Some 'Before Dishonor' observations....*Spoilers*

Likes:
-The 'Commodore' rank somewhat re-established.
-T'Lana being the exact opposite of Deanna Troi; and the nu-TNG ENT crew having a bit more conflict than TNG's entire 7 years.
-Spock joining in on the action

Dislikes:
-I've read the many posts on Trektoday saying how much it seems that Janeway is dead and gone. (I hope I don't start another here, as that is not my intent). However, if you recall the scenes from ST II, as well as ST: Nemesis, there were 'hints' that the regular characters who 'died' in those films were possibly coming back if a storyline was written for them to do so.

Peter David does this in a scene with Janeway and Lady Q.

I think: If you're going to kill off a character, kill them off. Don't cop out with a 'maybe they're not dead after all'....

***

With all that said, I wonder if the Borgified Einstein turns up in any other novels? (That was sort of left open).

 

Spoiler: Greater Than The Sum

^ AFAIK, the Einstein was destroyed in Greater Than The Sum.

 

I may have to put that on my 'To Read' List....

Tks, Babaganoosh...

 

Pocket and PAD were made to add such a scene at the request of Licensing at CBS (or was it still Paramount at the time?). Margaret Clark has stated that the original intention was that the book should end with Janeway unambiguously dead.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

It wasn't until I came here and was TOLD that she was dead-dead did I realise that I was suppose to treat that death as "real", the flip manner in which it was presented coupled with the "well Spock came back from the dead" bit screamed "don't worry folks, back in a couple of books".

Oh god.. I've just realised - it's like we have just said "candyman, candyman, candyman" - it's going to happen again...

<runs away into the night>

 

Let's not go spoiling books that it is clear the OP hasn't read yet. Something along the lines of "That story is followed up on in Greater Than The Sum" would give the pertinent info without spoiling exactly what happens.

 

I also liked this. I know that Kirk said to Picard to never accept promotion, but this would be a promotion he could probably live with. It would be cool to see in the post-Destiny timeline. Probably never happens though....

 

And the fact that the word SPOILERS is in the thread title, isn't enough?

 

Yes, Ganoosh, the fact that the thread title says there are going to be spoilers for Before Dishonor means that you can spoil every book ever.

 

No, it's not enough. The spoilers in the title are for Before Dishonor not Greater Than the Sum.

 

Peter David likes the Commodore Rank for some reason. He's peppered his books with Commodores. Data was one in the Imzadi future timeline, and Q Squared had a Commodore Sulu on the holodeck.

 

I'm surprised that he made Shelby and Admiral instead of a Commodore then. It would be cool if Commodores were around more often. I'd even like to see a "Fleet Captain" at some point...

 

I rather like Pluto being eaten, though oddly my thoughts were immediately:

"Well only eight more to go now" and "I wonder how long it'll take before a trek writer gets neptune..."

I thought the Commodore thing was abit silly to be honest,

Worf: There's a giant borg cube heading for earth, what do we do?
Picard: Well I don't really care about that at the min, because Mac's gonna let me wear a fifth pip...
Priortitise much?

 

I prefer Falcons, myself.

(The Aussies here will get that).

 

Many more than eight. Pluto is the second-largest of the five confirmed dwarf planets, and there are hundreds of other dwarf-planet candidates awaiting verification of their size. And some astrophysicists consider it likely that there may be more full-on planets the size of Mars or Earth or even bigger still waiting to be discovered out beyond the Kuiper Belt. Essentially we've only charted the inner Solar System; most of its members are still awaiting discovery. Whether one agrees with the dwarf-planet characterization of Pluto or not, it will probably never again be viable to think of our system as having nine planets. We need to get out of that habit.

 

it's a big solar system, but it just got a whole lot bigger!

 

I liked the Commodore rank too. I also liked Grim Vargo. But I disliked about everything else. The new TNG characters, with the exception of T'Lana, acted totally out of character from what had been established in Q & A, and it really threw me off.

I think the Borg became way too much of a cartoonish threat. Spock's inclusion was totally unnecessary and he seemed to be there because PAD loves Spock. The inclusion of the Planet Killer only reminded me of a far better PAD Borg story, Vendetta.

The way Janeway's death was written I certainly didn't take it seriously until Chris Bennett told me in another post that she was supposed to be "dead" dead. I still think TPTB left enough wiggle room to bring her back, and I still think she will come back sometime in the future.

Greater than the Sum did a pretty decent job cleaning up the mess of Before Dishonor. But I'm still a little steamed about T'Lana. I like the character. She was a nice change of pace from the love-in aboard the E-E.

 

I was curious about the idea of T'Lana being a 'foil' to the established characters, since, as you've pointed out, they've all become quite accustomed to each other. But Before Dishonor pushed the potential antagonism too far, as it did for Kadohata and Leybenzon; that was more than just character conflict, it was sabotaging a critical mission. Really, T'Lana had always come across as self-satisfied, but instead of edges being softed, she exploded into full-out megalomania bordering on racism. She just wasn't recoverable after that.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

Exes?

I have an ex like that, too.