ST:TNG Resistance (SPOILERS)

[JimT]

I read Death in Winter and Resistance back to back, and I THINK I found a (small) continuity error. I don't have the books in front of me for reference at the moment, so I can't site page numbers or chapters, but I'm pretty certain that, in Death in Winter, Admiral Janeway personally comes to the Enterprise to prevent Geordi and Worf from taking off after Picard, and Worf meets her in the docking bay as she disembarks (or was it the transporter room?). Then, in Resistance, he has to contact her to let her know what is going on with Picard on the Borg ship, and it states that Worf has "never met" Janeway.

I realize this is a small error, and my point in bringing it up is really to ask this question of the writers on the board: whose job is it to catch these inconsistencies and smooth them out in the current era of interconnectivity between the novels? I'm not trying to lay blame for anything; I'd just like a little insight into the behind the scenes processes of writing a series of novels like these. Should Jeanne Dillard have read Death in Winter before beginning Resistance and therefore known that there was a scene with Worf and Janeway, or is it the editor's job to bring this type of thing to the author's attention? I'm just curious as to the details of keeping these things straight. Thanks for any insight you can give me.

 

[Trent Roman]

While many of the writers read each others' books (or current galleys, given overlapping production time), inter-novel continuity, particularly when it comes to small details like this, is the purview of the editor of the line. For the TNG Relaunch, that would be Margaret Clark. If there is an error, she's the one who'll have to undergo the rituals of contrition at the Pocket offices. Don't worry, though; I hear they don't leave permanent marks and sometimes involve cuddly pandas.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[Stag]

What happened to Cdr. Martin Madden? Or was he just a figment of my deleted scenes imagination?

Poor bastard couldn;t make it to canon in the movies and now can even make it to print. Oh well Marty, nice seeing you, or not.

 

[Man of Steel]

Stag said:
What happened to Cdr. Martin Madden? Or was he just a figment of my deleted scenes imagination?

Your imagination.

Poor bastard couldn;t make it to canon in the movies and now can even make it to print. Oh well Marty, nice seeing you, or not.

Poor Steven Culp. They killed him off in Desperate Housewives as well. Ah well.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Man of Steel said:
Poor Steven Culp. They killed him off in Desperate Housewives as well. Ah well. At least he survived as a MACO.

Uuuuuhm, no he didn't...

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Turtletrekker, it's best to ignore Man of Steel. Marc has never been one to let facts interfere with his delusions and faulty memories.

 

[Rosalind]

Allyn Gibson said:
Turtletrekker, it's best to ignore Man of Steel. Marc has never been one to let facts interfere with his delusions and faulty memories.

While I have quoted Allyn's post here, this is really address to everyone.

Whatever Man of Steel did on another board should not be used to judge his actions on this board. Quite frankly, posts like the above is a personal attack on another member of the board. Marc's comment might not be accurate but it also does not deserve such reaction posts.

 

[Zyzyx1701D]

I liked the book overall, but one criticism I have is that the Enterprise simply felt empty (And it's not just because so many of the TNG regulars have moved on. The post-finale DS9 books, after all, did a great job giving the impression of a populated world.) Resistance just didn't the feeling of a ship populated with living, dynamic characters. I'm happy to hear that KRAD will be populating the ship with at least a couple of new characters in the next book. I'd like to see a whole set of character dynamics develop along the lines of COE or Titan to breathe some new life into the Enterprise-E.

 

[Steve Roby]

Rosalind said:

Allyn Gibson said:
Turtletrekker, it's best to ignore Man of Steel. Marc has never been one to let facts interfere with his delusions and faulty memories.

While I have quoted Allyn's post here, this is really address to everyone.

Whatever Man of Steel did on another board should not be used to judge his actions on this board. Quite frankly, posts like the above is a personal attack on another member of the board. Marc's comment might not be accurate but it also does not deserve such reaction posts.

This seems like a good time to remind people that there's a really useful function here at the TrekBBS. If you're reading a post by someone you find consistently annoying, click on their username beside their post and on their profile page you can click on a link that says Ignore This User. Henceforth, their posts will simply say "You are ignoring this user." If you want to read what that user says in a particular topic for some reason, you can hit Quote and read their post in the reply window.

I've got three or four people I'm ignoring right now (naming no names, and I'm likely to add another one or two today), and it makes reading the TrekBBS a much more pleasant experience. (I imagine there must be some people ignoring my posts but if so they'd probably agree with me on the usefulness of this feature, if nothing else.)

 

[8of5]

I enjoyed it, but it felt a bit empty, like an above poster said I think that's due to the general lack of characters. I've been reading DS9 most recently and there's more characters milling about there than you could stick and shake at. Also, could do with a bit more diversity, no one apart from Worf and T’Lana seemed to be noted as non-Human.

