Star Trek Federation: The First 150 Years

[Markonian]

and try to explain why the UFP ends up seeming so overwhelmingly human-centered (and why that might be somewhat illusory).

That always bugged me. Humans are always shown to be special (e.g. the word Human is not capitalised, the worst offender of all).

I know they have the cheapest make-up but the problem is: every Human-looking Starfleet officer is Human (or Betazoid, and one Iotian from SCE). Why not take more of the Human-lookalikes (the Angels of Angel 1, or the Ardanans?) already established?

Topic change: I've come across rumour that the Kelvin-type is referred to as Einstein-class in the book. Is that true?

 

[Christopher]

^Betazoids don't look entirely human. They have black irises.

 

[Markonian]

^Betazoids don't look entirely human. They have black irises.

Right. You could put the Xenexians in the same category.

Different question: Does The First 150 Years assign a class designation to the Kelvin-type?

Edit: I know it's not a novel but shouldn't this book - as a piece of fiction - have its own poll (or even review thread) by courtesy of Sho? So far, we have an out-of-universe perspective in this thead, but what about the (hi)stories the book tells, the characters, ships, etc.?

 

[sulfur]

Kelvin type->Einstein-class. Yes.

 

[DavidAGoodman]

and try to explain why the UFP ends up seeming so overwhelmingly human-centered (and why that might be somewhat illusory).

That always bugged me. Humans are always shown to be special (e.g. the word Human is not capitalised, the worst offender of all).

I know they have the cheapest make-up but the problem is: every Human-looking Starfleet officer is Human (or Betazoid, and one Iotian from SCE). Why not take more of the Human-lookalikes (the Angels of Angel 1, or the Ardanans?) already established?

Topic change: I've come across rumour that the Kelvin-type is referred to as Einstein-class in the book. Is that true?

Markonian - I think my decision to make the book Earth centric came from two sources - the original series and Star Trek: Enterprise. In the original series it was clear that Roddenberry was emphasizing Earth - everybody on the bridge save Spock was from Earth, first season there was the reference to the "United Earth Space Probe Agency" - the Romulan War was specifically described in Balance of Terror as the Earth-Romulan conflict. All the ships of Starfleet we encountered in the original series are named after Earth warships. Even though once we reach the next generation era, it seemed to me canon that the early years of the development of the Federation were Earth centric. Whether you like Star Trek: Enterprise or not, that trend continued (influenced somewhat by me) that these other Aliens all knew each other but it wasn't until Earth was involved that they came together.

 

[Markonian]

Thanks for the reply! I didn't mean to criticise the book, was just complaining about the real world issues of Humanocentrism.

In Enterprise, Earth is a newcomer on galactic politics but I can see why it ended up as the centre of Starfleet and the UFP government: Peace between the Vulcans and Andorians, the most powerful members of the Coalition, was recent. I doubt whether the Andorians would've liked to yield to a government situated on the world of their former arch enemy. It's like having the EU captial in Bruxelles instead of Paris or Berlin.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Kelvin type->Einstein-class. Yes.

Cool! Was that your choice of a name, DavidAGoodman, or did it come from Bad Robot? I'm reminded of Christopher's recent-ish comment that his attempt to name Keenser's species in his unreleased nuTrek novel was vetoed by forces above.

 

[DavidAGoodman]

Kelvin type->Einstein-class. Yes.

Cool! Was that your choice of a name, DavidAGoodman, or did it come from Bad Robot? I'm reminded of Christopher's recent-ish comment that his attempt to name Keenser's species in his unreleased nuTrek novel was vetoed by forces above.

I didn't have to clear it with Bad Robot. Given that Kelvin was a scientist, I figured the class of ships would be named after a scientist (although I read JJ Abrams named it after his father-in-law I think?).

 

[F. King Daniel]

Cool, thanks

IIRC, the Kelvin was named for JJ's uncle, and it's registry number was his birthday.

 

[Admiral_Young]

It was actually JJ's grandfather Henry Kelvin, that the ship was named after as well as the aforementioned Kelvin, and yeah the registry number was his birthday. He reveals this in the audio commentary track.

 

[F. King Daniel]

LOL, we were both wrong. Thanks.

 

[DavidAGoodman]

Thanks for the reply! I didn't mean to criticise the book, was just complaining about the real world issues of Humanocentrism.

:

Criticize the book all you want! That's its reason for being!

 

[DimesDan]

Edit: I know it's not a novel but shouldn't this book - as a piece of fiction - have its own poll (or even review thread) by courtesy of Sho? So far, we have an out-of-universe perspective in this thead, but what about the (hi)stories the book tells, the characters, ships, etc.?

Or you could create it. It's not like only one poster should have a monopoly of such things and would be nice to see others create review threads.

 

[Markonian]

Or you could create it. It's not like only one poster should have a monopoly of such things and would be nice to see others create review threads.

I can't, I don't have the book and won't buy it until I'm back home permanently. And Sho is the one with that poll magic. A review thread is not a review thread without Sho's poll in the beginning.

 

[Sho]

^ Actually me doing the monthly release polls is a somewhat recent development, I kind of took over doing it from Thrawn when he got a bit busy. Much of the credit for providing those inter-comparable threads and in fact also inspiring the creation of the ranking site goes to him. So anyone can jump in and do it really. That said I enjoy doing it and it's nice to hear that someone likes them .

 

[MarkMcHaley]

This is on Amazon as one of their 'lightening' deals for $39.99 with free shipping. Just for the next 20 minutes only.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/16...=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1612184170

 

[Plaristes]

Christopher, if you ever do another DTI novel, I'd love to hear more about an event mentioned in this book:

Spoiler: Spoiler from Federation: The First 150 Years

From page 10: "Indeed, the legacy of the Eugenics Wars is so severe and horrific, shortly after it became public that time travel was possible, many people thought it would be worth going back in time and changing this chapter in Human history. In 2293, one terrorist group of Humans took action: calling itself '1992,' they stole the U.S.S. Yorktown from the Starfleet museum and attempted to return to the past and erase these events from Earth's history. They disappeared without a trace along with their ship. Because we believe we are all living in an unchanged history, if they were successful it was only in creating an alternate timeline."

 

[DS9forever]

^ Unlikely, as the book wasn't published by Pocket Books and is contradictory to Pockets Books' own continuity.

 

[Plaristes]

^ Unlikely, as the book wasn't published by Pocket Books and is contradictory to Pockets Books' own continuity.

I know the book doesn't fit into the novelverse continuity. Nevertheless, that doesn't need to prevent an author, if he or she so chose, from using elements of the book in the novelverse continuity, like has been done with the Rihannsu books, for example.

Edit: Also, the fact that it's not published by Pocket is irrelevant. The authors have referenced stuff from other publishers in novelverse books before (like from some of the comics).

 

[Christopher]

Interesting that Goodman goes with such an extreme interpretation of the Eugenics Wars. I can see that within the context of TOS, but it's a bit hard to reconcile with what we've seen of the 21st century in TNG and the later shows (for instance, the late '90s in VGR's "11:59" didn't look very post-apocalyptic). Anyway, it's certainly not reconcilable with the novelverse's version of the Eugenics Wars, nor with Forgotten History's assertions about the replicability of the Enterprise's slingshot maneuvers.

Hmm... I wonder if

Spoiler: above spoiler

the alternate history the Yorktown supposedly created was meant to be our own, in order to explain why there were no Eugenics Wars in our history.