Future Star Trek Online Tie-in Novel?

[Psi'a Meese]

I was curious if any of our familiar authors here have yet been approached to write another Star Trek Online tie-in novel yet?

I ask as Star Trek.com just put forward the final art for the NCC-1701-F. Which, IMO, gives me pause to consider that the design might affect more than just the computer game. Amongst the games player's has been speculation as to the fate of the Enterprise-E and her crew? As much as I know STO's continuity will glide merrily along, I would feel more comfortable with an author who has had long-term familiarity with Star Trek to be who does the speculating (however loosely) to connect the dots. Perhaps with Cryptic sprinkling that story into its game continuity later.

Despite such a story being further in the timeline (2409-'10), would such a novel prove more helpful or hinder you in the novel continuities as you guys continue to write?

 

[F. King Daniel]

I'd love to read another STO novel, particlatly one dealing with something as big and epic as the destruction/loss/retirement of Captain Data's Enterprise-E. But I think if we were gonna get another STO novel, we'd have heard something about it long before now.

And The Needs of the Many establishes STO as an in-universe (in-multiverse?) alternate timeline to the post-series novels, so events from one need not affect the other any more than the destruction of Vulcan in STXI affected the TOS gang. What the authors choose to incorporate (Picard's son's name is from STO), however...

 

[Christopher]

Despite such a story being further in the timeline (2409-'10), would such a novel prove more helpful or hinder you in the novel continuities as you guys continue to write?

There's no connection between STO and the novel continuity. They're separate realities. The developers of STO borrowed some ideas from the novels (and everything else), but contradicted much more.

And The Needs of the Many establishes STO as an in-universe (in-multiverse?) alternate timeline to the post-series novels...

Well, that's what that book asserted, but that book isn't binding on the rest of the novels. And of course STO was obviously an incompatible timeline from the start, long before TNotM was published. As soon as the game company started posting its "Path to 2409" articles filling the gap between Nemesis and STO, it was clear that they were contradicting and ignoring a lot of stuff from the novels. Even where they drew on concepts from the novels, like in their DS9 backstory, they presented it in a contradictory way, having things like Bajor's membership in the Federation come years later. So TNotM was just reinforcing what we already knew -- that the two continuities don't fit together.

(Picard's son's name is from STO)

No, it isn't. It was coined for the post-Destiny novels. TNotM was the first place the name happened to appear in print, but only because that book was fast-tracked to publication and saw print before any novel-continuity books set after the child's birth. I was told what the child's name would be well before TNotM was published (though it must've been in person, since I can't find an email about it). It's something that was coined within Pocket and adopted by STO, not the other way around.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

What would future STO novels be called?

The Needs of the Few?
Or the One?

 

[F. King Daniel]

Well, that's what that book asserted, but that book isn't binding on the rest of the novels

No more or less so than anything in any of them.

And of course STO was an incompatible timeline from the start

Which, as I said, the novel expains as it being an alternate reality. There's no mention of exactly when they diverge, merely that Janeway's death and the Borg invasion didn't occur in STO's history.

 

[Christopher]

^Yes, but my point is that just because The Needs of the Many had a chapter explaining away that (and every other) alternate tie-in version of the Trek universe as an alternate timeline, that doesn't mean that's an "official" explanation that's binding on the rest of Trek Lit or on STO itself.

 

[F. King Daniel]

^How does it differ from, say, Reunion establishing how Jack Crusher died (which, IIRC, Q-Squared ignored)? Or any other "factoid" or explanation for anything in Treklit? I'm tempted to make a Animal Farm/novel continuity anaology, here.

 

[Christopher]

^Well, the point is, when you brought it up, you seemed to be presenting it as a gospel fact, and that's misleading. I'm simply clarifying what it actually is, which is something that the author of one out-of-continuity book decided to throw in as an Easter egg. If you personally care to believe it, that's your free choice, but I don't want other people to be misled into thinking that it's some official Pocket or STO party line.

I don't remember Q-Squared ignoring Reunion's version of Jack's death, but there were some alternate versions of Jack in that book. I do know, though, that Reunion's version of Jack's death has been referenced in several novel-continuity books including my own The Buried Age (even though it doesn't perfectly mesh with canon, since "The Bonding" said he died on an away mission rather than a repair operation). Reunion is a book that's pretty much been grandfathered into the novel continuity, since almost every subsequent depiction of the Stargazer has built on what it established. But The Needs of the Many was specifically intended to be unconnected to the rest of the novels. So that's how it differs.

 

[Admiral_Young]

I wouldn't mind another STO book as long as it wasn't written in the format the first one was. I'm don't think it's fair to say that STO has "contradicted" Trek Lit as much as formed it's own separate timeline. Fans for whatever keep thinking that the two are the same and of course as we've established on the board many times before they're not.

 

[Christopher]

I'm don't think it's fair to say that STO has "contradicted" Trek Lit as much as formed it's own separate timeline.

