Was blowing up Romulus a good idea?

[The Wormhole]

Soft canon - establishes that the Empire is basically dead and gone, replaced by some Republic (essentially the mirror situation of New Vulcan) that is essentially a play thing of the Klingons and Federation...

That's not soft canon or any kind of canon. Where'd this even come from, STO? If so, that is STO continuity and has nothing to do with canon, hard or soft.

Perhaps a discussion about why Temporal Agents, or Capt. Braxton didn't simply show up - defend the Kelvin and put Nero back in his place and intercept Spock as well is in order...

Because Captain Braxton and the crew of Relativity can only get involved in temporal affairs that are connected to the 29th century. That's why Braxton first show's up in Future's End, because of evidence that Voyager is involved in Earth's destruction in the 29th century. Likewise, in the episode Relativity they are investigating Voyager's destruction because someone from the 29th century is involved, that someone turns out to be an older Braxton. Nero attacking the Kelvin and creating a whole new timeline is not connected to the 29th century, has nothing to do with anyone from the 29th century, therefore it's outside the jurisdiction of the crew of Relativity or any other 29th century timeship.

no I do not think that it was the Iconians from STO who wanted to wipe out the Romulans - besides this is soft canon.

Non-canon.

 

[Ithekro]

In the few times we got to see the end of the 24th or early 25th centuries from the main character's perspectives, the Klingon Empire had taken over at least some of Romulan space. What had been the Romulan neutral zone was now Klingon Space.

 

[Rahul]

I'm not entirely sure the destruction of Romulus is actually "canon" for the prime universe....

It depends entirely on how the licensing between CBS and Paramount works - which neither of us has any idea and which could change at any time.

The destruction of Romulus was originally only academic, because they never intended to follow it up with any more stories. They expected all of Trek to migrate to the new continuity. Hell, they originally planned to destroy Earth and kill off Picard as well!

But now that the prime universe continues with Discovery, the question is how much of the new movies will be aknowledged? The destruction of Romulus involves both Nero, the Narada, the Jellyfish and red matter. All things that were created over at Paramount together with JJ Abrams company Bad Robot, whom probably both have creative rights to. In which case we could argue that all this "only" happened in the future of the Kelvin -timeline, which changed their own future. Or not.

I guess this might be one of the multitude of reasons why Discovery is a prequel, so that they don't have to deal with all those rights issues, and can wait until they are sorted out, either by the Kelvin-verse movies being discontinued as a whole (and ALL of their events being disaccounted), or Paramount and CBS merging Trek and them having access to all Trek events. (Might be like the Marvel/Fox Fantastic Four rights issues, where they simply have to wait untill some rights revert back, but need to paddle around the issues for their content in the meantime - by not having DIS be impacted by those events).


All of this is speculation though. At the moment I think the destruction of Romulus is entirely up in the air wether it actually took place in the prime universe or not. It was never intended to be further examined storywise, and it is mingled with the fate of the Kelvin-universe movies. So we probably won't see an answer to that untill the next generation of creators make a definite decision about that.

 

[Greg Cox]

So we probably won't see an answer to that untill the next generation of creators make a definite decision about that.

Yep. It's a like a DOCTOR WHO producer in 1976 wondering what they're going to do when the Doctor hits his stated limit of twelve regenerations. That was a problem for future producers to worry about years and years down the road. No need to figure that out now.

 

[Rahul]

Yeah. Or like the X-men movies. Where they killed Prof. Xavier and Cyclops in X-men 3 and made Magneto loose his powers. Many set-ups for sequels, but they didn't happen this way. Instead they decided to go with a prequel (first class). And when Days of Future Past came around, everything from X3 was basically ignored, in both timelines. And in the new Logan, we probably gonna' see Xavier die again...
Trek had a pretty consistent continuity. Large, not without it's contradictions, but generallly workable. Trek09 was specifically designed to throw away that. Now that we returned, we have a big mess. And in my (personal) opinion they would be wise to ignore all of Kelvin Trek regarding continuity and canon. Doesn't disqualify those movies on their own. But for canon keep only the prime television shows and movies. That prevents a lot of headaches,

 

[The Wormhole]

In the few times we got to see the end of the 24th or early 25th centuries from the main character's perspectives, the Klingon Empire had taken over at least some of Romulan space. What had been the Romulan neutral zone was now Klingon Space.

That only happened in the AGT future. We never saw or heard from the Romulans in any of the other alternate futures.

I'm not entirely sure the destruction of Romulus is actually "canon" for the prime universe....

It depends entirely on how the licensing between CBS and Paramount works - which neither of us has any idea and which could change at any time.

The destruction of Romulus was originally only academic, because they never intended to follow it up with any more stories. They expected all of Trek to migrate to the new continuity. Hell, they originally planned to destroy Earth and kill off Picard as well!

