Dumb and Bizarre Trek Novel Moments...
- Thread starter F. King Daniel
- Start date
oh my indeed. But I'm more concerned wtih Kirk Khan-like pecks!
I'm glad the version of Entropy Effect I read had a different cover, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to take it seriously at all. It was a good book.
Dumb and/or bizarre...hmm...there's the part in the first or second New Frontiers book where the crew isn't surprised in the slightest when a planet explodes and a giant FREAKIN' BIRD comes out...
Then there's Destiny, I didn't really mind the convoluted Borg origin story, but the ending was ridiculous. "Suddenly the Borg got assimilated and then they were nice." I guess it worked, but it was pretty anticlimactic. And the scene where some smart little lower-deck science person figures out how to get back to the Alpha Quadrant AFTER the Hirogen board the Enterprise and kill a bunch of people. Then Picard practically laughs it off.
that was the fourth New Frontier novel and not everyone shrugs it off, Jellico refuses to believe it happened and IIRC, the crew can scarcely believe it when it does happen.
Who knows, might be the first good Borg story since Hugh learned the meaning of friendship and Picard learned the meaning of genocide.Dumb--no names but anytime in recent Treklit when a Starfleet away team beams over to and starts wandering around a Borg cube.I just keep thinking about Abbot & Costello in the haunted house.
Now you've done it... now I want to see Abbott and Costello Meet the Borg.
Chekov's mid-sentence sex change from The Great Starship Race stuck in my mind, for some reason.
'Chekov turned round in her chair, and he said..."
'Chekov turned round in her chair, and he said..."
Chekov was giving Uhura a lap dance.
Well, in the first draft, anyway.
Well, in the first draft, anyway.
Dumb--no names but anytime in recent Treklit when a Starfleet away team beams over to and starts wandering around a Borg cube.I just keep thinking about Abbot & Costello in the haunted house.
Now you've done it... now I want to see Abbott and Costello Meet the Borg.
Abbott and Costello?? Those derivative hacks? No, no, ya gotta go to the source...
MoH, Laer'I and K'Rli in "Borg-A-Bye Baby!"
which is usually played in a double bill with "yintaGH is the Word for K'Rli."
Classic scene: the boys are in a Borg cube when a drone appears in their way...
Drone: Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.
K'Rli: Hey, pal, didn't anyone ever tell you should never assimilate?
MoH: How come?
K'Rli: 'Cause it makes an ass out of 'im and it makes mi late! Nyerk nyerk nyerk nyerk!
At this point, MoH brains him with a bat'leth...
I'm the only person ever who didn't like Destiny. GttS I've never read.
The thing is, I've never liked the Borg after the TNG series; even First Contact was absolutely atrocious. So I fully admit that Mr. Mack had a very uphill battle, for me, with Destiny. Even so, it's overlong and most of it is not very good (that said, the good parts are great, and it has the best joke I've ever read in a Trek novel).
Brother!
Well, of course I exaggerate, there's nearly six billion people who wouldn't read Destiny if you gave it to them for free (granted four or five billion of them wouldn't be able to), but it does seem to have been hugely approved of by the Trek literary fandom.
And I never could tell why, other than an epic scope and the importance of its events in the big picture of the Trek universe, neither of which equate to good. Its pacing is bad and 50-75% of it is unimportant and worse uninteresting. If it were released as a 250-400 page novel about Erika Hernandez and Inyx, it would be as great as, maybe even greater than, most believe--yet strangely I think fewer people would think so, if that were the case.
On the other hand, because Mack posts here, I want to say something positive--Harbinger was pretty good.
Well, of course I exaggerate, there's nearly six billion people who wouldn't read Destiny if you gave it to them for free (granted four or five billion of them wouldn't be able to), but it does seem to have been hugely approved of by the Trek literary fandom.
And I never could tell why, other than an epic scope and the importance of its events in the big picture of the Trek universe, neither of which equate to good. Its pacing is bad and 50-75% of it is unimportant and worse uninteresting. If it were released as a 250-400 page novel about Erika Hernandez and Inyx, it would be as great as, maybe even greater than, most believe--yet strangely I think fewer people would think so, if that were the case.
On the other hand, because Mack posts here, I want to say something positive--Harbinger was pretty good.
Which parts did you find unimportant? I can appreciate that not everyone likes it, but when I read it, the only part of the entire thing that I considered relatively "unimportant" to the story as a whole, was the period from when Hernandez and some of her crew beamed down to Erigol and when they arrived at the city.
Pretty much all of the non-Titan, non-Columbia stuff.
