Gravitational lensing caused by the new black hole - "objects in gravity well may appear closer than they are" - it's on a sticker on the Narada's wing mirror, probably.
XI's influence on the literature
- Thread starter EJA
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Gravitational lensing caused by the new black hole - "objects in gravity well may appear closer than they are" - it's on a sticker on the Narada's wing mirror, probably.
As for novels in general: I am curious as to how long Robau lived in the prime timeline. I hope someday we can find out. And don't tell me that's a story idea and therefore not allowed to be mentioned.
Answering the question would be a story idea. Asking it is not. You're good.
Personally, I expect to see a Commodore or Admiral Robau get name-dropped in a TOS novel before much longer.
And I'm going to come in with the opposite opinion, Christopher.
I think the absolute worst thing that Pocket Books could do would be to "blur" the lines, and bring elements of the new film into the "main" universe, and bring elements of the "main" universe over into the movie's realm. Doing so only perpetuates the devaluation of Star Trek as a whole that began in the early 90s and ultimately lead to its demise with Enterprise.
Yes, as a fan it is a wonderful game to play, tying the pieces together and making something cool from it. But doing so, on an official basis, turns the things that are unique about each incarnation into mere parts of an amorphous mass that we call "Star Trek." It allows the perception that Star Trek is "for the fans." Scratch "perception." Continuity becomes in-group speak and it becomes increasingly difficult for outsiders to approach. The fannish impulse drives away the non-fen.
As a mental exercise, imagine what you wish about Rabeu in the "main" universe. But that should never ever be brought into a novel. J.J. Abrams managed to wash away the stink of the fannish masturbatory impulse that drove Voyager, Enterprise, and yes, Pocket Books' output for the past decade, and he created a Star Trek film for everyone. Star Trek died because of the producers, the writers, and the editors who oversaw the franchise during its long decline. There's life in Star Trek again. Let's not kill the patient by poisoning it with the very thing that killed Star Trek before.
I think the absolute worst thing that Pocket Books could do would be to "blur" the lines, and bring elements of the new film into the "main" universe, and bring elements of the "main" universe over into the movie's realm. Doing so only perpetuates the devaluation of Star Trek as a whole that began in the early 90s and ultimately lead to its demise with Enterprise.
Yes, as a fan it is a wonderful game to play, tying the pieces together and making something cool from it. But doing so, on an official basis, turns the things that are unique about each incarnation into mere parts of an amorphous mass that we call "Star Trek." It allows the perception that Star Trek is "for the fans." Scratch "perception." Continuity becomes in-group speak and it becomes increasingly difficult for outsiders to approach. The fannish impulse drives away the non-fen.
As a mental exercise, imagine what you wish about Rabeu in the "main" universe. But that should never ever be brought into a novel. J.J. Abrams managed to wash away the stink of the fannish masturbatory impulse that drove Voyager, Enterprise, and yes, Pocket Books' output for the past decade, and he created a Star Trek film for everyone. Star Trek died because of the producers, the writers, and the editors who oversaw the franchise during its long decline. There's life in Star Trek again. Let's not kill the patient by poisoning it with the very thing that killed Star Trek before.
I don't think the occasional in-joke as an Easter egg for those in the know constitutes the alienation of newcomers. On the contrary, those who aren't in on the joke wouldn't even notice. The ideal has always been to make the books part of a consistent shared universe while still being accessible on their own. I don't see how this is any different. This is a new piece of Star Trek canon, just as much as any prior series, and it is officially part of the same overall reality, so anything it established about the Trek universe pre-2233 -- including the existence of Robau and the Kelvin -- is canonically real within the Prime universe.
And if you're saying that the books were "poisoned" because they didn't keep all the different series strictly segregated from one another, then you're saying that things like New Frontier and Titan and Vanguard and IKS Gorkon and SCE/CoE are "stinking" and toxic. Given that you yourself wrote for SCE, and had no trouble crossing it over with the Invasion! miniseries, I find that a little hypocritical. And I profoundly doubt you'll get much agreement for it in these parts.
And if you're saying that the books were "poisoned" because they didn't keep all the different series strictly segregated from one another, then you're saying that things like New Frontier and Titan and Vanguard and IKS Gorkon and SCE/CoE are "stinking" and toxic. Given that you yourself wrote for SCE, and had no trouble crossing it over with the Invasion! miniseries, I find that a little hypocritical. And I profoundly doubt you'll get much agreement for it in these parts.
