After Romulus

[F. King Daniel]

I suppose there could always be a DTI novel that references the fact that in an alternate timeline Romulus was destroyed.

If that happened, that would totally spoil Star Trek. I'm sorry, but it happened in the prime universe. Not some alternate universe. So the books should be depicting the destruction of Romulus. While Pocket's main Trek line is not allowed to play in the alternate universe, this is not an event that took place in some alternate universe. The books don't have to pander to Countdown. But Romulus getting destroyed is something that has to happen.

Indeed. I'm fine with alternate continuites etc. but one of my favourite things about Trek tie-ins is how they keep having to adapt to fit the TV/film continuity. Whether it's DC comics' big reset in "The Doomsday Bug" to set up The Voyage Home, or the more subtle things like early post-DS9 Andorians finding the station uncomfortably cold having to be fudged when Enterprise visited Andoria, which they envisioned as an icy moon, it's an element of Trek that fascinates me.

I'd survive if the 2387 supernova was only vaguely alluded to in passing (which is what I suspect will happen), but I would be annoyed if the novelverse ignored events of the movie althogether (which is unlikely since they've already included several easter egg references to it)

 

[Ronald Held]

No reason not to acknowledgeethe destruction of several beta quadrant systems without mentioning Nero.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

My fear is that once that date is reached, they'll have to stop publishing Trek books entirely as that timeline will no longer exist.

Which is of course not the case. Remember, in Countdown the timeline continued even after Nero and Spock vanished. No one knows where they went. But the prime timeline continues. No reason why it can't.

 

[Mage]

My fear is that once that date is reached, they'll have to stop publishing Trek books entirely as that timeline will no longer exist.

Which is of course not the case. Remember, in Countdown the timeline continued even after Nero and Spock vanished. No one knows where they went. But the prime timeline continues. No reason why it can't.

Exactly. It's established in Star Trek XI that THEY are the alternate timeline. So, if Pocket is legally allowed to do novels featuring the Hobus Nova and the destruction of Romulus, they can do novels set after that dealing with the effects that it will have on the late 24th century.

 

[Freman]

I agree with JWolf.

 

[RPJOB]

My fear is that once that date is reached, they'll have to stop publishing Trek books entirely as that timeline will no longer exist.

Which is of course not the case. Remember, in Countdown the timeline continued even after Nero and Spock vanished. No one knows where they went. But the prime timeline continues. No reason why it can't.

Exactly. It's established in Star Trek XI that THEY are the alternate timeline. So, if Pocket is legally allowed to do novels featuring the Hobus Nova and the destruction of Romulus, they can do novels set after that dealing with the effects that it will have on the late 24th century.

There's nothing in the movie that explicitly states that the prime universe is still there. An alternate universe can also be one that is changed from what was previously there. They know SOMETHING has changed but don't know if it was over-written like in COTEOF or a new branch off an existing timeline.

It can be taken either way.

 

[Freman]

Pretty sure they said in the movie that the timeline split off from the original one, not overwrote it.

Regardless, the Powers That Be have stated multiple times that the original timeline is still intact, so it is.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I'm pretty sure E-DUB was joking. I thought it was pretty funny. Could you imagine it?

...and then, it's engines straining futileley against the instense gravimetric forces, Ambassador Spock's ship was sucked into the black ho--

*last few pages left blank for dramatic effect*











Anywho, for those of you taking it seriously, Watching the Clock firmly established that the novelverse will survive beyond the prime-verse events JJ's first Trek movie.

 

[Christopher]

I'll never understand fans who think the original timeline was overwritten. I think some people forget that this is all just made up. The rules are whatever the storytellers want them to be. And no storyteller is going to want to say that the Star Trek we've been fans of for 45 years has somehow "ceased to exist." The whole reason Abrams & co. created the alternate timeline in the first place was because they wanted to leave the old timeline intact and unaltered. (Also because they're using plausible, informed physics in which different timelines always coexist rather than overwriting each other.)

Not to mention that, since it is all just a bunch of stories anyway, those stories aren't going anywhere. As long as you can still watch the episodes and movies and read the old books, nothing's been "erased."