The destruction of Romulus did happen in the Prime Universe, it's from the Abrams movies that we get the name Prime Universe to describe the five TV shows and first ten movies to begin with, with Leonard Nimoy listed in the credits as being "Spock Prime."

And then there's the novels, which are forbidden from covering material from the Abrams movie and so can't do anything with the destruction of Romulus. But at the same time, they are not allowed to contradict the fact that Romulus will be destroyed in 2387 because CBS is enforcing that that does happen in the Prime Universe.

guess this might be one of the multitude of reasons why Discovery is a prequel, so that they don't have to deal with all those rights issues, and can wait until they are sorted out, either by the Kelvin-verse movies being discontinued as a whole (and ALL of their events being disaccounted), or Paramount and CBS merging Trek and them having access to all Trek events. (Might be like the Marvel/Fox Fantastic Four rights issues, where they simply have to wait untill some rights revert back, but need to paddle around the issues for their content in the meantime - by not having DIS be impacted by those events).


All of this is speculation though. At the moment I think the destruction of Romulus is entirely up in the air wether it actually took place in the prime universe or not. It was never intended to be further examined storywise, and it is mingled with the fate of the Kelvin-universe movies. So we probably won't see an answer to that untill the next generation of creators make a definite decision about that.

Doesn't work that way. CBS owns all Star Trek, the movies are licensed to Paramount but still need approval from CBS. And while CBS does grant Bad Robot a certain degree of autonomy regarding how the tie-ins for their movies, like developing a comic continuity or why Pocket Books can't touch the Abrams movies but STO can, at the end of the day, CBS is calling the shots and Bad Robot does not dictate to them at all. Bad Robot is still CBS's bitch in matters relating to Star Trek. The tail does not wag the dog.

Or like the X-men movies. Where they killed Prof. Xavier and Cyclops in X-men 3 and made Magneto loose his powers. Many set-ups for sequels, but they didn't happen this way. Instead they decided to go with a prequel (first class). And when Days of Future Past came around, everything from X3 was basically ignored,

I think you'll find the First Class trilogy makes a regular thing of ignoring, contradicting or just flat out insulting X3 whenever it can get the chance.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

And then there's the novels, which are forbidden from covering material from the Abrams movie and so can't do anything with the destruction of Romulus. But at the same time, they are not allowed to contradict the fact that Romulus will be destroyed in 2387

Talk about a rock and a hard place.

They can't mention that Romulus was destroyed, but also can't AVOID the fact that it was? How exactly the hell are they going to resolve that?

Fucking lawyers.

 

[The Wormhole]

They can't mention that Romulus was destroyed, but also can't AVOID the fact that it was? How exactly the hell are they going to resolve that?

2386 is going to be a long year for the novels.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ They can't avoid 2387 forever. Sooner or later they will have no choice but to cover it. And what are they going to do then?

It's not as simple as "just don't have any Romulan characters". Romulus is a MAJOR player on the galactic stage, and its destruction can't just be ignored.

 

[The Wormhole]

They can't avoid 2387 forever. Sooner or later they will have no choice but to cover it. And what are they going to do then?

My guess is 2386 will be stretched out until whenever Pocket's license is up for renewal and they can try to negotiate rights to the Bad Robot stuff.

 

[Rahul]

Talk about a rock and a hard place.

They can't mention that Romulus was destroyed, but also can't AVOID the fact that it was? How exactly the hell are they going to resolve that?

Fucking lawyers.

That's pretty much what I was saying: They will have to decide weather or Not Romulus was destroyed one day.

At the Moment they try to have it both ways (hence DIS being a prequel). And they will try to avoid the decision in the meantime.

Because they are not yet able to refer to events from the Abrams movies. That's why -even though the distinction comes from them- their validity regarding events in the Prime universe is still spekulative. Maybe they will be able to sooner or later. But we just don't know.

But if this REALLY is the only reason DIS is gonna be a prequel (and No other narrative reasons Beyondnthat) instead of a proper post-NEM sequel I'm REALLY pissed...

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

My guess is 2386 will be stretched out until whenever Pocket's license is up for renewal and they can try to negotiate rights to the Bad Robot stuff.

They would pretty much have to. If, as I suspect, ST4 is the final Kelvinverse movie, Bad Robot is not going to look good if they continue to have a scorpion up their ass about Kelvin novels. They'll have no reason to dig in their heels like this.

@Rahul, I doubt Discovery being a prequel had anything to do with this. This thing with Bad Robot only concerns the novels, after all. It's unlikely that DSC was ever going to be anything other than a Prime Timeline prequel.

 

[fireproof78]

That's pretty much what I was saying: They will have to decide weather or Not Romulus was destroyed one day.

