TP: Raise the Dawn by DRGIII Review Thread (Spoilers!)

[Paper Moon]

JD wrote:

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In an earlier post I can't find now someone mentioned Kirk seeming to not have a problem hanging out with them in The Final Frontier, and then hating them with passion in The Undiscovered Country. I think this is the thing that bugged me the most, the sudden change in attitude between the movies. I understand a bit of time passed, but it still seemed like a drastic change. I understand people's feeling can change over time, but if these feelings are supposed to be brought on by David's death, then I would think they would be stronger closer to the event (TFF) than farther away (TUC).

The only (lame) justification I could come up for that is that Kirk had been too busy with the Probe incident and the Enterprise-A's maiden voyage to really process what had happened. A delayed reaction, if you will.

Honestly, though, I think I've watched STV about three times (as opposed to at least a dozen times each for STII, STIII, STIV and STVI), and I tend to just ignore it. I think I once heard the theory that all of STV was just a dream that Kirk had on the camping trip with Spock and McCoy (or maybe some sort of weird shared dream between the three of them). It just allows sooooo many things to be explained away, and since STV is referenced so infrequently, it's not that bad.

I mean, obviously that's just me applying my personal continuity to the discussion, but, yeah.

One thing that has always surprised me is how much time passed between STV and STVI. One of the biggest gaps between movies we have.

[Christopher]

Paper Moon wrote:

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Honestly, though, I think I've watched STV about three times (as opposed to at least a dozen times each for STII, STIII, STIV and STVI), and I tend to just ignore it.

I used to ignore it, but more recently I changed my mind. The worst parts about it can be ignored or rationalized. There are only three lines referencing the center of the galaxy, so just ignore maybe half a minute of the film and that problem's solved. Ditto with the impossibly high turboshaft. And it's ridiculous that a photon torpedo -- an antimatter weapon more powerful than a nuclear bomb -- goes off maybe 50 feet behind the heroes and they're unscathed; but I rationalize it by assuming the torpedo actually detonated deep underground.

So that just leaves the plot and character issues, and while there are some annoyances there, I think a lot of it holds up fairly well. Sybok is an effective character, even if his abilities are nebulously defined. The key sequence with Sybok showing Spock and McCoy their pasts and Kirk refusing to have his pain released is actually quite effective and worthwhile. And Spock persuading General Korrd to help in the climax can be taken as the seed of his future diplomatic career and his role in UFP-Klingon detente in TUC.

So there's enough good stuff in the movie that I'm no longer willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater and dismiss the whole thing.

It just allows sooooo many things to be explained away, and since STV is referenced so infrequently, it's not that bad.

It's been referenced more than you'd think. In the Name of Honor is a direct sequel to ST V. Nimbus III was a major story thread in Vanguard. Klaa plays a major role in Mere Anarchy: The Blood-Dimmed Tide. Korrd is in the novel Sarek and in "The Unhappy Ones" in Seven Deadly Sins. I've referenced Sybok briefly in Ex Machina and Forgotten History and discussed the death of McCoy's father in the former work. The "God" entity was in the Q Continuum trilogy. Gravity boots (like Spock used to levitate at Yosemite) were featured in a couple of SCE installments.

One thing that has always surprised me is how much time passed between STV and STVI. One of the biggest gaps between movies we have.

That's because II - V spanned 7 years of real time but were only set a few months apart. VI "reset" the time interval to reflect the actors' real ages, just as the previous Nicholas Meyer film, TWOK, had done.

[Paper Moon]

Christopher wrote:

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I used to ignore it, but more recently I changed my mind. The worst parts about it can be ignored or rationalized. There are only three lines referencing the center of the galaxy, so just ignore maybe half a minute of the film and that problem's solved. Ditto with the impossibly high turboshaft. And it's ridiculous that a photon torpedo -- an antimatter weapon more powerful than a nuclear bomb -- goes off maybe 50 feet behind the heroes and they're unscathed; but I rationalize it by assuming the torpedo actually detonated deep underground.

