A Lit-verse based TOS chronology

[Idran]

April is three months after the end of Precipice, lawman; Ryan and I didn't disagree about where it started, we disagreed about how long it was (or rather Ryan had just skimmed WJC for references and it gave him a false impression of how long it spanned).

I'll do a fuller response tomorrow since it is 1 AM here and I should be asleep right now.

 

[Christopher]

I respectfully disagree about IE and VAM. The thread discussed why it's possible to ignore them, but hardly established it as "better." I'll grant that authorial intent is never the be-all and end-all of textual interpretation, but given how much of this discussion is devoted to taking Trek authors' chronological references at face value, it seems odd to dismiss their actual story references... and the clear intent behind M'Benga's description of events during his stay on Vulcan is to reference those novels.

Except that, as we've established, the Vanguard letter puts its version of those events months before "Journey to Babel," whereas the novels themselves are explicitly set significantly after that episode. So they can't be the same version of events, not when you'd have to exclude Sarek and Amanda and their critical role in the novels. It seems that it makes more sense to interpret it as simply an homage.

If we ignore that, then that whole passage is reduced to meaninglessness, and we're left with no in-story account of how M'Benga met the Enterprise crew and wound up serving on board.

Do we need one? He's an expert in Vulcan medicine. The Enterprise has a Vulcan crewmember. It's not exactly a huge mystery.

The underlying reasoning about Kor's ship may be more complicated than necessary, though. Because not only...

...but there's also a more recent reference point; to quote from Memory Alpha,

"The non-canon comic book "Blood Reign O'er Me" names [Kor's] ship as the Voh'Tahk, while the novel Excelsior: Forged in Fire gives the name as Klolode."
​

IOW, the ship has no canonical name, and TrekLit is inconsistent. It's easy enough to assume Klolode was his first ship, and Voh'Tahk his second.

No, Kang's ship has been variously called the Voh'Tahk and the Klolode. Kor's ship was canonically established as the Klothos in "The Time Trap" and "Once More Unto the Breach."

 

[Idran]

I mean, it was already gone into why it's better to ignore the references to IDIC Epidemic and Vulcan Academy Murders anyway, and like I said before your post, "What Judgments Come" takes place over the course of many months as it stands anyway. On my own timeline I've got it as spanning about 5 or 6 from April to around August or September 2268, starting after "Assignment: Earth" and only overlapping 9 episodes including the two-month span of "Paradise Syndrome".

I respectfully disagree about IE and VAM. The thread discussed why it's possible to ignore them, but hardly established it as "better." I'll grant that authorial intent is never the be-all and end-all of textual interpretation, but given how much of this discussion is devoted to taking Trek authors' chronological references at face value, it seems odd to dismiss their actual story references... and the clear intent behind M'Benga's description of events during his stay on Vulcan is to reference those novels. If we ignore that, then that whole passage is reduced to meaninglessness, and we're left with no in-story account of how M'Benga met the Enterprise crew and wound up serving on board.

Christopher already hit this, but I meant how it's impossible to both keep the events of IE and VAM as is and also have those stories set before "Journey to Babel", as presented in M'Benga's letter.

As for WJC, true enough, it spans months, but how many months is important, since there seems to be no dispute that it ends shortly before Tholian Web. Ryan was going (at first) on the assumption that it ended only about three months after Precipice; you clearly disagree, which does provide a lot more time to spread things out plausibly.

The mere fact that both interpretations struck you and he (respectively) as plausible, though, I think underscores my larger point.

Oh, I see I misread your comment last night; danger of posting half-asleep. Anyway he was initially under that assumption, but that was only because (as he said himself) he hadn't looked closely at WJC and didn't realize it spanned months. He thought it was another one that took place over the course of a few days, because he'd only skimmed it while building this, he didn't give it a close reading.

Even when I was reading the Vanguard series, and doing my best to make sense of its internal chronology, it just didn't all hang together. Some books seem to have given the pacing considerable thought; others focus narrowly on the events of a few days here, then skip lightly across months over there; often it's far from clear, nor does it all dovetail plausibly in terms of either the events being chronicled, or the TOS background being referenced.

