Legal situation concerning the new TV series

[Christopher]

Yes. If that could happen, some pretty impresive retcons could be in store if the series were set in, say, the 25th century.

Retcons can be done cleverly if they need to be done, but it would be better if it weren't necessary to negate the progress that a storyline has made. I'm still hoping the new show's in an alternate reality -- not only because it would let us continue the Novelverse undisturbed, but because I'd be interested as a fan to see the Trek premise reinvented in a fresh way. Now that we have the Abramsverse, I'm hoping it's opened the door to further, more fundamental reinventions, so that in the future we can see more variations on the theme. Other franchises get to play around with multiple continuities and reinventions (DC and Marvel, Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan, Godzilla, Planet of the Apes, etc.), and as fond as I am of the existing Trek continuity, it could be a lot of fun to see alternative takes coexisting with it.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I'm sure that a lot of time will go by before we even find out WHAT reality the new series is in. I mean, it's not like they're going to come right out and tell us.

 

[Therin of Andor]

You're not the boss of me, Mack! I'm going to pass out from lack of oxygen!! That'll show you!!!

Holding my breath till I turn blue.


Turning blue. by Ian McLean, on Flickr

 

[Extrocomp]

I can easily imagine the Litverse going the way of the Star Wars EU. And that will be a sad day, no matter how great the new show is.

If the new series is set after Nemesis and does contradict the Novelverse in major ways, do you think CBS would allow us to say that the Novelverse is a parallel universe and continue writing stories in both continuities? Or would that be too confusing for the general public?

And of course there are already several incompatible Trek tie-in continuities -- the Novelverse, ST Online, the IDW Byrneverse, and all the various standalone comics and books.

How are Byrne's comics a separate continuity?

So setting the new show in the future would not protect the current novels from contradiction. Not unless it were in some completely different part of the universe and never did any stories pertaining to Federation history or to pre-existing species.

Even if the new series is set in the Abramsverse, it still wouldn't mean the Novelverse is safe. An offhand mention of McCoy performing a caesarean on a Gorn in Star Trek Into Darkness contradicted the novel Seize The Fire which described the Gorn as an egg-laying species.

 

[Christopher]

If the new series is set after Nemesis and does contradict the Novelverse in major ways, do you think CBS would allow us to say that the Novelverse is a parallel universe and continue writing stories in both continuities? Or would that be too confusing for the general public?

It's possible there could be some kind of branding to set them apart, like the Star Wars Legends label, but as I understand it, there aren't any new Legends stories being told. If there were major contradictions up front, we'd probably just have to drop the current continuity, at least those parts of it that were in clear conflict. At most, we might get the chance to wrap things up before starting over.

However, if the inconsistencies are more subtle, maybe we'd get to do what we did while Enterprise was on the air, or what the Star Wars EU did with the prequels and The Clone Wars -- continue the existing continuity but gloss over or retcon away those bits that are contradicted.

Really, we won't know until it happens. None of our speculations should be taken too seriously.

How are Byrne's comics a separate continuity?

All the licensed tie-ins from different companies are separate continuities. IDW doesn't even have a single uniform continuity to its Prime-universe comics, instead letting its various creators interpret the universe in their own ways. John Byrne has put his own personal spin on things throughout all his IDW Trek comics.

Even if the new series is set in the Abramsverse, it still wouldn't mean the Novelverse is safe. An offhand mention of McCoy performing a caesarean on a Gorn in Star Trek Into Darkness contradicted the novel Seize The Fire which described the Gorn as an egg-laying species.

But there have been larger continuity errors than that within Prime-universe canon (for instance, the different portrayals of the Trill in "The Host" and DS9) and within the Novelverse (for instance, The Left Hand of Destiny and Spirit Walk portraying Boreth in contradictory ways, the former as a frozen wasteland with no indigenous life, the latter as a world with a lush jungle used as a hunting preserve). Any long-running series is going to accumulate some inconsistencies. As long as they aren't too massive or pervasive, they can be glossed over or explained away. Heck, Seize the Fire itself undertook to reconcile "Arena" Gorn with "In a Mirror, Darkly" Gorn by positing that the species had engineered itself into different types. Who's to say they can't have a variety that gives live birth?