So that just leaves the plot and character issues, and while there are some annoyances there, I think a lot of it holds up fairly well. Sybok is an effective character, even if his abilities are nebulously defined. The key sequence with Sybok showing Spock and McCoy their pasts and Kirk refusing to have his pain released is actually quite effective and worthwhile. And Spock persuading General Korrd to help in the climax can be taken as the seed of his future diplomatic career and his role in UFP-Klingon detente in TUC.

So there's enough good stuff in the movie that I'm no longer willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater and dismiss the whole thing.

Those are good points. I agree that the Spock-past and McCoy-past scenes are very effective (particularly the McCoy scene). That was why I considered the possibility that it was some sort of odd shared dream. Not very plausible, but more plausible than a trip to the center of the galaxy, and given all the other bizarre phenomena we've come across in Star Trek, I think it's more likely than you'd think. (Residual mind meld effects anyone?)

And Sybok can still be an effective character within the shared dream. I actually don't have much trouble with his character.

I'm less fond of Scotty bonking his head on a bulkhead and waking up in sickbay. Less fond of the weird, seems to be out of nowhere romance between him and Uhura. Not fond of how the fake God is so easily vanquished.

But I see your point about the baby and the bathwater. I'll rewatch the film in the next few weeks, and see how I feel then.

It's been referenced more than you'd think. In the Name of Honor is a direct sequel to ST V. Nimbus III was a major story thread in Vanguard. Klaa plays a major role in Mere Anarchy: The Blood-Dimmed Tide. Korrd is in the novel Sarek and in "The Unhappy Ones" in Seven Deadly Sins. I've referenced Sybok briefly in Ex Machina and Forgotten History and discussed the death of McCoy's father in the former work. The "God" entity was in the Q Continuum trilogy. Gravity boots (like Spock used to levitate at Yosemite) were featured in a couple of SCE installments.

Coincidentally, those are almost all books I've never read. (Exceptions: "The Unhappy Ones," and your books, Christopher.) My TrekLit tends to be 24th-century centered. But with the exception of In The Name of Honor and the Q books (less so), none of those books sound like they refer significantly to the Enterprise's absurd trip to the center of the galaxy, but instead focus on other, non-absurd things that are established by the film.

In any case, though, I was actually referring to the film not getting referenced much in subsequent TV and film productions.

That's because II - V spanned 7 years of real time but were only set a few months apart. VI "reset" the time interval to reflect the actors' real ages, just as the previous Nicholas Meyer film, TWOK, had done.

Yeah, that makes sense. It's too bad that the real-world limitations of Trek productions prevent TPTB from focusing on the fact that people will probably age slower in the future, with extended lifetimes and better health care and stuff. "He's FOURTY-FIVE years old!? He doesn't look a day over thirty!!" That would be cool.

[Christopher]

Paper Moon wrote:

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I'm less fond of Scotty bonking his head on a bulkhead and waking up in sickbay. Less fond of the weird, seems to be out of nowhere romance between him and Uhura.

Lately I'm increasingly making references to Roddenberry's TMP novelization, and the preface where he adopted the role of a 23rd-century writer who'd made a fictionalized account of the real adventures of the Enterprise, and admitted he'd taken poetic license and made mistakes in his interpretation. Sometimes it helps to perceive what we see as an approximation or dramatization of the "real" events, and recognize that some portions of the story may be exaggerated or fictionalized.

Coincidentally, those are almost all books I've never read. (Exceptions: "The Unhappy Ones," and your books, Christopher.) My TrekLit tends to be 24th-century centered.

Seriously -- you should read Vanguard.

But with the exception of In The Name of Honor and the Q books (less so), none of those books sound like they refer significantly to the Enterprise's absurd trip to the center of the galaxy, but instead focus on other, non-absurd things that are established by the film.

See above. Like I said, "the center of the galaxy" is only mentioned in three near-consecutive lines in a single scene, so you can just ignore that tiny part of the film and it ceases to be a problem. Or, you can assume that maybe "The Center of the Galaxy" is some traditional or poetic Vulcan name for a more local cosmic phenomenon, or something like that.

