A think a novel written by, say, D.C. Fontana is/would be canon.
The specific book I am reffering to (dang name escapes me at the moment) is among those that were/are considered canon… they were done as “reference” books like th e Star Trek Maps, Concordance, Tech Manual, Blueprints, etc… novels, on the other hand, are an entirely different matter altogether.
I’ll post what I can find tonite.
There were like twenty writers on that movie, of whom I seem to recall only seven actually making the on-screen credit. I’d have to check to verify the numbers but that’s in the ball park.
Try this.
I think that would be really cool. Of course, I also like the Trek 90210 idea.
Lets face it, I’ll watch anything Trek. At least for a while. I found something worthwhile about ALL the Trek movies and series. I just like Star Trek.
I even watch these.
So bring it on, Abrams. I’m waiting.
thwartme
I can’t think of a way it won’t suck ass.
Re casting Kirk and Spock will probably suck one way or the other.
Ponderosa: the early years or whatever fellated with the utmost allacrity.
We know they won’t die, fir instance. Someone will probably write an Enterprise episode explaining why they look different in their youth. 
It all sounds pretty gay to me
Ok, the book I was reffering to is “Spaceflight Chronology”, published in 1979 and I do believe it was considered canon…
2123 is the date of the launch of the first Enterprise… Declaration Class crewed by 100, 850 Passengers, it was a cruise ship. Warp 3.2 “Starliner”.
2188 is the launch of the COnstitution Class Enterprise, First Captain is listed as Robert April.
Of course, according to this book, the Phaser isnt developed until 2198
2106 - 2109 is the dates for the Romulan War… 70 years before Enterprise 1701, and easily 40-50 years pre- Kirk.
Thwartme… thanks for the link… that is the article I was thinking of.
The official word on what is canon and non-canon in the Star Trek world.
I’m still hoping for a Sulu/Excelsior movie, showing him in a post-Praxis uiverse where the key enemy (the Klingons) have collapsed into semi-anarchy and him getting caught up in some politically-driven conflict with unclear motives…
Uhm. Dark Ages Trek? They’ve done that. What do you think Andromeda was? I’m not joking, it was originally a Star Trek concept. You can guess who the Klingons would have been.
I wouldn’t put it past them, at this point. We’ve got such a funhouse of mirror universes by now, they pull anything out of their butts they like and fob it off as “many worlds” or somesuch.
Hey, why not? Evil Kirk and Spock as gay lovers in a campy Slash musical with sountrack by Sir Elton John?
Great book, I still have it in near mint condition issued when ST TMP was released.
Lots and lots of cool starship paintings by Rick Sternbach. This should have been the backstory used for the early days of the Federation not the stupid drunken Zefram Cochrane nonsense from First Contact.
Example:
First warp drive equipped ship UNSS Bonaventure
Length 206 m
beam 63.4 m
mass 19.4 million kg
speed warp 2.5
range 40 ly
I know, I know such a geek.
Sorry the thread had moved on when I was typing, this was in reference to the “Spaceflight Chronology” mentioned by simster.
Being named after a semi-forgotten Alan Dean Foster novel will do that to you.
And I speak as one who tracked down both of the sequels.
Mrs. Plant, World’s Greatest Trek Authority, has pointed out that from the chess scene in Where No Man Has Gone Before, Kirk and Spock don’t seem to know each other very well yet.
Thanks for the dates on the Romulan War, simster.
I have an evil idea, but it involves William Shatner and way too much botox singing Hava Nagila. On the plus side, he occasionally slaps Tom Cruise, Bugs Bunny-style.
Ah, the curse of the Kosher Ham.
They’re not evil. They’re FAB–u-Lous.
This is a worthy idea. I think the single most damaging thing that could happen to the Federation (to all spacefaring empires in the Trek universe, in fact) is that warp and subspace radio stops working, or they become too risky and expensive for anyone to attempt. This almost happened in TNG, but (IIRC) they played with the idea that the warp drives were ripping up the space-time continuum for a few episodes and then ignored it. Typical TV show junk.
Anyway, some ideas occur:
Warp drives and subspace radios really are ripping up the space-time continuum and anyone using them has a moderate and increasing risk of punching through to … where? When? Who the hell knows. Nobody has ever been back, or even sent word.
