Destiny: Lost Souls by David Mack Review Thread (Spoilers!)

[wew]

Yes, but what about the Lime Directive

[marhancow]

wew wrote:

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Yes, but what about the Lime Directive

**groan**

[Christopher]

Grapes: The papaya frontier.
These are the rowan trees of the star apple Lemon Pies.
Its five-pear persimmon:
To explore orange new gourds,
To seek out new limes and new strawberry guavas.
To boldly mango where no mango has mangone before.

Fruit Trek, Created by Green Loganberry

[Dayton Ward]

[Rosalind]

You're all banned.

[/Rosalind]


Oh, wait....I made a fruit joke, too. Damn!

[Stephen!]

So, just to confuse things. The Borg have two origins now. This one and the one in Star Trek Legacy.

[casey]

Oh my goodness what have I unleashed with my typo???

I guess I will go watch First Cumquat.

[Ronald Held]

What stores have it in stock?

[wew]

Or maybe you could watch "In Search of Crop"

[Allyn Gibson]

I just bought it at Borders today.

Interesting anecdote about that. A woman, about forty, was talking to the sales associate at the Star Trek shelf. She was complaining about the selection of Star Trek novels; they didn't have what she wanted.

I couldn't get at the shelf to see if they had what I wanted. Finally, the sales associate left, I came around and at the shelf from the opposite direction, and there I saw Lost Souls. "Book three!" I exclaimed.

"What's this?" she said.

"Destiny," I said. "It's the fecal matter hitting the fan Star Trek trilogy. I need the final book, I need to know how it ends."

We talked about Gods of Night, and I tried hard to sell her on buying that, but she ended up buying Resistance instead, to get the post-Nemesis story from the beginning.

[Christopher]

Stephen! wrote:

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So, just to confuse things. The Borg have two origins now. This one and the one in Star Trek Legacy.

They have one origin in the current novel continuity; they have a different one in the Legacy game. They have two or three other origins in the Strange New Worlds anthologies.

But as far as the novel continuity is concerned, they have only the origin given here.

[rfmcdpei]

Christopher wrote:

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But as far as the novel continuity is concerned, they have only the origin given here.

And what an origin it is.

The thing that has impressed me the most about Destiny and all of the other TNG/DS9 relaunch novels, just after the existence of a shared history that avoids the reset-button syndrome of previous novels, is the willingness of authors to take risks and break very large things.

The theme of regeneration and reproduction that finds particular emphasis in Lost Souls works for me. Will there be a future, I found myself wondering, for this couple or that world or this command or that alliance? How can the protagonists get there? Will they get there? I liked the way in which these things were tidied up by Mack, and did not see a deus ex machina, or at least not much of one.

On a side note, what are the approximate frontiers of the Romulan Imperial State and the Romulan Star Empire? Do they occupy discrete territories, or are their worlds and systems mixed together?

[KRAD]

rfmcdpei wrote:

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On a side note, what are the approximate frontiers of the Romulan Imperial State and the Romulan Star Empire? Do they occupy discrete territories, or are their worlds and systems mixed together?

Discrete territories. I didn't specify too much, partly to leave things open for future authors, but I basically viewed it (and Marco agreed with me) that it was split in half.

If you have Star Charts, turn to pages 66-67. The Romulan Star Empire is egg-shaped in that representation. Draw a line from Nimbus to Dewa, and that's the approximate border, with the State above the line (which includes Achernar) and the Star Empire below it (which includes Romulus).

[Allyn Gibson]

Christopher wrote:

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But as far as the novel continuity is concerned, they have only the origin given here.

It's interesting that you bring that up, because now I'm wondering.

Do the Mirror Universe Borg (discussed in another thread here) share that origin? I'm not finished with Lost Souls yet, but I can't imagine how the origin Dave describes would even work in the MU.

I can't envision the Caeliar allowing an Imperial ship to come close to Erigol, and on top of that, I'd think that escape attempts would have been more frequent, and more violent, leading to the Caeliar simply banishing the humans in their midst.

So it occurs to me. Maybe they're refugees from another universe? And because they are, they're even more degraded, if such a thing is possible. (I'm thinking they could be the Borg equivalent of the "Real Time" Cybermen -- stripped down and almost feral.)

I dunno. Just speculamating.

[nx1701g]

I do plan on getting the book and reading it but I have to know one thing:

What is Starfleet and the Federation's status at the end of the book?

[Christopher]

KRAD wrote:

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If you have Star Charts, turn to pages 66-67. The Romulan Star Empire is egg-shaped in that representation. Draw a line from Nimbus to Dewa, and that's the approximate border, with the State above the line (which includes Achernar) and the Star Empire below it (which includes Romulus).

So basically the RSE is between the Federation and the IRS (still can't get over that acronym).