The Continuity of Days Gone By

[Christopher]

^Keep in mind it's only a tentative possibility. It might not actually fit. I mean, it's worth reading, and not just for the novelty of being an early Trek novel by someone who went on to be a really, really big name in prose SF. But any links to the overall '80s continuity are tenuous at best.

 

[ryan123450]

Well I consider the fact that it referenced the Star Fleet Technical Manual to be enough to include it. It seems many authors of the time considered the info in that book part of their 'personal continuity.'

 

[Christopher]

^Well, at the time, there wasn't much else to go by when it came to Trek tech.

But personally, I'd be more inclined to count it if it referenced something from the Spaceflight Chronology. As discussed above, a number of '80s books built on the SFC's chronological and historical assumptions; The Final Reflection and Strangers from the Sky in particular are very much set in the "SFC-verse." So one could count the SFC as a foundational work of the '80s continuity along with TFR and the Diane Duane books.

 

[Christopher]

I've been looking through Corona some more, and I think I've found a Spaceflight Chronology nod after all. Toward the end, it cites Epsilon Eridani as Vulcan's home star, rather than the generally accepted and now near-canonical 40 Eridani. Epsilon Eri was also chosen as Vulcan's primary by the SFC and referenced in Strangers from the Sky, at least according to Memory Beta.

The book does have some odd continuity glitches, though, like referring to Andorians as "Andorrans." Maybe there was a copyeditor who thought they were from a tiny European principality.

 

[Stevil2001]

I've been reminded of a few details about Greg Bear's early ST novel Corona which might make it a candidate for inclusion with the '80s continuity, though it's very much a borderline case. For one thing, it purports to be a fair number of years after certain TOS episodes (and suggests Kirk is in his 40s), but is pre-TMP in terms of crew ranks, uniforms, etc., which would make it one of the books that assumed a second 5-year mission pre-TMP. (On the other hand, it implies that Spock is in his upper 70s, which is hard to reconcile with canon, since that would've put Amanda in her 90s at least in the TOS timeframe.) Also, it references one or two things that were mentioned elsewhere in the '80s continuity, such as the starship Bonhomme Richard. Not really a genuine cross-reference, though. So it's a really tentative link at best. And there are things about Corona that are kind of idiosyncratic interpretations of the Trek world (Spock's age being just one of them), so it might not be a very good fit with the rest of the '80s-verse. I'm undecided on the question, but I thought it was worth bringing up.

One interesting thing about the book, though, is that it seems to be the first-ever reference to the Federation News Service, an organization that was later established in canon (in Generations and DS9). Probably a coincidence, though.

Corona's Kshatriyans are referenced as an interstellar power in the alternate timeline of The Tears of Eridanus, though I spelled the name wrong.

 

[Christopher]

Yeah, "Kshatriyans" was a weird one, seeing as how the Kshatriya were the warrior/ruler varna (social class, often mistakenly called "caste") of traditional Hindu culture.

 

[Cadet49]

A lot of the mid-'80s novels drew on Ford's Klingons and Duane's Rihannsu; they pretty much came to be regarded as the definitive interpretations. Perhaps the one exception is Pawns and Symbols, which came out after The Final Reflection but portrayed the Klingons in an incompatible way.

As for what was included in the internovel continuity that gradually evolved at the time, I find that the simplest way to get a handle on it is to check the acknowledgments of Time for Yesterday by A. C. Crispin, the one book that drew the most heavily on earlier novelists' work, and is thus something of the linchpin of that continuity. In addition to being a sequel to Crispin's Yesterday's Son, it references the books of Diane Duane, Brad Ferguson, John M. Ford, Jean Lorrah, Vonda N. McIntyre, and Howard Weinstein. The Ingrit Tomson references tie J. M. Dillard's series of books into the sequence, and Dillard's The Lost Years references Diane Carey's Dreadnought! and Battlestations! And Uhura's Song by Janet Kagan references a character from McIntyre's The Entropy Effect.

Let's see, going through Voyages of the Imagination, I'd list the following as definite parts of the 1980s Pocket novel continuity, keeping in mind that it's a fairly loose continuity:

The Entropy Effect
Yesterday's Son
The Wounded Sky
The Final Reflection
My Enemy, My Ally
The Vulcan Academy Murders
Uhura's Song
Shadow Lord (references McIntyre's Sulu backstory)
Dwellers in the Crucible
Mindshadow
Crisis on Centaurus
Dreadnought!
Demons
Battlestations!
Deep Domain
The Romulan Way
How Much for Just the Planet?
Bloodthirst
The IDIC Epidemic
Time for Yesterday
Rules of Engagement
Doctor's Orders
Strangers from the Sky
Spock's World
The Lost Years and its sequels






The list is mainly in publication order, with hardcovers last, for my convenience. The in-story chronological order would be very different.

There are others I'm not so sure of. Maybe Enterprise: The First Adventure or Final Frontier could go in there too, but I don't recall any cross-references offhand.

Thanks for the definitive list of 80s books - I used to love these! I was curious... are any of these events acknowledged in the modern novel continuity?

 

[Christopher]

I was curious... are any of these events acknowledged in the modern novel continuity?

