Any Trek authors pitched a post Romulus story to Pocketbooks yet?

[kkozoriz1]

Or we can say the Prime Kirk was promoted to Captain in 2258, one year after the incident with the cloud creature on the Farragut. He might have still been a lieutenant or perhaps a Lieutenant Commander. If so, TOS would be Kirk's 8th year as captain of the Enterprise. Do we have any data that would contradict this? Memory Alpha simply states "Kirk's Starfleet service through the late 2250s and early 2260s was rewarded with a rapid rise through the ranks."

 

[Nerys Myk]

As for what reference point Spock used to calculate that date. hmmm? Pike being in command of the ship? Estimation of Kirk's age? Lucky guess?

Well, from the transcript you provide, Spock didn't specify the time interval until he began the meld. So he could've been unsure of the exact date at first, but then gained the knowledge from Kirk's mind in the meld. So I stand corrected; it's not really a mistake at all.

Didn't think of that. I guess thats why they pay you the big bucks.

 

[ConRefit79]

Or we can say the Prime Kirk was promoted to Captain in 2258, one year after the incident with the cloud creature on the Farragut. He might have still been a lieutenant or perhaps a Lieutenant Commander. If so, TOS would be Kirk's 8th year as captain of the Enterprise. Do we have any data that would contradict this? Memory Alpha simply states "Kirk's Starfleet service through the late 2250s and early 2260s was rewarded with a rapid rise through the ranks."

Kirk's five-year mission


In orbit, 2267


In 2265, the Enterprise was assigned to a five-year mission of deep-space exploration, and command passed to the youngest captain in the fleet, James T. Kirk. The ship's primary goal during this mission was to seek out and contact alien life. Captain Kirk's standing orders also included the investigation of all quasars and quasar-like phenomena.
Beyond her primary mission, the Enterprise defended Federation territories from aggression, aided member worlds in crisis, and provided scientific expeditions and colonies in her patrol area with annual examinations and support. (TOS: "Balance of Terror", "The Man Trap", "The Cloud Minders", "Journey to Babel", "The Galileo Seven", "The Deadly Years")



http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/NCC-1701

 

[Trent Roman]

Agreed. While the argument can be made and supported that the divergence point was prior to the Narada's misadventure, I think we all know what TPTB's intentions were.

Though I suppose an argument can also be made that this wouldn't be the first time the novels would go in a direction contrary to those intentions..

Nimoy's character was the Spock we grew up with. Anything else is denial or deliberate misinterpretation.

It's that simple.

Quite to the contrary, it's simply logic--or, if you want to be vain-glorious about it, anti-propaganda. The filmmakers claim the movie does something which the movie does not, either intentionally or by mistake--neither would be surprising, given the crap they've tried to pass off as 'writing'.

Nimoy's character could be any Spock from any timeline--at no point does he do, say or otherwise interact with the universe in a fashion that would indicate that he's 'our' Spock as opposed to, say, that universe's Spock. All we have is appearance and age, which tells us nothing except this future is one which Spock lived to that age, and never modified his appearance with a rakish eyepatch or some badass piercings, for instance.

The rest of the 24th century elements actually suggest the obverse of the supposed scenario: Spock's ship, Nero's ship, Nero's (sub?)cultural practices, so-called 'red matter', the laws of physics are different in that supernova travel at light-speed, the odd scenario of a lone ambassador flying the ship supposed to save Romulus. The temporal mechanics of the scenario the film presents don't work at all (if Nero creates a divergeant timeline by his arrival in the past, how does Spock wind up there?), and the scenes aboard the Kelvin suggest that this reality was always already slightly askew to our received history.

None of this is conclusive. With sufficient skill at sophistry, and the odd desire to deploy it on behalf of a sad excuse of a Trek film like Abrams' Product, a lot of the above can be rationalized away. The ships and the red matter represent innovations in the intervening years (or perhaps even earlier, since Nemesis was too busy playing Mad Max with Sand People to provide a full account of contemporary design and research); ditto the political situation on Romulus. Or, since we never saw much of the Romulans beyond the fleet, Nero represents a unique cultural segment of society never shown onscreen before now. Not sure what you would do with the messed-up physics and the Kelvin--ignore it, I guess.

The question is, why bother? What's worth ignoring the obvious solution to the above--it was always an alternate universe--and instead jumping through all these hoops and creating empty rationalizations in order to cloak the filmmakers' errors? Abrams' Product adds nothing to the mythos, at least as far as any 'Primeverse' is concerned. It is, in fact, substractive, as we get Yet Another Fucking Genocide casually tossed off, and lose Spock and the Romulan Empire.

