Several Questions Regarding "Paths of Disharmony"

[Gatekeeper]

First and foremost, are we done with kicking the Federation in the balls? Or do we still need to gouge out an eye and maybe make off with one of its kidneys?

Secondly, I've lost track of where to go next in terms of the next Trek book I might read. I want to stay in the post-Borg Invasion era. Which book(s) fit that bill?

Gatekeeper

P.S. I've got "Watching the Clock" and "Indistinguishable from Magic" on my bookshelves, but the latter seems to be set years before the Borg Invasion, and I'm not sure about the former. Obviously, I haven't had time to read them yet.

 

[TigerBait]

more kicks to the balls!!! more kicks!

 

[Christopher]

P.S. I've got "Watching the Clock" and "Indistinguishable from Magic" on my bookshelves, but the latter seems to be set years before the Borg Invasion, and I'm not sure about the former. Obviously, I haven't had time to read them yet.

No, Indistinguishable from Magic is set in 2383, a couple of years after the Borg invasion. It's currently the farthest-ahead book in the entire novel continuity, not counting flashforwards.

As for Watching the Clock, its main story spans roughly the first year after the Borg invasion, but it has multiple flashbacks set throughout the TNG/DS9/VGR era.

 

[Gatekeeper]

P.S. I've got "Watching the Clock" and "Indistinguishable from Magic" on my bookshelves, but the latter seems to be set years before the Borg Invasion, and I'm not sure about the former. Obviously, I haven't had time to read them yet.

No, Indistinguishable from Magic is set in 2383, a couple of years after the Borg invasion. It's currently the farthest-ahead book in the entire novel continuity, not counting flashforwards.

As for Watching the Clock, its main story spans roughly the first year after the Borg invasion, but it has multiple flashbacks set throughout the TNG/DS9/VGR era.

Excellent. Thanks for the information ... the cover art on "Magic" threw me for a loop, since it showed a Galaxy-class Enterprise, rather than a Soverign-class starship.

Seriously, though, are we done kicking the Federation in the balls? Today's real world sucks, and it'd be nice to have some reading material that, you know, reflects a potentially brighter future for humanity. Just finished reading "Disharmony," so it's a bit raw yet for me.

Gatekeeper

 

[Idran]

Excellent. Thanks for the information ... the cover art on "Magic" threw me for a loop, since it showed a Galaxy-class Enterprise, rather than a Soverign-class starship.

Not to spoil, but that isn't the Enterprise.

 

[Thrawn]

Gatekeeper - are you reading Beyer's Voyager novels? Children Of The Storm is a head-on, genuine, brilliantly realized response to exactly the complaint you're bringing up, and might be my favorite Trek book in years.

 

[Gatekeeper]

Excellent. Thanks for the information ... the cover art on "Magic" threw me for a loop, since it showed a Galaxy-class Enterprise, rather than a Soverign-class starship.

Not to spoil, but that isn't the Enterprise.

Ooh, now I'm really interested. Here's my off-the-cuff guess: I bet it's the Odyssey. Am I right, am I right?

Gatekeeper

 

[Gatekeeper]

Gatekeeper - are you reading Beyer's Voyager novels? Children Of The Storm is a head-on, genuine, brilliantly realized response to exactly the complaint you're bringing up, and might be my favorite Trek book in years.

I've been reading everything in ST from the Borg Invasion forward so, yes, I have been. Haven't had time to pick up "Storm" yet, though. I'll likely get it in September, when I can group it with several other books I want to purchase in that time frame (one of them being David Weber's newest Safehold book, "How Firm a Foundation.")

Based on your post, I'm looking forward to Voyager's latest adventure in the Delta Quadrant. Don't get me wrong ... I like hardy, hard-hitting novels in the ST Universe ... but, darn it, now it's getting close to crossing a red line for me.

If the writers want to destroy or permanently maim *our* Federation in *our* timeline while making its enemies overpowered, well, I'm starting to have issues with that creative direction, especially after the events in "Disharmony." Please leave that dystopian stuff to the parallel realities.

Gatekeeper

 

[Thrawn]

^ Yeah, you're gonna love Children.

 

[Christopher]

Not to spoil, but that isn't the Enterprise.

Ooh, now I'm really interested. Here's my off-the-cuff guess: I bet it's the Odyssey. Am I right, am I right?

