Both "I, Q" and "Q Squared" are great stories. I highly suggest getting the audio book version of these, as they're read by John DeLancie, and he really brings them to life. It's especially great to hear John Delancie reading Trelane's part, he really taps into the inflection and tone of the original character...
All having been said, I did have a little trouble with the ending of "I, Q", especially the very last line... I found that all to be a needless angle to put on the antagonist... A better single line could've been stated to make the story more circuitous, without twisting things in the cheesy direction it went, but it definitely portrays a character more powerful than Q.
You'll find more powerful beings than the Q in novels. But on the TV show, you'll only find beings that can match Q.
not on screen or TV did not happen i can do this all day
Likewise :cool:
To compare an officially published, licensed novel, written to editorial constraints and guidelines to the level of fanfic is laughable... I'm not saying they [novels] carry the same weight as episode or film (and episode and film will always supersede soft-canon) but to suggest they have no official status whatsoever is ludicrous... If you choose to ignore them, however, that is your prerogative :cool:
To compare an officially published, licensed novel, written to editorial constraints and guidelines to the level of fanfic is laughable... I'm not saying they carry the same weight as episode or film (and episode and film will always supersede soft-canon) but to suggest they have no official status whatsoever is ludicrous... If you choose to ignore them, however, that is your prerogative :cool:
only thing i give them is CBS said yes you may use the star trek name that is all because not to do so you know what happens the men in black show up
Douwd is strong but not as strong as Q. The Douwd needed to move himself through the enterprise by even using the turbolift.
Still he is powerful.
More than that. A Q could arguably have rebuilt the ruined colony and revived the dead, particularly the freshly dead.
He also wasn't as smart as a Q, who likely would have seen the whole thing coming and would have known what would have driven the unseen invaders away aside from "frightening images." Or perhaps done something even smarter, like cause their engine cores to abruptly and irrepairably shut down.
Now THAT would have been quite a thing for the Enterprise to come upon.
"WE HAVE COME TO SLAUGHTER YOU PATHETIC FEDERATION FOOLS BY THE THOUSANDS! BOW TO OUR MIGHT SO WE MAY OBLITERATE YOU! MWAHAHAHAHAHA!... but, first, could you, uh, give us a jump? We seem to be having a liiiittle bit of a problem with our power systems... WHAT DO YOU MEAN 'NO?!' HAVEN'T YOU PEOPLE EVER BEEN SLAUGHTERED EN MASSE BEFORE?"
I wrote two novels under a pen-name back in the day. I wish to preserve my anonymous status, but I will share some insights into the novel-writing process that existed back in my heyday.
The early novels, from TMP forward (AKA the "numbered" novels") were little more than thinly disguised fan-fiction. The ORIGINAL run of Killing Time for example -- pure slash at it's best. DREADNOUGHT! and BATTLESTATIONS! were the worst sort of Mary-Sueism that has ever been attached to commercial Star Trek.
Then we had private-world syndrome... "My Enemy My Ally/Romulan Way" and the rest of her series were a great example. Very well written and without any canon exploration of the Romulan culture these became head-canon to a generation. Ford's "Final Reflection" -- same thing happened.
This was acceptable right up until TNG started... then the canon-war began. Gene created the concept of "canon" when it became apparent that TNG was failing in the first season. Basically the complaints were "this doesn't match what was published." Gene went on a tear and through the editors at Pocket Books started cracking down on private-world and "fannish" stories, you can see a change in the flavor of the novels about this time. In fact it got so bad several novels were torn up by the editors, handed off to other 'in favor' authors and re-released with the same title. "Probe" was one. Two of the "Giant Novels" went this route as well.
The situation evolved going forward, and the novelverse settled down under it's "non-canon" status. Enter Voyager, and we had one of the Higher Ups in the Voyager Production Team write a couple of novels. This person was pissed no end when this person found out the novels were non-canon and would not be referenced on screen. This lead to a minor shakeup behind the scenes at the set.
Lately, with the death of On Screen Trek, novels have been going the route of "small universe." You can't pick up one and enjoy a stand-alone story anymore, as everything is connected to everything else. Archer farts on Nelvana Three, this incident is mentioned in a Voyager Relaunch novel, every living character knows of the incident in absurd detail and how it relates to the current TRIBBLE situation.
Some TOS novels have gone the route of independent story-telling again but for the most part we are stuck with the over-elaborate self-referencing small-universe situation.
Nothing I wrote has ever been considered canon. Not the novels, nor the Andorian material for the Last Unicorn Games RPG. And I'm fine with that. Many universes, many quantum realities, many many stories and interpretations. I don't hold to a strict canon, background events and details are fluid, and nothing is set in stone.
It is... after all... just a fictional world. It's not Holy Scripture, it's not religious dogma.... it's just Star Trek.
I wrote two novels under a pen-name back in the day. I wish to preserve my anonymous status, but I will share some insights into the novel-writing process that existed back in my heyday.
The early novels, from TMP forward (AKA the "numbered" novels") were little more than thinly disguised fan-fiction. The ORIGINAL run of Killing Time for example -- pure slash at it's best. DREADNOUGHT! and BATTLESTATIONS! were the worst sort of Mary-Sueism that has ever been attached to commercial Star Trek.
Then we had private-world syndrome... "My Enemy My Ally/Romulan Way" and the rest of her series were a great example. Very well written and without any canon exploration of the Romulan culture these became head-canon to a generation. Ford's "Final Reflection" -- same thing happened.