And intent? Piffle. I doubt anybody who wrote "These Are The Voyages..." intended it to be the historical cover-up of a mind-boggling conspiracy. But they left, and the books were free to disregard what they thought. At the pace the books are coming out and advacing in the timeline, I rather expect that by the time they reach the point we they might have to engage with Abrams' Product, the studios will have moved on to the re-reboot and a different set of folk (who hopefully won't suck as badly, but probably not) will be in charge anyway.

Ficititiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[kkozoriz1]

But was it ever stated that Kirk had just been promoted to Captain or assigned to the Enterprise? If we're to wedgee it all together with as few contradictions as possible it would appear that Kirk became captain in 2258 in both universes.

This also means that Tryla Scott made captain while younger than 25.

 

[ConRefit79]

The temporal mechanics of the scenario the film presents don't work at all (if Nero creates a divergeant timeline by his arrival in the past, how does Spock wind up there?)

The same question can be asked of First Contact. Spock and Nero go through the same Black Hole. First Spock then Nero. Nero arrived further in the past than Spock. Enterprise follows the Borg after seeing the changes to the time line. They arrive after the borg, but the Borg were already firing on the Phoenix's compound..
Never mind. I hate Time Travel. I thought paradoxes were confusing. I'm thinking alternate universes are worse.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Agreed. While the argument can be made and supported that the divergence point was prior to the Narada's misadventure, I think we all know what TPTB's intentions were.

Though I suppose an argument can also be made that this wouldn't be the first time the novels would go in a direction contrary to those intentions..

Nimoy's character was the Spock we grew up with. Anything else is denial or deliberate misinterpretation.

It's that simple.

Quite to the contrary, it's simply logic--or, if you want to be vain-glorious about it, anti-propaganda. The filmmakers claim the movie does something which the movie does not, either intentionally or by mistake--neither would be surprising, given the crap they've tried to pass off as 'writing'.

Nimoy's character could be any Spock from any timeline--at no point does he do, say or otherwise interact with the universe in a fashion that would indicate that he's 'our' Spock as opposed to, say, that universe's Spock. All we have is appearance and age, which tells us nothing except this future is one which Spock lived to that age, and never modified his appearance with a rakish eyepatch or some badass piercings, for instance.

The rest of the 24th century elements actually suggest the obverse of the supposed scenario: Spock's ship, Nero's ship, Nero's (sub?)cultural practices, so-called 'red matter', the laws of physics are different in that supernova travel at light-speed, the odd scenario of a lone ambassador flying the ship supposed to save Romulus. The temporal mechanics of the scenario the film presents don't work at all (if Nero creates a divergeant timeline by his arrival in the past, how does Spock wind up there?), and the scenes aboard the Kelvin suggest that this reality was always already slightly askew to our received history.

None of this is conclusive. With sufficient skill at sophistry, and the odd desire to deploy it on behalf of a sad excuse of a Trek film like Abrams' Product, a lot of the above can be rationalized away. The ships and the red matter represent innovations in the intervening years (or perhaps even earlier, since Nemesis was too busy playing Mad Max with Sand People to provide a full account of contemporary design and research); ditto the political situation on Romulus. Or, since we never saw much of the Romulans beyond the fleet, Nero represents a unique cultural segment of society never shown onscreen before now. Not sure what you would do with the messed-up physics and the Kelvin--ignore it, I guess.

The question is, why bother? What's worth ignoring the obvious solution to the above--it was always an alternate universe--and instead jumping through all these hoops and creating empty rationalizations in order to cloak the filmmakers' errors? Abrams' Product adds nothing to the mythos, at least as far as any 'Primeverse' is concerned. It is, in fact, substractive, as we get Yet Another Fucking Genocide casually tossed off, and lose Spock and the Romulan Empire.

And intent? Piffle. I doubt anybody who wrote "These Are The Voyages..." intended it to be the historical cover-up of a mind-boggling conspiracy. But they left, and the books were free to disregard what they thought. At the pace the books are coming out and advacing in the timeline, I rather expect that by the time they reach the point we they might have to engage with Abrams' Product, the studios will have moved on to the re-reboot and a different set of folk (who hopefully won't suck as badly, but probably not) will be in charge anyway.

Ficititiously yours, Trent Roman

Nice rant, but it changes nothing. He's from the TOS/Prime Universe.

