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

And some of the comments were just so wrong and made because Sisko is of color. They assumed things that were so very wrong and made comments that were quite racist. I enjoyed what I read. But for others to get so bothered about it was just not nice. Sure, you don't have to like all Trek books, but you don't have to be all up in the author's face and racist about it too.

 

Like I said -- if you regret the lost possibilities, that means it worked. That's what loss is.

 

Let's leave this particular discussion for now please. It doesn't really fit with the thread.

 

Did anyone mention the Picard/Crusher kid? Jean-Luc as Space Dad has been profoundly uninteresting in every story I've ever read the brought it up, bar one (The Stuff of Dreams).

 

OMG right? So much set up to get to the kid, some great character work when Crusher realizes that Picard is afraid of having children because of The Inner Light, really great stuff for me. But then...

The kid is born and is basically given Crusher's already tiny role in later TNG novels; the listening post for Picard when he's questioning himself. Rene isn't much more than a houseplant. I wish they could have done some kind of time displacement story so the child could at least be a character in the show that feels more than, 'and here we have a scene with Picard and Crusher's baby becase, as you recall, they have one.' Same goes for Natasha Riker!

 

I'm going to dive off that and comment on the fact that Crusher really does have a meaningless role in later TNG novels. Really, aside from a token scene centered around Picard family life, she isn't even there. It got to the point where other medical officers on the Enterprise were the ones hanging out in sickbay tackling the medical side of the plots or attending the officer briefings, while Crusher did shit all despite still being the ship's CMO.

 

Crusher being underused is just a curse this character faces no matter where she is.

 

This is a really good call for this thread. Rene really only gets mentioned in passing, generally along the lines of Picard’s remorse of missing a meal or putting him to bed or putting him in danger via a space battle, all of which are quickly dismissed. As for Beverly, I agree again, she does get upstaged by the other doctors on the ship. While I get the idea that the ship would have multiple doctors, it does come at Beverly’s expense. Taurik is another character that takes attention away from a ‘regular’ in Geordi, as he fulfills a similar role in the story telling structure.

 

This is sad but true. I had the thought during my reading of Shadows Have Offended about “this Crusher plot feels kind of generic, rather than tailored to her,” and got to thinking about what even we HAVE of Crusher’s character, and that just doesn’t really feel like much, especially in comparison to the other characters. Medical stuff is her wheelhouse, but outside of being “the Doctor” for the Enterprise D/E, I struggle to think of the details of her, as an individual.

As for René himself, I think the big issue with him is both that one, as a child, it’s difficult to fit him in to the bigger storylines, and two, TNG novels after Destiny have been very spread out in terms of general focus - it’s kind of the same as over in post-Destiny DS9, we have a whole new cast to establish alongside the old familiar characters, and there just hasn’t been the time to give everyone their full due - like, Dina Elfiki has been part of the Enterprise crew for a decade of real time, and her biggest feature was in DTI. Post-Destiny TNG and DS9 both seemed to gain more of a focus on the Events as opposed to the characters.

Like I don’t mean to trash the stories or anything, because I feel like I’m saying this and it comes across as harsher and more critical than I intend, but I do feel like there’s a real difference in post-Destiny TNG and DS9, as opposed to Avatar-DS9 and post-Destiny Voyager, and the thing seems to be a push to progressing the story at the pace of the characters, taking the time to stop and focus on them, as opposed to the faster pace in TNG/DS9 - like it seemed like those books were trying to speed their way through the 2380s, going through them at an almost real time pace at the period around The Fall, which didn’t leave much room for exploring the character development - either things just lingered for a long time or they just got offhandedly spoken of and wrapped up too quickly.

Like one of my big hopes every time there was a “what do you want from next year’s books” thread, I kept wanting to take some time and fill in some of those timeline gaps and spent time establishing the new characters and dynamics. Much as I’m going to miss new stories in the Litverse continuity, I keep thinking that I’m not necessarily going to miss character development, because it feels like many characters were only as developed as they needed to be for a given plot, rather than as individuals.

Still have characters I’m going to miss, of course, but if I compare my attachment to the cast of current TNG or DS9 novels against, say, if this came after Unity released, I can only really think of a couple of standouts, as opposed to almost the full cast there.

 

A lot to agree with here! Avatar-era of DS9, A Time Too and Post-Nemesis TNG just felt like it paid more attention to its characters and had the best original characters. It felt like I was getting what I like from the shows but more! Post-Destiny has a lot of great stuff in it too...but so much of it, as you touched on, is plotty. When I think about how the later era or Treklit feels it's more or less just dramatized Starfleet history.

Full Circle era of Voyager, though... THAT feels like old Treklit in every good way, and did so all the way to the end ;-;

 

I always assumed there were other novels I hadn't read where Picard and Beverly, or Riker and Troi actually did parent stuff with their kids instead of just mentioning them in passing.

A friend's daughter took her first steps 2 days ago. I was sent a video while at work and overjoyed to see! Where's Picard/Beverly/Riker/Troi glowing about the same?

 

Hell, on that subject, I am STILL waiting for Lwaxana's reaction to Natasha. After all the years she was waiting for a grandchild, I expected to hear about her moving heaven and earth to be there. But not even a WORD about her. And it seems like we're not gonna get it before the continuity wraps.

 

Yeah, it kinds of reminds me of how some ongoing comics just lurch from crossover event to crossover event without really having their own identity.

 

For that matter, what about a meeting between Lwaxana's son Barin and Riker and Troi's daughter Natasha? When was the last time he was mentioned? I actually had to go on Memory Alpha/Beta to remind myself of the last time Lwaxana made an appearance.

 

What about the death yet another Worf love interest? I would also give voice to Data’s resurrection, but I see that less as a poor decision, and more an unrealized opportunity…

 

Extending the families of tie-in characters is always done with licensor permission, but it's usually an early casualty when a studio returns to take up a property again. And that happens often enough in franchises now that I think a lot of creators in 2021 would be gunshy to add an element like that unless they intended to back it out in some manner.

(Fortunately, it's possible to make relationships compelling without making them permanent, as "Inner Light" demonstrated.)

 

We still can. This may be one of the things that doesn't change.

 

Then again, regarding Tasha and Rene's lack of deep involvement in the novelverse...

Spoiler: Shatnerverse

Maybe they were trying to avoid a repeat of the Shatnerverse finale, where Jim Kirk's child turns out to be the key to all the mysteries of time and space and saves the universe. At age six.