Strangers From The Sky Vs. First Contact

[rfmcdpei]

[Strangers From the Sky] references a lot of events from the Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology's version of history that have since been contradicted -- the sublight colonization of Alpha Centauri in 2048, the warp drive breakthrough in 2055, and first official contact with the Vulcans being when the UNSS Amity rescued a damaged Vulcan ship near Neptune in 2065.

More than that, it has an indigenous civilization on Alpha Centauri, a complete absence of the Third World War of the official continuity, and a Eugenics War in the 1990s that was a much more conventional conflict than the one Greg Cox so ably described.

If nothing else, something like SftS seems to exist in the Trekverse in-universe. I think there's a character in Paths of Disharmony who refers to a book claiming to describe the real story of human-Vulcan first contact as not being accurate--Geordi?

 

[chrinFinity]

With Carbon Creek, one has too wonder if that actually happened, or if that was a lie by the Vulcan government to cover a mission gone wrong, such as the events of "Strangers From The Sky". As I recall at the end of the episode T'Pol mentions about trying to find info on the one Vulcan who stayed and wasn't able to find anything.

As Christopher already pointed out, the scene with T'Mir's handbag was pretty conclusive in that the intent of the writers was that the Carbon Creek crash and aftermath was true.

But with the way the Vulcan government was run at he time of "Carbon Creek" (and even centuries before) it is very possible that the whole thing was a deception on the Vulcan people, and T'Pol possible "found" something that the Vulcan government had planted years earlier.

I really think you're over-reaching here. Rather than a Vulcan conspiracy to undermine humanity in the minds of Vulcan officers, culminating in a manufactured handbag, I think it's much more reasonable to take it on its face... T'Pol knows about it because it happened to her ancestress, and that's also how she inherited the bag.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

Heck the relaunch even had them using USS designations and NCC numbers.

I think that was a bit of a continuity glitch. Clearly Earth Starfleet ships in canon did not use USS designations, so that was an error on the books' part.

Well if not for that continuity glitch or the fact that the guys who made Enterprise decided to keep the familar shape and look of the ships I wouldn't think they just filed the serial numbers off between United Earth and the Federation.

In a sense, they are, in that the later organization includes the former. So naturally they have a lot in common. But that doesn't mean they're completely identical either.

Then can you give me some differneces.

But this isn't really using member's space agency as part of a bigger agency made up of other member's space agencies, its one member's space agency being used as the bigger space agency. I mean they even carried Section 31 over for peets sake (yes I know its not an official or legal organization but nobody seemed to call them on the fact that their possibly using a defunct or at least less powerful organization as their justification for existence).

Sloan in DSN: "Inquisition" said that Section 31 was "part of the original Starfleet Charter" -- implying the existence of multiple, separate Starfleets.

Where the heck did that come from?

It makes perfect sense to assume that the Federation Starfleet is a separate organization from the United Earth Starfleet and that it inherited or absorbed many UESF ships, facilities, and personnel (including the conspirators to the Section 31 criminal syndicate), just as it would have inherited or absorbed many Vulcan Defense Force ships, facilities, and personnel, and just as it would have inherited many Andorian Imperial Guard ships, facilities, and personnel.

Which would be nice if we saw Vulcan, andorian, and Tellerite ships as part of the Federation Starfleet, instead all we see are ships based on the Earth Starfleet designs.

and the novels seemed to make it worse by making the Federation capital the United Earth capital.

Which still doesn't explain why the UE's government headquaters was repurposed as the Federation's government headquaters.

You keep coming back to this concern, but I'm not entirely sure I understand what you're asking. Are you asking about the Federation and United Earth capitals, or the Federation and United Earth capitols?

Lets not go into gramer nitpicking please, its just too nit picky

A capital is the city (or, in Star Trek's case, the planet) in which a sovereign state's government is officially headquartered. A capitol is a building in which a government (or, more specifically, a legislature) is officially headquartered. A capitol is located within a capital.

Now, as far as the Federation sharing a capital planet with United Earth -- let's face it, this is pretty much inevitable. The Federation capital planet was realistically-speaking going to be one of its Members' capital worlds. That it is Earth actually suggests a compromise between Vulcan, Andor, and Tellar, since Earth was the "honest broker" rather than a hegemonic power. In fact, United Earth had very recently been little more than a client state of the Confederacy of Vulcan.

Now, as far as the capital city goes -- this is flatly false, so far as I can tell. Unless I missed something very major in the ENT novels, the capital city of United Earth has not yet been established. We know from ENT: The Romulan War: Beneath the Raptor's Wing that the United Earth Prime Minister maintained offices in Paris, France, in which he sometimes held Cabinet meetings. But we also know from the immediate prior novel, ENT: Kobayashi Maru, that the United Earth Prime Minister maintained offices in San Francisco (which was the city which also housed the Coalition of Planets Security Council). I can recall no mention of what city housed the Parliament of United Earth. The actual capital city, if any, of United Earth was not revealed so far as I can recall.

