Nah, I can't imagine anyone would ever try to make that argument. I actually think he was just using that conversation between Pike and Nero to illustrate what Nero said, specifically that he knows Romulus was destroyed, and therefore it did happen in the Prime timeline. It was a response to the argument that well maybe Spock and Nero thought Romulus was destroyed, but then it was saved last minute without their knowledge...
When Will the Novels Catch Up the Events Preceding the Reboot?
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Nah, I can't imagine anyone would ever try to make that argument. I actually think he was just using that conversation between Pike and Nero to illustrate what Nero said, specifically that he knows Romulus was destroyed, and therefore it did happen in the Prime timeline. It was a response to the argument that well maybe Spock and Nero thought Romulus was destroyed, but then it was saved last minute without their knowledge...
Actually, this really isn't much of an issue at all. Novel continuity spent four years stuck in the year 2376. We only just arrived in 2386 in October 2014. Think about it, Pocket can easily hold off on 2387 until 2019 if they so desired. If anything, the rush through the 2380s we've had in the past five years is rather unusual for novel continuity.
Pocket won't have any problems finding anything to fill their schedule with. TOS novels set during the five year mission still remain the top selling Trek novels out there and will continue to dominate the novel line-up every year. But in the interests of variety, the Voyager novels are still far away from the 2387 limit, and DS9 novel continuity had something like a five year gap which can be revisited (and is indeed going to be in the upcoming novel Ascendance). There's the Rise of the Federation series to continue Enterprise's storylines, not to mention novel series like The Seekers. Novels can revisit the Lost Era like they did last year, and if it really comes down to it, I think TNG was a popular enough show that they could start doing novels set in the TV series that would sell as good or even better than the Typhon Pact era novels. So even if there is some rule that says the novels can't touch 2387 ever, it will be nothing more than a minor inconvenience to Pocket's Trek line, nothing more. They still have their bread winner (TOS 5YM) plus plenty of other options to pursue.
I don't see that argument either, as the destruction of Romulus was obvious. Why would Abrams and company leave open the possibility that Romulus still existed beyond 2387 just to preserve the (possible) continuity of a bunch of novels they had nothing to do with?
As it stands, I don't think Romulus' presence or absence from the primary timeline will have any impact on future Star Trek novels. There will always be stories to write, as there's certainly no shortage of good ideas. And as the post-Nemesis continuity isn't the only historical era in which new books are being written, there will be plenty to keep readers busy in the coming years.
--Sran
Fair points, certainly. It just seems to me that the new films have had trouble nailing down their audience. Sure, they can have more than one, but at the same time trying to be something for everyone can get in the way being a truly great film. Like in Into Darkness, the 'homage' to the end of Wrath of Khan really took me out of the film. It was a reference too far that reminded me that I was in a theater watching a movie. But OK, the film's not really for me. But then the people who aren't going to be taken out of the film likely won't get the 'homage' at all, so what's the point? It's a difficult balancing act. Of course I can't speak for everyone, but I guess I kind assumed (gotta work on avoiding that) that I fit well into that middle ground, in so far as I'm here posting on Star Trek fan forum, but also have no particular dislike of the 2009 film, nor would have particularly cared if they had just rebooted the franchise from scratch.
Well yeah, but what I'm saying is that for those of us here on this board, independent of studios and script writers and casual audiences, the notion of a prime universe is kind of silly. We already accept a plethora of inconsistent continuities between the books and the comics and the games and everything else (including the live action stuff, now that the new films exist). Just as Chris Pine Kirk doesn't have to be identical to Will Shatner Kirk, 2009 Spock doesn't have to be identical Star Trek: Online Spock doesn't have to be identical to relaunch-novel Spock, but at they same time they're all Leonard Nimoy, and they're all a continuation of the same character that we grew to love back when we were kids. One of the nice things about an expanded universe is that you can pick and choose if you want to, so the film writers can disregard the novels, and the novel readers can either disregard the films or come up with fun little theories to reconcile things where they contradict. Maybe that means new books are suddenly in an alternate timeline from the new films, but they aren't in an alternate timeline from everything that led up to the new films, just as the new films and the old tv shows are in alternate timelines from each other while still sharing the Star Trek: Enterprise timeline. As fans, it's a notion that we know how to handle.
Yes, it's a delicate balance to satisfy both old and new audiences, and it's possible to get it wrong. STID certainly erred too far in the direction of pandering to the old fanbase, and I think some of the filmmakers themselves have conceded that. I personally feel that's entirely attributable to Damon Lindelof, who insisted on using Khan over Roberto Orci's objections. But most fans and critics feel that the '09 movie was much more successful than STID. Using STID to judge ST'09 is like using The Final Frontier to judge The Voyage Home. They aren't all the same movie.
And just because one movie didn't handle the balance well, that doesn't mean the filmmakers weren't even trying for a balance. What I'm talking about here is their intention in including Leonard Nimoy's Spock in the '09 film. Whether an intention worked out as planned is a separate question from whether the intention existed in the first place.
Speaking as one of those people here on the board, I request that you don't try to speak on my behalf, because I do not share that opinion at all. You're describing your own personal opinion, and that's something you're entitled to without judgment, so you don't need to hide behind the conceit that you're speaking for the entire group. It's better to stand up and take responsibility for your own personal beliefs.
There's nothing silly about wanting continuity, about wanting to identify with a single, consistent version of a fictional character and believe that their experiences matter. Again, it's not about the nitpicks of quantum theory, it's about sentiment. Fiction exists to engage our emotions and affinities. You'd be hard-pressed to find a fictional universe involving alternate timelines that doesn't focus primarily on a single core timeline, treating its characters as the "real," principal ones and their duplicates as being of subordinate importance. We assign primacy to the characters based on our familiarity with them, the same way we do with our friends.
