Has the Typhon Pact Books Became Yuuhzan Vong Invasion of Star Trek

Re: Has the Typhon Pact Books Became Yuuhzan Vong Invasion of Star Tre

Amazing.

 

Re: Has the Typhon Pact Books Became Yuuhzan Vong Invasion of Star Tre

That Christopher doesn't read Star Wars books?

 

Re: Has the Typhon Pact Books Became Yuuhzan Vong Invasion of Star Tre

That or he's saying NJO was amazing, which...I dunno. I thought it was pretty good. I'd say there was only one book out of the nineteen that could be classified as amazing. Half of the books (mostly in the first half) were average at best, IMO. The rest ranged from decent to very good.

 

Re: Has the Typhon Pact Books Became Yuuhzan Vong Invasion of Star Tre

I hated it. The quality of the books was so much lower then the disparate books that were being written beforehand. I never read anything anywhere near as good as zahn's books, the x-wing books or the black fleet crisis trilogy.

I was quite excited after the first one, as even though I didn't think much of it, they killed off a character, leaving you thinking that nothing could be taken for granted anymore. But it never sparked my interest after that.

 

Re: Has the Typhon Pact Books Became Yuuhzan Vong Invasion of Star Tre

I'm sort of biased towards long, epic narratives wherein characters really grow and change. Most of the SW books about the actual main characters before NJO had been pretty bland, I thought NJO was a huge improvement. I'd rather them not quite hit a really ambitious target than keep hitting really stupid lame easy ones.

Not to go against the thread or anything, but I'd sort of like Trek books to be more sequential and connected

 

Re: Has the Typhon Pact Books Became Yuuhzan Vong Invasion of Star Tre

I don't think the comparison is between the content of the two imprints so much as it's polarizing effect on the fanbase. Some love NJO, but a lot hate it with a passion. It's become something of a lightning rod for everything that some fans feel has gone wrong with the SW EU franchise.

Same thing seems to have happened with TP.

 

Re: Has the Typhon Pact Books Became Yuuhzan Vong Invasion of Star Tre

As a veteran of the SW novel line (though one who's grown a bit disillusioned with it in recent years), the ongoing sense of connectedness and (at least a loose) continuity is what's drawn me to Trek lit. I had next to no interest in the books way back when they were just a bunch of random adventures with no real ties to each other.

 

Re: Has the Typhon Pact Books Became Yuuhzan Vong Invasion of Star Tre

Like it or dislike it, I'd say the star trek one really started with "A Time To..." (or was it even earlier?). TP is just the latest evolution of that. I don't see that TP is doing anything new...just that some of the books under the banner have been particularly ill-received.

 

Re: Has the Typhon Pact Books Became Yuuhzan Vong Invasion of Star Tre

That is exactly my point. It isn't about the content of TP, it's about the reception of TP by some fans.

 

Re: Has the Typhon Pact Books Became Yuuhzan Vong Invasion of Star Tre

I don't understand why, though. It's not like the formation of the Typhon Pact has led to a "war to end all wars" scenario that was one of the main sources of discontent with NJO (a lot of fans got really tired of the seemingly endless doom and gloom). What about TP has so many fans upset? Isn't it reasonable to assume that rival powers would band together to protect themselves from the seemingly unstoppable juggernaut that is the Federation? Are they supposed to just sit idly by and let the Federation get away with whatever they want just because they're the "good guys"?

 

Re: Has the Typhon Pact Books Became Yuuhzan Vong Invasion of Star Tre

^I think the problem is that since most of the governments in the TP haven't always been friendly with the Federation some people are assuming this has all been setting the stage for a big war. But I really don't see where the introduction of the TP is really any different than the introduction of the Klingons or the Romulans in TOS. Sure it adds some more complications to the politics of the Federation and the Alpha & Beta quadrants, but that doesn't mean there's going to automatically be some kind of apocalyptic war in the near future, I trust the people behind the books to give us something more interesting than that.

 

Re: Has the Typhon Pact Books Became Yuuhzan Vong Invasion of Star Tre

^Again, I think it's that certain big, relatively recent stories -- in this case, the Dominion War arc and Destiny -- have left such an impact on people that they've forgotten how atypical they are in Trek.

 

Re: Has the Typhon Pact Books Became Yuuhzan Vong Invasion of Star Tre

If we simply must get into the content, then it doesn't help any that the first thing the Pact does after it forms is start scheming against the Federation.

