Spoilers DSC: Wonderlands by Una McCormack Review Thread

Visual effects in Discovery have frequently been inconsistent with dialogue -- for instance, showing an Earthlike planet behind a space station supposedly 100 AU from the Sun, showing the cloaked Klingon sarcophagus ship standing perfectly still in its last known position while Discovery was supposedly engaged in an incredibly intricate process to locate it, and worst of all, consistently showing the insides of turboshafts as gigantic roller-coaster hammerspaces larger than the entire Discovery. So I just ignore the nonsensical, mismatched VFX and pay attention to what the dialogue says.

 

Not just "like." North America was, while not apparent, definitely visible. And, from the same set of episodes, the geological map of Qo’noS had South America front-and-center, and the moon where they restocked on spores was just Pluto, though with labels of surface features from Mercury.

 

I thought it was any ship with an active warp core, as in all it had to be was turned on not necessarily in use.

 

That scene isn't meant to be taken literally. It's just a visualisation of the map that Sahil was showing Burnham. All of those vessels were lightyears away from each other. Also it's stated that any ship with an active warp core was destroyed.

 

Okay. That's a little ambiguous, but I guess "active" means powered up and running, not just in warp at the time. Like, if the pulsing or swirly lights are on, then it's active.

So that would be a lot more lost ships than I thought. The only ones that survived would have been the ones that were powered down, which would mostly be ships in drydock or the like.

 

Yes, I took it to mean that the warp core was running to some degree and the dilithium chamber had a crystal in it. Discovery almost had a warp core breach when it was hit by the wave from Su'kal's outburst whilst at the Verubin Nebula, and it was very obviously not at warp at the time.

I'd say the majority of Starfleet was wiped out and the ships we see at Federation HQ is what remains. Although we did get a mention of Deep Space 253 and there was also those two Federation ships Sahil detects, which might be from a surviving Starfleet faction somewhere deep in the Beta Quadrant.

 

That would make sense. I recall at the beginning of the book when the station Sahil was on there were 2 ships still docked there that were basically dead hulks. The Burn had apparently affected those ships while docked at the station. It sounded like ships that were actually at warp fared even worse, actually being destroyed.

And it might explain why a derelict like Burnham's ship could be refit for use. If it was a derelict and powered down at the time of the Burn then that would mean it still might have some warp capability.

I do recall in the novel that dilithium was scarce so that would explain why they didn't just simply build new ships.

I'm hoping the show explains what happened, what caused the Burn. The novel implied there may have been a source (Burnham had noted a slight time differential from when the Burn hit 2 different points, indicating it might have originated somewhere). Not sure if finding the source will help them reverse what happened, if that's even possible. But I guess I'll see. I'd have to think if those little hints were in the book, it's something covered in the show.

I also noted the novel mentioned the Temporal Wars from a few centuries prior. I assume that's the same as what we saw noted in Enterprise. Enterprise never really resolved some of those questions, though Christopher's DTI novels did. It'll be interesting to see how much Discovery might dig into that. Again, I have to think if that showed up in the novel, it's because it's important in some way to season 3, after all, it wasn't just a passing reference. It seemed pretty significant to the past history and some of the issues different civilizations had with the Federation.

 

Investigating the cause is one of the main arcs of season 3.

I tend to assume it refers specifically to the "hot war" started by the Na'kuhl in "Storm Front," which led to the resolution of the Temporal Cold War.

I think it's mainly just to explain why the Burn couldn't be undone with time travel, and also to underline why the Discovery crew can't go back to their own time. The last two episodes of season 2 made it explicit that the ship's trip to the future had to be permanent, but there were still lots of viewers who missed or disbelieved that part and assumed it would just be one more reset-button time travel plot like all the others. So season 3 took time travel decisively off the table right up front to underline that the move to the 32nd century was not going to be undone.

 

Yeah, true. I forgot in Enterprise it was generally referred to as the "Temporal Cold War". So far, at least from what I can recall, I didn't see anything in Wonderlands that conflicts with your DTI stories (or at least anything major). It'll be interesting to see if your DTI works can co-exist with the show. On one of the Enterprise boards there is speculation about "future guy" and some think he's a future Archer (I don't particularly care for that one because there were times Archer could have been killed by Silik or the Suliban which doesn't seem to make a lot of sense if it were a future Archer--and it just seems out of character to me). I prefer your revelation over Archer. Not sure if Discovery tackles things that specifically or not but something else I'll find out I suppose.

The show did seem pretty clear closing out season 2 that this was a permanent move, though I see your point. And when it comes to the current showrunners, you never know what they'll do next. But I didn't think they were going back. I wonder if part of the reason for that is to free them a bit from the continuity box they were in setting it so close to the original series. Being in the 32nd century pretty much allows them to do what they want since there is very little continuity to worry about with that.

