Maybe, but you are letting the genie out of the bottle somewhat. I think the end result of constructing a coherent 'relaunch' chronology leading up to TOS suggests itself...
Coming July 2013: STAR TREK ENTERPRISE — RISE OF THE FEDERATION
- Thread starter Christopher
- Start date
Maybe, but you are letting the genie out of the bottle somewhat. I think the end result of constructing a coherent 'relaunch' chronology leading up to TOS suggests itself...
If so, that's probably a long way away, and is not a decision that has to be made right now. I mean, seriously, we're talking about a century-long gap here. That's a lot of history to cover.
Besides, something doesn't have to come up right to the edge of a given work in order to lead into it. Vanguard did a lot to set up events from the Trek movies set in 2285 and after, but it concluded in 2270.
How did I miss this for the last four days? Giddy and excited is what I am right now. This is the Enterprise relaunch I've always wanted without knowing it. And Christopher's the author, who has never written a Trek novel I didn't like.
Now we only need someone to take over Titan (where's KRAD when you need him?), and the novel line will be perfect.
Now we only need someone to take over Titan (where's KRAD when you need him?), and the novel line will be perfect.
True, but I'd like to fill that gap with a fair number of novels...I could see this being a rather excellent replacement for Vanguard...
Excellent news Christopher. Hopefully we'll see some of what the other races brought to the Federation. It's usually been portrayed as a "homo-sapiens only club" but the Andorians and Tellarites and others must have contributed something. Earth gets the headquarters for Starfleet and the Presidential Palace. What's in it for the other guys?
Does this mean that Martin is no longer writing the Ent novels, seeing as Archer is now an Admiral and all.
Not much continuity to worry about in this era. No need to be extra careful about stepping on toes or ret-conning what's come before. I'm looking forward to see where you take this.
Does this mean that Martin is no longer writing the Ent novels, seeing as Archer is now an Admiral and all.
Not much continuity to worry about in this era. No need to be extra careful about stepping on toes or ret-conning what's come before. I'm looking forward to see where you take this.
The fact that KRAD has never written a Titan story is one of my biggest disappointments in TrekLit.
Any thoughts at this point which pre-existing novels could/will be folded into the 'Relaunch' continuity and which couldn't ?
I realise that your plans for the moment don't extend anywhere near the TOS, but would the current restrictions from JJ and Co. prevent the appearance of a young Robau and even the Kelvin when appropriate ?
Like I said, I'm focusing on the early days of the Federation and the era when Archer and his crew were active. Basically it's like I'm talking about writing a post-Civil War story and you're asking me if FDR and Al Capone will be in it. A lot of you folks don't seem to be on the same calendar page as I am. I have no plans to do anything set in the 23rd century at this point. There's so much of the 22nd that's yet to be filled in.
To the extent that there will be familiar names and elements from other Trek series, they'll be ones that were referenced as part of the past -- either known to be present in the late 22nd century or chronologically vague enough that they could've been part of that milieu. Kinda like how the Romulan War novels featured such characters as Tobin Dax, Sarek's father Skon, and various members of the Stiles family.
To the extent that there will be familiar names and elements from other Trek series, they'll be ones that were referenced as part of the past -- either known to be present in the late 22nd century or chronologically vague enough that they could've been part of that milieu. Kinda like how the Romulan War novels featured such characters as Tobin Dax, Sarek's father Skon, and various members of the Stiles family.
Congratulations, Christopher. I look forward to reading your book. Your blog entry makes me feel the Enterprise crew is in good hands.
Good enough for me ! I'll stop badgering you !
Congrat's again though Christopher - I'm really looking forward to this !
Silly question maybe, but can you already tell if this novel will be more politically oriented (meaning working on HOW the Federation was formed in those early years) or more of an exploration oriented novel, where we will see some of the earlier starships going out there, going boldy and such?
Those elements and others will be included. I don't want to do Trek without exploration, but there's a lot of interesting stuff to figure out about how the early UFP government and institutions were organized. And the two overlap when it comes to things like diplomacy and interspecies relations.