It's too bad that the real-world limitations of Trek productions prevent TPTB from focusing on the fact that people will probably age slower in the future, with extended lifetimes and better health care and stuff. "He's FOURTY-FIVE years old!? He doesn't look a day over thirty!!" That would be cool.

Well, they did make Picard ten years older than Patrick Stewart.

[DEWLine]

"Or, you can assume that maybe "The Center of the Galaxy" is some traditional or poetic Vulcan name for a more local cosmic phenomenon, or something like that."

And badly translated from Old High Vulcan to English, at that.

[Sci]

With regards to Kirk's bigotry against Klingons in Star Trek VI and the idea that it is inconsistent with his earlier characterization, I would like to offer this for thought:

My paternal grandfather, who was white, died when my father was only 11 years old, so I never knew him. But I've grown up hearing stories from my father and paternal grandmother about him -- and something in particular about their stories always intrigued me. It seems that my grandfather, who was a truck driver, had, as was common in those days (1960s), a number of close male friends. They would hang out all day on their days off, working on cars, drinking beer, shooting the breeze, etc.

Most of his friends were white -- but one man among his associates was black. He had a nearly identical relationship with him; they would hang out, talk, work on car engines together for fun. My father and grandmother both describe their relationship as being virtually identical to those with his white friends. And yet, when the sun set at the end of the day, my paternal grandfather would not do as he did for his white friends and invite his black -- friend? associate? -- over for dinner. Nor would this other man invite him over to his house. There was a boundary between them that prevented from from becoming closer friends as they would have with men of their own skin color -- even though, say my grandmother and father, their relationship was up to that point nearly identical with those of other friends.

And when the evening came and this other man had left, my paternal grandfather would often watching the news with my grandmother and father -- and upon seeing a news piece about a white person being attacked by a black man, or about the civil rights movement, or about any crime allegedly committed by a black person, or about a black person at all, my grandfather would often become agitated, use the N-word, and talk about about how black people were ruining the country and could not be trusted.

His having died when I would have been -11 years old, I never met my paternal grandfather. But that story, of the seemingly contradictory behavior -- the man who could be almost-friends with a black man one minute and a raging racist the next -- has always stayed with me. It has often suggested to me that people can harbor prejudices and racial animosities in the same breath that they may try to be friendly and polite, that their behavior can be essentially inconsistent and self-contradictory.

So somehow, the idea that James T. Kirk could believe that prejudice against Klingons as a species is wrong, could work for many years to fight that prejudice in himself, could try to find a way to build bridges of trust and make diplomatic overtures -- and yet find himself blaming their race for the death of his son, and find himself feeling so utterly bitter and threatened at the thought of a fundamental change in the relationship between the Federation and the Empire, at the thought of a peaceful alliance, that he would behave as he did in Star Trek VI... this idea has never bothered me. I can completely accept the idea that James T. Kirk encompasses both of these self-contradictory impulses, and that at his best he's fought his own prejudices -- and that at his worst, he's sometimes given into them.

Just my food for thought, inspired by stories I've heard within my own family. Your mileage my vary.

[flandry84]

TBH I don't think anyone has really answered my question about Spock and a possible mind probe too satisfactorily.As the ultimate pragmatist(and a truly moral being),an experienced officer and diplomat(the UFP's foremost expert on Romulans)I think Spock would have few enough reservations in interrogating Tomaleks mind at all.
But, no matter.

Another question this time regarding the previously mentioned Glinn Dygan and the Cardassian officer on DS9,seeing as they are referred to by Cardassian ranks,what uniform do they wear?I can't remember if this detail is mentioned anywhere.

[Sci]

flandry84 wrote:

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TBH I don't think anyone has really answered my question about Spock and a possible mind probe too satisfactorily.As the ultimate pragmatist(and a truly moral being),an experienced officer and diplomat(the UFP's foremost expert on Romulans)I think Spock would have few enough reservations in interrogating Tomaleks mind at all.

