New Dominion ships in Star Trek Online

Cryptic have added another of their lock-box thingies to Star Trek Online, which tends to mean they're introducing some new ship designs (as well as assorted other equipment that the boxes can contain). This time those new ships are Dominion designs, one from DS9, two new designs, plus the usual selection of new mirror universe variants of existing designs from the game. Here's the in-universe rationale for the sudden appearance of Dominion ships among the Federation and Klingon fleets:

Although a tense peace now exists between the Dominion and the primary powers of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants, conflicts between these civilizations are not unheard of. Whether these skirmishes are brought on by simple miscommunication or by willful dissention from their respective authorities, the outcome is rarely in favor of those that would dare to stand against the Dominion’s fearsome Jem’Hadar warriors and their formidable warships.

To further complicate matters, a large portion of the Jem’Hadar bred in the Alpha Quadrant during the Dominion War have chosen to defy their “gods” in the Gamma Quadrant and support the separatist cause of the True Way. Other Jem’Hadar soldiers have chosen to offer their obedience and service to the “New Link” – a collection of Changelings who have cut ties with their former True Way allies and adopted the planet of Orias III as their new homeworld.

This fragmentation of the Dominion’s forces in the Alpha Quadrant, and the resultant battles that dot the stars this side of the Bajoran Wormhole, have led to a great number of derelict (yet salvageable) Dominion warships floating adrift at sites of former battle. Enterprising members of the Lobi Crystal Consortium have taken it upon themselves to retrieve and refurbish these impressive vessels. While their primary purpose has been selling them back to the Dominion at deep discounts in order to garner favorable negotiations for trading interests in the Gamma Quadrant, the sheer volume of ships has also allowed them to offer them up for acquisition to interested parties of the Alpha Quadrant.

Veterans of the Dominion War know all-too-well the impressive abilities of these powerful vessels having faced them in many devastating engagements. Starfleet and the Klingon Empire both recognize the benefit that even one Dominion warship could mean to whichever faction that employs them as a weapon of war, and must jealously seek them out even if only for the purposes of keeping them out of enemy hands.

The biggest new ship, is the sleek Jem’Hadar heavy escort carrier:

 

A Jem'Hadar warship design developed in the Gamma Quadrant after the end of the Dominion War, the Jem'Hadar Heavy Escort Carrier is a ship designed to complement the tactics of Jem'Hadar warriors. Often supported by a wing of Jem'Hadar fighters, the appearance of a Jem'Hadar Heavy Escort Carrier in a battle can turn the tide for the Dominion.

The Jem'Hadar Heavy Escort Carrier comes standard with a Dominion Coordination Protocol console. This universal console allows the use of "Fleet Maneuver Gamma," a powerful attack pattern that increases the damage, flight speed and maneuverability of all nearby allies while also granting temporary immunity to a variety of perception and maneuverability debuffs.

When used in conjunction with the Dominion Command Interface, "Fleet Maneuver Gamma" will also provide a bonus to allies' defense and accuracy. The Dominion Command Interface can be obtained by owning a Jem’Hadar Dreadnought Carrier.

The Jem'Hadar Heavy Escort Carrier comes standard with 1 hangar bay of Jem'Hadar Fighters. Jem'Hadar Fighters are armed with Polaron Pulse Cannons and can use Directed Energy Modulation I.

Even bigger, is the familiar design of the Jem’Hadar dreadnought carrier

 

A ship design introduced during the Dominion War, the massive Jem'Hadar Dreadnought Carriers were some of the most powerful ships ever created by the Dominion. More than twice the mass of a Federation Galaxy Class starship, the Jem'Hadar Dreadnought Carrier was first seen in the Alpha Quadrant by the crew of the U.S.S. Valiant in 2374. Later in the war, Dreadnought Carriers were used to destroy outposts and provide heavy support during the Battle of Cardassia.

The Jem'Hadar Dreadnought Carrier comes standard with a Dominion Command Interface universal console. The Dominion Command Interface can analyze a target's weakness and broadcast that information to all nearby allies. Enemies whose weaknesses have been targeted will have reduced damage resistance and defense and a single subsystem marked as "vulnerable." Enough damage to a vulnerable subsystem will knock it offline for several seconds.

The Jem'Hadar Dreadnought Carrier comes standard with 2 hangar bays of Jem'Hadar Fighters. Jem'Hadar Fighters are armed with Polaron Pulse Cannons and can use Directed Energy Modulation I. Owners of the Jem'Hadar Attack Ship (the ship must be unpacked) can also purchase Jem'Hadar Attack Ship hangar items in the Dilithium Store. These items are available for use exclusively with the Jem'Hadar Dreadnought Cruiser.

