One thing that irked me about the Destiny trilogy. *spoilers inside*

[The Rock]

Ok, great trilogy so far. Right now, I am on the third book, and am about 60 pages till the end. But one thing just made me scratch my head about it....

Picard orders Geordi to modify the Ent-E's deflector dish to emit thalaron radiation (the same kind of weapon that Shinzon had in Star Trek: Nemesis).......but Geordi refuses, saying that he didn't think it was right to wipe out all of the Borg.

So ok, whatever. I didn't agree with Geordi there, but whatever.

So then about 20 pages later, Picard, Riker, and Dax are perfectly willing to blow up Axion (without giving any warning to the Caeliar, mind you) so the Borg couldn't get their hands on the Omega particle. Oh, and after blowing up Axion, there would be no more Caeliar left in the universe in that time period.

Am I the only one who thought this was a huge contradiction by the author?

 

[JB2005]

Re: One thing that irked me about the Destiny trilogy. *spoilers insid

Not really, i think you've misinterpreted Geordi's reluctace.

It wasn't specifically the idea of wiping out the Borg Geordi objected to it was the method Picard had instructed him to carry it out.

By recreating the thalaron weapon, he was unleashing a weapon of mass destruction that his best friend had died to destroy.

At least that was how I took it?

 

[The Rock]

Re: One thing that irked me about the Destiny trilogy. *spoilers insid

Not really, i think you've misinterpreted Geordi's reluctace.

It wasn't specifically the idea of wiping out the Borg Geordi objected to it was the method Picard had instructed him to carry it out.

By recreating the thalaron weapon, he was unleashing a weapon of mass destruction that his best friend had died to destroy.

At least that was how I took it?

Well I totally understand how he didn't wanna do build the thalaron weapon because of Data sacrificing his life to destroy Shinzon's ship.....and if he had just given that as a reason, that would've been fine and I totally would've understood it.

But he also giving the reason that he didn't think it was right to wipe out all 4000 Borg cubes with the thalaron weapon because he didn't wanna be responsible for genocide was a really stupid reason....I mean, there they were, with the threat of annihilation of the human race with the very real possibility that Erika Hernandez' plan wasn't going to work, and all of a sudden Geordi cares about not wanting to wipe out the entire Borg race?! What???

 

[ProtoAvatar]

Re: One thing that irked me about the Destiny trilogy. *spoilers insid

This - and other problems regarding the 'Destiny' trilogy were discussed extensively on this forum:
http://trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=127644&page=6

 

[Christopher]

Re: One thing that irked me about the Destiny trilogy. *spoilers insid

Oh, gods, not this again...

 

[BillJ]

Re: One thing that irked me about the Destiny trilogy. *spoilers insid

Oh, gods, not this again...

Think I'm sitting this round out. But I'll enjoy watching the conversation go back and forth.

 

[The Rock]

Re: One thing that irked me about the Destiny trilogy. *spoilers insid

This - and other problems regarding the 'Destiny' trilogy were discussed extensively on this forum:
http://trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=127644&page=6

Interesting, thank you for that link.

Another thing that irked me: why didn't Picard, Riker, or Dax try thinking of more out-of-the-box solutions to deal with the Borg.....such as (yeah, I know some of these sound ridiculous, but hell, I would've tried them):

- Try finding the Nexus and going back into it to time travel
- Try getting Wesley Crusher and The Traveler's help to manipulate time
- Trying to find V'Ger (or Decker or whatever it is now)
- Try getting the remaining Jem'Hadar forces to get involved in the war (like perhaps lead the Borg into the Bajoran wormhole so that the Jem'Hadar would run into them)
- Maybe getting Species 8472 involved
- And even going so far as to asking for Q's help!

 

[The Rock]

Re: One thing that irked me about the Destiny trilogy. *spoilers insid

Oh, gods, not this again...

Btw Christopher, just wanted to tell you, I really enjoyed your Trek novel "Ex Machina"!

 

[BillJ]

Re: One thing that irked me about the Destiny trilogy. *spoilers insid

Oh, gods, not this again...

