How can Star Trek: Countdown ever be considered canon?

Question

I've just read this on the Wikipedia article for spaceships named Enterprise:

The main setting for the films Star Trek: First Contact (1996), Star Trek: Insurrection (1998), and Star Trek Nemesis (2002).1[6] According to Star Trek: Countdown (2009), Data assumed command of the Enterprise after Captain Picard retired from Starfleet to become the Ambassador to Vulcan.

(emphasis added by me)

I haven't read Star Trek: Countdown, but looking at its Wikipedia page I read this:

The comic came about because Anthony Pascale, editor of TrekMovie.com, kept requesting to the film's co-writer Roberto Orci a way of having The Next Generation characters "pass the baton" back to the originals. When asked whether the filmmakers' involvement in the comic made it canonical, Orci stated he was in no position to declare whether it was, though he felt it could easily remain as such unless it was contradicted in a future film.

(emphasis added by me)

How could that ever be canon if Data sacrifices himself during Star Trek: Nemesis while saving Picard, still captain of the Enterprise?

Data arrives with a single use personal transporter and has the captain beamed back to the Enterprise before ultimately sacrificing himself to shut down the weapon and destroy the ship.

Am I missing something? Was Data revived? Was Star Trek: Nemesis un-canonized? Was Data of Star Trek: Countdown really B4?

Answer 1

This is non-canon (Memory-Alpha chooses apocrypha):

"The comic book series Star Trek: Countdown (a tie-in to the 2009 Star Trek film) and the timeline established for the Star Trek Online game depict Data as alive in 2387. Sometime prior, Geordi La Forge installed Data's emotion chip into B-4's neural net. This caused the uploads to B-4 by Data to fully reactivate, allowing Data's full memory and personality to assert itself, essentially resurrecting him. Starfleet decided to reinstate the android to service, and by the time of Countdown Data had become captain of the USS Enterprise-E."

This is expanded a bit in "The Needs of the Many", the Star Trek Online tie-in novel, and The Path to 2409 which is a timeline of events between "Nemesis" and the game. It pegs 2385 as the year Data was "Resurrected."

"Chief Engineer Geordi La Forge requests a long-term leave of absence from Starfleet to work on personal projects, including a plan to build and test his own starship designs. But his first project is to assist the team at the Soong Foundation studying the Soong-type android B-4. With his help, on Stardate 62762.91 the team unlocks what it calls the “Data matrix,” successfully accessing the personality, knowledge and memories of Data, who had downloaded this information into B-4 before his destruction in the Battle of Bassen Rift.

The Data persona asserts itself over B-4’s more primitive programming, and the android is able to assist the Soong Foundation team to upgrade the positronic brain and recreate the emotion chip invented by Dr. Noonien Soong. The team is confident that their work will be completed in months. "

2386:

"A surprise guest at the wedding of Worf and Grilka is Data. With his upgrades at the Soong Foundation complete, Data requests that his commission in Starfleet be reactivated. While there are some initial questions because the Data persona is in the body once used by B-4, after Jean-Luc Picard, William T. Riker and several other current and former members of the Enterprise crew testify on Data's behalf, Starfleet Command agrees to reinstate Data. He is promoted to captain and assigned to supervise the completion of the Enterprise-E's refit."

This leads up to Countdown in 2387. Number Two features Data.

Of course, later Orci, when cornered by persistent Trekkies, took the easy way out:

"cugel the clever: In “Countdown”, the Narada effortlessly destroyed an armada of 24th century Klingon warships and disabled the Enterprise-E with one volley. However, in the film, the Kelvin (and early 23rd century ship) actually managed to exchange fire and survive for at least several minutes. It even managed to damage the Narada by ramming it. Logically, this makes no sense…. it should have been destroyed immediately (and Kirk&mother killed) given the firepower possessed by the Narada. This is like the Merrimac surviving a firefight with the Bismark. Care to explain this inconsistency?

BobOrci: Easy. The comic is not canon?"

Answer 2

Geordi Leforge actually was against Data transferring over his memories to B-4, he concludes that B-4 will simply end up as a clone of Data. Later Picard and Data have a conversation about whether B-4 is simply a clone of Data now, and Data says that he is not SIMPLY because B-4 has no desire to better himself.

At the end of Nemesis Picard has a talk with B-4, where he explains that B-4 should better himself as Data had, and since Data's memories up to the point of the transfer is the same, you can say that Data himself had already begone the process of rebirth at that point. Data had also intended to never reactivate B-4, the entire point of Leforge giving B-4 the emotion chip, would in-fact have a profound impact on B-4 since he was still undergoing his "activation" as Data had mentioned was extremely hard for himself during the episode: Eye of the Beholder.

In a very strange way, you could say that this was like Data waking up from a coma. Remember, Data saving Lal's memories into him seemed like a way to preserve her forever for him, B-4 is Data now as much as the two Rikers were the same person. The difference, is Data died and made room for B-4 to replace him.

This is also the rest of the story to how the Data matrix played out: When Data first returned to consciousness, he refused to allow himself to exist at the expense of his brother's life. He therefore created a program in his mind to destroy his own consciousness before it destroyed B-4's. However, B-4 commandeered the program and, having heard that Data was crucial to the war with the Undine, deleted himself before Data could stop him. Data therefore survived in B-4's body.

Through this, Data was able to help the Soong Foundation in upgrading positronic brains and help in the recreation of the emotion chip originally developed by Doctor Soong. Ambassador Spock likened it to his resurrection a hundred and two years previously, though Data likened it more to a return. Meanwhile, a backup copy of B-4 was saved, and thus the science team hoped to create a "B-4 matrix", and possibly eventually bring Data's brother back to life in a new body.

Answer 3

They did have his mentally challenged 'brother'. Remember he tried transferring some of himself to him - and at the end he starts whistling or whatever it was that he did that sort of hinted that maybe the transfer had some effect? Maybe they'll say he 'cloned' himself onto his 'brother'.

Or maybe they'll realize how bad that whole story was and just pretend it didn't happen :)