What's the worst non-canon decision in the history of Trek?

I addressed it in much more depth (and made Alexander his successor) in A Time for War, a Time for Peace.

 

Making Kira a monk

 

Alexander convincing Qolka to maintain the Khitomer Accords is easily one of my favorite scenes in the litverse!

 

Aw, thanks!

 

While we’re talking favorite scenes, I just read this line on page 306 of Articles of the Federation: “I’m worried their PNSes might stop working altogether.”

@KRAD, I’m supposed to giggle, right?

 

I need to re-read AotF, it was one of the first trek books I ever read, so it has been awhile.

 

That's between you and your god.....

 

This is an interesting thread. Lots of reminders of creative decisions I wasn't a fan of, but had mostly forgotten. With apologies for the repetition, here's some of mine:

The events of Before Dishonor were a kind of derailment for a lot of reasons. It ruined any potential T'Lana or Leybenzon had coming off of Q & A, and damaged Kadohata (who unfortunately would eventually be removed from the stories as well) and made it feel like the TNG books would continue to have a rotating cast of characters who weren't Picard, Crusher, Worf, or La Forge. Greater Than the Sum managed to get it back on track for me, thanks to Chen and Choudhury. Having Janeway get assimilated, become the Borg Queen and commit atrocities, and then die, in a TNG book, was borderline offensive (I say this as someone who thought Voyager was not a very good show and Janeway's character was hard to like; oddly I've become a fan of Kate Mulgrew). Worf was very ill-served in that story, acting like the dopey rage monster of early TNG, and not a former Federation ambassador.

The Andorian reproduction crisis always felt like it dragged on and on. It wasn't very clear to begin with what the problem actually was, and it just seemed to be there as a perpetual looming deadline, and seemed to be resolved again and again only to return again and again. The Shar character was almost exclusively about that issue, and it made me uninterested in him at times, despite the fact that I loved the Andorians and thought the culture developed in the novels was rich and interesting.

The early DS9 relaunch brought in some new characters who I came to like a lot: Vaughn, Tenmei, Taran'atar, and to an extent Shar, and brought in Ro, and had really strong returning characters from the show. After the schedule fell off and the time jump happened, the series was barely a shell of itself. Of the main relaunch crew, only Ro, Nog, and Bashir remained. Ro was unrecognizable as station CO. Kira and Dax out of the main action was a poor decision for a sense of continuity with the TV series, and with Sisko sidelined (UGH) and Vaughn and Taran'atar out of the picture, there wasn't much left to feel like it was DS9 (show or relaunch) anymore. And then the station itself was blown up. I think I stopped reading the novels almost entirely once Bashir was the character I was supposed to follow. He worked fine in an ensemble, but as the main character?

The first Voyager relaunch novels were bland and took almost all of my interest in following those characters away. I still remember the crying bunny rabbit counselor. Beyer's books changed that in many ways, but instead of adding new characters to fill in the holes, it became way too much about the old guard. The one major original character I can remember, Hugh Cambridge, was a tiresome character from the start, and his being involved with Seven of Nine was god awful.

I agree with whoever said above that New Frontier should probably have ended with Stone and Anvil. I mean, throwing in another war in the gap? A year after the Dominion War? I think I kind of Peter Davided myself out by that point.

Titan's biggest error was getting rid of Jaza.

The other original series were mostly good. Vanguard had a problem with having no likeable characters in it, but it was still intriguing.

I don't know if this qualifies as a creative decision or not, but leaving so much of it in the hands of white creators always bugged me. The human characters (especially lower decks) introduced were often a bunch of Smiths and Joneses and McGees with the occasional Chang or Patel tossed in for diversity. This never reflected what I expected a future Earth to be populated with, and with the freedom of casting that novels have, it felt weird that it was still so dominated by white Americans/Europeans, who are already a vast minority in the modern age amongst all of world's peoples. I know some, like KRAD and CLB, were much more cognizant of diversifying their casts, and I don't think anyone else was trying to be exclusive, but it was noticeable.

And again, Sisko, UGH. The tone-deafness about what it means to be a Black man in the real world compared to random fictional sci fi character seems so obvious to me.

Let me counter those negatives with some positives!

