Another Lit Wish List Thread

[Christopher]

The reason for shelving the post-ST2009 novels is that the filmmakers wanted to reserve for themselves the right to move the story forward, but they're okay with tie-ins set before the movie, like IDW's Countdown, Spock: Reflections, and Nero and Pocket's YA Starfleet Academy series. So there's no reason to think a Kelvin book would be off-limits, at least not based on the shelving of the four sequel books.

Why?

They want to respect Trek book canon?

We only have speculation, but it's more likely the other way around. Never forget, the tie-ins are a very small tail on the very large dog of the film/TV franchise. The job of tie-ins is to follow the lead of the canon, not vice-versa. (There's no such thing as "book canon" here. Canon means the core work, as distinct from derivative works.) It could be that the filmmakers want to make sure there aren't any books or comics published that end up contradicting what happens in their later movies.

Again, though, I'm in no position to do anything more than repeat what little has been announced to or speculated by the public. If you want to know the reasons why, you'd have to ask the people in charge of the franchise and its licensing. And if they don't care to make their reasons known, that's their prerogative too. They're the ones making Star Trek now, and the tie-ins exist to support and supplement their efforts, so they get to decide the parameters of the tie-in line.

 

[ClayinCA]

A lot of what I'd want has been said already, so I'll confine myself to just saying:

I want Marco Palmieri back.

 

[MatthiasRussell]

I would like to see a story on the XCV-330. What made it a legend? And I think it should be written like an old sailing ship adventure. Possibly put it under the Lost Era banner. I don't know if anyone has read the books of Tony Horwitz but he has written some excellent reads in which he covers a historical event then visits the location in modern times to report the event's impact on the current culture. I think that would be an interesting approach. Tell the story of the xcv's voyage of exploration like a sailing ship adventure along with how the voyage impacted the later ufp.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

More Neyel.

 

[Lonemagpie]

Here another couple of mine:
The Voth come home. What happens? Do they want to reclaim Earth, wipe it off the map to kill interest among the Voth, or take pictures with dinosaur skeletons?

<deletes Word file>

Thanks a bunch.

 

[MatthiasRussell]

---

 

[JD]

I would like to see a story on the XCV-330. What made it a legend? And I think it should be written like an old sailing ship adventure. Possibly put it under the Lost Era banner.

The Lost Era represents the time between the Gen prologue and TNG, and this doesn't fit that at all. If they did that they would really need to come up with a new title.

 

[Christopher]

MatthiasRussell, please do not post specific story suggestions on the Trek Lit forum, ever. Professional writers cannot allow ourselves to listen to unsolicited story ideas, and as Lonemagpie's (hopefully joking) response suggests, if we even hear an idea similar to something we're already working on, it requires us to abandon the idea lest we risk litigation.

 

[Lonemagpie]

and as Lonemagpie's (hopefully joking) response suggests,

no, that one I was working on...

Albeit to rip off the Silurians from Dr Who whom the Voth are conceptually already a ripoff of...

I can think of a few other things to do with them, maybe...

 

[Christopher]

Damn, that's a shame. It just goes to show how important it is to obey the no story ideas rule on this forum.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I would like to see a story on the XCV-330. What made it a legend? And I think it should be written like an old sailing ship adventure. Possibly put it under the Lost Era banner.

The Lost Era represents the time between the Gen prologue and TNG, and this doesn't fit that at all. If they did that they would really need to come up with a new title.

There are many lost eras in Trek. Off the top of my head:

- Present day to ENT (World War III would fall under this)
- End of ENT to TOS
- End of TOS to ST:TMP
- ST:TMP to TWOK
- Generations to TNG

What makes one any more deserving of the name than another?

 

[Christopher]

^It's not a question of deserving, it's just the way it happened. You can call those lost eras, lower-case, but the specific title Star Trek: The Lost Era was assigned to fiction set in the interval between the Generations prologue and TNG. I mean, heck, you could say that Battlestar Galactica is just as "deserving" of the name Star Trek as the franchise we're talking about, since it's also about a trek through the stars, but the simple fact is, that isn't what the title refers to.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^It's not a question of deserving, it's just the way it happened. You can call those lost eras, lower-case, but the specific title Star Trek: The Lost Era was assigned to fiction set in the interval between the Generations prologue and TNG.

I detect nits being picked here, but whatever.

 

[MatthiasRussell]

MatthiasRussell, please do not post specific story suggestions on the Trek Lit forum, ever. Professional writers cannot allow ourselves to listen to unsolicited story ideas, and as Lonemagpie's (hopefully joking) response suggests, if we even hear an idea similar to something we're already working on, it requires us to abandon the idea lest we risk litigation.

Sorry, never heard this one before.

BTW, what specific story suggestion? Magpie, my humblest apologeeze.

 

[Idran]

The one that he quoted, about the Voth.

I still can't believe that's the legal situation as things stand, though; it's so ridiculous. How is it that in this situation the courts are so heavily biased against an author? It's crazy. :/

There's no way Matthias could, like...sign a waiver to any rights to the idea or something? Because it's just awful that you'd have to entirely scrap a whole novel idea just because of a comment like that, Magpie.

 

[Christopher]

I still can't believe that's the legal situation as things stand, though; it's so ridiculous. How is it that in this situation the courts are so heavily biased against an author? It's crazy. :/

It is crazy, but it's not the courts' fault. It's the fault of people who file nuisance plagiarism lawsuits. Even though those lawsuits almost always get thrown out, it costs publishers and authors a great deal of money to fight them off. So from an economic standpoint, we have no choice but to adopt a zero-tolerance policy, to take no chances. We just can't afford to do anything else.

