Spoilers DSC: The Enterprise War by John Jackson Miller Review Thread

[Christopher]

Then in the briefing room Kirks says to him "You have a theory about why our sensors didn't pick up the Romulan ships?" (as best as I can recall) and then Spock tells him he believes the Romulans have developed a cloaking device....etc. They're didn't appear to be any wink/nods going on. It was as if they weren't aware of this ability at all before then.

Uhhhhhhhh... That's how pretending works. You're not supposed to give obvious winks and nods, because that's a lousy way to keep a secret.

Why bring up the cloaking device they are supposed to steal at all? If you want to throw everyone off the scent of what the plan was, why would you bring up the very thing you hope to steal in the first place?

Because the Romulan ships just appeared out of nowhere in front of the crew!!!!!!! Obviously they needed an explanation for that.

It just seemed the wording of the dialogue made it seem like they were unaware of the Romulans having a cloaking device at all.

Asked and answered.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

". . . As always, should you or any of your I. M. Force be caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions. This tape will self destruct in five seconds."

(Of course, I prefer the Get Smart version.)

 

[Damian]

Uhhhhhhhh... That's how pretending works. You're not supposed to give obvious winks and nods, because that's a lousy way to keep a secret.




Because the Romulan ships just appeared out of nowhere in front of the crew!!!!!!! Obviously they needed an explanation for that.




Asked and answered.

Ok, ok

My main complaint about that scene is how surprised everyone is that the Romulan ships appeared out of nowhere. They knew the Romulans had a cloaking device in BOT. It shouldn't have been as much of a shock. Yet it seemed like they had never seen the Romulans do that before (that is appear out of nowhere).

As far as their pretending an all, ok, I guess I can buy that. For a secret, covert mission I think it probably would have paid to be more circumspect...but at the end of the day everything worked out and no one was the wiser ahead of time.

 

[Christopher]

My main complaint about that scene is how surprised everyone is that the Romulan ships appeared out of nowhere. They knew the Romulans had a cloaking device in BOT. It shouldn't have been as much of a shock. Yet it seemed like they had never seen the Romulans do that before (that is appear out of nowhere).

Again, I already answered that. They were surprised because the ships appeared without being detected on motion sensors first. Before, they would've gotten a blip on motion sensors telling them there was something moving in the vicinity, so they would've had some advance warning before a Romulan ship decloaked. Seeing Romulan ships appear with no prior warning of any kind would thus have been startling, and alarming, because it would mean the Romulans had just become a greater threat, able to launch surprise attacks at any time.

 

[Timo]

Agreed that it's actually pretty clever writing: people who have never seen "Balance of Terror" get up to speed on cloaking devices without the ballast of explicit mention of prior encounters, but OTOH people who have seen "Balance" before "Incident" won't get outright contradictions or explicit mentions of "this is the very first time we, uh, see invisible ships!" or anything like that. The two sets of people will interpret the dialogue very differently, but the story won't suffer from either interpretation.

That is, "a cloaking device which does X" is a clever way of saying "a new version of the cloaking device we already knew about" without saying anything out loud - the audience can decide that the "which does X" bit is the short definition of a cloaking device, or then that it is the new thing that the fuss at this second or perhaps fifth encounter is all about. And rendering the tracking sensors impotent is a valid X in both senses, and works fine in the continuity sense in the second interpretation.

What is left as an exercise to the audience is then the above rationalization: that the two heroes always were out to get a Romulan cloak, but got surprised by how good that cloak now is, warranting the extra discussion.

What I have more trouble with is the first utterance in that scene between Kirk and Spock: Kirk states that "The design of the ship is the same". What does that mean?

1) That he's still stuck on the Romulans suddenly having Klingon ships (even though Spock was briefed on that)? That is, "The design is the same as with the Klingons - figure that!"...
2) That the mission has a chance of success because the design of the enemy ship is as predicted by Starfleet Intelligence. That is, "The design is the same as in the briefing, thankfully - we know where the cloak is located!"...
3) That the writers and the VFX people weren't in speaking terms and the ship was supposed to be the same as in "Balance of Terror", and only half of the dialogue was later corrected to reflect that? That is, "The design is the same as in our last adventure with these clowns - we know what we're up against!"...

I'd love for the explanation to be #2, so the audience actually gets a cue that this is a Mission:Impossible plot in progress and the heroes know more than the villains or the audience does, and the cue will only become obvious afterwards.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Damian]

Again, I already answered that. They were surprised because the ships appeared without being detected on motion sensors first. Before, they would've gotten a blip on motion sensors telling them there was something moving in the vicinity, so they would've had some advance warning before a Romulan ship decloaked. Seeing Romulan ships appear with no prior warning of any kind would thus have been startling, and alarming, because it would mean the Romulans had just become a greater threat, able to launch surprise attacks at any time.

Believe it or not I agree with most of what you are saying. In fact I have argued with people who said TEI was inconsistent with BOT. The key is when Spock says he believes they created a cloaking device THAT is basically impervious to their tracking systems (or something to that effect). Had he just said they created a cloaking device and nothing else, then that might be a different story. But I do take it to mean they have improved the prior cloaking device.

All I'm saying is the surprise they seemed to have that the Romulans would improve it. The Romulans realized there was a flaw in their system after BOT and eliminated that flaw. I'm not sure why they would be surprised (plus the Enterprise entered Romulan space--I would expect there to be a response).