I'd disagree; I've never had any issue with the plausibility of what's referenced. (I can't even say that the IE/VAM thing bugged me before it was brought up by Christopher here, but that's only because it's been at least a decade since I read those and I didn't remember that Sarek and Amanda showed up in them. ) That's really a matter of taste rather than any objective points about the books.

I'm not sure that's quite what Idran indicated, although he can certainly clarify. He did write that WJC Ch.18 falls "nearly a year" after the story "First Peer," which marks the start of the Romulan/Klingon alliance; meanwhile the "Historian's Note" that starts the story itself sets it "less than a month" after Deadly Years. (And it specifies "2267," but not necessarily September.)

No it is what I indicated. The historian's note says that it takes place less than a month after "Deadly Years", yeah. But the text itself is set over the course of many months, like I mentioned in an earlier post. Specifically: Chapter 3 is set weeks after Chapter 2, Chapter 4 is set two khaidoa after the plan is begun (which is ~60-90 days), and Chapter 7 is one khaidoa after Chapter 4 (which is ~30-45 days). I've specifically got Chapters 1-2 in late September 2267, Chapter 3 in mid-October, Chapters 4-6 in late December, and chapters 7-8 in early February 2268, myself. (I break up my timeline granularly by chapter (and sometimes section if need be) with copious notes on why, is why I have all this offhand, for what it's worth.)

But the story itself starts off with a heading reading "February 2268." You're specified you're working with endpoints here; do you figure the story spans two months?

If it started at the end of February 2268 then putting its end at the very start of April 2268 isn't impossible, though I'd say late March myself; chapter 19 is explicitly said to be "four weeks later", which you could stretch and say it's more like four and a half. (I actually pointed out this gap in the story in an earlier post to Ryan, even. )

 

[ryan123450]

Besides, I'm skeptical that 18 months (at most) is enough time to accommodate TAS and all the other stories clambering over each other to fit into the final stretch of the FYM. (I've tried. And found that an extra few months help a whole lot! Especially when you choose to incorporate things like Prime Directive, which is a time hog, but also a great novel that I'd hate to "lose.")

I won't be able to take the time to respond to all of everything you've brought up, but I did want to say that for me 18 months is an ok amount of time to fit the remaining stories into. If you were to fit all the stories that ever claimed to be set during this period, I could see how it would be too little time, but as we'll see in my 2270 section, there really aren't that many Lit-verse connected stories in that 18 months. It's about as packed as the rest of the 5 year mission has been.

And the discussion about The Stars Look Down has prompted me to put at the end of March instead of the beginning of April. I can't recall how I ended up thinking that was were it should go. Probably just the result of working on this for a few hours at a time over the course of weeks and making slight changes without remembering the overall reasoning for everything's placement.

Hey, remember that at least some of us appreciate it! Glad you didn't leave them out.

Thanks for the support! Hope to post 2270 soon.

 

[lawman]

The underlying reasoning about Kor's ship may be more complicated than necessary, though. Because not only...

...but there's also a more recent reference point; to quote from Memory Alpha,

"The non-canon comic book "Blood Reign O'er Me" names [Kor's] ship as the Voh'Tahk, while the novel Excelsior: Forged in Fire gives the name as Klolode."
​

IOW, the ship has no canonical name, and TrekLit is inconsistent. It's easy enough to assume Klolode was his first ship, and Voh'Tahk his second.

No, Kang's ship has been variously called the Voh'Tahk and the Klolode. Kor's ship was canonically established as the Klothos in "The Time Trap" and "Once More Unto the Breach."

You are entirely correct; I was thinking Kang but typed Kor. Mea culpa. Once we name the correct Klingon, though, my point remains that the ship name isn't a stumbling block.

Christopher already hit this, but I meant how it's impossible to both keep the events of IE and VAM as is and also have those stories set before "Journey to Babel", as presented in M'Benga's letter.

