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What's your favourite scene from TrekLit?

Dave already identified the scene in question -- I only want to add that nobody who died in Wildfire was nameless. More generally, nobody who dies in a work of fiction I write or edit is nameless. I don't believe in the faceless soldier or the innocent bystander, and everyone who dies is someone's child or parent or best friend or sibling.

While I agree in principle, in practice, this is Star Trek. When Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Ensign Who-Is-He beam down, one of them isn't coming back...

I haven't read all the SCE books, so when I read Wildfire, I didn't know who were the "main credits" characters, and who wasn't... and I couldn't remember if the two in that scene had played a part up to then. But being less familiar, it added to the idea that the ship (and in a larger sense, Starfleet) was populated with these uncelebrated, quiet moments of heroism and sacrifice.
 
While I agree in principle, in practice, this is Star Trek. When Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Ensign Who-Is-He beam down, one of them isn't coming back...
Oh, it's not just Trek, it's a common thing in dramatic fiction. Makes it no less despicable to me, and it's something you will never see in something that I write or edit.

I'm still pissed about the fact that several important members of Voyager's crew were killed in "Caretaker," and were never mentioned again after the pilot. When they waxed rhapsodic in later seasons about the great journey they were on, I kept wanting to yell at the screen about the fact that this journey was built on the graves of their crewmates.

Imagine a TNG story where Riker, La Forge, Crusher, Ogawa, and Ro all were killed. It would be a major event that would have massive repercussions on the lives of the remaining crew. Yet when Cavit, Stadi, the chief engineer, CMO, and head nurse were killed in "Caretaker" it was sooooo important that three of them never even got names (and one, the engineer, never got a face).

That always offended me (and significantly informed my writing of both the first half of The Brave and the Bold Book 2 and the short story "Letting Go" in Distant Shores). For that matter, I made an effort in Many Splendors to make the various engineers we saw throughout TNG into people rather than extras.....
 
^ I'm actually a little surprised that no author has tried to fill in the gaps about those characters. I think it would be quite poignant to explore the character of those who never made the journey to the Dela Quadrant, and leave the reader to imagine how things would have been different if they were there. Hell, put it in an alternate reality and see how things change.

I recall that in the LA Graf novel, the CMO was Dr Fitzgerald and the nurse was a Vulcan, but I don't think the engineer got a mention.
 
Couple of quick ones for me:
The jam session on Aventine, A Singular Destiny
The absolutely chilling race through the comet from Lives of Dax: Sins of the Mother
The description of the various vigils taking place on Earth, Luna, and Mars as the Borg approached from Destiny: Lost Souls
 
^ I'm actually a little surprised that no author has tried to fill in the gaps about those characters.
Erm, one has. *raises hand* The Voyager portion of The Brave and the Bold fleshed out the character of Aaron Cavit, and "Letting Go" did so for the chief engineer (Alexander Honigsberg, whom we met in TB&TB) through his son. And both the VOY part of Badlands and the Caretaker novelization fleshed the secondary characters out nicely.


Hell, put it in an alternate reality and see how things change.
Again, already have done, specifically in Chapter 10 of A Gutted World in Myriad Universes: Echoes and Refractions. In the AGW timeline, the Cardassian-Federation treaty terms were different so there was no Demilitarized Zone and therefore the Maquis were never formed, which means that Voyager never went into the Badlands to go after the Maquis, which means they never went to the Delta Quadrant.

I was particularly proud of the line: "Cavit had proven himself over the past two years to be a magnificent first officer. She [Janeway] couldn't imagine running this ship without him."


Couple of quick ones for me:
The jam session on Aventine, A Singular Destiny
Thanks!
 
I'm still pissed about the fact that several important members of Voyager's crew were killed in "Caretaker," and were never mentioned again after the pilot. When they waxed rhapsodic in later seasons about the great journey they were on, I kept wanting to yell at the screen about the fact that this journey was built on the graves of their crewmates.

Imagine a TNG story where Riker, La Forge, Crusher, Ogawa, and Ro all were killed. It would be a major event that would have massive repercussions on the lives of the remaining crew. Yet when Cavit, Stadi, the chief engineer, CMO, and head nurse were killed in "Caretaker" it was sooooo important that three of them never even got names (and one, the engineer, never got a face).
I think those crewmembers are hanging out in the same limbo as the surviving crew of the Equinox...

I'm glad TrekLit has tackled this, because it always annoyed me, too--especially when an episode like "Relativity" would've allowed the series to show off these people, but chose not to. :confused:
 
I was particularly proud of the line: "Cavit had proven himself over the past two years to be a magnificent first officer. She [Janeway] couldn't imagine running this ship without him."

