Spoilers ENT: Rise of the Federation: Live by the Code by Christopher L. Bennett Review Thread

[Willow]

Thank you, Christopher for replying to my comments.

I personally don't mind a break from the Orions, as I am less interested in them than the Klingons. And I'm glad the Deltan thread wasn't continued. I personally am less enthralled with the "sensual aliens" (Orions and Deltans) than the "militaristic" ones (Klingons, Andorians). Personal choice I suppose.

I did notice the LGBT inclusion, which is fine, except that I was really hoping for more focus on the personal lives of the "primary" crew. I don't think Malcolm has had a romance in 14 years (aside from a possible dalliance with a Vissian that was never confirmed, and the beginnings of something in What Price Honor that thankfully didn't continue since it was out of character IMO). Being a Captain of a small starship would limit your chances for a relationship- unless it's with aliens or other captains. I enjoyed Thanian and thought she was a badass and devoted to duty, much like Malcolm. Again..my opinion.

I can appreciate that as an author , it must be extremely difficult to address all storyline threads in any one book. And there needs to be priorities. The writing, IMO was excellent...and all the technical stuff was so awesome it went over my head at times. But then, I read generally for the interpersonal stuff rather than the technical.

Even though we didn't get any Kimura, I did appreciate Hoshi's honesty in how she felt leaving him behind in Earth - feeling a little guilty that she was feeling a little relieved that she didn't have to do the day-to-day intense therapy with him (for now). Doesn't mean she doesn't love him. Family and caregivers of the disabled can feel that way . (I have a disabled son) so her feelings were spot on.And it was beyond awesome that she agreed to marry him AFTER the injury.

Damn..Hoshi is just all kinds of awesome! (And Kimura is also..for his fighting spirit and his willingness to give Hoshi space to pursue her passions)

 

[Christopher]

I personally don't mind a break from the Orions, as I am less interested in them than the Klingons. And I'm glad the Deltan thread wasn't continued.

I never intended the Delta story to be in more than one book, although I did end up bumping that subplot from both of the first two books until I finally found room for it in the third.

I did notice the LGBT inclusion, which is fine, except that I was really hoping for more focus on the personal lives of the "primary" crew. I don't think Malcolm has had a romance in 14 years (aside from a possible dalliance with a Vissian that was never confirmed, and the beginnings of something in What Price Honor that thankfully didn't continue since it was out of character IMO). Being a Captain of a small starship would limit your chances for a relationship- unless it's with aliens or other captains.

I have some long-term thoughts about that.

I enjoyed Thanian and thought she was a badass and devoted to duty, much like Malcolm.

"She?" I'm confused. Thanien is T'Pol's first officer and is a chan (male). So I'm not sure who you're referring to.

 

[Willow]

I never intended the Delta story to be in more than one book, although I did end up bumping that subplot from both of the first two books until I finally found room for it in the third.




I have some long-term thoughts about that.



"She?" I'm confused. Thanien is T'Pol's first officer and is a chan (male). So I'm not sure who you're referring to.

Oops...sorry! I meant Thenar sh'Prenni! I get confused with some of the alien names...even the Andorians, who are among my favorite. But I do love Thanian too. I like how he is a first officer for a Vulcan and how well that relationship is working.

 

[Willow]

Seriously, Christopher, I don't know how you keep things straight! You must have hundreds of pages of notes! (Do you actually have Phlox's family tree mapped out?) really amazing. Especially since you go into so much detail with the technical things, and the new aliens.

The new aliens in this book were all interesting, especially since they were truly "alien" when compared to most of the other humanoids we got in the TV series.

I'm looking forward to more people joining this thread as they finish the book :-) I'm addicted..so as soon as it downloaded, I read it straight through (with my kid permitting..l)

 

[Nyotarules]

Chapter 11
Klingons are being Klingons - predictable political maneuverings plus the usual cultural hypocrisies, but still enjoyable to read,
Starfleet - well things, are not looking so black and white after all with the Ware.
The Crew - J.T Kirk did not inherit his male swagger with the ladies from his paternal great grand father lol
Trip & T'Pol - he loves me, she loves me not, he loves me not, she loves me.....
Reed- yeah he needs to get some, even Archer has a woman (thanks for pairing him with Danica Erikson, an inspired choice, in the 22nd century human IRR will be as normal as blinking... I hope)

 

[Christopher]

Oops...sorry! I meant Thenar sh'Prenni! I get confused with some of the alien names...even the Andorians, who are among my favorite.

Honestly, I couldn't even remember her nickname offhand, which is why I didn't realize who you meant.

Anyway, I considered putting in some romantic beats between Reed and sh'Prenni, but I felt it would undermine her as a character if I put her in the stereotyped role of the male captain's love interest. It felt right to keep their relationship on the level of friends and fellow captains, although maybe with a subtext of something more.

