Daughter? Really? My impression was that she was born instead of Harry Mudd... (Which would make Mudd slightly younger than Kirk instead of older like the actors were, but I don't think it's a major shift.)
Countdown to Darkness - Review and Discussion
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^ It seems obvious that, in TOS, Harry Mudd is older than Kirk. So naturally there would have to be a Mudd in the Abrams timeline as well as in the prime version.
And we have no idea when first contact with the Bajorans took place. Thus it's not entirely unusual for Harry to have fathered a child by a Bajoran woman - in either timeline.
And we have no idea when first contact with the Bajorans took place. Thus it's not entirely unusual for Harry to have fathered a child by a Bajoran woman - in either timeline.
Not to mention that when you have travellers wandering into the frontier ahead of the expansion of their societies' formal influence, there can be more than one "first contact," e.g. private individuals meeting well before their governments do.
I assumed when April mentioned her disreputable father that disreputable daddy was meant to be Harry Mudd. Yes, there's wiggle room in the intrepretation, but Orci did develop the story for this, and he does maintain that Admiral Archer mentioned in Trek XI is meant to be Jonathan Archer, so it wouldn't too much of a stretch to assume the intent was for the character to be the daughter of Harry Mudd.
But, so far there's no reason why the character has to be Bajoran. She could easily be human with no changes to the story.
^Intent doesn't count if it isn't on the page. After all, writers can change their minds, or later writers can reinterpret their work. Even if her father was intended to be Harry Mudd, that doesn't conclusively rule out the possibility that it was Harry's big brother or father or something. After all, we don't know Harry's life story; maybe he modeled himself on an older relative.
I have not gotten issue 3 yet, but issue 2 was not all that appealing starting with April's Enterprise. By the end of the week, I should get to my comic book store.
Maybe someone can check with Orci over at Trekmovie on what his intention was. The story developer, artists and script writers are good enough sources for me if the comics aren't going to give Harry's name explicitly.
As for Harry Mudd, while his age was never given, according to Memory Alpha, Mudd's age was originally supposed to be 47 during "Mudd's Women" (thus a birth year of 2219). By 2259, he would be approximately 40, so a daughter who is 20 or so isn't out of the question.
As for Harry Mudd, while his age was never given, according to Memory Alpha, Mudd's age was originally supposed to be 47 during "Mudd's Women" (thus a birth year of 2219). By 2259, he would be approximately 40, so a daughter who is 20 or so isn't out of the question.
Regarding April's command in the comic, I do wonder if that might be the Abrams-verse version of the Constitution-class. And as others suggested, with a less legendary registry. Technically to be in the Enterprise lineage it need only carry the name and 01 within its registry. Again, slightly more advanced since the Narada incursion of 2233. Yet scaled within comfort levels of some of us die-hards.
If so, this could make the oversize Starship-class actually plausible as read on that dedication plaque on Pike/Kirk's bridge. It would certainly put that old chestnut to bed in this case.
If so, this could make the oversize Starship-class actually plausible as read on that dedication plaque on Pike/Kirk's bridge. It would certainly put that old chestnut to bed in this case.
^^Various behind the scenes stuff for Trek XI, including the movie's website referred to the Enterprise as Constitution class. They just used Starship class on the plaque because that's what was written in TOS.
Interestingly enough, when the Defiant was on Enterprise its plaque actually did have Constitution class written on it.
Interestingly enough, when the Defiant was on Enterprise its plaque actually did have Constitution class written on it.
There is absolutely no valid reason why the number would have anything to do with it. Registry numbers serve a different purpose from names, not a redundant one, so both in real life and in most Trek contexts, different ships of the same name have no commonalities of registry number. For instance, the three American aircraft carriers named Enterprise are CV-6 (1938-47), CVN-65 (1961-2012), and CVN-80 (scheduled for commissioning in 2025). And in Trek, the three canonical USS Intrepids are NCC-1631, -38907, and -74600 (not counting the Earth Starfleet Intrepid, whose registry is unknown).
The whole "1701-Letter" thing is an anomalous conceit introduced by TVH and picked up by TNG, but it's pretty much unique to the name Enterprise (and a couple of other ship names in the novels and comics) and it wasn't a practice in use prior to TVH (the idea is apparently that it was a custom adopted to honor the ship for its achievements in saving the Earth and so forth). So there's no reason such an unconventional numbering practice would've already been in use as early as the 2250s. If there was another Enterprise prior to the one launched in 2258 in the Abramsverse, there's no reason why its registry number would be expected to have anything in common with the number "1701."
This is probably not a big deal, but...I can only assume that it won't be required to read Countdown to Darkness in order to understand what's going on in the actual film itself?
It wasn't last time, and it won't be this time.
Hmm. Well that's a relief.
It's just that there seems to be a lot of heavy shit going down here, what with Robert April and all that (who is probably not going to be in STID), that it seems a bit complicated...
It's just that there seems to be a lot of heavy shit going down here, what with Robert April and all that (who is probably not going to be in STID), that it seems a bit complicated...
Given that at least 99% of the people who see the movie will never read or even hear of the comic, they would never make the movie in such a way that you'd need to read the comic to understand it. Surely anything in the comic that's relevant to the movie will be explained in the movie as well, in the same way that the events of the first Countdown were just a fleshed-out version of the same information that Spock Prime's mind meld conveyed in the movie. In that case, the movie was written first, and then the comic took one piece of that film's backstory and expanded on it as a bonus for that tiny fraction of the audience that's into comics. No doubt the same is true here as well.
(It's the same thing we novelists do all the time. You don't need to read The Buried Age to understand "The Battle" or "The Measure of a Man" -- it just takes background information that's already in those episodes and fleshes it out more fully.)
(It's the same thing we novelists do all the time. You don't need to read The Buried Age to understand "The Battle" or "The Measure of a Man" -- it just takes background information that's already in those episodes and fleshes it out more fully.)
IDW will be publishing "Star Trek After Darkness". The story is an epilogue to the movie and will appear in the regular monthly Star Trek book in issues 21-23.
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IDW, you mean.
The solicitations for issues 21 and 22 are more than a little vague about the storyline. I'm curious what the solicitation for issue 23 will reveal...
Okay, okay, probably not a lot, since that will be made public in about two weeks -- and the movie's still a month-plus out.
Boy, Abrams doing Star Wars has confused everybody, hasn't it? 
But assuming that Robert April isn't in the film, then how can a comic series that so heavily features him - and which is obviously a very intricate plot and is also a prequel to STID - just be dismissed out of hand in said film?
Who said anything about being "dismissed?" Remember the analogy I made with Countdown. That was a story that was built on information that originally came from the film: that a supernova endangered Romulus, that Spock was sent in the Jellyfish to stop it with red matter, that he didn't arrive in time and Romulus was destroyed, and that Nero, captain of the Narada, blamed him for the destruction and attacked him, and that they both fell into the black hole created by the red matter. That story was told in the film, and it was also told in Countdown, fleshed out with more backstory and detail.
So it's not an either-or question, where any given piece of information is only allowed to be in one of the two stories. That's not the way it works. This comic, just like Countdown, was written to foreshadow events from a movie script that was written before it. So any information in the comic that's relevant to the movie is going to be in both the comic and the movie, just like the Romulus/red matter stuff in the first movie. So people seeing the movie will get all the information they need without needing the comic, and the comic just fleshes out some of that background information more fully.
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