Hobus incident, and since it is a licensed product overseen by CBS, who own all of Star Trek and are the ones who decide what is canon (Ok it might be more complicated than that, but please just go with me), then there must not be anything in the canon that definitely rules out the Prime Universe continuing. There was no explanation needed or crazy time travel shenanigans, life just continued on after Romulus was destroyed and Spock disappeared. We also got a couple pages at the end of Countdown, which was specifically overseen by overseen by one of the writers/producers of the ST'09 that took place after Spock went into the black hole. Now I know they aren't canon, but they make it pretty clear that CBS has no problem with stories set after the destruction of Romulus.
 
Now I know they aren't canon, but they make it pretty clear that CBS has no problem with stories set after the destruction of Romulus.

Of course not. It should be obvious that nobody involved with this project wanted to "erase" the original continuity, because that would only upset the fans. Heck, the whole reason they tied the Abramsverse into the Prime continuity with time travel was because they wanted fans to feel that it was a legitimate continuation of the Prime universe instead of a replacement for it. Although, again, that apparently backfired, because of the assumptions about time travel that too much prior SF has conditioned fans to believe.

After all, CBS still owns the franchise. The Abramsverse is just one additional part of of that franchise coexisting alongside all the rest. CBS doesn't want the Prime continuity to go anywhere -- as proven by the continued existence of the Pocket novels, STO, and the occasional IDW comics that are still set in the Prime universe.
 
Now I know they aren't canon, but they make it pretty clear that CBS has no problem with stories set after the destruction of Romulus.

Of course not. It should be obvious that nobody involved with this project wanted to "erase" the original continuity, because that would only upset the fans.

Eh...not necessarily nobody. There were those posts earlier about how Abrams wanted CBS to stop all merchandising of and reference to prime TOS in favor of his transmedia endeavors for Bad Robot's movies, due to brand confusion. Maybe not narratively erase, but financially erase it, I wouldn't be surprised. (Though they were unverified, true.)

Also, it does confuse me why Bad Robot is okay with reference to the movies in STO but isn't okay with reference to the movies in books. I know that's not a question anyone here would necessarily have an answer to, just supposition, but it still feels strange to me.
 
Yeah that's baffled me too. Did the STO book reference Hobus and the destruction of Romulus?
 
Eh...not necessarily nobody. There were those posts earlier about how Abrams wanted CBS to stop all merchandising of and reference to prime TOS in favor of his transmedia endeavors for Bad Robot's movies, due to brand confusion. Maybe not narratively erase, but financially erase it, I wouldn't be surprised. (Though they were unverified, true.)

Still, he approved and participated in the writing of a script that included Leonard Nimoy and intentionally set up the new timeline as a continuation of what had come before. Whatever his merchandising preferences may have been, he did choose to maintain a connection between the old and the new where the story was concerned.


Also, it does confuse me why Bad Robot is okay with reference to the movies in STO but isn't okay with reference to the movies in books. I know that's not a question anyone here would necessarily have an answer to, just supposition, but it still feels strange to me.

All I can say is, each publisher has its own separate licensing deal and the terms can differ. For instance, back in the '90s, DC Comics had the licenses to TOS and TNG, but Malibu had the license to DS9, and Pocket had the license to all of them.
 
Eh...not necessarily nobody. There were those posts earlier about how Abrams wanted CBS to stop all merchandising of and reference to prime TOS in favor of his transmedia endeavors for Bad Robot's movies, due to brand confusion. Maybe not narratively erase, but financially erase it, I wouldn't be surprised. (Though they were unverified, true.)

Still, he approved and participated in the writing of a script that included Leonard Nimoy and intentionally set up the new timeline as a continuation of what had come before. Whatever his merchandising preferences may have been, he did choose to maintain a connection between the old and the new where the story was concerned.

But do we know when exactly in the writing process it was established as a distinct timeline rather than a superceding one? Is it feasible that that was a later rewrite and originally the change was going to wipe out the Prime universe but CBS said no?

Also, it does confuse me why Bad Robot is okay with reference to the movies in STO but isn't okay with reference to the movies in books. I know that's not a question anyone here would necessarily have an answer to, just supposition, but it still feels strange to me.
All I can say is, each publisher has its own separate licensing deal and the terms can differ. For instance, back in the '90s, DC Comics had the licenses to TOS and TNG, but Malibu had the license to DS9, and Pocket had the license to all of them.
Oh, no, I understand that; it's not the existence of separate licensing agreements that confuses me, but Bad Robot's seemingly contradictory positions towards them. They of course have the legal right to, I'm just confused about the motivation.
 
Were any of the Bad Robot people involved with the earlier stages of the game? I know that was part of how the comics were able to be set in the Abramsverse. I don't remember hearing about them having anything to do with the game, but I didn't follow all of the news through it's entire early development.
 
But do we know when exactly in the writing process it was established as a distinct timeline rather than a superceding one? Is it feasible that that was a later rewrite and originally the change was going to wipe out the Prime universe but CBS said no?

I'm not interested in looking for excuses to insinuate that Abrams may have hypothetically been hostile toward the original continuity. In the absence of evidence, people should be given the benefit of the doubt.
 
Yeah that's baffled me too. Did the STO book reference Hobus and the destruction of Romulus?

Yes, it does. And it also references specific plot points from the Countdown comics.

But do we know when exactly in the writing process it was established as a distinct timeline rather than a superceding one? Is it feasible that that was a later rewrite and originally the change was going to wipe out the Prime universe but CBS said no?

