I just finished The Good that Men Do. Some thoughts.

[Turbo]

Christopher said:
But it's not about the records, it's about the general public's awareness of them. And again, in this case there was a deliberate effort to conceal the truth.

The Enterprise crew were quite well known by the public; I believe that this was well-established in Season 4. We're expected to believe that no-one saw hide nor hair of Trip for six years and no questions were asked as to what's up, especially as Enterprise became more and more famous?

Information that was selectively deleted and emended by Section 31. Now, I'd be the first to insist that no conspiracy can perfectly conceal the truth, but I can believe that they could muddy the issue enough that those who found evidence of the true events would be discounted as crackpots because their claims conflicted with what was believed to be an accurate historical record.

Except for the fact that we now live in the 'Information Age', as Trent pointed out above. Even with the destruction wrought by WWIII, Earth is back to a 'future' level of development by the 22nd century. The sheer quantity of data on Trip that would have to be altered is staggering. I find it hard to believe that Section 31 could alter everything.

Any science, even a "soft" science like history, is only as good as its evidence, and deliberately falsified evidence can successfully deceive the scientists recording it.

And often, history is more concerned with selling a point of view than with recording the truth. Look in just about any US school history book about Columbus and it will most likely contain claims that are totally false, such as the fiction that people back then believed the Earth to be flat (something that is obviously untrue to anyone who's travelled far enough to see their hometown fall below the horizon -- people weren't idiots back then, at least no more so than they are today). As ludicrous as this claim is, even respected historians have believed it to be true, because it's a lie that's been propagated so far and repeated in so many books that people go through their entire lives and careers just assuming it must be true. If you go back to the actual documents of the day and study them, it's obvious that people didn't believe the Earth was flat, but that doesn't prevent even distinguished historians from believing that they did. Repeat a myth often enough, and even people who should know better will end up believing it.

Again, this is true for events that happened before the Information Age. For example, if 20 years down the road, a historian tries to claim that Bush was a popular president and was widely supported for his entire term, he'd be laughed down as soon as someone pulled out the Gallup poll records. There's too much data available now for large fabrications such as Columbus being the 'first' one to think the world was round.

 

[Turbo]

One more thing - a number of people in here are treating the Enterprise crew like 'typical' soldiers. They weren't. Enterprise was the first Starfleet vessel. I'd think they'd be seen more as heroes by many people on Earth, like the first astronauts, especially after saving Earth from the Xindi and laying the foundations for the Federation.

 

[JD]

One thing you guys are forgetting about is the fact that this is Section 31 we're talking about here, and I have a feeling that we have seen only a small fraction of what they are capable of.

 

[Elemental]

Even beyond the argument about whether it is possible to conceal this or not (and I've already stated that excuses can be made for near anything in sci-fi - no one has made any arguments that I have not considered myself), but the point that is even more non-sensical is why the dates were falsified? It doesn't make much sense to begin with why Trip would have to fake his death in order to go on a covert mission. It makes even less sense why the date this occurred would be covered up by Section 31. Hopefully there's a future story for this (provided it is actually a good story and not simply an attempt at further justification of the change).

And just as an aside, I'd be interested in knowing of a time when one of the authors of the Pocket line actually argues against the validity of an idea proposed in recent Star Trek novels.

 

[JD]

I have a feeling we will probably understand these things as the series goes on, because you have to remember, this is the first book in an ongoing series.

 

[David cgc]

I mean, it's fairly obvious to me that the answer to the question of "Why did no one notice Trip was missing in the six years between his faking his death and history recording his faked death" is that he returned to the Enterprise fairly quickly from his adventure with the Romulans, and something else happened six years later that required him to be dead again. So rather than fake a second death, they just repurposed the first one.

 

[Therin of Andor]

William Leisner said:
Actually, no, I'm not. Records are records. Paper, data tape cartridge, isolinear chip, doesn't matter. The information is there, it's just a matter of how accessible it is, and whether anyone cares enough to go digging for it.

Exactly. And what references do Internet users seem to quote most these days: Wikipedia, which can be altered and re-altered by anyone.

