SOT, but has there been any 2d or 3d images of the Jazari generation ship?
Spoilers PIC: The Dark Veil by James Swallow - Review Thread
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Small, and dense.
Just finished this one (ironically, having more unstructured time for the past year has really slowed down my book-reading). Most of the things I wanted to comment on have already been mentioned, though I did notice near the end an odd thing with the Kelpian security officer. Her threat ganglia are mentioned, so she clearly hasn't gone through Space Puberty yet, but there's also a line about Kelpians being generally regarded as being scared off from security work, when I'd expect Kelpian Space Puberty to be a widely-understood fact at this point, and every adolescent-to-middle-aged Kelpian is just waiting to go from being a super-strong, super-fast, constantly anxious person to being a super-strong, super-fast, utterly fearless person who can also shoot darts out of their neck.
There's a brief line indicating the Romulans did not intend to evacuate Remus at all, and the possibility of a Reman crewmember being discharged and sent back to the mines would ultimately be a death sentence when the nova happened.
There's a brief line indicating the Romulans did not intend to evacuate Remus at all, and the possibility of a Reman crewmember being discharged and sent back to the mines would ultimately be a death sentence when the nova happened.
A question I wonder if anyone knows the answer to. I'm in the midst of reading the novel now and I noticed a reference to the Robinson (along with the Enterprise, Titan and Lionheart possibly sneaking supplies to Romulan refugee worlds). Is that an Easter egg reference to the same Robinson from the DS9 novels under Captain Sisko? Just curious.
Also, love that Christine Vale is part of the story as well as Ranul Keru. I do miss the reptilian doctor (was it Dr. Ree?) and I have to admit I miss Commander Tuvok (though in that case I can kind of understand since he's a main character and you never know if he may show up on Picard and say something that nullifies any potential role here, I mean, you can't prevent everything but probably better not to tempt fate). I miss some of the others, but those were the 2 I found I missed the most that seem to be gone from this continuity. Still, it's good to see some familiar faces and a mention of the Titan's early Romulan mission from the novels which was referenced here as well.
Also, love that Christine Vale is part of the story as well as Ranul Keru. I do miss the reptilian doctor (was it Dr. Ree?) and I have to admit I miss Commander Tuvok (though in that case I can kind of understand since he's a main character and you never know if he may show up on Picard and say something that nullifies any potential role here, I mean, you can't prevent everything but probably better not to tempt fate). I miss some of the others, but those were the 2 I found I missed the most that seem to be gone from this continuity. Still, it's good to see some familiar faces and a mention of the Titan's early Romulan mission from the novels which was referenced here as well.
James Swallow said it was!
Thanks Jinn, you're the best
I had a feeling that was probably addressed but I'll admit I was too lazy to try to look for it...and, well, I'm in the middle of the book currently and didn't want to inadvertently spoil the ending by reading too many comments
Just completed this novel last night and I rated it 'above average.' I enjoyed the story overall. James Swallow did a nice job here. He brought in some 'novelverse' characters like Christine Vale and Ranul Keru, and he noted some early Titan missions from the relaunches (i.e. the early Romulan diplomatic missions), also the Titan is still a Luna class vessel (I'm not sure if that was from a canon reference or just from the novels--I don't recall Nemesis mentioning the class of ship), and that originally it was designed as a deep space exploration vessel, as it was in the novelverse.
Unlike The Last, Best Hope, Swallow probably had more freedom here to include a number of novelverse references and characters. It's unlikely Picard will go that deep into Captain Riker's pre-Picard history, at least to the extent that it would conflict with anything significantly here (though I would love to see Vale and Keru on screen at some point). McCormack probably had to be more careful about including novelverse characters/story lines since that was a novel about Admiral Picard and the lead up to the show (though she did include nods here and there as well).
I did miss some of the other novelverse characters that were missing here. I always liked the CMO, Dr. Ree. And I missed Tuvok here as well (as I noted above, I wasn't too surprised he wasn't included, since there's always the chance Tuvok could appear in Picard, best not to tempt fate in that case).
I also liked the inclusion of Ambassador Spock near the end. That was a nice little nod to the other part of Star Trek (2009), the creation of red matter and what will lead to the events of that movie. That was one thing missing from Picard (though not really surprising since the show really didn't get into the supernova itself).
The story itself was good. In a way, it's a story that could have appeared in the relaunch novel-verse, outside the Picard references. The Titan helps a generational ship face a disaster and try to get home, while under attack by a 'rogue' Romulan agent. With some adjustments, it could easily have fit in the novelverse. It also takes place a year after Picard resigned, and Captain Riker is equally disturbed by what is happening to the Federation. It also provides some background into Riker's reasons for taking a 'sabbatical' from Starfleet in a bit more depth.
