Some of you will remember the previous editions of this, from when I was unemployed and so rather bored. Having been assimilated into the workforce, I have less time on my hands, but there is still so much of the novel 'verse left to explore. The books have confused us with twisted trilogies like String Theory and Millennium, they've unleashed the mossy terror of The Genesis Wave whether we like it or not, and recently they've had a rather nasty Fall. But keeping track of these myriad plots can be difficult. That is why this handy guide was created, and is presented here in updated form for your edification. Note: Everything's behind spoiler tags, because many of them do give away important plot points. ......... Dominion (War) and Delta (Quadrant) Spoiler: Hollow Men In which Section 31 defeats both a man in a silly hat and a pacifist conspirator, proving that you don’t mess with Section 31. Sisko brings his Cardassian home to show the family, but it gets ruthless pragmatism all over the carpet and things are generally awkward. Sisko desperately searches for someone willing to punish him, but Starfleet Command decides that spending the long trip to Earth with Garak nattering in your ear is punishment enough. Spoiler: Immortal Coil In which the world’s oldest man begins collecting robots, and in his senility forgets to stop. With all their robot buddies confiscated, the Federation decides to build a new one. They hide her in the security department on a starship during wartime, because she'll be safe there. Spoiler: String Theory: Cohesion In which Voyager destroys an alien ship, blows up one of their suns and starts unravelling the universe in their backyard. The aliens give the crew a magic key in the hopes that they’ll use it to go away. Spoiler: String Theory: Fusion In which Voyager stops to refuel at the galaxy’s most convenient space station, which is currently infested with angels. Tuvok tries to become an angel, but you don’t escape the Voyage of the Damned that easily. The Nacene reveal that “sporocystian lifeform” is actually technobabble for “spoilt five-year old”. Spoiler: String Theory: Evolution In which Kes solves most of the universe’s problems, travels in time, steals someone else’s body, has a child who is accepted into the Q Continuum, duplicates herself, restores Ocampa, and works out most of Voyager’s plotholes. Despite this, her application to rejoin the crew is denied. Spoiler: The Battle of Betazed In which Crell Moset teaches the Jem’Hadar to feel love. Legions of Jem’Hadar are subsequently defeated through use of the Care Bear Stare. Spoiler: Millennium trilogy In which the Pah-wraiths become far more complicated and three-dimensional than they were on the TV show. Since their plan this time is “destroy the universe”, that’s saying something. Odo, Quark and Garak can’t remember what they did on the night of the Withdrawal. Usually the obvious answer would be they were drinking, but this is Star Trek so it’s actually much more convoluted and implausible. So, Weyoun is the kai and has magic powers, Nog is -- okay, maybe they were drinking. Post-War Spoiler: A Stitch In Time In which Garak pens an elaborate fan fiction and posts it on the internet, reveals his life story, or some combination of the two. Having satisfied his urge to confuse people, he goes back to planting flowers. Spoiler: The Left Hand of Destiny In which Martok studies human culture in hopes of kicking off his reign with a real epic. He confuses King Arthur with Star Wars, and re-enacts the Battle of Hoth and the Battle of Camlann at the same time. Spoiler: Gemworld, books one and two In which the galaxy’s silliest planet is in peril. Barclay must roam around collecting six crystal shards, and presumably many gold coins, while navigating the exotic levels of Gemworld. Avoiding both flying moray eels and fire-breathing turtles, he aims to collect maximum points. Yes, he eats a mushroom. Spoiler: Diplomatic Implausibility In which Worf gets roped into saving the polar bears, but can’t really be bothered. He crowns a whiny engineer “Emperor of the Polar Bears” and calls it a day. Spoiler: Avatar, books one and two In which several Jem’Hadar refuse to admit it’s over and plough on regardless, while the Deep Space Nine series essentially does the same thing. Kira is kicked out of the Bajoran religion for praying in church. Spoiler: Abyss In which Bashir finally meets a real Bond Villain - one who wants to re-enact the plot of Moonraker, for reasons known only to himself. Ro recruits monkey cannon fodder to help bring him down, while Vaughn reveals he stole a holoship from Insurrection, continuing his attempt to tie himself to any and all events in Star Trek history. Spoiler: Demons of Air and Darkness In which many things happen, some, if not most of them, relating not at all to Taran’atar fighting Hirogen. Spoiler: The Brave and the Bold In which every Star Trek crew and their supporting casts are almost outwitted by a box. Spoiler: Twilight In which Shar runs away to sea to escape