TNG: The Persistence of Memory by David Mack Review Thread (Spoilers!)

[rfmcdpei]

Christopher wrote:

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^Maybe. But I'd like to think it wouldn't be that simple to replicate what Soong achieved in bringing Data (approximately) back. I think it carries more weight as a rare and exceptional thing than as something that could easily be duplicated.

Soong's genius, sure.

[Edit_XYZ]

rfmcdpei wrote:

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As I understand The Persistence of Memory, Soong himself isn't necessarily permanently dead. His consciousness has been interrupted, but his memory files are saved. Were Data 2.0 able to build an duplicate of his new body and install the same software and transfer Soong's memories in, then you'd have Soong 2.0 back again (or maybe Soong 1.5).

The same seems to be true for Lal, who could be resurrected whether through the construction of a new positronic matrix into which her memory could be downloaded, or through reactivating her current positronic matrix. For that matter, if Data wanted to he could conceivably build a new matrix to contain Lore's memories. (For that matter, I wonder if anything could be done with the memories of the Omicron Theta colonists.)

Question: Does my understanding of what's going on make sense?

rfmcdpei wrote:

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Soong's genius, sure.

So's Data.

That's what happens when one brings the 'resurrection' trope out of the bottle. Character death and suffering looses all meaning.


Personally, I look forward to how they'll save all the victims of the borg invasion by using a teleporter with a temporal component (similar to the one Alexander used when he came back from the future to meet Worf in TNG), in order to teleport all said victims from a millisecond before being vaporised by the borg to the future.

[King Daniel]

Enjoying very much so far.

Worf, Geordi and newbie Lt. Velex go on a dangerous undercover mission. I wonder who isn't coming back

[Kertrats47]

KingDaniel wrote:

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Enjoying very much so far.

Worf, Geordi and newbie Lt. Velex go on a dangerous undercover mission. I wonder who isn't coming back

My money's totally on Geordi.

[RPJOB]

Edit_XYZ wrote:

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So's Data.

That's what happens when one brings the 'resurrection' trope out of the bottle. Character death and suffering looses all meaning.


Personally, I look forward to how they'll save all the victims of the borg invasion by using a teleporter with a temporal component (similar to the one Alexander used when he came back from the future to meet Worf in TNG), in order to teleport all said victims from a millisecond before being vaporised by the borg to the future.

Sure, you're laughing now......just wait.

If I wanted to a story about immortals I'd watch Highlander.

The idea that these characters are special and somehow more deserving of resurrection basically turns everyone else into cannon fodder. The rest of the galaxy is now Ensign Ricky, who beamed down one day with Kirk, Spock & McCoy.

[JoeZhang]

But that really is how most fictional universes are - they are special.

[Deranged Nasat]

RPJOB wrote:

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The idea that these characters are special and somehow more deserving of resurrection basically turns everyone else into cannon fodder. The rest of the galaxy is now Ensign Ricky, who beamed down one day with Kirk, Spock & McCoy.

I sympathise with this, I really do. I myself dislike the notion - even if implicit and entirely unintended - that the TV characters are the only really important ones, but in terms of keeping the books popular with audiences I wouldn't be surprised if a sense of that crept in, deliberate or not. Unless you're someone like me, to whom the Trek lit world is as much a part of his Star Trek as the TV shows, then you're reading because you want to see familiar faces from TV in familiar environments and situations. And people like me are always a tiny minority of Trek fans. I think Vaughn and Choudhury and Eden are important, and the adventures of da Vinci and Gorkon engrossing, but most readers want Sisko and Data and Janeway, and Enterprise. On this very board there have always been plenty of Trek fans vocal in their disinterest of novels that don't feature the characters they love from the TV shows. I think we're actually lucky to have such a diverse and changeable novel verse - on a personal level I'd like it to be even more so, but I don't think that would ever appeal to enough people to be feasible. I'm just glad that if, for example, Data has to come back, he at least is coming back in a way that allows for new developments and complexities rather than returning as if Nemesis didn't happen. Or, put another way, that the current crop of authors are daring and inventive enough to keep the novels challenging even as they incorporate such uncomfortable conventions as "resurrection for main characters".

