The two (or more?) worlds of StarTrek...
The fact that something has to be wrong with the Star Trek background becomes obvious especially in the 8th Star Trek movie, since a completely new Cochrane and also a completely new history of both Warp-technology and Vulcanians is showed here. The series "Enterprise" is built on these new facts that contradict the reality of Captain Kirk's adventures (TOS). If not more, Captain Picard's years (TNG) also do not fit together with this story.
As of 1997 I started to conclude that the old Star Trek with Kirk & Co. was being ousted more and more – deleting Star Trek V (yes, not a really good movie except for the opening scene) and the cartoon (TAS) from the "official" universe was obviously only the beginning! And all of the books have always been ignored anyway.
On the following pages I tried to reconstruct the original background in a timeline. The complete Star Trek material, already released at Roddenberry's times, fits to this "original timeline". As already mentioned the TNG-cinema movies as well as the series Enterprise belong to the "new paramount timeline", mainly based on the strange chronology of Denise and Michael Okuda. The 7th Star Trek movie, in which Kirk and Picard occur, also has to be counted to this 2nd universe and hereby solves the problem of Scotty having seen Kirk's death in this movie; years later though, in the 4th season TNG, Scotty first believes that the Enterprise led by Kirk has found him. So there are obviously two different Star-Trek-Universes.
Voyager is also a part of the "new paramount timeline": Its Borg are based on the 8th Star Trek. Here the complete Borg organism no longer exists, instead they are organised like a bee colony led by a Queen. The original Borg ignored everything irrelevant like visitors on their ships. The later Borg use assimilation as a weapon and are open for negotiations, act tactically, etc. Also, Picard is no longer the first to have had contact to the Borg. (The Borg in the "original timeline" were still so far away 2364 that only Q could cover the distance). Now the ones to have had the first contact are scientists who long before had known about the Borg and searched for them. (Later they are assimilated, their daughter is then called Seven-of-Nine.)
The knowledge about the Borg in the "new paramount timeline" probably comes from Captain Archer of the Enterprise, who meets lost Borg from the 8th Star Trek movie. This Archer commands a Starfleet Ship also named Enterprise that Captain Kirk doesn't know about at all (see First Star Trek movie). Likewise Spock is no longer the first Vulcanian in the Starfleet and also mankind in the "new paramount timeline" has known what pon-far is for centuries. The congenial scientist Crochane is a human now and the constructor and pilot of the first warp ship, which contradicts the Crochane we know from Captain Kirk's adventures in every respect. Someone took Roddenberry's Startrek and rewrote all aspects!
Roddenberry had invented the Ferengi as an alliance including several solar systems and as a people who were supposed to be military opponents of the Federation. It was not by chance that Picard established eye contact with this alien folk only after 25 years of exploration.
In the "new paramount timeline", however, the Ferengis are not a new people, as they had already appeared during Archer's times. Also, they are no longer a military power but rather hideous clowns. Even though I used to be a DSG fan – their background and adventures are obviously also part of the "new paramount timeline".
To keep up a realistic background the new series unfortunately have to be divided into a "new" and an "old" Star Trek. This is obviously the new Star Trek creative staff's full intention. But compare the two universes yourself on the following pages....
What accounts for the books, one can only state that some align with the "original timeline", others with the "new paramount Star Trek" based on Okuda's timeline, and yet again other good but freely invented books are based on an unspecified Star Trek.