As far as their respective capitols...

I'm honestly not sure what you're referring to.

The closest I can think is that you've gotten the Palais de la Concorde confused with the Place de la Concorde. A Time to Kill and, later, Articles of the Federation, established the Palais de la Concorde to be the Federation's capitol, housing both the Federation Council and the Federation President. ENT: The Romulan War: Beneath the Raptor's Wing established that the United Earth Prime Minister's Paris office was located in the Place de la Concorde.

Now, the thing is, the Place de la Concorde is a real location. Place, in this context, refers to a large public square in Paris, of which the Place de la Concorde is one of the most famous. Indeed, Articles established that the Palais was built on the Place in part because of its historical significance.

Now, I tend to agree with you that it was a subjectively bad decision to reveal that the U.E. P.M. had an office at the Place, because it implies a certain Earth-centric mentality in the symbolism for the Federation capitol. However, we should bear in mind that we don't really know what the Federation capitol's exterior looks like -- it could full well be a hybrid of Human, Vulcan, Andorian, and Tellarite architectural styles.

And it's not exactly unprecedented for new governments to build upon those buildings that came before: the Soviet Union used the czarist regime's Moscow Kremlin; the President of the French Repubic resides in the Palais de l'Élysée, which once housed French aristocracy; the President of Ireland resides in Áras an Uachtaráin, which was once the official residence of the Lords Lieutenant of Ireland, the British Crown's viceregal representatives in Ireland before independence. If anything, going to the trouble of building a new capitol on the site of a well-situated government building once used by one of the Member governments is more egalitarian than we often see in real life.

(Side note: Even if the Palais had existed before the Federation as a United Earth Capitol, its appropriation by the Federation wouldn't be unprecedented in history. Before the construction of the United States Capitol in Washington, the U.S. Congress and its predecessor, the Congress of the Confederation, sat in what was then the Pennsylvania State House [now known as Independence Hall], the Maryland State House, and what was then New York City Hall [and came to be known as Federal Hall]. And during the Civil War, the [illegitimate, obviously] Confederate States Congress appropriated the Alabama State Capitol and Virginia State Capitol to serve as the Confederate States Capitol.)

okay I will give you that.

 

[tomswift2002]

As Christopher already pointed out, the scene with T'Mir's handbag was pretty conclusive in that the intent of the writers was that the Carbon Creek crash and aftermath was true.

Or it could've been the setup to another storyline that the producers later bought didn't work as well as Kir'shara.

I really think you're over-reaching here. Rather than a Vulcan conspiracy to undermine humanity in the minds of Vulcan officers, culminating in a manufactured handbag, I think it's much more reasonable to take it on its face... T'Pol knows about it because it happened to her ancestress, and that's also how she inherited the bag.

Look at how much trouble the Vulcan government went too to hide from Vulcan's the fact that they were all able to mind-meld, or that the Kir'shara was nothing more than a Mother Goose fairy tale.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

For the most part I think the future of Earth as seen in Strangers From the Sky seems more plausible these days than the post apocalyptic one modern Trek is going with, I mean another World War especially a nuclear one just doesn't seem that likely these days.

 

[Christopher]

Oh, please, let's not go all Mulder about this. What T'Pol said about the events of "Carbon Creek" was, "The incident is well-documented at the Science Directorate and the Space Council." The Vulcans didn't tell Earth about it, but there's no reason to think they hid it from their own people. After all, if they had, why would T'Pol know about it? She was just an aide to the Vulcan ambassador to Earth, having previously been a junior officer in the High Command and having a brief stint as a low-ranking member of the Ministry of Security.

And it's overly paranoid to think that the Vulcans' prejudice against mindmelding was entirely the result of the recent government's manipulations. If anything, that seems to have been a far more deep-rooted cultural prejudice going back generations. As for the Kir'Shara, that had been lost for millennia, so naturally there would've been doubts about its historicity, without any need for an Evil Government Coverup.

 

[zarkon]

For the most part I think the future of Earth as seen in Strangers From the Sky seems more plausible these days than the post apocalyptic one modern Trek is going with, I mean another World War especially a nuclear one just doesn't seem that likely these days.

The Star Trek world leading into that would have been different then ours anyway though, as it diverges with Khan & his buddies & the eugenics war. You could get to the FC future quite smoothly from there.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

For the most part I think the future of Earth as seen in Strangers From the Sky seems more plausible these days than the post apocalyptic one modern Trek is going with, I mean another World War especially a nuclear one just doesn't seem that likely these days.

The Star Trek world leading into that would have been different then ours anyway though, as it diverges with Khan & his buddies & the eugenics war. You could get to the FC future quite smoothly from there.

