Spoilers It’s Official... (probably TV spoilers here too)

[Damian]

There might be at least one more, @David Mack hinted in another thread last week that we will be seeing Data and Lal at least one more time.

I wonder if that would be part of the relaunch or reoriented to be consistent with Picard, or something halfway in between. It'll be very interesting to see and what's in that novel may indicate if the relaunches still have any future or not.

And I still want one more DS9 novel I keep hoping that maybe the reason we haven't seen DRG's name on any upcoming novels is because he's working on a grand finale (since he's seemed to be the current DS9 based DS9 author). I'd love to see an update on Bashir as well (even though that was more in the David Mack/Uma McCormack end of things).

 

[Enterprise1701]

At this point, it's incompatible with everything from at least Greater Than the Sum/Destiny onward. So far there don't seem to be any blatant contradictions of anything earlier, although it presents an outcome for B-4 that differs in intent, at least, from his subplot in Articles of the Federation.

I would opine that it is exceptionally likely given what we have seen that Picard will override the Vulcan's Soul trilogy.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Picard will override the Vulcan's Soul trilogy.

(Vulcan's Heart is, and probably always will be, my favorite Trek novel)

 

[JD]

I wonder if that would be part of the relaunch or reoriented to be consistent with Picard, or something halfway in between. It'll be very interesting to see and what's in that novel may indicate if the relaunches still have any future or not.

He was referring to the current versions of the characters that last appeared in Section 31: Control, and I'm pretty sure he had to be referring to an apperance in a Novelverse story, because I really don't see any way those versions of the characters could be reconciled with Picard.

 

[Leto_II]

I would opine that it is exceptionally likely given what we have seen that Picard will override the Vulcan's Soul trilogy.

Eh, I wouldn't worry about that one quite yet -- having literally just finished re-reading that whole trilogy a week ago, there's really nothing in them precluding the Zhat Vash from having existed on Vulcan even prior to Surak's time as an underground sect opposed to AI-development which made its way offworld to Romulus during the Great Exodus (and there are no AI-entities or androids seen anywhere in the trilogy, either, which is consistent with the TV show).

"Wait and see" on this one, is probably the best course of action, here.

 

[JJMiller]

They have a novel, Sword of the Jedi, a sequel to Crucible which is ready but they won’t release it, not even digitally.

Missed this when it first came up, but for future reference, no, they don't. If I recall correctly what I understood from Christie, it was still at the outline stage. There is no novel to be read.

 

[thribs]

Missed this when it first came up, but for future reference, no, they don't. As I understand from Christie, she had only gotten to the outline stage. There is no novel to be read.

Really? I read a tweet from her a while back saying that the first part was more or less done. Must have been a fake.
Maybe one day we'll return to that saga. Not a fan of the new timeline.

 

[JJMiller]

Well, that was my recollection. It never had a solicitation, for sure.

 

[JJMiller]

Yeah, looking back, I believe the announcement of that book deal at Dragon Con in 2012 -- and the buyout happened the next month. When she and I discussed the situation it would have been the spring of 2013, and I think it and other things were in a holding pattern then. (It was pretty much impossible pitching comics projects at that point; Dark Horse didn't know how long for the license they would be, and once they knew they were reluctant to put out much when they knew the books wouldn't get much time as trade paperbacks.)

 

[thribs]

It seems odd to announce a book that early in development. I imagine it takes a year or so to finish a book so announcing it then seems premature.

 

[JJMiller]

Not really, not when you have a book deal, a piece of art for a convention slide, and a public event expecting announcements. The Prey trilogy was announced more than a year in advance -- it had an approved outline as of its announcement, but the first manuscript wasn't started in earnest.

Kenobi was announced ten months before the book release, and before I began the manuscript. (I had an outline from six years before, so it wasn't starting from scratch, but we weren't really underway.) It looked like we were much further along because of the painting we released with the announcement -- but that had in fact been repurposed from something done for another licensee. [Edit: I still to this day get people asking about "the original cover" -- they're remembering the promo piece, seen here. It's just a happy coincidence it existed -- it made us look like we were nearly done!]

That announcement was, incidentally, the month after Sword of the Jedi was announced, and two weeks later the buyout happened. I was concerned from that day until the release that my book would go poof; one of the reasons we shelved the Kenobi outline in 2007 was because George Lucas had reportedly considered a live-action TV show set in the Dark Times. I expect there was enough doubt at the time as to the future that a trilogy looked like a multiyear publishing commitment too far; Paul Kemp, I believe, also had an announced duology that fell into the same category.

