Charting the Novel-verse

[Enterprise1701]

Ok I am reading typhon's pact the strugle within ebook tho I am a bit confused about which book to read next in terms of publication order I should read plages of night but the years which the books takes place I think voyagers protectors is in 2382 like the last pact novel so just wondering which way to go in read it.
Thanks

Typhon Pact - The Struggle Within takes place in late 2382. Voyager - Protectors takes place from September 2381 to January 2382. Typhon Pact - Plagues of Night takes place over April 2382 to August 2383.

Protectors does not cover the Typhon Pact at all. In any case, most of the post-Destiny books have completely separate storylines. If you want the next Enterprise-E adventure after The Struggle Within, go to Plagues of Night.

 

[BritishSeaPower]

^ The way I have it worked out, DTI: Forgotten History takes place in early 2383 and then TNG: Indistinguishable from Magic. From there, Plagues of Night begins in 2382 and ends in 2383, but I found that those two entries made more sense coming before any of the 2382 parts of Plagues. (Unless you're going for a hard chronological reading.)

No; after the fall, the 24th century line has really spread out and is doing a bunch of different things. None of those books has anything to do with the others, story-implication-wise.

Thanks for this. That's about what I figured, but you never quite know.

 

[Enterprise1701]

^ The way I have it worked out, DTI: Forgotten History takes place in early 2383 and then TNG: Indistinguishable from Magic. From there, Plagues of Night begins in 2382 and ends in 2383, but I found that those two entries made more sense coming before any of the 2382 parts of Plagues. (Unless you're going for a hard chronological reading.)

The 2383 portions of Forgotten History (February) take place in between Part I and Part II of Indistinguishable From Magic.

 

[Gate11au]

^ The way I have it worked out, DTI: Forgotten History takes place in early 2383 and then TNG: Indistinguishable from Magic. From there, Plagues of Night begins in 2382 and ends in 2383, but I found that those two entries made more sense coming before any of the 2382 parts of Plagues. (Unless you're going for a hard chronological reading.)

The 2383 portions of Forgotten History (February) take place in between Part I and Part II of Indistinguishable From Magic.

Ok cool thank you I think I will try to get a copy of DTI books as i must have missed them at time of release and sound like it will help with second half of plagues of night and the second half of pact series.

 

[BritishSeaPower]

On my spread sheet, the DTI books act as bookends to the first four Typhon Pact books. And the first DTI book has cameos by both the Enterprise and Titan crews so it slots really nicely into the late 2381/early 2382 period.

 

[Idran]

So I know that games aren't exactly in the purview of this project, but I was wondering the other day if there was anything that would make Star Trek: Borg incompatible with the present Litverse, or if it'd fit in with things still? Nothing comes to mind myself, though it has been a while since I've played it. I've always had a soft spot for it, and something brought it to mind the other day.

 

[Christopher]

I've said it before, but I don't see how any game can be treated as a "real" set of events, since it's supposed to play out differently depending on how you play it. So which version of the gameplay is the "real" one? Which player character is the one who was actually there? Not to mention all the contrivances for the sake of gameplay that wouldn't make sense in a real-world context. At most, a game could be said to be a simulation based on actual events, maybe a holodeck scenario where people can re-enact those events and see how they could've played out differently -- like the Alamo simulation that Bashir and O'Brien were into late in DS9.

 

[Idran]

I've said it before, but I don't see how any game can be treated as a "real" set of events, since it's supposed to play out differently depending on how you play it. So which version of the gameplay is the "real" one? Which player character is the one who was actually there? Not to mention all the contrivances for the sake of gameplay that wouldn't make sense in a real-world context. At most, a game could be said to be a simulation based on actual events, maybe a holodeck scenario where people can re-enact those events and see how they could've played out differently -- like the Alamo simulation that Bashir and O'Brien were into late in DS9.

Star Trek: Borg is a special case, though, compared to most games; it's an FMV game played through live-action video and clicking on interface elements that's essentially a flowchart with exactly one path to the end. There is no real interactivity, it's more like a Choose Your Own Aventure book with exactly one successful ending. Every successful playthrough is literally exactly the same beginning to end.

