The Fates of Kirk and Crew in the Main Novelverse

[Cryogenator]

I'm curious where the information in the first post is coming from.

All from their Memory Beta articles and their various sources.

it's long annoyed me that Memory Beta lumps them together and obscures the differences between them.

They do often note alternate timelines and inconsistencies.

I wonder if Spock's speculation that Scotty might have survived the apparent loss of the Challenger in 2383 in David A. McIntee's Indistinguishable From Magic was intentionally written (like the "remember" scene in The Wrath of Khan) to maintain continuity with his appearance in the 25th century in the late Gene DeWeese's Engines of Destiny, published six years earlier, or if it was a coincidental alignment. How Scotty returned with the Challenger (and recovered from imminent heart failure!) from a galaxy 65 million lightyears away could make for a very interesting story (which we'll likely never see due to the apparent permanent conclusion of the old Novelverse in the Coda trilogy).

 

[Christopher]

They do often note alternate timelines and inconsistencies.

But not consistently. And they often fail to cite sources.

 

[Markonian]

But not consistently. And they often fail to cite sources.

I can only speak for myself, but once it was first pointed out to me,
I couldn’t unsee how Memory Alpha and Beta cite facts from different sources in one sentence,
and then lump the sources at the end of that sentence.
Which nugget of info stems from which particular source?
That’s why I like to go by 1 paragraph = 1 source,
And add notes[1] where separating isn’t possible.


In the long run, I guess it helps that the novel verse immolated itself and is now just an alternate timeline.

 

[Christopher]

I couldn’t unsee how Memory Alpha and Beta cite facts from different sources in one sentence,

But at least all Alpha's sources are meant to be in the same continuity.

 

[Markonian]

But at least all Alpha's sources are meant to be in the same continuity.

Well, not after SNW went the route of "any content might or might not come from a Bizarro timeline."

 

[Christopher]

Well, not after SNW went the route of "any content might or might not come from a Bizarro timeline."

It did no such thing. It did establish that 20th- and 21st-century history have been revised by temporal cold warriors to resemble real-world history more closely, but even that is part of the unified body of events in the Prime continuity, the same as I-Chaya dying when he didn't before, or Akorem Laan returning to Bajor's past when he didn't before, or Riker and Geordi flying the Phoenix when they (presumably) didn't in the original history. It's not "any content," it's specifically those parts of previously established 20th/21st-century history that have been superseded by reality.

 

[Markonian]

Ah!
I think I’m beginning to understand.

 

[Enterprise1701]

Chief Engineer Montgomery Christopher Jorgensen "Scotty" Scott was still alive at 125 as of 2422. Born in Scotland in 2222, he was temporally displaced in an emergency stasis chamber he jury-rigged from a transporter pattern buffer while lost in space from 2294 to 2369, and was presumed dead in 2383 after being pulled into a transslipstream wake and stranded aboard the USS Challenger in the NGC 4414 galaxy 62 million lightyears away. However, he returned (as Spock speculated at his memorial service that he might) some time later through unknown means and attended the opening of the Montgomery Scott Engineering Sciences Building at Starfleet Academy in San Francisco, 200 years to the day after his birth.

Helmsman Hikaru Kato Sulu was still alive at 135 as of 2372. Born in 2237 in San Francisco, he captained the Excelsior after his service aboard the Enterprise, and was rescued by the battleship Defiant along with the rest of the crew of the shipwrecked science ship Victoria Adams while undercover as a man named "George" in 2372.

Chief Communications Officer Nyota Uhura was still alive as of 2360, aged 121. Born in the United States of Africa in 2239, she participated in over one hundred first contact missions as captain of the Leondergrance in the Lesser Magellanic Cloud following her departure from the Enterprise. She retired from Starfleet in 2333 and by 2360 was known to be close friends with the Trill-human symbiont Curzon Dax, who was also a close friend of Captain Benjamin Sisko, commanding officer of Deep Space 9.

Ensign Pavel Andreievich Chekov was still alive at the age of 132 as of 2377. He was born on September 19, 2245 in Saint Petersburg, and eventually rose to the rank of grand admiral before ultimately retiring from Starfleet in 2377.

(In the parallel universe of the fanfilm Renegades, he retains his grand admiralty as of 2388 at age 143.)

What are the sources for some of these? Uhura is head of Starfleet Intelligence in Vulcan's Soul around 2377. I'm sure there are inconsistent fates depending on what material one is reading, so I'm curious where the information in the first post is coming from.

Yeah, the thread title "main novelverse" is misleading if Kurtzman-era canon applies to Uhura when Star Trek: Picard and other material throw Catalyst of Sorrows and Vulcan's Soul out the window of continuity.

All from their Memory Beta articles and their various sources.

They do often note alternate timelines and inconsistencies.