The Jem'Hadar attack ship, which is already available in STO, can also be loaded into the dreadnough carrier's hangers as a fighter.

They have also introduced a new Jem'Hadar fighter though, which comes with both carrier ships as a fighter, but is also available as a non-combat pet.

Continue reading after the jump for a look at the new mirror universe ships:

Borg in the Visual Dictionary

Amazon has updated its listing of Star Trek: The Visual Dictionary with a new preview page focused on the Borg:

DK have also sent me a press release, with this new lengthier description of the book:

Star Trek The Visual Dictionary is charting the major voyages of the Starship Enterprise
and the rest of the Star Trek universe. STAR TREK The Visual Dictionary offers a detailed exploration of the strange new worlds (and old ones), the iconic characters, ships,
equipment and alien species of all the Star Trek series.

From Andorians to Vidiians, STAR TREK The Visual Dictionary illustrates the universe’s
various races and includes detailed descriptions of their behaviour and culture. Under
license by CBS Consumer Products, the guide includes annotated images of iconic
equipment, such as Kirk’s command chair, in great detail. Rare material from the
archives of CBS is also included in this ultimate Star Trek guide.

Covering the five live action series, as well as the first ten films, STAR TREK The Visual
Dictionary provides full coverage of fan favourite characters, such as Spock, Bones,
Scotty and Uhura, and full-colour images of ships that would make James T. Kirk proud.

This is the ultimate visual guide to Star Trek for any fan, whether they are new to the
series or have been a fan for years.

Pre-order: Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr, Amazon.co.jp, Things From Another World.

Due out in March, you can see more excerpts, here, and here.

New Star Trek Tactics games

Wizkids have announced a new Star Trek Heroclix game; coming in April/May (which coincidentally is when Star Trek Into Darkness is out, what are the chances?). The Star Trek Tactics 2 Figure Mini-Game comes with, as the name suggests, just two Heroclix miniatures; Kirk and Spock. Presumably this will reuse the same figures previously seen in the larger Expeditions, and Tactics figure expansion. Here's the box art and description:

Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock must work together to repel the Klingon assault on the U.S.S. Enterprise!

The Star Trek Movie Mini-Game is a game for two players with one playler plaing Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock while the other plays the Klingons, or the two players play cooperatively to repel the Klingon assault on the U.S.S. Enterprise.

Includes: 2 Collectible Miniature Game Pieces of Captain James T. Kirk and Mr. Spock. 2 Character Cards. Game Tokens. 1 Powers & Abilities Card. 1 Rulebook. 1 full-color game board. 2 dice.

Wizkids are also releasing another new set of miniatures this month, in series 2 of the Tactics ships collection. This assortment of ships is a combination of existing models from the previous Fleet Captains Federation and Klingon set, and Romulan expansion, plus several new designs from various other alien species - As before re-use of the ship models in the Tactics game does have the added advantage of the ships being painted, rather than blank canvases presented in the other games. Wizkids have been previewing individual ships from the set on their website. Here are the four ships from the starter set:

 

 

 

Continue after the jump to see the other sips so far previewed by Wizkids:

More Trek books coming in German

It's a good time to be a Star Trek fan in Germany, with oddles of books on the way from Cross Cult and other publishers. UnrealitySF's Jens Defner has pointed me to some of the updates coming from Cross Cult:

Cross Cult's release of the original Typhon Pact series is due to start in June, and now they have released (on the Star Trek Romane website) the finalised cover art for the series. Here's the tetraptych of covers for the whole series:

Aside from the addition of titles there are just a couple of alterations from the previous version: The Saber class has been turned around so it's no longer running away from the Borg on Bestien (Rough Beasts of Empire); and a different image of Ezri has been used on Nullsummenspiel (Zero Sum Game).

Here's a closer look at the Feuer (Seize the Fire) cover from the Star Trek Romane Facebook page, the rest of the series will probably be posted over the next few days/weeks:

Cross Cult have also amended their design for Der Friedensstifter (Mudd In Your Eye), as they weren't allowed to use the previous version with Harry Mudd on the cover due to likeness rights issues. So they've made Kirk's head bigger to fill the gap. This one is due out about now:

Cross Cult also have some new comics on the way; coming on May 6th is the omnibus edition of Countdown to Darkness. They've posted their version of the cover, translating the byline at the top, but seem to be keeping the title in English. This release will apparently see the return to a simultaneous paperback and hardcover release of comics from Cross Cult, which hopefully will mean a cool new variant cover for the hardcover (their previous hardcovers have been pretty snazzy).

