Final cover for Raise the Dawn

[Sho]

While the thought of reading a book by Orson Scott Card makes me feel sick today, back in the day before I learned that he's a raging homophobe with questionable politics, I admittedly remember enjoying reading his two books on creative writing, Characters and Viewpoint and How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy.

In the latter, there's a nice section on how during universe building you absolutely have to figure out the modes of transportation available to your characters, because it will inform their relationships with each other and the places they arrive at: How long did they spend travelling together? How long would it take to call in help or reinforcements? Was it a one-way trip or can they return to where they hailed from?

In the same section he knocks Trek pretty hard for being an example of how not to do it, since according to him it doesn't get any more specific than "you push a button and it goes fast".

Anyhow, yeah, along those lines the slipstream drive is definitely a big deal ...

 

[BritishSeaPower]

I'd actually really like to see a Gamma Quadrant base. I think it makes a certain amount of sense after ~13 story years of people exploring that region and in some cases settling on that side. (I never liked the idea that New Bajor was there unprotected for a year without some type of "backup") And really, what's the point of the Wormhole existing if the Federation doesn't use it to further its goals? I always felt that the wormhole wasn't quite used to its potential in the show for a few seasons. Once the Dominion Showed up we lost a good deal of the random visits to and from the GQ races. (With exceptions of course.) So I'm all for this. Nice cover to boot.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

That's why I don't see the Quantum Slipstream Drive as quite the game-changer that some readers do.

I mean, it's a game-changer in terms of the Federation's relationship with its neighbors and in terms of its ability to learn just the basics about the rest of the galaxy and to project force. But, no, it's not a magic wand that makes the Federation omnipotent and omnipresent -- the limitations you cite are quite valid. But it does represent a fundamental change in how the Federation relates to the rest of the galaxy, as much so as the airplane fundamentally changed how nations interacted with one-another even though they'd already explored most of the planet by that point.

Good point. You're quite right, it does change things considerably in regards to how the Federation can (potentially) operate and how its neighbours will relate to it as a result. I was a bit narrow in my focus upthread; I should have clarified that I was evaluating Slipstream in terms of pure exploration potential only. There are of course political and other factors that need to be acknowledged if we're evaluating the technology as a whole.

 

[Julio Angel Ortiz]

On the other hand -- it's been a very long time since we've seen an Excelsior-class starship given any position of prominence in the Trekverse. By the last few seasons of DS9, they'd essentially been demoted to filler ships -- they weren't even the main supporting ships in most fleets. (That role fell to the Galaxy- and Akira-class ships.) And outside of the Excelsior and Enterprise-B novels (all three or four of them), I can't think of a single prominent Excelsior-class ship featured in TrekLit since the "Modern Age" began. Most supporting ships have been either Prometheus, Galaxy, one of the designs introduced in First Contact, or an original TrekLit design.

I love the Excelsior class, but I don't know how realistic it would be to have ships built in the 2280's still have a major presence in "current" (2384-ish) TrekLit. Hell, the Ambassador class was built later and is kind of relegated to mothballs these days, IMHO. It's no surprise that newer ships with longer shelf-life (such as the Galaxy class and its 100-year life expectancy given refits every 20-years mentioned in the TNG Tech Manual, IIRC) would be more the norm.

On-topic, I love cover and hope that this new starbase is in the Gamma Quadrant. As I've mentioned before, DS9 had this great premise in being a doorway to the GQ and to "boldly go...", yet barely went. Hopefully this duology will signal a new direction for the series in this regard.

 

[BrotherBenny]

And a new Vanguard-style series for a crew/ship set on/around Starbase 173??

 

[Sci]

On the other hand -- it's been a very long time since we've seen an Excelsior-class starship given any position of prominence in the Trekverse. By the last few seasons of DS9, they'd essentially been demoted to filler ships -- they weren't even the main supporting ships in most fleets. (That role fell to the Galaxy- and Akira-class ships.) And outside of the Excelsior and Enterprise-B novels (all three or four of them), I can't think of a single prominent Excelsior-class ship featured in TrekLit since the "Modern Age" began. Most supporting ships have been either Prometheus, Galaxy, one of the designs introduced in First Contact, or an original TrekLit design.

I love the Excelsior class, but I don't know how realistic it would be to have ships built in the 2280's still have a major presence in "current" (2384-ish) TrekLit.

Eh. One prominent ship doesn't make the entire class prominent anymore. It kind of makes sense to assume that most of the surviving Excelsiors would have been weeded out by the Dominion War.

On the other hand, the Pentagon apparently still expects to have a useful role for the B-52 bomber in the year 2043 -- nearly a century after its introduction in 1952. Given that space is, in some ways, a less-harsh environment than the air -- you are, after all, operating in a vacuum, not constantly dealing with the pressures of atmospheric travel -- I don't have a problem with the idea of a ship still being useful 100 years after its introduction, even if it's not top-of-the-line anymore.

 

[Julio Angel Ortiz]

And a new Vanguard-style series for a crew/ship set on/around Starbase 173??

Just my $0.02: I'd rather see the DS9 relaunch include this starbase as part of an expanded narrative landscape rather than another new series. But who knows?

 

[Sci]

And a new Vanguard-style series for a crew/ship set on/around Starbase 173??

Just my $0.02: I'd rather see the DS9 relaunch include this starbase as part of an expanded narrative landscape rather than another new series. But who knows?

I mean, the idea of doing a separate series about a starbase on the GQ side of the Wormhole doesn't make much sense to me when DS9 is literally a five-minute journey away.

