Children of Kings (SPOILERS)

[DorkBoy [TM]]

So, I just finished reading Children of Kings. Wow what a page turner. Lots of very un-Starfleet-like conspiracies and espionage. I really, really enjoyed it as a novel.

However, I had definite mixed feelings about Captain Pike's destruction of the Galileo at the end. From the novel's standpoint, it made sense in that the Starfleet Intelligence operatives were the "bad guys" in a sense; they betrayed Pike and behaved in a very un-starfleet manner. (Almost more like Section 31 agents.) The reader is definitely led to root against them.

And of course Pike was keeping his promise to his dead Klingon "frien-imy."

But still, if you think about it, it seemed pretty treasonous. He killed two SI agents who were only following their orders and trying to obtain a cloaking device from an enemy power. Is what they did so different from Kirk and Spock in "The Enterprise Incident"?

Anyhow, the whole "Klingons are our friends" angle was interesting in a 23rd century novel. From a 24th century fan's perspective its pretty easy to think of Klingons as "our friends" but in the 23rd century, the Klingon Empire was more akin to the USSR during the height of the cold war.

If a US navy captain kept a promise to a russian captain by thwarting a CIA plot during the 1970s, would he be a hero?

Just curious what other people thought of the book, and the ending in particular. In a sense, its similar to being led to root for the natives in Avatar.

It seems like I've seen some negative reactions to the book in this forum (?) - overall I really loved it, being as big a fan of the original Trek as I am of the 80s and 90s flavor.

 

[garoo1980]

I really liked it too. I thought it was maybe out of line for what Pike did, but I don't really know him as a character so I couldn't say too much. I understood his reasoning and it made sense, even though its questionably ethical like you said.

I thought it was a great book. My only nigling complaint was I thought it was a bit too gory for a ST book. But I think that about a lot of them and I seem to be in the minority. It was a great read and really flushed out some of those characters from "The Cage". If Dave's lurking and reading this I'd like to know how/where he got so much depth to those guys. Just from the pilot or is there a lot of other stuff out there to draw from?

 

[Reanok]

Spoiler: Children of King spoilers

I wanted to know what happened with the section 31 spies mission and their reaction about Pike stopping their spies from causing more problems with the klingons and orions.

I liked Children of Kings it was nice to see Pike again and his crew and the mystery of the Orions unfold in the novel. i just we knew what might've with Pike reporting about the section 31 spies sabotaging his mission.

 

[Timo]

Section 31? It sounded like that was a fully sanctioned SFI mission, not some sort of a doubly illegal heist by a rogue organization.

I liked the way Pike's past with Kritos was never made explicit in the book. We don't know the depth of Pike's gratitude and sense of obligation because we don't know the exact nature of that joint past.

Many other things were left delightfully implicit in the book, too. And I liked the unusual pacing, the clipped sentences, the use of first names. I was left a bit wanting with the characterization of Pike in the beginning: the bath scene delightfully reminded me of Jerry Oltion's excellent Pike (Where Sea Meets Sky), but the opening chapter could have used some of that personal touch as well.

I also liked the portrayal of the Orions: the monochromatic ENT concept of the women as being in absolute charge was softened here quite a bit, and the idea of pheromone control was made more multifaceted. The clan warfare aspect was also introduced nicely and implicitly, without needless exposition. And the use of language rang true, too, down to the name of the medical doodad...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[SiddFinch1]

I thought it was generally a good read. Bogged down a bit at points. Enjoyed the use of Starfleet Intelligence acting the way you might expect an intelligence agency to act.

Liked the use of the Orions.

I would agree Pike's actions at the end could be viewed as a treasonous act.

I did find it interesting that the author considered this a prequal of sorts to Abrams 2009 version. Not sure i found anything in the book that would place it in the "nu" verse as opposed to TOS.

