Bennett hits it out of the park again. I love where he is taking the story of the Federation. Well done sir!
Spoilers ENT: Rise of the Federation: Uncertain Logic by C. L. Bennett Review Thread
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It's Google Drive's version of Microsoft Word documents. Google Drive lets users create, upload, store, edit, etc. up to 15 GB of electronic files for free. Kind of like Dropbox, if you've ever heard of that. All you need is a Google account. You can then access it by Internet browser or by app.
About Google Docs:
http://www.google.com/docs/about/
Getting started with Google Drive:
https://support.google.com/drive/answer/2424384?hl=en
For example, here is a publicly viewable story from The Transformers Collectors Club. It has been shared so as to be downloadable but not editable.
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_AaAWT6x2NmLTBxZ2xHTF9PVjg/edit
Data Soong
Ensign
Sigh. Gotta little further. So Sareks mom's first husband was Ton Cruise?
What?
Data Soong
Ensign
Sarek's mom married her first husband who ended up being gay all along and she divorced him and married Sarek's dad.
They were never married, it was a discussion they held before the marriage was to occur. T'Rama agreed to dissolve the bond. Also I don't understand the sigh at that; with how arranged marriages work in Vulcan society and the ages at which they're performed, this probably happens all the time on Vulcan. T'Prynn wanted to dissolve her bond for the same reason, if I remember right, though of course her situation ended much more poorly.
Wrong. She was betrothed to him in childhood, as Vulcans tend to be, and released him from the engagement once they grew up and he recognized his true orientation. They were never actually married. T'Rama is Skon's second wife, but Skon is T'Rama's first and only husband.
This was necessary to account for the age difference between Skon and T'Rama. As I mention in the acknowledgments, Memory Beta correctly pointed out that, since Ambassador Solkar (the Vulcan who greeted Zefram Cochrane at the end of First Contact) was killed in the Mirror Universe version of that event, he must have already fathered Skon before 2063 in order for Mirror Spock to exist in the 23rd century. So Skon has to be at least 102 at the time of this novel. But the previous references to T'Rama established her as relatively young. So if she's half his age, they couldn't have been betrothed as children, and thus must each have had a reason to be unattached.
I'm certainly not going to turn down some additional peeps into the rather fascinating Vulcan reproductive/family system and the laws and customs involved.
The Vulcan system of arranged childhood betrothals has made some allowances for biological realities that might make the bonding process difficult or unpalatable, at least partially. It's more on the individual, though. T'Rama would have had the legal right to insist that the marriage went ahead as planned, and if she had done so it would in turn have granted her mate the right to challenge, but clearly she was too respectful of her former fiancé to do so, having approached the situation with understanding and agreeing to the severance. Idran has mentioned the situation with T'Prynn in the Vanguard novels, whose mate did indeed insist on the union regardless, leading her to make a challenge for freedom from the obligation (let's just say that Sten was, well, not so respectful of the partner's urge to withdraw from the union).
"Matching of the spares" has to take place somehow, through however many means. How do those left without a mate find companionship and raise families?
The Vulcan system of arranged childhood betrothals has made some allowances for biological realities that might make the bonding process difficult or unpalatable, at least partially. It's more on the individual, though. T'Rama would have had the legal right to insist that the marriage went ahead as planned, and if she had done so it would in turn have granted her mate the right to challenge, but clearly she was too respectful of her former fiancé to do so, having approached the situation with understanding and agreeing to the severance. Idran has mentioned the situation with T'Prynn in the Vanguard novels, whose mate did indeed insist on the union regardless, leading her to make a challenge for freedom from the obligation (let's just say that Sten was, well, not so respectful of the partner's urge to withdraw from the union).
"Matching of the spares" has to take place somehow, through however many means. How do those left without a mate find companionship and raise families?
I'll be coming back to this thread in more detail when I have time--as usual, Deranged Nasat's very thoughtful posts require some time to read, digest, and respond to.
But I will say this: People discover that their high school sweethearts are gay all the time; it happens, it's a part of life as LGBT persons grow up and realize they are not heterosexual. Why on Earth would you automatically equate that with Tom Cruise?
But I will say this: People discover that their high school sweethearts are gay all the time; it happens, it's a part of life as LGBT persons grow up and realize they are not heterosexual. Why on Earth would you automatically equate that with Tom Cruise?
Indeed. Adding to that, when you have a culture that forms reproductive pairings prior to an age of sexuality, you're going to one way or the other come up against that fact and have steps in place to deal with it (even if the step is something like total repression of non-standard sexualities).
From a story-telling perspective, which is what I think we're primarily dealing with here, having one of the pair release a mate from the obligation due to their homosexuality is a perfectly valid way to explain one half of the age-mismatched couple, especially since the novels have established that homosexuality is apparently as common among Vulcans as Humans.
Christopher,
First of all, The cover is a clever illustration of the IDIC symbol being formed by the overlay of what I assume is the ark of Surak overlaid upon the planet Vulcan. Was the cover suggested by you? Bravo!
However, if that is indeed a representation of the ark of Surak, shouldn't it have 3 large isosceles faces, per page 107 of the printed novel? Its supposed to be a tetrahedron, however the figure on the cover appears to be a standard 4 sided pyramid with a four sided base.
First of all, The cover is a clever illustration of the IDIC symbol being formed by the overlay of what I assume is the ark of Surak overlaid upon the planet Vulcan. Was the cover suggested by you? Bravo!
However, if that is indeed a representation of the ark of Surak, shouldn't it have 3 large isosceles faces, per page 107 of the printed novel? Its supposed to be a tetrahedron, however the figure on the cover appears to be a standard 4 sided pyramid with a four sided base.