No, the Odyssey was destroyed in DS9's second season, in 2371. As I said, Indistinguishable from Magic is set in early 2383.

You said you have IFM on your shelf, right? Well, the back cover blurb says what ship it is.

 

[Gatekeeper]

Not to spoil, but that isn't the Enterprise.

Ooh, now I'm really interested. Here's my off-the-cuff guess: I bet it's the Odyssey. Am I right, am I right?

No, the Odyssey was destroyed in DS9's second season, in 2371. As I said, Indistinguishable from Magic is set in early 2383.

You said you have IFM on your shelf, right? Well, the back cover blurb says what ship it is.

Yeah, I realized about 10 seconds after I made the post that it couldn't be Odyssey and set in 2383. I opted not to edit it. And IFM is next on my Trek reading list. I just finished WtC.

Gatekeeper

 

[Sci]

I don't think it's very realistic not to depict the Federation as still having major problems in the post-Borg Invasion galaxy. Wars tend to beget further problems, after all. But I also don't think anything in the novels these days is truly dystopian. Hell, as many problems as they had with it in Losing the Peace, real-life refugee workers would probably give their right arms for refugee camps as humane and functional as the ones the Federation has.

 

[JD]

Agreed, 24th Century Trek Lit still has a long ways to go before I'd call it dystopian. Sure some bad stuff happened, but there was also some good, with the closer alliances they now have with some of the non-TP powers.

 

[rfmcdpei]

Agreed, 24th Century Trek Lit still has a long ways to go before I'd call it dystopian. Sure some bad stuff happened, but there was also some good, with the closer alliances they now have with some of the non-TP powers.

And the Typhon Pact itself is progress. It's nice to see the traditional antagonists get smart and start thinking of non-zero-sum solutions.

 

[BrotherBenny]

I wonder if the Typhon Pact is the Federation term for it but the members call it something else in their own languages.

 

[Christopher]

I wonder if the Typhon Pact is the Federation term for it but the members call it something else in their own languages.

Well, I think that's a given, since "Typhon" is a creature from Greek mythology and "pact" is an English word.

 

[BrotherBenny]

I wonder if the Typhon Pact is the Federation term for it but the members call it something else in their own languages.

Well, I think that's a given, since "Typhon" is a creature from Greek mythology and "pact" is an English word.

So they would call it something based on whatever their term for the Typhon Expanse is? I was just curious as to what that might be.

 

[Christopher]

Well, it's possible that the Federation's term for the Typhon Expanse is widely accepted, since they're the most active scientists/explorers around and thus they'd probably do the most naming of new things, publish the most comprehensive star charts, etc. So a lot of other cultures, even rival/enemy cultures, might rely on Federation-made star charts (much as Earth relied on the Vulcan database during its early starfaring era) and thus use Federation names for things that the Federation was the first to chart and codify. So a lot of them might actually call it "Typhon" or some variant adjusted to their own phonetics.

 

[Sci]

Well, it's possible that the Federation's term for the Typhon Expanse is widely accepted, since they're the most active scientists/explorers around and thus they'd probably do the most naming of new things, publish the most comprehensive star charts, etc. So a lot of other cultures, even rival/enemy cultures, might rely on Federation-made star charts (much as Earth relied on the Vulcan database during its early starfaring era) and thus use Federation names for things that the Federation was the first to chart and codify. So a lot of them might actually call it "Typhon" or some variant adjusted to their own phonetics.

Random thoughts: I can see that being true of the Breen, for instance, since they seem very insular, very wary of traveling outside their own space in too large of numbers. If we go by, however, Star Charts, the Typhon Expanse is very close to the Romulan Star Empire, and I can't imagine that the Romulans don't have a Rihannsu term for both the expanse and its political namesake.

 

[Christopher]

^Well, proximity isn't everything. The Romulans have also been very insular for most of their known history. From 2160-2266 and from 2311-2364 they were almost completely closed within their borders. And we know the Typhon Expanse was named by the UFP no later than 2368, and probably somewhat sooner.

Not to mention that Star Charts's 2-dimensional maps don't always give an accurate sense of the true 3-dimensional distance between things. The Typhon Expanse could be considerably "above" or "below" the plane of the page.