Spoilers Destiny: Lost Souls by David Mack Review Thread

Re: Star Trek: Destiny: Lost Souls - Discuss/Grade

If you look at it from the POV of an attacked race, it's humanity's fault for the survivors not letting themselves die. They went back and sought out the Caeliar's help to survive, had they just allowed themselves to die or killed themselves, no Borg.

As for the Caeliar fusion process, I think the Mantillis (sp) fusion was doomed period. The only reason Erika's worked was because it was more controled and it wasn't for the purpose of using her as a living duracell.

 

Re: Star Trek: Destiny: Lost Souls - Discuss/Grade

Let me ask you this.

You know this because you're outside of the book, and you read the book, and it told you this. Because you, as a reader, are omniscent to events inside the book.

Who, inside the book, knows this?

Picard doesn't know this. Riker doesn't know this. Dax doesn't know this. I'm not even sure that Hernandez knows this. She knows that the Borg are degraded Caeliar, because the Borg operate on a mental frequency she can "hear." But does she know anything else?

I understand what you're saying. Honestly, I do. But you're assumed an omniscence and knowledge for characters inside the Star Trek fictional construct that simply cannot be justified.

As I said, I think the "living Duracell" might have worked, had it been done when the Caeliar raised the issue.

I'm not saying it would have worked; it's entirely possible that it would have turned out just like the failed merger in Mere Mortals. The one difference is that the Caeliar would have been a consciousness guiding the catoms and the merger with the Mantilis survivors, while Inyx simply offered the dying woman catoms without the mental guidance. So, I think there was a better chance of it working initially.

On the flipside, why the merger went badly when it happened is simple -- survival. The Caeliar were dying. They had gone insane. They were primal. At that point, it was pure Darwinian "survival of the fittest." At that point, there was no chance of it going well. The Caeliar were too far gone.

 

Re: Star Trek: Destiny: Lost Souls - Discuss/Grade

Maybe the Borg simply forgot their own origin?

Guess which race *I* think that could be.

And I just thought of something else: The families of the specific humans that were the first Borg. I dearly hope they never find out what happened. (Not because I think anyone would go *after* them, but they might not be able to deal with the guilt.)

 

Re: Star Trek: Destiny: Lost Souls - Discuss/Grade

Are you suggesting that they should feel some sort of shame akin to Original Sin because of what their ancestors or relations of 300 years past might have done or created? That's nonsense. My ancestors may have been dicks to the Native Americans, but I don't lose sleep over it. I can say that what some English colonists did 300 years ago to the indigenous population was wrong, but I don't feel guilty about it. The sins of the past should stay in the past.

 

Re: Star Trek: Destiny: Lost Souls - Discuss/Grade

I'm not saying they *should* feel shame, but they just might anyway.

I mean, how do you think the parents of somebody like this feel?

Agreed, though, in that for the moment I totally forgot that the immediate parents of the first Borg humans would be long dead by the 24th century anyway.

As for the 'original sin' bit...there is real world precedence. I mean, how else would you explain this?

 

Re: Star Trek: Destiny: Lost Souls - Discuss/Grade

Because the Borg forgot their own origins. They didn't know they came from humans, so when they encountered humans later, they thought it was a new species.

Which just underlines your point about the total lack of proof for this notion. You're right that nobody's going to launch a war or terrorist campaign against humanity in retaliation for what the Borg did, because there's no way anyone's ever really going to know for a fact that this is how the Borg came to be. At most, it might be some cockamamie conspiracy theory a few nuts buy into, and that's only if the idea gets out in the first place. And I doubt it will, since only a few Starfleet captains and maybe their superiors are aware of it at all.

Besides, who would believe it? That a race that's been terrorizing the galaxy from the Delta Quadrant for thousands of years actually descended from a human starship crew that lived less than two centuries before but got flung across time and space? Your average citizen of your average planet probably isn't even going to believe such things are possible. Most people in the galaxy wouldn't have the routine experience with cutting-edge physics and cosmological weirdness that Starfleet officers do, and there's probably a lot of stuff they simply wouldn't believe was real. Time travel? Inverted causality? Godlike superbeings? Right, tell me another one.

At most, what people at large will be aware of is that the Caeliar claimed the Borg as a degenerate offshoot of themselves, and then took both the Borg and themselves out of the picture. So anyone who's looking for someone to blame will blame the Caeliar, who are conveniently absent.

 

Re: Star Trek: Destiny: Lost Souls - Discuss/Grade

I just finished reading Lost Souls minutes ago and I must say this trilogy as a whole is the best Star Trek story I have ever read. I only wish I could have seen more of the characters such as those left on DS9 and the Defiant, and Voyager but I understand why they weren't featured in this story. Simply, thanks!

