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

[Christopher]

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

That doesn't make your creative impulses or his creative impulses superior or inferior.

Where the hell did that come from? Why are you making this about me? I was commenting on an incongruity based on my understanding of Roddenberry's own approach. And I don't think "He just didn't care" is a sufficient explanation. It's basically circular argument. Why didn't he care?

I can think of several possible answers to my own question. Maybe it was because the Q portions of "Farpoint" were a late addition when the decision was made to expand it from 90 minutes to 2 hours. He was rushed to come up with something, so he just dredged up a hackneyed old "powerful aliens testing humanity" trope, when in more ideal circumstances he might've come up with something different. Part of it, clearly, was that he wanted to get on a soapbox and talk about how wonderful and perfected 24th-century humanity had become, so he needed someone to challenge us, so maybe in that instance his desire for humanist polemic overrode his desire for scientific credibility. Nothing to do with SF vs. fantasy, just about realism vs. the storyteller's need for poetic license. That's a balance even the most committed hard-SF writer must try to strike.

To be honest, Roddenberry was rarely as successful at living up to his aspirations as he wanted to be, particularly that late in life. So if inconsistencies show up in his work, I don't think it's due to generally not caring about them, but more likely about not being as capable of avoiding them as he would've hoped to be.

Wow, that's a really Anglocentric way of looking at it.

Hey, don't blame me for that. I was responding to Sci's suggestion that the letter Q per se -- the letter itself, not something it means -- was somehow directly equivalent to the Q's name for themselves.

You could just as easily argue that he chose it to describe "who" and "what" he is because those words start with Q in multiple human languages (quem, qui, qua, que, and so forth), or choose some other arbitrary word(s) in some other language(s) spoken by one or more of the characters he encounters, whose meaning you could somehow tie into the way Q presents himself...

And that is just the sort of thing I was advocating, an explanation that's actually based in the meanings of the letter Q rather than its sound or shape or something. Heck, that's basically an expansion on the explanation I already gave in The Buried Age, and a pretty good one.

...but that's all just a bunch of useless imposition of order on a character/concept that (as Sci points out) doesn't really need to be explained or simplified this way.

Just because you don't feel a need for it doesn't mean it's objectively useless. For many readers (myself obviously included), it's very important for their fiction to make sense, and you have no right to say that your approach as an audience member is more intrinsically correct than theirs.

 

[JarodRussell]

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

That doesn't make your creative impulses or his creative impulses superior or inferior.

Where the hell did that come from? Why are you making this about me? I was commenting on an incongruity based on my understanding of Roddenberry's own approach. And I don't think "He just didn't care" is a sufficient explanation. It's basically circular argument. Why didn't he care?

Because it wasn't important. Q in early TNG was an absolute. No explanations. No explanations about his origin, his species, his name. He's. Just. There.

Trying to make sense of Q really is the entirely wrong direction.

 

[Sci]

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

That doesn't make your creative impulses or his creative impulses superior or inferior.

Where the hell did that come from?

It came from my concern that one might interpret my assertion that Roddenberry simply had different creative priorities than you would prefer as an implied attack on you or on your creative impulses. I wanted to establish firmly, for any reader (not just you), that I was simply saying that Roddenberry was different, not trying to make any sort of appeal to Roddenberrian authority or what-have-you.

In other words: It was my preemptive attempt to avoid miscommunication or impressions of unfavorable comparisons. Apparently it did not work.

I was commenting on an incongruity based on my understanding of Roddenberry's own approach. And I don't think "He just didn't care" is a sufficient explanation. It's basically circular argument. Why didn't he care?

I don't think "He didn't care" is a circular argument; it's essentially one that posits that tastes are sometimes arbitrary and inexplicable to those who do not share a given taste, because they are so subjective. "Why he created Q when he always strove for scientific realism is beyond me" is a question about why an incongruity exists; "He didn't care about the incongruity because his creative impulses -- i.e., his tastes -- were just different from yours" is simply an answer that acknowledges that subjective taste does not always have a logical reason behind it.

