Guinan in ENT novels?
- Thread starter Freman
- Start date
^Well, of course, but quality and continuity are two different matters. If I'd remembered about the Guinan reference in The Eugenics Wars, I would've acknowledged it in TBA.
All right, someone has to remind me of Guinan's role in the EW books...
I think it was minor; something about her giving Seven the location of the Antarctic Ozone What-Have-You base?
Then it's a good thing that the episode was never made. Her role in The Buried Age was exactly what I was talking about. It wasn't a huge role, but she was really important. Making sure Picard went back to Starfleet was not only important for her (he needed to save her life down the line after all), but for Starfleet in general. Picard is the kind of captain that only comes along once a generation.
Well, if they'd made the episode, Christopher probably wouldn't have written that part of TBA the same way, depending on his writing schedule vs. the theoretical air date of the episode.
Christopher, can you make a minor edit ot make it consistant with The Eugenics Wars, in for future printings?
Guinan assisted Gary Seven in preventing a nerve gas attack in the Chunnel. Seven stopped an attack in England, while Guinan prevented a similar attack in France. Her appearance is in Chapter 19, on page 225 of the Hardcover.
Christopher, do you happen to know where in The Buried Age you made the reference to how long it had been since Guinan was on Earth?
^I think I just found it, on page 336 and the preceding pages (I love Amazon's Look Inside feature!). All it says is that after the events of Time's Arrow, the anthropologists "eventually" returned for Guinan and she began "the long migration back home," upon which it goes into talk of "centuries" and unspecified time frames. One could argue that, in a race as long lived as the El-Aurians, "eventually" could have been a century later, and it doesn't conflict Eugenics Wars as much as we would think.
I believe the TBA reference is from page 336, which recounts the events of "Time's Arrow," and then says, "Eventually the anthropologists had returned for her, and she had begun the long migration home, sobered by her brush with death." So it seems to me that, if someone really wanted to reconcile TBA and EW, they could just reason "eventually" was a hundred years later... a blink of the eye for an El-Aurian.
... or, what Spike said.
... or, what Spike said.
Last edited:
Well, that's not really what I had in mind, and I'm not sure it's completely consistent with the subsequent paragraphs, but it's a clever fix.
Can't we just ignore that in favor of a good story with Guinan in ENT novels?
^See the posts above.
JarodRussell -
In my opinion, yes, we can just ignore that in favor of a good story with Guinan in Enterprise novels, because continuity is a fairly moot point when you consider how many Star Trek novels contradict other novels already, even other episodes.
The Star Trek timeline isn't perfect, or error-free. It's very much like Batman continuity (or that of any other major franchise) - if you're not happy with all the contradictions, then only buy the books that you want to make up your own continuity.
Or, like me, buy all the books, read all the books, and just accept that they can't all be right.
If two books written many years apart can contradict each other and still be published, then it won't make much difference for two books written just a few years apart to contradict each other. Sure, it's not perfect, but it ain't gonna be.
At the end of the day, they're not canon anyway, so it doesn't really matter.
In my opinion, yes, we can just ignore that in favor of a good story with Guinan in Enterprise novels, because continuity is a fairly moot point when you consider how many Star Trek novels contradict other novels already, even other episodes.
The Star Trek timeline isn't perfect, or error-free. It's very much like Batman continuity (or that of any other major franchise) - if you're not happy with all the contradictions, then only buy the books that you want to make up your own continuity.
Or, like me, buy all the books, read all the books, and just accept that they can't all be right.
If two books written many years apart can contradict each other and still be published, then it won't make much difference for two books written just a few years apart to contradict each other. Sure, it's not perfect, but it ain't gonna be.
At the end of the day, they're not canon anyway, so it doesn't really matter.
My Guinan backstory in TBA was a minor enough part of the book that it could easily enough be ignored for the sake of a new story. And others above have offered a way to reconcile its existing contradiction with The Eugenics Wars. So I guess it's not that huge a deal.
My personal take, when contradictions can't be easily reconciled: the ST novels, short stories, comics and RPG manuals are works of faction, (fiction based on fact) and derived from actual ships' logs, but sometimes the authors take artistic license to "improve" the story or fill in unknown gaps - exactly how many 20th and 21st century authors do historical fiction.
Of course, let's not forget that we're talking about Guinan. She's always been mysterious. If she pops up someplace that doesn't jive even with her own account of her adventures, is anyone really going to be that surprised?
Similar threads
