Lost Era: Serpents Among The Ruins

I still need to read that one.

 

Because I can't find an "official" review thread for this:

SERPENTS AMONG THE RUINS is a Star Trek novel that deals with a subject that is often overlooked outside of Deep Space Nine: Politics. Captain Kirk is presumed dead and it is a century or so until Captain Picard takes over the Enterprise. So, this is a transition novel that attempts to sort out how the events of THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY leads to the complicated isolationist Romulus as well as warrior-caste ruled Klingon Empire.

John Harriman (played by Ferris Bueller's best friend Alan Ruck in GENERATIONS) is no longer a bumbling captain who is in charge of the Enterprise due to pure nepotism. He's become a canny political operator as well as the archenemy of the Romulan Admiral Vokar. Right now, it is a tense time in the Alpha and Beta Quadrants due to the fact the Klingon Empire is sick of receiving the Federation's charity and the Romulans are up to their usual tricks.

Much of the book deals with the fact the Romulans think they have a decent chance of invading the Federation and getting the Klingon's help in crushing it. The Klingons have not been made allies of the Federation despite the Khitomer Trilogy but, as TNG shows, have a contempt for their "allies" that never really goes away.

Gorkon's daughter and current High Chancellor, Azetbur, is not really doing a great job of playing politics as she's devoted to trusting the Federation and not even making a token effort to be confrontational. Sharks swarm around her and it is unlikely things will end well for her as she's apparently the last female High Chancellor according to a line of dialogue from Gowron. I wonder if that's since been retconned like female Starfleet captains.

In any case, this is a complicated and fascinating story that is one of the best Star Trek novels I have ever read. I admit, I think the resolution is a bit of a cop out as Starfleet does the sort of thing they would never do without Section 31 normally but still manages to prevent an all-out war. I really am impressed with the writer here and am already debating picking up his next set of adventures with this cast.

 

I established in The Art of the Impossible and also in The Klingon Art of War, and possibly elsewhere, that Azetbur's successor passed a law that women could not serve on the High Council or become chancellor, a law instituted as an overreaction to Azetbur's rule. This still allows Gowron's line to work with Azetbur (and L'Rell), and fits in with the Klingon politics post-Praxis and pre-"Yesterday's Enterprise."

 

@KRAD

I admit one of the things I do love about the novels is the way they turn continuity errors or seeming contradictions like Gowron offering a High Council seat to K'Ehleyr and women being forbidden on the High Council into whole stories.

I liked the idea that it is a precedent set by a previous (misogynist) Chancellor but it is something that Gowron, as Chancellor, could overturn with the stroke of a pen. Certainly, as long as it didn't threaten his position as Chancellor, it would just be yet another example of Klingon bribery and favor trading that is every bit as common to Klingons as honor.

(I like how, well before Game of Thrones, Star Trek had a nice rebuttal to the chivalric ideals of "honor" and knighthood that we know--if you know your history--was 90% bullshit. Worf is just in the 10% and is the Klingon version of Ned Stark, or, charitably, Jon Snow)

Indeed, I give a strong rating for this book for its filling in so many blanks and it is a book that sold me on getting THE ART OF THE IMPOSSIBLE. When you are fairly late into the Star Trek EU, like I am, you can spend literally years and years just trying to pick up where you want to begin what books you're going to read next.

Here, I chose this book because I've always been a fan of THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY and wanted to find out what happened "next."

 

Some spoilers below….


The Tomed is described a bit like War Rocket Ajax with an actual balcony of sorts along its sides if I remember. This should be a post TMP FASA era ship?

I really hope someone draws her and Canaveral.

 

I honestly wonder if the "we're going to wipe your memories and have you live without them, Romulan Crew" threat was real or not because that seems like a Crime against Sapience.

I could see Harriman using it as a threat, though.

 

While I haven't read either of those novels (Sorry, KRAD! ), my headcanon on that discrepancy has long been something very close to that: Something disastrous happened during Azetbur's reign that made the Klingons decide to ban women from the Council.

 

In this case, it was just too much willingness to accept charity from the Federation and put down any possibility of peace. Azetbur was "all in" on peace with the Federation and really caused them to feel like their Empire is a joke.

I think it nicely dovetails to the idea that the Klingons went from being modern soldiers to doing a lot more glorification of the past and talking about honor primarily because the "long peace" resulted in them dwelling on this a lot more. Sort of like how the samurai became most obsessed with honor and warfare when they were primarily bureaucrats.

 

On the other hand, nothing disastrous needs to happen for reactionaries to double-down on discrimination. Real history is full of reactionaries that double down on discrimination after a period of advancement for oppressed people's rights. Nothing disastrous happened involving transgender people in Wiemar Germany; the Nazi reactionaries just decided to destroy scientific research on transgender people and to exterminate the transgender community. Nothing disastrous happened involving LGBT people in the last year in the U.S.; reactionary forces that have long opposed LGBT rights have just started repeating the vicious lie that LGBT people are groomers and child molesters. Nothing disastrous happened involving black leadership in the U.S. during the Reconstruction era; reactionary white supremacist forces just finally got the upper hand and passed racist "black codes" and codified segregation.

 

The problem with Star Trek is it frequently tries to make sense in ways real history doesn't.

 

Very true!

In any event, I don't think there's any plausibility problem with the idea that Kaarg as a reactionary would ban women from the High Council without there needing to be any disaster or problem with Azetbur's leadership.

 

True but he needs support and the reactionaries are usually reacting in regards to progression.

 

And that subplot is exactly what we see in Serpents Among the Ruins: Kaarg amassing support for his reactionary faction so that he can seize control after arranging for Azetbur to be assassinated.

 

I wasn't talking about history. I was talking about my personal headcanon for a continuity glitch in Star Trek and what would make the most dramatic story.

 

I do think they could have been a bit more dramatic about Azetbur's perceived failures in The Serpent Among the Ruins. They avoided overt sexism in their many criticisms of the character and I actually wonder if that wasn't a mistake. You wouldn't have to go very far with it but maybe adding one or two lines that she was suffering a lot of criticism based on being a daughter of Gorkon's house.

After all, we know in "The House of Quark" there's a lot of inheritance issues that women have to jump through.