Canon Marches On / Star Trek

• Star Trek: Picard ignores the Star Trek Novel 'Verse, the Star Trek: Countdown comic, and Star Trek Online.
  • In "The Star Gazer", Q expressly acknowledges that he last "parted ways" with Picard back in "All Good Things", overriding past expanded universe stories in which he had "drop[ped] by to say hello from time to time".
• DC Comics' Star Trek #1 was created as a direct sequel to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, and takes place immediately where it left off. Unfortunately for the comic, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock would be released just a few months later, and would also directly follow up on events from Wrath of Khan.
• Shortly after, the DC series reintroduced Captain Koloth in a case of Back for the Dead. The Deep Space Nine episode "Blood Oath" would show Koloth's canonical fate, establishing that he had lived for much longer.
• Exclusive to the DC series, Konom was a Klingon defector who joined Starfleet. In Star Trek: The Next Generation, nearly a century later in-universe, Picard would expressly state that Lieutenant Worf is as yet the only Klingon to have served with Starfleet, not counting the Klingon turned human sleeper agent on a Starfleet vessel whose existence would be classified.
• Following the destruction of the Enterprise in The Search for Spock, DC moved Kirk and crew to the USS Excelsior while Spock had a stint as captain of the science vessel Surak. This would be completely thrown out the airlock in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.
• DC's first miniseries for Star Trek: The Next Generation, contemporary to the show's first season, has a downright wild encounter with Q. He is stripped of his powers by the Continuum two seasons early and does not take it well, accidentally killing Geordi (temporarily) in a suicide attempt, after which a berserk Data beats the crap out of him (which would probably reduce a normal human to literal pulp) in a rage which he will not even approach until the Season 6 finale, and even that was outside interference. On top of that, Q's impotent threat to obliterate everyone is in stark contrast to Q's cool demeanour on-screen and goes beyond even the "unstable" Q of Picard. Q is ultimately spirited away by the other Q, who appear on the Enterprise as multiple John de Lancie clones distinguished by their uniform colors and rank pips, a form of the Continuum which would never be seen on-screen. This whole ordeal would soon be overwritten by season 2's "Q Who", which expressly states that Picard and crew have only met Q the two instances seen on-screen.
• A later DC comic story in the TOS movie era would show that the smooth-forehead Klingons of the Original Series had always lived alongside the ridged-forehead Klingons from The Motion Picture onwards, in line with a suggestion by Gene Roddenberry's. Indeed, that every other Klingon has a smooth forehead makes it easier for the Enterprise crew to go undercover when they travel back to ancient Qo'noS. The DS9 episode "Trials and Tribble-ations" would expose the smooth heads as an oddity in the eyes of 24th century humans, and an uncomfortable truth for the Klingons before an explanation was finally given in the Enterprise episode "Affliction", which established that the smooth heads only came about as a result of the 2154 augment virus.
• The Modala Imperative miniseries has Spock visit the Enterprise-D during season four, which would be overwritten by his on-screen meeting with Picard and Data in Unification.
• The DS9 comic story "Blood and Honor" has a retconned flashback to TOS' "Errand of Mercy" depicting Kor with long hair and cranial ridges, in contrast to his on-screen appearance. For context, this comic was published after Kor was reintroduced as an older bumpy-headed Klingon in Deep Space Nine, but before Trials and Tribble-ations cemented the smooth-headed Klingons in canon.
• The Star Trek Novel 'Verse is Officially Not Canonical, but generally tried to fit in with the series. However, when TV and film seemed to lose interest in the 24th century in favour of prequels and AU prequels, they felt free to make huge changes to the galaxy, which turned out to be entirely incompatiable with the huge changes that took place in the backstory to Star Trek: Picard. As a result, Star Trek: Coda is a Grand Finale designed to wrap up the Novelverse and establish it as an Alternate Continuity.
• The novel Desperate Hours was published a prequel to the first season of Star Trek: Discovery, featuring a team-up between Georgiou's ''Shenzhou'' and Pike's ''Enterprise''. This was quickly overwritten when Discovery reintroduced Pike and Spock in its second season. What made this especially bad is that CBS made a big deal about how from now on, the novelverse writers would be briefed on plans for the series, so that their plots could fit better within the series going forward, and they proved this not to be the case with the very first.
• Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: "A Quality of Mercy" depicts Captain Kirk's previous ship the USS Farragut as a previously unknown class of starship (it resembles the California-class from Star Trek: Lower Decks, albeit without the deflector housing between the nacelles), where Expanded Universe works such as Star Trek: Debt of Honor had assumed she was a Constitution-class ship (supported by it being established that she had a crew of at least 400, similar to her sister ship Enterprise).

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