How about adapting this fabulous Trek novel, making this as an Enterprise-era mini-series?
The Final Reflection.
- Thread starter Mirren Audax
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As innovative at "The Final Reflection" was, it put forward two Klingon theories that have long been debunked: that Klingons age very rapidly and, understandably, put a lot of aggressive living into their short natural life spans; and that all flat-foreheaded Klingons are the result of an inbreeding program with human captives.
Besides, why "adapt" a novel into another novel? If the suggestion were to base a TV miniseries on the book, that would make sense if there were actually any TV Trek being made. But as long as we're talking books, the book already exists, and how could you improve on it?
The Final Reflection is a wonderful piece of anti-canon Trek. Whenever I saw klingons on TNG and DS9 a part of my mind said "of the imperial race."
And it was estabished in DS9 that Worfs' son Alexander matured to near full growth by the time he was eight or nine years old.
With the nu-trek movie everything is thrown open, Final Reflection would make a fine mini-series.
^Well, the movie Trek universe is merely a parallel timeline within the same reality, so Klingon biology and their history prior to 2233 (including "Affliction" and "Divergence") would still be the same. Maybe a story based on TFR could be done, but it would have to be rewritten to fit the continuity as it's now known.
But of course they won't adapt a novel. They'll tell their own stories. And that's fine. The novels don't need to be adapted. Sure, you could change TFR into something else, but it wouldn't be TFR. It wouldn't be the same, wouldn't capture that same alchemy. If you like the book, just read the book. That's the best form the story's ever going to take.
But of course they won't adapt a novel. They'll tell their own stories. And that's fine. The novels don't need to be adapted. Sure, you could change TFR into something else, but it wouldn't be TFR. It wouldn't be the same, wouldn't capture that same alchemy. If you like the book, just read the book. That's the best form the story's ever going to take.
Yes, but according to the novel, adult Klingons don't live very long compared to humans, so there's no way that Kor, Kang and Koloth could have still been alive and grey during DS9, let along Kang still being young and virile during the Excelsior scenes of "Flashback" (VOY), paralleling ST VI.
Actually, according to the Voyages of Imagination timeline, the last part of TFR takes place in 2233 - putting it right in the USS Kelvin era (well...the first 4 days until it's blown up).
As for reconciling the Klingon types - i just see the TFR Klingons as another Klingon lifestyle in addition to the TNG type (as opposed to having Klingons as another Star Trek monoculture). I know this doesn't really work, but it's how I see it nontheless. I'm sure some continuity freaks hate it for bieng "all wrong". Canon-schmanon.
I would love to see TFR-style Klingons in the next Trek movie - but Enterprise? I don't see the point.
As for reconciling the Klingon types - i just see the TFR Klingons as another Klingon lifestyle in addition to the TNG type (as opposed to having Klingons as another Star Trek monoculture). I know this doesn't really work, but it's how I see it nontheless. I'm sure some continuity freaks hate it for bieng "all wrong". Canon-schmanon.
I would love to see TFR-style Klingons in the next Trek movie - but Enterprise? I don't see the point.
And really, there's no reason why rapid maturation must imply a short maturity and senescence, because those are two different and somewhat opposite processes, growth and decay. In real life, some species (birds, for instance) have a very fast growth process because there's an evolutionary need for it, but that doesn't mean their life processes as adults are accelerated to the same degree in proportion to humanity.
The novel doesn't really insist that adults don't live long. It merely repeats the statement that Klingons tend to die young, unless they are very good at the survival game; that the old epetai-Khemara isn't a multicentenarian like Kor, Kang and Koloth is not explicitly attributed to the idea that his biology would preclude it. To the contrary, it is alluded that he suffers from radiation poisoning... Other, healthier successful Klingons might very well live to dance on Kor's grave.
That's the cool thing about The Final Reflection: it's full of allusions and suggestions, things that tie in to TOS and to the FASA RPG, but not explicitly so. We learn the TOS cubic warp formula indirectly, through allegory; we get hints at why the Eminian and Klingon handguns look similar, but only hints. This leaves plenty of room for speculation.
