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Axis of Time Races question

Ian Keldon

Ian Keldon

Fleet Captain
I'm working my way through "Watching the Clock", and I'm in the middle of the chapter about the Axis of Time and the races that use it.

I've noticed the huge amount of homages in terms of the disparate cultures and had a question. Are they all Trek homages or are there outside homages as well?

I think I've spotted one for sure, maybe two:

First, the crab-like Siri sound like an homage to the lost race in Forbidden Planet. Both the physical description and the bit about "endless shafts" they use as generators puts me in mind of them.

The other is the Shiiem. The description could be descendents of the Borg, but I thought all the Borg were destroyed. Re-reading the description also put me in mind of the Taelon from Earth: Final Conflict (which, while not Trek, certainly is another GR property).

I also caught the references to the Talosians, and Sargon's people.

At first, I thought the Caratu might be a reference to the Vedala from Jihad, but the description of "lemur-like" doesn't match the felinoid Vedala at all.

The Arret Empire seems to be a mention of the future of humans and a united Vulcan/Romulan society. Lirahn mentions to Ranjea that one of the two races that were so long allied they thought themselves one people looked like him, and Deltans look like humans. The other race looked like Counselor Temarel, a Chenar, who is described as a fusion of Vulcan and Romulan traits.

How close am I? And what if any have I missed?
 
The Arret Empire is from the past, not the future. They were Sargon's People, if I'm not greatly mistaken. Their two-race empire (one race Vulcanoid, one "standard" Humanoid) apparently colonized planets across the Alpha/Beta Quadrants and, implicitly, many Federation member races like Deltans and Vulcans are descended from those colonies.
 
Ian Keldon said:
First, the crab-like Siri sound like an homage to the lost race in Forbidden Planet.
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Only indirectly. I based them on the "Sirians," the proto-Talosians from Roddenberry's original outline for "The Cage," which is reprinted in The Making of Star Trek. Forbidden Planet was a major influence on Roddenberry, so the Sirians were probably inspired by the Krell. I cribbed the "lemur-like" Caratu and one of the other aliens from descriptions of zoo inhabitants in that outline.

Both the physical description and the bit about "endless shafts" they use as generators puts me in mind of them.
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No, that bit had nothing to do with FP or the "Cage" outline. It arose from the "closed-universe" physics of the Axis.


The other is the Shiiem. The description could be descendents of the Borg, but I thought all the Borg were destroyed.
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Certainly not. It's not as if the Borg are the only species in the universe capable of bionic enhancement. Heck, Picard and Geordi have bionic parts. And in the literature, the Choblik (one of whom appears in Watching the Clock are cyborgs as well. I just wanted to explore a path for the future evolution of a hyper-advanced race that was different from the Trek cliche of "evolving into energy beings." And I strongly implied at the end that the Shiiem are descended from humans. (While Temarel's people are intended to be a future species of Vulcanoid.)
 
For that matter, the Shiiem could be advanced Binars... :)

At any rate, really enjoying the book and hopefully will enjoy the next one.
 
Ian Keldon said:
For that matter, the Shiiem could be advanced Binars... :)
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No, you're not getting the timescale I was going for here. The idea is that the Shiiem are from so far in the future that nothing would be recognizable, that our era would be a matter of archaeology to them, not history. So much change could happen in that span of time that you can't read too much into a vague similarity like bionic enhancement.

My intent, again, was that the Shiiem were a species descended from humanity. Other branches of humanity may have followed the evolutionary path that Wesley Crusher foreshadowed and developed into higher-dimensional or incorporeal beings, or may have chosen to remain as biological life, but this particular branch chose to embrace transhumanism and merge their biology with technology -- which I personally consider a far more likely evolutionary future for humanity than the others (since of course the whole "energy being" idea is pure fantasy; even if energy could be alive without matter to give it structure, there'd be no incentive to evolve away from biological reproduction, the very thing that drives evolution in the first place).
 
CaptainDonovin said:
The races/species of the Axis of Time were an interresting part of the story, especally those from the past.
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I really wish there was a good way to explore the distant past and distant future of the Trek galaxy as depicted in the Axis. I think that it was an interesting notion, and one that frankly most fans have a hard time dealing with, the idea that the Federation cannot and will not last forever. It will eventually fall or become something else. I liked the fact that they saw a species from a distant future that did not even recognize the Federation.

Tragic though it is...all things must end eventually.
 
Yeah, the Axis and it's member races was very interesting. I think Christopher has done more to develop the distant past of the Trek Litverse than anybody.
 
The 'Axis of time' has much potential for future stories; more than any other part of 'Watching the clock'.

Gotham Central said:
I liked the fact that they saw a species from a distant future that did not even recognize the Federation.

Tragic though it is...all things must end eventually.
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I saw the 'deep time' perspective revealed by the 'Axis of time' as very optimistic for the trek future of humanity.

After all, the far-future Zcham identified themselves as human; compare this with other races presented, who were utterly forgotten, the memory of them and their achievements erased. Humanity was presented as made of sterner stuff (or maybe just luckier).
 
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