Novelverse "facts" you've taken into your head-canon

[Brennyren]

Was it because of Remus because Kirk does mention that in their debut episode.

No, it's more because the Nemesis Remans were so obviously, visibly different from their counterparts on Romulus. In the Duane novels Remans were simply the political "out" group, and were not physically different from the inhabitants of their sister world.

Actually the "we are Romulans!" from way back in "Balance of Terror" alone contradicts the idea that "Romulan" is a name humans gave the Rihannsu.

Unless you assume (as Duane presumably did) that what the audience heard was the Universal Translator's translation of what was said. The Romulans weren't speaking in English, after all, even though that's what we heard.

ENT: "Minefield" later gave us a Romulan/human first contact where they introduced themselves as Romulans.

I didn't watch every episode of ENT, so I will take your word for it. (A Romulan/human first contact in ENT, though? Then why didn't Kirk's crew know what Romulans looked like in "Balance of Terror"?)

Look, folks, I know it's not actual canon. It's a well-developed, in-depth construct that I find rather more interesting than what TPTB did do with the same civilization Duane wrote about. As long as I'm not mistaking it for real canon, though, may I not have my preference?

If we're speaking in terms of novelverse "facts" that are not contradicted by canon, I have to say that my personal head canon totally includes the marriage of Jean-Luc Picard and Beverly Crusher.

 

[φ of π]

No, they're licensed tie-ins. Fanfiction is something you do for fun, as a hobby, with complete freedom to do whatever you feel like. Tie-in fiction is paid, contracted professional work that has to meet the approval of editors and licensors. They're profoundly different things, just as playing pro basketball is very different from playing a pickup game in the park, or just as being a restaurant chef is very different from cooking recreationally at home.

Hmm, I concede your point. I wasn't aware there were such strict guidelines considering some of the drivel that has been published.

Of course, there are many shining gems in the novelverse too, so I guess it evens out.

 

[Kor]

... (A Romulan/human first contact in ENT, though? Then why didn't Kirk's crew know what Romulans looked like in "Balance of Terror"?) ...

The ENT crew never actually saw what the Romulans looked like in all the times they showed up in ENT.

First, in "Minefield," they were just playing tag with the mysterious vanishing Romulan ship the whole time. And at the very end of the fourth-season Vulcan arc, it turned out that the Romulans had been working in the background and even had an operative on Planet Vulcan, and our heroes never even knew. And finally, all throughout the Aenar story arc, the Romulans were hard at work once more, but the ENT protagonists yet again never saw what they looked like because they boarded the Romulan vessel and it turned out that their ship was unmanned and operated by remote control!

Kor

 

[Brennyren]

The ENT crew never actually saw what the Romulans looked like in all the times they showed up in ENT.

Oh, for heaven's sake! But yes, all that would certainly explain it!

 

[Christopher]

Hmm, I concede your point. I wasn't aware there were such strict guidelines considering some of the drivel that has been published.

Of course, there are many shining gems in the novelverse too, so I guess it evens out.

We're not talking about quality; there's both good and bad fanfiction too. It's a simple matter of the difference between a profession and a hobby, which should be self-evident to any adult.

 

[φ of π]

Are there any Star Trek fiction authors who aren't fans of Star Trek?

 

[Jinn]

Is it just me or did we already have this exact same discussion? I'm having a bit of a déjá vu here.

 

[RuthlessNate]

Pretty much, unless it's contradicted by a future canon production, the novels are my head-canon. I'll allow comics if they don't contradict the novels. TNG: Hive and Mirror Broken, for example, are ones that are fun but non-head-canonical to me.

 

[Christopher]

Are there any Star Trek fiction authors who aren't fans of Star Trek?

"Fan fiction" does not mean "any fiction by fans." That's taking it way too literally. It's a nickname for amateur fiction written recreationally, as opposed to professional fiction written for pay. Yes, I'm a fan, but I don't get paid for fandom, I get paid for being a professional writer. Again, I shouldn't have to explain why a profession and a recreational activity are fundamentally different things.

 

[φ of π]

So it stops being fanfiction when it's been officially licenced and published?

 

[Christopher]

So it stops being fanfiction when it's been officially licenced and published?

