Continuity
Star Trek spin-off fiction frequently fills in "gaps" within the televised show, often making use of backstage information or popular fan belief. Although officially licensed spin-off material will often maintain continuity within itself (particularly within books by the same authors), elements often contradict each other irreconcilably. For example, the end of Kirk's five-year mission has been depicted in a number of different incompatible ways.
Much fiction is set in a second five-year mission of Kirk's Enterprise, which the Okuda chronology dates after Star Trek: The Motion Picture (although novels often placed it before). Backstories and fates of characters are often elaborated on, an example being Leonard McCoy's divorced status, and his daughter, Joanna, originally intended to appear in what became the TOS episode "The Way to Eden".
Several original series characters are established as still being alive in the TNG era, including McCoy, Spock, and Scotty. In the books written by William Shatner, these are joined by a revived Captain Kirk. Several novels depict the careers of the younger members of the Enterprise crew after Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Captain Sulu and his daughter Demora Sulu appear in Peter David's novel The Captain's Daughter. In the novel The Sundered, Chekov serves as Sulu's first officer on the USS Excelsior. The novel Federation has Chekov eventually becoming an admiral. Uhura is shown, in the novel Catalyst of Sorrows, to be Chief of Starfleet Intelligence in 2360. The 2006 novel Vulcan's Soul: Exiles has an Admiral Pavel Chekov, and Uhura is still serving as head of Starfleet Intelligence in 2377, at the age of 138. Peter David's novel Imzadi explores the backstory between Riker and Troi, and its sequel Triangle: Imzadi II covers the cooling of the Worf/Troi relationship, which was left unexplained on screen.
Spin-off fiction will often use re-use characters who appeared only once or twice in the actual show. Dr. Selar has appeared in more TNG novels than television episodes, and she and Elizabeth Shelby, who appeared in the two-part episode "The Best of Both Worlds" are major characters in the Star Trek: New Frontier series. The cast of the Starfleet Corps of Engineers series largely comes from such guest parts. Similarly, the IKS Gorkon series features Klingon characters drawn from a variety of TNG and DS9 episodes.
The spin-off fiction has also engaged in world building. Novels in the 1980s by Diane Duane and John M. Ford established a complex backstory and culture for the Romulans (Rihannsu) and Klingons respectively, which were later not taken up by TNG.
Read more about this topic: Star Trek Spin-off Fiction
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“There is never a beginning, there is never an end, to the inexplicable continuity of this web of God, but always circular power returning into itself.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
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“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
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