Star Trek Federation: The First 150 Years
- Thread starter F. King Daniel
- Start date
That is a correct term for it, but it's simpler just to say "interstellar" -- or "interplanetary" within a single system. "Intragalactic" is a term that would be most meaningful to use in a context where there actually is intergalactic travel so that it's a meaningful contrast. But there aren't that many SF franchises where literal intergalactic travel is a common practice. There was Andromeda, which despite the name spanned six galaxies (the three big spirals of the Local Group and three unspecified smaller ones). The Stargate franchise spanned multiple galaxies. In Marvel Comics, the Kree, Skrull, and Shi'ar empires are in different galaxies. And there are a number of prose fiction series on an intergalactic scope, like James Blish's Cities in Flight, Iain M. Banks's Culture series, and others (and my own "Hub" stories in Analog encompass a number of the Milky Way's satellite galaxies). It's more common for a series to be concentrated within a single galaxy -- usually the Milky Way for something like Star Trek or Babylon 5 or Asimov's Empire/Foundation series, or sometimes a fictional one like Star Wars's "galaxy far, far away" (which remains strangely nameless to this day even though every bit character in every movie has been given a full name and detailed life story by this point).
No arguing with that.I've got an idea! Seeing as it is 2311, let's pretend the publication is part of an expanded USS Universe Hyperwarp ploy, as revealed in Serpents Among the Ruins! The Federation media confidently declares that intergalactic travel is now practically upon them, and releases this book as an oh-so-quaint summary of its history to date, that now-concluded period when it wasn't on the cusp of extraordinary propulsion breakthroughs, really, honestly.
"Starfleet scientists guarantee that within ten years every Federation family will have a holiday home on a planet within Andromeda"
My (frankly brilliant
) idea is also why the history the book relates differs from that given by the novels, because it's all propaganda designed to confuse and worry the Romulans.
Federation: The First 150 Years by Therin of Andor, on Flickr
Omigosh, I got my copy tonight, at Galaxy Bookshop in Sydney, Australia - and it's amazing! The box is huge! Review is coming!
The author was inspired by the Goldsteins' "Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology", and it is very reminiscent of that set-up. Lots of easter eggs from Treklit!
Andorian Headknocker added for sense of scale.
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What about the USS Kelvin? It should be part of both histories and I'm really curious if/how they reconciled the enourmous ships of the last movie with the far more modest ones of The Original Series. Or does the book avoid any of the 2009 movie's pre-incursion concepts?
Funny you should mention that. I was just preparing a few points about the realia included in the sachet at the back of the book: a medical flimsy, Kirk's letter - on Academy letterhead - referring to his parents' time on the USS Kelvin (Prime Universe!), Zefram Cochrane's notes jotted on an envelope, etc.
The light-up base features George Takei's voice as Admiral Hikaru Sulu welcoming you to Memory Alpha and introducing you to the scope of the book.
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Thanks! I'm glad it hasn't been ignored. Interesting that Kirk's parents would still be serving on the Kelvin 20(ish) years later while Jim's a cadet.
Ooooooooh....
I'll be waiting a while for mine (I can't really justify the cost of the thing), but I'm definitely going to get my mitts on at least the actual book someday.
Ah, that does make more sense. After all, only Enterprise crews are allowed to serve together until they're old and grey
Ah, that does make more sense. After all, only Enterprise crews are allowed to serve together until they're old and grey
The reference seems to align with the novels' assumption that George Kirk Sr was off the scene by his son's Academy days, but that Winona was still alive.
In my quick riffles so far, I've found Treklit name drops for Bryce Shumar and the Stiles family ("Starfleet Year One" *), UFP Presidents Hyram Roth (ST IV) and Ra-ghoratreii the Efrosian (ST VI). A drawing of Robert April resembles Gene Roddenberry, so there'll probably be lots of Okuda influence in the book.
There is so much information in this tome, a seamless blending of canonical material and the author's many extrapolations from canon, that future novel and comic authors would only be able to cherrypick some easter eggs when writing stories set in the period. It's sensible that Christopher is taking his own direction.
* Ah, Shumar was originally from TNG's "Power Play".
But Spock Prime said in the movie that George Prime lived to see his son become captain of the Enterprise.
Yes, and it was "Balance of Terror" that established the Stiles family's role in the Romulan War. SY1 and the Enterprise novels have both used Shumar and the Stiles family because they're some of the very few canonical characters we know of from that time. So it was pretty much inevitable that they'd show up here. Although from what I've seen, all three versions disagree on the names of Lt. Stiles's ancestors, and on what Shumar's assignment was during the war.
Interesting, since the name Hiram Roth comes from Articles of the Federation (I think), and Ra-ghoratreii from the ST VI novelization.
I kind of had to, since there's no way I could afford this book at the moment. I am curious what it has to say about the time period I'm covering and the years around it, though.
Walking in the steps of garamet when she was writing her first Trek (and couldn't afford to buy the "Spaceflight Chronology" and had to memorize stuff).
Hopefully your local shop with have a light & sound functional browser copy out, like Galaxy did yesterday. The book is inside a large box and not readily browsable.
Getting antsy to get my paws on it, just waiting for it to ship.
Thanks for the updates on this, just sounds like a great Trek book to have. As much as I enjoy the books our esteemed authors here have written, I've been hoping for a new Trek chronology or encyclopedia or reference manual. This will do nicely.
Thanks for the updates on this, just sounds like a great Trek book to have. As much as I enjoy the books our esteemed authors here have written, I've been hoping for a new Trek chronology or encyclopedia or reference manual. This will do nicely.
It's probably the most extensive "Star Trek: Enterprise" "faction" tie-in we've had, with lots of extrapolated material about Archer, Shran, Denobula, T'Pau, the bounty on Archer's head for interfering in Klingon affairs, etc.
I've been looking forward to this book since I first discovered it was coming out a few months ago. I'll be getting it for Christmas.
What's there to reconcile? Some older ships were just biggest than the Constitution class, that's all. Those old Vulcan D'Kyr-class ships were damn near as big as Constitutions already in the 2150s.
For what it's worth, I tend to just assume that the Kelvin was designed to start and support Federation colonization efforts -- hence the need for a larger size.
ETA:
As soon as I saw that scene in ST09, I thought to myself that we could reconcile that scene with the novels' common assumption that George Prime died while Kirk Prime was a kid by hypothesizing that Spock Prime is lying to nuKirk in order to spare his feelings.
Truthfully, I don't think there needs to be any jusification beyond "they built them bigger in those days," although if this book includes a detailed history of starship evolution, it would be interesting if they postulated some kind of reason why starships in the prime-universe became smaller which presumably didn't occur in the alternate reality.
To be honest, my main concern was that they'd do what fansites like EAS have done, and pretend the Kelvin and her variant designs (Newton, Mayflower, Armstrong etc) were a lot smaller than we saw on-screen in order to make it fit size-comparison charts more snugly.
Why would they do that? The twelve Constitution starships would have been constructed to be the most efficient size for dependable longterm patrolling and exploration, based on the lessons of the past. Earlier ships may well have been both larger and smaller than the now-standard starship. You don't need extra space for a village of future colonists going off to populate a planet if your brief is to explore unknown space - and drop in on colony worlds (in known space) for medical checkups, etc.
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