I can think of several possible answers to my own question. Maybe it was because the Q portions of "Farpoint" were a late addition when the decision was made to expand it from 90 minutes to 2 hours. He was rushed to come up with something, so he just dredged up a hackneyed old "powerful aliens testing humanity" trope, when in more ideal circumstances he might've come up with something different.

That's possible, though given how central Q is to the story, I'd be surprised if that were the case. And it presents the question of why he allowed Q to be re-used afterwards if he would have preferred something more scientifically credible but compromised because of production time.

Part of it, clearly, was that he wanted to get on a soapbox and talk about how wonderful and perfected 24th-century humanity had become, so he needed someone to challenge us, so maybe in that instance his desire for humanist polemic overrode his desire for scientific credibility. Nothing to do with SF vs. fantasy, just about realism vs. the storyteller's need for poetic license. That's a balance even the most committed hard-SF writer must try to strike.

To be honest, Roddenberry was rarely as successful at living up to his aspirations as he wanted to be, particularly that late in life. So if inconsistencies show up in his work, I don't think it's due to generally not caring about them, but more likely about not being as capable of avoiding them as he would've hoped to be.

I'm skeptical of that particular hypothesis, because Q is just so far out of the realm of scientific credibility that it seems like that's more than just having difficulty staying scientifically realistic. To me, having a character that is depicted as omnipotent seems like a fundamental rejection of the requirement of scientific credibility, at least as it applies to that character.

In other words: I'd argue that Roddenberry was picking and choosing when he wanted to be scientifically credible. He wanted it most of the time, but with Q, he and the other writers found a character that they enjoyed enough to disregard scientific implausibility. Which, again, is a purely subjective thing that's not necessarily subject to logical explanation.

...but that's all just a bunch of useless imposition of order on a character/concept that (as Sci points out) doesn't really need to be explained or simplified this way.

Just because you don't feel a need for it doesn't mean it's objectively useless. For many readers (myself obviously included), it's very important for their fiction to make sense, and you have no right to say that your approach as an audience member is more intrinsically correct than theirs.

I think the issue here is, what was the intent behind the character of Q? Is Q a character that was originally intended to make sense, or is he a character that's intended to defy our sense of rationality?

I wouldn't question that your taste on this issue -- that a character in principle ought to make sense -- is just as valid as mine, that characters like the Q need not make sense. What I would argue is that your creative impulse (that a character ought to make sense) should be subordinate, when writing media tie-in fiction, to the creative intent of Roddenberry and the TNG writers.

Since they very clearly did not construct a character that makes sense from the premises of scientific credibility or Realism/Naturalism, I would argue that Q was not meant to be a character that particularly made sense. Your creative impulse -- that Q ought to make sense somehow -- is, therefore, I would argue, an inappropriate impulse to apply to the character. Not because it's intrinsically invalid, nor out of any concern that a good Q story can't be written your way (one can), but simply because I would argue that that is not what Q was meant to be.

However, at the end of the day, that's CBS's decision to make, not mine. They chose to authorize Q's taking the name of "Q" for himself in The Buried Age, so obviously they have no problem with applying the impulse to try to make sense of the character to Q. But I don't agree with that decision and would argue that it constitutes a revisionist interpretation of the character.

 

[Christopher]

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

I don't think "He didn't care" is a circular argument; it's essentially one that posits that tastes are sometimes arbitrary and inexplicable to those who do not share a given taste, because they are so subjective. "Why he created Q when he always strove for scientific realism is beyond me" is a question about why an incongruity exists; "He didn't care about the incongruity because his creative impulses -- i.e., his tastes -- were just different from yours" is simply an answer that acknowledges that subjective taste does not always have a logical reason behind it.