 

Re: Star Trek: Destiny: Lost Souls - Discuss/Grade

I agree. Thanks to my bad cold I still haven`t finished the book but curious as I am, I peeked ahead. If what I have seen is correct, Earth was spared a Borg attack at pretty much one minute before it would have happened while other Federation worlds suffered very badly.

Add that to what you just described and you have more fuel for people who are already irrational.

 

Re: Star Trek: Destiny: Lost Souls - Discuss/Grade

Hmm. Did New York resent D.C. for not having suffered as bad of an attack on 9/11 as they did? Did either of them resent Chicago or Los Angeles for suffering no attacks at all?

I see no reason for the other Federation worlds to resent Earth for not suffering attack. It came to within a hair's breadth of suffering an attack, too, and, furthermore, Earth is their capital world, too, just like the District of Columbia is as much Ohio's capital as it is New York's.

 

Re: Star Trek: Destiny: Lost Souls - Discuss/Grade

If the secret that a combination of Caeliar and humans resulted in the birth of the Borg will indeed never be out in the public domain as some people think, then I agree with you: The fact that Earth was spared at the last moment won`t cause any resentment.

But if the secret will be out one day then the irrational and paranoid will wonder, was it really a fortunate accident that Earth was spared?

 

Re: Star Trek: Destiny: Lost Souls - Discuss/Grade

I just bought the book yesterday and I read the last two chapters first. It seems like something out of Babylon 5: the Caeliar/Vorlons are the more benign race but still fearful of so-called "inferior races". In the B5 universe, no expedition to the Vorlon homeworld had ever returned, that rang true with the Caeliar. The Borg/Shadows are the all-powerful malevolent force that everyone in the galaxy fears.
That's where the analogy ends. In the B5 universe, the Vorlons and Shadows were around to "help" the younger races find that middle ground between order and chaos. The Caeliar and the Borg merge into a more powerful force for good. It could have gone the other way and our heroes would have been totally screwed. I guess that's where all the drama is.

From the reviews, it seems pretty intriguing. I'll go back and the read the whole book.

 

Re: Star Trek: Destiny: Lost Souls - Discuss/Grade

I know I am late on this, but I want to congratulate David Mack for a marvelous series of books and a great, great story.

The problem with fiction in general is that there has to be some parts of it that stretch reality so that some problems in the narrative cannot be solved. The idea of people blaming humanity for the Borg is one of them. Our POV as readers helps us to understand everything about the origins of the Borg. When Piccard and his staff write their after-action report, and probably all three captains would write one detailed report together along with their staffs, the reports would not say that humans/Caeliar are the termius a quo of the Borg. The evidence they would know, even given all the live recrods they would have access to, would not be enough to say that this is reality. So I think the revenge on human problem probably would never happen.

I have two questions which I may expand into a few more questions:

1. Picard is percived by many as out of character, since he is so negative against the plans of Dax/Hernandez? May I submit that more every major war decision has opposition to it, even the most successful ones? Piccard was too depressed, for lack of a better word, for whatever reason to come up with the great wining idea/plan. Okay, but if nobody ever challenged Dax/Hernadez in their thinking, or send a large part of their crews to help them, the plans would not have worked. Piccard was not such a wet blanket as some suggest IMO. Should have been tougher, yes. But read Eisenhower writing about before D-Day, or Grant and Lee's writings about their role in the American Civil War. They never had such crises of the soul as Picard?

2. I personally think our esteemed author made a mistake about the Thaerlon Raidiation order of Piccard and the refusal of LaForge to do it. Piccard was right, and LaForge was wrong, and any sane commander would have sacked LaForge and built the weapon. First off, if the Borg continued on their spree in the Alpha Quadrant, they would get the tech for ther weapon, and they would use it. Second, if 60+ billion beings are dying, and there is little hope to save the sitaution, Picard had no choice but to build and use it. What is the more important ethic, watch your culture turn to ashes, or take the chance you can stop the destruction by a new weapon? I know what Bacco thought, and any other commander would use the same thing, Why is the Doomsday Device such a great episode in the original series? Same issue is brought up.

Third, you better believe the Romulans at this point would be arming ships with it, so would the Klingons if they had the tech. The cat would be out of the bag at this point by somebody who had the tech. This is a war of extermination right? And the Borg is the proverbial cat, and the Allies are the proverbial mice, correct?

