When/If Trek Lit reaches 2387

[Christopher]

In the Countdown comic miniseries' version of the events of 2387, Picard is the ambassador to Vulcan (though why a Federation world would need an ambassador assigned to it is unclear), Data has been conveniently resurrected (with only one or two sentences of explanation) and become captain of the Enterprise, Geordi has retired to become a starship designer (he's credited with designing the Jellyfish even though that was a Vulcan ship), and Worf has become a general in the Klingon Defense Force for some reason.

 

[WarsTrek1993]

In the Countdown comic miniseries' version of the events of 2387, Picard is the ambassador to Vulcan (though why a Federation world would need an ambassador assigned to it is unclear), Data has been conveniently resurrected (with only one or two sentences of explanation) and become captain of the Enterprise, Geordi has retired to become a starship designer (he's credited with designing the Jellyfish even though that was a Vulcan ship), and Worf has become a general in the Klingon Defense Force for some reason.

Yeah, I couldn't quite understand any of this, either. And why aren't there ANY book characters serving on the Double-E, like Jasminder or Miranda, in Countdown.
All the more reason for authors to make their own version of the events.

 

[Doom Shepherd]

The great thing about the fact that "Parallels" and other episodes established that multiple quantum timelines exist cpncurrently is that the "destruction of Romulus" future doesn't necessarily have to be the "our universe" future, in much the same way that the "NuTrek" universe's existence doesn't mean that the TOS universe was "wiped out."

So few episodes... So much wiggle room!

 

[Relayer1]

The great thing about the fact that "Parallels" and other episodes established that multiple quantum timelines exist cpncurrently is that the "destruction of Romulus" future doesn't necessarily have to be the "our universe" future, in much the same way that the "NuTrek" universe's existence doesn't mean that the TOS universe was "wiped out."

So few episodes... So much wiggle room!

I don't know about that - as I understand it, Treklit HAS TO follow established movie canon, so the events at the start of Trek XI will happen, including the destruction of Romulus.

I'm quite invested in the shared universe and would really like to see Countdown accommodated - in Treklit we are already moving towards a change for Picard. I would like to see Data back and temporary transfers for Captain La Forge and Worf would retcon their situations.

I don't see anything that would be impossible to write around...

 

[Defcon]

^ But why should Pocket accommodate crappy writing like Countdown if they don't have to? The Bad Robot guys should stick to what they know and are good at: writing for movies/TV.

 

[Relayer1]

^ But why should Pocket accommodate crappy writing like Countdown if they don't have to? The Bad Robot guys should stick to what they know and are good at: writing for movies/TV.

They shouldn't have to, but regardless of the quality (or otherwise) of Countdown, I like where the characters end up.

Picard's been a Captain too long and even he has had enough now.

Geordie has been promoted and should move on - a secondment to work on advanced starship design makes sense.

Data's death had such an obvious 'out' I can't be arsed waiting for it to be used, I miss him and someone needs to Captain the Enterprise, so...

Worf needs something to prevent him taking over command of the Enterprise.

I'd like it, that's all.

 

[DimesDan]

though why a Federation world would need an ambassador assigned to it is unclear

Yet, London has as far as I'm aware an ambassador in Dublin, Paris, Berlin, Madrid, Lisbon, The Hague, Brussels, Luxemburg, Rome, Athens and all other nations within the big happy family that is the European Union.

Given it's unclear on the actual relationship between member worlds, who's to say, that the Federation is actually based on a European Union model of governance, not, the American federal model, if in fact it's the former, having an ambassador on other member worlds makes sense.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Well, since it happened in Trek's canon, it has to be acknowledged by the tie-ins. A tie-in can say it's an alternate reality to other tie-ins (as "The Needs of the Many" did) but not to the canon. After all, that's what they tie into. And it was the intention of STXI's writers that Spock Prime be the same guy we saw from "The Cage" all the way through to "Unification", not some similar-but-different copy.

Therefore, Romulus burns. It's just a matter of if the novels can feature it (which could be epic), or if it's something mentioned in passing in a novel set afterwards.

 

[Gotham Central]

though why a Federation world would need an ambassador assigned to it is unclear

Yet, London has as far as I'm aware an ambassador in Dublin, Paris, Berlin, Madrid, Lisbon, The Hague, Brussels, Luxemburg, Rome, Athens and all other nations within the big happy family that is the European Union.

Given it's unclear on the actual relationship between member worlds, who's to say, that the Federation is actually based on a European Union model of governance, not, the American federal model, if in fact it's the former, having an ambassador on other member worlds makes sense.

But does the EU have an Ambassador to London, Paris, Berlin etc? That is the equivalent of having a Federation Ambassador to Vulcan.