 

[RPJOB]

I'm speaking of the prime universe being overwritten from the point of view of the characters Christopher. I'm simply pointing out that there's nothing in the phasing used in the movie that says definitively one way or the other. No ret-con would be needed if, for whatever reason, TPTB decided that the prime universe was overwritten as it was in City on the Edge of Forever or First Contact. In those cases it was restored but we aren't sure one way or the other of that is the case this time. As we'll probably never see the canon version of the prime universe again it doesn't matter if it has been overwritten or not. You choose to say that it wasn't. I prefer to think that it's possible that it was. Not that it was, just that it's possible.

 

[DonIago]

One could just as easily argue that in CotEoF Kirk et al. return to a different-yet-remarkably-similar alternate timeline, of course. Same goes for FC.

The only "fool-proof" way we've seen of determining one's "timeline-of-origin" is by checking quantum signatures, as established in Parallels, and we don't see any such check performed in either of the above cases.

 

[JoeZhang]

Anal probing works as well - it was shown in that episode where McCoy and Kirk look really uncomfortable.

 

[The Super Brando]

I'd survive if the 2387 supernova was only vaguely alluded to in passing (which is what I suspect will happen), but I would be annoyed if the novelverse ignored events of the movie althogether (which is unlikely since they've already included several easter egg references to it)

I don't think Romulus being destroyed should only be vaguely alluded to. It's the homeworld of one of the major powers in the galaxy, and one of the main Trek aliens from the show. This would be a huge thing to happen, both in-universe and out.

I wouldn't be happy at all with it only being vaguely alluded to.

 

[Ben]

Not to mention that, since it is all just a bunch of stories anyway, those stories aren't going anywhere. As long as you can still watch the episodes and movies and read the old books, nothing's been "erased."

I see this argument made a lot, like when DC wiped out their continuity from the last few decades. But some of the value in stories like Star Trek comes from the knowledge that the characters continue on after the show/movie ends.

Watch the final scene of the TNG finale. Now imagine that right after the episode ended, the entire universe blinked out of existence. Doesn't that take away from the warm fuzzy feeling you get? The feeling that this family is going to continue on, possibly being closer than they were before because of Picard's experiences -- that's gone. Sure, there's plenty of other stuff to enjoy, but one major element is gone.

That's why people care whether stories "count" or "still exist." It's not because they worry their DVDs or comics might disappear. It's because part of what the value from those stories may be gone.

 

[Christopher]

I see this argument made a lot, like when DC wiped out their continuity from the last few decades. But some of the value in stories like Star Trek comes from the knowledge that the characters continue on after the show/movie ends.

And they do. It's been stated over and over again for three years now that the makers of the Abramsverse intended the new timeline to coexist with the old one, not erase it. The way DC chose to do things has nothing to do with how Bad Robot chose to do things.

 

[cml898]

Am I the only one who doesn't assume the destruction of Romulus is an automatic given in the main continuity we've been following all these years?

 

[Christopher]

Am I the only one who doesn't assume the destruction of Romulus is an automatic given in the main continuity we've been following all these years?

A number of people see it the same way you do, but it doesn't track with what we know. The intent of the filmmakers was that Spock Prime came from the same reality we've been following from the start -- that Romulus was destroyed in that reality, causing Nero and Spock Prime to go back in time and split off a new, altered reality in parallel with it. The whole reason they included the time-travel aspects and coaxed Leonard Nimoy out of retirement was to make the new timeline a direct continuation/offshoot of the old rather than something completely unconnected to it. If that hadn't been their intention, they wouldn't have bothered with all that messy time travel at all. The Spock that Nimoy played in 2009 is the same Spock he's been playing since 1964. He's just living in a different timeline now. But that only happened because Romulus was destroyed in his original timeline.

 

[T'Bonz]

Which sucks. :/

 

[jhouston6]

Never expected to get so much response to a simple question. Given the events that have happened in the novels thus far I see no way that they avoid the destruction of Romulus.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

The way DC chose to do things has nothing to do with how Bad Robot chose to do things.

Especially since DC repeatedly wipes out its entire continuity, ALL THE FUCKING TIME. They don't let three or four years go by before they do some damned 'Crisis' that resets everything back to square one. And they keep doing it. There was Crisis on Infinite Earths, then Zero Hour, Infinite Crisis, Final Crisis, Flashpoint, New 52, ad nauseum. So they don't have the chance to build up anything meaningful anymore, because we all know they're just going to reset the whole damned thing again.

Nothing about the Abramsverse is even close to this level. That timeline can coexist with the prime one; can't say the same thing in DC, not by a long shot.