This was acceptable right up until TNG started... then the canon-war began. Gene created the concept of "canon" when it became apparent that TNG was failing in the first season. Basically the complaints were "this doesn't match what was published." Gene went on a tear and through the editors at Pocket Books started cracking down on private-world and "fannish" stories, you can see a change in the flavor of the novels about this time. In fact it got so bad several novels were torn up by the editors, handed off to other 'in favor' authors and re-released with the same title. "Probe" was one. Two of the "Giant Novels" went this route as well.
The situation evolved going forward, and the novelverse settled down under it's "non-canon" status. Enter Voyager, and we had one of the Higher Ups in the Voyager Production Team write a couple of novels. This person was pissed no end when this person found out the novels were non-canon and would not be referenced on screen. This lead to a minor shakeup behind the scenes at the set.
Lately, with the death of On Screen Trek, novels have been going the route of "small universe." You can't pick up one and enjoy a stand-alone story anymore, as everything is connected to everything else. Archer farts on Nelvana Three, this incident is mentioned in a Voyager Relaunch novel, every living character knows of the incident in absurd detail and how it relates to the current TRIBBLE situation.
Some TOS novels have gone the route of independent story-telling again but for the most part we are stuck with the over-elaborate self-referencing small-universe situation.
Nothing I wrote has ever been considered canon. Not the novels, nor the Andorian material for the Last Unicorn Games RPG. And I'm fine with that. Many universes, many quantum realities, many many stories and interpretations. I don't hold to a strict canon, background events and details are fluid, and nothing is set in stone.
It is... after all... just a fictional world. It's not Holy Scripture, it's not religious dogma.... it's just Star Trek.
That's certainly a way of looking at it, and it's a shame that none of your works became canon. I've never read the Jeri Taylor story of Janeway's background, but I can understand why she was offended that her work was ignored by the series when she was still a producer.
My view on canon/soft canon comes from the etiquette applied to Star Wars costuming. Some costuming groups will not tolerate any costume which is not specifically shown on screen, others allow them as representations of licensed work (with hard canon overwriting the soft-canon of the novels)
Re the small-universe situation, I'd take that as an attempt by the powers that be to maintain a continuity for ongoing publications :cool:
Soft Canon = Official until contradicted by Hard Canon (film/tv episodes)
Paramount's canon policy. Only the TV series, including TAS, and films are canon. It's not like Star Wars where everything except game mechanics and a few specific works are canon, with a tiered system defining what overrides what. Also, VOY: "Threshold" was struck from canon for being patently terrible.
Now, we can certainly talk about stuff that happened in the novels (and many of them are quite good), and the EU starting at the turn of the millennium has maintained its own continuity post-DS9, but unless it was seen or mentioned on screen it officially didn't happen.
This is why when making a canon-based argument about STO, I'm careful to delineate between "canon" and "STO canon".
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Paramount's canon policy. Only the TV series, including TAS, and films are canon. It's not like Star Wars where everything except game mechanics and a few specific works are canon, with a tiered system defining what overrides what. Also, VOY: "Threshold" was struck from canon for being patently terrible.
Now, we can certainly talk about stuff that happened in the novels (and many of them are quite good), and the EU starting at the turn of the millennium has maintained its own continuity post-DS9, but unless it was seen or mentioned on screen it officially didn't happen.
This is why when making a canon-based argument about STO, I'm careful to delineate between "canon" and "STO canon".
Thanks for the link I never said that the novels were canon. They are, however, officially licensed, and maintain their own continuum. It may not be Film Canon, but it still maintains its own internal structure...
I remember the old TOS series when there were quite a few that Kirk had contact with. Like the one that had Kirk battling a Gorn. Or that other one where Kirk and his crew had to deal with a very powerful individual... until that individual's parents came to take him home. Then there's that time when they went to "The Great Barrier" (which we have yet to see in STO). Were they any more powerful than the Q? Or are there others (sorry... never watched the entire TOS run).
the negative energy contact with mitchell. but hardly enough to be on par with Q.
consider the Q control space time, they have their own dimesional home, it's implied that each star in the milky way galaxy was a Q or had a connection to a star, during the Q civil war Q's died and stars exploded. they can create any object they like but they also have a rule book and regulations to follow.
the only lifeform that showed any resemblence to this type of scale was trelane. you got other non-corporeal lifeforms like the prophets, organians and thasians but these lifeforms have have advanced beyond a physical body but they were far from being strong enough to do everything the way that the q could. with the Organians they ascended from their bodies so to me they were at the bottonm of this heavy non-corporeal food chain. while the prophets had some control over time, they had not shown any other qualities that made them powerful enough to be considered on the level of Q.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Paramount's canon policy. Only the TV series, including TAS, and films are canon. It's not like Star Wars where everything except game mechanics and a few specific works are canon, with a tiered system defining what overrides what. Also, VOY: "Threshold" was struck from canon for being patently terrible.
Now, we can certainly talk about stuff that happened in the novels (and many of them are quite good), and the EU starting at the turn of the millennium has maintained its own continuity post-DS9, but unless it was seen or mentioned on screen it officially didn't happen.
This is why when making a canon-based argument about STO, I'm careful to delineate between "canon" and "STO canon".
Unfortunately all of the web pages that are cited as sources seem to be gone. The StarTrek.com website was reorganized a few years ago, you have to set the wayback machine to 2010 to actually read them.
I could have sworn I'd heard, years back, that when Roddenberry was designing TNG, he considered Trelane of Gothos to be the prototype for the Q. If so, regardless of whether Trelane is some day canonized as Q or not, he was on par, at least with a Q child.
I wrote two novels under a pen-name back in the day. I wish to preserve my anonymous status, but I will share some insights into the novel-writing process that existed back in my heyday.
We have discussed this in-game before on a few occasions, and I was kind of hoping you'd chime in here. I have only a spotty knowledge of the early years of Trek, considering I wasn't into it until about the sixth season of TNG, and was too young to appreciate many of the early films, assuming I'd even been born then. I've found a lot of people seem to consider novels "soft canon," even though, although the fans consider them canon, they are considered by the company canon in no way, shape or form.