 

[Christopher]

The red matter created, essentially, a one-way wormhole connecting the future to the past. Once Nero emerged from it in 2233, that emergence created a new timeline. The black hole/wormhole served as a bridge connecting those two timelines. Even though it seemed to disappear once the Narada was through, it could've remained in a dormant state, the way the Bajoran wormhole continues to exist even when it's closed and undetectable. So it remained connected to that new timeline from the moment of its inception onward. Spock Prime followed a different path through it, so since it's a distortion in both space and time, he emerged from it at different spatial and temporal coordinates, but still within the same timeline that its downtime end was "attached" to.

And I'm not going to bother a point-by-point rebuttal of any of the other continuity issues referenced above. No matter how many contradictions or logic holes there are, it's the same reality if the producers say it is. Individual fans may fantasize about it being a separate reality, but no official production will ever agree.

 

[Stevil2001]

The rest of the 24th century elements actually suggest the obverse of the supposed scenario: Spock's ship, Nero's ship, Nero's (sub?)cultural practices, so-called 'red matter', the laws of physics are different in that supernova travel at light-speed, the odd scenario of a lone ambassador flying the ship supposed to save Romulus. The temporal mechanics of the scenario the film presents don't work at all (if Nero creates a divergeant timeline by his arrival in the past, how does Spock wind up there?), and the scenes aboard the Kelvin suggest that this reality was always already slightly askew to our received history.

Wait, so Old Spock comes from an alternate reality where physics is goofy? And not from the Prime Reality, where traveling at infinite speed turns you into a salamander?

 

[William Leisner]

Wait, so Old Spock comes from an alternate reality where physics is goofy? And not from the Prime Reality, where traveling at infinite speed turns you into a salamander?

 

[Trent Roman]

Nice rant, but it changes nothing.

Rant? Oh, dear me, no. Musings, quite simply. My rants are longer and more vituperative.

Wait, so Old Spock comes from an alternate reality where physics is goofy? And not from the Prime Reality, where traveling at infinite speed turns you into a salamander?

Meh. I generally don't care to compare bad science, but in this specific case, I'd say there a difference between extrapolation (even ludicrously bad extrapolation) and something we already know to be wrong.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[Christopher]

You're making a dishonest argument here. There's a ton of stuff in existing Trek canon that we "know to be wrong." We know there were no Eugenics Wars or sleeper-ship technology in the 1990s, no manned probe to Saturn in 2009, no Voyager 6, no Nomad probe, no Millennium Gate. We know that instant, perfect translation of a never-encountered alien language is a blatant impossibility. We know that if people could have their perceptions increased to superspeed as in "Wink of an Eye," they couldn't move normally from their point of view because they wouldn't have the strength to move their body mass that fast, and if they could, atmospheric friction could burn them up. We know that changing a person's DNA wouldn't cause instant, wholesale changes in their body structure. We know humans and aliens couldn't produce offspring together. There's already a ton of stuff in ST canon that's just as "wrong" as anything in the new movie.

Like I said, it's pointless to single out specific inconsistencies as evidence for the thesis that Spock Prime comes from a different reality, because Star Trek has always been full of inconsistencies and impossibilities. The pretense that there's a single cohesive ST universe to begin with requires enormous suspension of disbelief already. So the only thing you're proving here is your own use of a double standard: glossing over or rationalizing the inconsistencies in prior canon but being unwilling to do the same with the inconsistencies in the new movie. You don't like the movie, so you're changing the rules as applied to it so that you can make excuses to reject it. People were doing the exact same thing with Enterprise eight or nine years ago. I'm sure many people did the same thing with TNG when it came out. But their viewpoints failed to win out. This too will pass. Your opinion that the movie doesn't connect to the original reality is already a minority opinion, already completely at odds with the creators' intent, and there's zero chance that future Trek productions will support it in any way. It may be what you want to believe, but it simply is not a viable interpretation in real-world terms.

 

[DonIago]

Wow. While I don't always agree with what you say or the manner in which you say it Christopher, that was very well-said.

 

[RookieBatman]

Sorry to come into the thread late. I'm gonna reply to some old posts, but I think it all just ties back into the same thing that's still being discussed...

Nimoy's character was the Spock we grew up with. Anything else is denial or deliberate misinterpretation.

It's that simple.

What about simply a matter of personal choice?

I would never try to convince anyone that Old Spock is objectively not Spock Prime, but my opinion has always been this: if someone wants to treat him as not being the same Spock from the show, then what's the harm?

Just don't expect official materials to adopt that stance.

(I suppose that could fall under the heading of "deliberate misinterpretation," but I think it has a slightly more benign connotation.)

Wait, we get to vote?

I vote that WNMHGB is the true Prime Universe and TOS is an alternate based on the James R Kirk line.

And if you want to do that, why should anybody be bothered by it? (Provided you don't expect official materials to adopt that position.)

