So that's three coups now in 12 years. This represents a pretty major problem for Federation political culture, particularly for a culture that is nominally so advanced and which badly needs to maintain stability as it continues to rebuild from the Borg Invasion and to deal with the Typhon Pact.
Yeah, zh'Tarash had better be completely above reproach and her Russian guard friend needs to work doubly hard to make sure he sees her through her term(s). We can't keep losing presidents this way, and it's about time Starfleet had some admirals who aren't badmirals. Akaar seems sufficiently not evil, but he sure is a curmudgeonly asshole. What about Shanthi? Can she un-retire given how fucked everything is? Is Nechayev still blue goo or was she faking it / got better?
Anyway I ranked this book "Outstanding" because really, it was. I couldn't put it down. Enjoyed it for so many reasons, most of which Sci articulated better than I could.
However... I also agree with Sci 100% re: David Mack and the troubling collection of dead women in his refrigerator. He's such a deeply skilled, multidimensional writer in so many ways, and he keeps turning in these awesome, epic, enjoyable stories, but he just keeps going back to this tired sexist trope where it seems like he thinks a woman character isn't used to her fullest potential unless he leaves her violently and tragically dead so the (almost always a) man she (for all intents)
belongs to can completely break down over it only to slowly recover over time and then never mention her again.
Ughhhhhhh...
I mean as characters go, Sarina was occasionally bland depending on how she was written and by whom, and the whole doctor-patient thing was kind of gross as fuck to begin with, but still. There were
wayyy better ways to handle this in the end. I thought Mack was leaning in hard to some potential last minute heel-face turn on L'Haan's part, maybe something allegorical or even literal around development of empathy or a conscience in and/or for Control, arising as some psionic consequence of the aftermath of their shared participation in committing what can only be described as the naked torture mind rape personality-murder scene.... But nope. We don't get anything resembling that.
Not even a hint of any legitimate (though repressed) Vulcan emotional depth in L'Haan (other than self-preservation and, occasionally, annoyance). Instead, it's just pure cold calculating one-dimensional self-serving Vulcan logic as a stand-in for mustache-twirling the whole way through. L'haan's just like "Wowie zowie, so my boss is computers, eh. I guess I better shut the fuck up about it," and it's the last we ever hear from her until her offscreen arrest. What the hell is she doing during the final fight, testing her plomeek to make sure it's not laced with peanuts? Squeegeeing the AI brain rape room? Disappoint.
Meanwhile, the last vestiges of Uraei is like "Nooo I'm melting! I'm gonna seppuku your favourite posession as revenge, bitch boy! Harikiri mothafuckaaaa ..." and then Sarina's characterization in the death scene is so ambiguous, that half the readers in this thread couldn't even seem to tell if Sarina actually woke up or not in those final moments.
And they *could* have shared an awesome moment, like, "Hey, we did it honey, our life's goal achieved! At least we can go to die now knowing our deaths had meaning and we've succeeded in saving billions from tyranny!" NOPE. Instead Bashir's supposed final moments are spent lamenting his failure to be big strong protective man dude.
It's framed around his shame at his squishy effeminate weakness at not being her protector. The whole thing totally robs her of her agency as an experienced and highly-skilled intelligence super-agent, especially considering she knew all the risks and signed on for tackling S31 anyway, even understanding the possible consequences. I don't know. Also, the kind-of implied aside of "Oh well if it weren't for Bashir she'd still be a catatonic invalid anyway, so I guess she owed it to him," as well as the idea that he 'spent' her (like a Chuck E. Cheese token!) to achieve
his goal of destroying S31. It's just a bit of a piss-off, and frankly the resolution of this entire story thread is just upsetting to me.
Sarina, flawed character though she was on the balance, was always at her best when she had
more to do in the story than just get dicked or mourned by Bashir. Sadly, those days are over. She is in the fridge now, and Bashir will stay broken up about it just about as long as it takes his boyfriend to coax him out of his shell with some combination of palace intrigue and the magic of friendship. But at least
that part is left up to Una, probably, and amen to that.
Anyway, the rest of the book was really quite stellar. Seriously, hands down. Five stars.
-- and, for that matter, I wonder how much longer Captain Picard will be allowed to command the Enterprise.
My guess is forever. "Well we saw how you saved the damn universe again and we were gonna give you another offer to make you an admiral, but we just found out you did a conspiracy, so. Yeah you did. So we're gonna pop you back down to Captain of the
Enterprise. We call it the 'Kirk Special.' Plus we're kind of thinking of bringing Shanthi out of retirement, so."
Just out of morbid curiosity, has it been established what "Article 14, Section 31 of the Starfleet Charter" actually says?
"...To boldly go where no one has gone before," which is open to interpretation in a number of ways and, though artful, should quite frankly never have been written into a constitutional document.