That said, I believe that a lot of the early Trek situation was a lot closer to how writing and literature manifest in their natural form. Fanfic is, as much as some lament it, far more of a natural occurrence than what we currently have in terms of massive copyright empires. One needs only to look at the many versions of Arthurian legend for an example of that. That said, as much as I disagree with many things Roddenberry did, I can understand why he did what he did, this time, and it's helpful to know why we have the concept of 'canon' as we do today. Though I can't help but wonder how this would have played out had this not happened, but the Internet fanfic surge happened anyway.
If so, regardless of whether Trelane is some day canonized as Q or not, he was on par, at least with a Q child.
Ironic you should say that, considering what he actually was according to "Q Squared." I have no idea of what the spoiler etiquette is for novels around here so I'll spare the details, although I do recommend the book if you can get your hands on it.
That said, I believe that a lot of the early Trek situation was a lot closer to how writing and literature manifest in their natural form. Fanfic is, as much as some lament it, far more of a natural occurrence than what we currently have in terms of massive copyright empires.
Gene realized that he had lost control of his "baby" and it was no longer making him rich. It was making the studios rich. Once TNG got it's footing Trek could do no wrong for about a decade. The whole "canon" deal and the licensing crackdown was more a final "F-U" to the very people who kept the torches burning. I'm not going to get into the dustup he had with the original writing team, some of who carried over from Before, and some of who were accomplished authors in their own right.
In the end perhaps it's a good thing that the line was drawn. Some of the number-novels were downright awful, I can't imagine them making good canon. Hell my stories weren't all that popular. They have their fans, but I'm no Diane Duane. Who would make the decision as to what is awful and what is canon? I for one would canonize the works of Peter David: Vendetta, Q-In-Law, Q-Squared, Imazadi (not the second one, that was bloody awful). Now some of you may have loved Vendetta, other fans have derided it as "TRIBBLE." Same with any of those novels. I left out certain ones he wrote early on, as they were TRIBBLE in my opinion... yet others loved them.
That's certainly a way of looking at it, and it's a shame that none of your works became canon. I've never read the Jeri Taylor story of Janeway's background, but I can understand why she was offended that her work was ignored by the series when she was still a producer.
Jeri Taylor had permission to flesh out the characters in Pathways and Mosaic. She did so, with the understanding that she was writing a reference work that other series writers would refer to and build stories from. I never found out where or how she had this understanding, by the time of Voyager novels were firmly established as non-canon. My personal thoughts... I wonder if she thought that her status as EP gave her some kind of special arrangement? Regardless, the refusal of the studio to allow her works to be used as she intended are the number one reason she left the show.
It's a damn shame too, because what we ended up with was much less than what we were originally promised. The franchise lost a major driving force and a mighty talent when she departed.
As for my works? They ARE canon. Personal head-canon. And that's all that matters. As I said before this isn't religious dogma, I can interpret it any way I choose.
My view on canon/soft canon comes from the etiquette applied to Star Wars costuming. Some costuming groups will not tolerate any costume which is not specifically shown on screen, others allow them as representations of licensed work (with hard canon overwriting the soft-canon of the novels)
I'm going to start a mini riot, but they should have stopped the Star Wars train-wreck after the Zhan novels. Star Wars, and it's layers of canon and so forth... is a steaming hot mess. I prefer the black and white "THIS IS CANON, THIS IS NOT" approach that Star Trek takes.
Re the small-universe situation, I'd take that as an attempt by the powers that be to maintain a continuity for ongoing publications :cool:
And if they ever decide to do anything post TNG on TV they are going to have a riot on their hands.
consider the Q control space time, they have their own dimesional home, it's implied that each star in the milky way galaxy was a Q or had a connection to a star, during the Q civil war Q's died and stars exploded. they can create any object they like but they also have a rule book and regulations to follow.
Actually, Q Weapons were so far beyond our understanding that their only effect we could understand was stars going Supernova. While there are some SF stories that have sentient stars, I don't think Star Trek covered this idea. So Q are not stars nor have any connection to a star.
On Q weapons at Memory Alpha, it states "The use of these weapons in the Continuum caused supernovas and damage to subspace in the universe." Therefore, a weapon powerful enough to hurt a Q causes Supernovas and damage to subspace.
Jeri Taylor had permission to flesh out the characters in Pathways and Mosaic. She did so, with the understanding that she was writing a reference work that other series writers would refer to and build stories from. I never found out where or how she had this understanding, by the time of Voyager novels were firmly established as non-canon. My personal thoughts... I wonder if she thought that her status as EP gave her some kind of special arrangement? Regardless, the refusal of the studio to allow her works to be used as she intended are the number one reason she left the show.
It's a damn shame too, because what we ended up with was much less than what we were originally promised. The franchise lost a major driving force and a mighty talent when she departed.
I have to ponder if this is what caused Voyager to become the mediocre trainwreck that it turned into.
As for my works? They ARE canon. Personal head-canon. And that's all that matters. As I said before this isn't religious dogma, I can interpret it any way I choose.
I wonder if you'd privately tell me which books those are. I'm curious to check them out.
Ironic you should say that, considering what he actually was according to "Q Squared." I have no idea of what the spoiler etiquette is for novels around here so I'll spare the details, although I do recommend the book if you can get your hands on it.
Right. I've not read it, but have been long acquainted with its position on Trelane and the Q. If the information passed along to me was correct, then I see the book as a tidying up of ideas batted around during the creation of TNG.
