If that were the case, wouldn't Janeway have thrown Tom in the brig for daring to suggest that they could get it on?
I never said he made it public...
Has TrekLit retconned any REALLY bad canon?
- Thread starter Danoz
- Start date
I never said he made it public...
OK, I'm fine with people not enjoying the book, or even in feeling it wasn't necessary.
BUT... we were given two main goals regarding the series finale by The Powers That Be (Paramount and Pocket):
1 - "Fix" the abortion that was the TATV finale, including altering the supposed death of Trip
2 - Incorporate as much as possible OF said abortion in the fix
Given those goals provided from above, I felt (and still feel) that our explanation was a good one. Would we have liked to ignore MORE of the finale script? Sure, but then we wouldn't have been keeping true to point 2.
So for those of you who think we choked, a challenge: Come up with YOUR plot that accomplishes the same goals. At this point, your brilliant ideas can't be "stolen," so we can even all read them.
A generous application of KISS should apply here, with the notion that simple things that don't make sense are far more preferable to complex things that don't make sense, because the latter are so much more prone to falling apart in the various ways I've detailed in posts and reviews.
First of all, scrap the most illogical change, moving forward the events six years. The conspiracy required to pull that off is too mind-boggling, for too little benefit, and it fits with Point 2. By the same token, the Shran plot should be the same as presented onscreen, and there are now six years worth of time to explain how Shran got to that point (even the note that Archer and Shran hadn't spoken in three years leaves more than enough to go ahead with the producers' hope of including him on the ENT crew for a while if they'd had another season). This lets us take TATV more or less at face value. (More or less, because while events must be accurately reported, without actual cameras there anything along the lines of character interactions can be considered extrapolation or taken from memoirs, etc.)
To Tucker, then. How does the alien ship approach Enterprise? Let's say they scavenged a cloak from one of the many Romulan wrecks that must have been produced by the war. Let us further speculate that these aliens are part of the Orion Syndicate, since it's a known criminal organization in this time period, and that the Syndicate has an Enterprise crewmember, preferably mid-range security officer, Reed's deputy perhaps, on their payroll (bribed or blackmailed into service); this mole (voluntary or otherwise) is activated by the aliens, as they still believe Shran to hold whatever precious artifact they're after. Thanks to the mole, they manage to dock and board before they are detected (the shudder is not the sound of weapons fire, but Mayweather trying to shake the alien vessel off); by this same token, they are capable of using Enterprise's internal systems to track down Archer, with little to no resistance as the mole has diverted security teams.
Tucker, caught off guard, quickly has to think up a plan that would use Enterprise's conduits as a powerful flamethrower. For whatever reason, the blast proves more powerful than he had anticipated and the blowback causes him significant injuries and burns. (This actually makes sense with what we saw in the episode: had it been a regular explosion, Tucker should have been at its heart and the least likely of those present to survive--instead, it was a directed detonation that accidently injured him more than he thought it would). He's rushed to sickbay, where he is put--still alive and waiving--into a stasis tube the Enterprise has picked up over the last six years. The tube slows his metabolism to a crawl, allowing the Enterprise, already on route back to Earth, to deliver him to the advanced medical facilities there, where he is saved.
Then you just have to think of a reason why Tucker would need to appear to stay dead. Any number of things could work, but one could say that the leader of the aliens Tucker killed was the favourite consort of the current matriarch of the Orion Syndicate, and she declares a vendetta, putting a massive bounty on Tucker's head. Tucker, realizing that he would never be safe with that sum hanging over him, and worst that his crewmembers and family would be in danger as long as the Syndicate or bounty hunters looking to collect think they could use them to get to him (as they had to Shran and his daughter), tells Archer to put out the word that he had died of his injuries instead. Dead, the bounty is withdrawn and Tucker's family and friends are safe once more; to keep them (and himself) that way, he enters a kind of witness protection program, facial reconstruction and a new identity. Heck, you could even have this 'new' person assigned to Enterprise. This changes almost nothing from what was seen onscreen in TATV, but adds enough background information to make the plot of the episode stand up, and rescues Tucker for further use.