Seriously, Christopher, I don't know how you keep things straight! You must have hundreds of pages of notes!

Actually 91 pages at this point -- 26 pages for general and future series notes and 65 pages of notes accumulated over the first four novels. It got so massive I had to split the file in two so I wouldn't have to wade through the older stuff to get to the current stuff.

(Do you actually have Phlox's family tree mapped out?)

I do, and I have pages and pages of notes before that for working out the math and logistics of how the hell Denobulan families could possibly work. Some of this material will end up in my website annotations when I get around to them.

The new aliens in this book were all interesting, especially since they were truly "alien" when compared to most of the other humanoids we got in the TV series.

One cool thing about the Ware premise is that it let me explore types of alien that would normally be excluded from Star Trek stories because they're physically or mentally unlikely to develop spaceflight on their own. And it helps reinforce the idea that the overwhelmingly humanoid aliens we see in Trek aren't the whole picture, just the result of Starfleet's selection bias in the aliens it tends to interact with. (This goes back to the earliest TOS proposals in the '60s, where Roddenberry posited that the ship would mostly limit itself to visiting worlds with Earthlike conditions, i.e. worlds it would be affordable to depict.)

The Crew - J.T Kirk did not inherit his male swagger with the ladies from his paternal great grand father lol

I liked inverting gender expectations by making Val be the tough, assertive action hero and Sam the source of Kirk's gentler, more intellectual side. Although, really, that's consistent with my larger pattern for writing male and female characters.

Reed- yeah he needs to get some, even Archer has a woman (thanks for pairing him with Danica Erikson, an inspired choice, in the 22nd century human IRR will be as normal as blinking... I hope)

IRR = interracial relationships/romance, I take it? Isn't it already pretty normal? Outside of certain backward segments of the population, nobody seems to make an issue out of it anymore.

Really, my only consideration there was that I really liked the actress, Leslie Silva. And every other woman in Archer's past was either a passing fling, an alien, or missing and presumed dead. (Really, as Trek leads go, Archer had a really sparse romantic life.)

 

[Nyotarules]

IRR = interracial relationships/romance, I take it? Isn't it already pretty normal? Outside of certain backward segments of the population, nobody seems to make an issue out of it anymore.

Really, my only consideration there was that I really liked the actress, Leslie Silva. And every other woman in Archer's past was either a passing fling, an alien, or missing and presumed dead. (Really, as Trek leads go, Archer had a really sparse romantic life.)

'Pretty normal', is not the same as 'pretty acceptable' the average Asian would run a mile rather than marry a woman or man of colour especially dark brown colour. There is a sad reason why skin bleaching is popular in India, Africa and other Caribbean islands. Human beauty standards do not give kudos to the colour brown. In the UK London is metropolitan city and pretty diverse, when I go into the countryside I will get stared at as if I landed from space. Also ask your African American friends/acquaintances about sundown towns in the USA. No we have a looong way to go.
As for Archer probably explains a lot, not being regular for ten years ain't good for ya! ;o)

 

[Christopher]

'Pretty normal', is not the same as 'pretty acceptable' the average Asian would run a mile rather than marry a woman or man of colour especially dark brown colour. There is a sad reason why skin bleaching is popular in India, Africa and other Caribbean islands.

That's fair; I was thinking about modern American culture, not globally. There's still a long way to go for the rest of the world. And, sadly, for large parts of the US. (I remember that when President Obama was elected, some pundits asserted it was proof that we'd entered a "post-racial" era. Instead, it just fired up the racists worse than ever and brought them out into the open. Although that's a good start, because exposing the problem is the first step toward overcoming it.)

I guess what I meant is, in my experience, interracial romance is pretty commonplace in American, Canadian, and British media and entertainment today; it's rarely treated as an "issue" anymore, but is just treated as normal and unremarkable. You had Rose/Mickey and Clara/Danny in Doctor Who, Barry/Iris in The Flash, Kara/James in Supergirl, May/Andrew and Daisy/Lincoln in Agents of SHIELD, Wash/Zoe in Firefly, Dutch/D'avin in Killjoys, Montoya/Barbara in Gotham (the fact that it was same-sex was a bit of an issue, but the fact that it was interracial wasn't even mentioned), etc.

Human beauty standards do not give kudos to the colour brown.

I don't understand that. I love dark, rich colors. I love brown. Dark brown eyes, dark brown hair, dark brown skin, it's all beautiful to me. But then, I have pretty wide-ranging tastes in female beauty.

