Anyone Else Unhappy With the Post Nemesis Novels & Direction of ST?

[Sci]

Re: Anyone Else Unhappy With the Post Nemesis Novels & Direction of ST

The thing is for me...the fact that even Picard and Jellico were in on it--however high and mighty their motivations may have seemed...was inexcusable. Shades of grey are very nice sometimes, but there are certain things about which there should be NO ambiguity. Assassinations are one of them.

Again, Picard and Jellico were not in on the assassination. They were in on the removal of Zife from power. Section 31 intervened and forced Ross to help them assassinate Zife. No one else knew that would happen until L'Haan and her cohorts appeared in the Monet Room.

And frankly...I believe that it is very, VERY disrespectful of both the office of the president as well as common decency to do that sort of what-if'ing about a real person's death. We don't even allow whimsical real-actor scenarios in the fanfic forum around here. There was no excuse for that film whatsoever. I could see MAYBE exploring a question like that after Bush's lifetime is over (by NATURAL means, thank you very much) but not while the man is still living and especially not while he was still in office.

I think that's absurd. Freedom of speech demands the ability to explore all sorts of political scenarios.

 

[JD]

Re: Anyone Else Unhappy With the Post Nemesis Novels & Direction of ST

EDIT: The following post was written in response to Thrawn and Technobuilder.

Wow, you guys are kinda scaring me here, because I agree with pretty much everything you to are saying. For me it was NF-Post-Finale DS9-Titan- and on and on. In fact for some reason it's taken me two years to get through the first three paperbacks, now it's not that I don't like them, I just keep getting to the end of one story and then getting distracted by the new stuff coming out. Luckily now that I'm working with 1:30 worth of breaks throughout the day, I'm making alot more progress. Once I get through those, KE and Voy-Relaunch will be the only current series I haven't read.

 

[Geoff Thorne]

Re: Anyone Else Unhappy With the Post Nemesis Novels & Direction of ST

Are you sure? It sure seemed to me that they were setting it up to where the reader would WANT somebody to off Zife and Azernal even if there's some obligatory rhetoric about how "awful" it is.

Anyone who would read a Trek novel and want a ruthless, extralegal black-ops organization to assassinate anyone has completely and utterly missed the point of Star Trek.

Seconded.

 

[Marie1]

Re: Anyone Else Unhappy With the Post Nemesis Novels & Direction of ST

Well, in Articles Of The Federation, Ross is forced to resign, so there is some fallout from it. It doesn't just go away.

But yeah, I see your point.

Really? About time... I still feel bad for that Romulan woman.
Wait... I'm mixing up AotF with SD...
Still, its good...

Are you sure? It sure seemed to me that they were setting it up to where the reader would WANT somebody to off Zife and Azernal even if there's some obligatory rhetoric about how "awful" it is.

Anyone who would read a Trek novel and want a ruthless, extralegal black-ops organization to assassinate anyone has completely and utterly missed the point of Star Trek.

I don't think thats what she meant. I think she meant that their actions would cause someone to want to get rid of them, and that there would be those willing to do so no matter the cost.

And Section 31 would go that route. So the deserve, IMO, lots of "negative adjectives" -including their footsteps.

 

[Trent Roman]

Re: Anyone Else Unhappy With the Post Nemesis Novels & Direction of ST

Maybe blowing the lid off the whole scandal and letting the Federation's public see what happened, letting the outrage build, would've been a way to accomplish that (though with some degree of secrecy as to who Section 31 is, of course, to leave them in play for later plots).

I supported this option at the time (and still do), if only because a crime is always made worse by being covered-up--it's not just a question of delaying the inevitable (and an independant journalist has already pieced together the conspiracy as of Articles...), but making it worse. There was worry that it would ratchet up tensions with the Klingon Empire, but talk of war was massively exagerrated; this is Martok's Empire, after all. Placate the Klingons by extraditing Zife and his cohorts to answer for their crimes in the Empire. Now, when this all comes out, the Federation will have to answer not only for the rogue actions of their President et al., but of everybody who then colluded to conceal it from the Empire and their own citizens. And with Zife and his co-conspirators assassinated, the truly guilty parties won't be available to take the brunt of the hostility, so it will probably fall on people who coordinated the coup. The fact that it was a coup is, in itself, worrisome. Certainly, a new election was called immediately, but Starfleet shouldn't simply be removing elected officials. Arresting, yes, if there's evidence, but not 'disappearing'.

