Of course canonically nothing really changed. Some ancient fanfiction just got invalidated, jut like I predicted it would.
The Romulan Supernova: The final, canon word
- Thread starter F. King Daniel
- Start date
It wasn't fan fiction, as it was co-written by one of the writers of Star Trek (2009). Words have meaning.
And the guy who runs the entire Star Trek Universe and is Picard executive producer.
*shrug' It was still some third party nonsense. I mean the film was nonsense too, but canonical nonsense. It is not that I am super hung up on canon, but many people are and the writers know that. They're far (far!) more willing to jettison some obscure non-canon thing than stuff that was actually on screen. Not that they don't do the latter occasionally too, but that always results an outcry.
Actually, I believe it was Roberto Orci who co-wrote the comic. The changes may have been made to distance themselves from his contributions to the franchise.
Wasn't there some convoluted theory that "Spock Prime" is actually from yet another parallel universe? So basically the ST09 and the STP Romulan disasters might be similar but technically different things.
I'm not buying that myself, there are far greater inconsistencies in previous Trek shows.
I'm not buying that myself, there are far greater inconsistencies in previous Trek shows.
There are those who suggest that, but that conveniently ignores the fact that it's because Nimoy's character in Trek XI is called "Spock Prime" that we even have the name "Prime Universe" to apply to the events of 1966-2005.
Laugh all you want, but it is true. There are stupid canon things that I'd rather ignore and some neat non-canon things I gladly include in my headcanon. But I am able to tell these things apart, and understand how they are treated differently by the people actually making the shows.
I just checked the Countdown credits. Story by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, written by Mike Johnson and Tim Jones.
Why would they want to distance themselves from anything Orci did? I've heard all sorts of unverified rumours (most about going into buisness for himself and spending Bad Robot money on his version of Star Trek Beyond before getting any kind of official go-ahead and got himself blackballed) but nothing concrete.
Yeah, I think it was tied to something about legal entities and ownership of various things after the Viacom split. I stopped paying attention because the clear intention is that the Spock played by Nimoy in 2009 was exactly the same character he played in 1964.
I'm a little confused. Okay, having the supernova be Romulus's own star eliminates the need for FTL supernova effects (although such effects are already Trek canon thanks to Generations, and TUC if you count exploding planets), but it raises other problems. If Romulus's own sun blew up, then Romulus would've been destroyed minutes later. There'd be no time for an evacuation. Has it been retconned so that they had advance warning that the supernova would happen before it actually did?
IIRC, the prequel comic does state that they knew for years prior the Romulus star was going to go supernova. And indeed, this episode seems to imply that knowledge of this is what motivated Picard to leave the Enterprise and seek a promotion to Admiral so he could spearhead the Federation's evacuation efforts.
It is not a retcon as it was never stated that this wasn't the case in the first place. But yes, they'd know beforehand, we would even with our current tech. It is just that estimating the exact time of the explosion might still be tricky.
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Except over the last ten years STO has constantly updated itself to be more inline with canon after every new incarnation of Trek came around.
So technically, since the Dev's over there are always checking with CBS for approval of what They are doing, it is the closest thing to Canon that a game can get.
With the Discoprise now being t only version of the 1701 BOTH Pike and Kirk flew (per "The Ready Room" where they show the cycling hologram of ships called Enterprise) - one could specyulate STP and STP (plus any further Kurtzman Trek) is a completely seperate reality from the original one that contained the TOS many (like me) know and love - DS9 (since the original 1701 appeared in "Trials and Tribbilations") and even ENT (which had the U.S.S. Defiant from the original TOS).
As for the whole Hobus Star issue. No one in STP went further than saying the Star of the Romulan Home System exploded/went Nova. They didn't talk about the cause; or how they figured out that they had enough time to construct 10,000 Transport ships, fly to Romulus, get the ships all loaded and away and out of the danger zone before the star exploded.
And as for the overall arc of STO as presented so far - there's enough wiggle room to correct/retcon without too much of an issue (IE the Iconians and Taris couild still be behind what ultimately caused the Romulan star explosion/supernova - and in fact the STO storyline that the Romulans have been recovering/adapting Borg tech into their ships just got a confirmation.
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Yes, in this version of the story they knew it was coming. In "Rememberence" Picard's interviewer says he left the Enterprise to assist in evacuation efforts (behind the scenes into puts Picard leaving the Enterprise in 2381). The "Children of Mars" Short Trek has Utopia Planitia and the rescue fleet attacked in 2385, 2 years before the supernova actually erupts as per ST'09.