Hell, it would be perfectly possible to argue that Starfleet knew of dilithium all along (like ENT would now have us believe), and merely faked it for the benefit of the Klingons and the ignorant civilians Winston and Tagore. That would be an interesting final twist indeed...
As for the origin of the ridges, that's never explicit, either. We know that there's an Imperial Race, easily identifiable by sight. But perhaps it's just the particular set of ridges that the last Emperor's family had, as opposed to the hundreds of other possible family ridges seen, and only incidentally as also opposed to the flatter heads of various shameful hybrids?
Of course, the program described in ENT "Affliction"/"Divergence" was one of hybridizing Klingons and humans. Nothing wrong with the various ways of formulating the same thing... And nothing wrong with the idea that Klingons would have kept on attempting such hybridization until the early 23rd century, and perhaps beyond.
What really remains in The Final Reflection that we're at loss to dovetail to modern Trek? The timeline is slightly odd at places, but not unduly so; one mainly wonders about the timing of the framing story. Spock and McCoy's respective ages are an obvious issue, but once again the author merely alludes to the identities: the infant McCoy that is spoken of need not be our Leonard H. at all, but possibly some other member of that never carefully documented family. IMHO, the novel ends up being no more at odds with modern aired Trek or modern novels than the average piece of Trek writing, be it an episode or a novel.
Timo Saloniemi
That's the cool thing about The Final Reflection: it's full of allusions and suggestions, things that tie in to TOS and to the FASA RPG, but not explicitly so. We learn the TOS cubic warp formula indirectly, through allegory; we get hints at why the Eminian and Klingon handguns look similar, but only hints. This leaves plenty of room for speculation.
Hell, it would be perfectly possible to argue that Starfleet knew of dilithium all along (like ENT would now have us believe), and merely faked it for the benefit of the Klingons and the ignorant civilians Winston and Tagore. That would be an interesting final twist indeed...
As for the origin of the ridges, that's never explicit, either. We know that there's an Imperial Race, easily identifiable by sight. But perhaps it's just the particular set of ridges that the last Emperor's family had, as opposed to the hundreds of other possible family ridges seen, and only incidentally as also opposed to the flatter heads of various shameful hybrids?
Of course, the program described in ENT "Affliction"/"Divergence" was one of hybridizing Klingons and humans. Nothing wrong with the various ways of formulating the same thing... And nothing wrong with the idea that Klingons would have kept on attempting such hybridization until the early 23rd century, and perhaps beyond.
What really remains in The Final Reflection that we're at loss to dovetail to modern Trek? The timeline is slightly odd at places, but not unduly so; one mainly wonders about the timing of the framing story. Spock and McCoy's respective ages are an obvious issue, but once again the author merely alludes to the identities: the infant McCoy that is spoken of need not be our Leonard H. at all, but possibly some other member of that never carefully documented family. IMHO, the novel ends up being no more at odds with modern aired Trek or modern novels than the average piece of Trek writing, be it an episode or a novel.
Timo Saloniemi
^I see the FASA Klingon-fusion thing as the offical "cover up" after the Enterprise episodes.
I can see the Klingons announcing to the colony that they were chosen the serve the Empire by...turning into humans. They'd phrase it better ;-)
I can see the Klingons announcing to the colony that they were chosen the serve the Empire by...turning into humans. They'd phrase it better ;-)
My original line of thought was for a TV series, not updating the original in book form. Whereas it's true that we have, over time, discovered why there were two types of Klingon, it is my intuition that the story would stand up just as well with the 'canon' chronology substituting the original history used as outlined in the Stan and Fred Goldstein's book 'Spaceflight Chronology'.
In my opinion, if this were not a 'Star Trek Novel', set in it's own universe, this story would I feel, be considered to be a remarkable novel that could hold its own against those of Frank Herbert, Iain M. Banks, Poul Anderson, and Larry Niven. It is a tribute to the late Mr Ford that even now his story can generate such great love and respect in this particular community.
