Very cool!
Spoilers DTI: Forgotten History by C. L. Bennett Review Thread
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So, Christopher, how many more are planned in this series?
Book series generally don't work that way, at least not in Trek Lit. It's not like everything is plotted out years in advance. And DTI isn't really a full-on series; I did one book, then my editor suggested I do another. Maybe sometime, if the sales on the second one are good enough (and they seem to be doing okay for now), there'd be interest in doing a third. But there are no specific plans yet for anything further.
I suspect that if there ever is a novel where the characters of TOS meet their alternate nuTrek selves (as unlikely as it seems now), it'd be a perfect fit for DTI adventure. If only to definitively answer the question that has been plaguing the XI+ forum, off and on, for years now: Is Data's head buried under the San Fransisco of the Abramsverse?
Congrats.
I guess with it selling well you at least hope to be asked to write more. You clearly enjoy the DTI characters.
Well, no, not really, as there is absolutely no way for the DTI of the prime universe to know about the Abramsverse. From the prime U's perspective, Nero and Spock vanished and were never seen again. There's no way for anyone to know where or when they went.
If you're suggesting that the Abramsverse DTI could get involved, then yes, there's stories there.
There may not even be a Data in that universe - the likelihood of any of the TNG characters existing at all, given how wildly the universes diverged, is extremely low. And if there was a 'nuData', it's unlikely that his head will face the same fate. So my guess would be: No.
The argument is that while there may not be a Data in the New Universe, both universes share the same past up until the timeline splits when Nero arrives. Therefore, when someone from the Prime-verse or the New-verse travel back in time to the 19th Century, they arrive at the same place. So the answer would be:yes.
"Absolutely"? Where has your imagination gone? The DTI don't know about the STXI AU presently - but any number of ways can be invented or recycled for a crossover.
According to every official source, the universes diverged in 2233. Before that they were supposedly one and the same. But since Data's head is part of a recurring time loop with the 24th century of the Next Gen timeline, wouldn't the non-completion of the loop lead to a change in the 19th century and thus an earlier divergence point?
We do have evidence of things from one timeline branch remaining in another branch after the point of divergence, for instance, Chief O'Brien in "Visionary" onward. So I think that something originating in one branch of a timeline fork and travelling back before the fork into the common history would remain present in both forks after the divergence. At least, that's the simplest, least convoluted answer, and time travel is enough of a headache without complicating it more than necessary.
I actually prefer the theory that the Abramsverse and prime universe were always separate - meaning, they didn't branch off, they always ran in parallel.
If you subscribe to the 'branch' theory, then Data's head would probably go undiscovered - it came from an alternate timeline. There is not likely to be a Data in that universe, so nobody will recognize the head - IIRC, the only reason anybody thought about it in the prime timeline is that they recognized that it was Data. With no Data, that can't happen; if somebody stumbles across the head, they won't know who or what it was. It will probably end up in a lab somewhere. Who knows if it could even be activated without a body to attach.
And given that the technology of the Abramsverse is obviously more advanced (and that's in 2233 - their 24th century will be unrecognizable), nobody will get anything useful out of it anyway.
As for the DTI: Like I said, the Abrams-DTI could find out what happened (our main characters certainly have), but there's no way the 'prime' DTI could. Nero and Spock vanished and were never seen again. Assuming their departure was witnessed, there'd still be no reason to suspect time travel. A black hole swallowed them up. There'd be EVERY reason to suspect they were dead.
A few years ago, people were insisting the same thing about Enterprise -- that it wasn't part of the same reality as the Trek they were used to. A quarter-century ago they were saying it about TNG. So that's just an old song repeating itself as far as I'm concerned, and I don't find it an appealing view. It's more fun when you can draw connections between different facets of the Trek universe.
If the movie had been meant to be completely unconnected to what came before, they wouldn't have bothered to coax Leonard Nimoy out of retirement. I mean, seriously, the story would've been more cohesive in some ways without all the time travel and Old Spock showing up to give an infodump. The only reason to tell the story they told was to make this both a new beginning and a direct continuation, to establish a throughline to what had come before.
I agree it should be there (otherwise surely Nero and Old Spock would have vanished too?), but doesn't that mean all so-called time loops/predestination paradoxes are an illusion created by our multiverse POV? We just happened to be in the correct branch of history to make it appear meaningful?
Makes me wonder what other "orphaned" temporal artifacts there are out there...
It's probably not a timeline fork - more like a timeline spoon or chopstick.
I think you're confusing "more advanced" in-universe technology with updated production values. Look at the Gorn from "Arena" - was it a guy in an obviously fake rubber suit, or was it a fearsome and intelligent lizard monster? It's the latter, obviously - and in that same way, the Enterprise is a 23rd century technological marvel, whether it's the way it looked to us in 1966 or 2009.Mr Laser Beam said:
I dub it a time spork!
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So, Spock Prime and Data Prime are in the JJverse ! Does Spock know about Data's head ? If I recall correctly Picard would have known about this, and he melded with Spock...
I don't see why it would be an illusion just because there's another time track branching off in the interim. After all, by Many Worlds theory, new timelines are spontaneously branching off all the time. So there's probably no such thing as a causal loop that doesn't cross over some side branches along the way.
(And I don't like the term "predestination paradox" because it's actually the exact opposite of a paradox. Everything in the loop happens only one self-consistent way. A paradox is when you get two contradictory outcomes that can't be reconciled.)
Exactly. It isn't the in-universe technology that's more advanced, it's the technology of the TV or film producers creating an interpretation of the technology these fictional characters hypothetically employ in their imaginary universe. Taking the difference in production design, budget, and filmmaking technology literally as evidence of different in-universe technological advancement is as silly as assuming that Saavik got extensive cosmetic surgery and a larynx transplant between TWOK and TSFS. The difference is only in the production's interpretation of a fictional concept; within the fictional universe itself, the difference doesn't exist.
After all, it's not like a 23rd-century starship would actually have badly wrinkled, backlit posters of space scenes in its bridge viewscreens. Those were an imperfect representation of something that was supposed to be more advanced and high-tech. So the same could be said for other bits of TOS technology that look old-fashioned.
No, I assume that the appearance of the Narada was the catalyst - meaning, Starfleet got whatever information it could out of the sensor readings of that ship, and thus upped their standards a bit.
Well, yes, it's universally accepted that the technology got more advanced after the timeline divergence. But you were saying that it was already "more advanced" in 2233, before the Narada arrived. So I'm confused about what it is you're actually saying.
No, I was not. Not intentionally, anyway.
