Question about The Soul Key

[marlboro]

Just curious if anyone has any background info about one aspect of this book.

Was this storyline always supposed to have concluded after the DS9 time jump to 2381? Just wondering if there was ever a plan to wrap up that storyline before moving on to the Typhon Pact stuff.

Edit: a follow up question just occurred to me. If there was a plan to wrap the story up before the time jump, would it have been basically the same story we found in the flashbacks of David R. George's novels Sacraments of Fire and Ascendance?

 

[LutherSloan]

I think the original plan was to fill in the gaps between where DS9 was at, and where the rest of Trek Lit was at. The problem is that DS9 fell behind, and then there were editorial changes which I believe necessitated a quick time jump to catch up to the Typhon Pact. For some time we didn't get much resolution on what had happened with the Ascendants, and we found out that several characters had changed (like Kira leaving Starfleet and becoming a Vedek).

I have no idea if the story would have been the same, but I tend to think no, since the authors were different. Honestly what we got as far as a resolution to that storyline in the flashback sequences reinforced my idea that the time jump was a good thing. The Illiana Ghemor storyline never did much for me.

 

[thribs]

Kira became a Vedek? Why would she want to become one of those boring old farts?

 

[Christopher]

I think the original plan was to fill in the gaps between where DS9 was at, and where the rest of Trek Lit was at. The problem is that DS9 fell behind, and then there were editorial changes which I believe necessitated a quick time jump to catch up to the Typhon Pact.

Not quite. Under Marco Palmieri, the only plan was to let each series proceed at its own pace, without any worry about synching them up. DS9 and SCE were in 2376, VGR was in 2378 until after Destiny, TNG and TTN were in 2379-80, etc. The stories were allowed to go at their own paces based on what worked best for each individual series. (There was a point where SCE editor Keith DeCandido retconned the timeframe of the SCE stories to cram them all into the period before a certain DS9 novel, so that a crossover story in SCE wouldn't spoil upcoming events in DS9, but I once witnessed a conversation at Shore Leave where Keith mentioned that he'd done that and Marco insisted that he hadn't needed to.)

But when the economic crisis cost Marco his job and Margaret had to take over everything, she decided to bring DS9 more into sync with the others (though VGR was allowed to remain at its own separate pace). I think this was in reaction to the trouble Destiny had dealing with DS9 characters, being limited to using Ezri and a few supporting characters because the DS9 timeline was so far behind the others. Margaret didn't want that same kind of problem to crop up in future crossovers -- which were bound to happen in the wake of Destiny's success.

 

[marlboro]

Very interesting.

I wonder why there was such a hurry to bring DS9 up to date. You would think it would have been easier to finish off the Soul Key storyline, and then do the time jump.

I'm new to Treklit so I am able to read all of these books back to back, but it had to be insanely frustrating to have to wait for Sacraments of Fire to come out for people who were reading these as they were released.

 

[Christopher]

I wonder why there was such a hurry to bring DS9 up to date. You would think it would have been easier to finish off the Soul Key storyline, and then do the time jump.

I think Margaret just wanted to make a clean break and focus on her own plans. It's hard to do someone else's ideas as well as they would have, so sometimes it's better just to let them go and do your own thing instead.

Also, Margaret seems to like the approach of leaving unanswered questions to be filled in later. For instance, when I did Greater Than the Sum, she didn't want me to show Picard and Crusher getting married, but to jump forward to when they were already a couple, saving the wedding story for some future flashback tale (which we eventually got in the e-novella Q are Cordially Uninvited). I guess it's the "always leave 'em wanting more" philosophy.

 

[marlboro]

Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions! Much appreciated.

p.s. We need more of the Regnancy of the Carnelian Throne.

 

[LutherSloan]

Very interesting.

I wonder why there was such a hurry to bring DS9 up to date. You would think it would have been easier to finish off the Soul Key storyline, and then do the time jump.

I'm new to Treklit so I am able to read all of these books back to back, but it had to be insanely frustrating to have to wait for Sacraments of Fire to come out for people who were reading these as they were released.

I think it was something like 10 years between the story in Worlds of DS9 about the Dominion with the Great Link disbanding, and finding out what happened after that. I believe it wasn't until Sacraments of Fire or the other one where we found out that the Ascendants were responsible for killing the Founders' 'god'.

