2387

That won't happen. The novels can't tie-in with the 2409 timeline, but that doesn't mean they can't go off in their own direction. Not everything has to match up perfectly; that's the beauty of fiction.

--Captain Terrell

 

Who knows? Maybe a decade from now, the licensing situation will be different.

We're not talking about the "2409 timeline" from Star Trek Online, though. We're talking about the material from the 2009 movie. The fact that the STO timeline ties into that material does not make that material subordinate to it. The stuff from the movies is the "fact" of the Trek universe. Any tie-in, whether the novels, the comics, or the games, is just a conjectural extrapolation from those "facts." If you think of screen canon as history, tie-ins are like historical fiction. If you read two different works of historical fiction about, say, D-Day, they might contradict each other in some of the details of what Churchill or MacArthur was doing when the reporters weren't watching, but they're both going to agree that the beaches of Normandy were stormed by an Allied force on June 6, 1944. That fact is not a property of one of those works of fiction, it's a property of the objective history that they're both building on. By the same token, the destruction of Romulus and the disappearance of Spock are not properties of "the 2409 timeline," they're properties of the "factual" screen canon that every tie-in timeline must incorporate.

 

I've seen these threads come and go every few months for the past several years; well, ever since 2009 when the movie series got rebooted.

Has it ever been 100% confirmed that the prime universe was the one that was altered when the Narada came back and destroyed the Kelvin? I mean, how do we know that all of that didn't happen in some alternate universe? For that matter, how do we know that the whole super-nova didn't happen in an alternate universe? Why does anything HAVE to happen in 2387? It's fiction; they can do what they want, right?

 

One thing that this discussion has made me realize is that this situation with the Pace of the novels slowing might allow Voyager to slowly catch up closer to the "present day".

 

The official party line from Paramount has always been that Nero, the Narada crew, and Nimoy Spock did indeed come from the Prime Universe, and that this "Prime Universe" is the same one depicted in the five TV shows and first ten movies.

Because that's the year stated in dialogue in Trek XI.

No, they still have to follow on screen canon, as Christopher explains in the post above yours.

 

The same reason we know "Space Seed" and The Wrath of Khan didn't take place in alternate universes despite the contradictions between them -- because it would be pretty pointless if they did. The reason for bringing back a familiar actor and character is to draw on their established history and the audience's identification with them. The entire point of including Leonard Nimoy in the '09 film was to provide a connection from the old continuity to the new, to establish the new continuity as a direct continuation of what had come before, instead of something separate. I mean, think about it. If Spock Prime weren't meant to be the same character from the same universe, there would've been no reason to include him in the movie at all, no reason to throw all that time travel and alternate-reality stuff into a story about how Kirk and the Enterprise crew first came together.

Of course not, because it's licensed tie-in fiction. The creators of original fiction can do what they want; the creators of tie-in fiction are hired specifically to follow the lead of the canon it ties into. It's like the difference between starting your own business and working for someone else's business.

 

Isn't the only Prime Universe facts that the novels would have to adhere to would be the fact that Romulus would be destroyed and that Ambassador Spock would be lost trying to prevent it. All other items (Picard as Ambassador, Geordi designed the Jellyfish, etc) were not part of the filmed/released movie. Would those items need to be honored?

Mike

 

So what does that mean if the novels reach the end of 2387 at some future point and the licensing situation doesn't change? The ongoing 24th century storyline just ends? I can't imagine any company ending something that makes money because of an issue like this; wouldn't it be more likely for them to just change your contracts to say "you have to adhere to what was onscreen except for the events of the Abramsverse"?

I mean, it's not like there's a law that forces a company to make its tie-in writers adhere to everything, it's Paramount's choice to make that the agreement. If Paramount wanted, they could say you had to adhere to "Mudd's Women" and specifically ignore the entire rest of the universe; they own it, and they get to say what you have to adhere to and what you don't.

 

Yes, that's what I already said. Only what's in the movie is binding. Tie-ins have never been obligated to acknowledge each other's inventions.

I'm not the one responsible for making those decisions, nor have I discussed it with those who are. But the solution seems pretty self-evident to me: The books would just have to tell stories that weren't about Spock or the Romulans. And that's not hard. Most 24th-century Trek novels are already about things other than Spock and the Romulans. It's a big universe with plenty of other elements to focus on. It would probably be possible to work around the edges, to allude to the destruction of Romulus or hint at a change in the status of the Romulan Empire without coming right out and mentioning the supernova directly.

After all, licensing limitations are a fact of life for adaptations. Marvel Studios movies and shows can't use the X-Men or the Fantastic Four, so they find alternatives, like focusing on Inhumans in place of mutants. Smallville couldn't use Batman, so they brought in Green Arrow instead. Arrow couldn't use Ted Kord, so they put Ray Palmer in his place. Nobody has to stop adapting an entire universe just because one piece of it is off-limits. They just work around it.

Of course not. We have to adhere to what's onscreen, period. We may not be able to mention every part of it, but that doesn't mean we get to contradict it. Some things just have to be avoided.

The company formerly called Paramount Television is now called CBS Studios. CBS owns Star Trek and licenses its tie-ins. The company that's still called Paramount Pictures licenses the movie rights to Star Trek from CBS, or retains them through agreement with CBS, or something. I gather that the complicated rights situation between CBS, Paramount, and maybe Bad Robot (???) is part of why getting the license sorted out is so tricky.