The only weakness was I would have liked to have seen more of Commander Mendaka. He was a complicated Romulan commander who seems to strike up a friendship of sorts with Riker. But he disappeared for a long time as he is being imprisoned. I understand that in the sense of the how the story went, but I would have liked to have seen more of Mendaka. It felt like it was leading to something but it just kind of ended with them parting ways. I'll admit I was hoping for more there.
There is one thing that bothered me about Picard overall, and it's a significant part of the novel. I always had a hard time buying the Romulan's visceral hatred for artificial intelligence/synthetic life/androids. I mean, you could certainly argue it doesn't necessarily conflict with prior portrayals of the Romulans. But something about it just didn't 'feel' quite right. There have been examples of androids in Star Trek in the past, most notably, of course, Data and the other Soong-androids. And the Romulans never seemed to make any attempt to destroy those androids. And they had encountered Data in TNG and then in Nemesis and there were never any issues. They never seemed bothered or put off by Data.
It's not something I knocked the book for. It's a major part of the show, so it wouldn't be fair to fault Swallow or critique his novel on that point. But it's just something that nags at me a bit (maybe not as much as the spore drive in Discovery, ). It just feels off to me.
Unlike The Last, Best Hope, Swallow probably had more freedom here to include a number of novelverse references and characters. It's unlikely Picard will go that deep into Captain Riker's pre-Picard history, at least to the extent that it would conflict with anything significantly here (though I would love to see Vale and Keru on screen at some point). McCormack probably had to be more careful about including novelverse characters/story lines since that was a novel about Admiral Picard and the lead up to the show (though she did include nods here and there as well).
I did miss some of the other novelverse characters that were missing here. I always liked the CMO, Dr. Ree. And I missed Tuvok here as well (as I noted above, I wasn't too surprised he wasn't included, since there's always the chance Tuvok could appear in Picard, best not to tempt fate in that case).
I also liked the inclusion of Ambassador Spock near the end. That was a nice little nod to the other part of Star Trek (2009), the creation of red matter and what will lead to the events of that movie. That was one thing missing from Picard (though not really surprising since the show really didn't get into the supernova itself).
The story itself was good. In a way, it's a story that could have appeared in the relaunch novel-verse, outside the Picard references. The Titan helps a generational ship face a disaster and try to get home, while under attack by a 'rogue' Romulan agent. With some adjustments, it could easily have fit in the novelverse. It also takes place a year after Picard resigned, and Captain Riker is equally disturbed by what is happening to the Federation. It also provides some background into Riker's reasons for taking a 'sabbatical' from Starfleet in a bit more depth.
The only weakness was I would have liked to have seen more of Commander Mendaka. He was a complicated Romulan commander who seems to strike up a friendship of sorts with Riker. But he disappeared for a long time as he is being imprisoned. I understand that in the sense of the how the story went, but I would have liked to have seen more of Mendaka. It felt like it was leading to something but it just kind of ended with them parting ways. I'll admit I was hoping for more there.
There is one thing that bothered me about Picard overall, and it's a significant part of the novel. I always had a hard time buying the Romulan's visceral hatred for artificial intelligence/synthetic life/androids. I mean, you could certainly argue it doesn't necessarily conflict with prior portrayals of the Romulans. But something about it just didn't 'feel' quite right. There have been examples of androids in Star Trek in the past, most notably, of course, Data and the other Soong-androids. And the Romulans never seemed to make any attempt to destroy those androids. And they had encountered Data in TNG and then in Nemesis and there were never any issues. They never seemed bothered or put off by Data.
It's not something I knocked the book for. It's a major part of the show, so it wouldn't be fair to fault Swallow or critique his novel on that point. But it's just something that nags at me a bit (maybe not as much as the spore drive in Discovery,
). It just feels off to me.
That actually comes from Nemesis, which established at the end that Riker's first mission as captain was a diplomatic mission to Romulus. So that's not specifically a novel nod.
The class name comes from the novels, as does the design which was eventually canonized in Lower Decks: "No Small Parts."
Well, it's not "the Romulans," just the Zhat Vash. But yes, it is problematical that they never tried to destroy Data. My guess would be that they were less influential then, that they gained power in the chaos surrounding the evacuation and the supernova.
Oops, forgot about that.