In addition to the omnibus version they have also announced plans to publish issue one, as part of the free comic book day promotion, which comes a few days after the omnibus release, on the 11th of May.

As well as Countdown to Darkness, Cross Cult are continuing with the release of the Star Trek ongoing series in German, with the second omnibus due in April. This one is only coming in paperback, so I guess the hardcover treatment is for special cases now.

Cross Cult aren't the only publisher doing Trek in Germany, Heel, who previously published German Trek novels themselves, and most recently offered the German version of the Haynes Enterprise Manual, are returning with the Klingon/German dictionary, due in April. This appears to be a reissue of the German version of the Klingon Dictionary, which came out in 1998. It has a slightly rearranged cover - They've dropped the Klingon image, and rearranged the remaining elments somewhat:

 
Meanwhile coming from Panini Books in May is a German translation of the Star Trek Vault book, which has been rechristened Star Trek Archive: 40 Jahre Sci-Fi-Kult.

2014 TOS calendar covers

Amazon have updated their listings for the 2014 TOS calendar with covers. They look like this:

 

Pre-order: Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.jp.

In other calendar news, while the Ships of the Line calendar has yet to appear with the rest of the 2014 range on Amazon, work is progressing on it's contents. This ambiguous section of a ring, recently posted by Mark Rademaker on his blog, is apparently part of the design he will be including in his contribution:

Prose updates from Swallow and Mack

Some prose updates, all coming via author interviews on the excellent new Literary Treks podcast on TrekFM. Their two latest interviewees have been James Swallow and David Mack, and as ever they talked at length about their entire Star Trek histories, including a few hints of things to come.

James Swallow used his interview to give a detailed outline of what to expect in his forthcoming TNG ebook, The Stuff of Dreams:

After seeing Star Trek Generations I thought to myself - You remember at the end of the movie, when everything's kind of brought back to the way it was, and the nexus just goes floating off into space. And I thought, what, they're just going to leave that out there? This is a pretty serious thing here, we're talking about something that's like a temporal gateway; and you wouldn't just leave that lying around for any bad guy species to use. So I starting thinking, logically what would happen, maybe Starfleet would send a survey vessel to follow it, they'd track it, look at the science, it would be their job to see where it's going, make sure nobody tried to use it for evil deeds, and they'd try and analysis it and figure out how it works.

Once I had that idea about this ship that's tracking the nexus through space I thought that's the start of a really great ideal. Flash-forward several years, I was asked by Pocket to come up with an idea for a TNG story. I thought, I've got this really interesting thing here, this interesting place to start a story. The moment I started thinking about it in terms of narrative I thought, this has to be a Picard story - Because the nexus that we see in that movie is very much a crucible of fire for Jean-Luc Picard. He's taken in there, and he's shown this alternate reality, this beautiful place where he can live his life. When he's at that point in the film, he's lost his brother and his nephew and he's at a very low place emotionally, he doesn't really have any close familial ties, apart from his crew; he's not got any family of his own. If we look at the way that Picard's evolved in the novels; now he's married to Beverly Crusher, and he has his own son. I thought, what would he go through if he went through the nexus now? What would he see this time? Because he has a pretty nice life now, he's got a wife and a kid; would that change things? So I wanted to construct a story that examined that question. The action plot is that somebody decides to use the nexus to do something untoward, and Picard gets caught up in that, and he eventually ends up having to revisit this place. When he gets there he finds something very different, and very unexpected, including a familiar face.

Swallow also made a crystic remark about the continuation of the Andorian secession arc in the 24th century novels:

There's some interesting stuff coming up with the Andorian question, shall we say.

Hopefully this will be part of the story of new crossover miniseries, The Fall (I can't think where else it would fit into books currently on the schedule). He did also talk about The Fall, and how he's been enjoying the collaborative developement of the series.

David Mack also spoke about The Fall in his interview, giving an amusing account of how the series got its name:

The miniseries was named "the fall miniseries", because it was scheduled for the season of fall, and it was only as we began batting around ideas, and someone said, "this is all turning pretty grim maybe we should call it The Fall, that's kind of ominous". We all thought it was a good laugh and a good joke. Then the editor said, "actually that's not bad, we'll go with that", and we're like, "what have we done?"