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
First of all, scrap the most illogical change, moving forward the events six years. The conspiracy required to pull that off is too mind-boggling, for too little benefit, and it fits with Point 2. By the same token, the Shran plot should be the same as presented onscreen, and there are now six years worth of time to explain how Shran got to that point (even the note that Archer and Shran hadn't spoken in three years leaves more than enough to go ahead with the producers' hope of including him on the ENT crew for a while if they'd had another season). This lets us take TATV more or less at face value. (More or less, because while events must be accurately reported, without actual cameras there anything along the lines of character interactions can be considered extrapolation or taken from memoirs, etc.)
To Tucker, then. How does the alien ship approach Enterprise? Let's say they scavenged a cloak from one of the many Romulan wrecks that must have been produced by the war. Let us further speculate that these aliens are part of the Orion Syndicate, since it's a known criminal organization in this time period, and that the Syndicate has an Enterprise crewmember, preferably mid-range security officer, Reed's deputy perhaps, on their payroll (bribed or blackmailed into service); this mole (voluntary or otherwise) is activated by the aliens, as they still believe Shran to hold whatever precious artifact they're after. Thanks to the mole, they manage to dock and board before they are detected (the shudder is not the sound of weapons fire, but Mayweather trying to shake the alien vessel off); by this same token, they are capable of using Enterprise's internal systems to track down Archer, with little to no resistance as the mole has diverted security teams.
Tucker, caught off guard, quickly has to think up a plan that would use Enterprise's conduits as a powerful flamethrower. For whatever reason, the blast proves more powerful than he had anticipated and the blowback causes him significant injuries and burns. (This actually makes sense with what we saw in the episode: had it been a regular explosion, Tucker should have been at its heart and the least likely of those present to survive--instead, it was a directed detonation that accidently injured him more than he thought it would). He's rushed to sickbay, where he is put--still alive and waiving--into a stasis tube the Enterprise has picked up over the last six years. The tube slows his metabolism to a crawl, allowing the Enterprise, already on route back to Earth, to deliver him to the advanced medical facilities there, where he is saved.
Then you just have to think of a reason why Tucker would need to appear to stay dead. Any number of things could work, but one could say that the leader of the aliens Tucker killed was the favourite consort of the current matriarch of the Orion Syndicate, and she declares a vendetta, putting a massive bounty on Tucker's head. Tucker, realizing that he would never be safe with that sum hanging over him, and worst that his crewmembers and family would be in danger as long as the Syndicate or bounty hunters looking to collect think they could use them to get to him (as they had to Shran and his daughter), tells Archer to put out the word that he had died of his injuries instead. Dead, the bounty is withdrawn and Tucker's family and friends are safe once more; to keep them (and himself) that way, he enters a kind of witness protection program, facial reconstruction and a new identity. Heck, you could even have this 'new' person assigned to Enterprise. This changes almost nothing from what was seen onscreen in TATV, but adds enough background information to make the plot of the episode stand up, and rescues Tucker for further use.
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
If it's necessary to do be able to do better than someone you criticize, then I should have shut up a long time ago.
(Well, I probably should have, but for completely different reasons.)
...or, you know, what he said.
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
Riker meets a friend who served on the E-D mentions his holoprog and said friend criticises his lack of historical knowledge and points out that the prog was flawed. they find the E--D's historical databanks were hacked and info changed by some malicious prankster known only as Killer Bees.
years later, said friend finds his ship's databanks have been hacked with a load of nonsense about the Eugenics Wars being a covert war no-one noticed and realises the Killer Bees hacker is at it again, curse them.
years later, said friend finds his ship's databanks have been hacked with a load of nonsense about the Eugenics Wars being a covert war no-one noticed and realises the Killer Bees hacker is at it again, curse them.
I remember cracking up though at how every time DRG3 had a moment with Kirk and Harriman that came between what we saw on screen, Harriman was suddenly more authoritative and with-it.