Well, to me, "It's arbitrary" is no answer at all. People aren't as random as that. And your argument is still overlooking the basic premise of my question, which is that the incongruity is not between me and Roddenberry, but between different documented aspects of Roddenberry's own creative approach. Since we do know certain specific things about that approach, that means it can't be cavalierly dismissed as something alien and unknowable. It's inconsistent reasoning to acknowledge the existence of insight into some aspects of a person's behavior while arbitrarily insisting that others are beyond insight.

That's possible, though given how central Q is to the story, I'd be surprised if that were the case.

Q wasn't central to the story. The original 90-minute "Encounter at Farpoint" written by D. C. Fontana had no Q in it at all. The story was about the Enterprise crew coming together, investigating the mystery of Farpoint Station, discovering the existence and abuse of the star-jellies, and freeing them. When the decision was made to expand it to 2 hours, it was necessary to add another half-hour of material, and Roddenberry invented the Q subplot to fill the gap. And it is a subplot. Q diverts the ship from its mission for an act or so, then lets it go on its way and says that the mission itself will serve as humanity's "trial." From then on, he's nothing more than a spectator. He occasionally drops in and makes snide comments, and there are vague noises about him getting in the way of the mission, but in the final analysis he doesn't do anything more substantive than heckling.

In a way, the Q portions of the script are written to much the same formula as the frame of a clip show -- an introductory sequence to set up the framework for other, pre-existing material, then occasional interpolations of the frame sequence with the pretense that the other material is integrally or organically connected to it, but ultimately just people talking and setting up the events of the other material to play out as before. The difference being that the other material was another writer's script rather than previously filmed footage.

And it presents the question of why he allowed Q to be re-used afterwards if he would have preferred something more scientifically credible but compromised because of production time.

Obviously, because he was a television producer and he recognized that John DeLancie's performance had been well-received and that it would boost ratings to bring him back. I never said that a desire for credibility would trump a realistic recognition of the importance of ratings.

I'm skeptical of that particular hypothesis, because Q is just so far out of the realm of scientific credibility that it seems like that's more than just having difficulty staying scientifically realistic. To me, having a character that is depicted as omnipotent seems like a fundamental rejection of the requirement of scientific credibility, at least as it applies to that character.

Well, in "Farpoint," Q wasn't really as powerful as he was asserted to be later on. Remember, the first manifestation of Q was a forcefield that blocked the Enterprise's path, then formed into a sphere that chased them and needed time to catch up. Also, the script implied that the reason Q interceded at that point was because the Enterprise was intruding on the Qs' territory for the first time. So the original conception was not for the omniscient, omnipresent, span-the-universe-in-an-eyeblink version of the Q that we ended up with. That was the kind of power amplification that's all too common in fiction about superbeings. (For instance, Stargate's Ancients originally needed Stargates to cover interstellar distances, but ended up being just as omnipresent and godlike as the Q.) So while the original version of Q was certainly a being of extreme power, there were at least some limitations assumed to exist.

So maybe my original assertion was an overstatement. Maybe that's the answer. Maybe he didn't see it as including a magic genie, but was instead going for something very advanced but still subject to certain limitations. It was when later writers ignored those limitations that Q became a total fantasy character rather than something that merely blurred the lines. That could be the answer, and I think it's in the middle ground between what I was saying and what you were saying. Which is always a good place to look for answers.

I think the issue here is, what was the intent behind the character of Q? Is Q a character that was originally intended to make sense, or is he a character that's intended to defy our sense of rationality?

I don't believe the latter would be the case. That's not the way Roddenberry approached the universe. He was a devout humanist, and one of the essential tenets of secular humanism is that there is nothing beyond the ability of the human mind to know and comprehend. In Star Trek, everything is subject to understanding by a sufficiently advanced science. Nothing is "beyond rationality," just beyond current knowledge. That was part of Roddenberry's core philosophy, and it's why there was controversy over DS9 taking the Bajoran Prophets in a more ambiguous direction -- because it was a departure from the worldview that Roddenberry had laid down as central to his universe.

