10 Biggest Reveals In Star Trek Novels
Star Trek has a huge library of additional reading in the form of a vast array of novels.
Transcript
00:00 Listen, we as writers, we love to read, okay?
00:03 And sometimes books don't always get the love
00:05 that they should, despite the amount of stuff
00:08 that's going on in them, and I'm specifically talking
00:11 about Star Trek beta canon.
00:15 So, without further ado, I'm Sean Ferdig for Trek Culture,
00:18 and here are the 10 biggest secrets revealed
00:21 in Star Trek novels.
00:23 Number 10, Tralane's true nature, Q squared.
00:27 Peter David's novel finally confirms
00:31 what most people sort of assumed
00:33 since the arrival of John De Lancie's Q,
00:35 namely that Tralane, from the original series episode,
00:38 The Squire of Gothos, was in fact
00:41 a member of the Continuum.
00:42 As I say, this had been assumed
00:44 for quite a long time in canon,
00:46 but this was the first time it was actually
00:47 out and out stated, and not only was he a member
00:50 of the Continuum, but he was one who had gone rogue.
00:53 In the novel, Q seeks Picard's help
00:56 to help track down and basically take down Tralane.
01:00 William Campbell's Tralane set the template
01:04 for a lot of what the Q would become afterwards,
01:06 so to see this finally confirmed in the novel
01:10 was a great way of tying the original series episode
01:13 into future versions.
01:15 Number nine, Kirk's middle name
01:17 and a new type of Klingon ship,
01:19 Star Trek The Motion Picture novelization.
01:21 Gene Roddenberry wrote the full novel
01:24 of Star Trek The Motion Picture
01:26 with a story credit going to Alan Dean Foster as well.
01:29 In this novelization, it's the first time
01:32 that Tiberius was confirmed as Kirk's middle name.
01:36 You might be sitting there going,
01:38 "Sean, you absolute idiot,
01:40 "that was said in the animated series."
01:43 And you would be right, but you must consider
01:45 that in 1979, the animated series was not considered canon.
01:50 That is because Gene Roddenberry
01:52 kind of walked through life going,
01:53 "Yeah, I'll follow that rule today,
01:55 "maybe that rule tomorrow."
01:56 That rule can go and flip itself.
01:59 So this was Roddenberry finally confirming,
02:02 "Yeah, right, Tiberius' name."
02:04 This was explained away in the novel
02:06 that Kirk's grandfather had this obsession
02:08 with ancient Rome and particularly the Caesars of Rome,
02:13 so this is where Tiberius came from.
02:14 It's also the first time that Kettinga was confirmed
02:18 as the name of the Klingon battlecruiser
02:20 that first began appearing in The Motion Picture
02:23 and onwards, which was, of course,
02:25 the D7 beefed up with a motion picture budget.
02:29 Where was Geordi?
02:31 Star Trek Picard, The Last Best Hope.
02:33 Dr. Una McCormick's novel is a prequel
02:36 to Star Trek Picard's first season,
02:38 and it deals with what led up to the synth attack on Mars.
02:43 We get a little bit of backstory
02:45 expanding on Bruce Maddox in this novel.
02:48 We get to see a little bit more of Raffi
02:51 and understand what led to the breakdown of her marriage
02:54 and her relationship with her son.
02:56 Now, what we also get is the crucial bit of information
02:58 of where was Geordi when everything was going down.
03:01 Now, as we know, Geordi the Forge was in control
03:03 of the entire mechanical side of the rescue mission
03:07 to evacuate Romulus.
03:08 You would think he'd be a fairly large player,
03:10 so where the heck was he in season one?
03:13 And that is something that's still a noise
03:16 about the first season of Picard.
03:17 You could have at least shown the man surviving.
03:19 Number seven, Uhura's first name, Star Trek II biographies.
03:24 William Rostler wrote a tie-in novel
03:27 when the Wrath of Khan was being released.
03:29 Effectively, it was a biography book
03:31 with a breakdown of each of the main characters.
03:33 Now, this was the first time in print
03:36 that Neota was confirmed as Uhura's first name.
03:39 There had been a couple of different names offered
03:42 as her first name before this,
03:45 but as has been stated on screen
03:47 in J.J. Abrams' Star Trek 2009,
03:50 Neota is now the accepted first name for this character.
03:54 But it was all the way back in 1982
03:57 that we actually got this confirmed in print.
