What's the fastest a novel has been contradicted?

[JonnyQuest037]

Christopher mentioned over in a thread about the Mirror Universe that Diane Duane's novel Dark Mirror came out only about six months before the DS9 episode "Crossover", which showed a very different version of the Mirror Universe in the 24th Century. Every Trek novelist knows that this is the deal, of course. Their continuity can potentially be overwritten at any time by the shows or movies. But even so, that's a pretty quick turnaround.

Which got me to thinking: Is that a record of some kind? What's the fastest that the novelverse's version of something has been contradicted by filmed Trek? Is it Dark Mirror? Michael Jan Friedman's Starfleet: Year One contradicted by Enterprise? Something in an early novel written before a new TV series started shooting contradicted as the show developed? Something else?

 

[Greg Cox]

The whole time I was writing my Q trilogy I lived in fear of some new episode blowing a hole in my plot. Thankfully, that didn't happen.

 

[DGCatAniSiri]

If you want to get technical, TNG's "Ghost Ship" was contradicted before it was even published. Admittedly, that one IS a gimme, considering that Diane Carey had just Writer's Bible character blurbs and maybe a script or two at most to go on, but still, a significant chunk of the character details were contradicted through the proper airing of TNG episodes, all of season one having already aired by the time the book made it to shelves, from the way characters interacted with one another to the depiction of technology on the Enterprise.

 

[Jinn]

If you want to get technical, TNG's "Ghost Ship" was contradicted before it was even published. Admittedly, that one IS a gimme, considering that Diane Carey had just Writer's Bible character blurbs and maybe a script or two at most to go on, but still, a significant chunk of the character details were contradicted through the proper airing of TNG episodes, all of season one having already aired by the time the book made it to shelves, from the way characters interacted with one another to the depiction of technology on the Enterprise.

Also, it got contradicted by real life three years later

 

[David cgc]

Yeah, the early numbered novels for TNG, DS9, VOY, and (a little bit) ENT are in contention, but it doesn’t feel like that’s in the spirit of the thread.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Yeah, the early numbered novels for TNG, DS9, VOY, and (a little bit) ENT are in contention, but it doesn’t feel like that’s in the spirit of the thread.

I mean, if you want to note how they're different from what was later established onscreen, I think that could be interesting.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Not a novel, but DC Comics' The Modala Imperative was contradicted within two months. It had Spock and McCoy having an adventure aboard the Enterprise-D, and besides Spock looking quite different in "Unification" from how he was drawn in the comic, "Unification" didn't really give the feeling that Picard and Spock knew each other in anything more than a passing sense.

 

[Mysterion]

Diane Duane's novel Dark Mirror came out only about six months before the DS9 episode "Crossover", which showed a very different version of the Mirror Universe in the 24th Century.

Was it though? The TNG episode Parallels showed there are literally thousands of alternate realities (approx. 285,000 or so, IIRC). Surely there's more than one version of the "Mirror" reality. Plenty of room for Ms. Duane's take as well as what we've seen on-screen.

 

[DGCatAniSiri]

Was it though? The TNG episode Parallels showed there are literally thousands of alternate realities (approx. 285,000 or so, IIRC). Surely there's more than one version of the "Mirror" reality. Plenty of room for Ms. Duane's take as well as what we've seen on-screen.

Sure, but the obvious intent is that Mirror Mirror and Dark Mirror took place in THE SAME “mirror universe,” rather than a different one.

I mean, if you want to note how they're different from what was later established onscreen, I think that could be interesting.

As for a discrepancy in specific, in Ghost Ship, Riker has severe prejudice against Data (worse even than early Pulaski in season two), which is definitely contradicted by how Frakes played the Pinocchio scene in the filmed Encounter at Farpoint, and I think The Siege (the first original DS9 novel) Odo’s shapeshiftihrg adhered to the laws of physics, so if he shifted into, say, a cup, he still weighed the same as when he was humanoid.

 

[tomswift2002]

I think “Federation” is also pretty close, since it came out in 1995, and then “Star Trek First Contact” cane out in 1996.

