Spoilers DS9: Gamma: Original Sin by David R. George III Review Thread

[Christopher]

As to disintegration, well, obviously Riker's disintegration of Yuta, being unquestionably canonical, means that there are exceptions to Jarman's (unquestionalby non-canonical) assertion, assuming we don't dismiss it outright as pure bovine scat.

That's needlessly harsh. It was in an anthology edited by Marco Palmieri, and he specifically edited my story in the same anthology to be consistent with it. Therefore, it was presumably something Marco wanted to be the case in Trek Lit, and he was the guy in charge of a great deal of Trek Lit for a good number of years, including the formative years of the DS9 post-finale series. That's why it surprised me to see phaser vaporization mentioned in a DS9 novel that's in that same continuity. "Canon" is beside the point here, because we're talking about the Novelverse specifically.

Although, as I suggested, Starfleet could've changed its policy again in the interim between "The Devil You Know" and Original Sin. And the change could've been more recent than Bashir's line in "Devil" suggested, sometime in the interval between "The Vengeance Factor" in 2366 and "The Devil You Know" in 2375.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

It wasn't meant to be harsh. It was meant to point out that even within the Novelverse, what appears on screen has absolute seniority over everything else (even when it contradicts something else that appears on screen).

And besides, it's already been pointed out that disintegration of inanimate objects is frequently necessary.

Oh, and Mr. Bennett: even though I'm still 20 pages away from finishing Keith Olbermann's Trump Is F*cking Crazy, I've already begun re-reading your Forgotten History. I'm now 100 pages into it, I'd completely forgotten just how well you did at reconciling canonical and non-canonical time travel stories. Nice work.

 

[Christopher]

It wasn't meant to be harsh. It was meant to point out that even within the Novelverse, what appears on screen has absolute seniority over everything else (even when it contradicts something else that appears on screen).

Which is beside the point, because, as I've said, what caught my notice was the inconsistency between two different works in the DS9 novel continuity, relative to each other. That's a different question from how a tie-in relates to screen canon.

And as I have also said, the discrepancy in both cases can be explained by Starfleet changing its policies in the time interval between the different works. There's no inconsistency if Bashir was referring to a policy change that happened after 2366, and if the policy was changed back again before 2386. Bashir did say it was "not all that long ago." In context, he was probably meant to be speaking on the order of a generation or two, but it's ambiguous enough that it can still fit.

 

[David cgc]

I feel like there are enough other cases of 24th century disintegration. Offhand, Picard in First Contact saying if he'd been shot with a hand phaser on maximum, he'd be vaporized, and when Sisko blasts through a cave in "Rapture," it looks like a vaporization special effect. Though there are ways around both of those, if you're really committed to the idea.

Even in Discovery, we've seen (back to back!) that even though the "kill" setting on their phaser is normally just burning through, they also have a rarely-used vaporization setting.

 

[Christopher]

I don't see how Discovery is relevant. As I've said, the story explicitly stated that Starfleet phasers used to disintegrate but that was changed "not all that long ago." And obviously TOS used disintegration all the time.

 

[Akiraprise]

Eliminating the maximum setting on the standard weapon issued to Starfleet personnel puts them at a disadvantage and wouldn't seem to be very wise tactically. If they're using disintegration it's probably a dire circumstance. We've seen how loathe the Federation is to use force so it would be a last resort anyway. It would make sense if the weapon kept a log of the shots fired and upon returning to the ship auto uploaded the data for a supervisor to question when the weapon was docked and secured.

 

[JD]

As long as there are still kill and a heavy stun setting I don't see why it would be a disadvantage. All you really need to be able to do is stop your target, and there's a pretty good chance that either one of those setting would be enough to do it. I've always thought full on disintegration was bit overkill for Starfleet when they've already got stun and kill settings. It does make sense for the more brutal races like the Klingons and Romulans though.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

As long as there are still kill and a heavy stun setting I don't see why it would be a disadvantage. All you really need to be able to do is stop your target, and there's a pretty good chance that either one of those setting would be enough to do it. I've always thought full on disintegration was bit overkill for Starfleet when they've already got stun and kill settings. It does make sense for the more brutal races like the Klingons and Romulans though.

One of the things I'd like to see is a difference in output between the hand phaser/Phaser I (which should be limited to stun and maybe heat (TNG Settings 1-3, maybe 4 or 5) and the phaser pistol/Phaser II (which should certainly have the stun and heat settings, but minimal settings above that) which are defensive weapons and tools, compared to the rifles which are offensive anti-personnel and anti-materiel weapons.

 

[Idran]

As long as there are still kill and a heavy stun setting I don't see why it would be a disadvantage. All you really need to be able to do is stop your target, and there's a pretty good chance that either one of those setting would be enough to do it. I've always thought full on disintegration was bit overkill for Starfleet when they've already got stun and kill settings. It does make sense for the more brutal races like the Klingons and Romulans though.