 

[Christopher]

I did find it interesting that the author considered this a prequal of sorts to Abrams 2009 version. Not sure i found anything in the book that would place it in the "nu" verse as opposed to TOS.

I suspect the idea was more along the lines of telling a story that wasn't specifically bound to either continuity. A while back, before he was let go, Marco Palmieri asked me to develop a TOS outline that could be adapted to work in either continuity, since we didn't know yet at the time whether the new movie would replace/rewrite the original continuity as opposed to running parallel with it, so he wanted to keep his options open. I suspect The Children of Kings came about due to similar considerations, though it's not quite the same approach.

 

[BrotherBenny]

^Christopher, did that outline go anywhere before Marco was laid off?

Have you tried pitching it to Jaime? Would be cool to read.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I liked Children of Kings. I liked how it intergrated so much stuff from various Star Treks - based on "The Cage", it also included elements of Enterprise (Orions), obscure snippets of backstory from Spock's World and FASA (that the Orions are degenerate remnants of an ancient super race, a concept I loved when I first heard it), STXI (Klingon Warbirds, a name I know annoys the hell out of some technophiles), Vulcan's Glory (although I bristled a little when Dave renamed Spock's pre-Enterprise ship and commander. Although unimportant, what was wrong with Captain Daniels and the USS Artemis?) and countless others. Whereas it could have been senseless continity porn, it was actually all done properly and everything served a purpose. The Russian captain was cool, too.

My only quibble is that Boyce really should have been on the cover, since it's his story.

Pike's actions at the end were questionable, there's no doubt about that. I guess he takes his promises very, very seriously.

 

[Christopher]

^Christopher, did that outline go anywhere before Marco was laid off?

Not really. My original outline had some plot problems that we were only beginning to hash out when that day came. However, the core concept of the tale involved a form of time travel, so I ended up using it as a subplot in DTI: Watching the Clock, although without the TOS characters, of course, and with a somewhat different, more compact storyline.

 

[BrotherBenny]

^Christopher, did that outline go anywhere before Marco was laid off?

Not really. My original outline had some plot problems that we were only beginning to hash out when that day came. However, the core concept of the tale involved a form of time travel, so I ended up using it as a subplot in DTI: Watching the Clock, although without the TOS characters, of course, and with a somewhat different, more compact storyline.

Cool.

What was your impression of Children of Kings?

I loved it and I thought that the ending was justified. Stealing the cloaking device would likely have led to war, and destroying it prevented such a war. The Klingons would have invaded to get it back at that point, so I think Pike was right in what he did, even though it was for a more personal reason.

 

[DorkBoy [TM]]

Oh! The other thing I really enjoyed was the interplay between Number One and Spock. They're very similar characters, with Spock inheriting many of "Number One's" attributes in the second pilot and beyond. It seems like in most of the Pike-era fiction I've read they don't interact much, so that was a treat.

The characters were all very well done.

 

[Timo]

This was probably also the first time the concept of Number One being called Number One rang true to me. The good old "she's an Ilyrian superduperindividual, a Number One of sorts by birth" backstory was used, but again rather implicitly. And Pike is actually bothered by her insistence of being called by her title rather than by her name - it's not suggested her name would be secret, or would not exist, or any such nonsense.

As for this being part of the STXI reality instead of the original one, well, all we would have to assume is that this happens before 2258, and Pike commands the Enterprise that preceded the NCC-1701 seen in the movie. The ship could be identical to the one seen in "The Cage", apart from her registry number... Right?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[kkozoriz1]

As for this being part of the STXI reality instead of the original one, well, all we would have to assume is that this happens before 2258, and Pike commands the Enterprise that preceded the NCC-1701 seen in the movie. The ship could be identical to the one seen in "The Cage", apart from her registry number... Right?

Timo Saloniemi

And ignoring the part where Number One accesses the Ferengi databank.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

As for this being part of the STXI reality instead of the original one, well, all we would have to assume is that this happens before 2258, and Pike commands the Enterprise that preceded the NCC-1701 seen in the movie. The ship could be identical to the one seen in "The Cage", apart from her registry number... Right?

