Which Romulan "history" are we to follow now?

[Luckylog]

Hi, Timo,

Yes, you are correct--again! Remus or ch'Havran was originally described as a twin to Romulus but not quite as lush. What they did to Remus in that abomination "Nemesis" appalled me and completely altered the way that Remus was to be portrayed forevermore. For me, all those who"Nemesis" (John Logan, who, incidentally destroyed the re-make of "The Time Machine), hang your head in shame. And, of course, Rick Berman, had his hand in it too. Shame.
Shame.

I'd like to see Remus restored or re-re-invented to its original state.

Okay, I've ranted enough--time for my first cup of Earl Grey, hot.

 

[The Caprican]

A lot of people tend to bash the later on screen works of Nemesis, TNG, and Enterprise. However, going in, the show runners told us that novels were not canon and they would in no way incorporate the novels into the on screen adventures. And that is why, as much as I have enjoyed some of the toy box novels (putting all the characters back the way the author found them when they're done) , you don't miss anything by not reading them.

However, from my perspective at least, I take the novels set after the repsective series with a greater sense of canon. There generally won't be anything to contradict them on screen. Especially now that, for all intents and purposes, on screen trek in this universe is no more.

So I treat ENT The Good That Men Do, VGR The Homecoming (even though Christie Golden being allowed near a word processor makes me weep uncontrollably), DS9 Avatar, and TNG Death in Winter and all the novels in those series that come after as effectively canon for several reasons:
1. The writers tend to make an effort not to step on each others' toes.
2. There is nothing on screen to contradict these events.
3. The writing overall is outstanding and the novels move the stories along in a consistant and engaging manner.

So while I appreciate the fact that modern writers featuring the Romulans pay homage to Duane, she went in to writing her novels knowing that none of her creations were binding. So I take the modern take on Romulan culture and history as the correct one, since it does not contradict the overall tone seen in TNG, DS9, VGR, and ENT. As much as I love the works of Diane Duane, and even Shwartz and Sherman, I felt at times that the tone established for the Romulans was inconsistant with the Romulans in the series, even TOS. I am not saying they didn't produce OUTSTANDING novels. They did. I will reread many of them. But I prefer a Romulan people that are more relatable to the series.

I also find it interesting that not much is mentioned in the way of Margaret Wander Bonnano and her Romulan novels. As much as I enjoy her stories overall, I felt like she took too many liberties with writing the Romulans. I have never heard a Romulan outside her works refer to the Neutral Zone as "Outmarches."

 

[Timo]

I have never heard a Romulan outside her works refer to the Neutral Zone as "Outmarches."

I thought Carey did that in Final Frontier?

Edit: ...Ah, yes. Her Romulans aren't too happy about being assigned to the Innerspace, instead of the Outmarches or the Wide beyond, on p.37 of my 1988 print. Bonnano is probably quoting that in Probe.

As for the post-TNG novels being more canonical than other books, my personal logic in this respect goes that the novels taking place "during" or "in between" TNG enjoy even greater protection from the whims of the canonical material writers. TNG might theoretically continue one day - and if so, the stories in the gaps in between aired TNG parts are less likely to be contradicted than stories after the aired parts, simply because the TV writers will appreciate the greater elbow room in the post-TNG setting and concentrate their storytelling there, rather than bother with jamming their new stories or their background bits or flashbacks into the slots between existing bits.

If there's going to be an offhand remark to TNG in some future show or movie, it may be to the actual TNG era, or to the post-TNG era. If the former, it's likely to largely conform to what we know of TNG, and thus won't contradict the "during TNG" novels, either. If the latter, it won't make any effort to conform to anything, in which case the post-TNG novels will be at great risk of being outdated.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[pookha]

I've been reading the Romulan Wars series of Enterprise. Besides not being particularly well-written, it poses a conundrum for old farts like me: I have always been an ardent disciple of Diane Duane's depiction of the Rihannsu and their history as depicted in "The Romulan Way". Now we have this revisionist history of the Earth-Romulan war as depicted in the new series. It bears no resemblence whatsoever to the Duane books. Her books were never "canon" so are these books non-canon as well? Which history do we follow or does anyone care?

None of tie tie-ins are canon, so it's up to the reader which version they accept. And the Enterprise TV series had already contradicted scores of classic Trek novels, and was incompatible with "The Romulan Way" anyway, going back to the era's human technological advancement in "Broken Bow" and later cloaking Romulans (and Romulans introducing themselves as Romulans) in "Minefield"

That later tv/film Trek has contradicted it doesn't in any way diminish the awesomeness of Duane's work. One of the writers of the last Star Trek movie lists "Spock's World" as one of his favourite Trek novels. Nero's chief henchman in Star Trek XI was named Ayel.

what is the problem with the romulans saying they were romulans?

there is nothing in balance of terror about this.
we do know there was subspace radio communications just no visual.

