Star Trek DS9: Post Warpath

[David Mack]

^ Thanks for all the kind words, foravalon. Kira's Parek Tonn visions from Warpath will be explicated in future DS9 books -- none of its imagery or wording was chosen randomly; Marco and I discussed the meaning of every phrase.

And thanks for telling Barbara Luna about my MU story -- I wish I could have had that opportunity myself. But -- and this is just a pet peeve of mine -- the correct title of my short novel is The Sorrows of Empire. (Note the correct placement of "The" in the title.)

I and Chalmers Johnson will thank you for your understanding.

 

[Dayton Ward]

There is only one Empress, and her name is Hoshi Sato.


And I've got her picture in my wallet to prove it.

 

[greenmystik]

I only hope that there's no plan to actually try and make the MU turn into the Federation. I was worried when the MU Spock had projected the time it would take for his plans to come to fruitation and create a MU Federation. The MU works so well because it's the exact opposite of the Feds.

 

[PaulSimpson]

Dayton Ward said:
There is only one Empress, and her name is Hoshi Sato.


And I've got her picture in my wallet to prove it.

Nurses!! Guards!! Anybody...!!

 

[JD]

foravalon said:
So this is nice and Spoiler-ific, If you haven't read Warpath yet, just go read it already! I know I'm coming in late to the game...


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Okay so I've finally read Warpath and read through the original 9 page thread regarding Warpath and, for the most part, I think I've got everything we're supposed to know so far, regarding Kira, the Intendent, RU Illiana Ghemor, and MU Illiana Ghemor. But I really hope there's going to be a lot more elucidation about what's really going on when Fearful Symmetry comes out. Because as things stand they still seem (although cool) a bit crazy and convoluted. (kinda like the last 2 matrix movies, only better.)

...and don't even get me started on trying to suss out what all of Kira's orb-y coma visions mean, that a a-whole-nother can of gagh.

Let me see if I've got this straight:

RU Illiana Ghemor
Gifted and privileged Cardassian girl decides to join the Obsidian Order against her parent's wishes. She does join the Obsidian Order, becomes an agent around 2361 during the Bajoran Occupation. She's trained, altered to look Bajoran, stripped of her identity even, and is inserted on Bajor in order to infltrate the Bajoran Resistance movement. Now apparently she just happens to look exactly like Kira Nerys, OR Kira was specifically chosen by the Order to be replaced by Illiana (ala Raymond Boone) because of their coincidentally identical appearance. Or something else entirely. The switch either did or didn't happen.

One of the original intentions of the writers was to suppose that apparently it did happen, and that the Kira we know and love was born Illiana Ghemor. So if the current authors go that route then they are positing that the now crazy RU Illiana was in actuality born the real Kira Nerys (SEE: "The Case of Seymour Skinner & Armin Tamzarian" or "Xander Crews/Nearl Crews) I really hope they don't decide to go that route as it would make things even more convoluted, just too Shyamalan-eque wacky, and might cause the ol' brain to melt...

ANYway, assuming RU Illiana didn't replace Kira, she somehow became involved in the machinations of Skrain Dukat perhaps because she looked a bit like his beloved old comfort woman Kira Meru or because she looked EXACTLY like the mysterious comfort woman Luma Rahl who disappeared 15 years earlier in 2346. Or maybe because Dukat had a long time enmity against the Obsidian Order found out somehow about their connection to this familiar looking woman and wanted to exact revenge. Maybe all of the above! Maybe he saw her somewhere, incorrectly recognized her as Luma Rahl, and assumed correctly that she was an O.O. agent by connecting the wrong dots to make the right picture!

The mind spins and boggles! Maybe this is why Dukat's so obsessed with messing with Kira's head!

ANYway, RU Illiana's got crazy good training, she's undercover, maybe doesn't even know herself, apparently she somehow gets betrayed by Dukat and then she goes all Jason Bourne, but not for like 15 more years...

So RU rogue O.O. agent Illiana Ghemor is in hiding, plotting and scheming, (or hell, maybe on ice in some stasis chamber in Dukat's basement since he "knows where she is",) has an idea to subvert the will of the obedience-trained Jem Hadar to fulfill her ominous bidding, then decides to make a secret lab and dissect a couple JH's to see how they work.