Two scenes in particular compete for most useless--the Hirogen fight on board the Enterprise is just absolute filler* and the part where Geordi refuses to construct a thalaron weapon because it's illegal and the Borg might use it to kill whole planets, which highlights just how silly the reaction of horror to the thalaron weapon ever was, given that the Borg are killing whole planets very effectively already.
*I don't want to sound like a broken record, as I recently complained about this very scene, but it's a direct question I'll also note that, otherwise, the bouncing between different endpoints on the Caeliar supertrain in the sky was kind of cool.
Two scenes in particular compete for most useless--the Hirogen fight on board the Enterprise is just absolute filler* and the part where Geordi refuses to construct a thalaron weapon because it's illegal and the Borg might use it to kill whole planets, which highlights just how silly the reaction of horror to the thalaron weapon ever was, given that the Borg are killing whole planets very effectively already.
*I don't want to sound like a broken record, as I recently complained about this very scene, but it's a direct question
I'll also note that, otherwise, the bouncing between different endpoints on the Caeliar supertrain in the sky was kind of cool.Well the Hirogen fight scenes set up and foreshadow the tactics they'll use later when taking the Borg cube, and the Thalaron weapon stuff was to show these characters dont cross certain lines, regardless of the consequences.
If you found most of the book unimportant then fine, but I cant agree with you, I felt nearly all of it contributed to aspects of the story.
If you found most of the book unimportant then fine, but I cant agree with you, I felt nearly all of it contributed to aspects of the story.
The fact was, the thalaron weapon wouldn't have done much good. There's no way it could've wiped out enough of the Borg before they adapted to it. Ultimately, regardless of which specific weapon you're talking about, brute force could never be the solution to the Borg problem. So Picard's desire to lash out at his tormentors was blinding him to a better solution, a more mature and intelligent solution than just "keep finding ways to hit them harder."
ProtoAvatar
Fleet Captain
At the very least, the thalaron weapon would have slowed the borg down, would have saved worlds, BILLIONS of lives.
In other words, the thalaron weapon would have done a LOT of good.
And the 'moral' reason that 'justified' not using the thalaron weapon had so many holes in it that it was ridiculous:
It's immoral to 'kill' in self defence enemy soldiers;
They worried that use of the weapon would have created an arms race in a nebulous future, when complete extermination was upon them (in those conditions, they should pray to be so lucky as to be alive in a month and worry about a cold war).
The point made of course was that the drones were less soliders as they were slaves, forced to do things against their will, and in the end the heroes decided that it would be immoral to try and mass murder them using the thalaron weapon. I have no problem with that decision, as Christopher said, the weapon would never have worked anyway. Certainly not worked to a level that would have stopped the Borg armada.
Maybe, temporarily, until the Borg brought even more cubes through from the Delta Quadrant and wiped out those billions of lives a few days or weeks later. We're not talking about anything remotely resembling symmetrical warfare here. The Borg's numbers and resources profoundly exceeded those of the Federation and all its allies combined.
The point, again, was that it's shortsighted to assume the right way to solve a problem is to shoot at it, that all you need is a bigger weapon and you can save the day. Ultimately, nobody can do brute force on the same level as the Borg, so it's like fighting a hurricane with a leaf blower. Replace the leaf blower with a jet engine and it's still barely going to make any difference against the hurricane. The Borg were too big a problem to be solved with dumb brute force. The only solution was for our Starfleet heroes to remember the values that they've always stood for, wield reason instead of force, and find a smarter, better approach. That's what Star Trek has always been about -- finding the smart way to solve a problem rather than just hitting it until it breaks. Recognizing that some problems can't be solved by force, only made worse, and that focusing exclusively on force can blind you to other, more effective solutions.
ProtoAvatar
Fleet Captain
"Maybe, temporarily" - it would have 'temporarily' saved BILLIONS OF LIVES, it would have gained time for Starfleet to come up with a new plan.
Not using it condemned, in the end, BILLIONS of federation - and not only - citizens to death. The borg would not have managed to kill them until the Caelliar took pity on the Federation.
"a few days or weeks later" - That would be 70 to 100 YEARS later until the borg could bring reinforcements - I even quoted the relevant passages from "Destiny" to you once, Christopher.
Who were an enemy army killing BILLIONS of federation citizens each hour. Who were, practically, impossible to save.
If, under these conditions, Picard&co are not willing to kill in self-defense, if they have such an uncompromisingly do-not-kill-in-any-situation morals, they are not fit to serve in Starfleet, who is sworn to defend the Federation and the lives of its citizens.
The Jem'hadar were also slaves to their genetic conditioning, correct? By your argument, Starfleet had no right to kill in self defense a single Jem'hadar - after all, they had no choice. The Federation should have surrendered, let Weyoun exterminate Earth (as he was planning) and turn all Alpha/Beta quadrant civilizations into slaves. Yes?
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