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

[Paper Moon]

Sci wrote:

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I actually liked that. I liked to imagine that there are ships named for every head of state and head of government for Federation Member worlds. Like:

• U.S.S. President (e.g., President of Trill)
• U.S.S. First Minister (e.g., First Minister of Bajor)
• U.S.S. Chancellor (e.g., Chancellor of Coridan)
• U.S.S. Presider (e.g., Presider of Andor)
• U.S.S. Governor (e.g., Governor of Betazed)
• U.S.S. Caliph (e.g., Caliph of Koa)
• U.S.S. Prime Minister (e.g., Prime Minister of United Earth)
• U.S.S. Administrator (e.g., Administrator of Vulcan)
• U.S.S. Leader (e.g., Leader of Zalda)
• U.S.S. Chief Representative (e.g., Chief Representative of Alpha Proxima II)

Etc.

Hmm, when you lay it out like that, it does actually look pretty cool.

But, I'm still not quite sure it works for me: "Attention enemy vessel. This is Captain John Smith of the Federation Starship Admininstrator. You will disarm your weapons and stand down." Some titles on that list work better than others in this example, but you get what I mean.

Still, to each his/her/hir/its own. I appreciate DRGIII's thoughtfulness in thinking up these names.

(Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but don't real-world navies also name ships in this fashion?)

[Christopher]

Paper Moon wrote:

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If anything, I'd say that the Dominion War was Galactic War I (WWI redux), the Borg Invasion was a natural/economic disaster à la the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression, and a hypothetical TP-KA war would be GWII (WWII redux).

So, still not the first, which was my point.

The Dominion War did have two alliances fighting each other, with each member of each alliance having a different goal and agenda, so that's why I count it as GWI. On the other hand, nearly half the powers in a hypothetical TP-KA war weren't involved at all in the Dominion War (KA: Ferengi Alliance, TP: Holy Order of the Kinshaya, Tholian Assembly, Tzenkethi Coalition, the Gorn Hegemony [sorta]), which, you could argue, would mean that a TP-KA war would be the first truly galactic war. Or would be closer to being an actual galactic war, anyway.

Except that all those powers only occupy the central portion of the Orion Arm, which is a teeeeeeeeny-tiny fraction of the galaxy. In terms of scale, that's kind of like calling the Hatfield-McCoy feud a global war. At least the Dominion War was between powers on opposite sides of the galaxy, although they still collectively occupied only a fraction of a percent of its volume. (Really, there is no valid Earthbound analogy for anything as vast as the galaxy.)

[Paper Moon]

Christopher wrote:

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So, still not the first, which was my point.

Except that all those powers only occupy the central portion of the Orion Arm, which is a teeeeeeeeny-tiny fraction of the galaxy. In terms of scale, that's kind of like calling the Hatfield-McCoy feud a global war. At least the Dominion War was between powers on opposite sides of the galaxy, although they still collectively occupied only a fraction of a percent of its volume. (Really, there is no valid Earthbound analogy for anything as vast as the galaxy.)

Right, of course the UFP et al take up a very small portion of the Milky Way. They take up a small portion of the Alpha Quadrant, too. Didn't stop everyone from talking about "saving the Alpha Quadrant" during the Dominion War. Neither of the World Wars involved every power on Earth. The point of calling it a World War, and the point of talking about the entire Alpha Quadrant being at stake was to emphasize the previously unseen scale of the conflicts.

And though it's not the first way I would necessarily characterize it, a TP-KA war would indeed involve a greater number of powers, a greater number of agendas, and a larger space within the Orion Arm than did the Dominion War; as far as we can tell, the complexity and range of the conflict would be unprecedented in the history of the local powers. And so I could understand someone reasonably characterizing such a war as "Galactic War One," the way people called WWI the "World War" in the years following it, because the conflict would arguably be on a previously unseen scale in terms of breadth and complexity (though not necessarily destruction, manpower and death).