Could be, though it was noted in the novel that all Romulans had suspicions and misgivings about artificial life. And it could be argued that the Zhat Vash gained more influence during the chaos.
It's not really something I could argue from the canon continuity. I mean, it doesn't directly contradict anything from anything that happened in the past. As Scotty said in "That Which Survives" it just doesn't 'feel right.'
Perhaps if Picard had made this a new plot point, and not something that was always there, it could have worked. That is, some Romulans learned of the danger of the artificial life in this other domain sometime after Nemesis, then the Zhat Vash came to be and took up their crusade against all artificial life that could have worked better. Then you could explain that their 'non-reaction' to Data and other androids previously was just before they learned of that danger.
And I admit, I do find myself curious about this dangerous artificial life on the other side of that singularity. I'm a horror movie fan and I have to admit I found whatever was coming through to be particularly creepy. It was one thing that made me think maybe the Zhat Vash had a point. Not that all AI's had to be terminated (it's always wrong to paint with a broad brush)...but that whatever was on the other side of that window was extremely dangerous. I wonder if we'll ever find out.
Because of the Zhat Vash's behind-the-scenes influence on Romulan culture. And there's a big difference between "I have misgivings about that being" and "I must take aggressive, obsessive action to destroy that being."
And nothing is ever "all" of anything. No entire society thinks in lockstep, unless it's a hive mind like the Borg. Even if the dominant cultural forces promote a certain way of thinking, there are going to be some who follow it religiously, others who have only a pro forma adherence without really caring about it that much, and others who question and resist it. Plus, of course, values can shift over time, and beliefs that are marginalized and irrelevant in one generation can become far more prominent in the next (e.g. the dangerous rise of anti-vaccine delusions in the US in recent decades).
I can certainly believe that fear of AIs became more widespread in Romulan society after the (Zhat Vash-engineered) synth "uprising" on Mars, because that event shut down the Starfleet evacuation efforts and cost countless Romulan lives.
That is an interesting irony. The Zhat Vash is apparently the ones that caused the androids on Mars to 'malfunction'--which led to the abandonment of the relocation effort, dooming the very people the Zhat Vash say they are protecting.
And if as you say that made Romulans more suspicious of AI technology, it was caused by their very own people.
Overall, it's just a plot point of the show that nagged at me a bit. It just sort of came out of nowhere. I'd have an easier time buying into it if it were something that came up after Nemesis, and not something that was always there.
The Luna class was created for the novels, but was made canon with Lower Decks.
Great comments, Damian, thanks!
This is a good point, but consider that when you say "the Romulans never seemed to make any attempt to destroy those androids" you could add "that we know of."
I think It's interesting to posit that there might have been secret Zhat Vash 'hit squads' out there all along, quietly killing off AI researchers or terminating android life before it could develop too far. The Star Trek universe has always been a place where artificial life is a rarity, rather than commonplace (like, say, in the Star Wars universe), and maybe the Zhat Vash are part of the reason why... After all, in ST: Picard, Laris says that they've been around for thousands of years, so who knows?
As for an ingrained Romulan cultural hatred for artificial life - that's something I hinted at and I wished I could have developed a bit more. My idea was that in their mythology, there were terrible tales of dangerous intelligent machines that had left a "race memory" which had eventually become an inherent cultural prejudice. I would have liked to explore that a bit more, but there wasn't a good place for it.
This is a good point, but consider that when you say "the Romulans never seemed to make any attempt to destroy those androids" you could add "that we know of."
I think It's interesting to posit that there might have been secret Zhat Vash 'hit squads' out there all along, quietly killing off AI researchers or terminating android life before it could develop too far. The Star Trek universe has always been a place where artificial life is a rarity, rather than commonplace (like, say, in the Star Wars universe), and maybe the Zhat Vash are part of the reason why... After all, in ST: Picard, Laris says that they've been around for thousands of years, so who knows?
As for an ingrained Romulan cultural hatred for artificial life - that's something I hinted at and I wished I could have developed a bit more. My idea was that in their mythology, there were terrible tales of dangerous intelligent machines that had left a "race memory" which had eventually become an inherent cultural prejudice. I would have liked to explore that a bit more, but there wasn't a good place for it.
That's a very clever and plausible idea -- except it doesn't explain why the Romulans never specifically targeted Data when they had the opportunity, as in "Unification."
That part was problematical, since the Romulans only left Vulcan about 2000 years before TNG, but the Zhat Vash didn't begin until they found the 8-star system. I suspect they may have exaggerated their ancientness, or claimed to be part of the same lineage as some previous group in that region of space.