According to this thread it was originally planned for much of the Prime Universe to be destroyed, but in the end this was scaled back to just Romulus. However, I think the alternate timeline was always planned from the start.
 
But do we know when exactly in the writing process it was established as a distinct timeline rather than a superceding one? Is it feasible that that was a later rewrite and originally the change was going to wipe out the Prime universe but CBS said no?

I'm not interested in looking for excuses to insinuate that Abrams may have hypothetically been hostile toward the original continuity. In the absence of evidence, people should be given the benefit of the doubt.

Fair point; I shouldn't be either, it's unfair to Abrams and Bad Robot.
 
Sorry to go back to this, especially after trampledamage said not to, but I feel I have a relevant point to make. I didn't have time yesterday as I was rushing around getting ready for work.
And nothing makes any fucking sense. Uhura is fucking Spock for no adequately explained nor even barely discernible reason.
From the other things you've shared, you might find this interpretation of Spock's story arc and his relationship with Uhura in ST'09 particularly relevant. It's from a post I made here years ago:

Spock’s story in STXI is an allegory for a closeted homosexual coming out. He has emotions, which his people see as extremely distasteful. He can’t suppress them as well as they do, but he TRIES to live up to his rigid society’s expectations of emotionlessness. He acts like he doesn’t have them in public.

Uhura, she’s his secret release for his emotions. Their relationship is an improper and secret student-teacher one surrogate for a secret gay one.
After his mother died and his world destroyed, Spock cracks, and "comes out” to his father (Amanda always knew, and didn’t care, “whatever you do, you will always have a proud mother”), saying this is it, he can’t bottle this shit up anymore, he has emotions and that’s that. And Sarek says not to try, and that he’s proud of him. (…)

The entire point of the Spock/Uhura transporter scene was to show that Spock was out of the closet. No longer hiding the fact that he has emotions, no longer hiding his affection for Uhura from the world. You’re so caught up on military protocol (how often has Trek cared about such things?) that you’ve missed the point of Spock’s story arc, his coming out allegory. Which is sad. Everyone sees, they’re all a little surprised, but they all accept it without question.


The bit about military protocol was in reply to someone else.
 
Oh, that's a really interesting reading of that relationship, I really like that. Personally, I just thought it was a natural extrapolation from the obvious chemistry there was between Spock and Uhura in TOS, but that's a great interpretation too.
 
Personally I wouldn’t mind the post-destiny books slowing down (or even taking a step back) and further exploring the post-Destiny era before getting to the events of 2387.

One of the reasons I love the Star Trek books is you get to see the characters grow over time and given that they have now expended outside of the TV ‘crews’ of the USS Enterprise, Deep Space 9 and USS Voyager to include a wide range of additional crews (USS Titan, USS Aventine, USS Robinson, USS Vesta, USS Galen, USS Demeter, USS Excalibur, USS Trident & USS da Vinci) and interesting characters to explore.

VOY is still at 2382 so have an additional 4-years’ worth of stories to be told before 2387.

TNG & TTN have started new missions at the beginning of 2386 and there are still periods of time post-Destiny which is rarely touched (TNG has a 2-year period from Losing the Peace in 2381 to Plagues of Night/Raise the Dawn in 2383 and TTN has a 3-year period from Fallen Gods in 2382 to The Poisoned Chalice in 2385) that have potential for further stories.

DS9 have just started to explore the crew of the new Deep Space 9 and with Ascendance is just starting to tell the stories of the 4-year gap between The Soul Key in 2377 to Zero Sum Game in 2382. There is also now the USS Robinson’s new mission in the Gamma Quadrant and Julian Bashir on-going ventures with Section 31 that have potential for further stories.

While the USS Aventine has featured in novels post-Destiny, the majority of the period since its launch in 2380 has potential for further stories. Likewise the USS da Vinci made brief cameos in A Singular Destiny & Indistinguishable from Magic however the period between the series end in 2377 is relatively untouched.

It would also be good to see some of the past Star Trek characters of the current era appear (Samir al-Halak, Darya Bat-Levi, Jo Stern, Yuriel Tyvan, Anjad Kodell & Thule G'Dok Glemoor from TLE; Gilaad Ben Zoma, Phigus Simenon, Idun Asmund & Tricia Cadwallader from STA; Morgan Bateson, Miranda Kadohata, Sam Lavelle & Aquiel Uhnari from TNG: Thirishar ch'Thane from DS9; Tillum Drafar & Ayala from VOY; Mackenzie Calhoun, Elizabeth Shelby, Burgoyne, Kat Mueller, Soleta, Zak Kebron, Robin Lefler, Arex Na Eth & Shiboline M'Ress from NF; Sonya Gomez, Domenica Corsi, Mor glasch Tev, Vance Hawkins, Sarjenka & Soloman from SCE; Matt Decker, T'Priell, Edam Astrun, Yoshi Mishima & Kyethn Zund from the SA comics; and Fo Hachesa from TTN) – all of which have potential for further stories/development.

With all of the above (and the on-going stories of DTI, which I have not read yet but is the next series I am about to start) there is potential for years’ worth of novellas and novels without ever having to worry about the impact of dealing with the events of 2387.
 
Thanks for the reply Christopher, I was just curious as to how it looked to you as you're more on the inside as it were.
 
No.

timelinerev_zps2d76d5f8.png


TNG et al still happen.
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top