To be blunt, that is the boldest misplaced praise of Memory Beta I have ever heard. Memory Beta claims on the Enterprise-F page that Star Trek: Picard leads into Star Trek Online, intentionally enforced so on the talk page by their terrible head admin.

I wonder if Spock's speculation that Scotty might have survived the apparent loss of the Challenger in 2383 in David A. McIntee's Indistinguishable From Magic was intentionally written (like the "remember" scene in The Wrath of Khan) to maintain continuity with his appearance in the 25th century in the late Gene DeWeese's Engines of Destiny, published six years earlier, or if it was a coincidental alignment. How Scotty returned with the Challenger (and recovered from imminent heart failure!) from a galaxy 65 million lightyears away could make for a very interesting story (which we'll likely never see due to the apparent permanent conclusion of the old Novelverse in the Coda trilogy).

I assumed that was David A. McIntee's intention was to make Indistinguishable from Magic compatible with the notion of Scotty inventing and sharing a successful transwarp beaming equation, as mentioned by Spock in the 2009 film.

And again, I do not think "main novelverse" is not a very good thread descriptor when Engines of Destiny was very much written separately from other authors in its depiction of the Borg.

 

[Cryogenator]

Yeah, the thread title "main novelverse" is misleading if Kurtzman-era canon applies to Uhura when Star Trek: Picard and other material throw Catalyst of Sorrows and Vulcan's Soul out the window of continuity.

I see. I made this post after wondering when the original seven last appeared in official stories but don't know much about Memory Beta and have read very of the novels.

To be blunt, that is the boldest misplaced praise of Memory Beta I have ever heard. Memory Beta claims on the Enterprise-F page that Star Trek: Picard leads into Star Trek Online, intentionally enforced so on the talk page by their terrible head admin.

Hahaha! I wasn't aware of this. Which talk page? I found a comment on the talk page for Star Trek Online which claims STO is separate from both the novels and the shows:

1. Star Trek Online has now established that it is an alternate reality. In the STO novel: The Needs of the Many, the characters of Dulmer and Lucsly reveal to Jake Sisko that they are living in an alternate continuity, where Janeway and the Borg weren't eliminated. However, much like the alternate continuity of the new movie, this timeline exists alongside the other and is continuous - so all three continuities are ongoing and can be considered part of the chronology and timeline. -- Captain MKB 15:29, March 3, 2012 (UTC)

I assumed that was David A. McIntee's intention was to make Indistinguishable from Magic compatible with the notion of Scotty inventing and sharing a successful transwarp beaming equation, as mentioned by Spock in the 2009 film.

Ah, I didn't think about that. However, that doesn't explain how Scotty managed to overcome imminent heart failure while stranded in another galaxy, nor how the Challenger was retrieved.

And again, I do not think "main novelverse" is not a very good thread descriptor when Engines of Destiny was very much written separately from other authors in its depiction of the Borg.

Oh, okay. By "main Novelverse," I meant only that I considered novels not explicitly set in a parallel universe (the Mirror Universe and Myriad Universes stories) and didn't account for inconsistencies. So, how many undeclared continuities do you think there are beyond the named ones (Prime, Kelvin, First Splinter, the apparently three depicted versions of the Mirror Universe, and the Myriad Universes stories)?

 

[Extrocomp]

So, how many undeclared continuities do you think there are beyond the named ones (Prime, Kelvin, First Splinter, the apparently three depicted versions of the Mirror Universe, and the Myriad Universes stories)?

I started a thread about this a while ago.

https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/how-many-continuities-are-there-in-trek-literature.282950/

 

[Cryogenator]

I started a thread about this a while ago.

Cool! What's your current approximate count? Did you include the "Fleetverse?"

 

[Extrocomp]

We talked about it for 9 pages but I don't think we ever came up with a definitive list. Maybe I should do one now.

1. Gold Key comics
2. UK comics
3. Newspaper comics
   
4. Rihannsu novels
5. FASA RPG
6. DC TOS Vol 1 comics
   
7. Dark Passions novels
8. Shatnerverse
9. LUG/Decipher RPG
   
10. First Splinter
11. Crucible novels
12. Kelvin timeline
    
13. Star Trek Online
14. Hive comics
15. John Byrne IDW comics
16. IDW 2022 comics

My definition of a continuity is at least 2 stories that have unique traits that contradict stories from other continuities. As such, I didn't include series that don't contradict anything and thus can fit perfectly in any continuity.

I'm also not including Star Fleet Battles because those books are very explicitly not set in the Star Trek universe, they just have certain Star Trek elements.

 

[Cryogenator]

Sixteen universes!

My definition of a continuity is at least 2 stories that have unique traits that contradict stories from other continuities.

Do you have a guess as to how many "continuities of one" there might be, and how many Mirror Universes have been depicted?