disappointed family members, and Vaughn decides to do the same - only to then remember that his daughter is already assigned to the same ship. Vaughn dumps Prynn and Shar on a desolate world out of general spite, but has to go and retrieve them when the plot punishes him with a flashback montage; this being Vaughn, it covers practically every event since 2280. Spoiler: This Gray Spirit In which Vaughn tries to leave Shar behind again, this time with Dax, but once more has to go back for them when Dax starts a revolutionary war by speaking out at the dinner table. In the alpha quadrant, Cardassia cleans out its attic and tries to foist what it finds on the Bajorans; fortunately, the Bajorans mistake it for sensitive diplomacy. Spoiler: A Good Day To Die In which the Klingons kick off their own series by playing “capture the flag” and building dainty sailboats. Through the rigours of the tiddlywink competition, they teach us the true test of the warrior. Spoiler: Cathedral In which Julian Bashir visits a space-cathedral and loses his medical competence behind the pew cushions. Ezri loses Dax, while Nog finds a spare leg. The local priests help return the missing items but confiscate the leg. Meanwhile, tragedy strikes when the Trill delegation finds an unguarded weapons locker and begin playing with the contents. Later claims that the First Minister was actually an alien monster impress no-one. Spoiler: Lesser Evil In which Vaughn finally tracks down his wife and kills her. Back on Deep Space Nine, the crew realize that TNG season one has infiltrated the station, and declare quarantine. Spoiler: Honor Bound In which Klag, on a mission to conquer new worlds, decides to impede efforts to conquer a new world. For the honour of the Klingon Empire, he fights the Klingon Empire and banishes it from the planet forever. The treacherous natives then backstab him and willingly join the empire, fulfilling his original mission. Martok, mistaking this for an elaborate farce, applauds all involved. Spoiler: Rising Son In which Jake Sisko finds the courage to claw his way back to relevance, and becomes a pirate. He plunders several lost treasures, but to his frustration all of them natter on beatifically about the Prophets. Resigned to his status as a pawn, he goes home. Spoiler: Unity In which Sisko tricks the Prophets into opening the back door to let in some air, then makes a run for it. The Prophets can’t chase after him because as soon as the door’s open Kira releases insectoid vermin into the Temple, forcing them to deal with the infestation. The plan works perfectly. Spoiler: Enemy Territory In which the Klingons send shockwaves through xenosociological circles by discovering a race with a political system even more frinxed up than theirs. Being Klingons, they celebrate by destroying it. Spoiler: Worlds of DS9 1 In which Vedek Yevir befriends a suicide bomber. The Andorians up the stakes by abducting their own Councillor. Spoiler: Worlds of DS9 2 In which the Trill realize that symbionts are yucky and get rid of them, then remember that this reduces them to being nothing more than spotted humans, so they save the last few and look sheepish. Meanwhile, Jake makes another attempt at self-determination and swiftly acquires a wife. To his annoyance, this gets overshadowed by characters from The Storyteller. Spoiler: A Burning House In which B’Oraq pushes for Klingon healthcare reform, by suggesting they implement some form of healthcare. Martok, upon hearing that the previous regime spent the medical budget on booze and cockfighting, decides she might be onto something. Meanwhile, Toq commits the cardinal mistake of all protagonists and goes home, thus dooming anyone still living there to a horrible death. Wol and the Fifteenth visit a farm so Goran can sow some oats. Spoiler: Worlds of DS9 3 In which the Ferengi buy the plot from the Cardassia story, add their own modifications, and sell it back for substantial profit, thus proving their business acumen. Meanwhile, the Founders teach Odo a lesson by rejecting the Link themselves while leaving him on the homeworld to fret. Spoiler: Warpath In which Taran’atar, having suffered a breakdown in the last book, makes a break for it before the series does anything else to him. The plot is cunning, though, and has Prynn dragged along with him, meaning suffering for her and Vaughn as well. Eager to expand on the pain, the novel brings the Mirror Universe into play. Spoiler: Fearful Symmetry In which, contrary to Niner expectations, the phenomenon of “Kira overdose” is shown to be plausible. Iliana Ghemor decides that she’s the rightful Kira Nerys, because being the only one who’s actually Iliana Ghemor is the perfect criterion for judging which of you is Kira. Spoiler: The Soul Key In which Iliana Ghemor comes to her senses and realizes that, actually, she’s the fabled leader of a militant religious cult on the other side of the galaxy, NOT Kira Nerys. Spoiler: The SCE series Insects on abandoned ships / Sabotaged computer chips / Crashing friends