And frankly...I believe that it is very, VERY disrespectful of both the office of the president as well as common decency to do that sort of what-if'ing about a real person's death. (...) There was no excuse for that film whatsoever. I could see MAYBE exploring a question like that after Bush's lifetime is over (by NATURAL means, thank you very much) but not while the man is still living and especially not while he was still in office.

We're talking about "Death of a President", right? I've seen that; I thought it was pretty harmless (of course, I don't give a damn about either the office of the president or common decency, so we might be approaching it from different frameworks); if anything, I fast-forwarded through the Bush-love scenes. What part of the film did you have a problem with particularly?

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

Re: Anyone Else Unhappy With the Post Nemesis Novels & Direction of ST

I think you have a good scenario for how the Zife assassination should've been handled; I know I would've taken it a little better had things played out that way. Something that massively wrong deserves an equally massive public scandal as backlash.

And the idea of the military trying to remove duly elected officials, no matter how aggravating...didn't Leyton get his ass kicked for doing exactly that? Wasn't that reviled? And suddenly we have Picard and Jellico thinking it's a good idea? Sorry...no.

About the movie...for me it was the entire concept of doing a movie about offing somebody who's still alive and holding the office of the Presidency. I don't care how much time somebody spent writing it, how much it might "otherwise" be worth on some sort of artistic level. I don't want to see that...even the current living ex-President that I despise the most, I would not want to see given that sort of treatment because of the inherent disrespect of the office of the presidency, and the indecency of doing that to someone who is still alive, even in "effigy." I don't even think it would be right of me to name said individual, and will not do so either publicly or privately.

In a democracy where due process still exists (and I point to the impeachment of Blagojevich and the impeachment/acquittal of Clinton as two recent examples of the process running its course to two different conclusions...which certainly demonstrates the legitimacy of the process as opposed to a kangaroo court), the ONLY acceptable recourse is through said due process. I can understand taking violent action against an authoritarian regime (i.e. somebody seriously should've offed Hitler) which by definition has no such recourse, but NOT in a democracy. To entertain any discussion of assassination of those holding office is to me unconscionable.

 

[Sci]

Re: Anyone Else Unhappy With the Post Nemesis Novels & Direction of ST

And the idea of the military trying to remove duly elected officials, no matter how aggravating...didn't Leyton get his ass kicked for doing exactly that? Wasn't that reviled? And suddenly we have Picard and Jellico thinking it's a good idea?

Well, no. Picard and Jellico were probably the two characters most opposed to it. If you read it again, you'll remember that none of the conspirators thought it was a good idea. They simply thought it was necessary; they believed that to expose Zife's actions to the public would lead to interstellar war with the Klingon Empire, and that Zife's actions were too horrific to allow him to get away with it.

And, yes, it's a disturbing concept. Again, it's supposed to be. The novel wasn't about saying, "Oh, hey, THIS is how the world ought to be!" It was about the fact that sometimes, bad political cultures force good people to do things that are morally wrong out of necessity. It's Picard's "In the Pale Moonlight" moment.

About the movie...for me it was the entire concept of doing a movie about offing somebody who's still alive and holding the office of the Presidency. I don't care how much time somebody spent writing it, how much it might "otherwise" be worth on some sort of artistic level. I don't want to see that...

So don't watch it.

even the current living ex-President that I despise the most, I would not want to see given that sort of treatment because of the inherent disrespect of the office of the presidency, and the indecency of doing that to someone who is still alive, even in "effigy." I don't even think it would be right of me to name said individual, and will not do so either publicly or privately.

I think it's absurd to say that exploring the potential social consequences of an assassination is disrespectful to the person or the office. There's a different between using fiction to explore a scenario and ADVOCATING that scenario. Not all fiction is a call to action.

 

[LutherSloan]

Re: Anyone Else Unhappy With the Post Nemesis Novels & Direction of ST

The worst thing about 'Death of a President'?



President Cheney.

 

[Marcus Porcius Cato]

Re: Anyone Else Unhappy With the Post Nemesis Novels & Direction of ST

I like individual novels, each series. The greater tapastery, I am not so sure of.

