I read the German translation of the novel and was somewhat confused that the Gorn were calling the Federation "Federasssshn" (or something like that) as the German word for Federation (Föderation) doesn't have that "s" sound. I thought if you want people to be able to distinguish your alien names you just have to give each a distinct number of apostrophes. I totally forgot that she was prejudiced against them in the first place. Did it ever come up before this novel? I don't think so. According to MB Lang appeared in TNG: Requiem and TOS: "Arena" and O'herlihy only in "Arena". Maybe Martin was counting one of the alternate universe Enterprises from Q & A that hat her still on-board. But probably not and it's just a mistake... "You shall never interfere with a non-ftl species, because you might seriously fuck up their whole goddamn planet. Seriously, while I'm typing this a Vulcan is sitting next to me. He just read Archer's mission reports and nearly got an aneurysm. Please help this poor soul and don't be fuck shit up as bad as Archer! (original wording of the prime directive, as read by Sylvia Tilly)
Oh, that's interesting. I didn't know that about German, but it makes sense. I'm not sure. It's not a very strong prejudice, just more an innate revulsion for lizards. But then you'd wonder how she was able to work with Doctor Ree et al.
The book's portrayal of the Gorn as knowing next to nothing about the Federation is hard to reconcile with the UFP/Gorn relationship in Destiny and the like, not to mention with The Gorn Crisis, the hardcover comic that's been multiply referenced in other novel-continuity works, which shows Picard and Data actually saving the Gorn's ruling caste from extermination. The only way I could think of to rationalize the discrepancy was to assume that these particular Gorn were from a far-flung part of the Hegemony that's never dealt directly with the UFP, as would make sense given how distant the Vela OB2 association is from Federation space. The warp drive requirement was first mentioned in TNG's "First Contact" and has been presumed to be the dividing line ever since. But it doesn't really make sense, because there are a lot of ways a species could discover aliens before inventing warp drive -- through radio astronomy picking up signals, or through optical astronomy detecting a starbase or a space battle, or through the discovery of ancient alien ruins from a failed colony, or through actually being visited by non-Federation aliens who have no Prime Directive. At best, it's just a shorthand for "not yet aware of aliens," but I always found it simple-minded of "First Contact"'s writers to assume that equated to the invention of warp drive. Maybe the idea is that, if a particular species hasn't already discovered aliens somehow before inventing warp drive, it's bound to discover them once it does, so that's when you pretty much have to step forward and say "Hi, welcome to the neighborhood." Had things gone a little differently, you would've been upset at me. As it is, we're in kind of the same boat. When Margaret Clark took over Typhon Pact, she initially picked me to do the Gorn/Titan novel. But only a few weeks later, she decided I'd be a better fit to write the first tie-in novel to the new Bad Robot movie, so she moved me over to that project instead. I was disappointed that I didn't get the chance to return to Titan for a third go, or the chance to do some serious worldbuilding with the Gorn. Particularly since my Kelvin novel got cancelled anyway (though I did eventually get to rework it into The Face of the Unknown). Still, I did finally get to contribute to Typhon Pact with The Struggle Within.
There was some reflection from the Gorn tech-caster that the political caste had kept from him any real knowledge of the Federation, if I recall correctly. And at least some of the novel's war caste members were primarily stationed as guards on a creche world, so again, not much knowledge of the Federation. Oh, thanks. I've actually never seen "First Contact"! I'm thinking of writing something up on the evolution of the Prime Directive-- when looking to see when "pre-warp" was established as a dividing line, I discovered the term was never used at all until Voyager, but then used several times on both Voyager and Enterprise, which is interesting. Well, I was never upset with Mike. I would have liked to have seen you do some Gorn worldbuilding.
Well, it was the episode "First Contact" that first established the idea, even if that exact word wasn't used. (As it happens, that episode is exactly the halfway point of TNG's run.) TOS sort of implicitly treated it as something that applied to pre-spaceflight civilizations, but never explicitly defined a cutoff point, and TAS: "The Magicks of Megas-Tu" had Kirk quote General Order One (aka the Prime Directive) as "No starship may interfere with the normal development of any alien life or society," which pretty clearly means it applies to everyone, pre- or post-warp. (The idea, of course, is that revealing aliens to a species that hasn't discovered them on its own would constitute interference with their normal development. Too many people assume the PD is only about whether or not to make first contact, but that's just one aspect of the larger issue of interference.)
