VOYAGER Relaunch Novels

[Fish1941]

From "MEMORY Wiki":

In the Voyager relaunch book series, Torres traveled to Boreth and found her mother Miral alive. Miral died and Torres decided to stay on Boreth and immerse herself in Klingon tradition.

In A Singular Destiny set in 2381, Torres and Miral Paris' names were appended to a casualty list sent to Starfleet, listing confirmed dead in Sector 22093 as a result of the Borg attacks in the Alpha Quadrant.
In the alternate future in the Deep Space Nine Millennium book trilogy, Torres, along with Voyager and her crew, returned to the Alpha Quadrant at an unspecified time. As in the "real" timeline, she married Tom Paris. Sometime after returning to the Alpha Quadrant, Torres and Paris were both assigned to the USS Enterprise-F under Captain William T. Riker. However, Torres was killed along with the rest of the Enterprise's crew when she was lost with all hands during the destruction of Earth.

What the hell is going on here? Are the writers of the relaunch novels simply determined to kill off B'Elanna any way possible? It's bad enough that they killed off Janeway, turned Tom Paris into an ideal Starfleet officer, placed Tuvok on another ship and made Harry Kim, who is an engineer, into Chief of Security. And many critics of the novels have the nerve to claim that these novels are better than the series?

I'm so mad right now that I'm trying not to toss my computer screen at the wall. Instead, I'm posting this rant.

What the hell are they doing to the Voyager characters?

 

[DGCatAniSiri]

Well, for starters, that first line is wrong - B'Elanna does go to Boreth, but it is with Miral and to learn about the prophecies of the Kuvah'Magh. Then Full Circle explains Torres and Miral appearing on the casualty list -

Spoiler: Full Circle

B'Elanna faked their deaths because of a group of fanatics she's afraid will try to get their hands on Miral and kill her, believing her to be the Kuvah'Magh, who is supposed to have great signifigance to the Klingon culture.

As for Millenium, that was an apocalyptic future - just about every important character had been either killed or was looking death right in the face. And there was time travel involved that removed that death entirely.

 

[LightningStorm]

It's OK, breathe.

You need to read Full Circle by Kirsten Beyer to understand what is being talked about in A Singular Destiny.

As for Millennium. I believe you can wholly ignore those parts of that book because it was written before Voyager went off the air and we know from Voyager that Tom and B'Elanna got married before they returned not after, so all of that was superseded by what happened on screen.

As for Janeway... well Before Dishonor was a complete mess IMO and wasn't a Voyager book plus, don't count her out yet, it's been said that shes permanently dead but I hold fast to the idea that she isn't. Given all we really "know" from what was in the books is that she went off with Q somewhere.

 

[LightningStorm]

Well, for starters, that first line is wrong - B'Elanna does go to Boreth, but it is with Miral and to learn about the prophecies of the Kuvah'Magh.

Actually the first line is exactly right. The "Miral died" part is in reference to B'Elanna's mother whose name was "Miral" and she was indeed alive when B'Elanna got there and did indeed die shortly thereafter. And her original purpose for going to Boreth was to find her mother not to do research on the Kuvah'Magh, that part came later.

 

[DGCatAniSiri]

Well, for starters, that first line is wrong - B'Elanna does go to Boreth, but it is with Miral and to learn about the prophecies of the Kuvah'Magh.

Actually the first line is exactly right. The "Miral died" part is in reference to B'Elanna's mother whose name was "Miral" and she was indeed alive when B'Elanna got there and did indeed die shortly thereafter. And her original purpose for going to Boreth was to find her mother not to do research on the Kuvah'Magh, that part came later.

Gah, you're right. I saw 'Miral' and just connected it straight to B'Elanna's daughter, not mother.

 

[Tino]

I saw 'Miral' and just connected it straight to B'Elanna's daughter, not mother.

Same here. Read it. Read it again. Understood. :-)

But I have the same trouble with Harry Kim being Chief of Security.
Was that a Golden decision? Does anyone know why?

I could guess (never read the four relaunch novels) that Tuvok was off in a mental hospital and before bringing someone new in, Ms. Golden decided to move Harry a step forward - but not for always. Then TITAN came along and took our Tuvok away. So why introduce a new character for chief of security?

 

[TigerBait]

well, we lost lyssa, so there's an opening for someone new.

 

[Christopher]

...made Harry Kim, who is an engineer, into Chief of Security.

Actually, Harry was the operations manager, the same job as Data. The ops manager is basically responsible for coordinating ship functions and allocating resources as required, but we often see them functioning as sort of de facto science officers, perhaps because they're responsible for coordinating the work of the science departments down below decks and reporting their findings to the captain. And since Voyager lost a lot of its original crew, people had to double up on jobs.

