Star Trek: Section 31: Disavowed - Dec. 2014?

Discussion in 'Trek Literature' started by Kertrats47, Sep 16, 2013.

  1. ITCH

    ITCH Ensign Red Shirt

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  2. Clark Terrell

    Clark Terrell Lieutenant Commander

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    Fascinating. That does explain the title somewhat.
     
  3. Skywalker

    Skywalker Admiral Admiral

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    Nice! Bashir, Section 31 and David Mack sounds like a winning combination. I can't wait to read it. :techman:
     
  4. ITCH

    ITCH Ensign Red Shirt

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    How I wish U. McCormack “Home Again” were the happy ending for Bashir's career...

    I’ve been mourning his career since “Ceremony” like it was my own!! He came to DS9 as a Lt. junior grade and it took CENTURIES for him to get promoted to Commander (in the meantime Nog spent years on DS9, went to the Academy and he is suddenly Lt. Commander!!)

    I know what Bashir did is considered treason and bla bla bla but c’mon!!! Starfleet cut Kirk a LOT of slack and EVERYBODY on “Peaceable” came out at the end squeaky clean in spite of what they did against their “Commander in Chief”…

    After what Bashir did in Ceremony and assuming he and Sarina bring down S31, what else he has to do to be accepted back in Starfleet?!?! Give his left nut? Both of them? Thrown a liver into the deal maybe??
     
  5. David Mack

    David Mack Writer Rear Admiral

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    Patience, grasshopper.
     
  6. Relayer1

    Relayer1 Admiral Admiral

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    Mr Mack, I was reading the new Voyager novel on the bus yesterday. As we got off, the guy opposite me who had been reading The Hunger Games asked me about Trek novels as he is a fan of the show but hasn't tried Treklit. We had a chat and I left him with a suggestion that he starts with Destiny.

    It's OK, you can buy me a pint next time you're in England...

    ;)
     
  7. DonIago

    DonIago Vice Admiral Admiral

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    They come in pints??? :p
     
  8. Paper Moon

    Paper Moon Commander Red Shirt

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    (Small aside: apparently McCormack's new novel is in fact named The Missing.)

    You know, I love Bashir. One of my favorite characters. David Mack has done great stuff with him in the last few years.

    But I gotta say: I was pissed off when he appeared in The Poisoned Chalice and Peaceable Kingdoms. In my opinion, it diluted the effect of A Ceremony of Losses. Bashir committed treason of the highest order. Whether he was right or wrong to do so, he knew that he would almost certainly be locked up forever if he were caught. And the story ends with him in exactly that position– locked up, apparently forever.

    And he should have stayed there. Full stop. He should have been as gone as he would be if he were dead. Deader than Duffy. He should have disappeared forever.

    Because that's exactly what would have happened. Chelsea Manning disappeared (possibility for parole in 8 years notwithstanding). Edward Snowden would probably disappear if he came back to the States. And, from an in-universe perspective, what Bashir did was more egregious.

    He went up against the biggest power in the Quadrant, and he got caught. He didn't win, he lost. And he knew what the consequences would be. And that should've been that. The cost of saving the Andorians should've been Bashir's de facto existence, not just his career.

    I dunno. Honestly, this "reset" bothers me much more than the events of The Eternal Tide or The Persistence of Memory, partly because it limits the allegorical meaning of the story.

    Of course, this was, I think, the fundamental problem with The Fall. They put the characters into a situation very similar to the real-world problems faced by Americans and Western Europeans today– being faced with corrupt, self-serving leaders, whose short-sighted policies are going to doom civilization, and who are so firmly ensconced in power that it's very difficult to conceive of a way to overcome them.

    But instead of telling a difficult story in which our characters work through the challenges of these circumstances, in a way that would be at all believable from a real-world context, we got something that wasn't much better than a child's comic book superhero story. No engagement of the legitimate issues at hand. No acknowledgement of the stark, long-term real-world consequences of actions such as Bashir's and Dax's.

    They set us up for the most currently relevant TrekLit stories ever– and they extricated themselves in some of the least realistic fashions imaginable.

    That all said, I'm sure that Disavowed will bring us a great story, continuing a fantastic arc for a great character. And within the specific context of Bashir's narrative, The Fall works. But in the overall context of The Fall, his story ends up being a major stumbling block.

    Does look like it'll be a great story. Also, that blurb isn't the only source of information on that page... but be forewarned of potentially major spoilers!
     
  9. DonIago

    DonIago Vice Admiral Admiral

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    ^Seems a bit premature since, right now, Bashir is still locked up. Nothing's been "reset" yet, nor do we know that it will be, unless I missed something.
     
  10. Paper Moon

    Paper Moon Commander Red Shirt

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    That's fair, but he was still able to leave during The Poisoned Chalice. He was able to continue to participate in the events that occurred during that story, and that really bugs me.

