Spoilers Discovery and the Novelverse - TV show discussion thread

[Christopher]

I get was DW is saying. Jeri Taylor considered some of her elements of her books canon (I don't believe this was ever actually the case--correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think anyone at Paramount at the time said, yep, it's just as legit as on screen canon).

Contrary to fan myth, canon is not some official doctrine handed down from on high. It's just a nickname for the core body of work. The creators of that core body don't have to say it's canon, because that's what it is by definition. The only time it's a question that needs to be addressed is where tie-ins are concerned, because canon fundamentally means "the stuff that isn't tie-ins or fanfic," but there are occasional exceptions or gray areas.

The label is not more important than the thing it describes. Putting a label on a thing doesn't make it what it is, it's just a convenient way to refer to it. "Canon" is a convenient way to refer to the overall, consistent body of stories that the creators of a series put out. Jeri Taylor was the showrunner of Voyager, the one in charge of telling those stories and shaping their continuity, and since she also wrote those two novels and considered them part of the same whole, that made them part of the canon that she was creating. The label didn't cause that, it just described it. But once other people took over creating the canon, they chose not to be bound by her books. Canons are mutable things, and they often exclude or retcon things that they once included (just ask Bobby Ewing of Dallas).

So in a sense I think you're both right. I see greater continuity between all elements of Discovery as DW suggests, but it doesn't make the novels or comic books canon as Tuskin noted.

Yes. The label doesn't matter. It doesn't make things what they are. It's just a nickname. If the show stays consistent with the books, that's not because some stupid little 5-letter label imposed some kind of magic power; it's just because the people making the shows chose to stay consistent with the books. What Sullivan said is just a way of saying that the producers are aware of the books and have no current plans to contradict them. That is a change in the usual approach, but it's not like someone passed a law or something. For that matter, we don't even know if the other producers agree with Sullivan's take on the issue. We might get a "clarification" from Kurtzman or Berg & Harberts tomorrow saying the books still don't count.

And of course, to the extent that it does apply, it only applies to the Discovery novels, the ones that Kirsten is riding herd on. The reason canon usually excludes tie-ins is because the creators of the core work don't have time to be aware of everything the tie-ins are doing. The only canonical tie-ins are ones that are directly supervised or written by the same people who create the original series. The DSC novels and comics pretty much fit that description thanks to Kirsten, but the other Trek tie-ins don't.

 

[DigificWriter]

I've been addressing this topic elsewhere, but what we are now dealing with is a situation in which Star Trek Discovery's onscreen narrative and presentation does not and will not supersede the tie-in fiction specifically associated with it until/unless a situation arises in which the narrative trajectory of Discovery's onscreen narrative and presentation creates a situation in which there is a contradiction between itself and the tie-in fiction, which is a marked shift from the previous policy of "Onscreen Trek narrative and presentation supersedes the tie-in fiction automatically, unequivocally, and across-the-board, with few exceptions".

 

[Tuskin38]

I've been addressing this topic elsewhere, but what we are now dealing with is a situation in which Star Trek Discovery's onscreen narrative and presentation does not and will not supersede the tie-in fiction specifically associated with it until/unless a situation arises in which the narrative trajectory of Discovery's onscreen narrative and presentation creates a situation in which there is a contradiction between itself and the tie-in fiction, which is a marked shift from the previous policy of "Onscreen Trek narrative and presentation supersedes the tie-in fiction automatically, unequivocally, and across-the-board, with few exceptions".

This post contradicts itself.

 

[Damian]

It's interesting because everyone gets bogged down with the word 'canon'. I guess the core of everything Star Trek comes from what is seen on screen. Everything else is a tie-in to that. I think in Discovery's case at least, I get the distinct impression that they are going to attempt to keep all the tie-ins consistent with what's on screen, but a bit more unusually it sounds like they are going to try to keep what's on screen consistent with the tie-ins as well (or at least not outright contradict the tie-ins).

Don't get me started about the dream season on Dallas. I'm a big Dallas fan too (I'm amazed at how many Star Trek alum were involved with Dallas--actors, DC Fontana, Jeffries) and the dream season was a major what were you guys thinking moment.

 

[Christopher]

but a bit more unusually it sounds like they are going to try to keep what's on screen consistent with the tie-ins as well (or at least not outright contradict the tie-ins).

Well, Sullivan basically said "it's canon until we decide it isn't," which at best puts it in the same category as the pre-Disney Star Wars EU -- something the creators of the canon drew occasional ideas and elements from, but occasionally disregarded and overwrote when they wanted to do something different.

