Spoilers New Picard TV Series and Litverse Continuity (may contain TV show spoilers)
- Thread starter chrinFinity
- Start date
The TV show is the real continuity
More “Parallels”, done.
For now I'm just taking a wait and see approach. My expectation is that the new Picard series will largely be incompatible with the current relaunch series and that they will quietly come to an end.
Now, it's certainly possible, and judging from some comments made by the show runners, that some element of the current litverse may be acknowledged in the new show. Maybe something as simple as an Easter egg, or maybe even a plot thread will survive in some form. Who knows? But I wouldn't be surprised if litverse fans see something in the new show lifted/adapted from the novels in some form. But that being said I really doubt it will be enough that the relaunches can continue in their current form unchanged.
That's not to say I wouldn't love to see that. But it's just not reasonable to expect the show runners to read 15+ years worth of novels to make sure their show lines up with the litverse (and of course I'm sure comic book readers and online players wouldn't love to see their narratives continue which are largely incompatible with each other).
The best hope, however unreasonable, we relaunch fans have is that the new show takes things in a direction that allows the relaunches to continue and eventually line up with the Picard show with minimal changes. But with so many years of novels and storylines I think that's unlikely. One line of dialogue can undo years of stories really.
What might be more possible is that we gets something halfway in between. Maybe some storylines can be preserved and carried forward with minimal changes, and other storylines will just have to be dropped.
At the very least I'd love to see a grand finale. I'd love a novel trilogy centered around the destruction of Romulus. Let the relaunches in their current form close out with a big bang. I also hope they can close out some of the significant storylines (i.e. the Section 31 thread). I'd prefer that in this case over them just quietly going out into the sunset.
Now, it's certainly possible, and judging from some comments made by the show runners, that some element of the current litverse may be acknowledged in the new show. Maybe something as simple as an Easter egg, or maybe even a plot thread will survive in some form. Who knows? But I wouldn't be surprised if litverse fans see something in the new show lifted/adapted from the novels in some form. But that being said I really doubt it will be enough that the relaunches can continue in their current form unchanged.
That's not to say I wouldn't love to see that. But it's just not reasonable to expect the show runners to read 15+ years worth of novels to make sure their show lines up with the litverse (and of course I'm sure comic book readers and online players wouldn't love to see their narratives continue which are largely incompatible with each other).
The best hope, however unreasonable, we relaunch fans have is that the new show takes things in a direction that allows the relaunches to continue and eventually line up with the Picard show with minimal changes. But with so many years of novels and storylines I think that's unlikely. One line of dialogue can undo years of stories really.
What might be more possible is that we gets something halfway in between. Maybe some storylines can be preserved and carried forward with minimal changes, and other storylines will just have to be dropped.
At the very least I'd love to see a grand finale. I'd love a novel trilogy centered around the destruction of Romulus. Let the relaunches in their current form close out with a big bang. I also hope they can close out some of the significant storylines (i.e. the Section 31 thread). I'd prefer that in this case over them just quietly going out into the sunset.
Im really curious what David Mack's original plans were for the third Cold Equations book, which was at one point going to be about Old Picard and was intended as something of an end to the novelverse back when renewal negotiations were stuttering.
That is interesting sounding - any more information floating about the net? Anyone?
I'm sure the Star Trek: Picard series will not fit into the current Treklit continuity. When Star Wars novels became "Legends," people asked me how I would feel if the same thing happened to Star Trek novels. I've always said that I would welcome it. As a matter of fact, I expected it because the novels aren't canon. I love the post-Nemesis books, and we've been focusing on them a lot lately on Literary Treks. But I also like to explore strange new stories and seek out new takes on the Star Trek universe.
If the authors can get Treklit to fit within the Picard continuity, that would be great! If not, I'm OK with that too. It's exciting to start over from Nemesis and take it in a different direction. That's what fiction and creativity are all about. If our current Treklit is an alternate timeline, then I would like to see aspects of it in this new timeline.
Christine Vale must remain as the first officer on Titan, and Nan Bacco has to be President.
If the authors can get Treklit to fit within the Picard continuity, that would be great! If not, I'm OK with that too. It's exciting to start over from Nemesis and take it in a different direction. That's what fiction and creativity are all about. If our current Treklit is an alternate timeline, then I would like to see aspects of it in this new timeline.
