Spoilers It’s Official... (probably TV spoilers here too)

[The Wormhole]

It's like why comic books always reboot: because issue 1 sells more copies than issue 46. Likewise, Novel 1 connected to a TV show currently in production is going to sell better than novel 46 of a developed continuity picking up after the finale of a show which ended over twenty years ago will.

 

[thribs]

Speaking of comic books, they have multiple continuities and people don’t get confused by them.
I hate they keep doing that #1 thing but they get diminishing returns every time they do it. People eventually catch on.

 

[Thrawn]

And if DC was only publishing 8 graphic novels a year, I bet there wouldn't be so many continuities!

If the market doesn't exist to support more than 8 Trek novels a year, we're not going to get 8 ongoing novel series in addition to the much more profitable tie-ins for the actual shows themselves. No chance.

 

[Christopher]

Johnston McCully was famously laissez-faire about continuity in the original Zorro novels--and he created the character.

Fans get very attached to the "reality" of fictional worlds, but nobody is more aware of their unreality than the people who made them up. So we writers are much more flexible about reinventing our fictional worlds. Heck, that's how we created them in the first place -- by trying out various things and changing them to make them work better.

Heck, I'm usually a stickler for continuity, wanting everything in my fictional universes to be as consistent as possible. Nonetheless, my upcoming novel Arachne's Crime is a total rewrite and reimagining of my first published story, replacing it in the continuity of its universe -- but in a way that allows everything else to remain unchanged, so the continuity as a whole is still as tight as before.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Speaking of comic books, they have multiple continuities and people don’t get confused by them.

Yes they do.

 

[Krupp]

Running two continuities is a bad business decision. All of us who have been reading Star Trek books for many moons will continue to buy and read the new stuff alongside a lot of newly engaged fans. Confusing them with this “other” continuity would be odd.

That being said, we have been diligently purchasing and reading and following these stories for many years now and it feels like it would be fair service for our service to give us a wrap up book. It’d likely sell well, I reckon, among the followers of this litverse. Bring the 24th century crews together for some crossover adventure with a wrap to their arcs.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

"I've been dead before." -- Spock

 

[Leto_II]

Looking at it just from a reader's perspective, and not an "alternate timeline" perspective but just the kind of "what books are still compatible with new episodes/films" perspective I used as a fan back in the '80s and '90s, it does seem to me like most of the pre-NEM stuff is probably still consistent for now, though it's possible that Seven of Nine will say something that conflicts with the early VGR Relaunch, or something like that. The bulk of post-finale DS9 books might be unaffected, as well as earlier stuff.

Agreed. I’ve basically stripped out all of the likely-to-be-contradicted stuff from my personal continuity in anticipation of seeing what Picard does, but there are still a few late-24th century Litverse bits in there, such as the first 3-4 Titan novels (which are set immediately post-Nemesis), the pre-relaunch VOY books (like Homecoming and The Farther Shore), etc. Which, as you mention, are vulnerable to contradiction by some completely-offhand onscreen line of dialogue. And of course all of the pre-NEM books are in there for the moment, as well.

Stuff like Death in Winter and Articles of the Federation, as well as the 2378-2380 chapters of Full Circle are even included too, due to their more-remote distance from the Destiny trilogy (as well as their standalone nature from the later TNG-relaunch continuity), and stuff can be deleted or tweaked on a case-by-case basis, depending on what the new TV show establishes onscreen.

(Although the events of Chapter 23 of Articles -- the B-4 android getting declared a "sentient" being and therefore ineligible for dismantling -- might now seem to be contradicted by the new TV show, but one reconciliation might be, due to the actions of the synths against Mars, the Federation suddenly got handed a new, "national security"-based reason for putting B-4 on ice again just a couple years later, as the show established this week.)