    And now he's locked up, yes, but with reasonable expectation of a fair trial, and the plausible possibility that he will get a pardon.

    Yes, given the incredible events which occurred in-universe, the current situation makes sense. But I wish they had conceived the whole story differently. Having Bashir be an active player after his initial incarceration guts the ending of A Ceremony of Losses, in my opinion. The novel ends in a frankly ballsy fashion where it looks like Bashir has basically been removed from the picture, permanently, and that that was the cost of saving the Andorians. But The Poisoned Chalice mitigates that, makes it look like the punch was pulled. That feels like a reset to me.
     
  11. Mage

    Mage Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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  12. Paper Moon

    Paper Moon Commander Red Shirt

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    Don't say I didn't warn you, though!
     
  13. Deranged Nasat

    Deranged Nasat Vice Admiral Admiral

    You make some very good points, Paper Moon. I can certainly see the sense and the potential impact in having Bashir's final scene in A Ceremony of Losses being the last word on the character, the last we ever saw of him. (Essentially, it's not dissimilar to my hope that we never see William Ross again following his retirement, though obviously more substantial in its impact). It would indeed have been a powerful statement. That said, it does seem that Bashir is permanently out of Starfleet now and has more or less been severed from his pre-Fall life, regardless of
    a possible Presidential pardon
    . I'm interested in seeing where Mack takes him next. (I'm assuming that Mack isn't going to want to undermine the powerful ending to one of his own works, so I imagine Bashir won't be meeting O'Brien for beer and darts from now on ;)).
     
  14. The Wormhole

    The Wormhole Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I think I caught that too. But let's be honest, it isn't particularly surprising.
     
  15. Paper Moon

    Paper Moon Commander Red Shirt

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    No, not particularly. But still fun to notice like this. ;)

    Yeah, I agree; the Ross analogy is particularly good. (Although it personally wouldn't bother me as much if we saw what he was up to now. And I really would love to get some TLE material about him.) The point about O'Brien, beer and darts is also spot-on.

    I think of it like this: in the context of Zero Sum Game, Plagues of Night, Raise the Dawn, A Ceremony of Losses, The Poisoned Chalice and, presumably, Disavowed, that is to say, Bashir's long-running narrative, the events of The Poisoned Chalice make thematic sense. For almost two decades now, from the on-air series to the first relaunch to the second relaunch, various writers have built up Section 31 as Bashir's defining conflict. Bashir's ultimate story will be about him versus them.

    We can retroactively add some material to this arc: Bashir's obsession with spy games takes on an ironic twist in light of his later story. Obviously his genetic enhancements intertwine thematically with Section 31's efforts to play god. And his youthful idealism is the ultimate contrast to 31's cynical pragmatism.

    So, having his arc essentially end with him saving the Andorians (in the process, I might add, giving them genetic enhancements not dissimilar to his own) would be somewhat incongruous with what the books have done with him thus far.

    (That said– I would be largely mollified if Bashir had been released, but after years of captivity, not 17 days. That would still have allowed him to move on to deal with 31, but wouldn't have so flagrantly undercut the message of A Ceremony of Losses, and The Fall as a whole [see below].)

    While I sometimes wish the books had taken a different direction with Bashir and explored other parts of his character, the overall story we are getting with him is engaging and compelling. In the larger context, his premature release from incarceration does make sense.

    But, as I said before: in the more specific context of Revelation and Dust, The Crimson Shadow, A Ceremony of Losses, The Poisoned Chalice and Peaceable Kingdoms, Bashir's release totally undercuts the story that's being told, the themes being conveyed.

    I guess the needs of the many stories outweighed the needs of the few. ;) (But actually though.)
     
  16. David Mack

    David Mack Writer Rear Admiral

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    For what it's worth, when I put Bashir in the slammer at the end of A Ceremony of Losses, I meant for him to stay there until I came back for him in Disavowed. Unfortunately, that decision was not mine to make, so I had to "play the ball as it lies" when I wrote Disavowed.
     
  17. Clark Terrell

    Clark Terrell Lieutenant Commander

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    That's what I figured when I read it and was surprised that things ended up the way they did in The Fall. OTOH, it's not as though anything you wrote in that passage as untrue. Bashir's internal monologue could still have been accurate while he was sitting in his cell.
     
  18. DS9forever

    DS9forever Commodore Commodore

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    Memory Beta is listing Disavowed as a DS9 novel - will it be labelled like as such or as Star Trek: Section 31?
     
  19. David Mack

    David Mack Writer Rear Admiral

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    It will be a Section 31 novel, not a DS9 novel.
     
  20. Enterprise1701

    Enterprise1701 Commodore Commodore

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    I wonder how this will tie into the frame story of ENT: The Good That Men Do since that novel mentions the downfall of Section 31. I revile Section 31 as do lots of other fans, but I don't want them to go down too soon.