 

[F. King Daniel]

It's not "Balance of Terror" that "Minefield" conflicts with on this point, but rather Diane Duane's novel "The Romulan Way". In "Minefield", Hoshi says "They've annexed this system in the name of something called the Romulan Star Empire", wheras in "The Romulan Way", the name "Romulan" was a name chosen by humans, because they didn't know what the Romulans called themselves (which was the Rihannsu, which means "The Sundered")

The "Balance of Terror"/"Minefield" conflict centers around the cloaking device (a scary new theoretical technology in TOS. yet common in ENT), and the technology of Enterprise being virtually indistinguishable from TOS, when Spock talks about "primative atomic weapons" and "primative space vehicles" when describing the era.

 

[horatio83]

The contradiction with "Balance of Terror" was the more problematic one as it would have mattered for the upcoming Romulan War if the Rommies have cloaked ships or not so it was important to decide whether they wanna role with it or not. In the fourth season they obviously decided against cloaking.
How the Rommies call themselves seems to be a pretty trivial issue.

I agree with Caprican that the main thing that has mattered continuity-wise has been cultural consistency, that Romulans have always felt like Romulans between '88 and '05.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Surely the Romulan's holographic disguise thingy in season 4 was an adaptation of cloaking technology? One makes it invisible, the other makes it look like other ships. It didn't make much sense that the ship didn't cloak as well, IMO.

(and FWIW, in the unmade Romulan war movie "Star Trek: The Beginning", the Romulans attacked Earth with a fleet of cloaking device equipped drone ships)

 

[T'Girl]

and the technology of Enterprise being virtually indistinguishable from TOS, when Spock talks about "primative atomic weapons" and "primative space vehicles" when describing the era.

From Spock's viewpoint in the 23rd century, ship's like the NX were primative.

My personal take on the "primitive atomic weapons" thing is, during the actual war with the Romulans, Earth stopped using the low powered photonic warheads we saw in Enterprise and started hitting the Romulans with big nasty hundred megatonne warheads.

They stopped trying to be subtle.

.

 

[Relayer1]

The more recent (especially relaunch and onwards) books are more canon as they fit the 'facts' as established in the canon shows and films.

It pains me that you can't spin the entirity of Treklit into a single coherent universe, but you just can't. The multiverse / infinities prism approach is the best we can do.

It may be asking a bit much, but allocating each novel code(s) to show which continuities they fit would be a good project for us all !

I would suggest several categories (novels could fit into mote than one) - maybe something like :

J (JJverse)
R (Relaunch)
C (Classic) - there were crossovers / continuities in many of the 80's / 90's novels, some of which have been contradicted such as the Romulans in question.
Classic 2 (and 3) - there may be more than one contradictory reality in the old novels.
M (Mirror Universe)
M2 (there are contradictory mirror universe novels)
MV (Multiverse) - pretty much everything else...

Any allocation should also have a 'proviso' note where any very minor or easily retconned issues can be noted.

A good idea or a total waste of time ?

 

[F. King Daniel]

Waste of time. The various episodes and movies have continuity errors as big as the ones in the novels, old and new. The only way to make all of Trek fit together is by using broad strokes, or "same story, different details". That's pretty much how the new novels treat the old ones, and how every new incarnation of Trek has treated the past ones.

 

[CaptainMatt]

I have not read the Romulan War series of Enterprise novels, are they worth a look for a casual Trek book reader like myself?
I have read Vulcan's Heart and it is pure gold, well worth a read or listen if you can find the novel or the audiobook.
Read the Duane books but it was years ago. Too far back to really remember the sordid details lol.

 

[F. King Daniel]

IMO the post-series Enterprise novels are the weakest of Pocket's Trek novel lines. I slogged through "The Good That Men Do" and "Kobayashi Maru" and finally quit a third of the way into "Beneath the Raptor's Wing".

 

[Therin of Andor]

what is the problem with the romulans saying they were romulans?

Nothing. Diane Duane speculated in her early ST novels (ie. "The Romulan Way", "My Enemy, My Ally") that Romulans would have their own name for themselves (ie "Rihannsu") because the Romulus/Remus thing, based on the legend of Romulus and Remus, would have been a Earth-centric name applied to their system.

