Spoilers Star Trek: Prey Trilogy - general discussion thread

Goodness gracious, the ONLY reason I put this book down today was to go teach this evening. I might have to stay up to finish it! It's that good so far!

 

Thanks! Teaching's important -- honorable, the Klingons might say.

I don't go into review threads, so if there are any questions through the series, this is probably the thread I'll be checking; put 'em behind spoiler tags and I'll do the same if I answer. Can't promise I'll always will -- if something is going to come up in a later book, for example, I'll abstain, and I don't always get time to make the rounds. But someone already PM'ed me for a clarification and it was an easy enough answer, so it makes sense to do them in a spot like this.

 

Ah, the Micro Machines BoP. I remember when I was a kid, I tried making the wings take different positions like in the movies. Ended up snapping the wings off.

 

Ouch. Yeah, it's the only thing I've got that's close to scale with my desktop Enterprise-E. The wings are wilting some. And for some reason the guns on my Playmates bird-of-prey are starting to curl -- plastic does strange things as it ages.

 

My old die cast ERTL Bird of Prey is still going strong.

 

Did anyone ever release a bird-of-prey model where the wings are hinged? I've seen kit-bashed models with articulated wings, but can't remember seeing an official version.

 

My Diamond Select BOP has the wings hinged. By the way, really enjoying the book so far. I just started it last night.

 

I really enjoyed this one - it had me on the edge of my seat for most of it, and left me anxiously awaiting Books 2 and 3. I was a little bummed that neither President zh'Tarash nor General Klag and the I.K.S. Gorkon made an appearance, but maybe they'll show up in the next two books.

However, there was one little thing that threw me: in 2286, both Spock and Scotty were mentioned to be Commanders. But at that time, didn't both of them hold the rank of Captain? There was also a character or two on the Enterprise-E that I could've sworn were higher ranks, but those background characters fluctuate all the time between Ensign and Lieutenant depending on the writer, making it hard to know which rank their supposed to be.

 

I'm not sure what the other characters were -- we have a spreadsheet on the Next Gen folks, which is what I went from.

Spoiler: Ranks

The Enterprise-A ranks were in fact a subject of discussion during the proofreading passes -- what the form of address was when there's more than one captain in the chain of command aboard a starship. In most Earthly naval parlance, captains remain captains, while the commanding officer is "the" captain -- but then we had in recent lit where Starfleet found multiple captains problematic enough that La Forge literally stepped down a rank in Plagues of Night. I seem to recall it coming up in some other places as well.

My initial approach considered that while the two non-Kirk captains of course remained captains, functionally they were serving as acting commanders in the chain of command, hence the form of address; after discussions, I decided to back their rank references out entirely. I think there were two artifact Spock references and at least one Scott one that got past. All of which is a long way to say: yes, we missed those, but there was some thinking that went into what we initially included. We'll catch it in the next printing.

I do think top-heavy bridges are bound to be an issue of some kind; Takedown had a joke about Titan having one admiral and four commanders at the conference table — everything but a captain! Enterprise-A's situation was particularly peculiar, given that it was Kirk that got demoted -- it made more sense having Spock and Scotty serving as captains when he was an admiral.

And as for other characters appearing in Books 2 and/or 3 -- well, we'll just have to wait and see...

 

Thanks for the reply. If at all possible, I'd love to see that spreadsheet - it sounds awesome!

By the way, the character I was referring to specifically was Bryan Regnis, the Enterprise's security officer/sharpshooter. In some books, he's referred to as an Ensign (this book), others as a Lieutenant (Star Trek: Destiny), and I think there was a reference to him once as a Lieutenant, junior grade (maybe); I think there was a couple other generic security officer/engineers who have also fluctuated, but Regnis was the one that jumped out at me.

As for the whole multiple captains on the same ship thing, my understanding of Plagues of Night was that Geordi took the demotion from Captain to Commander to remain on the Enterprise instead of taking command of one of the SCE Saber-class ships; it wasn't that two or more captains couldn't serve on the same ship, it was that Starfleet wanted to reallocate one of its captains to command a starship rather than run engineering.

 

Spoiler: Ranks

The spreadsheet I have on Regnis has him as ensign. Sounds like one we should update. If the character had been more than simply mentioned, I usually check past mentions for characterization and physical details -- presumably I'd have caught that.

Back to captains, the specific line in Plagues I was initially responding to was Geordi's: "Starfleet didn't think the chain of command worked with two captains in it, so I accepted a rank reassignment to commander." David wrote him as sort of feeling awkward about it. My thought was maybe they could have organized it a different way — someone could be a captain of engineering for almost all purposes, but an acting commander while aboard ship and in the direct chain -- sort of the opposite of a brevet rank. But that decision was beyond my pay grade (no pun intended), so I punted.

I don't think they let the author reference materials out, incidentally, as sometimes those documents have already been updated with promotions and such from books yet to release. We'd hate for anyone to see a character has been killed in action before it's actually happened!

 

I do hope this book ends up in Groningen within a few days. Can't wait to get it!

 

Maybe Regnis got demoted? It could serve as an in-universe explantation.

 

Okay, I double checked, and Regnis was a Lieutenant (or Lieutenant, junior grade, I don't know) in Destiny and Paths of Disharmony, and then an Ensign in Armageddon's Arrow and now Hell's Heart. So yes, as of the most recent book, he's an Ensign; fortunately, they all agree that he's the ship's designated marksman (although it's also acknowledged that Lt. Šmrhová and Capt. Picard are both as good or nearly as good as him).

Also, thanks for telling me why you can't just send me a copy of your spreadsheet (although someday I wouldn't mind seeing it even with the spoilers). For curiosity's sake, do you have individual spreadsheets for each ship, or is it some kind of master list of every Starfleet officer/enlisted man in the entire Trek franchise? Personally, I've tried to assemble such a master list, but it's difficult and time consuming and it's very easy to miss a character or a promotion or a transfer (especially with the older works).

 

The guide is broken down by ship, listing many characters -- but I don't know enough to characterize it as comprehensive. It's more of a ready-reference.

On the other hand, I created a comprehensive spreadsheet for everything in Prey, with pages indexing characters, locations, animal species, and ships introduced in the series -- as well as a timeline that nailed down every event not only in the storyline, but those only referred to, whether in the movies, TV shows, fiction, or comics. I provided it to the editorial team for future reference once I was done.

 

You live in Groningen?!?!?! I live in Winschoten!!!!