Spoilers Things that Exist in the Prime Timeline, Accoring to the LitVerse (Coda Spoilers)

[Jinn]

So, the final book of the Coda trilogy establishes that the LitVerse and the Prime Timeline split from each other after First Contact. This means that all the characters born before FC, all the events that happened before it should also have happened in the Prime Timeline. This is just a fun little thread for finding weird things that technically also happened in the Prime Timeline and may affect it even post-FC, but it seems a bit strange that those things are these.

For example, according to the Destiny trilogy Erika Hernandez joined the Caeliar in the 22nd century, and remains with them up until 2381. Since Destiny didn't happen it is quite possible that Hernandez is still flying around with the Caeliar during the events of Picard.

In the Cold Equations trilogy Noonian Soong is established to have become an android, following his supposed death, so presumably there is still an android Noonian Soong around who, for some reason, never got around to reviving Data.

And so on and so forth. This is also not intended as a very serious or confrontational thread, it's just for fun

 

[Christopher]

In the Cold Equations trilogy Noonian Soong is established to have become an android, following his supposed death, so presumably there is still an android Noonian Soong around who, for some reason, never got around to reviving Data.

My headcanon is that he renamed himself Alton Inigo Soong. It makes more sense than an exact-lookalike son. (Although I say that as someone who looks a lot like my father, though fortunately without the male pattern baldness.)

 

[F. King Daniel]

It's like the Kelvin timeline. Technically, if Kelvin Kirk went back to 1984 San Francisco he'd find Shatner Kirk - but we know they'd never ever do that. The Kelvin timeline relies on a lot of stuff happening in the prime universe's past to exist uo to the point of divergence... but does it all exist? The last Star Trek Encyclopedia suggests the effects of Nero's incursion may have rippled backward as well as forward through time, and I suspect simiar in the novelverse/first splinter. Ties to an early 25th century, where Jake and Nog looked back on events in the 22nd century, one of which span off to begin and end the Borg. Ties to the distant future and past in the DTI stories. Perhaps they were all unstable splinters which were devoured, or maybe not.

Personally I like the thought of all of the modern Trek interconnected novels to be part of the first splinter. It helps excuse the sheer volume of TOS adventures for one, and future-proofs them, the old Pike-era novels and even the ENT stuff against future TV Trek if they're taken as part of this alternate timeline.

 

[Christopher]

The last Star Trek Encyclopedia suggests the effects of Nero's incursion may have rippled backward as well as forward through time

Which I think people abuse by claiming it's a license to assume everything is different, when it's really just a handwave for those occasional details that are hard to reconcile (like how huge the cities are on Kelvin Earth) and a pre-emptive license for future filmmakers to take more liberties (which proved unnecessary, since Beyond managed closer consistency with Prime continuity than either of the first two films did).

I prefer to assume that things are consistent until proven otherwise. There's no sense presuming contradictions when there's no evidence of them.

Ties to an early 25th century, where Jake and Nog looked back on events in the 22nd century, one of which span off to begin and end the Borg. Ties to the distant future and past in the DTI stories. Perhaps they were all unstable splinters which were devoured, or maybe not.

As I keep saying, every timeline exists at the time that its events occur. It can collapse and be forgotten after those events, so that people in the surviving timeline perceive things as though it had been erased, but it's a logical contradiction and a physical impossibility to say that something that happened was made to have never happened in the first place. That's the conceit of many time-travel stories, but it's nonsensical and self-contradictory. Any timeline that's been shown to extend centuries into the future still does extend centuries into the future, even if it's destroyed sometime after its documented events.

Personally I like the thought of all of the modern Trek interconnected novels to be part of the first splinter. It helps excuse the sheer volume of TOS adventures for one, and future-proofs them, the old Pike-era novels and even the ENT stuff against future TV Trek if they're taken as part of this alternate timeline.

I don't see the need to jettison everything. I'm going to keep doing the same thing I've been doing with Trek tie-ins for the past four decades: keep them in my chronology until I'm given a specific reason to remove them. I'll consider the pre-FC stuff to be fair game until and unless a new production contradicts them, and then I'll reassess individually.

 

[ryan123450]

All of Vanguard occurred, including the Federation discovering the Shedai metagenome.

The Andorians are having a reproductive crisis.

Wether these two facts ever collide like they did in the First Splinter, we’ll probably never see.

 

[Elias Vaughn]

I'm pretty sure the book said the timeline splintered forward and backward in time so nothing necessarily crosses over that we don't see onscreen.

 

[ryan123450]

I'm pretty sure the book said the timeline splintered forward and backward in time so nothing necessarily crosses over that we don't see onscreen.

