Spoilers TNG: Pliable Truths by Dayton Ward - Review thread
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Is Nechayev excessively pleasant in the book? At this point chronologically, she has only met Picard once. And to me she seems business-like in that first appearance. Due in no small part to the situation at hand.
Is this another byproduct of the crew acting like babies in Chain of Command ?
I've neither read the book nor seen TNG in quite some time now, but my recollection is that Picard's first several encounters with Nechayev are suboptimal, which is what leads to him preparing canapes for her in one of her subsequent appearances, at which point things seem to thaw between them until "Descent".
I've had the sense that the TNG and DS9 writers tended to prefer to make her antagonistic toward our protagonists, which may have been realistic under the circumstances but also felt like, with our limited exposure to her, she was coming across as a bit of a Badmiral. I preferred it when she was handled with a bit more nuance.
I've liked how she was handled in the novels I've read in which she appeared, though
I have reservations about how she was handled with regard to potential interactions with S31. I kind of hoped she'd take the high road and turn herself in willingly versus trying to escape justice.
At the point this book takes place, the extent of their working relationship is her reassigning Picard, and explaining that it's because of a Cardassian incursion into Federation space.
Respectfully, your timeline is out of whack. Descent is only Nechayev's second appearance. Picard tries to reestablish their relationship using canapes in Journey's End, almost a season later.
Sequence of appearances of the character is irrelevant. General disagreeability (I'm inclined to invoke the technical term for a female canid here, and I suspect that her name was chosen deliberately for phonetic similarity to that term) is general disagreeability, whether we're talking about Nechayev or Jellico (or a number of others we've met in ST over the years). A martinet is a martinet.
Understand that I'm speaking as one with tendencies of that sort: I've described myself as an "instant martinet: just add authority." I know one when I see one because (at least potentially, and on at least one occasion in the past) I am one.
Understand that I'm speaking as one with tendencies of that sort: I've described myself as an "instant martinet: just add authority." I know one when I see one because (at least potentially, and on at least one occasion in the past) I am one.
I really don't think that's a fair assessment of Nechayev, given how "Journey's End" showed she was more than the caricatured Badmiral she's often reduced to in tie-ins. I tried to re-establish that nuance when I wrote her in Greater than the Sum.
And your speculation about the origin of her name is in poor taste and completely uncalled for. You're really reaching to claim "phonetic similarity" based on a single phoneme.
It's really not though?
That's rather my point though, isn't it? That if Nechayev is overly nice in this story that it disrupts the trend of Nechayev being generally antagonistic toward Picard, which is what leads to him preparing the canapes for her?
I suppose that can be worked around as, 'Well, they did have one nice conversation, but then things went downhill again...'
Oh well, chalk it up to Sisko being misinformed.
I don't really want to have to. It's quite pointed that "leaders of all the factions have tried to get to her" but she's a recluse who rarely sees anyone - making it all the more shocking to Kira when she welcomes Sisko for an audience - and leaves Bajor only once, for the last time.
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Opaka also had an injury in Emissary.
What injury was that?
I think she walked with a cane.
Uh, so far, Kira and Opaka haven't interacted, and Kira has no reason to know that Opaka has left seclusion.
I will note that I am not some misogynist who regularly bandies "the b-word" about anytime a woman is in authority. I understand that there have been people applying the technical term for a female canid to Janeway. (And I was outraged when I heard of such a thing. I like Janeway. I like Kate Mulgrew as Janeway. And I liked Kate Mulgrew as "Mrs. Columbo," even though I understand that Kate Mulgrew didn't particularly like herself as "Mrs. Columbo.") Nor would I apply it to the once-nameless officer we now know as Una. And I'd hesitate even to apply it to Admiral Clancy (who seems shockingly fluent in "Army Creole") in Picard.
But I would not hesitate to apply it to a fictional character whose defining characteristic is overwhelming disagreeability, and who has been portrayed as having a total lack of redeeming characteristics (lacking even what my creative writing professor referred to as a "Hitlers' Whistle").
MacDougal and Gomez.
MacDougal has always been my favorite among the "pre-Geordi" chief engineers.
Kind of a slap in the face, though, to go from being chief engineer of a Galaxy Class ship to being chief engineer of a California Class ship.
The mentor relationship Geordi has with MacDougal seems like a callback to Scotty's relationship with Pelia in SNW. I love it, and wonder if it might have possibly been intentional.
MacDougal has always been my favorite among the "pre-Geordi" chief engineers.
Kind of a slap in the face, though, to go from being chief engineer of a Galaxy Class ship to being chief engineer of a California Class ship.
The mentor relationship Geordi has with MacDougal seems like a callback to Scotty's relationship with Pelia in SNW. I love it, and wonder if it might have possibly been intentional.
I will note that I am not some misogynist who regularly bandies "the b-word" about anytime a woman is in authority. I understand that there have been people applying the technical term for a female canid to Janeway. (And I was outraged when I heard of such a thing. I like Janeway. I like Kate Mulgrew as Janeway. And I liked Kate Mulgrew as "Mrs. Columbo," even though I understand that Kate Mulgrew didn't particularly like herself as "Mrs. Columbo.") Nor would I apply it to the once-nameless officer we now know as Una. And I'd hesitate even to apply it to Admiral Clancy (who seems shockingly fluent in "Army Creole") in Picard.
But I would not hesitate to apply it to a fictional character whose defining characteristic is overwhelming disagreeability, and who has been portrayed as having a total lack of redeeming characteristics (lacking even what my creative writing professor referred to as a "Hitlers' Whistle").
She does not use a cane in Emissary.
First off, I think that's an unfair caricature of Admiral Nechayev as portrayed in TNG, despite how some novel portrayals have reduced her to it. Second, even if it weren't, would you apply the same term (which you make a point of euphemizing with "a female canid") to a male character of that type, e.g. Jellico? There are better ways to criticize a character than resorting to that kind of insult, even by implication.
she can go in to seclusion between this novel and Emissary
Just yelling from the cheap seats, but Jellico was portrayed as supremely bitchy in New Frontier.
However, I have not heard people use that term to characterize him before. I also think those books caricatured him just as much as others have caricatured Nechayev.
Indeed, I was always surprised that people saw Jellico as such a horrible person. Ronny Cox's performance gave me the impression of someone who'd be a really nice guy if you met him off duty, but who just didn't have the right command style for that crew and that mission. I mean, the guy hung his grandkids' pictures in his ready room.
The relationship between canon characters and their New Frontier counterparts was often nominal at best.
I very much agree with your assessment of the character in the episode. He was right at every turn, it was our familiarity with the Enterprise staff and the differences in his command style that made him seem like an antagonist, when really Riker could have been more professional in his dealings with a new and different captain. That being said, I do think that Peter David portrayed Jellico’s interactions with Calhoun in a way, that when you take all the gendered stuff out of it and just take the traits associated with “bitchiness”, could be seen as bitchy.
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