Spoilers NO SPOILERS FOR CODA - A Lit-verse Grand Finale...What We Know (Spoilers for Entire Lit-verse)

You're welcome.

 

I still hope that the Vesta class will find its way into canon.

Of all the things to lose in the reset, that may hurt the most.

People come and go; ships are ride or die.

 

Before Picard started the showrunners had said they were aware of the ongoing litverse (which makes sense since Kirsten Beyer is on the team). I had kind of hoped something of the litverse would make it into Picard. I have to admit I was kind of disappointed that basically nothing did. It would have been nice maybe to see a litverse character portrayed on screen, maybe Christine Vale, or Dina Elfiki....or anyone. There were plenty of new characters on Picard, why not pluck one from the litverse? Or even just an Easter egg--a reminiscing about something in the past that was from some prior novel.

I was glad to see The Dark Veil include a few Titan characters and make a mention of their initial missions to Romulus (which was noted in Nemesis as well). I guess it's possible we might see Vale at some point or Keru in a future episode of Picard. I just want a bone

Well, they could have made their first child a girl in that case. I personally never took issue with Natasha being the name of their first daughter in the Titan books. I mean, Kestra of course makes sense too. But at the time Natasha was born in the novels the explanation given in the novel made sense to me.

I didn't mind most of the threads he did. My only complaint was that there seemed to be long gaps between DS9 novels. I have a feeling he had an outline of what he wanted to accomplish with the DS9 novels but then the 2018 novel banishment happened and everything ground to a halt and he never got to write another DS9 novel after that. So it almost seemed that they just stopped in the middle of his overall story.

It's why I really wanted one last DS9 novel (in case I never mentioned it ). Even with Coda coming out, it still would have been nice to have one more Deep Space Nine novel to close out those story lines and set it up for Coda. Reading the blurbs it does sound to me like the 3 novels will at least address some of those lingering story lines, but their are obviously some unique to the Deep Space Nine saga that probably won't play a role in what they want to do with Coda and will be left out.

Still, that all being said, I'm happy that DS9 will at least get some love in the upcoming trilogy. Officially they really started the relaunch train, so it seems only right that they have some role in it's finish.

 

I do have mixed feelings. I'm always glad to see Star Trek on screen.

BUT.....I really enjoyed the last 20+ years of relaunch novels and I've noted that in a number of ways I find I preferred the litverse continuity over the Picard continuity. It does sadden me a bit that Picard has basically spelled the end of any continuing novel adventures in the future. Yes, my old books still exist and aren't going away. But it's sad in the sense that they will not continue. I guess I got spoiled and just didn't really think about the end during a lot of the run.

And I had always hoped to see the supernova in the novelverse. I had wanted to see how the novels would tackle that along with Nero and Spock before going back in time---would it line up at all with the Countdown story, or do its own thing. I recall several years ago a novel came out where Picard is thinking about his future not long after Renee is born. He was thinking about how he might like to be an ambassador, which he was in the Countdown comics. And Data was resurrected in both the Countdown and novels (though by different means). I had thought for a while that they were starting to put the pieces in place to portray the destruction of Romulus in the novels. But it just never happened. I really would have been curious to see the repercussions for the Khitomer Powers and esp. for the Typhon Pact. With Romulus gone, how would that have affected the Romulan Empire's influence in the Pact--would the Federation have stepped in to help, perhaps pulling the Romulans into a closer relationship with the Khitomer Powers. How would the Typhon Pact assist the Romulan Empire? What of the Breen and the Tzenkethi, the Tholians, or even the Gorn and the Kinshaya. Probably a half dozen books could be written just about the intrigue that would go on within the Pact. And would it have affected relations within the Khitomer Powers. How would the Klingons and Cardassians react?

Sadly it's one event we'll never get to see in the litverse, IMO. I doubt it would resemble Picard knowing where both continuities are in 2387, so in many ways it probably would have been a completely different story, a different way of portraying a similar event.

 

The Vesta could still show up in the new novels, there’s nothing really preventing it.

 

Not just some role — a pivotal role. I'll tell you now we were not able to address all of the open story threads from that series, but we are doing some deep-cut callbacks and making sure the DS9 heroes are front-and-center for the climax of book three.

 

As Gul Dukat would say, "I look forward to it."

 

They'll be the only survivors from the novelverse in the new continuity

 

I'm sorry you inferred so much from my statement. My point was, we use a term that, as far as I know, was primarily used around religion before mass media (including print). I was trying to be a little cheeky and point out that that particular framing taken to an extreme can be compared to religious fanaticism. In no way am I saying all people who fret over canon are unhinged nor is it dangerous. I said I don't care anymore about what's canon. At one point I did. I can still enjoy tracking continuity, but I just don't take it too seriously.

 

I'm not sure about that. It's long been used in reference to a comprehensive body of creative works, whether of a single author or artist, a single genre, etc. There's the Shakespeare canon or the Rembrandt canon, the canon of English literature, etc. It was used to mean the comprehensive body of works that were considered genuine or essential, by analogy with the religious usage.

The main addition to the concept in modern usage is the idea that a canon represents not just authorship or genre, but internal narrative continuity.

