Spoilers Discovery and the Novelverse - TV show discussion thread

[SolarisOne]

I don't think the Destiny books are going to have anything to do with the Picard show. Those books involve a massive Borg invasion, and Patrick Stewart and other showrunners make it clear his new show is going to be extremely different from anything Picard has done before.

I don't think the new show is going to retread Picard vs Borg territory again.

The series itself won't be about that, but there is nothing saying that some form of the events in Destiny will not have happened. Of course, there's nothing saying they will, either.

I'd honestly rather they didn't go there, though. They took the basic concept from Control, which was compelling and intelligent, and completely fucked it up. DSC has basically become Terminator now. Judgment Day, indeed.

 

[Kemaiku]

They're just borrowing the idea but doing their own version. Like how Batman (1989) made The Joker into the killer of Thomas and Martha Wayne and turned it into a revenge flick.

Oh. But still, milking that one random book and trying to use it to base the season around is weird.

 

[Christopher]

If they do go for a Borg origin here (I really hope they don't, but this show tends to be pretty predictable in its plot twists), it might still be possible to reconcile with Destiny. I figure the Borg may have had multiple origins, as similar cyborg group minds were formed independently and then merged together, as it would be their natural tendency to assimilate each other.

Oh. But still, milking that one random book and trying to use it to base the season around is weird.

Not at all. It's actually pretty common. Harve Bennett and Nicholas Meyer watched all of TOS, and it was "Space Seed" that stood out from the pack and sparked their imagination in ways the other episodes didn't. Star Wars Rebels ignored or contradicted a lot of the old Extended Universe continuity, but still incorporated Thrawn and built a season or two around him. Batman comics adopted a few original characters from The Animated Series but ignored a lot of others. Conversely, Batman: TAS adapted a few classic Batman stories (and some not-so-classic ones like "Moon of the Wolf") but only a few of them amidst a lot of original stories. Even going back to the 1940s, there were a couple of dozen theatrical Superman cartoons, but only one (The Mechanical Monsters) inspired a storyline on the Superman radio series.

No creator has an obligation to be faithful to an entire separate continuity. It's just a source of potential ideas, and there might be only a few individual ideas out of a whole series that spark your creativity and make you want to tell stories about them.

 

[Paul Weaver]

Logic has no place in TV time travel plots. Remember the Temporal War from ENT was launched from a corrupted timeline which only existed as a result of the war...

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[JD]

I really don't see anything that would lead me to believe Control will lead to the Borg.
Do we know for a fact that the Disco control was taken from the book Control? Couldn't it just be something that the writers came up with on their completely indendent from the book?

 

[Kemaiku]

Even collapsed timelines that have been erased or reduced to detached loops can be accessed again. Ask Sonic Generations...

 

[The Wormhole]

Spoiler

As someone pointed out in the episode discussion thread, if this is true then First Contact would make no sense because the Borg, by acting to prevent Cochrane's flight, would be acting to prevent their own creation.

First Contact doesn't make a lot of sense anyway. Why do the Borg want to assimilate pre-warp Earth when there are warp-capable races out there they won't assimilate on the grounds of being too primitive, like the Kazon?

 

[David cgc]

Do we know for a fact that the Disco control was taken from the book Control? Couldn't it just be something that the writers came up with on their completely indendent from the book?

I'd say it's almost certainly a parallel development, and DSC Control came about with little to no influence from the book.

 

[Yistaan]

First Contact doesn't make a lot of sense anyway. Why do the Borg want to assimilate pre-warp Earth when there are warp-capable races out there they won't assimilate on the grounds of being too primitive, like the Kazon?

It also seems strange the Borg Queen would be so upset at not being able to destroy the Phoenix. Even after First Contact happens, I highly doubt the 21st century Vulcans would be any match for the Borg. Presumably there were far more technically capable Vulcan ships (incorporated into the Federation Starfleet) at Wolf 359, and they were killed/assimilated very easily.

 

[Christopher]

First Contact doesn't make a lot of sense anyway. Why do the Borg want to assimilate pre-warp Earth when there are warp-capable races out there they won't assimilate on the grounds of being too primitive, like the Kazon?

They didn't want to assimilate pre-warp Earth, they wanted to prevent the Federation from existing. Getting rid of Earth was just the means to that end.

But it still doesn't make sense, because the Borg don't think creatively like that. If they can't beat a problem the first time, they just keep sending more drones and more ships until they overcome it. Also, if they had time travel, they'd have retroactively assimilated the whole galaxy by now.

 

[The Wormhole]

They didn't want to assimilate pre-warp Earth, they wanted to prevent the Federation from existing. Getting rid of Earth was just the means to that end.