In fact its stuff like this that makes me wonder if Star Trek couldn't use a full scale scorched earth type reboot. Other wise Star Trek is going to become less and less a possible future.

 

[Captaindemotion]

I've liked other books by MWB and from her posts here as garamet she seems like a nice person. But, truth be told, I didn't really care for this novel. So FC, which is one of my fave Trek movies anyway, it is.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

I was about to point out that SftS was (like the much more enjoyable The Final Reflection) based heavily on the now-deprecated-with-extreme-prejudice Spaceflight Chronology, but I see that's already been pointed out.

 

[Christopher]

^What do you mean "deprecated?" Yes, later canon has gone in a different direction, but that isn't a value judgment. All Star Trek is equally unreal, so contradicting a work doesn't mean putting it down. It just means telling a different story. Heck, Rick Sternbach was one of the creators of the Spaceflight Chronology, but he was also one of the contributors to the later version of Trek canon that contradicted it. I doubt he intended any "deprecation" of his own work. He was just taking the ideas in a different direction.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

^What do you mean "deprecated?" Yes, later canon has gone in a different direction, but that isn't a value judgment. All Star Trek is equally unreal, so contradicting a work doesn't mean putting it down. It just means telling a different story. Heck, Rick Sternbach was one of the creators of the Spaceflight Chronology, but he was also one of the contributors to the later version of Trek canon that contradicted it. I doubt he intended any "deprecation" of his own work. He was just taking the ideas in a different direction.

Of course I still think that except for the war with the genetically enhanced supermen the Spaceflight Chronology might be a more accurate guess at the future than modern trek, since I'm not sure how possible a nuclear war the nocks the world toward a new dark age is likely to happen.

 

[Christopher]

There's still a pretty large number of nuclear weapons in the world, and politics can shift a lot in the course of a few decades. I certainly hope nothing of the sort does happen, but it's not completely beyond credibility as a speculation about an alternate fictional reality that's already diverged from ours by a significant degree (I didn't see any interplanetary sleeper ships getting built 16 years ago).

 

[Sky]

Strangers from the Sky is by far my favorite Trek novel and in my opinion, the better first contact story. It's one of the rare Trek books I've reread and I still read it ever so often. Margaret Wander Bonanno is awesome.

 

[JD]

While FC is one of my favorite Trek movies, I had to vote for SftS. While the overall story of FC is good, the actual first contact stuff wasn't anything amazing. The actual first contact stuff in StfS was a more interesting take on topic.

 

[Sci]

Sloan in DSN: "Inquisition" said that Section 31 was "part of the original Starfleet Charter" -- implying the existence of multiple, separate Starfleets.

Where the heck did that come from?

It just seems the most rational interpretation to me. Why would there be multiple Starfleet Charters unless there are multiple starfleets?

It makes perfect sense to assume that the Federation Starfleet is a separate organization from the United Earth Starfleet and that it inherited or absorbed many UESF ships, facilities, and personnel (including the conspirators to the Section 31 criminal syndicate), just as it would have inherited or absorbed many Vulcan Defense Force ships, facilities, and personnel, and just as it would have inherited many Andorian Imperial Guard ships, facilities, and personnel.

Which would be nice if we saw Vulcan, andorian, and Tellerite ships as part of the Federation Starfleet, instead all we see are ships based on the Earth Starfleet designs.

Are the ships of the Federation Starfleet (FSF) based on UESF designs?

I mean, the key design feature of most FSF ships -- the presence of two separate hulls, saucer and engineering, connected by a smaller hull -- isn't present on UESF ships. There's no secondary hull for the NX class, Intrepid type, J class, Sarajevo type, Y class, or the second unnamed class of United Earth starships.

But you know what? Check out the Vucan Defense Force's Suurok class. And its D'Kyr-type starship. What do you see? A primary hull and a secondary hull, with a smaller hull vertically connecting them. The engineering hull, which contains the ring nacelles, is obviously very different, but the basic idea of a dual-hull design is present in Vulcan starships when it is absent from United Earth starships.

Check out the Andorian Imperial Guard's Kumari class. We see a larger primary hull at the fore -- and what looks like a smaller engineering hull connected by a much smaller hull segment at aft, plus two warp nacelles angled up and away from the ship like wings. The nacelles seemingly sweep up and away like those of the UESF's NX class -- seemingly an example of convergent evolution, since the Kumari class was commissioned before first contact between United Earth and the Andorian Empire. And damn if the engineering section of the Kumari class doesn't remind me of the cylindrical shape of the engineering class of a Federation Constitution-class starship.

In fact, frankly? Kind of looks to me like maybe the Constitution-class setup is a bit of a mix-mash of a Vulcan-style dual-hull configuration, a United Earth-style saucer and nacelles, and an Andorian-style engineering hull and nacelle pylon configuration.

