Several Questions Regarding "Paths of Disharmony"

[JD]

^Of course the Pact's survival isn't guaranteed, but my point is that its failure isn't guaranteed either. It could go either way. That's the whole thing that's interesting about the Pact -- the fact that anything could happen. It could be, yes, that its internal tensions will tear it apart. But it could also be that its members will benefit from their cooperation, that they'll come to understand the value of cooperation, and that the more selfish and aggressive factions within its members will be marginalized in favor of factions that pursue a stronger, more peaceful coalition.

And considering that the five core members of the Federation remained united for 221 years before one of them left, and that it gained well over a hundred additional members in that time, it's rather silly to claim that it's an intrinsically unstable civilization. So the Federation lost one member and another one maybe considered leaving (in one version of the continuity). So what? There was that time when nearly a third of the states within the United States of America seceded and formed their own separate government that went to war with the Union. That's a lot worse than any internal strife the Federation's ever suffered, but America's still here a century and a half later, bigger and more united than it was then.

So it's ridiculously premature to look at a little strife and assume the Federation -- or the Pact -- is doomed. Just because a risk exists doesn't mean it's guaranteed to happen. Star Trek is about optimism, remember? It's about believing that positive outcomes can happen and doing the hard work to make them happen. It's not about whining about gloom and doom and letting it become a self-fulfilling prophecy because you're too cynical or too lazy to fight for a better future.

I'd be more inclined to believe you if TrekLit wasn't all doom and gloom for the past decade! First it's the Dominion War, then the Borg are acting up again and hell bent at exterminating all life in the Alpha Quadrant (WHAT!) that only a deus ex machina was able to stop, then a group of nations that have been hostile to the Federation or the Klingons have banded together, then a potential ally to the Federation has been dissolved, now we have one of the founding members of the Federation seceding, it's just one big train wreck waiting to happen. While the expanded universe couldn't do anything about the Dominion War, it is responsible for everything else.

Tell you what, I'm certain the main TrekLit has become so stale and repetitive that I know the Typhon Pact will end in either of four ways:

• The Romulans will seek to control the entire Typhon Pact like an expanded version of their empire. One member state, possibly the Tzenkethi, will chafe at Romulan dominance and attempt to break away from the Pact. The Romulans will of course use force against the Tzenkethi to keep them in line. The other nations will be alarmed and also try to seceed. Next thing you know, the Typhon Pact collapses into a civil war from which it will never recover.
• Same as the above but with the Tzenkethi and Romulan positions reversed.
• The writers are setting things up for some big overwrought War(!) Arc that will pit the Federation Alliance against the Typhon Pact. The Typhon Pact will lose and be forcibly broken up. The decision to break up the Typhon Pact will of course lead to another of the Federation's founder states, let's say the Vulcans this time, to secede and the Federation will collapse into civil war. And they'll probably kill off Picard at the end because TPTB apparently have a grudge against the Federation.
• All of the above.

The Star Trek Expanded Universe is wearing itself ragged. If it keeps on the way it's going it'll end up like the Star Wars expanded universe, one pointless conflict after another continuing long after anyone has lost all interest.

OK, I'm calling crap on this whole post. I'm a huge of what's being done it Trek Lit right now, and it really gets on my nerves when people start calling it doom and gloom. Other than a few chapters of Destiny, I really do think what we have gotten since then has been incredibly positive. Sure some bad stuff happened, and we have seen the ideals of the Federation and Star Trek in general challenged quite a bit, but in all of those situation those ideals have triumphed in the end. To me this is incredibly positive, and shows how good the ideals are and how necessary they are when things start to go bad, and I think at a time when things seem to be going bad in the real world it can be important for Trek to show us this. And I really think in order to get things fresh Trek Lit really needed to bring about a major change to keep things interesting, and IMO Destiny and the Typhon Pact have done just that.
I think it's also worth pointing out that when the Typhon Pact novels were announced the authors repeated reassured us that this was not going to be turning into just another war story or big event, and so far they have kept to their word, and I haven't seen any reason to believe that this won't continue to be the case for the foreseeable future.

 

[Therin of Andor]

it really gets on my nerves when people start calling it doom and gloom.