But we see assimilated Earth right after the sphere entered the vortex and before the Enterprise entered.

 

[Christopher]

But we see assimilated Earth right after the sphere entered the vortex and before the Enterprise entered.

Sure, because assimilating Earth was the best way to get rid of it. The Borg are efficient. They don't like waste. If they intended to get rid of Earth in the past anyway, they might as well get something useful out of it by assimilating its population and using its resources.

Besides, what the Borg value (or so they claim) is potential. They disregarded the Kazon because they assessed their potential for improvement as being too low to be worth their while. But they know for a fact that humanity goes on to achieve great things, which means that humans' cognitive potential and adaptability would be worth assimilating. (Which, of course, they'd then totally squander by suppressing our individual thought, but I'm just discussing how they think, not whether it makes objective sense or not.)

 

[Mysterion]

Well, Greg Cox was trying to explain how the Eugenics Wars could have occurred in canon. The book was written well after the 1990's and there was obviously no Eugenics Wars (well, at least that we know of ). The only way to keep the actual canon of the Eugenics Wars in the 1990's was to present it as a series of smaller wars part of a larger war that the general public was unaware of.

The Eugenics Wars could happen in the Trek canon 1990's without having happened in our (the viewer's) 1990's. We do not live in the past of Star Trek's timeline. I wish Trek writers would stop trying to retcon our present into Star Trek. Just let it be the alternate timeline that it's always been.

 

[Christopher]

The Eugenics Wars could happen in the Trek canon 1990's without having happened in our (the viewer's) 1990's. We do not live in the past of Star Trek's timeline. I wish Trek writers would stop trying to retcon our present into Star Trek. Just let it be the alternate timeline that it's always been.

As I've always said, I feel Greg's Eugenics Wars duology is consistent with an interpretation in which the Wars were a known event. He doesn't go to any great lengths to show things being covered up; he just depicts real-world events and says there was a larger context behind them. Also, Greg's version of the Wars can only be considered "secret" from an American perspective; there's no way a billion-plus people in India and Southeast Asia were unaware that Khan ruled them. (This is sadly plausible, because Americans are utterly uninterested in world events that don't concern us; there were massive civil wars in Africa in the '90s-'00s that the American media virtually ignored.)

 

[WebLurker]

Well, Greg Cox was trying to explain how the Eugenics Wars could have occurred in canon. The book was written well after the 1990's and there was obviously no Eugenics Wars (well, at least that we know of ). The only way to keep the actual canon of the Eugenics Wars in the 1990's was to present it as a series of smaller wars part of a larger war that the general public was unaware of.

True, if you want everything to conform to real history, which is a valid idea in and of itself and I think Cox did that well. Thing is, it doesn't really fit well with the TV shows before and since. It may just be personal preference, but I guess I wish that the books had gone full into the fact that Star Trek has become an alt-universe with a history and future different from ours and exploited that to the full extent.

I guess it was a bigger deal for some than others. It was interesting to read, though it wasn't something that bothered me a whole lot.

I thought To Reign in Hell was an excellent book overall for its plot. The reconciling of Space Seed with TWOK was just a nice side benefit. I thought the book was already good. And there were even things explained that I didn't realize were discontinuities until I read them in the book. As a bit of a continuity junkie I love that sort of thing in novels.

Okay.

Yes, it was classified top secret and it was a case of bureaucratic right hand didn't know what the right hand was doing. And I can actually buy that. Things like that have been known to happen in history. Starfleet isn't perfect. I'm sure Kirk explained Khan and his group were incredibly dangerous. If it was reported to an over cautious admiral (say the opposite of Marcus in STID), they may have decided to bury it and it just got lost in paperwork.

And it was explained that the Ceti Alpha system had 6 planets with an outer asteroid belt. The Reliant mistook the remains of Ceti Alpha VI as part of that asteroid belt. That and the orbit shifting (which was stated in the movie) That caused the confusion.

Hmm.

I agree with you guys, that some of the premises behind TWOK are silly, even stupid. I too find it hard to believe they'd lose a planet like that.

I think Greg Cox has even stated he had some difficulty explaining the whole lost planet thing away and he basically did the best he could, esp. considering he had to end up in the same place as the movie, that in fact the Reliant miscounted. As ridiculous as that may seem, that's what we have in TWOK. I thought the outer asteroid belt and the fact that VI was rubble that became part of the asteroid belt, and the orbit of V shifted, was probably the best he could do under the circumstances.

Does sound like a best-case scenario.

If they do go for a Borg origin here (I really hope they don't, but this show tends to be pretty predictable in its plot twists), it might still be possible to reconcile with Destiny. I figure the Borg may have had multiple origins, as similar cyborg group minds were formed independently and then merged together, as it would be their natural tendency to assimilate each other.