(I also like to think that the Abramsverse version of the Constitution class reflects a stronger Andorian influence on the design in that timeline, given the different livery and stronger use of flowing, curved hulls. Perhaps in the alternate timeline, an Andorian designer ended up on the design team.)

To be fair, we do see the dual-hull design in the Daedalus class, but the canon never established Daedalus-class starships as existing before the Federation. The novels have established that they were a class of United Earth starships extant before the founding of the Federation, but it hasn't established anything about their layout. I like to think that they may have looked fundamentally different during the Earth-Romulan War era, and been extensively refit with non-Human design systems and hull configurations post-Federation.

Then there's the unnamed class of Tellarite cruiser. As I've argued elsewhere, I suspect that the class of the U.S.S. Kelvin from ST09 may be descended from Tellarite design lineages, given the vertical orientation of its engineering hull and nacelle, above and below the primary hull. Perhaps the Kelvin is a Shallash-class starship, or a Gora bim Gral-class starship.

And that's to say nothing of the fact that we don't know what kinds of contributions to the internal systems may have been made by Vulcan, Andorian, and Tellarite design lineages, or other non-Human design lineages.

Are you asking about the Federation and United Earth capitals, or the Federation and United Earth capitols?

Lets not go into gramer nitpicking please, its just too nit picky

I honestly wasn't trying to nitpick. There's a big difference between a building and a city (and, in the Trekverse, a planet), and I honestly wasn't sure if you were talking about capital planets, capital cities, or capitol buildings.

 

[JD]

^We saw in TOS a ship that looked similar to the Ent. era human ships crewed mostly by Vulcans, so maybe there are ships out there crewed mostly by humans which look like the Vulcan ships, or Andorian ships. I know people complain about how the Constitution class ships look too much like the Ent. era human ships, but do we know for a fact that there aren't other classes out there that look more like Vulcan or Andorian ships?

 

[Sci]

^We saw in TOS a ship that looked similar to the Ent. era human ships crewed mostly by Vulcans, so maybe there are ships out there crewed mostly by humans which look like the Vulcan ships, or Andorian ships.

I'm sorry, but I don't recall which episode you're referring to.

 

[Christopher]

Sloan in DSN: "Inquisition" said that Section 31 was "part of the original Starfleet Charter" -- implying the existence of multiple, separate Starfleets.

Where the heck did that come from?

It just seems the most rational interpretation to me. Why would there be multiple Starfleet Charters unless there are multiple starfleets?

But there's another way to interpret the phrase "the original Starfleet Charter." You seem to be assuming it means "the charter of the original Starfleet," which frankly strikes me as the less obvious definition -- and one that doesn't make any sense when talking about the intent of a line from "Inquisition," an episode written years before the concept of a separate Earth Starfleet was devised. So obviously that can't be what the script's writers meant by that sentence. What they meant was "the original version of the Starfleet Charter, before any amendments/revisions/etc. were made." The point of the sentence was to say that the idea behind Section 31 had been part of the Charter from the very beginning, that it represented the "pure" intentions of Starfleet's founders.

As I've argued elsewhere, I suspect that the class of the U.S.S. Kelvin from ST09 may be descended from Tellarite design lineages, given the vertical orientation of its engineering hull and nacelle, above and below the primary hull.

I'd say it's more like an Andorian influence. I don't agree with your interpretation that the pods on the wings of the Kumari-type ship are engines; the glowy, enginey bits are two lights stacked vertically at the center rear. It appears that Andorian ships have two inboard warp nacelles in a vertical configuration. The wing pods may be weapons or something.

As for Tellarite ships, it's worth noting that the ones we've seen in canon were reuses of digital models originally created for other species; the cruiser was originally an Arkonian destroyer (and then a Xindi-Arboreal ship) and the freighter design was previously seen used by the Retellians and Tarkaleans. The only original Tellarite ship design we saw was Skalaar's shuttle in "Bounty," and since he was a bounty hunter, we don't know whether his ship was of Tellarite design or obtained somewhere else. If anything, the evidence suggests that Tellarites don't build their own ships so much as they obtain them from other species.

 

[E-DUB]

An "occupational hazard" of writing Trek Lit is having your work superceded by later entries into canon. The novel "Federation" was also superceded by "First Contact". That does not change the fact that it was a durn fine work. In my opinion it is one of the best Trek novels ever written. It might well be that all of the Trek stories are equally "true", just in different timelines. Who knows what changes might have occurred as a result of Picard and company being "present at the creation"? Or as a result of the "Temporal Cold War" we heard-so-much-but-know-so-little about?

All Trek books, even ones being written as we "speak" could be rendered "non-events" by latter movies, or episodes of a possible future series. They should all be judged on their literary merit and how much they contribute to an understanding of the whole that is Trek.