My one big provisional inclusion from the immediate pre-Destiny books is J.M. Dillard’s novel Resistance, but that one’s EXTREEEEMELY-provisional, and could still end up quickly getting the axe if somebody on the new show makes a comment to the effect of, “Well, nobody’s even seen a Borg ever since Voyager came crashing out of that transwarp-conduit!”

I figure if most of David Mack’s Mirror Universe material could survive DSC, there’s hope for a few of the pre-Destiny TNG-relaunch books maybe surviving Picard, too.

 

[ATimson]

Running two continuities is a bad business decision. All of us who have been reading Star Trek books for many moons will continue to buy and read the new stuff alongside a lot of newly engaged fans.

That's not a given. I used to buy all the Star Trek novels, But between the price hikes & the emphasis on Discovery and TOS, I'm being pickier about what I buy and relying on the library for some of them now. And for Star Wars I don't even do that anymore - I dropped the new continuity entirely after a year or so.

 

[Lonemagpie]

As long as individual books are entertaining, who gives a shit?

 

[BillJ]

But between the price hikes & the emphasis on Discovery and TOS, I'm being pickier about what I buy and relying on the library for some of them now.

The more expensive they get, the pickier I get.

 

[Warp Coil]

All of the questions and upheaval related to Treklit, as well as the premiere of “Picard” and the announcements of a rapidly-expanding Trek universe have finally dragged me out of a TrekBBS retirement that’s lasted nearly 7 years.

I’ve been faithfully reading the 24th century relaunches (TNG/DS9/VOY/TTN and the various crossovers and tentpole events) and am nearly caught up on everything. Currently reading TNG: Available Light and then I need to read TNG: Collateral Damage. Then that’s as far as the litverse will take us. We know Kirsten Beyer’s got one more VOY story coming but then that may be it for the current continuity that’s spanned dozens of novels.

The premiere of “Picard” - and any subsequent, as-yet-unannounced sequel or spin-off or whatever - is creating an entirely new post-NEM continuity. Some elements from the relaunch litverse continuity may sneak in here or there (Beyer is involved and may try to sprinkle a few little bits) but for the most part, all of these stories end up being “erased” or getting moved over into a different timeline. I guess these books are now akin to the SW “Legends” litverse once Disney rebooted the entire series and started producing the sequel trilogy.

Continuing to tell stories in the current litverse timeline is probably not a smart business decision for CBS or S&S. They want to lure in customers who are invested in the current series, like DSC and now PIC. (Also, they’ll probably continue to commission TOS books so long as sales numbers justify it). It’s also interesting that there is at least some effort to reconcile the DSC and PIC novels with the series - there is greater collaboration between the shows’ producers and S&S. So while the novels could still end up being contradicted on-screen, there is at least an attempt to make them as close to “canon” as possible. Readers jumping into these new novels can breathe a little easier knowing that these tales are less likely to get wiped out by the series. Unlike the old numbered series from decades past, or now the more recent shared litverse, the novels and the series will attempt to share the same continuity.

Sooo... what to do about the current litverse? Call it “Legends” and shelve it all? No finale? Loose ends stay unresolved? Would there be any benefit to providing closure? What about some sort of epic crossover event (akin to the “Destiny” trilogy) where the litverse finally takes us to the Hobus star explosion? What if the destruction of the star - and Spock’s failed attempt to stop it - shatters space/time and reverberates across the litverse? Whatever is done to save the multiverse ends up “resetting” things post-NEM? I’m not sure if there’s any value in doing such a thing but I’m wondering if it may help create a sense of closure so that we can give a proper goodbye to this continuity and then move forward in this PIC era.

 

[Christopher]

Agreed. I’ve basically stripped out all of the likely-to-be-contradicted stuff from my personal continuity in anticipation of seeing what Picard does

I'm still waiting to see just what gets established. It might not be until later in the season that we get a clearer idea of what might fit. I mean, when Riker and Troi show up, they might say something that conflicts with the Titan books.