04:00 When Rostler proposed this,
04:01 he actually went to Roddenberry,
04:03 who in turn said, "Look, it's fine with me,
04:05 "but you gotta square that with Nichelle Nichols
04:07 "before anyone accepts that as the name."
04:11 And so that's exactly what he did.
04:13 He went to Nichelle Nichols,
04:15 he explained why he had chosen Neota,
04:18 she agreed and was delighted with this,
04:20 and from that point on,
04:21 Neota Uhura was confirmed as her name.
04:24 Number six, the Tomed incident, Serpent Among the Ruins.
04:28 David George III wrote what led up
04:31 to the beginnings of the Treaty of Algeron,
04:34 and he also gave us a little bit of expanded story
04:37 on the Enterprise B and Captain John Harriman.
04:40 As it stands, the only canon appearance
04:43 of the Enterprise B and John Harriman
04:45 was in the opening of Star Trek Generations,
04:47 in which the Maiden Voyage
04:49 saw Kirk sucked out into the Nexus.
04:51 This novel expands on that
04:53 and says that basically Harriman struggled
04:55 throughout his career to kind of get over that.
04:58 Certainly wasn't his fault what happened to Kirk,
05:00 but still, if the most famous officer in Starfleet
05:04 basically gets sucked out into space on your watch,
05:06 that tends to stain a name.
05:08 From this point on, he actually ended up
05:10 getting further and further involved in Romulan activity
05:15 in the Federation,
05:16 particularly as it was building up
05:18 toward an escalation of hostilities.
05:20 The Tomed incident was designed
05:22 to effectively quash this buildup of hostilities
05:27 because it doesn't look good for Starfleet
05:30 when you say it like this.
05:31 Basically, they faked a massacre.
05:32 They organized that it looked like
05:35 the Romulans had destroyed thousands of Federation lives,
05:39 which basically got them to back down.
05:41 This led to the Treaty of Algeron,
05:43 which of course led to the Federation
05:44 not being able to develop cloaking technology
05:46 and also a de-escalation of hostilities
05:49 and the Romulans disappearing
05:51 for about half a century after that.
05:53 Number five, Sulu's first name, the entropy effect.
05:57 Wanda V. McIntyre introduced Hikaru
06:01 as Sulu's first name in this novel.
06:04 This is set just after the events of the motion picture.
06:07 We have a beautifully long-haired Sulu
06:10 on the cover of the novel as well.
06:11 Hikaru would only be said for the first time
06:15 in Star Trek VI, The Undiscovered Country,
06:17 which followed more than 10 years after this.
06:20 This was being used in print for the decade
06:23 leading up to the release of The Undiscovered Country.
06:26 Now, this was good because much like Uhura,
06:28 he was just Sulu for years and years and years.
06:31 It's like, do we get to give him a name?
06:34 Do we just call him Mister?
06:36 The novel, while canon, wasn't actually confirmed
06:40 to be using his real name until Star Trek VI was released.
06:44 Much like Star Trek II biographies,
06:46 this was a nice tie-in between the printed media
06:49 and the visual media, which meant kind of encouraging readers
06:54 to go and read these novels to see that there's a lot
06:58 of information out there in them
07:00 that might not necessarily have the time
07:02 to make it into the movies and television series.
07:04 Number four, how did the Stargazer survive the buried age?
07:09 Christopher L. Bennett wrote the story
07:11 of how the physical Stargazer ship managed
07:14 to survive the Battle of Maxia
07:16 when everyone thought it was lost.
07:18 When the Ferengi managed to cripple the ship,
07:20 Picard gave the order to abandon the ship,
07:23 which was then, it was their belief,
07:25 set on a collision course with a gas giant.
07:28 All of the surviving crew managed to escape in escape pods,
07:31 get out into space, and the last thing they saw
07:33 was the Constellation-class ship heading straight
07:36 toward the atmosphere of this planet.
07:38 Everyone gave it up as lost,
07:40 and perhaps a little understandably at that point.
07:42 Now, by a sheer stroke of luck,
07:44 what happened was that the ship bounced off
07:46 the atmosphere of the planet
07:47 and was then left adrift in space.
07:49 Damon Bok then arrived in his ship.
07:51 Discovering that his son had been killed in the battle,
07:54 he tractor-beamed the Constellation-class ship
07:56 and began plotting his revenge against Picard
07:59 and the rest of the crew of the Stargazer.
08:01 Number three, Garak's training and backstory,
08:04 A Stitch in Time.