Hasn't that been more or less incorporated as "official" in the non-canon stuff to explain why there are so many mutually contradictory Borg origin stories across the tie-ins?

They didn't want to assimilate pre-warp Earth, they wanted to prevent the Federation from existing. Getting rid of Earth was just the means to that end.

But it still doesn't make sense, because the Borg don't think creatively like that. If they can't beat a problem the first time, they just keep sending more drones and more ships until they overcome it. Also, if they had time travel, they'd have retroactively assimilated the whole galaxy by now.

The time travel source book for the late, lamented LUG Star Trek RPG did a pretty good response to all that:

"Federation scientists speculate that the Borg's use of temporal technology is a fairly recent development, since the Borg have never used it before. Most likely, the Borg developed the technology after other means of attacking the Federation proved unsuccessful. They adapted to the new circumstances and created a new means of attacking the Federation through time. It is also possible that the Borg acquired temporal technology by assimilating a race that possessed it, possibly the Krenim, although the Federation is not yet aware of the existence of the Kenim Imperium.

"As to why the Borg have not used their temporal technology more often, or made a more concerted attack on the Federation, the most popular theory is that the Borg are cautious in the wake of their last defeat. The attempted intervention in 2063 resulted in the death of the Borg Queen, the coordinating force of the Collective. This was a serious blow to the Borg and may have made them wary of future attempts to tamper with time. It is also likely that the Borg have many of the same difficulties in predicting the outcome of certain temporal changes as the Federation, so they are unwilling to attempt some interventions because of the possible repercussions.

"...One interesting new limit on the Borg's time-travel abilities for Narrators [GMs] to keep in mind is their new 'dependance' on humanity. In 2374, the crew of the U.S.S. Voyager provided the Borg with the key to winning their war against Species 8472. If the Borg assimilate humanity before this key event, and do not insure that the information is passed on to the new timeline, it is likely that Species 8472 will destroy the Borg Collective and much of the galaxy! Therefore, the Borg must proceed carefully when it comes to altering history, at least as much as anyone else does. - "All Our Yesterdays: The Time Travel Sourcebook, p. 79

Those LUG books were really good. Background fluff was really well-written and put together, even though a lot of it has been overwritten as the franchise as moved on (heck, a lot of the time travel history in that book is way out of date).

 

[Tuskin38]

That bit about needing humanity to help them stop 8472 is interesting.

 

[DWMarch]

I really don't see anything that would lead me to believe Control will lead to the Borg.
Do we know for a fact that the Disco control was taken from the book Control? Couldn't it just be something that the writers came up with on their completely indendent from the book?

@David Mack (the author of "Control" the novel) has said that the similarities are coincidental but from what we have seen in the episodes thus far both version of Control share some very specific characteristics. The way Control has been described on the show (as an AI that does threat assessments for Section 31) matches the way it is described in the novel and there are some specific instances in the show where Control does very similar things to how its actions played out in book format. If the showrunners of Discovery are not cribbing directly from the novel they are certainly paying it some loving tribute although they may be reluctant to admit this for financial reasons (see Harlan Ellison).

 

[F. King Daniel]

There were similarities between the novel Dreadnought! and the movie Star Trek Into Darkness, too. Both were about an evil admiral building a massive warship to provoke war with the Klingons.

 

[Unimatrix Q]

They didn't want to assimilate pre-warp Earth, they wanted to prevent the Federation from existing. Getting rid of Earth was just the means to that end.

But it still doesn't make sense, because the Borg don't think creatively like that. If they can't beat a problem the first time, they just keep sending more drones and more ships until they overcome it. Also, if they had time travel, they'd have retroactively assimilated the whole galaxy by now.

If Control is the/one of the /origin(s) of the Borg it could mean that it or the Borg hive mind became suicidal over the long millenia of being stranded in the past and it searched for ways to erase itself from existing.

Maybe its just a cog in the big machine and hasn't total control (Sorry :-) ) over the hivemind, just enough to manipulate it to travel into the past at Sector 001 to erase itself from the timeframe.

 

[Christopher]

If the showrunners of Discovery are not cribbing directly from the novel they are certainly paying it some loving tribute although they may be reluctant to admit this for financial reasons (see Harlan Ellison).

Harlan Ellison was a freelance TV writer who was contractually entitled to residuals if his episode was rebroadcast or sold on home media, and he contended that the same was true if dialogue from it was directly quoted in a novel (or in a Christmas ornament's audio clip). Dave and the rest of us are licensed contractors writing derivative fiction on a work-for-hire basis, meaning that anything we write in a Trek novel or story is the property of CBS and they can reuse it however they want without owing us any further compensation.