That's really an excellent question.
Well?
And we're still waiting...
B-4: For how long?
DATA: Indefinitely.
B-4: How long is that?
DATA: A long time, brother...
The big difference between the DSC writers declaring and considering the show's tie-in fiction Canon and instances like Orci's comments re: the Kelvin Timeline's tie-in comics and Jeri Taylor considering elements of her novels Mosaic and Pathways Canon is that it's a "two-way street" and there's a concerted effort being made by the makers of DSC's tie-in fiction to ensure that the DSC writers never end up in a situation where they can't remain narratively consistent and in sync with what said tie-in fiction is doing.
I understand what you're saying, and applaud such efforts at overall consistency. But I don't think it gets us to "the DSC books are canon." Especially not when they've included explicit caveats up front that ultimately amount to: "As of
now, we
want to remain consistent with them, so we are making all possible overtures toward that end...but if we ever find that we
don't want to, all bets are off."
Of course, I
do recognize that previous shows and films
themselves can be similarly subject to being overwritten and/or contradicted for the sake of a good story, too, though. And some, like TAS and TFF, have been regarded by certain writers (or other production staff) as being in-continuity at certain times, but
not so by others at other times. So it's all a bit of a nebulous concept to parse out, this "canon" business. Nevertheless, it seems clear to me that a
distinction continues to be made between the primary and peripheral media in their overall philosophy and approach.
Nevertheless, to your original point, given the situation, it may well be that they will use Number One's name from
Desperate Hours, as you posit. We'll see. (I hope not, but that's only a matter of my own personal preference. I certainly didn't mean to imply that your specific suggestion they might was an implausible one, merely that "Una" is an implausible name, IMO.) They
did use David Mack's names for some secondary characters like Detmer, after all.
However, I wouldn't say they were
taken from the book so much as he and the show's writers collaborated in coming up with ideas that each went on to use independently. Same with Burnham's account of her parents' death, presented in the book first, and only later being presented onscreen in "Will You Take My Hand" (DSC), yet devised before
either were actually penned. Is this a fair understanding of the ongoing scenario, or do I have it all wrong? (Wouldn't be the first time, nor the last...)
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MMoM