The Romulan Supernova: The final, canon word

Well, yes, that's what "retcon" means in the purest sense. It's short for retroactive continuity, not discontinuity. It means new information that fits in with what we already know, recontextualizing it without contradicting it. The problem is that people tend to use it sloppily to mean new information that contradicts what came before, which is not what it actually means.

No, but they're like earthquakes -- you can tell that one is likely to come in a certain span of time, but you can't predict it to the moment, so it'll still be a surprise when it comes.

See, that's what confuses me. The attack can't have been between the supernova and Romulus's destruction, since -- again -- if it was Romulus's own primary star, those events would've been minutes apart. Also, ST'09 said the supernova was in 2387, and apparently the "Children of Mars" attack was two years before that. So the supernova can't have happened yet; at most, it would've been anticipated, with plans underway to prevent it or evacuate the people before it did. I haven't seen the episode yet, but it sounds to me like the Mars attack delayed the UFP's relief efforts and that's why the Romulans weren't evacuated.

Every tie-in does that. That's a basic requirement of doing tie-ins, no more so for STO than for the novels, comics, or anything else. Every outline, every manuscript, every comics page, every game campaign, it all gets sent to CBS for approval, and it all strives to be as consistent as possible with the canon as it stands at the time of approval.

But "close to canon" is not canon. No matter how faithful a pastiche of the original work is, it's still a pastiche. An exact replica of the Mona Lisa will never be the Mona Lisa.

Ha. For most of the history of film and television SF, that's been the exception, not the rule. When I was growing up, Star Trek was essentially the only SFTV show that even made a token effort at scientific literacy. Everything else was so inept that they assumed you could travel to other stars using conventional rockets and had no idea what the word "galaxy" even meant. There are more shows and films doing their science homework today than there have been for most of my lifetime. So your nostalgia is backward.

And of course, there's always been a mix of hard SF that was scientifically literate (though almost always in prose up until recent years) and soft SF that was more fanciful. Science fiction has never been just one thing.

 

Its a pond for screenwriters to fish from.

Like Control, that was one big stinky mackerel.

 

You're of course absolutely correct, it is just one of those cases where the incorrect usage is so widespread that one might as well stop fighting and go along with it.

 

It is quite a leap to equate officially licensed by the IP holder to fan fiction.

 

It is fan fiction that paid its licencing fee.

 

Keep the substance of the canon and ignore the stupid part. That is precisely how I like Star Trek to deal with its very uneven history. I generally dislike attempts to explain the stupid parts.

 

I'm sure the authors here who have to have every story go through a vetting process by Paramount/CBS would disagree.

 

That's the impression I got as well.

AND something that now makes sense in regards to Children of Mars. There was a lot of discussion, mostly negative, regarding the old Shran style starships in Utopia Planitia space docks. It makes sense now. The rescue flotailla was busy refurbing anything and everything it could to carry refugees away from the Romulus system.

It wasn't CBS reusing a model to save money, it was a deliberate clue. The Mars attack was a done to impair the rescue, or outright stop it, and it succeeded.

 

So in what universe did Data's memories take over B4's body and he went on to be the Captain the Enterprise?
Surely not in the Prime universe

 

Fan fiction means fiction written on an amateur basis, purely as recreation rather than paid work. If you get hired to write it, if there's a contract and you get paid for it, then it's professional fiction, not fan fiction, regardless of its continuity status. It's like the difference between cooking at home for pleasure and getting a job as a restaurant chef, or between playing pickup basketball in the park and signing a pro contract. It's not about continuity, it's about the difference between a hobby and a job. Anyone who writes authorized, approved Star Trek tie-in fiction is a paid, contracted professional.

Extending the definition to include an alternative does not require claiming that the correct definition is actually wrong, though.

 

No, they were totally doing it to save money, but it luckily still makes some sense given the context.

 

I get the need to be negative ad nauseum to CBS, but there plenty of other things they could have used besides that shran model.

Hell, they could have put in a Galaxy Class, since they have a new cgi model for it. I'm pretty sure it was deliberate. Magees look clunky, and if the USS Cabot is anything to go off of, they're smaller research ships.

 

Another good question.

 

Not necessarily. The short was released earlier, so maybe the CGI of the E-D wasn't complete yet.

 

And even if it had, not wanting to use Galaxy class in that context is perfectly understandable. It is so strongly associated with being Enterprise.

 

Never read the comics...

The biggest flaw of the 2009 movie is the lack of explanation because you know a TV show would of chucked some techno babble to explain it all. If I was forced to write an explanation for ST09 then I would say a Star (the biggest in the known Galaxy) laid on a subspace breach so as the Star died it's Hypernova travelled through subspace and exited at random junctions all over the Galaxy (most nowhere near Solar systems or habitable ones because the Galaxy is quite large after all). One exit point was the Romulan system, which blew up Hobus and the entire Solar System with it.

The one thing that always bugged me about the original concept is an FTL advanced species like the Romulans should of known about the impending danger and left before it occurred.

 

There is still no explanation why the Romulans couldn't save themselves. They must have known years before that their sun was going to explode. The Federation at least had enough time to build tons star ships. The Romulans should have, too. Not to mention they had tons of space ships already. I don't get why they write the Romulans in need of rescuing when they are not planet bound primitives.

If the series use proper science for supernovas now, meaning they only threaten their own solar system and it was definitely the Romulan sun going kaput, it does make even less sense that Romulans needed rescuing. They could have just transported their population on Romulus over time to some of their colonies.

 

Nothing suggests the Romulans didn't try and save themselves, now does it? The Feds promised to take care of 0.9 billion. The Romulans themselves might have evacuated 1.2 billion. The Ferengi would still be haggling over the price of moving 0.04 billion (but that would be exclusive, executive evacuation!), and the Klingons would be grudgingly sending ships for moving 0.2 billion (but the Romulans would refuse to board, and the Klingons would be counting on that).

But moving billions is unlikely to be easy even in Star Trek. Unless you somehow put them into stasis for transport, that is. And preferably also put them into stasis on the planet, so that they don't breed, or riot and pillage, or commit mass suicide. But imagine Romulans agreeing to be put into ice by foreign powers...

Timo Saloniemi

 

Even if they had 100,000 ships that could hold 1,000 each thats only 100 million. When you have a population in the billions its just not possible.

 

Only certain types of stars go supernova. Stars are really really REALLLY stable, generally speaking. Romulans have a lot of enemies. My thinking is that it was deliberate. Maybe it won't get explored this season but it must come up at some point. Romulans didn't have a planetary evac plan because they probably and justifiably saw no need for one.