I don't have the book at hand to double-check, so this is a sincere question: is there anything about M'Benga's letter that logically requires it to antedate JTB? I don't remember anything like that, but I might be misremembering.

I'd disagree; I've never had any issue with the plausibility of what's referenced. ... That's really a matter of taste rather than any objective points about the books.

Naturally it's a subjective matter. Internal chronology is important to me when I read fiction; I admit that I'm pickier about this than many (although not necessarily many in this particular thread, from the evidence at hand!). And I'm not saying the Vanguard books are wildly inconsistent with each other. I'm just saying that they clearly take different approaches to detailing the passage of time, some of which are clearer than others, and not all of the cross-references are self-evidently logical. It's understandable when we're talking about a series written by multiple authors over multiple years.

The historian's note says that ["First Peer"] takes place less than a month after "Deadly Years", yeah. But the text itself is set over the course of many months...

Fair enough. I haven't actually read the story, so I'll cheerfully defer to your notes on this.

Hope to post 2270 soon.

Looking forward to it! Especially since that's both post-TOS and post-Vanguard, so it's strictly a matter of seeing how (and whether) other stories fit together.

 

[Christopher]

I don't have the book at hand to double-check, so this is a sincere question: is there anything about M'Benga's letter that logically requires it to antedate JTB? I don't remember anything like that, but I might be misremembering.

The letter explicitly asserts that the events of the novels took place in June and July and that the events of "Journey to Babel" took place in mid-November. There's absolutely no ambiguity to it.

 

[ryan123450]

So, as if the previous years didn't leave a lot that relied on personal preference, this final year is extremely low on concrete points to go off of.

January 2270 (Note 1)

• 4x12- The Time Trap
• 4x14- The Slaver Weapon
• SCE: Where Time Stands Still (Note 2)
• 4x15- The Eye of the Beholder
• 4x16- The Jihad

February 2270

• 5x01- The Pirates of Orion
• 5x02- Bem
• 5x03- The Practical Joker

March 2270

• 5x04- Albatross
• 5x06- The Counter-Clock Incident
• Romulans: Schism (Note 3)
• The Abode of Life (OrigLit) (Note 4)
• None But the Brave (Note 5)

April 2270

• Corona (OrigLit)
• Crossroad (Note 5)
• Mindshadow (OrigLit)

May 2270

• The Eugenics Wars, Volume One (Note 5)
• The Eugenics Wars, Volume Two (Note 5)
• Demons (OrigLit)
• The Rings of Time (Note 6)
• Chain of Attack (OrigLit)

June 2270 (Note 7)

• 4x13- The Ambergris Element (Note 8)

July 2270

• 5x05- How Sharper Than A Serpent's Tooth (Note 8)
• The Final Reflection (OrigLit) (Note 9)

August 2270

• Bloodthirst (OrigLit)
• Allegiance in Exile (Note 10)
• The Final Nexus (OrigLit)

September 2270

• The Entropy Effect (OrigLit)
• Savage Trade (Note 11)
• Yesterday's Son (OrigLit)
• No Time Like the Past (Note 12)

October 2270

• Dreadnaught! (OrigLit)
• Battlestations! (OrigLit)
• Where Everybody Knows Your Name (Note 13)

November 2270 (Note 14)

• (Forgotten History)
• The Lost Years (OrigLit)

