SPOILER ALERT -- Review Myriad Universes: Infinity's Prism

I think you have your next Myriad Universes story

 

I checked this one out at the library, and I have to say I enjoyed it.

And surprisingly, the Dukat/Kira romance didn't bother me at all. In fact, I found it one of the most interesting things that for once, there was a version of him that actually like a decent person worthy of her. To me, anyway, this evoked certain comments made during the series, and by Marc Alaimo himself.

First, there's the comment Dukat made in one episode of DS9 that he felt like his destiny and Kira's were tied. Obviously with the "real" Dukat, said "relationship" is going to be a sicko sex-offender fantasy. But if you've got a Dukat that's made better choices and not gone down that path...well, it made sense to me to see that fulfilled in a far more PROPER sense than it ever could in the "real" universe.

The second thing that came to mind was this...Marc Alaimo apparently used to think there had to be some good in Dukat and held to this stance almost no matter what horrible thing the "real" Dukat did. So now that apparently that "better angel of his nature" is on display here, it does provoke some thought, namely on just how much potential the "real" Dukat might've squandered. And then there's also the thought of whether it was that the circumstances moulded this new Dukat into a better person (knowing oppression, being around good influences like Kira, etc.), or whether this one just...made better choices and that perhaps the "real" one could've too and just threw it all away.

Third...remember that the non-augment characters are being used as contrasts against the non-augments. In Khan and his descendents you've basically got a Hitler-dynasty type thing going. So what more total contrast can you get than have Dukat be the complete opposite?

 

And yet, this is also a guy who, long before atrocities like the Cultural Revolution, went and installed himself as dictator, without attempting to gain a democratic mandate from the people over whom he ruled. I have a hard time calling anyone who thinks that they have some right to power without gaining a democratic mandate from the people anything other than evil -- whether they're relatively beneign dictators like Tito or full-out sociopaths like Amin or Hitler.

 

That's a dangerously oversimplistic way of looking at it. You can't fight the bad things in life by reducing them to a monolithic, caricatured label like "evil" and lumping everyone who does anything remotely less than wonderful in the same absolutist category. That's the sort of rhetoric that liars like Bush use to manipulate and blind us, to dumb down the real issues of the world by giving us empty propaganda. In order to be genuinely effective at fighting the bad things in life, you have to understand their causes. Especially, you have to understand the difference between a truly irredeemable tyrant and a ruler who still has the potential of being guided onto a better path.

Besides, I'm talking about fiction here, not reality. Cartoon bad guys are just not as interesting to write or read about as more nuanced, ambiguous figures. I'm not talking about whether what Khan did was genuinely right or wrong, because Khan never existed and never did a damn thing. So that's a totally meaningless discussion to have in this context. I'm talking about what makes him most engaging as a fictional character.

 

In my defense, I'd point out also that while I have a hard time calling anyone who rules without a democratic mandate "evil," I also thoroughly disbelieve in the idea that the United States or its allies have any right to impose democracy or to force changes in governments we don't like using violence or coersion -- and that while I may be willing to characterize one ruler as being "evil," I'm not necessarily willing to characterize everything that that person does as evil or as being so evil as to mean we can't deal with them on peaceful, equitable terms.

 

For that matter, considering how recent true democracy is, you'd have to consider most every ruler and state in world history 'evil'. But Christopher is correct that power can corrupt even the well-intentioned, particularly where checks and balances are absent, or there's a history of conflict. Take a contemporary example like Mugabe: when he was first elected (in the first elections to include the majority black population), he was spoken of in the same breath as Mandela. There were signs of the oppressive bigot and tyrant he would eventually become in the brutality of his freedom fighters and his preference for a one-party state, but he initially came to power on the back of a movement seeking legitimate redress of historical wrongs. Most people are not one thing at any given moment, and particularly not across the span of a lifetime.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

I've put together a review at the blog:

 

I think that a person who seizes power because he or see feel they have a right to and are entitled to it (I believe this is the case for Khan no matter what his plans were) have already taken a first step down a very dark path.

 

Totally loved James Swallow's reference to The Doctor's (Doctor Who) companions.

 

But you can describe most of the leaders in the history of the world that way. As stated above, democracy is a very recent innovation. Nobody's saying that the only choices are saint and monster. The point is that reality is infinitely more nuanced than that.

Even the leaders who are praised and lionized by history have done bad things, or at least undemocratic things. Alexander the Great was as ruthless as a conqueror as he was tolerant as a leader. Richard the Lion-Hearted brutally quashed rebellions when he was Duke of Aquitaine and participated in more than one attempt to overthrow his father and seize the English throne by force, then instituted anti-Semitic policies and launched a war of religious aggression against the Muslims, seeing the country he ruled as little more than a source of revenue for his war machine. Thomas Jefferson owned slaves.

And again, why are we even debating whether it's right or wrong? What I'm talking about is what makes a fictional character interesting. I'm saying that a tyrant who's nuanced and admirable in certain ways is a more engaging antagonist than a tyrant who's just a one-dimensional madman or monster.

 

And from a strictly internal perspective, it makes for a more credible story if the despot has charisma or other desirable qualities that make him a leader to his followers, rather than just being some nutcase you can't fathom why anybody would want to follow beyond threat of force.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

^^Good point.

 

Well spotted!

 

What makes you think I don't?

 

Jim, I've yet to read any of your Who fiction, but is it correspondingly peppered with Trek references?

 

Oh, here and there. BBC Books did make me take out the reference in Peacemaker about Martha Jones being a Star Trek fan, though.

 

damn! that would've been so cool.

 

Well, in the show itself, we had Rose referring to Spock in "The Empty Child." And Steven Moffat gave the Doctor the ability to mind-meld, essentially, in "The Girl in the Fireplace." The Doctor's telepathic abilities had been established in the old show, but it was never so blatantly mind-meldy before.

 

You mean wibbly-wobbley-mindey-meldey?

 

Yeah, I thought so, especially as Freema's a self-confessed Trekker. They left in the Ugly Betty joke, though.