Are people really this fixed on things like the Bell Riots?

[FredH]

Just last night, I was checking an internal continuity point in my novel, only to find that it was a non-issue. But in the process, I found a potential continuity issue with a short story set in the same milieu.

Though, if the short story was already published, that’s not necessarily a problem. There are certainly other sf authors whose later work kinda retroactively made previous stories nominally set in the same universe inconsistent with them (Vernor Vinge, Andre Norton, John Shirley, etc), whose response was to just shrug and go on, or to not especially care in the first place, letting each work just speak for itself. It’s consistency within a single work that matters the most.

(Which is why I’ve come to hate stories/series that end with “The plot’s gotten a bit tangled — oh hey, postmodernism! The end! Clever, huh?” I could deal with it in The Prisoner, where you could at least try to interpret it; but I’ve gotten old and cranky and probably wouldn’t today.)

EDIT: So, that rather sank the ending of the recent Hulu show

Spoiler

Interior Chinatown

for me. I hate when a series spends a lot of meticulous time laying down specific clues, then suddenly goes all meta to avoid resolving them within the actual world of the story, as opposed to some symbolic level. See also the anime

Spoiler

The Big O

. (And

Spoiler

Dispatches from Elsewhere

was unique in that it resolved its clues in-story, then added a postmodern coda afterwards; I guess that gets a cautious pass. )

 

[FredH]

And under the same production umbrella we see a faithful TOS-style Connie at the Fleet Museum in PIC Season 3, a series made by many of the same people who changed how the Connies look for DSC and SNW. They're all canon looks and all fit if you're flexible enough and don't be too slavish in regards to a ship class having to look a very specific way throughout the whole TOS Era.

(I’m still kind of half-expecting SNW to end with the Enterprise coming in for a new, sleek straight-pyloned refit at the very end, though I’m fine if it doesn’t.)

 

[Greg Cox]

Though, if the short story was already published, that’s not necessarily a problem. There are certainly other sf authors whose later work kinda retroactively made previous stories nominally set in the same universe inconsistent with them (Vernor Vinge, Andre Norton, John Shirley, etc), whose response was to just shrug and go on, or to not especially care in the first place, letting each work just speak for itself. It’s consistency within a single work that matters the most.

I remain impressed and amused by how Johnston McCulley (creator of Zorro) handled this back in the day.

His 1919 book, The Mark of Zorro (originally published as "The Curse of the Capistrano"), was intended to be just a one-shot standalone novel, so it wraps everything up at the end: Zorro reveals his true identity to the world, marries Carlotta, hangs up his sword, and presumably lives happily after. The End.

Then the Douglas Fairbanks movie happened, Zorro became a cash cow, and, no fool, McCulley blithely ignored the ending of his own book and continued to churn out new Zorro stories for the rest of his life, all the way up to 1959, forty years after the first story was published.

I admire his practicality.

 

[Rowdy Roddy McDowall]

Who I saw just last night in "North by Northwest."

Which was homaged or pallelled by THE CONVERSATION's Harrison Ford and his ''feminine intuition.''

 

[kkt]

Space 1999 has been streaming almost continuously on YouTube since May. My estimation of both Landau and Bain has dropped significantly.

In their defense, what they can do with one of the all-time great directors with the luxury of a feature film production is always going to be less than they can do with an average director in the rush of series TV production.

 

[CoveTom]

I thought NASA has sent a probe to Europa

No, the monolith forbade it.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

I thought NASA has sent a probe to Europa

No, the monolith forbade it.

ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS, EXCEPT EUROPA. ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE. USE THEM TOGETHER. USE THEM IN PEACE.

Just last night, I was checking an internal continuity point in my novel, only to find that it was a non-issue. But in the process, I found a potential continuity issue with a short story set in the same milieu.

Though, if the short story was already published, that’s not necessarily a problem.

Turns out it isn't a problem after all:
(1) It was never published (my only generally available short story is this one, readable on my web site [and, I think, published in some AGO Chapter newsletter, some years ago]; several others were published in "class anthologies" from the four semesters of "Short Story Workshop" I attended at a local junior college). In fact, I don't think it was even turned in for course credit, because
(2) there are still several "placeholders" in the text, for characters who haven't been named, and besides,
(3) there isn't an actual conflict. Just the potential for tying the two narratives together in ways that they're not currently tied together.

 

[TommyR01D]

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Well, here we are. 2024 is at its end and the cession of Northern Ireland to the Republic by means of terrorist violence has... not occurred. God Save the King!

 

[at Quark's]

I don't really follow. What's "gross" about it? Sounds like people are making a comment about events that happen in Trek's timeline but don't happen in ours.

Well, I could understand how the fixation on an event that 'should' occur, causing hundreds of people to die, could be considered 'gross'. Same as suggesting there 'should' be a third world war with 600 million people dead sometime between now and 2063 could be considered gross- except that that's on a much larger scale.

I think it's kind of the Trekker equivalent to the "Final Days" obsession that snares many Christian types. Except we confine it to message boards instead of annoying people with it in the real world.

Interesting analogy. Supposing Trekdom still exists in 40 years, would we also start to see the equivalent of revising the date of First Contact further and further into the future when it doesn't happen on the predicted date(s) ?

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Interesting analogy. Supposing Trekdom still exists in 40 years, would we also start to see the equivalent of revising the date of First Contact further and further into the future when it doesn't happen on the predicted date(s) ?

Of course fans will do this.... That's why they are fans

 

[FederationHistorian]

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Well, here we are. 2024 is at its end and the cession of Northern Ireland to the Republic by means of terrorist violence has... not occurred. God Save the King!

It is worth noting that before FC was made and retconned Earth’s history, both Irish Reunification and the Bell Riots occurred 28 years after WWIII (i.e. 1990s Eugenics Wars), not 28 years before it.