Well, my tendency to waffle on notwithstanding, most of the distinction between our approaches and worldviews is a matter of differing emphasis, I think.
In general you and I take different approach vectors and come to different interpretations of what we see, whether we're analysing reality, fiction or both. We both acknowledge that instinctual urges and deeper motivations inform, underlie or overshadow surface motives, and we both agree that individual egotistical pursuit of power/gain and depersonalized commitment to the wider group are both involved. Oversimplifying here, the difference is mostly that you tend to view the former as the more powerful, I think - the one that best defines the motive for various societal institutions, customs, and practices - whereas I favour the latter. You see power hierarchies, I see tribal huddles. You see individuals clawing for influence over each other, I see sacrifice of the individual for security of the group - though, again, each of these views incorporates the other truth within it. Like yin and yang; there is part of each in the other. I'm either yin or yang, Sci, and you're the opposite. Which means on some level we may be defined by incompatibility - but in reality there is not in fact, that much of a gulf. Both of us are political beings - and, yes, I admitted it, because something Christopher wrote in this novel is something I can't deny: that politics isn't just tribal structures, and so I can't pretend to be apolitical just because I have no time or lend no legitimacy to group structures and group relations stemming from a certain set of psychological urges (equating that form of politics with politics itself is in error, no matter how I think the former consumes the latter). It may be a different approach to politics, but that's what it is. Both of us are political beings, and both of us have a strong ethical investment in our people as a whole and in working toward a productive and hopefully better future for them. Some of our means, and our ideas of how reality works and what must be changed, the models which we hold in our minds' eye, are admittedly intolerable to the other's comprehension (or in layman's terms, we each think the other is in some regards very and perhaps frustratingly wrong, to the point of unintentional obstructionism
), but then you and I have never let that get in the way of anything. Perhaps I need you to be the Vorlon to my Shadow. Or is that the other way round?
That was established in tie-in fiction some time ago.
As a matter of fact, the suggestion was mine. That isn't usually the case with book covers, but I had the idea and suggested it to my editor with no expectation it would be followed. I'm pleased that it was.
No, the cover image is an accurate represtentation of the Kir'Shara prop. It's beveled inward at the base. I can see why you'd think it was looking slightly upward at a square-based pyramid, but it's actually looking face-on or slightly downward at just one face of the artifact.
I thought so, since it seemed that you had a history with Gene Rodenberry's IDIC symbol, per http://startrekfactcheck.blogspot.com/2013/08/dont-know-much-about-vulcan-philosophy.html
Ahh I understand now.
I wonder who bought that prop. Who now owns the Kir'shara?
Well, not really. Harvey's thanks to me there are just in response to my participation in his "Fact-Checking Inside Star Trek" thread, in which I consulted The Art of Star Trek and did a bit of amateur handwriting comparison to try to determine whether the original IDIC sketch was by Roddenberry or Bill Theiss.
By the way, Harvey, if you're reading this, the link to my site in that blog post is dead now.
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lol...I hope the difference between your actual post, and the email notification text, {seen below} is due to an edit?
Here is the message that has just been posted:
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---Quote (Originally by NotLKH)---
I thought so, since it seemed that you had a history with Gene Rodenberry's IDIC symbol, per http://startrekfactcheck.blogspot.com/2013/08/dont-know-much-about-vulcan-philosophy.html
---End Quote---
Well, not really. *Harvey*'s thanks to me there are just in response to my participation in his "Fact-Checking Inside Star Trek (http://www.trekbbs.com/Peteâs probably second only to Superman in the sheer number of different powers he has, and they really combine to be more than the sum of their parts. Having Super-speed, enhanced leaping abilty, able to run up walls and ceilings, super agility, super strength and endurance, AND a pre-cog early warning system? (And thatâs not even touching on what he can do with his webs..))" thread, in which I consulted The Art of Star Trek and did a bit of amateur handwriting comparison to try to determine whether the original IDIC sketch was by Roddenberry or Bill Theiss.
By the way, *Harvey*, if you're reading this, the link to my site in that blog post is dead now.
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Here is the message that has just been posted:
***************
---Quote (Originally by NotLKH)---
I thought so, since it seemed that you had a history with Gene Rodenberry's IDIC symbol, per http://startrekfactcheck.blogspot.com/2013/08/dont-know-much-about-vulcan-philosophy.html
---End Quote---
Well, not really. *Harvey*'s thanks to me there are just in response to my participation in his "Fact-Checking Inside Star Trek (http://www.trekbbs.com/Peteâs probably second only to Superman in the sheer number of different powers he has, and they really combine to be more than the sum of their parts. Having Super-speed, enhanced leaping abilty, able to run up walls and ceilings, super agility, super strength and endurance, AND a pre-cog early warning system? (And thatâs not even touching on what he can do with his webs..))" thread, in which I consulted The Art of Star Trek and did a bit of amateur handwriting comparison to try to determine whether the original IDIC sketch was by Roddenberry or Bill Theiss.
By the way, *Harvey*, if you're reading this, the link to my site in that blog post is dead now.
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Oops, that was something I copied and pasted into a post on a comic-book blog. I must've failed to copy the TrekBBS post address into my clipboard as I'd intended. The link is fixed now.
Finished it yesterday and went with Below Average in the end. As I indicated above neither the Vulcan plot, nor the Ware or the Deltan plot were able to really pull me into the novel.
I think Christopher's handling of the characterizations of the TV regulars was good, but the other characterizations are a bit hit and miss.