As I said, Q didn't become portrayed as "omnipotent" or beyond all limits until later; as originally conceived by Roddenberry, he was just another alien with "sufficiently advanced" technology or mental power.

What I would argue is that your creative impulse (that a character ought to make sense) should be subordinate, when writing media tie-in fiction, to the creative intent of Roddenberry and the TNG writers.

And once again, my point has nothing to do with me. My puzzlement arose not from anything so egocentric as you insist on accusing me of, but from my understanding of GENE RODDENBERRY'S OWN storytelling philosophy.

However, at the end of the day, that's CBS's decision to make, not mine. They chose to authorize Q's taking the name of "Q" for himself in The Buried Age, so obviously they have no problem with applying the impulse to try to make sense of the character to Q. But I don't agree with that decision and would argue that it constitutes a revisionist interpretation of the character.

As I said, I based it on something I read well over 15 years ago, something I read while TNG was still in production, something that I'm pretty sure someone in the production said about Q's name coming from "question," or about Picard having to be the "A" in response to "Q." I can't remember a source, and I can't say if the person who said that had insight into the actual intent or was merely offering their own interpretation. But all I was doing was elaborating on an idea that, as far as I can recall, came from someone involved with TNG itself.

And as I've discussed above, the eventual portrayal of Q as something essentially godlike and totally disconnected to logic or reason is itself a revisionist interpretation of a character that was originally meant to be more limited in power. Revisionism is part of the process of developing any recurring character in series fiction.

 

[JarodRussell]

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

As I said, Q didn't become portrayed as "omnipotent" or beyond all limits until later; as originally conceived by Roddenberry, he was just another alien with "sufficiently advanced" technology or mental power.

The technobabble explaining the Q in Voyager is what destroyed the whole Q thing for me.

 

[Deks]

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

To bring back the topic a bit.
I would like to address something from several pages back where people said how it's Voyager's (and Janeway's) early return that costed 68 billion lives in the Destiny Trilogy.

Yes, but Voyager also killed Trillions of drones that resided within Unimatrix 1 (and probably ones within ships close enough to the structure to be affected), not to mention the sphere that chased Voyager and of course all of the TW hubs.

See the thing is ... whether the Borg attack was brought on now or later ... what would be different exactly?

If the Borg decided to wage a massive war effort (or extermination) like they did in the Destiny trilogy centuries later ... do you honestly think the death toll would be different?

I don't think it would be.
The Borg would find ways to keep themselves on par with the rest of the Galaxy as it progressed technologically, and any massive conflict on the scale that happened in Destiny would probably result in pretty much the same death toll.

So, this conflict was a one off thing.
It eliminated the Collective from the galaxy as a threat.
Sure, there was a 68 Billion lives price tag as a result, but ultimately, it would have probably been the same if it happened centuries from now.
Taking into consideration the very concept of the Borg and their adaptability, I would surmise the numbers would be the same either way.
The only difference is the time frame on when this huge assault occurred.

 

[JarodRussell]

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

Good thing time travel is impossible in real life. With people thinking like this, it would turn into a horrible mess.

 

[Braxton]

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

To bring back the topic a bit.
I would like to address something from several pages back where people said how it's Voyager's (and Janeway's) early return that costed 68 billion lives in the Destiny Trilogy.

Yes, but Voyager also killed Trillions of drones that resided within Unimatrix 1 (and probably ones within ships close enough to the structure to be affected), not to mention the sphere that chased Voyager and of course all of the TW hubs.

See the thing is ... whether the Borg attack was brought on now or later ... what would be different exactly?

If the Borg decided to wage a massive war effort (or extermination) like they did in the Destiny trilogy centuries later ... do you honestly think the death toll would be different?

I don't think it would be.
The Borg would find ways to keep themselves on par with the rest of the Galaxy as it progressed technologically, and any massive conflict on the scale that happened in Destiny would probably result in pretty much the same death toll.