See, that's exactly what I'd want to see in a Rise Of The Federation novel. Sounds great!
So it's your job to turn RB's boring drab vision over to JJ's nightmare. Serving many masters and falling into line at the snap of JJ adam's whip?
Take this opportunity to reimagine/reboot/remake all of it's origins. Nix Shran as a crew member. He's a slimy backstabber (sounds like JJ.) and would be a dealbreaker for me. Smarten up the Klingons. Make the Vulcans less annoying and overshadowing. Change thqat god aweful ship, bridge, uniforms and make the aliens less familiar and Human and not treated with contempt. Give it some Human centric scope, distinction, protocol, and respect and character. The universe is a character as well. Brighten it up and make it more GR optomistic, uplifting and hopeful. Bakula was depressing, moross, rigid, abgry and bitter. I would recast him in my mind. T'pol too, who was an iceberg. Too bad they can't let you rename her T'Pau as it should have been. Give them some chemistry and humor and likability. The whole show was a dark and depressing dystopia. It seriously screwed up everything starting with Hoshi screaming at dead aliens and the crew laughing at there being life on Axanar,etc.. These are very inappropriate reactions for future people. Even real astronauts today wouldn't react that way. Braga got so far out that he became detached from reality and was directionless. Reconstruct and recreate the universe and bring a story to it about a greater galaxy wide threat to the entire universe's survival that unifies all the races in a joint effort to defeat a giant space chicken or something. Whoops. I let a story idea slip out. Sorry.
ENT was an incoherent mess that you're inheriting. I wouldn't try ti fix or repair it. Ever try nailing jello to a wall? Don't make it a news report either of seemingly unrelated events strung together in a strained way. Filtering out it's cartooniness will be impossible. Just erase it and start new afresh. and they had the nerve to call TOS corny and goofy.
And no he said/she said mind twist political debockles either.
Take this opportunity to reimagine/reboot/remake all of it's origins. Nix Shran as a crew member. He's a slimy backstabber (sounds like JJ.) and would be a dealbreaker for me. Smarten up the Klingons. Make the Vulcans less annoying and overshadowing. Change thqat god aweful ship, bridge, uniforms and make the aliens less familiar and Human and not treated with contempt. Give it some Human centric scope, distinction, protocol, and respect and character. The universe is a character as well. Brighten it up and make it more GR optomistic, uplifting and hopeful. Bakula was depressing, moross, rigid, abgry and bitter. I would recast him in my mind. T'pol too, who was an iceberg. Too bad they can't let you rename her T'Pau as it should have been. Give them some chemistry and humor and likability. The whole show was a dark and depressing dystopia. It seriously screwed up everything starting with Hoshi screaming at dead aliens and the crew laughing at there being life on Axanar,etc.. These are very inappropriate reactions for future people. Even real astronauts today wouldn't react that way. Braga got so far out that he became detached from reality and was directionless. Reconstruct and recreate the universe and bring a story to it about a greater galaxy wide threat to the entire universe's survival that unifies all the races in a joint effort to defeat a giant space chicken or something. Whoops. I let a story idea slip out. Sorry.
ENT was an incoherent mess that you're inheriting. I wouldn't try ti fix or repair it. Ever try nailing jello to a wall? Don't make it a news report either of seemingly unrelated events strung together in a strained way. Filtering out it's cartooniness will be impossible. Just erase it and start new afresh. and they had the nerve to call TOS corny and goofy.
And no he said/she said mind twist political debockles either.
As a big Enterprise fan and a fan of the Enterprise Era in Trek Canon, I'm thrilled to hear this news and looking forward to reading your work. I sincerely hope that your new found appreciation for the Star Trek: Enterprise series enables you to do justice to the characters that many of us have respected (& love) over these years, and I hope you can develop them further in a very positive light. Many of us are particularly interested in learning about how Star Trek's most Star Crossed Lovers (Trip & T'Pol) got to that happy place at the end of Michael Martin's book "To Brave the Storm".