[King Daniel]

SoongBot: Hey, I know you're on a time-sensitive mission and all, but let me tell you my ENTIRE LIFE STORY.

[Deranged Nasat]

KingDaniel wrote:

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SoongBot: Hey, I know you're on a time-sensitive mission and all, but let me tell you my ENTIRE LIFE STORY.

To be fair, it's a good story.

[RPJOB]

Deranged Nasat wrote:

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I sympathise with this, I really do. I myself dislike the notion - even if implicit and entirely unintended - that the TV characters are the only really important ones, but in terms of keeping the books popular with audiences I wouldn't be surprised if a sense of that crept in, deliberate or not. Unless you're someone like me, to whom the Trek lit world is as much a part of his Star Trek as the TV shows, then you're reading because you want to see familiar faces from TV in familiar environments and situations. And people like me are always a tiny minority of Trek fans. I think Vaughn and Choudhury and Eden are important, and the adventures of da Vinci and Gorkon engrossing, but most readers want Sisko and Data and Janeway, and Enterprise. On this very board there have always been plenty of Trek fans vocal in their disinterest of novels that don't feature the characters they love from the TV shows. I think we're actually lucky to have such a diverse and changeable novel verse - on a personal level I'd like it to be even more so, but I don't think that would ever appeal to enough people to be feasible. I'm just glad that if, for example, Data has to come back, he at least is coming back in a way that allows for new developments and complexities rather than returning as if Nemesis didn't happen. Or, put another way, that the current crop of authors are daring and inventive enough to keep the novels challenging even as they incorporate such uncomfortable conventions as "resurrection for main characters".

You don't have to make the canon characters out to be something special, removed from the rest of the universe due to their extraordinary status. It leads to small universe syndrome where everyone else, even the rest of Starfleet, is simply that much less deserving or necessary or what have you.

You want to stop thinking that the canon characters are somehow more worthy of coming back from the dead? How about this, stop killing them. If you do kill them, leave them dead. After all, there's an infinite numer of universes where they're still alive.

Let's do some math. Lets add up the total number of main, canon characters.

TOS - 7 (Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Sulu, Uhura, Chekov)
TNG - 8 (Picard, Riker, Crusher, LaForge, Data, Yar, Worf, Troi)
DS9 - 7 (Sisko, Kira, Odo, Bashir, O'Brien, Quark, Dax)
VOY - 8 (Janeway, Chakotay, EMH, Paris, Kim, Neelix, Kes, 7 of 9)
ENT - 7 (Archer, T'Pol, Trip, Reed, Hoshi, Travis, Phlox)

That gives us 37 charcters.

How many have died, on film or in the novels? We will discount things like Q showing someone's death. With him it could all be an illusion. For the same reason we ignore Chekov's death in Spectre of the Gun. We're talking "He's Dead Jim" moments in real life.

Kirk, Spock, Scotty, McCoy, Data, Yar, O'Brien, Dax, Janeway, Trip.
(I thought about adding Worf but Crushing wasn't aware of his redundant systems so he really wasn't dead)

Missed anyone?

How many of these have been undone?
Kirk - Shatnerverse
Spock - TSFS
Scotty - Same episode as death
McCoy - Same episode as death
Data - Just last week,
Yar - Yesterday's Enterprise
O'Brien - Same episode as death
Dax - Jadzia no. Symbiont didn't die so no resurrection.
Janeway - Last month
Trip - Appaently didn't really die, was all a trick.

So, of the canon characters that have died on;y Jadzia is still looking at the daisies from the wrong side.

So, 37 canon characters
10 deaths (9 He's dead Jim's and 1 faked)
Let's call it 1/4 of the canon characters have died and come back.

By that estimate you'd think that somebody from the 60 billion dead in Destiny should be back at some pint.

