Deep Space Nine: Ascendance by David R. George III
Published: January 2016
Time Span: December 2377–February 2378 / December 2385–January 2386
It's sort of a miracle we got an Ascendants wrap-up book, you know? If
Deep Space Nine was a comic book, it would have just moved on and forgotten about all this once the big crossover (i.e.,
Destiny) came along. It certainly wouldn't have spent time wrappup up a dangling plotline from a previous editorial regime. So, maybe we should be grateful?
And yet...
As I said in my previous write-up, it was a long time ago that I read
Rising Son and its following books, so I am going off some pretty vague memories at this points. Yet if I recall correctly, what made the Ascendants interesting was the potential for
cultural and religious conflict. These were people who had the same gods as the Bajorans but interpreted them differently. What would happen when they met the Bajorans?
This book is somewhat oddly structured. While
Sacraments of Fire moved back and forth between 2377 and 2385, using the Kira of 2385(ish) as its focalizing character in 2377,
Ascendance is split into half. The first half is all set in 2377; I wonder if you could just read it on its own as the next installment in the OG relaunch after
The Soul Key. In this, Iliana Ghemor leads the Ascendant fleet through the Bajoran wormhole. I recently reread my review of
The Soul Key from back in the day, and I wrote, "What really bothers me is that
Fearful Symmetry gave Iliana Ghemor a complex backstory and strong character... but that felt entirely pointless here, as she became just another sneering madwoman." That continues here; Ghemor decides to blow up Bajor because she's so mad at Kira.
On the surface this has more action than
Sacraments, but mostly all the characters seem to do is watch the Ascendant fleet come. Which is unfortunate because there are a lot of characters to do this watching: Kira, Sisko, Ezri, Vaughn. But no one does anything interesting. Basically what happens is that Taran'atar takes the only action of significance. We spent a big chunk of the previous book getting reacquainted with the
Even Odds crew, but they're irrelevant here, they don't even show up.
The Ascendants attack... and Taran'atar sucks them all up. That's it? It doesn't feel worthy of the buildup, and it's not the kind of conflict I remember imagining. It fills a gap, but it kinds of feels like that's all it does. Sisko has a good idea, but doesn't feel like he plays an interesting role—weren't the Ascendants the whole reason he came back in
Unity? Plus, it continues the thing I hate that all the post-
Destiny novels have done with Sisko, which is take him away from being the Emissary.
Then we get an overly long double epilogue about Kira and Ezri, setting up the former's switch to religious life (still not sold on this) and the latter's transfer to the
Aventine. Like so many George moments of "characterization," it's just someone sitting around thinking about something, not something that happens in the actual story.
* * *
Then we jump back to the present of
Deep Space Nine narrative. This happens on p. 171... and the first inkling we get of something approaching a plot is p. 229. For sixty pages, people think about things and people have meetings. What will happen to Cenn Desca? I couldn't care less. Nog thinks about Vic, Ro thinks about Altek Dans, Quark thinks about Ro, Sisko thinks about exploring. Can you really write sixty pages of a novel with no clear narrative direction? Apparently so. I was so continually frustrated by this.
Every now and then there's a moment of characterization that actually does shine; I liked Quark asking if Nog was okay following the events of
The Poisoned Chalice a lot.
Finally things come into focus. When Odo linked with the mysterious shapeshifter at the end of
Sacraments, it came to life; now it begins flying through space faster-than-light toward the Bajoran system and the
Defiant must intercept it. There is some nicely creepy stuff, but once again, I can't shake the feeling that our characters are just watching the story, not participating in it. Only Ro does anything that matters, when she opts to board the shapeshifter (which has by this point formed a duplicate DS9) against everyone else's objections. Even now, though, I am wondering why this is in the same book as the first half. What does it have to do with anything?
Here, we learn that when Taran'atar and the Ascendants blew up they merged into a weird collective life form but it was inert until it learned how to shapeshift from Odo. The Ascendants want to complete their ascension, so they fly into the wormhole and become the "planet" from "Emissary" whose existence I was dubious about back in
Revelation and Dust. And... that's it?
Here, I feel the the ingredients existed to do something interesting. George is clearly trying to explore faith, in particular Taran'atar's, who in the end tragically cannot break free of the need to worship. I did like the return of Raiq and wonder if future novels will find anything interesting for her to do. But again, few characters have moments they make choices.
Moreover, from an ongoing storyline perspective, it's a bit of a fizzle. I think the ingredients are here—the merged Ascendant entity is like a Founder because of something one Ascendant did with the Founder god corpse in
Olympus Descending. But, is there some kind of connection between the Founders and their god and the Prophets? But these are ideas in my head, not ones the novel explores or even raises. Instead, we are treated to a scene about which boring nonentity will replace another boring nonentity as the first office of DS9. Will it be—checks notes—uh, Stinson, who I guess has been in four previous novels but left no mark at all and who we are treated to a two-page backstory infodump about? No, it's Jefferson Blackmer, Starfleet's worst chief of security. Well, at least he's been promoted to a position where he's no longer responsible for stopping sabotage or assassination, I guess.
The gaps are filled, I guess, the storyline tied off. But what was the point? What was it actually about? This one read much better than
Sacraments, with more action... but very little of it seemed to matter in the end.
Continuity Notes:
- As this project's second installment, I read the original series novel Allegiance in Exile. Thirty-nine books later that finally paid off when someone looked up the Ascendants in the computer and found the Memory Beta entry on Allegiance in Exile. Result!
- No one in this book knows where Bashir is. Meanwhile over in Section 31: Disavowed (which I've already started) he's been pardoned and commended and is living publicly on Andor.
- This book acknowledges that La Forge tinkered with Vic's program in The Light Fantastic, when Nog was off the station between The Poisoned Chalice and now. But then who was messing with Vic's program before Sacraments?
Other Notes:
- What is up with Altek Dans? As in, what is the purpose of this character? Why is he in this series. Two 300-page books later and I have no idea. How is he a vehicle for new stories? I cannot fathom it. The "romance" with Ro comes from nowhere and nothing. Just why? I also don't get why no one just shows him a map of Bajor and asks him where his city was. Even if he's from 500,000 years ago, there should be enough familiar geographical features for him to answer this question.
- Odo spends basically the whole book unconscious, then he leaves.
- Like Sacraments of Fire, the back cover blurb fails to describe the book in any meaningful way, feeling like someone just pasted in the first two paragraphs of George's outline.
I'm just really proud of it and I want everyone else to love it as much as I do. I'm also really bad at figuring out how to promote myself without it coming across as pushy and obnoxious. So basically I'm the standard introvert nerd writer. 
