Spoilers TNG: Available Light by Dayton Ward Review Thread

No reason to stop since the Picard show is still 10 further years ahead.

 

It's 2389ish apparently, not 2399 as first advertised.

 

So only 2 years after the Hobus incident. What is this “15 years ago” thing all about then? Insurrection was the only notable thing around him in 2374.

 

I originally thought it was 2399 too but then a while ago there was a comment about 20 years since one or another thing, which suggested 2389 (see for example https://trekmovie.com/2019/02/11/pa...eries-has-a-title-and-specifies-year-setting/). It could be nerd group think making a supposition seem fact without any real confirmation, and I'd like 2399 more than 2389.... Esp for the litverse's continuation.

 

It's a very confusing comment, because Stewart says it's been exactly 19 years, as it has been in real life, since he last played Picard, on television. It's been twenty-five years since All Good Things aired, and seventeen years since Nemesis. Neither number fits, so it depends on how much weight you want to give to that "for the television series" caveat.

Dates are easily screwed up, anyway. I remember Caprica had a twin set of timeline mistakes in the first episode which set up a pretty surprising twist at the end of its season.

Spoiler: Caprica

Specifically, the original pilot script was written as being set 52 years before the beginning of Battlestar Galactica, with young William Adama being eight years old. While that math is correct, 52 years was the figure given ins BSG for the beginning of the Cylon War, so that would mean the show would have to invent Cylons, have them become ubiquitous, and then turn violent essentially overnight. Someone realized that in production, so the show was bumped back to 58 years before the beginning of BSG. Simultaneously, they cast an older kid as young Adama, so he became twelve, rather than eight as in the early drafts (or two, as he should've been with the revised date).

For the first season, we just considered it a weird retcon that Admiral Adama was now in his seventies rather than sixties, until Young Adama was killed off near the end of the season, and we found out the William Adama we knew is actually William Adama III, named for his dead half brother. Of course, that means that Bill is now three years or so younger than we thought rather than ten years older, but you can say he either lied about his age to join the military during the war, or that the title card at the beginning of Caprica was inaccurate and it actually starts a bit over sixty years before BSG. I prefer the latter, but either is fine.

 

We'll probably fine out for sure next week at Comic-Con.
But I think Patrick saying the 19 years after TV series was a mistake.
Vegas last year they said it was 20 years after Nemesis.

 

Was the Vulcan security guard also killed by Dempsey? Obviously Ross and Steeby were killed but now mention is made of poor T'thas.

 

Lovely!

 

Spoiler

Picard leaves the Enterprise in 2381 and retires in 2385 according to the Picard museum that was set up as a tie-in to the new Picard show. The current day date is 2399

 

That’s in the dark timeline. This is the right one.

 

Sadly, yes. An irritation I have with some recent novels such as Available Light is claiming to be set "seven years after" the Shinzon incident of Nemesis when previous novels have specified that Nemesis took place in November. It may be a minor issue, but from my perspective, happening earlier in the year before November 2386 fails to constitute "seven years".

 

My note reads, “late 2386, seven years...”

I opted for rounding, instead of saying “six years, X months, X days....” because that’s how we all generally tend to look at past events. That, and I’d rather avoid adding fuel to some of the more animated discussions about the chronicling of such things.

 

No

 

Ah, sorry. I confused the historian's notes of Hearts & Minds and Available Light with those of Armageddon's Arrow and Headlong Flight.

 

I've been watching up on TrekLit lately, so please excuse me being a bit late to the party...

Honestly, I read the Section 31 parts and skimmed the main plot. My main interest was the follow-up to Control and in the final installments (so far?) of the DestinyLit Continuity.

I think Georgiou!Prime is a great captain, even if I can't remember how to spell her name half the time.

Lol!

I mean. Hell. Picard has essentially ended the terms of two Federation Presidents, installed the last Klingon Chancellor, and the current Federation President might not have won without his exposing Ishan. To say nothing of his first officer having installed the current Chancellor...

Those were really good bits.