 

[Jinn]

An offhand mention of McCoy performing a caesarean on a Gorn in Star Trek Into Darkness contradicted the novel Seize The Fire which described the Gorn as an egg-laying species.

That's one of the reasons why STID is non-canon in my personal canon.

 

[Christopher]

That's why STID is non-canon in my personal canon.

Really? Leaving aside the fact that there are much worse inconsistencies in Prime universe canon, that's the specific inconsistency in STID that was a dealbreaker for you? Not Khan being English or the Augments having healing blood or the Klingons being redesigned (yet again) or warp drive being seemingly instantaneous or whatever, but a throwaway reference to an offscreen Gorn?

By the way, I checked -- McCoy didn't say anything about performing a C-section on a Gorn. He said "I once delivered a litter of Gorn. The little buggers bite." "Delivered a litter" does strongly imply live birth, but there is such a thing in amphibians and reptiles as ovoviviparity, which is a hybrid between egg-laying and live birth wherein the eggs are kept inside the mother's body until hatching and the embryos are nourished by yolk instead of a placenta. We've seen Novelverse Gorn lay clutches of eggs, but as I said, there could be a different subspecies that's ovoviviparous.

 

[Jinn]

Really? Leaving aside the fact that there are much worse inconsistencies in Prime universe canon, that's the specific inconsistency in STID that was a dealbreaker for you?

One of them.. I corrected it.

Not Khan being English or the Augments having healing blood or the Klingons being redesigned (yet again) or warp drive being seemingly instantaneous or whatever, but a throwaway reference to an offscreen Gorn?

I think some more recent 23rd century novels established that there were still non-Augment-virus Klingons so I am semi-okay with that. But Khan's magical super blood and the Warp Drive inconsistencies were in my opinion some of the worst things in that movie among everyones reaction to that fact that Romulans look like Vulcans. I was okay with Khan from an in-universe perspective since the too Enterprise didn't exactly resemble the 60s Enterprise and some design choices had to be made to appeal to todays audience.. So I'm fine with those redesigns from an in-universe POV. From an Real-World perspective though... I think i have never seen an Indian on television/film who was not a based off of stereotypes, apart from Khan sooo having Khan played by an British actor was just bad... Also I just realized that there wasn't nearly as much negative backlash concerning Khan compared to the Human Torch being black in the 2015 Fantastic Four movie.

 

[Avro Arrow]

He said "I once delivered a litter of Gorn. The little buggers bite." "Delivered a litter" does strongly imply live birth

He literally delivered them. From the hatchery... to someplace else!

 

[Idran]

Or perhaps it wasn't a "litter of Gorn", we all have just been mishearing. It was a "literal Gorn"

 

[Extrocomp]

By the way, I checked -- McCoy didn't say anything about performing a C-section on a Gorn. He said "I once delivered a litter of Gorn.

Where did you check? I checked on chakoteya.net and the line is "Sweetheart, I once performed an emergency C-section on a pregnant Gorn. Octuplets. And let me tell you, those little bastards bite. I think I can work some magic on your missile."

 

[Christopher]

Where did you check? I checked on chakoteya.net and the line is "Sweetheart, I once performed an emergency C-section on a pregnant Gorn. Octuplets. And let me tell you, those little bastards bite. I think I can work some magic on your missile."

I couldn't get into Chakoteya's site (it's been intermittent lately) so I Googled it. Rotten Tomatoes's quotes page for the film had the "litter" version. But I see now that other sites agree with the C-section version. Odd.

 

[The Wormhole]

Even if the new series is set in the Abramsverse, it still wouldn't mean the Novelverse is safe. An offhand mention of McCoy performing a caesarean on a Gorn in Star Trek Into Darkness contradicted the novel Seize The Fire which described the Gorn as an egg-laying species.

To be fair though, Abramsverse Gorn are shall we say very different than Prime Gorn.

Also I just realized that there wasn't nearly as much negative backlash concerning Khan compared to the Human Torch being black in the 2015 Fantastic Four movie.

