Spoilers TP: Raise the Dawn by DRGIII Review Thread

[Relayer1]

Re: Typhon Pact: Raise the Dawn by DRGIII Review Thread (Spoilers!)

Having great fun with Amazon UK - preordered the two books, received the first when it came out, but no sign of RTD. Checked Amazon and they have it as out of stock.

Assuming they had run out I emailed to complain - having preordered it I should have had one reserved. Email reply said amongst other platitudes 'Occasionally, our supply of popular items is limited and some products sell out quickly.'.

Unhappy with this I emailed them to draw their attention to the fact that I had PREORDERED it. I then had a phonecall from a foreign call centre, explained as best as I could what had happened and left them to investigate.

I've now received an email canceling my order as they have been advised that they will NOT be getting supplies of this title...

Further complaint made. I don't know why I bother...

 

[ToddCam]

Re: Typhon Pact: Raise the Dawn by DRGIII Review Thread (Spoilers!)

Somebody mentioned Defiant cloaking. Is there any explanation for how Starfleet still has the right to use a Romulan cloaking device when relations with the Empire have been iffy for several years? Or is Defiant equipped with a Federation cloak?

 

[zarkon]

Re: Typhon Pact: Raise the Dawn by DRGIII Review Thread (Spoilers!)

Does the federation even still have to abide by the treaty of algernon? Is this still offically the same entity as the Romulan Star Empire of the pre-shinzon/donatra/etc days?

Federation cloak was amazing, I'd love for that to find its way back somewhere. Presumbly the designs are still somewhere in starfleet, or the designers...although I guess a phased cloak would tip the balance quite a bit, so maybe not.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

Re: Typhon Pact: Raise the Dawn by DRGIII Review Thread (Spoilers!)

although I guess a phased cloak would tip the balance quite a bit, so maybe not.

You mean like the one the Romulans have now.

 

[zarkon]

Re: Typhon Pact: Raise the Dawn by DRGIII Review Thread (Spoilers!)

That happens in this duology? Or have I missed a book somewhere else down the line?

 

[chris_masters5]

Re: Typhon Pact: Raise the Dawn by DRGIII Review Thread (Spoilers!)

Having great fun with Amazon UK - preordered the two books, received the first when it came out, but no sign of RTD. Checked Amazon and they have it as out of stock.

Assuming they had run out I emailed to complain - having preordered it I should have had one reserved. Email reply said amongst other platitudes 'Occasionally, our supply of popular items is limited and some products sell out quickly.'.

Unhappy with this I emailed them to draw their attention to the fact that I had PREORDERED it. I then had a phonecall from a foreign call centre, explained as best as I could what had happened and left them to investigate.

I've now received an email canceling my order as they have been advised that they will NOT be getting supplies of this title...

Further complaint made. I don't know why I bother...

Well they are getting supplies! I didn't complaign - just thought I'd wait it out - had it preordered since December, just checked my orders on Amazon UK and it says it will be dispatching soon (within the next two days).

 

[Relayer1]

Re: Typhon Pact: Raise the Dawn by DRGIII Review Thread (Spoilers!)

Having great fun with Amazon UK - preordered the two books, received the first when it came out, but no sign of RTD. Checked Amazon and they have it as out of stock.

Assuming they had run out I emailed to complain - having preordered it I should have had one reserved. Email reply said amongst other platitudes 'Occasionally, our supply of popular items is limited and some products sell out quickly.'.

Unhappy with this I emailed them to draw their attention to the fact that I had PREORDERED it. I then had a phonecall from a foreign call centre, explained as best as I could what had happened and left them to investigate.

I've now received an email canceling my order as they have been advised that they will NOT be getting supplies of this title...

Further complaint made. I don't know why I bother...

Well they are getting supplies! I didn't complaign - just thought I'd wait it out - had it preordered since December, just checked my orders on Amazon UK and it says it will be dispatching soon (within the next two days).

Had an apology, an assurance that my order has not been binned and not even a vague idea of when to expect it !

Fingers crossed then...

 

[Christopher]

Re: Typhon Pact: Raise the Dawn by DRGIII Review Thread (Spoilers!)

Somebody mentioned Defiant cloaking. Is there any explanation for how Starfleet still has the right to use a Romulan cloaking device when relations with the Empire have been iffy for several years?

I think that, as per their original agreement with the Romulans, they only use the cloak while they're in the Gamma Quadrant. Though, granted, it's questionable why they're allowed to keep it at all.