Countdown does have some strange anomalies. For starters it mentions the Vulcan High Command. But the high command was disbanded in the 22nd century.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Star Trek XI and the Voyager episode "Infinite Regress" also mention the Vulcan High Command. Maybe T'Pau's plan to disband it never quite came to fruition.

 

[Christopher]

And why aren't there ANY book characters serving on the Double-E, like Jasminder or Miranda, in Countdown.

You answer that question in your next sentence:

All the more reason for authors to make their own version of the events.

That applies just as much to the comics' authors. The people at IDW aren't obligated to follow Pocket's lead any more than vice-versa. Tie-ins all have to follow the canon, but they don't have to follow each other. Even Pocket publishes books that aren't consistent with their primary novel continuity, and IDW's various miniseries aren't all compatible with each other.

The great thing about the fact that "Parallels" and other episodes established that multiple quantum timelines exist cpncurrently is that the "destruction of Romulus" future doesn't necessarily have to be the "our universe" future, in much the same way that the "NuTrek" universe's existence doesn't mean that the TOS universe was "wiped out."

So few episodes... So much wiggle room!

I don't know about that - as I understand it, Treklit HAS TO follow established movie canon, so the events at the start of Trek XI will happen, including the destruction of Romulus.

Right. The books aren't obligated to include the stuff that Countdown established about the status of the TNG characters as of 2387 (though they could if they so chose), but they would not be allowed to contradict the facts established in the actual 2009 film, namely that Romulus was destroyed by a supernova and Spock and Nero fell through a red matter-created black hole. So while those events would have to happen in the novelverse, they could happen differently than Countdown proposed -- just as the canonical event of the end of Kirk's 5-year mission was portrayed differently in each of Forgotten History, The Lost Years, DC's first ST Annual, and DC Volume 2 issue 75.

 

[Gotham Central]

I'm curious...does Pocket dictate what the "present" is for each book? I authors at the start that their book will take place in a certain year?

 

[Sci]

though why a Federation world would need an ambassador assigned to it is unclear

Yet, London has as far as I'm aware an ambassador in Dublin, Paris, Berlin, Madrid, Lisbon, The Hague, Brussels, Luxemburg, Rome, Athens and all other nations within the big happy family that is the European Union.

Given it's unclear on the actual relationship between member worlds, who's to say, that the Federation is actually based on a European Union model of governance, not, the American federal model, if in fact it's the former, having an ambassador on other member worlds makes sense.

When the European Union establishes a single legislature and a single popularly elected president and a single cabinet, all of which is NOT comprised of or controlled by officials from the Member state governments; when it starts conducting a single foreign policy on behalf of its Members, including having the power to declare and wage war without its Member governments' permissions; when it establishes a single fiscal policy and common currency for all of its Members; when it establishes its own standing army; and when its President gains the power to declare martial law and place its standing army on the streets of its Members...

... when it, in other words, gains all of the characteristics of a genuine state, rather than a coalition who has been delegated some of the responsibilities of the sovereigns (some of which responsibilities, like the euro, may not even survive the next couple of years)...

... when the European Union has all that (all of which the Federation has been seen to possess), then your comparison would be valid.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I don't know about that - as I understand it, Treklit HAS TO follow established movie canon, so the events at the start of Trek XI will happen, including the destruction of Romulus.

I'm quite invested in the shared universe and would really like to see Countdown accommodated - in Treklit we are already moving towards a change for Picard. I would like to see Data back and temporary transfers for Captain La Forge and Worf would retcon their situations.

I don't see anything that would be impossible to write around...

I think an approach like Mark Winegardner's The Godfather Returns would work -- a novel that wraps around the events of Countdown and gives them context without actually touching on Countdown. (The Godfather, Part II takes place in the middle of The Godfather Returns, but they're not central to the novel's story and the novel works on its own terms.)

 

[Christopher]

I'm curious...does Pocket dictate what the "present" is for each book? I authors at the start that their book will take place in a certain year?

Pocket "dictates" very little. Usually the writers drive the creative process -- that's what they hire us to do, after all. Sometimes the editor lays out a few basics of the story framework and lets the author take it from there, but sometimes it's left entirely up to the author. The only times I've had the timeframe of my books constrained by the editors in any way (aside from simply being sometime after the previous installment in a series) were on The Buried Age (sometime between 2355-2364, though it was my own choice to fill the entire span), Mere Anarchy (sometime between TMP-TWOK, though again it was my choice to fill the bulk of the gap), Greater Than the Sum (sometime between Before Dishonor and Destiny), and my Constellations story (sometime during the 5-year mission). And those all had specific reasons to be set where they were.

 

[Gotham Central]

I'm curious...does Pocket dictate what the "present" is for each book? I authors at the start that their book will take place in a certain year?