At the Moment they try to have it both ways (hence DIS being a prequel). And they will try to avoid the decision in the meantime.

Because they are not yet able to refer to events from the Abrams movies. That's why -even though the distinction comes from them- their validity regarding events in the Prime universe is still spekulative. Maybe they will be able to sooner or later. But we just don't know.

But if this REALLY is the only reason DIS is gonna be a prequel (and No other narrative reasons Beyondnthat) instead of a proper post-NEM sequel I'm REALLY pissed...

That would be a rather odd reason, I would think. But, I'm no lawyer.

 

[The Wormhole]

That's pretty much what I was saying: They will have to decide weather or Not Romulus was destroyed one day.

At the Moment they try to have it both ways (hence DIS being a prequel). And they will try to avoid the decision in the meantime.

Because they are not yet able to refer to events from the Abrams movies. That's why -even though the distinction comes from them- their validity regarding events in the Prime universe is still spekulative. Maybe they will be able to sooner or later. But we just don't know.

But if this REALLY is the only reason DIS is gonna be a prequel (and No other narrative reasons Beyondnthat) instead of a proper post-NEM sequel I'm REALLY pissed...

Well, no. If CBS wanted to do a post-Nemesis show they would, they would have Romulus destroyed and Bad Robot couldn't do a damn thing about it, because they answer CBS and needed their approval to destroy Romulus to begin with. Discovery is a prequel because that's the story Bryan Fuller and the others wanted to tell, not because of hand wringing over whether or not Romulus was destroyed. It was, this is the party line CBS tows.

 

[Trekkin]

There have been novels that have been set in a post-Romulus Prime timeline. Pocket put out an ST-Online novel that was set there. ST-Online itself and IDW also don't seem to have had an problem with showing and referring to both 'verses.'

I thought some of the novel writers here had confirmed that they'd never actually been told there was a rights issue? Didn't that idea originate with some unsourced article about Bad Robot trying to kill TOS merch and whatnot?

 

[The Wormhole]

There have been novels that have been set in a post-Romulus Prime timeline. Pocket put out an ST-Online novel that was set there.

That was the only one, and that just happened to slip out the gate before Bad Robot put the restrictions in place.

ST-Online itself and IDW also don't seem to have had an problem with showing and referring to both 'verses.'

Because Bad Robot allows them. Orci himself worked with IDW as a consultant and occasional story developer for the comics. And in the case of Countdown, Orci made a deal with STO that included incorporating their material in the comic in exchange for cooperation from Bad Robot.

I thought some of the novel writers here had confirmed that they'd never actually been told there was a rights issue? Didn't that idea originate with some unsourced article about Bad Robot trying to kill TOS merch and whatnot?

No, both Christopher and Dayton Ward have confirmed down in the Trek Lit forum that Pocket is not allowed to touch anything from the Abrams movies at the moment. Here's a post from Dayton Ward on the matter.

 

[Paradise City]

I can understand the kelvin characters being off-limits. But surely you could mention Romulus getting blown up and make the sleight-of-hand assertion that it was blown up anyway irrespective of what the Kelvin creators got up to? And with a wink just say it was a coincidence?

Is Prime Spock no longer admissible? Has that been wrested to the control of Bad Robot as well?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Perhaps it's possible to simply say that Romulus no longer exists, but not say exactly what happened to it:

Given: Romulus itself is not the property of Bad Robot.
Given: Romulus NOT EXISTING is not the properly of Bad Robot.
Given: Only Romulus exploding is the property of Bad Robot, because that's what happens onscreen.

Conclusion: Romulus can be said to no longer exist, they just can't reveal how or why.

 

[Trekkin]

No, both Christopher and Dayton Ward have confirmed down in the Trek Lit forum that Pocket is not allowed to touch anything from the Abrams movies at the moment. Here's a post from Dayton Ward on the matter.

Oh, I never doubted that there was an editorial mandate or some such. We knew that from way back when the Kelvin novels were first shelved.

I just couldn't recall there ever being confirmation that it was all rooted in the lawyers showing up and throwing their weight around. This sort of thing can come about just from a less-than-strictly-legally-binding agreement between parties.

 

[The Wormhole]

I can understand the kelvin characters being off-limits. But surely you could mention Romulus getting blown up and make the sleight-of-hand assertion that it was blown up anyway irrespective of what the Kelvin creators got up to? And with a wink just say it was a coincidence?

This very issue has been brought up in the Trek Lit forum. Short version, they won't be doing that.

Is Prime Spock no longer admissible? Has that been wrested to the control of Bad Robot as well?

No, they can still use Spock Prime, and have in at least three 24th century novels since Trek XI's release. Since novel continuity is still before 2387 there are no issues with using him.