Spoilers Coda: Book 1: Moments Asunder by Dayton Ward Review Thread

[Christopher]

Imagine being one of the power players on MB and thinking the Litverse shouldn’t be the site’s predominate focus.

As I said, there should be no "predominant" focus. A reference source should be unbiased, giving fair and equal attention to everything.

imagine being misguided and thinking that a divergent continuity of several dozen novels that take place in an alternate reality from the rest of Star Trek should take the focus from hundreds of other comics, RPGs and video games that greatly outnumber them (taking 55 years of Star Trek history and cutting a cake slice out of 13-17years of it and saying "this" and then calling people names when they point out the illogic of that)

Now, that doesn't make sense either, because those other comics, games, etc. occupy many different, mutually contradictory continuities. So they don't "outnumber" anything. And it wouldn't matter if they did. It's nonsensical to argue over which of various imaginary stories are more "real" than each other. They're all just stories. Continuity is just a device that some stories use. It's not a measure of a story's worth, and it's certainly not a bludgeon to hit other fans over the head with.

I've been reading Trek tie-ins since the 1970s, and the one thing that's been clear to me over all that time is that continuity has always been the exception, not the norm. Even over the past 20 years of the novelverse, it's been just one of multiple tie-in continuities alongside the comics and games, and has never included every novel. Continuity in Trek tie-ins has always been optional. So it shouldn't be a priority to Memory Beta. Alpha is the "canon" site that worries about what's "right"; Beta's job is to catalog all the stuff that isn't canon, that's all equally apocryphal whether it's consistent with current canon or not (because any tie-in consistent with today's canon might well be contradicted by tomorrow's canon). It should try to acknowledge the reality of Trek tie-ins, which is the great freedom they've had over the decades to experiment and take different paths, and the ways in which they've evolved in response to changing canon. They've never been one uniform thing, never had one single "right" version, and a truthful reference guide should reflect that.

 

[Extrocomp]

I think Markonian misspoke a bit - they're two divergent timelines in one continuity.

That's not the case. STO and the novels have two different and completely incompatible versions of the Tzenkethi species, so they're not divergent timelines unless you want to claim that the timelines diverged millions of years ago when the Tzenkethi species was evolving. There's also the Vertians from Gamma Vertis IV and the Elachi from the mycelial realm, which are both supposed to be the unnamed species seen in Silent Enemy, but have almost nothing in common with each other.

 

[captainmkb]

...so they're not divergent timelines unless you want to claim that the timelines diverged millions of years ago when the Tzenkethi species was evolving...

i DO want to claim that. thanks

 

[Charles Phipps]

Clearly the Federation fell for an Elachi trick in RISE OF THE FEDERATION.

 

[Christopher]

i DO want to claim that. thanks

I don't see the point of that. These are stories. They're works of imagination. There are no "timelines" except within those specific stories that use the concept of timelines. Otherwise they're just how different people imagine the fictional concepts of the franchise.

 

[thribs]

I still haven’t received my physical copy yet. This isn’t like the depository.

 

[GaryH]

I think the joy of this series is that all we know is that a full stop is being put on the lit verse. We don’t know if it will be a heroic sacrifice that ends the timeline, or if it will just be their greatest battle ending with the Enterprise and her survivors going on to explore unseen by us having saved all of time and space. That’s the fun of it. It will be their greatest battle and a send off for the line rather than them simply not publishing any more books after the Picard show was commissioned, but we don’t know the outcome.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

(i'm only here back on TrekBBS to monitor the personal attacks made against, i don't really like it here)

Well, that's a recipe for success!

Captainmk, we addressed the primary poster that was frequently criticizing you and asked them to stop, which they have, so is it really productive to engage in a bunch of problem causing, thread-derailing arguments about the minutiae of running Memory Beta when you don't even want to be here? Isn't all of this better hashed out on the Talk Pages of Memory Beta rather than on TrekBBS, which has no influence on the running of that site?

To be clear, I am not a moderator in this forum, so my comment is not a directive that you must follow, simply a suggestion from someone who has spoken to you before (though the actual mod might add something you do have to follow later). And if you decide for some reason that you would enjoy sticking around to discuss regular topics instead of just arguing about another website's policies, you would be more than welcome to do so.