Consistency is a means to an end. The producers' goal is to make the show. The tie-ins are a resource they can potentially draw on if it serves that goal. They don't outweigh the show itself.

 

[Leto_II]

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned here yet, but Twitter played host a couple of days ago to a pretty monumental shift in the relationship between onscreen Star Trek and tie-in Star Trek fiction courtesy of Ted Sullivan, CBS Consumer Products' John Van Citters, and a Twitter user named Glen Oliver.
https://trekmovie.com/2018/04/07/fe...overy-writer-addresses-tie-in-canon-question/

...Also, holy crap, the comments-section of that article is toxic AF right now.

 

[Damian]

Well, Sullivan basically said "it's canon until we decide it isn't," which at best puts it in the same category as the pre-Disney Star Wars EU -- something the creators of the canon drew occasional ideas and elements from, but occasionally disregarded and overwrote when they wanted to do something different.

Consistency is a means to an end. The producers' goal is to make the show. The tie-ins are a resource they can potentially draw on if it serves that goal. They don't outweigh the show itself.

That's always the rub. They can change their minds. I do get the sense with Discovery it will be different, that they want to keep everything tight. In the past the various producers couldn't give a crap about what the novels did. Many times they totally upended something that was covered in a book (as an aside, I wonder if it's frustrating when that happens--I mean, I'd probably be like 'are you kidding me, all that hard work for nothing'--I know you all got paid and all, but I always thought of books like a work of art too, and when a producer contradicts your work it'd be almost like Rick Berman or Brannon Braga coming in and scribbling all over your book and going na-na-na-na). I know even as a reader it can be a bit frustrating. I mean, I thought I knew about the 'history' of manned spaceflight, primarily from "Strangers From the Sky" and "Federation" and the movie First Contact (a great movie otherwise) totally threw all that out of the window.

 

[Damian]

...Also, holy crap, the comments-section of that article is toxic AF right now.

Yeah, you're not kidding. 90% of the comments were complaining about the cover. I think maybe 2 comments were about canon--which is what the article was about.

I used to go to trekmovie a lot, and even comment there a lot. But it seemed to start getting a bit hostile at times so I backed off. This article is just more evidence of that.

 

[Christopher]

That's always the rub. They can change their minds. I do get the sense with Discovery it will be different, that they want to keep everything tight. In the past the various producers couldn't give a crap about what the novels did. Many times they totally upended something that was covered in a book (as an aside, I wonder if it's frustrating when that happens--I mean, I'd probably be like 'are you kidding me, all that hard work for nothing'--I know you all got paid and all, but I always thought of books like a work of art too, and when a producer contradicts your work it'd be almost like Rick Berman or Brannon Braga coming in and scribbling all over your book and going na-na-na-na). I know even as a reader it can be a bit frustrating. I mean, I thought I knew about the 'history' of manned spaceflight, primarily from "Strangers From the Sky" and "Federation" and the movie First Contact (a great movie otherwise) totally threw all that out of the window.

It's all equally imaginary, no matter what continuity it's in. All that matters is whether it's an entertaining story. How different stories fit together is just a matter of categorization, not of their worth as works of fiction.

If you think about it, all science fiction is doomed to obsolescence sooner or later. Eventually, new scientific advances or discoveries will contradict its conjectures, or the calendar will just catch up with it and render it obsolete. (We're a couple of decades past the Eugenics Wars now, for example.) So getting "disproven" by new information is the inevitable fate of all SF. But older SF stories can still be enjoyed for their merits as stories even if they no longer work as possible futures. It's not about what they got right or wrong, it's just about whether they're entertaining.

 

[JD]

I think it usually takes much less time for a streaming series to hit home video. For instance, PlayStation Network's Powers had its first-season DVD set out some four months after the season finale. True, the Netflix Marvel shows still haven't come out on DVD, but they're the exceptions in my experience.

Daredevil Season 1 came out on Blu-Ray and DVD on November 8 2016, and Season 2 on August 22 2017. Jessica Jones Season 1 came out the same day as DDS2, and Luke Cage came out December 12, 2017. Amazon doesn't have anything for Iron Fist, and there is one page for The Punisher, but I question how legit it is, because it's a third party seller, and I find it hard to believe it actually came out so soon after it was released.

 

[Christopher]

^Oh, okay. Last I checked, they hadn't come out yet, even though it was longer than the usual delay. I guess I hadn't realized how long it had been since I checked.