Jeri Taylor had permission to flesh out the characters in Pathways and Mosaic. She did so, with the understanding that she was writing a reference work that other series writers would refer to and build stories from. I never found out where or how she had this understanding, by the time of Voyager novels were firmly established as non-canon. My personal thoughts... I wonder if she thought that her status as EP gave her some kind of special arrangement? Regardless, the refusal of the studio to allow her works to be used as she intended are the number one reason she left the show.
It's a damn shame too, because what we ended up with was much less than what we were originally promised. The franchise lost a major driving force and a mighty talent when she departed.
I'm wondering if that situation is what lead to the stance that the novels were to be considered totally non-canon? Certainly something not quite right for a producer to be allowed to write a guide, and then get dumped on
As for my works? They ARE canon. Personal head-canon. And that's all that matters. As I said before this isn't religious dogma, I can interpret it any way I choose.
Would it be possible for you to privately let me know what novels you wrote? I've read most of the numbered TNG novels (the first editions with the Keith Birdsong cover art) and would love to know if I've read any of your work On the subject of head-canon, I'll go to the grave convinced that Picard is really Wesley's father :cool:
I'm going to start a mini riot, but they should have stopped the Star Wars train-wreck after the Zhan novels. Star Wars, and it's layers of canon and so forth... is a steaming hot mess. I prefer the black and white "THIS IS CANON, THIS IS NOT" approach that Star Trek takes.
I agree, things definitely got a bit out of control, although I never had an issue with the layering as I never really read any of the novels, but found the distinctions an interesting aspect of costuming. I agree with your comment about the Peter David novels which should have been considered canon, and had the pleasure of meeting him at a signing in London once. I certainly think the New Frontier series should be given soft-canon status, and things like the DS-9 relaunch and Titan novels deserve that, as they are continuations of the universe.
And if they ever decide to do anything post TNG on TV they are going to have a riot on their hands. :-D
As crazy as it might sound, I think the production staff would have to be able to prove their 'fan qualifications', and more of a committee, to prevent things like what happened under Brannon Braga's... stewardship
I have to ponder if this is what caused Voyager to become the mediocre trainwreck that it turned into.
I have to reply to this, because while I don't particularly dislike Jeri Taylor, I don't think she was a particularly good writer or EP. She took over as lead writer/show runner for TNG S7 and in no coincidence the final season of TNG was lousy (with a few islands of awesome episodes interspersed throughout, the Gambits and Pegasuses of the season help lifted it up but there were a lot of terrible episodes). I also found Voyager's first couple of years to be really bad. But when I rewatched the series recently, from s4 onwards the show became really good, at least in my opinion. S5 in particular was excellent.
And believe me, I was surprised. For the longest time I've considered Voyager tied with Enterprise for being a bad show. It's not great or anything, but it's improved remarkably in my eyes from what I remember of it when it was first on the air (and when I lost interest, somewhere in the middle of the third season).
As far as the greater canon debate going on in this thread, I'm always a little perplexed at people throwing around terms like 'soft canon' and 'head canon'. I mean, first of all, the only people who get to say what is and isn't canon is CBS/Paramount. Them's the breaks and all that. But I have autonomy over what I like and what I prefer, and that's good enough for me. I like some of the novels I've read, and I hate some as well. I like some of the episodes I've seen, and I hate others. Canon is, as far as I know and what I'm lead to believe, only a loose kind of definition by the licence holders. Anything filmed is canon. But many episodes contradict each other, so obviously them being canon is itself meaningless. (maybe the clearest example of that is how in TOS you could go to warp 10 and above while in TNG+ warp 10 was the hard limit. Non-canon sources explain this away as a different scale being set up in TNG, and I'm fine with that explanation, but I'm just using this as an example of how 'RAR THIS IS CANON' is pretty silly)
The whole 'what is and isn't' canon debate is just weird to me. It makes sense with something like the SW IP because their canon policy is idiotic and byzantine in complexity (needlessly so, IMO). You've got different levels of canon over there and you've got factions of movie purists vs EU purists vs people who don't give a TRIBBLE vs people who like everything and will buy any garbage so long as it's licenced. I can see it getting even worse when SW7 comes out which will almost certainly invalidate a lot of the EU garbage. At least Trek's canon policy is pretty clear and at the same time, open to new ideas. Some of the things from non-canon sources make it into the films/tv shows, which suggests to me that there's way more latitude in the way Trek does it.
As far as the greater canon debate going on in this thread, I'm always a little perplexed at people throwing around terms like 'soft canon' and 'head canon'. I mean, first of all, the only people who get to say what is and isn't canon is CBS/Paramount. Them's the breaks and all that. But I have autonomy over what I like and what I prefer, and that's good enough for me. I like some of the novels I've read, and I hate some as well. I like some of the episodes I've seen, and I hate others. Canon is, as far as I know and what I'm lead to believe, only a loose kind of definition by the licence holders. Anything filmed is canon. But many episodes contradict each other, so obviously them being canon is itself meaningless. (maybe the clearest example of that is how in TOS you could go to warp 10 and above while in TNG+ warp 10 was the hard limit. Non-canon sources explain this away as a different scale being set up in TNG, and I'm fine with that explanation, but I'm just using this as an example of how 'RAR THIS IS CANON' is pretty silly)
The whole 'what is and isn't' canon debate is just weird to me. It makes sense with something like the SW IP because their canon policy is idiotic and byzantine in complexity (needlessly so, IMO). You've got different levels of canon over there and you've got factions of movie purists vs EU purists vs people who don't give a TRIBBLE vs people who like everything and will buy any garbage so long as it's licenced. I can see it getting even worse when SW7 comes out which will almost certainly invalidate a lot of the EU garbage. At least Trek's canon policy is pretty clear and at the same time, open to new ideas. Some of the things from non-canon sources make it into the films/tv shows, which suggests to me that there's way more latitude in the way Trek does it.