from up above / From interphasic space with love / Gomez fought a monster shii / People at an outpost die / Farmers fight a basket case / Who let monkeys into space? / Artists play computer games / Some old friends are not the same / Landru is a communist / Real Evora hissy-fit / More eugenics, guilty-free / Scotty teaches history / Giant holographic ship / war is full of death and shit / DAVID MACK WILL KILL US ALL / Corsi learns to cry and bawl / Carol does the astral dance / Pillbugs Vs walking plants / lots of family and friends / (what, you mean that’s not the end?) / Baubles will destroy the Earth / Venus tries out childbirth / Big-ears muck about in time / This here train has jumped the line / Black hole diving, snakes alive / There’s a ring around the sky / Otter men on Noah’s Ark / Mass destruction’s not a lark / Failed probes that go to war / (what’s that, readers, you want more?)/ Ships that run on nought but luck / Risa going arse-side up / Gorn that stand the test of time / (Stopping now would be a crime!) / Portlyn tries to close the deal / Strata on a spinning wheel! / Jewish-Klingon wedding rocks! / There’s a planet in a box! / Crazy Vorta are the worst / Now another universe! / Gomez nuts as squirrel poo / Crazy Vorta number two! / Corsi dates a murderer / Lense brings something back with her / Irishmen and clones as twins / Pacifistic beaver-things / Gender-shifting aliens / Miradorn are frying brains / Gold goes jumping down a mine / Scotty stories get in line / How to crack the wartime codes / (Further stories? We’ve got loads!) / Vanguard coming online soon / Bynars find a crazy room / Gomez ponders her career / Turn the series on its ear / Now we’re up to Deep Space Ten? / Borg, you’re crashing ships again / Portlyn doesn’t play it fair / Cities flying through the air / Relatives come back or die / Memories of times gone by / Pretty sure that’s all of them? / Never speak of this again. Spoiler: The Genesis Wave In which the Federation regrets its plan to protect against misuse of Genesis technology by locking it away and leaving moss to grow on it. The moss becomes ambulatory, kidnaps Carol Marcus and tries to remake the galaxy in its own image, as the alarmists among us always feared. Fortunately, they only have one plan of action, which is to randomly fire their wave weapon and hope that no-one comes to investigate where it fired from. This is, after all, a scheme masterminded by moss. Spoiler: Vulcan's Soul Trilogy In which Spock realises that every time he makes progress on reunification, the writers send him another Vulcanoid offshoot to deal with. Now up to four, he decides that he’s had enough and tries to get to the bottom of things by consulting history. Discovering that the same guy broke the Vulcanoid race into smaller and smaller chunks every time he or his family did something, Spock curses the man and banishes his katra to the desert wastes. Spoiler: The Never-Ending Sacrifice In which Cardassia plays kotra with itself, and loses. On the other hand, Rugal eventually decides that Cardassia is "okay at times". The Laws of Narrative consider this for a bit, then decide it’s good enough for them and destroy Cardassia for maximum angst. Setting the stage for Nemesis Spoiler: Homecoming and The Farther Shore In which any Voyager crewman with a genuine claim to character development is thrown in prison for the presumption. B’Elanna, fearing that she might be next, runs away and compounds the error by committing matricide. Janeway, knowing Kim and Chakotay are fine, enlists their aid in an epic struggle to enforce a status quo despite everything. Spoiler: Spirit Walk, books one and two In which Chakotay’s imaginary friend comes to life and beats the frinx out of Odo’s crippled cousin. Spoiler: A Time to Be Born and A Time to Die In which the Travellers haze Wesley by making him think that everyone’s going to die and telling him that if he helps they’ll throw him out. Presumably they all laugh heartedly as he desperately tries to cope by making Christmas Carol references and stalking Admiral Nechayev. Feather boas join the Federation only to go out of style again. Spoiler: A Time to Sow and A Time to Harvest In which Enterprise receives an old TV broadcast by an honest-looking fellow and heads out to see his low, low prices, only to find that the planet which made the broadcast exploded centuries ago and it’s just some asteroids now. There are plans for a revival, but corporate sabotage from a rival company threatens to undermine this. Picard protects his new investment by bringing down the rival corporation. Spoiler: A Time to Love and A Time to Hate In which Riker’s dad reminds people of The Icarus Factor, and global riots commence. Beverly Crusher gets them all addicted to her home-brewed vapours and patents it as a cure, making millions. Spoiler: A Time to Kill and A Time to Heal In which David Mack pulled a "Teatime from Discworld" and went all metaphysical in his bloodlust, knifing not people or planets but concepts such as the Federation's