Typhon Pact: Paths of Disharmony by Dayton Ward Published: February 2011 Time Span: 2382 Paths of Disharmony is the last of the original run of Typhon Pact novels, both in terms of internal chronology and in publication order. Despite being marketed as a Destiny-like "event," this miniseries hasn't had an overarching story, so it can't exactly bring things to a climax... it does, however, end the sequence on a down note by providing the Typhon Pact with an unequivocal victory, as Andor votes to secede from the Federation. I remember a lot of hand-wringing when this book came out about whether it was improbably for a Federation founder to turn around like this; after Brexit (and with attempts at "Unexit"), however, it seems all too plausible. Andor has been through much worse than the United Kingdom, after all. What seems less plausible are the glimpses of the movement we get: faceless terrorists who sabotage science conferences and Federation starships. I get that a Star Trek novel has got to be exciting and dramatic, and so shuttlecraft plastered with "We send the UFP 350 million credits a week; let's fund our Imperial Health Service instead. Vote Leave" are unlikely to form the crux of Paths of Disharmony, but it was a little disappointing that we never saw any non-extremist voices in favor of "Andorexit," and I feel like part of the reaction to this book boils down to that it's hard to understand how a reasonable Andor could vote for this when we in fact never see a reasonable Andorian in favor of it. (Imagine if we saw Shar vote for Andorexit, for example!) Despite the banner title, though, the Typhon Pact plays almost no role in the novel. A Tholian starship shows up very briefly (on page 311 out of 455!) to deliver some information damning the Federation at a key point (information that's accepted sort of implausibly easily), but that's it. I complained that we didn't learn as much about Breen culture as I'd hoped from Zero Sum Game, but compared to this, Zero Sum Game was a cornucopia of Breen historiography and sociology. Paths of Disharmony works just fine as a Destiny follow-up on its own terms, but it has more in common with A Singular Destiny and Losing the Peace than it does the other Typhon Pact novels. The book is sort of weirdly paced. I get that in novels you don't need to have the Enterprise arriving at the planet of its mission in the opening scene, unlike in episodes, but here it doesn't arrive at Andor until page 147 out of 455, and even once it's there, not a whole lot happens: Andorian terrorists do something, crew reacts, and repeat a few times until the climax. It would be nice to see the Enterprise crew being proactive, investigating the terrorists and/or discovering their plans, instead of just biding time until the terrorists opt to reveal all themselves. The focus of those first 146 pages is on the characters, but like with other Destiny-era Star Trek novels, it would be better if the character was more integrated with action. As it is, we get a lot of personal-life stuff (Geordi and T'Ryssa's love lives are both focused on, for example), then all that is paused for the action, then the last couple chapters tell us how the personal-life stuff wound down. Like two of the other three Typhon Pact novels, this one takes a Deep Space Nine character and puts them front and center (I guess because there are currently no such thing as DS9 novels): after Rough Beasts of Empire's focus on Sisko and Zero Sum Game's on Bashir, Paths of Disharmony gives a guest-star turn to Thirishar ch'Thane, former science officer of Deep Space 9. To be honest, I'm not sure why he's in the book. I mean, to a degree he has to be: Shar was our way into the Andorian reproductive crisis in the DS9 novels, and so he continues in that role here. But he kind of doesn't matter outside of that, and despite the extra tragedies that have been dumped on him since we last saw him (his whole bondgroup died!), he seems pretty chill. The beginning of the novel has a scene where he wonders why he's been afraid to contact Prynn Tenmei... this never comes up again. He's just kind of there, which is a shame, because he was probably my favorite of the Deep Space Nine relaunch's original characters, but he's just this guy in this novel. Still, it reads quick, and Ward is pretty good with character voices. But like a lot of components in comic book crossovers (which really seem to be the model for the storytelling style of the Destiny era), Paths of Disharmony mostly seems noteworthy for what happens, not how. Continuity Notes: Always happy to see a Stavos Keniculus shout-out. My favorite dumb episode of the cartoon. (As opposed to a favorite good one, like, um... does "Yesteryear" just win by default?) Other Notes: It's weird to me that the TNG novels and their closely-linked spin-off, Titan, are at the same time doing the thing of a captain married to one of his crew, and they're raising a child. I was meh on the Picard-Crusher marriage to begin with, and even more meh on the Picard-Crusher child, but reading Seize the Fire and Paths of Disharmony moves me over into thinking this was definitely a mistake for The Next Generation. Each of these series should have its own distinct identity, and having two series with captains who fret about toddlers robs them of that. I find it strange that T'Ryssa Chen, the Enterprise's "contact specialist," has no particular duties when the Enterprise isn't doing much contacting, and just kind of picks stuff to do of her own volition? My impression (mostly from the original series, I guess) is that Starfleet officers are all cross-trained: in combat I'm sure science officers have support roles to fill, for example, and one would presume that science officers with no particular science work to do would be assigned other duties. (But then again, the original Enterprise's historian seemed to just sit around painting most of the time, so maybe not.) Typhon Pact Overall: I have two touchstones for considering Typhon Pact as a series. The first was the e-mail I got from Marco Palmieri inviting me to participate. It was originally supposed to be six novels, one for each member of the Pact, and also to incorporate the Starfleet Corps of Engineers and the IKS Gorkon. Though losing the da Vinci and the Gorkon is sad from a I-like-those-series perspective, the way that the Tzenkethi and the Kinshaya are basically nonentities in this series is even more disappointing. (Though there were another four more Typhon Pact novels, so it's possible we'll get more to come on these guys.) The original series premise also promises in-depth exploration and worldbuilding in little-traveled civilizations, and I don't think the series lived up to that with the civilizations it did cover. Zero Sum Game is probably the best at this, showing us a potentially very interesting Breen society even if it doesn't do enough with it. And Rough Beasts of Empire has a good grasp on the Romulans; David George doesn't do anything new with them, but he captures their virtues and their flaws very well, I think. But Seize the Fire rendered the Gorn mostly as caricatures, and Paths of Disharmony tells us literally nothing about the Tholians. My other touchstone is a presentation I saw series editor Margaret Clark give at Shore Leave (in, I guess, 2009?). Basically, as I remember her telling it, Marketing and/or booksellers came to her and said, "Destiny sold amazingly; do you have anything else like that?" and she replied with, "Yes, but instead of three books, I'll give you four." But Typhon Pact is a very different kind of crossover to Destiny, and even leaving aside that it's four stories with four authors instead of one big story with one author, there's just not a lot to look back at and say "wow" about. And I say this as someone who wasn't much into Destiny to begin with! That's it for now; I'm taking a break to read some other stuff (currently working my way through the 869-page Norton Book of Science Fiction!) before I resume with my next batch of five. (Man, I sound grumpy.)
