That's just a holdover from the working title of the duology, outdated information that hasn't been corrected yet on whatever page you're looking at.
Picard never struck me as the sort that would want children of his own so people are always capable of actions that surprise others. It shouldn't be surprising that the show would take such a conventional view of marriage. After all, you could write an episode that said that homosexuality was cured by a virus or some such and that gay people no longer exist and not violate one word of canon. Thank goodness the authors of the books are more open than the writers and producers of the shows.
I saw it as a man in pain following the death of his brother and nephew and wanting his family back. He also realized that it wasn't real. Hardly the sort of thing that would make his entire worldview turn upside down. Perhaps he remembered something Spock had said once upon a time "After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true." It may have opened his mind to the possibility of having children but he hardly came out of the Nexus with a burning need to father a child. 9 years pass between Generations & Death in Winter, plenty of time to find someone willing to have a child with him even if it's not Beverly. It seems to me that he wanted Bev more than children.
How could Picard remember something Spock said before Picard was born, in a private conversation that went unrecorded? Picard was hesitant to have children, yes, but at the same time he felt a responsibility to continue the family lineage. People can be complicated and have different, conflicting drives within them at the same time. Indeed, a good deal of Greater Than the Sum is specifically about that, about Picard wrestling with those conflicting drives: on the one hand, after marrying Beverly he finally feels it's possible for him to continue the family line, but on the other, he's afraid he won't be a good enough father or that his child wouldn't be safe. And yes, it pretty much did have to be Beverly, not someone else. Come on, we all know how reserved Picard is. Even if he wanted a family, it's not easy for him to open up to people. It would take someone who was really special to him to penetrate that reserve, and it makes sense that it could only be Beverly. Until then, he despaired that he wouldn't be able to carry on the family line, as we saw in Generations. He just assumed that he wasn't likely to ever find the right woman and settle down. But then he and Beverly finally saw what was right in front of them the whole time, and once they were together, it opened new doors for him. As for the decision to have Picard and Crusher get married, that's entirely on me. My editor on Greater Than the Sum, Margaret Clark, asked me to have them conceive a child, but left it up to me to decide whether they'd get married or not. Now, I'm quite the progressive fellow myself, without any particular attachment to so-called traditional marriage (and of course what certain groups tout as "traditional marriage" today is really very different from how marriage was practiced or defined in past centuries), and I've got no problem with characters having children out of wedlock or practicing exotic forms of marriage or what-have-you. But in the case of Picard and Beverly, I decided to go ahead and have them get married because it felt like it was in character for them and had meaning for their relationship. I mean, here are two people who danced around being involved for nearly two decades, including one who has historically been very afraid of emotional commitment; so when they finally committed to each other, I wanted it to be all-out. It showed how seriously Picard took their relationship, that he wanted the symbolic tie of formal marriage to make it clear he wanted it to be permanent. And it matters for Beverly because of the resonances with her first marriage. Both she and Picard have mourned the man who was her husband and his best friend, and the memory of Jack Crusher sort of got in the way of their relationship for a long time. So having Beverly accept Picard into the same role in her life that Jack played symbolizes that they've finally overcome that hurdle, that the memory of Jack brings them together now rather than coming between them. Or something like that. I'm not sure I really reasoned it out in that detail at the time; it just felt like the right way to go. And I'm saying that as someone who definitely isn't closed to alternative possibilities.
The line about Spock was a joke. I suppose I should have added a smiley. I understand your reasoning but it would be nice to see that culture in the future has actually changed instead of just being 1990's America transplanted to the future. Star Trek is so often a victim of it's own success. It can't change too much because they can't chance upending the apple cart. The books push the boundries a bit but the shows haven`t taken an actual chance in storytelling since some the the later episodes of DS9.
Well, that's a really silly part of Trek lore too. Another part that I just accept and try not to think about too much. When I do I keep hearing Carl Sagan. "Star Trek, despite its strong international and interspecies perspective, often ignores the most elementary scientific facts. The idea that Mr Spock could be a cross between a human being and a life form independently evolved on the planet Vulcan is genetically far less probable than a successful cross of a man and an artichoke. " Marry each other, sure. Have a child together? Bring out the magic wand & pixie dust. And would it have been allowed if Sarek wasn't just wearing pointed ears and a bowl cut? What if he were black or asian? Or a gorilla or a fish or a horta?
Probably not, but I see no reason to regard modern Trek as beholden to the television conventions that limited TOS.
Then why, for the most part, were Voyager & Enterprise? Even the latest movie could have made a clean break and done a full on reboot but they couldn't bring themselves to cut the cord to the mothership.
They weren't. For the most part, they were produced by people who acted like they were beholden to the television conventions of the 1980s, not the 1960s. VOY and ENT were dated in how they were written, yeah, but they were behold to TNG's conceits, not TOS's. I really don't know what the hell you're talking about at this point.
Rather than actually doing a new take on Trek they felt that 1) they had to have old Spock in it. 2) the new universe shared a past with the original one 3) the writers have even said that they iniverse is tring to put things back the way they were before Nero appeared. there's other things as well but it comes down to they simply have done a clean reboot and been done with it. Some of the fanboys would have cried about it but that's going to happen no matter what they do. Are they actually going to keep things straight between the universes? If they do Khan will with Eugenic Wars still be 1992-96? Make a clean break and do Star Trek as you think it shoud be done. The desire to make sure it all fits into a single narrative is dumb. Tell your 3 or 4 movies and move on and let someone else give us their take on it. Stop trying to make sure it's all duct taped together. When you do a new version, clean up the bits that need cleaning up (i.e. interspecies breeding) and move on. Don't worry about what's come before. Trek is supposed to be about the future, stop looking back with misty eyed nostalga.
^You know what's really dumb? Saying things are dumb just because they aren't your personal preference. Intelligent people know that different points of view, approaches, and attitudes can be equally valid. Calling approaches you don't agree with "silly" or "dumb" is juvenile and destroys your credibility.
.... I thought you were complaining about the depiction of marriages in Trek being insufficiently futuristic.
QFT, Christopher, QFT. Some of the stuff this JamesRKirk has been saying has me questioning why he/she is even posting on a Trek-related message board and why he/she chose a Trek-related username, because his/her comments are really taking umbrage with things that are part and parcel of what Star Trek is and always has been.
Well, if you find fulfillment in tying together all the various bits then that's great for you and your readers. Personally, I find that your stories that stand alone are much more compelling. You're a great world builder and I look forward to more books in the spirit of Orion's Hounds or Over a Torrent Sea. I see your point about referring to something as "dumb or silly" and will try to catch myself in the future.
Since he deliberately chose the moniker James *R* Kirk...it's clear he hasn't been satisfied with any Trek that came after the second pilot...
Because, Star Trek is capable of being much more than it's usually given credit for. I'd like to see the bar raised rather than lowered. I prefer well thought out stories that challenge the characters as opposed to having the problem solved by having the neutron flow reversed by the alien guest star of the week. Just because someone doesn't embrace Trek regardless of it's flaws but in spite of them doesn't make someone less a fan that someone else who has their own reasons they love the show. "It's a big galaxy, Mr. Scott."
Or it's a little joke that tickles my funny bone to imagine someone will think I got it wrong. I've been a fan of Trek since Tos first aired, since Mission to Horatius was the only new fiction and everything since. Some more than others but enought that I still count myself a fan and can find something to keep me entertained in almost any episode or movie. That doesn't mean I don't think there's room for improvement. Some people just can't imagine someone approaching it in any way other than their own.