I found the Borg no more or less fearsome, so I assume there scary-monster-under-the-bed return is still to come Before Dishonor. They were still pretty interesting and it was nice to find out how they're doing post-Endgame and get a bit more incite into how they make a queen. Though doesn’t the method contradict the Voyager relaunch, I vaguely recall the Starfleet Intelligence person making herself a queen using a bit of programming rather than any jelly.

I really liked T'Lana, I look forward to more of her. I found her and Worf’s litter crush rather odd but very enjoyable. And I thought Worf's reluctance to become first officer was well played and interesting.

All in all and nice start I look forward to Q&A and Before Dishonor.

 

[Man of Steel]

Are the relaunch books all stand alone because it seems like Before Dishonor picks up where Resistance left off and those who read that before Resistance might be lost.

 

[Gatekeeper]

I thought Resistance started out kind of weak — I could immediately tell that Lionardo Battaglia wasn't going to last long (it was pretty much telegraphed in the scenes immediately prior to the security team boarding the supersized Borg cube). The same feeling struck with Sara Nave not long after Lio's unfortunate assimiliation.

It's kind of hard to care about "red shirt" characters who are going to die. Also, what's the point of even providing descriptions for one-shot characters who are going to buy the farm? I mean, why should I care that some anonymous member of the second team to board the Borg cube (after Picard's ill-fated trip there) has blue eyes, red hair and whatnot when, a few pages later, he's going to be deader than a doornail?

Also, I think there might have been a factual error in how a hive of bees creates a new queen. I'm pretty certain it doesn't involve sex changes (i.e., turning a male drone into a female queen). If I remember my bee books correctly, royal jelly is fed to a select number of female grubs that are still developing in their cells. The first one to become a pupae, then hatch, emerges and quickly kills all other developing queens.

Now, all of these criticisms aside, the *ending* of Resistance was far better than its beginning. I really did like how the tension built with Beverly and Worf confronting Locutus and the Borg Queen. That scene was an absolute gem, IMO.

I also gelled quite quickly to the Beverly/Picard romance, and am interested in seeing if T'Lana and Worf hit it off. On a final note, I found Admiral Kathryn Janeway to, well, be something of a crab apple, to put things politely. The sneak peek for Q&A, however, softened my view a bit toward her.

Gatekeeper

 

[Christopher]

8of5 said:
They were still pretty interesting and it was nice to find out how they're doing post-Endgame and get a bit more incite into how they make a queen. Though doesn’t the method contradict the Voyager relaunch, I vaguely recall the Starfleet Intelligence person making herself a queen using a bit of programming rather than any jelly.

Just think of them as different aspects of the overall process. The "royal jelly" creates the physical form of a Queen, while the Royal Protocol program installs the software, as it were.

 

[8of5]

Christopher said:
Just think of them as different aspects of the overall process. The "royal jelly" creates the physical form of a Queen, while the Royal Protocol program installs the software, as it were.

Makes sense. Good catch on Kristin Kreuk/Lana = T'Lana to, I can really see that, is it really coincidence?

 

[nickyboy]

no desire to read this, as i can't stand Worf, it would have been more interesting seeing Geordie as XO as it would have been some development in the character towards him becoming a captain in the future.

 

[JD]

So is Janeway pretty much a recurring character in the TNG Relaunch? Because you guys have talked about her role in this book, you just talked about her in relation to a Q&A preview, and it talks about her on the Before Dishonor cover.

 

[FatherRob]

Someone must have gotten a different preview in their book than I did, because the preview in the back of my copy of Resistance was for Before Dishonor.

Rob+

 

[Man of Steel]

How soon after VOY came home did she get promoted? Did the books cover this?

 

[Christopher]

JD said:
So is Janeway pretty much a recurring character in the TNG Relaunch?

No more so than she was already in the A Time to... series and Nemesis. And it stands to reason that she'd be the go-to admiral for Borg-related matters.

 

[KRAD]

I'm responding to several points at once here, so bear with me:

Marc: Janeway's promotion to admiral was established in the movie Nemesis, and dramatized in Homecoming by Christie Golden.

Nickyboy: Only if you buy that La Forge should become a captain. Read my A Time for War, a Time for Peace, where La Forge is offered -- and turns down -- the first officer position on Titan, partly after having a lengthy conversation with Montgomery Scott on the subject. As for Worf, Nemesis made it clear he's back on the Big E. Given where he was on Deep Space 9 -- a lieutenant commander on the command track -- first officer is the only position he really could have on the Enterprise. Anything else would be a demotion, and Worf has done nothing to earn such. (Again, see A Time for War, a Time for Peace.)

JD & Rob: Yes, the preview in the back is for Before Dishonor, but Janeway does, in fact, appear in Q&A.