This means that the Federation and the Cardassian Empire and whoever else exists in the universe you want to set this in just gradually falls apart. Ships with needed supplies and new blood and transmissions with information of the outside world become less and less frequent, more and more impoverished themselves, and eventually cease completely. The people on those worlds retain the language and culture they inherited from their mother world, but gradually adopt both to their new lifestyles. It’s like the Roman Empire falling apart into (almost) everyone from the British Isles to Constatinople and Palestine. Systems within ‘walking distance’ of each other (impulse speed and EM radio) can maintain trade, but nothing like what they had before. A few ships become marooned out in deep space because they no longer want to risk warp, or they didn’t have enough fuel to go both ways and though they’d find a full starport but didn’t.
There’s probably fodder for a couple good series set in that universe, maybe a few movies as well. The plots would have to center around specific groups facing specific problems, as opposed to trying to tackle the entire collapse of multiple empires. Gradual decay doesn’t provide much dramatic tension. 
Something that came to me when I first saw the phrase ‘Dark Ages Trek’ was the story of the Eugenics Wars and/or World War III. I don’t even think the Official Bible is quite clear on whether they are the same war or one causing the other or what. I know I’m not, so I’ll cavlierly state that the Eugenics Wars caused World War III by provoking someone (I’m looking at you, America) into the first use of nuclear weapons against the army of supermen lead by our pal, KHAAAAAAN!
America, circa 1992, was a hell of a lot further advanced in genetics than it was in OTL. The disastrous Apollo 12 convinced us to get out of the space race (we’d been to the Moon once already) and into genetics, pouring the huge budget that would have gone to NASA into some universities that claimed to be ‘thiiis close’ to fully sequencing the human genome. The money paid off and by 1974 we had a full sequence. By 1981 we had FDA-approved genetically-engineered antibiotics, and by 1992 we were looking at the next step: cloning a human being. In an election year, no less.
Congress and the President halted the plan completely. The funding dried up and the scientists were harried out of America and into Europe, where they found a much nicer regulatory régime. However, they didn’t know that their work was being duplicated in Asia by people living without any regulatory régime whatsoever, but tons of China White. Those Asian labs produced Khan and his warriors, who quickly killed off the drug lords (with American help) and killed off the Americans (with Chinese help). The American President signed Gulf of Tonkin Part Deux and the Eugenics Wars were on.
Imagine trying to fight a regiment full of people who make the Green Berets look like Special Olympiads in every possible respect. Imagine if that regiment could breed regiments in a few months and train them in a few more. Moral terror is indeed their greatest weapon. Nuclear weapons might not sound like that bad of an idea.
The story of Ephraim Cochrane seems interesting, if only as a point of view throughout all of the preceding. I presume he had a very good job in some cutting-edge research lab prior to the Big Blowup and that he was working on something very like warp drives when it happened. There is probably a good reason he was able to get at those unfired missiles, as well. Not to mention a reason those missiles weren’t fired to begin with.
Cervaise: Your idea in the linked thread is probably the best basis for a continuing series, and I suppose that is where the soul of Trek really lives. Good job.
Oh, be-HAVE!
Thanks. As I described in that thread, I was really happy with the idea, and with its potential for being both broad and deep, until Galactica came along and stole most of its thunder.
(Another component of my scenario would have been similar to your notion about reducing the use of warp drive and subspace communication, except that I came at it from the standpoint of energy sources. Ships in Trek have basically limitless power plants, and subspace relays positioned every couple of lightyears make quadrant-wide radio possible. My apocalyptic attack would have (a) destroyed a large part of whatever mines or resources were being used to fuel everything, and (b) eliminated almost all of the subspace relays. So the technology still exists and can be used, but not casually because there’s a premium. It sounds like we’re definitely on the same page with this stuff.)
(But like I said: damn Galactica. :))
Icerigger: I misspelled Cochrane’s name, didn’t I? Damn it. :smack:
Cervaise: We have the same basic idea: Get rid of the damned tech! How that’s accomplished is basically irrelevant, as long as everyone doesn’t end up borged in the process or similar.
Maybe the problem is that Roddenberry was too optimistic for his own good. From all I’ve heard of the guy, he really wanted to help craft a utopia and Star Trek was his manifesto. Omnipotent, benevolent tech was part of the vision, even if it destroys all sense of dramatic tension unless you can craft really tight character-driven stories. I think DS9 did that the most often of all the series. Any new Trek series will have to take DS9’s lessons into a very un-Trek-like universe to be anything near effective.
And if it’s any good, it will be accused of ripping off B5 and Galactica and Firefly.