Of course, I do recognize the sarcasm. No one said anything about a vote, but if someone wants to make a choice for their own purposes, why not?

The whole point was to make ST 2009 a story that was not a complete restart -- something that, despite being set before TOS in an alternate timeline, was nonetheless an outgrowth of events in the original Star Trek timeline.

Then why didn't they make the ship design or uniforms of the Kelvin have any more then slight resemblance to that of the original series?

(IMHO, they did a very good job of making it look like a logical outgrowth of ENT, but certainly not the same universe as TOS.)

This is the same kind of nonsense we were hearing a few years ago when some fans were insisting that Enterprise was intentionally branching off a whole new timeline that would have no connection to prior Trek -- an idea that the fourth season conclusively scuttled and that the books have ignored.

From a real-world standpoint, the fourth season doesn't really prove much about the first two seasons, since there were different people in charge.

I would say that there are two ways to argue the point; one is that the onscreen evidence doesn't seem to be coherent with the Prime universe, and therefore it must not be Prime.
The other is to say, even though I understand that TPTB's intent is for this to be the same universe, I think there's enough basis for me to separate it in my own personal continuity.

The first method of argument, I think, is essentially pointless, because The Powers That Be make the rules for the official Star Trek universe, and if they wanted to say that Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda is now a part of the Star Trek universe, then they could do that (assuming they secured the rights), even though it wouldn't make much sense at all. The fact is, it doesn't matter whether it makes sense to us, because we're not in charge. Therefore, I agree that arguing that something doesn't make sense isn't a sound argument from an official standpoint. But it can still be valid if we're simply arguing on the basis of whether each of us is going to include this or that in our personal timelines (whether you have any interest in arguing that remains to be seen).

Personally, I wasn't comfortable with the idea of bringing back Trip just out of a desire not to lose the character. But "These Are the Voyages" had enough glaring logic holes that you could validly find a story to tell that arose from them, so it wasn't purely an exercise in nostalgia.

Individual fans may fantasize about it being a separate reality, but no official production will ever agree.

I remember back before the first post-finale ENT book came out, and there was a lot of speculation about what was gonna happen. Some people were saying that Pocket should just bring back Trip, with the reasoning that TATV was just a holo-program, and so it needn't have happened exactly that way.
Other people, including some authors, IIRC, replied very adamantly that such a thing would never happen, because Trip's death was what happened onscreen, and the showrunners' intent was for that to be exactly what did historically happen.

 

[RookieBatman]

I dont think they'll be repeating that particular plot element next time. And if its not the "main way of telling a story" in Trek then ST09 has changed things up a bit. A good thing, yes?

Not for some people.

That's an enormous, glaring contradiction, a profound retcon of the entire geopolitical underpinnings of the TNG universe, and yet I've never heard anyone cite it as evidence that the first two seasons of TNG are in an alternate reality from the rest of TNG. (Although in a sense, they are, since they were produced by different people making different assumptions.)

In a lot of ways, I really agree with this. I used to be pretty anal about trying to shoehorn everything into fitting inside one cohesive universe, but I think now that the best thing for the sake of sanity is to just treat each individual entry as its own entity, and then build continuity from there where applicable.

Or let me put it another way. If the official story was that the later seasons of TNG actually were a slightly alternate universe from seasons 1-2 (like in Red Dwarf!), would that really change how much we enjoyed those seasons? I don't think it should.

If every continuity error were "proof" of a separate reality, then we'd have to accept that filmed Star Trek depicts at least several dozen separate universes.

At this point, I'm fine with that idea, because in some ways, it's unavoidable. From a real-world standpoint, Star Trek II-VI are a separate universe from the earlier material: the "Bennett-verse" as opposed to the "Roddenberry-verse." (Or the more hazy "Roddenberry/Wise-verse.") Having Paramount say that it's all one big happy family doesn't change the fact that there are inconsistencies and some things have simply been altered. We can try to explain the inconsistencies to make it all fit, or we can just say that it's supposed to be the same universe, but each creator is gonna do their own thing with it, so we might as well just not worry about what show or movie is in what other movie's universe.
(That is to say, not worry in the sense of letting it spoil our enjoyment. But I don't see anything wrong with continuing to "worry" in the sense of debating the issue if it still produces interesting discussion.)

I'm sure many people did the same thing with TNG when it came out.

As I understand it, Gene Roddenberry himself tried to do it with TNG, in the sense that he seemed to consider TOS less valid at that point. (To be honest, I'm not really sure if that supports or opposes your position, but it's a valid point so I don't care.)