My policy as a fan (well, at least since I stopped trying to force everything to fit in the early years) has always been to count everything that I find consistent with existing screen continuity, and only remove something when it's actually been contradicted. Granted, at this point we can safely say that everything since at least Greater than the Sum/Destiny is out (since Hugh and evidently the Borg are still around), but other than that it remains to be seen.

As long as individual books are entertaining, who gives a shit?

Of course none of this should be taken as a value judgment. The moment I stopped trying to selectively edit books to force them to fit together was right after I realized that all stories are equally imaginary, so there's nothing wrong with stories being out of continuity with each other. So screen continuity vs. alternate continuity is just a simple matter of classification, not worth or enjoyability. Once I realized that, I became much more willing to take books out of my personal continuity, because that wasn't a negative reflection on them, just a matter of organization, knowing what goes where.

So it does matter -- for those of us who enjoy organizing things and keeping records, building continuities as a creative exercise in itself. It's like how, say, music collectors might work on organizing their libraries by genre -- does this one go in R&B or jazz? That's not about their relative worth, just about where they fit. Categories don't have to be hierarchies.

 

[Christopher]

It’s also interesting that there is at least some effort to reconcile the DSC and PIC novels with the series - there is greater collaboration between the shows’ producers and S&S. So while the novels could still end up being contradicted on-screen, there is at least an attempt to make them as close to “canon” as possible. Readers jumping into these new novels can breathe a little easier knowing that these tales are less likely to get wiped out by the series. Unlike the old numbered series from decades past, or now the more recent shared litverse, the novels and the series will attempt to share the same continuity.

That's not true at all. It has always, always been a requirement for tie-in novels to remain as consistent as possible with canon as it was known at the time of the book's approval. That is what tie-ins do -- tell stories as if they took place in the show's universe. That's the basic, intrinsic requirement of the exercise. Every Trek novel has always had to be approved by the licensing people at Paramount/CBS, who were aware of what the shows were doing and made sure that the novelists were staying consistent with it. It just didn't go the other way -- the shows' makers were under no obligation to stay consistent with the books in return.

And they still aren't. It's an utter misconception that the purpose of the closer coordination is to keep the shows consistent with the tie-ins. No. The shows are still contradicting the tie-ins as freely as ever; for instance, season 2 of Discovery contradicted the comic The Light of Kahless by showing that Klingons only shaved their heads in wartime (rather than being always bald like in the comic), and it ignored what Desperate Hours depicted about Spock and Burnham working together on the Shenzou. The only reason for the closer coordination is to improve the books' ability to stay consistent with the show, not the reverse -- to do the same thing they were always required to do, but to do so a little better because they have a more direct line of communication with the show staff. But it's still a one-way relationship, the books following the show's lead.

 

[JD]

And tie-in novels for major franchises are even more likely to have their continuity altered when new canon ignores them, so what's your point?

I just meant that since Baum was making his own stories, he had more freedom to play around with continuity since he didn't have to worry about staying consistent with an original source.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Crisis on Infinite Star Treks. Yes, when you think about it closely, it doesn't work - different versions of the Romulan supernova in different tie-ins, different Iconians in the online game and novels, but IMO it's good enough as a handwave to call them alternate universes and do some kind of crossover/wrap-up thing.

 

[Christopher]

Crisis on Infinite Star Treks. Yes, when you think about it closely, it doesn't work - different versions of the Romulan supernova in different tie-ins, different Iconians in the online game and novels, but IMO it's good enough as a handwave to call them alternate universes and do some kind of crossover/wrap-up thing.

If it means Picard, Sisko, and Janeway end up battling a giant Beebo in the final act, I'm in.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

It’s official. The moment we all knew was coming.

The Litverse Continuity is, as of today, out of continuity with canonical Star Trek.

 

[JD]

Have they said anything about what they're going to do about Star Trek Online?

 

[thribs]

Problem is that this new continuity doesn’t sound particularly exciting to make novels before hand. It’s like the new Star Wars ones. The new movies have sort of lessened my interest in the gap inbetween.