Christopher, I am well aware of my own culpability in the decline of Star Trek over the past decade. Call it hypocritical if you want. If I had Ring Around the Sky to do over again, I wouldn't do it the way I did. I've grown up. I understand now. It's not hypocritical to admit the mistakes. I prefer to call it honesty.
No, I don't expect anyone to agree with my view that Star Trek's decline is as much the fault of John Ordover and his successors and the direction they chose as it is the fault of Rick Berman and Brannon Braga.
But that's how I see things.
We all need our reality check moments.
This is mine.
No, I don't expect anyone to agree with my view that Star Trek's decline is as much the fault of John Ordover and his successors and the direction they chose as it is the fault of Rick Berman and Brannon Braga.
But that's how I see things.
We all need our reality check moments.
This is mine.
But of course, what's being proposed is going in the opposite direction: using what Abrams has done to inject a little vigor into the facets of the Franchise that are as yet untouched by this "new life."
To continue with the example, bringing Robau into a Star Trek novel somewhere is not going to diminish the energy or freshness of Abrams's movies one whit and will in fact not be something that 90 percent of the movie audience is ever aware of. But that kind of thing might bring something new to the "prime universe" which has become so mannered and continuity-emeshed.
Then Nero had no reason to deposit Spock there at all, except to make it possible for him to meet Kirk.
Occam's Razor: Nero dropped Spock off in a place hear enough to see Vulcan die.
Well, that's a good thing...
Better telepathic reception there.
Then Nero had no reason to deposit Spock there at all, except to make it possible for him to meet Kirk.
Occam's Razor: Nero dropped Spock off in a place hear enough to see Vulcan die.
He didnt want to get out the rabbit ears.Not buying it, sorry.
But Occam's Razor argues against something that is so profoundly implausible as a fully glaciated planet sharing an orbit with an extremely hot desert planet. Even if there is some way of justifying such an astrophysical absurdity, it would be a hugely complicated and tenuous explanation. Occam's Razor favors the hypothesis that requires the least complicated explanation, the one requiring the fewest assumptions and rationalizations. And it's immensely simpler to assume that what we saw was a mind-meld symbol. That requires only one assumption which we know to be true: that the mind can interpret non-visual perceptions through visual symbols. (Also that mind melds are possible, but of course that's stipulated in advance.) A literal interpretation of the scene would require many ad hoc assumptions about the configuration of the 40 Eridani system, the geology and thermodynamics of planetary bodies, and so forth, and far from being assumptions we know to be true, they'd mostly be assumptions that fly in the face of what we know to be true. There's no way Occam's Razor would recommend such a thing.
I'll acknowledge that this Delta Vega needs to be close to Vulcan in astronomical terms, close enough to be a convenient place for Nero and the younger Spock to deposit their respective prisoners and ensure their survival (since they were both deposited fairly near a Federation outpost, which also provides a handy explanation for why they were so close together). So it could be a world in another part of the 40 Eridani system, someplace farther from 40 Eri A or in orbit of one of the cooler stars in the system. But there is just no way it could be close enough for Vulcan to show a visible disk to the naked eye. That just doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
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Whoa. Um.
1) Tie-in readership is and has only ever been something like 2% of the TV/movie-watching fanbase. There's no way that 2% has any noticeable influence on the success of anything.
2) The success of a franchise cannot and should not be only measured by how many copies it sells. Unless you want to tell me with a straight face that Avatar was a better movie than, oh for instance, Moon. (Hint: it wasn't.) Sometimes, you just gotta go for the best story, and I for one have been - in an entirely non-fanwank way - extremely impressed with the unified storytelling of recent years. And it's not because I get a special thrill every time I notice some minor TNG character (I usually don't, actually), it's because it makes for better storytelling. I like universe-sized narratives, and outside of Peter F. Hamilton, there basically aren't any. There's artistic merit in that, regardless of how many copies it sells, and while I'm not one of the authors or editors responsible, I resent you calling it masturbation.
3) Enterprise failed because it sucked. Period. Arguably, the only time the show had any artistic merit at all was when it was MOST fan-wank-y, in the fourth season; those were good stories!