Just this week, Australia's Prime Minister, John Howard, came under fire because it was discovered that his own office had been getting into Wikipedia and "cleaning up" the entries made by members of the general public, putting a positive spin on some of his policies and actions over the past decade!

I have no problem believing the authors' take on TGtMD. It was my personal take on the ENT episode when it first came out.

 

[William Leisner]

Turbo said:
One more thing - a number of people in here are treating the Enterprise crew like 'typical' soldiers. They weren't. Enterprise was the first Starfleet vessel.

Well, no, it wasn't: Starfleet was around for several years before the NX-01 launched, testing the NX prototypes, and it was plainly stated that Archer and Hernandez previously served together on at least one other Starfleet vessel. (So much for "It's the Age of Information; misinformation is impossible," huh? )

I'd think they'd be seen more as heroes by many people on Earth, like the first astronauts, especially after saving Earth from the Xindi and laying the foundations for the Federation.

I take it you haven't seen or read Flags of Our Fathers. Hero stories are far from immune from embellishment and outright fabrication; it's probably even easier to invent facts about people that others want to see as noble and unimpeachable.

 

[Trent Roman]

William Leisner said:
I take it you haven't seen or read Flags of Our Fathers. Hero stories are far from immune from embellishment and outright fabrication; it's probably even easier to invent facts about people that others want to see as noble and unimpeachable.

No one says that such alterations are impossible, particularly by a group as dedicated, resourceful and callous as 31. But the scope of it, the difficulty, strains credibility. And we are getting better at seeing through such smokescreens, aided in part by an information society. Compared how long it took for the Iwo Jima photo-op to be revealed to the relatively speed with which the photo-op of Saddam's statue being toppled was exposed as a lie, or the 'daring rescue' of Private Lynch, or the armed forces' attempts to pass off the murder of Pat Tillman as a heroic death in combat.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[Turtletrekker]

William Leisner said:
Hero stories are far from immune from embellishment and outright fabrication;

Jessica Lynch, anyone?

ETA: Damn you, Trent!

 

[Guy Gardener]

Originaly posted by Michaelis.
Strangely enough, I don't remember that. Could it be that we're thinking of two different people called Michael Jan Friedman? The one I know can't see the future, which is why he wrote SF:YO unaware that the next TV series would show a different early history of Starfleet and the Federation.

This is written on the very first page of the book before Michael’s novel starts.

STARFLEET: YEAR ONE is unrelated to the events depicted in the television series ENTERPRISE

Originally posted by Turbo

One more thing - a number of people in here are treating the Enterprise crew like 'typical' soldiers. They weren't. Enterprise was the first Starfleet vessel. I'd think they'd be seen more as heroes by many people on Earth, like the first astronauts, especially after saving Earth from the Xindi and laying the foundations for the Federation.

At the age as 26, Archer’s wedding proposal was turned down by Margaret Mullin’s because she didn’t want to be another Starfleet Widow. Starfleet has been around for a long time probably using Warp One Box Cars, not allowed to exit the solar system because the Vulcans claim the outer galaxy is too prickly for humanity to weather. It was the first Warp 5 vessel, which was quickly decommissioned in 2161… Unless as time was moved around Enterprise was decommissioned in 2154?

originally posted by JD
One thing you guys are forgetting about is the fact that this is Section 31 we're talking about here, and I have a feeling that we have seen only a small fraction of what they are capable of.

Section 31's, if that is their name, real power is that there are consequences for any of their decisions. How many resources they have to play with while being capable of the unthinkable is another question entirely.

...

Changing the electrically stored truth is one thing, but Federation Day is like Christmas to these people. I's an aural tradition and bank holiday (Yet, no Banks. Weird huh?), and generations passing down the stories of where they came from, that's a little harder to frack with... Until two families with slightly different renderings of what happened get into a punch up trying to figure out what reeeeeeeeeally happened.

Don't forget the trillions of school children doing book reports on the Romulan war and/or Trip over the course of 200 years between These are the Voyages... and Pegasus.

"Daddy can you look at my homework?"

"Okay honey. ...Mmmmmmm, uh, ha, uh ha... You got some dates wrong."

"No I didn't, I copied it out of the PADD."

"You copied the PADD!!! You cheated and you still got it wrong?!"

