Alternate History in Star Trek part 5: Early TOS Pocket Books novels

[Gary Oswald]

Discuss this article by @Thande here

 

[Thande]

Thanks for finding some cover images you could use Gary, I know it's not easy. edit: and also putting in links to my previous articles.

I think this one may be of interest even to people who aren't interested in Star Trek, because this is really where a lot of fanfiction tropes came into the limelight and attitudes between different groups of fans emerged - which would be repeated again in many other fandoms, but seldom would the line between fanfiction and official fiction be so blurred.

I wish I'd had time to go through more of the cheesy EXCITED TAGLINES ABOVE THE TITLE! in the Pocket Books novels, because they're a huge part of the charm.

 

[Charles EP M.]

a relatively late exercise in Roddenberry’s headcanon that there were only 12 such ships

?!?!??!?!

 

[Thande]

?!?!??!?!

Seems weird given our sense of scale now, but I think he was basing it on the fact that in the WW2 Pacific War there were a relatively small number of aircraft carriers, and losing four at Midway was a catastrophic war-changing defeat for the Japanese, etc. See here from Memory Alpha:

There may only be twelve Constitution-class ships as of the first season episode "Tomorrow is Yesterday", but the line this was drawn from ("there are only twelve like it in the fleet") has given rise to speculation that the Enterprise should be excluded from the count, meaning there could be thirteen Constitution-class ships as of that date. The twelve ship assertion was actually supported by production sources, as The Making of Star Trek (pp. 163, 203) clearly stated that, as far as the production staff was concerned, the intent was that there were twelve operational ships of the class foreseen for the second season by the time of its production, the Enterprise included and taking into account the two ships, USS Valiant and USS Farragut, already established as being destroyed in the first season episode "A Taste of Armageddon", and already foreseen as mentioned destroyed in the second season episode "Obsession", respectively. Kirk's statement then neatly corresponded with the twelve ship assumption; two, the Farragut and Valiant, presumed destroyed before the remark, with the USS Constellation (in "The Doomsday Machine", and already accounted for by D.C. Fontana in her memo version, though it was still in operation at the time of "Tomorrow is Yesterday" canonically) and USS Intrepid (in "The Immunity Syndrome") being destroyed after the remark.

It should be noted that the inclusion of the Valiant was a late addition and that it was not even considered in the first two proposals. This, canonically speaking at least, constituted somewhat of a conundrum, an observation not lost on Greg Jein, as he had noted that the ship in question was already destroyed in 2217, whereas the Constitutions only became operational a decade later as far as was established by the producers. [7] While another, new ship would have made more sense, the intent of the producers was clear, the class was retro-applied to the lost ship. Yet, the twelve ship statement only held true under the supposition that the Defiant – not foreseen by the producers – had not yet been commissioned, which is open to debate; otherwise, and this was implied by the fact that the ship was already fully operational less than a year later, the thirteen ship number became valid.

And indeed, this only became firmly established – and thus canon – when Defiant was in dialog mentioned operational as early as 2256 in the 2018 Discovery episode "Despite Yourself", meaning that Defiant was not even a recent class addition, but actually one of the older class vessels, its highest onscreen established Original Series-era registry, as devised by Jein, notwithstanding. The teleplay writers for ENT: "In a Mirror, Darkly" on the other hand, had already adopted Jein's reasoning with the inclusion of a script note in the final draft script which read, "We'll suggest the Defiant is a slightly newer vessel than Kirk’s ship; the exterior shows slightly more detail...".

I may have misrepresented it by implying it was only Roddenberry saying this - clearly it was the general assumption during TOS' production.

 

[Ciclavex]

Seems weird given our sense of scale now, but I think he was basing it on the fact that in the WW2 Pacific War there were a relatively small number of aircraft carriers, and losing four at Midway was a catastrophic war-changing defeat for the Japanese, etc. See here from Memory Alpha:



I may have misrepresented it by implying it was only Roddenberry saying this - clearly it was the general assumption during TOS' production.

It actually does fit into discussions had elsewhere on the forum over the Enterprise of TOS being a notable ship but not the notable ship it would be such that the Enterprise of TNG is presumed to be the flagship because she has the name Enterprise. If there were only ever 12-13 Constitution-class vessels in service and these ships were the best and top-of-the-line of the fleet as a sort of flagship class — and we can account for the loss of so many in service, and then also can account for the Yorktown having been rechristened the Enterprise-A, we can see how the name Enterprise emerged as being that of the flagship of the Federation for more than just its service under Captain Pike and Captain Kirk (though surely that plays a role as well).

 

[Bruno]

Nice article.

You missed a chance to point out that "Ishmael" is packed with "cameos" by characters from nearly every science-fiction and western TV show that was on the air from the 1960's to 80's. The wikipedia article on the book has a whole section on it.

 

[Thande]

Nice article.

You missed a chance to point out that "Ishmael" is packed with "cameos" by characters from nearly every science-fiction and western TV show that was on the air from the 1960's to 80's. The wikipedia article on the book has a whole section on it.

I've not read it myself so I missed that. But then, while I'd probably have noticed those, I managed to read "How Much For Just the Planet?" without realising that's packed with cameos for other Star Trek authors and even Neil Gaiman...