Spoilers TOS: Allegiance in Exile by DRGIII Review Thread

[rfmcdpei]

The revelation did raise some questions though

Spoiler: Species reveal

Did Kirk ever ask the Bajorans about the Ascendants? Or about what they worship as a planetary religion? It feels as though they would have figured out about the wormhole pretty quickly afterwards.

Was there any particular reason the Ascendants did not find and attack Bajor right after coming out of the wormhole? How exactly did they find out that the Bajorans worshiped the same aliens?

Spoiler: On the mechanics of the reveal

My impression is that information about Bajoran religion was acquired as part of the first contact mission Kirk left on the surface of the surviving colony, and not automatically privileged. What reason would Kirk et al have to believe that the Bajorans actually had an empirically verifiable faith?

Looking at the script for "Emissary" again, it looks as if it took Jadzia Dax taking advantage of extensive Bajoran and Cardassian databases along with knowledge of the location in the Denorios Belt where Odo appeared in 2345 to track down the wormhole's existence. Absent information Kirk couldn't have had, especially contacting a distant colony world rather than Bajor itself, the wormhole's non-discovery for the next century seems plausible enough for me.

As for the vector of the Ascendants, I assumed that the Prophets ensured that the Ascendants would be cast out on their exit to a location distant from Bajor. (Wondrous are their ways.) The Ascendants and Bajorans may both be children of the Prophets, but the Bajorans are the only ones who have lived continuously on the Prophets' doorstep for the past milllennia. Will have to revisit book.

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[Dave Scarpa]

I'm about 3/4 of the way thru, it does certainly have a TOS feel to it, didn't know it would be a sulu love story thou, but so far it's ok, but i'm not sure I buy Sulu's resentment against Kirk, surely by this point in their travels sulu knows the dangers of Landing party assignments, especially after what happened to him, and he knows how Kirk feels after losing a crewman, I know it's a initial reaction, but one would think Sulu would reassess his feelings quickly.

 

[FatherRob]

My thoughts are up over at my review site:
http://trekbook.blogspot.com/2013/02/february-2012-allegiance-in-exile.html

 

[ProwlAlpha]

In the first half of the book, pretty much read like any other TOS book where they find a long lost civilization with a mystery. Like the trend of Trek books in the last decade, the author surely went crazy with reference TOS episodes, almost like Super Troopers Meow.

Yet, we get to see the consequences of Kirk's actions and it was nice to see that Kirk acted like a true leader and see that his choices do affect others.

 

[Jedi Ben]

I suppose reading this after Ascendance wove it into the DS9 epic casts it in a different light. I quite like this weaving in of older material into new stories - that was how I came to find Vanguard, with Ceremony of Sorrows use of the Shedai meta-genome.

I quite liked that the losses accrued onto Kirk. For all that redshirt characters may be a Trek tradition, it makes sense that Kirk wouldn't see it that way.

All in all, it was a fun enough read and expands the Ascendants storyline quite nicely too.

 

[Mage]

Funny, I re-read this one after Ascendence, and I found I liked it a lot better then the first time. It's really quite nice.

 

[Christopher]

^Yeah, they called her Manjula Rahda. (Although really the surname should be Radha; the original script spelled it wrong.)

It's a common surname in Space India.

By the way, I just found out that "Rahda" is a valid surname, except it's German rather than Indian. So maybe Manjula Rahda has a German father and an Indian mother?

 

[Defcon]

I have been living in Germany all my life and have yet to met or hear about anyone named Radha.

For shit and giggles, and of course totally unscientifically, I entered Rahda into the website of the maker of German phonebooks, and guess what? Not one hit for the exact match and less then 100 for a similar name (Rada).

 

[Christopher]

I have been living in Germany all my life and have yet to met or hear about anyone named Radha.

For shit and giggles, and of course totally unscientifically, I entered Rahda into the website of the maker of German phonebooks, and guess what? Not one hit for the exact match and less then 100 for a similar name (Rada).

All I know is, when I looked up "Rahda name" on Google, the only entries that came up with that spelling were names of people in Germany. There were very few hits, so it's probably a rare name, but it apparently exists. Maybe it's a variant spelling of Rada.

 

[Reanok]

I liked this novel when I originally read it a few years ago. I hope to re-read this novel sometime.

 

[Mage]

I would really recommend reading it again. My first time, I rated above average. I liked it. That's it. Second time around, I would probably go for outstanding.

 

[JD]

It's not the same spelling, but when I looked up Radha on Wikipedia all I got for results were people from India. Could Rahda just be an alternate spelling of that?

 

[Christopher]

It's not the same spelling, but when I looked up Radha on Wikipedia all I got for results were people from India. Could Rahda just be an alternate spelling of that?

In transliterated Hindi, the "h" represents the aspiration of the preceding consonant. So "Radha" is actually pronounced essentially like "Rad-ha" rather than just "Rada." The "h" isn't just taking up space, it has a specific phonetic value and its position is not negotiable. I don't know if "Rahda" would be a valid formation at all in an Indian language.

In real-world terms, "Rahda" was an American scriptwriter's misspelling of Radha, pure and simple. But apparently there are a few real people referenced online who have that name, and they all seem to live in Germany.

 

[Mizrach]

This is the first ST book that I consider "poor".
Some nice parts: Kirk struggle with his future, the final battle, the exploration of the mysterious cities.
But all of the parts of Sulu and his fiancee are plain boring. The worst love story I ever read, and the first time I didn't like Sulu.