I absolutely agree with you, even the canon of episodes is contradictory. However. Licensing has to be credit with a modicum of credence/respect/tolerance because it is the difference between official and unofficial. I've read fanfic worthy of publication, I've also read fan fiction which is little more than Mary-Sueism (I'll let others decide where my work falls on that sliding scale) and equally, I've read some published novels which probably should have remained in their writer's notebooks. But. If something makes into print, it has done so for a reason, and IMHO deserves acknowledgement, rather than just a blanket dismissal of "It's not onscreen, so it didn't happen..." To use another example, I read the novelisation of Alien years ago. The opening description of Professional Dreamers obviously had no place in the movie. However. The technology itself of analysing and observing a dreamer's experience appeared in Prometheus. Now, I don't know if that idea was part of the original movie manuscript, an idea Sir Ridley had wanted to incorporate, or something Alan Dean Foster dreamed up ( ) while writing the novelisation. Either way, it was an official novelisation, and it eventually found it's way into film canon. The Star Wars take was that novelisations were considered as canon upto and until a part which was contradicted/overwritten by the movie. To me, that seemed a suitably respectful treatment of both mediums.
Now is Star Wars Episode VII going to TRIBBLE all over the EU?
Given JJ Abrams attitude toward and style of filmmaking, I think that is a forgone conclusion -- but that doesn't make it right.
I've never done much in the way of fan fiction in terms of writing the existing characters, oh sure, I might throw in the occasional Guest Appearance, which I admit, is a self-indulgence, but for the majority, I stick to my own characters* and treat existing soft and hard canon with the respect it is due, rather than imbuing established characters with traits of my own creation... That's where head-canon comes in... I think there is enough evidence in Season 1 of TNG to support the fact that Picard was actually Wesley's father (had the writers chosen to exercise them and take that route) but I know that will never be officially sanctioned, so remains strictly within my head-canon :cool:
*
(the Doctor Who story I recently posted was originally written with the intent of being published, not just written as fanfiction, I just got bored of writing it and gave up on the idea of it being published)
Again we are talking about "canon" and "not canon" and I see people saying the following: Your interpretation does not matter, only the canon matters."
Canon in it's original usage refers to the body of religious texts and scripts that were approved by the Church. Anything outside the approved closed-canon of works was considered Apocrypha and in some cases heresy.
Now, I fully respect everyone here regardless of religious belief. Atheist, agnostic, faithful, devout. Ya'll good. :cool: As a faithful person myself, I find it utterly SILLY that people take a hard-line "This is canon, I said so" approach to the works of Star Trek.
Some people maintain a flexible sort of head-canon, others enjoy each work for what it is without worrying about the big picture. And then there are those who seek to create and maintain a pure and unflexible unyielding Orthodox Trek Canon. I see people saying "your head-canon doesn't matter, only what's seen on screen." or "You can't enjoy that because it's not canon, it conflicts with ____, ___ , and ____. "
Granted this thread is not at the level that some debates have reached.... but it could vary easily go that way. Here's how I propose to cool the "My Canon Is More Canon Than Your Canon" debate:
Star Trek is a work of fiction that has endured for almost 50 years. There is no master plan, no over-arc, meta-plot or grand secret story. Any semblance of such is a happy accident.
If you can picture a group of monks and cardinals dressed in Trek costume pouring over texts and watching the show frame by frame, while others read scripts and compare to dialog... Congrats, you are NUTS. Enjoy your canon, and have fun with the Holy Church Of Trek. I respect your belief BUT at the same time do not tell me my personal interpretation is wrong or invalid!
In the end perhaps it's a good thing that the line was drawn. Some of the number-novels were downright awful, I can't imagine them making good canon. Hell my stories weren't all that popular. They have their fans, but I'm no Diane Duane.
Diane Duane was great, but who knows--maybe I enjoy your stories too. Honestly, I do enjoy the older ones more than the newest stuff which has just...gotten on my nerves. One bad book or bad decision just ruins all the rest now. You can't find other novels separated from the mess.
I know there were drawbacks to the numbered novels--even Diane Duane was affected by them (see Intellivore--a good premise that I think got edited and restricted to death). But some authors seemed to be able to get around that sometimes and produce something really strong.
At least with the numbered novels, a screwup on one did not affect the others, and you stood a chance of getting a decent one next month. Heck, my username comes from a character out of a DS9 numbered novel that was IMHO EXCELLENT. (Note to anyone reading my fanfic: if you like Berat, please support the original author and buy Betrayal, by Lois Tilton. It's available as an ebook.)
Who would make the decision as to what is awful and what is canon? I for one would canonize the works of Peter David: Vendetta, Q-In-Law, Q-Squared, Imazadi (not the second one, that was bloody awful). Now some of you may have loved Vendetta, other fans have derided it as "TRIBBLE." Same with any of those novels. I left out certain ones he wrote early on, as they were TRIBBLE in my opinion... yet others loved them.
See what a mess it would be.
Yeah...personally I was very annoyed with New Frontier: that, and everything he did that came after that, IMO sucked. He had a brief period of good writing, but I think the editors made a major mistake in letting him play without a VERY firm hand on him to keep him from writing a comic book instead of a Star Trek series.
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Yeah...personally I was very annoyed with New Frontier: that, and everything he did that came after that, IMO sucked. He had a brief period of good writing, but I think the editors made a major mistake in letting him play without a VERY firm hand on him to keep him from writing a comic book instead of a Star Trek series.
Did you enjoy any of the New Frontier novels? I only ask as I enjoyed the initial quartet (especially the relationship between Zak Kebron and Si Cwan which developed while they were arrested) but the novels which followed on from that, I enjoyed less and eventually gave up on...
