Picard's continued support of Calhoun - bewildering?

[Arpy]

To add to what Christopher said about families on starships, I also don't think that they're all that dangerous places to be. If space were nearly as dangerous as it is for our heroes every week, we would't send people out there like that. Especially not the same people who would be half insane by the end of their first year out. It'd all be drones and whatnot - for exploration, battle, what have you. I think you have to take it all with a grain of reset-button salt. I doubt most starships ever once find themselves in a real phaser fight in mostly empty boring space. And when war comes around, you can bet all that extra space on starships become troop quarters and materiel storage.

 

[Christopher]

And of course the idea behind the Galaxy class was that it could separate so that you'd leave the civilians behind before going into a potential combat situation, though that fell by the wayside on TNG due to the cumbersomeness of the miniature that was capable of separating. And it's awkward because you'd have to know in advance about the need to separate, or else leave the civilians vulnerable while trying to flee a surprise attack. I've often thought it would've made more sense to build TNG around two different ships travelling together, a large research ship commanded by Picard and a smaller defense/support vessel (or vessels) commanded by Riker. But maybe it would've been too expensive to build most of the visual effects shots around two (or more) ship miniatures.

 

[MatthiasRussell]

I don't think the Excalibur and Titan have many children aboard. The excalibur is said to be a "hot rod" galaxy class, different than the Enterprise D. The facilities, mission, and complement might be different.

I also agee that I'd rather my wife and kids were on a Galaxy than a frontier starbase. I'd think its probably safer. Of course I would rather they stayed on a core world if I could make it back regularly.

 

[MatthiasRussell]

The Peter David books largely seem to occur in a universe that seems almost the same as the mainstream one but in which established existing characters only appear to show how wonderful David's own characters are. So Picard has to support Calhoun because he's wonderful.

If Wolverine appear in a David Star Trek book it would only be so Calhoun could knock him out and then Wolverine could say "he's the best there is!".

THIS!!!

I loved NF in the beginning, but stopped after a while since I couldn't get over the glorifying of this crew he created and they were so much more awesome-er then all of Starfleet.

I was hoping for more character development for Calhoun, but he has remained the same person through all of the books, basicly, with the exception that he 'learned to love'. That, together with him being able to always win, made him to much of a Gary Stu to me.

I disagree. His relationship with Xyon and Mote have changed him personally. I think he realized the family life he would never have and more and more realizes how emotionally crippled he is. His relationship with Jellico has also changed drastically. Calhoun has softened in many ways but in battle he is just as cold as ever. Other characters have faced drastic changes including Cwan, Soleta, Selar, Shelby, etc. All have broaded their perspectives and tolerance. I've seen a lot of obvious character growth.

 

[David cgc]

I don't know. I think the drastic three-year time jump was a creative misstep. It might've worked out if the books kept coming out at the pace they had been when the series first started, but as it is, there seemed to be a lot of informed development going on because the way things are paced, we can't have earned development. Like every book was a reunion special, that would just touch on everything a little bit, just enough to tell you if anything had changed or not. A couple of running plots, like Moke, just stalled completely in favor of new, out-of-left field developments like Little Xyon's medical condition. And I don't know where the hell that thing with Soleta in the last book came out of, except possibly to bring her arc into sync with Mirror-Soleta, who at least had a reason for feeling that way. We've established that I'm bad with subtext elsewhere, so maybe I missed something, but it just seemed totally out of left field to me.

 

[donners22]

Your answer is in the very first book.

Picard expresses admiration for him from the start; that he's achieved so much, and that people speak of him with a mixture of anger and envy. Picard knows that has been achieved through violence and death, but he recognises that it was necessary in the circumstances.

Then when he is "selling" Calhoun to Jellico as captain of Excalibur, he acknowledges that Calhoun is a "cowboy", and says that's exactly what the situation requires.

Calhoun may not do things the way Picard would, but he recognises that Calhoun's style has its place - which happens to be on the New Frontier.



It's a shame production of the series slowed so dramatically. I wasn't overly enamoured with the jump ahead in time (nothing wrong with the books themselves; I just would have preferred a few more to transition to them), but it's been a bit sad not having Trek books to buy.