It is great to see the author show the superiority of the Starfleet ethic here, but he takes too far, and beyond reality in Picard changing his mind to build it. In fact, this weakness is in all three books when everyone at Starfleet Command refused Seven's suggestion to build it. And what about the ubiqitous Section 31? They would just sit idly by while a former Borg says this is your best weapon? They inflicted the Founders with a virus, what's the difference?

But, these are somewhat minor quibbles about a great series, and overall it was a great, great read.

 

Re: Star Trek: Destiny: Lost Souls - Discuss/Grade

Maybe in the future someone catches Section 31 so they can't attempt genocide anymore...

With so many species spread out all over, Earth may be a symbol, but since everyone was attacked in general, I can't imagine an uprising in general. Despite the anger, the fear etc., I think everyone knew who the *present* Borg are, and they were the enemy and the literal antagonists. I don't think that the war-weary will go vs. the humans or anyone else just because of the origins of the Borg thousands of years ago.

And for a while... I'm only half way through... but there is a lot (at least on my end ) of mourning in store... and given all the wars, people must be at a point know where they will *have* to grieve... I'd imagine that will surpass the need for revenge, and by the time its done, survival/rebuilding will kinda take over... maybe...

 

Re: Star Trek: Destiny: Lost Souls - Discuss/Grade

Hey if Destiny is the Lord of the Rings of Trek does that make Greater Than the Sum The Hobbit of Trek?

 

Re: Star Trek: Destiny: Lost Souls - Discuss/Grade

Oh, definitely. As I said above, people are going to be far too busy rebuilding to have the luxury of starting wars or terrorist attacks or anything. Remember the World Wars? The German people were quite bitter about their defeat and the harsh reparations imposed on them, but they didn't lash out again for another couple of decades, until the Nazis had seized onto that anger and built it up into a powerful political movement -- and also until Germany's economy had been rebuilt enough that they could afford to engage in military aggression. But after they were defeated again in WWII, they didn't have the same simmering buildup to vengeance, because this time the victors treated them well and helped them rebuild, thus defusing any anger.

It's a cinch that the Federation under Bacco is going to treat its neighbors as well as possible and do everything it can to help them rebuild. So by the time they're recovered enough to have the option of going to war with anybody, they probably won't be intensely vengeful toward the UFP. Even if the human origins of the Borg did become generally known or believed, which is unlikely.

It's been suggested before, and it's a comparison I'm flattered by. And it works; GTTS does have a quest and a dragon in it.

 

Re: Star Trek: Destiny: Lost Souls - Discuss/Grade

Inoculative/recuperative therapy has its strengths, for nations as for individual people. I'll be very interested to see how much success Nan Bacco has, and what might pop up out of the woodwork to complicate or sabotage her efforts.

Pushing for Articles II, I still am.

 

Re: Star Trek: Destiny: Lost Souls - Discuss/Grade

I imagine the Jellico Plan; just as George Marshall formulated the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe and turn enemies into long-term allies, maybe it's going to take someone like Edward Jellico to marshall the resources and rebuild the quadrant, not to remake the galaxy in the Federation's image, but because it's the right thing to do.

I'm throwing that out as a possibility, riffing on Christopher's idea; I don't actually know what's going to happen in A Singular Destiny and beyond.

 

Re: Star Trek: Destiny: Lost Souls - Discuss/Grade

This has been the best trilogy I have read and some of the best Star Trek books written as well. The Borg are truly a fearsome force in this trilogy and it's great to see them used that way finally.

I don't understand how the Borg have had to rely on their transwarp hubs to traverse the galaxy. I thought their ships were able to travel at transwarp without the hubs (VOY ep "Dark Frontier")?

The origin of the Borg is close to what I was thinking, just that my vision didn't involve time travel. It was done extraordinarily well though and I have no problem with it.

I read this trilogy in the span of a week, and each book was over 400 pages. I just couldn't put them down!

 

Re: Star Trek: Destiny: Lost Souls - Discuss/Grade

The way I figure it is, the transwarp coil seen in DF let them access the transwarp conduits that are spread across the galaxy. A transwarp hub is a place where the conduits converge, and destroying the hub collapsed the conduits connected to it.

 

Re: Star Trek: Destiny: Lost Souls - Discuss/Grade

They are finally brought to justice by the 25th century.

http://startrek.wikia.com/wiki/Section_31#25th_Century

The existence and activities of Section 31 were exposed to the general public by the early 25th century and its agents brought to justice for their crimes. The public release of Section 31's files and records ended over 300 years of the bureau's illegal and unsanctioned black-ops and infiltration programs. (The Good That Men Do)