Well, yeah, in the sense that they're both independent tie-ins striking their own courses and aimed at different audiences, so they're not really in competition. So it's not so much "contradiction," in the literal sense of "speaking against" a thing, as simply exercising the freedom to go in a separate and incompatible direction.

 

[Freman]

^Well, the point is, when you brought it up, you seemed to be presenting it as a gospel fact, and that's misleading. I'm simply clarifying what it actually is, which is something that the author of one out-of-continuity book decided to throw in as an Easter egg. If you personally care to believe it, that's your free choice, but I don't want other people to be misled into thinking that it's some official Pocket or STO party line.

I'm not really seeing how this matters, or what the point of contention is. The STO book and game are set in a different reality/timeline/whatever then the TrekLit books.

It's already known that it's an alternate timeline, so why would anyone even have to "personally care to believe it" or worry about if it's "some official Pocket or STO party line"?

TNotM just states something that is, in fact, true. So what the hell does it matter?

 

[Admiral_Young]

It doesn't matter...except to those fans who have cared enough to bring it up and think the two are connected with one another.

 

[Christopher]

The point is that there's a difference between an alternate timeline within the continuity, like the Mirror Universe or the realities from "Parallels," and an incompatible fictional interpretation of the imaginary universe we call Star Trek. Neither Trek Lit nor Star Trek Online has any official policy stating that the two are alternate histories; if fans want to treat one or the other as purely "imaginary stories," or to believe that STO is a training simulation generated by someone in the Prime timeline, or whatever, they're free to do that. Heck, I wrote Watching the Clock under the assumption that STO and The Needs of the Many were simply an alternative approach to the fiction and not something whose assertions about the workings of the multiverse I needed to take into account.

The "point of contention" is that when KingDaniel talks about this, he talks as though TNotM's interpretation were THE absolute correct answer, and I think that's misinforming other posters who are seeking to understand the relationship of the novels and STO. So I'm clarifying that that isn't anything more than a reference in a single book, that it's not some absolute dogma the way he insists on making it sound.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Neither Trek Lit nor Star Trek Online has any official policy stating that the two are alternate histories

Maybe not official policy, but that is obviously what they are. If they are not the same history, then by definition, they are alternate histories. Whether this is ever acknowledged in print or not, the result is the same.

 

[Christopher]

^Okay, the semantics here are confusing people. I'm talking about the difference between two separate fictional continuities and two alternate quantum histories presumed to exist within a single fictional continuity. The latter is something like the Prime timeline and the Mirror Universe. The former is more like the difference between, say, the '66 Batman sitcom and the Christopher Nolan Batman movies. There's no reason to assume that within the reality of the Nolan films, there's an alternate quantum state of the universe in which Batman existed in the '60s and battled King Tut and Marsha, Queen of Diamonds. That's not an in-universe alternate timeline, it's an alternate fictional interpretation of the universe. Do you see the distinction now?

 

[Idran]

That's not an in-universe alternate timeline, it's an alternate fictional interpretation of the universe. Do you see the distinction now?

I think the confusion is that some authors or fans believe there is no difference between those two concepts. I get what you mean, Christopher, but some folks, especially those heavy into metafiction and postmodernism (Grant Morrison, for example), believe everything is in canon in some sense, even the contradictory stuff. And alternate fictional interpretations are always in-universe alternate timelines, or occasionally not even alternate at all.

 

[Christopher]

^Well, whatever. Yes, that interpretation exists, but I'm simply trying to clarify that it's not the only interpretation or the official interpretation in this case. If anyone chooses to believe that, it's their own personal choice, not the party line of Pocket Books or Star Trek Online.

 

[SuperXPS]

i REALLY hope they don't do a tie in with that garbage.
It looks like badly written fan fiction...another Klingon-Federation war? How original

At least in the novels they are exploring issues that we all wondered about to begin with but was never explored (Lost era, possibility of a full on borg invasion etc). Klingon wars been done to death. The STO stuffs just awful.

I know its not "cannon" but I think the novels have done a great job in creating a good cannon of its own as to "what happened" to characters from 2380+ an era we will probably not visit again on the screen..lets not have STO ballsing that up.

 

[F. King Daniel]

The idea of a breakdown in Klingon/Federation relations at the end of the 24th century goes back to the future seen in "All Good Things"

 

[Therin of Andor]

It's already known that it's an alternate timeline, so why would anyone even have to "personally care to believe it" or worry about if it's "some official Pocket or STO party line"?

Nothing new here. I recall some fannish hand-wringing over mismatches between FASA RPG manuals, the DC Comics and the Pocket novels in the 1980s. They cherrypicked from each other - more as Easter eggs - but didn't have to share everything, and most fans didn't care or notice.

i REALLY hope they don't do a tie in with that garbage.
It looks like badly written fan fiction...another Klingon-Federation war? How original

It's a computer game. Gamers like starship battles, not happy families.