I've always been a bigger fan of Star Trek than Star Wars. But debating the relative merits of the franchises is not the purpose of this thread. One thing I've always been disappointed by is the Star Trek expanded universe. I've always loved how Star Wars has used novels, short stories, and video games to expand the story from six movies spread out over 40-ish years to a vast TL spanning several millenia. But Star Trek doesn't have anything similar. I know there are novels and such, but they aren't a lot, they are generally of low quality, and contradict constantly. There is no one established continuity so each author picks and chooses which elements of other works he or she will acknowledge in their work. All of it is considered non-cannon, so it is really just glorified fanfic. So three questions: (1) Why hasn't Star Trek managed to develop a coherent expanded universe a la Star Wars? (2) What sort of POD could have resulted in a real Star Trek EU? and (3) Is there any hope that the powers that be can finally get their act together an establish a cannonical expanded universe TL? I was thinking maybe they could build off of some of the better/more reasonable stuff like the Titan-series, the DS9 and Voyager relaunches, the IKS Gorkon trilogy, the "A Time to . . ." series, etc. From there, they could include any novels and stories that do not contradict that main group, declare the rest non-cannon and go from there. I'd love to see a more Star Wars-esque Star Trek EU, but I've pretty much given up hope by now. Thoughts?
Why isn't the Star Trek EU bigger/better/more organized/more like Star Wars'?
- Thread starter TheSevenLeggedFallyDowner
- Start date
1: Because Star Trek continued to exist as a TV/Movie series, and the producers of such didn't want to be constrained, canon-wise, by novel writers. (To be fair, didn't George Lucas say that if he ever got around to making a sequel trilogy, the book universe could piss off?)
2: Related to 1 -- if the Star Trek movies and Star Trek TNG are never made, then the universe would probably live on as an EU.
3: ...um, I thought they did. Lord knows when I started reading Titan, it made so many references to the Time To... books that I had to go back and read those, and there's a trilogy I haven't read yet about the Mother of All Borg Invasions that's supposed to tie them all together... From reading the Time To... books, it seems like they've grandfathered Gateways, Genesis Wave, and a few other older novels into canon, but of course most of the book written pre-Nemesis will continue to be ignored.* And all of this will go out the window if Star Trek (not counting the Abrams 'alternate universe') returns to the screen.
*Especially the ones written by William Shatner.
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Makes sense I guess.
Yeah, but that's more of an informal agreement among authors not to contradict each other. It's completely unregulated. It's not like Star Wars where there are planners that direct the series and makes sure that the authors' stories fit together. I suppose that this could evolve into a more solid continuity, but I don't think it's there yet. In Star Wars, each series is expected to be a continuation of the previous one. In Star Trek, the author may incorporate parts of other books (like Titan did), but it isn't a necessity. The fans treat them more as stand alone material than as part of a larger cannon.
The Star Trek screen universe, even before the first movie was released, was composed of several dozen hours of footage, several times more than the original SW trilogy. By the time the prequel trilogy is complete, the ratio is probably even more one-sided, what with eleven films and what, five TV series, each of which lasted at least three seasons. Star Wars simply had more room for that sort of thing.
And I endorse the idea that Star Trek being ongoing for a greater amount of time than Star Wars had a huge effect.
And I endorse the idea that Star Trek being ongoing for a greater amount of time than Star Wars had a huge effect.
Hmm....I'm not sure how much you've read -- more than I have at the moment, but I've picked up a few spoilers on Destiny and some more recent books, wherein the Borg invade the Alpha Quadrant in force, wiping out multiple planets (including Pluto!) before themselves being completely eliminated through some mechanism I haven't looked up. Also, at some point Romulan Empire split up following the event of Nemesis. Also, Owen Paris, Kathryn Janeway, and I think a couple of other people are dead. And now half of the Romulan Empire plus the Tholians, Gorn and a few other random races are forming a "Typhon Pact" against the Feds/Klingons/other half of the Romulans. All of these massive changes to the Star Trek Universe are being perpetuated through later books. If that doesn't qualify as a co-ordinated EU, than I guess I don't know what you're looking for. (I never got into the Star Wars novels.)