 

[Garth Rockett]

Here's an example to illustrate my point:
- Let's say, for a minute, that you have Geoff Johns come in and write for The Flash TV series as a permanent member of the writing staff, and, for his episodes, he goes ahead and makes explicit and overt references to his own work on The Flash comics, but none of the rest of the show's writers follow suit.

- Now, let's say that Geoff Johns co-created and was producing and writing for the Flash TV series from its inception, and explicitly tied his own comics work to the series' core premise and made a statement that the series was to be a 'continuation' of the stories found in said comics and that every member of the writing staff were therefore going to need to make their writing consistent, as much as possible, with said comics and the details therein.

In the first scenario, you have something akin to what Jeri Taylor was doing, whereas in the second, you have something akin to what Ted Sullivan just said is happening re: Discovery's tie-in fiction.

Actually, you've got it reversed. What Jeri Taylor was doing, as co-creator and showrunner of Voyager, was closer to the second situation you described. So to use your example, imagine Geoff Johns left the Flash TV series after the fourth season, and the new showrunner decided to go in a different direction and ignore stories from Johns' Flash run that had not already been referenced. That's what happened with Taylor's Voyager novels.

 

[MadeIndescribable]

^Oh, okay. Last I checked, they hadn't come out yet, even though it was longer than the usual delay. I guess I hadn't realized how long it had been since I checked.

I never realised they were out in the UK until I just happened to notice them while browsing the shelves of an actual brick and mortar store. Haven't seen any advertising for them, ever.

 

[DrCorby]

Daredevil Season 1 came out on Blu-Ray and DVD on November 8 2016, and Season 2 on August 22 2017. Jessica Jones Season 1 came out the same day as DDS2, and Luke Cage came out December 12, 2017. Amazon doesn't have anything for Iron Fist, and there is one page for The Punisher, but I question how legit it is, because it's a third party seller, and I find it hard to believe it actually came out so soon after it was released.

^Oh, okay. Last I checked, they hadn't come out yet, even though it was longer than the usual delay. I guess I hadn't realized how long it had been since I checked.

I haven't been able to watch the Marvel Netflix shows yet, but my family DOES watch Agents of SHIELD. We prefer to have the shows on physical media, but Marvel doesn't seem to be supporting that as much any more. After buying the first 2 seasons of SHIELD (and the first season of Agent Carter), I ended up purchasing region-free bluray sets of SHIELD season 3 & Agent Carter season 2 (official Marvel, not pirated copies) from Amazon UK, since they weren't released in the US. Almost a year after AoS season 4 ended, official disks are still not available in the US or the UK, with no hint as to whether that will ever happen.

I don't know whether the show isn't considered popular enough to create DVD/bluray sets, or if they're just trying to phase out physical media, starting with "fringy-er" shows, but it's annoying. And obviously, I'm not alone in wanting physical disks. To catch the couple of episodes we've missed, I may have to buy a season "subscription" on Amazon, though I am loathe to spend money on something that can go away at the whim of a soulless corporation.

 

[Leto_II]

All right, so...just finished reading Discovery: Succession #1, and looks like there's at least one huge, honking conflict with the TV show itself. Namely,

Spoiler: Discovery: Succession #1

the Mirror Joann Owosekun is alive and well on the bridge of the I.S.S. Shenzhou following the Discovery's escape back to the Prime Universe and the destruction of Emperor Georgiou's flagship. She got phaser-disintegrated right onscreen in "What's Past is Prologue." Kirsten is credited as co-writer on this one, but I'm wondering if this issue's script maybe got submitted before the teleplay of "What's Past..." was finalized, and the decision to kill off Mirror Owosekun was made by the TV producers? But she dies again in this issue, so...anyways. She's only identified as "Lt. Owosekun" in the issue, so maybe this was a cousin or identical twin sister?

Some other continuity-stuff from the issue:

Spoiler: More spoilers

• The Terran Empire is now ruled by Emperor Georgiou's cousin, Prince Alexander, who assumes the imperial throne after Mirror Georgiou is believed deceased following the events of the various TV episodes.
• The seat of the empire on Earth is located in San Francisco, with a huge palace.
• Mirror Amanda Grayson is depicted as being a major leader of the Vulcan/Klingon/Andorian/Tellarite resistance movement, which...kinda plays havoc with David Mack's depiction of her in The Sorrows of Empire, as being a very staunch, pro-Imperial collaborator whose family had developed new weapons technologies for the empire (and whom Mirror Spock later has eliminated as a loose end). Although maybe something happens later in the series that would allow these two depictions to be potentially reconciled. T.B.D.
• Mirror Harry Mudd! Probably the only other depiction of Mirror Mudd that I can even recall was found in the Decipher RPG several years ago, and of course this version is completely incompatible with that one, but what's here is fairly intriguing. Looking forward to seeing where they go with this.