 

[BrotherBenny]

I was thinking that perhaps DS9 has run its course. Think of it like this: ENT ran its course by giving us the end of the Earth-Romulan war and canonically the ship is then decommissioned. Now we have DS9, in which Sisko's primary role was, to quote Picard, "Do everything short of violating the Prime Directive" to bring Bajor into the Federation. That was accomplished. The Cardassians, once enemies of the Federation, are now allies in an expanded Khitomer Alliance. Thus the two prominent races from the series (excluding the Klingons) are either in the Federation or allied with it. Most of the core crew has gone to other assignments and trying to shoehorn them into a story based around a space station they no longer serve aboard is doing a greater disservice in my opinion. That said, I'll read any DS9 novel that comes out because it is one of my favorite series, though not as much as it once was.

Consider now the opportunities of new faces, some perhaps from races we've only heard about and never seen, and more new ships exploring a region of space we know nothing about post-Dominion apart from the Defiant's three month exploratory mission six years ago. I would much rather see a new thread in the tapestry of the Star Trek universe with the crew of Starbase 173 than the older tattered thread of the DS9 crew which we have seen grow and change for 11 years (or 14 in-universe years).

 

[Starbreaker]

It's a generic cover, but I'm more interested about the content on the inside. Just with the name on the cover, I'm sure I won't be disappointed.

 

[Avro Arrow]

I love the Excelsior class, but I don't know how realistic it would be to have ships built in the 2280's still have a major presence in "current" (2384-ish) TrekLit. Hell, the Ambassador class was built later and is kind of relegated to mothballs these days, IMHO.

The Excelsior class may have been initially built in the 2280s, but it seems that Starfleet built a large batch of them much later than that, judging by all those Excelsiors with 42xxx registries. Presumably all the equipment in them would be state-of-the-art as of the time they were built, so I have no problem believing a bunch of them are still around in 2384. (By comparison, IIRC the highest Ambassador registries have been 26xxx.)

On topic: Nice cover. I'm really looking forward to this duology, esp. to see where Sisko's story goes next after RBOE.

 

[Sci]

I was thinking that perhaps DS9 has run its course. Think of it like this: ENT ran its course by giving us the end of the Earth-Romulan war and canonically the ship is then decommissioned. Now we have DS9, in which Sisko's primary role was, to quote Picard, "Do everything short of violating the Prime Directive" to bring Bajor into the Federation. That was accomplished. The Cardassians, once enemies of the Federation, are now allies in an expanded Khitomer Alliance. Thus the two prominent races from the series (excluding the Klingons) are either in the Federation or allied with it. Most of the core crew has gone to other assignments and trying to shoehorn them into a story based around a space station they no longer serve aboard is doing a greater disservice in my opinion. That said, I'll read any DS9 novel that comes out because it is one of my favorite series, though not as much as it once was.

Consider now the opportunities of new faces, some perhaps from races we've only heard about and never seen, and more new ships exploring a region of space we know nothing about post-Dominion apart from the Defiant's three month exploratory mission six years ago. I would much rather see a new thread in the tapestry of the Star Trek universe with the crew of Starbase 173 than the older tattered thread of the DS9 crew which we have seen grow and change for 11 years (or 14 in-universe years).

I'd rather see whatever the current DS9 crew looks like, whatever mixture of old and new faces it might be. I see no reason to think DS9 has run its course -- especially since, as the Federation Starbase located adjacent to Cardassian, Tzenkethi, and Tholian territory, it would still naturally be a very important outpost, even if Starbase 173 turns out to be the one they run Gamma Quadrant operations out of. ENT, by contrast, had a natural endpoint in the founding of the Federation and the end of the Earth-Romulan War, since "These Are the Voyages..." established that the ship was decommissioned and since we know the NX-01 never became a Federation starship rather than a United Earth starship.

 

[Admiral_Young]

There are always possibilities to paraphrase a famous Vulcan. Perhaps the main DS9 story has run it's course yes, but that is no reason to think that the entire story is done being told. We shall have to wait and see what the future holds, if anything.

 

[JD]

I wouldn't write off DS9 the station just yet, keep in mind that Raise's the Dawn's back cover description talks about "disastrous events in the Bajor system". I wouldn't be surprised if whatever these disastrous events were raised DS9s profile again.

 

[WarsTrek1993]

Cool, an Excelsior-Class on the cover.

I'm looking forward to reading this duology, especially since it deals with Bajor and (most likely) DS9!

 

[F. King Daniel]

I wouldn't write off DS9 the station just yet, keep in mind that Raise's the Dawn's back cover description talks about "disastrous events in the Bajor system". I wouldn't be surprised if whatever these disastrous events were raised DS9s profile again.

Or those "disasterous events" blew it up, so we need this replacement for book 2.

I doubt it, but.... you never know.

 

[JD]

At this point, in Trek Lit anything is possible.

 

[Therin of Andor]

It's a generic cover.

How is this a "generic" cover. From all the discussion, it seems to have been very specifically designed to reflect the events of that particular novel.

"Generic" would be taking an image from an old ST calendar and slapping it onto the book.

 

[dispatcher812]

I could not open the link so I looked don Memory Alpha for the cover. I don't see a "Typon Pact" anywhere on it. Is this the same cover ? And what does the "Chain of Destiny Mean? I did a search for that but did not see anything.

Thanks, KEvin

 

[Sho]

How is this a "generic" cover.

I guess it was a generic complaint .