idealism and the integrity of the Presidential office. Spoiler: A Time for War, A Time for Peace In which Klingon terrorists wander in through the kitchen and decide to take over the Federation embassy. Worf realizes the embassy is attracting too much serious attention, so he makes Alexander the new ambassador. Elsewhere, Bacco wins the election by virtue of being the author’s great-grandmother. Post-Nemesis Spoiler: Death In Winter In which Picard risks the lives of Stargazer crewmen to rescue an Enterprise crewman, thus proving who’s the more important. Meanwhile, Sela, having previously been reassigned to Space-Antarctica, returns to the story when Space-Antarctic plague breaks out. Dr. Greyhorse is forgiven for murder, so Picard is finally free to fully trust doctors again, and moves in with Beverly Crusher. Spoiler: Titan: Taking Wing In which Riker and Troi get a dinosaur and let it loose on their new ship. Also, Romulus is saved from disaster, meaning all who live upon it can now enjoy long and meaningful lives without fear of catastrophe. Spoiler: Titan: The Red King In which Titan heads down the rabbit hole to retrieve Earth’s stolen property. Holy Vangar’ is successfully recaptured and the Neyel threat is eliminated. Medals are given all-round. Also, Akaar forgives Tuvok for saving his life, the bastard. Spoiler: Articles of the Federation In which we watch several episodes of President Bacco’s Fun-Time Variety Hour. Much threatening to beat people with podiums ensues. Also, Cort Enaran lampshades Godwins’ Law and the Federation butchers a baby Tzenkethi in revenge for the Tzenkethi War. While they’re distracted, Donatra steals half the Romulan Empire and refuses to give it back. These are wacky hours indeed! Spoiler: Resistance In which the Borg experiment with such advanced tactics as “moving your legs at a rate greater than once per minute” and “not letting enemy troops wander around unchallenged”. Picard decides to become Locutus again, because plot. Spoiler: Titan: Orion's Hounds In which Riker joins Greenpeace and tries to save the whales, but is told by the whalers that if you don’t kill whales, you won’t be able to convert them into killer submarines and kill sharks, and if you don’t kill sharks they’ll eat everyone who goes near the water, and then the resort business will be ruined. Riker suggests that they ask the whales to help rather than turn them into submarines. The whalers sulk for a bit, then pretend they like the idea. Spoiler: Q and A In which Picard and Worf pull the plug on the universe and desperately try to put it back in again. Rather than admit that they screwed up, they tell Admiral Janeway it was their imaginary friend Q, knowing that she believes in him too. This “Q” gets the blame and Picard’s career is saved. Spoiler: Titan: Sword of Damocles In which Titan spends a thousand years screwing with some bugs, using a big magnifying glass in the sky to periodically burn them. The most spiritual crewman tries to stop the slaughter by organizing a new bug regime under his guidance, but his colleague dumps him back in time. He pulls a Valen and organizes anyway. Spoiler: Before Dishonor In which the Borg eat Pluto and Starfleet admirals take bets on the end of the world, while Seven pilots a Planet Killer and Borg ships fly out of stars. This is actually not a joke. Also, Janeway dies. With her dies the peace of the Trek BBS and all hope for reason. Spoiler: Greater Than the Sum In which the Enterprise tries to chase down the Borg but instead gets lost in the Japanese theatre and then assaulted by digimon. Beverly wants a baby but Jean-Luc argues “if I agree there’ll be a trilogy of epic books in which the Borg threaten to destroy everything I hold dear. So I can’t”. But he gives in, and so everyone on Barolia dies. Also, Enterprise introduces an eldritch abomination to the concept of expansion and reproduction, and sets it loose on the galaxy. Destiny Spoiler: Destiny: Gods of Night In which Erika Hernandez skips the Romulan War by hiding with a cult of pacifist space elves, but gets in trouble when her crew double-flush the toilet, destroying space elf civilization. Many years later, the Borg come up through the piping and out of the toilet bowl, leading to an infestation. Spoiler: Destiny: Mere Mortals In which Erika Hernandez converts to the Space Elf Cult and tries to convert the Titan crew as well. Troi’s dinosaur, unable to handle the mandatory vegetarianism, tries to eat Troi within days. Hernandez has a crisis of faith and locks herself in the bathroom, while Picard has a far more general crisis and starts channelling Marvin the Paranoid Android. Spoiler: Destiny: Lost Souls In which the Borg read their copy of Star Trek Star Charts and then decide that a second edition is required. Much Desolation of Deneva, Ruination of Risa, and Conflagration of Coridan ensues. Hernandez crowns herself queen and initiates Instrumentality, the Borg get hugged and turn to Tang. The galaxy is saved, and readers start searching the floor for their jaws.