4) And finally, I went from a casual to a hardcore Trek fan when I read Q-Squared. You know how much fanwank there is in that thing?! That whole book is inside jokes, and I didn't get half of them! But it was so interesting and so well-told that I wanted to learn more. I've given Destiny to 3 people, 2 of whom hadn't ever seen any Trek aside from scattered TNG episodes/movies. All three loved it, and all three asked to borrow more, and are now hella excited about Typhon Pact. Granted, anecdote proves dick-all statistically, but TrekLit is not the inaccessible mountain you portray.
In short: in my opinion and from my experience, you couldn't be more wrong.
Yup.
references to outside stuff is fan-wank and fan-wank is bad?
okay... 'Cardassian Sunrise', tribbles, apples, Admiral Archer's beagle, etc. etc. all fan-wank. therefore Abrams movie sucks.
right. job done.
okay... 'Cardassian Sunrise', tribbles, apples, Admiral Archer's beagle, etc. etc. all fan-wank. therefore Abrams movie sucks.
right. job done.
There's as often a practical reason- in screen productions it helps make the budget stretch far enough, so there's less danger of alienating viewers by passing off the same stuff as belonging to different races (and this is actually a problem more brought on by the advance of technology with VCRs and TiVo, compared to the 1960s when people couldn't just rewatch whenever they wanted). In books you've got the issue that every time a writer wants to use an honourable warrior race (for example) they all invent that wheel under a different name, and then even casual viewers are actually *more* confused - because a casual reader would go "hey, did I read that already? Aren't these 'Kolnigs' the same guys as in that one I read, but there is spelled Klingons - jeez, these buggers have no imagination...' while a fan would go "Kolnigs, eh? They're they're Klingon ripoffs, taking exactly the same part in the plot. Why didn't they use Klingons? Ah, the authors know nothing, I'm not reading this..."
.
Continuity for its own sake, which doesn't advance the series, risks that. But that's a symptom of a different malaise, not a malaise in itself. Two malaises, actually, but I'll get to the second one at the end of the post.
When continuity is used as a replacement for invention, it's a problem.
No, the percepton of fannishness is right, that's what can drive away non-fans. But that happens outwith the viewing or reading. That reaction hits non-fans when they see the title in TV Guide, or on the cover on the shelf. And by that stage it doesn't matter whether the content is full-on fanwank or totally standalone.
Er, did you see the same movie I did? I was stuffed to the gunnels with continuity and references!
But that continuity was used appropriately, to ease people into the universe, and not as a replacement for the new invention and creativity that was all the way through - it complemented it.
Be careful what you wish for- what killed Star Trek before wasn't just the reliance on continuity instead of invention, it was its own success and longevity. Or if you prefer a science analogy, its own growing mass and momentum - eventually it simply became to too big and too fast to stop without a lot of impact damage. And that would have happened regardless of the direction taken.
What saved Star Trek in the new movie was not ditching continuity, but understanding it; more importantly, understanding that was all going to be new again.
T'Khut itself does have a moon in ST:TMP.
Delta Vega (STXI edition) is not T’Khut. One-hundred-percent no.
The Nero comic implied that Delta Vega is a planet in the 40 Eri system with an eccentric orbit, and that at the time of STXI Delta Vega was (conveniently) at it’s closest to Vulcan, whereas it usually spends it’s time much further out. Thus “fixing” every “problem” with it. When Spock Prime is beamed down at the end, you can see Vulcan clearly in the sky.
…so I guess Kirk visited during summer.
That’s all the explanation I need for it (truth told, I didn’t need one at all). The books can ignore it for all I care and Nero’s version of the story will still hold up perfectly.
It’s if the books bore me to death with 10-page essays on why Spock “felt” rather than “saw” Vulcan die and “Why Delta Vega Is All Wrong” that will annoy me.
Besides, didn’t the “holy shit it’s an ice bear” thing start with a TNG novel in the 90’s? Prime-verse TrekLit had monster-riddled ice worlds over a decade ago.
Back to the OP: Loads of the nuTrek stuff is very cool (I love the film to death in case you haven’t realized, but each to their own) but an argument could be made that some of the stuff is incompatible with TOS or that it would defeat the object of an old-Trek novel to cram it with nuTrek goodies, in the same way an Enterprise reference in a TOS novel can seem wrong sometimes. I guess it’s up to the authors and editors. Imo it would be pointless for Picard to, say, visit Planet Keenser – it’d be a job for nuKirk and co (unless they’re the secret rulers of the Typhon Pact!)