Pocket "dictates" very little. Usually the writers drive the creative process -- that's what they hire us to do, after all. Sometimes the editor lays out a few basics of the story framework and lets the author take it from there, but sometimes it's left entirely up to the author. The only times I've had the timeframe of my books constrained by the editors in any way (aside from simply being sometime after the previous installment in a series) were on The Buried Age (sometime between 2355-2364, though it was my own choice to fill the entire span), Mere Anarchy (sometime between TMP-TWOK, though again it was my choice to fill the bulk of the gap), Greater Than the Sum (sometime between Before Dishonor and Destiny), and my Constellations story (sometime during the 5-year mission). And those all had specific reasons to be set where they were.

Interesting...so are you and the other writers collectively deciding where to hold the "present?"

I'm curious about the process because it is true that many of the novels stayed in the late 2370s and early 80s for a long time. Was that just happenstance? No one bothered to move the timeline forward much? Or was there a consensus to sort of hold the line at a particular period?

 

[Christopher]

Interesting...so are you and the other writers collectively deciding where to hold the "present?"

You'd have to ask them. Aside from The Struggle Within, I've pretty much tended to be on the periphery of the post-Destiny continuity, so I don't know who's making the decisions about when the stories are set. It could be the editor, or it could be the individual authors. I know, for instance, that Kirsten Beyer is making her own choices about pacing in the Voyager novels, and they're still in the latter half of 2381, not jumping forward with the rest. So I'm not sure "collectively" is the word. It depends on the project.

I'm curious about the process because it is true that many of the novels stayed in the late 2370s and early 80s for a long time. Was that just happenstance? No one bothered to move the timeline forward much? Or was there a consensus to sort of hold the line at a particular period?

The timing didn't shape the stories; the stories shaped the timing. Things like the DS9 post-finale series and SCE had a serialized approach, and so they tended to tell continuous stories that advanced gradually rather than leapfrogging forward. But at the same time, Christie Golden's post-finale Voyager novels advanced six months in just two duologies, with a three-month jump between The Farther Shore and the first Spirit Walk volume. Whereas the Shatnerverse just jumped right over the DS9/SCE timeframe and went directly from 2375 to 2378. So it depended on the needs of each particular series and the preferences of its authors or editor.

I suppose it's possible that the books stayed in the 2370s for so long because people were reluctant to push things too far forward from the latest canonical productions while there were still others in the works. We knew (and by "we" I mean fandom in general, not some organized cabal of authors) that there would be another TNG movie after Insurrection, and we didn't know what changes it might make to the universe, so probably few authors were willing to push beyond whenever it might be set (which could be pretty much guessed, since the in-story intervals between TNG movies approximated the real-life intervals). But I think it owed just as much to the preference of editors like Marco Palmieri and Keith DeCandido to tell serial stories, which by their nature tend to advance gradually.

 

[rfmcdpei]

though why a Federation world would need an ambassador assigned to it is unclear

Yet, London has as far as I'm aware an ambassador in Dublin, Paris, Berlin, Madrid, Lisbon, The Hague, Brussels, Luxemburg, Rome, Athens and all other nations within the big happy family that is the European Union.

Given it's unclear on the actual relationship between member worlds, who's to say, that the Federation is actually based on a European Union model of governance, not, the American federal model, if in fact it's the former, having an ambassador on other member worlds makes sense.

But does the EU have an Ambassador to London, Paris, Berlin etc? That is the equivalent of having a Federation Ambassador to Vulcan.

The European Union member-states have delegations to the Council of the European Union which are headed by people holding the rank of ambassador.

 

[Christopher]

As Sci said, the EU is not a good analogy for the UFP, which is a much more unified state.

However, it's possible that the UFP uses the "ambassador" title as a holdover from the Coalition days when it was less unified.

 

[rfmcdpei]

Given it's unclear on the actual relationship between member worlds, who's to say, that the Federation is actually based on a European Union model of governance, not, the American federal model, if in fact it's the former, having an ambassador on other member worlds makes sense.

When the European Union establishes a single legislature and a single popularly elected president and a single cabinet, all of which is NOT comprised of or controlled by officials from the Member state governments; when it starts conducting a single foreign policy on behalf of its Members, including having the power to declare and wage war without its Member governments' permissions; when it establishes a single fiscal policy and common currency for all of its Members; when it establishes its own standing army; and when its President gains the power to declare martial law and place its standing army on the streets of its Members...[/QUOTE]

It's not obvious that the Federation has exclusive competence in many of these areas. "Reunification" depicts Vulcan as having standing military forces, while despite being a world in a federation with a moneyless economy the Bolian homeworld has its famous bank.

The idea of the Federation as a polity where the central state dominates and the member-states have only residual powers, on the model of American federalism, doesn't strike me as intuitively plausible. Greater centralization than is the case with the current European Union is probably necessary, but having a membership of sovereign states with (colony worlds like Deneva aside) histories of complete independence would imply limits.