Cleaning up Mack's Mess Spoiler: A Singular Destiny In which a folk musician wanders in out of the rain and sits in with the President’s staff for a bit, then offers to go talk to the Romulans. Thinking he’s one of their diplomats, the President agrees. All of the second-rate aliens get bored of being underused and so join the Romulans in forming a new club that’s better than the stupid old Federation. Tezrene, master manipulator that she is, manages to make a Zaldan act rudely. Bacco gets mad, but Tezrene says, “LOL. Plausible Deniability”, and then scuttles off sniggering. The musician goes back to work happy. Spoiler: Losing the Peace In which the Federation, aghast at these dirty refugees trailing mud over the carpet and asking if please may they have some more, banishes them all to the beach. This backfires when concerned politicians realize their personal sunning spots are getting dangerously overcrowded, and appeal for aid. The Federation quickly declares that the poor are people too, and the governor’s beach is saved. Spoiler: Full Circle In which Voyager is banished back to the Delta Quadrant after Chakotay goes nuts and screams shrilly at people. B’Elanna refuses to go and so fakes her own death to get out of it. Dr. House joins the crew instead. Spoiler: Titan: Over A Torrent Sea In which Lavena considers kidnapping the captain and going to live with him under the sea, but can’t when Titan collapses the ecosystem. Tormenting bugs grew boring, so now they’re after the whales. Meanwhile, the dinosaur joke starts getting old when the creature gets loose and rampages through a hospital, dragging Troi along with it. Spoiler: Unworthy In which Barclay unleashes evil as part of a plan to get the Doctor a girlfriend. Also, Voyager crashes a Borg fan convention and has to break the news that the show has been cancelled. Spoiler: Titan: Synthesis In which Titan attempts to assert its independence and individuality, and show that starships are people too. Fortunately, it is lobotomized and returned to service, where it belongs. Spoiler: Rise Like Lions In which the Federation finally shows up in the Mirror Universe, looking very tatty but clearly trying its hardest. Pretending it’s perfectly on time and ignoring the wreckage around it, it bravely decides to bring some goodness to the MU. This becomes confusing when its founder is, by his own posthumous request, officially named the Big Bad Spock. Spoiler: Children of the Storm In which the Federation, remembering that they were never again to visit the old quarry, decides to visit the old quarry. The ghosts that live there steal their weed. After much experimenting with it and a few days tripping, they decide the Federation is more than welcome. The Federation sets up a permanent supply at the quarry, making everyone happy. Spoiler: DTI: Watching the Clock In which a group of very dull people try their best to be as mundane and boring as humanely possible, but keep coming up against the problem that they’re in a good book. Irritated by this, they crash history in an attempt to derail the plot. This leads to Braga characters, and, humbled by their folly, the leads restore the timeline. Fun with the Typhon Pact Spoiler: Zero Sum Game In which Bashir and his ex crash a train on the underground and wreck some guy’s shipyard while wearing masks. Spoiler: Rough Beasts of Empire In which the Tzenkethi plot to bring peace and stability to the galaxy, by being arseholes. Gell Kamemor returns and the Romulans, realizing that she’s reasonable and sane, stick her in the Praetor’s seat to see what happens. Also, Sisko reasons that anyone who comes near him will suffer, so he deletes all of his facebook friends and rejoins the Navy. Spoiler: Seize the Fire In which mammals and reptiles come together in a great and glorious future, and the circle of life is ruined. Fortunately, they’ve found a dead god that lets them reboot it. The reptiles turn this god against some amphibians, because it was feared that they’d side with the mammals. Soft is soft, eh? Spoiler: Paths of Disharmony In which the ghost of Diego Reyes rises from the tomb and wreaks havoc. The Andorians announce that they’re leaving the board forever and scrawl DELETE ME all over the Federation Council chamber. Spoiler: The Struggle Within In which the Typhon Pact starts interfering with itself and with anyone else it can find, because it’s Monday and they’re bored. The Kinshaya decide to try some non-violent protest, so the Breen go all British on their behinds and be-Brigadier the hell out of ‘em. Meanwhile, the Talarian leaders begrudgingly accept that some of the budget needs to go to rebuilding the school house and not the shiny new death cannon they wanted. The Tzenkethi show up and remind everyone they’re still arseholes. Spoiler: Titan: "Fallen Gods" In which the Ship of Death is particularly dickish and picks on a race who are nearly dead anyway. Meanwhile, fans of the Starfleet Academy comics are ecstatic to see Pava in a leading role. Unfortunately, things turn ugly as they begin fighting over her. Recalling the wisdom of Solomon, the crew decree that Pava shall be split in two, and everyone will have a Pava. Spoiler: Indistinguishable From Magic In which Scotty, his time drawing near, tries to poach as many engineers from the other series as possible in order to realize his dream: a ship run entirely on technobabble delivered in exaggerated accents from the British Isles. He also finds Kang’s granddaughter, and lets her drive while under the influence of Klingon-ness. Meanwhile, Bok has had a revelation; revenge won’t bring his son back... TIME TRAVEL HIJINKS will bring his son back! Geordi crashes his ship and kills Scotty. Not to be outdone, Sela crashes her ship too. Then she and Geordi laugh about that time she tortured him. Spoiler: DTI: Forgotten History In which, to their immense satisfaction, the DTI agents become dull enough that 90% of the book avoids them entirely. This leaves them plenty of time to deal with the paperwork stemming from the novel’s