08:05 While playing the part of Garak in Star Trek Deep Space Nine,
08:09 actor Andrew J. Robinson kept a Bible along the way
08:12 that he used to make sure that he understood
08:15 his character's motivations, where he was coming from,
08:18 and different facets of his background.
08:22 Once the show wrapped, he actually was approached
08:25 to expand this into a novel.
08:27 A Stitch in Time was the result in this,
08:29 and what that offers the audience
08:31 is a lot more about Garak
08:33 that we didn't get to see on screen.
08:35 We discover a lot of his posting on Romulus,
08:38 where he was posing as a gardener.
08:39 We discover his training in the Obsidian Order
08:42 and his relationship with the Nabrantane.
08:44 We also discover that he had somewhat of a relationship
08:47 with Dukat years before,
08:49 insofar as he was responsible for the death
08:52 of Dukat's father.
08:53 Perhaps somewhat understandable then
08:54 that Dukat wouldn't be a massive fan of Garak.
08:57 This novel is essential reading
09:00 for understanding this character.
09:02 Number two, Captain Erica Hernandez's fate,
09:05 Star Trek Destiny.
09:07 David Mack's Destiny trilogy is, in my opinion,
09:11 essential reading for any fan of Star Trek.
09:14 And there's quite a few reasons for this.
09:16 One is that it's a fantastic crossover event
09:19 where you get to see what's happening with Voyager,
09:21 the Enterprise, E. Esri Dax is captain of the Aventine.
09:26 There's an awful lot going on.
09:27 But what it also does is it offers a resolution
09:31 to the story of Captain Erica Hernandez
09:33 and the SS Columbia.
09:34 We discover that the Columbia traveled through a wormhole
09:37 that ended up killing most of the crew,
09:39 while Hernandez and some of the crew survived.
09:43 They were guests of the Coeliar,
09:45 who were a race of immensely powerful aliens
09:49 who have a very direct connection with the Borg.
09:52 There's a lot of time travel going on.
09:54 There's a lot of agelessness going on.
09:56 But what we discover is that Hernandez is unable
09:59 to return to Starfleet after her encounter with the Coeliar.
10:04 She, in fact, remains with them as sort of an ageless being.
10:08 In a way, it's a sad ending,
10:10 that she doesn't get to see any of her friends
10:12 and family anymore.
10:13 But it's also similar to Decker's encounter with V'ger.
10:17 She goes on to effectively become a human ambassador
10:22 with the Coeliar.
10:23 That allows them to help save Starfleet
10:25 at a critical moment in Federation history.
10:28 It's quite a cathartic ending for the character
10:31 who was introduced in the fourth season of "Enterprise,"
10:34 but just surely that there wasn't enough time.
10:37 We didn't get to see enough of her.
10:40 Number one, the early years,
10:42 the autobiography of Catherine Janeway.
10:45 Dr. Una McCormack returns on this list.
10:47 She wrote the autobiography of Catherine Janeway,
10:50 which is just a fantastic novel,
10:53 which explores much of the backstory to Janeway
10:57 before she takes over command of Voyager.
11:00 Now, while it does discuss some of the events on Voyager,
11:03 it's really better for giving us a greater picture
11:05 of Janeway's life pre-taking over as captain,
11:09 and particularly a lot of what went on
11:11 between her and Mark.
11:12 For example, after reading this novel,
11:14 the loss of Mark and the breakdown of their relationship
11:17 due to being stranded in the Delta Quadrant,
11:19 it cuts a little bit deeper
11:20 because you can see that they really did love each other.
11:23 We also get a much greater understanding
11:25 of her motivations based on her father's career and death,
11:29 and understanding between her and her sister
11:31 and her and her mother.
11:32 If you get a chance,
11:33 you must absolutely pick up the audiobook version of this,
11:37 which is read by Kate Mulgrew.
11:39 Seems like a no-brainer,
11:40 but it seems like the only way
11:41 that you should really enjoy this particular story.
11:46 Combine the audiobook with what you discover in it,
11:50 and you get the most complete picture
11:52 of Casper and Janeway that really can be done.
11:55 That's everything for our list today, guys.
11:57 If you reckon we missed anything,
11:58 please let me know in the comments below.
11:59 Please don't forget to like, share, and subscribe.
12:02 And remember, you can catch us over
12:03 on Twitter @TrekCulture.
12:05 You can catch myself, Sean Ferrick,
12:06 @jeanferrick on Twitter and Instagram as well.
12:10 Whatever you do, guys, look after yourselves.
12:12 Until I'm talking to you again,
12:14 live long and prosper.