I just finished reading The Battle of Betazed. I liked it quite a bit, but the entire time I was reading it I couldn't get a good sense of when exactly it takes place in relation to Deep Space Nine. The historian's note at the beginning says that it takes place 2 months after "Tears of the Prophets" which would put it toward the beginning of DS9 season 7 (possibly even before "Images in the Sand"). But then right at the end of the second chapter, Picard makes a reference to the recent attack on Starfleet Headquarters by the Breen, which is in the much later episode "The Changing Face of Evil" toward the end of DS9 season 7. It's been a bit since I've watched season 7 of DS9 but I don't recall there being much room in the later part of the season for the Defiant and crew to assist in a mission like the liberation of Betazed. The book seems to span around a week or so of time and there aren't many other references to events from Deep Space Nine. I'm wondering what others think.
I’d just ignore that one line. The setting of the events in the overall storyline is more important than that one line. We make judgement calls like this between conflicting chronoclues all the time in the Star Trek Timeliners group. In this case that one line has to be ignored in favor of all the other evidence. Surprised an error like that snuck in though.
The reference to the Breen attack was a mistake that the dumbass freelance line editor let through by mistake because he was obviously incompetent. (Spoiler alert: I was that dumbass freelance line editor. Mea culpa.) As @ryan123450 said, just ignore that line. It takes place between seasons 6 and 7 of DS9.
Thanks for the responses. The context of the passage is Picard, in a discussion with Vaughn, lamenting that to win a war fought to preserve the principles of the Federation may require compromising those principles, that the Federation has gotten too complacent, and that this attack by the Breen should have humbled them and made them rethink things. After reading your comments about story placement and this reference to the Breen attack being in error, I think it would've made more sense for Picard to reference one of the earlier battles of the war where the Federation suffered huge losses such as Tyra or Sybaron. Tyra, if I recall, was the whole "14 ships out of 112 just barely made it back to our lines." Feel free to correct me if I'm misremembering.
I would have preferred the novel to be set during DS9's Final Chapter actually. I can't remember how much involvement that Worf had in the novel, but wouldn't being reunited with his Enterprise buddies and liberating Betazed negate his need to go on the mission in the season 7 two-part opener and scoring a big victory to get Jadzia into Sto-vo-kor?
Not really. Worf's involvement was to command the Defiant, and he was still smarting from Jadzia's death, but hadn't hit on the idea of a victory in her name yet. Also we wanted Betazed's liberation to happen before Insurrection, as the Enterprise going on a silly mission to the Briar Patch while Troi's planet was under Dominion rule didn't seem like a sane thing.
At the very least, Troi's attitude throughout Insurrection DEFINITELY does not seem like that of someone who is worried about her mother and baby brother's survival being in question, so yeah. Good call there.
My theory (and it's not original to me), is that Insurrection takes place during the end of "WYLB," after the Battle of Cardassia, before the surrender documents are signed, where there is apparently a large time lapse. Hence the reference to "Dominion negotiations" in Insurrection (when IIRC the Dominion gave up negotiating after "Statistical Probabilities"), hence Worf's ability to spend a long time somewhere else, hence the fact that Picard can take 318 days of shore leave, hence the Enterprise crew having nothing sadder on than missing an archaeological dig. True, but it would let you put Battle of Betazed at any point during S7.
Ah well, I think the events of The Battle of Betazed should have been the core of the third TNG movie, rather than what we got in Insurrection. Add in Ezri's subplot from The Lives of Dax and Worf's subplot from "Image in the Sand" / "Shadows and Symbols" – perfect. You don't even need to recast - Admiral Dougherty is a spitting image for Vaughn anyway. .
I put Insurrection immediately after "WYLB" for similar reasons. "Dominion negotiations" doesn't make any sense during he war; the stated Dominion war aims (first, total conquest of the Alpha Quadrant; later, the extermination of Earth) preclude them during the war. The film has to happen after the war.
But that doesn't make sense, because the whole plot of the film was implicitly driven by the war. The opening established that the Enterprise was run ragged trying to recruit new members to shore up the Federation's strength in wartime, and Dougherty's urgency to claim the planet's magic healing rings at any cost was also implicitly driven by wartime needs. It doesn't make as much sense after the war. I don't see the "negotiations" line as a problem, because negotiations can be conducted on and off multiple times during a war. The Dominion might have accepted a Federation offer to come to the table just to size them up or mislead them, without any intention of negotiating in good faith. I mean, that seems very much like the sort of thing Weyoun would do, right? Put on a pretense of being diplomatic and open while secretly planning to stab you in the back? And what defines the Founders' methods if not deception and pretense?
Also, after "What You Leave Behind," Worf is a diplomat serving as Federation Ambassador to the Klingon Empire, but he was explicitly still assigned to DS9 in the movie.
I’ve been meaning to read this one. I usually buy my novels in bundles off eBay and none of them have had this book yet.
But Stevil's theory is that the movie takes place between the end of the war and the treaty signing, so it's before Worf's ambassadorial assignment.
Russia and Ukraine have been having "peace negotiations" on and off since that war began in February.
No one mentions wartime, though. I mean, yes, you can definitely interpret the lines that way, but they're all pretty vague (e.g.; "In view of our losses to the Borg and the Dominion, the Council feels we need all the allies we can get these days"; "In the past twenty-four months, they've been challenged by every major power in the Quadrant. The Borg, the Cardassians, the Dominion"). They work with either the war as an active concern, or as a recent event. I would assume Piller was hedging his bets so he wasn't tied to whatever the DS9 writers came up with given the different time frames for film and tv production. I also think it makes more sense of overlook Son'a production of ketracel-white for the Dominion if the war isn't an active concern.