And, to be fair, I had to learn it. I grew up in a mostly white neighborhood and it took me years to learn to get past seeing nonwhite people as something "other." I wasn't raised to be prejudiced, certainly, but I didn't have many opportunities to interact with people of other ethnicities. My horizons were broadened in high school and college when I did get the chance to interact with a more diverse group of people. Luckily, I went to an integrated high school where the students mostly didn't see race as a big deal. Black and white students dated without anyone seeming shocked or upset by it. And of course the university population was even more international and diverse. The best way to see the beauty in other people is to get to know them. Beauty is an appearance we associate with positive emotion, so if you get close to someone and it feels good to see them, you can learn to see them, and people who resemble them, as beautiful.

 

[Briet]

Maybe its bacause its so well writen, but a really hate Klingon politics. Every time we had a scene in the High Council chamber a wanted to smash my face into my tablet. Aside from this little fact, the tension was really enjoyable.

I really appreciate the the Ware's origin story. This isn't the first time in this series that a shows what will happen when corporations have too much saying in political, environmental or other matters that shouldn't fall in their authority, like it happens on some planets far-far away.

I'm sorry we didn't get the chance to see how Malcolm and sh'Prenni's relationship would have turned out, I definitely sensed a spark there. Oh well...

I was kinda ok with what little Orion we got, but it reminded me of something I recently read on Memory Beta. It was Starfleet Operations Manual I believe, that mentioned a major battle between Starfleet and the Orions in 2166. Just curious if we will see that in a future book.

And the attention to details continues to impress me. I won't start giving examples because we would be here all day, but man... I remember that in one of the early Enterprise book that I read people were running around shooting phasers and using tricoders. Although it seems we'll have phasers soon enough anyway. And is there any chance that we will see some of the mentioned new ships/ship classes in action?

Also, I heared that Finn was significantly smaller on the Chinese poster of the new Star Wars movie. I didn't believe it until I looked it up.

 

[Christopher]

Maybe its bacause its so well writen, but a really hate Klingon politics. Every time we had a scene in the High Council chamber a wanted to smash my face into my tablet.

By Klingon standards, that would probably be a compliment...

I really appreciate the the Ware's origin story. This isn't the first time in this series that a shows what will happen when corporations have too much saying in political, environmental or other matters that shouldn't fall in their authority, like it happens on some planets far-far away.

My original plan was more along the lines of "overdependence on technology led to disaster," but I realized that was kind of Luddite and cliched and didn't fit my own beliefs, and given current events, it seemed more appropriate to go for the corporate angle instead.

I was kinda ok with what little Orion we got, but it reminded me of something I recently read on Memory Beta. It was Starfleet Operations Manual I believe, that mentioned a major battle between Starfleet and the Orions in 2166. Just curious if we will see that in a future book.

I'm not drawing on anything from the old RPGs, as a rule. They're from long enough ago that a lot of their basic assumptions have been overwritten by later canon. And the games have generally tended to take a more combat-oriented approach to the universe, treating everything as one war after another, and that's not an interpretation I care for.

And is there any chance that we will see some of the mentioned new ships/ship classes in action?

Hard to say. They're still pretty early in their development, so it might be a few years before they get off the drawing board.

 

[Nyotarules]

Christopher, we need more humans like you...

P.S Have you been watching The people v O.J Simpson? There is a scene where Johnny Cochran tells the other lawyers black women do not like when black men date white woman, the other white middle class male lawyers looked shocked... I had to laugh, sure its a generalisation but up to a certain age group, its very true. That mindset has deep historical roots.

 

[Jinn]

Archer had a really sparse romantic life.)

Someone tell that Geordi La Forge. He had like 4 girlfriends over the course of 7 seasons, 4 movies and ~20 novels, if I'm not mistaken.

 

[Christopher]

But Geordi's not the series lead. You expect the lead character to have more in the way of romances. But Archer basically just had the Akaali scientist from "Civilization," an ill-conceived, dead-end romantic tension with T'Pol, a couple of seductions by alien spies (in "Two Days and Two Nights" and "Rajiin"), a couple of passing allusions to ex-girlfriends from his past, and Erika Hernandez in "Home." So basically that's two legitimate romances in four years, with nearly three years separating them.

Which is why I decided it was a good idea to hook him up with Dani Erickson. That was an aspect of his life that had been woefully underdeveloped onscreen.

 

[ThelinNV]

Definitely loved this one. I believe it is my favorite out of all of the RotF novels thus far.

I was especially fond of the Partnership and their member races. Their fate was a surprise and I wonder if we may see them in future RotF installments or in any future CLBIII Treklit. Was wondering if you'd be willing to elaborate more either on here or in the annotations (which I can't wait for btw) on how that conglomeration of races moves into the future after the events depicted here. I'd certainly like to see Kirk or Picard revisit this area of space.

