What happened to the Reliant crew after TWOK?

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Have any Trek novels dealt with what happened to the survivors of the Reliant after TWOK?

For example, did any of them die while awaiting rescue? I always wondered about that.

I mean, I'm just gonna hazard a guess that Khan didn't leave any of them stranded outside (if he had, they DAMN sure would have died), so I suppose there were enough cargo containers to house them all...

 

[Markonian]

Were they not dropped off on a habitable planet?
Various tie-ins show Starfleet immediately readied a new Miranda-class USS Reliant NCC-1864. They probably wouldn’t have if the crew had suffered significant losses.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Were they not dropped off on a habitable planet?

Did Ceti Alpha V look habitable to you?

 

[Mister Spock]

Hawaii, to catch some surf.

 

[Markonian]

Did Ceti Alpha V look habitable to you?

Did the Augments leave the Reliant crew in their Botany housing?

 

[Avro Arrow]

Have any Trek novels dealt with what happened to the survivors of the Reliant after TWOK?

For example, did any of them die while awaiting rescue? I always wondered about that.

I thought I recall one of the movie novelizations for either II or III mentioned Starfleet dispatching a ship to go pick them up, but I don't remember much beyond that.

I believe Kyle at least showed up in some later works, so presumably at least some of them survived. The only other named crewmember (other than Chekov and Terrell) was Commander Beach. MB indicates he was in Higher Frontier, but I haven't read that yet, so I don't know if it takes place before or after TWOK.

Various tie-ins show Starfleet immediately readied a new Miranda-class USS Reliant NCC-1864.

They did? Which ones are those?

 

[Markonian]

The new Reliant appears in two Ships of the Line calendars alongside the Enterprise-A.
It appears, sans registry, in Birth of the Federation, set in the early 2360s.
Next, the ship is depicted in Sisko’s Wolf 359 holo in “Program 359”.
Finally, it is one of at least two ships named USS Reliant active in 2411 in STO.

The Reliant is mentioned, e.g. as an early assignment for Picard, but not seen/classed.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Did the Augments leave the Reliant crew in their Botany housing?

One would hope so. There's no other place on that planet they could survive.

 

[Tuskin38]

Finally, it is one of at least two ships named USS Reliant active in 2411 in STO.

No there's a single ship named Reliant and it's a Reliant class. There's no Miranda Class reliant active in the 25th Century.
The blog cited in on the Memory-Beta page is written out of universe. It's not an in-universe story blog. I've removed it now.

Next, the ship is depicted in Sisko’s Wolf 359 holo in “Program 359”.

If it's a Miranda with the same registry, that was probably just an artistic mistake.

 

[David cgc]

If it's a Miranda with the same registry, that was probably just an artistic mistake.

Same with the SotL images, it's common for models to be built with a registry "baked-in," usually the first ship of that type seen, and not everyone is persnickety about ship markings (if the model was built by someone who didn't make the ship, it might not even be possible to change the registry without a lot of work). I wouldn't be surprised if the odd "1864" Miranda or "2000" Excelsior was legible for a split-second during DS9 or VGR, too.

As for the Reliant crew, the end of TWOK mentioned that the Enterprise was planning to retrieve them, the TSFS novelization said another ship took care of it. I think they were mentioned in "To Rule in Hell," but I don't recall the specifics. Oddly, in "War Dragons," it was a plot point that they'd all been killed, it seemed like the lines from TWOK about the crew being marooned and (slated to be) rescued were overlooked.

 

[Avro Arrow]

Oddly, in "War Dragons," it was a plot point that they'd all been killed, it seemed like the lines from TWOK about the crew being marooned and (slated to be) rescued were overlooked.

TBF, Terrell was under mental control when he said the crew was marooned, and was therefore an unreliable narrator… and Khan didn’t seem to have any issues with mass murder. So that’s technically a valid interpretation.

Presumably Kirk would have confirmed the crew’s status with Chekov after his recovery before making that log entry, but maybe not? And it would be one possible explanation for why they said they were going to pick them up, and then they weren’t there in TSFS. (With other possibilities being that another ship took care of it, as you mentioned, or the Enterprise did it, but then dropped them off somewhere before the events of TSFS.)

As I mentioned above, other tie-ins used Kyle later in the timeline, so I prefer the interpretation that the crew was rescued. But he never appeared in any later canon works, so writing that the crew was actually killed (and Terrell “lied” in TWOK) doesn’t contradict anything I’m aware of.

 

[Jedi Marso]

TBF, Terrell was under mental control when he said the crew was marooned, and was therefore an unreliable narrator… and Khan didn’t seem to have any issues with mass murder. So that’s technically a valid interpretation.