^ I would argue that Harriman wasn't "more authoritative and with it," but simply that, because we're reading a novel and not watching a film, we are better able to get inside the character's thoughts and actually know and understand what is going on in his head. My argument for Harriman basically went like this. It seemed unlikely to me that Starfleet Command would promote to the captaincy of the Enterprise an incompetent individual, meaning that there had to be some other reason(s) for Harriman's seemingly cowed behavior on the bridge during the events of Generations. I fleshed out a backstory to explore and explain those reasons, and then essentially narrated the interior monologue of the character during those moments of extremis. I also called upon the perceptive powers of Jim Kirk, who knew Harriman's martinet of a father, to see the potential and comprehend the flaws of the new captain. I didn't seek to change the events of Generations, but instead to provide them context.
And not to put too fine a point on it, but those interstitial scenes with Harriman and Kirk aboard Enterprise-B are not in Serpents Among the Ruins (where Kirk is mentioned only once), but in Provenance of Shadows and The Star to Every Wandering.
And not to put too fine a point on it, but those interstitial scenes with Harriman and Kirk aboard Enterprise-B are not in Serpents Among the Ruins (where Kirk is mentioned only once), but in Provenance of Shadows and The Star to Every Wandering.
A couple of great literary works, I might add - and not just because of the word count!
Well i thought you did a great job with TGTMD.
Trent, not too bad, except that you completely ignored rule #2
"Incorporate as much as possible OF said abortion in the fix"
We could not jettison Shran's storyline, we had to deal with the six-year BS (due to the Romulan War and no rank changes and such), and etc. Your solution for Trip is only a partial alternative for one of the MANY elements that we had to explain to make the abortion live again (or as I generally term it, "to spin dog shit into gold").
We would have preferred to KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid, for those not in the vernacular), but we were told we HAD to come up with answers for ALL of the elements (while also setting up future developments for the Romulan War), not just SOME of them.
It wasn't a single very hard tightrope to walk, it was 4-5 very hard tightropes that we had to jump from one to the other, while balancing a Horta on a spinning plate while we rode a cloaked Bajoran unicycle. And that analogy still would probably be easier to do than to make the nightmare of TATV make sense.
It would have been easier just to say that the holoprogram was wrong. That really would have been KISS.
After all, watching Braveheart won't give you an accurate history of Scotland now would it?
After all, watching Braveheart won't give you an accurate history of Scotland now would it?
nor would U-571 give an accurate story of how the Enigma machine was stolen.
And the Continental Congress actually did very little singing and dancing while debating the Declaration of Independence.
Begging your pardon, but the scenario sketched out incorporates essentially *all* of TATV, except the direction Tucker was holding the conduit--significantly less changes to the primary source than the actual book. I get the impression from the rest of the post that you felt that you needed to fix elements that I did not feel needed fixing, for instance the lack of rank changes over the last six years (which doesn't particularly bother me), but that would probably fall under rule #1 if anything. Although I'm not quite sure how the TGTMD scenario actually addresses the lack of rank changes, unless one expands the already mind-bogglingly huge conspiracy require to keep Tucker 'alive' six years to the rest of the crew such that, for whatever reason, history records them as having the wrong ranks at the time of the Federation signing ceremony.
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
But there's nothing wrong with wearing a kilt in typical Scots weather...it keeps you awake and alert, in case the tax collectors try to sneak up on you.
It wasn't the signing of the Federation Charter which took place in 2161, but the signing of the Coalition which took place in 2156. The holoprogram was written to make those events take place in '61, where they actually took place in '56 - hence the lack of rank changes.
^Uh-huh. And what do records show their ranks as being in 2160? Or in any other document from that period, for that matter? If the holoprogram is reflective of received history (i.e. this was the state of things in 2161), either there were no rank changes at this time as confirmed by the reams of records available (logs, etc.), or they happened but were all retconned as part of the pointless yet ever-expanding conspiracy to change the date of events.
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
lol
