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Picard's a father

^Yeah, but Beverly's first child has evolved into a higher order of life and gone off to explore other realms of existence, and rarely calls or stops by for holidays. She was lonely, and there wasn't any real prospect of grandkids.

You are right and this is my daugters argument too, but having past the age of "babies" its hard for me to see this.

Brit
 
I know I should remember but I can't: Was the kid Beverly's idea or JL's? Or an accident?

Picard's whole family died in a fire in Generations. He's always been the "do the right thing" sort, do I'd imagine he'd feel a great personal responsibility to continue the Picard line.

Is Beverly just giving Picard a "pitty baby", that she personally doesn't really want?
 
You are right and this is my daugters argument too, but having past the age of "babies" its hard for me to see this.

But as stated, by the standards of the 24th century, the definition of "past the age of babies" would've changed.


I know I should remember but I can't: Was the kid Beverly's idea or JL's? Or an accident?

It was initially both of their idea. At the start of Greater Than the Sum, Beverly expressed her loneliness without a child to mother, and Picard, who recognized his opportunity to ensure the survival of the Picard line, was just about to suggest starting a family when the news of the Borg crisis involving the Einstein arose. That rekindled Picard's fears about having a child in a universe where the Borg existed, and for most of the book, Beverly was trying to get him to overcome those fears and embrace what they both wanted. And eventually he did so and they proceeded with their mutual choice to start a family.
 
Re: The Borg - their Status

It's made me wonder what it would be like to see or read about an entire beloved crew dying horribly all at once.

Ask a "Blake's 7" fan about how they felt about that show's final episode, "Blake". They held wakes at conventions and many went into denial mode and started writing resurrection fanfics.
 
^Yeah, but Beverly's first child has evolved into a higher order of life and gone off to explore other realms of existence, and rarely calls or stops by for holidays. She was lonely, and there wasn't any real prospect of grandkids.


Well... they could adopt!
 
Re: The Borg - their Status

There's loads of potential in bumping-off-the-TOS-characters books.

Have you not read "Crucible: McCoy"?

Not yet. I'll get to it eventually.

I'd recently read Walter Koneig's old "In Flanders' Fields" vague story outline. It's made me wonder what it would be like to see or read about an entire beloved crew dying horribly all at once.
You should check out A Gutted World in Myriad Universe: Echoes and Refractions. It features a ton of regular characters getting killed, grated it is in an alternate universe.
 
In one of the movies, Picard's paradise was having a bunch of kids and a wife to live with. I think he would make a excellent father. I'm happy to hear he does become one...
 
^ It was "Star Trek Generations" while he was inside the Nexus. I believe it was Bev who brought up having children and Jean-Luc was heavily against this because it was during the Borg invasion. I think it was first heavily discussed between them in "Resistance". Sometimes I think we forget that this is the future and our present day sensibilities and conditioning prevent us from opening up to new possibilities. Not to mention that conditions in the 24th century are far better than they are in current day and they'd be able to raise and take care of the baby. Not sure if I'm expressing myself properly...I'm in pain and a little tired right now.
 
^ It was "Star Trek Generations" while he was inside the Nexus. I believe it was Bev who brought up having children and Jean-Luc was heavily against this because it was during the Borg invasion. I think it was first heavily discussed between them in "Resistance".

It was in Greater Than the Sum, and Picard was the one who was about to broach the subject when the Einstein crisis began. That's why Beverly kept pushing after that -- because she knew it was what he really wanted and he was denying it to himself out of fear. Once the Einstein crisis was resolved, he realized she was right and they agreed to start a family. Beverly was a few weeks pregnant when the Borg Invasion began.
 
Christopher's is correct it was "Greater Than the Sum" and sorry Chris I should've remembered it since I enjoyed your book.
 
There was the line about Scotty beaming "Admiral Archer's dog" that some chose to interpret as referring to Jonathan.

OTOH, the Archer who commanded NX-01 was said to have died when Kirk's ship was launched in the original timeline. And by "said" I mean "suggested in an off-focus Okudagram whose relevant page may not even have been in the frame". Which is still more solid than the idea that this selfsame Archer would have been the one to lose his dog to Scotty's experiments.

James Doohan was 80 when his daughter Sarah was born.

I was going to point this out until I had the presence of mind to read all the previous entries. :)

The current world record for fathering a child is somewhere in the ballpark of 90+. There are few limiting factors: sperm production continues at low but sufficient rate basically indefinitely, and sperm quality doesn't suddenly plunge, either. And if problems emerge in getting the sperm inside conventionally, the alternate methods probably produce even better results than the conventional one...

The other half of fatherhood, that of raising your teenager at the age of 110, may be made significantly easier by 24th century technology, medical and otherwise.

Timo Saloniemi
 
^The idea of Archer becoming presdent of the Federation is a complete joke, and a rip-off of Babylon 5.

Background graphics, on-screen for a second and only visible if you've got HD, zoom-in, and enhance should hardly be considered more than easter eggs for the die-hards. If otherwise does that make the FASA stuff used as graphics in TNG canon? Or the Franz Joseph stuff in the early films? I don't see the Haynes manual copying FJ's work, and AFAIK tie-ins follow the canon.

Archer living to 150 (assuming he wasn't displaced by Daniels or something) and becoming an academy instructor makes far more sense to me than accepting some joke B5 reference.
Plus the writers of the film said it was meant to be him in a Trekmovie.com interview.

YMMV.
 
^I don't see why you'd think it was a B5 reference. ENT established Archer as a critical figure in the formation of the Federation. It's natural enough to speculate that he might have gone on to become president of the UFP at some point, just as central founding figures such as Washington, Adams, and Jefferson became presidents of the US, or as Nehru became prime minister of India, or as Lech Walesa became president of post-communist Poland, or as Nelson Mandela became president of post-apartheid South Africa. There are so very many historical precedents that it's frankly bizarre to assume it was copying another work of fiction. If anything, both B5 and ENT were drawing on the same extensive set of historical precedents.
 
I don't think it was a rip off of B5 either...the series was focused on Archer and his role as a Starfleet Captain in forming and shaping the Federation. I was only the next logical step for his character to become first an ambassador and then the Federation President. Remember too that in a way Sheridan was forced into becoming President of the Interstellar Alliance, yes he chose to do so, but it was through his actions during the civil war he had no choice. I think if it would left up to him he would have wanted to remain CO of Babylon 5. Archer's case is completely different although I do see the similarities between the two but that doesn't mean Enterprise was ripping B5 off.
 
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