 

I'm not even so sure that it represents internal continuity as the core elements with which other (non- or less-canon) things are supposed to maintain continuity. In Star Wars there used to be discussions of "levels of canon," with the films being the unimpeachable canon, then other things like the novelizations or radio dramas, then novels, comics, games with plots, RPG supplemental material, etc and down the line. So it wasn't so much about the narrative continuity as to, when things deviated from continuity, which things took precedence over which.

 

This makes sense. I was not aware of its full use. I should look up the history of the word.

 

From what I’ve seen so far, even then they took the time needed to maintain a fair degree of consistency between projects on the same level, especially in what they called C-canon (= the tie-in continuity of the day). The trouble was, George Lucas could do anything he wanted, which usually meant being presented with C-canon as a resource he could work around or overwrite at will, so G-canon identified elements originated or accepted by George Lucas, and then there were secondary materials such as the Marvel comics or the newspaper strip, which were developed independently and before C-canon, so they needed the S-canon designation to distinguish them from the main tie-in continuity.

This is also a way of better understanding the current situation: the reason “everything is canon” mostly works is simply that “everything” is “C-canon”. S now maps to Legends, G is retired, and nobody working for Lucasfilm has G’s kind of influence.

 

Eh, there's no indication quantum slipstream is a thing the Federation has figured out in Picard, which kind of rules out any Vesta class ships showing up.

Again, it all comes down to why? There have been plenty of other tie-in continuities over the years that aren't compatible with the Litverse, such as STO, IDW comics, David Goodman's books, and the Shatnerverse. Why should the show incorporate something from the Litverse when none of these other continuities did? Likewise, why should the show incorporate something from the Litverse as opposed to one of the other continuities?

As it is, the Litverse already has a lot of bones thrown to it onscreen, with the Vanguard design showing up on TOSR, Disco bringing in Control and Lower Decks making the Titan a Luna class ship, so it's not like the novels have been completely ignored.

Actually, it's been reported that Abrams did have the authority to ignore the Story Group and do whatever he wanted with his movies overruling the tie-ins in much the same way Lucas did.

 

No evidence it isn't either. We know that as late as the 32nd century, they still haven't overcome the rarity of benamite crystals, which slipstream can't work without. Even in the Novelverse, slipstream ships are rare and have to limit their use of the drive to essential situations. So that means that in most circumstances, you wouldn't see slipstream vessels in use. You certainly wouldn't see them being used by people outside of Starfleet, like the characters in Picard. So the existence of Vesta-class ships with slipstream capability can't be ruled out.

And of course, there's no reason a Trek production couldn't use the Vesta design and just give it conventional warp drive. The Excelsior was originally meant to have transwarp drive, but that was dropped after ST III and the class was used as ordinary warp ships from then on. It's fiction, after all; just because one story uses a concept a certain way doesn't mean a different story can't change it.

This is true to a point; novel fans tend to forget that the novels are far from the only tie-in continuity. However, the show is perfectly free to draw ideas from whatever source it wants to, regardless of what any tie-in has done. The tie-ins are all tributaries to the show, after all, connecting to it if not to each other. Look at how Superman comics took Perry White, Jimmy Olsen, and kryptonite from the radio adaptation, the Daily Planet from the newspaper comic-strip adaptation, and (so it's alleged, though I'm not sure) Superman's power to fly (instead of just jump) from the theatrical animated shorts. It doesn't matter where ideas come from; they're there for the source material to draw on if the creators desire to.

So the makers of the shows absolutely could borrow characters or concepts from the novels, the comics, the games, etc. if they wanted to. They'd reinvent them in their own way, of course, so they'd still be an incompatible reality, but they could certainly use them. Although I've always felt that if they were to do so, they'd probably be more likely to draw on Star Trek Online than the novels, given how popular gaming is these days.

 

It doesn't need to be a slipstream ship, they could give it a new backstory, like Star Wars has done with some Legends concepts/characters.

It could be a failed prototype like the Excelsior, but was still a good enough ship design to keep producing.

 

Two things come to mind. First of all quantity. There are a lot more books and a longer period of time involved with the ongoing litverse. Tons of stories and characters over the last 20+ years. And I guess I allowed myself to be led down the garden path but when they expressed a familiarity with the ongoing litverse, I kind of thought that meant they might pluck something and adapt it for Picard, whether it be a character or a storyline. Personally I was kind of hoping to see a litverse character on screen. I knew they weren't going to do anything major. Like I said, just a bone. Here's Christine Vale--or T'Ryssa Chen--or I really liked Jasminder Choudhury (even though she's deceased now in the litverse). Or how about her succesor--Smrhová (could you imagine if they actually got her namesake to play her--I mean, I know her roles aren't usually, um, sci-fi , but I'm sure David Mack would be thrilled ).

 

When I think of the real-life Aneta Šmrhovà in a Starfleet uniform, I'm not picturing her on a Star Trek: Picard soundstage, I can tell you that....

 

Out of curiosity I did take a look at the real life Smrhova (a G-rated picture---ok, well, maybe a PG-13 picture ) and she is quite the attractive woman , and more or less how I pictured her (though obviously in uniform). I wonder if she knows she has a character named after her, and what she would think of her alter ego.

 

I can't imagine she would care in the least.