If you're not canon, your chance of returning from the dead is about 0%.

If you are canon you have a 25% chance of dying but a 90% chance of coming back (actually greater since 1/2 of Jadzia Dax is still around).

Tell me again why I should care if a character dies?

[Christopher]

Deranged Nasat wrote:

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To be fair, it's a good story.

Despite the first-person presentation in the book, I'm sure that section was much, much more in-depth than whatever story Soong actually told the away team.

[Deranged Nasat]

Christopher wrote:

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Despite the first-person presentation in the book, I'm sure that section was much, much more in-depth than whatever story Soong actually told the away team.

Oh, of course. I assumed KingDaniel was just joking.

[King Daniel]

I was. I assume we're getting Soong's android-sharp recall as he gives the away team the highlights.

[Tirius]

My review (a bit shorter than usual, I don't have much time):

Let's start with the elephant in the room: Data's return. I went into this one with a lot of trepidation, given that the cover and the forums hinted heavily at a "resurrection of Data" story. As I've noted with my review of The Eternal Tide, I don't mind resurrections as long as they feel natural and serve the unfolding story. With Janeway... I felt that the story served her return rather than the other way around. I also think resurrections should be used sparingly, so as not to cheapen the death of a character in TrekLit as a whole and given that we just had one a few months back, I feared a return to "canon status quo" sweeping through the novelverse.

PoM felt to me like a very different story to The Eternal Tide, which is a bit ironic considering the main character, Soong, is actively trying to resurrect something during most of it: his family. His journey to do so in the middle part of the book did a lot of good work to define his character, although I question how well people who did not read Immortal Coil will pick up on the plot threads that continue from that story, particularly things like Vaslovik's nature and abduction of Juliana Tainer, the holotronic android and the AI society. I took the time to reread my copy in the week prior to picking up PoM and I'm very glad I did. In the end, Data's return left him sufficiently changed for me to be content that we're not returning to the pre-Nemesis status quo, although I'm sure we'll see further progress on his story in the other 2 novels. I'd love for him to succeed in saving Lal, for one.

As for the Breen plot, I liked how for once it's not just a matter of the Enterprise crew saving the day. It really drives home how dangerous the Breen are as adversaries, something I always felt DS9 failed to do (yes, despite the whole bombing Earth and destroying the Defiant thing). When the Breen leader shot Choudhury, I was really shocked, despite the fact that I'd already read about her fate on the forums. That was one page break that really served its purpose! As I said with Afsarah Eden, I always lament the exit of a character with a lot of story potential, but I'm reserving judgment on this until we see what it does to Worf (poor Worf!) in the rest of the trilogy. It does remind me too much of the upheaval we had among the "new" cast in the early TNG Relaunch works though, and I do hope we're not returning to the security-chief-of-the-week format (or, heavens forbid, Worf being demoted and returning to that post somehow).

Anyway, I think the trilogy's off to a fine start and will definately pick up the next part. "Above average" for me - which is my standard "good but not in my top 10" grade.

[Greg Cox]

RPJOB wrote:

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How many of these have been undone?
Kirk - Shatnerverse
Spock - TSFS
Scotty - Same episode as death
McCoy - Same episode as death
Data - Just last week,
Yar - Yesterday's Enterprise
O'Brien - Same episode as death
Dax - Jadzia no. Symbiont didn't die so no resurrection.
Janeway - Last month
Trip - Appaently didn't really die, was all a trick.

Honestly, I'm not sure I'd count something like "Shore Leave" or "The Changeling" where a lead character's "death" is undone by the end of the very same episode. Those are just blips to generate a bit of temporary excitement in the middle of the story; I doubt that anybody watching "Shore Leave" really thought that the show had killed off McCoy for good. Heck, he was back and flirting with alien showgirls before the body was cold . . . .

Dramatically, that's different from something like Yar's death, who came back after being dead for years. Or even Spock, whose "death" was treated as a big deal that required a whole new movie (filmed a few years later) to undo.