Yeah, I wish we'd gotten more of a chance to see President zh'Tarash. I do feel like she still comes across as less a three-dimensional character sometimes than a Good President; maybe we'll get a chance to see a version of her in the post-PIC novels.

Well, in real life, when new United States Presidents take office (particularly if they're from a different party than the prior President), it's customary for the existing Cabinet secretaries to submit their resignations, and then for the new President to appoint their own choices for the Cabinet. There are rare exceptions for Cabinet positions that are commonly perceived as "non-partisan" -- Defense Secretary Robert Gates was initially appointed by President Bush in 2006, and was invited to continue to serve when President Obama took office in 2009, only finally leaving in mid-2011. But those tend to be the exceptions, not the rule.

A chief of staff is different; the chief of staff manages the Office of the President and the President's direct support staff, rather than running the executive agencies, which answer to the President but don't go through the COS in that line of authority. So it's much easier, and more common, to replace a COS than a Cabinet secretary.

Now, we know that Louvois was serving as Federation Attorney General in October 2385, when she exposed President Pro Tempore "Ishan" on the Council floor. A President Pro Tempore is just supposed to be a caretaker who doesn't make major institutional changes, so it seems likely to me that Louvois was Attorney General under Bacco. If that's the case, I think Louvois is definitely the "Robert Gates" of the Federation (even though Bacco and zh'Tarash strike me as being ideologically similar enough that they'd essentially be from the same "party" if the UFP had them).

He claims to Bashir that he doesn't work for Section 31 in "Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges," but I think it's questionable whether or not he's lying (to Bashir or to himself, possibly). His internal monologue in Articles of the Federation is ambiguous on whether or not he knew Section 31 would kill Zife and on whether or not he was part of the organization. Given that Louvois's dialogue references the possibility that Ross did not know he was Section 31's highest-ranking Starfleet officer, it's entirely plausible that Ross did not admit to himself his status as a Section 31 operative, continually justifying his actions as being something done out of necessity or duress. His internal monologue in Articles did strongly suggest he was afraid of S31, too.

Me. In fact, I honestly didn't like the decision to have her try to run in this book. I considered her -- and honestly, Ross -- to be more likely to willingly face the music than run. Though her dialogue pointing out that she's afraid that S31 will kill her in Federation custody did help justify that a bit.

I really appreciated that Ward makes continual mention of the importance of public transparency. One of the problems with the Fall miniseries was that it focused so much on inside baseball that it never gave us a sense of where the public stood or what the public knew at any given moment.

 

There's two more books in the "DestinyLit" Continuity so far, after Available Light, TNG: Collateral Damage, which came out last October, and VOY: To Lose the Earth, which is scheduled for this October. We also know of at least one more Novelverse book possibly in the works, David Mack has made a reference to a new book he's working on involving Data and Lal.

 

David Mack Mentioned the other day on twitter he had a 52 page outline for one of the novels he's been working on I'm curious if it was his next Star Trek novel that features Data &Lal.

 

I finished up Available Light last night, and I give it an above average. It didn't blow my mind, but I enjoyed it quite a bit.
The only thing that really bothered my was how disconnected the two storylines were. Usually with this kind of a thing, the two storylines will eventually relate to each other in some way, but they never really did here.
I did enjoy the two storylines, so it really wasn't enough to ruin it for me.
It was interesting getting to see the aftermath of the exposure of Section 31 and Control. Ross's death was a big shock, I've always liked him, so I was sad to see him go. I know we've seen a few other important characters from the shows get killed, but it's still always a bit shocking when it happens.
The stuff with the Nejamri and the Torrekmat was interesting. The original mystery of the Osijemal was interesting, and definitely kept me curious to see what was going on, and the reveal did not disappoint. All of the stuff with the Haven was really cool. The story did a pretty good job of setting up the conflict with the Torrekmat, and I was happy with the way it was resolved.

 

Can we please stop with the "My copy has not yet arrived" posts in review threads? They don't have any use and are just a waste of time having to go past them. Thanks.