 

[Skywalker]

Kenobi was announced ten months before the book release, and before I began the manuscript. (I had an outline from six years before, so it wasn't starting from scratch, but we weren't really underway.) It looked like we were much further along because of the painting we released with the announcement -- but that had in fact been repurposed from something done for another licensee.

If I may ask, how did they go about deciding when to separate the books between Legends and part of the new ongoing continuity? Like, why didn't they decide to do it immediately after the buyout versus starting in 2014 with the publication of A New Dawn?

I was always curious about that, partly because it led to a funny thing where two books in the Empire and Rebellion trilogy ended up becoming Legends stories while the third, Kevin Hearne's Heir to the Jedi, ended up canon.

 

[Christopher]

If I may ask, how did they go about deciding when to separate the books between Legends and part of the new ongoing continuity? Like, why didn't they decide to do it immediately after the buyout versus starting in 2014 with the publication of A New Dawn?

The buyout was in 2012, right? It takes a long time to develop, approve, write, and publish a tie-in novel, so if they did decide to do it immediately, it still would've taken a year or two before we saw the first results.

 

[Skywalker]

The buyout was in 2012, right? It takes a long time to develop, approve, write, and publish a tie-in novel, so if they did decide to do it immediately, it still would've taken a year or two before we saw the first results.

Yeah, I'm sure, I'm just curious about when the actual decision was made and how it went down.

 

[JJMiller]

I get into more of it here, but I imagine the earlier period wasn't really tenable for any kind of decision. The buyout was announced in October 2012, but didn't close until December -- and then there's a period in any bought-out company where you evaluate what is ongoing and what is upcoming, and see what fits where -- and what doesn't fit at all. The Star Wars 1313 game, announced, didn't go forward, but The Old Republic kept going. 1313's cancellation wasn't announced until January 2014.

As far as specifically why MY book was the pivot, the best guess I have is that it was originally timed to launch when Rebels was released, and that was to have been the first really true Disney-era project. As it turns out, Rebels came out a month late (a little to the detriment of the book, whose characters were unfamiliar). I was two-thirds done on the book when I found out about its role in things, so we gave it a "first chapter" sounding name, I flew out to do the explanatory video, and finished the book, tweaking it so it would seem more introductory. (We also used the occasion to attempt to banish a few words that, for one reason or another, ended up working their way back into the fiction: "refresher" and, greatly to my dismay, "turbolift.")

 

[thribs]

Never read Kenobi. I hear Darth Krayt is in it so I might give it a go one day.

 

[JJMiller]

He is not, but his father figures prominently.

Remember, also, regarding timing: the Sequel Trilogy was announced immediately to Wall Street along with the interest of the three principals, but they were still writing and casting all through the next year and a half. What would become the Story Group was coalescing into place; New Dawn was the first book to specifically come from authorial interaction with it in late 2013, and so we ended up being the pivot.

 

[JJMiller]

Having been through this a few times, now, I would say what I have learned is that it takes a long time to really see how incoming content impacts things in a shared universe, and that it is almost impossible to see in advance. I also believe that conflicts generally wind up not having nearly as much impact as people might imagine they will. Perhaps this comes from my having started in comics, where a certain comfort level with cognitive dissonance tends to come in handy. (I also feel that Trek has several tools at its disposal that other franchises do not, in that it has both alternate realities and time travel.)

 

[Christopher]

(We also used the occasion to attempt to banish a few words that, for one reason or another, ended up working their way back into the fiction: "refresher" and, greatly to my dismay, "turbolift.")

They made the former term canonical in Rebels, in the episode with young Wedge Antilles. Even set a scene in one.

(I also feel that Trek has several tools at its disposal that other franchises do not, in that it has both alternate realities and time travel.)

For a long time, I found it surprising that Star Wars, perhaps uniquely among long-running SF franchises, had never gone to the time-travel well. It was kind of refreshing. But they ultimately did feature a time travel element of sorts toward the end of Rebels.

 

[Skywalker]

For a long time, I found it surprising that Star Wars, perhaps uniquely among long-running SF franchises, had never gone to the time-travel well. It was kind of refreshing. But they ultimately did feature a time travel element of sorts toward the end of Rebels.

A form of time travel did exist in Star Wars prior to Rebels. It was called flow-walking; essentially, a Jedi could use the Force to view past events, though they couldn't actually affect the past or alter any of the events they witnessed.