You're conflating the Zhat Vash faction's intentions with the Romulans as a whole. As for dealing with Data in that episode, this is easily explained away. One could argue that the Zhat Vash might have intended to act covertly and neutralize him after Sela captures him; or possibly they might not have even been aware of Data's presence or able to do something about it at the time.
Watching ST: Picard, I never got the sense that the Zhat Vash are some all-seeing, all-knowing power, more like a small cabal of dedicated believers... When writing The Dark Veil, I thought of them as the antithesis of the Fellowship of AIs from Jeff Lang's Immortal Coil.
Again, this can be explained away. It's very Romulan to obfuscate the facts behind myth and half-truth, even to their own people. Or perhaps the Zhat Vash has its roots in something from early Vulcan culture, later adapted into Romulan culture after the Sundering. It's not hard to come up with a Watsonian reason...!
Oops, that's just what I was objecting to earlier. I should've said it doesn't explain why the Zhat Vash didn't make a try for Data.
Sure, but Data was a well-known figure that the Zhat Vash should surely have known about, and there were multiple times when the Enterprise came up against the Romulans. You'd think they would've had several opportunities to go after Data, especially given that Commodore Oh already seemed to have infiltrated Starfleet sometime before 2385 (IIRC).
Of course, perhaps one could make the case that one or more of the Romulans' attempts to destroy the Enterprise were actually Zhat Vash agents' attempts to target Data, trying to destroy him along with the whole ship so that it wouldn't be obvious that he was the specific target.
Here is how I would explain the Zhat Vash's lack of involvement in TNG Romulan episodes (besides them being invented after the fact):
1. They are not all-powerful or omniscient. They may not have had the resources in the right places to take advantage of some of those Enterprise interactions.
2. The work of the Zhat Vash could have been thwarted off-camera between scenes or by other people on the ship than our main characters, but it was not shown because that was not the story being told.
1. They are not all-powerful or omniscient. They may not have had the resources in the right places to take advantage of some of those Enterprise interactions.
2. The work of the Zhat Vash could have been thwarted off-camera between scenes or by other people on the ship than our main characters, but it was not shown because that was not the story being told.
I think what bothers me is just how that plot point seemed to come out of nowhere. Now, to be fair, it's not like Star Trek hasn't done things like that in the past. For instance, in "Metamorphosis" we were led to believe Cochrane was from Alpha Centauri, but then FC establishes he's from Earth (though that was pretty easy to explain away as you can simply say he retired to Alpha Centauri, but when Kirk says "Zefram Cochrane.....of Alpha Centauri" it'd be reasonable to assume the intent was that he was originally from there).
As I noted, probably a better way for the show runners to have handled that would be to establish this as a new issue for the Romulans sometime after Nemesis. Perhaps some Romulan came across the information that AI was a threat and created the Zhat Vash at that point. Then they would have avoided any issues with having to look back and try to explain these issues away.
It's a nitpick. But then I am a Trekkie and sometimes we love to nitpick
. I'm not even sure how common that issue is among Trekkies. Reading the Picard boards here, it doesn't seem like something that bothered a lot of other fans unless I missed it.
That's a misconception that comes from taking that one line out of context. If you consider all the evidence, "Metamorphosis" clearly portrays Cochrane as an Earth human throughout. McCoy scans him and confirms he's entirely human, and he's referred to throughout as human. The planetoid's conditions are specifically said to be identical to Earth's, and we know the Companion maintained them for Cochrane's benefit. He said "Not Earth, but it's livable," indicating that Earth was what he thought of as an ideal or a default.
The intent was that Cochrane was "of Alpha Centauri" in the sense that T.E. Lawrence was "of Arabia" or Helen was "of Troy" -- he was famous for going there, not being from there. The original outline clarified that Cochrane was famous as the leader of the first expedition to Alpha Centauri. That got modulated into "the discoverer of the space warp" in the script, but the Alpha Centauri reference got left over.
Ok, yeah, certainly looking at all that it makes sense. But until First Contact came out, I assumed he was native to Alpha Centauri. I guess it wasn't the best analogy. I was just trying to point out that Star Trek isn't immune to creating new major plot points that seemingly conflict with past continuity. There are probably better examples but for some reason I'm drawing a blank right now (I only remember my useless knowledge when it's, well, useless). Now, sometimes a later episode, show or movie may address some inconsistency, and certainly novels do a good job at that as well.
It sounded like James Swallow wanted to get a little deeper into the Zhat Vash, and perhaps he would have addressed some of that, but then it just didn't fit into his story. Maybe something for the future.