I just don't see the point in this. Can't you just let some occasional minor criticism of Memory Beta that has no effect on its running slide without comment? People criticize TrekBBS on other forums and we don't run around picking fights about it everywhere.

 

[Markonian]

To bring it back to the trilogy,
I am really hoping the deaths will be undone. I know some posters found the venture into the 29th century a waste of storyline potential, but I'm totally amazed at seeing the distant future of Star Trek's projected future. Plus, the Relativity crew was instantly relatable as a Starfleet crew, and I felt much reminded of the brief glimpses we had into the life aboard the 31st century USS Yelchin-E in the DSC novel Wonderlands. Here we are, in a future where technology might make death optional, but people are still people. Even after a thousand years, Starfleet crews still wear snazzy uniforms with arrowhead insignia, and fly around in cool spaceships. Yet they still suffer tragically. That's the part of the novel that really gets me.

That's not the case. STO and the novels have two different and completely incompatible versions of the Tzenkethi species, so they're not divergent timelines unless you want to claim that the timelines diverged millions of years ago when the Tzenkethi species was evolving. There's also the Vertians from Gamma Vertis IV and the Elachi from the mycelial realm, which are both supposed to be the unnamed species seen in Silent Enemy, but have almost nothing in common with each other.

Those two stood out as sore thumbs to me to. In the Star Trek Adventures RPG, the two depictions of the Tzenkethi have been referenced and reconciled, so they're compatible now.
As for Elachi/Vertians, they can easily be different cultures from the same basic species. Like Terrans and Humans, or Vulcans and Romulans.

 

[Extrocomp]

Those two stood out as sore thumbs to me to. In the Star Trek Adventures RPG, the two depictions of the Tzenkethi have been referenced and reconciled, so they're compatible now.
As for Elachi/Vertians, they can easily be different cultures from the same basic species. Like Terrans and Humans, or Vulcans and Romulans.

Um, no. The Star Trek Adventures RPG uses the Novelverse description of the Tzenkethi and includes a picture of a Tzenkethi ship from STO. That's hardly reconciled. The Vertians are native to Gamma Vertis IV and the Elachi are the native to the mycelial realm, so they're not even from the same dimension. They also have different reasons for abducting humanoids: scientific curiosity for the Vertians and transformative reproduction for the Elachi.

 

[captainmkb]

To bring it back to the trilogy,

Thank you for that.

I am really hoping the deaths will be undone.

I think i took it for granted that everyone might realize right away this is a "reset button" storyline. Even though Ezri Dax and the Relativity crew of the "Coda Novels Timeline" were zapped, the Ezri Dax and Relativity crew of the "Canon Television Timeline" (and yes, this is a book about time travel and alternate timelines) are relatively intact right where we left them at the end of their last episodic appearances (i mean they could make a new ST:PICARD episode with Nicole DeBoer, or they could make a new one where they mention that Ezri is truly no more, due to whatever different means they think up. the novels are reset-buttoning in order to rejoin the TV continuity).

Although i do share the notion that Ezri and/or Dax might have more kicking left to do in the subsequent books we're waiting for. Maybe even the same for Relativity - it's a trick the 29th Starfleeters have pulled before, judging by the multiple Braxtons we've seen

As for Elachi/Vertians, they can easily be different cultures from the same basic species. Like Terrans and Humans, or Vulcans and Romulans.

it might not be that simple, but that is what we were getting at. when you see two different versions of something between two differently formatted tie-in media, there are a host of explanations possible. it could be they represent alternate universes, two different subcultures, cross reality refugees, viral mutation, etc. i mean CLB is right, they're just stories and as the readers (or wiki-ers) we're not trying to write intervening paragraphs of information to reconcile

 

[Christopher]

it might not be that simple, but that is what we were getting at. when you see two different versions of something between two differently formatted tie-in media, there are a host of explanations possible. it could be they represent alternate universes, two different subcultures, cross reality refugees, viral mutation, etc. i mean CLB is right, they're just stories and as the readers (or wiki-ers) we're not trying to write intervening paragraphs of information to reconcile

Absolutely. It's not the job of a reference work to invent new fiction, merely to accurately report and catalog information about the actual fiction. If two different versions of a concept are not meant by their creators to go together, it would be totally inappropriate for a reference work to invent conjectural reconciliations between the two. Alternative interpretations should be covered separately in different parts of the article.