I'm betting they also haven't actually read these books.

 

[Xander]

i kind of agree with gatekeeper, and i defiantly do not like the direction trek lit is going at the moment, for me the typhon pact series is a new low in trek lit.

Defiantly? Who are you defying?

I've been reading Trek for about 40 years now. There have been a lot of ups and downs, and Typhon Pact isn't one of them. In other words, it's a mix of some good stuff, some great stuff, some not so good stuff.

sorry misspelled the word definitely

 

[Xander]

Well for me personally part of the fun of the star trek universe has been lost for me with this typhon pact, i mean for me part of the fun was that you had all these different powers vying and jockeying for power ect each with a different agenda and "personality" so to speak.

now almost everyone has been lobbed together in two big groups, sorry but that makes it all LESS interesting to me not MORE interesting.

also the whole schism with the two romulan states was quite an interesting storyline for me, but now with the typhon pact series they have even ruined that by killing of Donatra (a very interesting character with a lot of potential) and reuniting the romulan empire....again makes things LESS interesting.

 

[Turtletrekker]

it really gets on my nerves when people start calling it doom and gloom.

I'm betting they also haven't actually read these books.

You beat me to it.

 

[Christopher]

Well for me personally part of the fun of the star trek universe has been lost for me with this typhon pact, i mean for me part of the fun was that you had all these different powers vying and jockeying for power ect each with a different agenda and "personality" so to speak.

But that's exactly what the Typhon Pact is. It hasn't got anything close to a single unifying "personality." Its six members are all jockeying for advantage within the Pact and pursuing their own disparate agendas, not to mention the different competing factions jockeying for power within each member state.

now almost everyone has been lobbed together in two big groups, sorry but that makes it all LESS interesting to me not MORE interesting.

I have to wonder, did you actually read the books, or are you just making assumptions based on what you've heard? Because nothing could be further from the truth. At no time have we seen a story about the entire Typhon Pact acting as a homogeneous unit. A Singular Destiny showed the Kinshaya and the Tholians engaged in aggressive actions with the rest of the Pact then pulling them back. Rough Beasts of Empire showed different Romulan factions jockeying for power within the empire and the Tzenkethi engaged in espionage and political manipulation against the Romulans. Zero Sum Game showed the Breen acting against the Federation, trying to avoid sharing a technological breakthrough with the other Pact members, and repressing a dissident movement within their own society. Seize the Fire showed two or three different Gorn factions competing with each other and with a Starfleet vessel, with the rest of the Pact playing virtually no role. Paths of Disharmony showed tensions within Andorian society that were eventually revealed to be the result of actions taken by the Tholians. And The Struggle Within, as the title suggests, will explore internal conflicts within Kinshaya society, as well as within Talarian society. Each of the books focuses on only one Pact member or at most two.

That's a lot of diverse stories about a lot of diverse societies. The Typhon Pact wasn't created to homogenize these various cultures, but as a vehicle to bring underdeveloped civilizations into the spotlight and allow exploring them in more depth. It's meant to increase the diversity of the powers, cultures, and agendas that play a prominent role in Trek Lit, not to reduce it.

 

[Xander]

i have read the first two books in the series Christopher, and did not find them that interesting to be honest.

reading those books is how i formed my opinion on the typhon pact series.
​

 

[Christopher]

i have read the first two books in the series Christopher, and did not find them that interesting to be honest.

reading those books is how i formed my opinion on the typhon pact series.
​

Odd... assuming you mean the first two published, those would be Zero Sum Game and Seize the Fire, each of which focuses on only a single Pact member and shows internal conflict between factions within it. So I don't understand how you could read those and get the impression that the number of different groups and agendas jockeying for power in the Trek universe has decreased.

 

[Therin of Andor]

reading those books is how i formed my opinion on the typhon pact series.

So you pass judgement on the work of two (now three) authors, whose books you haven't read yet? It's not like they were all given a commandment to make the books as disagreeable to you as possible. Novels are so much more than their settings, whether you agree with their settings or not.
​

 

[Xander]

one reason i threw rough beasts of empire in with the two i have read was because as i said the way they reunited the romulan states and killed donatra.

for me the idea of two romulan states and the storylines possible with this where quite interesting, and i would have loved to have seen where future books would have taken this.

as for donatra, i thought she was a VERY interesting character with a lot of future potential that has now been wasted.