1. Still spacing evenly from the last solid date (Yesteryear October 2269). For this I did count all the stories from both continuities, because to only count from the modern Litverse would have ended up spreading things thinner, which would have had TAS take up alot more time. (Ending in mid-March vs late-May). TAS ends up taking right at six months, which seems fitting for 22 half hour episodes.
2. Takes place soon after The Time Trap.
3. Claims to be "Season Five" era, so that means post-TAS to me. Also doesn't seem like too much time has past since The Enterprise Incident, so I put it directly after TAS.
4. Post TAS I proportionally divided each month's available stories to each of the two continuities. This spreads the stories of each continuity out over the rest of the time, as opposed to the Voyages of the Imagination take on it, which lumps all the Original Litverse books into one section. I kept the order of the Original Litverse books as given in Voyagers of Imagination. I'm probably being too slavishly adherent to this evenly spacing things out, but I hate to just arbitrarily put things in certain places.
5. There ended up being 8 places to be taken up by non-Original Litverse books. Some had more firm dating clues than others. None But the Brave, Crossroad, and The Eugenics Wars were the three most flexible, so I left them in the order they appear in Memory-Beta and Voyages of the Imagaination, and put them in these first "open" spots.
6. Set toward the end of the 5YM. All the spots farther uptime were more firmly taken.
7. Allegiance in Exile has the seventh and eighth months of the last year of the 5YM mission be without Sulu. Those months would be June and July under this timeline. So we have a two month gap where most of these stories can't take place. I did find three stories which could conceivably be moved to this time period.
8. No Sulu in either of these episodes.
9. Sulu doesn't appear in this story either, as far as I can tell. I put it after the TAS episodes since it is set after TAS in Voyages of the Imagination. I do wonder why it was placed there by the Timeliners, though, since Rand is mentioned in it. Shouldn't it be closer to Season 1?
10. Allegiance in Exile starts on the first day of the 5th year of the 5YM and ends about 8 months later.
11. Set two years after The Savage Curtain. I put this in the latest time slot possible, and fudge the 2 years to 18 months.
12. 2270, but after Yesterday's Son. In this case the only open spot was directly after Yesterday's Son.
13. Set very very late in the 5YM. I left it right at the end where it was in Voyages of the Imagination.
14. I left this entire month available for any-and-all final mission stories that anybody would want to accept, especially the official modern Lit-verse version in Forgotten History.

Wow, finally finished.

 

[Christopher]

To note 9: The frame of The Final Reflection should really go post-TMP. The foreword of the novel-within-the-novel claims it's been 65 years since first contact with the Klingons, and it's using the dates from the Spaceflight Chronology, in which that event occurred in 2151. So that would mean the foreword was written in 2216 SFC, about a year before TMP (and presumably some time before the novel's release). Although the foreword also says it's been over 10 years since the beginning of the "Pax Organia," and the SFC puts "Errand of Mercy" in 2208, which would put the foreword in at least 2218, a year after TMP. A little inconsistent, but either way, it fits into a post-TMP timeframe, despite the fact that Rand is called "Yeoman" instead of "Chief."

 

[Nightowl1701]

^ I had to quickly double-check that book after reading your post! WOW - of all the dates for that particular book to actually (albeit purely accidentally) get right...

 

[Christopher]

^Oh, you mean 2151 for Klingon contact. I didn't even notice that.

 

[Jsplinis]

I've really enjoyed reading all of your thoughts and the results of this Lit-verse Timeline project. Would any of you be interested in continuing it through the Movie Era.

It would be great to see your thoughts on what novels, comics etc. could be included just like you discussed for the 5-Year-Mission. And since the stories are not as plentiful then the timeline could be less specific. I mean that the stories could be placed by year instead of month.

Well, just thought I'd ask to see if anyone is interested since I haven't read anywhere near enough to do it myself.

Thanks and have fun,
jsplinis

 

[ryan123450]

I will probably remove The Final Reflection. I still wonder why it was claimed to be during the end of the 5YM. Does it have anything to do with How Much For Just the Planet? I can't see how.

I really wish I could talk to any of the people responsible for building the Pocket Timeline and get some real in-depth info on their thought process while building that massively impressive but at times confusing project.

Thanks so much to everyone who has helped me sort this out during this great discussion. It's been alot of fun and very useful to me for my future timeline building.

I've really enjoyed reading all of your thoughts and the results of this Lit-verse Timeline project. Would any of you be interested in continuing it through the Movie Era.

It would be great to see your thoughts on what novels, comics etc. could be included just like you discussed for the 5-Year-Mission. And since the stories are not as plentiful then the timeline could be less specific. I mean that the stories could be placed by year instead of month.

Well, just thought I'd ask to see if anyone is interested since I haven't read anywhere near enough to do it myself.

