Miridian in Taking Wing

[foravalon]

Random-ass question,

In Taking Wing, a Romulan uprising is featured among the worlds involved in the rebellion, Miridian is constantly being mentioned. What is this a reference to? The Miridian in Star Charts isn't in Romulan Space and isn't inhabited.
The Miridian from TNG didn't have anyone living on it, I think that was the one of the central points of revelation that tipped Riker off in "Future Imperfect".

So why specifically mention this world multiple times in the book? I assumed it was a reference to something else, but now I'm just confused.

 

[DS9Continuing]

Well, there's time between TNG season 4 and the equivalent of TNG season 16. Plenty of time for folks to move in, or for the Romulans to put some folk there who then revolted.

 

[foravalon]

True that, assuming the RNZ went down in 2374 with the Dominion War Alliance, it's quite possible the RSE could have acquired this nearby world through treaty or otherwise. Isn't it stated in the same book that the RSE now owns a chunk of the former Cardassian Union as a war restitution? That in itself is another eyebrow raising offhand comment, but it would rationalize the new additions to the Romulan Star Empire.

It's certainly plausible that a Romulan administered colony could have therefore been established on Miridian in the 6 intervening years between "...Pale Moonlight" and Taking Wing in 2380, which then went on to foment a revolt. If there's something notable about the world, as Riker's casual knowledge of it implies, then perhaps a disenfranchised work colony? I'd buy that.

M&M just seem to have a habit of making really specific casual references with no explanations that are sometimes very odd, maybe it's a secret code.

 

[Andy Mangels]

A reply from Mike (BTW, moderators, Mike can't find his three-years-ago-or-so log-in ID... can you?):

"KRAD also uses Miridian as an inhabited Romulan world (exploited for its slave labor) in Articles of the Federation (see his annotations at: http://www.sff.net/people/krad/aotfann.htm ).

Also, I think the planet may have been similarly mentioned in other recent titles (I'm not sure right off the top of my head, but one or two of the Schwartz-Sherman Vulcan's Soul books may have done it, and/or Mike Friedman's TNG novel Death in Winter, IIRC).

As for discrepancies with Star Charts, this wouldn't be the first one (note the disparity between Klach D'Kel Brakt and the Briar Patch as but one prominent example; OTOH, maybe there's more than one "Miridian," like all the Pittsburgs and Springfields that have proliferated across the country over the past couple of centuries)."

 

[The Nth Doctor]

A reply from Mike (BTW, moderators, Mike can't find his three-years-ago-or-so log-in ID... can you?):

I just took a look through the member list and couldn't find it. I'm guessing it got purged due to inactivity before we moved to vBulletin. He's welcome to open a new account.

 

[foravalon]

Ah Ha! KRAD is the fiend! Someone call the geek police! I found the passage in question in AotF, M&M are off the hook. But we're still keeping an eye on them...

...you know, cause, we love 'em.

 

[KRAD]

"KRAD also uses Miridian as an inhabited Romulan world (exploited for its slave labor) in Articles of the Federation (see his annotations at: http://www.sff.net/people/krad/aotfann.htm ).

I did? *checks annotations* *checks manuscript* Well, frell me dead, I did!

Anyhow, Taking Wing and Articles of the Federation, as lvsxy808 pointed out, is a good 12 years after "Future Imperfect," and the Federation and Romulans allied during that time, and Miridian was right on the border. Given that the Federation was willing to cede inhabited worlds to the Cardassians, it's not out of character for them to cede uninhabited ones to the Romulans.

 

[foravalon]

"KRAD also uses Miridian as an inhabited Romulan world (exploited for its slave labor) in Articles of the Federation (see his annotations at: http://www.sff.net/people/krad/aotfann.htm ).

I did? *checks annotations* *checks manuscript* Well, frell me dead, I did!

Anyhow, Taking Wing and Articles of the Federation, as lvsxy808 pointed out, is a good 12 years after "Future Imperfect," and the Federation and Romulans allied during that time, and Miridian was right on the border. Given that the Federation was willing to cede inhabited worlds to the Cardassians, it's not out of character for them to cede uninhabited ones to the Romulans.

True that, assuming the RNZ went down in 2374 with the Dominion War Alliance, it's quite possible the RSE could have acquired this nearby world through treaty or otherwise. Isn't it stated in the same book that the RSE now owns a chunk of the former Cardassian Union as a war restitution? That in itself is another eyebrow raising offhand comment, but it would rationalize the new additions to the Romulan Star Empire.

It's certainly plausible that a Romulan administered colony could have therefore been established on Miridian in the 6 intervening years between "...Pale Moonlight" and Taking Wing in 2380, which then went on to foment a revolt. If there's something notable about the world, as Riker's casual knowledge of it implies, then perhaps a disenfranchised work colony? I'd buy that.

Hey lookee that, I made sense! Whoo hoo!

The only prob now is that reading back I see that Rasia Shostakova kinda frells up the theory herself. She claims the Romulans took possession of that world appx 15 years before, and that they were using the planet's indigenous lifeform as slave labor, whom have now begun to revolt. Although in Raisa's defense those could be Pangean years which may, like Shostakova, be much shorter perhaps.