Not mind control, per se, but 'extremely susceptible to suggestion.' No reason for Terrell to lie unless he was being told to, and in the end he overcame Khan's orders and killed himself instead. Checkov never even looked like he would try to fire on his old shipmates. Suggesstion can only carry you so far.

 

[Markonian]

No there's a single ship named Reliant and it's a Reliant class. There's no Miranda Class reliant active in the 25th Century.
The blog cited in on the Memory-Beta page is written out of universe. It's not an in-universe story blog. I've removed it now.
.

Hold your horses. STO has numerous examples of ships with the same name or registry active at the same time. We’ve seen stuff like that since TNG.
The image in the blog is a screenshot, just like the images of most other blogs. They represent the objective reality of Star Trek. The USS Reliant NCC-1864 can be seen in-game on the Starfleet Starship Operations Interface. Ergo, the ship exists and is active in 2411, alongside the Reliant-class Reliant.

 

[urbandefault]

Have any Trek novels dealt with what happened to the survivors of the Reliant after TWOK?

For example, did any of them die while awaiting rescue? I always wondered about that.

I mean, I'm just gonna hazard a guess that Khan didn't leave any of them stranded outside (if he had, they DAMN sure would have died), so I suppose there were enough cargo containers to house them all...

Were they not dropped off on a habitable planet? <snip>

Tahiti. It's a magical place.

Just sayin'.

 

[Avro Arrow]

STO has numerous examples of ships with the same name or registry active at the same time. We’ve seen stuff like that since TNG.

I've never played STO in my life, so I'm probably biased, but I would assume Starfleet would only allow a given name to be assigned to one active ship at a time, much like our real-life navies.*

I also don't like the thought of them reusing registries (looking at you, "What You Leave Behind" stock footage. If the budgetary realities of television weren't an issue, I'm sure we would have seen the registry from the dedication plaque instead.). If they did reuse registries, then presumably the new Enterprise in TVH would have still been NCC-1701.

* Now that I've said this, I'm sure someone will be along shortly to point out the rare occasions where it may have happened in real life!

They represent the objective reality of Star Trek.

I think you missed the word "Online" at the end of that sentence!

Not mind control, per se, but 'extremely susceptible to suggestion.' No reason for Terrell to lie unless he was being told to, and in the end he overcame Khan's orders and killed himself instead. Checkov never even looked like he would try to fire on his old shipmates. Suggesstion can only carry you so far.

Fair enough, but I still think that if you wanted to believe the interpretation in "War Dragons", you don't have to work too hard to get there.

 

[Tuskin38]

The image in the blog is a screenshot, just like the images of most other blogs. They represent the objective reality of Star Trek. The USS Reliant NCC-1864 can be seen in-game on the Starfleet Starship Operations Interface. Ergo, the ship exists and is active in 2411, alongside the Reliant-class Reliant.

Nope. It's a dev blog, not a story blog. It's not in-universe writing. The screenshots in the blog are not In-lore images, they're just there to show off the revamped model to the players.

Reliant was just the name they gave the default Miranda class costume (which appears in the ship selection because it just grabs the default costume) because it was the most (in)famous Miranda in the franchise.

If a generic NPCs share the same name, it's because the mission editor never modified that NPC to have a unique name. Like if you're playing a mission fighting the Terran Empire, every single Pathfinder in that mission will be called 'ISS Pathfinder', because that's just the name given to the default Mirror Pathfinder costume. It doesn't mean the Terrans have several dozen ships named ISS Pathfinder.

Take a cue from the stowiki.net editors. We only add uniquely named ships, or ones that if you click on them in game, the name shows up on the targeting UI.

 

[Tallguy]

The novel of TSFS had another ship (not full of cadets) going to pick them up.

Their First Officer didn't seem all that concerned.

 

[Csalem]

The novel of TSFS had another ship (not full of cadets) going to pick them up.

Their First Officer didn't seem all that concerned.

Sounds like a mission a 23rd Century Cerritos would do.

 

[Tallguy]

Sounds like a mission a 23rd Century Cerritos would do.

In all seriousness, it absolutely does.

Although you'd have been having a bad enough few days (eels, Captain is dead, exec is about to engage in mutiny) without being beamed up to sickbay run by the good graces of Dr. T'Ana.

 

[James Cole]

For example, did any of them die while awaiting rescue? I always wondered about that.

To Reign in Hell suggests that several died, but most survived. It also lifts the part from TWOK novelization that Khan retained several engineering crew members under eel control to help run the ship. That part doesn't make sense, in that Chekov likely would have told Kirk about it, and they would have attacked the Reliant in the Mutara Nebula with that in mind, or at the very least tried to beam survivors aboard before the Genesis device was activated for countdown.

But yeah, War Dragons having them all dead threw me throw a loop when I originally read it, but at the same time it was a rare case of following up just how much this incident would have impacted Chekov moving forward.