Now of course we do have at least 2 more shows coming out in the 23rd century (assuming the Section 31 show is still a go, along with Strange New Worlds). But perhaps the current show runners want to make sure it's more in line with what we recall from that period. Discovery presented some things that were created that didn't seem to fit all that well (like my persistent bugaboo....spore drive....). Since they are creating Strange New Worlds and the Section 31 show, they have more freedom to keep things more consistent with the original series if they wish.

But in any event, Wonderlands itself seems to make clear that she isn't going back. I definitely got the sense, even without seeing season 3, that they are there to stay.

 

The DTI novels are already out of continuity thanks to Picard, since they're set in the post-Destiny time frame and heavily reference elements of novel continuity that are now superseded by canon. Only Forgotten History is still viable, though the portions with the 24th-century cast need either to have certain details ignored or to be interpreted as a possible alternate future (which seems to be where the Coda trilogy is headed anyway).

When I looked over the TCW episodes to try to figure out what the plan might have been behind it all, I realized the extent to which Archer and Enterprise were incidental to it all. They weren't the target; they just got in the way sometimes. It was more Daniels's choice to involve Archer than Future Guy's. So it wouldn't make much sense to give FG an origin tied directly to Archer.

That seems quite likely.

Well... it's not exactly clear when the Section 31 series will be set. As you'll see once you watch season 3, there's nothing that strictly precludes it taking place in some other time frame.

 

Oh yeah, duh. Forgot about that. I was just thinking of the TCW elements that were in your novels. But I forgot a lot was superseded by Picard.

Yeah, another reason I have a hard time seeing Archer as Future Guy. I think that might date back to something one of the showrunners, maybe Braga, said in passing, or maybe even as a joke.

Kind of ashame Enterprise never resolved that. I've read some things that Braga and Berman weren't even all that invested in that particular story line and were happy to just leave it behind by season 4. But they left that big mystery hanging out there. But still, I'm glad at least the novels provided some closure for that, even if it ends up being overwritten by the shows continuity.

 

I've found an error in the eBook code. In chapter 9, the first line after the chapter header has the wrong style.

Code:

<p class="shead2">Sahil’s office</p>

should be

Code:

<p class="shead1">Sahil’s office</p>

 

Well, I was just basing my comment on the cover story they told the EDF about how they survived the Burn, that they weren't traveling at warp at the time the Burn happened.

 

Yeah I think that's just a continuity error.

 

Could just be shorthand for "the warp core was offline"

I imagine the surviving ships would have had to be at "Skin of Evil" opening levels of inactive warp core to not blow up. Otherwise the Burn wouldn't have been nearly as apocalyptic as it appears to have been.

But then it's Discovery and as much as I enjoy the show, they do like to change things on a whim.

 

I was under the impression that still active warp cores were ships that had warp cores that were functioning rather than at warp, and Michael came up with a cover story that was on the very edges of believable. A story that earth reacted with, "I mean...I guess that could have happened but it doesn't track...we better board the ship all aggressively."

 

The novel is supposed to cover a year of time, so it's not too surprising that the book is structured and paced at a different rate than a lot of the other Trek books. I read this one in eight sittings, which seemed about right.

I voted above average and would give the whole experience about 3.5/5 starship plaques. The characters were great, even without seeing any of Discovery S2 or S3. I guessed the White Palm/Vanguard connection just a few pages before it was revealed to Burnham, so I felt that the author played fair with that.

The book was heavily focused on forging connections with other people, so it felt right and satisfying when Book brought the 36 ships to combat Remington's group in the end. The moment reminded me of similar scenes in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and Avengers: Endgame. Una, if you read this post, do you have a favorite movie, TV, novel, or other media version of friendly reinforcements arriving to help save the day?

The mother/daughter story provided a lot of emotional resonance. I could understand the struggles and frustrations that each person felt, and there was no easy answer to their situation.

The whole concept of The Burn is one that I dislike, and that's not the author's fault, but it does affect my enjoyment of the story. It would have been easy enough to strand the Discovery crew in the 32nd century without creating a disaster that makes FTL travel difficult. Interstellar civilizations and traveling the galaxy are big parts of why I like the Star Trek setting.

 

1. I give it a pass because it's a Roddenberry idea in the first place.
2. You need to have stakes for a show to work.
3. They even softpedaled it by having the Federation still around.

 

How is The Burn a Roddenberry idea? I'm not seeing the connection or don't know that bit of Trek history.

 

I was wondering that myself.