But...it's not that big a deal to me, really. I just like a good debate . It's otherwise a pretty minor point in the whole episode.

What I have more trouble with is the first utterance in that scene between Kirk and Spock: Kirk states that "The design of the ship is the same". What does that mean?

In the past I took it to mean what you say in option 1, that it is the same as Klingon ships. But you're option 2 is a bit intriguing that may be possible.

DC Fontana has complained in the past about some of the rewrites done to TEI before it aired. Most of that had to do with the Romulan Commander (basically she was complaining about the Commander being a bit on the gullible side--that she should have read through Spock's deception better). But that leads me to believe it's probably option 1--I'm not sure they were trying to be clever there based on other things I've read about TEI and how it was written. But that doesn't mean in story we can't TAKE it to mean option 2 knowing what we do now. There's nothing that contradicts that possibility. Sometimes clever things happen accidently and there's no reason we can't think of option 2 when watching it now. Pennicilin was discovered accidently so why can't a line of dialogue mean something more clever than the writers maybe intended

 

[Damian]

BTW, it's interesting to note that TEI actually aired prior to "Elaan of Troyius" though it's an earlier production episode. I guess first run viewers were a bit confused by that until they saw "EOT".

Another reason I prefer viewing the original series in production order. It seems to flow a bit better (admittedly continuity wasn't as big a thing back then so it's not a huge deal--it just seems to, well, flow better.

 

[Daddy Todd]

Another one that didn’t really work for me. I understand the editorial brief was to explain where Enterprise was during DSC Season 1, but I was taken aback when months would pass between chapters. I understand why, but it was still jarring.

Just Average for me.

 

[Christopher]

Another one that didn’t really work for me. I understand the editorial brief was to explain where Enterprise was during DSC Season 1, but I was taken aback when months would pass between chapters. I understand why, but it was still jarring.

I wonder if you find my novels jarring, then, because The Face of the Unknown is my only Trek novel that spans (barely) less than a month, and that, Ex Machina, and Orion's Hounds are the only ones covering fewer than three months. Greater than the Sum and Over a Torrent Sea are about 6 months each, the Rise of the Federation novels span from 3 to 13 months each, and The Buried Age, Places of Exile, The Darkness Drops Again, both DTI novels, and The Captain's Oath all span years.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Anne of Green Gables spans six years, roughly. And the people of Prince Edward Island are stark raving nuts over it, "loonie" as a Canadian dollar coin.

My own novel (non-Trek, in fact non-SF), if I ever get back to it, spans well over two decades (just shy of a quarter century), introducing the protagonist before the age of 2, and ending with my protagonist earning a doctorate.

 

[The Wormhole]

Yeah, that seems an odd complaint to make. I can think of many novels, Star Trek or otherwise which span a period of months and/or years.

 

[Ronald Held]

I see no problem with a novel spanning a year, as long as gaps are explained.

 

[Daddy Todd]

I wonder if you find my novels jarring, then, because The Face of the Unknown is my only Trek novel that spans (barely) less than a month, and that, Ex Machina, and Orion's Hounds are the only ones covering fewer than three months. Greater than the Sum and Over a Torrent Sea are about 6 months each, the Rise of the Federation novels span from 3 to 13 months each, and The Buried Age, Places of Exile, The Darkness Drops Again, both DTI novels, and The Captain's Oath all span years.

I did have problems with The Captain's Oath, but I think that was more structural -- I listened to the audiobook, and because the timeline was deliberately non-linear, I would lose track of when the narrative was taking place. And listening in the car during my none-too-long commutes to & from work (about a half-hour each way) perhaps added to my disorientation. I'm not one of the Prophets, so I experience linear time!

I understand this was done to group elements together thematically, to show how Kirk's experiences transformed him from callow youth to amazing captain. If I had time to actually read texts, it might have been less disorienting. But I don't, so there it is.

 

[Christopher]

^Okay, but that's about structure, not duration. The point is, there have been many prior Trek novels spanning months or years, so I don't see why it would be jarring in The Enterprise War.

 

[Daddy Todd]

^Okay, but that's about structure, not duration. The point is, there have been many prior Trek novels spanning months or years, so I don't see why it would be jarring in The Enterprise War.

All I can say is, it was.

Maybe it wasn’t done the same as in past examples.

 

[Charles Phipps]

I maintain that the Temporal Cold War could have been a fairly decent way to explain why Enterprise and later incarnations of the TOS timeline were different.

It's just everyone hated that plot except the STO and DoTI spin-offs using it.

 

[Christopher]

I maintain that the Temporal Cold War could have been a fairly decent way to explain why Enterprise and later incarnations of the TOS timeline were different.

That was never the intention behind the show. It was meant to lead into the TOS timeline we knew, not away from it. The differences were not in-universe, they were changes in the way the story was presented. It was different because it was created by different artists for a different audience.

 

[Charles Phipps]

That was never the intention behind the show. It was meant to lead into the TOS timeline we knew, not away from it. The differences were not in-universe, they were changes in the way the story was presented. It was different because it was created by different artists for a different audience.

I get that but I feel like they could have made those changes in-universe and justified them by saying, "Things are slightly different and more advanced."

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

You both have a point.

 

[WebLurker]

I get that but I feel like they could have made those changes in-universe and justified them by saying, "Things are slightly different and more advanced."

Were they?