And let's consider some past security chiefs, shall we? Pavel Chekov started out as a science officer, then became a navigator, and then became security chief in TMP before rising to first officer in TWOK. Before Worf became security chief, he started out as the bridge watch officer, whose job was to man the aft consoles and fill in at other stations when necessary and to stand watch on the bridge when the captain and first officer were off duty. And after that, he moved from security to strategic operations officer, Defiant commander, Federation ambassador, and finally Enterprise first officer. Tuvok was a science officer in his first career aboard Excelsior before returning to Starfleet decades later as a security chief. And consider TOS's Mr. Leslie, who was seen in every job from helmsman to engineer to medical technician before he settled in to his security-guard role. Beyond security, we have Geordi LaForge, who went from flight controller in the first season to chief engineer in the second.

So there's nothing shocking or unbelievable about a crewmember transferring to security from some other specialty. It happens all the time. If anything, it's expected that Starfleet officers, especially those on the command track like Harry, gain experience in multiple different fields rather than staying in one post their whole careers.

 

[Paris]

Making Harry the new Chief Engineer would have been even more odd than Security Chief as it would have taken him off the bridge for the majority of the time. As Christopher said, Harry is on the command track. If he would have wanted to be in engineering, Janeway or Chakotay would have made it happen. But Harry wants to be a captain some day, and there was a hole at security and Harry is one of the most experienced officers Voyager has. So it's a no-brainer. It's not as though he's unfamiliar with security procedures and he was already in charge of a department when he was an ensign.

I know that neither Kirsten or Ms. Golden have said on the page that Harry is the second officer; but it's not that far of a leap of logic to assume that Harry is Voyager's third in command. Hopefully this will spelled out on the page at some point .

 

[Deranged Nasat]

Making Harry the new Chief Engineer would have been even more odd than Security Chief as it would have taken him off the bridge for the majority of the time. As Christopher said, Harry is on the command track. If he would have wanted to be in engineering, Janeway or Chakotay would have made it happen. But Harry wants to be a captain some day, and there was a hole at security and Harry is one of the most experienced officers Voyager has. So it's a no-brainer. It's not as though he's unfamiliar with security procedures and he was already in charge of a department when he was an ensign.

I know that neither Kirsten or Ms. Golden have said on the page that Harry is the second officer; but it's not that far of a leap of logic to assume that Harry is Voyager's third in command. Hopefully this will spelled out on the page at some point .

Indeed. After seven years as its operations officer, who knows the internal workings of the ship and its personnel better?

 

[Trent Roman]

I think some people are missing the point. It's not that one can think of a reason why Kim suddenly popped up at security; anybody with sufficient skill of invention or sophistry can come up with that. It's that, on the page, the character went through a change that was never given cause or comment.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[Paris]

^Ms.Golden seemed to speed through all of that in Homecoming. I liked that Tom, Harry, and B'Elanna all got two rank bumps at once, but she never really explored it. She just slotted people in and begun her story. Maybe the change for Harry will explored further down the line...

 

[nx1701g]

I think I know why Harry becoming Security Chief didn't bother me all that much and made a lot of sense. There were a couple of episodes toward the end of Voyager's run where we saw Harry at Tactical when Tuvok was off the bridge (and Tom was at Harry's Ops Console).

I just checked: it was in the episode Riddles. While Tuvok was in Sickbay after his memory was erased, Harry was serving at Tactical with Paris at Ops.

 

[Paris]

I think I know why Harry becoming Security Chief didn't bother me all that much and made a lot of sense. There were a couple of episodes toward the end of Voyager's run where we saw Harry at Tactical when Tuvok was off the bridge...

Remember though...just because someone is proficient at Tactical, doesn't mean they will make a good security chief. TNG and VOY both had the lead tactical officer doubling as the security chief, but that is not always the case. Titan for instance has Tuvok as it's Tactical officer, but Ranul Keru as the security chief.

 

[Janos]

What was the most recent Voyager relaunch novel to be released?

 

[Christopher]

What was the most recent Voyager relaunch novel to be released?

Unworthy in September 2009. The next is Children of the Storm, coming this June.

 

[Janos]

What was the most recent Voyager relaunch novel to be released?

Unworthy in September 2009. The next is Children of the Storm, coming this June.

Thx. And Children of the Storm takes place after the new status quo established in Destiny (again, I haven't read the Destiny 3-parter yet, but the back cover blurbs are revealing)?

 

[Christopher]

They both do. Kirsten Beyer's first VGR novel, Full Circle, is about half pre-Destiny and half during/after. It leads into Unworthy and then CotS follows that.

 

[Janos]

Thx

 

[Kirsten Beyer]

I think some people are missing the point. It's not that one can think of a reason why Kim suddenly popped up at security; anybody with sufficient skill of invention or sophistry can come up with that. It's that, on the page, the character went through a change that was never given cause or comment.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

While I cannot speak to Christie's choice not to give "cause or comment" to Harry's shift to security in her relaunch novels, this was one of several things I felt needed to be addressed in some way in Full Circle. There is a passage farily early in the novel when Janeway is about to have a conversation with Harry when she does consider the shift in his duties and essentially makes the point Christopher did, that for an officer on the command track, this new position is a next logical step for him.

I suppose it's easy to miss, but it's there.

Best,
Kirsten