Job. Hobby. Two different things. Why are you not getting this?

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

- The Trill being marsupials

Huh?

 

[WarpTenLizard]

Huh?

According to the books, the Trill are marsupials. Even onscreen, they have natural pouches that the symbiont goes into. The books explain that the Trill normally use these pouches for their young.

 

[WarpTenLizard]

Trelane is Q's illegitimate son (Q-Squared).

Sure, it's contradicted in Voyager, but if anyone can get around canon quirks, it's the Q.

The Q live outside our spacetime continuum, so I don't think it contradicts anything. Trelaine could have been born after Q2, but traveled to an earlier point in our timeline anyway, because he's a Q.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Hmm, I concede your point. I wasn't aware there were such strict guidelines considering some of the drivel that has been published.

Of course, there are many shining gems in the novelverse too, so I guess it evens out.

There's utter drivel in Trek's TV land too, what's your point?

 

[WarpTenLizard]

So it stops being fanfiction when it's been officially licenced and published?

Technically yes.

 

[Markonian]

Columbia's Engineer, Karl something, was one of the first drones, but wasn't he Austrian?

EDIT: Just checked, yup, Austrian. http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Karl_Graylock

Aye! Austrians have their own nation, but genetically they are German(ic).

 

[WarpTenLizard]

"Fan fiction" does not mean "any fiction by fans." That's taking it way too literally. It's a nickname for amateur fiction written recreationally, as opposed to professional fiction written for pay. Yes, I'm a fan, but I don't get paid for fandom, I get paid for being a professional writer. Again, I shouldn't have to explain why a profession and a recreational activity are fundamentally different things.

I don't know about that person specifically, but usually when people say that published books or stories for "Star Trek" or "Tomb Raider" or what have you are "published fanfiction," it's just a slang term meaning, "it's not canon, and a reader can take it or leave it."

For whatever it's worth, I enjoyed your "Places of Exile" story enough--despite my obligitory Trekkie nitpicks--that it's in my head-canon that that universe exists.

 

[David cgc]

ENT: "Minefield" later gave us a Romulan/human first contact where they introduced themselves as Romulans.

Including a singularly bizarre moment where Hoshi, translating the Romulan's waning to the Enterprise to buzz off, mine or no mine, calls them the "Romalin Star Empire," and is corrected by T'Pol that it's pronounced "Romulan." It was an audio message. How could Hoshi mispronounce a word she'd just heard spoken? So weird.

The Q live outside our spacetime continuum, so I don't think it contradicts anything. Trelaine could have been born after Q2, but traveled to an earlier point in our timeline anyway, because he's a Q.

Q-Squared explicitly stated that Trelane's (ostensible) father was a Q, but wasn't specific about his mother's nature. That seems to be enough to fit with "The Q and the Grey," given that Amanda Rogers also didn't count, and she was actually born of two Qs who just had her when they weren't Qing it up.

Which reminds me, on the subject of the thread, I've always been partial to the idea that "James R. Kirk" was an in-joke with Mitchell as established in "My Brother's Keeper," and not the "faulty memory" or "slightly different timeline" theories (the latter of which coming from Q-Squared).

I don't know about that person specifically, but usually when people say that published books or stories for "Star Trek" or "Tomb Raider" or what have you are "published fanfiction," it's just a slang term meaning, "it's not canon, and a reader can take it or leave it."

It's still an insulting way to put it. It reminds me of a conversation on twitter I saw recently where a couple of TrekLit folks were commiserating about the bad old days when the novels were dismissed as, IIRC, "product" by higher-ups in the franchise.

 

[Christopher]

I don't know about that person specifically, but usually when people say that published books or stories for "Star Trek" or "Tomb Raider" or what have you are "published fanfiction," it's just a slang term meaning, "it's not canon, and a reader can take it or leave it."

But my point is that that's an improper use of the term. Fan fiction (or fan film) is something you do strictly for fun, for your own and others' recreation with no hope or expectation of payment. That makes it fundamentally different from paying work. If I write a story on spec with the hope of selling it somewhere, that is not fan fiction. If I am hired in advance to write a story under contract, that is absolutely not fan fiction. It's got nothing to do with canon or continuity, it's about the difference between work and play.