real events, in which Kirk begins, promotes, condemns, continues, sabotages and concludes the Federation’s time travel program, possibly all at the same time. Spoiler: Plagues of Night In which Kamemor behaves like that smiling, quietly desperate relative trying to get everyone at the family gathering to like each other. Sisko tries to see Rebecca without seeing Kasidy, which is generally awkward since they live at the same address. Finally, everyone who’s mad at the Federation tries to half-destroy Deep Space Nine at the same time, leading to its full destruction. Spoiler: Raise the Dawn In which the Romulan Praetor pushes for peace while the Federation President resists her, because they picked up each other’s scripts by mistake. Everyone squares off for a showdown, with Odo coming all the way from the Gamma Quadrant, before Kamemor and Kira spoil everyone’s fun. The Prophets leave in disgust, taking Kira with them as punishment. Now that they’ve actually abandoned him, Sisko decides to come home. Spoiler: The Eternal Tide In which Janeway throws her support behind the "Not Dead" contingent and decides to come back to work. She also threatens to unleash the apocalypse if the powers that be refuse her. Realizing the scales must be balanced, she proves that she means business by making her own godson die in her place, along with the woman who dared replace her as top dog on Voyager. Chakotay wisely pledges himself to Janeway rather than stand in her way; as such, the One Who Is Not Dead gives him a position as her consort, rather than punishment. Spoiler: Brinkmanship In which the Tzenkethi decide that they're tired of being arseholes and go make some friends. They proudly present these friends to the Federation, smug in the knowledge that Picard and Dax can't trust any of theirs. The Federation responds by sending the Tzenkethi a box with a crank on it; when the Tzenkethi turn the crank, Cardassians spring out and make them jump. Shaken, the Tzenkethi stop plotting and agree to call this one a draw. Cold Equations Spoiler: The Persistence of Memory In which Noonien Soong secretly replaces himself with a robot, and then hides for fear that he'll discover what he's up to. While in hiding, he decides to release a new model of Data, fully upgraded for modern LCARS and featuring an impressive array of optional extras. When the Breen threaten to mass-produce a cheaper version, Soong gets spiteful and blows up their factory. Realizing that he's also blown his cover, he then replaces his robot-self with another robot, before he can cotton on. Data returns as his own creator, like some creepy changeling-Pinocchio. The reborn Data immediately announces that he plans to release Lal 2.0, making himself instantly obsolete. Everyone facepalms. Spoiler: Silent Weapons In which the Breen waste most of their time and money playing video games. This causes problems when they eventually realize that the lizardmen worth 200 points each are actually their allies. Pissed off, the Gorn Imperator releases cheat codes to the Federation, undermining the Breen's winning streak. Meanwhile, President Bacco faces political embarrassment when it's revealed that her best friend and closest supporter is actually a pre-programmed robot. Spoiler: The Body Electric In which Wesley tries to sabotage a major art project, claiming in a snotty fashion that "graffiti doesn't count as real art". Getting sniffy about this, the machine responsible tries to destroy the galaxy, and only relents when Wesley agrees to hire it. The Fall Spoiler: Revelation and Dust In which President Bacco’s Fun Time Variety Hour is suddenly cancelled, to the great anger of the viewing public. Her final feature-length special, involving such comedic guest stars as The Idiot Nagus, the One-Eyed Klingon, and the always hilarious Reasonable Praetor, is shot on location at the new Deep Space Nine (in more ways than one). Meanwhile, Kira rebuilds the wormhole because the Prophets can’t be bothered to do it themselves. Spoiler: The Crimson Shadow In which the network attempts to win back its viewers by launching The Elim Garak Show. It’s part political drama, part police procedural. Each episode ends with ten straight minutes of Garak staring silently at the screen, until the viewer finally confesses. Spoiler: A Ceremony of Losses In which the network’s new owner threatens to cancel another long-running drama, “The Andorians”, stating that he was never a fan and that the show has become an embarrassment. Outraged viewer Julian Bashir vows to renew the series, and patches holes in the script with pieces ripped from the Federation lawbook, which he leaves in tatters all over Dax’s office. Spoiler: The Poisoned Chalice In which Riker becomes an admiral, and in grand Star Trek tradition immediately begins plotting and scheming. He uses an illicit mechanical device he’s brought back with him in order to spy on the president. He also gets a free cat. Vale, meanwhile, gets her own ship. No dinosaurs on this one; instead its chief medical officer is a tree, which is far more sensible. Spoiler: Peaceable Kingdoms In which the new owner of the network is revealed to be a zealot dedicated to restoring our moral fibre in the face of decadent modern media. His dream to cancel all the mind-numbing entertainment and instead pick fights with the Typhon Pact is rejected by an angry public. Unable to look Starfleet in the face, the Council sends them off to explore the galaxy again.
These are BRILLIANT! Especially the DS9: Mission Gamma lot. I haven't read the second lot yet, but will do tomorrow morning. Fantastic! Thank you, you deranged Nasat, you.
I absolutely love trying to explain Star Trek Millennium to people, preferably while I'm drinking. It is one of the most insane novels I have ever read, and I love it. These are all hilarious though. I shall save this down for future use when my friend starts making their way through treklit.
It's really impressive with how perfectly Deranged Nasat has captured the essence of my novels................
