Litverse & Star Trek '09

[thribs]

I'm not sure how consistent that is with Destiny. Doesn't matter anyway, since Countdown disagrees with the novel continuity in multiple other ways, like the fate of Data and B-4.

I'm not sure how consistent that is with Destiny. Doesn't matter anyway, since Countdown disagrees with the novel continuity in multiple other ways, like the fate of Data and B-4.

There are a few continuity errors. One being that Picard is no longer the captain but an ambassador, as well as B-4 now being Data. Something that STO has done as well. There is also no mention of the dreaded Typhon Pact as well.
The Borg one still works however as the novels do say that there are still some Borg tech lying around. Only tech that was currently connected to the hive mind was dissolved. The remaining technology could have been used to enhance the Narada.

 

[F. King Daniel]

For whatever it's worth, the Typhon Pact does get a mention in the STO novel The Needs of the Many, as a trading alliance. I kinda like the idea that something so minor in one world, one Borg apocalypse later, is a game-changer in another.

 

[Garth Rockett]

There are a few continuity errors.

Those aren't errors. IDW and STO aren't obligated to follow the continuity of the Novelverse, and vice versa. They just took a different approach.

 

[thribs]

Okay so calling them continuity errors is the wrong term of phrase. Continuity incompatibilities then.
The novels could explain why the JJVerse is so different. For example, why did they develop warp 4 engines instead of warp 5 ones back in the mid 22nd century, and what caused them to actually go to a proper war with the Xindi.

 

[The Wormhole]

and what caused them to actually go to a proper war with the Xindi.

That's open to interpretation. Krall says "we lost millions to the Xindi and Romulan Wars." We know the Xindi attack killed seven million people, and this wouldn't be the first time someone has referred to the Romulan War in the plural.

 

[MadeIndescribable]

Okay so calling them continuity errors is the wrong term of phrase. Continuity incompatibilities then.
The novels could explain why the JJVerse is so different. For example, why did they develop warp 4 engines instead of warp 5 ones back in the mid 22nd century, and what caused them to actually go to a proper war with the Xindi.

That's open to interpretation. Krall says "we lost millions to the Xindi and Romulan Wars." We know the Xindi attack killed seven million people, and this wouldn't be the first time someone has referred to the Romulan War in the plural.

Also it depends what you define as a "war", "proper" or otherwise.

The United States hasn't "declared war" since WWII, so technically the likes of Vietnam, Iraq, etc weren't wars despite being almost always described as such.

Likewise it wouldn't surprise me if the MACOs onboard Enterprise would have considered themselves "at war" during the events of Season 3 regardless of any official consideration.

 

[thribs]

He stated that he was involved during the Xindi conflict which would mean he was in the Enterprise.
I think it’s easier to think that things happened differently here.
In Star Trek ‘09 Scotty refers to Archer as Admiral Archer and not President Archer. Since people usually address people with the highest rank that either means he never became President there he was some descendant if Archer. I don’t think the Prime version had kids but I suppose they could easily change that.

 

[Christopher]

There's also the fact that Krall/Edison has spent the past century being genetically distorted and having who knows what done to his brain and memories, so his characterization of 22nd-century events cannot be guaranteed to be textbook-accurate. He may have exaggerated the scale of the Xindi conflict in his memory, or conflated it with the Romulan War. Sometimes people are just wrong about things. There are things I struggle to remember from just a few years ago -- how accurate could someone's memories from 100 years ago be expected to be?

 

[MadeIndescribable]

In Star Trek ‘09 Scotty refers to Archer as Admiral Archer and not President Archer.

Hmm, I never caught that one before. Maybe Scotty could have been referring to Archer by his rank rather than civilian title as he was mentioning him in a Starfleet context??

That said, I can't blame anyone for combining the errors that have cropped up over so many incarnations, and the amount of timetravel episodes (surely the actual Prime timeline was lost looooooooong ago) and taking an X-Men style 'varying timelines all following the same basic path' approach with Star Trek these days.

But personally I find connecting the dots to be much more exciting

 

[thribs]

The Sphere Builders in Enterprise are said to have the ability to manipulate different timelines. Perhaps they had a different approach here getting the Xindi to attack not just Earth, but Vulcan, Tellar and Andoria as well which could have lead to a war.
That could be the reason ships from then on are three times bigger than the Prime version and have breweries on them.

 

[Christopher]

Hmm, I never caught that one before. Maybe Scotty could have been referring to Archer by his rank rather than civilian title as he was mentioning him in a Starfleet context??

I don't know why everyone assumes the Admiral Archer Scotty referred to had to be Jonathan Archer, as if it were somehow more likely for him to live to 146 than it would be for him to have children, grandchildren, etc. I've always just assumed it's a descendant of his.

Anyway, despite vernacular usage, I gather it's technically inappropriate in formal address to refer to an ex-president as "President," because a title that's unique to one person at a time should strictly be used only by the current officeholder. So in formal usage, a former president would be addressed by whatever their last non-exclusive title was before they became president -- for instance, Barack Obama would be formally addressed as Senator Obama. Although in Jonathan Archer's case, going by the "In a Mirror, Darkly" bio screen, his last pre-presidency title was Councilman.