In my opinion, if this were not a 'Star Trek Novel', set in it's own universe, this story would I feel, be considered to be a remarkable novel that could hold its own against those of Frank Herbert, Iain M. Banks, Poul Anderson, and Larry Niven. It is a tribute to the late Mr Ford that even now his story can generate such great love and respect in this particular community.
So...not a fan of the adaptation of Doctor Who novel Human Nature into Doctor Who television story "Human Nature," then?
When several of the Trek novelists have moved on to write and produce successful TV series, and a Star Trek TV series gets a showrunner who's written some of the Pocket Star Trek novels, something similar could be possible. I'd like to see that kind of thing happen, as it did with Doctor Who, but it seems a little unlikely, unfortunately.
So...not a fan of the adaptation of Doctor Who novel Human Nature into Doctor Who television story "Human Nature," then?
It's a good story, but it's a different story. And there are plenty of good novels that didn't get adapted and aren't in any way diminished by that fact.
If it's not actually stated, it's strongly implied that they age faster. For instance, the bit where Krenn mistinterprets a remark by Tagore, and thereby underestimates his age (i.e., a Klingon in his 50's would resemble Tagore, who was approachong 80). I'll agree that point is jettisonable or modifiable thanks
to later canon, but TFR strongly (and the FASA materials based on it certainly) implies a Klingon life cycle about 2/3s that of humans.
Since ENT pushed the use of dilithium back at least a century before the timeframe of TFR, I'm inclined to interpret the difference as a new discovery in the way dilitium was used. In ENT, what they referred to was a "dilithium matrix". Since what exactly that was and did never came up, one could posit a discovery in the way dilithium was used that greatly improved warp drive
performance, that would accomodate both.
The "Starfleet tricked them" bit is too "Section 31" for my taste, and Tagore and Winston were supposed to be sharp observers who were quite good at reading between the lines. Making them play the ignorant witness seems out of character.
Yes, I rather liked that particular outcome. Unintended fusions, but fusions nonetheless.
Historical sidebar for those who don't know: at the time of its writing (1983-84) the relative ages of the characters weren't established except in the most general terms (like: "older than Kirk" and "younger than Kirk"). The TAS episode "The Counter-Clock Incident" implied that Spock was older than most even though his Vulcan physiology made him look younger. That seems to be the set of assumptions Ford used for the relative ages of Spock and McCoy for their cameos in the novel. Obviously later developments invalidated this assumption, but that was one of the best guesses at the time it was written.
Actually, I think that's where TFR's "novel within a novel" aspect can come into play. If you take the events of that part took place when McCoy was an infant (2227, maybe 2228), then obviously a Spock born in 2230 can't be playing chess as an 8 year old at the same time. But a novelist writing of events some 40 years previous might easily take a bit of literary license and anachronistically include an event (Spock playing chess with a Klingon captain at a diplomatic function, circa 2238) in with a larger series of events set circa 2227, because it's a smoother way to talk about some things (genetic fusions, differing cultural perspectives) than a simple didactic infodump. (Ford did this himself with another item, the development of the transporter. He shifted the date of its approval for sapient use by about 2 years from that given in the Spaceflight Chronology so that he could work it into the events he was writing about, instead of it suddenly popping up in the gaps between parts of the novel.) Using McCoy's cameo for dating also helps keep most of the events in the time before Kirk was born, which was established in the framing story.
Which "later developments invalidated this assumption?"
Other than the Okudachron's saying so, I don't see anything canonical going against the idea that Spock is older than McCoy...
If one makes allowance for the need to alter or reinterpet some developments (particularly technicalogical ones), The period between the end of the Romulan War and the launching of the Constitution class is surprisingly readily adaptable from the Spaceflight Chronology to the current standard timeline. Mostly because of how little "canon" material there is about that particular "Lost Era".
Absolutely! Here's a gauntlet to pick up!
I don't think Final Reflection fits at all with current continuity. In TFR, it takes months to get from Earth to the Klingon homeworld. In Broken Bow, it was said to take five days. The stage of transporter technology also conflicts to a huge degree.
