Spoilers Star Trek: Strange New Worlds - Pike series and novel continuity

[Christopher]

The Illyrians had starship technology a hundred years before SNW, so I'm sure that by the time of the latter, they were in several star systems.

Guess they must have gotten over what Archer did to them in "Damage"!

From what the writers said on Twitter, and from the screen images depicted when Una asked for info on Illyrian modifications, apparently the implicit thinking was that the "Damage" Illyrians were themselves a heavily modified offshoot of a more humanlike root species, explaining why they look so different from Una. Also, the Illyrian crew in "Damage" said they were new to that region of space and three years from their home system -- which, again, could well have been a colony. So what Archer did to that one far-flung ship probably had little effect on the civilization as a whole.

Really, though, the species in "Damage" was never called Illyrian onscreen; the name comes only from the script. So strictly speaking, we don't have any canonical proof that the species in "Damage" even were Illyrians.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

IIRC, some of the pictures of the SNW Illyrians shown onscreen did have slight head ridges and webbed hands.

 

[Tuskin38]

It was one picture, and they're barely visible.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

It was one picture, and they're barely visible.

But visible nonetheless.

 

[Christopher]

IIRC, some of the pictures of the SNW Illyrians shown onscreen did have slight head ridges and webbed hands.

Yes, exactly. According to the creators, those images were included specifically to be hints of a connection to the ENT Illyrians.

 

[F. King Daniel]

IIRC, some of the pictures of the SNW Illyrians shown onscreen did have slight head ridges and webbed hands.

It was one picture, and they're barely visible.

Yes, exactly. According to the creators, those images were included specifically to be hints of a connection to the ENT Illyrians.

Here's a nice closeup of those graphics, from Timothy Peel on Twitter.

 

[Extrocomp]

Doctor M'Benga's first name is apparently Joseph in the latest SNW episode The Elysian Kingdom. Anyone know if this will affect the upcoming TOS/Vanguard crossover novel Harm's Way?

 

[Ronald Held]

I suppose the Vanguard ebook novels could not be edited?

 

[Jinn]

Doctor M'Benga's first name is apparently Joseph in the latest SNW episode The Elysian Kingdom. Anyone know if this will affect the upcoming TOS/Vanguard crossover novel Harm's Way?

Honestly I hope not. That said, I think there's a decent chance that M'Benga isn't on Vanguard or the Enterprise at this time. According to his letter at the end of Precipice M'Benga joined the Enterprise crew shortly after "Journey to Babel", which is way later than "The Doomsday Machine" in the season.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Doctor M'Benga's first name is apparently Joseph in the latest SNW episode The Elysian Kingdom. Anyone know if this will affect the upcoming TOS/Vanguard crossover novel Harm's Way?

Isn't that the first name from 80's novels, or maybe FASA? I'm sure I've heard it before.

 

[Jinn]

Isn't that the first name from 80's novels, or maybe FASA? I'm sure I've heard it before.

Seems like its from the script of his debut. In the 80s novels he's called Geoffrey.

ETA: Turns out not, see this post by Fact Trek's Maurice:

Nah, didn't happen.

Darlene Hartman's undated first draft script for the canned “Shol” has an M’Benga—no first name or rank indicated—sitting in the captain’s chair and having three whole lines of dialog. Dr. M'Benga and Spock's being shot appears when Bird did his rewrite of "A Private Little War."

Thongs get confusing because of Hartman's unsubstantiated claims about a "Hopeship" Trek spinoff, which she then apparently de-Trekked so she could publish it as a book, but this appears to have been long after "A Private Little War".

 

[F. King Daniel]

Seems like its from the script of his debut. In the 80s novels he's called Geoffrey.

Joseph... Geoffrey... my bad

 

[Brendan Moody]

David Mack mentioned earlier in the thread that he was trying to get the text of Harm’s Way approved by licensing ahead of the premiere of SNW, to avoid being asked to make changes based on things SNW established that would contradict Vanguard. No idea if he was successful…

 

[DGCatAniSiri]

Pretty sure he declared victory on that count over on Twitter.

Though it seems to me that a swap of a character name during editing if necessary wouldn’t be impossible, at least in theory - I remember for the Star Wars Death Star novel, they were going to give Admiral Motti, the guy Vader choked in the meeting scene, a first name, and then not too long before the book was released, George Lucas was interviewed by Conan, and went ahead and said “sure, here, the character’s named after you,” and, with this being the time when Lucas’s word superseded all in the EU, that got hastily edited in.

So it doesn’t seem impossible to me that a name change could be edited in to it without upsetting things too much. Still, it’s also possible M’Benga isn’t featured at all and this is all moot.

 

[captainmkb]

Doctor M'Benga's first name is apparently Joseph in the latest SNW episode The Elysian Kingdom. Anyone know if this will affect the upcoming TOS/Vanguard crossover novel Harm's Way?

very exciting to have a series with so many new spoilers and easter eggs to reveal to us. as with The Dark Veil's version of the Star Trek: Titan crew, i look forward to seeing what kind of attention is paid to all these new minutiae in the new tie-in novel program

 

[Christopher]

Well, after today's season finale, I checked the Pike scenes in The Captain's Oath to see if Pike's thoughts about Kirk are still compatible with what we now know. I think there are a couple of lines that are a bit iffy, but in broad strokes it still works -- for now.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I won't see it for weeks, but a certain visual in SNW S01E10 bears a striking resemblance to a certain time-travelling double issue of the Early Voyages comics.

 

[Charles Phipps]

Well, after today's season finale, I checked the Pike scenes in The Captain's Oath to see if Pike's thoughts about Kirk are still compatible with what we now know. I think there are a couple of lines that are a bit iffy, but in broad strokes it still works -- for now.

What were they, may I ask?

And the interesting thing is that they have set up Pike as a much more gentler captain than Kirk and the fact he fails because he tries to rise above and you can't do that with fascist/authoritarians.

You can't appease them.

 

[Christopher]

What were they, may I ask?

You know what? I was mistaken -- the lines aren't iffy.

Spoiler: SNW: "A Quality of Mercy"

I was assuming that Pike already knew Kirk would replace him as Enterprise captain in the future, rather than just considering him as a potential candidate as in the book, but the future knowledge he gained didn't make that explicit, though it arguably implied it.

 

[David cgc]

What were they, may I ask?

And the interesting thing is that they have set up Pike as a much more gentler captain than Kirk and the fact he fails because he tries to rise above and you can't do that with fascist/authoritarians.

You can't appease them.

There's a bitter, bitter irony in echoing the Commander's line about how "In another reality, [Kirk/Pike] and I might have been friends" in this episode. No, you wouldn't have. In no reality is that possible, we've just checked.

Star Trek has been in a real dark mood lately. It's looking at "Balance of Terror" and going, "Yep, that was a good day."