For all the flaws the 2015 Fantastic Four had (and let's be honest, they are many) I don't see the issue with making the Human Torch a black guy. If anything, I don't understand why they felt it was necessary to make Sue Storm an adopted sibling. There's no reason they couldn't still be biological siblings, I've known children of interracial couples who are themselves separate colours, for example I know a white guy with interracial parents who if you looked at him you wouldn't believe had a black parent. His biological sister is black.

But even if they wanted to keep things simple for the movie, why not keep simplest and just cast a black actress as Sue Storm? I can see if they wanted her adopted for story reasons, but there didn't appear to be any in the movie.

 

[Trekfan12]

I'm curious, are you guys saying that once this new Trek comes out that pocket will no longer be doing any novels set in TOS universe?

 

[Christopher]

For all the flaws the 2015 Fantastic Four had (and let's be honest, they are many) I don't see the issue with making the Human Torch a black guy. If anything, I don't understand why they felt it was necessary to make Sue Storm an adopted sibling. There's no reason they couldn't still be biological siblings, I've known children of interracial couples who are themselves separate colours, for example I know a white guy with interracial parents who if you looked at him you wouldn't believe had a black parent. His biological sister is black.

Because Josh Trank himself is part of a racially mixed family and he wanted to represent the kind of family he comes from. There's nothing wrong with being adopted any more than there's anything wrong with mixed parentage. It's not like the adoption is an excuse for anything. It's just another legitimate way of being part of a family. So there shouldn't have to be some special justification for it.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I'm curious, are you guys saying that once this new Trek comes out that pocket will no longer be doing any novels set in TOS universe?

No, but if the new series is set in the Prime Universe, the creators are not obliged to use any story threads from novels read by only 1-2% of the fanbase. Thus, some print-based licensed fiction may get overwritten.

As has happened many times before.

There is a fairly recent precedent (2009) whereby Bad Robot wanted its new timeline to be the only one represented by all new licensed fiction/games etc, but CBS resisted this request/demand, mainly because the existing fiction still sells well enough.

To be fair though, Abramsverse Gorn are shall we say very different than Prime Gorn.

It is specifically stated that Abrams' Gorn stepped through from another universe. But they may yet coexist with other Gorn in the nuUniverse, which we may not have met yet, and which are biologically identical to the Gorn seen in TOS (or indeed, ENT). So nothing's necessarily been overwritten there.

 

[Extrocomp]

The Gorn are probably the most inconsistently portrayed species in all of Star Trek.

The Gorn from Arena had compound eyes, five-fingered hands and plantigrade feet while the Gorn from In a Mirror Darkly had single-lens eyes, three-fingered hands and digitigrade feet. The novels The Needs of the Many and Seize The Fire explained that the Gorn with compound eyes are the warrior caste and the Gorn with single-lens eyes are the technological caste.

But then Star Trek Online messes things up. In this game, all the Gorn have single-lens eyes, five-fingered hands and plantigrade feet. The compound eyes from Arena are explained as a "spec ops shield" that some Gorn wear over their eyes.

Then Star Trek (2013 video game) made things even worse. In this game, set in the Abramsverse, the Gorn are depicted as invaders from another galaxy. There are about a dozen different subspecies but they all look more like velociraptors than any previously seen version of the Gorn. They have long tails, four-fingered hands, single-lens eyes, digitigrade feet and nostrils positioned above the eyes. So how do they reconcile this with the Gorn seen in Arena? Well, towards the end of the game, Kirk fights a Gorn Champion who is described as a "mutated Gorn" with "rare birth defects". This Gorn is more or less meant to be the original Gorn: he has five-fingered hands, plantigrade feet, no tail and nostrils below the eyes. He even throws rocks.
There's a reason for this extremely unfaithful portrayal. The developers of the game wanted to include the Gorn as antagonists but they mistakenly believed that Arena was the only time the Gorn had ever appeared on Star Trek. They could've looked up the Gorn on Memory Alpha to learn otherwise but none of them bothered to do so. If they did, they would've learned that the Gorn Hegemony were already around in ENT, and therefore did not arrive from another galaxy a hundred years later. They also might've learned that the Gorn have appeared in many novels, comics and video games and their Arena appearance is their normal appearance and not a rare mutation.