Thanks and have fun,
jsplinis

I'm glad you've liked the discussion. I for one would be willing to post my thoughts on the subject. Maybe I'll have a chance tonight. Like you say it will be alot simpler than what we've talked about so far. Especially if we ignore the Original Litverse and it's companion DC Comics series.

 

[Christopher]

I will probably remove The Final Reflection. I still wonder why it was claimed to be during the end of the 5YM. Does it have anything to do with How Much For Just the Planet? I can't see how.

I think it's just that the timing information is hidden away in the introduction to the book-within-the-book, rather than in the Enterprise segments themselves, so it's easy to overlook. Plus the reference to "Yeoman" Rand confuses the issue.

 

[lawman]

So, as if the previous years didn't leave a lot that relied on personal preference, this final year is extremely low on concrete points to go off of...

4. Post TAS I proportionally divided each month's available stories to each of the two continuities. This spreads the stories of each continuity out over the rest of the time, as opposed to the Voyages of the Imagination take on it, which lumps all the Original Litverse books into one section. I kept the order of the Original Litverse books as given in Voyagers of Imagination. I'm probably being too slavishly adherent to this evenly spacing things out, but I hate to just arbitrarily put things in certain places.

I wouldn't call what you're doing "slavish" — it has its own logic — but neither is the Pocket TL necessarily "arbitrary." For instance, its logic for placing Mindshadow, Demons, Chain of Attack, Bloodthirst, and Final Nexus in sequence together appears to be that the first of those novels introduces Ingrit Tomson as Security Chief, and all of the others feature her in that role. (She doesn't reappear until The Lost Years, and then again in a cluster of Diane Duane and Peter Morwood novels — starting with Doctor's Orders — which by apparently broad consensus are placed post-FYM.) It limits the possible contradictions with other novels that mention somebody else in that role (e.g., Flynn in Entropy Effect, Masters in Yesterday's Son, Matlock in Wounded Sky, Giotto in Pawns and Symbols).

Similarly, there's logic for moving Crossroads later, since it places itself by internal reference three months before the end of the FYM. And Savage Trade, likewise by internal reference, takes place over a span of about five weeks.

And insofar as we're striving for consistency with the current Litverse, we should note that DTI: Forgotten History explicitly establishes that further research on (and indeed access to) the Guardian of Forever was banned as of July 22, 2270, meaning that Yesterday's Son has to fall sometime before that date.

Meanwhile, it makes sense to me to place the Dreadnought!/ Battlestations! pair bracketing the Allegiance in Exile "gap," since in the latter of those two Sulu is promoted to Lt. Commander, which just fits really nicely with his return to the Enterprise.

And speaking of Sulu, if we really want to get picky, note that during Entropy Effect Flynn trains Sulu in judo, which he knows in the TAS episode Infinite Vulcan, so it makes sense to place that novel pre-TAS.

BTW, what about Garth of Izar, Troublesome Minds, and Weight of Worlds, all litverse-era late-FYM novels that you don't include here? (Or have you placed those in earlier years upthread and I'm forgetting?)

As for Final Reflection, CLB is absolutely right to note...

To note 9: The frame of The Final Reflection should really go post-TMP. The foreword of the novel-within-the-novel claims it's been 65 years since first contact with the Klingons, and it's using the dates from the Spaceflight Chronology, in which that event occurred in 2151. ... Although the foreword also says it's been over 10 years since the beginning of the "Pax Organia," and the SFC puts "Errand of Mercy" in 2208, which would put the foreword in at least 2218, a year after TMP.

Wasn't Final Reflection one of those early novels, along with Wounded Sky and a few others, that implicitly placed its events during the (then-assumed) pre-TMP second FYM? That can make them tricky to place given current timeline assumptions — a bit of fudging is unavoidable — but I agree this one makes a lot more sense post-FYM, and hence (now by necessity) post-TMP.

However...

I will probably remove The Final Reflection. I still wonder why it was claimed to be during the end of the 5YM.