 

[MadeIndescribable]

I don't know why everyone assumes the Admiral Archer Scotty referred to had to be Jonathan Archer, as if it were somehow more likely for him to live to 146 than it would be for him to have children, grandchildren, etc. I've always just assumed it's a descendant of his.

Anyway, despite vernacular usage, I gather it's technically inappropriate in formal address to refer to an ex-president as "President," because a title that's unique to one person at a time should strictly be used only by the current officeholder. So in formal usage, a former president would be addressed by whatever their last non-exclusive title was before they became president -- for instance, Barack Obama would be formally addressed as Senator Obama. Although in Jonathan Archer's case, going by the "In a Mirror, Darkly" bio screen, his last pre-presidency title was Councilman.

I just like to think of it as a nice reference to Enterprise.

As for the title thing, I always thought that former presidents kept the title, or is it just "Mr. President", as opposed to "President Obama", for example? One of my old lecturers from uni goes by the title "Professor Professor", due to the fact he retired, kept the title, but then returned to academia and therefore both kept and regained the title...

 

[The Wormhole]

In Star Trek ‘09 Scotty refers to Archer as Admiral Archer and not President Archer. Since people usually address people with the highest rank that either means he never became President there he was some descendant if Archer.

Even that isn't always clear cut. For example, even after Eisenhower became President there were those who still casually referred to him as "General Eisenhower."

I don't know why everyone assumes the Admiral Archer Scotty referred to had to be Jonathan Archer

Orci did say it was his intent, making it a Word of God.

 

[thribs]

It’s never stated that Archer is alive when Scotty did the experiment. Just his dog. Maybe he pulled a Streisand and had him cloned.
I doubt he would be since he would never allow his dog to be part of it.

 

[Christopher]

I just like to think of it as a nice reference to Enterprise.

It's still a reference to Enterprise if it's his son or his granddaughter.

As for the title thing, I always thought that former presidents kept the title, or is it just "Mr. President", as opposed to "President Obama", for example?

As I said, that is the unofficial convention in everyday usage, but the strict rule for formal address (e.g. an official invitation or ceremonial introduction) is different.

Orci did say it was his intent, making it a Word of God.

Do we have to go through the definition of what is and isn't canonical yet again? I know it was his intent, but it's a bloody stupid intent. Even as late as TNG, a man in his eighties was portrayed as nearing the end of his life, and the 137-year-old McCoy was treated as extraordinarily ancient. A century before that, a 148-year-old Archer would probably have to be one of the handful of longest-lived humans in history, and with tens of billions of humans, the odds that he would live that long are something like one in ten billion. It's stupidly improbable. The odds that he would get married and have children and grandchildren who were also in Starfleet are literally about a billion times higher.

 

[thribs]

I’d like to think there was a reason Archer lived until 2245. With his connection to the Temporal Cold War I always thought he became a temporal agent, or perhaps more than that later on in life. Maybe that brought him around advanced 31st century tech that prolonged his life.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Personally I think Jonathan Archer being made president of anything is utterly preposterous. That being said...

Orci did say it was his intent, making it a Word of God.

Behold!

As the author of the Archer bio, I can confirm that -- at least in the prime timeline -- Archer clung to life just long enough to personally witness the launch of the NCC-1701 in 2245, and died peacefully the next day. In the alternate timeline, he held on an extra thirteen years in order to see the maiden flight of the Enterprise-JJ in 2258 -- after which he promptly dropped dead.

 

[thribs]

The Enterprise novels are leading to it. He’s already head of Starfleet.

 

[MadeIndescribable]

It's still a reference to Enterprise if it's his son or his granddaughter.

True, I guess I just preferred to think of it as Jonathan.

As I said, that is the unofficial convention in everyday usage, but the strict rule for formal address (e.g. an official invitation or ceremonial introduction) is different.

Cool, thanks!

Orci did say it was his intent, making it a Word of God.

Do we have to go through the definition of what is and isn't canonical yet again?

Personally I don't follow the Word of God argument, if your intention wasn't clear enough in your final product, then you didn't do a good enough job. And don't get me started on the likes of "oh I just made that up, it's canon now".

The 'problem' isn't what is/isn't "official" canon or not, it's that different people will always have their own rules for their own head canon, whether it be from novels, comics, games, behind the scenes sources, etc.

 

[Christopher]

Personally I don't follow the Word of God argument, if your intention wasn't clear enough in your final product, then you didn't do a good enough job.

Also, intent is mutable. Creators change their minds all the time. The reason offscreen ideas don't count is because everything, everything, is subject to change until it's actually in the final cut of the story, and sometimes even afterward. There's a case I just read about on another site, where the janitor from the sitcom Scrubs was intended to be a figment of the main character's imagination, and they hinted at that all season by having him never interact with anyone else -- but then the actor begged to be allowed to interact with other cast members, so the showrunner abandoned the original intent and made the janitor a real live boy.

In Trek, Janice Rand was intended to be the female lead. Data was intended to have been built by mysterious aliens and to have the personalities of dozens of dead colonists inside him. The Bajoran wormhole was intended to be in an asteroid belt. Voyager's crew was intended to stop obsessing over the search for home after a while and just get caught up in exploring the Delta Quadrant. Intent isn't reality.