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

Yeah. It was a great trilogy. Frankly it was the exact opposite of small universe in most ways. It was universe changing. And their origins might actually help explain the Borg fascination with humans

 

Exactly. I even had the Caeliar refer to catoms as "programmable matter" in the Destiny trilogy.

 

Naturally, since that is the generic name for the theoretical concept, with various subtypes like claytronics/catoms, or the quantum wellstone featured in Wil McCarthy's fiction. If anything, it's surprising that screen Trek took so long to get around to using the idea -- nearly three decades after the term "programmable matter" was coined in 1991.

 

I get the impression that Star Trek being a Johnny-come-lately to science fiction concepts is a pattern with the franchise, though. Apart from Khan, they didn't really start addressing genetic engineering and transhumanism until the late 1990s with DS9, for instance.

 

I think TNG's S2 "Unnatural Selection" explored genetic engineering and transhumanism.

 

That's hardly limited to Trek. It usually takes a couple of decades, give or take, for concepts from prose SF to percolate out into mass-media SF in general. But Trek was well ahead of that in some categories. For instance, wormholes, though theorized by Einstein and Rosen and given that name in the '60s, were paid relatively little attention in physics and SF circles (at least under that name) until Kip Thorne tackled the physics of wormholes for Carl Sagan's Contact in 1985. But ST:TMP featured a wormhole in 1979. And TNG: "The Price" and DS9 were, as far as I know, the first mass-media SF productions to feature wormholes after Contact (the novel) came out, before they became commonplace in things like Sliders, Stargate, and Farscape.

Also, TNG featured nanobots in "Evolution" in 1989, just 3 years after K. Eric Drexler's Engines of Creation popularized the idea of nanotechnology. Indeed, "Evolution" coined the term "nanite," which has since become a common alternative name for nanobots. In fact, it looks like it actually predates "nanobot" by a year or two. So they were on the cutting edge there, although they didn't really follow through, not mentioning nanotech again until First Contact and Voyager, and only in the context of the Borg.

 

Fair points! Although I would argue that a single episode isn't giving these concepts the level of attention they deserved, either.

 

With nanotech, sure, but DS9 featured wormholes as a core concept before Stargate or Sliders came along. Though the franchise really dropped the ball on transhumanism.

 

True, and as I watched season three I was excited to see that. But I kind of worded my comment the wrong way. I meant seeing the appearance of the actual aliens with the programmable matter integrated into their bodies, networked together, and doing significantly greater things than we saw in season 3. It was meant more about the Caeliar than the catoms.

And I agree with your later comment about Trek dropping the ball on transhumanism--something I've always been interested in. I think that's one reason the Caeliar resonated so much with me, given how they had used technology to so dramatically alter and improve their biology.

 

And at the same time, Tracy Torme, creator of Sliders, very well could have written a TNG wormhole episode if he hadn’t left so early.

 

In a similar vein, I think the worst thing was the people who drove away DGIII because they were rude and obnoxious to DRGIII over his portrayal of Sisko.

 

Put more accurately, people reviewed his book negatively and George engaged with them in way more detail than I think an author should.

 

Some of the comments made by people were disgusting and very much racist and wrong.

 

Yeah as I remember it it went far beyond being negative reviews, some were pretty harsh and seemed like personal attacks.

I think him responding to every comment may have escalated things but I don't think he should be blamed.

My take on the issues people had were to give the story some time to develop over multiple books. Like with modern serialized trek, some things just don't seem to make sense, or are out of character but as the story progresses things fall into place. I assumed that would happen with the decisions made about Sisko so I wanted to wait for future books to see where it went.

 

Certainly true with the DS9 books. I admit initially after the time jump I was like WTF? I might have been even a little annoyed that so much had changed with little to no explanations (but like I noted, I didn't actually blame that on DRGIII--it definitely sounded like an editorial decision). But after a while that was all filled in. Perhaps it could have been done a bit differently, but most of my questions were answered about that missing period. And I was one of the few people it seemed that liked Kira being a Vedek and I was interested to see where some of the story threads were headed. Hopefully Coda helps explain some of that, but I'm sure some things will be left behind.

Which is why I keep saying I wished there was just one more DS9 book before Coda to take care of DS9 specific storylines that probably have nothing to do with Coda but could be closed out on their own in a DS9 novel. Alas, that is not to be.

 

One of the biggest mistakes during the times of the novelverse was the destruction of some of the planets with a lot of potential for interesting plots by the Borg, like Turkana IV, during the Destiny arc.

A follow up to "Legacy" or specially a novel about Ishara Yar, for example would have been really interesting.

Don't mean that the Borg shouldn't have caused a lot of damage, just that the writers shouldn't have chosen to obliterate canon planets, with unresolved story arcs that would be interesting to visit again, during the times of the Typhon Pact.

 

Eh, Destiny was released eighteen years after Legacy aired. If no one had done a novel about Turkana in that time, and nothing was in the pipe, chances are none of the authors saw a story there. Besides. the whole point to the planets that got destroyed in Destiny was to have the readers go "oh, I remember that planet from whatever episode." Choosing the planet Tasha Yar is from definitely fits that criteria.

 

Wonder why. Guess i'm not the only one who would have liked to read a novel about Ishara and/or about the history of Turkana IV.

There was Survivors, a novel about Tasha and her personal history, released during the first years of TNG. But this novel isn't really compatible with canon.

 

Right. The whole point of loss is that you're supposed to regret the missed opportunities, the wasted potential, the stories that can never be told. If a fictional death or loss has no consequences, if it's just some random redshirt or some planet you don't care about, that's a copout.

It was at the time it came out, but the show went in a different direction.

 

The question in this case is, was it worth it? Maybe others see this differently, but for me it wasn't.

I'd rather have liked to read an novel about Turkana IV with Ishara as one of the protagonists set after Destiny with the events around the Typhon Pact playing a role in that story.