No, don't do that! It's such an awesome novel. Remove it from 2270, yes, but not from the timeline overall!

Speaking of which...

I've really enjoyed reading all of your thoughts and the results of this Lit-verse Timeline project. Would any of you be interested in continuing it through the Movie Era.

It would be great to see your thoughts on what novels, comics etc. could be included just like you discussed for the 5-Year-Mission...

I've done that myself — based largely but by no means entirely on the Pocket TL, to give credit where due — but as mentioned briefly upthread, some of my placements are controversial with other posters here, mainly because I insist on maintaining the IMHO reasonable assumption that STII:TWOK was, in fact, approximately fifteen years after Space Seed, as mentioned repeatedly by both Kirk and Khan on-screen, rather than some longer span as dictated by the Okudachron and its progeny.

However, I agree that it would be interesting to see what Ryan or others have come up with!...

I for one would be willing to post my thoughts on the subject. Maybe I'll have a chance tonight. Like you say it will be alot simpler than what we've talked about so far. Especially if we ignore the Original Litverse and it's companion DC Comics series.

...although ignoring those factors would take a lot of the fun out of the exercise, IMHO! (And leave a lot more yawning gaps in the timeline, frankly.)

 

[Christopher]

And insofar as we're striving for consistency with the current Litverse, we should note that DTI: Forgotten History explicitly establishes that further research on (and indeed access to) the Guardian of Forever was banned as of July 22, 2270, meaning that Yesterday's Son has to fall sometime before that date.

Yesterday's Son is problematical to place. It takes place over two years after "All Our Yesterdays," which would seem to put it in 2271 by modern assumptions; at best, it's very late in the 5YM. But it also has to be before "Yesteryear," since it presents itself as Kirk's first return to the Guardian planet since "City on the Edge" (also contradicting First Frontier, which does the same). Also, it has Wesley still in command of the Lexington, contradicting "One of Our Planets is Missing." Basically, Crispin just disregarded the animated series altogether.

That's part of why I prefer to keep YS in the '80s continuity. After all, its sequel, Time for Yesterday, is pretty much the linchpin volume of that continuity, since it references so many other '80s novels that would otherwise be unconnected to each other.

Wasn't Final Reflection one of those early novels, along with Wounded Sky and a few others, that implicitly placed its events during the (then-assumed) pre-TMP second FYM?

Impossible to say. The only thing in the brief Enterprise frame portions that suggests the 5YM is the mention of "Yeoman Janice Rand." There's no other mention of anyone's rank except Captain Kirk, and no description of the ship or uniforms. Aside from the Rand bit, it feels deliberately ambiguous as to the period. (Although it's explicitly later than "Errand of Mercy," of course, which is problematical given that Rand left well before then.)

Worth noting, by the way, that the prologue ties into The Entropy Effect by mentioning Spock's studies at the Makropyrios.

No, don't do that! It's such an awesome novel. Remove it from 2270, yes, but not from the timeline overall!

There's no value judgment involved in putting different books in different timelines. If it doesn't fit the continuity, then it needs to stand apart, but that doesn't take away from the enjoyment of it.

Indeed, The Final Reflection works better if it's kept separate from the modern continuity, because it's so strongly based on the historical assertions of the Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology, which are impossible to reconcile with the modern timeline. So trying to shoehorn it into modern Trek would require glossing over a lot of the details that give the book its distinct character, and I think that does it an injustice. It's more fun as an exploration of an earlier, alternative view of Trek history, a universe that might have been.

 

[Enterprise1701]

Well I suppose that if you wanted to, you could strip away the specifics of "Yesterday's Son" and just say that "something" like it happened to fit in No Time Like the Past's reference to Zar.

 

[ryan123450]

I wouldn't call what you're doing "slavish" — it has its own logic — but neither is the Pocket TL necessarily "arbitrary." For instance, its logic for placing Mindshadow, Demons, Chain of Attack, Bloodthirst, and Final Nexus in sequence together appears to be that the first of those novels introduces Ingrit Tomson as Security Chief, and all of the others feature her in that role. (She doesn't reappear until The Lost Years, and then again in a cluster of Diane Duane and Peter Morwood novels — starting with Doctor's Orders — which by apparently broad consensus are placed post-FYM.) It limits the possible contradictions with other novels that mention somebody else in that role (e.g., Flynn in Entropy Effect, Masters in Yesterday's Son, Matlock in Wounded Sky, Giotto in Pawns and Symbols).