Somehow she figures out how to turn Taranatar into an RC car, and through him gets access to info about the Mirror Universe and the Intendant and *ding* has a light bulb.

Instead of replacing the "Darling-of-DS9 Kira" she's going to replace the upwardly mobile Intendant of the MU Klingon-Cardassian Alliance. Not only THAT but she uses the RC Taranatar to kill "DS9Darling Kira" before rendezvousing to jaunt off to the the MU in order to kill the Intendent Kira, whom she was also manipulating from a whole different universe! Right? whew...

Why does she do all this? I don't know. Maybe her brain's all swiss-cheesed and despite her amazing training and Obsidian Order skills she thinks she really is Kira Nerys and There Can Be Only One. Why does she blow the hell out of Sidau in order to get Hovath and his pretty magic bracelet? ::shrugs:: Maybe she wants to take her new fleet dimension-hopping, via the bracelet & the MU wormhole, and get all Jet Li style on the multiverse. (SEE: "The One" and hey! Recurring villain for the Myriad Universes stories!) But how did she manipulate the Intendant into creating a new dimensional transporter to bring her and Taranatar over? And for that matter how did she even contact the intendant's Vulcan hand-maiden, L'haan, to conspire with her? Stories to tell! Oy vey! Now I see why she was scheming for 15 years in exiled darkness...

Which brings us to our lovely...

MU Illiana, a crazy badass Cardassian ronin, how does she become aware of any of these plans? How does she end up in the RU? Who has put a price on her head, the RU Illiana? Have they met, how do they know each other? How does she know so much about the schemes, nature, and past of her counterpart in the RU? Did crazy RU Illiana contact her in hope of some alliance, now turned sour? The mind reels, oh how it reels!

This is why I'm chomping at the bit for Fearful Symmetry! I really hope the true story of all of this stuff is revealed. Because not a lick of it was answered in "Saturn's Children". Needless to say I'm excited for the new book. Maybe Shards and Shadows will have some spiffy connections to the epic too, because lord knows there's a lot going on...


Did anyone else take any of this from what they read?

By the Prophets, I'd forgotten just how inducing Warpath was. FYI that's a good thing, and was, in fact, part of why I love to book so much.
Which were the two Kiras/Illianas that FS was following? I remember that it's a flip book with one half from one Kira/Illiana's perspecive and the other is from another's, I just can't remember which two it is.

 

[DS9Continuing]

JD said:
By the Prophets, I'd forgotten just how inducing Warpath was. FYI that's a good thing, and was, in fact, part of why I love to book so much.

I know, right? Yikes. I actually had all of this in my head and did understand loosely what was going on ever since I read the book when it came out. But it's still good to have everything laid out and detailed like this.

In fact, I copied the afore-mentioned nine-page thread and foravalon's entry into a file on my computer called "Warpath Explained." Just in case.

 

[captcalhoun]

the whole Kira-Orb thing is a metaphor for the Bajorans becoming pals with the aliens who see the Prophets as teachers against the Ascendants isn't it?

am i, like, super-brainy for realising this with no trouble or something?

 

[DS9Continuing]

foravalon said:
So RU rogue O.O. agent Illiana Ghemor is in hiding, plotting and scheming, (or hell, maybe on ice in some stasis chamber in Dukat's basement since he "knows where she is",) has an idea to subvert the will of the obedience-trained Jem Hadar to fulfill her ominous bidding, then decides to make a secret lab and dissect a couple JH's to see how they work.

I don’t think she made the secret lab, more likely she just took over an existing one at this abandoned OO facility on Harkoum.

I don’t know if I was meant to, but I also picked an implication that it also had something to do with the Jem’Hadar hatchery on Sindorin. After all, Ethan Locken had been experimenting with how to change a Jem’Hadar’s allegiance, and S31 is the OO’s spiritual sister. I just can’t figure out when in the timeline that might have happened.

I thought this was set up in part by the fact that one of Taran’atar’s “visions” involved the nameless First on Sindorin. He brought up the idea of the Jem’hadar being slaves rather than servants – an idea which Taran’atar finally realizes for himself here.