And the Federation, having learned the harsh lessons of the DW and BI, is not about to just sit back as it would have back when TNG was new and do the "I love you, you love me" thing. No, they're going to plot and scheme right back, as some of the recent books have shown.

So we have a "shadow" conflict of sorts going on. Logically, those sorts of conflicts eventually turn into either "hot" wars or "cold" wars.

It's the curse of everyone getting what they said they wanted: a Federation that acts more like a real government.

 

Re: Has the Typhon Pact Books Became Yuuhzan Vong Invasion of Star Tre

It seems to me that the Typhon Pact books and modern Trek in general has utterly abandoned exploration as any kind of storyline. I love geopolitical stuff as well. But not book after book after book after book of it.

 

Re: Has the Typhon Pact Books Became Yuuhzan Vong Invasion of Star Tre

The Titan novel in the first Typhon Pact wave was about exploration, the second and third Voyager novels were about exploration, the upcoming Titan novel is also about exploration, half of DTI was about exploring a really amazing new idea for a place, Indistinguishable From Magic was about exploration, the new Voyager novel probably is about exploration...

It may be less than it used to be, but "utterly abandoned" is a hell of a stretch. Have you read the Voyager books?

 

Re: Has the Typhon Pact Books Became Yuuhzan Vong Invasion of Star Tre

I have nothing to do with Voyager.

I consider Voyager and Enterprise to be crimes against science fiction in general and Star Trek in particular.

 

Re: Has the Typhon Pact Books Became Yuuhzan Vong Invasion of Star Tre

Dude, seriously, you are missing out. I hated Voyager too, but Kirsten Beyer's Voyager novels are *EXACTLY* what you have been looking for. Children of the Storm is the best optimistic, exploration-centered, ideals-of-the-Federation YAY! novel published in years.

Full Circle is dark and astropolitical, but that gets them launched back into the Delta Quadrant, and starting at Unworthy you will find what you want.

Give them a shot, I'm serious. You'll be blown away.

In case no one's told you, for example, Janeway is dead. They look pretty different from the TV show.

 

Re: Has the Typhon Pact Books Became Yuuhzan Vong Invasion of Star Tre

Again, you're making the fundamental and enormous mistake of treating the Pact as an "it." The Pact is a "they" -- a loose affiliation of six nations with more than six distinct agendas within it. Yes, some factions within the Pact are scheming against the Federation, while others are not. Although the Pact did attempt to undermine the UFP to an extent in A Singular Destiny while their existence was still a secret, their first formal act on the galactic stage was to stop the Kinshaya's attacks on Klingon worlds and formally apologize for them. Thus demonstrating that they have the potential to cause trouble for other nations and the potential to be a stabilizing influence on their own members. It's not supposed to be one-sided.

And it's not as if the Federation itself has never schemed against other nations. The Pact isn't out for conquest or gratuitous evil. They legitimately see the Federation as a threat to their security and autonomy. So of course they're going to try to undermine a nation they see as an imperialist threat, in the same way that the Federation has tried in the past to undermine hostile nations like the Romulans and Cardassians. Sometimes good guys and bad guys are just a matter of perspective.

 

Re: Has the Typhon Pact Books Became Yuuhzan Vong Invasion of Star Tre

A fine distinction that matters little.

Example: Texas conspires to send agents into Mexico to stop drug traffic. They get caught. Who is Mexico going to go after for redress? The US, not Texas, because the US is the national government that is supposed to keep it's member states in line.

Never said they didn't (at least in TOS days).

Never said they were. Said they were plotting and scheming against the Federation.

Again, it isn't about motive, it's about the acts themselves. ANY government will react poorly to acts of espionage, sabotage, etc against it's interests regardless of motive.

That's why this sort of thing gets out of hand so quickly in the real world: A spys on B, B counterspies and sabotages against A. Words are exchanged, tempers flare, and next thing you know there's a war on.

And BOTH sides tell themselves that they're acting in their own best interest or in the name of a greater common interest.

 

Re: Has the Typhon Pact Books Became Yuuhzan Vong Invasion of Star Tre

I think at this point the relationship between the TP and the UFP is pretty much at the same point that their relationships with the Romulans and Cardassians were during TNG and early DS9. And from what I've read, I think that was kind of the point. From what I remember KRAD or someone said that that was kind of the idea, since the Klingons, Cardassians, Romulans and Dominion were no longer enemies, and the Borg were gone, they decided they needed to bring in someone else to complicate things for the UFP, so they created the Typhon Pact.