But we're not talking about fans here -- we're talking about what the novels are able to do with the continuity in 2387 and beyond. Fans have the freedom to reinvent the universe however they want, but licensed tie-in creators are contractually obligated to follow the lead of the screen canon, and whatever other limitations or obligations might be part of the licensing agreement. It's just not comparable.
Bingo.
And you don't have to be an "obsessed," hardcore, convention-going, novel-reading Trekkie to appreciate Nimoy's appearance as the original Spock. Even casual fans and moviegoers know who Spock is.
Just look at all the "tribute" magazines flooding newsstands in the wake of Nimoy's death. Those aren't being sold just at sci-fi specialty stores; they're being sold at grocery store check-out aisles . . . .
Even if we accepted that was true, I doubt many readers here want books that take the position that "remember the last two appearances of Leonard Nimoy - that wasn't actually Spock - that was the Spock from alternative universe X and we'll just carry on like that never happened".
On a emotional level that just isn't going to fly.
Indeed. There was an interesting discussion on Firewall and Iceberg (Alan Sepinwall and Dan Feinberg's television podcast) where they sincerely argued that if a Television Mount Rushmore were to exist, Spock would certainly welcome candidate for it as one of the most iconic representatives of televised genre fiction.
There's also the fact that President Obama released a statement regarding Nimoy's passing in which he expressed both his admiration for Nimoy as a human being and his enjoyment of Spock as a character.
--Sran
You guys are all idiots. Yeah from Pike's point of view Romulus was still around in 2256, but Nero's whole purpose for firing on Spock's ship is due to Nero having seen Romulus destroyed, and his wife and kids killed in 2387. And Nero was telling Pike that when Pike says that Nero must be mistaken since Romulus still existed in 2256.
Agreed. Ive been making this same argument since 2009. What's surprising is that so many people are resistant to it.
Of course it was Spock. Just like Chris Pine is Kirk. We're already looking at alternate universes. Any Spock post-Reunification is "actually" Spock. Countdown and the Novels also already contradict each other, so they can't both be prime universe. Maybe one of them is, maybe neither are. Is it really that important?
If that's all you meant, then that's why everyone here is confused; because we all already knew that. No one here thought that Romulus was destroyed in 2256, and the arguments against it not being destroyed in 2387 were all along the lines of "maybe Nero/Spock's timeline is an alternate timeline" or "maybe they were just wrong about it and something happened after they left 2387".
Well, I'm clearly failing spectacularly at expressing myself. OK, so is Countdown prime universe or are all the novels prime universe? Seems like you could make an argument for either, but might have difficulty making an argument for both. So does one rule arbitrarily in favor of one or the other, or does one say it's really not that important because people are going to enjoy different things, and so long as we don't get upset about that, there's no reason we can handle little variations in the lore? We'll probably never see the 24th century "prime" universe visited in live action again, but if we do, it seems unlikely to me that any consideration would be given to being consistent with the novels. Would they suddenly go from being prime universe to not prime universe? And would that make them less enjoyable? All i'm saying - and i didn't mean to suggest that i was speaking for everyone else, but perhaps wrongly assumed that people would add the implied "in my humble opinion" so that i could save myself a few keystrokes - is that our notion of what the prime universe is it so shifting and mutable anyway, that as long as what you've got is clearly Star Trek and as long as you don't have too many threads so that people can become invested in long running universes, I personally don't think that it's that big a deal if different incarnations of the franchise disagree on the details here and there.
Neither of them is the Prime universe. The Prime universe is the screen canon. The tie-ins are conjectural extensions from screen canon. The novels are one set of conjectures, and the comics are a separate one. Each of them presents itself as an integral continuation of the Prime universe, and they do not address or acknowledge each other. They're separate conjectures.
I like to say that if you consider series canon to be "history," then tie-ins are "historical fiction" -- apocryphal accounts that theoretically could have happened in the context of the canonical history. Say you read two different works of historical fiction about, ohh, the French Revolution, each by a different author and publisher. Each of them presents a separate, incompatible account of the interactions of the real historical figures of the French Revolution with the fictional characters and events of the novel. Which one of them is the "real" one? Neither one. Are they alternate timelines? No, they're just different stories. While you're reading each separate story, you buy into the conceit that it's the "true" version of events, and what was conjectured in a separate story is irrelevant to the story you're reading. But when you read the other story, you treat it as the "true" one for the duration. But ultimately, only the common history they connect to is "true."
But what's onscreen is the canon, the "history" that the tie-ins are based on. The identity of Spock Prime in the movies has nothing to do with the differences between tie-in continuities, because it's defined by the canonical TV and film continuity in which Leonard Nimoy appeared. The tie-ins are a sidebar to that. At least 98 percent of the moviegoing audience is unaware of the tie-ins -- they just know that they saw Spock in one set of shows and movies and now they see him going back in time into an alternate movie continuity. Of course they recognize him as the same Spock, and of course that's what the filmmakers intended, and it's as simple as that. The screen canon defines the reality. The tie-ins are peripheral to that. They follow the lead of the screen material, not the other way around.
We don't do name-calling here. You get an infraction for flaming. Any comments via PM to me please.
@Christopher - OK, I think we may basically agree then? Not sure. Good conversation regardless.
To put it more simply - Countdown and the novel can go in whatever direction they like but they both have to agree with what is on-screen.
If suddenly (and this will never happen) they decided to make a TNG Mini-series and it was revealed that geordi left Starfleet after Data's death - each could write their own version of what he did next but both would have to start from the premise he left...