The Nero comic implied that Delta Vega is a planet in the 40 Eri system with an eccentric orbit, and that at the time of STXI Delta Vega was (conveniently) at it’s closest to Vulcan, whereas it usually spends it’s time much further out. Thus “fixing” every “problem” with it. When Spock Prime is beamed down at the end, you can see Vulcan clearly in the sky.
…so I guess Kirk visited during summer.
That’s all the explanation I need for it (truth told, I didn’t need one at all). The books can ignore it for all I care and Nero’s version of the story will still hold up perfectly.
It’s if the books bore me to death with 10-page essays on why Spock “felt” rather than “saw” Vulcan die and “Why Delta Vega Is All Wrong” that will annoy me.
Besides, didn’t the “holy shit it’s an ice bear” thing start with a TNG novel in the 90’s? Prime-verse TrekLit had monster-riddled ice worlds over a decade ago.
Back to the OP: Loads of the nuTrek stuff is very cool (I love the film to death in case you haven’t realized, but each to their own) but an argument could be made that some of the stuff is incompatible with TOS or that it would defeat the object of an old-Trek novel to cram it with nuTrek goodies, in the same way an Enterprise reference in a TOS novel can seem wrong sometimes. I guess it’s up to the authors and editors. Imo it would be pointless for Picard to, say, visit Planet Keenser – it’d be a job for nuKirk and co (unless they’re the secret rulers of the Typhon Pact!)
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Well, you've certainly provided me with one.
And that would be an unstable and physically untenable situation. Indeed, the image seen in TMP is impossible if taken literally. SF loves to show humongous planets in the sky of alien worlds to make them look more alien, but they tend to exaggerate absurdly. In order to be that huge in Vulcan's sky, "T'Khut" would have to be the size of a gas giant (impossible for a rocky body, for it would collapse into a more compact degeerate-matter state) and/or close enough to Vulcan to be on the verge of collision. (Although one could take it as a bit of visual trickery, shooting with an extreme zoom lens from a considerable distance, so that the size of the moon/companion planet as compared to the person/object on the surface is greatly exaggerated, as here.)
And even if T'Khut could stably have a moon, it wouldn't be glaciated. Vulcan's a hot desert world, T'Khut a volcanic hell. If the moon were smaller than both those bodies, there's no way it would be frozen over, because smaller bodies change temperature faster than larger ones. (A frozen chicken breast thaws a lot faster than a whole frozen turkey.) There's no way a small moon could stay frozen in that orbit.
Hmm. It's an interesting idea, but it would still have to get extremely close for Vulcan to literally appear as large to naked-eye viewing as it seemed in the mind-meld scenes. It appeared to subtend a similar angle to the Earth's moon, about half a degree. (And the zoom-lens-from-a-distance technique wouldn't work, since the angle is from directly below and behind Spock, and he wasn't standing in front of a deep crevasse.) Earth's moon is about 3500 km in diameter. Vulcan would be a larger planet than Earth; if we accept Memory Beta's value of 1.4g for its gravity and assume a density similar to Earth's, we get a diameter of at least 17,000 km, nearly five times Luna's. So Delta Vega would have to have been less than 2 million km from Vulcan at the time. Such a close passage would have gravitational and tidal effects on both worlds, perhaps not enough to have dangerous geological effects, but enough to influence their respective orbits over the long haul.
Maybe I could buy it if it were an extremely rare fluke, if they normally passed farther apart but just happened to be making an extremely close approach this time. But the level of coincidence required would be staggering, orders of magnitude greater than the coincidence of Kirk running into Spock Prime's cave. Also, such a planet being inhabited seems unlikely, but then, that's pretty much true in any case.
Okay, I'll admit, this is one scenario that might be possible, albeit unlikely. But it's still a lot simpler to assume that what we saw in the mind meld was merely symbolic.
It doesn't need a 10-page essay. I could probably explain it in a single sentence. Something like, "Ambassador Spock suppressed a shudder as he recalled that terrible moment on the surface of Delta Vega, when he had felt the telepathic agonies of his people's demise so vividly, so viscerally, that it was as though he had been physically present to witness it firsthand." (Though personally I think that what we saw was Kirk's mind interpreting Spock's telepathic perceptions in more visual terms since the human mind couldn't directly process a psionic sensation.)
Yeah, but those ice worlds weren't alleged to be orbital companions with sweltering desert worlds. I could write a story about an explorer encountering a polar bear on a glacier and you'd be okay with it, but what if I claimed that the glacier was in the middle of the Sahara? I think you'd have a much bigger problem believing the story then.