The Star Trek universe was expanded and felt much more like a real place. I felt this was like a continuation of the DS9 show (my favorite of the TV Treks to this day) and how it purposefully eschewed the idea of events happening in a vacuum. I remember how I used to keep track of cross-story references and even contradictions. I'm not quite so crazy as I was then, but I can still appreciate the effort put into it by the writers and editors. It was so wonderful.

Going back to diversity, I really did appreciate the amount that was there. More women, more non-whites, more aliens, and the beginnings of LGBTQ+ representation. All bright spots. Maybe not as thoroughly as I would have liked, but, still noticeable and I'm grateful. Titan's whole diverse crew (in almost every way) was just so beautiful.

So many of the stories were amazing. There were very few clunkers among the ones I read; most left me craving more. While Destiny was not my favorite story over all, the origin and resolution of the Borg altogether was brilliant (not to mention introducing Aventine and its crew).

Lots of great original characters. Vaughn, Taran'atar, Tenmei, Choudhury, Chen, the Gorkon crew, Ree, Vale, etc., were all characters I came to care about. Some of the characters most neglected in the live-action shows (e.g., Chakotay) or who were very minor (e.g., Gomez) got a chance to shine.

And KRAD joked above about creating the Federation government, but the idea that this thing we are supposed to be rooting for, our "home", being an afterthought on the shows, never felt right. It was almost as alien as the cultures we were being introduced to. So much has been said about how Star Trek saw a future where humanity overcame its differences, and yes, that feels pretty absurd a concept at times (and why I shudder at ever trying to explore the economics of such a world), but being able to see how such a vast magical society functions, was a treat. One of the things I appreciated about the perspective was that humans hadn't become inherently better; we had broadened our in-group, and so we still struggled with the same kinds of issues we have in real life.

(I still hope Bacco shows up as UFP president in Picard.)

 

Wow it never occurred to me that they could repurpose Bacco as the current Federation president in Picard, that would be awesome.

 

Almost as exciting: Once they've wrapped up the 2000-2021 literary continuity with Coda, the writers could bring Bacco back in future novels again...!

 

There are elements of how the Andorian reproductive crisis was written, that always rang hollow to me as someone from two cultures with history of genocide, one of which is really trying to maintain its language and traditions in light of that...

There are times in when it was handled in ways that made me think that the writer's frame of reference for this was heartbroken affluent American white couples sitting in the waiting rooms of fertility clinics, or declining birthrate in industrialized places like Japan. When what we're seeing in some cases is more like the impact of declining birthrate on societies with any kind of traditional craft or oral tradition, or ones that are in a more rural region.

Some novels did better with this than others.

 

This one must be protected at ALL TIMES.

 

Played by, of course:

 

...I need to reread Articles now.

 

Leslie Hendrix would also make a great B'Oraq.

 

Some others come to mind:
-Nixing the dedicated Lost Era Tzenkethi War novel. I was really stoked about that when it was announced.
-Not bringing back Commander Stone from Peter David's "A Rock & A Hard Place". I thought that character was so fun. Would've liked to see him on another adventure.
-Imzadi 2: I can't say it was a 'worst' decision, but it was an underwhelming read compared to the first Imzadi, which is one of my all time favorite novels, Trek or otherwise.

 

Boy, that just made what happened more impactful to me. I loved the character and that outcome meant something.

Much like Ensign Janos reverting to his feral-self. Both were quite touching.

(I agree the New Frontier time jump was my least favorite choice. Second would probably be Before Dishonor and the differing characterizations of the post-Nemesis Enterprise bridge crew between those several novels)

 

I found that novel a very difficult read. I think I could have appreciated it more if I was able to grasp the story. I remember when reading it I felt like I was having a fever dream. Not the author's fault though. Certain authors' styles clash with my brain in some way.

 

There was a thread in the DS9 novels where Sisko had a new ship and a new crew and he made a conscious decision to be a dick to them. I didn't like that direction for his character. I don't think it matches his personality at all. If he was going to be an emotionally detached, all business Captain then he should have lost that crew and then we could have seen if his detachment was actually worth anything.
The plot with Kira being shunned by the Bajoran religion also did very little for me and went on for too long.
Elias Vaughn was taken out of the action pretty unceremoniously and as I recall his daughter eventually just pulled his life support. I know that's more realistic than every character getting a blaze of glory but I felt like he deserved better.