But you seem to be suggesting that for something to have Star Trek in it, it has to conform ideologically to the Roddenberryesque view,
There's no such thing as a Roddenberryesque view. TOS and TNG were philosophically different in a number of respects. They shared some pretty basic moderate liberal values that even many conservatives can agree with, though: racism and sexism are bad, science is better than superstition, and the government has a legitimate role in society.
Whether or not we like it, Roddenberry DID put a huge philosophical imprint on Star Trek--TNG even more than TOS.
And yes, some of those values are positive...eliminating racism and sexism are the only two that I see up there, though, that are totally un-arguable. Those are absolutes.
However, to suggest as TNG sometimes did that religion has no place in society--well thank God that Roddenberry had no control over DS9 or we never would've had such a three-dimensional take on the Bajoran religion and the Prophets (which really was remarkable in that it showed ALL facets of religion, good and bad and let the viewer decide instead of preaching either way). Science is excellent, and I have no problem whatsoever accepting what it discovers. I am not threatened by it nor do I have any need to doctor the theories for literalist purposes. Yet to suggest that science in its very nature excludes a creator, and the possibility of a higher right and wrong than what we individually devise--that I will never agree with.
As for government, the legitimacy of its role is again debatable--at least, as to the
extent of the role. We never really got to see the tradeoffs that were made to achieve a utopian society, to see legitimate dissent. Most dissenters have either been crazy (Colonel West, the Terra Prime whackos, and the Maquis), or portrayed as hopelessly behind the times and ignorant (the Picard family excepting Jean-Luc himself, the Bringloidi, and
sometimes Joseph Sisko--though I must say, he was a cut above the others). We haven't had a chance to see people disagree with the Federation and act on it without threatening others or committing other illegal acts. In showing us that, I think
New Earth really does a valuable service to the Treklit world.
I'm curious, do you think DS9 is Star Trek? DS9 sure was at loggerheads with the TNG ideal, took place on a space station, and so on. Involvement of the familiar Trek culture was there at times, but questioned aggressively at every turn. As far as I'm concerned, Challenger would've pushed that boundary further, but is no more shocking than DS9.
DS9 challenged a lot about Star Trek while being Star Trek. Federation, Starfleet, Bajorans, Cardassians, Trill, Klingons... that's all Star Trek stuff. Challenger wouldn't have had that. More importantly, when DS9 took a different look at Star Trek, it was often challenging not so much its values as its failure to live up to those values.
Anyway, there's nothing wrong with doing something that challenges the core assumptions and values of Star Trek. But if you do that without any of the trappings of Star Trek -- and this is what you gloss over; Challenger would have had nothing recognizably Star Trek in it, aside from possibly the words "phaser" and "transporter" -- are you really doing Star Trek?
Have you read Chainmail? If not, you may not get the point I'm trying to make. If there'd been future Challenger novels, it would have been completely possible for them to have no more connection to anything Star Trek than Lois McMaster Bujold's SF novels, or David Weber's, or Iain M. Banks's beyond the words "Star Trek" being printed on the cover. If American copyright laws worked like British copyright laws, Carey could have taken everything she created for New Earth and Challenger to another publisher and continued it as her own series of books.
Not necessarily. I did read the entire New Earth series, everything that was ever written for it.
Like I said, you would've not just had the technology, but the cultural inheritance--whether they like it or not--of the Federation. Furthermore, there's the very real question of how long a world like that could remain isolated. They'd start having brushes with the outside world as Federation territory grew (and it definitely did in leaps and bounds as we move into the 24th century), conflicts with other known powers as their territories grew, and so on. You'd also start to see factionalization on their world, as is inevitable with any humanoid society, with some wanting to turn back towards the larger galaxy and others wanting to remain in isolation. Regardless of whether they
tried to isolate themselves from the rest of the Alpha Quadrant, it would come to them.
That said, even writing things in the meantime before they became surrounded on all sides by the powers we know will still be Trek...as I said, they will inevitably have the cultural inheritance and memories of the Federation. Its past will affect their future, no matter how much they try to avoid it.
Oh, and I do not
believe American copyright laws as I understand them would allow Carey to take her characters and work over to another publisher after it's had the Star Trek name on it and been written under that licensing agreement. You might be able to get away with brief
references, as I've seen between Duane's Trek works and her Young Wizards series, but I don't
think she'd be able to take her works elsewhere unless she had a contract like Harlan Ellison's for the "City on the Edge of Forever" screenplay. Not to mention that once pulled out of the history that created them, they would become different characters anyway.
We'll need a Trek author to speak to that point, though, to be completely sure.