 

[David cgc]

I wonder why there was such a hurry to bring DS9 up to date. You would think it would have been easier to finish off the Soul Key storyline, and then do the time jump.

I'm new to Treklit so I am able to read all of these books back to back, but it had to be insanely frustrating to have to wait for Sacraments of Fire to come out for people who were reading these as they were released.

Up until recently when most of the high points of the gaps have been filled in, I don't think I'm alone in saying I would've preferred a "Full Circle"-style novel that raced through all the unfinished plotlines to get us to the Destiny years. Now, (and it sounds like you would know), if someone was reading the 24th century books back to back, it would probably seem almost intentional that those gaps were left, only to be filled later on as they became directly relevant to ongoing events, so in hindsight, it doesn't matter so much now that we got there in the end. Checking MB, it looks like there were about fifteen full DS9 Relaunch novels (depending on how you count) between "Avatar" and "The Soul Key," and then about a dozen to "Original Sin." That probably flows a lot better than it was going the long way around since 2001, where the Relaunch was moving like a freight train up through Worlds of Deep Space Nine, and then trickled to a crawl with only a book or two a year since then.

 

[marlboro]

I think it was something like 10 years between the story in Worlds of DS9 about the Dominion with the Great Link disbanding, and finding out what happened after that.

Now that is how you build suspense. What could be more suspenseful than asking yourself "Will I live long enough to see how this story turns out?"

 

[marlboro]

That probably flows a lot better than it was going the long way around since 2001, where the Relaunch was moving like a freight train up through Worlds of Deep Space Nine, and then trickled to a crawl with only a book or two a year since then.

Yeah, if I didn't read them close together I would never be able to keep track of what's going on. The online guides are enormously helpful. I'm already dreading catching up with the DS9 relaunch; I haven't got that many books left.

 

[tomswift2002]

I kind of like the Season 8/9 DS9 novels from before Destiny. The recent books seem to have shorter storylines and then jump forward by a couple of months, rather than the earlier ones where there was maybe a day or a week between stories. When Sacraments of Fire came out, I was wishing that the Ascendant storyline had been separated from the post-Destiny storyline.

 

[Corran Horn]

The story of Rebecca's kidnapping was first referenced in books from 2010-2011 and then was finally told in a 2017 book.

That was fun.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Kira became a Vedek? Why would she want to become one of those boring old farts?

Nana Visitor wonders the same thing...IIRC, she is definitely not a fan of "Vedek Kira".

 

[JD]

Vedek Kira is probably my least favorite part of the new DS9 books. I really don't think we got anywhere near enough stories with her as a Starfleet Captain.

 

[marlboro]

Vedek Kira is probably my least favorite part of the new DS9 books. I really don't think we got anywhere near enough stories with her as a Starfleet Captain.

I hated Kira when I first started watching DS9. By the end of the show, I had grown to like her. The DS9 Relaunch made her one of my favorite Trek characters. I've read 7 or 8 post Destiny DS9 novels and the directions taken with some of the characters has made for some pretty tough sledding. Eventually, I think, it will become so different from what I liked about the show that I'll give up on the books.

 

[JD]

The only thing they did in the post-Destiny DS9 books that I really like is Capt. Ro, I just wish they could have found a way to do that without Kira leaving Starfleet and Vaughn dying.

 

[Kilana2]

I hated Kira when I first started watching DS9. By the end of the show, I had grown to like her. The DS9 Relaunch made her one of my favorite Trek characters. I've read 7 or 8 post Destiny DS9 novels and the directions taken with some of the characters has made for some pretty tough sledding. Eventually, I think, it will become so different from what I liked about the show that I'll give up on the books.

I had similiar feelings towards Kira. In the end, after What You Leave Behind and some novels, she became one of my favorite Trek characters.

 

[thribs]

Can’t believe they gave Ro the captaincy. She’s a dirty traitor and should be locked up in Rura Penté for the rest of her life.

 

[Jinn]

Can’t believe they gave Ro the captaincy. She’s a dirty traitor and should be locked up in Rura Penté for the rest of her life.

Well, most people can redeem themselves. And I certainly don't think that Ro is beyond that. It's been sometime since I watched TNG but looking at her MA page I don't think she is evil incarnated.