There's no way Matthias could, like...sign a waiver to any rights to the idea or something? Because it's just awful that you'd have to entirely scrap a whole novel idea just because of a comment like that, Magpie.

It's awful, but it's the way the nuisance lawsuit-filers have forced us to act. We can't take any chances. We can't treat it on a case-by-case basis, since we don't know who we can trust. It has to be a consistent, uniform policy. Because hiring lawyers to work out the specifics on a case-by-case basis would probably cost as much as hiring lawyers to fight off lawsuits. It's just not practical. And any waiver would be pretty much pointless unless it were signed and agreed to by both parties before the story idea were shared (like the way TNG, DS9, and VGR would read unsolicited spec scripts but only if you signed a waiver before submitting them).

 

[nightwind1]

A Pike-era series.

A Starfleet Medical series (kind of like Star Trek crossed with James Whites' Sector General series, seasoned with ER).

More Samuel Cogley mysteries. (Loved that book).

A series of Captain Sulu on the Excelsior (oh, my...).

A series about Starfleets' JAG (with Captain Philippa Louvois as Harmon Rabb).

 

[James Cole]

Re: The Voth...

Does this mean that the books can never do a Voth in the Alpha Quadrant story?

Hmm, it might be a good idea for the forum to develop detailed guidelines for what constitutes a story idea.

For example, using the DS9 relaunch and specifically Fearful Symmetry/The Soul Key as an example (imagine this was back in 2000) would any of these count as speculations that should be followed up on, or story ideas:

-- So it turns out the Prophets planned for Sisko to be the Emissary. Does that mean the Mirror Universe Sisko should have been the Emissary to the Mirror Bajor?

-- Why does the wormhole exit near Idran? Is there something going on in that specific location? Are the Prophets worshiped in a parallel religion in the Gamma Quadrant? (Granted the Malibu Comics did a underwhelming story like this, so its been done before the DS9-R).

Can we present a question, and say someone should follow up on that, with only the specific answer legally problematic for the authors here?

And could speculating about the potential future developments of a storyline (TNG-R, DS9-R, NF, Vanguard etc) end up tossing something out if people guessed too correctly and or "great minds thought alike"?

 

[Yevetha]

The reason for shelving the post-ST2009 novels is that the filmmakers wanted to reserve for themselves the right to move the story forward, but they're okay with tie-ins set before the movie, like IDW's Countdown, Spock: Reflections, and Nero and Pocket's YA Starfleet Academy series. So there's no reason to think a Kelvin book would be off-limits, at least not based on the shelving of the four sequel books.

Why?

They want to respect Trek book canon?

We only have speculation, but it's more likely the other way around. Never forget, the tie-ins are a very small tail on the very large dog of the film/TV franchise. The job of tie-ins is to follow the lead of the canon, not vice-versa. (There's no such thing as "book canon" here. Canon means the core work, as distinct from derivative works.) It could be that the filmmakers want to make sure there aren't any books or comics published that end up contradicting what happens in their later movies.

Again, though, I'm in no position to do anything more than repeat what little has been announced to or speculated by the public. If you want to know the reasons why, you'd have to ask the people in charge of the franchise and its licensing. And if they don't care to make their reasons known, that's their prerogative too. They're the ones making Star Trek now, and the tie-ins exist to support and supplement their efforts, so they get to decide the parameters of the tie-in line.

http://kotaku.com/5808211/the-new-star-trek-game-boldly-goes-where-no-star-trek-game-has-gone-before

Videogame canon...

Had that ever happened before in Trek.

 

[Christopher]

Re: The Voth...

Does this mean that the books can never do a Voth in the Alpha Quadrant story?

It just means that those of us who read MatthiasRussell's specific idea about the Voth in the AQ can't use that particular idea. Those writers who couldn't possibly have seen the suggestion are safe. And surely there are other things that could be done with the idea of the Voth interacting with the Alpha Quadrant.

A story is not just characters and setting. What makes a story is events, conflicts, problems, choices. It's when you get specific about those -- what the characters want, what problems they face, what actions or decisions they make -- that you're suggesting a story. For instance, "Captain Kirk goes back in time" is not a story idea (not specific enough), but "Captain Kirk goes back in time and must let the love of his life die to preserve history" is a story idea.

Hmm, it might be a good idea for the forum to develop detailed guidelines for what constitutes a story idea.

For example, using the DS9 relaunch and specifically Fearful Symmetry/The Soul Key as an example (imagine this was back in 2000) would any of these count as speculations that should be followed up on, or story ideas:

-- So it turns out the Prophets planned for Sisko to be the Emissary. Does that mean the Mirror Universe Sisko should have been the Emissary to the Mirror Bajor?

-- Why does the wormhole exit near Idran? Is there something going on in that specific location? Are the Prophets worshiped in a parallel religion in the Gamma Quadrant? (Granted the Malibu Comics did a underwhelming story like this, so its been done before the DS9-R).

Can we present a question, and say someone should follow up on that, with only the specific answer legally problematic for the authors here?

A story idea is an answer to a question, a suggestion of a specific way events could unfold. I'd say those examples are borderline -- they do suggest possibilities, but maybe aren't quite specific enough to constitute story ideas, since they don't describe events or actions or conflicts. If you'd stopped before the last question in each, you'd be fine. As it is, I'm not sure these suggestions cross the line, though the first one comes closer (because "should have been" suggests a conflict or problem, and therefore a plot).