Star Trek: The Lost Era

Development

The Lost Era was designed to be similar to the Star Trek: Section 31 miniseries of novels produced by Pocket Books two years earlier. The idea was to fill in a period of unknown Star Trek timeline between Captain James T. Kirk's death in Star Trek Generations on board the USS Enterprise-B to the events of the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Encounter at Farpoint". This was a period of 70 years that had not been covered by any film or television series before, although some had been mentioned such as the destruction of the USS Enterprise-C and the Tomed Incident. The books were to be unconnected in plot, but with thematic links.

Editor Marco Palmieri later said that the majority of the information already known about the period in Star Trek history was military in nature, with very little known about the social change or first contacts made in the 70-year gap. This meant that the information being presented to potential writers was limited, and resulted in a reduced variety of settings and stories than he'd originally envisaged. He specifically asked writers to look outside the limited information with the exception of two books which would deal with the Tomed and Betraka Nebula incidents, but found that the majority of proposals were related to military actions, political discourse or covert operations. He was able to select the authors for the series based on those pitches.

Palmieri helped to develop some of the elements of the books, with the Neyel created during the course of a phone conversation between him and Michael A. Martin, and would appear in The Sundered. The basic premise of these aliens was that they were to humans as the Romulans were to Vulcans; that being an offshoot race. David R. George III was working on the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine novel Twilight when Palmieri offered him the chance to write The Lost Era novel featuring the Tomed Incident under the requirement that the book had to explain what happened, and additionally for there to be a segue from Twilight into the new book. In preparation for writing a Captain John Harriman story, he read Peter David's The Captain's Daughter, and chose to keep his new work in line with that, creating a background for the character as well in order to explain why he seemed so less capable than Kirk in Star Trek Generations.

Ilsa J. Bick's first Star Trek writing assignment was for The Lost Era miniseries. She created a number of pitches and sent them to Palmieri, who told her to combine several. She then wrote a 50-page single-spaced outline of the novel, which Palmieri passed to Keith DeCandido, another writer on the miniseries. He gave Bick some advice, and she submitted a finished work - but the production team were concerned it was too long. Palmieri decided that the story was worth telling at that length, and chose to run the chapter end/starts on the same page without breaks to save pages and placate the concerned production team.

Novels

1. The Sundered by Michael A. Martin and Andy Mangels (August 2003), set in 2298 aboard the USS Excelsior (NCC-2000) under the command of Captain Hikaru Sulu. This book chronicles the discovery of the Neyel, a race who would again be featured again Star Trek Titan novel, The Red King.
2. Serpents Among the Ruins by David R. George III (September 2003), set in 2311 aboard the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-B) under the command of Captain John Harriman. This book chronicles the events of the Tomed Incident, when the Romulans withdrew from contact with other races.
3. The Art of the Impossible by Keith R. A. DeCandido (October 2003), set in the years 2328-2346 and involving the Cardassians and Klingons in the aftermath of the Betreka Nebula Incident.
4. Well of Souls by Ilsa J. Bick (November 2003), set in 2336 aboard the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-C) under the command of Captain Rachel Garrett.
5. Deny Thy Father by Jeff Mariotte (December 2003), set in the years 2355-2357 and involving parallel stories of William Riker at the Academy and his father, Kyle.
6. Catalyst of Sorrows by Margaret Wander Bonanno (January 2004), set in 2360 and featuring Benjamin Sisko and Tuvok on a covert mission to Romulus.
7. The Buried Age by Christopher L. Bennett (July 2007), involves what happened to Jean-Luc Picard between the loss of the USS Stargazer and his assuming command of the USS Enterprise-D.
8. One Constant Star by David R. George III (June 2014) involves John Harriman and Demora Sulu encountering an unusual planet and the Tzenkethi.