Post Star Trek: Nemesis book timeline may be continuing

It looks like the timeline established in the Star Trek novel series in the wake of Star Trek: Nemesis may be continuing despite the Picard series.

Spoilers follow for several Star Trek novels. If you haven’t read them, don’t read this.

If you are a more casual Star Trek fan, then the idea of the Star Trek: Picard series no doubt has you very excited. After all this time you will finally get an update on some of the beloved characters you haven’t seen since Star Trek: Nemesis arrived in theaters back in 2002.

However, if you are more of a serious Trekker, one who faithfully reads the Star Trek novels published by Pocket Books, you never really had to say goodbye. Because as you already know, the events seen in Nemesis were only the beginning of the story.

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Back in 2004, it appeared that the story of the Next Generation Era, which included Deep Space Nine and Voyager, was over. Nemesis was a solid box office disappointment and Paramount was already looking to try something new with the next film.

Thankfully, no one at Pocket Books was told that. Starting in 2004 they began to change the Star Trek novel line from an “adventure of the week” format to something much more similar to what the Marvel Cinematic Universe would become. All the various books from the Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager lines would instead form one cohesive storyline that while they could be read separately, when read together formed a single narrative.

It all began with the nine volume A Time To… series written by various authors which set up the events leading up to Nemesis. Then things kicked into high gear with the publication of Death in Winter by Michael Jan Friedman, which dealt with the unresolved Picard/Crusher relationship and Titan: Taking Wing, which followed the adventures of Captain Riker.

Since then, over 70 novels have been published, chronicling the Next Generation Era of Star Trek. It has seen Picard and Crusher get married and have a son, the destruction of Deep Space Nine, the return of Benjamin Sisko, a new alliance of worlds called the Typhon Pact, the resurrection of Data and much more.

And now the future of those stories are in jeopardy thanks to Star Trek: Picard. With Patrick Stewart returning to the world of Star Trek, a new continuity will likely be established ignoring the Scimitar Timeline altogether.

(The Scimitar Timeline is what I’ve decided to call the timeline from the novels. If we can have a timeline named after the U.S.S. Kelvin then why not a timeline named after a Romulan warship?)

And while we’ll always have the older books to reread, not getting any new stories from this timeline would be a real shame. Unless, of course, there are plans to continue the print stories of the post Nemesis era?

Dayton Ward was promoting his new Star Trek novel Available Light on his Twitter and we decided to ask him about the future of the novel timeline. His answer gave us some hope.

I could tell you, but then I'd have to process you through the Atavachron and pitch you back into Sarpeidon's ice age.
— The Dayton Ward who used to be blue-checked (@daytonward) March 13, 2019

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Does this answer the question in any definitive way? No, but it also doesn’t exactly close the door on the Scimitar Timeline either. It sure seems there are plans afoot to keep new stories from this era in the pipeline. Which should make an number of Trek fans very happy.

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Available Light by Dayton Ward arrives on April 9. Hopefully more books will follow sooner rather that later.

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