I was suggesting a similar, but not identical, model with the DW=WWI because I think it works better. But I do think MatthiasRussell's model is not a "pretty disingenuous analogy" and so I was pushing back on your assertion that it was. It may not be the best analogy, but it certainly has merit.

[Sjaddix]

Dominion War as Galactic War 1 Makes sense. Although it will only get a name like that if we have a Galactic War 2. Since WWI was not originally called that until WW2.

[Sjaddix]

Sci wrote:

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I actually liked that. I liked to imagine that there are ships named for every head of state and head of government for Federation Member worlds. Like:

• U.S.S. President (e.g., President of Trill)
• U.S.S. First Minister (e.g., First Minister of Bajor)
• U.S.S. Chancellor (e.g., Chancellor of Coridan)
• U.S.S. Presider (e.g., Presider of Andor)
• U.S.S. Governor (e.g., Governor of Betazed)
• U.S.S. Caliph (e.g., Caliph of Koa)
• U.S.S. Prime Minister (e.g., Prime Minister of United Earth)
• U.S.S. Administrator (e.g., Administrator of Vulcan)
• U.S.S. Leader (e.g., Leader of Zalda)
• U.S.S. Chief Representative (e.g., Chief Representative of Alpha Proxima II)

Etc.

Honestly, I think you would be better off naming the ships after the planets like we name battleships after States.

[Christopher]

Paper Moon wrote:

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Neither of the World Wars involved every power on Earth.

But WWII involved most of them, all but ten. And participating nations came from every continent except Antarctica. So it's hardly an exaggeration to call it a world war (unlike WWI, which was mostly Eurocentric).

The point of calling it a World War, and the point of talking about the entire Alpha Quadrant being at stake was to emphasize the previously unseen scale of the conflicts.

Yeah, and that's what I don't get -- this notion that a Khitomer Accords/Typhon Pact war would somehow be bigger than the Dominion War. That doesn't make any sense. The Dominion alone is 2000 years old and rules over thousands of worlds. It's probably bigger than all the Khitomer allies and Typhon Pact powers combined, not just in size but in the amount of resources and power it was able to bring to bear. Not to mention that post-Borg Invasion, the UFP, Klingons, and Romulans are all diminished in territory, power, and strength compared to where they were during the Dominion War -- and after what the Dominion did to them, the Cardassians are a shadow of what they were.

So any such conflict would be smaller than the Dominion War by a significant margin -- and it would be a minor kerfuffle compared to the Borg Invasion. Sure, the amount of local territory occupied by the participating nations would be larger, but that's a strange metric for the magnitude of a war, since it doesn't necessarily correspond to the size of the actual fighting, the amount of destruction, the cost in lives. And the physical territory of the participants really wouldn't be that much larger anyway, because if we go by Star Charts, then of the Accord and Pact members that weren't involved in the Dominion War, only the Tholians have a really large territory; Ferengi, Gorn, Tzenkethi, and presumably Kinshaya space are all rather tiny compared to the others.

So I just don't understand this perception that the biggest conflict is in the future. That's selling the Dominion War and the Borg Invasion short. They were supposed to be the biggest cataclysms in Federation history. What's happening now with the Typhon Pact is just the aftermath, the ongoing ripple effect of the Borg Invasion.

[Paper Moon]

Christopher wrote:

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But WWII involved most of them, all but ten. And participating nations came from every continent except Antarctica. So it's hardly an exaggeration to call it a world war (unlike WWI, which was mostly Eurocentric).

Touché. However, as I said, WWI was called the "World War," however inaccurately during the years between WWI and WWII, which I'm arguing would be precedent for (yes, inaccurately) using the term "Galactic War."

Christopher, I agree that a hypothetical KA-TP war is not the biggest, baddest, most awful-est conceivable conflict. That's not the point I am trying to make.