 

[Rojixus]

I loved the detail given to the Tzenkethi in this series, truly unlike anything I could have imagined. The Typhon Pact shows great promise. If the writers stick to their original intentions, the Typhon Pact should prove to be an enriching experience for Star Trek the likes of which has been seen only in fanfics. An alliance of states existing separately from the Federation and not bent on galactic conquest? My curiosity has been piqued, my interest in TrekLit rekindled. I'm not looking for a Dominion 2.0, I'm not looking for the same tired old plots, I want something novel and thought-provoking. That's what sets Trek apart from all other settings.

 

[Christopher]

one reason i threw rough beasts of empire in with the two i have read was because as i said the way they reunited the romulan states and killed donatra.

But you don't know "the way" they did that. You know that they did that, but you don't know the specific way it was done. And so you're overlooking a pretty major piece of information establishing that the various members of the Pact still have their own very distinct agendas and are a long, long way from trusting each other, let alone thinking or acting as one entity.

 

[Sci]

I'd be more inclined to believe you if TrekLit wasn't all doom and gloom for the past decade!

You have a very expansive definition of "doom and gloom" if you think TrekLit has been nothing but doom and gloom for the past decade.

Tell you what, I'm certain the main TrekLit has become so stale and repetitive that I know the Typhon Pact will end in either of four ways:

I'm going to keep this post bookmarked. We'll revisit your claims in a couple of years.

Now make no mistake, part of me likes the idea of the Typhon Pact. However, I'm afraid TPTB will attempt to dumb down the Pact and make it into a stereotypical black-hat villain created simply to undermine and destroy the Federation for teh evuls!!!!11!

Who are these "powers that be?" Very mysterious. Last I checked, there were no "powers that be," just some authors who pitch stories to some editors.

I truly hope my predictions do not come to pass, I hope you as a writer specifically avoid taking the Typhon Pact in that direction. If I want a war story, I'll go to Star Wars (I'm sure there's some kind of war brewing there). If I want a story about an optimistic future or a story about exploring other worlds, I'll read a Star Trek book. Don't forget what made Star Trek great is what I'm getting at.

I'm happy to hear you think you know what makes for a good STAR TREK story better than actual STAR TREK authors.

 

[Xander]

one reason i threw rough beasts of empire in with the two i have read was because as i said the way they reunited the romulan states and killed donatra.

But you don't know "the way" they did that. You know that they did that, but you don't know the specific way it was done. And so you're overlooking a pretty major piece of information establishing that the various members of the Pact still have their own very distinct agendas and are a long, long way from trusting each other, let alone thinking or acting as one entity.

while i do agree christopher, the point i am making is that, for me personally the whole two romulan states thing was very interesting and i wanted to read more of this, now there is only one state again my...curiosity had dropped off.

same for Donatra i found her to be a interesting and indeed riveting character, and just killing her off like that was a waste of a really interesting character in trek lit.

 

[Rojixus]

I'm confident I can tell a good story from a bad one if that's what you're getting at. Doesn't take a genius to discern gold from horseshit.

 

[Sci]

I'm confident I can tell a good story from a bad one if that's what you're getting at. Doesn't take a genius to discern gold from horseshit.

Sure. But there's a difference between telling when a story you're reading is good or bad and telling an author how to do his job.

 

[Turtletrekker]

There is nothing quite like uninformed opinions.

 

[Therin of Andor]

a lot of future potential that has now been wasted.

As happens with death in real life.

Just don't tell the Janeway fans. They'll get jealous.

 

[Xander]

a lot of future potential that has now been wasted.

As happens with death in real life.

Just don't tell the Janeway fans. They'll get jealous.

yes but Janeway had plenty of chance to have her potential explored between the voyager series, voyager comics and various star trek novels.
whereas Donatra only had small parts in nemesis and a couple of novels, so they had only scratched the surface of Donatra's potential.

 

[Therin of Andor]

yes but Janeway had plenty of chance to have her potential explored between the voyager series, voyager comics and various star trek novels.

Just don't tell that to the Janeway fans, either.