Reliable Source on Expanded Universe?

[VulcanMindBlown]

Are there any reliable (I mean not run by a wiki) on all of the expanded universe for Star Trek? I know that Star Wars has the Holocron, but that is not for fans' eyes.

 

[Kor]

With Trek, the term "expanded universe" is actually not used.

I don't think there is any official Encyclopedia-like resource that describes all characters, places, ships, etc. from the novels and comics.

Your best bet would be Memory Beta, although it is a wiki: http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

Kor

 

[NOVE9]

The trek collective has a map of how all the books relate to each another.

 

[RandyS]

There's also the reference book Voices of the Imagination, but that only covers books up to ten years ago.

 

[F. King Daniel]

There is no all-encompassing "expanded universe" for Trek. There's the novelverse, which has been going since the early 2000's and has ties back to the 80's, and there are myriad other versions of what happened between, before and after Trek's TV and film adventures in comics, novels and videogames like Star Trek Online.

 

[VulcanMindBlown]

Thanks guys, I forgot what the term was for Star Trek media that wasn't licensed.

Is Memory Beta what the professional writers use for their sources?

 

[Greg Cox]

Thanks guys, I forgot what the term was for Star Trek media that wasn't licensed.

Is Memory Beta what the professional writers use for their sources?

I will certainly consult Memory Beta to see how other authors have handled a topic or character, partly to avoid contradicting them (if I can) and partly to avoid going where some other author has gone before ("oh, there's already been a sequel to that episode"), but there's no obligation to treat Memory Beta as gospel.

As discussed, you've got nearly fifty years of novels and they haven't always been consistent with each other, so there may well have been six different novels featuring the unnamed Romulan Commander from "The Enterprise Incident" that are more or less inconsistent with each other. She may even have different names in different books.

So while it's helpful to know what other authors have done before, trying to make it all fit together perfectly is a lost cause.

There's also kinda a sliding scale depending on how old the books are. Personally, I'm not going to want to contradict another book that came out only six months ago, but I'm not going to go nuts trying to accommodate one paragraph from a novel published twenty-five years ago!

 

[Paul Weaver]

I find Memory Beta to be poor because it tries to incorporate the a massive universe of Star Trek Online with the myriad of novels. For example

Spoiler: Mirror Universe

From 2376 onto 2381, after the fall of Terok Nor to the Cardassians, the Terran Rebellion united with the Mackenzie Calhoun and the remnants of the Romulan Empire along with the forces of Memory Omega with Jean Luc Picard as their leader to liberate Earth, where they then proceeded to liberate other core worlds of the Terran Empire. Instigating a war between the Klingons and the Cardassians, the Rebellion was able to sue for peace and create the Galactic Commonwealth, a representative republic that was in the process of rebuilding its member worlds. (DS9 novel: Rise Like Lions)

25th century
By the 25th century, the Terran Rebellion had succeeded in throwing off Alliance rule and a restored Terran Empire was once again a major power in the quadrant, possessing technology and weapons roughly on par with 25th century Starfleet in the primary universe. Terran Empire ships and forces have been known to operate in and around Cardassian territory, and even conduct missions to use the Bajoran wormhole to infiltrate the counterpart universe. (STO mission: "Crack in the Mirror")

Spoiler: Borg

However, the Federation starships USS Enterprise-E, USS Aventine, and USS Titan, managed to convince the extremely powerful Caeliar - who had inadvertently played a key role in creating the Borg - to dissolve the Borg Collective and halt the invasion. As a result of this, all of the former drones were absorbed into the Caeliar gestalt, the residual implants in Seven of Nine disappeared and the remnants of Locutus in Jean-Luc Picard were removed from his psyche
...
In 2409, the Borg attack Starfleet at the Vega system after nearly 30 years of non-aggression

In some cases, like Sirella and Nan Bacco there are separate sections that don't break down as much

They're clearly two separate timelines or universes there - not just little differences like "on Stardate 12351 Bob was on Earth but from 12300 through 12450 he was undercover on Romulus), but changes with entire civilisations. I find the mashing together of the two worlds very jarring. Generally I see there are 3 "universes"

1) The "novelverse", 150-200 modern books that tie in to each other (http://www.thetrekcollective.com/p/trek-lit-reading-order.html)
2) The "shatnerverse", about 10 books which put Kirk and the TOS crew as saviours of the 24th century
3) The "onlineverse", which is a universe built to make a good game, lots of shooting etc

On top of that there's a back catalog of books that tend to leave things at a status quo, and are sometimes referenced by the novelverse