Issue 24 of the IDW comics is a sequel to Star Trek (2013 video game). The Gorn in this issue look mostly like the Gorn Warrior from the game, but they have no tails.

The Star Trek/Green Lantern series is also set in the Abramsverse, but its depiction of Gorn is much closer to the prime universe. The Gorn homeworld is now said to be in the Tau Lacertae system and the Gorn have compound eyes, five-fingered hands and plantigrade feet, but the nostrils are still positioned above the eyes.

The name of the Gorn government has also varied. The FASA RPG calls it the Gorn Alliance. The Starfleet Command video games call it the Gorn Confederation. The Klingon Academy video game calls it the Gorn Star Kingdom. Most of the novels and comics call it the Gorn Hegemony and that's the name that ended up becoming canon.

 

[Christopher]

The Gorn are probably the most inconsistently portrayed species in all of Star Trek.

Oh, there are probably a few others. Rigel(l)ians have been portrayed in a bunch of inconsistent ways. Besides the four main species that currently "count" in the Novelverse (the TMP Chelons, the ENT Rigelians that I called Jelna, the Kaylar, and the humanoid Rigel IV people that have been portrayed as both Vulcanoid and human-looking), there's the Michael Jan Friedman silver-skinned and red-eyed version (which I've retconned as a Jelna variant), the rodentlike Boda Rigellians from FASA's games, and the Vulcan-descended V'gelnians of Rigel V from FASA, who may be equated with the Vulcan colonists on Rigel V in John Vornholt's Mind Meld.

Then there are the Tholians, who've had a variety of different portrayals of their anatomy and culture. The Lost Years: Recovery portrayed them as tentacled, squidlike creatures, with the angular "face" seen in "The Tholian Web" interpreted as a helmet. DC's TNG comic portrayed them as blocky, crystalline bipeds. The Lost Era: The Sundered described them as having scorpionlike bodies, which has been glossed over by later Novelverse tales that use the canonical body plan seen in "In a Mirror, Darkly" (although I believe The Sundered implied that the Tholians engineered themselves into various different forms, as a hedge against just such potential contradictions.) And IDW's Star Trek Ongoing's depiction of the Tholians is only loosely based on the IaMD version, more rounded and organic and misreading the darker area at the lower front of the "head" as a slender neck.

There's a reason for this extremely unfaithful portrayal. The developers of the game wanted to include the Gorn as antagonists but they mistakenly believed that Arena was the only time the Gorn had ever appeared on Star Trek. They could've looked up the Gorn on Memory Alpha to learn otherwise but none of them bothered to do so. If they did, they would've learned that the Gorn Hegemony were already around in ENT, and therefore did not arrive from another galaxy a hundred years later. They also might've learned that the Gorn have appeared in many novels, comics and video games and their Arena appearance is their normal appearance and not a rare mutation.

To be fair, continuity between tie-ins has always been a matter of choice, not requirement. You can validly criticize the game designers for overlooking IaMD (though maybe they felt it didn't count because it was in an alternate universe), but they were under no obligation to acknowledge what earlier books, comics, or games had done -- especially considering how much those earlier works contradicted each other already.

Besides, they had to consider the needs of a video game, which calls for multiple different types of enemy with different abilities. That was a conscious choice shaped by the demands of the genre they were working in, not just an accidental consequence of ignorance.

 

[Extrocomp]

Here's a quote from one of the game designers:

As far as the Gorn designs were concerned – no, I think you’ve only seen one version of the Gorn ever, and that was our great rubber-suited character. And the great challenge and honour that we had with the game was to take that character and make a species out of him.

Seems pretty clear that they were completely unaware of the Gorn's appearance in In a Mirror Darkly and the fact that the Gorn Hegemony was mentioned in Bound.

 

[Longinus]

But then Star Trek Online messes things up. In this game, all the Gorn have single-lens eyes, five-fingered hands and plantigrade feet. The compound eyes from Arena are explained as a "spec ops shield" that some Gorn wear over their eyes.

I like STO Gorn. They actually look like the same species as one in 'Arena', merely slightly visually updated. And making the compound eyes lenses was a good call, those things never looked organic.