And I suppose you're right, in a sense; as the owners of the property, CBS (or Paramount where the new movies are concerned) is entitled to rewrite the continuity however they wish, to declare a show or movie non-binding and contradict it -- like, say, the various Highlander sequels did with their predecessors, or the way that one season of Dallas retconned the previous season as a dream. But here's the thing -- it's the core franchise itself, the movies and shows, that has the right to do that. That's the thing that's actually Star Trek. What we do is just an authorized imitation of Star Trek. We're borrowing their toys. The core universe can be rewritten, but we aren't the ones who get to do that. If any part of the core franchise gets ignored, that precedent has to be set by something onscreen, something that the tie-ins can then reflect and build on.

A studio would have no incentive to authorize its tie-ins to contradict or undermine the core work, because the purpose of tie-ins, from their perspective, is to promote the core work, to reinforce audience awareness and interest in it. These days, studios are pretty hypersensitive about making sure tie-ins and adaptations are faithful to the core work. Movie novelizations don't even get to embellish or flesh out the stories like they used to.

Because it's the actual show. The show that the tie-ins exist to promote. Like I said, it's the real deal, and what we do is just an imitation, an echo of it. Sometimes we only get to echo parts of it, but it's all just as real. You're getting it backward if you think you can treat the books as the reality and the screen canon as an optional piece of it. We have to accept the entire canon as real, even if there are parts we aren't licensed to use.

Like I said, if the canon is history, the books are historical fiction. A historical novelist may choose to avoid dealing with some part of history, may choose to write around it because it's too controversial or because some other novelist just dealt with it or something; but that doesn't mean they can directly contradict that set of historical events (assuming it's not an alternative-history novel). Trek canon is the "reality" that we're writing fiction about, so we write within its established framework.

 

Would CBS Studios necessarily care about expending effort to promote the product of Paramount Pictures and Bad Robot, though? Does CBS Studios see the tie-in line as promoting Trek, or as promoting their Trek; the television series that they still have control over? I mean, to use a branch off your own example, Marvel Comics works to help promote Marvel Studios productions, sure, but, well...

 

I do really appreciate the reboot references snuck in to the novelverse by authors so far

(and hope I haven't gotten anyone into trouble for pointing them out here before)

 

There's a lot of ways around this legal crap.

Spoiler: perhaps a story idea, read at own risk

Things like "Romulan refugees" and "the new capital" could always be mentioned.

They may not be able to mention the destruction of Romulus, but surely they can at least sneak in a reference to...it not being there anymore?

And also, since the supernova itself was, IIRC, not actually named onscreen, they can mention Hobus, can't they?

And that being said, I still think it's logically impossible for authors to follow a canon THAT THEY ARE NOT ALLOWED TO MENTION. That is a contradiction in terms.

 

There is no such distinction. It's all their Trek. CBS owns all of it and profits from all of it. Paramount retains a license to make movies based on it, but it still belongs to CBS. Look at the small print on a Classic Trek novel or comic and it says Copyright CBS Studios. Look at the small print on an Abramsverse comic and it says Copyright CBS Studios and Copyright Paramount Pictures Corporation. It's a co-production, not a separate production.

All those rumors about Marvel cancelling comics or merchandising to hurt Fox make little sense to me. I mean, the comics audience is minuscule compared to the moviegoing audience. The overwhelming majority of people who pay for Marvel movie tickets have never read a Marvel comic in their lives. Marvel could cancel its entire line of comics and it would have a statistically insignificant effect on the movies' box office. Marvel Comics would only hurt itself by refusing to publish comics that tied into a popular movie series.

So if the reports are true, then it seems to reflect some rather idiosyncratic decision-making on the part of some executive somewhere. There's no reason to assume that such odd choices would set a precedent for others.

 

I'm confused. How can STO use elements of Bad Robot Trek, but the novelverse can't? Isn't STO owned by CBS. And didn't S&S publish a novel (The Needs of the Many) which referenced Star Trek 2009? I know that was an STO tie in, but still, doesn't that suggest that the legal prohibition isn't as specific?

 

All Star Trek is owned by CBS. But Paramount and Bad Robot have a say in how their particular piece of it is handled, because that's how partnerships work. Anyway, it's not unheard of. Different publishers get different licenses sometimes. Like how back in the '90s, DC Comics got the license to TOS and TNG, but Malibu got the license to DS9. All equally owned by what was then Paramount, but apportioned differently depending on what the respective comics companies bid for the licenses. Each licensing deal is negotiated separately, and so they can turn out differently. In this case, STO and IDW managed to get Abramsverse licenses, but Pocket didn't, for whatever reason. For more specifics, you'd need to ask someone well above my pay grade.

 

THe spock thing is pretty simple - he's just never mentioned past that point.

 

Yes it's the destruction of the homeworld of one of the major political entities in local space and the political ramifications of that which is the harder to ignore part.

 

I'm surprised no one has mentioned it yet, but the closest analogy to this for me is Doctor Who, where (until recently, at least) the Big Finish audios were only allowed to feature adventures of the first eight Doctors and couldn't reference any elements from the current series, even though all of it takes place in the same continuity.

In other words, this sort of licencing situation isn't unprecedented.

 

Surely though the books can just have it blow up with no cause known to the characters - thus you don't have to mention any move connection in any sense?

The writers have destroyed other 'canon' planets or killed off their populations.

The other more radical option Crisis on Infinite Earth option is just to start again.