 

[Christopher]

I was especially fond of the Partnership and their member races. Their fate was a surprise and I wonder if we may see them in future RotF installments or in any future CLBIII Treklit. Was wondering if you'd be willing to elaborate more either on here or in the annotations (which I can't wait for btw) on how that conglomeration of races moves into the future after the events depicted here. I'd certainly like to see Kirk or Picard revisit this area of space.

Putting this in a spoiler box for people who haven't finished the book yet, just in case...

Spoiler

Honestly, my goal was to explain why all these species -- not to mention the Ware -- were never seen again in the 23rd or 24th century. They've basically ceased to exist as starfaring entities. Mostly, they've either reverted to a basically animal existence in the wilds of their home/colony worlds or become subsumed into the Klingon Empire, or both (although I implied that the Klingons wouldn't find them useful enough to enslave). The lucky ones are under the protection of the Balduk, but they aren't likely to have much of an interstellar presence ever again. The "conglomeration of races" is gone, period. It has no future. The individual species will endure, but their Ware-enabled collective civilization is destroyed forever. That sucks, but it's essential to the story. And even though it was the Klingons who did the deed, the outcome is the consequence of Section 31's actions, and arguably of Starfleet's intervention in general. And it's a terrible loss -- not as bad as the total extinction of the species involved, because I'm not David Mack , but still drastic and irreversible. And that's what motivates Archer's decision to push for a non-interference policy and Trip's decision to turn on Section 31. So I can't let the Federation off the hook by reversing this loss, by going "Oh, it's okay, the Partnership got all better again."

Essentially, most of Ware space is Klingon space from now on. It's that "peninsula" of Klingon territory adjacent to the Romulan Neutral Zone on the Star Charts maps. Though some portion of it may eventually be Federation territory.

 

[Idran]

I guess what I meant is, in my experience, interracial romance is pretty commonplace in American, Canadian, and British media and entertainment today; it's rarely treated as an "issue" anymore, but is just treated as normal and unremarkable.

In general I think you're right, but you still see it in the US now and then. There was that brouhaha over that Cheerios commercial a couple years back, for example.

As for the book, most of the parts I loved were already covered, but one I haven't seen yet mentioned was right at the start. I absolutely loved how you started it out literally as though it was a TOS story; it was the perfect way to start out a story on an Enterprise.

 

[Christopher]

In general I think you're right, but you still see it in the US now and then. There was that brouhaha over that Cheerios commercial a couple years back, for example.

Well, sure, there's no shortage of morons out there in the audience who object to things like that, but I'm saying the shows themselves don't call attention to it as an issue. Interracial romance is no longer the subject matter of a Very Special Episode, it's just something that happens in a story without any of the characters commenting on it. The shows treat it as routine, even if not everyone in the audience does. So I don't think I've done anything groundbreaking by doing the same with Archer and Dani.

As for the book, most of the parts I loved were already covered, but one I haven't seen yet mentioned was right at the start. I absolutely loved how you started it out literally as though it was a TOS story; it was the perfect way to start out a story on an Enterprise.

Yup. I wanted the opening scenes to feel like the latest episode of Star Trek: Vol'Rala.

 

[Briet]

I just remembered something that wasn't entirely clear to me: was Kimura discharged from Starfleet permanently or we'll have him back in some capacity (someone's aid or something)?

 

[Willow]

I just remembered something that wasn't entirely clear to me: was Kimura discharged from Starfleet permanently or we'll have him back in some capacity (someone's aid or something)?

Good question! I cant remember if his official status was addressed. Unless there is a "miracle cure", he will certainly not be in the field again. He lost a limb, and endured severe neurological trauma. But, in the 22nd century, I would hope that there is still a place for him in Starfleet, albeit with some disabilities...he still has a lot to offer.

As for Archer and Dani..(and as one who really disliked her daddy) I am glad it turned out this way. They grew up together and I'm a sucker for those kinds of romances. Though, assuming she is around Archer's age, I'd assume children would be out of the question?

Which just makes me think about longevity and reproductive cycles in general in the 22nd century. I think it has been mentioned in other books that the life span is longer..but what about female reproduction? At this point, Hoshi and Travis would be the only ones likely to have kids. And regardless of any "miracle cure" for Malcolm,he is no youngster and unless he turns into a James Kirk (God, I hope not!) his prospects are extremely limited anyway. (and Im torn as to whether I hope for a cure or not, because I don't want "happily ever after" just because it's Sci-fi. In real life, there probably would be no cure. And I was impressed with his moral stance on refusing any Ware treatment for it)

 

[Briet]

Picard was 76 and Doctor Crusher was 57 when they had their kid, Archer is 53 right now and Dani should be around that, perhaps a few years younger.