DMK>Weeell. Paramount has the last copyright say on the books.
DMK>Soo.. that maybe true, but
 Yes, they do, But the main editor of the Trek line is in limited
 contact with Rick Berman. I don't believe that they keep definitive
 notes on how each thing is supposed to work for one simple reason.
 The object for both the TV production and the book publishers is to get
 complete trek stories ready to consume.  If your notes are too rigidly
 adhered to, then there will come a day when you can't produce a show or
 publish a novel because *every* possible submission you have violates
 something.
 Above all else, Paramount must have the resquisite number of episodes
 completed on time and within budget.  The show must go on.  technical
 problems like what the transporter can and can't do are secondary to
 the ethic "the show must go on"
 If it leads to better story telling then that's actually a good thing
 if it leads to technically inane things like are common on Voyager than
 you've got trouble IMHO.
DMK>if Trek stops at the shows then
DMK>that's no good.
DMK>Strategic Militery Advisor,
DMK>U.S.S. Monitor-A
        I don't think that Trek begins or ends anywhere except with me.
 It'll begin and end in slightly different places for you.  It's a
 possibility that the USS Galaxy has been dismantled and it's another
 posssibility that it has not been.  Which ever you choose to work with
 and establish as a piece of your internal "Star Trek" is up to you.
 what I choose to look at is up to me.
        "Canon" refers to the body of work we have in common.  We have
 all seen the TV episodes (most of them, anyway), not all of us have
 read the books.  The shows are the starting point.  However nothing is
 written in stone outside of the shows and even what we see on TV can be
 pretty fluid...
        Personally, there are some elements of the TV episodes that I
 don't like and ignore in my own stories.  It's nothing official, and
 nothing you have to adhere to.  It's just me.
Jay P. Hailey 
 * OLX 2.1 TD * ANSI is banned at San Quentin; too many escape sequences!
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