I’m almost positive it said no such thing, because I really wanted it to say that, and I sure don’t think it did.

 

[dupersuper]

The early fun New Frontier books happened, but not the sad final books. Win-win?

 

[ryan123450]

The early fun New Frontier books happened, but not the sad final books. Win-win?

All of New Frontier takes place after First Contact.

Though I suppose one could assume the earlier books did play out the same. That could reasonably be said about most things for at least the first 2-3 years.

 

[ATimson]

Though I suppose one could assume the earlier books did play out the same. That could reasonably be said about most things for at least the first 2-3 years.

Or you could let the "Captain Shelby" reference from "You Are Cordially Invited" stand as intended in the Prime Timeline.

 

[dupersuper]

All of New Frontier takes place after First Contact.

Right, I was thinking Generations. Brain fart.

Though I suppose one could assume the earlier books did play out the same. That could reasonably be said about most things for at least the first 2-3 years.

I like that. Let's go with that.

Or you could let the "Captain Shelby" reference from "You Are Cordially Invited" stand as intended in the Prime Timeline.

She was a captain in New Frontier to...

 

[GothicPudding]

I’m almost positive it said no such thing, because I really wanted it to say that, and I sure don’t think it did.

I assumed that the Borg Queen's unawareness of the origin from the Destiny trilogy was intended to show that events from the First Splinter timeline before the events of First Contact could still be different in the Prime Timeline.

 

[Jinn]

I'm pretty sure the book said the timeline splintered forward and backward in time so nothing necessarily crosses over that we don't see onscreen.

The Borg timeline was explicitly stated to go backwards and forwards in time, not the First Splinter timeline, although I do prefer that idea.

 

[F. King Daniel]

All of Vanguard occurred, including the Federation discovering the Shedai metagenome.

The Andorians are having a reproductive crisis.

Wether these two facts ever collide like they did in the First Splinter, we’ll probably never see.

Isn't M'Benga in Vanguard and the forthcoming Strange New Worlds Pike-era series? While modern Trek has shown a willingness to adapt or adopt elements from the novels, we may soon have problems...

 

[Markonian]

Some elements that originate in the novels survive in the backstory of STO, e.g. Fleet Admiral Leonard James Akaar or Ro working on DS9. As an MMO, it's easier to edit itself to match current continuity (e.g. when they removed 2409-era Lieutenant Commander Icheb from K7).

As an aside, I keep thinking how Star Trek: Armada and Armada II probably lines up with the current on-screen continuity. Hitherto, I had treated them as somewhat "lower tier" continuity compared to the novels.

 

[Christopher]

Isn't M'Benga in Vanguard and the forthcoming Strange New Worlds Pike-era series? While modern Trek has shown a willingness to adapt or adopt elements from the novels, we may soon have problems...

This is always the risk of doing tie-in fiction to an ongoing series. It was a pervasive risk during the '90s and early '00s, and it didn't stop them from doing the books anyway. Heck, all science fiction stories are eventually contradicted by new scientific discoveries or just by the calendar catching up. (Or lagging behind. The first spec novel I wrote was about a colony expedition to Mars, and it began in 2020.) The goal of the exercise is not to create something eternally contradiction-proof, just to spin the most plausible-sounding lies you can given what's known at the time, and to hope they don't get shot down too soon.

 

[Enterprise1701]

I'm pretty sure the book said the timeline splintered forward and backward in time so nothing necessarily crosses over that we don't see onscreen.

I’m almost positive it said no such thing, because I really wanted it to say that, and I sure don’t think it did.

Didn't the trilogy explain that the Devidians were attacking realities spun off from the First Splinter? That would include the Captain Riker timeline whose history diverged no later than 2364, with Natasha Yar still alive at destruction in 2373. And the Galactic Commonwealth timeline, whose history includes the rise of the Terran Empire on pre-warp Earth.

I interpreted that to justify how the First Splinter could be a splinter of Kurtzman canon in spite of likely future incompatibilities in stories set prior to 2373.

 

[ryan123450]

Well the Mirror Universe was explained in a way that doesn’t fit with that version of branching, but the Captain Riker timeline is a really good point. I’ll be stewing on the ramifications of that point.

 

[dupersuper]

Isn't M'Benga in Vanguard and the forthcoming Strange New Worlds Pike-era series? While modern Trek has shown a willingness to adapt or adopt elements from the novels, we may soon have problems...

I haven't read much Vanguard stuff, but is he that big of a character there? Is there much to contradict?

 

[Christopher]

I haven't read much Vanguard stuff, but is he that big of a character there? Is there much to contradict?

I think just the fact that he'll be shown on Pike's Enterprise crew interacting with Spock some years before the timeframe of Vanguard is already a contradiction.