So, this conflict was a one off thing.
It eliminated the Collective from the galaxy as a threat.
Sure, there was a 68 Billion lives price tag as a result, but ultimately, it would have probably been the same if it happened centuries from now.
Taking into consideration the very concept of the Borg and their adaptability, I would surmise the numbers would be the same either way.
The only difference is the time frame on when this huge assault occurred.

As was previously pointed out, the Borg have suffered many defeats at the hands of the Federation. The biggest of which was the destruction of Unimatrix 01 and the Transwarp Hub Network. Had these not occurred, the Borg would most likely still view the Federation as nothing more than a minor irritant that is capable of producing new technology to 'resist' them but not yet completely worthy of assimilation. I think it's more likely that in a few centuries the Borg would launch an attack that would be about assimilating the Federation, not destroying it, as they did in Destiny. When the Borg say "Resistance is Futile" and they only send one Cube, in most cases that is probably correct. They realize that they may be defeated in such instances but it is a way to see who is worthy of assimilation. Instead of facing destruction, the Federation would face assimilation. Either is unacceptable to the Federation but the Borg would have two completely different goals. The first is absolute destruction as we saw in Destiny and the other, centuries later approach is actual assimilation into the Collective.

 

[Christopher]

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

I think it's more likely that in a few centuries the Borg would launch an attack that would be about assimilating the Federation, not destroying it, as they did in Destiny.

Yeah, but by that point the UFP would've been able to fight back quite effectively. The UFP would never submit to assimilation, so they'd fight back with all their might and inflict serious losses on the Borg. So eventually the Borg would come to the same conclusion they did in Destiny -- that the Federation was unassimilable and thus needed to be annihilated. Even if it had come a century or two later, it would still have come down to the same thing.

And in the meantime, how many quadrillions of other lives across the galaxy would the Borg have ended one way or another? And how much more unstoppable would they have become by that point, with an extra century or two to assimilate even more territory, technology, and resources? And without the lucky break of the UFP being in contact with the Caeliar at just the time when the invasion happened?

 

[Allyn Gibson]

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

And without the lucky break of the UFP being in contact with the Caeliar at just the time when the invasion happened?

This reminds me of my favorite Otto von Bismark quote: "There is a Providence that protects idiots, drunkards, children, and the United States of America." Just replace the United States with the UFP, and that describes Federation history to a T.

 

[kkozoriz1]

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

"Fate protects fools, little children and ships named Enterprise" -- Cmdr. Riker (Contagion)

Yes, what an amazing coincidence that JUST when the Borg decide to destroy the Federation contact is made with the ONLY race that has a chance of stopping them and they just happen to have, not only a human living among them, but a Starfleet officer.

With the new novels all being in the same time now it would have worked better to have some build up. Discover the Caelar in one book. Get more into their history in another. Increase in Borg activity in a third. Destiny as a two book series rather than three.

 

[Sci]

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

"Fate protects fools, little children and ships named Enterprise" -- Cmdr. Riker (Contagion)

Yes, what an amazing coincidence that JUST when the Borg decide to destroy the Federation contact is made with the ONLY race that has a chance of stopping them and they just happen to have, not only a human living among them, but a Starfleet officer.

Gasp, shock, you'd almost think you were reading a work of fiction produced by a culture that has never discouraged the use of coincidence as a poetic device.

 

[Braxton]

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

I think it's more likely that in a few centuries the Borg would launch an attack that would be about assimilating the Federation, not destroying it, as they did in Destiny.

Yeah, but by that point the UFP would've been able to fight back quite effectively. The UFP would never submit to assimilation, so they'd fight back with all their might and inflict serious losses on the Borg. So eventually the Borg would come to the same conclusion they did in Destiny -- that the Federation was unassimilable and thus needed to be annihilated. Even if it had come a century or two later, it would still have come down to the same thing.

And in the meantime, how many quadrillions of other lives across the galaxy would the Borg have ended one way or another? And how much more unstoppable would they have become by that point, with an extra century or two to assimilate even more territory, technology, and resources? And without the lucky break of the UFP being in contact with the Caeliar at just the time when the invasion happened?