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Somehow she figures out how to turn Taranatar into an RC car, and through him gets access to info about the Mirror Universe.

That’s certainly the most likely explanation, but I also rather like the idea of Iliana herself wandering around the station dressed as Kira. Station personnel could have been seeing her right in their midst for months and not know it.

Which brings up the question – did Taran’atar actually know what he was doing? I got the impression it was all subconscious, he wasn’t even really aware of sending information to Iliana or of attacking Sidau. He doesn’t even understand what’s really going on until he reaches Harkoum. But is it possible he knew exactly what he was doing all along, he was just powerless to say no to anyone who looked like Kira?

That in turn makes me wonder if Marco even told DRG3 what he had in mind for the developing story when he was writing Olympus Descending. Because to me, the motivations as described don’t quite match up. In Olympus, we’re given the impression that Taran’atar’s growing agitation is because of the idea of conflicting orders from different Founders. He only attacked Kira because a) she was a symbol of his exile and confusion and b) she was there. But then in Warpath, the explanation is that he killed her because someone told him to. Had DRG3 known that, I would have thought we’d get some hint in Taran’atar’s internal monologues in Olympus.

But then, since Kira is a proxy for a Vorta (who is a proxy for a Founder), then maybe there’s no difference after all – conflicting orders from two Kiras is the same thing as conflicting orders from two Founders. And he might be driven to solve his problem by "removing" one of the Kiras, even if he didn't consciously know why.

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Stories to tell! Oy vey! Now I see why she was scheming for 15 years in exiled darkness...

Don’t forget all the gorgeous implications for Cardassia aswell, which I brought up in an earlier thread.

• Iliana Ghemor is the cousin of Alon Ghemor, current Castellan of Cardassia. If they come into conflict, might Iliana be responsible for the assassination of Alon as described in “The Calling”?
• Iliana coming into contact with Alon will also bring her into contact with his supporter, Elim Garak – a fellow former Obsidian Order agent with a grudge against Dukat.
• Our main contact in the Cardassian military? Oh, only Akellen Macet, who is Dukat's cousin (just like Iliana is Alon’s cousin), and who happens to look exactly like him.
• Mirror Macet is currently Intendant Iliana’s lackey in the MU.

This is why bringing back Iliana Ghemor was such a stroke of genius. Even if it is another example of the DS9-R’s tendency to bring back tons of old story elements (Verad, Opaka, Tosk, the parasites, and now Iliana), it’s worth it – so many colors and angles to play, it’s amazing.

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captcalBOO!n said:
the whole Kira-Orb thing is a metaphor for the Bajorans becoming pals with the aliens who see the Prophets as teachers against the Ascendants isn't it?
am i, like, super-brainy for realising this with no trouble or something?

We've been led to believe it's more complicated than that.

I think that the Eav-oq/Ascendant story is basically the "season 3" plot arc to come. The parasites were "season 1," Iliana is "season 2" and the Ascendants are "season 3." Format-wise, it's feeling more like Buffy with it's annually changing Big Bads than DS9.

 

[Christopher]

lvsxy808 said:
That in turn makes me wonder if Marco even told DRG3 what he had in mind for the developing story when he was writing Olympus Descending. Because to me, the motivations as described don't quite match up. In Olympus, we're given the impression that Taran'atar's growing agitation is because of the idea of conflicting orders from different Founders. He only attacked Kira because a) she was a symbol of his exile and confusion and b) she was there. But then in Warpath, the explanation is that he killed her because someone told him to. Had DRG3 known that, I would have thought we'd get some hint in Taran'atar's internal monologues in Olympus.

If David's first draft had contained assumptions contradicting Marco's master plan in any particulars, Marco would've had him revise it. That's not the sort of thing that slips by Marco.

And as you say, Taran'atar could've acted without consciously knowing why he really acted, just finding some other explanation to rationalize it. My impression is that Taran'atar didn't know at the time that he was being manipulated, so he wouldn't have known what his real reasons for the attack were.

