posted
I'm sorry, Monsieur Rapp, but my opinion of James Dixon is about as low as CaptainMike's
Believe me, I am FULLY aware of the flaws in Mike Okuda's Chronology, but the fact is that it's the one that is utilized by TPTB. As much as a line about "300 years" in "Miri" (TOS) might indicate a 2260 date for the ep, we have a spoken reference to the exact date of the end of Kirk's five-year mission (2273) in "Q2" (VGR). Okuda made an elephantine snafu in not including TAS in the Chronolgy, and in rounding off dates too much, and in picking arbitrary dates for events that there was no real way to determine the timeframe of, but it's still a reasonably good reference. It's obvious that it needs to be updated and amended as things are pinned down by later shows, but as a loose guide it's okay. Even though not great, its still far better (read as "far more relevant") than Dixon's leviathan jumble of obscure fandom gobbledygook pulled out of hundreds of fanboy asses over the years.
-MMoM
-------------------- The flaws we find most objectionable in others are often those we recognize in ourselves.
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capped
I WAS IN THE FUTURE, IT WAS TOO LATE TO RSVP
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posted
BTW, Mim, Q2 established 2270 for the end of the FYM, not '73
oh, and for shame on Okuda for going along with what Roddenberry told him to do. newsflash: it was his job to do so. it was his job to invalidate the (minor, inconsequential) work of his predecessors. it was what TPTB wanted. and back then, we even like TPTB: it was Roddenberry.
and nobody has to go along with Okuda's chronology, we only have to go along with the parts that were actually included in episodes.. for example, the only dating standards we have for TOS is that the FYM ended in 2270 (as per Q2).. and that Trouble with Tribbles was 105 years before Trials & Tribbleations.. the rest is up in the air, and i do prefer to disregard Okuda's speculation..
my version of the five year mission always seems to figure it coming in at about 5 years and 6 months (from mid 2264 until early 2270), and i don't consider Dehner's line about 'years together' to indicate that WNMHGB was long after Kirk took command.. this leaves plenty of room for TAS and the later novels/comics.
these are the kind of things where Okuda deliberately states that his own interpretation is conjecture, because there are more solutions possible. and i feel my solution works, and isnt about to be invalidated. yay!
Dixon, howver, cannot leave anything up in the air, when there is a lack of data, he formulates his own, and it rarely makes much sense to me. when two ships have the same registry, he comes up with bizarre renaming schemes. wierd.
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posted
Regarding WNMHGB, Dehner was speaking of the time spent by Spock and Mitchell on the Enterprise. She doesn't specify the length of time Mitchell served on Kirk's first command.
Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
In addition to Okuda, Dixon and personal preferences (plus outdated stuff like the SFC), there's another player in town now. A team that includes Alex Rosenzweig and some PsiPhi.org activists has formulated a timeline for the official Trek novels: it's printed on the back of at least the softcover "Gateways: What Lay Beyond" (a surprisingly stupid book with a few highlights, but at least it wasn't expensive).
The novel timeline builds on Okuda's chronology but pays attention to the recent developments (like "Q2") and the problems of TOS dating. There are brief notes on the most glaring internal dating errors presented by the novels themselves, and on what the team took at face value and what they dropped, which is rather helpful. The team has the slightly odd practice of giving "corrected", speculative stardates to books that give obviously incompatible ones (a bit like our unsolicited re-registering and re-naming of the "Zuhkov"), but otherwise the work seems free of silly bias.
Like Dixon's work, this one includes ALL the novels. Not all the comics or the RPGs, though, which is a relief - but WildStorm's more recent Trek "graphic novels" ARE included there. IMHO, fittingly so, because they are chronologically quite palatable. Heck, "Double Time" even was specifically created in order to correct a chronology mistake!
All in all, I think the novel business nowadays is a lot more internally and "inter-bookly" consistent than it used to be - and often better so than the actual episodes. All hail Ordover, I guess... Or DeCandido, who loves this sort of detail work. Or Peter David, who (as mentioned) creates entire storylines to set right continuity mistakes.
posted
Could you please scan that timeline? I'd like to see it. And I'm curious in which year they put Duane's books about the Romulans and how they explained all the inconsistencies.
-------------------- "Never give up. And never, under any circumstances, no matter what - never face the facts." - Ruth Gordon
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posted
I'll do it on Monday! (I'll type it in, not scan it - it's divided on a lot of small softcover pages, after all.)
The timeline basically only gives the year (and SD and/or month, when applicable) when the book is supposed to take place, and on smaller font the years when the flashbacks or flash-forwards within the novel take place. It also includes the aired episodes and movies as reference points. It does NOT provide any sort of cross-referencing of novel events. Which is IMHO a good thing. That way lies madness - or Dixon, if one wants to distinguish.
The Duane stuff is divided so that "The Wounded Sky" and "My Enemy, My Ally" are somewhere in the final weeks of the five-year mission (although IMHO they could take place even after TMP). "The Romulan Way" and the two newer books follow in the mid-to-late 2270s, based on internal references to how much time has passed since the first two books. The reader is supposed to ignore any incompatible references to Kirk's or others' rank (and to Sternbach's timeline on the Constellation class - Duane introduces it in the seventies already).
