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Spoilers Discovery and the Novelverse - TV show discussion thread

I suppose so. Guess we'll find out.

Is there a reluctance to delve into characters' back stories too much for fear that something in the books will be cancelled out by something in the show? (More so than there used to be, I mean)
 
Is there a reluctance to delve into characters' back stories too much for fear that something in the books will be cancelled out by something in the show? (More so than there used to be, I mean)

On the contrary, all three announced tie-in projects to date (the two novels and the comic miniseries) are prequel tales specifically about the backstories of DSC characters. Dave and Dayton (and Mike Johnson with IDW) are working closely with the Discovery staff and drawing on ideas and information provided by the show staff, as well as feeding some ideas back the other way. It's very different from the usual tie-in process.
 
And unlike the mid-late 20th century (can't believe I'm describing it thusly), where nobody knew if there would be another Star Trek show, and thereby felt free to explore a character's potential future as nothing might come along to refute it (also true of post TNG/DS9/VOY these days), any stories which show a future directly contradicted by TV and movies can go in knowing the alternate, contradictory futures they write are possibly "in another timeline/universe", instead of deciding they are after something in later media refutes it.
 
So the 2nd Discovery novel takes place 10 years before Discovery, in 2246 alongside a known Star Trek event,


according to memory-alpha:

2246 is the year Tarsus IV's food supply was was devastated by an exotic fungus, and Kodos the executioner did his thing
It would certainly make sense, given how Discovery has already set a precedent for having TOS links (like Sarek and Mudd), and even the whole premise so far (Klingon War) is based on a simple mention.
 
I'm wondering if DSC is actually about the Battle of Donatu V!
If it is, it would conflict with the only chronological info we have about Donatu V (25 years before "Trouble with Tribbles").

Not that that would bother me - it would be simple enough to explain the contradiction. Kirk's just bad with dates, or he sometimes confuses Donatu V with some other, earlier, battle, or something else along those lines.

Mostly, I'm just eager to see the show and read David Mack's novel.
 
If the second novel is ten years prior to DSC - so about 23 years prior to TOS, it could feature Donatu V?
 
I don't think Discovery will threaten the novelverse as much as any shows that follow in the post Nemesis era.

I have a question? If they do make shows post Nemesis will the current storyline of novels be dropped or will it continue?
 
I have a question? If they do make shows post Nemesis will the current storyline of novels be dropped or will it continue?

It's too early to answer that before it happens. It depends on the specific situation. Remember, we already had a new series on the air simultaneous with the novelverse, namely Enterprise. It established some things that conflicted with things the novel continuity had established (e.g. Andoria as an icy moon of a Jovian, or Tholians looking different from the scorpionlike appearance described in The Sundered), and later novels just tweaked those details to fit the new continuity, either finding ways to reconcile them or just glossing over what past novels had asserted. Heck, the Star Wars EU did much the same thing while the prequel films and The Clone Wars were coming out.

If a new series overlapped the same time frame directly, or if some obvious, massive contradiction came up early on, then yeah, we'd probably have to reboot the novel continuity. But we don't know if that would be the case. We write science fiction, but that doesn't mean we can actually predict the future. (Indeed, it's a given that just about any science fiction future will eventually be contradicted by reality, either by new scientific discoveries or just by the calendar catching up. It's not just a problem with media tie-ins.)
 
Indeed, it's a given that just about any science fiction future will eventually be contradicted by reality, either by new scientific discoveries or just by the calendar catching up

Which is why describing scientific concepts in vague terms, or inventing alien/atmospheric reasons why or why not will always be a thing.
 
It's too early to answer that before it happens. It depends on the specific situation. Remember, we already had a new series on the air simultaneous with the novelverse, namely Enterprise. It established some things that conflicted with things the novel continuity had established (e.g. Andoria as an icy moon of a Jovian, or Tholians looking different from the scorpionlike appearance described in The Sundered), and later novels just tweaked those details to fit the new continuity, either finding ways to reconcile them or just glossing over what past novels had asserted. Heck, the Star Wars EU did much the same thing while the prequel films and The Clone Wars were coming out.

If a new series overlapped the same time frame directly, or if some obvious, massive contradiction came up early on, then yeah, we'd probably have to reboot the novel continuity. But we don't know if that would be the case. We write science fiction, but that doesn't mean we can actually predict the future. (Indeed, it's a given that just about any science fiction future will eventually be contradicted by reality, either by new scientific discoveries or just by the calendar catching up. It's not just a problem with media tie-ins.)
If the novelverse did have to be rebooted how easy would it be to find the "old novels"?
 
With the number and popularity of the books, there's a chance Pocket might even continue to sell the old ones, at least for a while. Even though they declared them non-canon, they still sell the old "Legends" Star Wars novels and comics.
Even if they don't they probably wouldn't be that hard to get a hold of on the second hand market.
 
If the novelverse did have to be rebooted how easy would it be to find the "old novels"?

There's no reason to think there'd be a correlation there. Remember, continuity among Trek novels has always been optional. There's never, ever, ever been a single mandatory continuity that all the books were required to follow (aside from consistency with screen canon, of course). Even the modern novel continuity has not been all-inclusive; there have been numerous books over the years that were in separate continuities from it (the Shatnerverse, the Crucible trilogy, the long-delayed Rihannsu sequels) or were standalones with no continuity ties to anything else (like many TOS novels in recent years). The novelverse happened because the writers and editors wanted to share continuity, not because they had to. No book has ever been valued less -- let alone withdrawn from circulation -- just because it was in a different continuity from the others.
 
There was a novel released in 2002 called Starfleet: Year One. It was utterly and totally contradicted by Star Trek Enterprise, which came on air the previous September. Planned sequels were scrapped. But I could still buy it years later.
Even more relevantly, it was first released in serialized form long before Enterprise was even conceived (1999-2000), but that didn't stop the collected edition being published when the show was on air (albeit with a prominent disclaimer!).
 
I'm not aware of any tie-in novel ever being yanked from circulation because subsequent onscreen stories rendered them out of continuity. (Says the guy who wrote two mutually contradictory prequels to UNDERWORLD. :) )

I mean, SPLINTER OF THE MIND'S EYE is still in print, right?
 
I'm not aware of any tie-in novel ever being yanked from circulation because subsequent onscreen stories rendered them out of continuity. (Says the guy who wrote two mutually contradictory prequels to UNDERWORLD. :) )

I mean, SPLINTER OF THE MIND'S EYE is still in print, right?
Splinter of minds eye is an interesting case given how it portrays both Vader and Luke and Leia.
 
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