Spoiler: Ex Machina Kirk realizes that Will Decker really was captain of the Enterprise and not merely a placeholder for both him and his hairpiece. Scotty develops OCD. Spock laughs. McCoy gets the girl... almost. --Sran
It's time... for The Lost Era (and honorary Lost Era). Spoiler: The Sundered In which Khan's dream of augmented humans building glorious empires finally comes true, in the form of space-monkeys. The Tholians blame mainstream humans for the space-monkeys, while also asking the mainstream humans for help, because it's the Tholians and that's the best you're getting. Sulu leaves the latest Overbearing Ambassador on Space-Monkey Central; Security Chief Akaar adds the world to his "annihilate later" list. Spoiler: Cast No Shadow In which Valeris tries to encourage discord in the Klingon Empire, which is a bit like trying to preach capitalism on Ferenginar. Perhaps realizing this, she then helps stabilise the region by ensuring that Krios remains under the steel boot of Qo'noS, where it won't cause any trouble. Vaughn shows up, which is also a bit redundant. Spoiler: Serpents Among The Ruins In which Harriman oversees the annihilation of a sector's-worth of Starfleet outposts, safe in the knowledge that they won't be staffed until Tuesday. The Klingon diplomats are more reasonable than they've been before or since; enraged at this embarrassment, they perform damage control by immediately assassinating the Chancellor. Ambassador Kamemor wisely disappears for a while. Vaughn shows up. Spoiler: One Constant Star In which Sulu plays hide and seek and gets stuck. 11 years later, having finally remembered that she never found him, Demora guiltily tracks him down and lets him out. Most of his crew have been eaten by spiders, but he's reasonably cheerful about the whole thing. Spoiler: Day of the Vipers In which Dukat and Pa'Dar visit Bajor and decide to stay. Dukat invites the rest of Cardassia along too. He graciously allows the Oralian Way to go first, but sadly they suffer a tragic accident, slipping and breaking their necks while climbing out of the bathtub. All of them. Dukat brings to Bajor both a detailed public transportation timetable and a Tzenkethi starship; humble as he is charitable, he offers these as anonymous gifts. Gold shows up, fooling no-one. Sorry Gold, no substitutes. Spoiler: Well Of Souls In which Captain Garrett hires a gangster as her first officer and a defective cyborg as her second officer, because she hates herself. Starfleet Intelligence is fooled by a band of common criminals, no doubt because - incomprehensibly - they forgot to apply Vaughn. Garrett's Betazoid family meet the Ghost of Cardassimas Past; trying to extinguish it with a nightcap backfires in this case. Spoiler: Vulcan's Heart In which the Romulans decide that they can't be Space Romans without a Mad Emperor, only they chicken out at the last minute and keep the Emperor sane, making it the Praetor who's gone mad. Spock nearly dies because he forgot he needs to have sex; Saavik sighs theatrically and just agrees to marry him before he hurts himself. Spoiler: The Art Of The Impossible In which the Cardassians and Klingons squabble over a rock for eighteen years. Eventually, the Klingons decide that they never wanted the rock anyway, and turn to the more important matter of the Romulans happily stabbing away at them repeatedly with a knife. Vaughn shows up. Spoiler: Night of the Wolves In which intrepid reporter Natima Lang, like all female reporters, ends up being taken hostage. She's rescued by Damar rather than a superhero boyfriend, because Cardassia doesn't have superheroes. Hoping to rectify this, Oralius tries to make Miras Vara the Ghost of Cardassimas Present, and keeps whining at her until she agrees, because that's the dignified way for a god to behave. Spoiler: Deny Thy Father In which Kyle Riker goes on the run from the entire Federation after someone tries to kill him, because (to the Cardassians' jealousy, no doubt) he was bitten by a radioactive Tholian and is now as paranoid as they are. Also possessing the relative punctuality of a Tholian, he comes back just in time to tie his otherwise unrelated plot to that of his son. Spoiler: Catalyst Of Sorrows In which Uhura plays chess with the Romulans, using characters from every other series as pawns. It turns out that Romulus is somewhat confused, and is capturing its own pieces as often as it does the opponent's; that the Romulan queen is actually on Uhura's side, while the king isn't (...yet), that Curzon Dax is a knight, McCoy is probably a rook, and there's a Rigelian crime family instead of bishops. Other than that, it's chess. Spoiler: The Buried Age In which Picard deals with the loss of the Stargazer by becoming an archaeologist-slash-Shakespearean actor, which is at least a novel combination. He revives a powerful, long-dead alien and ropes her into his tragic performance. When she reveals that she actually has her own script, which condemns the very concept of bloody tragedy, an outraged Picard breaks it off. He tells her to get the hell out of his galaxy, only he does it very diplomatically because he's Picard. Vaughn is mentioned once, but - confusingly - doesn't show up. Spoiler: Dawn of the Eagles In which Cardassia balances its books and starts to see that Bajor is no longer worth the investment. Crell Moset charitably tries to sterilize everyone, to decrease the surplus population. The Ghost of Cardassimas Yet To Come therefore forms the dissident movement, to teach Cardassia the error of its ways. Let's see how that works out. Vaughn shows up.
