Huh.
Any chance the dangling plot threads from DS9 will ever get resolved?
Any chance the dangling plot threads from DS9 will ever get resolved?
Deep Space Nine Relaunch
- Thread starter Mage
- Start date
Among the DS9-R characters who make at least passing appearances in Zero Sum Game are Dr. Julian Bashir, Ezri Dax, Quark, Ro Laren, Prynn Tenmei, Elias Vaughn, Sam Bowers, Mikaela Leishman, Dr. Simon Tarses, and ops officer Jang Si Naran. Not all of them are still assigned to Deep Space 9, but some of them are.
Alas, I can say no more — I've said too much already.
It sounds like Kira was killed off by the Borg and is now spending time with the Prophets. Oh no... Please tell me it doesn't happen at the beginning of an upcoming TNG tie-in novel
I can't wait to see what these two are up to now. They are two of my favorite Trek characters, and you're portrayal of them in Warpath was awsome.
I seem to recall many, many readers on this BBS demanding that DS9 "catch up". Marco said he was happy to let DS9 progress at its own pace, but that didn't stop people complaining that DS9 was "lagging behind". Margaret made a decision. She just couldn't win, could she?
The "New Frontier" jump I mentioned was a three-year jump between "Stone and Anvil" and "After the Fall".
kkozoriz1
Fleet Captain
The problem with having all the books in the same time period is that it's way too tempting to do the big crossovers that not only derail the ongoing story lines but add to the small universe feeling. The Federation is really, really big and yet these people are going to be meeting up more and more. It's moving the book line to the big event storytelling of comics.
The New Frontier jump didn't really help that series ether. Of course a large part of that was the fact that peter David had been losing me for a couple of books before that.
The New Frontier jump didn't really help that series ether. Of course a large part of that was the fact that peter David had been losing me for a couple of books before that.
Crossovers sell huge numbers of books. Why should Pocket Books ignore potential profit?
Conversely, IIRC, critically-acclaimed standalones - eg. "The Captain's Daughter", "The 34th Rule", "A Stitch in Time" and "Ex Machina" - have not achieved the big numbers anticipated for them and were labeled as disappointments by the marketing department. I noticed recently that an "Ex Machina" was at a third printing, which I guess means it has been a sleeper hit, but had those books been hugely successful, we'd have hade more Captain Sulu books much earlier and perhaps a whole sub-series of post-TMP.
Destiny did set up a major change in the status quo of the 24th century. If DS9 had continued at its own pace while the other series explored the aftermath of that change, then DS9 would've been either left out, which would frustrate a lot of people, or spoiled, which would frustrate a lot of people. So Margaret decided that it wasn't practical to leave it back in 2377.
Sure, theoretically there could've been a book or two dedicated to wrapping up the existing threads and moving the series forward in time more smoothly. But the right editor for such a project would've been Marco Palmieri, since the DS9 novel narrative to date was very much his baby. But he wasn't available anymore, and Margaret Clark couldn't do it the same way, since she's a very different person, and she didn't know what his long-range plans for the storyline were. (It wouldn't have been fair to ask him, since ideas are intellectual property and he wasn't being paid for them anymore; plus he needed to devote his time and energy to finding other work.) Under the circumstances, a smooth continuation wouldn't have been practical. So she chose instead to make a clean break.
Sure, theoretically there could've been a book or two dedicated to wrapping up the existing threads and moving the series forward in time more smoothly. But the right editor for such a project would've been Marco Palmieri, since the DS9 novel narrative to date was very much his baby. But he wasn't available anymore, and Margaret Clark couldn't do it the same way, since she's a very different person, and she didn't know what his long-range plans for the storyline were. (It wouldn't have been fair to ask him, since ideas are intellectual property and he wasn't being paid for them anymore; plus he needed to devote his time and energy to finding other work.) Under the circumstances, a smooth continuation wouldn't have been practical. So she chose instead to make a clean break.
Under the circumstances I think it was probably the right decision, pending the arrival of actual DS9 relaunch novels that take place after the jump that we can evaluate and comment upon.
Let it be said in passing, though, that the evaporation of the storylines and momentum the series had going post-Unity is a crying shame. It's pretty incredible, really, looking back at the where the series was in Worlds, that nothing will end up coming of that epic set-up. Yikes, what a waste.
Hopefully some use will be made of that missing material eventually in one form or another.
kkozoriz1
Fleet Captain
I don't disagree that crossovers sell well. What is lost is the individual flavour of each series as they tie into the latest crossover. The series then exist to serve the Next Big Thing rather than telling stories unto themselves. With the reduced number of books when you add the need for set-up, execution and follow up into each series there's less room to tell the story of, for example, Bajor. It also leads to the absurdity of Titan being way, way out there yet participating in the Big battles of Destiny. Christopher even posted a map:
http://home.fuse.net/ChristopherLBennett/OrionsHoundsAnnot.html#Map
Why bother even making the effort to show that Titan is exploring far beyond the Federation if they can be home as quickly as I can go to the store to pick up a loaf of bread?