Mind you, I don't think the writers started making these aggressive changes to canon until Abrams's reboot pretty much killed any chance of the "classic" Star Trek universe returning to film or televesion, which reinforces my earlier points.
To be honest I haven't read a lot of the more recent books. I gave up on the Star Trek EU a long time ago in favor of the Star Wars one. If it really is as co-ordinated as you are describing then I may give it another shot.
I don't think it's the ratio so much as it is that, as long as the series continues to produce episodes or movies (as Trek did until a few years ago), the novel writers aren't going bother writing up a whole new canon that they'll have to throw out in a year -- because the screen producers simply will not respect the books as "canon". (Why would they? It's likely only a small fraction of their audience has also read the books.)
Dr Who is instructive here, since over the 90's-early 2000's, the BBC itself put together a vast and detailed EU, through a line of novels -- which it then abruptly stopped and ignored when the TV series unexpectedly revived. (One might even say it regenerated.
)The ST novel writers have been constrained not to create a new canon. For example, nowadays the writers are not permitted to carry over any of their characters from one novel to another. I've heard this from two different ST writers.
On the other hand, one of them showed an illustration from one of her explicitly fan-fiction works and said it must have been the inspiration for a scene from one of the movies. After reading about a lawsuit filed against George Lucas by a guy who claimed he had made up the Ewoks (I suppose it could have been worse, he could have claimed to have made up Jar Jar Binks), I learned that the producers very carefully file away all the fan fiction that fanwriters send them so that none of their creative people can ever see it, precisely to prevent this sort of lawsuit.
On the other hand, one of them showed an illustration from one of her explicitly fan-fiction works and said it must have been the inspiration for a scene from one of the movies. After reading about a lawsuit filed against George Lucas by a guy who claimed he had made up the Ewoks (I suppose it could have been worse, he could have claimed to have made up Jar Jar Binks), I learned that the producers very carefully file away all the fan fiction that fanwriters send them so that none of their creative people can ever see it, precisely to prevent this sort of lawsuit.
When did you hear this? They've sure as hell created new canon the last few years...
(OTOH, I can certainly imagine Paramount putting such a restriction on them while the show was still live.)
As a HUGE Star Trek fan, I have to contest one or two arguments that have been mentioned (dont remember by whom)....
Now as far as canon material goes, I never heard about a written (spoken? unwritten?) agreement among Trek writers to avoid 'overly copying' each other's work. Of course, as I'm currently in the process of writing 5 ST novels (introducing new characters and still maintaining the established ones), it may be true and I just dont know about it.
Now, I have nothing against Star Wars, as I'm a fan of it too, but if it is true that Lucasfilm has 'hidden away' any fan-written canon, then its truly their own loss. Star Trek writers have the freedom to be able to introduce new species and characters. Lucas should allow that same creative freedom for SW writers. As long as they dont kill off any of the established characters, then introducing new ones should not adversely affect general canon.
Thats MHO, so I hope I dont get my head bit off
Now as far as canon material goes, I never heard about a written (spoken? unwritten?) agreement among Trek writers to avoid 'overly copying' each other's work. Of course, as I'm currently in the process of writing 5 ST novels (introducing new characters and still maintaining the established ones), it may be true and I just dont know about it.
Now, I have nothing against Star Wars, as I'm a fan of it too, but if it is true that Lucasfilm has 'hidden away' any fan-written canon, then its truly their own loss. Star Trek writers have the freedom to be able to introduce new species and characters. Lucas should allow that same creative freedom for SW writers. As long as they dont kill off any of the established characters, then introducing new ones should not adversely affect general canon.
Thats MHO, so I hope I dont get my head bit off
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