The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a disintegration beam is a good guy with a disintegration beam

 

[JD]

As long as a stun or kill setting stops them I don't see why it would matter if the bad guys have disintegration beams.

 

[Idran]

As long as a stun or kill setting stops them I don't see why it would matter if the bad guys have disintegration beams.

i'm agreeing with you while simultaneously mildly teasing about the "they need disintegration beams to protect themselves" perspective via a repurposing of a dumb but oft-repeated NRA quote that sums up said perspective

 

[JD]

Ok, sorry about the misunderstanding.

 

[20fridge]

Just finished this one. It really dragged early on and was hard to get into. It wasn't until about halfway through that I felt the plot picked up. The whole getting out of null space problem wasn't half as nteresting as trying to understand the Glant.

 

[Reanok]

I finished reading this book and liked the story and filling in the missing gaps of When Ben& Kassidy Sisko were living on Bajor and the kidnapping of their daughter was explored. And the story of them being on the U.SS. Robinson exploring the Gamma quadrant. The GLint are a mysterious alien race and are dangerous. I was glad they were able to rescue all the kids safely and get them all back. I hope in 2019 we'll get some more Ds9 novels again after they finally signed the darn contracts at long last.

 

[Christopher]

Finally, I thought that Rebecca really was reversing time, not creating new timelines or jumping from one timeline to another. In trying to wrap my head around that, I decided it must be some sort of a localized effect, rather than the entire universe backing up in time and then moving forward again. The only two examples of it we got involved changes that went back only a few minutes, so it seemed like that would work. It probably doesn't hold up scientifically, but at least it gave me enough of an answer that I could keep on reading..

I've read the book now, and of the various theories expressed in this thread for what Rebecca did, I think this one is the correct one. We'd seen an event happen and turn out badly for Rebecca, ending with her screaming and emitting a wave of energy. Then we'd see other characters detecting that "explosion" and going to investigate. Then we'd go back to Rebecca and see the same few minutes' worth of events happening again, yet the investigators arrive before the worst happens. That suggests she's rewinding time by a few minutes within that localized area contained by the energy field she gives off. Meanwhile, the folks outside the energy field are still moving forward in normal time and go to investigate it while it's rewinding, so that they arrive shortly after it begins to repeat.

 

[Kilana2]

I like this book. It was really much better than the last DS9 novels.

Some questions remain: is Rebecca now on the DTI's radar? Is she really a prophet?

 

[DS9Continuing]

Haven't actually read it, but I never saw the need for Rebecca to be 'special' in any way. It's a story turn for which I find no justification.

Sisko is not 'half-Prophet' as some people like to say, his birth was just arranged by the Prophets. At the most it left him with a higher sensitivity to verteron-induced neuropeptide events (aka visions) than the average person. But maybe the Prophets didn't arrange anything, maybe they just inserted themselves into already established events precisely to give him that sensitivity.

When the Sarah Prophet says "because it could be no-one else", that doesn't mean anything more than "it had to be you because it had already been you, you're the one who got assigned to command DS9 so you're the one we need to make a connection with".

None of that implies that Sisko has superpowers in any way. Jake never exhibited any superpowers, and the circumstances of his conception were no more or less miraculous than Rebecca's. Benjamin, Kasidy, Jennifer, Jake and Rebecca are all biologically human, so why should Rebecca have superpowers when none of the rest of them do?

.

 

[historypeats]

Haven't actually read it, but I never saw the need for Rebecca to be 'special' in any way. It's a story turn for which I find no justification.
.

You haven't read it, yet you find no justification?

 

[DS9forever]

Ira Steven Behr states in the DS9 Companion that Sisko is part-Prophet (page 495)

In Revelation and Dust and Original Sin, Sisko wonders if both he and Rebecca could be part-Prophet in some way.

 

[Jinn]

I voted outstanding, in relation to the last few DS9 "main story" novels. I think the only really bad thing I have to say about this, is that the prologue takes way too long and felt very uninteresting.

Much to my surprise, the book heavily improved, once we got to the Robinson storyline and the much-teased "Rebecca Sisko got abducted in 2380" story, even though we obviously already knew the outcome of the latter. The concept of the alien species felt knew (at least to me), and genuinely alien. The emotional tension, regarding Sisko and Yates fearing for their child worked very well too, especially in the Robinson story, where I didn't yet know wether Rebecca would survive.

The only other slight criticism I have here, is that except for Sisko, Yates, Rebecca, her kidnapper and Jasmine Tey, I had no idea who any of the people in this story were, but since they were really only supporting characters in this story, here to give information and man the bridge I'm okay with that. And Altman's conversation with the alien species was rather memorable too.

On the whole, this was a massive improvement over DRG3's four previous DS9 novels. In a way it's kind of sad that the best one of these four doesn't even feature DS9 (or the second station), or any of the new cast of characters, and maybe that's why it worked for me. I know it's unlikely to happen, based on publishing schedule, but I'd love to see more of this Gamma Quadrant exploration.