Mack also spoke about the development of his recent Cold Equations trilogy, including an outline of one of the earlier ideas for the structure of the trilogy:

Originally I was thinking books two and three would be focused on completely different characters, and that the unifying theme to the trilogy originally was going to be family. It was going to be all about fathers and sons; book one was going to be about Soong and Data, book two was going to be about Worf and Alexander, and book three was going to be about Picard and a grown up Rene.

Mack explained that he purposefully left the door open for where Data's story will go next, and while he hasn't pitched an idea for a follow up yet, mentioned such ideas as Data returning to Starfleet in some fashion, or going in a completely different direction, and using his new knowledge to create a whole new race of androids.

Looking further ahead than The Fall, Mack seems open to ideas, and mentioned a desire for further collaborations with his Vanguard writing opposites Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore. He did however characterise the success of Vanguard as "lightning in a bottle" when asked about the idea of another series following in that style.

Despite a hint of a follow up to Rise Like Lions in Silent Weapons, he also seems content to let the mirror universe rest for now, commenting:

I don't currently have any plans to write any more mirror universe books. I feel like, with Rise Like Lions, I accomplished what I wanted to accomplish in the mirror universe. I feel like the saga that I set in motion with The Sorrows of Empire reached an organic conclusion. While it's certainly not impossible to imagine the story could go forward form there, there's nothing I feel a burning need to do in the mirror universe beyond Rise Like Lions; I told the story that I set out to tell.

James Swallow's The Stuff of Dreams is out in March. While he, and David Mack will be joined by David R. Geogre III, Una McCormack, and Dayton Ward, for the five-part, The Fall series, starting in, the fall.

Meanwhile you can listen to the full interviews with Swallow and Mack on TrekFM's Literary Treks.

Countdown to Darkness preview and new cover

Promoted somewhat strangely on a website dedicated solely to it, comes this new variant cover for Countdown to Darkness #1. Regular Star Trek ongoing artist Stephen Molnar gives us, "The Enterprise Edition", which will be limited to 1701 copies, and is available to purchase online in the US and UK. It looks like this:

UPDATE: TrekMovie have now revealed another exclusive cover, this one will be available from Hastings Direct, and is illustrated by Stellar Labs, the same studio that did the interior art in the recent Star Trek ongoing mirror universe story:

Countdown to Darkness #1 is out this week, and Previews have posted the first look inside the prequel comic. Here are the first five dream sequence pages. UPDATE: Trekmovie have now posted the usual seven page preview, so here are in fact, the first seven pages (continues after the jump):

 

 

 

 

IDW April solicitations, plus more omnibuses on the way

TrekMovie have posted details of IDW's Star Trek comics coming in April, and it's a bumper month, with extra re-releases timed to ride the publicity wave as the release of Star Trek Into Darkness approaches. Read down for news of other omnibuses releases coming later in the year as well. But first, coming in April:

The Star Trek ongoing series hits it's twentieth issue in April, which means it has surpassed all but one of Marvel's Star Trek comic series in length now, having just pushed the 19-issue Starfleet Academy series down to being the seventh longest running Star Trek series. To get the number five slot it will need beat Marvel's 32-issue DS9 series. Then it's in for a really long wait, to get to the first DC TOS series' 56 issues, Gold Key's 61, and the second DC TOS and DC TNG series' equal 80 issue records!

Star Trek (ongoing) #20
Written by Mike Johnson, art by Claudia Balboni, cover art by Tim Bradstreet, plus sketch and photo covers.

The all-new origin stories of the Enterprise crew conclude with this special issue that focuses on TWO Trek Stalwarts: Sulu and Chekov! Witness their first meeting at Starfleet Academy, and learn how their paths intertwined all the way to the bridge of the Enterprise! Overseen by Trek writer/producer Roberto Orci, this issue sets the stage for Sulu and Chekov’s new adventures in the blockbuster film sequel!

Also out in April is a Star Trek ongoing Treasury Edition large-format omnibus. This is the second Star Trek Treasury Edition from IDW, the previous included the first half of John Byrne's Romulan saga. I wonder if the choice of issues here is significant; we're told the ongoing comic series has been laying out hints towards Star Trek Into Darkness, and this collection does include the most obvious could-be-hint of the series so far, at the end of the new The Return of the Archons.

