Ending a Timeline: A Star Trek Coda Primer
On November 30th 2021, an era of Star Trek that has been running for almost 20 years will end.
After the release and flop of 2002’s Star Trek Nemesis, owner and parent company Paramount seemed happy to let the adventures of The Next Generation crew rest, to say nothing of the crews from Deep Space 9 and Voyager. After all, they had the new hotness in the ongoing series of Enterprise that started in 2001. The future of the franchise lay in the past, with the adventures of Captain Archer and his pre-Kirk Enterprise crew.
Unfortunately, it was completely cut short in 2005 due to dismal ratings and a middling pair of early seasons that struggled to find an audience. However, Paramount still had no major plans for a new show set anywhere in the main Star Trek canon. Ideas would still bounce around, and JJ Abrams would bring a reboot of the original series with his own stylistic flair in 2009’s Star Trek trilogy.
This left Pocket Books, the publishers of official Star Trek fiction, in a unique position. The fans were still buying the books, eager to see what would come in the world of the 24th century. Paramount seemed to have a complete disinterest in continuing the franchise, and was even in the middle of rebooting it. So, why not just do your own thing?
Which is exactly what the writers gathered under Pocket Books’ Star Trek umbrella began to do. What resulted was 19 years of massive, game-changing character expansion and adventure that felt fresh and original… or at least, something many fans wanted in their further adventures of Star Trek.
Arguably the most popular, and having just ended in 2001, Star Trek: Deep Space 9 went first. A series of novels started with Avatar books 1 and 2 by S.D. Perry and explored what happened after the grand finale of Deep Space 9’s What You Leave Behind. What of the uneasy peace with the Dominion? The leftover Jem’Hadar soldiers who live for war and die for their Founders? Did Ben Sisko ever return from his time with the Profits? Those answers are actually found in these books.
2003 brought a small set of books after Star Trek: Voyager as well. Author Christie Golden would pen four novels featuring the ongoing adventures of the Voyager crew. Homecoming and its sequel The Farther Shore would spin right out of Endgame, the finale for the series. How was the crew of Voyager welcomed home after the Dominion War changed everything? How did Janeway get that promotion to Admiral we saw in Star Trek: Nemesis? Is the Doctor still treated as a sentient life form? Did Harry Kim ever get a freaking promotion? Again, all of those questions get answered here in a delightful little thriller.
Golden would also continue following the adventures of Captain Chakotay and his ship, the Voyager, in the Spirit Walk duology. For anyone who’s wanted to see a crew grow and change beyond the status quo of syndicated network television, this is just the start of what would come for the Voyager crew.
2004 had seen the Pocket Books authors explore the time before Nemesis for the Next Generation cast with the A Time To… series. This would feature 9 different books that would explore and expand upon where everyone was at the start of the movie, and would even explain weird background things like why Wesley Crusher was in a Starfleet Uniform during the wedding of Commander Riker and Deanna Troi during the movie. 2005, though, would finally be the start of what was the big novel experiment.
It began subtly, with a The Next Generation novel called Death in Winter by longtime writer Michael Jan Friedman. Recovering from having lost Commander Data, as well as Commander Riker and Deanna Troi having moved on to the Titan, Captain Picard has to flesh out his crew roster, and also deal with what looks to be the loss of Beverly Crusher deep in Romulan territory. While Beverly is alive, luckily, the real twist comes at the climax of the novel when Picard confesses his romantic feelings for Beverly during a climactic phaser battle between Romulan dissidents and fascists. And unlike most of the times anything close to this has happened during Star Trek: The Next Generation, Beverly eventually reciprocates his feelings!
With the status quo changed beyond normal, Star Trek: Voyager would tie in with the next novels. Resistance by J.M. Dillard, Q&A by Keith R.A. DeCandido, Before Dishonor by Peter David, and Greater than the Sum by Christopher L. Bennett would further change what fans expected. Q&A would feature an explanation for why the being known as Q would continually mess with Picard and the crew of the Enterprise. It concerns the beings above the all-powerful Q, known only as Them, and what They may plan for the universe if Picard isn’t ready.
Resistance, Before Dishonor, and Greater than the Sum, on the other hand? They would bring the Borg back in a big way.
While Resistance was mostly a set-up, it still featured Admiral Janeway and Captain Picard teaming up their people to take on a Borg cube stranded in the Alpha Quadrant of space. With Earth under threat, Picard had to assume the mantle of Locutus once more to stop the cube, leaving it dormant. However, Starfleet can’t leave well enough alone and begins to poke at it. This party is lead by recently-promoted Admiral Janeway.
This incessant poking wakes it up in Before Dishonor. To make matters worse, the Borg evolve at this point to consume directly rather than through the previous methods of assimilation. The entire cube bends and twists itself to absorb and assimilate the Starfleet scientists inside… including Admiral Janeway. Further, the new Borg intend to dive into the Sol System and devour the Earth. In fact, in one of the most bizarre and outlandish things Peter David has done with Star Trek, the Borg actually devour the dwarf planet/actual planet Pluto.
"It's eating Pluto," Nechayev said in wonderment. "It's absorbing the sphere's mass; it's eating the damned world."