Edit: Just to clarify, this is essentially how it worked:

Watch a live-action video clip -> Choose an option -> If it was the wrong option, you lose, otherwise watch a live-action video clip -> Choose an option -> ... -> You win

It was basically a Star Trek episode that just happened to be shot from a first-person perspective and had some pretenses at interactivity; a game in name only.

 

[Christopher]

Star Trek: Borg is a special case, though, compared to most games; it's an FMV game played through live-action video and clicking on interface elements that's essentially a flowchart with exactly one path to the end. There is no real interactivity, it's more like a Choose Your Own Aventure book with exactly one successful ending. Every successful playthrough is literally exactly the same beginning to end.

Edit: Just to clarify, this is essentially how it worked:

Watch a live-action video clip -> Choose an option -> If it was the wrong option, you lose, otherwise watch a live-action video clip -> Choose an option -> ... -> You win

It was basically a Star Trek episode that just happened to be shot from a first-person perspective and had some pretenses at interactivity; a game in name only.

I know, I actually played it once upon a time. Even so, it's a pretty contrived situation. Why would Q pick this random junior officer to shepherd through a Borg encounter? Why would he periodically give him simple binary choices? And why would the officer go through the entire experience without uttering a single word?

I read the novelization of the similar Klingon game, which adapted it rather faithfully, and I felt it had the same problems: its protagonist was a passive nonentity being shepherded through events by another character who occasionally, randomly asked him to make decisions, and the choices he had to make were utterly simplistic. It just didn't feel like a realistic series of events, and it wasn't as interesting to read as a story as it might've been to participate in as a player. The Starfleet Academy novelization was more successful because it told a more original story that just included some of the game sequences as training exercises, and fleshed out the game lead as an actual character.

 

[Markonian]

I wouldn't disregard a game out of hand just because of it's medium.

I understand that game mechanics need to be disregarded for the sake of storytelling, e.g. building huge fleets and starbases on a whim in Star Trek: Armada.

But let's take STO for an example. Memory Beta would render the player character as "unnamed 25th century Starfleet officer", thus avoiding favoring any single player. The story is pre-programmed. One has choices along the way which might even influence the ending of a mission/episode. For Memory Beta, I simply pick the best possible outcome (e.g. all colonists are saved) and note notable differences in italics (e.g. who executes Colonel Hakeev).

The basic referencing is no problem, even with variable actions. Characters in STO might reference "your successful intervention on the Romulan starbase". Whether you blew up one Mogai or five is not relevant.

Plus, later continuity overwrites earlier continuity. So if an author spells out a specific order of events, that becomes the "official" continuity.

To me, Star Trek is about embracing diversity, not just tolerating it. Star Trek takes place in different series, settings, centuries, timelines, media. /my2cents

I loved the appearance of the Nebula-class Tonawanda in The Fall, and maybe somebody will namedrop a Deferi.

I actually haven't watched all of Star Trek: Borg and don't know whether it still fits continuity.

 

[Christopher]

I wouldn't disregard a game out of hand just because of it's medium.

It's not about medium, it's about content -- whether the events as depicted could plausibly have occurred as real-life events, rather than being unnaturally contrived for the sake of gameplay.

Which is not to say that the games should be ignored, just that they're a different beast from narrative fiction, and trying to treat the two as interchangeable doesn't really do justice to either one.

 

[Idran]

Star Trek: Borg is a special case, though, compared to most games; it's an FMV game played through live-action video and clicking on interface elements that's essentially a flowchart with exactly one path to the end. There is no real interactivity, it's more like a Choose Your Own Aventure book with exactly one successful ending. Every successful playthrough is literally exactly the same beginning to end.

Edit: Just to clarify, this is essentially how it worked:

Watch a live-action video clip -> Choose an option -> If it was the wrong option, you lose, otherwise watch a live-action video clip -> Choose an option -> ... -> You win

It was basically a Star Trek episode that just happened to be shot from a first-person perspective and had some pretenses at interactivity; a game in name only.