Star Trek Space-Spanning Treasury Edition
Written by Mike Johnson, art by Stephen Molnar, cover art by Tim Bradstreet

IDW continues to boldly go where no comic book company has gone before—producing beautiful treasury editions of comics deserving of a BIG format! Collecting three issues that tell two complete stories, featuring one story inspired from the original series as well as one completely new tale! Great stories by ace Trek scribe Mike Johnson and stupendous art by Stephen Molnar featuring THE RETURN OF THE ARCHONS and THE REDSHIRTS STORY!

Elsewhere in the nuTrek world, Countdown to Darkness finishes in April, and gets a prompt omnibus release:

Countdown to Darkness #4
Written by Mike Johnson, art and cover by David Messina, plus 1/5 photo-covers, and a CGC graded cover.

This is it! Don’t miss the shocking conclusion of this official prequel to next spring’s STAR TREK film sequel! Overseen by STAR TREK writer/producer Roberto Orci, this climactic issue leads directly into the upcoming blockbuster as Kirk, Spock and the rest of the Enterprise crew fight for fate of the Galaxy!

Countdown to Darkness omnibus
Written by Mike Johnson, art and cover by David Messina.

The countdown to the motion picture event of 2013 begins here, in this blockbuster 4-issue prequel mini-series that sets the stage for the upcoming STAR TREK film! Like the best-selling STAR TREK: COUNTDOWN in 2009, this all-new series leads directly into the next movie, with a story by STAR TREK writer/producer Roberto Orci and Mike Johnson (STAR TREK ongoing series), and drawn by the original STAR TREK: COUNTDOWN artist, David Messina! STAR TREK: COUNTDOWN TO DARKNESS is the can’t-miss lead-in to the new adventures of the Enterprise crew!

Here's the first look at the combined Countdown to Darkness cover quartet:

Pre-order: Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr, Amazon.co.jp.

Also out in April is the new John Byrne mega-omnibus, including all his IDW Star Trek work:

John Byrne Collection omnibus

Comics legend John Byrne has taken on four Star Trek titles, all collected in this oversized hardcover collection. Assignment Earth recounts the adventures of interstellar agent Gary Seven, Crew recounts a tale from the very beginnings of the United Federation of Planets, Leonard McCoy: Frontier Doctor is a collection of tales from this famous member of the Frontier Medics Program, and mystery, intrigue, and war abound in Romulans: Pawns of War.

Awesome new cover by John Byrne for this:

Pre-order: Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr, Amazon.co.jp.

A couple of new Star Trek omnibuses coming later in the year from IDW have also appeared on Amazon recently:

The DC release of Beginnings

June will see Star Trek Classics Volume 4: Beginnings, the fourth book in IDW's Classics omnibus collection. Like all the books in the series so far is repeat of a Star Trek comic omnibus previously released - In this case DC Comics' Beginnings, which collects the first ever six-issue TNG comic miniseries. Here is the blurb from Amazon:

Reprints the very first comics adventures from The Next Generation and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise. Set during their earliest voyages, join Picard, Riker, Data, Worf, Troi, Yar, and Laforge as they learn about eachother and encounter: A de-powered Q who seeks refuge aboard the Enterprise as he attempts to learn what it means to be mortal; A world where warriors see battle as a child's game; A world with dark secrets that threaten both the ship and crew, and more.

Pre-order: Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.ca.

Shortly after, in July, is another omnibus re-issue, this time it's IDW's own Star Trek/Legions of Super-Heroes crossover series. This was released as a hardcover omnibus last summer, so if you prefer your books a bit floppier (but not as floppy as the individual issue releases) then this is your chance to get the paperback version of the very enjoyable series.

Countdown to Darkness #4 cover

IDW have released the cover for Countdown to Darkness #4, revealing a Klingon as a primary character in the series:

We've seen John Harrison and the Enterprise gang playing with Klingons on Qo'noS in the trailers, so I guess we'll be exploring the background to that element of Star Trek Into Darkness.

Here's the cover without all the titles, as posted by David Messina on his blog, you can also see it pre-colouring there.