 

[Sci]

Re: Typhon Pact: Raise the Dawn by DRGIII Review Thread (Spoilers!)

Somebody mentioned Defiant cloaking. Is there any explanation for how Starfleet still has the right to use a Romulan cloaking device when relations with the Empire have been iffy for several years?

I think that, as per their original agreement with the Romulans, they only use the cloak while they're in the Gamma Quadrant. Though, granted, it's questionable why they're allowed to keep it at all.

I'm fairly certain the Defiant cloaked a few times while in the Alpha Quadrant in Raise the Dawn. Of course, had the Praetor complained, President Bacco could have just said, "Yeah, well, your ships attacked us, so fuck off."

Does the federation even still have to abide by the treaty of algernon? Is this still offically the same entity as the Romulan Star Empire of the pre-shinzon/donatra/etc days?

1. So far as we know.

2. Yes, so far as we know. There's been no indication that the state was dissolved. Its government may have changed, but it's still the same sovereign state, just like how the coup in 1972 didn't mean it wasn't still the Republic of Chile.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Re: Typhon Pact: Raise the Dawn by DRGIII Review Thread (Spoilers!)

President Bacco could have just said, "Yeah, well, your ships attacked us, so fuck off."

Sounds like her.

 

[Thrawn]

Re: Typhon Pact: Raise the Dawn by DRGIII Review Thread (Spoilers!)

I'm really glad to see so much positivity in this thread. I think Destiny and Vanguard are the only two other works that have been so universally acclaimed. All the more surprising for having come out of nowhere! Rough Beasts was controversial at best, and so was ZSG, and from those plotlines, BAM. I'm still impressed.

EDIT: Actually, checking Sho's average list, that's numerically true - this book is third right now, and the only other books in the top 7 are Destiny and Vanguard. So how about that.

 

[Sho]

Re: Typhon Pact: Raise the Dawn by DRGIII Review Thread (Spoilers!)

^ And those three actually shift around quite a bit from run to run as more votes come in; Raise also topped the list once.

 

[Relayer1]

Re: Typhon Pact: Raise the Dawn by DRGIII Review Thread (Spoilers!)

Somebody mentioned Defiant cloaking. Is there any explanation for how Starfleet still has the right to use a Romulan cloaking device when relations with the Empire have been iffy for several years?

I think that, as per their original agreement with the Romulans, they only use the cloak while they're in the Gamma Quadrant. Though, granted, it's questionable why they're allowed to keep it at all.

With the proliferation of cloaking technology, I'm surprised it's even an issue anymore.

 

[Stoek]

Re: Typhon Pact: Raise the Dawn by DRGIII Review Thread (Spoilers!)

Somebody mentioned Defiant cloaking. Is there any explanation for how Starfleet still has the right to use a Romulan cloaking device when relations with the Empire have been iffy for several years?

I think that, as per their original agreement with the Romulans, they only use the cloak while they're in the Gamma Quadrant. Though, granted, it's questionable why they're allowed to keep it at all.

My suspicion has always been that it's a small loophole that Starfleet has been quietly exploiting since the end of the Dominion War. Probably permission to use the cloak has never been officially rescinded, and quite possibly given everything that happened to the Romulans after the war (Shinzon, the temporary sundering of the Empire etc) they may have even forgotten that Defiant has it.

 

[DEWLine]

Re: Typhon Pact: Raise the Dawn by DRGIII Review Thread (Spoilers!)

Doubtful. Someone at Romulan military HQ and/or the Tal Shiar almost certainly remembers. They're busy with a thousand and one things across the Imperium right now, but they almost certainly haven't forgotten.

 

[rfmcdpei]

Re: Typhon Pact: Raise the Dawn by DRGIII Review Thread (Spoilers!)

I also like it that even though there were chances in here to start a new war that it didn't happen...

Yeah, I wonder what those readers who assume the Typhon Pact storyline is inevitably leading to war will make of this. This was the Cuban Missile Crisis for the UFP and the Pact, bringing them to the very brink of war, yet both sides avoided stepping over that brink and worked together to resolve things peacefully. Although I'm sure those readers will stubbornly insist that Kamemor is an aberration and is sure to be assassinated soon, etc. etc. Never mind that she's successfully purged the Romulan government of those working against her peacemaking agenda and has transcended the Tzenkethi's intended role for her as a weak, easily manipulated leader.