• Yeah, and that's what I don't get -- this notion that a Khitomer Accords/Typhon Pact war would somehow be bigger than the Dominion War.

  As I said, a KA-TP war would happen on a

  previously unseen scale in terms of breadth and complexity (though not necessarily destruction, manpower and death).

  The only local powers of any size that would not be involved (at the start) would be the Talarians, the First Federation, the Sheliak and the Regnancy of the Carnelian Throne. And those last two aren't even that local. Nearly all the local powers would be fighting each other. While that may or may not be as destructive or deadly as previous conflicts, I think it would be a milestone in the history of the Local Powers enough to warrant a somewhat exaggerated name like "The Galactic War".
  

• The Dominion alone is 2000 years old and rules over thousands of worlds. It's probably bigger than all the Khitomer allies and Typhon Pact powers combined, not just in size but in the amount of resources and power it was able to bring to bear.

  Yes, the Dominion was a giant, but it was a giant on the other side of the galaxy; they were limited by what they could bring through the wormhole. And for more than half the war, they were cut off from everything "at home." Weyoun's reaction to the destruction of the cloning facilities at Rondac ("I could be the last Weyoun.") suggests that the Dominion could not replace everything on the AQ side of the wormhole, which implies that they were somewhat limited compared to what they were capable of in the GQ.
  

• And the physical territory of the participants really wouldn't be that much larger anyway, because if we go by Star Charts, then of the Accord and Pact members that weren't involved in the Dominion War, only the Tholians have a really large territory; Ferengi, Gorn, Tzenkethi, and presumably Kinshaya space are all rather tiny compared to the others.

  But the Dominion was limited by Cardassian (and possibly eventually Breen) geography. (Astrography?) They could only attack the Federation along the Cardassian border, which according to the Star Charts, is not an exceptionally long border. They clearly pummeled the Federation there, and pushed into Federation territory, but they were not waging a multi-front war against the Federation the way the Typhon Pact would against the Khitomer Accords. (Well, we did hear about Jem'Hadar "crossing over the Romulan's back yards" to give the UFP and the Klingons bloody noses over there, but those sounded like relatively limited engagements.) We know that supply lines and maintaining the border were both difficulties during the DW; imagine if they were fighting a full war simultaneously on half a dozen borders. Maybe not as destructive, but still a Really Big Deal.
• Only tangentially relevant, but I can't really recall people referring to the Borg Invasion as a "war". They always seem to call it an "invasion." That's why I compared it to the Depression and the Dust Bowl; it's a "thing," not a nation, that was fought.
• And, of course, if both sides had slipstream capabilities, then you might see much more fighting within, as opposed to along, borders, which would make the fighting more widespread, or at least appear to be, anyway. And that could lead the conflict to be popularly called "the Galactic War." "Jeez, you can't go anywhere in this galaxy without running into some skirmish or what not!"

I'm not saying that a hypothetical TP-KA war would be the deadliest or most destructive conflict the Local Powers have ever seen. I'm saying that it would be a large, wide-reaching, if not necessarily "deep" conflict, the likes of which the Local Powers have not seen in recent history. And therefore I think that calling it a "Galactic War" is not "pretty disingenuous analogy." Maybe an exaggeration of moderate, but not unacceptable proportions, but still an idea with merit that doesn't need to be shot down immediately after take off.

I highly doubt TPTB will write a TP-KA war. But if they did, I could reasonably see someone in-universe calling it "the Galactic War," just as I can reasonably see the parallels between the novelverse's 2383 and our universe's early 20th century.

On a related note, though, the Star Charts are really dreadful in terms of the present novelverse continuity. I find it hard to believe that the Klingon Empire and the Federation are so huge, while everyone else isn't. I mean, you can make it make sense, I guess, but it just seems like something that would come up in discussion more (in-universe).