 

[F. King Daniel]

IMO, if they can retcon the Klingons to have bumpy heads and an ethos entirely different to the TOS Klingons, then something like modernizing the TOS look for the Kelvin is nothing. One is a complete and utter rewrite, the other is simply updating what went before. The TOS look was modernized because, and I mean this lovingly, the TOS sets and design simply are not belivable as futuristic spaceships today. They weren't back in 1979, hence the "refit" handwave in TMP (a handwave the Klingons had to wait thirty years for!)

 

[RookieBatman]

IMO, if they can retcon the Klingons to have bumpy heads and an ethos entirely different to the TOS Klingons, then something like modernizing the TOS look for the Kelvin is nothing. One is a complete and utter rewrite, the other is simply updating what went before.

Well, the Klingons gaining bumpy foreheads isn't much different from changing the Kelvin sets; and (though I wasn't around at the time) I understand Roddenberry's "just pretend they were always like that" was received with a fair amount of incredulity at the time. As for their entirely different ethos, I kinda think that evolved from the villains in ST3 originally being Romulans, perhaps? Either way, it happened in a bit more of a gradual fashion, and can just be written off as a changing culture (similar changes were evident in Federation culture, after all).

The TOS look was modernized because, and I mean this lovingly, the TOS sets and design simply are not belivable as futuristic spaceships today. They weren't back in 1979, hence the "refit" handwave in TMP (a handwave the Klingons had to wait thirty years for!)

But the sets could've been modernized while still having some observance of the fact that they were supposed to be in the same universe. The Kelvin shuttlecrafts are a pretty good example of how that could've been done in an aesthetic fashion. Heck, the new uniforms of the post-Kelvin era are a great example! They have an updated look, but still being very mindful of the design they were based on. They could've just as easily applied the same concept to the Kelvin uniforms(and the sets, overall), but instead, they chose a look that didn't have any resemblance whatsoever to anything that came before (except maybe ENT). I just think, if you're gonna say that scene is from the original timeline, that at least make a token effort to make it look like that.

 

[JarodRussell]

Until Q comes along and snaps with his fingers.

I don't think even Q could do it.

Eh, Q has the Omnipotent Powers of Plot.

One could have the idea that Q was toying with Picard and Spock when he blew up Romulus with a magical supernova threatening the entire galaxy.

I wonder if Q screws with Picard in parallel universes or if there are parallel Q's too.

I would say there is only one Q Continuum.

 

[Greg Cox]

The question is, why bother? What's worth ignoring the obvious solution to the above--it was always an alternate universe--and instead jumping through all these hoops and creating empty rationalizations in order to cloak the filmmakers' errors? Abrams' Product adds nothing to the mythos, at least as far as any 'Primeverse' is concerned. It is, in fact, substractive, as we get Yet Another Fucking Genocide casually tossed off, and lose Spock and the Romulan Empire.

Occam's razor? Why invent a third hitherto-unmentioned universe when clearly the intent of Nimoy's cameo is to pass the torch from the old cast to the new cast? That's the emotional crux of that whole plotline, not any nitpicky concerns over the art direction or whatever.

Even casual viewers understood that Nimoy was supposed to be playing that guy from the old tv show. That was the whole point. Why else were we supposed to get all nostalgic and misty-eyed about him being reunited with Kirk? "I am and always have been your friend," etc.

If the filmmakers had wanted to establish that he was a different, alternate Spock, they would have given him a goatee or something! And, judging from every interview I've read, Nimoy certainly thought he was playing the same character.

Why are some people so determined to prove that the new movie is somehow invalid, illegitmate, and unconnected to the "real" STAR TREK--even to the point of deliberately misunderstanding the movie just to prove that Nimoy's character wasn't the real Spock? I understand that some fans didn't like the film, but, geez, I don't remember fans tying themselves in knots to prove that "Spock's Brain" or STAR TREK V were somehow uncanonical.

Heck, there are several VOYAGER episodes that I'd gladly forget about, but I'm not seizing on minor plot holes and continuity glitches to prove they never happened . . . .

Spock is Spock. Romulus went boom. "Abram's Product" is just as much STAR TREK as "Roddenberry's Product" and "Berman's Product."

 

[MNM]

Occam's razor? Why invent a third hitherto-unmentioned universe when clearly the intent of Nimoy's cameo is to pass the torch from the old cast to the new cast?

There's been many alternate universe shown in Trek, one more wont harm anoyone. but it's been a while since I watched the movie, is there anything in it that specifically sets old spock to be the one from TOS, beyond stuff like "the writers meant it to be, the fans generally felt it was" etc.. If there isnt, then surely deciding that it was simply an alternate universe is just as simple a decision ("occam's razor") as deciding it was TOS-Spock?