 

[Sci]

Re: Anyone Else Unhappy With the Post Nemesis Novels & Direction of ST

The worst thing about 'Death of a President'?



President Cheney.

Well, one way or the other, that can't happen now.

 

[MarciaCat]

Re: Anyone Else Unhappy With the Post Nemesis Novels & Direction of ST

I like the direction Trek lit has taken, making it a more or less cohesive continuing story without the reset button.

 

[RonG]

Re: Anyone Else Unhappy With the Post Nemesis Novels & Direction of ST

AFAIK, I don't think a full-fledged "reset button" was ever in effect, as far as Trek is concerned. Small retcons, perhaps, but nothing too earth shattering and illogical. Discreprencies between novels do exist, but they involve mostly minutae IMO.

I always thought that Trek (filmed and written) worked as a (more or less) cohesive picture of the Trek universe for years now. The curret emphasis on inter-novel continuity is quite welcome and helps to strengthen the overall "feel of authenticity".

 

[Therin of Andor]

Re: Anyone Else Unhappy With the Post Nemesis Novels & Direction of ST

AFAIK, I don't think a full-fledged "reset button" was ever in effect, as far as Trek is concerned.

In the years Richard Arnold was vetting manuscripts, ST novels referencing each other were usually cleansed of any connections. The authors became skilled at hiding in-jokes.

 

[Thrawn]

Re: Anyone Else Unhappy With the Post Nemesis Novels & Direction of ST

RonG, you must be using the term "reset button" differently from me; I mean the tendency to get to the end of a book, like Echoes, and have the solution to the problem make the whole thing not have happened in the first place. Or, less severely, the tendency of each episode to return everything to the way it was before that episode started. Even The Best Of Both Worlds II was written that way, before they realized after filming two other episodes that it needed a sequel in Family; at the end, someone even says "we'll have the fleet back up in less than a year!" It was written so that, if desired, they wouldn't have ever had to refer to it again. Things were the same. Reset button.

Not a reset button would be something like Generations - the ship crashed, period. No back to normal at the end.

It has nothing to do with retcons.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Re: Anyone Else Unhappy With the Post Nemesis Novels & Direction of ST

Right now, with the current state of the novels, I'm enjoying Star Trek more than I did when it was actually on the air.

 

[Thrawn]

Re: Anyone Else Unhappy With the Post Nemesis Novels & Direction of ST

Right now, with the current state of the novels, I'm enjoying Star Trek more than I did when it was actually on the air.

Me too.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Re: Anyone Else Unhappy With the Post Nemesis Novels & Direction of ST

a reset button would be something like Generations - the ship crashed, period. No back to normal at the end.

But that was a movie, where no one was under inescapable contract for the next film. The Enterprise-D was destroyed, but quickly replaced by another ship called Enterprise. Kirk was killed, and was then resurrected (twice) in the Shatnerverse. So even "Generations" reset button was... reset.

 

[Thrawn]

Re: Anyone Else Unhappy With the Post Nemesis Novels & Direction of ST

Ok, fine; bad example. Reset button indeed. What makes me happy is that the books aren't hitting reset buttons, and that point holds true regardless of your opinion of Generations

 

[RonG]

Re: Anyone Else Unhappy With the Post Nemesis Novels & Direction of ST

I humbly accept the correction regarding Reset Buttons, Thrawn

I do think that the earlier novels functioned the same way as the TV episodes, meaning that few connections between novels did occur (when they were written by the same author), in the same way that some episodes had references to other episodes. True, it was rare in both cases, but still happened.

One thing we seem to agree on is the great overall quality of the current TrekLit offerings

(Now, if we could just have some forward movement in the DS9R...)

 

[Therin of Andor]

Re: Anyone Else Unhappy With the Post Nemesis Novels & Direction of ST

I do think that the earlier novels functioned the same way as the TV episodes, meaning that few connections between novels did occur (when they were written by the same author), in the same way that some episodes had references to other episodes. True, it was rare in both cases, but still happened.

While any show is on the air it's normal, often mandated, that licensed tie-ins not change the canonical status quo. TOS was really the only Star Trek story that deliberately emphasised anthology-type episodes, but even TOS referred to itself in some episodes.