"That's impossible," said Jellico, knowing that it was in fact anything but.
The visual on the screen began to match what the instrumentation was already telling them. Pluto was becoming smaller and smaller, while the Borg cube was increasing exponentially.
It was a slow, painful process to watch as Pluto continued to shrink. The Borg cube swelled like a mosquito or a tick siphoning blood.
"How the hell is it doing that?" wondered Jellico. "There's nothing technologically based...nothing..."
"It's mass," said Nechayev. "Matter. Matter that the cube is transforming into energy and back into matter again, along with the starships and the...bodies it's absorbed."
It took five minutes. Five minutes for the Borg cube, which had gained nearly a third in size by Galloway's estimates, to finish devouring Pluto.
"Well, at least that solves the issue of whether it's a planet or not," Nechayev commented. Jellico looked at her, appalled at the seeming callousness, and then saw beyond her deadpan observation to the barely controlled horror that was reflected in her eyes.
Luckily, Seven of Nine is able to bond with the wreck of the planet-killer from The Original Series episode The Doomsday Machine and uses it to stop the evolved Borg before it can devour the Earth… at the cost of everyone who had been absorbed by these Borg.
Including Admiral Janeway.
During the releases of these books, fans of Captain Riker and Counselor Troi would get their books as well. Star Trek: Titan would begin getting books that would primarily focus at first on the new political landscape of the Romulan Empire after the events of Star Trek: Nemesis. These books would also make use of Commander Tuvok from Voyager and even bring in minor characters from across the 24th century. Sadly, these books do not really match up with the Titan we see in Lower Decks.
Greater than the Sum would finish the trilogy of Borg books by having the Enterprise-E and its crew track down the USS Einstein, a federation ship that had been assimilated by the Borg during the events of Before Dishonor. With this done, the threat of the Borg was over for now, right?
Right?
No.
You see, the Borg were mad now. Opening a rip in space in the middle of the Alpha Quadrant, the Borg begin sending hundreds of cubes through to annihilate anything in their way. Not assimilate, not absorb, not even study. All non-Borg life was now determined to be not worth the trouble, and needed to be wiped off the face of the Galaxy.
Entire worlds, like the pleasure planet Risa are razed to barren rock. Friends and family of main characters die, and even a few fan favorites. Just as it all seems hopeless, a mission from the 22nd century turns out to have the key to resolving this mess… bringing the Enterprise era into the novel in a solid and clever way. The book even attempts to explain where the Borg came from, though fans don’t need to take it as truth.
The Destiny trilogy is nothing short of fantastic, and the sheer damage done by the Borg to the universe reverberates through the rest of this branch of the franchise.
A refugee crisis ripples up and down the Federation as those now without a home try to find a place to live. Key worlds of the Federation choose to leave thanks to the Federation being overwhelmed by the crisis. Andoria (for example) would join an alliance with the Romulans, Breen, and other old adversaries. This is called the Typhon Pact, and became a 9 book series on its own. Most of the content here would be covered by the cast from The Next Generation and Deep Space 9, with the Titan doing it’s own thing. As for Voyager?
Starfleet sends it back to the Delta Quadrant.
Starting in a line of novels with Full Circle, the cast and crew of Voyager are followed through a year of recovery and trauma from the events of Before Dishonor and the Destiny trilogy. Starfleet wants to check on the Borg, to see if what the Destiny novels’ ending claim has truly happened… and sends the Voyager back alongside a small fleet of exploration vessels and long-term supply ships. This amusingly has a similar effect on Voyager’s novels that it had during the television air time, leaving it separated from the entire franchise as it does it’s own thing. This is actually still a good thing, however, as author Kirsten Beyer has a knack for fleshing out the cast of Voyager and making the most out of dangling plot threads from the series.
As the Typhon Pact mini-series drew to a close, there would be a trilogy of books dealing with machines and the 24th century. Called Cold Equations and written by David Mack, the unifying link between all three books is a loose thread of electronic life and if it can co-exist with organic life. Book one, The Persistence of Memory, actually spends a whole book working out a way to resurrect Data from what everyone had assumed was his final death. Silent Weapons brings up the idea that someone is developing an army of androids like Data, while The Body Electric focuses on a massive machine at the center of the galaxy capable of causing great chaos. While not as emotionally impactful as the Destiny trilogy, these books help shape the 24th century and grow the cast of The Next Generation in unexpected ways.
While most books would remain stand-alone after this, there were still some collections of plot. The Fall that follows up on the Typhon Pact novels, further fleshing out the political landscape of the universe while also allowing the cast of Star Trek to change and grow beyond their limits of television. Prey was another trilogy, featuring an old Klingon foe who has returned to exterminate the Federation once and for all… but Worf has his suspicions.
And that brings us to an end with this primer. While you will be missing a ton of smaller information, this sums up a lot of what most fans will need to start reading the Coda series right away. However, don’t hesitate to jump into these novels! While we may hit 87 of them by the time the final book releases, some of these books feature the best character work, action sequences, and science fiction that the franchise has to offer.
In the end, while it may end, the journey is always worth it.