So we'll see what happens with issue #2 -- at one point in this issue,

Spoiler: Even more spoilers

the Mirror Cornwell says that "[It's] time to end the Georgiou dynasty" (or words to that effect), so there might still be room for Empress Sato II or III to return, here. We'll see.

 

[ryan123450]

Spoiler 1: That is strange. I like the cousin idea.

Spoiler 2: I agree that we can still reconcile people on shifting sides, especially considering we have to account for Sarek from the show itself in some manner.

I’m not expecting any mention in this series of cloned Sato’s returning to power in the end, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still assume that doesn’t happen after the miniseries ends, as opposed to before when we assumed it happened after the show was over.

 

[Christopher]

All right, so...just finished reading Discovery: Succession #1, and looks like there's at least one huge, honking conflict with the TV show itself. Namely,

Spoiler: Discovery: Succession #1

the Mirror Joann Owosekun is alive and well on the bridge of the I.S.S. Shenzhou following the Discovery's escape back to the Prime Universe and the destruction of Emperor Georgiou's flagship. She got phaser-disintegrated onscreen in "What's Past is Prologue." Kirsten is credited as co-writer on this one, but I'm wondering if this issue's script maybe got submitted before the teleplay of "What's Past..." was finalized, and the decision to kill off Mirror Owosekun was made by the TV producers?

Or maybe there was a rewrite of the comic after Kirsten was done with her contribution. Even when show staffers are involved with the tie-ins, it's hard for them to pay close attention to every detail so long as they're busy working on the actual show. For instance, the first line of Babylon 5 novels that came out during the show was supposed to be canonical and fully approved by J. Michael Straczynski, but a lot of continuity errors got through the cracks because he just didn't have time to vet the manuscripts closely, so only two of the nine (I think) books in that first line ended up counted as mostly canonical. It wasn't until the series was over that JMS was able to oversee the books closely enough to make them fit. (Also, it helped that they no longer had two different branches of the story being made at the same time and having to try to keep up with each other's changes.)

Anyway, despite the word choice that one production staffer used in a recent interview, these tie-ins aren't official canon. So I wouldn't worry too much.

 

[Enterprise1701]

Some other continuity-stuff from the issue:

Spoiler: More spoilers

• The Terran Empire is now ruled by Emperor Georgiou's cousin, Prince Alexander, who assumes the imperial throne after Mirror Georgiou is believed deceased following the events of the various TV episodes.
• The seat of the empire on Earth is located in San Francisco, with a huge palace.
• Mirror Amanda Grayson is depicted as being a major leader of the Vulcan/Klingon/Andorian/Tellarite resistance movement, which...kinda plays havoc with David Mack's depiction of her in The Sorrows of Empire, as being a very staunch, pro-Imperial collaborator whose family had developed new weapons technologies for the empire (and whom Mirror Spock later has eliminated as a loose end). Although maybe something happens later in the series that would allow these two depictions to be potentially reconciled. T.B.D.
• Mirror Harry Mudd! Probably the only other depiction of Mirror Mudd that I can even recall was found in the Decipher RPG several years ago, and this version is completely incompatible with that one, but what's here is fairly intriguing. Looking forward to seeing where they go with this.

It is as I said somewhere earlier: Discovery itself is fundamentally irreconcilable with The Sorrows of Empire. Especially with the glaring discrepancy of Sarek's characterization.

 

[Leto_II]

It is as I said somewhere earlier: Discovery itself is fundamentally irreconcilable with The Sorrows of Empire. Especially with the glaring discrepancy of Sarek's characterization.

Not necessarily -- earlier in the thread, it was pointed out how pretty easily Mirror Sarek's depiction on the TV show can be reconciled with Sorrows. Remember that Sarek has yet to be exposed as the leader of the alien rebellion on DSC, and his cautious advice to Mirror Spock regarding his takeover of the Terran Empire near the beginning of Sorrows could very much be linked to his experiences in the resistance years earlier (assuming he doesn't get caught down the road).

Mirror Amanda could be a different story entirely, so we'll see what the comic book serves up, here.

 

[Christopher]

As far as canon is concerned, I don't think there's anything that can't be finessed into consistency with Sorrows with a little creativity. And the comics, again, aren't part of the canon; they're just tie-ins that have had extra effort put into them to keep them consistent with the show, although, as noted above, they've already failed to avoid one significant contradiction.