You are probably right that that was their reasoning for putting all those books in sequence together. In a timeline which includes all continuities, it makes sense to do that, but if you were only looking at one continuity at a time, it would seem odd if all these stories take place in a relatively quick amount of time with big unchronicled gaps at each end. That's why I prefer to spread the Old and New Litverse stories in that era out over the final months to cover the entire stretch with each continuity.

Similarly, there's logic for moving Crossroads later, since it places itself by internal reference three months before the end of the FYM.

I had not noticed that. I will have to change that around to take that info into account.

And insofar as we're striving for consistency with the current Litverse, we should note that DTI: Forgotten History explicitly establishes that further research on (and indeed access to) the Guardian of Forever was banned as of July 22, 2270, meaning that Yesterday's Son has to fall sometime before that date.

Thanks for pointing that out. I hadn't remembered that story point, but it is very relevant. I will have to change that around too. In fact, with the necessity to push that story, and likewise all the previous Original Lit-verse stories, backwards to accommodate that fact, it might make more sense to revert to the original Pocket Timeline order which I was trying to get away from, with all the Original Litverse novels close together, then a stretch of newer stories. I'll have to see how I can work things around.

Meanwhile, it makes sense to me to place the Dreadnought!/ Battlestations! pair bracketing the Allegiance in Exile "gap," since in the latter of those two Sulu is promoted to Lt. Commander, which just fits really nicely with his return to the Enterprise.

I also like the idea of that. I may end up going with it. We'll see.

And speaking of Sulu, if we really want to get picky, note that during Entropy Effect Flynn trains Sulu in judo, which he knows in the TAS episode Infinite Vulcan, so it makes sense to place that novel pre-TAS.

Wow, I never would have noticed something that specific. I'll think about the ramifications of moving Entropy Effect.

BTW, what about Garth of Izar, Troublesome Minds, and Weight of Worlds, all litverse-era late-FYM novels that you don't include here? (Or have you placed those in earlier years upthread and I'm forgetting?)

I don't have those since I don't know of any specific links to the Litverse in any of them, despite having been published in recent years. I've even specifically asked the authors of the last two books if there was anything that they put in their novels that would connect them to the Litverse, and they said there wasn't.

No, don't do that! It's such an awesome novel. Remove it from 2270, yes, but not from the timeline overall!

I should have said "move" instead of "remove". I will just be moving it to it's rightful year, though it will be outside the scope of this current discussion of the 5YM timeline.

However, I agree that it would be interesting to see what Ryan or others have come up with!...

I would also take most of my queues from the Pocket Timeline, but I do have a few things I think I've moved around. I hope to get time to post about that soon, but I'm not getting alot of relaxing with the computer time while I'm on a family vacation this week.

...although ignoring those factors would take a lot of the fun out of the exercise, IMHO! (And leave a lot more yawning gaps in the timeline, frankly.)

I definitely count many of those stories as part of my personal continuity. I will see what I end up posting

Worth noting, by the way, that the prologue ties into The Entropy Effect by mentioning Spock's studies at the Makropyrios.

You're right and that must be why the Pocket Timeliners placed it directly after The Entropy Effect. Even though they still placed it there erroneously, now at least you've explained why they put it at that point. Thanks!

 

[lawman]

Yesterday's Son is problematical to place. It takes place over two years after "All Our Yesterdays," which would seem to put it in 2271 by modern assumptions; at best, it's very late in the 5YM. But it also has to be before "Yesteryear," since it presents itself as Kirk's first return to the Guardian planet since "City on the Edge" (also contradicting First Frontier, which does the same). Also, it has Wesley still in command of the Lexington, contradicting "One of Our Planets is Missing." Basically, Crispin just disregarded the animated series altogether.