Please help us out, we are the most neglected segment of the fan base.
Please help us out, we are the most neglected segment of the fan base.
Uhh, no. Like I said, I'm dealing with the 22nd century, and I'm dealing with the Prime timeline. The only thing I've said about anything Abrams has done is that the 2230s uniform designs from that movie were one of the multiple influences I considered in designing a conjectural Federation Starfleet uniform that could be an ancestor of later uniform designs -- and that was really an overstatement, because I also drew on ENT uniforms, TOS pilot and series uniforms, and even TNG/DS9 uniforms in a very small way. Basically I took the whole Starfleet uniform design lineage into account; I'm not focusing on any one specific part of that lineage, although I'd say that ENT and TOS (pilots included) are the largest influences. And we are only talking about uniforms here, a tiny and superficial facet of the work.
As far as the actual content of the book is concerned, everything we know about the 2160s comes from Prime-universe canon or Prime-universe novels. Those are my sources. Those are what I'm building on and building toward.
My goal is to reveal the origins of the Prime-universe Federation as we know it from the TOS era and beyond. Naturally my brief as a tie-in author is to stay consistent with the canon, but there's a wealth of stuff we don't know about that first century of the UFP, so there's plenty of room for surprises and discoveries.
Shran isn't a "crewmember," but he's a major player in the book. No sense leaving out one of the series' most beloved characters. Of course you can't please everyone, though.
To Brave the Storm indicated that the Klingons have mostly withdrawn from interstellar affairs to deal with their internal strife -- and The Undiscovered Country (plus a deleted scene from "Day of the Dove") revealed that open conflict between the UFP and the Klingons didn't begin until somewhere around 2220. So while the Klingons are still there in the background, it doesn't look as if they'd be a major player in the early decades of the UFP.
Not to worry, though; there are other known antagonist races that could stand to be fleshed out more. And the Klingons could play a role if I think of a good story about them.
As for the Vulcans, we know both from canon and the novels that they've been reforming themselves toward the society we know from TOS since the events of "Kir'Shara" in 2154, and ended their "overshadowing" role in interstellar affairs at the same time. It's worth keeping in mind that, because of how much time To Brave the Storm covered, RotF picks up more than 7 years after the final season of ENT.
We've already established that the uniforms will change. There will be some variations in the ships, but I absolutely love the design sensibilities of ENT's sets, the wonderful attention to detail and realism. Although, of course, one can't actually see the bridge or engine room or whatever on the pages of a book, so that's a minor element of the tale overall.
So you want aliens not treated with contempt, while also making it human-centric?
I'll treat aliens and humans the same way I usually treat them in my books.
It really shouldn't have been. T'Pau is quite contemptuous of humans as late as "Amok Time." There's no way she could've had the character arc that T'Pol had over the course of the series.
Having just finished my second watch-through of the series in the past few months, I disagree emphatically. Naturally every series is about things going wrong and bad things happening, since that's where drama comes from, but there was a lot of optimism, humor, and warmth in the show, a lot of crises being resolved for the better due to the characters' decency and devotion to their ideals, and so on. The darkest point was season 3, but that ended on an optimistic note.
Nothing like that ever happened.
Don't worry, it's a lame idea anyway. As Archer said in "Demons," "This isn't about finding someone else to watch our backs!" An external threat doesn't create real unity; it just puts tensions on hold until the threat is dealt with, whereupon they usually erupt stronger than ever. It takes far more than that to create a real union. Indeed, that's one of the core questions of the book. The Federation grew out of a war, but it became something far more than just a defense pact. That didn't happen automatically.
And we've had enough threats to the entire galaxy or universe lately. Don't want to overuse that trope to the point of devaluing it.
^ This is good stuff.
Should we expect to have a cast of political leaders as well, bringing some proto-Articles vibe?
^To an extent, yes.
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