I have to reply to this, because while I don't particularly dislike Jeri Taylor, I don't think she was a particularly good writer or EP. She took over as lead writer/show runner for TNG S7 and in no coincidence the final season of TNG was lousy (with a few islands of awesome episodes interspersed throughout, the Gambits and Pegasuses of the season help lifted it up but there were a lot of terrible episodes). I also found Voyager's first couple of years to be really bad. But when I rewatched the series recently, from s4 onwards the show became really good, at least in my opinion. S5 in particular was excellent.
And believe me, I was surprised. For the longest time I've considered Voyager tied with Enterprise for being a bad show. It's not great or anything, but it's improved remarkably in my eyes from what I remember of it when it was first on the air (and when I lost interest, somewhere in the middle of the third season).
Don't mind me, I'm just trying to puzzle out what happened to Voyager where the writers apparently didn't care about characterization and the ship magically repaired itself after each episode and crewmembers and shuttlecraft returned from oblivion.
The actors, sets, and costumes were wonderful, though.
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All having been said, I did have a little trouble with the ending of "I, Q", especially the very last line... I found that all to be a needless angle to put on the antagonist... A better single line could've been stated to make the story more circuitous, without twisting things in the cheesy direction it went, but it definitely portrays a character more powerful than Q.
You'll find more powerful beings than the Q in novels. But on the TV show, you'll only find beings that can match Q.
Likewise :cool:
To compare an officially published, licensed novel, written to editorial constraints and guidelines to the level of fanfic is laughable... I'm not saying they [novels] carry the same weight as episode or film (and episode and film will always supersede soft-canon) but to suggest they have no official status whatsoever is ludicrous... If you choose to ignore them, however, that is your prerogative :cool:
only thing i give them is CBS said yes you may use the star trek name that is all because not to do so you know what happens the men in black show up
system Lord Baal is dead
That's all that matters... Official is official... Freelance is freelance...
More than that. A Q could arguably have rebuilt the ruined colony and revived the dead, particularly the freshly dead.
He also wasn't as smart as a Q, who likely would have seen the whole thing coming and would have known what would have driven the unseen invaders away aside from "frightening images." Or perhaps done something even smarter, like cause their engine cores to abruptly and irrepairably shut down.
Now THAT would have been quite a thing for the Enterprise to come upon.
"WE HAVE COME TO SLAUGHTER YOU PATHETIC FEDERATION FOOLS BY THE THOUSANDS! BOW TO OUR MIGHT SO WE MAY OBLITERATE YOU! MWAHAHAHAHAHA!... but, first, could you, uh, give us a jump? We seem to be having a liiiittle bit of a problem with our power systems... WHAT DO YOU MEAN 'NO?!' HAVEN'T YOU PEOPLE EVER BEEN SLAUGHTERED EN MASSE BEFORE?"
The early novels, from TMP forward (AKA the "numbered" novels") were little more than thinly disguised fan-fiction. The ORIGINAL run of Killing Time for example -- pure slash at it's best. DREADNOUGHT! and BATTLESTATIONS! were the worst sort of Mary-Sueism that has ever been attached to commercial Star Trek.
Then we had private-world syndrome... "My Enemy My Ally/Romulan Way" and the rest of her series were a great example. Very well written and without any canon exploration of the Romulan culture these became head-canon to a generation. Ford's "Final Reflection" -- same thing happened.
This was acceptable right up until TNG started... then the canon-war began. Gene created the concept of "canon" when it became apparent that TNG was failing in the first season. Basically the complaints were "this doesn't match what was published." Gene went on a tear and through the editors at Pocket Books started cracking down on private-world and "fannish" stories, you can see a change in the flavor of the novels about this time. In fact it got so bad several novels were torn up by the editors, handed off to other 'in favor' authors and re-released with the same title. "Probe" was one. Two of the "Giant Novels" went this route as well.
The situation evolved going forward, and the novelverse settled down under it's "non-canon" status. Enter Voyager, and we had one of the Higher Ups in the Voyager Production Team write a couple of novels. This person was pissed no end when this person found out the novels were non-canon and would not be referenced on screen. This lead to a minor shakeup behind the scenes at the set.
Lately, with the death of On Screen Trek, novels have been going the route of "small universe." You can't pick up one and enjoy a stand-alone story anymore, as everything is connected to everything else. Archer farts on Nelvana Three, this incident is mentioned in a Voyager Relaunch novel, every living character knows of the incident in absurd detail and how it relates to the current TRIBBLE situation.
Some TOS novels have gone the route of independent story-telling again but for the most part we are stuck with the over-elaborate self-referencing small-universe situation.
Nothing I wrote has ever been considered canon. Not the novels, nor the Andorian material for the Last Unicorn Games RPG. And I'm fine with that. Many universes, many quantum realities, many many stories and interpretations. I don't hold to a strict canon, background events and details are fluid, and nothing is set in stone.
It is... after all... just a fictional world. It's not Holy Scripture, it's not religious dogma.... it's just Star Trek.
My view on canon/soft canon comes from the etiquette applied to Star Wars costuming. Some costuming groups will not tolerate any costume which is not specifically shown on screen, others allow them as representations of licensed work (with hard canon overwriting the soft-canon of the novels)
Re the small-universe situation, I'd take that as an attempt by the powers that be to maintain a continuity for ongoing publications :cool:
Paramount's canon policy. Only the TV series, including TAS, and films are canon. It's not like Star Wars where everything except game mechanics and a few specific works are canon, with a tiered system defining what overrides what. Also, VOY: "Threshold" was struck from canon for being patently terrible.