[rfmcdpei]

Christopher wrote:

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Sure, the amount of local territory occupied by the participating nations would be larger, but that's a strange metric for the magnitude of a war, since it doesn't necessarily correspond to the size of the actual fighting, the amount of destruction, the cost in lives. And the physical territory of the participants really wouldn't be that much larger anyway, because if we go by Star Charts, then of the Accord and Pact members that weren't involved in the Dominion War, only the Tholians have a really large territory; Ferengi, Gorn, Tzenkethi, and presumably Kinshaya space are all rather tiny compared to the others.

The Dominion War was fought on the territory of the Federation, Cardassia, and the Klingon Empire. Romulus was a late participant, its participation in the war seems to have involved force-projection outside of its borders not fighting inside the RSE's frontiers, while the Breen Confederacy was also a late participant and also apparently didn't see fighting within its frontiers. A war between the two major blocs of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants would include the RSE and the Breen Confederacy--and their territories as battlegrounds--from the start.

Would a KA-TP war be more destructive than the Dominion War? In that the worlds of civilizations which were either completely uninvolved in the conflict or involved only at a late date, sure. The Federation would do poorly, since the core sectors which suffered neither the Dominion nor the Borg are perilously close to Romulan space. More, the Dominion War ultimately could end peacefully because the Dominion could abandon its Cardassian satrapy and remain in the distant Gamma Quadrant. None of the powers in the KA or the Pact could make a like withdrawal. Escalation seems likely.

Do I think that a KA-TP war is inevitable? No. Bacco's argument to Castellan Garan that a conflict between the two blocs could kill more people than even the Borg isn't implausible on the face of it.

[Turtletrekker]

Paper Moon wrote:

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Touché. However, as I said, WWI was called the "World War," however inaccurately during the years between WWI and WWII,

I thought tht WWI was refered to as "The Great War" in the years before WW2?

[Paper Moon]

Turtletrekker wrote:

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I thought tht WWI was refered to as "The Great War" in the years before WW2?

According to this, it was called both.

[Christopher]

Paper Moon wrote:

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As I said, a KA-TP war would happen on a The only local powers of any size that would not be involved (at the start) would be the Talarians, the First Federation, the Sheliak and the Regnancy of the Carnelian Throne. And those last two aren't even that local. Nearly all the local powers would be fighting each other. While that may or may not be as destructive or deadly as previous conflicts, I think it would be a milestone in the history of the Local Powers enough to warrant a somewhat exaggerated name like "The Galactic War".

That just seems like starting with an arbitrary conclusion and then constructing an argument to justify it, which is backward reasoning. What reason is there to think that anyone in the 24th century would go there in the first place? Why is that a desirable premise at all? Why would their nomenclatural decisions be based on contrived analogies to events from 20th-century Earth history? Just because some of us can see it in those terms, it doesn't follow that the characters in-universe would think of it in the same way. After all, WWI is much, much more remote for them and a much, much tinier fragment of their collective history.

If anything, if such a war happened, it seems far more likely that the Federation would call it something like "The Typhon War," while the Pact would call it something like "The Khitomer War." At most, they might call it something like "The Quadrant War," and even that would be a huge exaggeration. Maybe "The Arm War" would work, though it would still only involve the central portion of the Orion Arm. They're sufficiently aware of the scale of the galaxy that they'd all recognize how ludicrously hyperbolic it would be to call it a "Galactic War."

Yes, the Dominion was a giant, but it was a giant on the other side of the galaxy; they were limited by what they could bring through the wormhole.

Yeah, but at least there's some actual reason for referring to that as a galactic-scale conflict, because it affected civilizations on opposite sides of the galaxy. It was global rather than local. Think of a galactic arm as analogous to a continent. A war between, say, Japan and China would be local -- or rather, regional -- whereas a war between Japan and the United States would be considered global in scope.

Only tangentially relevant, but I can't really recall people referring to the Borg Invasion as a "war".