One of these days when I have WAY too much time together I should sit down and make up a list of who's met who. With billions upon billions of characters out there it's just too "small universe" to have all the various characters meet each other. I love near a town of less than 1000 people and I don't more than 100 of them and have probably met less than half.
That depends on what kind of crossover it is. The only Trek novel crossover that's really involved all the different crews interacting directly as part of the same story was Destiny. The other crossovers were mostly just connected by common themes or antagonists, with each crew dealing independently with its own aspect of the larger problem -- and usually not even at the same time. I gather that Typhon Pact is similar to those. Heck, despite the umbrella title, the books aren't even about the same antagonists, since the Pact has six different member species and each book deals with a different one or two.
That's a spurious complaint. Destiny made it clear that Titan was incapable of returning home under its own power in time to make any difference against the Borg -- otherwise, naturally, it would've already done so. It was only thanks to Caeliar technology that the ship was able to return home.
kkozoriz1
Fleet Captain
Vectors - Pulaski, Dukat, Kira
Red Sector - Spock meets Stiles grandson
Double or Nothing - Picard & Calhoun
First Virtue jack Crusher and Tuvok
That's just after a quick double check.
And it doesn't matter how Titan got back either by the Caeliar or Q or Tinkerbell's magic wand. They still ended up back and interacting with the other crews.
In The Typhon Pact we have Bashier & Dax even though Dax is off the station. (btw, if Bashier is after a spy that stole the plans for slipstream, why would they send a ship equipped with a working slipstream drive to retrieve them? Not worried that the ship could be captured?)
Rough Beasts of Empire has Spcok and Sisko but it's not clear if they will meet or just have parallel stories.
Paths of Disharmony has Picard & Shar. What, there's no other Andorians?
The hero ships seem to spend more time interacting between themselves than the entire rest of the fleet.
^While you are undoubtedly correct, strictly speaking, I don't see it as an especially relevant line of criticism. It's tie-in lit. Very good tie-in lit for the most part these days, certainly good enough to interest the lay reader or casual fan, but at the end of the day its primary market is a core fan base that wants to continue reading stories about a certain set of characters and doesn't mind seeing them cross paths with one another even if it is not realistic given the size of the universe.
It's just another variation on the basic lack of realism that the original shows employed, where Enterprise, DS9, Voyager or whatever was always the center of attention all the time and always at the wrong/right place at the wrong/right time.
It's a tendency that can be carried to extremes certainly, but Destiny for example felt very grand in scope despite the obvious contrivance of having a Captain from each Berman-era show involved with the main plotline.
The Typhon Pact novels will probably fall back on suggesting a larger canvas of events, while only allowing us to witness certain key moments, a bit like DS9 used to do. And of course there are shake-ups and new characters within each individual crew to keep things interesting. But it would be self-defeating to strive to entirely eliminate what you are referring to as small-universe syndrome since these novels are working within an already established set of parameters that their readership wants to see more of.
It's just another variation on the basic lack of realism that the original shows employed, where Enterprise, DS9, Voyager or whatever was always the center of attention all the time and always at the wrong/right place at the wrong/right time.
It's a tendency that can be carried to extremes certainly, but Destiny for example felt very grand in scope despite the obvious contrivance of having a Captain from each Berman-era show involved with the main plotline.
The Typhon Pact novels will probably fall back on suggesting a larger canvas of events, while only allowing us to witness certain key moments, a bit like DS9 used to do. And of course there are shake-ups and new characters within each individual crew to keep things interesting. But it would be self-defeating to strive to entirely eliminate what you are referring to as small-universe syndrome since these novels are working within an already established set of parameters that their readership wants to see more of.
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EIDT: This post refers to kkozoriz1
Don't you think you're exaggerating just a bit here. In two of the last three crossovers we've had the different crews have interacted in only two of them, and in one of them it was only for a couple scenes. And even in Destiny, they still spent the majority of the books by themselves, dealing with their own stories. IMO that's another big point you're ignoring, even when the ongoing series are doing crossovers, they're still continuing the stories from those series. It's not like they are completely dumping the plots that have been building up, they simply fold them into the crossover story.
Don't you think you're exaggerating just a bit here. In two of the last three crossovers we've had the different crews have interacted in only two of them, and in one of them it was only for a couple scenes. And even in Destiny, they still spent the majority of the books by themselves, dealing with their own stories. IMO that's another big point you're ignoring, even when the ongoing series are doing crossovers, they're still continuing the stories from those series. It's not like they are completely dumping the plots that have been building up, they simply fold them into the crossover story.
I think the "size of the universe" comments are a bit off-base. It's more a matter of the size of Starfleet. These characters are in the same organization, underneath the same group of decision-makers. So the probability of any two given Starfleet officers meeting is far greater than the probability of any two random individuals from anywhere in the galaxy meeting.