Now, we can certainly talk about stuff that happened in the novels (and many of them are quite good), and the EU starting at the turn of the millennium has maintained its own continuity post-DS9, but unless it was seen or mentioned on screen it officially didn't happen.
This is why when making a canon-based argument about STO, I'm careful to delineate between "canon" and "STO canon".
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
Thanks for the link
the negative energy contact with mitchell. but hardly enough to be on par with Q.
consider the Q control space time, they have their own dimesional home, it's implied that each star in the milky way galaxy was a Q or had a connection to a star, during the Q civil war Q's died and stars exploded. they can create any object they like but they also have a rule book and regulations to follow.
the only lifeform that showed any resemblence to this type of scale was trelane. you got other non-corporeal lifeforms like the prophets, organians and thasians but these lifeforms have have advanced beyond a physical body but they were far from being strong enough to do everything the way that the q could. with the Organians they ascended from their bodies so to me they were at the bottonm of this heavy non-corporeal food chain. while the prophets had some control over time, they had not shown any other qualities that made them powerful enough to be considered on the level of Q.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Such as: the article on the canonicity of TAS.
I'm not sure what this says about whether those comemnts are still considered official.
My character Tsin'xing
We have discussed this in-game before on a few occasions, and I was kind of hoping you'd chime in here. I have only a spotty knowledge of the early years of Trek, considering I wasn't into it until about the sixth season of TNG, and was too young to appreciate many of the early films, assuming I'd even been born then. I've found a lot of people seem to consider novels "soft canon," even though, although the fans consider them canon, they are considered by the company canon in no way, shape or form.
That said, I believe that a lot of the early Trek situation was a lot closer to how writing and literature manifest in their natural form. Fanfic is, as much as some lament it, far more of a natural occurrence than what we currently have in terms of massive copyright empires. One needs only to look at the many versions of Arthurian legend for an example of that. That said, as much as I disagree with many things Roddenberry did, I can understand why he did what he did, this time, and it's helpful to know why we have the concept of 'canon' as we do today. Though I can't help but wonder how this would have played out had this not happened, but the Internet fanfic surge happened anyway.
Ironic you should say that, considering what he actually was according to "Q Squared." I have no idea of what the spoiler etiquette is for novels around here so I'll spare the details, although I do recommend the book if you can get your hands on it.
Gene realized that he had lost control of his "baby" and it was no longer making him rich. It was making the studios rich. Once TNG got it's footing Trek could do no wrong for about a decade. The whole "canon" deal and the licensing crackdown was more a final "F-U" to the very people who kept the torches burning. I'm not going to get into the dustup he had with the original writing team, some of who carried over from Before, and some of who were accomplished authors in their own right.
In the end perhaps it's a good thing that the line was drawn. Some of the number-novels were downright awful, I can't imagine them making good canon. Hell my stories weren't all that popular. They have their fans, but I'm no Diane Duane.
See what a mess it would be.
Jeri Taylor had permission to flesh out the characters in Pathways and Mosaic. She did so, with the understanding that she was writing a reference work that other series writers would refer to and build stories from. I never found out where or how she had this understanding, by the time of Voyager novels were firmly established as non-canon. My personal thoughts... I wonder if she thought that her status as EP gave her some kind of special arrangement? Regardless, the refusal of the studio to allow her works to be used as she intended are the number one reason she left the show.
It's a damn shame too, because what we ended up with was much less than what we were originally promised. The franchise lost a major driving force and a mighty talent when she departed.
As for my works? They ARE canon. Personal head-canon. And that's all that matters. As I said before this isn't religious dogma, I can interpret it any way I choose.
I'm going to start a mini riot, but they should have stopped the Star Wars train-wreck after the Zhan novels. Star Wars, and it's layers of canon and so forth... is a steaming hot mess. I prefer the black and white "THIS IS CANON, THIS IS NOT" approach that Star Trek takes.
And if they ever decide to do anything post TNG on TV they are going to have a riot on their hands.
Actually, Q Weapons were so far beyond our understanding that their only effect we could understand was stars going Supernova. While there are some SF stories that have sentient stars, I don't think Star Trek covered this idea. So Q are not stars nor have any connection to a star.
On Q weapons at Memory Alpha, it states "The use of these weapons in the Continuum caused supernovas and damage to subspace in the universe." Therefore, a weapon powerful enough to hurt a Q causes Supernovas and damage to subspace.
I have to ponder if this is what caused Voyager to become the mediocre trainwreck that it turned into.
I wonder if you'd privately tell me which books those are. I'm curious to check them out.
Voyager was a star trek based show taken over by politically correct madness.
Right. I've not read it, but have been long acquainted with its position on Trelane and the Q. If the information passed along to me was correct, then I see the book as a tidying up of ideas batted around during the creation of TNG.
Would it be possible for you to privately let me know what novels you wrote? I've read most of the numbered TNG novels (the first editions with the Keith Birdsong cover art) and would love to know if I've read any of your work
I agree, things definitely got a bit out of control, although I never had an issue with the layering as I never really read any of the novels, but found the distinctions an interesting aspect of costuming. I agree with your comment about the Peter David novels which should have been considered canon, and had the pleasure of meeting him at a signing in London once. I certainly think the New Frontier series should be given soft-canon status, and things like the DS-9 relaunch and Titan novels deserve that, as they are continuations of the universe.
As crazy as it might sound, I think the production staff would have to be able to prove their 'fan qualifications', and more of a committee, to prevent things like what happened under Brannon Braga's... stewardship
And believe me, I was surprised. For the longest time I've considered Voyager tied with Enterprise for being a bad show. It's not great or anything, but it's improved remarkably in my eyes from what I remember of it when it was first on the air (and when I lost interest, somewhere in the middle of the third season).