One element common to much of the best Trek fiction about the Romulans is not only the extent to which humans and Romulans actually do have a lot in common, but the ways in which Romulan hostility to the Federation is highly contingent on--among other things--domestic factors. In certain ways, the Romulans are like the Cardassians, people who live in ways we understand in societies like our own that just happen to be going through hard times.

In the Rihannsu novels, Ael t'Rllaillieu was able to successfully lead a revolution against the Tricameron based substantially on popular outrage against a government that was badly mishandling its affairs, this mishandling including an attempted genocide against Earth. (Something similar may have happened in the main Trek verse, depending on how much more of the Rihannsu mythos has been/will be incorporated.) In Nemesis, similarly, Shinzon's stated plans to commit genocide against Earth (and, too, to return to Romulus and teach his fellow coup-planners better manners) led to the collapse of the plot and intervention on the Federation's behalf by one of the plotters.

As it turns out, in the Trekverse since Nemesis Romulan politics have been so unstable that the old elite with its paranoid imperialistic concerns has been pretty much wiped out. Opinion among the oligarchy and the population at large is very strongly in favour of stability and peace--understandably so, after the past five years of catastrophic instability--and Kamemor and her people seem to have taken charge of all of the key institutions of state.

Federation-Romulan detente seems more likely than not, IMHO. This is almost certainly going to be a very good thing when the Hobus supernova occurs: a Romulan Star Empire not strongly inclined to thinking the Federation responsible for the destruction of its homeworld is a Romulan Star Empire that isn't going to try to retaliate in kind. (It may be noteworthy that Nero's attempt to destroy Vulcan in 2387 is the only attempt at retaliation against the Federation by a Romulan. Then again, that may just be this reader's limited perspective.)

 

[Christopher]

Re: Typhon Pact: Raise the Dawn by DRGIII Review Thread (Spoilers!)

^Well, Nero didn't blame the Federation for deliberate destruction, but for betraying its promise to save Romulus. Arguably that sense of betrayal would be more strongly felt toward a nation that the Romulans had grown to trust as a friendly power. "You said you'd help us, but you didn't really care, did you?" Nero probably won't be the only Romulan who feels that way. But probably other Romulans won't be able to get their hands on supplies of red matter and thus won't be able to act out their anger so destructively. And the surviving Romulan government would probably be more inclined to accept whatever aid they can get, including Federation aid (though with the Pact there to come to their assistance, they may not feel they need UFP help).

 

[rfmcdpei]

Re: Typhon Pact: Raise the Dawn by DRGIII Review Thread (Spoilers!)

^Well, Nero didn't blame the Federation for deliberate destruction, but for betraying its promise to save Romulus. Arguably that sense of betrayal would be more strongly felt toward a nation that the Romulans had grown to trust as a friendly power. "You said you'd help us, but you didn't really care, did you?"

We saw that kind of thing with Andor, true.

I guess that a lot depends on what sort of relationship Nero had with Spock. Countdown presented Nero's hatred of Spock being something very personal, a product of their early collaboration in trying to deal with Hobus. In such a scenario, Nero going after Spock while the other Romulans don't would make sense.

Nero probably won't be the only Romulan who feels that way. But probably other Romulans won't be able to get their hands on supplies of red matter and thus won't be able to act out their anger so destructively.

Much depends on what Nero departed with. Countdown has him being absurdly well-armed even by late 24th century standards, his mining vessel retrofitted with Borg technology. But then, as has been said repeatedly, Countdown is not considered canonical in the novelverse. (Conceivably a late 24th century mining vessel could be quite well-armed relative to mid-23rd century vessels, even warships.) So who knows how exceptional his armaments are?

And the surviving Romulan government would probably be more inclined to accept whatever aid they can get, including Federation aid (though with the Pact there to come to their assistance, they may not feel they need UFP help).

Much also depends on the sorts of continuity. If Kamemor does escape Romulus and there's continuity in government, then relations would be stabler than if the Romulan government was decapitated.

(So, in sum, all this speculation is basically useless since we don't know what will be established in the novelverse?)

 

[Relayer1]

Re: Typhon Pact: Raise the Dawn by DRGIII Review Thread (Spoilers!)

Further to my ongoing issues with Amazon UK regarding actually getting this book, they've now emailed me to say 24th August...

 

[DS9forever]

Re: Typhon Pact: Raise the Dawn by DRGIII Review Thread (Spoilers!)

Amazon UK list it here as being released on the 19th:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias=aps&field-keywords=raise+the+dawn