Diplomatic dealings between humans and Klingons are only 20 years old in TFR, and Earth's paranoia about Klingons reflects that. During that period of the Enterprise timeline, the two societies wouldn't be chummy, but Klingons wouldn't be considered unknown bogeymen, either
Diplomatic dealings between humans and Klingons are only 20 years old in TFR, and Earth's paranoia about Klingons reflects that. During that period of the Enterprise timeline, the two societies wouldn't be chummy, but Klingons wouldn't be considered unknown bogeymen, either
True. We know McCoy's birthdate of 2227 from TNG "Encounter at Farpoint". We don't know Spock's, other than from a couple of clues. TAS "Yesteryear" says that Spock was seven some thirty years before the framing story of the episode, but there are major ambiguities there: those thirty years could have been rounded up or down, and were said to be Vulcan years, and furthermore we don't know the exact date of the framing story.
If we want our Leonard H. McCoy to be in his diapers when Spock is nine, then we probably want Spock to be born at least seven years before McCoy. "Yesteryear" factoids could easily be stretched to allow for a 2220 birthdate for Spock, but that would place Krenn's first visit to Earth at the late 2220s while other context just yells for a mid- to late 2230s visit.
However, as said, we can easily sidestep all this by saying that the young Leonard whose diapers needed changing was some completely different descendant of Tom McCoy's. Odds are his last name wasn't even McCoy, what with him being two generations removed.
Four, actually - and in the book, the trip takes more than a (Klingon) year in each direction!
Technically, Krenn traveled at warp 4, tops, while NX-01 was doing warp 4.5 at the start of the trip and presumably aiming at warp 5. If the warp scale rises steeply enough, then the difference between 370 and 4 days becomes technically acceptable. All we need is a rationalization for the fact that Krenn wasn't given a faster ship for the diplomatic mission - say, one of those warp 6 cruisers that had been quite available since the 2150s, according to ENT...
Perhaps the Admirals just hated Krenn enough, and only somebody of status, like Duras in ENT, could access the faster ships. Or they didn't want to send any of the newer ships to where the enemy could closely observe them (there were no such courtesy calls in ENT, either). Krenn knows warp six ships are becoming available to the Klingons towards the end of the book - but perhaps he doesn't know everything, what with being a pariah protegé of an old pariah fool?
Another thing we can sidestep by saying that Starfleet wasn't being exactly truthful to the Klingons about the timeline of Federation transporter development.
Granted, though, that it isn't such a neat sidestep when some Klingons did witness UFP transporters in action in ENT. Perhaps those witnesses didn't live to tell the story, though?
I'd dismiss this argument, because Earth's paranoia about Klingons is still going strong for the first years of TNG! Initially, our E-D heroes basically soil their pants at the thought of meeting these space bogeymen in person, even though technically the Empire has been a UFP ally for the past century. Only Riker is brave enough to try buddying up with Klingons - starting with the domesticated Worf, then slowly moving to real ones in "A Matter of Honor". It's only when the Klingons force Picard into their political games that the relationship develops to anything beyond primal fear.
Later on, "Aquiel" reveals why this should be: throughout the supposed alliance, Klingons have unapologetically continued raiding the UFP, killing UFP citizens, and ignoring UFP requests, demands and pleas.
Hmm... Just slap an extra 52 years on each date after the Romulan War and you're fine with almost everything else besides the transporter development timeline (perhaps a crucially improved model was invented when the book says the first transporter was) and the Klingon first contact (perhaps that was just a particularly nasty contact in 2209, not a first one).
And pre-Romulan War events could be used basically without altering the dates. say, "(United Earth) Starfleet is founded in 2089" ain't too bad.
The years surrounding the Romulan War would be the ones that need finer tuning to be compatible with ENT. But that's not an insurmountable problem at all.
Summa summarum, I'd still say TFR takes relatively little work to become compatible with onscreen stuff, which is what one can say about basically any Star Trek novel. SFC would take a bit more work and perhaps not be worth the hassle, but it could be a fun exercise.
Timo Saloniemi
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