Personally, I include the "Fleetverse" as the most radically different universe officially depicted since it's based on Star Trek up to 1979. Together with the Prime Universe, that would make eighteen.

Also, the 1999 PC game Starfleet Command apparently blends elements from the Fleetverse and Primeverse, thus creating a new continuity.

 

[Christopher]

Do you have a guess as to how many "continuities of one" there might be

Too many to count. There have been hundreds of books, and prior to 2000, most of them weren't meant to be consistent with each other. That's more the rule than the exception. Of course, there are many that could be presumed to go together because they don't specifically contradict each other, so there's no real way to draw unambiguous dividing lines.

and how many Mirror Universes have been depicted?

Let's see...

Prose:
Main Novelverse MU
TNG: Dark Mirror
Dark Passions
Shatnerverse Mirror trilogy
(And one was apparently referenced but not seen in Millennium: War of the Prophets?)

Comics:
DC Mirror Universe Saga
Marvel "Fragile Glass" one-shot
Malibu "Enemies & Allies" backup story
IDW Mirror Universe
IDW Kelvin MU

I don't know how many versions there have been in games, but I'd assume STO has its own version.

 

[Cryogenator]

Yes, STO has its own Mirror Universe whose Borg King (different from this Borg King?) is currently attacking the Prime Onlineverse as well as a version of fluidic space in STO's 31st season, Both Worlds, which I believe marks the fifth appearance of fluidic space in franchise history, following its introduction in the 1997 Voyager two-parter "Scorpion" and subsequent brief appearances in the 2001 videogame Star Trek: Armada II, the 2008 novella "Places of Exile," and the Star Trek Online season nine mission "Fluid Dynamics" from 2014. So, we've seen at least ten Mirrorverses in the Mirror Multiverse.

I read the Millennium trilogy around a decade ago, and while I don't recall a Mirror Universe, there likely is one since that trilogy has a cosmically epic scope and explores other realities.

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[ryan123450]

We talked about it for 9 pages but I don't think we ever came up with a definitive list. Maybe I should do one now.

1. Gold Key comics
2. UK comics
3. Newspaper comics
   
4. Rihannsu novels
5. FASA RPG
6. DC TOS Vol 1 comics
   
7. Dark Passions novels
8. Shatnerverse
9. LUG/Decipher RPG
   
10. First Splinter
11. Crucible novels
12. Kelvin timeline
    
13. Star Trek Online
14. Hive comics
15. John Byrne IDW comics
16. IDW 2022 comics

My definition of a continuity is at least 2 stories that have unique traits that contradict stories from other continuities. As such, I didn't include series that don't contradict anything and thus can fit perfectly in any continuity.

I'm also not including Star Fleet Battles because those books are very explicitly not set in the Star Trek universe, they just have certain Star Trek elements.

Number four could conceivable be expanded to the entire 80s novelverse as they collectively share this depiction of Romulan culture, and a depiction of Klingon culture, various other recurring characters, and certain technobabble concepts.

 

[Christopher]

Number four could conceivable be expanded to the entire 80s novelverse as they collectively share this depiction of Romulan culture, and a depiction of Klingon culture, various other recurring characters, and certain technobabble concepts.

Although that was a fairly loose continuity with a fair amount of internal contradiction, as books that originally weren't meant to fit together were retroactively referenced in a few later novels. At first, the only books that did share continuity were consecutive books by the same author, but eventually a few authors occasionally started referencing other authors' works, usually Duane's Rihannsu and/or Ford's Klingons. Time for Yesterday alone is responsible for most of the interconnection between books that otherwise would've been unconnected, because it references so many of them.

Here's the thread where we tried to figure out what books went in the '80s continuity, more or less: https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/the-continuity-of-days-gone-by.140169/

 

[Markonian]

Perhaps someday AI will be so advanced that we can feed every newspaper comic strip, videogame, episode, movie, novel, short story etc etc into it and it will rewrite them into a cohesive Star Trek multiverse.

 

[Cryogenator]

Perhaps someday AI will be so advanced that we can feed every newspaper comic strip, videogame, episode, movie, novel, short story etc etc into it and it will rewrite them into a cohesive Star Trek multiverse.

...and into an immersive holodeck experience. This is something I hope to see if I survive cryostasis like Ralph Offenhouse, Clare Raymond, and Sonny Clemonds.

 

[Christopher]

Perhaps someday AI will be so advanced that we can feed every newspaper comic strip, videogame, episode, movie, novel, short story etc etc into it and it will rewrite them into a cohesive Star Trek multiverse.

And then the Borg will have won. Everything mechanically assimilated into a soulless homogeneity, out of the toxic idea that conformity matters more than individual freedom. That's not "advancement," that's stagnation.