And here is an updated version of my mock-up for the omnibus cover. The delta segments on the covers released so far don't actually line up quite right, so I've super-imposed my own over the top, but you get an idea what it will look surely look like:

Soundtrack update

I'm a bit behind on my coverage of Star Trek soundtracks since my last mention of them, back in August! Since then there have been two new releases, and one of those is the biggest most comprehensive release in all of Star Trek soundtrack history - The Star Trek: The Original Series Soundtrack Collection, which includes all the music from the entire original series, including pieces that weren't even used in the episodes! The set is split up by season, each with accompanying notes, plus a fourth booklet with further information about all the music. Here's what it all looks like:

 

You can see a full track listing, and listen to many samples, on La La Land's website. The set has been out since December, and is limited to 6000 copies. Just prior to release TrekCore ran two interviews, with producers Lukas Kendall and Neil S. Bulk. The team behind the set went to some effort finding the right recordings of each piece of music, to make sure they are the takes actually used on-screen. Kendall explained what is and isn't included on the set:

We included every original recording that we had that was considered a master take. When they’re recording any piece of music they’ll do Take #1, Take #2, Take #3 and so on until they get it right. In rare cases they may use an earlier take because they could not improve on that performance. We made a point to include every recorded master take, or “intercut” combination thereof, that was considered by the production to be the definitive recording of that composition. There were instances at the beginning of Seasons 2 and 3 where they had a recording session where they did new performances of earlier compositions which were then expressly used for library purposes. We made a point to include all of those re-recordings of the earlier music, but it was very easily identifiable what was original or not.

What those recordings include are some extra pieces of music that weren't used on screen at all, as Bulk explains:

The big bombshell was that not only was “City on the Edge of Forever” recorded in Stereo, but Fred Steiner composed music that was never used in Star Trek. Not only have we got the best episode with the best sound, he wrote stuff you’ve never heard! He wrote this whole piece of music where Captain Kirk steals the clothes, but I’m guessing the scene was recut or changed because it doesn’t match properly. There were so many instances where music was dropped from an episode.

What was really cool with Nichelle’s “Beyond Antares” from “The Conscience of the King” is that it was cut down in the episode. We have the full song on the set, on three tracks – harp, voice and a blank channel. We have it all, and when I was lining it up I was shocked!

Kendall also explained how he hopes the set will be received:

I hope people will be very happy. I think it will be a lovely collectible, and I think that there will be a certain ‘binge’ attitude which I experienced personally as far as wanting to listen and devour all of the music. To finally—after so many decades after hearing the tracks behind sound effects and dialogue—to hear it un-obscured and listen to all the lovely details in the music, to have this experience for the first time will be a special moment.

The other new recent release was the latest in the expanded Star Trek movie soundtrack collection; Dennis McCarthy's Generations. StarTrek.com detailed the contents of this October release:

Disc one includes the full film score, including music for a sequence dropped from the finished film, while disc two offers a remastered version of the 1994 GNP soundtrack album (along with its innovative sound effects library)

And here's what it looked like:

That leaves just two films remaining to get the full soundtrack treatment. Insurrection, and my favourite Trek soundtrack of them all, Nemesis. Kendall spoke about both of these in his TrekCore interview on the TOS set. On Insurrection:

I have to be a little cheeky and neither confirm nor deny any such plans, because I have to be aware of GNP/Crescendo’s prerogative to either announce or not announce what they wish to.

And on Nemesis, coming from Varèse Sarabande:

I know the producer there—Bob Townson—is devoted to Jerry Goldsmith’s music. I know he’s also an excellent producer, he’s certainly someone who’s done far more work in the field than I have and whose career in the field predates mine by several years. I would be very optimistic that he’s aware of the interest in the title. Whether he does it or not is not for me to say.

In his interview Bulk also talked about TAS, although that sounds less promising:

The story is that that is lost. But, I’ve been doing this type of work for a while and sometimes things that are lost suddenly aren’t lost. I have no knowledge, I know nothing about an Animated Series project happening – but I’d love it, it’s very cool music.

Both producers commented on the DS9 set coming from La La Land soon, at the time of the interviews it was expected to be out this January. Bulk outlined the set:

I think it’s a “Best Of” compilation. It’s a 4-Disc set, and I think they went through and cherry-picked from all the seasons.

While Kendall elaborated:

I’m very happy with these releases, I consulted on them. The producer who has been most involved with that (and La-La Land’s Next Generation set) is Ford Thaxton. He knows the scores by Dennis McCarthy and Jay Chattaway much better than I do and I trust his judgment when it comes to selecting the episodes and cues to put on the album. With modern day Star Trek series, there’s a much larger quantity of music that was recorded because they did an original score for each and every episode. I tried with the Ron Jones box set to present every single note, but it became a very large set that was probably not cost effective, it was just something I personally wanted to do because I was passionate about Ron’s music. In the case of the newer Star Trek series and the composers who did many more episodes than Ron did, by necessity we have to excerpt their work. I trust Ford to make the best selections for the collections.

On top of those we should also have an all new soundtrack for Star Trek Into Darkness to look forward to.