And who's to say it's a coincidence that Bashir and Ezri are working together? They're former colleagues, they know each other, so maybe someone specifically chooses to assign them together because of that history.
I have no idea how this is a response to anything I was talking about. You must be responding to someone else with this, so I don't know why you said it right after a quote of my post.
It does matter, because it was an exceptional, anomalous event, and not the casual, routine thing you falsely implied it was. As a matter of routine, Titan could not get back that easily. But fiction is not about depicting routine. It's about depicting exceptional events. And therefore, the events it focuses on are low in probability. That's just the nature of storytelling.
In the stories we see, yes. That's the selection bias of fiction again. We don't see every day in the characters' lives. We don't see the routine, normal events. We see the exceptional events that are interesting to the reader. In the course of a year, the Enterprise may interact with dozens of ships and stations we've never heard of, but it's the one or two encounters with DS9 or the Aventine or whatever that we focus on, because that's what the audience is more interested in seeing.
And who's to say it's a coincidence that Bashir and Ezri are working together? They're former colleagues, they know each other, so maybe someone specifically chooses to assign them together because of that history.
I have no idea how this is a response to anything I was talking about. You must be responding to someone else with this, so I don't know why you said it right after a quote of my post.
It does matter, because it was an exceptional, anomalous event, and not the casual, routine thing you falsely implied it was. As a matter of routine, Titan could not get back that easily. But fiction is not about depicting routine. It's about depicting exceptional events. And therefore, the events it focuses on are low in probability. That's just the nature of storytelling.
In the stories we see, yes. That's the selection bias of fiction again. We don't see every day in the characters' lives. We don't see the routine, normal events. We see the exceptional events that are interesting to the reader. In the course of a year, the Enterprise may interact with dozens of ships and stations we've never heard of, but it's the one or two encounters with DS9 or the Aventine or whatever that we focus on, because that's what the audience is more interested in seeing.
kkozoriz1
Fleet Captain
I'm not going to pre judge the books but just going off the back cover blurb it seems that the ship is the reason Ezri's along. Still, that doesn't answer why Starfleet would send a ship equipped with the very tech that has been stolen in plan form. The execution will tell the story.
The quick list of characters meeting up was to show that such meeting have happened in the other crossovers as well. That's just a quick overview and doesn't even touch on The Lost Years. Even more characters meeting up there not to mention Vaughn who it appears knows or is known by almost everyone. I know he's 100 years old and been in Starfleet since before many of the characters were born but Starfleet doesn't have THAT few people. Of course, Curzon seems to be not far behind him in the popularity department.
That's what some of the audience is interested in seeing. Perhaps even most but certainly not all.
Star Trek is a vast canvas, there's no reason to keep painting in one corner.
kkozoriz1
Fleet Captain
When you're dealing with the individual shows they are the center of attention. They're the ones we're watching at that point. With the crossovers, especially Destiny, having all the hero ships together deminished the scope for me. You know that the solution, whatever it is, is going to come out of this very small group. Perhaps directly or indirectly. Having a ship seperate from the rest fighting a losing battle while the final solution comes from elsewhere can be just as exciting and heroic. Perhaps this one ship makes enough of a difference, no matter how small, that someone else can put it all together and enable the heroes to emerge victorious (as victorious as you can be with 60 billion dead anyway). Keep Titan where she is, dealing with an entirely different part of the problem. Let's see the story from multiple, different viewpoints. Not every World War II story has to be told from the viewpoint of different ships in the South Pacific.
Which was a conversation you were having with someone else. I offered no comments on that subtopic. So I don't get why you addressed it to me.
If it's what most of the audience is interested in, that's a very solid reason. This isn't a charity, it's a business. If something is popular and sells well, the publishers will ask for more stuff along those same lines. Sure, we try to be as original and flexible as we can, but we're still subject to the demands of the market, and if the publisher says "That last crossover sold well, now do another," then we have to be original within those specific parameters. You just can't realistically expect these decisions to be made with no regard for the profit potential involved. This isn't the 24th century. We still have money.
kkozoriz1
Fleet Captain
Here's what got me thinking along those lines. Double Helix did have the common theme but also had characters crossing over as well.
Of course making money is the primary consideration. If Star Trek/X-Men was the best selling Trek book we'd be seeing a lot more comic crossovers. However, that doesn't mean it's the best Trek story.
With the reduced number of books being published now (not counting the aborted NuTrek books, just the prime universe) and having follow up and set up books taking up slots it seems that we're just going from crossover to crossover. Before Dishonor - Greater Than the Sum -Destiny-Losing the Peace-A Singular Destiny. Build up to the end of the Borg in Destiny and then set up for Typhon Pact. When will we see stand alone stories again?
I don't see how you can expect to get any answer better than the one you quoted: "we try to be as original and flexible as we can, but we're still subject to the demands of the market"
Seeing stand-alone stories again is most likely inevitable, but when that will be isn't really the authors' decision to make...
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