I must be misremembering... because my impression was that the pilot of Voyager was their first mission as a crew...?

Maybe I got that impression because Harry and Paris were both new... or because there was no chemistry between any of the actors?;)
 
It can't have been their first mission, because Tuvok "Janeway's Chief of Security" was undercover. Harry and Tom were new and the ship was newish, but I think they'd already broken Voyager in.
 
There was frequent mention of Janeway and Tuvok's old friendship... but I didn't remember that he was explicitly the chief of security on Voyager before we met him. But Voyager is not indelibly marked on my memory, and I'm sure KRAD watched an episode or two before writing his stories set in that universe. In which case, Voyager has a second abandoned premise. They may as well have visited the casino planet.

But I've digressed enough - fav Trek Lit scene, even if it's Voyager!
 
I was particularly proud of the line: "Cavit had proven himself over the past two years to be a magnificent first officer. She [Janeway] couldn't imagine running this ship without him."

I must be misremembering... because my impression was that the pilot of Voyager was their first mission as a crew...?

Maybe I got that impression because Harry and Paris were both new... or because there was no chemistry between any of the actors?;)

KRAD's quote came from an alternate-universe story; there's the source of your confusion :)
 
There are many scenes I really love:

But after some consideration, I did choose 4 scenes, all from Voyager books:

1. The Doctor handling the alien invaders when they stormed into sickbay, searching for Janeway in "The Black Shore" by Greg Cox.

2. Kes's little speech to Aren Yashar at the end of "Marooned" by Christie Golden.

3. The scene when Janeway discovers that Neelix has smuggled some animals into his quarters which he was planning to use for breeding and food resource in "Bless The Beasts" by Karen Haber.

4. Neelix describing for Paul Fairman what he did with the replicator which Fairman had smuggled on board Voyager from Chakotay's Maquis ship, the replicator which Fairman planned to use for starting a black market on the ship in "Incident At Arbuk" by John Greggory Betancourt.
 
My favourite scene has to be in 'Before Dishonor' when the Borh cube eats Pluto.
The sheer audacity of it made me laugh out loud.
 
"Incident At Arbuk" by John Greggory Betancourt.
Minor point: Despite the typo on the cover of the book, his name is John Gregory Betancourt, with just the two G's in his middle name rather than the three erroneously presented on the cover and spine.
 
"It's not you I hate Cardassian, it's what I became because of you." O'Brien iin The Wounded? Absolute favorite.
Now if I had to chose from literature that's harder, but most of my favorite scenes have been ones that made me laugh.

The whole "Odo - like oh no with a bad cold" or something from The Siege to name one.
 
Funniest scene in Treklit? That's easy. After The Fall.


"Let's get their attention, shall we?" With that, s/he pointed hir phaser straight up and fired a single shot.

The shot struck the ceiling, blowing out a chunk. Some debris tumbled and, before anyone could move, struck Ensign Burton on the head. He went down, arms splayed, out cold.

The volume of the phaser shot startled everyone in the place. Everyone froze, gaping at the sight of Burgoyne standing there with hir arm still upraised while looking down in total chagrin at the unconscious security guard.

Calhoun didn't hesitate, shoving away someone who had been grabbing at his arm but was now just standing there in bewilderment. "And that," Calhoun called out loudly, "is what we're capable of doing to our own people. So just think about what we could do to you if we decided to."
 
:guffaw:That was a great scene. You know, I forgot just how good ATF and MIA actually were, until you wrote that.
 
Peter David has written some really funny stuff. The thing that jumps out at me is Q-in-Law, with an exchange that went something like this:

"She's really beating the stuffing out of him," said Riker. "What should we do?"
"Sell tickets," rumbled Worf.

As for absolute favorite scene....I'd have to think about that for a good long while. The one that impressed me most in recent memory was
Picard's breakdown in the face of the Borg onslaught in Destiny. Because I thought it was realistic, but very gutsy, to show Captain Picard completely breaking down in the face of the end of the Federation and the human race at the hands of the Borg. I mean, after all the poor guy's been through with them, it was a very believable place to take the character, but as I was reading it, I was thinking, "This is Captain Picard. He always saves the day!"
 
It can't have been their first mission, because Tuvok "Janeway's Chief of Security" was undercover. Harry and Tom were new and the ship was newish, but I think they'd already broken Voyager in.

It's Voyager's first mission, but Tuvok had been Janeway's tactical officer for four years beforehand (at the time of the episode The Phage), on the USS Billings (which Janeway had been captain of for 9 years)
 
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