Or how about the James Blish anthologies. They were usually based on first draft scripts that would be different vs the aired episodes.

 

[Enterprise1701]

Was it though? The TNG episode Parallels showed there are literally thousands of alternate realities (approx. 285,000 or so, IIRC). Surely there's more than one version of the "Mirror" reality. Plenty of room for Ms. Duane's take as well as what we've seen on-screen.

I do not accept this reasoning when it is brought up.

 

[chrinFinity]

Or how about the James Blish anthologies. They were usually based on first draft scripts that would be different vs the aired episodes.

Is that really so? I thought these were adaptations based on (already) televised episodes.

 

[XCV330]

Desperate Hours got invalidated pretty quick. Not sure if it was as fast as Federation.

 

[thribs]

The whole time I was writing my Q trilogy I lived in fear of some new episode blowing a hole in my plot. Thankfully, that didn't happen.

I’m amazed by that as well. You’d think some future episode would follow up on that plot.

 

[iarann]

Is that really so? I thought these were adaptations based on (already) televised episodes.

They were, but Blish had to work with the scripts for most of them. Remember, these were written before home media was an option.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Was it though? The TNG episode Parallels showed there are literally thousands of alternate realities (approx. 285,000 or so, IIRC). Surely there's more than one version of the "Mirror" reality. Plenty of room for Ms. Duane's take as well as what we've seen on-screen.

But Kirk and company only visited one Mirror Universe. If you're assuming that the Enterprise crew from yet another parallel universe visited another universe that was extremely close to the Mirror Universe, you're needlessly complicating something that's pretty simple.

Sure, but the obvious intent is that Mirror Mirror and Dark Mirror took place in THE SAME “mirror universe,” rather than a different one.

Exactly.

Desperate Hours got invalidated pretty quick.

How? I'm not familiar with the book.

 

[F. King Daniel]

How? I'm not familiar with the book.

It was the first Discovery novel, about the Shenzhou meeting the Enterprise and Michael Burnham teaming up with Spock. Their relationship is very different from what Discovery season 2 depicts (although is likely closer to what Bryan Fuller imagined), and the Enterprise, Pike, the uniforms etc are all drawn from "The Cage"

 

[Terror Door]

Imzadi must be up there. Established Riker's middle name as Thelonius, which was invalidated by Second Chances about 10 months later.

 

[tomswift2002]

They were, but Blish had to work with the scripts for most of them. Remember, these were written before home media was an option.

Also Blish was in the UK where TOS would not be aired by the BBC until 1969. So, Star Trek 4 was the first book that might’ve featured any knowledge that Blish might’ve gained from watching the broadcasts.

But for the most part Blish was working from early draft scripts. So that’s how people know that in an early draft of “Who Mourns For Adonis?” (and was filmed as can be seen on the Roddenberry vault Blu-Ray) that Lt. Palmer was impregnated by Apollo. Also “The Trouble With Tribbles” in Star Trek 3 has Sulu in the story as he was suppose to be. The Doomsday Machine does not feature Commodore Matt Decker committing suicide (and it is actually Brand Decker, not Matt Decker). Spectre of the Gun is called The Last Gunfight; in Star Trek 1 Charlie X & The Man Trap are called Charlie’s Law & The Unreal McCoy respectively.

In Star Trek 2 Blish even changed the ending to Operation—-Annihilate because he thought the ending as it was in the script wouldn’t work in print, vs TV. He also messed with the time travel years in both Tomorrow Is Yesterday & Assignment: Earth so that instead of arriving in the late-1960’s and 1968, the Enterprise arrived and met Captain Christopher in the 1970’s, and Gary Seven in 1969.

The court-martial “wrap-around” for The Menagerie was not anthologized as Blish found it was too difficult to incorporate into The Cage, so The Cage was printed under its original production title.[/U]

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Lt. Palmer was impregnated by Apollo

When was Apollo anywhere near the second-shift communications officer?

I believe you are thinking of Lt. Palamas.

And I have a vague recollection of Riker having both "Thomas" and "Thelonius" as middle names.

--
James Harlyn Hayden Lampert