We're not even done with the last wars. Rough Beasts of Empire opened with Sisko and Vaughn's epic battle during the Borg conflict and featured flashbacks to the Tzenkethi war. Paths of Disharmony might as well have been called Riot on Andoria, and it all stems from the events of Destiny. NextGen123, you might be interested in The Needs of the Many. It's based on the Star Trek Online videogame (an "alternate reality" from the novels, but there is some crossover in the DTI chapter) and is set in the aftermath of an epic Federation/Undine (f.k.a. Species 8472) conflict known as "The Long War". It's written in an interview format and has lots of flashbacks, detailing the war retrospectively.
I strongly disagree. We've had the Federation-Klingon war on DS9, the Dominion War, the Borg Invasion, the Long War with the Undine in Star Trek: Online - The Needs of the Many (as King Daniel pointed out), and even a brief unseen war with Selelvians in New Frontier. And that's just in the twenty or so years covered in the timeline since the premiere of TNG-- there's also the Earth-Romulan War in the ENT books. No, I agree with Sci, Star Wars is the place for ongoing war arcs. I'd like to see the Star Trek universe stop being hit with tragedy after tragedy for a while.
two things. 1) Even though I'm not currently writing anything Trekish, one of the best things about being even a tangential part of this fraternity is how great all the other writers are to one another. 2) It always boggles my mind how many folks want all out warfare in the Trek-verse when the root concept of the entire thing is the opposite of that.
So long as that translates into folks continuing to buy Starfleet Marine Corps stuff from my CafePress shop, I'm not complaining too much. Yes, Star Trek is about peaceful exploration and showing the universe that peace is the preferred way, but every once in a while, you come across someone who doesn't have the least little interest in playing nice (kinda like now), and for times like that, you have to send in the Marines.
^But that's not what Star Trek as a work of fiction was created to be about. And if people only wanted "sometimes," they should be plenty satisfied with all the conflict we've already gotten in the shows and books and computer games. But some readers seem to want all war all the time, and if that's their preference they should look elsewhere.
^ Yes, my CafePress shop. Money makes the world go around The world go around The world go around Money makes the world go around That clinkly clanky sound...
Ah, Gene's vision! The Cochrane character in FC...was that a subtle dig at Roddenberry? The idea that everyone thinks he was this visionary, when in reality he was in it for the money...
It always seems weird to me that people think the Cochrane character in First Contact was a "dig" at Gene Roddenberry. Cochrane's entire character arc is that, yeah, he wasn't the two-dimensional hero figure of popular history -- but that he also embraced those higher aspirations, that deeper morality, over the course of seeing what a better world could be like and then seeing the Vulcans land. It's a story of a nonbeliever converting to the faith, not a story of how the faith is false.
^Yeah. The little bits we saw of him in Ent., at least that I can remember, did seem to imply that (at least in public) he'd become something closer to what the Enterprise crew was expecting than what they encountered in FC.
Cochrane in FC was clearly a bit of a send-up of Gene Roddenberry the man vs myth but to limit the guy to either the position of Avaricious Bastard or Fledgling Saint is doing him a disservice. Gene Roddenberry was a writer, no different than any other writer before him or since in that he put the crazy notions in head down on paper and hoped people would like them enough to pay him to keep doing that. He worked in TV and radio for years- LONG before STAR TREK was a glimmer in his mind's eye. He wrote a lot. Lots of it was awesome; lots of it was not. He definitely had a gift but it wasn't heaven sent. He was a working, struggling, competing writer. He never meant Star Trek to be a church. That it became one is, in some ways, tragic. But, in other ways, it's a real testament to the power of a great idea. Star Trek says: We are beautiful. We can get along. We can get over this. There's something amazing out there and getting a look at it might be a little dangerous but it's definitely worth the trip. Nothing remotely original in any of that and yet the Church of Trek continues to convert.
I always took this scene from DS9's "Facets" to be a more direct comment (I won't say "dig", because I still think there's some respect there) on Roddenberry...
I always saw the Pakleds to be roddenberreske in his latter years, too tired to fight. But there's something to be said about putting one word in front of another like bricks or notes that add up to Beethoven's fifth symphony. He created the first multi dimensional piece of art that transcended the medium. that had never been done before. I don't know if it could ever be done again at least not on tv. Maybe the internet webisode series but the confluence and convergance and money may not be there yet. Even John Lennon got into movies to try to do what he did with music on film - to capture his essance and spirit. The execution of his ideas was the real miracle but he was the lightning Rod to that. Whether he was unconsciously in control of that is the real mystery but the show certainly glorified itself.
I wonder if there is any chance that Peter David and Michael Jan Freidman and Keith R. A. DeCandiddo will ever get their chance to put out more Trek books? I loved the Klingon books by KRAD and never see them anymore. Are the current editors not receptive to their pitches or do they not want to write for Star Trek anymore? I like New Frontier by Peter, but that's all he's been doing with Trek. The same is true of MJF with his Picard books. Are any of them going to try any different Trek series other than the usual thing?