Btw Christopher, just wanted to tell you, I really enjoyed your Trek novel "Ex Machina"!

By far one of his best novels. An instant classic.

 

[Christopher]

Re: One thing that irked me about the Destiny trilogy. *spoilers insid

Another thing that irked me: why didn't Picard, Riker, or Dax try thinking of more out-of-the-box solutions to deal with the Borg.....such as (yeah, I know some of these sound ridiculous, but hell, I would've tried them):

- Try finding the Nexus and going back into it to time travel

The Nexus allegedly orbits the galaxy every 39.1 years. This is 9 years after GEN, so it'd be nearly a quarter of the way through its "orbit," too far away to reach. (Although the fundamental contradiction there is how it could ever have slowed enough to allow ships to interact with it at all.)

- Try finding getting Wesley Crusher and The Traveler's help to manipulate time

The Travelers have a strict nonintervention policy; they don't meddle with time. Besides, the Caeliar are comparably powerful and they were right there already. If you see a fire in Brooklyn, you call the Brooklyn fire department, not the Istanbul fire department.

- Trying to find V'Ger (or Decker or whatever it is now)

The V'Ger/Decker/Ilia entity transcended our dimensional plane 108 years earlier. It no longer exists in the continuum that corporeal beings are capable of reaching. That's like seeing a fire in Brooklyn and trying to call the Alpha Centauri fire department.

- Try getting the remaining Jem'Hadar forces to get involved in the war (like perhaps lead the Borg into the Bajoran wormhole so that the Jem'Hadar would run into them)

Why would the Jem'Hadar be any more effective against the Borg than the combined forces of the Federation, Klingons, Romulans, Tholians, Breen, and other Alpha and Beta Quadrant powers? They may be mean, but they're just more of the same, ultimately -- the same conventional brute-force tactics that have always proven futile against the Borg in the long run. The only thing that dragging in the Jem'Hadar would've accomplished would've been the extinction of the Jem'Hadar on top of the extinction of everybody else.

- Maybe getting Species 8472 involved

In the book continuity, there's effectively no way to reach them from our universe; see Myriad Universes: Places of Exile. Also, they only attacked the Borg because their own universe was under assault. They'd have no incentive to fight the Borg if the Borg weren't directly threatening their home.

- And even going so far as to asking for Q's help!

At what cost? Besides, Q wouldn't be so generous. He'd say that this was ultimately our own mess and leave it up to us to clean it up or die trying. At best, he would've dropped some cryptic hints to help Picard and the others crack the riddle.


More basically, of course, it would undermine the drama if the heroes could get out of any bad situation by calling on the aid of superbeings (other than those, such as the Caeliar, who have a direct, relevant role to play in the story).

 

[F. King Daniel]

Re: One thing that irked me about the Destiny trilogy. *spoilers insid

They should have gone to the centre of the galaxy and asked the Megas Tu aliens for help

(OMG Borgified Lucifer and Merlin!!!)

 

[William Leisner]

Re: One thing that irked me about the Destiny trilogy. *spoilers insid

Oh, gods, not this again...

All of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again.

 

[Angstromdweller]

Re: One thing that irked me about the Destiny trilogy. *spoilers insid

- Maybe getting Species 8472 involved

In the book continuity, there's effectively no way to reach them from our universe; see Myriad Universes: Places of Exile.

Which was accidentally contradicted by Unworthy, wasn't it? Did anyone figure out a way to solve this?

 

[ProtoAvatar]

Re: One thing that irked me about the Destiny trilogy. *spoilers insid

- Maybe getting Species 8472 involved

In the book continuity, there's effectively no way to reach them from our universe; see Myriad Universes: Places of Exile.

Which was accidentally contradicted by Unworthy, wasn't it? Did anyone figure out a way to solve this?

It's easy enough - subspace fieds and treknobabble.

Let's say, in certain regions characterised by subspace - or other - anomalies, passage to and from fluidic space is still possible.

