Things you wished were mention in Trek novels

[Damian]

Now they could have returned to spacedock before the 9 months. We don't know how long they were back on Earth in TFF, how long were they in shoreleave, were they on duty for a time before shoreleave after returning. They could have been back to Earth for a month or two already. I figured they'd have to be back at Spacedock long enough for them to redesign the entire bridge...from scratch .

 

[Christopher]

God, would it have really been that hard to use a little logic with the Stardates--they made no sense whatsoever, ugh.

Stardates weren't intended to make sense. They were intended to convey no useful dating information to the audience, since TOS's makers wanted to be vague about the time frame.

Now they could have returned to spacedock before the 9 months. We don't know how long they were back on Earth in TFF, how long were they in shoreleave, were they on duty for a time before shoreleave after returning. They could have been back to Earth for a month or two already.

Kirk said to Scotty, "You told me you could have the ship operational in two weeks. I gave you three." I've taken that to mean it's been three weeks since the ship returned to Spacedock for its post-shakedown overhaul.

I figured they'd have to be back at Spacedock long enough for them to redesign the entire bridge...from scratch .

Many fans assume that bridge modules can be easily ejected and swapped out, as a way of explaining the sudden design changes.

 

[Captain Clark Terrell]

TVH: Stardate 8390.0 (2286)--and we are told that they are in the 3rd month of their Vulcan exile

I just assume he means third Vulcan month, which could be longer than a human month. What I’d really like to know is why none of the crew changed their clothes.

 

[Christopher]

What I’d really like to know is why none of the crew changed their clothes.

Futuristic dirt-resistant clothing. Never needs cleaning. (There's actually research being done into such a thing.)

 

[Greg Cox]

Futuristic dirt-resistant clothing. Never needs cleaning. (There's actually research being done into such a thing.)

Which clearly proves that THE MAN IN THE WHITE SUIT is canon.

 

[Captain Clark Terrell]

Futuristic dirt-resistant clothing. Never needs cleaning. (There's actually research being done into such a thing.)

Does this clothing hide body odors? I’d be more worried about that than dirt.

 

[Damian]

Stardates weren't intended to make sense. They were intended to convey no useful dating information to the audience, since TOS's makers wanted to be vague about the time frame.

Yeah, I know, it just would have been nice if they at least had some sort of internal consistency, at least from TNG on 1000 stardates = year. And the original five year mission generally seemed to fall between 1000 and 6000, again 1000 = about a year. It just seemed once the movies came out it all got shot to Hell. It's amazing anyone knew what time to get up for their shift in the future with such a chaotic time system .
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Kirk said to Scotty, "You told me you could have the ship operational in two weeks. I gave you three." I've taken that to mean it's been three weeks since the ship returned to Spacedock for its post-shakedown overhaul

I'd forgotten that. So yeah, I agree, 3 weeks since they returned. So I would guess they were out in space for about 8 months, maybe slightly less. From Scotty's statement earlier about seeing what's she's got I'd imagine the ship had problems almost from the get go and they toughed it out a few months until I guess they realized it was too much.

I just assume he means third Vulcan month, which could be longer than a human month. What I’d really like to know is why none of the crew changed their clothes.

I took it to mean 3 Earth months. Usually in Star Trek they seemed to use standard time in Earth measurements and I would imagine that was the intent. For my estimate I assumed it was Earth months (if it's Vulcan months then there'd really be no way to estimate how much time passed between TVH and TFF, unless somebody out there happens to know the conversion between Vulcan months and Earth months).

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[Damian]

Don't ask me why my post has odd coding (i.e.

. etc.). I tried to go back and edit it but the codes don't show up so I guess we're stuck with it. I guess it's giving me the size of my left arm and what color it is ​

 

[Christopher]

Does this clothing hide body odors? I’d be more worried about that than dirt.

As a matter of fact, I believe I read that it would neutralize odors.

I took it to mean 3 Earth months. Usually in Star Trek they seemed to use standard time in Earth measurements and I would imagine that was the intent. For my estimate I assumed it was Earth months (if it's Vulcan months then there'd really be no way to estimate how much time passed between TVH and TFF, unless somebody out there happens to know the conversion between Vulcan months and Earth months).

Besides, "Vulcan has no moon," so it shouldn't even have months. Although the month of Tasmeen is canonical.

 

[Tim Thomason]

Besides, "Vulcan has no moon," so it shouldn't even have months. Although the month of Tasmeen is canonical.

I assume that "month" is a translation issue, and it refers to some other subdivision of a year, possibly in relation to one of Vulcan's sister planets or one of their moons. They might also have tides and other peculiarities from their lunaresque companions.

Does this clothing hide body odors? I’d be more worried about that than dirt.

I'll just assume that they mostly wore Vulcan robes and whatnot during their exile, and changed back into their cleaned uniforms and bomber jackets in time for take-off.

These are the clothes they planned to wear when they would be arrested on sight.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

- World War III. Quit dancing around the issue, and just show it. Go all-out. Do a Destiny-like series of novels about the war, start to finish. Show us who the ECON actually are, who the other factions were, who started it, how it ended, how exactly the hell Earth managed to recover completely in only a hundred years...well, you get the idea.

I'd really like to see a novel depiction of the original version of WWIII, where it was one & the same as the Eugenics Wars, but I'm sure that's never going to happen now.

We've seen snippets in the novelization of First Contact and the novel Federation (which introduced the Optimum movement). But the details are sketchy. I've seen start dates in the 2020s and significantly later, the end date is firm since First Contact noted it was 2053.

