Though the new movie takes place in an alternate reality, it does introduce some things that could not have had anything to do with Nero's alteration of the timeline, and must have already existed in the prime universe. Can we expect to see stuff like Captain Robeau, Kelvin-class starships, or icy planets in the vicinity of Vulcan called Delta Vega in the novels and comics? Or will all that be restricted to material dealing with the new universe?
XI's influence on the literature
- Thread starter EJA
- Start date
Mister Robau and the Kelvin-type ships are entirely welcome to show up, as far as I'm concerned. 
I imagine we'll see or hear of them in novels eventually.
As for icy Delta Vegas near Vulcan...put in a call to Degra
. Or maybe the Groundskeepers.
I imagine we'll see or hear of them in novels eventually. As for icy Delta Vegas near Vulcan...put in a call to Degra
. Or maybe the Groundskeepers.
I've already ordered an icy planet for Vulcan orbit. It qualified for super-saver shipping from Amazon.com, and everything.
As has been discussed in the past, it's a physical impossibility for the movie's Delta Vega to be close enough to Vulcan for the shot of Spock Prime seeing it in the sky to be literal rather than symbolic. It would have to be a companion planet, and there's no way such a heavily glaciated world could share an orbit with a hot desert world like Vulcan (let alone with Vulcan and T'Khut -- such a 3-planet system would be unstable). At most, it would be somewhere else in the 40 Eridani system, someplace farther from the sun.
Stop harshing my mellow.
Is that proper Magrathean-built, or one of those cheap knockoffs?
"Delta Vega" pretty much has to be that Vulcan moon seen in the opening minutes of Star Trek: The Motion Picture. It never had a canonical name, did it?
Of course, Vulcan imploding would cause a lot of trouble there too - but hey, they showed it onscreen. It exists as part of official continuity.
Of course, Vulcan imploding would cause a lot of trouble there too - but hey, they showed it onscreen. It exists as part of official continuity.
Indeed, but the fact that you have to keep saying this means we are all relating to it as though it were literal, and that Delta Vega orbits Vulcan, so evidently the film either didn't mean it to be symbolic or else failed to communicate it clearly.
Not that I'm randomly movie-bashing, I hasten to add. Of course we all know scientific accuracy went out the airlock in Trek long before XI came along. Still, I'm hoping when Delta Vega (40 Eridani edition!) shows up in the novels, what you say above is decided upon rather than the Vulcan-orbit position the film seemed to suggest.
Slartibartfast has added guard-dogs for his fjords this time. Big red tentacled guard dogs.
Dude, you know I always go first-class with these things.
But that moon was rocky and covered in volcanoes. All of Delta Vega as seen from space was glaciated. And these are just 15 years apart in timelines that diverged only 25 years before the earlier date. Even aside from the physical impossibility of a glaciated planet sharing Vulcan's orbit, how would you explain a fully glaciated world becoming fully volcanic in a geological eyeblink?
I say that when a film shows us something that's definitively impossible, we're under no obligation to take it literally. Especially when it's shown in a mind-meld sequence and can easily be rationalized as mental symbolism.
We're under no obligation to take anything in Star Trek literally - that said, what's actually shown ought to matter more than what's merely reported, and attempts to "rationalize" what we're shown will always satisfy some and not others. We've seen planet-sized bodies within visual distance of Vulcan, and we've seen Spock standing on a planet watching the destruction of Vulcan overhead - in fact, he mentions that Nero deposited him there specifically so that he could witness it (as if he couldn't view it remotely from, oh, a station on Narada just as easily as on some viewing device on Delta Vega). So within the context of these movies, those things happened.
What does it "mean?" It means that the producers explicitly put something into the movie which we think to be impossible.
What does it "mean?" It means that the producers explicitly put something into the movie which we think to be impossible.
^We also saw Trip Tucker die, but the books weren't beholden to that. Trek Lit has reinterpreted things from canon before, so why should this be any different? We weren't actually shown Spock Prime watching Vulcan's destruction in the sky. We were shown a mental image depicting Spock Prime watching Vulcan's destruction in the sky. Just as with "These Are the Voyages..." being a holodeck simulation, this is similarly indirect evidence and thus is just as easy to retcon away as an inaccurate representation.
[insert obligatory Trek XI sucks rant here]
Plus, the last time I watched Star Trek XI I noticed Vulcan in that scene had a halo around it that makes me wonder if it was a holographic projection.
That said, if someone writing a novel or story or comic wants to represent Delta Vega as the world shown in the Vulcan sky in Star Trek: The Motion Picture they're on firmer ground vis-a-vis onscreen canon than if they choose to represent it as existing far beyond visual distance from it. We are shown a large globe near Vulcan in ST:TMP, and we are shown Spock watching Vulcan implode in the sky of Delta Vega in ST XI.
^Well, I just hope nobody does depict it that way, because of the available alternatives, it's the far less plausible and more problematical one.
