# Star Trek novels: Was the Doomsday Machine ever referenced? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 29, 2004, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-novels-was-the-doomsday-machine-ever-referenced/282134 "2004-12-29T19:17:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Ephemera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8baadc/32.png) [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2004, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-novels-was-the-doomsday-machine-ever-referenced/282134/21 "2004-12-30T02:42:36Z")
Cite? I’ve never heard that, nor do I remember it from the five years I watched the show. How the hell do you mine antimatter anyway? Or microcircuitry? Or the gel in bioneural gel packs? ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2004, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-novels-was-the-doomsday-machine-ever-referenced/282134/22 "2004-12-30T03:51:33Z")
> [@Aesiron](#): > > Cite? > How the hell do you mine antimatter anyway? Or microcircuitry? Or the gel in bioneural gel packs? I don’t remember at 10:00 Post Meridian. 🙂 I’ll see if I can find it tomorrow. I think it was a Berman interview. Given fusion power. raw materials and a replicator I guess they could make anything. ---
**Author:** ![Ephemera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8baadc/32.png) [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2004, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-novels-was-the-doomsday-machine-ever-referenced/282134/23 "2004-12-30T03:54:03Z")
If it wasn’t said on-screen, it isn’t canon, even if it comes from Berman, Braga, or Zombie Roddenberry. ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2004, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-novels-was-the-doomsday-machine-ever-referenced/282134/24 "2004-12-30T03:55:59Z")
Not to be snarky, but do you have an ironclad, canonical reference as to what is or is not canon? No, seriously. ---
**Author:** ![Ephemera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8baadc/32.png) [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2004, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-novels-was-the-doomsday-machine-ever-referenced/282134/25 "2004-12-30T04:00:17Z")
Of course. What kind of Trekkie do you take me for? [http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/help/faqs/faq/676.html](http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/help/faqs/faq/676.html) ---
**Author:** ![Ephemera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8baadc/32.png) [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2004, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-novels-was-the-doomsday-machine-ever-referenced/282134/26 "2004-12-30T04:02:18Z")
By the way, the \*Yesteryear \*exception can now be disputed due to the recent Vulcan trilogy on _Enterprise_. It referenced all the important points that that episode made and made them canon so it can now be ignored again if that is your wont. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2004, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-novels-was-the-doomsday-machine-ever-referenced/282134/27 "2004-12-30T04:21:41Z")
“As a rule of thumb”, and it says what is _not_ canon, not what is. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Ephemera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8baadc/32.png) [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2004, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-novels-was-the-doomsday-machine-ever-referenced/282134/28 "2004-12-30T04:25:29Z")
If an entire series is not canon, then an interview is not either. Roddenberry considered parts of ST:V and ST:VI to be apocryphal and he was the creator of the series but they’re still canon. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2004, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-novels-was-the-doomsday-machine-ever-referenced/282134/29 "2004-12-30T04:36:06Z")
Then I’ll not bother to search for my cite. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2013, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-novels-was-the-doomsday-machine-ever-referenced/282134/30 "2013-04-30T17:24:24Z")
OK, I was looking for something else, and came across this. Thought I’d bump it in case there were some who didn’t know about it. ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2013, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-novels-was-the-doomsday-machine-ever-referenced/282134/31 "2013-04-30T18:19:14Z")
> **[Subaru Ambassador Robert](https://www.youtube.com/SubaruAmbassadorRobertMauro)** > > I'm a Subaru Ambassador who drives a 2019 Subaru Ascent Touring on many #AscentAdventures and makes #SubaruHowTo videos for my followers. Follow me to see my latest #AscentAdventure, and latest tips! The first full length episode “In Harm’s Way” features the return of our lovable neutronium planet eater. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2013, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-novels-was-the-doomsday-machine-ever-referenced/282134/32 "2013-04-30T20:55:57Z")
> [@MacTech](#): > > don’t remember the name of the book, but it also featured an assimilated Ferengi if i remember correctly… Is that when the Borg aquired all those hundreds of “rules of assimilation”? ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2013, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-novels-was-the-doomsday-machine-ever-referenced/282134/33 "2013-05-01T10:00:32Z")
Canon is whatever the show creators considered “true” in their universe for the purposes of making more of the show. There is no inherent reason it has to be limited to or even include all of what is shown on screen. That said, I do think it is possible to determine from what we’ve seen onscreen that **carnivorousplant** ’s assertion is essentially correct. We constantly see them getting supplies from other worlds in order to fix things on the ship. We see them collecting particles from nebulae all the time. We know they even take technology from that episode where the Doctor is backed up onto alien tech. And they constantly have Seven try to integrate Borg tech into their systems. They also are constantly acquiring energy, and we see them using replicators with said energy. So they could likely make any materials they can’t mine from that. Plus, the bare fact that we see them having more shuttles than they started out with means they are getting them from somewhere. The only other idea I have is that they eventually did figure out how to siphon some the seemingly infinite energy from the holodeck. Or maybe acquisition from trade, but we know how adverse Janeway was to that concept. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2013, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-novels-was-the-doomsday-machine-ever-referenced/282134/34 "2013-05-01T10:53:13Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > People who dis Admiral Janeway have issues with their Mothers. My mother may have put her cigarettes out on my arm, forced soap down my mouth when I swore and once she even stole my lawn mowing money to purchase some gin. But as God as my witness my mother never did something so horrible as to inflict _Star Trek Voyager_ on me. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-novels-was-the-doomsday-machine-ever-referenced/282134.md?page=1)