You don't sound grumpy - that's all fair. If it helps, the remaining four Typhon Pact books are WAAAAY better than the first four, in almost every respect.
Una's is great, but I actually think there's a pretty solid chance Raise The Dawn will have you devouring your headgear. I look forward to seeing what you have to say about it.
I think sometimes people interpret the title "contact specialist" too narrowly. I originally coined the term for Deanna Troi in The Buried Age and Titan, to refer to the stuff she did when she wasn't being a counselor -- not just first contact with new life forms, but any kind of (non-military) contact or interaction with non-Federation cultures -- a mix of diplomacy, anthropology, xenobiology and xenopsychology, etc. The fifth installment, my e-novella Typhon Pact: The Struggle Within, is the Kinshaya focus, and also revisits the Tzenkethi to an extent. It also fleshes out the "leftover" member of the expanded Khitomer Accords, the Talarians (from "Suddenly Human"). While the events of The Struggle Within were not acknowledged and even seemingly contradicted by Plagues of Night/Raise the Dawn, the Prey trilogy revisited a lot of what I'd established about the Kinshaya and reconciled the apparent inconsistency quite nicely. Despite how it was marketed, it was conceived to be less like Destiny and more like Worlds of Deep Space Nine -- an umbrella title for a set of standalone stories fleshing out underdeveloped alien cultures. It was also in the vein of earlier thematic crossovers like Invasion!, Day of Honor, and Section 31.
This makes sense: in light of Paths, then, it seems like Chen would have been quite busy during the past year since Losing the Peace, doing a lot of sociocultural legwork for Picard on all the various planets where the Enterprise has been doing troubleshooting.
This kind of thing is why I rewrote the book in my head so that instead of the Enterprise being involved in the Andorian crisis, the Robinson was. It seemed incongruous to me that TNG, a series which has never had anything to do with the Andorian storyline, would get a book focused on that, while DS9 got the Romulans which are more closely associated with TNG. So I swapped them - Picard and Worf went to Achernar Prime to talk to Donatra (who, after all, they already met in "Nemesis") while Sisko, Bashir, Tenmei and Nog go to Andor to help Shar (who has been their friend for years, unlike Picard who has never met him). That just seems to make more sense to me, feels more natural. .
Hm, yeah, it was pretty contrived (as I commented then) that somehow Sisko of all people was considered to have the right amount of Romulan experience for that mission. (These books in your head would be very different from the actual books!)
The impression I have (and I think it may have been said explicitly in a future novel) is that Chen is in a similar position as Worf and Geordi in season one of TNG; she's Picard's hobby, and is floating around when there's not a lot of specialized contact to be done so that she'll learn, learn, learn, with an eye towards her eventually jumping to the command track.
At the time I did find it a bit odd to see a story that has been dealt with pretty much exclusively in the DS9 books suddenly being a major part of a TNG book.
I’ve read the first two TP books. They’re good. The second book confused me a bit but i think it’s only because I assumed the Titan was going one way when they were in fact going another. It’s been a while since I’ve looked at the star charts but Gorn Space was South of the Beta Quadrant I recall. I’ve been thinking the Titan has been going North when it looks like it was South. I’m also not a fan of Sarah and Bashir. I prefer Bashir and Ezri. I’ve just got a call from your editor and he wants a Picard story with the Daleks.
This map from @Christopher's website shows the relative positions: https://christopherlbennett.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/exm-ohmap.jpg As you can see, both Gorn space (the unlabeled green blob by Cestus) and the Vela OB2 Association are antispinward relative to Federation space, though Gorn space is further rimward.
Yeah, that’s the map that I remember. So they went east. If Cestus is at the bottom and they meet the Gorn there, it must mean Gorn space wraps around at the bottom since the Gorn mention that they’re close to Gorn space, but not in it. The Typhon Pact ships coming makes more sense as well since they wouldn’t have to cross Fed or Klingon space to get there.