I never claimed it was, so I don't know why it's even slightly relevant. I'm not talking about labels or historical analogies, I'm talking about the relative magnitude of events. Some people seem to have this strange expectation that the novels are building toward some event which would be even huger and more disastrous than the events of Destiny, and that doesn't make sense. The worst disaster of all has already happened; the subsequent books have just been about the aftereffects, the turbulent process of building a new astropolitical order out of the wreckage.

On a related note, though, the Star Charts are really dreadful in terms of the present novelverse continuity. I find it hard to believe that the Klingon Empire and the Federation are so huge, while everyone else isn't. I mean, you can make it make sense, I guess, but it just seems like something that would come up in discussion more (in-universe).

Breen and Tholian territories are pretty huge too. But the fact that the Federation and its Klingon allies are the biggest players on the board has come up repeatedly. It's the whole reason the Typhon Pact nations are so worried about being overrun by them. No, nobody's actually written a scene of people looking at a map and saying "Gosh, isn't it alarming that the Federation and Klingons have so much more territory than we do?" But that's because they don't need to. It's not about spatial volume, it's about the relative status and influence of the states in question, and that's a crucial element underlying the events of the Typhon Pact narrative.

[MatthiasRussell]

Primarily, the reason I'm comparing a potential war between the Khitamer accord nations and the Typhon Pact to WW1 is because the current political situation in the Alpha and Beta Quadrants resembles the situation that existed on Earth in the early 1900s with theTriple Alliance and the Triple Entante. The way the Quadrant falls into war would resemble how Earth did due to the make up of the alliances.

[mindx2]

Just finished the book last night and here are a few thoughts (if you don't want spoilers DON'T READ!!! This is a spoiler thread, right?):



-This was most definitely a Deep Space Nine duology with a secondary story focused on the Romulan Preator. At first I felt the secondary story was about Bacco but after looking back I felt I knew the Preator better after finishing the story.

-At first I was like "WHAT?! They did NOT just blow-up DS9!!", but then as I continued to read the book I wasn't thinking about the station. It really is about the characters themselves that I found myself invested in, not the station.

-Speaking of those characters, the one thing I felt bad about was Elias. I feel he "ended" too soon without us seeing (reading) his heroic deeds against the Ascendants, etc. I kinda of feel cheated out of experiencing his adventure fully and hope we will finally get to read his whole story soon.

-As for the other characters: When O'brien and Nog returned it brought a smile to my face. Though they were never my favorite DS9 characters it felt right to start bringing the old crew back together. The one exception was Odo. Not that I don't want his return (I really do) it just felt shoe-horned into the story. For some reason it just didn't fit in with the rest of the story but I'm sure future authors will expand upon his presence more fully in the future.

-Sisko is finally Sisko again! He's right where he belongs, with Cassidy and his daughter. DRG III certainly took him through an emotional roller-coaster that, at first, I wasn't very fond of. However, his character arc has come full circle and the payoff was worth it. Even though he's on the Robinson I'm sure he'll be around for more DS9 adventures!

-Enjoyed all the re-launch characters as well (Ro, Tenmei, etc.) and glad to see them. To me they are part of the DS9 crew as I've grown "close" to them with all the re-launch books that came before.

-Not enough Quark but at least he saved Vick! That small scene probably was one of my favorite throughout the entire duology which surprised me.

-Still not sure about Kira's new story arc. Seems to similar to Sisko's at the end of the series. I hope she returns quickly and somehow re-joins her crew .

All-in-all, I absolutely loved these two books and finally feel that DS9's relaunch is continuing!!

GOOD JOB DAVID R. GEORGE III!!!!!

[Mage]

O'Brien!!!

I'm sorry, but I see so many people spelling it O'Brian. It's O'Brien!!!

[mindx2]

Mage wrote:

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O'Brien!!!

I'm sorry, but I see so many people spelling it O'Brian. It's O'Brien!!!

Fixed: Sorry, just lazy typing on my part .