"Dwellers in the Crucible"

[dstyer]

Looking through my Amazon.com recommendations, I came across this title. The back cover excerpt reads:

DWELLERS IN THE CRUCIBLE

Warrantors of Peace: the Federation's daring experiment to prevent war among its members. each Warrantor, man or woman is hostage for the government of his native world -- and is instantly killed if that world breaks the peace.
Now Romulans have kidnapped six Warrantors, to foment political chaos -- and then civil war -- within the Federation. Captain Kirk must send Sulu to infiltrate Romulan territory, find the hostages, and bring them back alive -- before the Federation self-destructs!

I don't even remember this novel. Based on the excerpt, it seems out of place - even for 1985.

 

[T'Ressa Dax]

I remember it a little bit. And even if it was out of place, it was entertaining, or so I thought at the time. Course I was in High School at the time and had only recently started reading, so it would have been one of the first books I read. I woudln/'t have known whether or not it fit with the rest.

 

[Christopher]

I woudln/'t have known whether or not it fit with the rest.

Actually, Dwellers was one of the first books that did "fit in" with other novels. It was the first novel to reference Diane Duane's Rihannsu and John M. Ford's Klingons outside of the authors' own works, so it set an important precedent for the formation of the loose inter-novel continuity of the '80s. Before it, the only Trek novels that made continuity references outside their authors' own prior works were Uhura's Song and Shadow Lord, which both referenced elements from The Entropy Effect (the character of Snnanagfashtalli in the former case -- I actually remembered how to spell it! -- and TEE's version of Sulu's backstory in the latter case).

 

[Timewalker]

I recall this novel quite well, and enjoyed it. Of course some people might not care for how some of the characters are depicted - the Deltans, for example, and it offers an interpretation of pon farr that predates that shown on Voyager and Enterprise by quite a long time.

 

[Christopher]

Yes, in retrospect, Dwellers is a pretty idiosyncratic novel. But at the time it came out, it was really impressive, one of the most ambitious, sweeping epics ever to be published up to that point, yet also one of the most intensely personal stories. In addition to being the first novel to establish the Rihannsu and Ford Klingons as recurring elements of the book universe, it was the first original novel to be set in the TWOK era -- somewhat preceding TWOK, but with Kirk as an admiral and Saavik included as Spock's protegee, her first novel appearance outside movie novelizations. And, yes, it was the first novel to do much of anything with the Deltans, although it took them in a direction that's difficult to reconcile (if they're so unable to survive a lack of intimacy with other Deltans, how was Ilia able to function under an "oath of celibacy" among a human crew?).

Margaret's later Music of the Spheres was a followup to Dwellers, bringing back several of its major characters, but when the book was ghost-rewritten as Probe, its links to Dwellers were written out.

 

[rfmcdpei]

The institution of the Warrantors does not make sense to me in the context of a Federation at all resembling something we Westerners are familiar with--taking hostages?--but in all other respects the book holds up nicely.

I think that one of the characters later appeared in Strangers from the Skies. Cleante?

 

[JD]

I've been interested in reading Dwellers for a while, but I'm focusing on getting caught up on the current modern before I go back and reader older stuff.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

The institution of the Warrantors does not make sense to me in the context of a Federation at all resembling something we Westerners are familiar with--taking hostages?

Yeah, what kind of Federation is this supposed to be, if MEMBER WORLDS are so ready to go to war with each other? And to resort to holding people as hostages who are killed if war breaks out? The Federation would not do that.

 

[Amaris]

Dwellers is a great novel. I enjoyed every minute of it.

 

[Christopher]

Yeah, what kind of Federation is this supposed to be, if MEMBER WORLDS are so ready to go to war with each other? And to resort to holding people as hostages who are killed if war breaks out? The Federation would not do that.

Well, to be fair, back in 1985, we didn't have that clear a picture of just how the Federation worked or how it was organized. We'd heard it talked about a lot, but we hadn't seen much beyond Earth and Vulcan. We didn't even see the Federation Council until the following year. The one real glimpse we'd gotten of the interaction among Federation worlds was "Journey to Babel," in which their emissaries were quite contentious toward one another. So while the idea of the Warrantors seemed odd to me even at the time, it wasn't quite as odd as it seems today, because so much about the Federation and the Trek universe was still an open question, leaving a lot more room for authors' imaginations.

Anyway, wasn't the idea behind the Warrantors largely symbolic, rather than something that was actually needed? If nothing else, it was a nice idea that one of the founding traditions of the Federation was based on Vulcan history and custom. That's a nice alternative to the relentlessly human (not to mention American) basis for everything about the UFP onscreen.

 

[Therin of Andor]

But at the time it came out, it was really impressive, one of the most ambitious, sweeping epics ever to be published up to that point...

Totally agree! And I loved that we briefly learn about Theras shoorShras of Andor, son of Chief Ambassador Shras, ("Journey to Babel").

 

[Sci]

Yeah, what kind of Federation is this supposed to be, if MEMBER WORLDS are so ready to go to war with each other? And to resort to holding people as hostages who are killed if war breaks out? The Federation would not do that.

Well, to be fair, back in 1985, we didn't have that clear a picture of just how the Federation worked or how it was organized. We'd heard it talked about a lot, but we hadn't seen much beyond Earth and Vulcan. We didn't even see the Federation Council until the following year. The one real glimpse we'd gotten of the interaction among Federation worlds was "Journey to Babel," in which their emissaries were quite contentious toward one another. So while the idea of the Warrantors seemed odd to me even at the time, it wasn't quite as odd as it seems today, because so much about the Federation and the Trek universe was still an open question, leaving a lot more room for authors' imaginations.

Anyway, wasn't the idea behind the Warrantors largely symbolic, rather than something that was actually needed? If nothing else, it was a nice idea that one of the founding traditions of the Federation was based on Vulcan history and custom. That's a nice alternative to the relentlessly human (not to mention American) basis for everything about the UFP onscreen.

Yeah. At that point, the Federation President had not even been created or introduced. Pre-STIV, the UFP often wavered between being depicted as a federal state IN SPACE and a United Nations-esque or NATO-esque alliance of states IN SPACE. Given that the closest look at the internal dynamics we had had before STIV came out was "Journey to Babel," in which numerous Federation worlds' ambassadors are at one-another's throats, literally and figuratively, it's not an unreasonable notion that the UFP (as it was understood before STIV) might include a tradition like the Warrantors.

 

[borgboy]

I read Dwellers just a few months ago and really enjoyed it. I'm generally a fan of MWB's novels. The Deltans were a bit strange. I just write the issue with them dying without regular physical contact being a problem that Ilia overcame due to her being an advanced member of her race, with better training, etc.

 

[Christopher]

"Advanced member of her race" sounds rather judgmental, but I had the idea myself that maybe she had special training for that particular skill that the others lacked.

In isolation, Dwellers's portrayal of the Deltans makes a degree of sense. Touch deprivation is psychologically harmful in humans, and infants who are completely deprived of touch and affection can actually die from it, due to the lack of stimulation of certain portions of the brain. So it follows that an even more touch-oriented species like the Deltans could be even more vulnerable to touch deprivation. Still, it is hard to reconcile with their screen portrayal.