As far as the greater canon debate going on in this thread, I'm always a little perplexed at people throwing around terms like 'soft canon' and 'head canon'. I mean, first of all, the only people who get to say what is and isn't canon is CBS/Paramount. Them's the breaks and all that. But I have autonomy over what I like and what I prefer, and that's good enough for me. I like some of the novels I've read, and I hate some as well. I like some of the episodes I've seen, and I hate others. Canon is, as far as I know and what I'm lead to believe, only a loose kind of definition by the licence holders. Anything filmed is canon. But many episodes contradict each other, so obviously them being canon is itself meaningless. (maybe the clearest example of that is how in TOS you could go to warp 10 and above while in TNG+ warp 10 was the hard limit. Non-canon sources explain this away as a different scale being set up in TNG, and I'm fine with that explanation, but I'm just using this as an example of how 'RAR THIS IS CANON' is pretty silly)
The whole 'what is and isn't' canon debate is just weird to me. It makes sense with something like the SW IP because their canon policy is idiotic and byzantine in complexity (needlessly so, IMO). You've got different levels of canon over there and you've got factions of movie purists vs EU purists vs people who don't give a TRIBBLE vs people who like everything and will buy any garbage so long as it's licenced. I can see it getting even worse when SW7 comes out which will almost certainly invalidate a lot of the EU garbage. At least Trek's canon policy is pretty clear and at the same time, open to new ideas. Some of the things from non-canon sources make it into the films/tv shows, which suggests to me that there's way more latitude in the way Trek does it.
I absolutely agree with you, even the canon of episodes is contradictory. However. Licensing has to be credit with a modicum of credence/respect/tolerance because it is the difference between official and unofficial. I've read fanfic worthy of publication, I've also read fan fiction which is little more than Mary-Sueism (I'll let others decide where my work falls on that sliding scale) and equally, I've read some published novels which probably should have remained in their writer's notebooks. But. If something makes into print, it has done so for a reason, and IMHO deserves acknowledgement, rather than just a blanket dismissal of "It's not onscreen, so it didn't happen..." To use another example, I read the novelisation of Alien years ago. The opening description of Professional Dreamers obviously had no place in the movie. However. The technology itself of analysing and observing a dreamer's experience appeared in Prometheus. Now, I don't know if that idea was part of the original movie manuscript, an idea Sir Ridley had wanted to incorporate, or something Alan Dean Foster dreamed up (
Now is Star Wars Episode VII going to TRIBBLE all over the EU?
Given JJ Abrams attitude toward and style of filmmaking, I think that is a forgone conclusion -- but that doesn't make it right.
I've never done much in the way of fan fiction in terms of writing the existing characters, oh sure, I might throw in the occasional Guest Appearance, which I admit, is a self-indulgence, but for the majority, I stick to my own characters* and treat existing soft and hard canon with the respect it is due, rather than imbuing established characters with traits of my own creation... That's where head-canon comes in... I think there is enough evidence in Season 1 of TNG to support the fact that Picard was actually Wesley's father (had the writers chosen to exercise them and take that route) but I know that will never be officially sanctioned, so remains strictly within my head-canon :cool:
*
(the Doctor Who story I recently posted was originally written with the intent of being published, not just written as fanfiction, I just got bored of writing it and gave up on the idea of it being published)
Canon in it's original usage refers to the body of religious texts and scripts that were approved by the Church. Anything outside the approved closed-canon of works was considered Apocrypha and in some cases heresy.
Now, I fully respect everyone here regardless of religious belief. Atheist, agnostic, faithful, devout. Ya'll good. :cool: As a faithful person myself, I find it utterly SILLY that people take a hard-line "This is canon, I said so" approach to the works of Star Trek.
Some people maintain a flexible sort of head-canon, others enjoy each work for what it is without worrying about the big picture. And then there are those who seek to create and maintain a pure and unflexible unyielding Orthodox Trek Canon. I see people saying "your head-canon doesn't matter, only what's seen on screen." or "You can't enjoy that because it's not canon, it conflicts with ____, ___ , and ____. "
Granted this thread is not at the level that some debates have reached.... but it could vary easily go that way. Here's how I propose to cool the "My Canon Is More Canon Than Your Canon" debate:
Star Trek is a work of fiction that has endured for almost 50 years. There is no master plan, no over-arc, meta-plot or grand secret story. Any semblance of such is a happy accident.
If you can picture a group of monks and cardinals dressed in Trek costume pouring over texts and watching the show frame by frame, while others read scripts and compare to dialog... Congrats, you are NUTS.
Diane Duane was great, but who knows--maybe I enjoy your stories too.
I know there were drawbacks to the numbered novels--even Diane Duane was affected by them (see Intellivore--a good premise that I think got edited and restricted to death). But some authors seemed to be able to get around that sometimes and produce something really strong.
At least with the numbered novels, a screwup on one did not affect the others, and you stood a chance of getting a decent one next month. Heck, my username comes from a character out of a DS9 numbered novel that was IMHO EXCELLENT. (Note to anyone reading my fanfic: if you like Berat, please support the original author and buy Betrayal, by Lois Tilton. It's available as an ebook.)
Yeah...personally I was very annoyed with New Frontier: that, and everything he did that came after that, IMO sucked. He had a brief period of good writing, but I think the editors made a major mistake in letting him play without a VERY firm hand on him to keep him from writing a comic book instead of a Star Trek series.
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My character Tsin'xing
Don't mind me, I'm just trying to puzzle out what happened to Voyager where the writers apparently didn't care about characterization and the ship magically repaired itself after each episode and crewmembers and shuttlecraft returned from oblivion.
The actors, sets, and costumes were wonderful, though.