These fall into the category of "non-plot-essential details" that I find it fairly easy to squint at. Given that YS was written before the modern assumptions existed, the "two years" thing merely signifies "late FYM." And the fact that multiple stories frame themselves as Kirk's "first" return to the Guardian is no real surprise either, if the author's intent in each case was to avoid requiring readers to be familiar with any stories outside of onscreen TOS.

FWIW, however, I'd see no real problem positioning this one between TOS and TAS, which would strike out "two years" completely but resolve the other inconsistencies, including the bit about Commodore Wesley.

That's part of why I prefer to keep YS in the '80s continuity. After all, its sequel, Time for Yesterday, is pretty much the linchpin volume of that continuity, since it references so many other '80s novels that would otherwise be unconnected to each other.

Kind of ironic, really... the difficulty with YS amounts to too few references to other stories, whereas the difficulty with TFY is that it's chock full of them.

No, don't do that! [TFR is] such an awesome novel. Remove it from 2270, yes, but not from the timeline overall!

There's no value judgment involved in putting different books in different timelines. If it doesn't fit the continuity, then it needs to stand apart, but that doesn't take away from the enjoyment of it.

I freely admit that the timeline hangs together perfectly well without it; this is just a matter of sentimental attachment for me. I think TFR stands out as one of the top-tier Trek novels, of any era, and I love its interpretation of Klingon culture.

I prefer to spread the Old and New Litverse stories in that era out over the final months to cover the entire stretch with each continuity.

...[but] with the necessity to push that story, and likewise all the previous Original Lit-verse stories, backwards to accommodate that fact [about the GoF], it might make more sense to revert to the original Pocket Timeline order which I was trying to get away from, with all the Original Litverse novels close together, then a stretch of newer stories. I'll have to see how I can work things around.

Makes sense to me. It seems like the best way to accommodate the preferences of those who like to keep past and current Trek-lit continuities separate, as well as those who like to integrate them into a larger whole, while minimizing avoidable contradictions as much as possible.

And speaking of Sulu, if we really want to get picky, note that during Entropy Effect Flynn trains Sulu in judo, which he knows in the TAS episode Infinite Vulcan, so it makes sense to place that novel pre-TAS.

Wow, I never would have noticed something that specific. I'll think about the ramifications of moving Entropy Effect.

I can't claim credit for the original observation. OTOH, at the moment I can't dig up where I first saw it pointed out, either, so hey, here's to crowdsourcing!

 

[Christopher]

And the fact that multiple stories frame themselves as Kirk's "first" return to the Guardian is no real surprise either, if the author's intent in each case was to avoid requiring readers to be familiar with any stories outside of onscreen TOS.

Except that "Yesteryear" was onscreen too.

I freely admit that the timeline hangs together perfectly well without it; this is just a matter of sentimental attachment for me. I think TFR stands out as one of the top-tier Trek novels, of any era, and I love its interpretation of Klingon culture.

As I've said, I used to try to force novels to stay in continuity out of sentimental attachment to them, but eventually I realized I was doing them a disservice by trying to change them into something compatible with modern Trek and bulldoze over their unique quirks in the process. It was actually more sentimental to let them stand apart with their distinct style and identity uncompromised.

 

[Idran]

Related enough to the topic of this thread I guess, I was doing some stuff with my timeline recently, and I wanted to check: Christopher, what dates (or months, at least) did you have in mind for "Ex Machina"? I was wondering largely because of the various "X.Y years since Z" references that Spock made throughout that book; they seem self-consistent with one another from episode spacing, and it looks like they point towards May 2273 for "Ex Machina" or thereabouts? But your annotations for "Forgotten History" (and the in-text duration of "Ex Machina" itself) put "Ex Machina" as spanning October-November 2273 or so. (I'm asking mostly because those references would be a handy way to get months for "Changeling", "Bread and Circuses", and "FTWIH", but if you use the latter date for "Ex Machina" then none of them really fit without moving them.)