 

[Christopher]

Re: One thing that irked me about the Destiny trilogy. *spoilers insid

- Maybe getting Species 8472 involved

In the book continuity, there's effectively no way to reach them from our universe; see Myriad Universes: Places of Exile.

Which was accidentally contradicted by Unworthy, wasn't it? Did anyone figure out a way to solve this?

It wasn't accidental; Kirsten chose to make the decisions that worked for the story she had to tell.

But I think it can be reconciled. Unworthy established that access to fluidic space could only be achieved in particular regions of the Delta Quadrant where subspace had been destabilized. I think of those regions as gaps in the barrier that Places of Exile established. In any case, they wouldn't have been reachable from the Alpha Quadrant, and they wouldn't have helped even if they had been.

 

[JarodRussell]

Re: One thing that irked me about the Destiny trilogy. *spoilers insid

Why is it that you never hear an author of the novels say (even if it isn't their own novel): "Yeah, right, missed that indeed." Their arguments are always like the novel was the most perfect work ever created and that any other ideas how to handle the story would have been, like, stupid.

More basically, of course, it would undermine the drama if the heroes could get out of any bad situation by calling on the aid of superbeings (other than those, such as the Caeliar, who have a direct, relevant role to play in the story).

LOL, wasn't the point of ProtoAvatar's criticism that exactly that happened? Humans gave up and they only survived because superbeings intervened. If they had asked Q for help, than he would have had a direct, relevant role to play in the story, too.

 

[DS9Continuing]

Re: One thing that irked me about the Destiny trilogy. *spoilers insid

Why is it that you never hear an author of the novels say (even if it isn't their own novel): "Yeah, right, missed that indeed." Their arguments are always like the novel was the most perfect work ever created and that any other ideas how to handle the story would have been, like, stupid.

Well, first, are you really so surprised that an author would want to defend their work? I've never heard a single one of them claim their work was flawless or The Bestest Ever There Was, so you exaggerate unfairly.

Second, these are people who do this job professionally. You are not. The likelihood is much greater that they actually already thought of the issue in advance when they were writing, and came up with the explanation then, than that you've caught them out and left them scrambling to bullshit you with something now.

Third, the writers have acknowledged when they've made mistakes, such as the Etana/Richter situation from Warpath.

So, basically, ner ner ner.

 

[Christopher]

Re: One thing that irked me about the Destiny trilogy. *spoilers insid

^Indeed. I acknowledge a number of mistakes and oversights in my online annotations to my various works. And I've seen plenty of other authors do the same.

 

[Angstromdweller]

Re: One thing that irked me about the Destiny trilogy. *spoilers insid

In the book continuity, there's effectively no way to reach them from our universe; see Myriad Universes: Places of Exile.

Which was accidentally contradicted by Unworthy, wasn't it? Did anyone figure out a way to solve this?

It wasn't accidental; Kirsten chose to make the decisions that worked for the story she had to tell.

But I think it can be reconciled. Unworthy established that access to fluidic space could only be achieved in particular regions of the Delta Quadrant where subspace had been destabilized. I think of those regions as gaps in the barrier that Places of Exile established. In any case, they wouldn't have been reachable from the Alpha Quadrant, and they wouldn't have helped even if they had been.

Yes, that sounds plausible. Thing is, it's been almost 2 years since I read PoE and I don't remember the details of it. I do recall seeing this discussed in some thread before I read Unworthy myself, and my lasting impression was that it was a bigger issue than that.

But fine, I should just re-read PoE sometime. I should do that anyway, it is an intriguing story.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Re: One thing that irked me about the Destiny trilogy. *spoilers insid

Another thing that irked me: why didn't Picard, Riker, or Dax try thinking of more out-of-the-box solutions to deal with the Borg.

Because they're not the characters in Destiny with agency.

Really, they're not. Picard, Riker, and Dax do lots of things in Destiny, but their actions are all in service of moving Erika Hernandez and the Caeliar to a certain point so that the plot can resolve itself. Hernandez is the main character in Destiny, the one whose actions and decisions actually make a difference. The rest are just plot points. The story affects them, but it doesn't revolve around them.