"Official" has nothing to do with canon. It just means a product is authorized by the owners of the property to be created and sold -- i.e. it isn't bootleg merchandise. That's got nothing to do with story content. Heck, the
Spock helmet with the flashing light on top was official merchandise. The jigsaw puzzles where Spock had lime-green skin were official merchandise. That didn't give them canon value. They're two unrelated concepts.
That said, there were ideas from the Blish books that did have influence on fan thinking, for lack of any opposing information. For instance, Blish was the one who first proposed 40 Eridani as Vulcan's home star -- which has never been made explicitly canonical, but was all but confirmed in
Enterprise's fourth season when Vulcan was established as 16 light years from Earth. He was also the first one to state that the show took place in the 23rd century, though it was probably
The Making of Star Trek's mention of that fact that locked it into people's minds.
Also, the Blish adaptations sometimes included deleted scenes not present in the episodes. For instance, the adaptation of "This Side of Paradise" included a deleted explanation that the spores on Omicron Ceti III were an intelligent telepathic life form making humans docile to serve as their hosts. I was surprised when I realized that scene wasn't in the actual episode, because I've always taken it for granted that it was there. I don't think that's the only such instance.
As I wrote in post number 9 on page 1:
Some of the early Blish adaptations implied that the date of the episodes they adapted was in the middle or late third millennium, about AD 2500 to AD 3000. But Blish soon changed that dating, perhaps due to input from the show's creative staff
Christopher wrote:
He was also the first one to state that the show took place in the 23rd century, though it was probably The Making of Star Trek's mention of that fact that locked it into people's minds.
In my post number 9 I wrote:
Thus some of Blish's adaptations had conflicting indications of the dates of TOS. But I guess that can make them canonical with each other as much as actual episodes and movies with conflicting indications of dates can be canonical with each other.
I don't know whether Blish actually was the first person to publish something that said Star Trek was in the 23rd century
I believe that Blish described Uhura as a 23rd century woman in his adaptation of either "The Savage Curtain" or "Tomorrow is Yesterday"...
"Tomorrow is Yesterday" is in Star Trek 2, published in February 1968, and "The Savage Curtain" is in Star Trek 6, published in April 1972.
https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/Star_Trek_2
https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/Star_Trek_6
https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/James_Blish
An early fanzine, Star Trek: An Analysis of a Phenomenon in Science Fiction, was published in 1968 and had a timeline that put TOS in the 2250s in the 23rd century.
G. Harry Stine (Lee Correy) wrote "To Make a Star Trek" Analog Science Fiction Science Fact. February 1968. And if Stine stated that Star Trek happens in the 23rd century he would have been neck and neck with Blish.
The other day I happened to find my copy of the February 1968 issue of
Analog Science Fiction Science Fact with "To Make a Star Trek".
On page 74 Stine says: "As a matter of fact, even if they did stop to explain it in detail,would we understand the technology of two hundred years hence? If we did, we could have it now!".
I guess that Stine means that TOS happens sometime with the span of 200 year, plus or minus 25 years and thus sometime in the span of 2143 to 2193. Or possibly Stine means within the span of 200 years plus or minus 50 years, and thus sometime within the span of 2118 to 2218. Or possibly Stine means within the span of 200 years plus or minus 100 years, and thus sometime during the span of 2068 to 2268.
On page 74 Stine talks about his 31 page copy of the
Star Trek writers' guide, which was obviously an edition issued sometime before his article was published in February 1968. And he says that the readers may be interested in the contents of the writers' guide. This strongly suggests that most or all of the information in the rest of the article comes from the writers' guide, which can be checked for accuracy by anyone with access to both.
And the next paragraph begins with:
"The time period of "Star Trek" is about two hundred years hence."
And if that is taken from the writers' guide, then writers were instructed by the guide to write details consistent with TOS being about 200 years in the future whenever they included details that would imply when TOS happens. How successful those writers were in implying that TOS was about 200 years in the future, instead of earlier or later, remains to be seen.
On page 78, when talking about the lack of relativistic effects in TOS, Stine says:
"I'll buy the possibility that two hundred years of research permit this, but some scientists won't. Who cares? This is great fun!"
"In so far as the structural soundness of the ships overall engineering design is concerned, again who wants to argue with the technology two centuries in the future?"
Discussing the sensors on page 82 Stine says:
"In fifty years we've sensed the interior of the atom and beyond the farthest galaxies; in two hundred years' more effort the level of sensing technology is likely to be be quite high and also quite beyond our primitive comprehension."
And how precisely or loosely was that "about two hundred years" interpreted by the creative staff of TOS, if they were responsible for it?
Did they mean: 1) 200 years plus or minus 10 years,2) 200 years plus or minus 25 years, 3) 200 years plus or minus 33 years, 4) 200 years plus or minus 50 years, 5) 200 years plus or minus 66 years, 6) 200 years plus or minus 75 years, or 7) 200 years plus or minus 100 years?
1) puts TOS sometime between 2158 and 1278, 2) puts TOS sometime between 2143 and 2193, 3) puts TOS sometime between 2135 and 2201, 4) puts TOS sometime between 2218 and 2218, 5) puts TOS sometime between 2102 and 2234, 6) puts TOS sometime between 2093 and 2243, and 7) puts TOS sometime between 2068 and 2268.
Since the 23rd century is officially from 2201 to 2300, and popularly from 2200 to 2299, "about two hundred years" in the future of 1968 can be interpreted as being in the 23rd century. But most persons would probably interpret it as being in the 22nd century.
So as far as I can tell, Stine's article gives a date for TOS that is more likely to be in the 22nd century than the 23rd century, and does not include any direct statements that TOS happens in the 23rd century. So Blish seems likely to be the first to state that.
However, on page 74 to 75 Stine writes:
"Contact has been made with a number of extraterrestrial races, some of which are quite humanoid. For example, the Vulcanians from a planet circling 40 Eridani are so humanoid that a mating between Terran and Vulcanian can result in issue -- namely Mr. Spock."
So Stine named 40 Eridani as the star of Vulcan in an article published in the February 1968 issue of
Analog Science Fiction Science Fact, and Blish named 40 Eridania as the star of Vulcan in his adaptation of "Tomorrow is Yesterday", published in
Star trek 2, with a publishing date of February, 1968.
So G. Harry Stine (Lee Correy) and James Blish seem to be tied as the first persons to name 40 Eridani as the star of Vulcan.
