The Return of Data? (spoilers)

[RookieBatman]

Captaindemotion said:
^ Afraid you're wrong there.For the last few years, Trek novels have adhered to inter-book continuity and consistency. That applies to different series of novels. As such, the Lost Era novels, recent TNG books, the DS9-R, the VOY-R, SCE, AOTF etc. etc are all consistent with each other.

So, until and unless an editorial decision to change that is taken, something set out in AOTF or any other novel will be applied in any other novel, whether or not it's a direct sequel.

That's not completely correct. Most of the current novels follow an inter-continuity, but it's not mandatory. Thus, another novel can choose not to follow AotF.

 

[Cicero]

^ Titan's version of Ogawa's child vs. The Genesis Wave, for example.

 

[JD]

But, if it's part of the TNG-R then it is more than likely going to follow the rest of the books the series is built from. Unless of course, it is seperate from the rest of the TNG-R, because that would open a whole other can of worms.

 

[Cicero]

^ I think, like Titian, Articles, is consistent with (and could possibly be regarded as a spinnoff from) the TNG relaunch, but not part of it. So the TNG relaunch needn't necessarily be consistent with it. (Nor do new TNG books need to be consistent with the relaunch. We could easily see a Crucible-type series at some point which chronicles events after Nemesis differently.)

 

[Avro Arrow]

KRAD said:

So Articles of the Federation didn't sell well?

Nope.

You're kidding me! AOTF was an amazing book. Just like others here, I was very much looking forward to AOTF 2. Really sorry that sales were disappointing.

I thought that book was fantastic. I was really hoping for a sequel. Nan Bacco has to return if not in a sequel at least somewhere down the line. Great Character.

Thanks! Unfortunately, while it seems like everyone who bought the book loved it, not enough people bought it in the first place. I've already been told that a sequel won't be happening anytime soon.

Sorry to hear that. I don't know what to say, except to echo what Captaindemotion mentioned above... the people who passed on buying AOTF don't know what they're missing.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I'm sure we haven't seen the last of President Nan Bacco. It just won't be in a book called "Articles of the Federation: Year Two".

 

[LightningStorm]

Cicero said:
^ Titan's version of Ogawa's child vs. The Genesis Wave, for example.

I remember back when Taking Wing came out Marco was still posting here regularly and he commented on that. It was an accident, he had simply forgotten about/overlooked that version of events accidentally. So that wasn't intentional, but since it was done, it was done, and he decided not to go try to retrofit it.

Plus I think trying to explain away something like that would be a bit of a stretch, even for Trek.

 

[Technobuilder]

Now that you mention it, is there some particular reason (other than work commitments) that Marco doesn't post as much any more. Not as visible as I remember him being back then.

Just curious, not trying to pry.

 

[Christopher]

Marco's just been very, very busy lately, with work, conventions, and life.

 

[Hardin]

what if Data isn't dead at all? Maybe he managed somehow to escape the destruction of the Scimitar and was taken by the Romulans warbird in the area. The Enterprise was so badly damaged, no way it could have scanned the debris conclusively. And now he's in some Romulan lab, with the Tal Shiar trying to understand how he works and how to duplicate him. Couldn't this kind of scenario work for you? It would for me, maybe because I really hated Data's dying, especially because it had to happen in such a mediocre film.

 

[Christopher]

Data was standing directly next to the thalaron core just a few seconds before it blew up. Having him escape would require some highly improbable contrivances or coincidences. And there have been far too many miraculous resurrections and escapes in Star Trek already.

 

[JD]

I also disliked Data dieing, he was always one of my favorite characters and I always hate to them die. But, I really think we should just leave him dead, because I think resurrections happen way to often in Scifi and doing something like what you recommended would just come across as desperate.

 

[Therin of Andor]

JD said:
I also disliked Data dieing, he was always one of my favorite characters

Ditto, but my biggest concern with "Nemesis", which I did quite enjoy overall, was that I should have been a blubbering mess having just lost my favourite ST character. The director really blew it. Spock's death affected me; Tasha's death affected me; Lal's death affected me. But I shed not a tear for Data.

Mind you, the B-4 singing "Blue Skies" at the end brought a smile to my face, but the loss of Data should have had more emotional impact.

 

[digifan]

We have an interesting debate happening here. After I watched and read Nemesis - Which, BTW, was way better than the movie - I was inspired to write a Trek base story base on this movie regarding Data. My original idea was to have Q come in at the last moment and rescue Data from death. Before Data was returned to the real world, Q gave him another tour down memory lane. In the process Data was drawn into a "What if..." scenario that would ultimately determine his fate. Afterall in "All Good Things..." Data became a professor at Cambridge. I was planning to write a story that would lead Data to this alternate TNG history timeline scenario with Nemesis as a starting point. It seem to be a good idea at the time but I abandon it when Articles of the Federation (Which gave me the impression of a very boring novel) came out.

Maybe I should resume where I had left off?

 

[Turtletrekker]

digifan said:
Articles of the Federation (Which gave me the impression of a very boring novel) came out.

Not so at all.

 

[William Leisner]

digifan said:
My original idea was to have Q come in at the last moment and rescue Data from death. Before Data was returned to the real world, Q gave him another tour down memory lane. In the process Data was drawn into a "What if..." scenario that would ultimately determine his fate.

Every time a bell rings, a Q gets his wings...

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Wasn't there a novel which said that the explosion of the Scimitar at the end of NEM, created a kind of wormhole (because of all the radiation)? Maybe Data wasn't destroyed, he just got sucked through that wormhole and ended up in another part of the galaxy...

 

[foravalon]

Ahh, the "Yesterday's Enterprise" effect...

 

[Christopher]

Babaganoosh said:
Wasn't there a novel which said that the explosion of the Scimitar at the end of NEM, created a kind of wormhole (because of all the radiation)? Maybe Data wasn't destroyed, he just got sucked through that wormhole and ended up in another part of the galaxy...

The Red King established that the explosion had created a spatial rift. But the catch in your theory is that the explosion actually had to happen in order to create the wormhole, and Data was only a couple of meters away from the dead center of that explosion. If any of him did get sucked through the resultant rift, it would've been in the form of separate subatomic particles. You might as well say that if a car bomb goes off and opens a sinkhole in the ground, it's possible that the driver of the car simply fell through the hole and survived. Which is ignoring the obvious: that he was hit by the explosion before he could've fallen through the hole, since the hole didn't exist until after the explosion. So whatever could've fallen through the hole is completely dead. Period. Assuming that someone who was struck by an explosion at point-blank range could have come through it intact in any way, regardless of the other consequences of the explosion, is cartoon thinking.

 

[Trent Roman]

Unless, following the quantum principle that effect can preceed cause, the rift actually opened up just before the actually detonation which caused it. Perhaps due to a brief surge of anti-time.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman