Spoilers VOY: A Pocket Full Of Lies By Kirsten Beyer Review Thread

Oh, no, I more mean something like this.

So, let's say Voyager turns on its temporal shields in "Year of Hell". Gets in a firefight with a ship. Then Annorax makes some change so that ship never existed. Because of Voyager's shields, its timeline is still the same, its past is still the same. They remember fighting that ship, and their records say they had a firefight with that ship. And since we know Voyager having temporal shields screwed up Annorax's calculations, that must mean that Voyager's past after they turned on their shields must have been the same too.

So what did the rest of the universe see in that timeline when Voyager was having that firefight?

I'm choosing to imagine they saw Voyager flying around wildly and firing at nothing at all.

 

^ I always assumed that the changes wrought by Annorax's ship affected absolutely everything. The entire universe.

I mean, why wouldn't it?

 

Because Annorax's calculations once Voyager got temporal shields were entirely wrong, since when Voyager's temporal shields were up, they were immune to changes in the timeline the same way Annorax's ship was. So that means any past moments when they had their temporal shields up, Voyager must've been doing the same things as before any changes Annorax made too.

 

Not necessarily. It's possible the exterior effect of Voyager having their temporal shields up was that the Voyager indigenous to the new timeline was replaced by the Voyager with temporal shields that came from the timeline which precipitated the new timeline. I think that's what @Christopher's grand unified theory of Trek time-travel would predict. The pre- and post-erasure timelines would exist in parallel up until the moment Annorax's ship made the incursion, and then the new one would take the place of the old one (except for an object with temporal shields, like Voyager). You also say Voyager's history would only have been protected while the temporal shields were up but, in the episode, it only mattered if the shields were up or down at the moment Annorax's weapon was firing as far as protecting Voyager's history was concerned.

As for why the temporal shields were throwing off Annorax's calculations, the technobabble in YOH was so loose, there's no reason to think it was any kind of classically observable phenomena like Voyager inexplicably playing through the events of the old timeline in the new one. It could've been excess chronitons altered the temporal radiation and made every butterfly in the galaxy beat its wings on the 1-and-3 instead of the 2-and-4, and that threw things off.

 

Eh, fair points, all. You're probably right; I just liked the mental imagery.

 

Actually I think I just realised who my mental image for Farkas is: Mallory Archer from the Archer animated series. Or maybe a cross between her and Bea Arthur.

 

As far as we know... changes in the timeline were only affected when the temporal wave passed through an area of space.
And in regards to the changes affecting the universe... eventually yes. But those changes as we saw were more localized and predominantly rippled through the past 2 centuries (from the Krenim point of view) because they affected the immediate area and took place in the 24th century.
Those changes however would not have necessarily altered the events of systems with which the Zhaal and Rilnar never interacted or were too far away to be affected immediately by the changes.
So, nothing the Krenim do would have an immediate impact on say the Alpha Quadrant, because they were a long way from getting to there in the first place - maybe if some of the temporal inversion changes were permanent and then we saw what happened centuries into the future in the AQ if the Krenim got to there.
But if the Krenim never really expanded beyond their large amount of space they got in the temporal reset or other inversions before and after Voyager finally destroyed Annorax's time ship, then, the rest of the galaxy's development and histories would be largely unaffected - unless we are talking about stray comets and asteroids that passed through Krenim space but never made it to another planet beyond it to say create life on it, etc.

I can see why Janeway thought temporal mechanics gave her a headache... though in fairness, I seem to like it, and even manage to follow it better than her - then again if I were in her shoes, I'd be similarly unimpressed with Annorax's changes and try to take him down.

In fairness, the wave generated by Annorax's weapon ship might have a specific range after which it would disperse... but I cannot see the wave travelling indefinitely throughout the universe, because even at certain FTL speeds, it would still take time for it to reach the AQ, the border of the galaxy, and beyond until it affected the rest of the universe.
And in the case of Voyager, it would likely even surpass the temporal wave after getting FTL boosts - meaning, how would the ship then be affected? Would we see a shattered version of Voyager travelling back to the AQ in the TW hub?

 

I am about to start this and I have a question. I have seen Year of Hell before but not Shattered. Do I need to watch it before reading the book?

 

I'd say it might be a good idea to watch Shattered, or at least read a summary about the episode, so at least you know something about what happened, JMO.

PS, Bea Arthur as Capt. Farkas, well no IMO, but how about Dame Helen Mirren.

 

It's getting more and more interesting. Diving right into Denzit Janeway's psyche, what she has obviously endured, having a personal stake in fighting that war, is quite gripping.

 

Not long finished it, thought it was brilliant.

 

I was really into it right up until everyone in the fleet told Janeway that looking for her duplicate's probably-not-dead kid wasn't worth the effort.

 

I just finished it and rated it an above average. I always enjoy Kirstens work. It's always a fast enjoyable read and I never get bored or find myself skipping parts.

With that said it felt too emotional, and not in a good way. Its like almost everyone had these emotional problems they had to sort out, lets react on them, and then afterwards lets hash it out to resolve it ... ugh. It's like I was a reading a dramatic novel than a scifi one.

 

Good evening everybody,

As usual, I have stayed away too long. There are so many comments here I wish to respond to directly, but the thought of a massive quote and reply post at this point feels impossible. I think what I'm going to do, begging the readers and the moderator's patience, is to do direct responses where I can on some of the past posts and try to stay better up to date going forward. We'll have to see how this goes. But there will likely be multiple posts from me for a bit, which is know is bad form on the board, so again...apologies.

A few general things, however....

First of all, the overwhelming positive response to this book has been such fun, and is, as always, so very appreciated. I love that you guys read these books. That you take the time to come here and share thoughts about them is my favorite super sweet butter cream icing (that really only exists in its proper form in bakeries in the south) on the yummiest of cakes. A lot of people find this particular kind of icing too sweet. Not me. I've never really understood the concept of too much sugar. Your thoughtfulness and kindness are really more than anyone deserves. I know how lucky I am to have readers like you.

I will address some specific questions/comments later but in general, to those who liked Icheb's developing story....yeah! I like having him back. I knew I wanted to see more of him once he returned in Eternal Tide, but I really needed him back in the AQ for the Protectors trilogy. Definitely more to come there and for those who didn't see the potential for romance...go back and read it again. You missed something. A reviewer elsewhere cautioned me not to open that door unless I intended to go through it. Clearly, he or she doesn't know me very well. Consider that door open and falling off its hinges. We're going forward, folks, but in (hopefully) interesting and unexpected ways.

And as to the questions regarding how the temporal buoys worked...oy vey. In my mind, it was as simple as this. The temporal shields protected the buoys the way they protected Voyager from other changes when they were active in YoH and from Voyager's POV they saw changes to the timeline but were unaffected by them. I didn't worry about their existence throwing off calculations. We haven't yet gone deep enough into that math to be terribly specific about that but there's nothing stopping us from revisiting that concept down the road. So relax. If we need to do more with that in the future...we will. Or we won't. You never know. And even if you did, I wouldn't be talking about it yet.

And many thanks for the appreciation of the Q angle. I was a little unsure about that. I saw it so clearly as the ending of the story was coming into focus but in a story with so very much going on it almost felt like too much. In the end I went for it, obviously. I'm glad it worked for so many readers.

As to when the next one is coming out....it's going to be mid-2017 or later. I'm a little behind right now. I can't say much as to the why. Suffice it to say for now that my life is weird right now. Good. Thrilling. Overwhelming. But definitely weird. More so than usual. More to come on that in time. Just know for now that I appreciate your patience and, as always, and working as fast as I can.

Every time I come here and read your thoughts, I go to sleep happier. You really know how to make a girl's day.

KMFB

 

Hi Stormy,

Here's hoping that by the time you finished the book you understood the early strangeness of Nancy' story. It was definitely intentional. And as for Tuvok seeming out of character early one...I really was taking this from the end of Tuvok's arc in the Destiny trilogy...specifically that last scene on Deneva with his wife. That scene was shocking for me to read, but once I had, I always knew that I was going to want to go back and address it at some point. That priority was very significant in the early formation of this story. I'd had to put it on hold through the Protectors trilogy because it couldn't work with the timeline of the other books so this was the soonest I could possibly address it. Hopefully this made more sense to you once the story ended.

As always,
KMFB

 

Batiste and Montgomery would have been peers, probably both on the same level. Batiste chose to lead the fleet...he wasn't ordered to by Montgomery. Their early conversations about the choice to return to the DQ in Full Circle were more a matter of professional courtesy than Batiste answering to Montgomery. Both were below Akaar, but that was about it. I never gave him a more specific rank.

KMFB

 

This is one of those cases where I wasn't able to make what I had in mind work with a Myriad Universe story. I realize that Q can experience any of the various threads in the multi-verse, so the timeline created in "Places of Exile" could have been included there. But I also needed the Denzit's story to be unique for a lot of reasons. Apologies to Christopher and to any reader flummoxed by this point.

KMFB

 

I have read and do use Star Charts when I need to. Sometimes it is more applicable than others, and I have to remind myself always to think in 3 dimensions rather than the 2 presented on those pages.

KMFB

 

This marks the beginning of the second year. They just passed their one year anniversary back in the DQ between Atonement and PFoL.

KMFB

 

Thanks so much, Mage. You are too kind.