I don't remember whether, and to what extent if so, fans like me even tried to reconcile "things like this" before 1993-94, when the Okudas' Chronology and their Star Trek Encyclopedia (which had a lot of content overlap with the Chronology) were first published. The publishers, Pocket Books, weren't fools and correctly predicted that fans would be attracted to these entertaining works. But no, we don't have to feel compelled to reconcile dates. Even back in 1966 there were inconsistencies with regard to elapsed time (see In The 23rd Century . . . discussion concerning "The Squire of Gothos," for example).
What is the age of the Enterprise (NCC-1701)?
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I don't remember whether, and to what extent if so, fans like me even tried to reconcile "things like this" before 1993-94, when the Okudas' Chronology and their Star Trek Encyclopedia (which had a lot of content overlap with the Chronology) were first published. The publishers, Pocket Books, weren't fools and correctly predicted that fans would be attracted to these entertaining works. But no, we don't have to feel compelled to reconcile dates. Even back in 1966 there were inconsistencies with regard to elapsed time (see In The 23rd Century . . . discussion concerning "The Squire of Gothos," for example).
Didn't the chronology originate as an in-house aide for the writers, to avoid mistakes and contradictions? Obviously it didn't always work, and things slipped through the net - I'm recalling the admiral in "Doctor Bashir, I Presume" talking about Khan ruling earth "two centuries ago", as the writer was thinking of Khan's (also incorrect) "two hundred years ago" line from TWOK.
The foreword to the Chronology book does describe how Gene Roddenberry had an independent interest in an all-encompassing writing-guide type chronology (apparently not just for meshing TNG with TOS, but for supporting novels, movies and other such projects as well) and allowed the Okuda/Mirek project to be it.
Whether Trek writers in general really consulted this book remains unknown. Certainly those online at TrekBBS confess to using the Okuda books and, nowadays, Memory Alpha (and Beta) as source material or even inspiration every now and then. For TNG, the reality of the matter would probably have been the writers writing their thing, and Mike Okuda then having the opportunity to edit the <tech> and <pseudohistory> bits to be consistent with the Chronology.
Timo Saloniemi
Whether Trek writers in general really consulted this book remains unknown. Certainly those online at TrekBBS confess to using the Okuda books and, nowadays, Memory Alpha (and Beta) as source material or even inspiration every now and then. For TNG, the reality of the matter would probably have been the writers writing their thing, and Mike Okuda then having the opportunity to edit the <tech> and <pseudohistory> bits to be consistent with the Chronology.
Timo Saloniemi
The same can be said for TFF. One can completely skip that film, and it doesn't effect anything else around it.
The problem is that, official chronology or no, CBS/Paramount considers all the films and shows, good or bad, to be part of the Star Trek canon. Unless they make a statement to the contrary, one simply can't pick and choose what one considers canon or not, unless it's just "head" canon, which is only meaningful to that individual.
I don't daresay any such thing. Nimoy's Spock was, on average, noticeably more mellow in season 3 than in earlier seasons (not counting the outright comedies of season 2), and his "laid-back" TWoK Spock is as likely to have been prefigured by season-3 Spock as by last-third-of-TMP Spock.
Such things as his ruminating over Droxine, ability to flirt with the Romulan Commander well enough to convince her, interest in having a nip of Flint's brandy, identification with and even concertizing with Sevrin's people, etc., all suggest a loosening up. Or one could even suppose that his brief shared consciousness with the Medusan ambassador gave him a philosophical attitude that he retained afterward.
Moreover, some of Spock's dialogue and its delivery in season 3 could have come from the Spock of TWoK; I'm thinking, for example, of "Shut up, Spock! We're fighting over a woman!" / "No, you are not, for she is not."
I'd say there are other instances of Spock not loosening up. Including threatening to break McCoy's neck in "All Our Yesterdays".
I didn't include that one because Spock was not himself, and eventually recognized this and said so.
It didn't take me but a moment to think of the episodes I mentioned; perhaps I'm on to something regarding season-3 Spock (who I recognize was a product of writers new to the series, as well as a replacement story editor when D.C. Fontana left).
Whether this was the intention or not, and don't get me wrong it's actually a very noble intention, the Chronology itself warned readers to take anything with the word 'Conjecture' next to it with a grain of salt. That turns out to be a lot of the book, particularly in regards to the pre-show histories of the main characters.
Of course, in the complete absence of other materials, the fandom have adopted a lot of the backstories as "truth" anyway.
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