It's a possibility that the Borg would come to the same conclusion. I won't deny that. Was just pointing out that a later Borg invasion would more likely be about assimilating than complete destruction.

 

[kkozoriz1]

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

"Fate protects fools, little children and ships named Enterprise" -- Cmdr. Riker (Contagion)

Yes, what an amazing coincidence that JUST when the Borg decide to destroy the Federation contact is made with the ONLY race that has a chance of stopping them and they just happen to have, not only a human living among them, but a Starfleet officer.

Gasp, shock, you'd almost think you were reading a work of fiction produced by a culture that has never discouraged the use of coincidence as a poetic device.

I've got no problem with the use of coincidence. It's over use, when not needed, on the other hand.

I'm simply suggesting that it could have been done with more of a build up rather than all happening at once. Think of it as a season long arc, taking place with different ships and culminating in a two hour season ending blockbuster.

The first books in the Vanguard series would be similar to what I mean.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

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

To bring back the topic a bit.
I would like to address something from several pages back where people said how it's Voyager's (and Janeway's) early return that costed 68 billion lives in the Destiny Trilogy.

Yes, but Voyager also killed Trillions of drones that resided within Unimatrix 1 (and probably ones within ships close enough to the structure to be affected), not to mention the sphere that chased Voyager and of course all of the TW hubs.

Trillions? That's wild speculation on your part.
Your arguments can't support more than a few billions drones dead - and even this, with indulgence.

Also - Voyager causing this large number of borg deaths for little or no gain (the borg obviously continued - and were barely slowed down - in their genocidal assimilation of the galaxy) and Janeway getting a promotion to admiral for it - only manages to paint the federation/Picard's actions of NOT using the Thalaron weapon as even more obtuse and hypocritical than they already are and to put Janeway in a bad light, morality wise.

See the thing is ... whether the Borg attack was brought on now or later ... what would be different exactly?

If the Borg decided to wage a massive war effort (or extermination) like they did in the Destiny trilogy centuries later ... do you honestly think the death toll would be different?

I don't think it would be.
The Borg would find ways to keep themselves on par with the rest of the Galaxy as it progressed technologically, and any massive conflict on the scale that happened in Destiny would probably result in pretty much the same death toll.

So, this conflict was a one off thing.
It eliminated the Collective from the galaxy as a threat.
Sure, there was a 68 Billion lives price tag as a result, but ultimately, it would have probably been the same if it happened centuries from now.
Taking into consideration the very concept of the Borg and their adaptability, I would surmise the numbers would be the same either way.
The only difference is the time frame on when this huge assault occurred.

The federation is technologicaly primitive compared to the borg.
And yet, it already made weapons capable of destroying the collective - the paradox virus.

In a few hundred years - at most -, the federation would have reached the borg's technological level (the top galactic tech level - the federation, also, would posess borg-like adaptability algorithms, regeneration tech, tried and tested slipstream, etc while the borg would still lack creativity) and would have increased in size.
Then, the federation would be in a FAR better position to defend against a borg invasion (7000+ cubes would barely be a serious threat). And there's always a chance it would find novel ways of disassembling the collective without killing BILLIONS of its citizens.

So yes, a few hundred years would have made all the difference.


Janeway knew the federation is, currently, no match for the borg when she attacked the borg transwarp complex. She also knew that this would be a very serious loss for the borg.

It's common sense that, after this, the borg's interest in the federation will increase far beyond sending very small, one-cube reconnaissance missions in the alpha/beta quadrants. That the federation will pay in blood - adjusted for high inflation.

Her actions directly led to the massive borg invasion that happened a lot earlier and a lot more savagely (killing is far easier/quicker than assimilating) than it would normally have happened.
Which is why, in the aftermath of the borg killing ~63 BILLION people, the victimised survivors (this includes federation citizens) will have legitimate reasons to blame starfleet for causing, through its arrogance/irresponsibility, the borg invasion.

