Re: What You Have To Read Before "Articles Of The Federation" and Dest
COE ties into other novels in numerous ways, including tie-ins to NF and Vulcan's Noun's two seemingly contradictory depictions of Scotty's post-"Relics" life in The Future Begins, and references to the Romulan War-era United Earth President Lydia Littlejohn, the Palais de la Concorde and Zife Administration, and to the events of Prime Directive by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens all in that same entry. Given Prime Directive's contradictory depiction of the Federation Council and Federation President, presumably only the main story of PD is kept (in the same way that you describe the detail of Alyssa's child changing between Maximum Warp and Titan.)
As far as references in
tFB to things that
aren't political minutia (but rather other minutia), the Scotty backstory for the book also draws from Michael Jan Friedman's
Crossover, Gene DeWeese's
Engines of Destiny, Julia Ecklar's
The Kobayashi Maru, and Diane Carey's
Ship of the Line. Several short stories also factor in, such as "Out of Time" (DC's 1994
TNG special), "Old Debts" (DC's 1995
TNG special), "Dorian's Diary" (
SNWIII), "Ancient History" (
SNWVI), "Bum Radish: Five Spins on a Turquoise Reindeer" (
SNWVI), "Full Circle" (
SNWVII), "Safe Harbors" (
Tales of the Dominion War), and "Through the Looking Glass" (
No Limits). Note however, that "Old Debts" has Scotty meeting Robin Lefler in 2371 (which is inconsistent with the
NF: eXcalibur trilogy... and
tFB itself!) and that "Full Circle" got a sequel in
SNW09 that is inconsistent with
tFB. It also references ideas originally put forth in
Spectre, which is of course part of the "Shatnerverse" continuity. And "Out of Time" and "Ancient History" are mutually inconsistent.
tFB also has off-handed references to a number of other stories, usually in the form of alien species or planets. These include the Blood from the
New Earth miniseries, the Azziz from "The Music Between the Notes" (in
The Lives of Dax), Xaraka XII and galaxy Telpha-Z from the Gold Key comics, the Hamalki and the Deirr from Diane Duane's various novels, Mythra from
Mission to Horatius, and the Withiki from the oft-referenced
The Final Reflection. Among others. Other references include Dana Kramer-Rolls's
Home is the Hunter, L.A. Graf's
Traitor Winds, the Pellegrino/Zebrowski
Dyson Sphere, Brad Ferguson's
Crisis on Centaurus, the fanon technical manual
Starfleet Prototype, and the
Unlimited comic story "None but the Brave".
Of course, referencing the Gold Key comics is infinitely problematic.
Traitor Winds ties into the various other "Lost Years" stories:
The Lost Years,
A Flag Full of Stars, and
Recovery. Kirk's home on
Crisis on Centaurus is brought up again in
Time for Yesterday.
The Eugenics Wars gives a description for the Khanate's flag that is borrowed from
Section 31: Abyss. It also references the Dayton Ward short story "The Aliens are Coming!" in one of the early
SNW volumes. Conversely,
A Time to Sow referenced a Greg Cox short story, "Bedside Matters" in
The Amazing Stories.