Duane's original intention that much of this stuff take place before Kirk gets flag rank is completely forgotten, since it would mean placing TMP in the VERY late 2270s or even the early 2280s. Which isn't all that bad an idea IMHO, but requires a lot of work, and is incompatible with the preponderance of other novels.
...All in all, it seems that Duane's disclaimer about the noncanonicity of her Rihannsu books is well deserved, when not even this fine team can figure out a consistent place for the books!
quote:Originally posted by SoundEffect: I didn't realize the Excelsior's symbol was tilted upwards until a few days ago when I was watching Trek III on DVD and used the 15x zoom to see the Excelsior start up as Enterprise was backing out of spacedock.
Ooohh - can you screen grab that at all - but the little cargo ship in space dock when the Enterprise arrives!!
-------------------- "Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica." - Jim Halpert. (The Office)
posted
Jonah: I mostly agree. The problem is not so much in what he did, because Roddenberry did want to make TNG into a new show (let's face it, the Star Trek shows are technically *different* shows *based* on Star Trek).
The problem as I see it is that TNG writers' guides (which is what the Chronology and the TNGTM originally were) were being sold as *the* interpretation of Star Trek. They sell because of the fans who believe that the author's/any producer's interpretation is the best or the only valid one, but also because of the fans who believe that Trek history is constantly being revised and changed depending on who's in charge, meaning that the new producer overrides the old one.
Any serious literary critic would ROTFLHAO at such a simplistic view of things, which appeals only to fans who choose to disagree only "within the family", i.e. never say anything that might offend the producers or their vision too much. But since when have literary critics and authors disagreed "within the family"?
Okuda's books are simply his own interpretation which is a part of the overall TNG era point of view. There's also Voyager's point-of-view, DS9's point-of-view, and the movies' point-of-view -- simply because every show has a different showrunner. In Hollywood, the role of this particular executive producer is to set the tone for a series, and the fact that Berman is another exec shouldn't obscure the fact that the reason two producers exist is to make every series different-yet-same -- neither a reimagining, nor a consistent universe in the B5 or Star Wars style.
In fact, the definition of canon should probably be relativized with respect to each show. The DS9 canon, in that order, seems to be DS9, TNG, TOS, movies.... Enterprise canon, on the other hand, might be Enterprise, Voyager, TNG, TOS...The Meyer-canon seems to be the Meyer movies, followed by TMP, TOS, and TNG. The TOS canon might be TOS, TAS, the Meyer movies, TMP, DS9, TNG.
If books were written consistent with the way the shows are produced, there would be something for fans of every series. Nowadays, we merely have an overarching Okuda interpretation of Star Trek that works well within the TNG era, but that sometimes threatens to water down the works of other producers.
So, Dixon has the right idea recognizing that Okuda's interpretation is simply Okuda's interpretation, but then again he's not trying to make Star Trek into a consistent universe -- to him, it's a mythology with inconsistent and overlapping points of view that one may attempt to rationalize, but to him that's not strictly necessary. In places that he does attempt a rationalization, he gives priority to sources that came first and sources closely based on these (=tech fandom), followed by everything else because he sees the new shows as a corruption/reimagining of the original myth he attempts to trace using whatever source he can find.
It's quite interesting; however, as I've argued before, it's not what Star Trek has become, as defined by the official canon order and the sheer number of episodes that override the books from the POV of any showrunner and most viewers.
Boris
[ December 13, 2002, 07:10: Message edited by: Boris ]
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quote:Originally posted by AndrewR: [QUOTE]Ooohh - can you screen grab that at all - but the little cargo ship in space dock when the Enterprise arrives!!
Sorry. I can screen grab from VHS but I have a standalone DVD Player and don't have the means of hooking it to the computer. Maybe when I can find a job and buy a new computer and get a DVD-ROM.....
[ December 13, 2002, 07:45: Message edited by: SoundEffect ]
Duane's original intention that much of this stuff take place before Kirk gets flag rank is completely forgotten, since it would mean placing TMP in the VERY late 2270s or even the early 2280s.
That's actually not all that difficult to set up. Given Decker's line in TMP about Voyager 6 being "launched more than 300 years ago", that gives an absolute minimum date for TMP of 6 September 2277 (300 years and one day after the launch of Voyager 1, which was the second one launched).
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quote:Originally posted by SoundEffect: Sorry. I can screen grab from VHS but I have a standalone DVD Player and don't have the means of hooking it to the computer. Maybe when I can find a job and buy a new computer and get a DVD-ROM.....
Er.... If you can capture from a VCR, then you can capture from the DVD player. Just hook the VCR up to the capture card, and connect the DVD player to the video in port on the VCR. Not that hard, really.
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quote:Originally posted by AndrewR: [QUOTE]the little cargo ship in space dock when the Enterprise arrives
By that do you mean the little thing on the shelf? If so, zooming in doesn't help. You can't see that any clearer.
I'll start a list of things to capture. I'm not unhooking both DVD and VCR systems in two different rooms and switching everything for 1 screen cap. I'll collect enough shots that it's worth setting things up.
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