For the record, the Vertians I wrote in A Choice of Futures are not the "Elachi" and have nothing to do with that alternative fictional interpretation. I do not support any attempt to pretend they can be reconciled. They're just different conjectural elaborations on the same source idea.

 

[T'Bonz]

Everyone here on TrekBBS seems content to parrot the argument from 2011, where they haven't visited or tried an edit on Memory Beta in years but can somehow still verify its disjointed and wrong. Schrodinger's wiki. we discussed how to fix up the Mirror Universe articles and then no one followed up because of all the enmity (i'm only here back on TrekBBS to monitor the personal attacks made against, i don't really like it here)

*Sigh* Why me?

Anyhow, Captain Mike, if you don't like it here, by all means don't frequent the place.

As for Memory Beta, LET IT DROP. Because:

A) This is a place to bitch or rave about Trek (books, films, TV), NOT other Trek sites.

B) People will either like or dislike the place. Don't be so thin-skinned. If you only knew what many think of me, lol, I don't let it get to me because you will never please everyone and that goes for designing/maintaining a website too.

C) I'm tired of the complaints about this.

D) This thread is for the review of Dayton's new book, not for pissing matches about other stuffs.

If you have any complaints, hit me up via PM, but the topic of M B stops here, kapiche?

Apologies to those not involved for the FINAL derail of the thread.

Back to the review.

 

[Extrocomp]

As for Memory Beta, LET IT DROP. Because:

I don't understand what's wrong with going off topic on occasion. Lots of other threads on Trek Literature have gone off topic. Conversations naturally shift from one topic to another and it's entirely possible to have two or more topics going on in the same thread. Unless there are insults being thrown around, I believe a conversation should be allowed to flow naturally. And there's no need to yell at Captainmike just for expressing his opinions about TrekBBS.

 

[KennyB]

I don't understand what's wrong with going off topic on occasion. Lots of other threads on Trek Literature have gone off topic. Conversations naturally shift from one topic to another and it's entirely possible to have two or more topics going on in the same thread. Unless there are insults being thrown around, I believe a conversation should be allowed to flow naturally. And there's no need to yell at Captainmike just for expressing his opinions about TrekBBS.

 

[Lynx]

Correct me if I'm wrong but will this series of books be the end of TrekLit when it comes to series like TNG, DS9 and Voyager?

 

[F. King Daniel]

Correct me if I'm wrong but will this series of books be the end of TrekLit when it comes to series like TNG, DS9 and Voyager?

It's the end of the after-series continuations that have been going on since 2001. There will be new novels set during the shows as well as ones bridging the gaps between those shows and the new shows.

 

[Lynx]

It's the end of the after-series continuations that have been going on since 2001. There will be new novels set during the shows as well as ones bridging the gaps between those shows and the new shows.

I find it sad that they areen't continuing with the after-series continuations and the different "Relaunch" series.. Even if some of them have their flaws, It's still good to see that the different characters from the series are active.
Wouldn't it bhave been possible to connect the "relaunch" book series to the events in Picard or something like that?

 

[F. King Daniel]

I find it sad that they areen't continuing with the after-series continuations and the different "Relaunch" series.. Even if some of them have their flaws, It's still good to see that the different characters from the series are active.
Wouldn't it bhave been possible to connect the "relaunch" book series to the events in Picard or something like that?

Nope, not only does Picard have a different status quo, it establishes backstory for Picard and the galaxy that differs greatly from what the novelverse did. From the Borg still being around, to Riker and Troi having a different kid, to Picard not marrying and having a son with Beverly and not leaving the Enterprise just after Nemesis.

 

[Extrocomp]

Wouldn't it bhave been possible to connect the "relaunch" book series to the events in Picard or something like that?

Maybe the DS9 ones before the time jump. Otherwise no. The stuff about the Romulan supernova being known years in advance, the failed evacuation, Picard retiring, Riker and Troi having a son are all impossible to reconcile with the novel continuity without some kind of reboot.