There are occasional references to ideas from some of them, mainly elements of the language and culture that John M. Ford established for Klingons and Diane Duane did for Romulans. But it's not meant to imply the specific stories actually happened, since most of the books in the '80s continuity have been contradicted by later Trek screen productions and novels.

 

[ryan123450]

Elements of The Final Relfection and even the book itself have made their way into several Lit-verse books. Many elements of the Rihannsu novels have as well.

The events of The Vulcan Academy Murders and The IDIC Epidemic where referenced in one of the Vanguard novels. Prime Directive is referenced in SCE: The Future Begins. A Singular Destiny accepted the name T'Khut for Vulcan's sister planet as asserted by Spock's World.

 

[Christopher]

^Actually it was The Vulcan Academy Murders that introduced the name T'Kuht, and then Spock's World picked up on that and changed the spelling to T'Khut.

 

[ryan123450]

Hmmmm, OK. I wish their had been one name settled on in the early days and stuck too. I know there a few other suggested names as well.

 

[Christopher]

^In the novel Sarek it was called T'Rukh. But I think that book said that its name changed depending on the season or something. And of course Vulcan is a whole planet so it probably has more than one language.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Hmmmm, OK. I wish their had been one name settled on in the early days and stuck too. I know there a few other suggested names as well.

Heh, I wish those in charge of TV/film Trek could decide if it even existed and then stick to it! I was suprised to see T'Khut in the concept art for the last movie. But not so suprised that it didn't ultimately make it in

 

[rfmcdpei]

Okay, since I can't resist making lists and chronologies, I've put together a list of the '80s novel continuity in approximate chronological order, drawing on some of the assumptions that applied in the '80s, like the timeline of the Spaceflight Chronology (which put TOS about 60 years sooner than modern Trek chronology does) and the implicit assumption of a second 5-year mission before TMP.

The Reeves-Garfields' Prime Directive should also be included as part of 80s novel continuity, published at the end of the continuity's run and with decidedly significant events difficult to reconcile with the continuity though it might be. (The devastation of Talin IV, the expulsion of most of the command crew from Starfleet, and the months-long pause in the five-year mission stand out as particularly problematic.)

My grounds for doing so lie in the form of the Centaurans, the indigenous near-human species native of Alpha Centauri VII in the 80s continuity. In their earlier novel Memory Prime, the two authors built upon the Spaceflight Chronology to develop the Centaurans as an advanced but somewhat xenophobic civilization, one that hid many of its high-energy emissions sources underground and relied on fibre optics rather than radio transmission, explaining why the first Earth expedition to Alpha Centauri discovered the Centaurans almost before landing. In Prime Directive, the Reeves-Garfields go into greater detail about these Centaurans and their civilization, even introducing Zalan Wilforth, a character of mixed human-Centauran background.

 

[Christopher]

The Reeves-Garfields' Prime Directive should also be included as part of 80s novel continuity, published at the end of the continuity's run and with decidedly significant events difficult to reconcile with the continuity though it might be.

See post #35. I added Memory Prime and Prime Directive to the list four months ago.

(The devastation of Talin IV, the expulsion of most of the command crew from Starfleet, and the months-long pause in the five-year mission stand out as particularly problematic.)

Not a problem at all in the context of the "second 5-year mission" paradigm my list assumes.

 

[rfmcdpei]

The Reeves-Garfields' Prime Directive should also be included as part of 80s novel continuity, published at the end of the continuity's run and with decidedly significant events difficult to reconcile with the continuity though it might be.

See post #35. I added Memory Prime and Prime Directive to the list four months ago.

Doh.

 

[Therin of Andor]

the months-long pause in the five-year mission stand out as particularly problematic...

IIRC, the Timeliners' timeline, published in several Pocket books, positions "Prime Directive" at the point between TOS and TAS, thus explaining certain structural changes to the bridge, changes in personnel, etc.

 

[Jsplinis]

I've also added the unpublished Music of the Spheres, the original version of the book that became Probe, because it's a direct sequel to Dwellers in the Crucible. And I've added The Pandora Principle because it references Diane Duane's books to an extent, and because it builds on the Saavik backstory established in Vonda McIntyre's movie novelizations (which are included because they in turn reference The Entropy Effect).

How does Pandora Principle tie into Duane's books? Also, does it build off the Spaceflight Chronology or the dating system later established?

Thanks and have fun

 

[Christopher]

How does Pandora Principle tie into Duane's books?

IIRC, mostly just using Duane-style Romulan name formats and terminology. It's consistent with Duane's Rihannsu worldbuilding without heavily referencing it. It's a tenuous connection, which is why I only belatedly caught it.

Also, does it build off the Spaceflight Chronology or the dating system later established?

It doesn't specify. Few books at the time did.

 

[tomswift2002]

"Vulcan Academy Murders", when I red it about 3 years ago, I remember finding that the author's description of Sarek and Amanda's home was more in line with how it was shown in "Yesteryear", since the few other times that I've read about Sarek's home it never seemed to be described as the one seen in TAS. I realize that even Vulcan's could move, but considering Sarek's ambassadorship and his constant missions around the galaxy, I never got the impression that he would want to move around.