Georgiou Section 31 spin-off series confirmed

Rumoured for some months now, CBS have today confirmed they are planning to go forward with Discovery spin-off series featuring once-Emperor Philippa Georgiou and her exploits in Section 31, starring of course the magnificent Michelle Yeoh.

CBS press release describes the series as a "black ops" show, outlining it as follows:

The series will expand on Yeoh’s current role as a member of Starfleet’s Section 31 division, a shadow organization within the Federation, on STAR TREK: DISCOVERY

The series will be written and executive produced by talent from the Discovery team: Writing partners Bo Yeon Kim and Erika Lippoldt. The usual suspects from CBS Television Studios, Secret Hideout and Roddenberry Entertainment, Alex Kurtzman, Heather Kadin, Aaron Baiers, Rod Roddenberry and Trevor Roth will all also be executive producers.

New Discovery novel explores Pike's Enterprise, plus new TOS covers

It's a big novel news day! Online listings have revealed a new Discovery book on the schedule, and new covers and blurbs for forthcoming TOS books. Continue below for all the latest.

So first up, we have a brand new addition to this year's publication schedule, only the fifth so far confirmed for 2019, and incidentally also the fifth Discovery novel so far. Coming in July will be John Jackson Miller's The Enterprise War - So far this is only listed on Simon and Schuster's online catalogue, but I'm sure pre-orders will be up soon enough. UPDATE: Now available for pre-order.

This appears to be a prequel to season two, explaining, as has been alluded to in cast and crew interviews, what the Enterprise was up to during, and away from, the Klingon war

UPDATE: And the author describes it is just that: "telling where the ship was and what it was doing during the Klingon War"

A shattered ship, a divided crew—trapped in the infernal nightmare of conflict!

Hearing of the outbreak of hostilities between the United Federation of Planets and the Klingon Empire, Captain Christopher Pike attempts to bring the U.S.S. Enterprise home to join in the fight. But in the hellish nebula known as the Pergamum, the stalwart commander instead finds an epic battle of his own, pitting ancient enemies against one another—with not just the Enterprise, but her crew as the spoils of war.

Lost and out of contact with Earth for an entire year, Pike and his trusted first officer, Number One, struggle to find and reunite the ship’s crew—all while Science Officer Spock confronts a mystery that puts even his exceptional skills to the test…with more than their own survival possibly riding on the outcome….

DS9 joining the Star Trek Fluxx games range

Last year Looney Labs released Star Trek versions of their Fluxx card game, with seperate TOS and TNG games, plus an extra set of cards which allowed the two sets to be played together. I guess they must have done fairly well, as then have now announced a DS9 edition is in the works too, due for release in the second quarter of this year. Here's how they describe it:

Explore the farthest reaches of the universe in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Fluxx! Work alongside Benjamin Sisko, Quark, Jadzia Dax, Worf and all your other favorite space station personnel while you try to gather Gold-Pressed Latinum and study the Wormhole. But watch out for nasty Surprises and Creepers like the Founders and the Jem'Hadar. 

They have also released preliminary artwork, which is awaiting final approval:

Eaglemoss Starships: First looks at V'Ger, Dominion Battleship, and more

Entertainment Earth seem to have got hold of Eaglemoss' latest round of solicitations a week or two earlier in the month than normal, giving us an advance look at several up-coming models in The Official Starships Collection, and some running order updates too. Continue below for all the details.

First up we have the next special issue, the 16th in that run, which will be V'Ger. Even with this low-res preview it looks like quite a nice richly detailed model to me.

Seven of Nine and Captain Proton fill the final Star Trek Mission Crate

Subscribers to Loot Crate's Star Trek Mission Crate have begun to receive their third subscription box in the series, the Voyager themed Dark Frontier crate. This much delayed crate was originally due to arrive early last year, but with every crate in the series delayed by months Loot Crate have now given up completely and cancelled the series half way through - More on that below, but first, let's look at what they did manage to send out!

The centerpiece of each of the Mission Crates is a QMx Mini Masters figurine (which also get seperate releases from QMx at a later date if you're keen to get hold of them). So far we've had Locutus of Borg, and Worf, and they are joined now by a Seven of Nine apparently pondering something. An eBay listing provided these photos of the figurine and packaging:

New Star Trek Discovery coin

Perth Mint have released their latest Star Trek coin, making their second visit to Discovery, following last year's Burnham and USS Discovery pair. The new coin brings in more of the cast to celebrate the crew of the Discovery.

Like most of Perth Mint's collectable coins this has been minted in silver (two ounces), making it rather more value than the face value of two Tuvalu dollars. The Star Trek side features colour printing, while the other side features the head of Queen Elizabeth II. The coin is a limited mintage of 2000 coins.

Discovery: The Way to the Stars excerpts

Hitting the bookshelves this week is the first Star Trek novel of 2019, and the fourth Discovery novel, Una McCormack's The Way to the Stars. Like the previous Discovery books this is a prequel to the main period of the TV series, in this instance following a teenage Sylvia Tilly.

The book is available in trade paperback and ebook, or audiobook available on CD or download; and you can sample excerpts from both the print and audio editions below. But first, here's a reminder of the blurb, as seen on the back of the book:

Star Trek Catan returns

Great news Star Trek board game fans, the English language edition of Star Trek Catan is getting a very welcome re-release! The Trekified version of the classic board game was first released in 2012, but in recent years has gone out of print and thus the secondary market for it has gone a bit wild!

Now Asmodee, the new owners of the Catan brand, are re-issuing it, due out in just a few days time, with updated box-art no less - The Enterprise now zooms towards us rather than the previous side-view of it's visit to a colony, and the side of the box has been tweaked to fit in with the latest Star Trek product branding.

Terra Incognita #6 preview

Out this week is the sixth and final issue of IDW's latest TNG mirror universe comics miniseries, Terra Incognita. While most of the series has been standalone tales with just a tinge of the mirror universe via stowaway mirror-Barclay, this finale issue wraps the whole story up with more mirror visitors!

As ever the book was written by Scott and David Tipton, with Carlos Nieto illustrating this issue. Like the rest of the series it is offered in four different covers: Two of the covers feature somewhat alternate takes on the events of the book: The A cover by Tony Shasteen (coloured by JD Mettler), and J.K. Woodard's retail incentive cover. Data features prominently in this issue and is the subject of the photomontage B cover. And Elizabeth Beals final retail incentive cover for the series diverges from the previous scenes-type covers in favour of a big family portrait of the TNG main cast (and notable recurring characters).

Continue below for a look at all those covers, and a five-page preview from the book:

Eaglemoss Starships: New ships announced and lots of new previews

Eaglemoss have announced a bunch of new ships for The Official Starships Collection, and also released lots of new previews for upcoming ships in the Discovery collection. Continue below to check them out.

First, via the Hero Collector blog, we have the line-up for the regular series right up to issue 150 (with no further extension yet confirmed, we could only have ten left to go!). That issue, due out in May/June, is perhaps the most obscure Miranda class variant so far, the USS Antares NCC-9844, seen as a tiny smudge in DS9's Favor the Bold - I think the last Miranda-variant left that actually appeared on screen, although other production kitbash models do exist is Eaglemoss really want to mine deep!