I loved the version we saw in Federation. The Optimum movement was fascinating, and I still take that as my headcanon over First Contact.

Besides, the actual sets in real life were built so that each station was "wild" and could easily be slid out like a pie wedge. It's easy enough to imagine the in-universe bridge was designed the same way, to make it easier to replace or upgrade the stations.

I suppose Kirk could have decided he wanted Spock in easy visual range since he was such an important part of his crew (with Uhura on the other side and Sulu and Chekov in front of him).

Yeah, I think it's easy enough to just attribute the changes to the bridge between TMP and TWOK as Kirk or Spock's individual preferences. Kirk was used to having the science station directly to his right, so that's where it went. Will Decker obviously preferred having it directly behind him for some reason.

And I always liked the streaking star effect from TNG-Enterprise series so that's how visualize the ship at warp (much like the Defiant "In a Mirror, Darkly"). I was sort of disappointed they didn't adopt that in the remastered episodes-though I realize they were trying to respect the original intentions of the creators of the episodes.

Man, I would've hated seeing the streaking stars in TOS. Too big of a change from the original (not that the remastered version didn't do that in other places). I always took the streaking stars to be a visual cue that warp speeds were much faster in the TNG era, anyway.

 

[jaime]

I can understand that but I find it amusing when the ST books, written after smart phones etc continue that archaic tech in their stories lol

I think one of Macks establishes that consumer tech was more...advanced? But basically more fragile.

 

[jaime]

As a matter of fact, I believe I read that it would neutralize odors.




Besides, "Vulcan has no moon," so it shouldn't even have months. Although the month of Tasmeen is canonical.

We have anti odour clothing now. And google ‘seperatec underwear’ for what no doubt becomes Starfleet standard issue by TMP.

 

[Nyotarules]

Can you give an example where novelists have done the "multiple padds" thing?

In the A time to series which I am reading at the moment, but I just checked when the first IPAD was released in 2010, the Kindle 2007 and the series was published in 2004 so I take back my criticism. Its best to not view Star Trek as our fictional future

It'd be a risky proposition to create a book series with mostly unknown characters, but I think it could be done.

It worked brilliantly for The Vanguard series, much better than TOS for me

 

[jaime]

In the A time to series which I am reading at the moment, but I just checked when the first IPAD was released in 2010, the Kindle 2007 and the series was published in 2004 so I take back my criticism. Its best to not view Star Trek as our fictional future



It worked brilliantly for The Vanguard series, much better than TOS for me

I preferred Vanguard to TOS as well funnily enough. Actually...it was Seekers. I haven’t read vanguard yet.

 

[Nyotarules]

I preferred Vanguard to TOS as well funnily enough. Actually...it was Seekers. I haven’t read vanguard yet.

Please do, the series comes before Seekers

 

[jaime]

Please do, the series comes before Seekers

Got it cheap in sale on kindle a month or so back, so will get round to it eventually. I liked seeing Terrel bombing around.

 

[Damian]

Yeah, Vanguard was really good. It throws in a few familiar characters here and there, but it is well done. I hope they do more Seeker novels in the future in fact (I'm sort of concerned they may be through with Seekers, but that's just a feeling).

New Frontier was an excellent book series too that had a lot of original characters. And Peter David has a wicked sense of humor that comes through in his books. I'd love to see more in that series as well (even if it were just one a year, something to keep the story going).

 

[Captain Clark Terrell]

Yeah, I think it's easy enough to just attribute the changes to the bridge between TMP and TWOK as Kirk or Spock's individual preferences. Kirk was used to having the science station directly to his right, so that's where it went. Will Decker obviously preferred having it directly behind him for some reason.

One advantage of having the science station in the aft-most section of the bridge is that it serves as a sort of meeting place if the bridge crew needs to have an impromptu discussion.

Yeah, Vanguard was really good. It throws in a few familiar characters here and there, but it is well done. I hope they do more Seeker novels in the future in fact (I'm sort of concerned they may be through with Seekers, but that's just a feeling).

Well, David Mack and Dayton Ward have been busy with other projects, so it’s hard to know if/when we’ll see any more Seekers novels. I was hoping it would continue long enough that we’d start to see the changes that set the stage for TMP.

 

[Damian]

Well, David Mack and Dayton Ward have been busy with other projects, so it’s hard to know if/when we’ll see any more Seekers novels. I was hoping it would continue long enough that we’d start to see the changes that set the stage for TMP.

I always liked the one a year idea. I don't need 2 or 3 books in a series, but one would be nice. Like one original series novel, a TNG, DS9, Voyager, Enterprise a year. Since Discovery is new I figured they'd probably want about 2 a year for that. Then you have 5 more months to throw in some of the other series or those multi-book arcs they like to do (i.e. Legacies, The Fall, etc.). There'd still be room to throw in a Seekers book or New Frontier (I sincerely hope we haven't seen the end for either series) each year (plus sometimes the multi book arcs cover multiple series so you might still knock out a TNG and DS9 book with that).

Some years come close to that, though it fluctuates year to year. Plus I guess a lot of it has to do with the editor/publishers priorities, what the authors want to do and what authors are available at any particular time (esp. where certain authors seem to cover a certain show/genre, Bennett with Enterprise, Beyer with Voyager, David with New Frontier--of course nothing stops them from having other authors write those books but it seems in some cases Pocketbooks likes to keep the same author with a series).

And E-books are a good way to add a few extras. Bennett's DTI novellas, David's most recent NF books (well those were 3 novellas but together they'd probably make a regular size novel), etc.