And so on, and so on.

 

[David cgc]

Guy Gardener said:

Originaly posted by Michaelis.
Strangely enough, I don't remember that. Could it be that we're thinking of two different people called Michael Jan Friedman? The one I know can't see the future, which is why he wrote SF:YO unaware that the next TV series would show a different early history of Starfleet and the Federation.

This is written on the very first page of the book before Michael’s novel starts.

STARFLEET: YEAR ONE is unrelated to the events depicted in the television series ENTERPRISE

]

Yes, but the book was actually written a couple of years before that book was published. It originally came out as a serial novel, with a chapter at the end of every book over the course of the year. However, by the time it was decided to put it all together and sell it as a single book, Enterprise had begun airing, so that disclaimer had to be added. Besides, the disclaimer says more about the beliefs of licensing than those of the author. "Vendetta" has a similar disclaimer because it included a female borg drone (this was years before the Borg Queen and Seven of Nine), and it really honked off Peter David that his book alone had a little line at the front saying that it wasn't "really" a part of Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Ah. That makes sense.

But it was quite close and nearly on top of each other unless Michael took more than a year to write the thing and never ventured onto the internet.

 

[Turbo]

I would assume that MJF wrote the book in 1998 for publication as a serial in 1999. There were no details on Enterprise until 2000.

 

[KRAD]

^ Actually, no details about Enterprise were revealed until the summer of 2001.

 

[Guy Gardener]

But "BOTF" was circulating for quite a while before the first nuts and bolts for Enterprise were put on the table, which lead to the most creative speculation in the Future trek Forum here, which is never no mind... Because the issue at point is not which comes first, but if these too different histories are dove tail compatible, which obviously they are not even though Year One predates Enterprise it's unfortunate which story is more definitive because TV trumps novel.

That being said, I see that this forum has moved up a couple rungs till it's along side the more official media because the novels are alive and the TV is sadly extinct. Maybe someday soon, Novels will trump TV?

 

[RookieBatman]

Guy Gardener said:
Maybe someday soon, Novels will trump TV?

Not based on the quantity of readers vs. viewers. I've heard it said here recently that about 1% of fans read Trek books.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Guy Gardener said:
But "BOTF" was circulating for quite a while before the first nuts and bolts for Enterprise were put on the table, which lead to the most creative speculation in the Future trek Forum here

Which doesn't mean anything since Michael Jan Friedman wasn't a member of the board at that time, and while I don't wish to speak for him, I highly doubt he was surfing around the internet, reading all of the different rumors of what the next show could possibly be about. One only finds those rumors if they're looking for them. It's not like they were mentioned on CNN, BBC, etc.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Emh said:

Guy Gardener said:
But "BOTF" was circulating for quite a while before the first nuts and bolts for Enterprise were put on the table, which lead to the most creative speculation in the Future trek Forum here

Which doesn't mean anything since Michael Jan Friedman wasn't a member of the board at that time, and while I don't wish to speak for him, I highly doubt he was surfing around the internet, reading all of the different rumors of what the next show could possibly be about. One only finds those rumors if they're looking for them. It's not like they were mentioned on CNN, BBC, etc.

o. I'm past that, having already raised the question of whether way back then MJF was computer savvy, totally realizing that in so however long it took to write and then how long pocket books then sat on Year One waiting for the right wave of novels to appear in the schedule to comfortably publish the periodical back-stories. It's almost impossible MJF would be n the know.

However, freshly following the theme, I found it intriguing that BOTF was already a rumour, as Year One was making the rounds in finished product like some sort of priming device for the looming yet undefined prequel, almost like it was an intentional promotional device for Enterprise? Which is what i was not clearly explaining in my last couple posts. Sorry.

Have you thought about inviting Michael for a visit? For a featured chat, or Honory Moderatorship?

There was a time in the middle ages where the pope banned anyone except clergy from reading the bible because it had too many dangerous ideas the prols couldn't be trusted to process favourably. Christianity seemed to weather that period of antibiblophelia well enough, Trekies might dream to do so well as well.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Michael Jan Friedman has post here, but he's been absent for some time, like a few others (Marco, Dayton). Life happens.