That's a perfectly valid interpretation -- as I've said before, I think a strong argument can be made that Spock has a bit of a ruthless streak to him -- but it's obviously quite subjective. Others have answered why they don't agree with that interpretation of Spock's character.

And as I pointed out earlier, the fact that no other telepathic Federates were called upon to probe Tomalak's mind after he was arrested strongly implies that the Federation has a legal prohibition against this.

Another question this time regarding the previously mentioned Glinn Dygan and the Cardassian officer on DS9,seeing as they are referred to by Cardassian ranks,what uniform do they wear?I can't remember if this detail is mentioned anywhere.

Well, they're officers in the Cardassian Guard, aren't they? So they're serving through an officer exchange program -- meaning they're not officers in the Federation Starfleet. So I would think they wear the uniform of the Cardassian Guard while serving aboard the Enterprise and Deep Space 9.

[Paper Moon]

Sci wrote:

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Well, he's an officer in the Cardassian Guard, isn't he? So he's serving aboard the Enterprise through an officer exchange program -- meaning he's not an officer in the Federation Starfleet. So I would think Glinn Dygan wears the uniform of the Cardassian Guard while serving aboard the Enterprise.

That's my feeling as well (although I thought Dygan was a woman... that's what you get for getting too excited and reading quickly).

[Sci]

Paper Moon wrote:

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That's my feeling as well (although I thought Dygan was a woman... that's what you get for getting too excited and reading quickly).

I honestly couldn't remember, which is why I went and edited my post to refer to both Cardassian officers rather than one or the other.

[Paper Moon]

Sci wrote:

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I honestly couldn't remember, which is why I went and edited my post to refer to both Cardassian officers rather than one or the other.

Ah! I see. Mea culpa. I know that the Cardassian officer serving aboard DS9 was a woman– darned if I can remember her name or position, and Memory Beta is totally failing me right now.

[DS9forever]

Zivan Slaine:

http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Zivan_Slaine

[Paper Moon]

Thank you!

It's a shame that there isn't one of those senior staff templates for DS9 that there is for the Enterprise-E. I'm tempted to figure out how to construct one...

[Sci]

Paper Moon wrote:

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Thank you!

It's a shame that there isn't one of those senior staff templates for DS9 that there is for the Enterprise-E. I'm tempted to figure out how to construct one...

I'm surprised there isn't. I'm sure it wouldn't be that hard to make one. Just watch out -- certain mods on Memory Beta treat it like it's their own private sandbox and woe to thee who does anything they don't like.

[datalogan]

Stoek wrote:

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My suspicion has always been that it's a small loophole that Starfleet has been quietly exploiting since the end of the Dominion War. Probably permission to use the cloak has never been officially rescinded, and quite possibly given everything that happened to the Romulans after the war (Shinzon, the temporary sundering of the Empire etc) they may have even forgotten that Defiant has it.

A related question would be how does the Defiant have a cloaking device at all? Presumably the original cloaking device borrowed from the Romulans was destroyed at the Second Battle of Chin'toka along with the USS Defiant in DS9 "The Changing Face of Evil".

When the USS Sao Paulo replaced, and then became, the USS Defiant in DS9 "The Dogs of War" I don't think there was any mention of a cloaking device being aboard her. And I don't remember her using a cloak in that episode, nor in the next one, "What You Leave Behind", which was, of course, the last episode of the series. Plus, I don't remember any discussion about this in the DS9 relaunch novels, but I may be forgetting something.

Much like the incorrect registry number (she should have the Sao Paulo's number not the same as the old Defiant), I think many writers have forgotten this fact, merging the USS Sao Paulo too completely into the USS Defiant.

So if the USS Defiant of 2383 does have cloaking technology (which it clearly does in Raise the Dawn) then I don't think it's ever been explained where she got it from. I would think it was most likely from a source other than the Romulans, since they surely would have asked for it back by now. Hey, maybe it's a Suliban cloak.