Then-Star Trek Archivist, Richard Arnold, who started vetting the ST novels around the time of ST IV, had major objections to a novelist creating backgrounds for the various alien races. At conventions, he'd remind fans that in TOS the Romulans called themselves Romulans so that's what they had to be in the tie-ins. It would be many years before Ms Duane was able to continue her saga. Meanwhile, TNG had taken the Romulans into different directions that she'd speculated.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Never liked Rihannsu. Sounds like a guy from Japan trying to speak Celtic

 

[Skywalker]

Yeah, I'm not a fan either.

 

[T'Girl]

I have not read the Romulan War series of Enterprise novels, are they worth a look for a casual Trek book reader like myself?

Easy answer is no.

There was a novel from about ten years ago call Starfleet Year One, it was set immediately after the Romulan War, I remember it having some good info about the war, and the formation of Starfleet post-war (IIRC).

 

[CaptainMatt]

Mever read Starfleet Year One. Do remember it being serialised in something like ten chapters in various other Trek novels of the period. Wasn't that interested to find out more to be honest, but that has all changed with my growing interest in the time period.

 

[F. King Daniel]

It was meant to be the first in a series, which was cancelled when Enterprise premiered, with it's completely different and incompatible version of the 22nd century.

I thought it was an okay read. Nothing special.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Mever read Starfleet Year One. Do remember it being serialised in something like ten chapters in various other Trek novels of the period. Wasn't that interested to find out more to be honest, but that has all changed with my growing interest in the time period.

I just couldn't get into those twelve, seemingly random, serialized chapters. Each new one seemed to introduce more new characters, and it felt very disjointed. I dutifully read them, even buying MMPB reprints of two "Strange New Worlds" titles to get the chapters I otherwise would have missed (I already had those in trade PB). Pocket's editors ended up promising they'd post readers those missing chapters so people didn't have to rebuy titles.

But... I can highly recommend the omnibus MMPB version of "Starfleet: Year One". Michael Jan Friedman was encouraged to add some new linking sections, several new characters - and it felt more cohesive. And then any plans for a "Year Two" were scuttled when "Enterprise" was announced.

 

[Timo]

Just out of interest in the general theme of competing histories... What are the crucial incompatibilities between SF:Y1 and the ENT RW novels?

For the tech nitpickers, it's easy to point out that Friedman describes starship classes that differ from the ones in ENT or the ENT novels, and ignores those other classes. OTOH, he also describes a closed set of characters operating those ships, so it shouldn't be impossible to think that all the other ship types (canonical, ENT novel, older novel etc.) exist in the background while the SF:Y1 heroes concentrate on their specific tools of trade. Similarly, one could write a WWII novel about people who fly Beaufighters as if no other plane ever took part in the war...

Getting deeper into the nuances, Friedman describes the development of the Daedalus class as an exploration vessel after the war. This need not contradict the ENT idea that the Daedalus is an old ship type, though - because in ENT, this type never did any exploring. The Friedman scenes would be the government-level equivalent to the work done on turning the retired minesweeper BYMS-2026 into the oceanographic vessel Calypso...

For the general continuity hawks, Friedman has his own set of Earth political leaders, not related to those of preceding novels/fanfic/RPG nor later referenced in the ENT RW books. But we can argue that the Friedman "President Littlejohn of the United Earth" could exist in parallel with the ENT "Prime Minister Samuels of the UE" - plenty of governments today have both a President and a Prime Minister at the top of the executive power structure.

FWIW, in my native Finland, we used to have a powerful executive President like the US or French ones, with a puppet Prime Minister, but once we got rid of an annoying president-for-almost-life who really overstayed his welcome, everybody agreed on gradually stripping the President of his or her powers until we've reached a situation where the President is ceremonial (much as in, say, Germany or Switzerland) and the Prime Minister holds the executive power under strong parliamentary control (in the classic British fashion). The next logical step would be to drop the President concept altogether - which may have happened to United Earth after the Romulan War.

Or then the UE retains the President position, but it's symbolic and ignored and unrelated to the decisionmaking that takes place in the novels dealing with Earth. Or, even, the UE President position is blended into the UFP President one, depriving Earth of a "true" head of state but OTOH giving it symbolic access to the very highest seat of power (which would in turn fit well with what we see in "Homefront"/"Paradise Lost").

Friedman gives precious little storytelling time to the possible alien allies of Earth. But surely that's a valid way to describe a joint fight; the heroes we follow might even represent a bitter group that feels it's fighting the war all alone, much like their descendant in "Balance of Terror" seems to feel the Vulcans did nothing positive in the old war.

What else is "wrong" about the Friedman book?

Timo Saloniemi