Don't recall, I quickly checked, might have misread. Doesnt matter anymore, buddy of mine from Germany ordered it for me!!
Spoilers Articles of the Federation by Keith R.A. DeCandido Review Thread
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Don't recall, I quickly checked, might have misread. Doesnt matter anymore, buddy of mine from Germany ordered it for me!!
Bruce Gibson and I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Keith DeCandido about Articles of the Federation in the latest episode of the Literary Treks podcast: Literary Treks 265: The Music of Big Pink. This was my first time reading Articles, a huge oversight that I am happy to have rectified. What an incredible novel! I so want a West Wing in the 24th century series now...
One of my absolute favorites. In addition to being a Trek fan I'm also a big fan of The West Wing - so this book kind of scratched two itches a the same time for me. Also, KRAD just has a knack for coming up with characters I didn't know I needed to have in my life - Nan Bacco in this one, and Sonek Pran in A Singular Destiny for another.
I loved Sonak Pran!
Just posted my review of Articles of the Federation. Very quickly became one of my favorite Trek novels of all time!
Something has occurred to me about a decade after I first read this excellent novel. Was the implication of chapter 9 supposed to be that Wusekl himself was the anonymous Triexian who handed the padd to Bey Toh to expose Artrin? Because Wusekl was personally infuriated that Artrin continued to hide behind Triexian law while ascending in the Federation Council? Or am I reading too much into it and the pseudonymous 'Kralis na Then' was just an actual Triexian who knew about the Wusekl incident from previously working in Triexian government?
Good question. There can be only one solution, we NEED a sequel of "Articles of the Federation"!
Amendments of the Federation?
Still on of the finest pieces of Trek writing I've ever come across.
It's been quite a while since I read it, but I don't recall it containing anything that would explicitly fall foul of current canon* so could theoretically get a follow-up.
*If there is I'm sure KRAD could tweak it with a retcon or two...
It's been quite a while since I read it, but I don't recall it containing anything that would explicitly fall foul of current canon* so could theoretically get a follow-up.
*If there is I'm sure KRAD could tweak it with a retcon or two...
Don't count on it. After all, it features Maddox defending B4 having personhood rights in Federation courts and winning, which is at odds with him being disassembled in Daystrom - hell, if that court battle going in his favor were a part of canon, it almost certainly would have caused issues to the development of the synths used at Utopia Planitia in the first place, as it would have established the legal precedence for their own personhood. And with this novel coming after the Titan novel establishing Remus becoming a Klingon protectorate and that relocation effort, it surely would have been spoken of with regards to Picard and the efforts surrounding the Romulan supernova. And, of course, this is the novel where Donatra established the Imperial Romulan State, a political entity that has had no signs of existing in Lower Decks, Prodigy (particularly those two), or Picard. To say nothing of the implicit foul of the Tezwa affair itself.
Nope, Articles of the Federation is pretty solidly a feature only of the Novelverse as it was prior to Picard. Not to say that elements couldn't manage to migrate into new novels or even canon itself (as other elements have), but Articles of the Federation doesn't fit current canon.
Not really, because according to The Last Best Hope, the synths weren't sentient.
Although it would raise some issues regarding the Daystrom Institute's imprisonment of megalomaniacal supercomputers as shown in Lower Decks. But apparently most of LD so far has taken place in 2380, which makes it simultaneous with AotF, with only the last five episodes coming after it.
Okay, those are fair points, though see above regarding LD. As for the Imperial Romulan State, it was fairly short-lived in the novels, so it could've been gone by the time of Prodigy too.
Another issue is that LD's depiction of the Titan doesn't fit the novels. If everything through mid-season 3 was in 2380 as the producers have said, then the Titan episodes of LD would've taken place between the time frames of Orion's Hounds and Sword of Damocles, yet the Titan is not exploring the Gum Nebula and beyond and its crew composition is completely different. Also, LD showed Tuvok involved on the mission to clear Captain Freeman in the season 3 premiere, so he's not on the Titan crew there.
So depending on how much AotF mentions from the Titan novels, that might be a contradiction too.
Not necessarily. First off, it's entirely possible that B-4 failed after the Supreme Court* ruling, not before, and that this is what led to his body being dismantled. Bruce being convinced B-4 was sentient and deserving of rights is consistent with what we saw in PIC S1, and I could plausibly imagine B-4 failing being the thing that drives him to go rogue and build Soji and Dahj.
As for legal precedent -- the court case established that B-4 was a sentient being. It didn't establish that any other A.I.s were sentient beings. Now, you and I would probably argue that that ought to constitute a precedent...
... but then, three years later,
an A.I. infects the USS Protostar and an armada of ships sent to intercept it, causing what is almost certainly thousands of deaths and nearly spreading to the rest of Starfleet....
.... and then, two years after that, we have the Mars Attack.
So I can plausibly imagine the Federation entering a period of anti-A.I. backlash that leads future courts in the 2380s and 2390s refusing to apply the B-4 ruling as precedent. And real history has examples of things like this happening. During Reconstruction, quite a few black Americans were elected to state legislatures and Congress before the "Redemption" re-established white rule and Jim Crow in the South. And of course, we are living through a profound anti-feminist and anti-queer backlash that has led to long-established rights like abortion being repealed at the federal level and is in the process of trying to convince the masses that queer people are all child molesters.
* In Articles, it's referred to as the Federation Judicial Council, but that has always been inconsistent with canon since "Dr. Bashir, I Presume?" established that the Federation Supreme Court holds power of judicial review.
I mean, sure, but PIC S1 is set almost twenty years after Articles, and nearly as long after the negotiations to evacuate Romulus itself. It's entirely possible that this did happen in the canonical timeline and just didn't come up in PIC S1. PIC is set so far after these events that it's plausible that details like that might not come up in the conversations we saw.
I see no reason either of these events could not have still happened in the canonical timeline. Maybe the establishment of the Imperial Romulan State is part of what soured the Star Empire on the Federation's evacuation offer, for instance. And nothing about the Tezwa Crisis is incompatible with canon as we know it so far.
I do suspect that PIC S3's reintroduction of Worf might complicate things, though, as Worf's canonical post-NEM history might not match up with the developments of A Time for War, A Time for Peace. But at the moment, there is no contradiction.
Honestly, as the canon stands now, I don't think Articles per se is incompatible. Nor is the A Time To... miniseries. The existing incompatibility comes from Before Dishonor, the VOY Relaunch novels, and the TTN series -- the lives of Janeway, Chakotay, and Seven as established in Picard and Prodigy are incompatible with the VOY Relaunch/Before Dishonor, and, as Christopher noted, the activities of the USS Titan and Tuvok in Lower Decks don't really line up with the TTN novels.
ETA:
Though, in fairness, if I were Alex Kurtzman, I would make AotF incompatible with the canon because I would want to make a made-for-streaming adaptation of Articles set after PIC S1.
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