 

[TheAlmanac]

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

...but that's all just a bunch of useless imposition of order on a character/concept that (as Sci points out) doesn't really need to be explained or simplified this way.

Just because you don't feel a need for it doesn't mean it's objectively useless.

I think the (IMHO) should be taken as a given when someone is offering opinions like these--the same way Q as a character/concept isn't objectively stupid just because you think he is.

For many readers (myself obviously included), it's very important for their fiction to make sense, and you have no right to say that your approach as an audience member is more intrinsically correct than theirs.

From my perspective, it's a matter of how much more "making sense" of a piece of fiction (or some aspect of it) is going to offer me as an audience member. Speaking for myself, I'm not going to appreciate Q any more as a character if there's some explanation for why he's called Q and not something else, so it "doesn't really need to be explained"--especially since I don't imagine I'd have a vastly different impression of him if his name were different.

Sci brought up Doctor Who, which I look at similarly. It's important to me that time travel stories make sense and follow internally-consistent "rules," but I tend to give Doctor Who more of a pass than usual because it takes a "wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey" approach to that sort of thing, and that doesn't affect my enjoyment of the series...

...and I don't really feel the need for an explanation of The Doctor's name, either.

 

[Christopher]

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

I always figured he's called the Doctor because he earned a doctorate at the Prydonian Academy. Which, come to think of it, might cast the title "The Master" in a new light... Maybe he earned an MA instead of a PhD?

(I'm reminded of the recent Futurama revelation that Dr. Zoidberg's doctorate is actually in art history...)

 

[TerraUnam]

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

"Fate protects fools, little children and ships named Enterprise" -- Cmdr. Riker (Contagion)

Yes, what an amazing coincidence that JUST when the Borg decide to destroy the Federation contact is made with the ONLY race that has a chance of stopping them and they just happen to have, not only a human living among them, but a Starfleet officer.

With the new novels all being in the same time now it would have worked better to have some build up. Discover the Caelar in one book. Get more into their history in another. Increase in Borg activity in a third. Destiny as a two book series rather than three.

But not ships named Columbia.

 

[Cybersnark]

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

Of course, he never identified himself with the letter Q, simply with the name. Perhaps he pronounced it as Cue and everyone heard it as Q. This, of course, ignores the writers intent and only addresses the situation within the fictional world.

Or possibly as the number nine ("kyuu") in Japanese.

Perhaps he was about to identify himself as a kyuubi --a nine-tailed (and thus elder, wiser, and more powerful) kitsune. A Trickster by another name.

and since the letter Q has no phonetic value of its own anyway! Honestly, it's bad enough to give non-speaking aliens impossibly phonetic names like "Horta" or "Calamarain" without reducing it to a letter that doesn't even have its own sound.

Maybe that was the point. "Q" is meaningless without context.

 

[Sci]

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

I always figured he's called the Doctor because he earned a doctorate at the Prydonian Academy. Which, come to think of it, might cast the title "The Master" in a new light... Maybe he earned an MA instead of a PhD?

From "The Sound of Drums:"

[quote="The Sound of Drums" by Russell T. Davies]DOCTOR:
(takes the phone from MARTHA) I’m here.

SAXON: (serious)
(takes phone off speaker) Doctor.

DOCTOR:
Master.

SAXON:
I like it when you use my name.

DOCTOR:
You chose it. Psychiatrist’s field day.

SAXON:
As you chose yours. The man who makes people better. How sanctimonious is that?[/quote]

Also, from "Utopia:"

[quote="Utopia" by Russell T. Davies]
ATILLO:
Professor! We’ve got four new Humans inside. One of them is calling himself a doctor.

YANA:
Of medicine?

ATILLO:
He says of everything.[/quote]

So, I'd be surprised if he chose the name "the Doctor" because he just earned a doctorate at the Academy. Sounds like a lot more was involved than just earning a degree.