Time... for the prequel era. Spoiler: Last Full Measure In which there is in fact a plot, about Mayweather and MACOs and surprise pregnancies and Xindi, but it's all just there to fill space between the bookends that tell us that Trip is actually alive. Also, there's a ship called the Lucky Duck. Why is not quite clear. Spoiler: Rosetta In which Archer goes on a road trip with Chancellor Palpatine. While they swerve their stolen warship along the spaceways, Hoshi is told to talk to killer robots without actually talking to them. The Klingons stroll in and declare that everything is theirs, to which the heroes say "meh" and go home. "I was useful!" says Hoshi, to which the heroes say "meh" and go home. Spoiler: The Good That Men Do In which everyone agrees that they didn't like These Are The Voyages and that it was wrong. The writers of the finale, having piloted into the fanbase at warp speed in a suicidal exit, igniting flames planet-wide, are condemned for the atrocity. In response, the relaunch declares war on canon. Spoiler: Kobayashi Maru In which the Romulans play their favourite trick of making everyone attack each other, though they've regressed from using sophisticated holograms to actually grabbing hold of the ships and bashing them against each other like toys in a bathtub. Surprisingly, the Klingons aren't appreciative. Archer chops off Krell's arm. Surprisingly, the Klingons don't like that either. Slightly confused, everyone just goes to war without them. Spoiler: Beneath the Raptor's Wing In which the Romulans go wild. Mayweather has a string of starships shot out from under him, as punishment for leaving the Enterprise. When he still doesn't get the message, Tellar and Andor abandon the war effort. Trip runs back and forth pretending to do things. Spoiler: Brave the Storm In which T'Pau saves the day and then immediately tells everyone she was wrong to do it. No-one dares argue. Spoiler: Rise of the Federation: A Choice of Futures In which fungus monsters attack. Possibly remembering the Palaptine adventure, Hoshi insists that she can solve the crisis, but everyone prefers to bicker instead. After a sophisticated game of charades, Hoshi and T'Pol convince everyone that the fungus monsters can be reasoned with. The real monster, it turns out, was the transporter. Hoshi dearly wants to say something snide about this, but bites her tongue. Spoiler: Rise of the Federation: Tower of Babel In which Archer stakes a claim to the Rigel System, because it's all going to his head. Rigel IV tries to outmanoeuvre him, despite having no real plan beyond "I'm hungry/bored/horny". They have to rely on Garos and the Orions, who are more interested in a megalomaniacal lizard, which seems like even more fun. Unsurprisingly, the Federation foils the plan, and the Rigel Worlds join the club, promising to be slightly less scummy from here on. Rigel IV crosses its fingers behind its back, and so everything's okay.
String Theory Evolution is my favorite of these. It sounds the absolute maddest, but it's completely accurate.
Entertaining as always, but then I totally lost my shit at "Trip runs back and forth pretending to do things". Holy crap, that's perfect.
Thank you very much, DN. That was perfect for a particularly singular bout of Internet insomnia, which happens to me on occasion.
Another small update; back to the latest 24th Century releases. Spoiler: Protectors" and "Acts of Contrition In which the Delta Quadrant is meddled by the Alpha Quadrant into meddling with the Alpha Quadrant as it meddles with the Delta Quadrant to try Janeway for meddling with the Delta Quadrant. It's all so "Twisted". The Federation meddles in catoms, Tom's mother meddles with her family, The Doctor meddles with himself. The Confederacy of the Worlds of the First Quadrant doesn't meddle, though it probably should, because it's awful. It just reads its name, though, and sits back satisfied. What more do people want? Spoiler: The Light Fantastic In which Moriarty invites Lal to tea, only for every other AI character to show up too. Since Moriarty lives in a box on someone's table, bickering naturally results. In the end, everyone agrees to share their resurrection/real boy fantasies and be ever so slightly nicer to each other. Harry Mudd inserts himself into this somehow and so is rewarded for being a terrible human being by attaining immortality. Spoiler: Disavowed In which Bashir is in trouble with the law, up on charges of Odocide. His current defence, that he's running around with a group of people who consider themselves outside the law and who felt justified in killing all the changelings, merely harms his case. Realizing that killing people and saving people both get him arrested, he gives up and starts an amateur drama club with Sarina. Section 31 give it middling reviews. The Breen find even more inventive ways to waste time and money. 31 are somewhat happier with this performance. Spoiler: Absent Enemies Realizing that their usual tactic of tearing their economy into shreds and throwing those shreds at the enemy isn't working, the Breen play around with phasing. Admiral Riker argues that since it's on the most annoying planet he ever visited, he should just hurl some antimatter down there, problem solved. Sadly, the locals are out of phase, so that won't work. With great reluctance, Riker helps out instead.