I know, I actually played it once upon a time. Even so, it's a pretty contrived situation. Why would Q pick this random junior officer to shepherd through a Borg encounter? Why would he periodically give him simple binary choices? And why would the officer go through the entire experience without uttering a single word?

Yeah, I definitely can't argue with how contrived the entire situation was. I suppose I just liked having some degree of a glimpse, however odd, at the events leading up to Wolf 359 from another ship. I enjoyed the second look we got in Emissary, and having a third was a nice touch.

Anyway, though, the contrivance is easy enough for me personally to handwave through the "dramatization of actual events" idea (it "worked" for Myst and Riven :P), I'm still curious if there's been anything that'd definitively rule out ST:Borg from fitting alongside the Litverse.

 

[StewMc]

I'm still curious if there's been anything that'd definitively rule out ST:Borg from fitting alongside the Litverse.

It probably fits about as well as it did at the time it was released. The only continuity I remember (and its been a while) is that the bookend "present" parts of the story are stated to be ten years after Wolf 359 (they then say "more than 10 years" at the end of the story), so taking that literally would make it at least early 2377. The lieutenant in the prologue states that the Federation has defeated the Borg "twice before", which seems to be a nice nod to First Contact, which was released a few weeks after this game.

The uniforms are wrong in both timeframes (TNG uniforms appear too late and DS9/VOY uniforms appear to early), but I'd imagine the production used whatever they could get their hands on.

So uniforms aside, the only real continuity issue is that there wasn't any Borg attack on Earth around 10 years after Wolf 359, either on screen or in Lit (at least I don't think there was?). Before Dishonor and Destiny would still be 3-4 years away. Not to say that there couldn't have been one we don't know about though.

I suppose you could take the vague "more than 10 years" line, and imagine that the Borg vessel the Righteous detects on course to Earth once it is transported to 2377(ish) is the Borg sphere from "Endgame"? Would be the same calendar year (if you ignore Neelix's "First Contact Day" celebration).

 

[Markonian]

Neelix "First Contact Day" celebration was retconned to a different date in Myriad Universes: Infinity's Prism: Places of Exile. He likes to pick alien calendars to move around celebratory dates in order to push crew morale.

 

[Christopher]

^Not move around so much as multiply. Why celebrate an anniversary only once per year when you can do it more often by using multiple calendars?

 

[Markonian]

^Not move around so much as multiply. Why celebrate an anniversary only once per year when you can do it more often by using multiple calendars?

I'm beginning to understand. Like, when a mixed-heritage family celebrates Christmas several times according to the different calendars?

 

[Deranged Nasat]

^Not move around so much as multiply. Why celebrate an anniversary only once per year when you can do it more often by using multiple calendars?

I'm beginning to understand. Like, when a mixed-heritage family celebrates Christmas several times according to the different calendars?

Neelix likes his excuses to throw a party. He likes to feel useful, meaning he needs to make the most of his role as "morale officer". His people are noted for their large families and festive communal celebrations, and so he needs to feel like part of a jovial community. He lived alone scavenging on the fringe for some years, so he's used to making do and bending the rules.

 

[Christopher]

^Not move around so much as multiply. Why celebrate an anniversary only once per year when you can do it more often by using multiple calendars?

I'm beginning to understand. Like, when a mixed-heritage family celebrates Christmas several times according to the different calendars?

More or less. Different planets have different year lengths. If a planet's year is, say, seven months long, you can celebrate a holiday almost twice as often as if you use the Earth year as your basis. Use both planet's years and you can have two or three anniversaries of the same event within a single Earth year. Add other planets' varying year lengths and you can celebrate an event's anniversary multiple times per year.

 

[Thrawn]

Or in Neelix's case, I imagine something more like "there should be a holiday today... it should have something to do with something that humans will find inspiring... First Contact Day isn't anywhere near right now but I bet I can find a calendar that will let me fudge it." I don't get the sense that he's a systematic planner.

 

[Turtletrekker]

I really need to find the time to update this.