Timo Saloniemi

And ignoring the part where Number One accesses the Ferengi databank.

Not necessarly we don't know what races the Federation has met in the alt. 23rd century. Cardassian Sunrise anyone?

 

[kkozoriz1]

Correct. I misread Timo's post. It's possible, but not likely, for it to be in the XI reality. It's not possible to be in the Prime reality.

However, we have never been told when first contact with the Cardassians occured.

 

[F. King Daniel]

If you look too closely, most of Trek is not possible to be in the prime reality.

 

[Timo]

I'm not sure it would be impossible to have a Ferengi trade databank known to the UFP long before the first face-to-face contact with them. After all, the Ferengi are infamous for their modus operandi where they hide from their business partners / victims as much as they possibly can: their true intent, their poor reputation, even their identity if possible. Yet they are a powerful presence in the ENT era already, raiding unwary ships on Earth's very doorstep.

They might well be known commercial / pirate operators in the 23rd century, then, only not fully known. They could e.g. provide their commerce data anonymously as long as that profited them.

Also, some captains might find profit in not revealing everything they know about the Ferengi. Including some starship captains... I sometimes wonder if the Frenni merchants of Carmen Carter's Dreams of the Raven were Ferengi pronounced a bit funnily!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Deranged Nasat]

Answering the earlier Cardassian contact question...:

Well, the novels have suggested that official, formal contact between Cardassia and the UFP (and the establishing of diplomatic relations) took place in 2327 (they based that in turn on the "Enter the Wolves" comic). But unofficial contact seems to have gone on for some time.

I mean, we know canonically that Iloja of Prim spent time on Vulcan in exile and met Dax, so I'm sure the name "Cardassian" was on file by at least the 22nd century. I assume Cardassia was just a minor space-faring world among hundreds, that no-one had any interest in. The Vulcans at least presumably knew that there was a planet named Cardassia out there, but never bothered sending anyone to establish relations.

I suppose that "Cardassian sunrises" and other Cardassian-inspired or Cardassian-made goods might well be found in Federation space, but I'm guessing "Cardassia" simply meant "some far away planet I'm not familiar with and don't care about". And I suppose a few Cardassians met a few Federation citizens, but not in anything approaching an official context.

When we get to the 24th century..."Day of the Vipers" suggested that Cardassian ships had been involved in periodic border disputes with Federation craft as early as the 2310s, but I don't think that contradicts the 2327 date because it didn't say anything about actual contact. Certainly there's no formal relationship. I suppose the Federation and the newly expansionist Cardassian Union are now aware of each other as neighbouring political entities, and know each others' ships, have a few terse "go away, ours" confrontations, the Federation people don't want to provoke anything, so they back off. But they're starting to monitor Cardassia, and vice versa. At least, in "Day of the Vipers", the Cardassians were able to influence the Bajorans with the "Overbearing, judgemental humans" idea.

And then by that novel's end it's the beginning of the occupation, which is just after official first contact anyway.

In another book (possibly "the Brave and the Bold, book two"?), one of the Maquis (I think) also claims that first meaningful face-to-face contact between Cardassians and Humans actually occurred in 2321, but says the Federation ignores that date in favour of the 2327 Starfleet-contact date.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

I don't think anyone's yet mentioned the biggest continuity difference, one that supports the nebulous "neither prime nor XI continuity" position:

The Klingons and Orions had a space battle "2,000 years ago". But in the reality we know (and also in "Nero Woz 'Ere" continuity), Klingons were still confined to Qo'noS then. They achieved warp flight after Kahless, who founded his global empire about 1,500 years ago.

 

[F. King Daniel]

The Orions could have invaded the Klingon system, just like a group did Vulcan around the same time (Spock's World, the catalyst for the Surak/S'Task schism)