I read a description the other day of a novel (pro I think, not fanfic) which featured Rand leaving the Enterprise. Does that ring a bell with anyone?
Rand leaving the Enterprise
- Thread starter ChallengerHK
- Start date
Could be part of The Captain’s Daughter, I think?
That alludes in passing to why she left, but it's set decades later. I think the OP is asking about a book that actually depicts her departure.
If anything showed it, it would have to be a novel set in the first season. Maybe one of the trilogies that tried to tell stories in between first-season episodes, The Janus Gate and Errand of Vengeance?
Yeah I couldn’t remember if The Captain’s Daughter actually had a flashback to it, as obviously that would have to be in the first season.
It only comes up very briefly, a few paragraphs. Rand isn't a particularly major character in the book.
I remember one of the Legacies trilogy offhandedly mentions her having left for a promotion opportunity, but it was part of introducing a new Yeoman, rather than being about Rand’s departure.
You are right about the question. It may be that I misunderstood the post I was reading that I'm referring to up top.
Janus Gate is set too early for that. I doubt if it's in Errand.
Given how loose chronology could be in a lot of the early Pocket novels, I wonder if there are any S2 or S3 set novels with Rand in.
I can think of very, very few novels that Rand has been in. The only ones Memory Beta lists that are set in the pre-movie era are Enterprise: The First Adventure and My Brother's Keeper: Enterprise, which are both pilot-era, and The Janus Gate: Present Tense, set in the early first season. The one book I can think of that mentions Rand being on the Enterprise later than that is The Final Reflection, which mentions her in passing in the frame story -- although that frame is supposed to be at least a decade after "Errand of Mercy," so it should be movie era, though she's still identified as a yeoman rather than the chief petty officer she was in TMP.
It's possible that MBK: Enterprise is the book ChallengerHK was asking about. Beta says that it had Rand leaving the ship for training before the second pilot and returning afterward, presumably to reconcile E:TFA with said pilot. Although Rand being on the ship at all before "The Corbomite Maneuver" doesn't really work, since Kirk's complaint about being assigned a female yeoman implies she came along fairly recently.
In my list I also have her appearing or being mentioned in Yeoman Figgs, Heart of the Sun (after "Amok Time"), Mudd in Your Eye (after "I, Mudd") and Black Fire (where Chekov gets promoted to Lieutenant). Since Black Fire is so late, I wouldn't be surprised if there's an explicit explanation for her being there.
No, now that you mention it, I think I remember that, and I'm sure there was no such explanation. It's more just that there was less concern for episode order and continuity back then. After all, the episodes looped endlessly in syndication, and as I recall, there was a time when the syndicated episodes weren't run in production order as they usually were later on, but could be mixed up pretty randomly. Other novels mixed elements from different seasons without explanation -- both Web of the Romulans and Double, Double were explicitly set immediately after first-season episodes, yet featured Chekov and portrayed the Romulans in a way consistent with a setting after "The Enterprise Incident."
And really, it's not as if Rand ever officially departed; she just stopped showing up, as did Farrell, Riley, DeSalle, and various others. A lot of those characters showed up in novels set later, on the assumption that they were still aboard even if we didn't see them. Doing the same with Rand is a bit more of a stretch, but maybe one could surmise she just transferred to the night shift or something -- or that she was still in the endless rotation of yeomen, but only happened to have a bridge shift in between the episodes we saw. So it arguably wasn't a continuity error to include Rand in a later novel, just a flexible interpretation of continuity. And thus it wouldn't require any special explanation, certainly not by the looser standards of the time.
There is also the New Visions comic story Sweet Sorrow that shows Rand leaving, though I doubt that’s what the OP is referring to.
Interestingly, in the New Visions continuity Rand returns to the ship towards the end of the 5YM in the sciences division.
Interestingly, in the New Visions continuity Rand returns to the ship towards the end of the 5YM in the sciences division.
Definitely not what I *think* I read, but again, my memory might be wrong. I'm thinking pro novel, not fanfic, not comics, not fan films. That said, it sounds like you guys have hashed this out pretty well and what I think I read probably doesn't exist.
I just searched "Rand" in Enterprise on Google Books, and this must be one of those things Memory Beta just made up, because it is pretty clear that Kirk has never met her before; she's assigned to the ship following "Where No Man."
Thanks! I knew there were some.
Yeah, this was what prompted my question. As someone who grew up reading random novels from the library in random order and (to a lesser extent) watching random episodes in syndication, I don't think I even realized Rand "left" until much later on. (Maybe not until I read Star Trek Memories and/or Inside Star Trek.) In my mind, she was always there throughout the whole mission, just not focused on very much.
IIRC, Abode is written as a pretty generic TOS novel, as are its loose "sequels" Chain of Attack and The Final Nexus by Gene DeWeese. The Pocket Timeliners put those books late in the 5-year mission, but they don't explain their reasoning for the placement. The only thing I can recall about Abode that suggests a later setting is its cover, whose artist used TMP-era references even though there's nothing to suggest that setting in the actual story.
It's true that Abode features Rand and Chekov in the same story, but I think that was just because "Lee Correy" (G. Harry Stine) either didn't know that they never appeared together or didn't care. As I said, it's not like Rand ever officially left, and a lot of the novelists were more interested in just using the familiar characters than worrying about the nitpicky specifics of who appeared when. Often, the goal of tie-in fiction is to tell "timeless" stories that aren't too dependent on continuity details.
IIRC, Rand and Chekov both appear in "Mission to Horatius", something I didn't notice the significance of until rereading it when Pocket did their facsimile edition.
Which works fine if you include the Byrne photocomics with her returning late in the 5 year mission.
Or Chekov being in the lower decks during Season 1 (as suggested by Vonda McIntyre's ST II novelization and embraced by Greg Cox's Khan novels).
Greg got that idea from (IIRC) Marco Palmieri, who got it from me (I mentioned it in Ex Machina and Marco suggested that Greg allude to it), and I got it from Allan Asherman's Chekov bio in DC Comics' Who's Who in Star Trek. I don't know if Asherman got it from McIntyre. Asherman's account which I borrowed was that Chekov had worked in engineering and led the resistance against Khan's takeover, which is why Khan recognized him. What did McIntyre say?
Again, though, I doubt that any of the early writers were trying to set their books in season 1 specifically. I think they just assumed Rand never left. It's just that Trek fans have concocted so many rationales for why Rand went away that we've forgotten they're just speculative, that she never officially left at all.
Come to think of it, it's not uncommon for tie-ins to bring back characters long after they've ceased to appear in the show. Look at the TNG novels who brought back Dr. Selar well after her sole season 2 appearance (although in that case there were canonical mentions that she was still in the crew offscreen). I know KRAD did a Stargate SG-1 novel that was set in season 5 and brought back Brent Stait's character from season 1, and there was a 1991 Mark Waid tie-in comic to CBS's The Flash that was set 6 months after the pilot and brought back Robert Hooks's police chief character who only appeared in the pilot. And those are just a few examples. As long as the character just stopped showing up without explanation, there's no reason to assume they aren't still around in the background, and lots of tie-in writers like to take advantage of such ambiguities, since actor availability isn't a factor while nostalgia is.
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