 

[foravalon]

JD said:

By the Prophets, I'd forgotten just how inducing Warpath was. FYI that's a good thing, and was, in fact, part of why I love to book so much.
Which were the two Kiras/Illianas that FS was following? I remember that it's a flip book with one half from one Kira/Illiana's perspecive and the other is from another's, I just can't remember which two it is.

I would hope that the stories will follow RU Illiana Ghemor (on the Bajoran looking side) and MU Illiana Ghemor (on the Cardassian looking side), since Kira's story has been followed by the regular plotlines and the Intendant's story was more or less covered in "Saturn's Children". Although if they do cover the untold stories of the respective Illianas I'm sure the two different Kira's will play some part in the stories as well.

And considering the involvement of the Vulcan handmaiden L'Haan in one of our conspiracies, hopefully we'll get to touch on some of the elements presented in "The Sorrows of Empire" too!

(Sorry about earlier David, I'm a tad lysdexic!) :thumbsup:

 

[JD]

Yeah, it would be pretty cool to get the story from at least one of those two perspective, and I would also love to see more of the TSE stuff come into play.
Although to be honest, I bet one of the perspectives will probably our Kira.

 

[greenmystik]

the whole Kira-Orb thing is a metaphor for the Bajorans becoming pals with the aliens who see the Prophets as teachers against the Ascendants isn't it?

I bet it will be a bit more complicated than that...seeing as how this is a MU book.

I hope it's that simple though.

 

[Baerbel Haddrell]

My worry about DS9 Relaunch is that it is getting much too complicated and complex. I remember, when I read "Warpath" I was pretty lost concerning the MU aspect and if I hadn`t read explanations and comments here, I would have misunderstood the whole Iliana Ghemor confusion. Then we have several Kiras or her lookalikes and various factions surrounding the question of the Prophets.

By now, my memory faded so much that a lot of these complicated threads within DS9 Relaunch are no longer readily accessible to me when the next book will be out. I also don`t think I will find the motivation and time to dig out the previous books and start re-reading them. I just don`t find the MU confusion interesting at all and am not looking forward to it to read more, maybe with even more twists and turns for the heck of it.

 

[Technobuilder]

Honestly, I've noticed that I had trouble remembering a lot of what has already transpired in the DS9R.

I was having a conversation here and someone mentioned the parasite queen and I had no idea what they were talking about. Granted this was more than a year ago and that reference was to something in Unity, which I've only read the one time.

Needless to say I felt like I hadn't connected enough to remember the "Finale of Season 1"

I was planning to reread the last 5 or 6 books before the next book comes out, but that got pushed back so I just may end up rereading the whole series just to make sure I can make some sense of it. [I read pretty quickly, but it doesn't mean I necessarily can retain every detail for more than a few months.]

I don't think the stories are overly complicated, just that the window between books doesn't lend itself well to keeping up WITHOUT rereading certain parts.

 

[Smiley]

For all we know, the new author could be a world-class recapper. I'm confident that all the relevant information will be included in FS and that we will get a wild, awesome ride.

 

[JD]

I'm probably going to reread the whole series too. I can barely remember what happened in the book I read before the one I just finished, so there is no way I'm going to able to remember a book that came out a year ago. Well, that and it is an awsome series that I have been wanting to go back and reread completely in order, since I ended up getting out of order with Rising Sun, and Left Hand of Destiny last time.

 

[DS9Continuing]

Well I have something approaching a photographic memory, and I've been hard at work plotting the stories out into screen-play form (just for my own entertainment), so I can remember it all pretty well.

 

[flandry84]

I got kinda lost after Sisko stepped out of the shower.

 

[greenmystik]

It does seem like they're trying to do too much. Other than the cover art for the book I don't remember how Iliana Ghemor plays into this plot...granted it has been a while since I read Warpath, and my memory isn't the greatest either, but I just can't remember her being mentioned.

Can somebody help me out with this???

Oh how I love the MU!!!

 

[foravalon]

Both versions of her are acting off camera so to speak throughout the entire plot of Warpath (see my crazy dissertation above for a scrutiny of their doin's) but we don't really meet them face to face or even hear the name Illiana Ghemor until the end of the book when the MU version finally chats with Vaughn and Company on Harkoum and clues them in. Page 336.