Christine Vale must remain as the first officer on Titan, and Nan Bacco has to be President.
There's a huge difference between Trek lit becoming non-canon and Star Wars lit becoming Legends. Trek fans knew since the 1960s/70s that the novels will never be in continuity with the film/tv media--we already had TMP ignoring the early novel where Klingons were confined to their homeworld by the Organians, or something like that.I'm sure the Star Trek: Picard series will not fit into the current Treklit continuity. When Star Wars novels became "Legends," people asked me how I would feel if the same thing happened to Star Trek novels. I've always said that I would welcome it. As a matter of fact, I expected it because the novels aren't canon. I love the post-Nemesis books, and we've been focusing on them a lot lately on Literary Treks. But I also like to explore strange new stories and seek out new takes on the Star Trek universe.
If the authors can get Treklit to fit within the Picard continuity, that would be great! If not, I'm OK with that too. It's exciting to start over from Nemesis and take it in a different direction. That's what fiction and creativity are all about. If our current Treklit is an alternate timeline, then I would like to see aspects of it in this new timeline.
Christine Vale must remain as the first officer on Titan, and Nan Bacco has to be President.
It was a huge blow to Star Wars fans when literally everything from 1978's early Marvels to Splinter of the Mind's Eye somehow was made to fit until the great reboot of 2014. They kept that going for a long time. It's not even remotely in the same area as Trek's "we were never canon" stance. This was a multimedia franchise that somehow even survived the whims of Lucas' prequels.
Very true. Lucasfilm and the publishers lead Star Wars fans to believe that all materials were canon. They even had levels of canon, so Star Wars fans looked at these stories as gospel. And then they were taken away.
We've always known that Star Trek books weren't canon, so we don't feel deceived like Star Wars fans felt.
I can't even think of any other novels that adhered to the status quo Blish set-up in Spock Must Die!.
The Trek authors need to find a way to fit Spock Must Die! Into Discovery.
Eh, they called it tiered canon but in essence that's the same "We'll ignore and toss it if we want to" approach Star Trek had, Lucasfilm and Lucas himself where always open about the fact hat they could do whatever they wanted and that the movies would ovewrite everything else. Star Wars fans got to call their novels "C-Canon" instead of non-canon but ultimately they were the same thing, tie in novels beloved by a few thousand hardcore fans and ignored by millions.
Yeah, before the great reboot, they were already hitting up with discrepancies getting harder and harder to reconcile, especially when The Clone Wars series started up - the show portrayed Ryloth, homeworld of the Twi’leks as a planet with a traditional day-night cycle, while it had been a long-established fact that Ryloth was tidally locked, and then just before the reboot, the show killed a Jedi Council member who’d survived in a novel to just after the rise of the Empire. The “tiers of canon” was pretty clearly a case of “we’ll only adhere to this until we don’t, and retcon it all later.”
Hell, Trek only ever had one "tier of canon," and they still do that.
Did all of it get contradicted though? Or only the post-Return of the Jedi stuff?
It was all wiped out. Even the Clone Wars microseries from 2003 and the Ewok movies/cartoon and Droid cartoon.
All of it. One of the big things the novels and comics have been doing over the past few years is re-filling the gaps between Star Wars, Empire, and Jedi, not to mention the area between the original and prequel trilogies (since they don't want to get stepped on by doing a lot of stuff set during the current movies while that storyline is still spinning out, so they need other places to publish all the books and comics there's demand for aside from the handful of more centrally coordinated ones that tie directly into the new movies).
Of course, there's still a lot of love for the old EU, so elements are reintroduced into the new canon with varying degrees of modification (for instance, Admiral Thrawn being reimagined as an antagonist on Rebels). It's hard to say that there's the same amount of sentiment for the novelverse (or STO, or for whatever the comics are doing this week). The odd "Hikaru" or "Una" is one thing, but we've yet to see something big as a Thrawn be ported over from the tie-ins into canon. Maybe we will! I keep hearing a lot of people talk about hoping to see the novel/STO/Eaglemoss version of the Titan on one of the new shows, and I'd say that's probably the best bet for something being taken from the novelverse.
